Ch. 9...
The makeshift gym at Abby’s home is much smaller than the gym at the training center. There are two treadmills, a set of free weights, padded mats, a pull-up bar bolted into the ceiling, barbells, and several machines Bells doesn’t have names for.
“Cool, did you build all this?” he asks, tracing his fingers over a leg press.
“Yeah!” A smudge of grease on her forehead, Abby stands next to her work. “It’s not a lot of tech, but you guys wanted to train, and…”
“It looks great, Abby,” Jess says. She ties and re-ties her ponytail. “I don’t know about this, you guys. I know that you said we should train, but I thought I’d be practicing my powers? I really, really think I can almost tell how far away something is.”
“That’s good,” Abby says. “But we need to be in shape, be prepared for the worst that could happen. What happens if we meet Captain Orion again and the only thing between us and being captured is how fast we can go?”
Bells nods. Part of Meta-Human Training is general physical fitness. They have high standards; everyone must be able to hold their own in a physical fight.
“All right, I’m ready!” Brendan bounces into the room and puts his hands on his hips. He’s wearing a bright yellow T-shirt and shorts and a matching headband. “Okay, Bells, what’s first?” He struggles to pick up a dumbbell.
“Uh, let’s start small.” Bells takes the weight and puts it back down.
Jess has a lot questions about what type of exercise is most efficient, and then Brendan wants a snack, and then Abby’s MonRobots make grilled cheese sandwiches, and then they eat, and then there’s a discussion about exercising after eating.
Abby glances at her security feed to see a lone car coming through the canyon. “Hey, that’s Emma. Didn’t you say she was busy?”
“I said she’d be late,” Bells says.
A door opens and shuts. “Helllooo, where are you guys?” Emma calls out, and then throws open the door to the gym. She’s wearing her old volleyball uniform and her hair is tied up in a ponytail.
Bells asks, “What happened to meeting the parents?”
“We did that! It was great! And now I’m here. Let’s get to work!” She strides to the mirrored, cushioned floor area and reaches for her toes.
“Good idea, Emma,” Abby says. “Jess, this is our warm-up for every volleyball practice. It’s very straightforward.”
The energy in the room changes now that there’s direction. Some of the stretches are a little different from what he’s done before, but Bells follows along, stretching his arms, then dropping into a lunge.
“Nooo, I don’t like it,” Jess says, still stuck in the first stretch. “I can’t touch my toes.”
“Flexibility gets better the more you practice,” Abby says, grinning. “It’s a good start. Come on, do this one.”
Jess grumbles but lets Abby guide her through it.
Brendan’s DED chimes. “Oh, hey! This is great! I’m going to follow up on this!” he gives them a thumbs up and darts out of the room.
“He find something?” Jess asks. “Your dad?”
“Maybe. Or the so-called Resistance. Whatever it is, he’s gonna need to decode it,” Abby says.
“Partner stretches! Come on, Bells.” Emma wiggles her toes, and Bells mirrors her, props up his feet next to hers, and extends his arms. They link hands and pull, stretching forward.
Next to them, Bells is pretty sure Jess and Abby are just holding hands.
“All right, we worked out,” Jess says. “Let’s do something else?”
“Nope. That was stretching. Now it’s exercise time!” Abby leads them to a station with plenty of weights. “All right, I can show you a few things to help strengthen your core and…”
“Oh, I know this one!” Emma says, starting a few reps.
Bells does too; he’s got his own routine. Simon likes to lift weights, and there’s a set at home. “I’ve got a plan I’m used to,” he says.
“Okay, good,” Abby says, nodding at them. “That’s a relief. I think Jess needs like, step-by-step instruction.”
Jess is standing by the weights, holding a pair of five pound weights, and just staring at the wall.
“I do!” she calls out.
Emma glances at Bells, and they share a laugh. Jess is the least athletic of the three of them; she never liked sports.
Bells does a few reps and talks with Emma and then switches to the treadmill. Emma does squats until she joins him on the other treadmill.
They run in companionable silence and watch Jess and Abby.
