Just Super

Em: home safe. miss you

Me: miss u too

Those are still the most recent messages on my phone when I get up Monday morning. She woke me up, but I didn’t mind; I wanted to hear from her. 

Aunt Kate is still home when I come out of my room for breakfast, and we chat a little as we eat. She seems a little on edge, and I can guess why, even though she doesn’t say anything about yesterday evening. 

“Dinner’s at seven tonight,” she tells me, once we’ve cleared our dishes.

I nod, give her a hug, and flicker to school.

“Have you tried going anywhere else?” 

Emily and I are sitting in the auditorium, waiting for assembly to start.

“I wasn’t sure I could do it without a portal until last night, so no,” I reply. “I’ll let you know before I try.”

“Are you sure you should? Try, that is?”

“It seems like a safe bet that if I can get there, I can get back.”

“Maybe.”

The assembly starts and we have to stop talking, so we switch to texting, even though we’re right next to each other.

Nothing important ever comes up at assembly, anyway, unless some loser causes a major mark-interaction incident, and how likely is that to happen? So instead of listening, we send each other silly memes for twenty minutes.

Me: did she just say something about jewelry?

Em: don’t know. u distracted me

The bell rings a few memes later, and the assembly ends.

“Even with the trust from your father’s insurance, and your social security survivor benefits, we would have a hard time convincing a judge that you could support yourself,” Ms. Beatriz says. “Unless, of course, you get a job, which The School does not recommend.”

I was summoned to the office after second period, and I’m now sitting across from her, while she explains why emancipation is unlikely for me.

“What social security survivor benefits?”

“Since your father died while you were a minor, you’re entitled to a portion of his benefit until you reach the age of eighteen. You should have been receiving them monthly since shortly after his death.”

“How much are they?”

She turns her screen so that I can see it. She’s got a spreadsheet filled out with income and estimated living expenses. The survivor benefits are about the same as the monthly insurance payments I’ve been getting, so I have about twice as much money coming in as I thought.

“Your mother must have been handling that for you.”

I guess so, if “handling” means taking the money for herself.

“Your aunt had us direct the check to your new bank account,” she continues.

“Why does it have to be Chicago?” I return to the subject of supporting myself.

“Technically, as long as you show you can support yourself somewhere in the state of Illinois, that should be sufficient. I assumed you’d want to be near your friends.”

I resist the urge to ask her if she knows what my mark does. I am learning not to antagonize people when I depend on their help.

“It’s a lot cheaper to live in a small town, right?”

“Generally, the further you get away from a big city, the lower the cost of living.”

I do a quick search on my phone. “It looks like I could pay like a third, or even a quarter of what you have for rent there, if I lived in Freeport. And you can take out transportation expenses.”

She turns the screen back around and types for a moment. 

“Yes. That might work.” She shows me the screen again. With that budget, I’d even have around a hundred dollars a month for “extras.” I wouldn’t be saving anything for college, though.

“Thanks. I hope I don’t need this, but I’d rather live on my own than in The Residence, or with strangers.”

“I’ll have The School’s lawyer draw up the petition, just in case. You can drop by after school and sign it. Even if you are emancipated, you could still live with relatives, if they’re amenable.”

“Thank you, Ms. Beatriz.”

My tutoring session with Sasha (Peter has been declared sufficiently knowledgeable of history) was canceled because of this meeting, so I flicker to the cafeteria.

I find Emily in the courtyard and join her. She got a head start on lunch, but I eat my tuna salad quickly and catch up. Between bites I fill her in on my trip to the office.

“Do you think your aunt and uncle will kick you out?”

“No, but I could be wrong. Aunt Kate was weird this morning, and I’m pretty sure we’re going to have ‘a talk’ at dinner.”

“They’re probably just worried about you. It took my moms a while to be okay with what I do.”

“I sort of want to go ahead with emancipation and hope they’d let me stay anyway. But that would mean they wouldn’t get the money for being foster parents.”

“Why would you want to?”

“Do you have a lot of rules you have to follow?”

“Not really. As long as I’m doing okay in school, do my share of chores, and keep my moms in the loop.”

“Neither did I with Mom. I think it was different, though. Your moms trust you, and let’s face it, not much can put you in danger. Before I got marked I could stay out until whenever with the team, or on a date. After, even when I stopped doing that stuff, she knew I wasn’t always in my room; she just never said anything. I think she didn’t care.”

“You think they’re going to make some rules for you?”

“I think there’s a good chance. I know Vance had more rules than I did.”

“But they also might not do that.”

“Yeah.”

“Cheer up. If things get too bad, you can always run off to another universe.”

“Don’t tempt me. A life of crime on mundane Earth is still on the table.”

