SIXTY-FOUR: To a Quiet Rabbit

 

Alden was stuck in the teleportation bay for so long that he finally took a seat on the floor of the phone booth-sized space and rested his back against the wall. About every five minutes, the security lady updated him and apologized again for the wait.

They’d asked him if he was claustrophobic before telling him he’d need to be here for a while. The problem seemed to be his very long stay on the Triplanets combined with his age and his lack of a psychological profile. They’d wanted to know if he’d been in “a high-stress environment” while he was away.

Probably I shouldn’t have laughed.

Anyway, he was going to get a video call from a therapist who specialized in Avowed trauma soon. That would help everyone figure out if he was a healthy, happy new kid who could go to the intake dorms with the other baby Avowed who’d recently arrived. Or if he was a damaged superhuman who needed to be closely monitored and kept apart from the general population for a while.

It makes sense.

Not so much for Alden—what was he going to do, preserve people to death?—but if you imagined an S-rank with serious offensive power suddenly arriving back home from a bad situation…

Alden thought the Artonans would probably do a decent job on their end of things under normal circumstances. They didn’t have a reputation for dropping dangerously unstable people back on Earth, as far as he knew. But that didn’t mean the Anesidorans should completely trust the process.

While he waited for his phone call, he rested his arms on top of his bag and accessed Wardrobe with a mental command.

He was just going to look at his tabs and his reward gift to make sure they were still there now that he wasn’t on Artona I. He didn’t want to open the present yet because if random stuff started appearing in the bay with him that would only add to the worries of the people who were trying to classify his threat level.

But, to his surprise, the image of the box in Christmas paper was gone.

When he focused on the empty space where it had been, words appeared:

 

[From: Mother

To: a Quiet Rabbit]

 

Alden was confused.

But a couple of seconds later, the particular mote of light that would let him access his main menus started flashing. Alden selected it and saw the Privileges button glowing again. The present is a privilege?

When he chose the button, he discovered a completely new option had been added to the category, and it was one he’d never even heard of before.

 

[Choose Persona]

 

Temporarily forgetting his mental commands altogether, Alden lifted a hand and pressed it. Two large, semi-transparent information panes filled his vision. Each one had a picture of him as he currently looked—wide-eyed and dirty—in the top left corner. Each had a single additional tab with a logogram at the top. They both had a button at the bottom that said, “Share Contract Verified Information.”

The windows held a breakdown of his full Avowed profile. They included his rank, overall level, skill level, spells, stats, experience—all of it.

Alden had seen this profile with the share button before, when he was playing around with his interface. It was obviously the thing you would need for applying to schools and jobs, where they wouldn’t want to just take you at your word that you could do some particular magic thing at a certain level.

But when Alden had seen it before there had only been a single, accurate profile. Now he had two to choose from.

And one of them was a lie.

 

---

Name: Samuel Alden Thorn

Preferred Name: Alden

 

Class: Rabbit

Rank: B Overall Level: 4 ✶

Commendation: Exceptional Bravery in the Absence of Obligation

— Awarded by Fourth General Loh Alis-art’h

 

Skills:

Let Me Take Your Luggage, B (Level 3)

Skill Type: item preservation (single item, total)

Flickerer, F (single level skill)

Skill Type: minor enchantment interruption — temporary

 

Spell Impressions:

The Haunting Sphere, D

Light Candle, F

 

Trait:

Azure Rabbit

Trait Type: movement, limited to element — ground

 

Enhancements:

Sympathy for Magic +4, Agility + 3, Dexterity +2.5, Speed + 2.5, Stamina +1.75, Strength + 1.5, Proprioception + 1.5, Appeal + 1, Visual Processing + 1, Processing +1.75 (in progress)

 

Recommendations and Merits:

Social Recommendation (LeafSong University, Artona III)

Emergency Response Merit (LeafSong University, Artona III)

 

---

 

“Mr. Thorn,” said the security woman’s voice, “we’re detecting a significant increase in your heart rate. How are you feeling?”

Way creeped out now that I know the teleportation bay monitors my vital signs.

