Jess grits her teeth, going for a running start. The gravel on the trail crunches under her feet, the wind rushes through her hair, and she can taste success. This time. This time, she’s gonna make it.
The canyon is streaked with color, warm in the afternoon light; golden striations race across the signature rusty reds of the landscape. The sky is a gorgeous, impossible blue, and clouds flutter down the endless horizon, a perfect backdrop for a first flight.
Every step resounds in her body, and her heart races. Blood pounds in her ears.
Flight.
One of the rarest of abilities. Jess’ dad can fly, and her older sister inherited the gene. Why not Jess?
Why not me? I could be a hero, Jess thinks as she picks up speed.
Jess is turning seventeen in a week, and then it will be too late for her to register. She hasn’t demonstrated any powers at all, not as a child, not as an adolescent, but she’s held out hope. After all, there are a few documented outliers: teenagers presenting much later, even as old as sixteen.
No one’s presented with any powers after seventeen.
The wind whistles in her ears, and the desert is alive with color, encouraging her on. Where the trail curves and descends, Jess keeps going forward, right for the edge where it peters off into the canyon below. Time and erosion have split the rock formation, leaving a gap of at least seven feet between the edge and the rest of the rock cluster.
Jess doesn’t hesitate. She pushes herself forward and leaps into the air.
The desert is silent except for the pebbles that scatter from her movement and tumble into the gap far below. Jess is in the air, and for a few seconds she can taste the sky reaching out to her, welcoming her—
Flomp.
Jess lands hard on the other side of the gap, falls flat on her cheek. She spits dust and cringes at the sting on her face. Her body’s going to ache later.
This is the third jump she’s made today.
Jess rolls over and stares up at the sky. “All right, so maybe flying’s not going to happen,” she says reluctantly. She fishes inside her pocket for the list she made of the powers she could inherit from her parents.
flight
magnetic field manipulation
enhanced strength
healing factor
durability/ endurance
She has a longer list too, of all the powers on file with the Meta-Human Registrar, but everyone knows that meta-abilities are genetic. If Jess didn’t inherit any of her parents’ abilities, the possibility of having any abilities drops to near zero.
Jess is covered in dirt and bruised and frustrated, and it’s unlikely that she’s ever, ever, going to be a superhero.
She runs her finger across the word flight, smudging it with red dirt.
The hike back to the car will be beautiful, but for now, she stays put. Jess should accept that she doesn’t have powers; maybe she should consider herself lucky that she won’t have to go into the Meta-Human Training Program.
But she wants to be a hero, wants to help people.
Jess stands up, winces at the pain, and starts down the trail.
The minivan is the only vehicle in the parking lot—if the small dusty space could be called that. The area had been cleared once; now it’s overgrown with creosote bushes and scraggly asters. Jess steps over a sign that reads Welcome to Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, which is rusting in the path. She gingerly makes her way to the car and fumbles through three attempts to get the lock pad to allow a manual override.
ERROR: SWIPE DATA EXCHANGE DEVICE AGAIN, the tiny screen flashes.
“Đụ,” Jess swears. She didn’t bother wearing the DED today; she hates the way the data exchange device is heavy on her wrist, especially when she’s hiking in the canyons.
Finally her jabs at the manual option succeed. Jess enters her citizen identification number, and the car beeps and unlocks.
“Welcome, Jessica Tran,” the cool computer voice says, enunciating every syllable, exactly the way she hates it. It’s not a great A.I.; it can’t learn anything new, just do basic tasks. Barely.
The car is a Standard Family Vehicle, and they bought it just last year when they turned in their old model, but it’s already starting to malfunction. They’ll have to buy another one soon. Jess sighs and slumps in the seat, puts her seatbelt on, and waits for the display on the screen to go through the welcome and safety procedures.
“Go home,” Jess demands.
The engine comes to life with a low electronic hum, but the display is still loading all the usual standard warnings for operating a vehicle.
“Home,” Jess says again and then gives up. The car’s voice command system hasn’t worked since they bought the damn thing.
Finally it finishes booting up, and Jess flicks quickly through the options and smacks the home button. She leaves a dirty handprint on the display.
“Calculating route,” the computer says, and on the screen a circular symbol starts twirling, as if to give the illusion that it’s working faster.
Jess groans and kicks at the dashboard. The minivan shakes, but the computer keeps processing at the same pace. She wishes she could drive, like in the old times when everyone had self-steering installed in their personal cars.
