Boot Up 1.4

I couldn’t sleep.

It was five something in the morning and I was still up and pacing across my room. I didn’t have far to go between my bed and the wall; there wasn’t much you could afford apartment-wise on the budget of a student.

My hands clenching and unclenching by my side, I gave up on my pacing and dropped back-first onto my bed.

The problem, of course, was what Professor Clark had said: join my academy, or else.

Oh, she didn’t use so many words, but the intent was pretty damned clear. If I was some wide-eyed, bushy-tailed sheep then I would probably have jumped on the opportunity. Heck, I was almost excited about it right now and that was the problem.

I did and didn’t want to go. My entire life was about doing my own thing and telling anyone that didn’t like it to shove off. Now I felt like the kid that got the golden wrapper. Yeah, sure, I’d get to visit the chocolate factory, but I was only going to see the inside of Willy Wonka's bedroom before he did kinky things to me.

Blinking a few times I ran over my own analogy and snorted. “You’re losing your mind, Richard,” I muttered.

See, if you’d asked me a year ago what it meant to be one of the Awakened, then I would have said that it was the mark of someone who was beyond normal. It was to be set aside from those around you, to be someone that had escaped mediocrity. You saw them on the news, standing tall and proud and kicking ass. Oh, sure, most of those you saw worked for one corp or another but they were treated like royalty, like a precious commodity. People bent over backwards to accommodate the Awakened. The best cars, the prettiest girls, the newest tech and clothes and weapons.

Then you had the government sponsored Awakened. They were no less famous, but more... militarized, a little less free for all that they could get away with more.

Had I had time to plan, to expect that I’d Awaken myself... well, I’d be halfway to South America by now, or maybe to the Nation of New California or one of the corporate city-states. I didn’t want to be a government sponsored dog.

On the other hand, places like the Academy were idolized. There weren’t many schools entirely dedicated to training Awakened, and most were heavily militarized. If I graduated then it’d be easy to find work doing... whatever I felt like doing. Hell, I could spend the rest of my life endorsing granny panties and I’d still make ten times the cash a salary-man could.

That little piece of me, the one that had never really grown up, was excited as hell. I’d get to explore a world that most people only dreamed of participating in.

On the other-other hand, the older, slightly wiser me, knew that it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. In fact, it smelled of corruption and polished bullshit. I was no tin-foil-hat wearing bastard, but I knew enough to see that the news wasn’t telling us everything. That the Insanity, or what little we were told about it, was far worse than it seemed at first glance.

I could still remember when I was a brat and the first city was walled off. Before that it had been little townships, or rougher areas in big cities that had gone Insane. Then it was some smaller city in Texas, another in California, then one of the Hawaiian islands. Bits of northern Quebec went dark, and some of the communities in the NorthEastern Territories and New Brunswick.

It was one after another and it felt as though the fixed smiles of the newscasters were straining. So the Awakened stepped in, the only ones unaffected by whatever the Insanity actually was. Every few months now you’d hear of a skirmish somewhere out in the boonies, or some footage of warped animals would show up online only to be removed a few hours later by a government Netrunner.

It wasn’t to say that the world had gone to shit, but there was this definite impression of approaching disaster, as if we were all one good fuck-up away from going full Mad Max.

Did I want to be one of those charged with fighting? No, not really. I was able to admit my own faults to myself and knew that I was far, far too selfish to go out and risk my body and sanity and time for the sake of others with only glory as a reward. Did I want to be one of the Awakened? Yeah, obviously, but now that I was it turned out that it wasn’t as easy as I would have wanted it to be.

Someone knocked at my door, pulling me out of my reverie. I glanced at my alarm to see that it was still only five in the morning. Rubbing at sore eyes, I walked out of my room and into the dining-room/living-room/kitchen/entrance of my shitty home. I almost stumbled over a pyramid of soda bottles that I’d been building next to the stack of milk crates that served as my table before I reached the door.

I would have looked through the peephole, but it has long ago gotten clogged with gum from some passing asshole and, honestly, at this point I was too angry, tired and annoyed to care who was on the other side.

With an aggressive swing, I opened the door and looked the person standing there. He was young-ish, maybe a year or two my junior, with an ‘I’m a good boy’ proper haircut and a sweater-vest over pleated khakis. “You don’t look like the prostitute I ordered,” I said.

He blinked at me once from behind his square-rimmed glasses. Glasses, in this day and age? No wait, there was a glint of something in the glass. An interface of some sort? “Professor Clark did mention that you had something of an attitude issue,” he said.

I quirked an eyebrow, then looked up to the words above his head.

