Phenom

by Kay Cordell

  She grunts from the effort of holding the massive, flailing weight. Her grip slips and the monster crashes back to the ground, cracking the cement. It recovers quickly, climbing back to its feet.

  “Any ideas on how we stop a rampaging Skelebeast?” Erin asks. “I’m not sure I want to pull its molecules apart. It’s a skeleton, but I think it’s technically alive?”

  “There’s that construction site on Amsterdam and 115th. Wanna try caging it in with a bunch of steel I-beams on it?”

  “Works for me. You better use some of your Bots to keep it occupied. Try jumping between the combat tokens. You might confuse it and keep it running in circles.”

  “On it,” he says.

  And TechStorm, being TechStorm, can both stay behind to confound the Skelebeast and accompany Erin to retrieve the I-beams. So he’s speeding over the historic buildings of New Am U beside Erin when he asks, “This Nate guy know you’re in love with him?”

  It takes Erin a moment to remember that they’d been talking about her friend a few minutes ago.

  “Ew,” she says, when her brain catches up. “Gross. He’s just a friend. Practically a brother.”

  “Or maybe he’s just waiting to make his move.”

  “Nate Young does not wait to make his corny little so-called moves. Ask his roommate how often a sock on the door keeps him from crashing in his own room.”

  At the construction site, the workers have already left for the day. With TechStorm’s Bots carrying a portion of the weight, Erin mentally hoists a pile of bundled I-beams into the air.

  She braces herself for the strain as they make their way back onto campus, but so far she’s good. When it comes to her telekinesis, she likes to think that she has super strength. Psychically, she can carry way more weight than she ever could physically, but she could still only handle so much. With Tech storm’s Bots helping her out, the weight is manageable.

  “You sure there’s nothing there?” he asks.

  “Yeah, and he knows it too.”

  “Maybe you’re both in denial.”

  “Naaah. I doubt it.”

  “I’m just saying you don’t spend that much time around a guy and not develop feelings for him.”

  Her face stretches into a wide grin. “Wait. Are you actually jealous?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  The grin disappears. “What do you mean ‘of course not’? Am I really so repulsive you think no guy could possibly be jealous over me?”

  “I wasn’t—I didn’t, mean—”

  She laughs. It’s not every day she gets to knock TechStorm down a peg. “If robots could blush… I’m just messing with you. I know I’m hot stuff.”

  “Scorching.”

  With his words filtered through the mechanical voice of the Bots, it’s sometimes hard to tell what nuances are real, and which are a product of her hopeful imagination, but she feels pretty confident about his meaning this time.

  She thought she was growing used to TechStorm’s flirting, keeping up even. But her warming face proves otherwise. The blush doesn’t show on her medium dark skin, thank the good Lord above. Erin’s shy youngest sister, with her lighter skin, used to turn red at least once a day. That was before the transformation, of course.

  “Pause,” TechStorm says.

  “What?”

  “It vanished.”

  “What vanished?”

  “All of it.”

  Erin sees exactly what he means when she returns to the Quad, now eerily quiet after the chaos. The game board brought to life is completely gone, goblins and Skelebeast, and all.

  “You mean we dragged this stuff all the way over here for nothing?” Erin says. “I guess that’s for the best. It was really going to suck if my mom got a bill from the construction company for us commandeering these I-beams.”

  “Wouldn’t they send the bill to the League of Guardians? Everybody knows they’ve taken you and your sisters under their wing.”

  “You would think, right?” Erin eases the beam to the ground, allowing herself a breather before carting them back to the construction site. “Anyway, this has to be Mr. Mytholic’s work, right?”

  TechStorm’s Bots drift back together, snapping back into place piece by piece until he’s man shaped again. They hoover midair together. “That’s what I thought, too. He usually makes his presence known, but I had my Bots scan the area. I didn’t see him anywhere.”

  “Wanna put our heads together and do some investigating? See if we can turn up something on his current location?”

