“I’ve got it covered,” Michael says. “What, are you a super-genius too?”
“Just smart.” Emma wedges her foot in the door. Behind Michael and his stubbled chin, she can see the twenty-first-century computer next to a modern holoscreen with rapidly scrolling data. It took her some time to figure out that Leadership Personnel moved the files to Michael’s medical station and lab. She knows he’s been in charge of the health care of the Villain’s Guild and remembers from their last visit that he helped monitor everyone’s power levels too. She never warmed to him, especially because of the snide way he treated Bells until he realized how powerful Bells was.
“I’ve already got Brendan and Abby in here with me, not to mention Chloe, who is an actual expert in statistics,” Michael says.
“I can help,” Emma insists. She was the one who realized it was a report, after all.
Michael sighs. “We’re dealing with a lot of sensitive information. Orion’s experiments aren’t exactly the most detailed or well documented, so getting through this to where we can understand it is a challenge, let alone trying to create an antidote.”
Abby, eyes ablaze, is scrolling through several different projections and arguing with Brendan. A hologram rotates next to Chloe as she studies the code.
“Oh, I did my AP Bio project last year on viral vectors. Is that what you’re looking at?” Emma asks brightly.
“We’ve got this covered, Emma, thanks,” Michael says.
Emma loses her foothold on the door as Michael gently nudges her out and closes it. She knocks furiously. Super strength would be very handy right now, Emma thinks, glaring at the door. She punches it and winces; her very normal fist doesn’t make a dent. She winces and shakes her aching hand.
Like frightened birds, a flight of impulsive thoughts races through her. She could find a ventilation shaft and sneak in, but she shouldn’t have to! Emma has just as much right to be in that room as everyone else. Brendan is a genius, but Emma helped him with algorithms for finding the Resistance, and Abby is great, but her experience is in engineering, not coding.
Emma scowls and shuffles off down the hallway. She passes two people who don’t even acknowledge her. She might as well be invisible.
No, if she was invisible, she’d be a meta-human with a power. Then she’d be useful to the Guild and included in plans and not left behind on missions that were her idea in the first place. She was not left behind to oversee or supervise, but as just as the backup that no one ever expected anything from, as if giving her that title was only to make them feel better.
Emma rarely sees her friends; everyone is caught up in the action. At meals, she’s usually alone because everyone’s got their own training schedule, but today Jess and Bells managed to steal away to have lunch with her.
Emma pokes halfheartedly at her corn chowder as Jess plops down next to her, then yawns and rubs her eyes.
“Are you okay? Where’s Abby?”
“She stayed up all night doing research,” Jess says, her voice thin.
“Again?” Emma asks. She’s barely seen Abby aside from a few scattered moments throughout the day.
“She’s been doing that a lot.” Bells raises an eyebrow. “I mean, I sleep pretty late, and she’s usually still in the lab working on her mecha-suit or one of her many secret projects.”
Jess crosses her arms. “She and Michael have been talking a lot. I think she’s working on a way to get her powers back, but I wish…”
“Is she okay?” Emma asks.
Jess’ voice wavers. “I don’t know,” she says finally. “She’s been keeping weird hours.”
Bells nods. “She woke me up yesterday at, like, three in the morning, asking if I wanted to go for a run.”
“Yesterday?” Yesterday afternoon Abby asked Emma if she wanted to play volleyball in the gym. They tried to set up the net, but, while Emma was still untangling it, Abby ran off to go do something else.
“Yeah, she’s been… off. Like, she will talk with Michael for hours and hours about meta-genes, and I don’t follow all of it, but Michael doesn’t seem to either? And he’s an expert.” Jess buries her face in her hands.
Emma wonders if Abby is trying find something in those files that could get her powers back, reverse-engineer the serum somehow. Whatever it is, it’s keeping her occupied. They finish eating, and Bells pecks her cheek before running off with Jess to training. Emma, hoping that running some laps on the treadmill will help her feel better, finishes her chowder and follows them to the gym, but the training area is filled with people exercising their powers. Tanya and Sasha are popping in and out of thin air all over the cavern, and Ricky, well, Emma can’t see him but she assumes he’s there.
