ONE HUNDRED TWELVE: The Chainer, IV

112 “So,” said Alden spitting toothpaste into the sink while Lute brushed at the one beside him, “when did it happen?” Lute looked at him in the mirrored medicine cabinet. “When did what happen?” “What do you think, man? You can’t tell me all about your childhood and then leave out the big magical stuff.” “I wasn’t going to.” He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “What was being selected like for you, though?” “I was in the bathroom at school, looking at an anatomically suspicious cactus someone had drawn on the wall. I had a really weird feeling and then the System started whispering in my ear. It was a shock. I just left without talking to anyone. But I was forewarned that I might get that shock, so it probably wasn’t as—” “You were?”   Gorgon was actually the one whose warning had made the biggest difference, but that wasn’t something Alden was prepared to try explaining. “The superhero who saved my life when I was a kid had a spell that didn’t work properly on me. It was supposed to completely knock me out, but I stayed awake. Hannah was curious about it, so she went and tested the spell on a ton of different people and animals. Several years later, she told me the only ones that had the same reaction I did were a few Anesidoran children.” He rinsed his toothbrush. “She thought maybe it was related to peoples’ theories about chaos potential. She was careful to emphasize that I shouldn’t expect anything, and I didn’t. Exactly. But it did fuel my hopes. I wanted it way past the age when it’s reasonable for a person to still be hoping, ‘Maybe one day I’ll be magical!’” “Chaos potential is totally a real thing,” said Lute. “The average citizen just doesn’t have a lot of info on what it is. I bet at least some of the heavy hitter combatants who get summoned know. I just assume the Grandwitch knows stuff like that, too. Not to compliment her, mind you, but she is antique and very interested in involving herself in all things Artonan.” “Wanna hear my theory?” “Sure.” “It’s bad.” “I’m sure I’ve heard it before. Anesidorans love nothing more than guessing at all the things the Artonans are still refusing to be one hundred percent forthcoming about. We even guess at the things they are forthcoming about, in case they’re lying.” Alden typed a mental text out and left it hanging with no recipient: [If you’ve got a problem with me sharing a little of the theory I came up with on Thegund, you should let me know.] He waited a second. The System didn’t shout, “Stop, idiot! That will cause a global catastrophe!” So he figured it was safe. He gave Lute his cheerfullest smile. “I’m ninety percent sure the phrase ‘chaos potential’ has to do with how likely a person is to turn into something that could be classified as a demon in the event of a chaos exposure.” Lute blinked. “I’ve heard similar things, but those ideas seem to be more popular with anti-Avowed hate groups than with Avowed.” “Well, part two of my theory is that the System fixes the chaos vulnerabilities a person might have in the process of making us Avowed, so there’s no reason for the hate groups to use it against any of us. We’re better for handling chaos than regular people, not worse. As promised really. The Artonans did say they were ultimately making Avowed to help them out with chaos problems.” He paused. “Also, just because some Avowed might have high chaos potential prior to being chosen, that doesn’t mean all of us do. I don’t think that, actually.” The System had said it stabilized existences. It could be picking just the people who had a mix of high enough authority and an unusual vulnerability to chaos. Or it could be picking everyone on Earth who was naturally above the authority threshold for F-rank and granting them affixations and further stability. Or it could be weighing multiple qualities to assess a person’s value as a future Avowed as well as their risk of demonifying. He didn’t know which it was or if some third or fourth factor was at play, but he didn’t believe it was pure chaos potential. Because Gorgon had done something to Alden before the System had gotten to him. And he had done such a good job at it that the Earth System had mentioned it was a positive, and she had commented on how exceptional Gorgon’s work on his was. But the Earth System had still picked him. And stabilized him some more with the affixation. It might have done it just because I was already on its to-be-Avowed list, and it wasn’t able or willing to remove me from it for some reason. He doubted that was it. “Oh, so you don’t necessarily think chaos potential makes us Avowed. You think it’s an additional wrinkle in the situation? What do you think makes the System pick someone then?” “In the interest of not having an extremely long talk about alien philosophy,” said Alden, “let’s call it power.” Lute nodded. “Power. Most people I knew growing up thought that they either had an ability to contain more power than regular people and that was why the System would choose them to hold magic or that they were born with some kind of power and the System has the ability to wake it up and turn it into magic.” More the second one, thought Alden. “As far as I know, my family pretty much all thinks some version of the second. There are some other theories. But it doesn’t really matter which one you look at…if it’s even a little reasonable, it has to take into account the fact that two superhumans usually have superhuman children. Which means it’s not random. The special thing, whatever it is, is inside you.” He stared at