“Uh…I’m fine,” he said, trying not to look as shocked as he felt. “Just going through some messages from home. Everyone thought I was dead, so it’s a lot to take in.”

“I can imagine. Give us a few more minutes to sort you out.”

“Yeah. Sure. No sweat. I’m good in here.”

Honestly, they could leave him to his own devices for the next hour, and he would probably still be trying to get over the fact that he now had a Contract verified fake persona he could use if he chose.

But they probably aren’t going to give me that long, so I should think fast.

He compared the fake to his real one.

His real rank and overall level was B-9✶.

He was guessing the star indicated his commendation from Alis-art’h—the one that had also earned him the embroidery shoulder patch design he could wear if he wanted. He couldn’t think of what else it might be. And it was something way fancier than he’d realized if the System thought it was important enough to tack onto his level.

His real skill section looked different of course:

 

Skills:

Let Me Take Your Luggage, B (Level 8)

Skill Type: item preservation (total)

enchantment preservation (end results vary)

 

I can see how this is going to start to look out of hand as I add new facets to the skill.

Right now it was kind of like… “Well, the skill does two similar things. That’s flexible. Lucky Alden.”

But if he underwent a couple more affixations, even this pared-down, human-approved version of the description was going to make people do a double take and wonder what the heck it was.

It’s level 8. And since he hadn’t taken another spell or skill that meant the extra authority that was adding up to the ninth level had pretty much all gone to his foundational enhancements.

The math doesn’t quite work out between the profiles as far as apparent level value goes. Must be more wiggle room between how the System presents the numbers than you’d think.

She had said Earth sometimes pandered to peoples’ egos by rounding up.

I bet the version of the profile a summoner sees is more accurate.

Alden had not previously had access to something like that. But now there were the tabs with the logograms at the top of both the profiles. He selected the that tab on the real profile and held back a groan at the sight of it.

Why would you make something this unnecessarily complicated?

It wasn’t a profile at all. He thought it was more of a 90-page long user manual for the Ryeh-b’t known as Alden, but he wasn’t quite sure.

He suddenly understood what Joe had meant when he said there wasn’t a big flashing sign announcing what his skill was, and that many Artonans wouldn’t even recognize it. Presumably summoners got plain verbal talent function descriptions when they ordered up an Avowed from the System.

Maybe they say something like, “I need someone to preserve hazardous materials in a laboratory setting in a big hurry.” And the System says, “Let me introduce you to this foolish Rabbit who just bought a lab coat.”

But if the summoner wanted to dig into it and see how the foolish Rabbit worked, they got this mess. It looked like it was lots of numbers plus some completely unfathomable magical codes. Like Alden was looking at the guts of a computer program written by…well, by aliens. And he was trying to guess what it was for. There were words that indicated he could preserve stuff. But beyond that, even with his new logogram flashcard translation perk trying to help him, it was indecipherable.

The name “Bearer of All Burdens” was nowhere to be seen.

I guess you learn how to interpret skill function in wizard school?

Or, if Artonans were even a little like humans, most of them half-learned it to pass their classes. Then they forgot it. And they just trusted the System’s recommendations and the Avowed’s own word about their abilities when they needed to hire someone to do a job.

Probably goes double for Rabbits. If you’re summoning someone in a hurry to do minor tasks, you’re not reading through all of this.

More interestingly, there were several completely different measures of Alden’s Rank in the profile manual. Including one that let the summoner know he was an Earth B. And another one that he kept staring at.

It was being translated as Priority Rank.

It was an absolutely massive number. And it constantly fluctuated.

The more he thought about it, the more Alden felt sure that this was his literal rank in importance. Among all known intelligent beings living under the rulership of the Triplanetary Government.

There are a lot of commas in that number, Alden thought as it was re-translated for him by the System. If I ever develop an arrogance problem, I’ll just come here. And humble myself.

He compared the numbers on the real profile and the fake. They were both stupidly big. But the fake one was way higher.

Real me is a much larger speck of dust in the universal scheme of things. Good to know.

And on top of all that, there were so many other things to consider about the profiles.