  “Didn’t you say you have plans tonight?”

  “It’s just the campus movie with friends. Wouldn’t be the end of the world if I missed it.”

  It wouldn’t be the end of the world, but it would suck. She’d been looking forward to hanging with her friends tonight.

  In high school, she’d been so focused on grades and extracurriculars and earning scholarships and getting into her dream college, she’d passed on a lot of the hanging-out-with-friends types of things. Then next thing she knew, high school was over and all her most memorable moments revolved around late night study sessions.

  “Take the night off, Phenom. You deserve it. There are other superheroes in the city, you know.”

  “Well,” Erin says, considering. “This was just a small incident…”

  No one is hurt and even the property damage is minimal. The lawns are a mess of overturned grass, a couple of lamps lay on their sides, and the buildings have a couple of new nicks and scratches. All in all, New Am U has come out of this in good shape.

  While Mr. Mytholic is a nuisance, he isn’t truly a danger. Not like one of those take over/destroy/remake the world type of supervillains. The papers probably won’t even report on this tomorrow. Or if they do, it’ll be a tiny mention buried on page twenty or something.

  “But this is my school,” Erin says, voicing her last argument just because she feels like she should.

  “How about I get started with the investigation and I’ll let you know when I find something.”

  She tilts her head. “Or you could maybe come with me to the movie. It’s just the campus dollar movie at the auditorium, but it’s fun.”

  “I doubt this school’s auditorium has seating that accommodates robotic swarms.”

  “I mean, you you. Not the Bots. If you don’t mind hanging out with a bunch of dumb college kids, that is”

  And if he doesn’t mind revealing his secret identity to her.

  Even knowing he’ll decline, she watches his mechanic form closely, hoping for some clue in his reaction to the “dumb college kids” part. Something that’ll help her pinpoint his age at least. She’s 90 to 95% sure that there’s a real person operating behind the Bots.

  “Maybe some other time,” he says simply, cagey as ever. And then he’s off, leaving Erin to wonder about his true identity as she returns to her own life.

  3

  Erin makes it to the University Center’s large auditorium and exchanges a dollar for a little blue ticket before the movie starts rolling.

  That doesn’t stop Toya from shouting, “It’s our courageous hero! Late as usual!” when Erin enters the auditorium and scans the seats for her friends.

  Though, honestly, it wouldn’t have taken long for her to spot them even without Toya loudly announcing her arrival. The block of seats filled with black and brown students stands out.

  Looks like half the population of Kirby Hall aka “the diversity dorm” decided to catch the movie tonight. With half the floors reserved as a “culturally comfortable environment”—as the school brochures put it—for Black students and the other half for Latinos, Kirby Hall turned into the de facto center of Black and Latino student life.

  Erin bounces down the stairs toward her friends, ignoring the few opens stares directed toward her. Sure, most of the students here have gotten used to seeing her around, but there will always be those who gawked.

  “First of all,” Erin says. “The movie
hasn’t even started yet—”

  “I know!” Toya says. “What’s the hold up? It was supposed to start ten minutes ago.”

  “And secondly, I had a legit save-the-day situation. You can’t hold that against me.”

  “Did you really?” Erin’s roommate pulls a jacket and purse from the seat she’d saved. Although as far as official school paperwork is concerned, Toya isn’t really her roommate so much as a girl who lives in her room.

  “There were goblins all over campus,” Erin says, settling in next to her. “It’s probably why the movie is delayed. How’d you miss it?”

  Toya shrugs. “Nothing happened in here. Guess the goblins weren’t interested in seeing a dollar flick.”

  “Oh, Carter!” Erin leans forward to catch the attention of the quiet, light-skinned guy two seats down from Toya. He’s practically hiding under the worn brim of his baseball cap. The tufts of woolly hair sticking out from his hat were stuck in that awkward stage between in-desperate-need-of hair-cut and full-blown-Afro. “Lemme have some of those fruit snacks.”