“Good choice. I don’t think our Earth has an extradition treaty with them.”

It’s amazing how good it feels that she knows I’m joking. 

“What?” She’s looking at me with that cute eyebrow raise.

I realize I’m staring at her with a goofy grin on my face.

“I like you.”

I feel like doing a trick for her. This morning I went down to the flower stand at the corner and bought a rose just for this occasion. I left it in my room in a vase, but I could have brought it to school with me and left it in my locker. With that thought, I flicker in place.

I hand her the rose.

She takes it and beams at me for a moment, then leans in and gives me a quick kiss.

“Thank you.” She holds the rose up to her nose and inhales. “I like you, too.”

She takes my hand in hers and we sit quietly for the rest of lunch.

Dinner is a little tense.

It’s obvious that Aunt Kate and Uncle Keith have something they want to say. Or maybe that they don’t want to say, but feel like they have to. Either way, their silence is the loudest part of the meal.

“I’ll take care of cleanup.” I hadn’t helped with prep because I had a ton of homework this afternoon. I’d volunteered to anyway, but Aunt Kate had turned me down.

“Thank you, sweetie,” Uncle Keith says, “but we need to have a little talk first.”

I sit back down. “What about?”

My aunt and uncle look back and forth at each other. Finally my aunt speaks.

“We know you’ve been through so much lately, and we don’t want to make things worse…” 

I can hear the ‘but’ coming. I martial all my arguments against a strict curfew, against being forbidden to help Emily when she gets the call.

“…but there are a couple of things we really need to talk about. We don’t want you to take this the wrong way—”

“We love you, Frank, and we’re happy to have you here with us.” Uncle Keith interjects.

“Yes, definitely,” Aunt Kate agrees.

Do they not get that they are torturing me by not getting to the point?

“But how would you feel about being legally emancipated?” she continues.

“You could still stay here, of course,” Uncle Keith adds quickly.

That is not at all what I was expecting. It turns out that my mom is trying really hard to get me back; she’s got a lawyer and everything. The idea is that if I’m emancipated, I’m legally an adult, so there’s absolutely nothing she can do to make me go back to her.

The two of them have checked with a lawyer, who thinks she can probably get emancipation approved within a couple of weeks—just in time for my seventeenth birthday. Of course, it takes almost ten minutes for them to convey all that.

I’m one to talk, though; it takes me at least half as long to explain that The School has most of the work already done, and will have the school lawyer file as soon as I give them the go ahead. They’re every bit as relieved at my reaction as I am at theirs. We all laugh a bit.

Then they get serious again. Right. Two things. My aunt and uncle share glances back and forth until finally Aunt Kate starts again.

“The other thing is about your ‘friend,’ Emily—” 

Oh, right. I’d introduced Emily as my ‘friend.’ It wasn’t that I was trying to be cagey; just, neither Emily nor I had used the ‘g word’ at that point. 

She continues. “it’s pretty obvious that the two of you are more than friends. Your uncle and I are worried about you—”

“Both of you,” my uncle interjects.

My aunt nods. “—both of you. We’re worried about you getting hurt.”

Both of us? Hurt? It seems a little weird to worry about the girl who was ripping apart walking tanks while under a constant stream of rifle fire getting hurt. And I can get out of the way of almost anything, especially with Emily there to warn me. And if I don’t—I rub my lower chest where I’m pretty sure I cracked a rib—I can make it so I did.

Clearly my confusion shows on my face.

“We’re not talking about physically—”

“Not that we’re not worried, but after what the two of you accomplished last night, that’s sort of back-burnered.”

“No, we’re worried about you hurting each other, you know, emotionally.”

They explain why they’re worried. Emily and I were stuck as our only contacts with our own world for a week; we’ve been in life-threatening situations with each other twice now; we weren’t even friends a month ago; the beginning of transition can be so volatile.

There’s definitely some subtext that something happened with Van and his theyfriend that feels like none of my business. Besides that, I can sort of see where they’re coming from. But…

“I know I could get hurt here. Knowing me, I probably will, but she’s worth it.”

“What about her, though? We love you, Frank, but you’ve told us some of what you’ve done since getting your mark, and we got a copy of your school record, and, well, your mom emailed us some stuff. Are you going to hurt her?”

Fuck. That hurts. But…

“That’s nothing I haven’t asked myself. Thing is, she knows who I am. She knew when she asked me out. And no, she’s not trying to fix me. She only asked me after she was convinced I was trying to fix myself. She may be making a mistake, but it’s her mistake to make.”

I wish I was as confident of all that as I’m trying to sound. I am about one part of it, though. It’s worth the hurt that’s probably coming.

