Ch. 8...
January becomes February without anyone noticing; time creeps forward with a soft whisper. Winter sweeps across the desert with biting, sharp winds. Bells goes for a run every morning before school starts: an easy amble around the neighborhood and then out to the edge of town on the border of the Unmaintained land. He likes the feeling of anticipation before dawn, when he can still see the sliver of moon and the occasional twinkling star. A sprinkle of hoarfrost is scattered across the ground, pooling in rock piles and the spaces between plants.
Bells is midway through his morning run when he notices pink everywhere. Streamers hang from the restaurants, and hearts and balloons and stuffed fictional animals like bears decorate all the downtown windows.
Bells crunches on the dirt path with a little more force than necessary and he almost trips over a rock. Valentine’s Day. It’s a commercial holiday celebrated by the Collective, and people are encouraged to buy gifts and shower everyone they love with holocards and presents and candy. Since middle school he and Emma and Jess have exchanged presents. It’s never been a big deal; he’s never expected it to be. But this year… it’s different.
First, Abby and Jess have plans, have had plans for weeks and have been talking nonstop about them, especially since Jess has been trying to keep Abby’s mind off her powers. Jess commissioned an artist—Bells—to draw Abby and her parents as protagonists in their own comic book, and Abby bought Jess some vintage DVDs and also several signed posters from the cast of the Vindicated series.
It was strange being consulted by both of them about their gifts, but it gave Bells an idea. Maybe his gift for Emma can be the start of something new.
Abby isn’t in school Monday; Jess says she wasn’t feeling well all weekend, and Abby blew off hanging out with her today. Emma offers to ditch volleyball practice, and Bells begs off his afternoon shift at the restaurant, and after school they all go to Jess’ house to hang out in the basement and watch Vindicated to cheer her up.
“Hey, we can’t have an official you-know-what meeting here,” Brendan says when he sees them heading for the basement. “Abby’s house is the best place, you know that.”
“Abby’s not feeling well, and this isn’t a meeting,” Bells says. “We’re just gonna hang out with Jess and actually watch some movies.”
“Oh,” Brendan says. His face falls, and he scoots back a little from Bells, as a blush colors his cheeks.
Bells tries not to laugh; he knows Brendan has a little crush on him. He thought the kid would grow out of it, but apparently not yet. “How’s it going with finding the R—”
“Nnn,” Brendan says. He claps a hand to Bells’ mouth, and then snatches his hand back. “I uh, I’ve made some progress. Hopefully we’ll have some results soon.”
“Hey, Bren-Bren!” Jess calls from the basement. “This is an off night! No business talk!”
“Okay,” Brendan says, rolling his eyes.
During the movie Emma is distracted, constantly checking her DED, and then giggling and glancing at Bells and Jess, and then giggling some more. Trying to pinpoint what’s putting her in this mood is making Bells hyper-aware. It can’t be the movie; while Jess loves the action-packed spy series, it’s a bit too cheesy for Emma, and she never fails to make fun of the implausible setups.
Bells doesn’t care; the most entertaining thing is the banter between Jess and Emma as they debate whether the series is amazing or awful. Tonight, though, Emma isn’t really watching the movie, and, when Bells throws his arm around her shoulder, she grins at him.
Bells bites his lip and then smiles back; his hope grows.
Valentine’s Day is this Saturday, and, by Friday, Bells decides to tell her how he feels. He went to the farm earlier this week and picked a bunch of the brightest sunflowers, earning him a glare from his brother. Now he’s staring at the flowers, which stand in a vase. He doesn’t want to risk the flowers drooping, so he messages Emma and invites her over and doesn’t use all caps so she knows he’s serious.
Bells ties and reties a ribbon on the sunflowers and then paces. Should he pick a different color ribbon? Maybe pink? Emma’s favorite color is purple, though. And which painting should he give her? There’s one he did of the three of them, and there’s one he did of Emma as an engineer in the future with all of her dreams coming true.
