179
******
At five o’clock in the morning on a Saturday, the school library was so quiet that Alden felt like he’d sneaked into the place instead of walking through the front doors. He saw only one woman on the ground floor, and she was staring sadly at a line of empty vending machines.
There were still plenty of oddities like that around; signs that something had gone wrong recently stuck out like sore thumbs in the middle of a world that was back to running smoothly in most ways. You could go to restaurants and movies, or you could hang out in potion saunas with knights. But one of the links in the chain that made these particular vending machines have snacks in them was obviously still broken—an absent employee, a teleportation restriction, all the food being funneled into the meals that the school was supplying for the temporary dome neighborhood.
Alden’s thoughts tried to turn to the interconnectedness of the people in the village and how the attitudes of the elder and younger brothers would apply to missing chips and sodas, but he managed to stop them. He was here on campus at the crack of dawn instead of enjoying one of his two available beds because the story about the croak had plunged into him too deep. And he believed the sediment it had stirred up when it hit the bottom was best left to settle without examination.
For the first time in weeks, his affixation had woken him.
Not nightmares about affixing, but the affixation itself. Himself. Even now, he had that vivid sense of being trapped, of struggling against himself, of straining for more space and freedom.
And it wasn’t helping that he was pissed off about it in such a weird way. Specifically, he was mad that being mad was putting a damper on how unforgettable his night had been. Watching Esh-erdi correct the scale of someone’s gokoratch whiteboard art, eating leftovers with him and Lexi and Haoyu, being told an Artonan children’s story with crazy sound effects and then letting himself be talked into belch-croaking as loud as he could at the stars of the southern hemisphere...
It was cool. It won’t stop being cool just because the aftereffect was stolen sleep.
At least his heightened fixation on affixation had reminded him that someone had recently asked for his opinion on that topic. Fortunately, the guy happened to be one of the earliest risers he knew.
“Hi, Jeffy,” Alden said, dropping his messenger bag on the conference table and taking in the sight of the Aqua Brute. Jeffy was sitting in front of a computer and drinking something called “Protein Attack.”
“Alden, you came!”
“Yeah, of course. I didn’t change my mind in the past twenty minutes. You know there are a ton of empty study rooms, right? This huge one we used for the team meeting is—”
“Ours,” said Jeffy, holding his hand up for a high five.
Alden snorted. “I’m good with that. So...you’re talking to people about talent selection. That’s smart, and I have time this morning.”
******
But maybe not enough time to understand this...what is he thinking?
He sat in the chair beside Jeffy, looking at the recommended talent builds some faculty member had made and helpfully linked to exciting reference materials that should have appealed to an S-rank Aqua Brute of a certain personality type. They could carry Jeffy through the next eight to ten years, with only minor tweaking along the way, if the System offered him what it usually did and if he progressed at a fast pace with no stalls.
The plans might have been leaning too optimistic, but they were all the more impressive because of that.
Enviro Brutes seemed to have it okay on the talent selection front. If the System was keeping tons of secrets about their spells and skills, it must have been happening at heights beyond the ones Jeffy was projected to reach in the next decade. All of the faculty recommendations, and most of the other talents Alden asked him to read aloud off his selection windows, sounded like they would do what any reasonable person would think the class should be able to do.
Aqua Brute is how you become Mr. Does it All in the Deep Water Guy.
In addition to the regular foundation point choices, the System was providing a limited list of Morphish abilities that would kick-in semiautomatically in response to Jeffy’s environment. A little like spell impressions moving a person’s hands and mouth for them, although the automorphs were said to benefit from regular activation.
Celena North didn’t want Jeffy getting fancy right now. He already had Sink and Surface. They expected him to continue leveling that and taking either automorphs or spell impressions that would let him fully leverage the skill. Basically, they wanted him to be able to safely sink even deeper, resurface even faster, and move through the water even more quickly than he already could. All while hauling stuff around with him.
Alden would have understood if Jeffy found the prospect of starting out that way boring, especially with some entirely new powers staring him in the face. But he didn’t even seem to like the version of superhuman that the plans were promising to turn him into in the far future.
Is he still hung-up on being a land hero? I thought he’d changed his mind about that with all the talk about the strength and wisdom of the ocean he was doing while he crushed me in gym.
And Jeffy was really bad at articulating what the issue was.
