Just as his second week on Anesidora came to an end, Alden had an hour-long planning session with Neha. He met her in the counselors’ shared office space after breakfast one morning. It was just one of the apartments, with the beds in the rooms replaced by desks.

“I have organized your next couple of weeks for you,” Neha said, slurping from a coffee mug and sliding a binder full of papers with colored tabs across the desk to him. “It would cost you a fortune if you were a wizard, so you’re welcome.”

She smiled as he took the binder. “I’m also sending you a copy through the System. But paper has its charms.”

“You’re an organizer?”

“I’m a lot of things at my age,” she said. “Not your average slouch who never actually developed their powers. But my most valuable skill combo from a work standpoint is the C-rank skill Day Planner plus my original S-rank, Locate Resources.”

“I can tell from the name that the last one is overpowered,” said Alden. He wasn’t surprised she was an S. Having enough money to be immortal implied she was high ranked at least.

“It is,” said Neha. “But it’s not flashy.”

She tapped her temple with a green-polished fingernail. “All up in here when I’m using it, like a string of magically generated Aha! moments. People are never as impressed by subtle talents as they should be. Combine it with a couple of add-ons that help me interpret a summoner’s tastes and a bunch of little spell impressions that do things like this—” She made a series of swift and flawless hand-casting gestures, and all the junk on the desk aligned itself at right angles with the edges. “—and you have asuper PA.”

“Cool.”

“That’s nice. You sounded sincere when you said that.”

“Hanging out with so many Rabbits has given me a new appreciation for their skills. Most of them are useful every single day. A lot of Avowed talents look awesome, but…how often do you really need to be able to dig a trench with your brain? Or create a tidal wave? Or incinerate something in an instant? ”

“You realize you’re a Rabbit, too, right?”

“Yes.”

“I feel like this is something I need to remind you of on the regular. It’s been five or six years since I met a Rabbit kid who wanted superhero training. And then we had to have a long talk about how only grivecks would try to turn a skill designed for dust removal into a battle thing. Check out the plan I’ve made for you. Let’s talk it through and figure out what you might want to change.”

Alden opened the binder curiously. The top pages were detailed, daily suggested schedules. Each one had a color-coded dot at the top corner, and when he turned to the corresponding tab, he found print-outs of additional information for each day.

His first thought was that Neha had gone overboard. He didn’t want to be this heavily committed to a point-by-point plan. But the more he read the plan, the more he realized how ideal it was. There were blocks of free time scheduled, so it wasn’t as tight as it looked, and the things she’d chosen to include were all exactly what he needed to be doing right now if he wanted to head to school in Apex in a couple of months.

She’d taken everything into consideration, from his high school academic record to his stated desire not to use his skill at the moment. She’d even included some odd-hours tasks that implied she knew he tended to be up at three o’clock in the morning.

Gustavo must have told her. Alden had been wandering the halls a lot, and he and the night counselor had talked a few times.

“This is perfect,” he said finally.

“I know.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“I know.”

“You’ve already scheduled all these meetings and things for me?”

“Yes. Except for the ones that specifically say you should do it yourself.”

So confident. If she’d been wrong about him wanting to do all of this, wouldn’t she have had to call a ton of people and cancel on them?

“Thank you.”

She nodded. “Don’t feel locked in, Alden. I’ve put all the things that will help you figure out if you’re really sure about your decision to attend Celena North High’s hero training track on the first week. If you have a change of heart, we’ll just brainstorm something new.”

“I get it.” He checked the time and his new schedule. “And…apparently I need to get going. I have academic placement tests to take.”

“Don’t flunk.”

“I mean I’ll try. It’s been a while since I was in a normal classroom.”

***********

Placement testing was happening today at the main high school in F-city. A steady influx of teenagers with different educational backgrounds meant it was a frequent occurrence. Alden caught a city bus from the stop nearest the intake dorms.

Franklin High was so large that when the bus put him out, he had to wait with a pack of other test-takers for a campus shuttle to take them to the building that housed the testing facility.

When he finally arrived, he followed a stream of other students—people from intake and island-born kids both—into a space that filled an entire upper floor of the building. It was one of the most alien-looking places Alden had seen on Earth. A low-ceilinged, black-walled, windowless room with individual student desks each placed in the center of their own large square floor tiles.

One of the two room monitors just waved everyone in and told them to sit wherever they liked.

Alden took a seat between two other guys who looked nervous.

It really isn’t an inviting place, he thought. They could have added some motivational posters or something.

If not for the fact that some people were chatting and laughing, the room would have been creepy.

The official testing day started at ten AM, and five minutes before that, everyone in the room received a notification. It was a System-moderated contract that had to be signed, saying you agreed to have all of your internet and communications features cut off while you were being tested. Re-activation of them would be reported to the monitors and result in an automatic fail.

