TWO HUNDRED FORTY-THREE: With a Yell

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The master of the house, the neighborhood, and the golden retriever often revised his initial rating of his Saturday morning show after some time had passed. This revision was usually positive. An episode interesting enough to linger in his thoughts was a good episode.

On the Saturday night after Episode #473 was created, Elias emerged from his workshop on the top floor of the house and descended the stairs with a shallow black case in his arms. The keys he had made that afternoon were within it, each of the small circular devices perfectly placed in its own slot. A drone waited on the front stoop with an identical, but empty, case in its compartment. Elias swapped the cases and watched the drone lift off. It flew toward the infogear factory, one yellow light blinking in a dark sky.

This routine had been repeated for many nights and would be for many more.

“Daunting.”

He closed the door, then went into the living room. When he flopped onto the sofa, the dog, paws wrapped around a stuffed toy, thumped its tail in greeting.

“MBF,” Elias said after several minutes spent gazing at the light fixture, “revise the rating on this morning’s episode. Eight out of twelve is too low for Alden. For keeping my mind engaged during tedious work this afternoon, let’s give him…”

MBF waited silently.

“He went to the Rabbit Welcome tonight?” asked Elias.

“He did.” MBF’s voice spoke in his ear.

“I’m sure he was invited to participate in almost every one of the follow-up events. Rabbits do love pulling the significant young ones deep into the fold as soon as possible. Is he currently at a dance, a dinner, or whatever the special after-gathering is this year?”

“He left Nautilus Needle at 9:28 PM,” said MBF. “He’s currently approaching the Celena North Campus.”

“Show me the clip of him with the friend from Chicago…name?”

“Jeremy Levi.”

“Show me Jeremy and Alden outside Bridget’s shop again.”

One of the screens he’d used earlier dropped down from the ceiling, and a ten-second-long clip of two teenagers walking into the largest Wright store in Apex appeared.

Jeremy was teasing Alden about being an Adjuster geek who’d forgotten he had a spell impression.

“Alden is rolling his eyes like he might have heard this more than once. And it sounds like part of a longer conversation they’ve been having,” said Elias. “Do we have more like it? Something else from around the same time?”

“They spent a significant amount of time at North of North prior to this.”

“Ah. Even if we could somehow persuade the gym to let us record, the members there wouldn’t be caught dead wearing infogear.”

“A few of them have ordered pieces recently,” said MBF.

“I can’t say I’m delighted about our increased popularity given the reason for it.”

Elias drummed his fingers on the tops of his thighs while he thought. “A boy who wants to be an Adjuster superhero gets Chainer and trades it for Rabbit…and afterward, he relishes neither the perks of Rabbit society nor his spell impression…

“The most likely explanation I’ve come up with so far is Aulia’s obscenely reckless wordchain. I’m not ruling out the possibility that Alden was five minutes away from trading Chainer for Adjuster on the eve of the Elber girl’s memorial service when a live rabbit crossed his path—spotlighted by a moonbeam breaking through heavy clouds—and he took it as a sign from God, not realizing it was just a set-up to make him the delivery boy for Aulia’s little killer. By the way, is anyone suspicious about that situation beyond the expected amount?”

“Not to my knowledge,” MBF replied. “Those who knew Manon Barre well enough to find her absence and lack of communication strange are the ones who knew her well enough to suspect that questioning it might be dangerous for them.”

“I see. And Aulia couldn’t have arranged a more effective cover-up than the one we just endured. A wealthy Rabbit not returning to Anesidora after a deadly disaster in which the System showed a relatively low interest in protecting her class—even Archie wouldn’t bother looking into it. Are we sure Aulia didn’t drown the country a little bit on purpose to protect Hazel?”

“It isn’t likely that—”

“I was joking, of course, MBF.” He looked at the clip frozen on the screen, focusing on Alden’s face. “I almost want to tell him how perfectly he vanquished his enemies. When Aulia called to request we block access to any suspicious records of Hazel, the information you put together about how it had all come to pass painted such an elegant path of cause and effect.

“Somehow, during Alden’s first assignment as an Avowed, Manon Barre makes an error, and he obtains a piece of her truth. He keeps it to himself. After he finally lands on Anesidora, he continues keeping it to himself for weeks. He is, apparently, waiting for her to be away from Earth so that she can’t respond to his attack. Then, when he decides it’s time, he informs.” Elias clapped his hands together once. “Based on the activities of her underlings around then, I think he even had some theories about their hierarchy and the limitations of her control over them that he was trying to leverage by staggering the release of his knowledge. I’m sure he was ignorant of many things, but he was correct about enough to wound her.”

Elias extended his index fingers and began to draw one slowly through the air toward the other. “Manon returns to find her people upset and her power threatened. Angry and under stress, her flaws strengthen, and her self-control weakens. And that’s when Alden attacks Hazel Velra with the same weapon—damaging, damning truth.”

His other finger began to move. “Hazel has been made fragile by the pressures of her family, her disappointing rank, and her genius. When the boy’s accusation forces her grandmother to publicly scold her, she shatters. And Manon, not at her best, is too eager to pick up a broken Velra. She must think she can use Hazel without getting cut.”