“How do you feel about what you had to do last week?” Alden asked, hoping to pin him down. “Being summoned into the water when it was trying to eat whole cities—that must have been crazy for you.”
The label Jeffy was peeling off the empty Protein Attack bottle stopped crinkling. “It was crazy! At first, when the System told me I was going to be summoned, I was worried. Because what if I messed up and somebody died? But then there were all these other Brutes and one Adjuster, and we were teamed up. All the people who saw us were really happy to see us. And Yesenia said I was learning the ropes fast, and...”
Okay, so he’s not on the verge of making a strange decision because he’s traumatized. He actually liked the disaster work.
Alden listened to him describe how awesome the older Avowed he’d met that night were while he skimmed the list of spell impressions Jeffy had said were available to him.
He paused on one the faculty hadn’t put on any of their plans even though it sounded interesting. It was for finding “oft-named” objects that were in the same body of water as the caster. While the remarkably specific spell was most obviously useful on Earth for locating ships, it sounded from the description like it could be used to locate any object that had its own unique-enough name.
It would be like a very restricted version of Roman Velra’s skill, and that skill is awesome.SkySea Guard could have really used this the other night, right?
As soon as that thought occurred to him, Alden typed the spell name into his laptop. “Jeffy! This spell impression is new. It’s not on the internet. The System must have started offering it just this week. Wow. The Artonans can roll one out fast when they want to.”
He was intrigued to see talent selection shifting in response to recent events. Affixation options appearing and disappearing happened, but having such an obvious explanation for why a new spell had been added was new to him. He wondered if it was a sign that the Triplanetary government was now especially concerned about the dangers of watercraft or if they were putting out a bunch of talents they thought their Avowed might appreciate after what they’d been through. As an apology or something.
Anesidora might have even asked for a spell like this and been granted it. I should see if there’s anything about that on the news sometime.
“I know. That spell wasn’t there when I had advisement,” Jeffy said, setting aside the bottle. “Do you think that means I have to let them advise me again?”
Alden sat back. “If you’re interested in taking the spell you could, but I don’t think you have to do anything. I am a little confused about what you want, though.”
Jeffy had added a plan of his own to the faculty’s. Not a ten-year one, just what he wanted to choose for this affixation. He thought he wanted more Strength, Speed, Agility...and another life jacket spell impression.
“It could be something else,” Jeffy said. He picked up the sheet of notebook paper he’d written his wishlist on, his fingers crumpling the edges. “But I think something like this is better. Only the teachers said no as soon as I showed it to them, in this really obvious way, like of course it was wrong. They were excited about their plans for me, and they had those videos of the other Aqua Brutes and the list of places and organizations that could benefit from me if I had different talents. They had all these facts. And I didn’t have any facts, so I didn’t know how to talk about any of it. Then, it was over.”
They saw what his idea was, thought he was a dumb kid, and steamrolled him.
On the very first day they’d met, Alden had assumed the faculty would try to talk Jeffy out of his then-goal of being a “building puncher.” Now that he knew the guy and he wasn’t freshly annoyed by him, he felt like a dick for not considering how a conflict between what Jeffy wanted and what the school thought he should want would actually affect him.
“Sometimes teachers are way too pushy accidentally,” said Alden. “They probably didn’t mean to pressure you...much. Can you explain what you’re thinking now? To me?”
“I still don’t have facts.”
Alden peered at him. “But you do know why you want what you want, right? It doesn’t have to be backed up by science or statistics, but you must have a reason. I’m not surprised you’re into the foundation points. Everyone knows you really like those. But why more life jackets?”
He was careful not to ask the question in a way that might sound derisive.
He lifted his hand like he was going to touch something on his interface, and Alden barely stopped himself from tackling him. He did stand up from his seat, shouting, “No! Whoa! No! Don’t take something as soon as I suggest it!”
Jeffy pulled his hand back, staring at him.
Alden’s heart was pounding. “You didn’t just...”
“I was answering a text message from Max.”
“Oh! Um...good. Sorry. You should do that.” He took a deep breath. “Just don’t rush your decision. Do you want me to help you make a list of more options? And then you can talk to people who aren’t me. Other Aqua Brutes. Max? Your grandparents. And make sure you tell them everything.”
Jeffy nodded.
Alden was trying to trust the nod. It was hard. “Actually, let’s make a list of the good, knowledgable people you’re going to talk to first. And then we’ll write down what you want to say to them.”