As soon as Alden agreed, his floor tile lit up around the edges, and the sound of the other students talking and asking questions cut out. Magical silencing. That’s new.

A list of tests he could request appeared on his interface, along with the time each one would take to complete.

Neha’s schedule had already told him which ones he was supposed to pick. He started with the basic placement testing, answered a few starter questions about special needs and how advanced he considered himself to be in various subjects, and chose the tablet option when it asked how he wanted to take his tests today. His other options were through his interface or using pencil and paper.

A drone of the small rolling box variety came to him and delivered a tablet, stylus, and bottled water.

“Let’s see if that boost to processing has started doing me any favors yet,” Alden said as the tablet switched on and a basic algebra problem appeared on the screen.

Math was good. He got through all the subtests that Neha had recommended quickly enough.

He blew through the most advanced level of the reading comprehension test in half an hour.

Then he got to science and decided he hated the American public education system. Oh, so I’m clueless, he thought, reading through the first ten questions. I am a clueless person, and I didn’t even know it.

He looked around at his fellow teens, all focused on their own tests…or crying over them. Are they seriously teaching high schoolers astrophysics in other countries? Am I really supposed to know the atomic weight of all these elements off the top of my head?

“Listen test,” he said, “why don’t you ask me what mitochondria do? Let’s talk about photosynthesis. Or even anatomy. I’m pretty sure I know where my major organs all are.”

He successfully answered about ten percent of the questions. Maybe ten percent is a good score here?

He doubted it. Darn Anesidora designer babies, with their top-notch middle school science classes, ruining things for everyone else.

He gave his tablet back to the drone after that and took a late lunch break. Then he returned for Spanish and Artonan language testing.

Fortunately, the latter was divided into oral and written. He had a long conversation with a cartoon ryeh-b’t character on the tablet for the first, and then he limped his way through the Beginner I and Beginner II levels of logograms before admitting defeat.

It didn’t ask me any logograms for magic-related words. I’d have done better with those. He’d been studying his auriad book every day.

He finished his testing in the evening, long after most of the other people in the room had cleared out. He assumed they were breaking theirs up over multiple weeks, but Alden’s new super schedule called for him getting it all out of the way at once.

He stretched, cracked his knuckles, and headed out.

Before he’d even made it back to the bus stop, he’d received automated messages from every high school on the island, letting him know if he’d tested well enough for their various programs and what Year/Quarter level he’d be assigned to if he completed other entrance requirements.

It was interesting to see the differences. Most Anesidoran high schools were set up as three-year programs that operated year-round. Classes usually took place on a quarter schedule, with students needing to earn a certain number of credits to graduate by the end of their three years. Depending on how flexible the school was, you could speed things up a little by stuffing your quarters with more classes or by attending all four quarters every year and not taking off the one they anticipated you using for a break.

If Alden wanted to pursue a science track program he could, but he was going to be a Y1Q1 or Q2 depending on the school. But if he wanted to be a general studies student here at Franklin High, he could start as a Y3Q1.

Basically a beginning Sophomore for science tracks and a beginning Senior if I’m just cruising through without focusing on anything at all, he thought, translating it into terms he was more familiar with.

He checked Celena North High’s hero track. It said Y1Q2, which was as good as he could have expected really. Their credit requirements were higher per quarter because of the extra hero coursework. Alden would get to skip a few classes, and at least he’d met their basic academic standards for entry.

There was a big fat list of other requirements he’d have to meet and tests he’d have to take, though. Physical testing. Multiple interviews. And if he made it to the end of the admissions cycle…power and combat assessments.

Gonna be a busy Rabbit.

***********

“I think even you might have failed the science section, Boe. And now that you’re a high school dropout, I’m going to surpass you. I’m going to go to school with the GMO kids here on the island who all learned the half-life of actinium in ninth grade instead of spending an entire semester on The Great Gatsby. Stay alive. Talk to you tomorrow.”

Alden parked the bike he’d rented for the morning in a stand outside an open air market on the northern edge of F-city. He’d never been in the vicinity of this neighborhood before. It was bustling. Most of the signage was in an unexpected mix of Chinese characters and Cyrillic, and there were a lot of signs. He had to take a minute and talk the System down from translating them all because it was cluttering up his vision.

He slipped through the crowd, trying not to stop and gape at a woman who was striding through the air above everyone else like she had her own personal invisible sidewalk up there. His destination was a breakfast spot, but it took him a while to find it. He was glad he’d left the dorms earlier than he’d thought he needed to.