“No, it hurt; my arms, they’re, like, screaming at me to stop—”
“Come on, Jess. You did two; do one more. You got this—”
“Aggh, how do you do this every day…”
“You want to be a hero, right? Come on, this is training!”
Jess lies face down on the floor.
“Here, look, bend your knees like this and push up once; this version’s easier—”
“No, I want to do the version you showed me. I can do that. I can do that… as soon as I get off the floor.”
“Okay, what about sit-ups?”
Jess rolls over, and Abby holds her feet and encourages her. Jess trembles as she sits up, and then wobbles, and flops back down.
Bells grins.
“Oh, come on, she’s trying!” Emma says.
“Yep, she is. Come on, Jess, you got this!” Bells yells.
Jess gives him a thumbs up and keeps going.
“—and five! Nice job, Jess,” Abby says.
“Eunh,” Jess says.
“One more, come on…”
Jess sits up once more, and then Abby pecks her on the cheek, and Jess giggles.
“Aww,” Emma says, slowing down and then turning off her treadmill. “I’m gonna take a break.” She flops on the couch and pulls up her messages.
“Oh, okay.” Bells is still running at a steady pace. He tries to zone out, but Jess and Abby have dissolved into soft whispers and quick kisses and giggling.
“You know, we’re right here,” Bells says.
They break apart; Jess blushes furiously. Abby doesn’t look bothered, just raises her eyebrows at Bells, who shrugs back at her as he continues to run.
“All right, why don’t you go cool down and walk a few miles or so,” Abby says, nodding at the treadmill machines. “I’m gonna continue my set.”
Jess nods and gets on the treadmill near Bells, who gives her a look.
“What!” Jess says, turning on the machine at a slow pace.
“I didn’t say anything,” Bells says, teasing.
Jess starts walking, moving her arms about. “This? This I can do. I’m not a running, weight-lifting kind of girl. I can hike because it’s just putting one foot in front of the other, that’s what I’m good at—”
“You’re good at lots of things,” Bells points out, and Jess sticks out her tongue at him.
He laughs at her, and ups the pace on his treadmill. He’s worked up a good sweat and he wants to keep it up.
Abby does pull-ups, lifting her entire body off the ground. Bells is impressed; he can do a few, but he probably couldn’t keep going for—how many reps is that?
Flomp.
“What in the—Jess!”
Bells turns off his machine to rush to Jess’ side, where’s she’s fallen off the treadmill. She sits up. “I, ah, I was distracted,” she says.
Bells laughs. They get back to their workouts, but during the whole afternoon he can’t help but feel left out between the in-jokes between Jess and Abby and Emma’s messaging.
“I think you guys have got this,” he says, turning off the treadmill. He jerks his head at the machine. “This is great, Abby, but I’m kinda set on my own routine.”
* * *
“You should just move to Andover,” Bells says, one afternoon when Christine is visiting him. “I think we even have a prep school. I mean, probably not as cool as yours, but…”
Christine laughs. “Nah, it’s not a big deal to come over here to hang out. Plus, I like the drive. All that desert scenery. You know how weird it is that we have all this public transport and most people just stay in the town where they live?”
“True,” Bells says. “I guess it’s easier if your town has a hovertrain. I mean, you could be in New Bright City in less than a day, if you can afford the tickets.”
She yawns. “Eh, it’s overrated. Vegas is interesting, but not so much if you’re not an adult who likes to gamble and drink. Plus, partying can get boring, you know? There’s only so much shopping and dancing I can do.” Christine grins. “Now, Andover may be a little off the path, but you’re here.”
Bells smiles back at her. This is the third time she’s visited him in the past two weeks. He’s been debating whether he wants to introduce Christine to his friends, especially since she knows the truth about the League and what they’re trying to do. She’s smart and has a lot of resources, but he doesn’t quite want to bring her in. It’s not that he doesn’t think they’d get along. Emma’s warm personality usually wins people over immediately, and Bells has no doubt Jess and Abby would get along with her. But right now she’s just his friend, and it’s nice hanging out when he doesn’t have to compete for time and attention.
Christine flicks him on the nose.
“Hey!”
