That little ray of hope Magnus gave me in the hospital had been covered up by a cloud very quickly. Another month went by without any update on getting me back to Earth. My birthday was coming up in just a few days, leaving me with the sinking feeling that I would be spending it on Clamor, meaning my friends and family would be torn up because I wasn’t there to turn nineteen with them. That sucked. That sucked more than I could really put into words. The only upside to it was that I slowly felt like I was starting to fit in with the pjulsen. People on the streets were excited to see me when I walked by, treating me like a minor celebrity. No one had tried to beat me with a sock full of nickels for my power, so Clamor was starting to feel like a sort of secondary home. More of a vacation home than a proper home, but it was something.
To keep my mind busy on the rough days, I did a lot of training with Sven, who encouraged me to continue working out to get in better shape. He insisted that having a stronger body would help with the development of my powers. He gave me a list of food—all delicious, of course—that would help me build up more muscle, and boy did it ever. Over the span of the couple of months I’d been working out to stay distracted, I was like a poor man’s Alex. I even had some abs. Not outstanding ones, mind you. I couldn't let myself get too big of an ego over some results, but I had actual abs.
On top of that, I hadn’t bothered shaving since I got there. Magnus managed to get the boys in the lab to make me a beard trimmer, which I started using. Given that I didn’t know I could even grow a proper beard, I was satisfied with what covered my face. It was short but full and darker than the blond hair on my head. In the mirror, I hardly looked like the same guy who saw shadows in his bathroom the day a small girl with superpowers changed his world forever. My eyes and general face shape were the only things that really hadn’t changed.
Another perk of helping Sven out with the moggodrackin was a paycheck. I insisted that I didn’t want money for any of the work I did. It was all the right thing to do, even if I wasn’t hero material. Sven, the proud bastard he was, insisted a bit more assertively than I could fight against that I was to take the money and try to enjoy myself. After some comparisons between what I could buy with the pjulsen money and how much similar objects would cost in American dollars, I determined that I was sitting on about twenty thousand dollars by the time the month was up. It was the most money I’d ever had at once. I doubted even my parents had a casual twenty grand lying around in their bank accounts when they were alive.
After I nearly got sick at how much money I had, it took me a while to figure out what I wanted to buy.
“Hey, do you guys have jewelry here? You know, rings and necklaces?” I asked Sven one day after a training session. I had been working hard on tagging him with one of my attacks. I was getting closer, and after what he considered a successful session, I thought he might be up to humoring me a little. Sven, being unable to effortlessly crack my armor at will, had to have been what drove the nail in the coffin.
“One’s right by your apartment.” My apartment. Like I was there forever, or at least until the lease was up. If he could notice the knots I had in my stomach, he didn’t say a word. He put his holoscreen up to my face, showing me a map with a little glowing dot on it. “You could walk there easily.”
So, I did just that when I had some time on my hands. I had Magnus there to help translate, thank God. It was almost exactly like an Earth jewelry store. Strong, warm lighting and a huge sense of embarrassment and feeling like I don’t belong just from walking in there. At least the lady behind the counter wasn’t embarrassed to see me. She started stumbling over her words—and once over her feet—asking me for my autograph. She had an instrument that looked like it might have been in the guitar family that I signed for her, feeling both pride and horror. What was the universe coming to when I was the one handing out autographs?
“Fifty percent off anything in here just for that,” she said after I handed her back the instrument that she asked me to sign. She looked like a giddy schoolgirl, adding to my already nightmarish embarrassment. “Do you know what you’re looking for?”
“Um, a ring, miss.” I felt stupid saying it like that. I didn’t know what I was looking for, not really. I was sort of there on a whim, and I’d never been shopping for any kind of jewelry in my entire life.
“Yeah?” She looked at Magnus like I was just a little bit of an idiot. I may have been an idiot, but I was an idiot who got fifty percent off anything in a store for signing my name on something, so I considered that even. “What’s it for? What size?”
“I...uh...size?” I looked down at my fingers, not sure what information I could get from my own hand. Still, I held up my ring finger to the lady. “A little smaller than mine. Um, bigger than yours. I think. I’m not sure, sorry.”
