The Stupendous Adventure of Butler Boy - Chapter 3

I hate being right.

No, scratch that.

I enjoy being right, except when I'm correct about something inconveniencing me. Then, and only then, do I hate being right.

I stared up at the hospital television with a blank expression as the cheery OP played over the classic nineties animation.

“I'm actually watching the Busy World of Richard Scarry,” I muttered to myself. “I haven't watched this since I was... what, seven? Eight? Last time around.”

I twitched and pushed the mute button. There was nothing really wrong with the show. To the contrary, it was actually fairly engaging... for what it was. Still, it was also the kind of programming that you view with a certain amount of nostalgia and self-delusion regarding exactly how interesting and developed it was. Past the first or second episode, it stopped being charming and just got... kind of bitter-sweet and disappointing? A little sad, too, that reliving old memories from childhood didn't quite measure up to your perceptions of them.

But it was either this, talk shows, or infomercials.

“Man, daytime TV sucked ass back before streaming services,” I sighed.

Thankfully, Ducktales was on next and was just as good as I remembered it being. My eyes skimmed over the TV guide in the newspaper, looking for an interesting movie and finding nothing on this early in the day.

Ducktales it was.

“I wonder how hard it would be to get a copy of the original Ghost in the Shell movie stateside,” I hummed speculatively. The movie had come out two years ago in Japan and was released in the US on a limited release last year. I'd wanted to go see it in theaters, but... well, I'd been twelve and my mother actually cared about the specifics of our media intake.

Last time around my sister had taken me and my brother to see Anaconda in theaters.

I'd been nine and he'd been six. We'd watched a giant snake eat several human beings while they were alive and turned out completely fine for the experience. Not even afraid of snakes.

But, no, Gits had tiddy in it, so that was a no-go.

I'd been a very pouty child for a few weeks after that and only let it go when I'd rationalized that we'd have had to travel to fucking Denver to see the movie. Which was several hours away and just plain not happening for a single theatrical release, no matter how groundbreaking and immortal the movie would go on to become.

There was a quick rapping of knuckles on my door before it unceremoniously opened and a beautiful young woman that could nearly pass for a Hollywood starlet walked in. No, not walked. She sashayed, she moseyed on in... she 'walked' in the same sense as a top-level ballet performer just 'dances.'

“Adelaide,” I gave her a nod, reaching over to pick up my sketchbook and a few of the cheap drafting pencils mom had gotten me, glancing at the odd oversized purse hanging offer her arm. That definitely wasn't her usual one.

Well, one of her usual purses.

I shook my head and returned my attention to the pencil I'd just picked up.

They were an interim tool. Once I got out of here I'd hopefully be able to convince my parents to stop at an art supply store on the way home. I probably wouldn't be able to justify getting everything I wanted, but...

“Hey Ardie,” she hummed, leaning over and – I swear to God – deliberately pressing my face into her breasts.

She smelled of cherry and lavender.

“Sorry I only got in today. Had a big test on Monday and Mom said-” She started.

“It's fine,” I cut her off with a small gesture. “It's not like I was bleeding out or anything. As it is, they're just waiting for the anti-fungal stuff to clear my lungs up and for the antibiotics to run their course.”

Blue eyes like chips of ice narrowed. “You were coughing when we talked on the phone. Are you sure I shouldn't have a talk with one of Dad's guys? I bet they could get me into that little dick-weed Kevin's cell for a few minutes.”

I huffed a laugh, a smile playing at my lips. “Tempting, but no. Thanks anyway, though, Addy.”

“Hmm... if you say so. You seemed to have handled it alright yourself so far,” Adelaide stated, leaning back.

“How are Mom and Dad?” I paused, my eyes cutting towards her. “Really? Algie was pretty messed up by the whole thing, I don't think he's telling me the full story.”

She visibly chewed on the question for a moment and my eyes drifted back to the paper on my lap, the soft scratching of graphite on bleached wood pulp the only sound in the hospital room for several seconds.

“Mom's been going to church more than usual,” she replied at length, looking away and staring – not watching – the TV. “She's pretty rattled. Looking at the whole thing as an act of God. You know how she can get... like back when Gram got sick.”

I hummed, neither agreeing nor disagreeing and definitely not commenting on the note of derision in her voice regarding a certain subject. “Dad? And Algie for that matter?”