We talk a little more. They aren’t laying down the law or anything like that; they’re just worried about us. After another ten minutes of dating advice, we finish up. Then they get to the embarrassing bit.

“I guess I could be making a mistake, but I don’t think so. Even if I am, though, I can take that chance if I want to.”

“That’s what I said!”

Emily and I are sitting on her roof, talking about the conversation with my aunt and uncle. 

“Well, I’m impressed that they picked up on us, what with me just being your ‘friend’ and all.”

I’m glad it’s dark enough up here that she can’t see my embarrassment. “We haven’t talked about what we are, and I didn’t want to…”

She pokes me lightly in the middle of my chest. “Girlfriend.” She takes my hand, gently folds my fingers until my index finger alone is extended, and pokes that into her own chest. “Girlfriend. At least as far as I’m concerned. Any disagreement?”

Instead of answering, I lean forward and kiss her. When we pause, I lean my forehead against hers. “Girlfriend.”

There’s more kissing, and a little snuggling, until I remember the final subject of the conversation. I don’t know if I want to mention it to her or not.

“What?” Emily asks. I must have tensed up.

I sigh. “When it was clear I’m going to keep dating you, we had ‘the talk.’ They correctly guessed that Mom hadn’t refreshed the talk since my transition—not that the first time she gave it was much more than ‘Any girl who’d have sex with you is a slut, and don’t have sex with sluts, because they might get pregnant and blame you.’”

Emily laughs. “Mum had a refresher talk with me after our date, since the only dates I’ve been on before were with cis girls. I promised that if we ever have sex, we would ‘use whatever level of protection is appropriate.’”

I can’t help blushing a little bit, or a lot. I have definitely thought about it, but it surprises me a little to hear her being so casual about it. “Uh, my aunt and uncle had the same concern. My mom emailed them some medical records—apparently The School took a DNA sample when I was still out after the incident—and I still have a Y chromosome, so they suddenly didn’t know if I still…”

I am not as casual about this stuff as she is. She snerks.

“What?”

“It’s not like it’s an issue anyway. I decided to not have periods a while back. I will not be getting pregnant any time soon.”

“Oh. That makes me feel better.”

It’s dark, but I can still see that she gives me a funny look.

“No,” I say, “it’s just that I’ve skipped both of mine so far. As soon as I realized what it was, I flickered to a version of me that was already past it. I was feeling a little guil—”

“Hey, it’s your body. A lot of women use birth control to skip their periods. We have shortcuts, that’s all.”

I nod. I guess she’s right. 

I remember that I had something to ask her. “Are you busy tomorrow right after classes?”

“Nope. What’s up?”

“Would you meet me in the gym? I reserved one of the testing spaces.”

“Sure! What are you going to do?”

“Test.”

I can feel her narrow her eyes at me. After a moment she sighs and leans her head on my shoulder. We stay like that until it’s time for me to go home.

Tuesday goes by in a blur. Therapy is mostly Mr. Berry and me discussing my feelings around my current situation. It isn’t until it’s over that I remember that I was going to talk about my mark; I need to write stuff like that down. 

I tutor Sasha during lunch, which is fine, since it’s a B day and I couldn’t hang out with Emily anyway. My classes are fine. I do notice Kyle and Len whispering in the hall between third and fourth periods, but I’m not too worried about that. I’ll probably hear about them ending up in ISS again soon.

Right before the last bell rings, I get a message on the school app. 

If you’re available, please see me immediately after the final bell. It should only take a moment. You may come directly to my office -- Principal Dana Ruehl.

I don’t see how this can be anything but bad news. I message Emily to let her know I’ll be a couple minutes late. 

Before the final bell stops ringing, I’m sitting in the visitors’ chair in Ms. Ruehl’s office.

“Thank you for being prompt, Ms. Doyle. First, let me assure you, you are not in any trouble, nor is there any particular bad news.”

I’m glad she said that, because it lets my heart rate start dropping from its slightly elevated million beats per minute.

“This is about Sunday evening,” she continues.

“Oh, right. I guess you hadn’t gotten the talk before,” Emily says. “I mean the ‘Don’t be a hero’ talk. I got that my second day.”

Of course she did; that was the day of the killer robot attack. 

Ms. Ruehl didn’t explain how she knew I’d been there at the incursion. She spent five minutes explaining that dealing with incursions is dangerous, and best left to the professionals and the nigh invulnerable. 

She also warned me against being a vigilante, pointing out that the damage I did to that one soldier’s knee might have earned me assault charges, if he hadn’t been an extradimensional invader, and very likely a civil suit as well.

“Thing is, even though she was telling me I shouldn’t do that again, I got the feeling she was sort of pleased—maybe even proud of me.”

“She probably was, then.”

