The Accidental Hero

by Matt Myklusch

  “It’s too far,” Allegra protested.

  Stendeval looked down kindly. “Try.”

  Jack could tell Allegra needed more encouragement. “You can do it,” he told her. “It’s not that much farther.”

  Allegra nodded, steeling herself for the attempt. She reached up, extending her arms even farther. She was doing it, but she looked nervous and unsure.

  “I don’t like this,” Allegra said. “It’s too valuable, I can t…

  As she spoke, her hands first began to shake, then turned to fluid. The crystal globe passed through her fingers like water and shattered on the floor.

  “Oh!” Allegra cried out. When she looked at the countless crystal shards on the ground, Allegra’s face bunched up like she was about to cry.

  Stendeval lowered himself down. “It’s quite all right,” he assured her.

  A twirl of Stendeval’s fingers and the fragments of the globe zipped back together into crystalline perfection. Allegra was immensely relieved.

  “I can see you are blessed with all the power of a Valorian woman,” Stendeval told her. “Unlike Valorian men, who can fly and fire plasma blasts from their hands, you can shape-shift and extend your form into any solid object. You do, however, have your limits. The farther you stretch, the less solid you become. That is also a defense mechanism.” Stendeval winked, and a suit of armor lunged for Allegra. She melted into a puddle. “When frightened or unsure of yourself, your instinctual reaction is to shift to a liquid state,” he told Allegra as she pulled herself back together. “Perhaps the opposite is true as well? If you could banish fear from your mind, perhaps you could become solid. Indestructible. The first step is not being afraid to try.”

  Stendeval patted Allegra on the shoulder and put the globe away. Now it was Jack’s turn to be nervous. He was next.

  “I don’t know how much I can do here today,” he blurted out as Stendeval hovered over him. “I can’t turn on my powers like these guys. My powers just kind of show up.”

  “Yes, when you’re angry or scared,” Stendeval agreed. “Still, they are there waiting for you to command them. Your power over machines has helped you beat your Rüstov parasite thus far. If you can learn to truly control your powers, the Rüstov may find they committed a grievous error by infecting you.” Again, Stendeval looked around the messy room. “Let’s start with… this,” he said, drawing an appliance out from the heap. Jack recognized it right away as a SmartWater-CleanWindow. Stendeval set it down on the stand. “Jack Blank, the floor is yours.”

  Jack shook his head. “I couldn’t make this thing work this morning without my powers,” he said. “I didn’t even know what it was.”

  “Please try, Jack.”

  Jack breathed deep. Stendeval was right. He at least had to try. His powers were the only thing keeping him alive, and he’d basically gotten by on luck and instinct so far. There was no guarantee that was always going to be enough. If he wanted to make sure that his powers were always there to counteract the Rüstov, he was going to have to master them. The tough part was, he didn’t really know where to begin.

  Jack looked at the machine. He thought hard about making it go, about turning it on with his mind, but he didn’t know what he was doing. He wasn’t sure if his powers really even worked like this. His powers always just happened, and right now they weren’t.

  “I can’t do this,” Jack said at last. “I told you I don’t even know what this Smart-thing is supposed to do.”

  “Fair enough,” Stendeval said. “I shall explain. It’s really a very clever invention.” Stendeval moved to the machine and turned it on. “It’s one of Jonas’s older ideas, from before the invasion. As you can see, it produces a high-powered, ultrathin stream of water in a rectangular frame, resembling a window. The water is infused with nanotechnology—little microscopic, intelligent computer chips that seek out any form of dirt or refuse, then clean it away. You simply pass a dish through the Clean-Window, and let the water do the rest.” Jack watched Stendeval pass an old, tarnished silver platter through the Clean Window. He set it down on the table and the water continued to scrub the platter until it was shinier than Allegra’s silver skin.

  Stendeval urged Jack to try again, this time with the knowledge of what he wanted the machine to do. Jack did so, but he was still nervous: nervous that nothing would happen, that he couldn’t do it, that he didn’t belong.

