69.2

[Please read 69.1 first! It was posted just an hour and a half ago!]

[A/N: In other news, it turns out I'm incapable of editing in Patreon without clicking the Publish Now button. So some of you already got the email for this and read it. Thank goodness this one was already revised once before, and you didn't get to see my first-first draft where I leave gaps in the text sometimes and say all the weird things. Tried to get through the read-through as fast as possible so that spoilers wouldn't wind up in the comments on the last one. I hope I managed it.

Very sorry for the double notifications, everyone. I will avoid complicated things like...the internet...in the future.

No need to re-read if you happened to go through it all ready. The changes were all minor and cosmetic.]

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."

He’d gone through all the people she'd recommended 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 talent training with his physical training, or did he want to keep them both separate? Martial arts? Bodybuilding? Gymnastics?

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

He’d chosen the trainer he suspected Neha had known he would, and he'd 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. Bobby was a fifty-year-old, D-rank Agility Brute whose clientele were mostly off-duty heroes of the soft variety. She trained a lot of Adjusters and Shapers.

Her specialty was helping those who were less physically special. But she still worked at the fanciest gym in Apex. The monthly membership fee was so steep that Alden was considering wearing a t-shirt with the gym’s logo on it for Spree day just to make the other Rabbits happy. It was really close to the Celena North campus, too, so if he did get into school there, it would be convenient.

He turned his rental bike in at a drop-off, and took a cab into Apex. As they crossed the halfway point of the bridge, his Evac Priority card flashed briefly into view. 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 would 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, neatly trimmed lawns, and stone-filled meditation gardens. One of the buildings was a menacing structure made of concrete, and it 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.

Alden's building was the elegant glass one. Through the fourth floor windows, he could see happy 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-atomizing 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 examine 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 right up it in defiance of reason. And 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 pants introduced him to Bobby, who greeted him cheerfully and invited him into a cramped office filled with framed diplomas and pictures of super athletes.

The trainer had steel-gray hair cut very short, laugh lines around her eyes, and she wore a sleeveless top that showed off 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 want to increase my fitness. And I think that I’ll be attending a hero program here in Apex in a couple of months. I'd like 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 Rabbit. It's a non-physical, skills-based class. It’s superhuman in a different way, but it's still superhuman. 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!” Bobby punched the air with a fist. “You want to be the best version of yourself!”

Alden smiled. “That sounds good.”

She grinned back at him. “All right. You sent me your stats, and I had a look at them 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 do like the way the stats feel. I 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," said Alden.

“Oh. No problem. That's not heavy at all.”

Alden blinked. “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." She tapped a pen against the arm of her chair. "More likely eight to be honest. 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 much on magical 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…or, 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, and you’ve only just gotten started on growing in the Avowed way.”

They talked more about his wants, 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 more medical part of the medical center. This place was qualified to do the entrance physical Celena North required to start your application process.

It began easily enough. Alden stood in a high-tech tube that scanned him for several minutes. 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 while he breathed into a mask. Reflex checks. Vision test. Hearing test. Blood draws.

Blood draws reminded him of Gorgon.

I hope he 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 desk clerk 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…organ function, hormones, bone density...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 doctor stared at him. “The feathery aliens.”

“Yes.”

“How did you even meet one of those?” the man 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.”

Before he left, they gave him a customized diet plan to go with his new workout regime.

This is the worst, he thought as he read through it on the car ride back to F-city. Calories. Protein. Good fats. Eating windows. 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.

Alden 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 busy adjusting the height of the bike seat when he suddenly felt a small prod 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 type of poke 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 the person doing it 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. It's 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 there, dude. Nice to know you’re still around. You've been…wait…this is  my Peace of Mind blowback.

It was 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. Alden had been planning 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.

But I should have spent it before now. I don’t need to be calm for a bike ride in the middle of the afternoon.

Mildly annoyed with himself, and sure he was going to be more annoyed when the peace ended, he finished adjusting the bicycle 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 a little bit like what the gremlin did at least. Better than the gremlin maybe. 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 attempting to be nice to him in some misguided way by evening out his mood.

He discarded both.

Only an absolute idiot would think it was helpful to call in someone else’s wordchain debt without asking them. If you were carrying it around, you were doing it for a reason.

Maybe unevenness annoyed Hazel, 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 some things done while it was active, including  a solid hour of focused studying with his auriad book.

But now, he was deeply pissed off.

He’d already showered, but he stomped up the stairs 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 would be  helping him balance 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. Won't have my nice peace of mind chain to help me so I may as well go for physical burnout.

There were only a couple other people in the gym tonight. The Adjuster who was 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 in an amused voice. “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, collected voice. “I am sorry it took so long to respond to your message.”

*********** CHARACTER NOTES ***************

Hazel Velra - Granddaughter of Aulia Velra. She was the reason Aulia cast the gloss over the family, in an effort to obtain the Chainer class before Hazel's affixation timer ran out. We last met her at Hannah's funeral, in Chapter 23.

Stu-art'h - Was not planning for his phone call with the human to start out this way. How did this happen?