“Dad'll get through it, he's mostly just stressing about Mom right now,” Addy shrugged. “And she'll stop freaking out once Father Martinez manages to talk her down. Algie... well, he fucked up the game. Stress, worry – not your fault, but it's still a fuck up. As long as he does well in the next few games, he might still get picked up by a scout, but crashing and burning like that can get in your head.”

I grimaced, pulling and tearing off the sheet of paper and throwing it down by my feet, letting the quiet seep in again.

“How about you?” She asked quietly. “No bullshit this time, you really okay?”

“I'm...” I paused for a while, beginning the lines of my brother's face, carefully idealized. I'd seen him on the field enough to know what he looked like in his uniform. “Coping.”

“Coping,” she repeated, the word dissatisfied and irritated and, just under the surface, seething. “Whatever happens, you let me know if one of those two chucklefucks tries something like this again. Dad won't have to deal with it if no one ever finds their bodies.”

Her perfectly-painted lips twitched, but she didn't smile.

I didn't expect her to.

Algie had my back, I knew that well enough. We gave each other shit aplenty, but that was pretty normal for siblings. There were lines we were each careful not to cross. But Algernon had his limits. More specifically, he was a decent and kind person. If it came down to it, he'd help me out of a jam even if he had to break the law doing it, but it'd tear him up inside if it was really bad. He was the kind of guy that I'd only ask for help as a last resort in a situation like that, for the simple reason that he'd get angry at himself for not preventing it in the first place.

Addy, though?

If I ever needed to bury a body, I knew who I'd call.

“You staying at the house while you're in town?” I asked, pushing the topic away from my wrongful imprisonment.

“Hard not to, with all this,” Addy sighed.

My mouth twisted slightly as I started shading. “Sorry.”

“Not your fault, squirt... and it's not horrible,” my sister shrugged awkwardly. “Any chance I can hide out here and play the dutiful sister tonight?”

“Mom won't enjoy that,” I cautioned, my tone slightly playful, brushing off the warning as a light teasing poke.

“I'll bring my bible, tell her we'll have our own little prayer sesh,” she grinned sardonically.

I sighed. “Sis-”

“Don't. You know I'm not going to be convinced by anything less than full-on divine intervention. I love Mom, even when she's being a bit much like now, but not even you managing to pull through this is going to make me flip, Ardie. I'm just not a believer, not like you and the rest of the family.” She paused, looking deeply unhappy. “I don't want to deal with that from you of all people.”

I stretched my legs out flat, letting my arms fly wide and pull pleasantly at my muscles-

“Ack!” I coughed suddenly, violently, as I tried to inhale.

Addy was on her feet in a split-second, her hand on my back and her eyes looking me over as my chest spasmed for a few more seconds. Once I'd hocked a thick blob of mucous into a tissue and taken a full deep breath, she had a cup of water at my lips.

“Slowly,” she advised, a kind of controlled frustration and subdued anger in the word.

Taking small mouthfuls, I slowly drained the cup and leaned back. “Thanks. That still happens now and then, but it's getting rarer.”

Adelaide hummed, refilling the cup and offering it to me again. I sighed and accepted, even if I was craving a coke. Too much liquid in this water, not enough sugar and caffeine.

“I'm not going to give you shit about not going to mass,” I told her bluntly. “We've been over this. Besides, I don't believe like Algie and the parents. I-”

“Right, you know,” Addy nodded, her tone shifting to amusement. “Sorry, forgot.”

I gave her a gimlet eye before shaking the topic off. It was a non-starter anyway. Adelaide was something of a textbook case on why you didn't push your religion on your kids too hard. Sometimes it worked and they grew up just as rigorously adhering to the principles as you did. Other times, they started getting ideas and asking questions that weren't easy to answer. Or that didn't have a real answer to begin with, so the parent told them to sit down, shut up, and memorize the dogma.

But regardless of all the complications of my relationship with Adelaide, I wasn't quite willing to open the nasty can of worms regarding my reincarnation and absolute certainty that this universe's cosmology explicitly contained 'The Source Wall,' behind which was 'The Source.' Also known as 'The Presence' or 'The Light of Creation.'

On Earth, that entity tended to go by the title God of Abraham.

I settled for sighing again. “Sis, if aliens are real-”

She groaned, the most animated noise she'd made the entire conversation. “We don't know that Superman is actually an alien just because he says he-”

“If aliens are real!” I interjected pointedly, glaring at the older girl. “And the Greek Amazons are real! Then there's absolutely no reason that God isn't real, too. Just... trust me on this.”

She gave me an irritated look, her hand brushing across her lower abdomen-

I cut my gaze away, more than a little uncomfortable.