His DED jolts with a new message: Emma’s on her way.
His nerves jump, and his heart flutters as he wears a hole in his living room floor. It’ll be fine. It’ll be fine. He’ll just… say his piece, and things won’t ever be the same. He’s miserable, keeping his feelings to himself. And if he doesn’t tell her, he’ll never know.
From: Emma 3:33 pm
here!!! parking!
Bells flicks the message aside. He closes his other programs and puts the DED to sleep.
Is he sweating? Maybe he should have changed his shirt. Or his hair, at least?
Bells goes for a mohawk. Purple, just because. Maybe that’s too obvious, if his hair is purple and the ribbons are purple…
The doorbell rings. Too late now.
Emma looks wonderful, as always. Her brown curls, lifted by the wind, seem to float above her shoulders. Her smile dimples her dark skin, and she throws her arms around Bells for a hug.
“You have something important to tell me, right?” Emma asks. “Oh, also, guess what, I know I’m early for V-day but I brought you your present!” She singsongs the last word and then flicks at her DED. A file projects into the air; the newest complete season of The Gentleman Detective, ready for data transfer.
“Oh, wow, Em, thank you,” Bells says. “Come on.”
They chat a bit as they walk to his bedroom, and Emma asks if he wants to watch an episode. She flops on his bed, comfortable and familiar, and the neck of her shirt drapes forward.
Bells blushes. “No, I, um, can we talk first?”
“Yeah, absolutely. Oh, I have important news too! I wanted you to be the first to know.” Emma grins at him, and she looks so excited and a bit nervous.
Could she have the same idea? Maybe she has feelings for Bells and wants to tell him.
Bells is buoyant with hope. Maybe this will go well after all. “You first,” he says.
“Okay!” Emma beams. “I have a boyfriend!”
His name is Carlos Veracruz, and he’s a senior at their school, on the basketball team. Emma and he were lab partners in Emma’s afterschool college prep program last week, and they’ve been texting ever since. They had ice cream once last week and have a date on Friday.
Two weeks. This all happened in two weeks. Bells could kick himself.
“He didn’t want to dissect the frog, isn’t that sweet? So, we wrote an analysis of amphibian musculature. Look!” Emma takes Bells by the hand, a gesture that might have sent his heart racing, but, given the current news, it just makes him glum. She turns on her DED and opens a monitoring feature in her bedroom and zooms in. On her desk is a brightly lit terrarium decorated with rocks and a little purple dish of water. Inside is a frog.
“I’ve named it Carlos Junior,” Emma says.
The frog croaks. It looks fat and happy in its glass cage.
Bells folds his arms. “That’s great,” he says flatly.
“What, you don’t like Carlos?”
“I don’t know him. I’m happy for you, okay?”
“You don’t sound happy.” Emma narrows her eyes. “Is it because he’s a senior?”
“I don’t care that he’s one year older than us; it’s not a big deal,” Bells says.
“Because he’s a jock?”
“Emma, you’re a jock. You’re on the volleyball team! Since when do I have anything against jocks?” Bells throws his hands up. “Look, it’s great you’re dating him. Just peachy. Have lots of fun. I… I have a shift at the restaurant. I’ve got to go.”
“But I just came! We were going to hang out.”
“Sorry, just got a message from Simon; they’re swamped without my parents. Thought I had the afternoon free, but I don’t.” He walks Emma to the door.
Emma pauses at the doorway. “Oh, what was your news?”
Bells closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “Nothing. It doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about it.” He’ll give her the painting of the three of them later as a gift for Valentine’s Day.
Emma spots the sunflowers in their vase with the bright purple ribbon. “Ohhh, those are so pretty! Flowers, what’s the occasion?
“They’re, ah, Jess asked me to get her some. For Abby,” Bells says.
“Oh. Right,” Emma says thoughtfully. “Okay, I’ll see you later then.”
