11.1 Heigen
Win closes the door of the community centre. Riel is ahead, waiting by a parked Humvee.
That wasn’t a bad speech. Win didn’t know if she had it in her. She sat on the corner of the table every morning when they were on Peacemaker, never saying anything, but it felt like she could. It felt like she could snap back at Gunner for insulting him, or tell Callum to sit up and quit snoozing. Instead, she was silent. Win was starting to question if she wanted to be in the VR at all.
As for why the leader asked him to do a patrol tonight, he has no idea. It feels like he’s about to get scolded for something, even though he had nothing to do with the fight between Callum and Gunner.
The streets are quiet. The homes of Jurn’s citizens surround them, spotted with small, misaligned windows of light that add a temperate glow to the road, as if it had just rained.
They don’t say anything. The rest of Ocean must be in bed by now.
Riel asks, “Do you have your mantra?” while Win is picking his ear.
“A what?” he says.
“You didn’t graduate from a Will Academy, did you?”
“Why would I have graduated from a Will Academy?”
She doesn’t answer the question. “A mantra is a short, personal message that helps you call your Will,” Riel explains. “Every Will User has one.”
Okay? He doesn’t know what to make of any of this. Win adjusts his cap.
“I’ve seen your drawings,” the User then clarifies.
My Concept sketches.
“You’re supposed to think of what motivates you most,” says Riel. “Make it general enough to apply to any situation, and short enough to hold all of its impact. See—” She’s speaking with some commitment now “—The realisation of Will, as I like to understand it, has a direct positive relationship with the realisation of one’s authentic carrying-out. Like what people might call your ‘calling’ or ‘true purpose.’ A mantra is supposed to act as a bridge to that fundamental part of yourself that facilitates the calling, so you can access it at a moment’s notice.”
Win crosses his arms.
“Do you not know what mantra means?” says Riel.
“Are you coaching me?”
Riel pauses, pinches the space between her eyebrows; resets. “I understand that you want to learn Will, is that right?” she asks him.
Win shrugs.
“Do you understand that I come from the most prestigious Will Academy in the UL?”
“Sure,” he says.
The girl opens her palms as if to say, “Well?”
Huh.
This is funny. Academy kid’s trying to help him.
So it’s true. Win has been trying to develop his Will ever since he was a kid holding his mother’s hand. He never went to an Academy, meaning he was never taught how to awaken his Will. Bringing his sketches to life has come with a lot more roadblocks and challenges than he would like. And it’s been supportless. I mean, would you support a friend who wanted to sprout wings and fly?
Not unless he was an Academy kid.
“Why?” he says.
“Do you want this or not?” says Riel. She’s stopped walking.
Win steps back towards her.
“Am I not a lost cause?” He says.
“What do you mean by that.”
Win turns his palm. The answer should be obvious. “This is the moment you’re supposed to tell me it’s impossible.”
“It’s not impossible.”
It stifles him for a moment, though he doesn’t show it. The conviction in her words, the way her grey eyes lock on him as she says it.
“We know very close to nothing about Will.” Riel says, continuing to walk. “We didn’t know that we could potentially manifest anything if we—if we desired it enough. So why would people believe it were impossible for someone like you? Well, that’s because truly desiring things, to want something of such deepness it took us thousands of years of evolution just to develop the consciousness to ponder what that might be, it’s a lot harder than people think. But you can start with a mantra,” she says. “Will is influenced by one’s unique dispositions and experiences distilled in the soul and discharged by the spirit. It gives you the faculty to express yourself like nothing else. But it’s untethered, it’s difficult to grasp, difficult to control. Almost impossible, but not quite. That’s what a mantra is supposed to tap you into, so…think of something,” she demands, jutting her hand.
He’s heard of mantras before; things people say to mirrors in the morning to brainwash themselves out of their insecurities, right? In the context of Will, he’s guessing it’s something a little different. “What’s yours?” he asks.
“That’s sort of a personal question,” she says.
OK, never mind.
They go minutes patrolling in silence. Maeven doesn’t look at him, her gaze swaps between the surrounding houses and the ground, giving him the space to think.
There’s something—there already. He just needs to put it in the right words.
It’s you. Sounds like a slogan he might hear in a shampoo commercial.
Do it for yourself. That’s a cheesy movie line.
When something finally pieces itself together, he doesn’t give Maeven the warning. Win holds on to the feeling and faces the road they walked from. He relaxes his shoulders, raises his arms until they’re parallel to the ground. Then, he pinches his fingers, as if he were holding a pen in each. Maeven notices in silence.
Becoming a Will User is all he’s ever wanted. Not growing up in an Academy has always been a so what? Doesn’t matter how he grew up. He’ll beat them at their own game.