It was in an open food court area, looking out over the water and the bridge that connected F-city to Apex. The place was full of people eating at metal tables. The morning was cold and windy, but there were small portable heaters glowing beside some of the chairs. Alden looked around for the person he was supposed to meet, and just when he was about to give up and text the guy, he spotted someone standing and waving at him from a table all the way on the other side of the seating area.

He was a short, athletic-looking man in his late twenties, with black hair pulled back in a bun.

“Alden, right?” he said, reaching across the table to shake Alden’s hand as he approached.

“Yes. You’re Mr. Banyu?”

“Call me Dave!”

“Sorry I couldn’t find you in the crowd.”

Dave chuckled and shut the laptop he’d been working on. “I saw you, though. It’s my thing.”

Dave Banyu was a B-rank longsight. One who’d somehow made it all the way through the hero programs at Celena North High and University and gotten himself an honest-to-goodness hero job. He was currently working in Malaysia.

Alden had looked him up last night to prep for this meeting Neha had arranged.

“Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. I know you’re probably busy.”

“Not as much as you’d think. And getting a call from Neha is really persuasive. She’s one of the island’s original Avowed. When you grow up here, you know who the oldest S’s are. You hear Rabbit, and you think of her. And you don’t think of her calling you up one day and saying, ‘Kid, I’m sending a newbie off to hero high school. He’s a B-rank Rabbit. He’s totally getting in. Come talk to him and make sure he’s not ruining his life.’”

“She calls you kid?”

“You can’t escape the ‘kid’ when someone’s that much older than you.”

“I see…I’d rather not ruin my life.”

Dave smiled at him. “I’ve got to ask. What the hell is your skill? Because I’ve been thinking about it ever since she scheduled this meeting, and I can not come up with a Rabbit skill that would make her so sure you would get accepted. Not even S-rank ones.”

“It preserves objects,” said Alden. “Perfectly. As long as I’m carrying them. Including living things.”

The other Avowed’s expression turned thoughtful. “Safeguarding spells and skills are really functional. And not many people have them. Especially hero hopefuls; they lack the flare that teenagers who want to be heroes are usually looking for. Perfect preservation of a living thing… that’s definitely got applications.”

He leaned back in his chair. “The fact that you have to carry the things you’re preserving is limiting though. A ranged spell has the advantage. Especially since you’re a B-rank. And a Rabbit. Getting up close and personal with danger is always dicey for us low ranks. And apart from that, Rabbit is a vulnerable class physically. Your power is all in your skills. The System offers you guys proportionally very little in the foundational enhancements department.”

He gestured to himself. “Take me for example. Even though I’m a B-rank and a longsight, I’m still a Brute. The System gives me skill options to boost my visual and mental abilities. But it also gives me a lot of foundational points to spend however I want. I’ve leaned really hard into Speed at each level, on top of the specific mental processing path I chose to give me quick photographic recall. So I can outrun trouble that would otherwise kill me.”

“I do have a movement trait.”

“Oh that’s great!”

“It only works on ground.”

“Ughh… so hard.”

Alden smiled. “It’s not that bad.”

“I’ve never understood ground. I know Ground Shapers who don’t understand ground.”

“I think it’s just a concept from an ancient type of magic.” Alden scooted his chair closer toward the heater that was warming their table. “It’s highly symbolic. Old Artonan stuff. It’s less ‘ground’ and more ‘fundament of the planet that supports our life.’”

The longsight gave him a confused look. “Did you just say fundament?”

“Sorry. I spent a long time on the Triplanets recently. And I spent way too much mental energy on ‘ground.’”

“If you say so…and you’ve already been summoned?”

Alden nodded.

“Must be neat to be a Rabbit. I’ve only been summoned once myself. Did you get some levels under your belt while you were away or…?”

“Three,” said Alden. “I’m a level four.”

Dave blinked. “Wait. How long were you gone?”

“Almost seven months.”

“Holy f—are you okay? Did a wizard decide they liked having you around too much and kidnap you?”

“I’m okay. There was a teleportation mishap. I ended up stuck on a moon without a System so I couldn’t get back home.”

“That was you? I heard about that…”

Alden grimaced. “Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, nothing specific. But Systems aren’t supposed to break. A story like that is going to get around.”

Alden didn’t reply.

“Well…I can see why Neha thought you had a good chance of getting in despite the obvious problems. Boosting yourself three levels that quickly shows strong work ethic at least. And a bit of natural talent. And your skill isn’t bad. But…” His expression turned apologetic. “You should be prepared for the fact that it might not be enough. The admissions process is extremely competitive for B-ranks. There are a ton of applicants. If you actually get into the school you’ll see that the few B’s there are usually the sort who are so perfectly specced for some kind of superhero work that it’s hard to deny their presence.”

