The uniform was a masterpiece of itchy synthetic fabric, a shade of grey so depressing it could probably curdle hope. "Property of Aegis Academy – Sanitation Dept." was emblazoned on the breast pocket in aggressively cheerful yellow lettering. It felt like wearing a particularly unenthusiastic shroud. I, Kazuo Tanaka, stared at my reflection in the cracked mirror of Mop Room B. The fluorescent light above hummed a tune of bureaucratic indifference, casting a pallid, corpse-like glow on my newly adopted, slightly-too-large visage.
Delightful. Utterly, wonderfully, soul-crushingly mundane.
Mop Room B itself was a symphony of smells: stale bleach, damp concrete, and something vaguely metallic that might have been old robot oil or perhaps the lingering aroma of a particularly unfortunate encounter with a student whose powers involved generating artisanal cheese. (I'd made a mental note to check the incident logs later; the potential for comedy there was sky-high). Buckets leaned against walls like drunken sailors, mops stood at attention like a defeated, fuzzy army, and shelves were crammed with an assortment of cleaning agents whose warning labels read like existential threats. "WARNING: MAY CAUSE SPONTANEOUS DISINTEGRATION OF UNEXPECTED MATTER." Standard janitorial supplies, I presumed, for a school where "unexpected matter" was probably a daily occurrence.
My "tools" for the evening were a dented galvanized steel bucket, a mop that had seen better millennia (or at least better decades), and a spray bottle filled with a mysterious blue liquid labelled "All-Purpose Grime Annihilator (Probably)." The "Probably" was reassuring. It hinted at a certain laissez-faire attitude towards results that I, in my current guise, could definitely get behind.
"Right then, Kazuo," I muttered to my reflection, the words feeling foreign and clunky in a mouth accustomed to reshaping galaxies. "Time to earn that (presumably) minimum wage." My reflection, a picture of mild, stoic resignation, simply stared back. Good man, Kazuo. He was already getting into character.
The first few hours were an exercise in exquisite tedium. The Aegis Academy, by night, was a sprawling labyrinth of echoing corridors, dimly lit classrooms, and vast, empty training halls. The student body, those volatile little sparks of burgeoning heroism and adolescent angst, were presumably tucked away in their dormitories, dreaming of spandex and endorsement deals. Or, more likely, sneaking out to engage in ill-advised nocturnal power-practice.
My squeaky-wheeled bucket and I became intimately acquainted with the linoleum. I mopped. I swept. I occasionally buffed a patch of floor with a rag and a concentrated frown, purely for theatrical effect. The sheer, unadulterated pointlessness of it all was intoxicating. I was an omnipotent being, capable of unmaking reality with a stray thought, and here I was, engaged in a pitched battle against a stubborn scuff mark in Hallway C-Prime. And the scuff mark, bless its inanimate tenacity, was putting up a surprisingly good fight.
The detritus of a day at a superhero school was fascinating in its banality. A discarded energy drink can, crushed with superhuman strength. A scorch mark on a locker, vaguely fist-shaped. A single, lonely feather, shimmering with an unnatural iridescence, probably shed by some poor kid whose flight powers were still in their awkward molting phase. I swept it up with the gravitas one might reserve for a fallen relic.
Occasionally, a late-night faculty member would stride past, usually some grim-faced individual in tactical gear who looked like they wrestled bears for a hobby. They'd give me a cursory nod, the kind one gives to a lamppost or a particularly uninteresting fire hydrant. Invisible. Perfect.
Around 2 AM, while dutifully polishing a display case filled with trophies for "Most Heroic De-escalation of a Cafeteria Food Fight" and "Least Collateral Damage During Midterms (Junior Division)," I encountered my first minor "challenge." A small, hovering maintenance drone, clearly designed for dusting high ceilings, was stuck in a loop, bumping repeatedly into a bust of "Captain Comet, Founder of Aegis (May His Cape Never Snag)." Its little warning light blinked pathetically.
A nearby professor, a harried-looking woman with three pairs of spectacles perched on her nose, was muttering curses at it. "Blast it, Drone Unit 7! Engage vertical protocols! Not… sideways shuffle of shame!"
Here was my chance. Kazuo Tanaka, humble janitor, to the rescue. I shuffled over, my mop clattering. "Excuse me, ma'am," I said, my voice carefully pitched to 'inoffensive and slightly bewildered.' "Sometimes… a good whack… helps?"
She glared at me, then at the drone, then back at me. "A 'whack,' Mr…?"
"Tanaka. Kazuo Tanaka. Night shift."