Wyatt Smith

Info-Broker

“Pretty sure I specified a woman,” I continued as if I couldn’t hear him. “As in, female, and over the age of eighteen. You look like neither of those things.” I gave him a saucy grin. “Though I’ve seen enough porn to never judge appearances. Are you some sort of reverse trap? You look girly enough.”

He sighed. “I did not think it would be this bad,” he muttered under his breath.

“Wow, keep whining like that and any doubts I have about your lack of masculinity will go straight out the window.” I took a step back and pointed over one shoulder with my thumb. “Are you coming in or not? I can’t get my mojo on with you out in the corridor. The landlords already things I’m a punk after I fed some stray cats LSD mixed in milk. If they catches me humping a manwhore on the shag carpeting before six in the morning I might get kicked out.”

There was a long, long pause as the kid processed what I’d just said. “It has been a few years since I have felt as if I needed an adult. Congratulations, despite the professor’s dire warnings you’ve successfully caught me off guard.”

“Stop menstruating on my doormat and get in.” I turned, ignoring him for a moment as I picked up the duffle bag I’d left next to my table and tossed it onto my lay-z-boy (the single most expensive thing I owned). “Make yourself at home. Also, touch anything and I’ll murderize you.”

“Right,” he said as if he understood. It was one of my little pleasures in life to terrorize and confuse people, especially if they were people that were annoying me. “I am here, as you may have surmised, to escort you to the Academy. Professor Clark said that you would be a last minute addition to the trial that is taking place this morning.”

“Hrm, yeah, figured as much. And yeah, she told me that I had to take part in that test thingie.” I was a little distracted as I spoke, trying to figure out if I’d forgotten anything. “Where’s the test at anyway?”

“It takes part in an undisclosed location. We will be teleporting there from the Academy grounds.”

I shot him a wide-eyed look. “Teleported? Shit, what kind of budget does the school have?”

He shrugged in turn. “I am not privy to the school’s budget. Nonetheless, with two high-levelled mages on staff to do the actual teleporting, I doubt it costs overly much.”

“That makes an extraordinary amount of sense.” I walked by him, taking some pleasure in the horror write large in his eyes as he stared at the nearly-living creature that my dirty dishes had evolved into. Opening the little closet next to the entrance I pushed aside the jackets within, looking for just the right one.

See, I have a bit of a thing about jackets. Some people it’s shoes, some it’s watches or jewelry, me, it’s jackets. Jackets tell you all sorts of stuff about someone. Worn and threadbare denim jacket? Probably a working man. Well-pressed and tailored? A businessman who works out of the office. Me? Well, I collected jackets for every occasion.

“Ah, that’ll do,” I muttered as I pulled out an army green coat. Long enough to reach mid-butt, but not enough to trip you up. Lots of pockets on the inside and outside. Neat lines that almost made it look like military while obviously not being one. Oh, and there was a patch sewn on the side that read ‘fuck off.’ Perfect for a first impression.

“So, you are the first Paladin we have met,” Wyatt said.

“That’s nice. You’re the first person I’ve met who’s so nerdy that it’s literally written above their head,” I shot back as I slipped my coat on. I riffed through the pockets and found a flashlight, a few cash chips and a foil from a candy bar. Tossing my keys in the same pocket as the wrapper, I turned and surveyed what I was going to be bringing with me.

My worn backpack filled with books and shit, my duffle bag with a few changes of clothes, and one jacket with odds and ends. Perfect. “Alright, let’s head out.”

I caught him shaking his head in what I assumed was exasperation before he walked over to me. “Your door’s locked?” He asked.

“Uh, yeah?” I said, taken aback by the non-sequitur.

“Good,” he said as he pulled out a blocky cell phone from his pocket. It looked tough, like something military issue. With a few clicks, I saw him open a messenger app and type a message with one thumb. He didn’t even look up as he reached out and grabbed me by the elbow. “Two to port. Clench your jaw and close your eyes, it’ll make it easier.”

“What are yo--”

The world twisted into a kaleidoscope of bright flashing colours and seeping darkness. I went head over heels over ass over teakettle, then did a few more somersaults because yellow tasted more like tomatoes than sadness and that was just not cool.

Everything snapped back in place with a jerk, like a car coming to a sudden stop because it ran into a wall.

I stumbled backwards a step but Wyatt’s hand on my elbow tightened and kept me on my feet. “Careful. Take deep breaths,” he said.

“Also, try very hard not to remember anything you may or may not have seen while in the void between places,” another voice said, this one light, airy and female.