He pointed to himself again. “This isn’t me bragging. I’m just an Anesidora brat who knew what I wanted for years before I ever got selected. I spoke three languages. I got so far ahead on academics that I basically didn’t need to attend class for the last half of high school so that I could focus completely on the parts of hero training that were hard for me. And I started building Processing in the specific way I needed right away. Recon. My brain is basically designed to look at a cityscape, flash memorize it, and spot problem areas. I was able to walk into my interviews and explain to the doubters exactly what I would be doing as a member of a hero team and why it would work.”

He sighed. “And to be completely honest with you, I don’t even know what my shelf life as a hero will be. If people get a little too comfy with mass surveillance, and governments start adopting it quickly, I’m out of a job.”

You’d still be useful in an urban corruption field, thought Alden.

He was glad he didn’t let the words pop out of his mouth. It would probably sound strange that his very first thought when an Avowed told him they might be replaced by tech was No, actually, we’re way more reliable around demons. So no worries, man.

“I think it’s great that you’re doing battlefield support,” he said instead. “That’s what I wanted to do.”

“There aren’t many of us. You a team player?”

“I wanted to be someone who could use their powers to help other Avowed maximize their own. And reduce the load. I used to think…I still think that the ideal battlefield support is someone who makes one plus one equal three. Or more. Not the heavy hitter out front but the person in the background who makes it possible for the heavy hitter to hit really heavy. The one who makes it all come together. I wanted to be that guy.”

“That’s a thoughtful heroing philosophy,” said Dave, looking surprised. “But why all the past tense?”

“I’m…lacking in the grand dreams department right now.”

I just want to use hero school to make me into the kind of person who won’t flake out and be useless in a crisis. I’m so tired. I want to be strong enough that doing the right thing is easier. I want to be a good person, but I’m not sure if I’m still up for being one of The Good Guys.

He didn’t say it because he knew it didn’t sound right.

“That’s a problem.” Dave thanked a waiter who’d just rollerbladed up to the table with an omelet. “B-rank Rabbit? You’re going to need to want it to get into the program. You can’t be wishy-washy. Everyone will sense it from a mile away, and they’ll want nothing to do with you.”

“Neha thinks I’ll get in because I’ve got a star,” said Alden.

“A star?”

“Beside my overall level number. It’s 4. With a six-pointed star.”

The longsight paused in the act of chewing, his cheeks stuffed full of eggs and bell peppers. He narrowed his eyes and swallowed.

“You mean an official commendation? From the Artonans?”

“For bravery in the absence of obligation.”

<<Are you kidding me right now?>>

“No?”

“Yeah…so…let’s talk about B-rank life. You’re going to need to workout a lot. Start before you even show up for school. It won’t ever be enough, but you’ll have to do so much of it that nobody can accuse you of not trying. You should keep records to show the physical training faculty. They’re high-rank Brutes, and after being gods for a while, some of them forget what normal humans are actually capable of. They assume anyone who can’t jump twelve feet into the air from a flat stance just isn’t putting in effort.

“Once you get in and get an advisor, you should choose your classes for your entry quarter as soon as possible, so you can send an email to all of your teachers and introduce yourself and ask for advance work. It’ll go a long way with some of them. And…”

*********. MOCKTAIL BREAK ********

After he was done talking to Dave Banyu, Alden had another meeting. As if she’d known what the longsight would recommend, Neha had already blocked off this four-hour long period of his schedule for “finding a personal fitness trainer,” and she’d included recommendations.

He’d gone through them all last night while he couldn’t sleep, checking websites and reading training philosophies. The Rabbit counselor had given him a ton to think about just by providing so many different types of trainers.

Did Alden want to be an endurance athlete? Did he want to have fun? Did he want to mix in power use with his physical training or keep them both separate? Martial arts? Bodybuilding? Gymnastics?

She really likes gymnastics for some reason, doesn’t she?

He’d picked the trainer he suspected Neha had known he would and messaged her to set up an appointment. Her name was Roberta—Bobby for short—and of all the people on the rec list, she was the least superhumanly impressive. A fifty-year-old, D-rank Agility Brute whose clientele were mostly off-duty heroes of the soft variety. Several Adjusters, a few Shapers.

She specialized in people who were less physically special.

But she still worked at the fanciest gym in Apex. The annual membership fee was so steep that Alden was considering wearing a t-shirt with the gym’s logo on it for Spree day to make the other Rabbits happy. It was really close to the Celena North campus, too.

He left his rental bike at a drop-off, and took a cab into Apex. His Evac Priority card flashed briefly into view when they crossed the halfway point on the bridge. He was pleasantly surprised to see that he was a Priority 6 now. In the event of an emergency, there were at least five categories of people who’d need to be rescued before him. The lanyard Cly Zhao had given him to wear when he came for Hannah’s funeral had been Priority 1.

