THREE: 90 seconds

THREE: 90 seconds

Time passed. Things changed.

Aldens wayward aunt, Connie, was finally located by social services, and the two of them became a family. Their relationship was loving, but far less functional and sheltering than the one hed had with his parents. Aunt Connie had, as one of Aldens elementary school teachers very kindly put it, an unconventional parenting style.

When he was eleven, his baseball coach, chewing an enormous wad of gum behind the dugout after a game one day, was less discreet. Listen, Alden, he said around noisy smacking sounds. Youve got your head straight on your shoulders, so Ill just tell you. Its not right that you have to be the grown-up in the relationship. That womans got nuts loose in her brain and a bunch of squirrels chasing after them.

Alden had frowned and looked down to the place where his shoe was scuffing a small divot into the clay. He didn't like people badmouthing his aunt, but it wasn't easy to argue with them. Shell come pick me up eventually. You dont have to wait with me.

Kid, she left you here until after the rec department closed last game. Dont think I didnt hear about it.

Alden wondered if he should mention that he'd used his aunt's name and id number to put an app on his phone so that he could use the adults-only e-scooter rentals around the city when he really needed to. But maybe that would only prove his coach's point.

So they waited together, and she did come. Only an hour late that afternoon, with an excuse about traffic and six pints of melted ice cream in the backseat of the car.

It was fine.

They dumped the ice cream and bought more for dinner. Then some of Aunt Connies friends from the salon where she was working at the moment came over to their house with pizza and beer and loud music. Alden disappeared to his room after the impromptu party became uncomfortably messy.

He slapped on his favorite set of headphones and played games on his computer for a while. Then, he did his homework.

It was just readinga simplified history of the Systems arrival and the ways it had changed Earth. There wasnt much new information in it.

The Artonans unleashed the System on Earth, as they had on many other planets in the past. In exchange for powers, arcane knowledge, and tech, humans had to agree to help the Artonans when they were called upon. Plenty of humans took them up on the offer, and the first superhumans were created.

That was seventy years ago, in the early 1960s, and almost everyone agreed it had been a good deal for humanity. Without the Artonans, most people thought that Earth might not even have internet or cell phones. And when heroes were summoned by Earths alien benefactors, the Artonans were fair in their dealings. Sometimes they assigned difficult missions, but they always offered rewards equal to the task given.

Alden had already known all of this. At the end of the assignment, his online textbook included a poll for all its readers asking if youd like to have powers or not. He clicked yes after only a moments hesitation.

Youre in the majority! the screen announced. 96% of the students reading this chapter also said they would like to have powers.

Youre all super brave. Being a hero is an important job.

But did you know that only 0.07% of the people on Earth will be offered access to the Interdimensional Warriors Contract? (Reminder: thats the proper name for the System. It might show up on a quiz.)

Thats around 7.6 million superhumans. Its a big-sounding number, but it means that more than ten and a half billion people who would like to have super powers will never even get the chance.

Thats a lot of disappointed people, Alden thought, feeling more than a little disappointed himself.

He answered a few reading comprehension questions, earning a 10/10 and a burst of fireworks across the screen.

At midnight, the house was still noisy, so he gave up on the idea of sleeping. He sneaked into the den to grab a cold slice of pizza, then settled back at his desk for his on-again off-again hobby. Researching the accident.

Three years dulled things, but on nights like this, he missed his parents acutely. Digging into their deaths was a painful compulsion. Superheroes were a source of fascination for most people96% of them apparentlyso there was plenty of information.

Alden was beginning to learn how to sort fact from fiction. It helped that Hannah hadnt lied to him that day in the hospital. The things shed told him were a guideline that helped him find the other pieces of the story.

The pieces that were uglier.

For example, there were pictures of some of the Body Drainers victims. They looked even more dead than dead bodies usually did. They were twisted up and gruesome. The only photographs of Body Drainer were nice ones, though school pictures showing a smiling, pale boy in a shirt and tie.

Superhumans usually came into their powers between fifteen and seventeen. He was a senior in high school when he killed twenty-seven people. Most of the deaths happened at the nightclub. But there were a few before that. And three while the heroes were in pursuit.

