199

    ******

    by 8:14 on thursday morning, alden was dressed (school uniform—on), educated (science lectures—viewed), and organized (organizational software with multiplanetary calendaring—downloaded.)

    he’d woken up in the mood for maximum efficiency. it was an urge he knew was driven by yesterday’s realizations that he couldn’t do everything he cared about and that he wouldn’t be putting any significant amount of effort into impressing baxter washington and the chicago superheroes. but it seemed like a useful urge, so he was welcoming it.

    currently, he was sitting at one of the tables on the roof of the forthright building, enjoying the sun and a bowl of sweet potato breakfast hash he’d gotten from the cafeteria, since haoyu hadn’t made oatmeal this morning. he was keeping the bowl preserved on his lap or in one hand while he worked on his laptop, setting up his new calendar to display times of day for leafsong and vethedya as well as anesidora. he’d just figure rapport i time based on vethedya when he glanced at it. if someone ever stole or hacked his laptop, he didn’t want them to see entries like “wandering around the primary’s home right here in the privately governed territory.”

    visits to stuart or yenu-pezth would just be labeled “artona i”.

    ooo...it does weather forecasts! it looked like stuart was having a beautiful morning that would have felt like a hot tub to alden, assuminghe was at leafsong right now instead of on votary duty for his cousin.

    alden closed the forecast and unpreserved the hash so that he could take a couple of bites. it was just as fresh as when he’d picked it up more than half an hour ago. the bearer of all burdens, keeper of hot potatoes, and preventer of wilted cilantro.

    keeper of hot potatoes was amusing to him, so he clicked on the logogram for ryeh-b’t at the bottom right corner of the calendar. the dates slid aside to reveal a character profile. so far, it just had his name and class on it, but if he’d been so inclined, he could have turned the animated character that would act out events he put on the calendar into his lookalike.

    when he’d gotten out of bed this morning, he’d wanted to make himself something like the schedules neha had given him in intake. typing, “how do busy avowed manage their schedules?” into the search bubble had landed him on the trime account of a local rabbit and wright couple who were anesidoran lifestyle bloggers. they said every planet-hopping avowed needed this software, and alden had clicked the link and bought it with only a passing thought that it was unusual how all the avowed testimonials on the website mentioned its realism.

    he’d been confused when he opened it and it asked him how many characters he wanted to make schedules for and what their classes were. despite his rush to become more organized immediately, he’d had to take a few minutes to return to the internet and figure out that yes, he had bought the right thing, and yes, lots of avowed really did use it to plan their lives.

    they just weren’t the main users of the software. ordinary humans who liked roleplaying as superhumans were.

    alden didn’t quite know what to make of that, but he couldn’t deny that the product was thorough. it came with a map of anesidora, and changing your character’s foundation points and talents would alter the travel time to different destinations. he typed keeper of hot potatoes in as his first skill and told the software it gave him the ability to fly, then he input a maximum speed.

    “do i have my license yet?” the generic teen boy character asked. “i’ll need a license to fly that fast. should i add safe flight training and testing to my schedule?”

    “i have a special circumstances cookie license, so it’s fine,” alden murmured, selecting the “fully licensed” option from a list. when he went back to the calendar, the travel time between campus and north of north had been reduced automatically.

    “thisis nice.”

    he finished filling out the next few days and then stared at what he’d made. is it a little overboard?

    according to his plan, he had to start doing homework soon, and the next time he’d be able to do something just for fun was...unlisted. sometime after he’d resolved his nightmare to his satisfaction, which could be as early as tuesday if he was very amazing and sure of himself and ready for the healer to implant new dreams as soon as he saw her again. or as far away as who knew when?

    today, he had fifteen minutes of free time, and they were right now.

    tomorrow wasn’t quite as long because he didn’t have late night training with instructor waker, but he had still packed every minute he could with productivity. and saturday called for him to alternate hologram practice at north of north with spellbook reading, thegund planning, fruit buying, and wordchain training with lute if lute was up for it. he hoped to head to rapport i either late saturday or early sunday because sunday was also the first day of stuart’s weekend, and that meant there was a good chance they’d be able to hang out together for at least part of the day.

    and then it’s school on monday, gym, back to the rapport for a meeting with healer yenu...in the middle of the night according to my internal clock.

    it’s a lot, but i can do this. look how much i’m going to accomplish!

    his computer tinkled at him, and the keeper of hot potatoes appeared in a pop-up window. he was stepping into an animated version of the forthright building. “it’s almost time for: reading assignment intro to other worlds! i’m doing that at the forthright building at 8:55 am.”