Then froze as the implication hit me.

...what had it said? My fingers itched to grab my wallet off the bedside table and check the tiny slips of paper I'd pulled from the capsules.

It was... I could inject my blood to heal people? No, it wasn't 'healing.' It was rebuilding.

“There something on my face?” Adelaide asked, and I realized I had turned back and was staring at her-

-I twitched, jerking my head away, looking anywhere else. “No, nothing... just, I...”

Her face softened. “Arden, is there something wrong?”

“I need to talk to you,” I heard myself say, almost against my will. “Not here. After I get out of the hospital, when we've got some privacy.”

There are times we have choices and there are choices that aren't that at all.

Things you have to do, even if you'd rather put them off.

I'd rather roll the dice than make her think I waited even a moment longer than I needed to.

“We don't have privacy here?” Addy asked, looking around the otherwise empty room, though her eyes lingered on the large table opposite my bed covered in flower arrangements and get-well-soon cards. My sister smirked. “What, are the petunias listening in on us?”

I spun the pencil that was still in my hand and looked at the flowers speculatively. “Probably shouldn't take the chance.”

Adelaide blinked, obviously not having expected that. “Okay, now I'm worried.”

I hummed, shrugging off her concerned and curious stare. Then, in a moment of inspiration, I passed her the sketchbook. It'd been leaning on my slightly-raised left knee as I lay in the hospital bed and she'd been at the wrong angle to watch me work beforehand.

“What'd you think?” I asked, shoving it at her.

Addy snapped out of her suspicious mood – if only for the moment – and took the sketchbook on reflex. She made a show of giving it a cursory glance, “It's fine Ardie, now-”

She stopped, pausing as she was about to turn back to me, then snapped her head down to stare at the sketch I'd done in complete silence.

“Arden... what the fuck.”

I shook my head, not needing to look at the pad to see what I'd drawn. It was one of those moments that stuck with you. As much as I derided my father and brother for their love of the game, I admired the skill, precision, teamwork, and sheer physicality to play football at even a high school competitive level.

So while I mocked him for it in the traditional brotherly way most siblings did to things their opposing family member liked but they didn't... a single instant of Algie catching a long pass had seared itself in my head. He'd scored with the pass, diving and catching the ball just over the endzone, but...

It was the way he'd seemed to hang in the air for a few seconds too long, like the world was holding its breath to see if he'd make it.

That got to me.

The penciled drawing was, admittedly, slightly stylized. I'd added a bit of height to the flying leap, a bit of definition to what you could see of Algie's face behind the guard on his helmet, and a bit of artistic license with the cosmetic damage to his team uniform. It was an image of a hero at the edge of their capabilities, just barely succeeding where others would have fallen short, a cheering crowd just beginning to take definition behind him. For all that I'd added a bit of a stylistic touch to things, the whole worked looked almost photo-realistic... just not of the event itself.

I'd distilled the idea of the event on paper.

Swallowing dryly, I had to admit that unsettled me, just a bit.

“What the fuck?” Addy asked again, looking up to me with a stunned expression that was equal parts puzzled and disbelieving.

“I dunno,” I stated after staring at my own work for a moment. “I think... maybe my brain got a little rewired, while I was down there? Like... I think they call it 'acquired savant syndrome.' Something happens like an accident or a disease and it fries part of your brain.”

She blinked and looked at the art again, her eyes still wide in surprise. “You think you got dumber to do this?”

I blinked at her.

Right, no constant stream of info-tainment youtube videos giving summaries of esoteric topics yet.

“No... I mean, the brain's flexible. It just moves things around,” I shook my head, reaching for my water again. “But sometimes that means you end up being able to do things you weren't able to before.”

She frowned at me doubtfully and I sighed, taking a long drink before rubbing mock-tiredly at my eyes.

“Look, I'm not joking. There was this guy in the eighteen-hundreds, Phineas Gage. He was using a iron staff to tamp down blasting powder to blow a hole through some rock laying new track for the railroad. The tamping rod ended up sparking the powder and shooting the entire six-foot length of iron through his head,” I pointed upwards at the edge of my jaw and traced the path through my head to the top of my skull.

“That usually kills people,” Addy noted idly.

“Yeah, but sometimes weird shit happens,” I muttered, twitching as I remembered Mixxy's appearance. Even now I was unwilling to think of the pink elephant that was his name lest he somehow hear me and be recalled from that. “It didn't even knock him unconscious. He explained to the doctor how he was injured and let the man look inside the hole in his skull to see his brain to prove it.”