“Moving to Andover, there’s an idea,” Christine says, laughing. “So thoughtful, thinking of my preppy needs.” She rolls her eyes. “I’m done with high school; graduated early. Taking a year off before I go to college. I was gonna travel, but I didn’t feel like going abroad.”
“That’s great,” Bells says. “You ever thought about hero-ing, you know, before all that?”
Christine leans back, playing with one of Bells’ socks. It unravels in her hands. The threads curl around her fingers and then become something entirely different: A round lump, and then two ears sticking out, and then a face stitches itself—a cat yarn ball.
Christine shrugs. “I mean, my parents bribed the NAC to get me into training. The League only put up with me because of the ‘donations,’ you know? I’m hardly useful.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re a good friend. I’m glad I met you.”
“Me too,” Christine says.
She drops the sock, and it lands on the floor in a soft thump. She glances up at Bells, gives him a tentative smile, and moves closer.
Bells’ thoughts are already racing ahead. He likes her well enough, and she likes hanging out with him, and—
Christine tilts forward. The kiss is a simple press of lips, but Bells’ mind races. Why do my curtains hang at such a weird angle? Is Sean coming back this weekend or is it just me and Simon? Ugh, there’s so much to do with Ma and Dad gone. Have they rescued all the meta-humans on Orion’s list? Have they run into Orion herself? His stomach rumbles. What should we eat for dinner? He could make something and he wonders if Christine wants to stay. She hasn’t been to the restaurant; we could do that.
Christine pulls back from the kiss, looking anywhere but at Bells. “Um—”
Bells blinks, searching for something to say. “That was—” he starts, trying to think of a diplomatic way of saying this isn’t going to work. He’s kissed and been kissed, and this kiss is hardly the worst. That distinction went to Benjamin from art camp the summer after seventh grade. Benjamin had braces and accidentally scratched Bells’ lip and then stole Bells’ still life idea for his own project.
It’s not the best kiss, either. It’s not really… anything.
“Sorry.” Bells offers her a sheepish smile.
“I like you, Bells, honest. I just—that was terrible. We really don’t have any chemistry.”
Bells snorts. “All right, maybe you don’t, but I have plenty.”
“Please. I’m incredibly cute here. I don’t know what’s wrong with you.”
They look at each other and dissolve into peals of laughter.
“Okay, let’s not do that again. Friends?”
“Friends,” Bells says.
Whooping, Brendan tosses a stack of papers onto the table.
Jess groans. “You broke my concentration, Bren! I was this close to finding out where Abby’s dad is!” They’ve been trying to increase the extent of her power so she could locate Master Mischief with her direction abilities, but they keep running into a block that Jess can’t explain. They’ve tried locating landmarks, various people, even Captain Orion, who is somewhere north of them, but he seems to be the one person she can’t get a read on.
“Maybe they have him exposed to tantalum, like when they were keeping my mom,” Abby muses.
“But how would that affect Jess’ powers? She’s not anywhere near the stuff; she should still be able to find him.”
“If there were enough of it, it could affect Jess,” Bells says thoughtfully. “Like it’s blocking her from reaching him? There was a small amount of it at the training center; they didn’t use it in any of our classes, but I knew it was there because I couldn’t hold a shift anywhere near that room or the walkways around it.” He’d been lucky; the first time he’d realized he wasn’t Barry anymore, he was alone. Bells made sure to give that area a wide berth.
He’s pretty sure it did block powers related to physical space. Sasha once mentioned she couldn’t transport anything to that area.
“Hey,” Brendan says, gesturing at the paperwork. “Come on, you totally ruined my moment. I’m gonna do this again.” He lifts up his stack of papers and sets it down with a definite clunk. “I give you—” He pauses. “—the Resistance!”
“Oh, you found them!”
“What? Why didn’t you say so?”
“Because you interrupted me!”
“How do we get in?”
Bells pokes the paperwork; his eyebrows shoot up. “This is just a bunch of characters. I thought you decoded everything?”
Abby scans it. “Oh, cool.” She pauses. “This could be anything; this could be nothing. We weren’t sure what it means, just that this user has been in a lot of our circles of interest.”