“Huh…”

We’re in one of the testing rooms off the main gymnasium. They’re cool because they have a full suite of cameras, including a couple of high-speed ones; a bunch of targets, from standard archery targets to a set of concentric circles etched into a six-inch armor plate; and a bunch of miscellaneous stuff, like a pitching machine, a couple of trapezes, and a fifty-ton hydraulic press. That last one is off limits without teacher supervision.

I’m here mainly for the cameras. Emily is already sitting at the little computer desk where she can control them all. 

“Are you going to tell me what we’re doing?” She’s fiddling with the controls, flicking from camera to camera.

“I want to try a few things and see if I can learn anything from watching the videos afterwards.”

Her look tells me that that is not especially helpful information. She presses a button and the lights on the cameras come on. “You know I can start up the pitching machine from this, right? I’m sure whatever you’re testing, it would be an even better test if you were being pelted by baseballs.”

I smirk at her. “Here goes.”

I focus on my mark, as if I’m going to flicker, but I stay put. The world blurs around me.

“What are you doing? Is this safe?” Emily’s voice sounds slightly distorted.

All I’m doing at first is getting video of what this looks like from the outside. Other than the low quality video from the sniper thing on other Earth, I haven’t watched any video of myself using my mark since the initial testing when I arrived at The School, and I didn’t push myself then.

“Frank?”

“Just a sec.” This should be enough for me to get a look. I stop focusing on my mark. The world stays blurry. 

Right, I guess I need to do something with all this… whatever it is that I’ve built up. This feels like overkill for the other things I wanted to try, except the big one, but I don’t want to do that without discussing it with Emily first.

“Whatever you’re going to do, could you go ahead, please? This is making my brain itch.”

It takes me a second to parse what she said. Her voice comes through as distorted. Why does this make her brain itch?

“Frank?” Her arm moves and a cloud of erasers passes through me. “Woah. Don’t stop doing that after all.”

She reaches into her backpack and a cloud of pencils sails around me. Then she gets up and walks over to the pitching machine and pulls out a couple of baseballs. When she tosses one(?) at me, it turns into a cloud and passes through me. She repeats that and the same thing happens. “Neat,” she says.

She walks up to me and stretches out a finger toward my nose. She boops me. “Boop!” For an instant she and the world aren’t blurry, then she pulls her finger back and the world smears out again. I think she’s got a puzzled look on her face. “Huh.”

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“What?”

This is annoying. I focus on my mark and try to turn off this effect. I feel an unfamiliar sensation through my mark and the world comes back into focus.

“What was that all about?” Emily asks.

I explain what I was trying to do. “I guess it’s a little bit like when you power up, except I’ve only ever done it before when I needed it to do something big. I didn’t realize I’d stay like that. Why did you keep throwing things at me?”

Instead of answering, she walks over to the desk. The lights on the cameras go off and she mouses around for a moment. “Here.” She gestures at the screen. I walk over to look.

First off, seeing myself all blurry is not what I expected. It looks sort of like millions of transparent images of me spread across the area. She scrubs forward to when she threw the eraser. In the video, the eraser flies straight toward me, and it looks like a gap opens up in the cloud of images of me, then closes once the eraser is past.

“This doesn’t look quite like it looked to my eyes.” Emily thinks for a second. “You were more of a blur than a bunch of images.”

“Yeah, things look blurry for me, too.” 

We see the same effect with the other objects, but when she boops me I coalesce into one person until she lifts her finger. 

We watch the video again. The high-speed cameras capture 9600 frames per second, so this time we watch at 160x slow motion. This time there are a lot fewer images of me visible at any moment, and they look a lot less transparent.

“I see why you call it flickering. I was wondering.”

What? No. I’m careful to only use that in my head. I always say teleport when I say it out loud. “What? I don’t say that.”

“Not until recently, no. But you said it a couple of times Sunday, and then last night.”

I don’t remember that, but I must have. I’m pretty sure she can’t read my mind. “You don’t have telepathy do you?”

“What? No. Why?”

“I called what I do ‘flickering’ out loud exactly one time, not long after I got marked. My mom laughed at me and said it sounded stupid, so I stopped using that term, except in my head. I just say ‘teleporting’ instead. I guess I slipped.”

She smiles at me. “It doesn’t sound stupid. Thanks for trusting me enough to share it, even if you didn’t realize it.”

I throw myself at her and wrap her in a hug. It scares me a little how comfortable I am with her, but it feels so right.

I have questions, like what she meant when she said I was making her brain itch? How long can I stay like that? Why could she boop my nose? But those don’t seem very important right now.

“I think I’m done here for today. Want to go hang out somewhere?”

“Yes!”

We download the videos and reset the room, which will erase the local copies, then I turn out the lights as we leave.