THIRTY-SEVEN: Days

 

Day Six

 

“This is a scam, isn’t it?” Alden said, rubbing the spot on his forehead where a rubber ball had just bounced off. “You just want to throw stuff at me.”

Joe smiled at him. “Yes. This is an ideal use of my time. I can’t imagine anything better to do with the evening.”

They were standing in Joe’s office with the furniture all shoved aside so that they could play catch. The professor had brought an entire box full of balls so that they wouldn’t waste time chasing after strays, but even though Joe wasn’t much of a pitcher, Alden had only let a couple escape him so far. Dexterity, agility, and speed were great stats for this game.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t being tested on his ability to grab wildly thrown balls.

The professor threw another. Alden caught it, and his skill activated. He held it flat in his palm, and waited for the skill to deactivate. The ball rested there.

Joe sighed. “Again. You’re catching and then activating the skill. That instant makes a difference. You need to be able to control it.”

“I’m sorry,” Alden groaned, tossing the ball back into the box with the others. “I get that. Everything you said made sense. And I’m not doing it on purpose.”

His skill activated instantly when he picked up stationary objects. He had picked up a couple of burning things in the lab without injury. But with thrown items, he caught them, and then Let Me Take Your Luggage activated. Fast, but not fast enough.

“Lesson Twenty-Four—”

“Wait, they’re still numbered?”

“Don’t let yourself develop bad habits. They’re much harder to break than they are to avoid from the outset.”

That sounded more like a life lesson than a skill use lesson, but Alden didn’t complain. Joe was still in a good mood after yesterday’s mishnen incident, and he had already spent more time on their private tutoring session this evening than he was required to.

“Well, I suppose I’m being a little unfair,” the professor added. “It’s not a bad habit. It’s just a habit. You can hardly avoid having them. If you defaulted to truly instant skill activation in all circumstances, that would have its own drawbacks.”

Yep. A very good mood, Alden thought.

“But that additional moment you’re taking to bring the ball firmly under your physical control…or whatever notion of the process it is you have…is robbing you of flexibility. Your skill should be able to do this in more than one way if you frame the thought right.”

The goal was to preserve the thrown ball’s momentum.

Joe said it should be possible. Alden thought it should, too.

But for some reason he always stopped the item’s motion, and then the skill activated. He hadn’t even realized he was doing it.

“Is it because I can’t really conceive of myself carrying something while it’s moving?”

“Don’t over-intellectualize things, or you’ll lose the flexibility you’re going for in the first place. You want to be able to preserve momentum or not as the situation demands it, not just switch over to being able to do one instead of the other. Far be it from me to tell you to think less, but in this case…think less. Train more. It needs to be automatic.”

“Maybe I should use one hand for the first and the other for the second?” Alden couldn’t think of another way to instill too completely different mental habits related to the same action into himself. Right hand could be catch-then-preserve. Left hand could be instant preserve.

“It’s more limiting than what I would try for, but if you like…”

“What would you try for then?”

“…” Joe had fallen silent, and his mouth was twisted in an expression Alden had come to recognize.

It was his “the human is too stupid to handle this concept” face.

“Oh no. Come on. Please just tell me.”

“Sharing some ideas is detrimental. To you. We don’t have the same brains or the same abilities. If I tell you exactly what I would work on, and you focus on it to the exclusion of finding your own way through a problem, you may miss something that suits you much better. Perhaps my solution is uniquely Artonan in this case. Maybe it relies too much on my capacity for multitasking, which is something that humans tend to do poorly.”

“I can multitask.”

“Can you, though?” Joe asked. His left eye pointed up at the ceiling suddenly, and his right eye pointed down at the floor. “Can you do this? And process two separate images simultaneously?”

“I’m sure some humans can…” Maybe.

“That was just an example. Don’t start playing around with your vision. My point was that it’s more helpful to you in the long run if I suggest places for improvement rather than methods.” He paused. “I must, after all, do my sincere best.”

Alden sighed.

“And you must do your sincere best, too! It’s time for us to head over to the summonarium.”

#

Alden had begun trying to think of his teleportation to and from Moon Thegund as a lesson in and of itself. It was the only time he ever managed to “see” that nebulous something that seemed to be his own power stabilizing him and his passengers in transit. Now that he knew to look for it, he could reliably detect it on the return journey, when he had someone with him.