The cab put him out in front of the gym. It was a series of three large buildings separated by curving walkways, manicured lawns, and meditation gardens. One of the buildings was a menacing structure made of concrete that was absolutely covered in warning signs on his interface telling him to STAY AWAY from the place where greater men and women might accidentally drop a one-ton kettlebell on his head.

His building was the elegant glass one. Through the fourth floor windows, he could see happy-looking people in sports bras and tank tops running significantly faster than was comfortable for normal humans around an indoor track.

He entered the gym and had just enough time to appreciate the fact that they had a custom scent and marble floors in the welcome area before a girl in lime green yoga pants appeared. At first, she had a look on her face that said it was her job to politely toss out the riffraff, but she turned bubbly as soon as he activated his name tag and told him he’d been expected.

Did he want to stop by the free smoothie bar on their way to meet Bobby? Did he want to take a look at the potion-therapy saunas? The superolympic-sized swimming pool? The morphable obstacle course?

While she chattered and led him back toward the medical center, where trainers did their consultations, Alden tried to stare at all the people working out without looking like he was staring.

This place wasn’t like F-city. There were plenty of powers on display.

A woman was climbing a rock wall with her arms tied behind her back. She was just sprinting up it in defiance of reason. One of the yoga instructors was folded up in a way that would have made Alden sure the man was dead, if he wasn’t calmly offering advice to a small class of only slightly less contorted people through a headset. And even here in the weaklings gym, there were petite people casually doing reps with eye-popping amounts of weight.

Am I really allowed to be here? I don’t feel like I’m advanced enough to be here. Where is the weaker weaklings gym?

Well…those were in F. Obviously. He’d chosen this place for a reason.

The girl with the lime yoga pants introduced him to Bobby, who invited him into a cramped office filled with framed diplomas and pictures of Super Olympians.

The trainer had steel-gray hair cut very short, laugh lines around her eyes, and she wore a sleeveless top that showed off really impressive arms for a middle-aged woman.

“So you’re a teenager. A B-rank. And a Rabbit!” she said as soon as they’d closed the door. “Sounds like a fun challenge. What are your goals?”

“I want to be less killable,” said Alden.

Bobby laughed and settled into a chair across from him. “Okay.”

“I think that I’ll be attending a hero program here in Apex in a couple of months. I want to be able to keep up with—”

Bobby shook her head.

“No?”

“Keeping up isn’t going to be your thing. Physically. For a hero program. Unless you somehow out-level the other kids so fast that the government wants to stick you in a lab and research you. You’re a non-physical, skills-based class. It’s superhuman in a different way. Just own it.”

“Right. I guess I should have said I want…to suck as little as possible?”

“Let’s reframe that as something more positive!” she said, punching the air with a fist. “You want to be the best version of yourself!”

“That sounds good.”

She grinned. “You sent me your stats, and I had a look this morning. And you picked me. I assume you’re thinking you want to lean toward agility training with a side of speed?”

“It seems like the practical choice. And I like the way the stats feel. I do need to be able to pick up and carry heavy things for the most obvious use of my skill though…”

“How heavy?”

“An adult person.”

“Oh. Not heavy at all.”

“Two adult people?”

“Sounds awkward. But still not that heavy. You’re talking about doing it for hero work right? Rescue?”

Alden nodded.

“Then you’re looking at a minimum of six years down the road. More likely eight. If you’re serious about a hero program, and you perform well enough to stay in one all the way through college, then you should be able to reach that goal even if you aren’t focusing primarily on strength enhancement. We’ve got a few Rabbits around here. It feels good to be fit no matter what your job is. The ones that get up into the higher levels and don’t spend it all on being smart and pretty are strong enough to do what you’re talking about.”

Alden smiled. “That’s actually a relief to hear. I just walked past a few people casually bicep curling my bodyweight, and I was feeling concerned.”

She laughed. “No sweat…actually, lots of sweat. But no worries. Most of the people here are mid-career heroes, athletes, or muscle heads. You don’t need to compare yourself to them yet. You’re probably not quite through growing in the normal way at this point, and you’ve only just gotten started on growing in the Avowed way.”

They talked more about his wants and needs, discussed possible routines, and toured the facilities together. Next, while Bobby was putting together a schedule for him to follow, he headed over to the medical part of the medical center. This place was qualified to do the entrance physical Celena North required to start your application process.

It started out easily enough. He stood in a high-tech tube that scanned him for a long time. He’d barely held back a protest when the doctor told him it used some magic. But it turned out there was nothing to worry about. It must have been interacting only with his flesh, not his authority, so it was completely painless.