  “Here goes,” Jack said.

  Again, Jack thought really hard, reaching out with his mind to try to make the machine work. This time, it was different. This time, his eyes looked deep into the machine. At first, Jack wasn’t sure, but after a minute he could swear he saw the gears turning inside and the circuit boards firing information back and forth. A dribble of water began to fill the Clean Window and then stopped.

  “Something happened!” Jack said. “It was… I could almost see inside of it for a minute. Something happened!”

  “Why did you stop?”

  “It was too complex. I felt like I could see the little microchips in the water and… it was too much. I couldn’t wrap my head around it.”

  Stendeval nodded and started digging through his collection of artifacts for something for Jack to try his hand with next. Eventually, he whisked a tricycle down from the upper levels of his tower. “I have another idea,” he said, setting the small bike down before Jack. “Make this one work,” he challenged.

  “A tricycle?” Jack asked.

  “It’s a machine,” Stendeval replied. “A simple machine but a machine nonetheless. All you have to do is make it go.”

  Jack thought about it. It seemed pretty silly, but he did understand how this particular machine worked. In his head he saw the pedals rotating. They were connected to the axle on the front wheel, which, when turned, would move his bike forward. He saw it all happening in his head, and before he knew it, the tricycle was riding around the room in a circle with no one on it. It was completely under Jack’s control.

  “You’re doing it!” Allegra said to Jack. Stendeval applauded.

  “I can’t believe this,” Jack said. “It’s working!”

  “You see, Jack?” Stendeval asked. “You can control machines. But in order to do it on command, it would appear you have to know how the machine works. I suggest you study science and engineering. The more you learn, the more you’ll be able to do. Knowledge is power, young friend. Knowledge is power.”

  Skerren clapped a slow, sarcastic clap, and Jack’s concentration broke. The tricycle slowed and then halted.

  “And what a power it is,” Skerren said. “Rust-boy can make tricycles move. The enemies of the Imagine Nation must be quivering with fear.”

  Stendeval gave Skerren a disapproving look. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, young Skerren. A Chinese philosopher who visited this island long ago once told me that. You would do well to remember it, for you have a ways to go yourself.” He looked at the class. “You all do.”

  Skerren quieted himself. “Does that mean we didn’t pass?” he asked.

  “Pass?” Stendeval repeated. “No. There is nothing to pass here today. In fact, I will not be testing you at all,” he revealed. “Some of the Circlemen will test you. Others will simply observe you in your daily life and make their decision based on your actions. It is my firm belief that life will test each of you better than I ever could. I will simply evaluate how you react to life’s trials when I make my decision about each of you. In the meantime, I hope you have all learned something here this morning. Something you will think about even after you leave my class. The rest of the day is yours.”

  With that, Stendeval’s lessons were over and class was dismissed. On his way out, Skerren purposely bumped into Jack, knocking him to the floor. Looking up from the ground, Jack saw Allegra looking back, nibbling at her lower lip. Jack could tell she felt bad for him, but she didn’t stop to help him up. No doubt, she was afraid of getting on Skerren’s bad side.

  Jack picked
himself up. “I’m used to people giving me a hard time, but this is too much,” Jack said to Stendeval as the others left. “Everyone here either hates me or is afraid of me.”

  “Things will not always be as they are today,” Stendeval said, drifting down to Jack’s level. “I am more than five hundred years old. I have seen much change in my lifetime. Change begins with the individual, especially individuals with power like ours.”

  “What are your powers, Stendeval?” Jack asked.

  “My powers,” Stendeval began, “are whatever I decide to devote my power to. Each day I have a certain amount of energy I can use to do almost anything, and I use those energies to whatever ends I decide,” he added, using his powers to send the cannonballs back where they belonged, and the suit of armor back into place.

  “So, you can do anything?”

  “Well. Some things take a lot of power, some take a little, and some are beyond my reach. At the end of the day when the power well is dry, I am just like anyone else.”

