TWO HUNDRED TWENTY-NINE: Here-to-There IX

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The teleportation point shared by the residents of this neighborhood was an oval room about the size of a two-car garage, waiting for anyone who wanted to use it as long as they had some portion of System capacity allotted to them. Nobody else was around when Alden arrived. He exited onto a square filled with flowering trees, wondering if he was the most foreign thing to ever pass through this point.

Maybe just the most foreign this week, he decided.

The artificial lighting that had been helpful on his way here had been turned off while he was on Earth. Every lamp was dark, and every window that looked down on the square was shaded. He waited for his eyes to adjust to moon and stars. Once they had, it was still strange to walk down such quiet, dark streets.

Even though the city looked so very Artonan, the experience reminded him too much of trying to make his way through Apex with the power out. His auriad snugged itself tighter around his ankle, as if to tell him that this would be a great time to practice his light spell.

He ignored the urge and walked quickly out of the square, leaving behind the thick, sweet scent of the trees to head toward the park where the party was being held. Halfway there, a text arrived. It was from one of the only people whose messages came through even when he wasn’t on Earth.

[Want to see Number 2?]

What?

Alden stopped between the front door of a house and one of the oblong boulders that were frequent sights around the city. He wasn’t certain if they were primarily for use as benches, but earlier he had seen some of them being enjoyed that way. He tilted his head, trying to figure out what Boe meant.

[I’m going to assume you want to see Number 2. Calling you now.]

He accepted the video call, and Boe Lupescu appeared. He was in a black coat and a knitted hat that matched the dingy scarf wrapped around his neck. It was night in Chicago, too, though a much earlier one than this. Boe was walking down a well-lit street, wearing his old glasses instead of the new ones Alden had bought him through Dragon Rabbit.

“What was the first thing that came to mind when you read that?” Boe asked. A phone was pressed to his ear to keep people from thinking he was talking to himself, or worse—guessing the truth. “Be honest.”

“I think that you’ve come up with funnier jokes in the past,” said Alden. “Forcing innocents to carry you around for months at a time has made you lazy.”

Boe’s smile peeked out from behind the scarf and then disappeared as he adjusted the garment and tucked his chin. “I’m currently following the drunkest person I’ve ever seen who’s still capable of walking for blocks. Not that he’s doing it well.”

The view switched from Boe’s face to what he was seeing in front of him with impressive smoothness. Alden wondered if Boe might have truly perfect control of the System’s call “camera” without having been helped along, but before he could guess at how much practice that must have required, he was taking in the sight of a blond man in an untucked polo shirt who was weaving down the sidewalk. One side of the shirt was soaked, so he must have fallen into the slush or been splashed with something. He had to be cold wearing short, wet sleeves on a December night.

Alden was going to comment on how close behind the man Boe seemed to be for someone who was talking about him out loud, but then the guy took a wide step sideways with one foot instead of forward. He crossed his own legs in a way that just didn’t make sense for a walking person and stumbled. As he tried to recover, he only made it worse, and he landed against a chain link fence that separated the sidewalk from a tennis court.

He pushed himself off the fence too hard, and Alden’s view changed again while Boe, still gripping the phone, intercepted the man with an outstretched arm before he could eat pavement.

“Watch where you’re going!” the guy bellowed.

As if Boe had knocked into him.

“I’m sorry,” Boe said in a barely apologetic tone. “Excuse me.”

The drunk man grunted and fumbled his way forward, trailing a hand along the fence briefly, then weaving toward a small leafless tree.

[If I tell him it’s his own fault, our little interactions take longer,] Boe added via text. [Poor guy lost his car key…because I pickpocketed it. So he’s chosen to walk home. I hope he’s right about where he’s going. I’ve saved him from operating a motor vehicle and several falls that could have resulted in injury. Once I see him enter a house that looks like it belongs to him, I’ll consider him rescued.]

“This is Number 2,” he added aloud, holding up two fingers.

Alden was glad Boe had called him for this, and not just because it gave him company. But he didn’t want to freak any Artonans out by being a stranger speaking in an alien tongue while he loitered outside their door in the middle of the night, so he started walking again.

“Thanks for including me. You’re doing your good deeds on a Friday night. That’s extra heroic.”

“I know. My active social life is sure to take a hit from this.”