Riel is right. Will is self-expression. It’s being who you are in the greatest way. Living a life as a non-User, is a life of never meeting your full potential, and that had never made sense to Win.
He calls upon his Will, his mantra now at the forefront of his mind.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
His hands glow with purple aura, pointing to a creature manifesting out of blankets of roiling Will. It’s slowly straightening itself, bleeding into colour: silver-plated armour glinting under the moonlight, dual katanas clutched in both hands. Beneath the metal is a shadowed, wispy body about double Win’s size, and at the holes of its helmet are striking yellow eyes. His first Willed Creation.
MINION MANIFESTED: HEIGEN
There’s a long, dead-silent pause.
“I get it,” says Win, lowering his arms. “Makes it quicker.”
Win turns back to Riel. The assignee is frozen in place, her eyes locked on his manifestation. She closes her lips and hums as if to say, “That’s interesting.”
“Who taught you that?” says Riel.
“I did,” Win answers.
“Automanifestation?”
“Apparently.”
That’s what Users call it when you can use Will without having been taught. It’s rare. Everyone says it takes a crafted upbringing, insane dedication and even after all that, zero guarantee. Call it self-centred, he thought Riel would have a better reaction than this. Oh well. He raises his arm to de-manifest.
Riel swats the arm down. “Ow,” Win utters.
Then he watches Riel’s face again and this time, it’s priceless. Her eyes are wide, eyebrows narrowed in disbelief. He starts to laugh.
“That’s not funny,” she says.
Win points and laughs harder.
“Stop!”
She motions for a punch. Even in jest, the speed at which she pulls back her fist makes him flinch. It’s the greatest moment of his life.
“Your face.” Win palms his knee. “Oh, shit.” (her expression flattens after this). “Are you done?” she says. He shakes his head, having lost the ability to enunciate. He doesn’t do the whole “Haha” thing, his laugh is aspirated and wheezy.
“I’m crying,” he manages.
It takes minutes for him to settle down, of him collapsing on the sand and wiping the corners of his eyes and clutching his aching stomach. Slowly, he finds his way upright again and regains his breath.
“You weren’t lying were you?” says Maeven. “You really didn’t have a mantra already?”
“I’m telling you made it up just then,” he says, sniffing. “Oh, fuck.”
“That’s just disgusting,” she says.
They stare at the Willed knight.
“I just made up what was in my head.”
“It’s not supposed to be like that,” she mutters. Maeven rubs her face, seemingly disoriented and beginning to think aloud. “So you’ve already manifested your Concept…”
Imagine teaching a kid his ABCs, then he writes you a novel and says: “Like this?” Take your time, Win thinks, helping himself to savour the moment.
“And you’re trying to achieve what Users call Minionism. Which enables a User to essentially create servants…”
“Yes…” he intones.
“Which means you specialise in Creation Will.”
“Mhm…”
“How many other minions do you have?” asks Maeven.
He frowns. “Just this one for now.”
“So can you move it yet?”
“Not yet.”
“How many do you want to make?”
“I don’t have a number.” He points at Heigen and de-manifests. They resume their patrol, Riel still deep in thought.
“My brother makes minions too. You’re lucky. I think I remember…” She turns to him. “Can you lucid dream?”
“Can I lucid dream?” he says. “Why?”
The leader considers that. “There’s a compelling connection between controlling dreams and controlling Creations. When you can puppeteer something as vague and indistinct as a dream, it can help you build the fortitude necessary to control a manifestation. That’s the theory anyway.”
“OK,” says Win.
“Pick something to dream about. Pick—I don’t know, something you miss right now.”
Still not totally convinced, the question does spark something. It’s a thought that’s bothered him since he had his first taste of the Reserve’s routine breakfast.
“I miss rice.”
“Fine. Try dreaming about rice tonight. If that doesn’t work try again tomorrow. It sounds strange but trust me,” she says. “It’ll help us in getting Heigen to walk.”
That sounds good to him. He’d been able to manifest Heigen for almost a year, but all it can do is stand there.
Maeven points past him, to his left. “Look in there.”
Win turns his head to find a window, the illuminated interior of someone’s home. Once they pass it, he waits for Riel to continue.
“What did you see?” the leader asks.
“A kitchen.”
“OK. Picture the kitchen in your head.”
“OK?”
“What colour are the cabinets?”
Win furrows his brows. He pictures the counter, the old fridge, the cluttered spice rack. The cabinets were just above, he hadn’t fixated on them. “I don’t remember—”
“I’ll give you a clue. I’m not testing your memory.”
It makes him think back to the question. Riel’s right. She didn’t say what colour were the cabinets.
“Fucking—white then,” he answers.
“Good,” says Riel. “So that was me asking you to put a picture in your head, and then I interrogated its detail. It’s an exercise that many Creationists are taught to do, replicating images in your head. It’s meant to help with—what would you call it—lucidity and multitasking of the mind’s eye.”