And sometimes he could catch glimpses of it on the way over as well. So his magic was somehow mitigating the pressures of the trip in both cases. When he’d asked Joe about it the professor had only shrugged and said of course it was.

“How else would you remain you during a magical teleportation cycle?”

Remain me?

“What about before I was Avowed?” Alden had asked. “I didn’t become un-me every time I traveled.”

“Local teleports on stable worlds using high quality equipment are safe even for infants. Moon Thegund is different.” He’d looked Alden up and down. “You know, I worried when we started that you would only last for a few trips before I had to call off our agreement. Wear and tear from this should accumulate quite a bit more on a B-rank Avowed. You’re becoming intriguing.”

Alden wanted answers himself, but he had no way of getting them.

For now, he was just glad that when he popped into existence at Elepta farm, he was perfectly safe and sound.

The fruit-packing warehouse looked the same as it had the last time he’d been here. The assistants had moved some supplies in after the first trip—a table and chairs, some heavy looking bags, and a quartet of devices that they said would make a magical barrier in an emergency.

The devices were taller than Alden, and they looked like bubble wands.

He’d never seen them in action, but they were set up in a half circle around the teleportation alcove.

Today, there was far more tension than usual from the waiting Artonans. And there was an unexpected guest. The woman with pink eyes who served as their leader had come along for the first time. Alden had learned on a past trip that she would be the last to depart, so she must have come today just to see the others off and reassure everyone left back at the lab that all was well after the skipped arrival.

Joe had managed to get a message through, he said, but no doubt they were nervous.

“I apologize for my absence,” Alden said in Artonan. “I was assisting a wizard who had a medical emergency. Everything is well now, and our schedule shouldn’t be interrupted again.”

He’d expended considerable effort this morning to translate these few sentences, and Joe had confirmed they were fine with an amused look. The professor kept saying he’d get Alden a translation device so that he didn’t have to spend so much time pointing and gesturing to make himself understood, but either good non-System English translators were hard to come by or Joe though Alden’s broken Artonan was funny.

Well, it doesn’t really seem to matter. The scientists were all smart enough to figure out what he was getting at and patient enough to make the effort.

<<You’ll carry both of these men today?>> the woman said, in a tone that was a little too insistent to be a request.

It would have been easier to carry one of them and her, since she was very petite even for an Artonan, but he would manage.

“Yes. I can carry two.” More like one of them would piggy back on the other, who would cling to Alden awkwardly before he activated his skill so that they both became locked around him for the trip. If they timed it right, he would only have to take a couple of arduous steps.

It was the most uncomfortable backpack ever, but it had worked last time.

Interestingly, this set-up only worked if Alden targeted the standing man, not the rider.

He gave the men in coveralls his most confident smile as he ran through the remaining passengers in his head. After these two were gone, there would still be eight people left. The woman who always drove, pink eyes, the father, the children, and three more assistants. Ideally he’d double up every night from now on, and if they had one more mishap that caused a delay, they’d still be okay.

His passengers had their pockets stuffed with whatever lab supplies they’d decided Joe needed today, and they’d already collected the marleck berries for Alden. It was a bag full despite the fact that he’d tried to tell the driver on previous trips that he only needed a few.

Pink eyes talked everyone through the drill, even though they’d probably gone over it a hundred times before he arrived, and Alden took the berries. The official quest triggered as complete, and Alden requested teleportation back to Artona III.

 

[Request yessed. Please enter the alcove.]

[91 s]

 

Yessed? thought Alden, startled. What’s this about?

Always before, the Moon Thegund System had said “Request approved.”

Is yessed even a word? Maybe it’s trying to be cute?

Could Systems even do that?

He was nervous about the anomaly. But less than two minutes later, he was in the summonarium again, with his back aching and his head spinning just a little. He hoped this was the heaviest load he’d have.

He let the preservation drop on both of the assistants. One of them dropped off immediately, staggered a step, and then recovered The other clung to Alden’s back like a koala, his grip inexplicably tightening as he took in their surroundings.

Maybe all the glowing symbols were scary?

“Dude, we’re here,” Alden muttered, trying to pry the man’s arms away from his lab coat.

<<My friends!>> Joe cried. <<At last we are reunited! It’s so good to see you safe and well.>>

He said something similar every time. And every time, the assistants bowed.

At least the koala man let go of Alden at the sound of Joe’s voice.