“Route to residence Tran-Alpha-Two-Five-Nine calculated. Warning. Your route will take you through a Class Three Unmaintained Disaster Area. For your safety, all windows will remained closed, and doors will be locked until the vehicle has entered a Class One—”
“Shut up,” Jess grumbles, kicking at the display again, this time hitting the accept button with her foot. The engine hums, and the minivan reverses and trundles down the dirt road.
Jess puts on the radio for the hour-long drive. Even though it’s a huge hassle taking the minivan anywhere outside Andover, Jess had wanted to be far away from the city so she wouldn’t be seen in case she did start exhibiting her powers.
The Nevada region is one of the few areas in the North American Collective where there is still parkland available for recreation. Not too many people in the western half of what was the United States go out on their own anymore. Most of them are still afraid of radiation, even if there weren’t any nuclear plant meltdowns there during the X29 solar flare event.
An occasional billboard stands tall against the horizon with fading advertisements for a people long gone. Most road signs from old America still exist; the current government doesn’t waste money to take them down or to erect new signs for cities that have sprung up after World War III. Andover is one of them. Like many of its smaller desert neighbors, Andover is mostly made up of immigrants from the East Coast fleeing irradiated areas and, more recently, refugees from what is now the Southeast Asian Alliance.
Jess drives past a sign that reads, “ANDOVER, 12 MILES,” and in smaller font, “Proud Home of Smasher and Shockwave.”
Jess smiles a little; Smasher and Shockwave are the two resident heroes of Andover. C-list as they may be, they’re celebrated here. Jess knows them as Mom and Dad.
Andover is also home to the villains Master Mischief and his partner, Mistress Mischief. Jess has grown up on stories about her parents and their epic rivalry with the Mischiefs. This particular sign is one instance. Although the Collective has come a long way since the war, resources are still scarce, and any new road signs are usually just welded atop the old. Every now and then, the Mischiefs deface the sign; Jess can see how they’ve tilted it recently.
The mile counts for Andover on one side and Las Vegas on the other are now at an angle, revealing the rusted metal and, still readable, the words “LOS ANGELES, 282 MILES.” Jess isn’t sure the road still goes there, though Nuevo Los Angeles was certainly rebuilt in the same place. The sign proclaims that it’s only 282 miles away.
Jess can’t fathom that people used to drive that far; she’s pushing it taking the minivan all the way out to the canyons. There are countless guidelines about personal vehicle use, all to do with safety and how long the electric engines can hold a charge, and besides, there are always the hovertrains that connect major cities. There’s no need for anyone to venture out on their own.
The minivan is the only vehicle coming from the canyons, and Jess nervously eyes the occasional oncoming truck on the two-lane highway until the lights of Andover appear ahead. She loves the bright red hues of the rocks, the colors of the cliffs, the strange silhouettes of the Joshua trees, all of it, but the numbing vastness can be ominous in the dark, and Jess is careful always to get home well before sundown. She’s stayed out later than usual today, but made good time on the road, despite the minivan’s computer delay. Jess relaxes as she passes through the outskirts of Andover and joins the rest of its citizens, who are using their personal vehicles as intended. Jess will have to wash the minivan later; the telltale red dust sprinkled generously over the windows and exterior of the minivan stands out a little too much against the other clean vehicles on the road.
The sun is setting; the glare bounces off the fields of solar panels surrounding the town. It’s a dazzling view, especially with the pink and rosy gold hues of the sky, but Jess has seen it too many times to pay it much mind now. She is still caught up in thinking about the many tests for possible powers she’s done these past few weeks.
Disappointment settling heavily inside her, Jess sighs as the car passes through downtown, then Old Town Andover and up the hill toward the suburbs lining the eastern side of town. Andover Heights is quiet, and the uniformity of each home is dully familiar to Jess. She’s never left the Nevada region; Jess wants nothing more than to travel to New Bright City, the dazzling metropolis where all the greatest heroes in the nation gather at the League headquarters.
It seems that’s never going to happen.
The car pulls into her suburban driveway just as the last jingle of a commercial plays on the radio.
“And the finishing touch to any superhero outfit isn’t my cape,” Captain Orion’s commanding voice says. “It’s my smile! I use Eversparkle Teeth Whitening Cream to get the perfect smile, and you can too!”
Jess glances at her reflection in the chrome surface of the dashboard as another cheery voice announces how Eversparkle will make your teeth shine like the stars, just like Captain Orion’s. Captain Orion, A-list superhero and Commander of the Heroes’ League of Heroes, with her perfect smile and perfect hair, keeping the North American Collective safe every day. Jess tries to copy Captain Orion’s trademark confident grin but, on Jess, the smile is exaggerated and unnatural.