“Urg, why not?” I had to ask. I was still busy blinking down at the grass underfoot. Holy shit I’d been teleported. Goddamn that was unpleasant.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“You know what they say about the abyss staring back? Just rumours, probably, but it’s best to be safe.”

I snorted and stood a little straighter. “I take it you’re the one responsible for that rollercoaster?”

“Indeed!” she said. She, being a slim woman wearing layered white robes with a sharp blue trim. It looked like something a high level mage would wear in an MMO. The dark, wooden staff she held pressed against her chest just added to the picture. “I’m Professor Brown, the magical studies teacher.”

With a glance above her head I took in her name.

Tabitha Brown

Conjurer

I was just, just about to make a snarky reply about her dress, or maybe something about her job, when my eyes were drawn down by another pair of floating words.

Boopsy

Cyberwolf

Boopsy, as the floating name indicated, was a wolf. I had been around dogs before. I even liked the little shits, what with their unconditional love and tendency to defecate on people’s floors. I had never seen a wolf before, let alone a cyberwolf. I had, therefore, to make some assumptions.

First, the ‘cyber’ in cyberwolf meant ‘real fucking big’. Like, chest high. Boopsy also had pretty glowing red eyes set in a furless face covered in little scars. His body was thick-barreled but I could see the bones of his ribs and spine, especially where they stuck out of his skin and ended in two-inch barbed spikes.

“Oh, are you afraid of dogs?” Tabitha asked as she raised a hand to pat Boopsy on the nose. “I’m so sorry, but there’s nothing to worry about. Boopsy wouldn’t hurt a fly, unless I told him to... or they attacked me, I suppose.”

“Uh, no, just... marvelling at how, tall and toothy he is. No worries.” I tried to grin at the mutt, but his eyes narrowed and his hackles rose, exposing the fact that what little fur he did have wasn’t so much fur as needle-like spines. As we stared at each other we reached an understanding, I would not annoy, hurt, or otherwise fuck with Tabitha, and he, in turn, wouldn’t make sweet, sweet cyberwolf love to my still-warm corpse.

“Brilliant! Perhaps you’ll be joining my class? I’ve heard that some Paladins use spells in and out of combat, or maybe you’d just enjoy learning more about what we’ve uncovered about magic so far?”

“Um, I’ll give it some thought,” I said with a smile.

She smiled back sweetly, still petting her wolf as though it were just an oversized puppy. With a few words of farewell exchanged with Wyatt, the Professor said something about preparations for the trial and walked off. Boopsy gave me one last warning glance and followed after.

Finally, I had a moment to look around.

We had teleported to a circle of manicured grass surrounded my little red-bricked paths and well-trimmed trees. Behind us was a dip in the landscape that allowed us to see a fair ways into a small town that must have grown next to the school. Off on the other side were what looked like dormitory buildings made of the same red brick at the pathways and, as I turned, I found what must have been the main school building.

“Holy Batman, Wyatt, who built this place? It looks like Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters.”

He looked at me, then at the large mansion just a few hundred feet away from us. “First, I would like to point out that Batman and X-Men are DC and Marvel respectfully. I am trying very hard to be nice to you, but I do have limits. Second, while they share a similar architecture, and both were built in the same era, there are some large differences.”

“Yeah, like what? Your Professor Clark doesn’t go around mind raping people in a wheelchair?”

“No. Professor Clark is far, far more terrifying than Professor X. Also, she is real, whereas the X-Men are not.”

I shrugged. “Fair points. I guess this is the bit where we part ways?”

“Only if you would rather navigate this place on your own?” he asked.

“Meh, I could manage.”

I caught him rolling his eyes. “Just follow me. We will drop your things off, then I will escort you to one of the changing rooms where we can get you into something appropriate for the tests. Perhaps we can even have a civilised conversation on the way?”

“Lead the way,” I said, gesturing grandly for him to go on. “Though I’ve never been one for civilised conversation. I prefer the more barbaric sort. And what was that about my clothes?”

Wyatt started to walk and I noticed that he was rather stiff even when walking. “You’re wearing pyjamas.”

I looked down at myself and had to give it to him, I was, indeed, wearing ratty old pyjama bottoms and a threadbare Star Wars T-shirt with a raunchy slave Leia on it. Were I anyone else I might have blushed, but I was beyond caring about much of anything so I told myself that I’d live and just jogged to catch up to my new nerdy friend. “So, uncivilised conversation. Let me start: What’s an Info-Broker, beyond the obvious, and is it hard to catch tail in this place?”

He made a noise that told me that he wasn’t going to answer my second question. “An Information Broker is a Class that has skills and attributes that help in the acquiring of knowledge and information. It is pretty versatile, capable of using, or at least copying, some magical skills from other classes. My turn; What’s your passive?”