After that, he had to run on a treadmill and breathe into a mask. Reflex checks. Vision test. Hearing test. Blood draws.

I hope Gorgon liked the new crickets I sent him. He had paid Jeremy to pay a courier to have them delivered to the consulate a few nights ago along with a bunch of snacks and magazines.

Maybe it was just paranoia, but Alden didn’t like the idea of leaving much of a communication trail between him and the alien prisoner now that he was an Avowed. The Artonans could have killed Gorgon for whatever crime he’d committed, or they could have stuck him in a deep dark pit where nobody could reach him. But they hadn’t. So it was probably no big deal to them if Avowed wanted to hang out with him.

But…better safe than sorry for both of them.

When all the tests were finally over, he drank a peanut butter banana smoothie from the “free” place that was totally not free since it was covered by the exorbitant membership fee. The doctor examining his info scratched his head, adjusted his glasses, and finally said, “Obviously you can build more muscle and increase your endurance if you want. And you’re sleep-deprived. That’s normal for new Avowed. Big life changes make it hard to rest. But this scanner does some esoteric tests…I think you’re one of the healthiest people I’ve ever seen in my career. And I see a lot of healthy people.”

“I got healed recently. For a week straight.” He hadn’t had an eye exam since he was in middle school, but he was pretty sure his vision hadn’t been 20/10 before Rrorro got hold of him.

“By who?”

“An icorlax.”

“The feathery aliens.”

“Yes.”

“How did you even meet one of those?” the doctor muttered. “Anyway, you’ll need to sign some consent forms for me to send your info to CNH, and then you’re good to go.”

They gave him a customized diet plan to go with his new workout regime before he left.

This is the worst, he thought as he read through it on the car ride back to F-city. Actually feeding myself this way will take over my whole life.

He wondered how much the rest of the dorm would resent him if he hired Natalie to be his full-time meal prep person. She didn’t yet have the nutrition skill package, but she could follow the guidelines here. Maybe she could find a way to make consuming this many macro-perfect salads feel like less of a punishment.

Better do it if I’m ever going to. A couple of years from now humans aren’t going to be able to afford her help.

He had the cab put him out by another bike rental spot so he could ride back to the dorms and see some new parts of the island. He was adjusting the height of the bike seat when he suddenly felt a poke against his authority.

It happened sometimes. It was such a mild sensation that he was pretty sure it would be beneath his notice if he wasn’t still smarting from the affixation.

Someone just targeted me.

He’d figured out what that specific poking sensation was thanks to the other Rabbits. A lot of their skills targeted the person they were helping in order to customize services. Like the hair cutting. Other Avowed seemed to do it regularly just out of idle curiosity. Especially teens. It was concerning when you knew they had an offensive power set, so they had to be targeting you with something that would hurt you if they actually used it…but Alden had grown accustomed to it.

They were just playing around with their new talents. Practicing. They didn’t know he could feel it because they couldn’t, so it wouldn’t be fair for him to take offense.

No big deal, he reminded himself, just the authoritative equivalent of someone taking a closer look at you than normal.

Then, all of the sudden, Alden’s mind smoothed out. The gremlin, who hadn’t made a peep since Moon Thegund, noticeably relaxed a little.

Oh hey, dude. Nice to know you’re still there. You…wait…that was my Peace of Mind blowback.

The good kind of blowback. The positive half of the extra wordchain sacrifice he’d made to scare himself into moving faster on his death run had just come due. He’d been hoping to save it until he was having a really bad night, so he could claim a little sleep with it. Maybe before one of the CNH interviews that were coming up, to make sure he didn’t look so much like a zombie.

Shit.

Even with the minor wordchain easing his worries, Alden was a little upset. Sleep and anxiety-reduction were such precious resources right now. He hadn’t meant to let the chain snap back on him. I didn’t think it had been too long. I should have spent it before now. I don’t need to be calm for a bike ride in the middle of the afternoon.

Annoyed with himself, he finished adjusting the seat and looked toward the street he was about to cross. A few cars and a lot of mopeds and motorcycles were waiting at the light. And there, across the street, drinking a boba tea was a girl he recognized. She was talking to one of the minidrone cameras some Avowed used to record social media posts. Shoulder-length brown hair, perfectly fitted pink argyle sweater and a matching skirt, loafers and a pearl anklet.

Hazel Velra.

She wasn’t looking at him, but Alden wasn’t stupid.

Someone had targeted him. His wordchain had blown. There was the supposedly-genius Chainer across the street. She had an unknown power set because the Velras didn’t like to share info about their toys. But Alden knew Hazel could do something like what the gremlin did at least. Better than the gremlin really. She’d said she could naturally sense wordchain repercussions. Even before she affixed.