his own reflection. “I really don’t know what it feels like. To grow up knowing you have something that will become magic. I was so sure I didn’t. I’d been training myself not to even want it since I was a little older than a toddler. By eighth grade…I was just trying to hold on until I was old enough for my real life to happen. Somewhere far away from here.” ****** ****** Nilama Paragon Academy Theater January 14, 2039 ****** ****** One day, thought Lute Velra, I will live thousands of kilometers away from this place. He sat in a group of his classmates, right at the base of the stage, waiting for his name to be read. It was the end of the first week of school, and the principal was calling them up one by one. This little ceremony was just for the eighth grade; the speech had been short and casual. It didn’t matter. The excitement was so strong, he wondered if the sound of all the racing heartbeats was annoying one of the new teachers. She was an Audial Brute. “Konstantin Roberts!” the principal called, and Kon flew out of his seat and up the stairs to shake her hand and take a small wooden case, engraved with his name and the name of the school. I will live so far away they forget my name. At the start of the eighth grade year, Paragon students received their graduation pins. It was a tradition nearly as beloved as the fifth grade trips. The pins were a single logogram made of titanium. It was an unusually intricate and elegant symbol, and the principal’s speech had mostly been defining the Artonan word it represented. “It means an ending and a beginning that arrive at the same time,” she’d said. “And so it’s appropriate that we give them to you. You will walk through the doors of this school wearing them one day to announce that a wonderful phase of your life has ended and an equally wonderful one has begun.” When I see the powerful ones on television screens, I’ll think, ‘Oh, there’s Kon electrocuting a serial killer with a lightning spell. Haven’t thought of that guy in years.’ Konstantin bounced off the stage and raced over to reclaim his seat. He opened the box so that he could stare at his pin. They were all doing it. Most of the grade had been called up, and they were now gazing at the pins. Or even touching them lightly with their fingers, like they were checking to make sure they were real. Normally, they’d have gotten them on the first day. Instead, the whole grade had been brought to the auditorium on Monday not for the pin ceremony, but to have a lecture on their general behavior the previous term. It was the most blistering talking-to Lute had ever experienced. The gist of it was that they were expected to behave with maturity this year, dammit, and anyone who couldn’t do that should raise their hand right then and there so that they could be taken back to the primary school building and start over with the five-year-olds. “Carlotta Sullivan!” Carlotta headed up to get her pin. In the seat in front of Lute, Vandy was staring down at her own pin. She was wearing light blue earrings shaped like clouds—a subtle announcement that she’d decided on Shaper of Sky for herself over the holidays. He doubted she would change her mind. She wasn’t someone who liked to reverse course. Vandy’s parents were both S-rank superheroes. Quite famous. She probably would be, too. I wonder what it will feel like if I see her one day, decades from now, and she looks almost exactly the same. More beautiful because of Appeal. In a fancy outfit because of her job. But the same, pretty much. Lute forced that thought away from him, as he always did. It was too frightening to look at for long. Assuming true rejuvenation remained a rare skillset among Earth’s top Healers, not all of his classmates would have access to it. But…some of them would. The best and most well-connected of them. And he probably wouldn’t. If his mother didn’t, after a lifetime at Aulia’s side, then Lute wouldn’t after a lifetime spent staying as far away from Anesidora as he could. When I get old and sick, they’ll treat me with medicine that only exists thanks to the Contract. Thanks to Avowed. I guess I’ll have to think of them all then. He wondered if he would still feel guilty about the dice when he was an old man. If some of his classmates really did die in one of those ways…if someone they loved suffered in one of those ways… Stop thinking about it. Nobody had spoken to him all week, unless it was necessary for class. He hadn’t initiated a conversation with any of them himself. Lute didn’t know how they were thinking about it, but for his part, a show of maturity was just a return to silence. Stay out of their way. Don’t whine anymore about the fact that their world surrounds you without letting you in. If the class assignment doesn’t apply to you, do it quietly anyway. If things go badly again, don’t respond. Yield to it all. Be the doormat. Until you finally get to leave this place forever. It was quieter than last year—not a single incident that could be called bullying. “Lute Velra!” He stood. No laughter. No anything. It was better, wasn’t it? Even if it was so very cold sometimes. He walked up to get his pin, then he sat back down with it. