He punches a code into another keypad, by a door that leads off from the ticket hall, then places his thumb to a thumbprint reader. When a light above the reader flicks green, the door creaks open, revealing a narrow staircase. Jay indicates that we’re to head upwards, and as we ascend he checks that the door is properly closed behind us. He tells us that the public entrance to the offices is around the back – we’re just going this way as it’s more convenient right now.
On the first floor, a pristine, middle-aged woman is sitting at a desk. She seems busy typing at her computer, but stops and beams at us as we approach. Behind her glasses her eyes sparkle with excitement, and as we get closer she clacks her artificially elongated fingernails together so that they sound almost mechanical.
‘Ladies,’ Jay says, ‘this is Somnia. Somnia – Erica Elland, and her friend Louise.’
‘Erica!’ Somnia gushes in a soft voice. ‘I am so pleased to finally meet you! I’ve been keeping track, you know!’
‘Thank you! Sonya, was it?’
‘No, sweetheart, Somnia. You know, like sleep? Some of us prefer to go by our codenames at work, save what’s written on our birth certificates for home. You must understand.’
‘Somnia requires absolutely no sleep, and so makes the perfect office administrator. She’s like a mum to all of us here,’ Jay says. ‘Any issues with payroll, or paid leave, or tax issues, just come to her.’
‘Oh, hush you! I’m a glorified receptionist and tea maker,’ Somnia says, blushing, and then she turns back to Erica. ‘But if there is anything I can do for you, sweetness, just let me know. I can make things happen, if you know what I mean!’
‘Thank you,’ Erica says, obviously charmed.
‘And you’re Louise Kirby, are you?’ Is it my imagination, or do her eyes deaden when she looks at me? Even though I’m standing and she’s sitting, it’s as if she’s looking down her nose at me.
‘Don’t worry, she’s cleared Code Blue. She’s to stay up here while we’re downstairs,’ Jay explains as he hands Somnia the contract. ‘We’ll be back in a couple of hours. I’m sure there’s something Louise can help you with …?’
‘Oh, I’ll find something!’ Somnia trills, but I feel nervous.
As Erica and Jay head back down the stairs I can’t help but wonder whether they are relieved to get rid of me. I know Jay would be – he hates the fact that I’m here at all – but there’s something in Erica’s casual manner that suggests she’s now regretting bringing me along.
‘So …’ Somnia’s tone has completely changed, her voice suddenly a lot lower, ‘you’re the sidekick, huh?’ She couldn’t sound more disapproving.
‘I guess,’ I mumble, even though I meant it to come out a lot bolder.
‘Well, I suppose it’s sweet of you to come here too. Inconvenient, but sweet.’ Somnia stands up, and I realise that we’re about the same height. She’s round like an apple, and wearing clothes that are far too tight for her. Still, there’s something in her glare that makes her scarily imposing. ‘Now, I don’t know what Jay was thinking, bringing you up to me. He knows full well that I can’t let you anywhere near the files, no matter what emergency clearance code you’ve been given. But I suppose we can find you a computer and let you do some homework or something.’
‘I didn’t bring any homework with me.’
‘Of course you didn’t.’ Somnia looks me up and down, arms crossed over her ample chest. ‘Well, perhaps we can show you where the kitchen is. You do know how to make tea and coffee, right?’
I follow her up to the second floor, which is laid out as an open-plan office, shabby and decades old. I wonder whether I have stepped back in time somehow, into a world that’s totally colourless and mundane. This is definitely not what I imagined a superhero base to look like. Half the people sitting at the desks look bored, and the other half look like they’re nearly asleep.
‘Are the people here all right?’ I whisper to Somnia.
‘This is the accounts department, darling. These people are regulars, just like you. They spend their whole days looking at spreadsheets, assessing targets and working out budgets. You’d look like them too if you were doing the same.’
As we walk through the office nobody even looks up. Somnia takes me to a room at the back, which has a kitchenette on one side and a coffee table and soft seating on the other. There’s a small TV fixed to the wall and a water cooler bubbling in the corner; the bubbles sound like mocking laughter.