  “I wish my powers were that easy,” Jack said. “It’s going to be hard to make my powers work, because I don’t really know anything about machines. I certainly don’t understand the ones you have here. They’re too complex.”

  “So, what do you understand in machines?” Stendeval asked. “Start with that. Start small. Sometimes you have to think small to think big.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look at me,” Stendeval replied. “Am I immortal? No, that is beyond my power as well. But the first thing I do each morning is reverse my body’s age by one day. Just one day. I do this every day, so technically, my body is the same exact age as that first day I thought to do it, nearly five hundred years ago. If I looked at that whole task at once, if I tried to reverse five hundred years in a day? That is too much to ask. But to deal with one day—today—I can do that. In a way, so can you.”

  Jack looked over at the SmartWater-CleanWindow with a new idea in his head. He asked Stendeval not to put it away just yet. He looked at the on/off switch at the top of the machine. He focused on it. He focused hard. In his head Jack saw the switch moving. It was part of the machine, a lever with a simple mechanical motion. Jack thought small to think big and managed to flip the switch, a simple part of a complex machine. SmartWater filled the CleanWindow, humming away with cleansing power.

  Jack smiled.

  “Impressive,” Stendeval told him. “Most impressive. You control that which you can control. The rest will come in time. You’re a quick study, young Jack. Some people never learn that lesson.”

  “But I still have so many questions,” Jack said. “Did you really write Chi about me twelve years ago? How did you even know about me? Do you know who my family is, or where my family is? Why am I here now?”

  “Many questions, indeed,” Stendeval said. “Patience, Jack. The answers will come in time. All in good time.”

  “But I just want to know who I am.”

  “That is not for me to say—that is for you to say,” Stendeval replied. “I predict that you will tell me the answer to that question before you get into the School of Thought.”

  “Yeah, right,” Jack said.

  “You doubt my word?”

  “More like I doubt I’m going to get into the School of Thought,” Jack said. “How am I supposed to get Mr. Smart’s vote? Do you really trust him to be fair?”

  “Fear not,” Stendeval said. “I trust Jonas to be Jonas. Everything will work out in the end. With a little help from you, of course.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You will,” Stendeval replied. “In time.”

  CHAPTER

  9

  Jonas Smart: Man of the Future

  The next day, Jonas Smart sent a few Peacemakers over to the Ivory Tower to collect Jack for his next test. His men were tall, imposing supers with humorless faces and military crew cuts. Jazen recognized them both. The first one, Stormfront, wore a black and gray supersuit and could control the weather with his powers. The other one, Battlecry, wore black and blue. Battlecry’s supersonic voice was his weapon. One word from him could punch through a brick wall, and he was quick to let Jack know it.

  “Just so you know, Rusty,” Battlecry warned Jack on their way out the door, “I could pulverize your bones with a word.”

  “You can what?” Jack asked.

  “That’s right,” Stormfront added. “All we do all day long is hunt down Rüstov, so don’t think we’re afraid of you.”

  Jack wasn’t quite sure what to do with either comment.

  “Give it a rest, you two,” Jazen told the Peacemakers. “What are you doing here anyway, trying to play ‘bad cop/ bad cop’? SmartTower is just up the street. We don’t need an escort.”

  “Circleman Smart says you do,” Stormfront replied. “He wants every possible precaution taken, what with the increased Rüstov activity we’re seeing.”

  “Increased activity?” Jazen asked. “What are you talking about? This boy’s the closest thing to a Rüstov anyone’s seen around here in years.”

  “Wrong again,” Battlecry said. “A Left-Behind was spotted in Galaxis just this morning.”

  “It was on all the NewsNets,” Stormfront added. “The entire city is talking.”

  “A Left-Behind?” Jack asked, looking up at Jazen for an explanation.