******
******
By late morning, Alden was feeling better. Helping Jeffy had been perfect for a reset, and he was looking forward to seeing Gustavo. Going shopping for the clothes he would wear to meet the healer was something he’d decided a couple of days ago that he should be excited about...so he was.
To make choices about my future and deal with whatever is coming my way, I need to be at my best. The mind healer will help me be at my best faster. Proper clothes will keep me from embarrassing myself or the art’hs in front of the healer.
Therefore, buying an outfit worthy of embroidering that commendation on is an important part of my choosing season.
Mentally framing it all that way made it seem like the massive questions ahead of him could be approached one millimeter at a time.
Listening to The Elder’s Croak was probably an important part of my choosing season, too.
He kept trying to think of more millimeter-sized goals until he was standing outside the shop Gus had said they would meet at. He wondered if the intake counselor had checked to make sure the place was still open for business after the floods. It was in a lucky pocket near Apex’s northern coast that hadn’t been inundated, just a couple of streets back from the water. But the curtains were shut over the window, and the door was locked.
It was called Needle & Wheedle, and there was no sign advertising it. A custom doorknob with the name on the front in raised letters was the only way Alden could be sure he was at the right spot. He poked around for a while, looking through the windows of a few other places on the street. There was a steakhouse, an attorney’s office, and a store that claimed to be the provider of the finest pocket knives in the world.
He sat on a bench across from Needle & Wheedle, in front of a white stuccoed building. Beside him, a post drop with a wraparound screen was playing silent footage of famous Avowed being epically photogenic. If he spoke politely to the mailbox and tried to target it repeatedly...well, that was nobody’s business but his own.
At exactly the scheduled time, his shopping partner pulled up in a zippy little rental vehicle that looked like an auto rickshaw trying to disguise itself as an apple.
“Hey!” said Alden, as soon as Gus had stepped out. “Thank you so much for helping me with this. You didn’t have to come in person, but it’s good to see you.”
> He shut the door of the rental. “These are all you! Of course I came. Gretchen, too, if we need her. Later. She’s visiting a friend.”
“I don’t need too much today,” Alden told him. “If we could just make sure I have a couple of very nice outfits, that will be a start.”
Gus laughed as if Alden had said something funny, then patted him on the arm.
“What?” Alden asked, smiling at the infectious laugh.
“You called me on Wednesday to say you’d be going to Artona I sometime next week. Not for work. Personal business. You need perfect clothes for this trip, you said. I thought, >” Gus was still laughing. “Thursday you call again and ask if I want to cook something because you are giving a Thanksgiving meal to every wizard at Matadero! So I’m in the kitchen, cooking and watching television, and there you are appearing on the news, flying around to host a party for Artonans. In a stained t-shirt.”
“I’d just spilled something on it! I did change out of that before the party.”
“So I think you do need much.”
“I swear I changed it.”
Gus led the way across the quiet street to the shop. The curtains were still closed.
“The door’s locked,” Alden told him. “I think maybe they’re not open this weekend. Because of everything. But I found the names of other places that sell clothes for—”
“By appointment only,” Gus said. “Don’t worry. I made you an appointment.”
Alden blinked. There’s such a thing as an appointment for clothes shopping?
Just before they reached the entrance, the door swung open. A tall, dark-skinned man wearing a pale blue striped jacket held it for them. A pair of steampunky-looking goggles were hanging from a strap around his neck. Just beyond him, a woman in a yellow sweater that hung down to her knees was pulling boxes and fabric swatches from a shelf.
“Hello, Gus,” said the man. Then he turned to Alden and looked him up and down. And up and down.
And a third time.
The woman was doing it, too.
“Welcome to Needle & Wheedle,” said the man.
“What name do you prefer?” the woman asked. “And would you like a coffee? Tuck makes the best pour-over.”
They make me coffee while I shop. And there are swatches.
“Just Alden is fine. Coffee would be nice.”
Their smiles were warm enough and their Appeal stats high enough that even all of the staring didn’t feel as invasive as it should have.
“This is where Rabbits who are frequent visitors to the Triplanets come when they need clothes,” said Gus.
Swatches, thought Alden.
“That’s us!” the woman said. “You’ll need to authorize the System to give us your measurements, but first, just have a seat. We’ll talk about what you want from your wardrobe for as long as it takes. You’re our one and only priority for today.”
These people are going to take a lot of money from me.
******