“Please, Master Jordan, retrieve your things,” the old man said as they pulled up to the gate of the college. “Take only what you need. Necessities will be provided to you at no charge, courtesy of the Speedwagon Foundation, though I suppose if you have a particular attachment to your toothbrush, for example, an amendment on your requisition forms could be made.”

Joules stepped out of the car. China Grove College stood empty as a tomb. The once bustling hub of China Grove lay dormant, awaiting the hordes of students set to arrive within the week. When he’d stepped foot on campus nearly a year ago to the day, he’d been filled with excitement and anticipation. Now, after the longest day of his life, his first steps towards the wrought iron gates were slow and unsure, as if he truly didn’t belong there.

“One more thing,” the old man said. “Mistress Bishop has informed me as to your current status within the college. On my way to pick you two up, I spoke with the dean. In exchange for your part in protecting Mistress Bishop from Miles Davis, I have arranged for your conditional readmittance for the upcoming fall semester.”

Joules froze. Readmittance?

“So, I can go back to class?” he asked, not believing it until he heard his own words.

“Correct,” the man said. “Your record has been wiped clean, so you would re-enroll as a freshman. I suppose you’d be a year behind, but you’d also be a year ahead, so to speak.”

It was as if an enormous weight had been lifted from his shoulder, a weight that extended far past his terrible night. If he could re-enroll, apply himself, he could turn his life around. With the knowledge of Stands, he could keep [Do Dope Fuck Hope] under control. He would study hard, catch up with his peers, and finish what he started. He saw himself walking along the stage in his black cap and gown. His parents were in the crowd. His mother was crying, but trying not to show it. His father smiled at him.

“What’s the catch?” Joules asked.

“As a Stand user, you will be under constant supervision by the Speedwagon Foundation. This is non-negotiable. The first objective of our organization is the protection of the outside world from the powers of the Stand. All Stand users must either join our cause or expect no true privacy for the rest of their lives. You’ve seen the damage a single Stand user can unleash. Even now, we are developing a file on you, Master Jordan, much the same as there exists a file on Mistress Bishop and on myself.”

“But I’ll get to go back to school,” Joules said. “Besides, you won’t be bugging my rooms and hiding in my closet. A little discomfort isn’t too high a price to pay.”

“I will remain here for fifteen minutes,” the old man said. “If you decide to come back, with Mistress Bishop’s recommendation, you will be inducted as a member of the Speedwagon Foundation.”

“And if I don't come back?”

“If you are not back by then, I will assume you have chosen to remain at school. We will leave, and you can go back to your old life.”

“This doesn’t count against my time, does it?” He crossed his arms. “I can always come back, right? This clean slate thing isn’t a one time offer is it?”

“Not at all. From today onward, it will be as if your past year never happened,” said the old man. “However, the other path is much harder to predict. The world of Stand users is a dangerous one. It would be impossible to know what might happen.”

Joules looked past the old man to Lorelei. “You’ve been awfully quiet. What do you think?”

“Forgive me, Master Jordan,” the old man interjected, “but I have asked Mistress Lorelei not to weigh in on your decision. She has already informed me of her Stands effect on you. I’m afraid you might be swayed by forces beyond your control.”

He wouldn’t mind that now. The two choices weighed on his mind, balanced on a scale with himself as the fulcrum. SO much had changed in so little time. Even if the old man had asked him on the drive over, he would have told the school t go fuck itself. If, by some twist of fate, he’d asked him a week ago, he would have begged for the chance to start over. Now, standing at the threshold, he couldn’t choose.

Why does everything have to be so goddamn difficult?

“You have fifteen minutes, Master Jordan.”

Whichever path he chose, he had to go back to his room anyway, so he headed up past the gates through the courtyard towards the dorms perched on a hill at the back of the campus. The walk was familiar in the same way passing by the street you grew up on brought back memories. He didn’t even have any particularly fond memories of this place, but what it represented, both to himself and everyone else, overshadowed his own experiences. China Grove College was where you went if you were meant to be someone. When Joules received his acceptance letter, it was the first time he felt genuine recognition. His father looked him in the eyes as a man for the first time and shook his hand. His mother called, texted, wrote, emailed, or tweeted at anybody who would listen. “My baby got into CGC!”

And he’d thrown it all away.

He tried opening the door to the dorm, but he’d again forgotten the absence of his wallet. The minor inconvenience brought him out of the clouds. Life was full of little things like that. Misplacing your keys, leaving the milk out, forgetting to take the trash out. No matter who he was or where he went to school, those things would still happen.