He walks her out the front door, and she gives him one last look and waves before he closes the door.
He slumps on the couch once he hears Emma’s car leave. He messages Jess, but it bounces back with an automatic message of “Busy! Get back to you later!” Right, she was hanging out with Abby today.
Looks as if everyone is paired up except him.
He messages Simon to see if he can pick up a shift at the restaurant, but it’s not that busy today.
From: Simon 4:38 pm
I thought you were hanging out with your friends?
Yeah, he thought so too.
* * *
Bells scrolls through a newsfeed, then pictures of cute cats, and huffs as he flops onto his bed. He could do homework, or go for a run. But he really doesn’t feel like doing anything at all.
He could draw, but the first things he sees when he flips open his sketchbook are the practice pieces for the painting that he never gave Emma for Valentine’s Day.
On a whim, he checks the notifications for his Barry Carmichael account. There haven’t been any new personal messages since “SURRENDER NOW AND YOU WILL BE DEALT WITH, CHAMELEON” from Captain Orion. She and the League must have taken his silence as a message. Bells has nothing from the League, but why would they message him? Bells groans again, and repeatedly mashes his face into his pillow. Finally he flips over and pokes through Barry’s messages, determined to find something interesting.
There are a bunch of automated messages from the forum he joined during Meta-Human Training. It’s unofficial, just something Sasha started as a way the kids can keep in touch after training is over. Most of the messages are dull: asking for advice on designing a superhero costume, name ideas, idle gossip. He scrolls through several weeks’ messages, deletes them as he goes, and finally catches up to the current discussion, about a party at Christine’s house in Vegas.
He likes Christine well enough; she’s funny, and has a great laugh. Maybe it’s time to hang out with some other friends.
Bells puts on crisp black jeans and a navy V-necked shirt, then looks at his face in the mirror. He can’t go as Barry Carmichael; he’s wanted all across the NAC.
Bells looks through the RSVPs. There. Ricky—Invisible Boy—isn’t going. Bells can definitely duplicate him: tall, skinny, with an upturned nose and messy brown hair.
He checks the city bus schedule. There’s a bus to Vegas in twenty minutes. Perfect.
Bells thought he’d seen rich, like the Robledos and other families that live in Andover Heights. But the homes in this Vegas neighborhood are massive, two-or-three story monstrosities with sweeping, manicured lawns.
He’s on the right street. It looks as though Christine lives at the top of this hill. The house can barely be called a house; it’s a gated estate, three stories high with several balconies, red Spanish tile roof, and orange adobe walls. Aside from a bed of flowers right outside the door, the lawn is tastefully decorated with a stone walkway curving around agave plants, yucca, barrel cactuses, and a few creosote bushes.
Bells types in the keycode that Christine gave the forum, and the gate creaks open. He can hear the splash of water and music and laughing.
Follow the path through the gate to your right. Party’s out back! Floating letters and dancing emojis are projected along the wall next to the path.
He opens the second gate and sees a sparkling pool surrounded by immaculately decorated greenery and colorful tiles. Bells recognizes other teens from Meta-Human Training, and figures everyone else must be their friends or trainees from other sessions. Tanya and Sasha laugh and lounge on floating donuts. An impromptu splash fight breaks out, and Bells blinks at the sight of so much water, just for recreation, in the middle of the desert. It’s a lot to take in: music, laughter, and a ridiculous spread on a buffet table by the side of the pool.
Bells lingers on the edge of the pool and considers dipping his feet in the water. Everyone seems wrapped up in their own conversations: the kids in the pool, the ones over by the grill. Maybe this was a bad idea; he doesn’t really belong here, after all.
“Ricky! I thought you couldn’t make it,” says a voice next to him.
Bells startles before he realizes she’s talking to him.
