Aaliyah held her pistol in the palm of one hand and ran a finger over every inch of it with the other. She fiddled with the trigger, traced around the rim of the muzzle, brushed up the camera lens that was above the barrel, then went down the bridge to wipe down the screen to the camera feed where the hammer would have been.

Kenny turned his safety off which brought his pistol to life: the camera feed flicked on—revealing a targeting reticle and energy meter—and the muzzle started to drool vapor. The reticle scanned his hand to identify as a registered individual with a green outline.

He pointed it at Aaliyah who came up as a prioritized individual with a blue outline—some kind of VIP tier system even within the Pantheon or perhaps it is based on vulnerability.

Aaliyah dropped her pistol and raised her hands with stiff, trembled movements. Her tense, wide-eyed expression and shaky arms drooped when she realized the listlessness of Kenny’s aim. It took him a moment to process her reaction. He flicked on the safety which dried up the barrel and killed the camera feed.

“Sorry! I wasn’t thinking!” he said.

“It’s fine,” she said with a sigh, “you’ll probably be in trouble for turning off the safety.” She picked her pistol out of the grass. She flicked the safety off and the gun groaned to life. “Are you unfamiliar with these things?”

“My brother and his friends showed their guns when he took me to the—

—range. They took me to a gun range. I’m a terrible shot.”

“I’m not either. The first time I saw a gun was when a classmate aimed it at me as I got off the bus. I had… a friend. He wanted me to know how to use a gun to defend myself. He was the same age but he knew guns better than the adults. It was only later that men trained to use guns were sent to guard me; even then, they decided it was safer to move me, yet even when they moved me, I saw more guns. From the moment I saw my first gun, I never wanted to see one again. Then, I saw them every day. Now, I’m holding one.”

She continued to run her fingers over the living gun while Kenny just stood there. How was he supposed to respond to that? That was some pretty heavy stuff there.

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He felt that her friend had it the right way—that a gun should be used to protect yourself—and that obviously other people could use guns to protect people. These aren’t even guns, Garrick compared them to tasers and they were built like a toy. But he felt like that was not what Aaliyah meant.

She killed the gun once she was done fingering it. She stretched, her arms pulled to the sides as her chest pushed up, then let herself fall flat on her back into the grass. She held the gun up into the sky to continue pouring over it. Kenny felt awkward standing there so he sat criss-cross applesauce next to her. Garrick really did just dump these things on them and bounced.

“You said that you wanted to get a scholarship,” she started, still looking at the gun, “you wanted to go to college? ”

“Oh, that,” Kenny ruffled his hair and looked away, “That was the normal plan. But it doesn’t matter now. This is much better anyway so don’t worry about it.”

“Did you have a school in mind?”

“N-naw, it’s just… whoever accepts me, school is school to me so just… no.”

“What were you planning on majoring in?”

“Oh, you know stuff. I mean… stuff?”

Aaliyah pursed her lips. She clearly wasn’t buying what Kenny was selling and as the honest merchant that he was, he could not look her in the eye.

“You are a Pantheon fan. Do you remember what I went to school for?”

“Yeah, you have a PhD in Mathematics!”

“Yes,” She let the gun slip from her hand and fall into the grass so that she could grasp at the starry day sky. “ ‘Mathematics is the alphabet with which God has written the universe’. My father was fond of that quote and had me study hard for school. But it was my friend who taught me how to speak for God so that his miracles could be distilled through me ever more finely.“

“Is this the same friend who wanted you to use guns?”

“Yes. As for you, I think that you do have something in mind but don’t know how to apply it yet. When you realize who you are meant to be, everything will flow as naturally as a river.” said Aaliyah. Kenny stood up.

“I’ll keep that in mind. But I think I’m going to head back to my room to rest.”

“Very well then.”

Aaliyah closed her eyes. Kenny went to the bench where he left his book bag and found his phone with recent notifications from his parents. Without a mention of Todd, they said they were proud of all his hard work and now the rest of the family knows that Kenny would be a hero.

Yep. A hero. Living in Olympus. Hanging out with the two hottest girls in the world. That’s what Kenny wanted and his parents got what they wanted too. This is the best outcome.

So why don’t I feel any different?