Jess drops the smile and sighs in disappointment at her messy black hair and her plain-looking face smudged with dirt. Her skin is flushed; red undertones are just visible under her brown skin. Her skin throbs, and is painfully hot to the touch. Great, she’s sunburnt again.
Her ponytail is a mess. Jess pulls her hair out of the elastic band, tries to comb the tangles out of it, and gives up.
I’m never going to be amazing like Captain Orion.
“You have arrived at your destination,” the computer says, cutting off the too-cheerful tune of the Eversparkle advertisement. “Would you like to program another—”
Jess turns off the car, and then readjusts the seat for her mom, who’s a few inches shorter and always lectures Jess on leaving the car as she found it.
She slams the door shut and walks to the house. It’s a lovely, modern two-story home, courtesy of the North American Collective. Her parents do well for themselves, not because of their cover jobs; their income is mostly compensation from the government. Their house doesn’t compare to Captain Orion’s elaborate mansion in New Bright City on the East Coast, but her parents are good C-list heroes, constantly working for the greater good of the country, and their home reflects that.
The curvy teal minivan befits their supposedly very normal suburban family and is mostly for show. Their other vehicle, a modest navy blue sedan, isn’t in the driveway; her mom must be at her cover job as a realtor. The Trans don’t need either of these cars. Her dad flies everywhere, even when he shouldn’t, and in the secret garage is a flashier vehicle that her mom drives to solo missions, but Jess hasn’t seen it used in a few weeks.
Jess kicks some dying roses by the path, and tries once, twice, three times to get the keypad to let her in. Ugh, going anywhere without a DED is such a hassle. Citizens are advised to always wear the data exchange device when it’s not charging or synced to a desktop, but Jess has always found that annoying. She never wears it when she goes out to the canyons; there’s no signal out there anyway.
Frustrated, Jess gives the door a good kick, and the keypad beeps and accepts her code at last.
Jess hates the fall; the days are so short. It’s still only late afternoon, not even five o’clock.
She stalks into the empty living room and scowls, glad to be alone so no one will ask about her mood. Her brother isn’t home from school, and her dad is probably flying around looking for trouble. Jess huffs and stomps upstairs to her room. The way the stairs clunk beneath her feet is satisfying, and Jess continues with more force than necessary. She’s not paying attention and nearly trips over their MonRobot.
It cheeps sadly at her as it continues to struggle to climb the stairs. The wheel extensions are out, and it’s rolling back and forth on the step, trapped. Another extension should allow it to maneuver household obstacles, but Jess can see the little arm sticking out of the back of the round body, waving about for balance.
“What are you doing, Chả? You know you always get stuck on the stairs.” Jess pets the round curve of the robot. “You’re supposed to just clean downstairs. You don’t have to vacuum up here; it doesn’t even have carpet.”
Chả meeps at her.
“All right, little guy.” She sighs, picks up the poor thing, and carries it to the top of the stairs. Chả cheeps and begins vacuuming the floor, going back and forth slowly. The Trans got the robot about five years ago, and although Chả does a fairly good job of tidying up, it tends to be rather clumsy and forgetful. It’ll repeat the same motion, over and over, without moving forward. They really should get a new one, but robots are ridiculously expensive. And Jess can’t imagine replacing Chả, even if it doesn’t do the household chores very well.
She pats the MonRobot once more, goes to her room, and throws herself on her bed.
Paper crunches beneath her. Jess scowls, grabbing whatever is between her and her soft bed. She squints at her handwriting. Did she start a homework assignment and forget—oh. It’s her latest research reports on tests of her possible abilities.
Jess rereads her report on her attempt at calculating enhanced strength—now that was a disaster. Her arms still ache from last weekend’s bench press incident. Jess scowls at the numbers, crunches the paper into a ball, tosses it aside, then discards another report, and another, until her bed is free of the evidence of all her attempts.
Jess flops on her back and spots the framed photograph of her parents, dressed as Shockwave and Smasher, vibrant and powerful, the pride of their small city. Her stomach curls with the sting of disappointing them.
Jess closes her eyes.
Her older sister Claudia had already been in the Meta-Human Training Program for two years by her seventeenth birthday when she got an offer to join the Heroes’ League of Heroes when she graduated. The Trans had thrown a huge party to celebrate.
When Jess turns seventeen, it’ll be official. She’s not special.
Jess groans. She roots around and finally finds her DED on the floor, half under a sweater. She grabs the slim, square device by the wrist strap and looks at the small screen to see if she has any new messages, but the screen is dark and unresponsive.