‘I’ll leave you here. You can watch the promotional video if you want. Just remember we’re busy people in this place. Try not to get in anyone’s way.’ Without checking if I even want to watch the video, Somnia sets the TV so that it starts playing. Then she turns on her kitten heels and trots back across the office and downstairs to her desk. I sit on one of the couches, uncomfortable and stuffed with stiff industrial foam, and try not to notice the grime in the kitchen.
‘We all think our children are special, but what if they were super-special?’ a happy American voice chirps while the screen flicks through images of smiling children playing. ‘So you’ve just discovered that your son or daughter can do things the other kids can’t? Well, don’t worry – we at Vigil Corps are here to make things easier. Whether they’re super-fast, psychic or able to breathe underwater, the team at Vigil Corps are trained to help, understand and fulfil your child’s true potential!’ The image flicks to the familiar face of Solar, the leader of the New York Vigil team, in his trademark gold suit, mask and cape. The close-up manages to keep the logos of his main sponsor just in shot.
‘Hi. I’m Solar. I was twelve and living on the streets when I discovered that I could emit full-spectrum light rays from my body. Vigil Corps trained me and taught me to use my talents for good, and if it wasn’t for them I’d be off the rails and pursuing a life of crime.’ His smile surpasses cheesy. ‘By putting your child in the capable hands of the team at Vigil Corps, you can ensure that they get the best start in life and are ready to lead a life of truth, justice and peace.’
‘Vigil Corps understands your concerns.’ The American lady’s voiceover is back, this time over images of smiling superheroes standing on mountain tops, capes billowing behind them. ‘We want to assure you that only we understand what it’s like to be super-special and can provide the best opportunities for your loved one.’
I’m treated to an image of a man in swimming trunks giving the camera a thumbs-up while underwater in some kind of tank – as he turns to the side you can see what I presume are actual fish gills in his neck, allowing him to breathe underwater. Next, a skinny woman in sportswear lifting a car by one of its front wheels while smiling as if she’s lifting a feather, and finally an image of a happy scientist shaking hands with Solar, his smile still beaming. It doesn’t say why or what for. I know that this video is meant to make me feel content and proud, but there’s something about the saccharine sheen, coupled with all the decidedly unsubtle corporate sponsor logos that appear in the background of most of the shots, that just makes me feel uneasy, even a little worried.
Erica must be deep underground within the complex now, mingling with superheroes and getting introduced to all sorts of powerful people. I feel lost in this bland little room with nothing but a half-dead spider plant for company. I’m alone, bored and stuck in this dingy kitchen with a troop of strange adults outside, none of whom look particularly interesting or interested in me. Do they wonder why I’m here? Do Jay and Somnia think I’m sad, following Erica around like a deluded groupie with no life of her own? Without Erica I’m absolutely nothing, and that horrible, plunging feeling that I’ve been fighting all day finally finds its way up to my throat and lodges there, an undignified lump.
‘Where were you today?’
Toby is standing outside my house. It’s four in the afternoon, I’ve just got home and there’s another hour before my parents will be back from work. I stop a few paces before I reach him, mittened hands stuffed in my pockets, willing my bo
bble hat to fall over my face. What the hell is he doing here?
‘You called in sick to school. But you’re blatantly not sick. Where were you?’ he asks.
‘I was out.’
‘Erica wasn’t in school today either. Were you with her?’
‘What is this? The Spanish Inquisition?’
‘No. But you lied. You bunked off. And I even brought you soup.’ He holds out a rectangular Tupperware, filled with what looks like a light brown broth. ‘Come on, Louise. What’s going on? Do your parents know that you skipped school?’
‘Leave it, Toby.’
‘No.’
He’s following me up my driveway as I go to take my house keys out of my bag.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ I ask as he gets closer to me, so close that I don’t know when he’s going to stop.
‘Are you in trouble? Is Erica?’
‘Toby. Leave it now, please.’ He steps back, frustrated and obviously wanting to say something else.