Christine is wearing a beaded blue corset and a wide, poufy linen skirt; the skirt is practically transparent and shows off the wired crinoline underneath and her multiple petticoats. The outfit is a bit strange, but the overall effect is quite lovely. Christine has her blonde hair piled up on her head; a few artful curls drop onto her face. She looks like a painting; Bells thinks of the old West, of stories of the frontier. She must be really getting into her hero name; she’s the only one dressed up.
“Hey,” Bells says carefully; now he remembers Christine and Ricky were seeing each other at the beginning of the summer session and broke up in a huge fight. Maybe this disguise wasn’t a good idea after all. But they were on speaking terms at the end of the summer, right?
Bells cringes, trying to remember. There really wasn’t anyone else he could have impersonated. “Change of plans, thought I’d come by after all.” He tries to clip his words, the way Ricky talks.
“It’s okay.” Christine twirls a curl around her finger and sits next to him. She dangles her bare feet in the pool, swishes them playfully, gives Bells a thoughtful look, and then laughs, light and bubbly, barely a care in the world.
“Great party.”
“Wanna get in?” Something about her smile is slow and calculating. Does Ricky swim? Is this a test? Did they reconcile after the summer session?
“Didn’t bring any spare clothes.”
Christine winks at him. “Not a problem. But if you’re shy, I’ve got spare trunks. Or I can turn those jeans into trunks if you like.” She wiggles her fingers.
“You don’t have to waste your energy on me.” He’s pretty sure that would eat up half of Christine’s power for the day.
“Aw, so thoughtful.”
She stands up gracefully, skirts swishing.
Bells looks around; Ricky was popular at training. Should I try to be more gregarious? But maybe someone will figure out I'm not who I say I am if I talk.
No one else approaches him; playing it cool and aloof by the pool is working.
There’s a full array of food on the tables. A kid whose actual name Bells doesn’t remember—Slingshot is his codename, or was it Buckshot?—is working the grill. Bells gets a plate.
“Thought you couldn’t make it, Ricky,” Slingshot-or-Buckshot says, grinning at him as he heaps a smoking pile of ribs onto Bells’ plate.
“Change of plans,” Bells says, eyeing the barbecue. “Wouldn’t miss hanging out with you guys for the world.”
“Ah huh. So I take it Crinoline took you back? I’m surprised.”
“I—” So they did get back together? But—
“There you are,” Christine says, putting a hand on his elbow. “Ricky, can you help me with this in the kitchen?”
His stomach fills with dread. What if I’ve been found out? Or not found out, and Christine expects us to—
Bells follows Christine into the kitchen. It’s all open space and granite countertops, a majestic place he would love to cook in; his older brother would swoon over the stoves and the state-of-the-art refrigerators. She hands him a cup. “Got your favorite, orange soda.”
Bells takes a sip; the flavor is too sweet, but Ricky must like it. “Thanks.”
“So, Barry, want to tell me what all this villain business is about?” Christine says smoothly.
Bells coughs, spluttering and sending soda everywhere. “I—”
“Don’t even try. I could have your shirt unraveled and you fastened to that chair in an instant if you tried to leave. Maybe I’ve already called the Authorities and the League is on their way to pick you up,” Christine says. The easygoing attitude disappears in an instant; her face hardens. She tosses her hair over her shoulder, somehow making it look threatening. “But—”
“Don’t, it’s not what you think. They’re wrong; they’ve been wrong the whole time, lying to us about everything—” Bells stammers, but his panic is overriding his control. What if he’s caught? What if they make him tell where his family is, and they get tortured? What if they get Jess and Abby and Emma—
He must lose the shift because Christine steps back and raises her eyebrows. “I gotta say, you’re a lot cuter than Ricky. This isn’t what Barry looks like, either. But you’ve got his powers. Are you or are you not Chameleon?”
Bells can see his reflection in Christine’s refrigerator door; dark skin, big brown eyes, and brown fluffy hair. Ugh, it’s not even dyed any cool color.
He puts a streak of blue in his hair, keeping one eye on Christine. Her face remains unreadable. Should he be scared that his secret is out, or not?