Great, she let the battery die again.
It takes her another minute to find the charging dock on her cluttered desk. Jess plops the device onto the dock and it buzzes as it syncs with her desktop projector, which hums to life and throws multiple projections into the air—holopages from the Net, a half-finished homework assignment, pictures of Captain Orion, and a series of text messages from Emma and Bells. As the DED connects to the Net, it updates with new messages, and Jess is bombarded with rapidly scrolling notifications. The buzzing continues until Jess flicks the DED screen.
Jess scowls at the largest open holopage, which is projected above her desk. She’d been reading it and rereading it before she left, checking the fine print to see if there was any way she could qualify as a meta-human.
NORTH AMERICAN COLLECTIVE META-HUMAN REGISTRATION
Section 4.2 Power Classification is determined by the total duration the citizen can utilize their meta-ability actively per twenty-four hour period.
CLASS-A- More than two hours
CLASS-B- One to two hours
CLASS-C- Twenty minutes to one hour
CLASS-D- Less than twenty minutes
Section 4.3 Meta-Human Training Requirements
The North American Collective understands that the meta-gene expresses itself in various and numerous forms and appreciates the documentation of all abilities. However, only abilities listed in Section 3.1 are currently accepted for application for Meta-Human Training. If you would like to register with a meta-ability not listed in Section 3.1, read subsection 3.1a and 3.1b on abilities that are not accepted. If your ability does not fall under the Unacceptable category, proceed to fill out the petition under Section 15.2.
Jess brushes aside the holopage, and the text disappears in trails of blue light. Ugh, registration. Jess doesn’t even have one of the “unacceptable” abilities, like Emma’s cousin, who can make his breath go minty fresh with just a thought, or her neighbor down the street, who can change the color of his fingernails. Well, three of them.
They’re still considered meta-humans, though, and are registered, even if they didn’t go through the training process to qualify for the League.
The holopage has re-formed after Jess’ outburst, and she flicks the correct place to close it. All that’s left hovering in the air are her messages from today.
From: Emma 1:22pm
hey are u ok? are u having a down day?
From: Bells 2:40pm
YOU DIDN’T RESPOND TO EMMA SHE THINKS YOU MIGHT BE SICK I HOPE YOU ARE OK I GOT YOUR HOMEWORK ALSO THE PIC PEOPLE CAME THRU AND I PLACED YOUR CUTIE ON THE CLASS PAGE AND HER HAIR LOOKED FIIIINE YOU MISSED OUT AM SENDING YOU HOLO
Warm fondness for her best friends distracts her from her disappointment. She clicks to open the attachment, and the DED projects a hologram. The likeness is indeed, very cute. How do French braids even work?
To: Emma 5:23 pm
i’m fine, just didn’t feel like school today <3
To: Bells 5:24 pm
thanks Bells it doesn’t beat the braids she did in september but this is pretty, i’m sad i didn’t get to see it in person
From: Emma 5:25pm
u sure, i can pick up bells and come over later?
Jess chats with her friends until they’re reassured and she has caught up on what she missed today and then works on homework until Chả’s welcome chirp alerts her that someone is home.
“How was your day at school, honey?”
Jess shovels more rice into her mouth. She chews and points apologetically at her face. Her dad adjusts his glasses as he looks across the table, making Jess roll her eyes. Why does he keep on his “civilian” disguise when he’s at home? They all know he’s a superhero. Her mom says it’s something to do with maintaining appearances and practicing being normal, which is hilarious, considering their family. At least at home Mom doesn’t try to pretend that she can’t bench-press a car and doesn’t wear the dorky fake prescription glasses that match her husband’s. It’s funny how they approach being just Victor and Li Hua Tran differently.
“All right, we’ll get back to you,” Victor says, giving Jess a doting smile.
Brendan, Jess’ youngest brother and all-around genius, pipes up. “Today I made a lot of progress on my experiment! It turns out that the problem I had with last week’s sequence was that I didn’t properly isolate—”
Jess has no idea what he’s saying, but her parents seem reasonably impressed. Brendan is thirteen and precocious; he attends the local college and has been upstaging Jess ever since he was born. He hasn’t demonstrated any meta-abilities, but Jess is sure he wouldn’t have wanted to be a superhero even if he had. Brendan’s more into… okay, Jess isn’t sure exactly what he’s studying. Something to do with plants and energy, but she has no doubt that Brendan’s going to make a name for himself in the scientific community.
“That’s really nice. We’re very proud of you,” Li Hua says, smiling as she steals a piece of bok choy from her husband’s plate. “Jess?”