“Yeah,” Brendan says. “So I’ve been tracking user T1-2904 across multiple servers. This is an encrypted conversation between them and another person whom they’ve been talking to for a while. I believe we’ll soon see details for a meetup.”
“How long will that take?” Emma frowns. “That could be days or weeks or months. And we’ve already been looking for days, weeks and months! We should contact this person and try to get an invitation ourselves instead of waiting for it to happen.”
“You think I haven’t tried?” Brendan asks.
“You’re not exactly a people person,” Jess says. “What if we just asked —”
Brendan throws up his hands. “You can’t just pop up and lead with that! Do you know how long it took for T1-2903 to open up and trust —”
“How do you know this is actually the Resistance and not just two people flirting with each other?”
“Oh.” Brendan’s face falls. “But I was so sure—” He grabs the paperwork, mutters to himself, and runs out of the room. “No wait, I got it, I got it, if I tweak this…” his voice trails off as he disappears down the hall.
“That’s not the only lead we have,” Abby says. “Don’t worry, the program is solid.” She looks expectantly at them.
Jess groans. “Please don’t say the rest of this meeting is going to be working out. Please.”
“We should do something to take our minds off of dead ends, something fun.” Emma lights up. “We should go bowling! Carlos is really good, and he said he’d teach me. And he can meet you guys finally! How about Friday?
Bells bites his lip.
“I haven’t been in a while,” Abby muses.
Jess nudges her and grins. “Bet you’d be great. It would be fun! As long as you don’t make fun of me if I’m terrible.”
Abby scoffs. “Please, I’d make fun of you whether you were terrible or fantastic.”
They seem so happy together. Bells is not bitter. He’s not. He’s happy for his friends, really.
“Bells, you’re not working Friday, right? You should come!”
Bells can picture it already: Jess and Abby making eyes at each other, and Emma and Carlos ostensibly on their—what, sixth date, no, seventh. He can’t believe the guy’s lasted this long. Is this going to be a thing? Jess and Abby, Emma and Carlos…
Just a few months ago, he was the youngest hero in the Heroes’ League of Heroes. Now, he’s a wanted “villain”… and a fifth wheel.
Or, maybe not.
“I can bring a date too, right?” Bells isn’t sure why he blurts it out, and regrets it immediately because now he has to bring a date, especially given the way Emma grins at him.
“Of course! You didn’t tell me you were seeing anyone!” She all but squeals.
“Uh, we just started dating,” Bells says. “Hey, I gotta go; see you guys later!”
Christine answers the holocall with a bored, “What’s up?”
She’s lounging on her bed in silk pajamas, eyeing Bells with carefully disguised disinterest. The wire crinoline of her superhero outfit is beside her on a mannequin.
“Hey, are you busy Friday?” Bells asks.
“Maybe,” she says. “Why?”
“Do you like bowling?”
“Does anyone?”
Bells laughs. “Uh, a few of my friends and I are gonna go. Do you want to come with me?”
Christine sits up. “Are you asking me on a date? I thought we figured out that wouldn’t work for us.”
Bells rubs the back of his neck. “No, no, as a friend? Would you like to come?”
“So it’s not a date?”
Bells tries his best to explain. “Look, my friends all have dates, and I’m the only single one, please will you come…”
Christine quirks one eyebrow.
“Pretend to be my date?” Bells winces as he says it. It’s a lot to ask.
Christine grins and winks at Bells. “Sounds like fun. Who are you trying to make jealous?”
Bells groans. “Is it that obvious?”
* * *
Christine picks him up in a silver designer car, a model with its own solar panel instead of a hookup to use at charging stations. The sleek car looks out of place on his street. “You ready? We’re gonna be the cutest, most adoring couple.”
Bells snorts. He’s just hoping for believable.
“Come on. You trusted me with your secret identity—your real one. You don’t trust me to be able to act? Look, I even dressed up the way the kids do nowadays.” She gestures at her outfit: a trendy pink-and-green dress instead of her usual blouse-and-petticoat combo.
“Aw, I like your style. You don’t have to change that.”
“Good,” she says. “I was thinking of my character and her motives, but I didn’t have time to come up with a backstory for this glitzy, pop princess vibe.” Christine’s outfit shimmers and then changes to a cropped pink jacket over a dress with a full skirt.
