by Kay Cordell
The building’s security guard holds the door open for Erin and Carter, ushering them through the lobby and into a waiting elevator. When the doors open on the 16th floor, the hostess is all smiles and mostly manages to keep a lid on any fawning.
They’re swept further into the restaurant and to a table in the middle of the dining room. The wraparound windows, offering a 360-view of the surrounding city, make Erin feel even more like she’s been plopped in a fishbowl. When Erin asks for a different table, “One off in a corner, maybe?” the hostess puts on her best apology face.
“I’m sorry. The place is packed tonight. We don’t have any other tables available.”
“Sure, you don’t,” Erin says, but takes her seat. As soon as the hostess is off, Erin leans across the table. “She didn’t even ask what name the reservation was under. I bet if the paparazzi hadn’t tipped them off, they wouldn’t’ve had the most conspicuous table in the whole restaurant waiting for us. Are you okay? It looks like maybe you’re having a stroke.”
“I don’t like drawing attention to myself.”
“Did ya know that before you asked me out?”
“Of course I did.”
Not even a flicker of a smile. He clings to his menu like it’s the only thing keeping him in his chair.
Erin opens her menu and does a decent impression of reading it despite not seeing a single word. “I know. It was a joke.”
“Right. Sorry.”
“No. Don’t apologize.”
A busboy arrives and fills their water glasses. Erin watches in amazement as Carter drinks the entire glass without stopping to take a breath.
“Are you sure you don’t have super powers?”
“What?” He looks slightly panicked.
“Like Mr. Holding His Breath Guy or something. You know, cause with the water.” She points to his empty glass.
“Oh.” He tugs at his collar. His eyes shift to the other diners, all those eyes wandering in their direction.
“You get used to it,” she says. “Or, well, you don’t ever get used to it, but you get better at ignoring it.”
“Mmh.” Distracted.
She turns her attention back to the menu, actually reading it this time, and gapes. She searches for the salads. Surely, a plate of lettuce is reasonably priced. Or not. Maybe a bowl of soup?
“Um,” she leans over the table, whispering. “How are you paying for this?”
“I saved up.”
She grins. “So confident I would say yes to a date?”
“I try to hope for the best and plan for the worse.”
“Which one is this?”
“Huh?”
“Nothing.”
Then up goes his menu. A miniature, maroon wall erected between them.
“Ba-dum cha,” she mutters to herself, then reaches out and tugs his menu down. “Look, Carter. You’re clearly uncomfortable. You wanna call it? Maybe try something else on another night?”
“No, I’m fine…I mean, unless you don’t wanna—”
“No,” she says too quickly. He’d looked too hurt for her to say anything else. “I’m good to stay.”
Ten minutes later, she’s asking herself why she didn’t put this night out of its misery when she had the chance. The waiter has already come, taken their orders and disappeared with the menus. So now they no longer have a valid excuse not to look at each other.
It’s almost a relief when a family of four pops up next to the table begging in that really insistent way for autographs and pictures, shoving a disposable camera at Carter.
“You don’t have to,” Erin whispers to him.
“It’s okay,” he mumbles, taking the camera and rising from the table.
“I told my sister I was going to meet a real life superhero while I was here,” the middle-aged woman says, as she and her family crowd around Erin for the picture. “I can’t wait to tell her!”
“Are you somebody?” the little boy asks Carter as he flashes a few photos.
“He’s my date,” Erin says, with a patient smile. But she also turns a meaningful look on the parents. “We’re on a date.”
“Aww, that’s so cute!” The woman croons to her husband. “Honey, they’re on a date!”
“So maybe we should leave them alone,” the teenaged girl says. She’s had the decency to look mortified the entire time. Erin throws the girl an appreciative smile as the family shuffles away.
And then it’s back to silence.
Erin stares out the window. It really is an amazing view. With the sunset painting the sky in golds and pinks and purples, this could have been a romantic dinner. Under other circumstances.
“Hey,” she says, “did I ever tell you about the time I was shrunk down to fit into a dollhouse? This sicko was snatching and shrinking women from all over the city for his stupid collection. And this was before I learned my molecular dispersal trick, so I was stuck.”
“Uh-huh.” Carter’s gaze keeps darting around the restaurant. He rubs his palms over his lap.
“My sisters and TechStorm were looking everywhere for me, but TechStorm was able to use one of his smallest Bots to locate me. You know, most people don’t realize how many different types of Bots there are. Difference sizes, different functions, different ways he can combine them. They even have these sort of flap things that open up if he needs to use them as shields.”