“Sick,” says Win, letting the sarcasm seep through.
“At the very least it’s a fun thing to do when you’re bored.”
“So picturing things in my head and lucid dreaming. Apparently that’s supposed to translate,” Win says.
“Trust the process.”
It’s the last thing she teaches him before they finish their patrol.
They loop back to the community centre, the light of its interior shining in the gaps around the door. Win asks her, “You’re seriously going to help me?”
“Yes,” says Riel.
“For what?”
“I don’t know. I’m here. Why not,” she says. Her countenance doesn’t elaborate.
He never did have the best impression of academy kids. Any chance they get, they’ll look down on you. You could share your brightest hopes and dreams and all they’ll have to respond with is a phony smile and the words, “That’s cute.” But right now, Riel doesn’t seem like that.
“Also,” she says, looking away. “I can’t believe I’m saying this—you’re not the only one.”
He stops with his hand on the door. “I’m not?”
“Forrest,” says Riel, the words fraught with incredulity. “Forrest has Will just like you.”
11.2 Hot Bricks
----------------------------------------
“Your bricks are sinking,” says Gunner.
Maeven is squatted over the pathway. She turns around as the fair-headed assignee calls out to Miura. “Sand!”
Win starts to swing the bag over as Gunner pries her bricks out with a chisel. “You didn’t level them right,” he tells her.
She’s been informed that Gunner’s dad runs a construction business, and the assignee has been a helper ever since he was a kid. It’s paid dividends today. Leichman’s tasked the company with repairing a hazardous brick pavement near a wet market in Jurn. Many of the bricks have sunken over years of people walking over them, and the council have circled the sections with chalk. For each of the circles they have to pull the bricks out, re-pack the base with sand, then put the bricks back and sweep more sand between the cracks so they stay in place.
“Sorry,” says Maeven, as he begins to shake his head.
Gunner fills in the base, then hammers it down with one of the brick ends. Maeven’s gaze shifts on its own prerogative. His biceps are flexing in sync.
It’s not his assholery that makes him attractive, somewhat. It’s his insistence in being authentic, even if it is annoying. Win is guiding a sandbag to the assignee, and the sleeves of his shirt are snug around his shoulders.
Back in Larosa Academy, there weren’t many chances of being less than ten feet away from a boy, unless you were in the main library and happened to pick adjacent desks. Callum is right, it is hot. She zips open her VR jacket and tries to instead indulge herself with the bricks. The pattern looks like a group of Vs stacked on top of each other, and it has a name, apparently: “Herringbone.” Herringbone, Maeven. Pay attention.
Win grunts carrying the bag of sand.
“Tiring, isn’t it?” says Gunner.
“Well, yeah. Maeven hasn’t taught me Will User Super Strength yet.”
“We’ll get to that,” Maeven comments under her breath.
She looks over at Forrest. He’s been still for some time since she speculated to him minutes ago that he might be Willed.
“Are you telling me I don’t have a skin condition?” asks the boy.
“I really think you have Will, Forrest. More than normal,” she answers. “You should see if you can do something with it.”
It’s her Intuitive sense that’s driving the hypothesis. Forrest doesn’t have a Concept, just a very potent Will Resonance. You never know, some people are born to be Users, whether they end up in an academy or not. Those people, like Win, they’re luckier than lottery winners.
Academies are starting to sound like one expensive joke.
“That itch you get, have you ever tried going with it? You might be harbouring something that wants to come out, you know. Like—it’s psychosomatic.”
Forrest rests his head on his knuckles. “I don’t know what that means.”
“How do you think you grew those ears?”
“Well, my Mum said it was a miracle of my previous reincarnation,” says Forrest. “And eczema.”
“It’s not eczema!”
She and Win say it in unison. It’s followed by a pause.
“Maybe,” Maeven adds.
“This pathway ain’t gonna fix itself,” Gunner says to them. “Callum’s already on his third chalk circle.”
So, Maeven goes back to levelling her bricks.
“Maeven?” Forrest asks two brick circles later. “What does this mean?” He raises a hand to his forehead, then lowers it.
She doesn’t follow.
“You always do it to the captains,” he explains.
“You mean paying mind?”
“What’s that?”
“It’s just a gesture Users like to use. It’s like saying ‘Carry on.’”
Forrest raises his hand again.
“Other hand,” says Maeven. “Whatever hand is closest to the other person—by the temple, a little bit over your eye. Yep. Then dip your head.”
Forrest dips his head.
“That’s it.”
“I paid mind?”
“You did,” she says. “So do you want me to help train your Will?”
Forrest stops hammering the pathway to muse on the question. “I need to think about it.”
“OK. You’ll have to let me know then, alright?”
“Alright,” says Forrest.