Apparently Earth liked to call Alis-art’h “Fourth General” in English? That seemed way off-base tonally. She wasn’t really commanding troops from what Alden had seen. He was going to have to look up what the System was calling her in other languages.

It was also interesting that the fake profile was giving Alden a false skill and a false spell impression to explain away some of his abilities for him. Flickerer was clearly a cover for his new enchantment preservation. Light Candle…it had to be something similar to the little hand-cast spell that he’d been using to light the promise sticks for his lessons with Kibby.

Maybe it was even the exact same one, just the infallible, locked-into-your-being version of it they gave Avowed.

That’s nice. It would have looked bizarre to people if I didn’t have the second spell impression at least.

But even with so many details to consider, Alden could barely pull his mind away from the most shocking thing about this gift.

By adding on the tab with the logogram, the System was making it clear that this new fake profile was designed to lie to Artonans, too.

Right now, the fake was enclosed by a gold border that said ACTIVE PERSONA along the left edge.

This was the thing—it had to be—that the System used to tell wizards whether or not Alden was summonable for their job in the first place. It was what determined how he was actually used as an Avowed.

And…she was going to help him lie about it.

To a quiet Rabbit, he thought in wonder.

She was going to help him stay under the radar, like he’d said he wanted to.

Somewhere, the security people must have been worried about his heart rate again. Because he could hear his own pulse in his ears.

This isn’t normal. This isn’t even a little bit normal. All I did was wander around tracking dirt through the Primary’s house for a while and drink wevvi with Stuart.

This one, stunning gift was something he’d never even imagined he could ask for.

It was more than secrecy.

Maybe it wasn’t that big a deal at this point in time, but as he grew stronger, being thought weaker and less valuable by summoners would be a gift of safety. Alden hadn’t realized just how desperately he wanted it until this very moment.

He was hurt. And he was tired of being scared. And when the therapist finally called, he’d been crying a little despite enormous efforts not to do that in a small metal room where strangers worried about his mental wellbeing were watching him on cameras and checking his vitals.

He blamed it on his aunt’s voicemails and the school lunch lady.

And as a show of good citizenship, he volunteered to share his Contract Verified Avowed profile information with the security people. Just to prove he wasn’t some rare variety of dangerous Rabbit.

“You gained three levels in half a year. And a star. We don’t see many of those even from adults,” said the woman who eventually came to escort him out of the bay. She had on a security uniform and a badge that said her name was Emily. Alden was pretty sure she was a speedster of some kind based on the way she moved. “Great work. Really impressive. And I’m not just saying that to make you feel better.”

“Thanks,” he said, adjusting his bag on his shoulder.

“You get to hang out with me until they send a car to take you to the intake dorms. So many new teens coming in this month. I swear they all just got together and decided that September was the time to register. Have you had dinner yet?”

“I haven’t eaten all day. I think,” said Alden. “I might have had breakfast. But that could technically have been yesterday. I lost track of at least a few hours.”

“Trips out there must be hard. I’ve never been. You like Jamaican food?”

“I haven’t had it before. It’s from Earth, so I bet I love it.”

“We’ve got a spot that just opened up in the atrium. Reminds me of my old home. Let me treat you and give you a proper welcome to your new one.”

 

*************************

 

Alden woke up at two o’clock in the Anesidoran morning. The sheets on his new bed were soaked with sweat thanks to a horror soup nightmare featuring demons and a dead Kibby and running through trees, trying to get away from an unseen thing that wanted to hurt him.

He was normally pretty good at going back to sleep after bad dreams, but he knew the second he opened his eyes that he wouldn’t be able to right now.

His freshly bound authority was roiling. It was a sickening, awful sensation.

He took a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself and refocus.

“Don’t be such a whiner,” he told his authority finally, as if it was something separate from him instead of the essence of who he was. “Avowed are supposed to bounce up from our affixations feeling mighty and blasting out new kinds of magic.”

He recalled how he’d started using the skill right away when he first got it. It had been really fun to experiment with it while Boe and Jeremy watched.

It’s so strange. I can’t quite remember how it felt to not feel it.