Bells is practicing rapid shifts, blending into the background of a changing screen. Emma’s sure he’d talk to her, but she doesn’t want to interrupt his practice; his training is important. Just because Emma doesn’t have anything to do doesn’t mean she can distract other people from their tasks.
Emma climbs to the lookout platform. She sits alone, swinging her feet over the edge, watching the forest. Do I even have a place here?
“Psst,” a voice not-so-subtly whispers behind her while Emma’s flipping through a book.
“What?” Emma turns around, cross.
Michael waves at her and holds out his tablet.
“What’s all this?” Emma looks at the screen.
“Based on your genetic history, the powers you could potentially unlock.” Michael waggles his eyebrows. “Remember when I gave everyone physicals? I ran your DNA too. Look!”
Emma takes the list.
Electric manipulation
Super strength
Voltage increase
Emma doesn’t realize her fingers are trembling until Michael reaches out to hold the tablet steady. It’s true; meta-abilities did run in her family. Tia Rosa could send little zaps of electricity from her fingertips. It had been no more than a curiosity, and she was Registered, but never was a part of any Meta-Human Training program.
“Come with me!” Michael gestures for her to follow.
They walk past all the main large workspaces, past the medical labs, past the halls that lead to the dorms. When they get past the garden caverns, Emma begins to get suspicious. “Where are we going?”
Michael opens a door into another long cavern.
“What is this, the sickbay?” Emma asks, but then she recognizes the space. This is where they had their physicals and tested their power levels. It looks the same, with curtains sectioning off rooms. But behind the curtains, shadows quiver and people moan and groan. She tenses; some of them must be in pain, and the reek of vomit lingers. “Ugh, it smells awful, Michael.”
He frowns. “Yeah, I gotta get Deirdre back here to freshen up the scent.”
“What’s wrong with everyone?” Emma frowns, folding her arms. “Why are so many people sick?” Things like the common cold and most infections have long been dealt with by vaccinations provided to everyone in the Collective. “What happened?”
“Adverse reactions to the new R-31 serum,” Michael says.
“The what?” Emma stops. “You mean what Orion injected into Abby?”
“This is a different strain I’ve been developing,” Michael says.
“You mean you—” Emma doesn’t even know where to start. “You don’t know where those files actually came from! What if the information had been incorrect or malicious or—”
Michael twitches. “Look, we don’t know why the files are here, but it’s definitely Orion’s research. We know that the League has all of these resources; why shouldn’t we?” He draws a curtain. “This is Nina,” he says.
Emma doesn’t recognize her; she must be a new recruit.
Nina’s face is ashen, she’s breathing heavily, and her fevered eyes are glazed over, but she smiles. “Hi, Michael,” she says before turning to Emma. “Nice to meet you. Are you going to be invoked as well?”
“Invoked?”
Nina holds her hand out. Very slowly, a pulsing ball of light begins to form. Sweat beads on her brow, and Nina exhales laboriously as the ball of light gets as large as her palm.
“Excellent, Nina!” Michael claps his hands. “Don’t strain yourself, you have to preserve your strength. Don’t use your powers outside of the testing period! Wait for official measurements.”
Emma stops. “So you’re helping Nina develop her powers? Why is she sick?”
“Nina previously did not have any meta-human abilities,” Michael says, puffing up his chest with pride.
Emma freezes. “What.”
Nina beams. “I mean, I was a good candidate, since my cousin could create these balls of light, so there’s a foundation for it in the family, at least. I’m so excited! I can finally help out on the missions!”
Emma grabs Michael by the sleeve and drags him out of Nina’s curtained cubicle. “What are you doing?”
“Working with the data we have. It’s revolutionary.” He grins at her. “Want to be next?”