Adelaide turned slightly off-color at the imagery. “But nothing like that happened to you.”

“Not a traumatic injury, but my brain was being starved for oxygen,” I replied, making her grimace. “I think... some stuff got messed up. After the accident, Gage had weird emotional fits, but he'd suddenly become incredibly talented at making pottery. Some of it's still in museums over on the east coast.”

Which was a departure from the story that I was familiar with, but... this was an odd world to begin with. It didn't particularly surprise me that someone in a world of heroes and villains and aliens and gods would get super-pottery powers after taking a shaft of metal through his head. It helped, I think that I'd always found Gage's story to end sadly. Him finding solace in art during the last decade of his life was a happier ending.

I liked that version of history more, I'm pretty sure.

“What do the doctors say?” Adelaide asked, looking back down at the piece of art in her hands.

“I have a referral to a neuro-psych specialist, but the general practitioner in charge of my treatment doesn't have any better ideas for a sudden jump in skill and ability like this. It's just... anomalous,” I stated, sticking to the story I'd told everyone.

On the one hand, I could have let things lie and simply built up a visible increase in my artistic ability over the course of the next few weeks or months. On the other hand, that would require a level of acting and deception that... well, I might be capable of. Maybe, maybe not. But that was a long time to fool a lot of people and I didn't have faith in the idea that I'd pull it off perfectly with no one the wiser. Moreover... the idea didn't appeal to me all that much.

It was just too elaborate.

Who was I trying to fool with it, anyway? Other than Mixxy, no one else knew I was anything special right now. Being good at art wouldn't change that unless I could make my doodles come to life and do/fight crime. If the gacha had seen fit to bless me with some insane mechanics, science, or weaponry skills... well, that would be another story.

Few people saw artistic skill as either useful or desirable enough to attempt to harm me or recruit me at gunpoint to use my skills for their own ends.

So I'd take refuge in audacity and lean into the blip of fame that I'd received as a result of my survival. It was a story that would play well in the news, anyway, and likely add an air of mystique to my art that I could capitalize on.

Speaking of...

“So has the little media circus outside calmed down?” I asked Addy with curiosity. “Dad told me they were down to only a handful of reporters after the initial rush.”

“They come and go,” Addy shrugged. “I just threw on a smock and a fake name badge and no one looked at me twice. There were about six crews still hanging around when I went down there. I think the Telluride cops chased them off the Baxter's property and ours, so they needed somewhere to film and the school is still off-limits.”

I snorted, now that was a mess I didn't envy anyone having to deal with.

Turns out hypoxia hadn't been my biggest concern down there. Some really nasty shit was growing in some of the older piles of debris I'd written off as useless in addition to being too difficult to get to.

I guess that explains the purse.

The thought came unbidden, but made sense. It probably helped sell Addy's disguise. Normally she wouldn't have been caught dead with a huge floppy handbag like that, but it likely held the smock and tag she'd faked her way through the crowd with.

“What's the news like, anyway?” I asked, curious.

“You haven't been watching it?” She asked, a smirk playing on her lips as she raised an eyebrow.

I stared at her for a moment, then pointed to my bedside where a stack of books lay. “I have literally a dozen books I'd rather read on top of suddenly being an amazing artist. Stroking my own ego by watching the news talk about me is somewhere down on the lowest five things I'd like to do right now.”

Addy giggled and smiled. “Well-”

…

“Genius Thirteen Year Old High School Student Escapes Certain Death – Does MacGyver Proud!”

Archibald Villin looked up from his work with an annoyed expression. “Potter, I swear to God himself, if you don't put that rag of a newspaper down and get to work, I'll have you on scut duty for a month.”

Detective Elizabeth Hollis gave the suddenly-dismayed Officer Potter's head a slap before snatching the paper out of his hands. Glaring, she injected herself into the conversation. “Take a hint, Danny. The man's son was missing for two days. It's not suddenly okay to joke about because he's going to make a full recovery. Sorry about him, Chief.”

The chief of police for the small town of Telluride Colorado grunted, intentionally turning away from Danny Potter and pulling up a stack of documents. “Speaking of which, I've got the documents on the contractor, Hollis. Looks like a bigger contract with the school system that was signed in Denver.”

The woman sighed and dropped the confiscated newspaper into the trash before sipping at her coffee in her other hand and taking the documents. “Excellent. Just what I wanted, Chief. More paperwork.”

