The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism

The hallway on the second floor of the East Tower smelled like fresh paint and cleaning solution, the kind of aggressively neutral scent that institutions use when they want you to forget that someone else lived here before you. The carpet was grey. The walls were white. The ceiling lights hummed at a frequency that my sixty-three Intelligence stat registered as mildly annoying but ultimately ignorable.

Room 205 waited at the far end.

Percy’s door, 204, stood to the left of mine. Already closed. Already occupied. A welcome mat sat in front of it that read "WELCOME" in blue letters because Percy had apparently chickened out on deploying the "GO AWAY" mat he’d purchased for me and bought himself a polite alternative instead. The "GO AWAY" mat sat in front of Room 205. My room. Percy had installed it himself, likely at six in the morning, likely after walking the optimal route to the lecture hall for the third time.

I dropped my duffel in front of the door, fished the keycard from my back pocket, and tapped it against the sensor. The lock clicked green.

Seven hundred fifty square feet of apartment opened up before me.

Diane had been here.

Not physically. She’d sent people. But Diane’s fingerprints were all over this room in the way that mattered, which was the arrangement of every object within it. The walnut desk sat against the east wall, positioned three inches to the left of where the housing floor plan suggested, because Diane Fitzgerald had opinions about lamp cord placement and those opinions were non-negotiable even from a different zip code. The sage reading chair occupied the corner near the window at a forty-five degree angle that caught natural light without creating glare on the desk surface. The platform bed had been assembled with the headboard against the interior wall, sheets already on, pillows already arranged, the duvet folded at the foot in that specific hotel-style presentation that communicated someone with taste had been involved.

The bookshelf leaned against the wall opposite the bed. Empty. Waiting for me to pretend I read more than I actually do. The couch I’d picked out sat in the living area facing the south window.

Diane had called it "minimalist walnut" and I had agreed with her because arguing about furniture was low on my priority list even when I had opinions about the topic. Which I didn’t. The side table next to it held the Resonance Pro speaker already synced and blinking soft blue standby light.

The bathroom door hung open. Rain shower head visible from where I stood. Double sinks that looked like something out of a hotel catalog. Towels folded on the rack that were definitely not standard Halloran issue because Diane had replaced them with Egyptian cotton in storm grey. Not my description. Hers. I called it grey and had been corrected.

I set the duffel on the bed and stood in the center of the apartment.

Three years of training, application cycles, entrance exams, and administrative processing to get here. Seven hundred fifty square feet of real estate with my name on the keycard and furniture selected by someone who thought about lamp cord placement with the dedication most people reserved for career decisions.

This wasn’t Diane’s hospitality anymore. Not charity. Not the guest room where I’d spent nine years as the Unmarked kid in someone else’s house. This was mine. My lease. My door. My problem if I failed out and had to explain it.

Not Diane’s guest room. Not the space above the garage in Creston Hills where the original Lukas had spent nine years existing in someone else’s house with the constant ambient awareness that he was a guest who had overstayed his welcome by approximately a decade. This was mine. My name on the door. My keycard in my pocket. My desk, my bed, my bathroom with water pressure that probably cost more per month than some people’s rent.

The window looked south toward the training grounds. From this angle I could see the outdoor combat field, a flat expanse of reinforced concrete and earth surrounded by observation towers. Two students were already down there running laps despite orientation not starting until Wednesday. Overachievers. I respected it and also found it deeply annoying.

I unzipped the duffel and started unpacking. Four identical black hoodies. Two pairs of dark jeans. Workout clothes. Toiletries. A framed photograph that I almost left in the bag.

Almost.

I pulled it out and looked at it. Marcus and Reina Belmont in their Hero costumes, standing side by side in front of a sunset that looked staged but wasn’t. Marcus had the same jawline I saw in my mirror every morning. Reina had the amber eyes. Between them they’d possessed Impact Absorption and Light Step, two mid-tier Aspects that they’d used well enough to become respected if not famous. They’d died together on a Tuesday in the Eastside when their son was eight years old.

I set the photo on the desk, face-up, where I could see it from the bed.

The original Lukas had looked at this photo forty-seven times in the old bedroom. The transmigrant version of me had looked at it exactly three times. Once when I found it. Once when I packed it. Now.

I still couldn’t access the grief that should have been there. The memories existed in this body’s neural architecture, filed under a category my consciousness could reference but not feel. Marcus lifting me onto his shoulders at a park. Reina’s laugh, sharp and bright and totally undignified for someone who fought A-class threats for a living. The smell of Reina’s shampoo, something with vanilla that I could recall with perfect sensory clarity but zero emotional resonance.

That specific kind of guilt had become familiar enough to carry without staggering under it.

My phone buzzed.

Percy: I have confirmed that the bathroom ventilation system operates at a noise level of 42 decibels which is within the acceptable range for residential comfort but significantly louder than the 35 decibel threshold I prefer.

Percy: This is not a complaint. I am providing data.

Percy: Are you here yet?

I typed back: Been here ten minutes. Your ventilation data is noted and filed.

The response came in four seconds.

Percy: WELCOME. I will be over in exactly ninety seconds unless that is too soon. Please indicate preference.

I pocketed the phone and finished hanging my hoodies in the closet. Standard closet. Walk-in by technical definition but only barely, the kind of space that would have been adequate for my entire wardrobe and laughably insufficient for someone like Sloane, who treated clothing storage as an engineering challenge. I had six hangers. Sloane probably needed sixty.

A knock hit my door at exactly the ninety-second mark.