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to open the box or not. Of course they had given him one. Since his mom wouldn’t let him quit or transfer schools, he would graduate one day. Sort of. The high school at Paragon was not a building, but a single hallway that emptied rapidly throughout the year as the people who hadn’t been selected in the later half of ninth grade all got their turn in tenth. Eleventh grade would be one classroom by the end of the year. Just a handful of straggler future low ranks with parents rich enough to keep sending them here. Eleventh was the accelerated year. Six days of instruction instead of five and no holidays for that tiny class of left-behinds, so that they could be ushered out the door directly into university instead of bothering with application and transfer to an Avowed high school for twelfth grade. Graduation for them was sugar cookies with their parents and the faculty in the teacher’s lounge and everyone wishing them luck with the rest of their lives. They would get to wear their pins that day, if they hadn’t already put them on. It sounded immensely depressing. None of these people would be beaming down at their pins if they knew for sure, as Lute did, that they’d only get to wear them once. On sugar cookie day. “Haoyu Zhang-Demir!” Haoyu gets called last for everything like this. Because of the Z. He might be the first one who gets to wear the pin, though. He had to be one of the frontrunners for that honor. His parents weren’t just S’s; they were strong ones. The tradition at Paragon was for students to wear the graduation pin starting on the first school day after their selection. Since you weren’t allowed to keep attending the school indefinitely as an Avowed, selection was the beginning of your graduation process. People wore the pins to school for a few weeks or months, while they were trading for their desired class, sorting out their next steps, and applying for Avowed high schools. Then they were gone for good. Into the world of adult superhumans. An ending and a beginning that arrive at the same time. Ninth grade was all about checking your classmates’ lapels every morning, to see if the System fairy had come to bestow gifts on them in the night. But they received the pins in eighth because… “What if it happens for one of us this year!” a girl squealed as Lute tried to find his way through a cluster of his fellow eighth graders who were clogging up the hall at the end of the day. “It does sometimes!” Paragon was the kind of school where an eighth grader got selected once in a while. Not a U-type, of course. A true pre-fifteen. It had happened to a girl the year before last, and it had been like an emotional bomb went off in the middle school building. The eighth grade had gotten so wild they’d just let them skip classes and fling their enthusiasm back and forth at each other for a day. It tended to be similar when the first ninth grader walked through the doors with their pin each year, but that usually happened around February or March to someone who had turned fifteen earlier in the year. Everyone knew it was coming. After that initial sign that it was finally starting for all of them, the ninth graders settled into a routine of freaking out over their new selectees for the first half hour of a school day and getting back to business. The eighth grade selectee had taken over the school’s collective mind for weeks. “It could be you, Vandy! Or you, Haoyu!” Haoyu smiled nervously. “I don’t think I’d want to be picked this year,” he told them. “I’d have to leave and head to high school without any of the rest of you. I’d be younger than all the other students in my new school. And I’m almost sure about what I want but not a hundred percent. I’d have to make important decisions in a big hurry. I think it would be really hard.” He sounds like he’s seriously thought about early selection, thought Lute. At least he wouldn’t do something horribly arrogant…like throwing himself a premature Coming of Age party. I think Hazel jinxed herself with that. She’s going to be a late fifteen instead of a fourteen like she wanted. It would probably happen in the next few weeks. Before her sixteenth birthday. She’d been attached to Aulia like a favored parasite for the entire past two years. Their grandmother had been so busy with her that Jessica had been forging Aulia’s signature on all the gifts and birthday cards, even for the important relatives. And Aulia had forgotten to kiss Miyo on the cheek when her family walked through the door of the mansion for the big Christmas breakfast, because Hazel had made a pronunciation error during one of her “Hold on, let me perform a wordchain,” moments. Grandma’s Cheek Kiss was a whole ritual Aulia used like a spell on all of them on Christmas morning. And it was Miyo, who was probably her second most beloved pre-Avowed grandchild. Miyo was almost as good at wordchains as Hazel had been at her age. So was Roman. They spoke Artonan just about as well as she did. They were both learning to read logograms even though a massive memorization project of that scale would probably be way easier for them in the future, after the System had whacked up their Processing a little. They just couldn’t feel special mystical feelings when they chained or when other people did. So they weren’t considered competition for Hazel at all. Lute didn’t care much for either of them, but he’d felt annoyed on their behalf a few times recently. Oh wouldn’t it be crazy, he thought, heading for the train station. He liked riding the train so much more than the helicopter. Train and bus rides took longer, extending the blissful transitional period when he wasn’t in school or at home. Wouldn’t it just be crazy, if Hazel turned out to be an A instead of an S? The idea of her getting a lower assignment than that didn’t cross his mind. Even an A-rank Hazel felt like a flight of fancy he was allowing himself as a response to pin day and his future as a member