TWO HUNDRED THIRTEEN: Chillexing

213

******

It was evening when Alden left Rapport I with his suitcase, a leaf-wrapped package of meat petal, and a supply of sleep aids he was supposed to use as needed over the next few days. Yenu-pezth wanted him to get plenty of dreaming in while her work was still fresh.

He arrived back on Earth, at Matadero, around four o’clock in the morning local time. Feeling alert but like his day was winding down didn’t bode well for his classes. If he tried to power through without even a nap, he was going to crash at some ridiculous hour, or he was going to be jelly-brained by the time MPE rolled around.

Knock myself out now, or knock myself out later?

He’d had a great day. Waking up from a dream with a satisfying ending instead of one that left him gasping and upset, flying paper planes with Stuart, having bread and honey while Healer Yenu talked about future sessions and explained that the process had gone well from her perspective…

Sleeping after a great day sounds a lot better than rushing back to school.

He wasn’t quite ready to deal with people paying a little too much attention, arguments in Engaging with the Unexpected, and whatever garbage had been happening on social media. Social media.

The memory of Winston Heelfeather asking him to watch an apology video in which the speedster failed to deliver the promised apology made Alden groan.

Like nails on the chalkboard of my mental peace, he thought. It’s a shame I can’t just solve him by telling him an Artonan healer wouldn’t like it if he spoke to me.

Sleep it would be. A real one. He’d just start his Wednesday late and focus on doing well in the second half.

He followed through with the plan and woke hours later with a new fragment of a dream at the front of his thoughts—watching the behavior of the demon bokabv that blocked their way forward, understanding that it was trying to separate him and Kibby from the car.

That’s the one where we run into it after we make it out of the corruption.

He couldn’t recall enough yet to know if the storyline had changed in any way from the exact version he and Healer Yenu had discussed. His sheets weren’t sweaty, and his pulse wasn’t thundering. So it must have been okay.

I’ll remember more later. I’ll get it all eventually.

He’d promised he would think about guilt when he woke up from the dreams, so he made himself do it. Only for a couple of minutes. Dwelling on his hesitation to run help when he heard Kibby’s whistle was uncomfortable.

I didn’t hesitate at all in the new dream. I wouldn’t hesitate to help her in real life…but what if it wasn’t Kibby, and I was that scared again?

Following that line of thinking led him into a mess of questions about who he was supposed to be. He wasn’t ready to answer those yet.

And it called up fading regrets about not being a “Hero Type” who never hesitated. That wasn’t really where he wanted to go.

“Been that way and done it,” he said aloud. He pulled the blanket tight over the bed and fluffed the pillows before arranging them at the head.

“That way is backward. That way is toward…beating myself up over not doing even more to save Manon’s boater. And jumping to help Ro-den without being cautious enough. And maybe dumber stuff. The Hero Type that I built up in my head might have given his seat on an evacuation flyer to Marks with an ‘s.’ Do I really want to agonize over not doing that kind of thing? No. I don’t. Dude was a jerk after I teleported him off the bridge.”

Alden stepped back to admire the freshly made bed and caught himself thinking how welcoming “his” room here would look the next time he came back. He reflected on that, then texted Boe.

[Having your own room at Matadero is normal for some people. Like me. It’s normal for me.]

Boe should be in class right now, but Alden had never known of that to impede him much, even back when he’d replied by phone. With mental texting…

[If a thing is only normal for a single human out of more than ten billion, then it’s weird. That’s how the word “weird” works.]

Alden was trying to decide if Kabir was the kind of person who might have possessive feelings toward the room he was staying in—not likely since the chef still got nervous about being in the cube sometimes—when Boe’s next text arrived.

[I dare you to decorate the place and put your name on the door.]

“Ha! That’s not as potentially embarrassing as he thinks it is.”

Boe wasn’t envisioning the isolation of Alden’s room correctly if he thought that was a decent dare. In an upstairs corridor of a hospital that almost never had doctors or patients, a fair hike from the residential area? Alden could decorate this room and claim it with his very own nameplate, and there was a chance it would go unnoticed for years. Especially if he did it when most of the wizards were no longer in residence.

[Dare accepted. Hey, by the way…how do you think the different Hero Types would handle an inanimate object that might be growing something like a soul?]

The wait for a reply was longer this time.

[I don’t get it. Is this a joke, and you’re challenging me to figure out the punchline? Or is it some morality quiz question you came up with because you enjoy thinking about right and wrong in your free time?]

[It’s not a joke or a quiz. But I did say might. It’s not like I’m a hundred percent sure about what’s happening. Just wanted a second opinion from someone on the situation in case.]