"Right." She sighed. "Well, don't break it further. It's a Mark IV Dust-Buster, very expensive."
I nodded sagely. Then, with the air of a man performing a delicate arcane ritual, I gently tapped the drone with the handle of my mop. Internally, of course, I sent a minuscule, precisely targeted pulse of will, re-aligning its confused navigational gyroscopes and rebooting its pathetic little AI. To the professor, it would have looked like the most improbable of lucky nudges.
The drone whirred, corrected itself, and zoomed up to diligently dust Captain Comet's stony, heroic nose.
The professor blinked. "Well, I'll be. A… percussive maintenance protocol. Ingenious, Mr. Tanaka." She gave me a slightly less suspicious look. "Carry on."
"Just… happy to help with the… dust situation," I mumbled, retreating back to my scuff mark battle. Score one for subtle omnipotence. The thrill was unexpectedly potent. Like successfully cheating on a test you wrote yourself.
The real entertainment, however, began around 3 AM. That's when the insomniacs, the secret trainers, and the hormonally-charged drama Llamas started to emerge. I was mopping the floor outside Training Ground Gamma-7 – a cavernous space filled with reinforced walls, impact craters, and the faint smell of ozone and desperation – when I heard hushed, urgent voices.
Peeking (discreetly, of course, from behind my strategically positioned mop bucket) I saw two students. One was a lanky kid with hair that defied gravity and crackled with faint blue sparks. He was practically vibrating with nervous energy. Let's call him Sparky. The other was a girl with an aura of bored disdain, sharp features, and a metallic sheen to her skin when the light caught it just right. Tin Can Tilly, perhaps? Or Chrome Dome Chloe? I'd workshop it.
"—just don't think I can do it, Kyra," Sparky whispered, his voice cracking. "The 'Phase-Shift Obliteration Maneuver'? I tried it last week in the sim and nearly phased my own spleen into the cafeteria's Jell-O mold!"
Kyra (so much for Tin Can Tilly) rolled her eyes, a gesture that probably registered on local seismographs. "Relax, Bolt-Brain. It's just controlled intangibility coupled with a targeted energy discharge. If you can't even manage that, how do you expect to pass Advanced Combat Dynamics? Old Man Grumblesnatch will flay you alive with his syllabus."
"But what if I mess up? What if I actually obliterate something? Or someone?" Sparky wrung his hands, little arcs of electricity dancing between his fingers. He looked like he was about to cry static.
"Then you'll get detention. And possibly a stern talking-to from the Ethics in Power Usage Committee. Big deal." Kyra stretched, her joints making faint snikt sounds. "I'm going to practice my Razor-Shard Volley. Try not to get your underpants in a knot, Sparky. Or accidentally teleport them onto the Dean's flagpole again. That was… memorable."
Sparky gulped, looking even more miserable. Kyra sauntered into the training ground, and soon the clang of metal on reinforced plasteel echoed out, along with the occasional yelp of "Eat shuriken, dummy target!"
Poor Sparky. His anxiety was practically a tangible force in the air. He paced, muttering to himself, occasionally letting out a frustrated yelp and a shower of misdirected sparks that singed the already-abused linoleum. This was gold. Pure, unadulterated mortal angst. The kind of stuff that made my eons-long existence feel just a little bit spicier.
Now, the old Me, the one without the itchy uniform and the self-imposed mantle of Kazuo, might have tweaked Sparky's neural pathways to give him instant mastery. Or turned Old Man Grumblesnatch into a particularly enthusiastic kitten. But Kazuo? Kazuo just continued mopping. Albeit with a heightened sense of auditory focus.
Sparky took a deep breath, then another. He tentatively raised his hands. His body flickered, becoming momentarily translucent, then solidified again with a worried frown. He tried again. Flicker. Solid. Flicker… oops, his left foot vanished for a second, then reappeared slightly to the left of where it should have been. He yelped and stumbled.
I, Kazuo, "accidentally" knocked over my mop bucket with a clatter. Sparky jumped about three feet in the air, letting out a yelp and a much larger shower of sparks that actually shorted out one of the overhead lights.
"Oh! My apologies, young man!" I said, my voice full of feigned surprise and janitorial concern. "Clumsy old me. Didn't see you there, what with the… flickering."
Sparky stared at me, wide-eyed, his face flushed. "I… uh… I wasn't doing anything!"
"Of course not," I said, retrieving my mop with painstaking slowness. "Just… admiring the structural integrity of the wall, I presume. Very… solid wall." I gestured vaguely towards the impact craters.