“Okay, you’re definitely Chameleon. But not… Barry?”
“Barry’s made up,” Bells says quietly. “This is what I look like. I must have slipped when I was freaking out.” Christine nods. “Look, I’ll explain everything. Can we go somewhere more private?” They’re only a doorway away from the party-goers. Someone could wander in at any time.
“Sure.”
Christine leads him upstairs; she’s got a huge, lavish bedroom, complete with its own sitting area with a chaise lounge and Victorian furniture. Posters of The Hay Hays dot the walls, as well as holos of what must be Christine and her family.
Bells tries his best with the story; it starts in bits and pieces, but Christine is an apt listener. He explains about the corruption in the League, the way the villains are chosen and have to pick fights with the heroes, how Orion was experimenting on the villains, and then how he and his friends broke Mistress Mischief out of that facility.
“Okay, I’m not saying I completely believe you just yet, but I always thought there might be something fishy going on,” Christine says.
“Really?” Bells exhales.
“Well, I didn’t really have an inkling that things weren’t exactly the way they seemed until I started working in supersuit research and development this summer. I did a lot of repairs. Most of the damage? Not caused by meta-abilities.” She sighs. “Hearing the fights were staged doesn’t really surprise me.” Christine taps her chin thoughtfully. “These experiments, though. I can’t believe Orion would go to such lengths just to find ways to be stronger.”
Bells nods; the tension eases from his body. “How did you know I wasn’t Ricky?”
“Tantalum underlaid in the gate. Part of our security measures. On the cams we can see active meta-powers dropped, just as a precaution. Also, I didn’t want that waste of time at my party. I made sure I’d be able to spot him if he tried to sneak in.” Christine huffs. She brings up the security feed on her DED; there’s Bells-as-Ricky at the gate, pressing the keypad. When he steps over the threshold, his disguise slips, and he’s very clearly Bells.
“Speaking of that, I’ve got a reputation to maintain. Give me a second.” She turns to the window, opens it a crack. “And stay out of my house, you two-timing, despicable piece of forgotten lint!” she yells, and then slams her door a few times.
“Look, I don’t really want to get involved, but I’ve always thought of you as a friend, and when all that news came out… I didn’t really know what to think. I’m glad you’re here, though. You should stay for the rest of the party. I wanna hear more about you, and why you were at training as ‘Barry’ and not, well, you.”
“My name is Bells.” He holds out his hand, and Christine shakes it with a hearty grin.
“Nice to meet you. Call me Christine. I like Crinoline as my hero name, but I don’t know if that’s going to stick, what with not having a power cool enough for the League and all.”
“Fabric and thread manipulation is totally cool,” Bells says. He wants to tell her about Jess, but stops himself. “I mean, just because it’s not flying or whatever.”
“Yeah, but I’m not going to be saving anyone from a burning building, even if I was A-class, which I’m not.”
Christine goes over the invitation list and suggests he take the form of Steven, whose power involves making one specific pink spot appear whenever he wants. It’s a power Bells can imitate, and as long as no one investigates too closely, he’ll be fine.
Bells eats way too much food and loses at several games of pool tag and eats more and talks and laughs and feels relaxed in a way he hasn’t for a long time.
There are moments when thinks, oh, Jess would love this conversation about action movies, or when he thinks Emma would love to make fun of Sasha’s cheesy jokes, and even Abby would get a kick out of how Christine’s MonRobots are programmed to sing songs as they clean.
He takes a deep breath. It’s not as if they’re missing him.
* * *
Bells doesn’t realize how different things are with Emma until he’s standing in the hallway at school, disoriented. He’s on his way to AP Biology, but Emma always meets him at this corner, and they walk together. Hands in his pockets, he waits, nodding at kids passing by.