[What the fuck??]

[So you don’t know what to do about it either, then.]

[Avoid whatever it is and never speak of it. Or to it. This should be obvious.]

[But what if it’s not happy with its life? Or this thing that it has that is like a life…semi-life?]

[This had better be an extended joke. It is, isn’t it?]

[I think it donated a pizza for Matadero Thanksgiving.]

[It’s that Wrightmade vending machine you sent me pictures of! Isn’t it? Mr. Blingy. Alden, you’d better not get self-sacrificing for a vending machine.]

I wonder if he’s going to be more or less freaked out when I tell him it’s a post drop.

******

******

“I’m approaching land,” Alden said a while later.

He was adjusting course by pointing a finger to follow the flight path he’d been assigned. Below him and to his left, waves lapped against a construction project that was underway along the western edge of the crescent. It hadn’t been there the last time he passed over.

Wealth, wizards, and Avowed could make some things happen at an impressive pace.

“Our Pacific Ocean is behaving pacifically,” he reported. “And a team of wizards and Avowed are building…not sure what. At the moment, it looks like some arches offshore.”

A large section of one of them was being flown into position by a Shaper who was riding on top. When Alden looked over the edge of the nonagon, he could see a couple of small figures in the water.

[Those arches are part of your new Avowedville protection package], Boe texted.

He was in his last class of the day now. Economics. He’d turned on the video so that Alden could see him sitting there, taking notes on how the world might change if the Earth System suddenly had teleportation capacity equivalent to Artona III.

“What’s the Avowedville protection package?”

[You’d know if you were spending more time on the right planet.] Boe was still texting. [The Triplanetary Government has suggested making a new little Avowed country somewhere remote. An Anesidora II, so that the percentage of Earth’s Avowed living in one spot is lower.]

“Is it Antarctica?”

[It’s nowhere because negotiating that with the UN and Anesidora isn’t happening. Not anytime soon. So Anesidora is getting a trio of magically fortified areas for now. There are going to be neighborhoods with added protection against chaos and whatever else the Artonans decide you need protecting from. The arches are part of it even though they’re not onshore.]

Alden slowed his flight and looked at the work going on below more closely. “That’s positive. Unless it’s a sign of things to come.”

[There are going to be two of the new safer zones in F. One in Apex. The locations are undisclosed until the next disaster strikes. They say that’s for an added layer of protection, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was really about property values.]

“I don’t think the Artonans care about Anesidoran property values. I do think I might have just seen one of my classmates helping with the arches. He has blue hair. They don’t usually get teenagers to build critical infrastructure, do they?”

[You’d know better than me. Because you are a teenager who spends too much time on the wrong planet. With wizards.]

Alden watched the place where the swimmer who might have been Jeffy had disappeared below the surface until he was too far away to keep track of the spot. Then he turned his attention back to flying. And to Boe.

[Stuart’s a good person. He’s been helping me, and even if he wasn’t, I like spending time with him. He’s cool. We’re friends.]

Boe didn’t look up from his notes. [I didn’t mean anything by it.]

He did. But he knows he shouldn’t have.

Or that was what Alden thought was going on.

It irked him. Not enough to say anything more about it, not enough to end the conversation. Just enough that when he reached campus and the call came to a natural conclusion, he stood on the nonagon above the roof of Garden Hall, looking in the direction of Chicago. Worries, ones he really didn’t want to have, flickered while he tried to smother them with reason.

Boe was a cactus-mode bastard when Jeremy started hanging out with us. I had to run interference and pretend some of his remarks were funny-mean instead of serious for a few weeks.

This isn’t even that bad.

And it wasn’t like he had to force Boe to meet Stuart and get along.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

It would’ve been nice if he wanted to, though.

One day. Maybe. Jeremy grew on him.

A ridiculous comparison. Jeremy Levi and Stu-art’h were dimensions apart in more ways than one. But imagining that Boe might warm up to the idea made him feel better.

It would be awesome to introduce Boe to Lute, Haoyu, and Lexi, too, he thought, as he headed into the dormitory.

And it would be hilarious to point him at Winston.

The sight of the speedster slouching in front of the dorm notices prompted that thrilling scenario to pop into Alden’s head. Winston seemed to have a theory that Alden had gotten so much attention recently because he’d cultivated it, and therefore Alden was only pretending not to want it as part of some kind of schtick.

Which makes me a rival in his mind? Only enough room in the class for a few internet celebrities.

Whatever the exact nature of their enmity was, Alden hanging out with an A-rank emotion manipulator would no doubt increase Winston’s suspicions a thousand fold.