    “we are going to accomplish great things together. i can tell.”

    ******

    alden did homework, made comments of debatable depth in engaging with the unexpected, spent an hour fending off a hologram of a horse at north of north, then spent thirty minutes in the recovery sauna while he answered messages and tried not to be distracted by his own curiosity about why an evil horse hologram had been so readily available.

    [mr washington,

    thank you for reaching out on behalf of the city and the heroes. of course i would be happy to see chicago again. if we can work around my schedule...]

    he reread the email when he’d finished it. telling the guy he was busy and his schedule would have to be worked around shouldn’t have felt bold or rude, but it kind of did.

    it’s just the truth. i want what he’s offering but not enough to drop everything for it.

    he sent the message, then moved along.

    natalie wants to hang out this weekend.

    alden frowned at her text. he’d only allotted himself thirty minutes for his saturday lunch break. but natalie had given him a turkey, and he had said he was interested in seeing the drudgery place with her. next weekend could look like anything, but the weekend after next was almost definitely going to be spent on artona i, since that had been the date of his original first planned visit to the rapport.

    he thought about the problem while he showered off for exactly five minutes, as demanded by the schedule, and while he flew to the forthright building on the nonagon. his intro to other worlds teacher was busy talking to a student from the last class, so that gave him time to rearrange his saturday plans on the calendar.

    aha! there are extra minutes here. if i eat breakfast while i fly to north of north and have lute train me over supper...

    he clicked away at it, tightening it up and finding ways to multitask until a whole hour and forty-seven minutes appeared.

    [hi, natalie! saturday would work for me. can i pick you up on esh-erdi’s nonagon at 11:35?]

    efficiency! yeah!

    he rewarded the organizer for its help by giving his little avatar green eyes.

    later, as he left the classroom, vandy caught him in the hall. she looked more animated and eager than usual, and he assumed she wanted to talk about what had happened in gym last night.

    “hey!” he said, stepping closer to one of the walls so that the river of uniformed teenagers could more easily flow past them. “it was so great of your team to come help against instructor klein last night. having three extra fighters as strong as you guys really made it all possi—”

    “you were using at the start of class!”

    “yes. but i stopped when instructor—”

    “i use it, too!” vandy said, putting a hand to her chest. “if you link your organizer to your trime, then people can follow your schedule and see exactly where you’re supposed to be on the map.”

    “i saw that option. don’t worry; i made sure not to check it. thanks for the warning, though.”

    vandy’s lips pursed. “yes. you’re welcome...for the warning...”

    “i’ve got to go,” said alden. “i’m supposed to be back at the dorm by 2:51.”

    ******

    “hot potatoes can do it all,” alden said, yanking open the fridge.

    “hot potatoes is a mental performance athlete you invented, and he lives in a world where nothing ever interrupts him.”

    “i’m pretty sure i’m just having a rough start, and tomorrow the schedule will work.”

    “are you two speaking in code on purpose?” lexi asked. “should you be mental texting about whatever this scheme is instead?”

    he was standing in the middle of the kitchen with a line of marshmallows on the floor in front of him, one hand clenched by his side while the other gripped writher’s handle. the chain whip was inching toward the nearest marshmallow almost shyly.

    “alden decided to cram twelve hours of work into seven this afternoon,” lute said. “that’s what i’ve gathered from the things he says every time he emerges from his room. it sounds to me like he has to eat dinner on the toilet while he plots world domination if he wants to get back on track.”

    “i made vegan american food,” haoyu announced, coming down the hall damp-haired from his bath. “but you can eat it whenever or save it if you want.”

    “vegan american food?”