He didn’t know what that meant. It wasn’t like authority sense, probably. Because his own didn’t help him out with wordchains much as far as he could tell. Something else. Psychic? Karma sensitive?

Whatever.

She did this, didn’t she? he demanded of the gremlin.

Of course this wasn’t the kind of question the gremlin would answer. It was just purring to itself because whatever ancient alien debt ledger it kept was now all clean and balanced by its standards. It didn’t care how the balancing had happened.

Alden gripped the bike’s handlebar and stood there watching Hazel’s hair whip around her face as the breeze picked up. He briefly considered the likelihood that the chain coming due was just a coincidence. Then, for a slightly longer time, he considered the possibility that she might have been trying to be nice to him in some misguided way.

He discarded both.

Only an absolute idiot would think it was helpful to call in someone else’s wordchain debt without asking them. Maybe unevenness annoyed her, and she didn’t mind screwing over other people to deal with it. Maybe it was just petty meanness.

She can get away with it because nobody else is going to know they were targeted right before it happened.

He probably wouldn’t have noticed himself if he wasn’t so damn oversensitive right now.

And here I was thinking I was a little bit of a jerk for disliking her when we met last time. He kicked off and pedaled across the street ahead of a crowd of pedestrians.

He was planning to ignore her. It seemed like the best course of action. But she was standing by the bike path that led to intake, and as he turned onto it, she looked up. She smiled and waved.

“Alden!” she called. “Hi! I heard you were back!”

Probably she expected him to stop. But he didn’t trust himself to say anything. He tried for a polite smile and a wave and pedaled right past her.

He didn’t look back.

It’s not a big deal. Nothing to stress over.

He let it go.

*********

The peace of mind wore off around eight o’clock at night. Alden had managed to get in a solid hour of focused studying with his auriad book before it happened.

Now, he was deeply pissed off.

He’d already showered, but he went to the non-luxury gym on the top floor of his apartment building and tried to blow off steam on an exercise bike.

He was going to start actual workouts with someone who’d be focusing on helping him with balancing his training and teaching him proper form tomorrow. He didn’t need to be wearing himself out tonight. But it was either this or calling Hazel Velra and cussing her out.

That seemed like a bad idea on multiple levels.

Calm down, he told himself while he pedaled. The screen on the front of the bike showed a curving, hilly road somewhere in Germany. It’s not a big deal. You’re not hurt. You haven’t lost anything huge. Someone was just a little mean to you. You don’t have to be so sensitive about it.

It was just that the meanness in this case was so uncalled for.

What had he ever done to Hazel? He’d given her Chainer. There was no reason for her to be mad at him. Who just saw some near-stranger minding his own business across the street and thought, “You know what? I’m going to mess up his day because I can?”

Sociopaths.

Maybe that was too harsh.

But he was still mad, so he kept pedaling. He’d switch to the rowing machine if he had to.

If I burn off the rage and exhaust myself maybe I’ll be able to sleep.

There were only a couple other people in the gym tonight. The Adjuster speccing himself for fire spells and planning to head to the Li Jean program soon was trying to figure out one of the weight machines. And there was a heavy-set girl jogging on a treadmill. They both had earbuds.

Music would make this better.

Alden had always liked having music. He didn’t have to drown out the tinnitus anymore, but a really good set of headphones and some earbuds would be nice. He added those onto his mental list under the gym shirt. And he did think a laptop was going to be a necessity.

Maybe he could buy enough stuff he actually wanted or needed to participate in the Spree without being a spendy jerk. He did get what the other Rabbits were going for, and he understood why they were excited about showing off their cool thing just like the other classes did. But it was still kind of…

I could just wear a sticker on my forehead that says I hired Natalie to cook for me.

That was the real power move. She’d thought he was joking when he knocked on her door and asked what it would cost to have her supply him with every meal, snack, and beverage for the next few weeks.

“No, Natalie,” he’d kept saying, “for real.”

He knew she’d been charging people something like fifty argold a plate. Her meals weren’t just meals, they were magical experiences. He’d tried to explain that that was fine. He would figure out his own food when he moved out of intake and into the student dorms at CNH. For now, though, he had a schedule with twenty different things to do on it every day, and he didn’t see how he was going to get through it if he also had to precisely weigh out servings of walnuts and scoops of pea protein powder before he put them in his mouth.

His call notification flashed. Subtle brown. It was the color he’d assigned to everyone who wasn’t on one of his lists. For total strangers.

“Who is it?” he panted.

[Video call from Twenty-seven Hundred and Sixty-third General Evul-art’h, Artona I. Connection fee waived.]

Alden almost fell off the exercise bike.