‘I got your teachers to email your work to you,’ he says with a sigh.
‘Thanks.’
‘I suppose you don’t even need the soup.’
If I was Erica I’d invite Toby inside to share the soup with me. We’d sit at my kitchen table, and he’d tell me what I missed in school, and what Mrs Fraser was like at lunchtime without me there. We’d flirt a bit, and maybe he’d ask me out to the cinema again to make up for our aborted attempt last time. But I’m not Erica, and he seems monumentally pissed off at me, and I’m feeling deflated after a spectacularly boring day.
I waited in that office for nearly three hours before Somnia came to give me the message that Erica was still in meetings and I had to keep waiting. I found an ancient stack of magazines in one of the kitchen cupboards, and eventually I was allowed on a computer, but only after a technician had dropped by to make sure that there was no way I could possibly access any important files.
The train home was equally frustrating: Erica couldn’t tell me a thing. She wanted to – she was practically bursting with it – but every time I caught her doing that little jump that signalled she was about to explode with gossip, she quickly shut herself up again.
‘You should have seen all the stacks of forms that I had to sign,’ she explained. ‘It’s like, proper international government stuff. If I tell anybody anything, I think they can throw me in jail or something.’
‘It’s all right. I understand,’ I said.
‘And we did talk about you.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Well, then, that’s great.’
‘Look, the one thing I can tell you is that you have to be careful. I don’t think that they’re too happy with you being so involved, and of course I told them where to stick it on that front, but – what was the phrase Jay used? Something about an “unknown variable”?’
‘You’re telling me I have to be careful but you can’t tell me why or how or anything else?’
‘You know that it’s not my choice. I told them that I wanted to tell you everything, that I want you to stay involved.’
‘And how did they respond to that?’
‘Not too well.’
‘Great.’
‘They do want me to take my exams though – can you believe it? So even if stuff is going on, it can’t happen properly until this coming summer. Until then, we carry on as normal. I mean, I’ll be going into town at weekends for training and meetings, so maybe I’ll still need help with homework and revision and stuff, but don’t you see? Nothing really has to change at all.’
I know Erica thought that she was being generous in what she was telling me, but I was just even more confused and annoyed by it all. There was so much I wanted to ask her, like how they ran their operations, and who made decisions, and how they all kept in touch. Only all the things we’d both been wondering about for the last couple of years.
Now Toby’s looking at me, and I know that if I invite him in I’ll just be too tempted to tell him everything. So I say, ‘No, I don’t need the soup,’ and turn away.
‘Oh. I thought we were good friends, you know? Guess I was wrong.’
He sighs and heads back down my driveway. I feel my heart tug after him. I don’t want him to hate me, and I’m sure that I’ll figure out some way of making it up between us, but my secrets are pressing too near the surface right now for me to be near anyone, in case they spill out.
‘Sorry,’ I whisper, but he’s too far away to hear.
It’s another two weeks before Erica and I discuss anything Vigil again. Two weeks of pseudo-normality, where we pretend that nothing has happened. We can’t talk about it. We see less of each other because there’s no reason for her to come over to my house now, and for the first time in a long while I’ve got only my homework to worry about. I’ve even got the time to start knitting a new scarf.
I kind of hoped that maybe, when I went back into school and saw Toby again, he would have conveniently forgotten about my truancy. There was a good chance, in my head at least, that we would pretend nothing remotely unusual had happened, and life could continue as normal. No such luck. He’s really angry. He’s stiff and formal when he’s around me now, and I know that what he wants is an apology and an explanation, but I just can’t give them. So he remains frosty. Civilised, but definitely frosty.
So at school I’m feeling increasingly lonely because of Toby, and at home too I’m starting to miss Erica.
‘Hi, Lou!’ She comes up behind me. At first I don’t recognise her voice: my brain literally can’t compute the idea of Erica being in the library at lunchtime of her own volition.
‘Is everything all right?’ I ask. I automatically look at her hands, checking for that familiar heat shimmer she gets when she’s panicking or stressed.