There were either none after he was cornered in the building across the street from Aldens bedroom, or two. It depended on how you looked at it. Some websites counted Aldens parents among Body Drainers victims. Others listed them as bystanders. One wrote their names out Richard and Leah Thornand placed them beside the words collateral damage.

A couple of superhuman-hate sites even listed them as victims of Arjun Thomas and Hannah Elber. Like theyd killed them on purpose.

You just know heroes do shit like this all the time when theyre not on camera, a user named wakeuptheresbacon said. Easy way to hide a couple of murders. Like Oops. It was an accident while I was fighting crime. Ive thought about it a lot before. And look at those stupid suckers. They were definitely hero lovers. The lady worked at a House of Healing.

Alden had seen this comment before several times. He kept coming back to this site to stare at it even though it made him furious.

He saw broken glass. He reached for Wummy. There was wind in the room. The world exploded.

It could have been ninety seconds, he thought. Isnt that a long time?

Alden felt his perception shifting again. He decided that he had to know. He shut down his computer and turned off his lights. He grabbed his phone and climbed into bed.

This is so mean. And embarrassing. He found the phones stopwatch feature and let his thumb hover over the START/STOP button. Carefully hiding the phone and his hand under his sheets, he took a deep breath and pressed the button.

The instant he felt a haptic twitch from the phone, he screamed at the top of his lungs. AUNT CONNIE!

One Mississippi, he thought. Two Mississippi.

HELP! he screamed. AUNT CONNIE! AUNT CON

There was a sound like an elephant barging through the den. A crash. Swearing from one of the guests. Something like a pizza box hitting the floor.

Then Aldens aunt burst into his room. Her bleached hair was wild around her face. Shed flung the door open so hard it ricocheted off the wall. Her eyes were wide.

Alden! she shouted, leaping over his backpack to grab him. Alden, baby! Whats wrong?!

So forceful was the response that he almost forgot to hit the stopwatchs button. Maybe I didnt have to scream quite that loud?

II think I had a bad dream."

Jos and Rhonda from the salon were both staring at him through the bedroom door. He felt his face heat.

His aunt rocked back and forth, still clutching him to her. Its all right, she murmured. Its all right. Ive got you.

Hidden under the sheets, the clock had stopped at eight seconds.

#

It took a long while for Alden to convince his aunt he was fine. And that he didnt need her to sleep with him and scare the monsters away like he was a little kid.

He must not have done a great job of it, though. When the bus dropped him off after school the next day, he found that his room smelled like someone had dumped a truckload of apple pie filling into it. He looked around and found the culprit quickly; it was a Christmas-themed fragrance dispenser, plugged into the wall and glowing hot pink.

I guess she wanted me to have a nightlight.

He wrinkled his nose but left it plugged in to punish himself for scaring her and lying about why.

He dropped off his bag and headed to the kitchen. He had a couple of hours of privacy at least. He opened a pair of overstuffed drawers Aunt Connie called the Flat Stuff Place.

The drawers were, indeed, full of flat stuff. Takeout menus, recipes, random Tarot cards, matchbooks, I Voted stickers, old credit cards, brochures, birthday cards, random school assignments, and more.

Alden dug through it all, looking for something he had seen in one of the drawers before. It had been a long time ago, but that didnt matter. The flat stuff never got cleaned out. It only accumulated endlessly.

It took him almost twenty minutes, but he finally found it. It was a burgundy pamphlet describing the benefits of the dully-named Anesidora Compassion Fund.

It was a fund to take care of people whod been injured during superhuman incidents. Alden opened it up to find a bullet point list of benefits, some hed received himself.

Trauma counseling. The sorry-youre-an-orphan-now scholarship money.

There was even an annual Victims of Villains retreat at a campground in New England. He couldnt imagine a worse vacation, so hed refused when Aunt Connie suggested they should apply for it.

Alden wasnt interested in the pamphlet itself, but in the scrap of paper that was tucked inside it. There was a phone number and a message:

CALL ME IF YOU OR ALDEN EVER NEED ANYTHING

H.E.