But he knew there was something more. He couldn’t unlearn that fact, and by his own estimation, he’d never be rid of his Stand. It was a part of himself. Lorelei had explained that if a Stand is killed, its user dies as well, and vice-versa. He couldn’t remove [Do Dope Fuck Hope] Without removing a part of himself. He’d never truly be normal ever again. At most he could pretend at it, get a good job, meet a nice girl, settle down.

Of course, he had met a nice girl.

One of the RAs to his building saw him stranded outside. She unlocked the door for him, ushering him inside.

“You certainly look like you’ve been enjoying yourself.”

He was covered in cuts, burns, bruises. His clothes were still damn from the burst pipes, and his shirt was a novelty shirt from a diner on the outskirts of town his Ra had probably never even heard of before.

“It’s been a long night,” he said.

He made his way up to his dorm room, taking the stairs to give him even more time to think. It wasn’t like there was a bad decision. Either her took the offer, signed up for class, and got his life back on track, or he came back, accepted the old man’s offer, and joined Lorelei in learning more about his power, a power that, so far, had only ever gotten him into trouble.

De didn’t even really like his Stand or the fact that he had one at all. It was a nuisance, and had precious few legitimate uses. So he had the power to store bad emotions and transfer them between people and Stands. He was already a master at bottling up his own negative feelings. [Do Dope Fuck Hope] was just the manifestaion of that disgusting habit.

He wasn’t a hero. He’d already killed a man and watched another one die. When he thought about it rationally, he was horrified. The truth made him sick to his stomach. He wanted nothing more than to run away, pretend it never happened. But it had happened, and he couldn’t run away from that, even if his Stand had the ability to run away from abstract concepts.

Some part of his mind had compartmentalized his actions against M. Davis and Eddie Oakley. M. Davis had deserved to die, but Joules didn’t understand why he’d been so cavalier about dooing the deed himself. However, he hadn’t really done, from a certain point of view. [Do Dope Fuck Hope] had delivered the final blow. Sure, Joules wanted it to happen, but he wouldn’t have done it himself. Could he be held responsible for the actions of his Stand?

He wondered if the Speedwagon Foundation had lawyers and resolved to avoid them at all costs if it came down to that.

The door to Joules’ dorm room, like the dozens of other doors on his floor during the summer, was bare and nondescript, only the hanging number differentiated it from any other door picked at random. He slid his key into the lock.

His room was normally a mess, but what he saw inside defied expectations. Everything he owned from clothes to books to video games to hygiene products were thrown about as if a great storm had passed through, leaving no survivors. His blood ran cold, and [Do Dope Fuck Hope] bristled against his consciousness in anticipation.

A few more moments passed, and he determined that there wasn’t a present dange around his room. That wasn’t to say there was no danger. Someone had been in his room, and they were looking for something. Joules racked his brain as to what that something could be but came up short. He didn’t have a lot of money, and he didn’t keep any of it in his dorm. His electronics and appliances were hopelessly out of date. Even his clothes were unassuming, consisting of a small collection of branded tees, collegiate apparel, a few pairs of pants, socks, underwear, and a single jacket. Nothing worth trashing the place over.

Unless they were looking for him.

His mind flashed back to M. Davis. Before the monster had died, he spoke of those he worked for. Had word already gotten out about his triumph over M. Davis? If so, had they sent someone to retaliate? To do that, though, they would need to know who he was and where he lived. They couldn’t figure that out just a few hours after he’d done the deed, could they?

They could if they had your wallet with your Student ID, you idiot.

Was he being watched right now? He tried to reach out with his power, flexing anything around the stone embedded in his shoulder, but he felt nothing. At least with the stone, he could safely assume he was alone. The stone seemed to react around other Stand users. It had fascinated M. Davis, consumed Eddie Oakley, and its understanding was one of the primary goals of the Speedwagon Foundation.

He picked his chair up off of the floor and sat down, collecting his thoughts and planning his next move. He couldn’t stay here. Whoever the people M. Davis worked for now knew where he lived, and staying put would only put him and potentially hundreds of other students at risk. Minute ago, the choice before him had been painful, but it had been snatched out of his hands by forces outside his control. The powerlessness more than anything made Joules mad. He kicked a pile of rifled-through clothes in anger.

The message tone on his computer chirped. He swiveled in his chair, expecting to see another message from his mom or from one of his friends back home. Instead, it was from somebody he didn’t know. The screen name was just a string of junk letters, numbers, and symbols with no profile picture, but the message caught his eye.

YOU ARE NOT SAFE.

He read the message several times. Written in all capital letters, the message certainly put off an air of absolute certainty. Normally, he would have chalked a message such as that to be the elaborate hook to some new spam bot trying to get him to give away his credit card details in exchange for erotic, adult chatroom access.