“We have an adjustable band option.” She pulled out a ring, did a little clockwise swipe rotation over the band with her fingers, and it got smaller. She went counterclockwise and it got bigger. “It doesn’t look as nice in my opinion. It’s an option, and it’s nice if someone breaks their finger. You wouldn’t have to cut it off.”
“Yes! I’ll take that.” I pinched my nose and sighed, trying to calm myself down. “Sorry, can I look at the others first?”
“I can’t just zap the money out of your pocket.” She put the ring back in the case and waved me over to a different section, realizing she was going to have to walk me through this. “Can you think of anything you might want in the ring you’re buying?”
“Something unique,” I replied instantly. I was scanning over everything in the adjustable band section. I didn’t find anything I wanted until I caught the shine of something in the back corner of the case. Looking closer, it seemed to completely change colors under the light. “What’s that?”
“Expensive is what it is.” She whispered the price to me, and even with the discount, it was still more than enough to put a huge dent in my wallet. When she saw how pale that made me, she shook her head. “That was something unique that everyone thought was going to catch on. It’s called shimmerstone. It changes color under certain lighting or temperatures, which means it can change based on the wearer’s body temperature as well. I have a heater in there that goes on and off just to make it do that. It’s incredibly rare. It’s a shame no one cares about these kinds of rings cosmetically.”
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“Why hasn’t anyone bought it yet?” The more I looked at it, the more I wanted it for myself. Something about the colors it produced was captivating. Its name being a fun coincidence didn’t help either. “It’s beautiful.”
“Like I said, it was a trend that never really got off the ground. I got it from a supplier on a whim, but it’s been collecting dust for a while now. Everyone wants more traditional stuff.” She pulled it out and handed it to me like it was plastic, rather than something that could buy me a whole car in a single payment. “I’ll make a deal with you. I need to get rid of the damn thing and I’m ready to cut my losses. I’m pretty sure it’s placed a minor curse on my store.”
The deal she cut me ended up being about half of the money I had. Half of what I’d earned on Clamor for a glowing space rock. It was absolutely an insane purchase for someone in my position, but it was important to me. If Shelly heard how much money I’d spent, she would have probably just killed me right there on the spot. I could hear her going on about how many bills that kind of money would have paid, how many months of rent it could have taken care of, and how many car payments could have been made.
“What’re you going to do with that ring?” Sven asked with a little elbow nudge.
“You know what I’m going to do.” I smiled and looked down at the little box it came in. “I’m not going to say. I’m just going to wait. I feel like if I speak it out loud, the universe is going to make sure it doesn’t happen. That’d be just my luck after all this.”
I couldn’t be mad at Magnus for knowing what I was planning on doing. He started to relax the mental link somewhat, so I was starting to pick up on some of his memories and thoughts more. I was getting some of Sven’s too, though I wasn’t sure if that was his own doing or something Magnus could control. That was part of the reason I was able to get closer to tagging Sven in our little training exercises, not that I would dare admit it to him.
An idea had been floating around in my head for a little while. I didn’t want to step on Magnus’ toes, so I usually kept it tucked away in my brain so he wouldn’t pick up on it.
“Hey, why don’t you use your memory sharing to help train?” When I asked that question, Magnus stopped and looked at me like he had no idea what I was saying. “Think about it. Everything we do well comes from our memories from when we practiced it. You’ve picked up on some Earth mannerisms from me. I could get a lot better a lot faster if I could cheat a little bit.”
“I’m. Such. An idiot.” Magnus put his head in his hands and shook it back and forth. “I’ve had this power for as long as I can remember. I never considered that. Not even once.”
“Well, I don’t think you should do it casually.” He looked confused, so I tried to formulate how I wanted to say it. “Memories are a weird thing, right? Our minds are blended together. When it stops, how much of you is in my head and how much of me is in yours?”
“That’s a good point, I didn’t consider that. Maybe we’ll keep it to a minimum with just us three, but I think you’re right. Sven knows a lot, so learning from him can give you an edge for your mess back on Earth.”
“Looks like we have a game plan for tomorrow then.” I felt really good about my upcoming practice session.