With a groan, he tossed off his damp sheets and rolled out of bed. A motion-sensitive light below the frame lit up as soon as his feet hit the floor. It illuminated the reddish faux-wood flooring and the pile of Alden’s dirty clothes at the foot of the double bed.

This was a luxurious room by Alden’s standards. There was a television on the wall with dozens of global streaming services. A small private bath held a shower that operated at human temperatures. There were F and Apex cityscape sketches on the walls.

Instead of curtains or blinds, the bedroom’s window had an adjustable tint on it. When it was in transparent mode, like now, it looked out over the water of the Pacific Ocean. The intake complex was right at the water’s edge on the far south side of F-city. And the apartment tower Alden was staying in was on the perimeter of the complex.

Right now, there was nothing but miles and miles of dark sea between where he stood and Antarctica.

He stared at the ocean for a while, until finally the fact that he was standing around stark naked started to bother him. He had just collapsed into bed without caring about it when he made it through all the hoops that had come with his arrival and he was finally left to his own devices. Now, though, it was a little odd to be a nudist.

He glanced at his one filthy clothing option and wrinkled his nose.

“Nah. Can’t sleep. Have money,” he muttered to himself. “There’s got to be something better even if it is the middle of the night.”

His old Wardrobe purchases—the housekeeping uniform and the cargo pants—were listed as in-transit right now. He didn’t know what that meant except that they’d been stored somewhere and were coming to him slowly instead of through the more expensive direct teleport into his arms. Anyway, what he wanted was underwear, socks, t-shirts…the Wardrobe didn’t really do basics.

He wrapped a towel around his waist, opened the door and poked his head out to examine the rest of the apartment suite. It was empty. The other three bedrooms had their doors open just as they had when he’d arrived, and they were still unoccupied.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

The nighttime intake counselor who was in charge of the two Rabbit floors—a middle-aged guy from Brazil with strong everyone’s-favorite-teacher vibes—had told Alden not to expect roommates for at least a few weeks.

Alden suspected that wasn’t the norm. It was probably a stealthy accommodation to make sure he was okay without completely separating him from the other newcomers. But he was grateful for it, and he didn’t mind taking advantage of the privacy.

He headed into the living area, feeling almost as impressed with it as he had the first time he’d seen it. Effort had clearly gone into making a space that invited social interaction. There was a kitchen with a two-burner stove, a microwave, a toaster oven, and the world’s fanciest, Wright-designed magic coffee maker. Alden was intimidated by the number of features on the thing, but the counselor had said it was one of this particular apartment’s “talking points.”

The other one was a pinball machine in the corner by the sofa.

Every suite had stuff like this, to encourage people to hang out with their new roommates and venture into other apartments to meet the neighbors. There was an entire cabinet stocked with coffee syrups, glassware, and mugs, in case Alden or any future residents wanted to be the dorm’s barista.

The idea was that a bunch of superpowered teenagers who’d left behind not only their homes and families, but also their countries and cultures, needed new friends fast. There was a calendar on the fridge and available through his interface that was filled with community activities and classes for the month, too. About half of them were completely optional, and the other half involved a credit system Alden hadn’t looked into yet. It seemed like you had to attend a certain minimum number before you were allowed to leave and get your own place, unless you were heading straight into one of the schools’ boarding programs.

He headed over to the counter where he’d dropped off the pair of large welcome gift bags they’d given him at the counselor’s desk. He dumped them out, and shook his head again at the randomness of the contents.

Candy, a bag of mixed nuts, deodorant samples, an enamel bunny rabbit pin, a stress ball with the logo for a dance studio on it, a dark green baseball cap with the Anesidoran flag design on the front, an invitation to a Rabbits-only welcome party that would be held in a ballroom somewhere in December, and coupons.

Tons and tons of coupons.

It turned out there was a fairly well adhered-to no System spam mail policy among superhumans. Having junk mail in your actual brain was just uncool. And since loads of Avowed didn’t bother to receive messages in any other way, advertisements on Anesidora came to you on paper.

Alden started sorting through his coupons.

All right, he thought. Which of you sells clothes and is open 24/7?