    “yes. i said i’d cook a bunch of food you could eat, remember? but you haven’t been here regularly, and then we had all the thanksgiving things to finish.”

    alden’s memory was fried after spending all afternoon and evening trying to get everything on his list done. dredging up the promise haoyu was talking about took him a while.

    when he managed to send me the long message during the disaster. he apologized because he was worried he’d been rude on the bus and said he’d cook for me.

    “i do remember. what are we having?”

    “sloppy joes. but with veggie stuff instead of beef.” haoyu stepped over the line of marshmallows, and went to look in his cooker. “do you like it?”

    “i can’t actually recall the last time i had one. but yeah. i do.”

    so while his avatar continued to race ahead of him, he ate sloppy joes with his roommates.

    unlike certain other joes, they weren’t at all disappointing.

    ******

    alden was in the mpe gym, in his suit, by 9:45 pm. he wouldn’t have the whole floor to himself for his private lesson; it was currently sectioned off into eight large blocks, and four of them were already in use, since the barriers had been made opaque to provide the occupants with some privacy.

    big snake was there early, too, waiting in one of the corner blocks with his arms akimbo in a pose that was reminiscent of some of his more memorable superhero imagery.

    if he just had on his cowboy boots...

    i hope this all goes well.

    “hi, instructor waker,” he said when he reached the man. “thanks for donating time tonight.”

    “thank you! think of how embarrassin’ it would have been if i’d volunteered and none of my students wanted to see my face outside of class.”

    “i don’t think that would happen. i brought you something.”

    “what’s this now?” big snake asked as alden presented him with a yogurt container full of hot leftovers and a hamburger bun in cling wrap.

    “it’s from haoyu. he thought you might like it. he has a slow cooker.”

    lexi had argued that giving a teacher a cup of sandwich filling was odd. haoyu had countered that lots of people gave teachers homemade sweets, so why wouldn’t homemade savories be welcome, too?

    “it’s a vegan sloppy joe,” alden said.

    big snake was already pouring it onto the bun, which looked snack-sized in his hand. he took a big bite out of it and chewed. “that’s the kind of pre-workout snack you want, isn’t it?” he said after he’d swallowed. “since you’re here early, and i’m here early, let’s talk for a minute.”

    alden nodded. a few seconds later the walls of their block went opaque.

    “no sound in or out,” said the instructor, nodding at the nearest wall of the spacious rectangular block. “and we can have drones film or not depending on what you want. some people don’t like ‘em.”

    he took another huge bite and gulped it down. “i’ve got lots to say, and there’s plenty i can teach. but we’ve only got a couple of hours here, so what are you hopin’ we’ll do with the time you’ve earned?”

    it was actually such a difficult question. alden had spent a significant portion of his evening thinking it through. i need help with the bokabv of course, had been his first thought, but the more he tried to figure out the specifics of what he’d ask instructor waker for, the more he realized he was doing a decent job already of prepping for the most obvious stuff. getting his shield in front of a charging foe was something he could practice for hours at north of north if he wanted; the mpe gym would be better, but not so much better that he needed that to be the main thing they did tonight.

    “there have been a few times recently when i’ve felt like i was getting closer to some important realizations about my skill, or maybe just like i was more in synch with it. i thought it would be...”

    the word i’m looking for definitely isn’t fun.

    “i thought it would be valuable to try to repeat some of those moments here in the gym. i don’t really expect to have a breakthrough in a single night, but it would good to dig into those situations a little more and there’s not time in regular class.”

    “yeahhh,” said the instructor, smiling, “you want to try the catchin’ again! eyes closed! some more dangerous projectiles than last time?”

    “i would like to do that.”

    “and maybe a little somethin’ like last night? torsten thought you might have had a good moment there when he hit you with the crate. we should save heavy hits on your skill for the end, though, so we don’t fatigue you too much.”

    “that would be good, too.”

    “got somethin’ else?”

    alden swallowed. “there was this small, near-drowning incident during the flood? and i’m pretty sure the dueling block can get pitch black, and the suit can make me feel like i can’t breathe, and i could hold one of those realistic dummies we have in the storage room and you could, like, toss me around a little and rip it out of my arms while i’m trying to save it?”

    big snake was still smiling.

    that’s a good sign.

    “could we try that once?”

    “hell no,” big snake said. “i’m gonna go get us some tennis balls.”

    ******