The blood rushes to her head as Emma dangles upside down on the lumpy couch to watch yet another episode of The Gentleman Detective. She trails her fingers across the floating blue pixels, scattering Styx Kipling’s form as he looks for clues. Emma’s taken to hiding in the cluttered storage room, away from the business of the Guild. These forgotten boxes and shelves stacked full of memory chips and old paperbound books won’t judge her.
“Do I want to be next?” Emma mutters darkly. She throws another handful of popcorn in her mouth and chews angrily. How dare he assume what I want?
Maybe he was just trying to be nice, another part of Emma reasons.
Emma sighs. It’s not that she hasn’t thought about having a power, but it never was a possibility before, so it never went any further than oh that would be cool. She thinks about it now, imagining herself hurling lightning bolts at Captain Orion alongside her friends, leading the charge with Deirdre crying out apologies in the background. She has wondered what it would be like to feel what her friends feel, to have that experience. Maybe powers would be nice.
She thinks about the sick people in Michael’s lab. He hadn’t perfected his own version of the serum and he was already doing patient trials.
If it was ready, would you do it? That voice whispers in her head.
Emma scowls and turns up the volume.
This show is a thousand times less fun without Bells and Jess. She misses their tradition of watching the new episodes each week, laughing at Bells’ shrieks of delight and Jess’ befuddled face as she tried to figure out the clues. Before they got swept up into this mess, Abby would join them too. It had been nice, a piece of soft, mundane quiet they could enjoy even while the rest of their world seemed to spin out of control.
Outside, Emma can hear people moving about, making plans, taking action.
Emma sighs and flicks her hand at the screen with more force than necessary, scattering the words Next Episode into pieces. The movement makes her lose her balance, and she topples out of the couch and onto the packed dirt floor. She coughs, spluttering. If she’d been with her friends, she would have made a joke. Jess would offer her a pillow, and Bells would probably tug her into his lap, but she’s alone. All her friends have official duties, and Emma is watching reruns.
“I can’t just sit here and do nothing,” Detective Kipling says, jawline set.
“That’s absolutely right,” Emma mutters. So she can’t help with this part of the plan? Fine. She’s got other plans she can check on. Emma stands up and dusts off her clothes.
She kicks open the door and strides down the hallway; ignoring others’ puzzled looks, she barges into the gym. Bells is throwing kicks at a punching bag. It shakes with the force, rattling the chain. Emma marches right up, grabs the bag, and holds it still.
“Hey, Em,” Bells says. “Wanna work out?”
“We have to call your dad,” Emma says.
They’re a few days ahead of Bells’ scheduled call, but Emma wants to try anyway. “Sean’s bound to be monitoring the transmission at Grassroots headquarters,” Bells says. “He and his boyfriend chat all the time.”
Emma wonders how that relationship works, since it’s long distance. She and Bells have been in the same place but somehow worlds apart. She thought she’d have so much more time here with Bells to talk to him and figure out what they were doing with their whole relationship thing, but he’s been so busy, preoccupied with training.
Nick and Collette are travelling again, this time to the South on more Grassroots business. It’s frustrating, checking in with Sean to hear from Bells’ parents confirming the meeting, but at least it’s something. Emma alternates between going with Bells to the radio transmission room and working out in the gym.
“Sean just heard from my dad,” Bells says, interrupting Emma’s latest round of sit-ups.
“That’s great! Are we all set to go to Grassroots? Are they ready to help with the network and everything? This could completely change the tide—”
Bells’ eyebrows knit, as if he’s about to tell her something she’s not going to like. This is exactly the face he made before they had that huge argument about Pluto in seventh grade. “Well, he agreed to convince the plenary board— that’s, like, their version of the Council—”
Emma grumbles. “So much bureaucracy.”
“Yeah, well they agreed to hear you out at the headquarters in the Louisiana region. The location is secret, but Dad will meet us in New Orleans, and Grassroots will meet with us near there.”
Emma’s already packed; it feels like she never unpacked to begin with. Her instincts tell her not to split up the Sidekick Squad again, but when would she get another chance to pitch to Grassroots?