“My Passive?”

“Professor Clark said that you were a fairly new Awakened. From that I assume you have not levelled into too many skills yet. But a passive is granted on Awakening. Everyone has one, and so far they have all been unique.”

He led us around the main building as we spoke and into another little park area before he opened an access door with a swipe of his phone. The corridor we entered was pretty normal, with fluorescent lights and shitty linoleum flooring. I had half expected the place to be all brick and marble and gold trimming, it was nice to see something normal behind the facade.

As to his last comment, it set me thinking. “So, uh, newbie question, but how do I find out what my passive is, if, in a purely rhetorical situation, I was unaware of how to look?”

Wyatt missed a step but caught himself before tripping over nothing. “Oh my. You really are green.” He let out a huff of breath and missed the beautifully crafted glare I shot at him. “Just close your eyes, open your mind, and focus. The same as when you search for your attribute information or level.”

“Right, right.” How had I looked at my attributes last time? All I remembered was swearing at the ceiling. With a shrug, I tried to do what he said, but my mind was a mess of ideas, not helped by my lack of sleep. With an ever-deepening frown, I gave up and tried what I knew worked. “What’s my goddamned passive, already!” I screamed.

Wyatt jumped about a foot off the group, which made it entirely worth it to scream, then the information poured into my mind, proving once and for all, that being an ass was worth it.

As long as thy Faith in thy own Truth is greater than the Faith of thy opponents, none shall stand in the path of thy Arm, and that of those with whom thee are Bonded

“What kind of fake-shakespearean bullshit is that?” I barked out. “Christ, it’s like someone vomited out ye-old-alphabet soup on the floor then tried to make sense of it.”

Wyatt snorted, actually snorted. “Yes, we-- I have made a study of passives. They can be rather vague at times. Also, quite often, useless except for in some very specific scenarios. Still, some Awakened have passives that can be extraordinarily powerful.”

“Yeah, like what?”

“If I give you a few examples, will you tell me what your passive is?” he asked.

“Are passives something that most people keep secret because it could come and bite them in the ass if everyone knows them?” I asked. Hey, I could be genre-savvy too. I’d read a book once.

He shook his head, then paused. “Some do keep them secret, though not if it is a passive that helps people around them. Being that you are a Paladin, a Class that is associated with group actions, it might be best if yours was known.” We made it around a corridor and through a doorway that lead into a passage that was wider and had fancy paintings on the walls and a plush carpet running across the middle of the floor.

“Nah, screw group work, I’m more of a lone wolf.”

“Hrm, do as you will. If you ever do want to reveal your passive then please send word my way. As I have said, I am compiling information about them,” he said. Wyatt nodded to a girl that started walking down the same corridor as us.

I couldn’t help but look at the name floating above her. Before today, I had seen maybe four Awakened total, and most of those from a distance. Now I had seen as many in less than a day and would probably be seeing a lot more.

Eleanor Clark

Chronomancer

I stared at the name, and glanced at the girl long enough to know that she was cute. “Hey!” I said with what I hopped was a charming smile.

Her cute little button-nosed face twisted in disgust. With a flourish of her hair, she spun around me and walked off with a huff.

There was a bit of quiet in the corridor. “You haven’t been here for more than an hour,” Wyatt said. “And you have already made such good friends. I can tell that it will be so much fun babysitting you. By the way, do you know what the school’s policy on bullying is?”

I swallowed hard. “No, no I don’t know, but I guess you’re about to tell me, huh?”

“There is none,” he said. Raising a hand before his chest, he curled it into a little ball then muttered something under his breath. Just as I was about to ask him what was up he stopped muttering and a flickering ball of fire appeared over his palm. Not the huge fireballs you saw in movies but a tiny flickering flame, no bigger than what you’d get out of a Zippo. “The teachers look the other way when there’s bullying, unless it’s many against one, because each and every student here can do stuff like this.” He closed his hand and the flame wafted away into smoke. “Just some friendly advice,” he said.

Duly noted. “So, clothes?”

“Of course,” he said with a smile as if he didn’t just go Dumbledore on me. “By the way, I could not help but notice that you did not bring a weapon with you. Did you plan on signing out a school weapon?”

I took a deep breath to make sure my lungs still worked. That had hurt less than I would have expected it to. “Weapon? Why would I need a weapon already?”

Wyatt sighed. “You know, there is one advantage to your attitude. I will not miss you when you die.”

“Die? What?” But Wyatt was already walking ahead of me. “Wait, nerd, I mean Wyatt, what do you mean by die, exactly?”