“What?!” he said, so loudly that the boy on the weight machine turned to look at him.

What did I do wrong? Who is Evul-art’h? Why are they calling me? I’m on leave.

He immediately thought of several reasons for the Artonans to be mad at him. Blowing up the lab was number one on the list. Corrupting Kibby with his human ways. Having weird powers from an alien who was rumored to be imprisoned for murder. Stealing an auriad. Stealing a leaf from the forest of trees that ate knights and using it as a bookmark. Being in the forest of trees that ate knights. Knowing about the forest of tress that ate knights. Wandering around the Primary’s house without permission.

Wow, the list is so long when I think of it all that way.

At least it was an art’h. A knight art’h judging by the System’s use of the word “General.” Intensity Level 99.9 for sure, but so far none of the art’h’s had seemed hostile to Alden.

They might change their mind about that if you leave their calls hanging while you have a pointless panic spiral.

“Answer call. Obviously.” He was shocked that a call from someone ranked that highly didn’t just automatically connect regardless of where the recipient was or what they were doing.

A young-looking Artonan woman appeared on the screen. She was lounging on colorful cushions in a deeply recessed bay window that looked out over a very familiar forest. She had short dark hair and pale pink eyes. It made for a startling look, but Alden was more distracted by the fact that she was smoking some kind of charcoal-gray cigar.

“Hey!” she said in Artonan, blowing a bright blue smoke ring. “Who are you?”

Not an interface to interface call, he realized in surprise. She was holding a tablet. It wobbled a little when she adjusted her seat.

“I’m Alden Thorn? Hi.”

Could wizards butt dial people through the System? It seemed pretty unlikely.

“Yeah…mmmm…is my little brother <<taking advantage>> of you somehow?”

Alden climbed off the exercise bike and started heading back to his room. Even just his half of this convo was bound to sound weird to passerby.

“Is your little brother Stuart?”

“That’s him.” She wriggled on top of her pile of cushions and smashed one with an elbow. “Is he bothering you? Is he being odd? Do you feel inappropriately treated?”

Alden pressed the button for the elevator. “No? Is this because I sent him a list of links to things on the human internet?”

Baby pandas sneezing had seemed safe, but Alden had never heard back from the Primary’s son.

“Should I apologize, or…?”

“That depends,” said Evul-art’h, twirling her cigar between her fingers. “Are you taking advantage of Stu-art’h somehow?”

“I don’t think so? I’m not trying to.”

The elevator was never coming, was it? He was going to be stuck out here having this unsettling convo in the hall.

“So…why did you contact him?”

“To be friendly,” Alden said.

“That’s it?”

“Yes?”

She nodded. “So you want to be friendly. He wants to be friendly. Nobody seems like a victim to me. <<I’m cool with it.>>”

The elevator doors opened, and he hurried inside and pushed the button for the ninth floor.

“Stu,” the Artonan woman said, abusing her cushions with an elbow again, “I guess you are right. A human does want to talk to you.”

She sat up suddenly, and Stuart scrambled out from under the pile of cushions she’d been smashing all this time. He was purple-faced and rumpled. He looked mad and embarrassed, and he started flailing for the tablet right away.

It didn’t seem to be going well for him at all. His sister looked completely immovable and calm while he tried to pry it away from her.

Alden had a weird visual of his fingers scrabbling at the screen.

He watched the scene with wide eyes while a Meister carrying some alien thing that looked like a four-foot-long corkscrew joined him in the elevator.

“Give me that!” Stuart said, batting away at his sister’s head uselessly.

“He really is sweaty.” Evul-art’h blew more smoke and examined Alden. “I heard humans were always sweaty. I haven’t met many.”

“Humans aren’t always sweaty,” Alden said. “I’ve been exercising.”

The Meister with the corkscrew gave him a look.

“Evul, when I asked you for help, I did not think you would treat this like a joke!”

“I like exercise, too,” the woman said. “Sometimes I go and hit things just to watch them vaporize.”

“EVUL!”

Alden winced. Stu-art’h had hit that special, glass-shattering pitch that Artonans seemed to reserve for when they were extra upset or talking to grivecks.

“Baby Stu!” said Evul-art’h, laughing. “Did you just <<shrill>> at me?”

He looked mortified.

“If you want it that badly, little brother, you can have it,” she said sweetly, handing him the tablet.

Stuart snatched it from her and fled the room. Alden saw a familiar hallway, and then the Artonan boy flung himself through the door into his own bedroom and slid it shut behind him. He straightened his shirt, his hair, and his face so fast that it looked almost like a magic trick.

“Hello, Alden,” he said, in a calm and collected voice. “I am sorry it took so long to respond to your message.”