The car’s computer voice speaks up. “Destination?”
“Andover Bowling Alley,” Christine says. From the console she grabs a bag of potato crisps. “Snack?”
Bells munches on the savory chips and takes the offered soda from the car’s fridge. Riding in a car equipped with the latest of everything is fun. They chat about The Hay Hay’s new pop song and some of Christine’s new clothing designs and soon they arrive.
Bells is nervous. He’s told Emma everything about anyone he’s dated from his first kiss. What if he and Christine don’t pull this off?
“Hmm.” Christine eyes the dilapidated building. The flickering holosign projecting the word BOWL is broken; the lights simply proclaim B O.
“Yeah, it isn’t much. We’re not Vegas, I know,” Bells adds, laughing.
“Psh, it looks great.” Christine pushes open the doors and they walk in.
The bowling alley is empty. Christine swipes her DED at the counter, then turns the control pad over to him. Bells enters his shoe size, and then Christine, smirking, takes it away.
“What?”
“You’ll see,” she says, finishing signing in with a flourish.
The dispenser beeps. Bells takes out two pairs of shoes, hands hers to Christine and tugs his on while he watches a lane flicker to life. The holopins glow and almost look real. Real pins or not, Bells is terrible at bowling.
He presses the button on the ball dispenser, and a bright red ball clunks into place. Bells tests its weight and then rolls it down the lane. The ball promptly rolls into the gutter.
“See what I mean? I’m terrible. Hey, what—!”
Bells glances at the display overhead. CHAMELEON: 0. CRINOLINE: 0.
“Come on, it’s funny,” Christine says.
He grabs the control pad and ends the game. The names disappear. “You know Chameleon is wanted, right? I can’t afford to be caught.”
Christine laughs. “You know people use fake names all the time, right? Everybody uses nicknames and joke names and superheroes’ names on these things. It doesn’t matter.”
Bells becomes acutely aware of the front door, as though the Authorities are going to burst in at any second and arrest him. Nothing happens.
“Okay, you’re probably right.”
“Watch this.” Christine twirls on the floor and picks up her holoball. She scrunches her face, leans back, and rolls the ball.
It streaks down the lane and hits the pins.
“Strike!” Christine says and high fives Bells.
Bells laughs. “You are good.”
“Hi!”
He turns around at the sound of Emma’s voice. She’s standing with Jess and Abby, regarding Christine. Emma looks great. Her curls are artfully piled atop her head, and she’s wearing the bracelet Bells gave her for her birthday last year. She hasn’t worn that in a while.
“This is Christine,” Bells says, trying not to think about what the bracelet means. “We, uh, met at art camp. She lives in Vegas. My friends: Emma, Jess, and Abby.”
Emma’s already hugging Christine and babbling. “… and it is so nice to meet you! Bells hasn’t dated in so long, so this is really exciting!”
“Great to meet you too,” Christine says, without missing a beat. “Bells said this was a triple date?”
“Oh, my boyfriend is on his way,” Emma says airily. “He said he wanted to pick up food for all of us.”
“That’s nice of him,” Christine says. She glances at Bells with a slight smirk as Emma links her arm in hers, and they walk back to the shoe dispenser together.
“Art camp, huh?” Jess says. “Isn’t that when you were…”
“Uh, yeah,” Bells says. “She’s cool. I like her a lot. Like I said, we just started dating.”
“That’s great,” Abby says. “So she’s also a…”
Oh. He shouldn’t have said art camp; Bells forgot he told them that was code for Meta-Human Training. He hasn’t asked Christine if she was comfortable talking about her powers with other people. But they’re interrupted when the bowling alley doors open again.
“Carlos!” Emma squeals, then runs to the door and greets him with a kiss that lasts much longer than any of the ones he’s seen in school.
“Jess and Abby, right?” Christine says, handing them a pair of shoes each. “Great to meet you. Bells talks so much about his friends.”
“Aw, really?” Emma says, hand-in-hand with Carlos.
“Hi, I’m Carlos,” he says. He dimples when he smiles. “I brought sandwiches for everyone and snacks!”