  “A Rüstov Para-Soldier who got stuck here after the invasion,” Jazen told Jack. “And spotted by whom?” he asked the Peacemakers. “Is this an actual, confirmed sighting or just another rumor you guys are passing off as fact?”

  “We don’t have any reason to doubt the NewsNets,” Battlecry replied.

  Jazen eyed the Peacemaker skeptically. “Of course you don’t. SmartNews is never wrong,” he said with obvious sarcasm. “Let’s just get going—Jack’s going to be late.”

  Jazen decided to accompany Jack and his escorts over to Smart’s lab. He had no intention of leaving Jack alone with the Peacemakers. As the four of them made their way through the megametropolis of Hightown, Jack could tell he was in a section of town reserved for the wealthy, which made sense since it was Smart’s neighborhood and he had more credits than anyone. Well-to-do people they passed along the way crossed the street and hid their babies when they spotted Jack. More than a few concerned citizens recognized Jack from the NewsNets and asked the Peacemakers why Jack wasn’t in restraints.

  “Ought to be a law against it!” a snooty old man snooted.

  “They do have a law against it!” his crusty, ancient wife added. “Don’t think you’re fooling anyone,” she told Jack. “We heard all about those Left-Behinds in the city this morning… whatever you all are up to, you won’t get away with it!”

  “Don’t worry, ma’am,” Stormfront assured the woman. “That’s what we’re here for.”

  “Bless your heart,” the crotchety old woman replied.

  On the short walk to SmartTower, Jack met several more people who felt the need to comment on the Left-Behind infiltrators and Jack’s “obvious” connection to them. The number of Left-Behinds in the city seemed to go up with each new person they met. By the time Jack got across the street, it was a whole team of Left-Behinds led by Revile that was spotted in Galaxis that morning.

  As Jack and the others continued onward, pampered Hightowners also complained about Jack living in their borough. Each time, the Peacemakers pointed to Jazen, who would flash his badge and tell them to get lost. Most Hightowners scoffed at Jazen, too. The idea of an android emissary didn’t suit them any better than a freely roaming infected child. “Probably another Mecha Collaborator,” one man noted as he passed.

  The one person who was nice to Jack was a kid his own age—a boy with red hair who waved and said hello while they waited at the corner for a light to change. The boy’s mother scolded him for it and immediately pulled him off in another direction. Stormfront looked up at one of the SmartCams that was following Jack. “Let’s put that redheaded kid on the watch list,” he said to it.r />
  “Possible Rüstov sympathizer,” Battlecry added. The SmartCam acknowledged the order with a beep and then flew off after the child and his mother.

  “Why do you live in Hightown instead of Machina?” Jack asked Jazen as they walked along. “The Ivory Tower is great and all, but these people are the worst.”

  “Tell me about it,” Jazen said. “Machina isn’t really built for bi-orgs, though. That’s Mecha-speak for biological organisms like yourself. I have to be a good host to anyone I bring here, and even the nicest building in Machina wouldn’t be too comfortable for you. No bathrooms, no kitchens… rechargeable docking stations instead of beds. You get the picture. Besides, if I live here, I get to vote against Smart every time he runs for Circleman. Of course, SmartCorp is the biggest employer in the borough, so he still wins every election in a landslide.”

  When the group arrived at Smart’s corporate headquarters, Jack was not at all surprised to learn the building was the tallest in Empire City. Smart owned property in every borough, but SmartTower was the crown jewel of his collection. The building did not occupy the central position in the Empire City skyline, but it was the most prominent by far.

  The tower was a vertigo-inducing six-hundred-floor structure capped with a spire that was every bit as sharp as the peak of Mount Nevertop. A curved incline sloped down from the pinnacle of the spire, jutting out over the side, then cutting back in to run straight down. The face of the building was half-bare, and half lined with cylindrical windows that began at the bottom floor and ran all the way up to a massive round window at the top. Smart’s office was on the very top floor, behind that massive round window. Much like the man himself, Smart’s office was positioned high above the rest of the city, with a view that overlooked everything.