It could be a trap. He didn’t know how he could determine that without actually springing it, but call it a sixth sense. So many strange things had happened to him today that he was ready to believe anything.

“Who are you?” Joules replied.

There was a pause, then the pulsing ellipses of someone typing, then another pause.

MY NAME IS MR. ROBOTO. YOUR NAME IS JOULES JORDAN. YOU WERE BORN ON SEPTEMBER 12, 2000, in PENSACOLA FLORIDA. YOUR MOTHER’S NAME IS SHELBY JORDAN AND YOUR FATHER IS JOHN PARKER JORDAN.

“So you know who I am,” Joules typed back. “What’s going on? Why am I not safe?”

I HAVE BEEN CLOSELY MONITORING YOU THIS PAST YEAR, JOULES JORDAN. I KNOW ABOUT YOUR ‘ABILITY’. I, TOO, HAVE AN ‘ABILITY’. [PARANOID ANDROID] EXISTS INSIDE THE INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY. THAT’S HOW I KNOW SO MUCH ABOUT YOU. EVEN NOW, I CAN SEE YOU THROUGH YOUR WEBCAM, EVEN THOUGH YOU HAVE IT TURNED OFF.

Joules put a shaking finger to the power switch of his webcam. When his finger touched the switch, his left shoulder spasmed, all but confirming the presence of a Stand. He didn’t know much about Stands, but could a Stand really exist only on the internet? How could you beat something like that?

“Okay, I believe you,” Joules wrote back. “What’s going on?”

YOUR DORM ROOM WAS ACCESSED AT NINE FORTY-FOUR AM, LOCAL TIME BY SOMEONE OTHER THAN YOURSELF. I KNOW WHO IT IS.

“Who?”

“IN THE UNDERBELLY OF THE INTERNET, HE IS KNOWN AS NO. 3. HE IS A MEMBER OF AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS GROUP OF STAND USERS. THEY ARE KNOWN AMONG US AS THE FIVE TO ONE. THEY ARE LOOKING FOR YOU, JOULES. THEY KNOW WHAT YOU DID.

“How do you know all this?”

Another pause, longer this time, as if “Mr. Roboto” was choosing his words carefully.

IT IS BECAUSE I BROUGHT THEM HERE.

So he is an enemy!

DO NOT BE ALARMED, JOULES JORDAN. I KNOW NOW WHAT I DID WAS A MISTAKE. THINGS ARE SPIRALING OUT OF MY CONTROL. YOU HAVE ACCELERATED THEIR PLANS.

“What plans?” Joules asked. “What do they want from me?”

IT IS NOT YOU THEY WANT, BUT YOUR ELIMINATION. THEY SEEK TO DRAG HUMANITY ACROSS THE THRESHOLD. THE JEWELS ARE THE KEY.

“Why did you bring them here?”

PERHAPS I MISSPOKE. I MERELY SET UP A MAN WITH THEIR REPRESENTATIVE. HAD I KNOWN ANYTHING WOULD HAPPEN, I WOULD NEVER HAVE AGREED TO SUCH A THING.

“Yeah? I’m sure you got paid.”

I AM PREPARED TO PUT THE FULL POWER OF [PARANOID ANDROID] TO THE CAUSE OF STOPPING THE FIVE TO ONE. SHOULD THEY SUCCEED AND ATTAIN THEIR “HEAVEN”, HUMANITY WILL SURELY SUFFER.

YOU MUST REBEL AGAINST THAT HEAVEN, JOULES JORDAN.

“Okay, what do I need to do?”

FIRST YOU MUST SECURE MY SAFETY. ONLY THEN WILL I AID YOU FURTHER.

“How am I supposed to do that from here? Can’t you just pay some korean pilot in bitcoin to Shanghai you across the globe?”

WHILE I HAVE CONSIDERED DISAPPEARING, I HAVE DETERMINED THAT DOING SO WILL RESULT IN MORE DESTRUCTION. YOU ARE UNIQUELY SUITED TO THIS TASK.

“And why is that?”

BECAUSE WE ARE APPROXIMATELY POINT ZERO ZERO EIGHT MILES APART FROM EACH OTHER, AND, IN PRECISELY TEN MINUTES, AN ANARCHIST FOR HIRE NAMED TITO CASTILLO WILL BREACH MY LOCATION AND KILL ME. YOU MUST NOT LET THAT HAPPEN, OR ELSE NOTHING WILL STOP THE FIVE TO ONE FROM ACHIEVING THEIR “HEAVEN”

To be continued...