Up close, he looks like a classic holostar, as if he could have walked right off a movie set. He’s adorable and thoughtful. Bells wants to hate him.
After a chorus of hellos and introductions, Bells joins in with a half-hearted, “Hey.”
It unfolds like a movie, a coming-of-age teen drama in which Bells is a spectator, watching life happen. Carlos is a generous listener and a fantastic bowler. And if Bells had to rate all of the people Emma’s dated, he has to admit Carlos is the best. He cheers when Emma scores; he talks animatedly with Abby about her captaincy on the volleyball team. He gets into a long discussion with Jess about vintage superhero comics and even draws Christine into a conversation about current fashion trends.
He’s nice and smart and gorgeous and there’s really no competition here at all.
The conversation turns to sports, and Abby and Emma talk about volleyball and Carlos listens intently. Jess gives Bells a look, and he shrugs as if to say, I don’t have anything to add, why bother? Jess raises her eyebrows. He settles for throwing the bowling ball. Carlos is winning, of course, but no one has paid attention to the game in a while. His ball rolls into the gutter.
Christine surprises him by kissing him wetly on the cheek and then whispering in his ear, “Laugh. Not too loudly, just pretend I told you something really hilarious, but we’re the only ones who get it.”
Bells laughs and then pulls back and grins at her.
“Aww, you guys are so cute,” Emma says, but her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
“You said you lived in Vegas?” Carlos asks with friendly interest. “How’d you meet Bells?”
“It was art camp in Aerial City, right Bells?” Emma says, fixing him with a smile. Bells can tell there’s an unspoken question. “It was so beautiful in Bells’ photos.”
Christine gives Bells the briefest of looks. “Oh, it was so lovely, all that green and rustling of the trees. And the walkways, so romantic, you’re so high up…”
Emma raises her eyebrows and laughs. “I bet a lot of your time was cut short because of how skittish Bells gets around heights.”
“Yeah, we hung out a lot at the school, not so much the walkways,” Bells says hastily. “We did meet on one, and she saved me from having to walk alone.”
Christine picks up the story and then engages them all with colorful anecdotes about Vegas and how she and Bells decided to keep in touch. All in all, it’s not a bad time, Bells decides, taking a bite of his sandwich. It’s delicious, of course.
As they turn off their lanes, Carlos walks over to Bells. “So, I hear you’re a great artist! Love to see your work sometime.”
“Ah, that’s kind of private,” Bells hedges.
Emma snorts and playfully nudges Bells with her shoulder. “Bells barely lets us see what he’s working on; maybe if he’s finished something and feels happy with it, but yeah, tough luck there.”
Bells wants to hate Carlos so badly, but he can’t. The guy is just too nice. Bells almost wants to date him.
Everyone is hungry, so they decide to go to the automat. Bells and Christine drive in her silver car; pop music plays from the speakers.
“Thank you,” Bells says. “I know this was a weird request.”
“I had a lot of fun,” Christine says. “Your friends are cool.”
He exhales in relief. Their charade isn’t quite over, but so far, it’s seemed to work.
At the restaurant, Abby waves them over to a table. Jess is already at the food, a brightly lit wall of dispensers filled with various dishes, kept either hot or cool in the glass trays. She peers in each aperture before swiping her DED at the screen. Jess comes back to the table with two slices of pizza, a piece of apple pie, and a dish of macaroni and cheese, which she plops down in front of Abby.
“Nice,” Abby says, and jabs her fork into the food.
“Oh, cool, an automat! I’ve never been in one,” Christine says. “Seen them for snacks and stuff at, like, charging stations, but never an entire restaurant.”
“Never been in an automat?” Emma asks, raising her eyebrows. “They don’t have them in Vegas?”
Christine shrugs. “I’m sure they do, but my friends at home wouldn’t want to do stuff like this. My, ah, art friends, yeah, but all of them live super-far away.”
“Oh,” Emma says, glancing from Bells to Christine. “That must have been a cool art camp. What kind of art do you do?”
“Performance,” Christine says, as she locks arms with Bells and places a wet kiss on his cheek.