Alden had been thinking more about how Boe was missing the chance to devote the night to binging an entire series of something on TV. “Number 2 is lucky you ran into him.”

“Luck?” Boe scoffed. “Luck had nothing to do with it.” [I walked around for over an hour before I found someone in a manageable amount of distress that was still bad enough for me to count it.]

“That would sound so crazy without context.”

“It sounds crazy with context, too.” [You know I can’t call police or ambulances to deal with things? I found two situations that might have warranted it. That’s what I mean by manageable.]

Alden hadn’t thought about the precise number of people an empath walking around a major city in search of distress might find. He wasn’t sure if two emergency situations was more or less than he should have expected.

“Does that bother you?” he asked. Boe had looked a little bothered as he texted it. “Maybe there’s a way for you—”

“I’m used to being a scumbag type, remember?” Boe said in a dismissive tone that Alden didn’t buy. [And there’s no way to report everything I find without drawing attention. Even anonymously…if I’m too good at locating trouble, I’ll just be creating a mystery. And what will people trying to figure out that mystery naturally think I am?]

“That has to be frustrating.”

[I’ve decided to allow myself one or two anonymous reports per year. No more.]

“You’re not a scumbag.”

They were both distracted for a second by the drunk man wobbling backward like he was about to fall. He came into view again for Alden as Boe stepped forward. Boe was positioned to intercept, but it wasn’t necessary this time. The man seemed to defy physics to straighten up on his own.

Alden could hear laughter coming from somewhere around Boe. “Is someone laughing at Number 2 or something else?”

“Number 2,” Boe said. [It’s a couple of smug frat guys who will probably be just this wasted before morning. And a third, insecure, frat guy who felt uncomfortable but laughed anyway. Because he wants the other two to think he’s one of the pack. What’s on your face? And where are you? I thought you’d be doing your post-gym ritual with the roommate.]

Alden had hoped they’d get to hang out for another few minutes before Boe asked. “It’s paint for a ritual,” he said. “So kinda similar. I’m helping Stuart, his cousin, and her friends out with a fun, productive thing. Like a migration of some ordinary class members. The ritual involves a few hundred Artonans and a master wizard who calls us all ingredients. But it’s safe for humans.”

Boe stopped walking.

“Number 2 will get away,” said Alden. “Don’t leave him.”

[Why do you still have your interface set so that I can’t tell when I’m calling you on another planet!?]

“Because I want to talk to you, and if you know calls are going to be long distance you might decide not to make one.”

[Because the calls cost a freaking fortune, Alden.]

“Which I have,” Alden pointed out. “It’s not like this is going to put as much of a dent in it as those charitable donations you helped me make the other day.”

Boe glared at him.

Alden shrugged. “I want to buy what I want to buy. Sometimes what I want to buy is access to your renowned conversation skills.”

[This trip isn’t even for healing. It’s a social visit. You spend too much time around people who you—you of all people—should be avoiding.]

“I know.”

If he said more, especially if he said that he spent a lot of time thinking about what would happen if he told Stuart he was a wizard, this chat would turn into something very different. And this wasn’t the time or planet for it, so he should leave it here.

[They’re like me,] he sent. [Stuart’s cousin and her friends. A little like me. Wizards with skills.]

Boe still wasn’t moving.

“Anyway, I’m just here for this party, and then I’ll be back on Earth,” Alden said. “The big moving day I’ve been helping with is over now. Please go help Number 2. What if he’s about to fall in front of a car?”

[What are you thinking, Alden?]

“Nothing that should make you look at me like that. I was just giving you…context for what might otherwise seem crazy. I’m here for a party. I’m supposed to be thinking about home for a ritual, and I can’t come up with much. I hope you won’t hang up on me or let Number 2 die.”

Boe started moving again. A short while later, they found out that he and Number 2 really were right around the corner from the place where the man lived.

Alden made it to the park—a triangular slice of nature that cut through the city—around the same time that Number 2 entered his apartment. Boe was watching from down the hall as someone who might have been the man’s father helped him in.

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[He’s sad and resigned,] Boe said. [The older guy. I guess Number 2 is like this pretty often.]

“That must be hard on the people who care about him. Thanks for letting me come along.”

“It was a little fun,” Boe said.