His fingers met.

“She was wrong about that. And she was the only person positioned to understand how it all came to pass. She had much more information than you and I. Do you think in her final moments she gave him any credit for it? If she and Hazel hadn’t offended Alden’s sense of right and wrong, they wouldn’t have ended up in that room together.”

He dropped his hands.

“Well, I’ll give him credit for it. One belated point for that incident, because I’ve enjoyed thinking about it even if it wasn’t part of today’s show. Victory through the acquisition and release of secrets deserves at least that much from the Informant. Let’s see…only one point more for the mystery of why he picked his class. His discovery of a skill that’s limited to a single user could have been the result of Gloss effects on that day, but if that’s what happened, it would still be interesting to understand why it all needed to end up as it has. I can tell from the way you presented that puzzle that you don’t have a likely answer for how he might have ended up with that class and that skill. Am I mistaken?”

“You are correct,” said MBF. “There are many possibilities based on my collected knowledge of him. None of them are likely occurrences or perfect matches for what is already known.”

Elias nodded. “But you do think you know something worthwhile about him that I might enjoy figuring out, don’t you? That one tantalizing moment you put at the end of the show. The final scene. Show it to me again.”

In the clip that appeared before Elias a second later, Alden Thorn walked along a street in F-city, a plastic rain poncho preserved by his skill protecting him from the howling storm that was keeping the sidewalk and street mostly empty.

The scene had been captured by an infodrone struggling to return to an owner who wore a matching infowatch. The image wobbled wildly. The sound of Alden’s laughter and the single word he spoke had not been recorded.

His smile was brilliant, and the show ended on it.

“I appreciate the opportunity to practice my lip reading, MBF,” said Elias, “and I don’t mind you making it a bit too obvious which part you think I’ll have the most fun with. A single, very significant word is most likely to be a proper name. And look at his face! He’s either receiving excellent news from the person he’s talking to, or that person is one he likes very much. Don’t tell me if I’m wrong…the name is Stuart. And Stuart is someone Alden Thorn considers himself close to. You believe that you know who Stuart is and that I know enough to eventually figure it out myself even though you’ve given me almost nothing that seems to be connected to this in the rest of the show.

“And naturally, the answer must be important enough to earn its spot as the finale…without being so urgent that you’d just tell me to save time.”

MBF didn’t respond.

“Thank you. You know I hate spoilers. Have the name Stuart appear on my calendar at random intervals so that I’m reminded of this. One more point for how much I’ll enjoy coming up with the answer. That’s eleven out of twelve for the episode. Give Alden the standard thank you present for being this week’s star.”

“Requests for information about him will be denied for eleven months, starting now,” said MBF. “I will remind you when the lock expires.”

******

******

[…What I’m saying is that I nearly criticized that person in Artonan. First the gokoratches, now this. Your influence on humanity is getting more powerful every day.

I assume you’re still resting. I will be, too, as soon as Lute stops composing music in our kitchen. One of his instructors finally got annoyed with him for skipping so many classes this term and said he couldn’t have an A. That’s the highest grade on our student ranking scale. Since it’s a music class, he’s mad about it, so he’s creating a song using his harp and nontraditional instruments for extra credit. When I walked in, he was recording the sound of potato chips falling into the sink.

He says he’s almost done.

I hope you wake up to a day that’s easier than yesterday.

Goodnight from Earth.]

Alden yawned, sent the message to Stuart, and spent a minute listening through one ear to all of the kitchen drawers being rapidly opened and closed.

How did I lose just one of my good ear plugs? Shouldn’t it be both or neither? Did I swallow it in my sleep?

The dorm’s loosely observed quiet period wouldn’t start for almost an hour, so it wasn’t just Lute being noisy. Someone up on the third floor was shouting out of his window because that was obviously the best way for an Avowed to communicate with his sister in the girls’ building.

It was fine. Bed was comfortable. He was thinking Boe might text him soon, since it was two hours later in Illinois, and Boe could at least shoot a message before he went to sleep.

And Alden did feel like he had a few things he wanted to say to other people. Finding the right words might take a while.

[Dear Ryada… ]

[Ryada,]

[Hi there, Ryada-bess!]

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Alden wove his auriad through his fingers while he watched his interface, where his message was failing to magically write itself.

I’ll let the hardest one marinate in my subconscious while I send a different one. Maybe that’ll do it.

He started one to the faculty advisor who needed to sign off on his classes for next quarter. It would only take a minute or two.

******

[Boe: Hey. You up?]

[Alden: Hey! Finally. I’m awake. Turn on video to see something awesome.]

Boe appeared. Still in day clothes, he was sitting on the floor with his back against his bedroom door. “I see you’ve found your way back to your dorm room. Truly, that is awesome.”

[Alden: You’re supposed to be admiring my light source. I can’t hold it much longer.]

He moved his auriad around, looking away from his friend’s face so he could concentrate on the light he’d called. The beam was tight. It would be neat if he could just…

“Crap.”

[Boe: It went out.]