“That’s a great idea!” Jess says, ever-optimistic, when Emma presents her the idea. “Bells, this is amazing! Oh, tell them Chloe says hello! And that the crops are doing better than expected.”
“Will do.” Bells looks at Emma and gives her a cheeky grin.
“Okay.” Emma can’t help smiling back at Bells. “We’ll be gone for a week. During that time, we’ll meet with the leaders of Grassroots and ask about tapping into their communication system. Since they already have one, we won’t have to recreate a system from scratch.”
“Sounds good,” Jess says, sighing.
A note in her voice makes Emma wonder if Jess actually believes it’s a good plan. Having a friend who always believes everything will work out can be stressful because Emma doesn’t have a scale. Jess is hopeful about everything. But she does seem down now.
A door opens and shuts, and Abby flies in. She greets Jess with a wet kiss and turns around, her eyes bright. “Bells! Emma! Hey, sorry I’m late! I was in the lab with Michael. We’ve got this in the bag, it’s gonna be awesome; how are you, Jess told me about the Grassroots plan, that sounds so cool, do you think I could come? Wait, I think Michael needs me here—” Abby is speaking so fast Emma can barely keep track of what’s she’s saying. She’s always known Abby was ambitious. When she was class president and captain of the volleyball team, she was very driven, but this feels different.
Bells’ eyebrows seem to jump off his head. Emma glances at him, and he seems to wordlessly agree: Abby’s acting really strange.
“Hey, Abby,” Emma says. “Thanks. We’re getting ready to go. How are you?”
“Great!”
Abby does not look great. There are bags under her eyes, and her face is pale and drawn, and she looks much thinner.
“Jess says you haven’t been getting a lot of sleep.”
“How can I sleep when there’s work to do? Come on, this is the Resistance! There aren’t enough hours in the day to take care of all the things we need to do! Oh, that reminds me, I gotta see if the results for our latest experiments are done. Bye! Have fun in the South! We’ll catch up with you in a week!”
Abby turns around in a whirl of red curls, and the door slams shut behind her.
“So, yeah,” Jess mumbles. “I’m worried about her.”
“I think she’s probably just excited about her research,” Bells says. “It’s, like, the newness of it all; she’ll crash and then sleep for three days, probably. Is she still trying to use her powers?”
“No, she told me— I know, we don’t want a repeat of what happened last time.”
Rushing Abby to the hospital after she collapsed was terrifying. Emma drums her fingers on the control panel, trying to appease her nerves. “Hey, it’ll be okay,” she says. “Just tell her to lay off the coffee and get some rest, okay?”
Jess sighs one more time and hugs Emma and Bells. “Be safe. Set up a radio as soon as you can and call me.”
“Same frequency, same time,” Emma says.
“I’ll be there every Wednesday, like clockwork,” Jess says. She squeezes them tight.
“Take care of Abby,” Emma says. “And say goodbye to your parents and everyone for me.”
“I will.”
Jess gives them one last glance before shutting the door, and Emma and Bells are alone in the supply room.
“It’s going to be fine.” Bells steps closer. He picks up a strand of her hair and curls it around his fingers. “You know, we don’t leave for another half hour and once we’re down South my whole family will be there and we won’t have a minute alone together—”
“Oh, you’re right,” Emma says.
Bells grins at her; his blue hair shifts to purple. “What do you want to do until then?” He leans forward with a mischievous glint in his eyes and then he ducks his head; a small smile starts on his lips.
It’s adorable, so very Bells. She’s always wondered about moments like these. People say “attraction” can be those feelings that make you want to kiss someone else, right?
A surge of affection rushes through her, and, now that they’re here, that they’re together, Emma can try to figure out, yet again, what all of these feelings mean and what she can do about them. When Bells tried to save everyone on that train after they destroyed the Registry, Emma thought she might lose him for real. She knew she needed to tell him how she felt.
Feelings churn inside her now; doubt creeps in. Did she do the right thing? She loves him. What do you know about love, anyway? A small voice in her head counters.