He looked like he wanted the floor to swallow him. Which, given some of an powers I'd cataloged in this dimension, wasn't entirely out of the realm of possibility.
As I was righting my bucket, a small, laminated pamphlet slipped out from under my arm – one I'd "found" earlier near a recycling bin. It was titled: "Common Power Control Issues and How to Mitigate Them: A Beginner's Guide to Not Exploding." I'd, of course, subtly nudged its quantum state so it would land face-up, open to a chapter titled: "Chapter 3: Grounding Techniques for Energy Manipulators – Don't Let Your Chi Become Your 'Oops!'"
"Oh dear," I said, picking it up. "Must have dropped this. From the… lost and found. Perhaps it might be of… interest?" I offered it to him with an innocent, Kazuo-esque smile.
Sparky stared at the pamphlet as if it were a divine revelation. Or possibly a venomous snake. He hesitantly took it. "Uh… thanks, Mr…?"
"Tanaka. Kazuo Tanaka."
"Right. Thanks." He clutched the pamphlet and scurried away, presumably to find a quiet corner to hyperventilate and possibly learn how not to phase his internal organs into dessert items.
My work here, as they say, was done. Or at least, my amusement for this particular hour was sated. The beauty of it was the deniability. Did I help him? Did I just provide a random piece of literature? Who could say? The universe (this tiny, localized corner of it) would unfold as it willed. Or, as I willed it to will, under several layers of plausible coincidence.
The rest of the night passed in a similar vein. I "accidentally" left a window open in the overheated robotics lab just as a student was complaining about his prototype "Thermo-Bot" constantly overheating. I "happened" to be cleaning a spill of what looked suspiciously like illegal mutagenic growth serum outside the door of a professor known for his draconian anti-rule-breaking stance, just as the guilty-looking student was sneaking out. My timing, as Kazuo, was impeccably, suspiciously, fortuitously clumsy.
As dawn approached, casting grey, tired light through the academy's oversized windows, my shift was nearing its end. The floors were… mostly clean. Or at least, no more dirty than when I'd started. My back ached with a phantom soreness that was surprisingly convincing. I felt a sense of accomplishment that was entirely disproportionate to the tasks performed. This mortal coil thing had its charms.
I was returning my bucket to Mop Room B when I nearly collided with Dean Von Hammerfaust. She was already there, looking like she'd been up for hours wrestling rogue dimensions and had won. She eyed me, then the (relatively) clean corridor behind me.
"Tanaka," she grunted. It wasn't quite approval, but it wasn't outright condemnation either. Progress.
"Dean," I replied, with a slight, deferential nod.
"No major incidents on your shift?" she asked, her gaze sharp enough to dissect a lie at fifty paces. "No spontaneous combustions? No dimensional rifts in the faculty lounge? The usual Tuesday night stuff?"
"All quiet, ma'am," I said, my face a mask of bland innocence. "Just… the floors. And a bit of… dust." I resisted the urge to wink. Kazuo wouldn't wink. Kazuo probably thought winking was a gateway to hooliganism.
She grunted again, then turned to a complex-looking console on the wall, her fingers flying across its controls. "Report any anomalies, Tanaka. No matter how trivial. This school sits on a nexus of… complicated energies. We don't need a janitor accidentally triggering the next Klyptorian Incursion because he mistook a reality-destabilization device for a fancy paperweight."
"Understood, ma'am. Paperweights… noted for future non-interaction."
With a final, lingering stare that could probably curdle my non-existent blood, she strode off, her sensible heels clicking with authority.
I watched her go, a slow smile – the real Me's smile, not Kazuo's – playing on my lips. Oh, this was going to be so much fun. A nexus of complicated energies? A janitor who might accidentally trigger an interdimensional invasion? The plot practically thickened itself.
I clocked out, the timecard machine accepting my flimsy card with a satisfying thunk. Stepping out into the cool morning air, the rising sun painting the sky in hues I hadn't bothered to personally design, I felt a sense of anticipation. My fabricated, tiny apartment awaited, with its lumpy mattress and instant ramen.
The universe was indeed my playground. And today, I'd played a decent game of "Undercover God-Janitor." Tomorrow? Tomorrow, I thought, I might just see what happens if someone "accidentally" swaps the sugar with salt in the hero cafeteria. Or perhaps I'd pay closer attention to young Kyra and her "Razor-Shard Volley." There was a certain delightful overconfidence there that was just begging for a subtle, karmic… adjustment.
Yes. Tomorrow looked promising. Now, if only I could remember where Kazuo was supposed to have parked his imaginary, beat-up bicycle. The details, as they say, were everything.