of the sugar cookie class. She could already do something like magic. The Artonans all the family Chainers worked with were reportedly fascinated by her. She had had the S in the bag since birth. At least she’s not having a party this year. The idea seemed to be that she’d be such an in-demand, important Avowed that there was no point in planning one. She might be off working on another planet on her birthday. On the train, Lute stared at his pin case for a while, then stuffed it back into his backpack. He wouldn’t open it. He’d do it for the first time on the day they tossed him out of Paragon Academy. That felt more appropriate for someone like him. ****** Lute turned fourteen on a Saturday. Instead of a party, he asked Jessica to spend time with him. She’d been so busy dealing with all the things Aulia was letting slide because of Hazel that it felt like they weren’t seeing enough of each other. He’d planned the whole day himself, taking full advantage of his family’s money in a way he rarely had any real desire to do. He booked out an entire movie theater so that it could be just the two of them, and his mom wouldn’t feel like bringing bodyguards. She didn’t usually do it when she traveled alone. He didn’t do it when he traveled alone. But she still wanted the guards every time they were together. He hated it so much for her—the fact that she couldn’t stand the idea of someone like Declan or Hazel saying things about her where he could hear them. But there was no way for him to say, “It’s fine. They do it even when you’re not around. I’m old enough now. We can just go get burgers wherever we want and ignore them.” Not yet. He didn’t know how to put the words so that they wouldn’t upset her even more. Instead, he did this—just the two of them blowing Velra money and eating their favorite takeout while, on the screen, the lineup of famous musical performances he’d chosen played. Not a single Avowed musician in the entire bunch. “Mom,” said Lute, dipping a fry in the remoulade that was suppose to go with the crab cakes, “when I move to Austria, you’ll come with me, won’t you?” Jessica chuckled. “You’re still on Austria? I didn’t realize!” Lute frowned at her. “But you know I’m planning to go there. As soon as I’m old enough. At twenty-one. I’ll finish uni at a music school if I can. I’m hoping they’ll let me take some of the early curriculum long distance because of my situation, but even if they don’t, it’ll be fine.” The details had all been coming together for the past few months. He hadn’t actually discussed the specifics of timing and coursework with her yet because she’d been so busy, but since everyone else his age was career planning right now, Lute was career planning, too. One of the only great things about being born on Anesidora as a non-Avowed was that nearly every country on Earth was a signatory to an agreement that said you could have your pick if and when you made an exit. When he turned twenty-one, Lute could declare himself a citizen of wherever he wanted. His mom’s eyebrows drew down. She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it… “Baby, you’re not really serious about that, are you?” she said slowly. “You don’t really want to leave?” Lute was sure his own mouth was goldfishing. “What?” he said at last. “Mom, I’ve wanted it forever. Since Mrs. Yu first told me about…”   He gave her a smile. “I mean…you know this.” “You can’t want the same thing you wanted when you were six!” Yes I can, thought Lute. I do. He was completely confused by the fact that there had been a misunderstanding of this magnitude. Somehow. He couldn’t quite believe there had been because he’d never, ever told her he wanted something different, not since he was too young to swim without floats. “I wanted it when I was seven. And when I was eight. And ten. And twelve. And last year. And now.” He was getting a little upset. “Mom, this is…it’s practically the main thing about me! I’ve told you. I’ve told Dad. I even told Grandma a couple of times. You could ask anyone in my entire class at school and they would tell you. It’s—” “All right! All right,” said Jessica, hastily. “I understand. Don’t…don’t get upset on your birthday. We’ll talk about this.” There’s nothing to talk about, thought Lute. The words almost popped out of his mouth, but he clamped down on them. The thing was, he did want to talk about it. Really seriously. With her. An adult conversation. Because it was very important to him that she come with him and get away from this place where she picked up trash her sisters, brothers, nieces, and nephews dropped. Where she was ashamed for people to say things Lute might hear. Where she had to grow older, watching her own relatives grow younger. Hazel had rubbed Lute’s face in a monstrous truth a couple of years ago. Not a monstrous lie. Lute hadn’t been able to ask Jessica about something so awful, but he’d started to pay attention. He’d been unable not to. Everyone had their calendar month for it—the rejuve. Even Keiko, who acted like being part of the family was beneath her while she was walking around with their signature class by her own choice, had been penciled in for a few years from now. Keiko was younger than Jessica. Cady was on the list, and she was a C-rank Brute who wasn’t even blood related to Aulia. Mom, thought Lute, staring blankly at the conductor on the towering screen. Mom, you can’t keep cleaning up after someone who doesn’t think you’re worthy of it. The big gift. Most people didn’t get everlasting youth. Not even most Avowed. But Aulia was very good at getting her hands...