“I'd do it myself, but I'd like the charges to stick,” Archie grunted unhappily, sorting through more folders, “which means properly recusing myself from the case. You need help, pull Martinez off traffic duty. This is more important than handing out speeding tickets before the vacationers even get here for spring break.”

“Right, will do,” Hollis nodded.

Potter slid up to the desk awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head. “Ah... sorry, Chief. Thought you'd like the headline since they were saying good stuff about your kid.”

Chief Villin sighed and looked his youngest officer over, a fresh recruit only a year out of the academy who was trying and failing to grow a beard to compensate for an age that most people still associated with college students, not cops. “You ever have kids, Danny, you'll understand. Even if I'm proud of Arden, the whole thing scared me half to death and Abby, too. There's nothing quite as frightening as not knowing where your child is for a parent.”

“Right, sorry again,” Danny repeated, anxiously trying to fix his hair by combing his fingers through it. “Saw the mess he made of that big door tearing through it, though. Really impressed the hell out of me, sir.”

Archibald snorted and nodded. “Arden's always been one to impress. Even more than Addy or Algie. He's always made me worry more than the other two, though. I guess that goes hand in hand.”

“What'd you worry about?” Danny asked, confused. “Kid's smart as a tack. We got to talking about that cartoon on right now, Daria. I swear he had stuff to say that made my head spin.”

Not unkindly, the police chief reflected that wouldn't be too hard. Danny Potter wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer and would likely always be a beat cop, but that wasn't the worst fate in the world. There wasn't too much serious crime to chase in Telluride that required serious investigative work and they always needed someone to handle the domestic disturbance calls in the meantime. It helped that Danny's youthful appearance made him non-threatening and, surprisingly, good at defusing tense situations. Saw what you would about the young officer's lack of tact, he could make fast friends with a burglar he'd just arrested five minutes prior.

Archie wouldn't believe it if he hadn't seen it happen.

“You ever pick on the nerd in class?” The police chief asked instead of answering the question directly. When Danny winced, but nodded regretfully, Archie nodded as well. “I did too. Guess it's my punishment to know what a really smart kid can go through in school from the other side of things.”

“Most of the kids at the school seemed like they liked him well enough,” Danny tried to comfort the older man. “Didn't hardly have a bad thing to say about him. Lotsa' girls even called him cute.”

Archie snorted. “Don't let his mother hear that, she's already worried that some pretty young thing will get her hooks in Arden and tie him down here instead of seeing him off to college.”

“Anyway, sir... just wanted to say that it's a hell of a thing, what your boy did. Really smart kid you've got. Brave, too,” Danny nodded respectfully, then turned to walk away.

Meanwhile, Archie leaned back in his chair and sighed deeply, looking over at the far wall for the umpteenth time that day, a mix of burned-out rage and deep regret welling up. His high school football team stood there, gathered around the state championship trophy and holding it up with easy cheer and exaltation.

“How'd it turn out like this, Benny?” Archibald sighed, running his hand over his face.

The blinking message light on his phone caught his eye and he shook his head before picking it up. “Chief of Police's office-”

Archibald paused, grimacing as the voice on the other end of the line spoke up.

“Yeah, Benny, he's doing fine. I didn't stick him in the general tank. Or his cousin, even if I wanted to,” Archie stated, a tad sourly. “I gave you my word I'd look after them, wouldn't let anything happen to them while they're under my care. They'll go to trial just like they should.”

Another long pause as he listened to the replay, his face growing cold and grave.

“You know I can't do that, Benny,” Archibald stated tiredly. “And I wouldn't if I could, frankly. That was my son, just like this is yours. I know you're doing what you have to, to look out for the boy, but I need to look out for my own, too. The people of this town, as well. I slap him on the wrist and make some paperwork disappear and it's more than my reputation on the line. More than my job. I'd be lucky if my wife let me back in the house.”

A few long moments of real silence.

Another tired hand rubbing at his eyes at the question being asked.

“The most I'll do let you meet with Arden, if he's up to it,” Archie replied. “If he doesn't want to hear you out, that's the end of it, okay? I'm only doing this much for old time's sake. If it were anyone else, I'd tell 'em to sit and spin.”

Archie paused, then nodded in reply even if the other man couldn’t see him. “You too, Benny.  As good as a day you can have, anyway.”

~~~

The New Ron is already started and I'm working on it. This was just almost done, so consider it a bonus.

Arden recuperates and we meet the last member of his family and, likely, the most complicated.

Meanwhile, other people face their own challenges.

Hope everyone enjoys.