Jess swallows, the rice sticking in her throat. “Been thinking about getting an internship or something. It’s bound to look great for college, right?”
“Oh, that’s a great idea!” her mom says, nodding in approval.
Victor perks up. “I know someone in the mayor’s office is looking for an assistant, and Mayor Bradley owes me a favor—”
“Dad, I don’t want to get my first job because of your favors as Shockwave, okay? I want to do it on my own terms, because of me and my own abilities.”
Her parents look at each other, and even Brendan has the audacity to snort. “What abilities, Jess?”
“Shut up.” Jess feels her face flush hot with embarrassment.
Of the three children in the Tran household, only one of them was born with the meta-abilities that are commonly known as superpowers. Claudia, the eldest, moved out of town after graduating from college and is now starting a fledgling life in Crystal Springs as a journalist slash superhero. Brendan is going to be a famous scientist and discover new things every day. Jess? Jess doesn’t have powers. After today, she’s exhausted every possible variable.
The only way she can move forward is to focus on what she can do. A job is a good idea, but she doesn’t want it to be handed to her just because of who her parents are.
“My abilities,” Jess says, determined. “I might not know what all of those are, but I’m going to be good at something, you’ll see.”
She leaves the table before she gets too frustrated to talk. She doesn’t want this to turn into a conversation about her lackluster grades or her parents’ expectations and then a comparison to either of her siblings. She puts her dishes in the dishwasher and hurries to her room.
As far as her high school career goes, Jess barely keeps a B grade point average as a junior and is fairly forgettable to all the faculty. She doesn’t play any sports, never had any more than a passing interest in clubs, and certainly isn’t winning science awards left and right like her younger brother or flying around fighting crime like her sister.
Jess groans and flicks the desktop sync on her DED. It flickers, and then her desktop projects a large workspace screen and a keyboard. Jess flicks through her documents. She could get started on a paper for world history, but that’s not due till Friday. She can put that off. Besides, there are more pressing things, like following through with finding a job.
It has to be something cool, something she’ll enjoy, and something that will look good on her college applications.
Jess pulls up one of the holopages her guidance counselor gave her, one that sorts listings of internships and volunteer opportunities by geographic location. She scowls, scrolling through listing after listing, rejecting one after another.
“Ugh, you need a job to get experience and experience to get a job!”
The Las Vegas Philharmonic needs someone for basic office work and to keep all their sheet music organized. It sounds okay, plus she’d be around creative people, and it looks as if they’re okay with a high school student with no experience. It’d be a terrible commute, though; at least an hour if there’s traffic. Andover isn’t quite big enough to merit its own stop on the hovertrain route, so everyone who drives to Las Vegas is bottlenecked onto one road. It would be a long drive there and an even longer one back with all the people leaving Las Vegas for the outer cities.
Jess wants to do something more. She wants to make a difference somehow, even if her best talent is meticulously organizing things—which her mother says isn’t actually a talent—and stubbornness.
Jess blinks when she sees the next company. “No way. Monroe Industries has high school internships?”
Jess clicks the link and glances outside her open bedroom door, where she can hear Chả busily cheeping away, still trying to vacuum. This MonRobot model was revolutionary when it came out, and it still functions today, if albeit a bit slower and quirkier. Any other brand would have been defunct by now.
Monroe Industries has state-of-the-art technology, and their products are everywhere from the home, to the office, to private schools. MonRobots can be programmed to perform any number of everyday tasks, from cleaning and cooking to being a personal assistant, although those advanced A.I. systems are incredibly expensive. Chả is one of the basic models, used primarily for household chores. The robots in the basic line aren’t cheap, though. Jess remembers her parents being very excited about the discount they got for being in the Associated League of Heroes.
Jess scans the listing to see if she’s qualified, and while a few science and business internships require experience and references, one position catches her eye.
WANTED: Motivated intern for administrative and office support in select experimental research division. Responsibilities include word processing, creating spreadsheets and presentations, organizing reports and research data, and filing. Computer experience, Net research abilities, and strong communication skills are preferred. Sensitivity to confidential matters and discretion is required.
Jess taps her fingers on her chin. It’s a paid position, as are all the other internships, but this one is surely going to be in high demand because of the entry-level qualifications. The DED listed for inquiry is registered to a person named M.
A quick search of the company’s website brings up absolutely nothing about this person or the experimental division, so Jess doesn’t have any other information with which to tailor her cover letter, but she’s willing to try anyway.
Jess crafts what she hopes is a compelling cover letter and résumé and sends them in.