Emma tells the voice to shut up. This is a moment when she wants to kiss him—when the person she cares about is being soft and sweet and cute—and Emma just, Emma wants to show him how she feels, wants to be close to him.
So she does kiss him, pulling him close to catch his lips with hers. Bells makes a surprised, pleased noise, kisses back softly, and tangles his fingers in her hair. When he pulls back, his eyes are bright, his cheeks are flushed. “Hello,” he says softly.
“Hello,” Emma says, looking into his deep brown eyes. She’s hyper-aware that they’re alone, sitting together on the couch, and Bells is smiling at her in that incandescent way that makes his whole face shine.
She smiles, starting to relax, when doubt creeps up on her again. She thinks about moments like this one, and how everyone she’s dated has eventually expected things from her. It’s the normal process for a relationship, right?
Emma takes his hand and smiles, despite the nervousness churning in her stomach. “So, do you, uh—” Emma hopes her tone is light and playful. They’ve kissed before, and she’s enjoyed it, but it’s probably time for their makeout sessions to progress, especially now that they’re in a relationship. She trails off, hoping he understands, and waggles her eyebrows at him just to be sure he does.
Bells laughs, pulling her into a comfortable position with both of them cuddled on the couch. “I’m not ready for sex,” he says.
“Oh, me either,” Emma says, relieved.
Bells lifts one eyebrow. “Then why did you ask? We had this conversation already, Em!”
“Like a month ago!” Emma throws her hands in the air. “I don’t know if you changed your mind and wanted to now or something! You’re the one who was, like…” She lowers her voice and attempts a sensual drawl. “…we’re all alone and we won’t get to have another chance.”
“To make out.” Bells rolls his eyes. He puts his hands on Emma’s shoulders and looks into her eyes intently. “Is that okay? We talked about kissing and cuddling before—”
“Yes.” Emma pulls him forward and kisses him again. It’s warm and safe and Bells and soft and sweet.
Bells hums, drawing patterns on her arm. Emma’s feet are propped up in Bells’ lap, and she’s cozy and comfortable and doesn’t ever want to move.
“Hey,” she says, suddenly nervous.
“Hm?” Bells has a hand in her hair, stroking it. It feels nice, his fingers massaging her scalp, relieving all the tension she’s been feeling this week.
“What if I won’t ever be ready? Or don’t want to ever?”
Bells’ hand keeps stroking her hair, and he presses a soft kiss to her forehead. “That’s okay. Just let me know what you want and don’t want.”
“Isn’t sex, like, something you’d want, though? In the future?”
“Hey,” he says. “Look at me.”
Emma sits up, intending to curl up into a ball, but he’s holding her other hand and giving her a soft, focused gaze. “I just— I thought it’s something we’re supposed to—”
“Hey, hey, c’mon,” he says. “Whatever we both put into this, it’s gotta be something we both want. And I never want you to feel like you have to or are supposed to do anything you don’t want to.”
“Okay,” Emma says quietly.
He leans forward and doesn’t kiss her as she’s expecting, just presses his forehead against hers. Emma closes her eyes, taking it all in.
She doesn’t know how long they sit there. It could be minutes or an hour, just Bells gently stroking her back, Emma breathing slowly and inhaling his scent.
Beep.
“Hang on,” Bells says. It’s his tablet, forgotten on the floor.
Emma nods. It should be important; the only people who can access their private network and would be within range are members of the Resistance or Bells’ family.
“It’s Dad,” he says. “He’s here. You ready to go?”
Emma takes a deep breath. “This is gonna be great. We can do this.”
“Me and you, the Sidekick Squad, an unstoppable team,” Bells says with an infectious grin.
“I thought you didn’t like that name.” Emma smirks, holding back a laugh.
“It’s growing on me,” Bells says, taking her hand and squeezing it, and Emma feels that warm surge of affection again. She squeezes back. This will be great. They’re a team, they’re together, and it’s going to work out perfectly.