When Alden left, the two assistants were emptying their pockets proudly to show Joe matching sets of particularly evil-looking tongs.

---

Day Seven

 

“It’s not true mind control,” said Thwart Hog, leaning against the lockers with her muscular arms crossed over chest after listening to Alden’s explanation that morning. “She’s not a Sway.”

“I know. But it’s something. Since it’s about arranging, maybe she pulls a thought you already have forward at just the right moment? I don’t really get it, but I thought you might want to be careful.”

It only seemed right to warn her since she was living with Manon, too. But Thwart Hog didn’t seem particularly concerned.

“You a low rank?” she asked.

“B.”

“Hey! Me too. So we don’t need to worry for ourselves. Now that you’ve told me to look out, it’s fine. A-rank Sway…we wouldn’t even be having this conversation because you’d never have caught her at it. C-rank Rabbit manipulating the same dozen people for years like she’s playing with dolls? Not nice. But no reason to sweat.”

Alden must have looked skeptical.

“Look. I won’t deny that she could probably have her minions set you up for some kind of major screw-up. Especially since you’re working lab and medical. But she seems savvy and emotionally stable, so she’s not likely to throw something serious at you here. Just don’t poke the situation. Leave it alone. Do nothing.”

Thwart Hog turned and grabbed her boots from her locker.

“That’s what I was planning to do for now,” said Alden. “But I think it’s wrong what she’s doing to them. She’s managing their whole lives.”

“You got a hero complex?”

“I don’t…”

“Yeah. You do.” Thwart Hog yanked the laces on her boots tight. “Tons of new Avowed are that way. My advice is that you grow out of it fast. You found a problem. Doesn’t mean you need to fix it right this very second at any cost.”

“I just said I was going to do nothing for now.” Alden was annoyed.

“You wouldn’t still be going on about it if you didn’t have doubts about that course. Stop doubting. Jabbing at the problem here and now is the worst thing you could do.”

The locker closed with a bang.

#

 

<<Slaughter her,>> said Sophie, kicking a lab cabinet shut gently with one of her back feet. <<It’s the fastest way to solve the problem.>>

“Somehow I knew you were going to say that.”

 

#

 

“I’ve designed an experiment!” Joe announced the second they’d finished renewing their daily contract.

“What is it?” Alden asked, pulling his hand away from the tattoo on his chest and dropping his shirt. The mark always felt strangely warm for a few seconds after he’d placed his fingers on it and verbally agreed to the terms again.

“Put your exceptionally gorgeous coat back on.”

Alden did.

The professor bent, almost disappearing behind his desk. “Am I targeted?”

“Of course.”

“Then catch!” Joe sprang back up and flung one of the rubber balls at him.

Only this time it was on fire.

“What the hell!?” shouted Alden. But they were standing close together, and he was so used to catching things Joe threw at him. The ball was already in his hand.

“The fact that your skill was designed to allow for visual effects is amusing.” Joe made an adjustment to his smart lens and peered at the tail of motionless flames trailing off the ball. “But I suppose it must serve the same function as your tactile sense of the preserved item. It helps you to manage the thing. Better move if you don’t want burned hands.”

The author’s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Alden hastily took a few steps.

“You threw a fireball at me!” He wondered if Joe knew how supremely wizardy he’d looked in that moment.

“I thought if you had to catch something visibly dangerous, and if you didn’t have time to overthink it, you’d naturally perform the trick we were attempting last night. And see? I was right!”

“So I do a true insta-freeze on flying things if I know they’re hazardous,” Alden said, staring down at the ball. “That’s better than nothing.”

He didn’t ask what Joe would have done if it hadn’t worked.

“And we’re thinking I should be able to re-direct the momentum, right?” he added, excitement building as he paced. Since he could reposition his grip on things it should work. “Where can I put this safely?”

“This is a weapons lab. You’re the least fireproof thing in here other than the ball itself.”

Alden rotated the ball so that it should, in theory, be moving away from him when his skill stopped. Then he dropped it and took a quick step back in the same motion.

The ball shot away from him, trailing smoke and flames, and smashed into the window that looked down on the inner laboratory.

“It worked!” he shouted. “It actually worked!”

Thinking it would work and seeing it in action were two different things.

“Yes, but you still can’t do it intentionally. Now go put that out. The building may not catch on fire, but there’s no need to let it fill with smoke.”