  “Here.” Even in that one word, his heavy, Southern accent comes through. He pulls a purple bag of fruit snacks from his pocket and tosses it toward her. It goes wide, but Erin catches it with her telepathy and deposits into her outstretched hands.

  “Aww, berry flavor. My favorite. You’re so sweet.”

  “It’s only a quarter at the concession stand.”

  “Doesn’t make it less sweet.”

  Carter nudges the bridge of his glasses with a finger and nods, stoic as ever. For some reason, this makes Erin grin even wider.

  “Oh, look. It’s the reigning champion of tardiness,” Toya says. “The only person later to everything than you.”

  “Nate Young!” Will Vasquez calls out, which is followed by a unified answering call of “Nate Young!”

  Erin can’t remember who started it or how it became a thing, but now Nate can’t enter a room without a chorus shouting his name. Nate holds his arms high as if to soak in the attention of an adoring public.

  “Erin was late because she was saving the day. What’s your excuse?” Toya says as Nate side-shimmies his way up the row toward Erin, despite there being no open seat around her.

  “Why are you calling out late comers today?” Erin says. “That an Oakland tradition you trying to bring to the East coast or you auditioning for the role of high school teacher in the spring production?”

  “Excuse me for caring.”

  “I got caught up working my robotics project,” Nate says in answer to Toya’s question. “The geeks in my group don’t have a concept of life outside the lab.”

  Nate has a Southern accent too, though not the same as his roommate’s. Less pronounced and they said certain words in completely different ways.

  “Because everybody in the South doesn’t have one accent,” Nate said once when a passing comment from Erin inspired a thirty-minute rant. “Also, he’s country as hell. I’m a city mouse. And we’re from completely different states.”

  Though Nate rarely says he’s from Texas. It’s always, “I’m from Houston.” Apparently, it makes a difference.

  “Says the geek I’ve found asleep under his table after pulling an all-nighter in said lab,” Erin points out.

  “Hush. Nobody asked you. Hey, ladies.” Nate turns the full force of his charm on Griselda Figueroa and Ashley Robinson, seated next to Erin. “You two looking good tonight. Going to the club after this or something? Do me a favor and make room for a brotha?”

  Erin rolls her eyes. But despite some grumbling and protests, the entire first half of the row shifts to make room for a brotha.

  “How do you do that?” Erin says as he slouches into his seat.

  “I just asked nicely.” He plucks the bag of fruit snacks from her, steals a couple, and hands them back.

  The lights dim and the movie begins to cheers and shouts of “Finally!” as the movie begins.

  “Isn’t this movie about space and aliens?” Toya whispers in her right ear. “Why’s it starting in Egypt in freakin’ 1913?”

  “I bet if you watch the movie you’ll find out.”

  “Don’t be smart.”

  “Hey, look,” Nate whispers in her left ear. Erin sighs. She just wants to watch this ridiculous movie. “Carter’s going to ask you out after this.”

  She nearly chokes on a raspberry fruit snack.“What?”

  “Just give him a chance, okay? He’s been working up to asking you out since like the first day of Freshman orientation.”

  “I mean, he’s sweet and all, but he’s just not my type. Besides, there’s another guy who I kinda sorta maybe might be starting to have a thing with.”

  “Really? Anybody I know?” His tone suggests he knows more than he possibly could.

  “You don’t know him. Shut up. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Wow. You got defensive real quick.”

  Only because she feels like an idiot pining for a guy who, for all she knows, really is nothing more than a bunch of metal and circuits.

  “You’re defensive,” she shoots back.

  Nate laughs.

  “Shhh!” A girl seated in the next row glares at Erin and Nate in turn before shifting her attention back to the movie. Which now shows a pair of giant ships hanging out in outer space. So Toya should be satisfied now at least.

  “Why would he ask me out?” Erin says more quietly. “We have a good thing going, as friends. Why would we want to ruin that?”

