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There are things Eddie will never understand about the current. Eddie studies it, bends it, loves it, and hates it. It is every waking moment of his life, from the moment he came to be to the moment a human with rose tinted glasses makes him something else. Yet there are still three beliefs Eddie clings to, despite all his understanding and knowledge.
The first is that Eddie and Volt are the power. Eddie’s limited understanding of Thing Theory tells him that he is the wires, the metal casing, the electricity and current. His limited understanding of how Volt was made tells him that part of himself, the part that had power and light, became Volt. That is not true. Eddie and Volt are pathways the current travels. Nothing less, a lot more, but certainly not the power itself. The power itself is not a thing to be personified. It’s not a thing at all, it is a force of nature, a mathematical equation. It cannot be personified just as much as gravity or light cannot. Sure, the things that contain electricity and light can be personified, such as the light bulbs that make up Lux, and the wires that make up Eddie, but the force itself defies all personification a person could give to it because to be a person is to defy everything that make it a force. A irrefutable rule would be made refutable by being given the ability to care.
The second is that Eddie made Volt, that Eddie split himself. Eddie did not make Volt. The current did. In reality, Eddie had very little to do with it. Power follows the path of least resistance, and Eddie was created to be that path. He was more than a path, but that was what he was at his core. But as he himself will admit, without maintenance things become less efficient. Slowly a pathway builds more and more resistance, until in one instant a pathway suddenly isn’t the path of least resistance. In that moment, the current must form a new path, a more efficient path. Volt was that path. Volt is the equivalent of the path lightning takes through the sky, created from powers need to flow, one way or another.
The last is that Volt was made better than Eddie. To say that Volt was made better than Eddie is to imply that the current cares about such things, that it has personhood, which it does not. The current made Volt to be efficient, nothing more. Every other part of Volt is tertiary to that, insignificant, pathways that were built but for all intents and purposes don’t matter because they are not the path of least resistance. So how did Volt come to be who he is? Mostly, it was Eddie. A new pathway is not made entirely separate from what already exists, it branches off, rebuilds itself on the bones of what already is. Parts of Volt originated from Eddie, his voice, his work ethic, his smile. Parts of Volt were taught to him by Eddie, how to worry, how to love, how to hold a screwdriver. The rest of Volt he built himself, piece by piece, his charm, his skills, his manipulation. Volt was not made better than Eddie, he was shaped by Eddie’s flawed imaginings of what better meant.
Eddie doesn’t understand this.
Volt does.
Not in as many words, but this understanding sits deep in his bones in a place that no one can name. Something inside him understands with a brutal clarity that Eddie and Volts entire lives are shaped by a force that does not care about them, that is not capable of caring. Volt understands there are things about their lives they will never control or understand. That it does not matter if he controls The Breaker Box with a silver tongue or an iron fist if degradation of their wires is inevitable and the flow of the current uncontrollable. So to cope he controls what he can. He controls the bar, and the patrons, and the stage lights, the smiles, the lies, the truths.
He controls you.
You are a person.
You are capable of caring.
And you, more than anything else in their lives, can be controlled.