“You’re not getting out of work that easy.” Magnus waved for me to follow him out of the store. “Come on, we’re going for a run. Keep your armor up the whole time.”
I groaned like a kid about to throw a temper tantrum. Out of everything I’d started to do to get in better shape, I hated cardio most of all. Lifting heavy things and working my arms and legs out brought a satisfying pain and discomfort. Running? No, I hated that. That had been a good reason why I was never anyone’s favorite teammate in gym class. The kids with asthma would get picked over me when we were forming teams. That’s how bad I was as an athlete.
There was a dirt track that looped around a scenic lake that Magnus liked to use for our runs. Despite his scrawny build, I was confident that Magnus could run the track fifty times before he even broke a sweat. Making it through a single loop had me feeling a little winded, especially when I had the added strain of maintaining my armor. I didn’t care if that was the whole point of having me do the run with him. I didn’t have to like doing it. I took small comfort in the fact that the weather was pleasant for outdoor exercise.
Sitting down on a bench, a small crowd of pjulsen kids ran up to me, their eyes wide. They all started bombarding me with questions. How did I get to Clamor? How tall was I? Why did I have superpowers of my own? Why was my skin color so white? How long was I staying? Could I give them superpowers? What was it like fighting a giant robot? What did the Heavy Green poison feel like?
The kids were all adorable with their nonstop questions, most of which I didn’t have the answers for or weren’t appropriate for ones so young. No, I wasn’t going to have Magnus translate to them that it felt like my arm was being cut off. No, I wasn’t going to have Magnus translate to them that I thought the mech was going to cut me in half and kill me. I stuck with the questions that were a little easier to answer, and thankfully, those easy answers were all the kids needed to be satisfied. Magnus was a great sport about the whole thing, making sure to translate all my answers while keeping the kids from getting too rowdy.
After a few minutes, some older pjulsen came by to wrangle up the kiddos. I couldn’t tell if they were older siblings or parents, but they shyly apologized for the children and their behavior all the same. I’d never be mad at kids for asking silly questions and being kids. If there was one benefit to my celebrity status—outside of huge jewelry store discounts—it was kids looking up to me like I was some kind of hero. I still refused to call myself that, not that any of the pjulsen gave a damn about how I felt when it came to my “hero” status.
“Just imagine what it would be like if you returned to Earth as the first human to make contact with another species.” Magnus plopped down on the bench next to me, taking a sip of his favorite brand of sports drink. I could never pin down what the flavor reminded me of.
“If I make it back to Earth, this is not going public.” I shook my head. “You know that’d be too much. I can barely handle kids running up to me asking mostly innocent questions.”
“You handle it better than you probably should.” Magnus laughed and clapped me on the back. “I remember when I was your age, or the pjulsen equivalent, anyway. I couldn’t make friends, could hardly talk to anyone, and I felt like a loser.”
“Kind of like how I must be.”
“Nah.” Magnus shook his head. “You’re a little shy and awkward. I was legitimately failing at basic socializing.”
“Seriously?” I looked over at my buddy, raising an eyebrow. “I’m having a hard time believing that.”
“Well, it’s true.” He stared down at the lake, lost in memories. “That’s part of the reason why I chose a journalism major. Can’t exactly do that one quietly, can you? I thought it’d be a good chance to grow and cover my weaknesses.”
We both sat in silence for a few seconds, staring out at the lake. The only sounds came from some duck-like creatures drifting lazily across the clear water and Magnus taking sips from his drink.
“Anyway, the moral of the story is, you’re not nearly as bad off as you think you are. You handle things with enough poise that you’ll be all set when you get a better hang of it.” Magnus got up and tossed his bottle to the garbage can, missing it by a mile. Chuckling, he picked it up and tossed it in the bin. “That’s why I didn’t play any sports. Come on, you can think on my grand words of wisdom back at the apartment. I’m hungry and I’m tired.”
I looked down at the ring I bought, trying to let his words settle in. I tried not to be much of a heavy thinker for that reason. I always got in my own head, believing I wasn’t capable enough to handle regular tasks. Sighing and stuffing the ring in my pocket, all I could do was hope I’d get a better hang of everything like Magnus said.