  “Someone’s afraid of change.”

  “Who? Me?”

  “No, the other girl hyperventilating over being asked out. Personally, I think you’ll discover that the two of you have a lot more in common than you think. What does it hurt to give him a shot? And you’ll get a free meal out it!”

  Erin genuinely likes Carter. Her and Toya’s room is across the hall from his and Nate’s. Those times when Nate is “entertaining,” rendering his roommate temporarily homeless, Erin and Toya regularly take pity on Carter and let him crash in their room.

  Although technically, it isn’t Toya’s room. Erin’s original roommate had moved out two weeks into the first semester and the school never assigned a replacement. Toya, who got along with her roommate about as well as East Coast rappers get along with their West Coast counterparts, took full advantage of the vacancy.

  Apparently Erin has a thing for collecting stray peers, and because of that, she and Carter wound up hanging out of lot. And despite being the quietest person she knows, he’s a pretty cool. But they’re friends. That’s it.

  “Isn’t it cruel to get his hopes up?” Erin whispers.

  In the near-darkness, the lights and colors from the movie bounce against Nate’s face, making a kaleidoscope of his ebony skin.

  “Or, think about it this way,” Nate says. “Even if it doesn’t work out, it’ll be a huge confidence booster for him. And let’s be honest, he needs it. Carter’s my boy, but the kid’s got zero game.”

  Erin groans.

  “Or do it as a favor to me, your favorite person in the entire world. It’s time for my young mentee to spread his wings.”

  “You aren’t even my favorite person on this campus.”

  “Lies!”

  “Fine. Fine! One date. Though I fear the corrupting influence your mentorship will have on the poor guy.”

  It’s almost impossible to concentrate on the movie after that. Even when she tells herself it’s not a big deal, that she’s just doing Nate a favor, her mind wonders about how she’s going to handle the Carter situation. Sure, she’s agreed to say yes to one date. But what about when he asks for a second date? Wouldn’t it be better to nip this in the bud from the beginning?

  The movie is over entirely too soon. As she shuffles out of the auditorium with the rest of the students, she tries to act normal when Carter winds up next to her.

  Their friends practically flee from them, throwing knowing smiles at her as they trounce down the stairs to the U
niversity Center’s ground floor.

  Everyone’s in on it, she realizes. All of Kirby-freakin-Hall.

  Unless it really is just a coincidence that, with all their friends who came out to the movie, somehow Erin and Carter end up alone and separated from the rest of the group.

  She grips the railing and glares daggers at them all, congregating in the lobby on the floor below. Nate and Toya, lounging in separate comfy, black chairs, very purposely don’t glance up. But she can imagine their smug, self-satisfied grins even without seeing their faces.

  “It’s a conspiracy,” she mutters.

  “Huh?” Carter asks.

  “Nothing.”

  They lapse back into silence. She’s used to long moments of quiet when hanging out with Carter, and she doesn’t hate them. In those moments, she appreciates having someone she can kill time with who isn’t always “on” like Nate, and who doesn’t expect her to be on either. With him, she doesn’t have to be the superhero, or the responsible sister, or the model student, or even the cool friend. Carter allows her to just be Erin.

  Or at least it had been that way until this stupid moment.

  “You like the movie?” She asks, grudgingly throwing him a bone.

  “Yeah. It was a little crazy, but yeah.”

  “I loved the blue lady. She got down.” Erin raises her hands, two fingers extended on each and mimics a part of the dance the singer did in the movie.

  A smile flits across his face, but it disappears just as quickly. His smiles are always like that, like some rarely-sighted woodland creature that runs off the moment it’s spotted.

  Another awkward pause. This is getting painful. She’s going to strangle Nate. And maybe Toya too, since apparently they’re in cahoots. Why would they do this to her? Why would they do this to him?

  “I wonder what our real extraterrestrial guests think of movies like this?” She muses.

  “If anyone’ll get a chance to ask, it’ll be you.”