‘Everything’s fine!’ she chirps, but I don’t quite believe her. I sense Toby eyeing us from a couple of stacks away so I walk her over to the reference corner. ‘So, I was wondering if you wanted to come to mine after school today.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. We need a catch-up.’
‘Definitely,’ I agree.
‘Um … also, Lou? Why is Toby looking at me like that?’
I turn round and catch him hiding back behind a bookcase, trying to look oblivious. He does a terrible job of it.
‘He thinks you’re a bad influence on me,’ I whisper to her. ‘Like you’re trying to corrupt me or something.’
‘He so blatantly fancies you,’ Erica giggles.
‘Shhh … no, he doesn’t. He’s just annoyed that I won’t tell him why I wasn’t in school the other week.’
‘And because he fancies you.’
‘Shut up,’ I hiss.
‘Look, I’ll wait for you at the gate after school and we’ll go over to mine. Mum should be out, so we can chat properly, OK?’
The rest of the day seems to drag on much longer than it should, but then by the time I meet her at the gate Erica isn’t so chirpy any more. She’s nervous, playing with her fingers as we walk, and doesn’t seem to know what she wants to say.
‘So, how’s your mum?’ I dare to ask.
‘Oh, you know. Same old.’
‘Have you told her anything about you-know-what?’
‘No. Jeez, can you imagine?’
‘But she has to find out about it at some point, right?’
‘At some point, yes. But not yet. Right now, all she knows is that I’ve got a boyfriend who lives in town, and it’s not as if she saw much of me before anyway.’
‘Is that what Jay is? Your boyfriend?’
‘It’s complicated.’
Erica shuts up after that and I know better than to press her. Still, I may be totally naive about boys and stuff, but I can’t say that Erica seems especially happy. If Jay really was her boyfriend now, however inappropriate that might be, I’d expect her to be much more Erica-like about it. Instead, I can’t help but think she seems
defeated.
‘So, there is this one thing I am allowed to talk to you about,’ she reveals as we get to her house. ‘But I had to absolutely beg to be able to show you, so you can’t say a word about it to anyone.’ I give her a pointed look, which I hope says As if you even need to say that.
The house is all locked up, which I guess means that Liza isn’t around, but Erica doesn’t say where she is. When we get inside I notice a stockpile of empty wine bottles by the door.
‘That’s for recycling,’ Erica mumbles.
It smells different in here too. There’s a mustiness that I never noticed before, like how a coat smells if it’s been hanging up in a closet for too long and hasn’t had any air. Peeking through to the kitchen, I can see a mountain of washing-up and a couple of baskets overflowing with dirty clothes next to the washing machine. The bin needs taking out, but instead of dealing with it, it looks like the rubbish is just being piled on a nearby countertop.
‘Erica?’ I start, but then I let the question trail off because I don’t know what to say.
We head up to her room, where she proceeds to quickly close her curtains before reaching over to her iPod speakers and setting the volume of her music insanely high.
‘What are you doing?’ I ask over the top of some vintage Britney Spears (Erica has a severe weakness for Millennial pop).
‘Just taking some precautions,’ she shouts back. ‘Jay’s taught me a lot about personal security. I have to be careful now.’
She pulls out a box from down the side of her desk, in a place that’s partially hidden by stacks of fashion and celebrity magazines. It’s a large, flat box, and Erica handles it like it contains something immensely precious. We both sit on her bed, the box between us, and the Britney song is now playing so loud that the lyrics are distorted into angry, auto-tuned mewls. Erica stares at me and takes a deep breath before finally opening the lid.
Inside is a suit. A supersuit. Her costume. Erica unfolds it and holds it up against her so that I can see the shape. It’s black, and obviously tight, in fact it looks strikingly similar to the suit that I made, except this one is made of expensive materials and has fancy stitching. It looks so professional and real. I feel that my costume was just a toddler’s doodle compared to this, a proper work of art. I wish I could make something like this. I wish I had made it.
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