Oh hey, that’s the transfer student from Ottawa with the dimples that Emma was sighing over just a few months ago. Bells winks at him, and the boy blushes. Bells waits for butterflies in his stomach, a swooping sensation, anything, even the simple pleasure of hey, someone likes me, but it doesn’t come. He checks the time; he considers sending Emma a message, but maybe she has a class meeting or something. He pushes himself off the wall and idles his way toward class.
At the end of the hallway he can see Emma’s familiar brown curls; she’s hand-in-hand with Carlos, who, Bells has to admit, is really gorgeous. He’s got a square jaw and an earnest expression and looks absolutely entranced by whatever Emma’s saying. They’re taking the usual route—Bells’ and Emma’s route—to get to the science wing.
Bells scowls. He turns around and strides to the other end of the hallway. This route will take him around the whole school, but he’s fast. He can make it.
He gets waylaid a lot with hellos and heys, but he tries to be quick. The warning bell rings, and he picks up his pace, then nearly bumps into a couple making out on the corner.
“Oh, sorry,” he mumbles, stepping around them.
“Oh! Hi, Bells!” Jess beams at him. “Uh, don’t you have bio right now?”
Abby lifts an eyebrow. “It’s all the way over—”
“I know, I know,” Bells says, flustered.
He barely makes it to class on time, but not without noticing just how many couples there are.
Emma isn’t at lunch, either. She made such a big deal in the group chat yesterday about introducing Carlos today, but she’s not even here. Bells looks around the courtyard and sees Emma at a table with Carlos and his senior friends.
Bells pokes at his potato; Jess and Abby are wrapped up in conversation, looking at a blueprint on Abby’s holo. It’s something about robots, or plans for modifications to Jess’ MonRobot, or Abby’s MonRobot. They keep giggling and looking at each other, and then Abby tucks a strand of Jess’ hair behind her ear. A jealous pang runs through him.
He attends the rest of the day’s classes in a dull haze; his only respite is messaging Christine, who responds to his pictures of cats with pictures of sheep—in sweaters. They go back and forth with the weird pictures all day, and he feels a little better.
From Emma: 2:44pm
sorry about lunch!!! he wanted me to meet his friends hehe
To Emma: 2:44pm
NO WORRIES, HE SOUNDS SUPER NICE. GLAD YOU HAD FUN
From Emma: 2:48pm
see you after school! sidekick squad meeting! training time!
Bells laughs. It was Emma’s idea for Bells to get them on a workout routine similar to the one he had at the training center. The coil of frustration melts away. Emma crushes on people and dates some of them. This will be over in two weeks, tops.
Emma pokes impatiently at her DED. “Don’t worry, he’ll be here soon,” she assures.
Carlos turns up sixteen minutes after the bell rings, right in the middle of the worst of the school traffic. Kids are crowding onto buses, which are blocking cars. Parents trying to get their kids honk their horns, and kids walk in front of cars, blocking the exits. It’s absolute chaos.
Bells drums his fingers on the side door. Their routine used to be like clockwork: After the last bell rang, he and Jess would sprint to the parking lot and race to Emma’s car.
After Emma got her license, it was as if the whole world opened up to them. Bells and Jess could use their family vehicles, but, since destinations are logged, their parents would know where they went. In Emma’s manual car they could go anywhere, do anything. Bells loved the confidence and recklessness with which she drove.
Bells narrows his eyes at Carlos. For someone who just offered to take them all out for ice cream, he’s taking his sweet time walking across the parking lot, even stopping to have a conversation with some of his buddies.
Emma gets out of the car and runs toward her boyfriend. She exudes so much joy, she seems to float, and the sunlight makes her brown skin glow. Bells sighs.
Carlos brightens as he spots her, and Emma jumps at him and hugs him round the neck. He laughs and picks her up, spins her around, and whispers something in her ear.
From: Emma 3:23 pm
!!! he wants me to meet his parents
From: Emma: 3:24 pm
i’ll see you guys later at abby’s?
To: Emma 3:34pm
NO WORRIES. HAVE FUN