She’s talking too much.
“And you should see his techform—I mean, the Bot’s composite form up close. He’s amazing. And funny. And super smart. Well, obviously, he’s smart. We’ve all seen the Bots in action.”
She’s talking too much, and she can’t stop herself. This might be worse than the uncomfortable silence.
“Anyway, TechStorm finds me in this 1950s-looking dollhouse—and that creep who shrunk me totally expected me to put on this old school, housewife dress and apron he’d laid out. And I’m like, yeah right, buddy.”
Somebody clap a hand over her mouth already!
“So I’m pacing around this dollhouse trying to figure out how I’m getting out of this thing when this little Bot taps against the glass and TechStorm says, ‘Honey, I’m home!’”
“That’s funny,” he says, politely.
This date is never going to end.
“I guess you had to be there.”
“You really like TechStorm, don’t you?” He doesn’t look at her when he asks, focusing instead on smoothing a crease in the tablecloth.
“That’s hard to say,” she answers carefully. “I don’t really know him, do I? Maybe if we met in real life it wouldn’t be the same as when we fight crime together. But it’s hard to hate a guy who’s saved your life a bunch of times. Not that I haven’t returned the favor. Or, at least I save his Bots all the time, which may or may not be the same thing. Who knows.”
“Nate talked to you before I asked you out.”
“Uh…” Crap. How is she supposed to answer that?
“I told him not to, but I know him well enough to know he did anyway.”
“He was just being a good friend.”
“Except now I get to wonder if you’da said yes if he didn’t ask you too.”
“Don’t—don’t overthink it.”
Would she have? Could this whole embarrassing night have been avoided?
An unnatural, unbelievably bright flash fills the campus-facing windows. It’s identical to the flash that appeared right before the board game craziness began.
Erin’s already on her feet. “Looks like a situation!” Does she sound too happy about it? She clears her throat.
“I should check this out,” she says, more evenly. “Sorry.”
“Yeah, of course.” Carter, for the first time since they rounded that corner, seems a little more himself.
“These things usually take a while. I might not make it back. Maybe you can still cancel the order.”
“Don’t worry about me.”
She makes her way to the terrace where diner
s have abandoned their meals to gather at the railing for a view of the street. As she launches herself into the sky, she tells herself that she’s running toward danger, not away from Carter.
6
Erin gapes at the giant, bright red Lego tub blocking the intersection below her. It looks like something anyone could pick up from the nearest Toy-R-Us, except that it’s as tall as a two story building. Inconvenienced drivers lay on their horns. As if that constant blaring has ever helped anything. She snaps out of her awe and quickly assesses the damage.
Fortunately, this intersection isn’t one of the busier ones near campus or things could have been much worse. The drivers closest to the tub seem to have swerved and hit their breaks in time to avoid colliding into it, but a few got hit from behind, the cars following them unprepared for the abrupt stop.
“Beats goblins,” Erin says to herself.
A man on the street beneath her whistles and shouts something lewd that doesn’t bear repeating. He caps his eyes with his hands, as if to help him get a better view.
“I’m wearing bike shorts under my dress, you creep!” she shouts back.
Ignoring him, she drops down to the most serious-looking collision.
The driver of a gray Honda is out of his car, palm against his forehead. His wide-eyed stare bounces from the Lego tub to the crumbled side of a station wagon his Honda careened into and back to tub. The station wagon’s driver must have veered pretty hard to the left to avoid crashing into the plastic, red wall.
“Please clear the area.” TechStorm’s electronic voice comes from ten different places at once, a handful of his Scouter Bots spread out across the intersection. They continue to zoom around the intersection repeating the command as the rest of the Bots, compiled into the techform, come to a hovering stop near her.
“You took your time getting here,” Erin teases. “Hot date?”
“Something like that.”
“Seriously?”
“It is Friday night.”
“Can’t say I’m too upset that my date got interrupted.”
“That bad?”
“I would’ve welcomed bad. This was painful.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s almost a relief that things went so bad. Me and this guy work really well as friends and I don’t want to lose that. Now we can go back to the way things were and it’s nobody’s fault.”
TechStorm is silent for the briefest moment before nodding toward the tub. “Can you disperse it?”
“I’ve never tried anything that big, and it seems to be completely full. Let’s make sure everyone is okay and out of the way in case this is just the beginning of something crazy…er.”
He nods and takes off without his usual quip. Erin shrugs it off and focuses on the station wagon. The woman behind the wheel is stuck, the driver’s side door a crumpled mess.
“I’m going to get you out of there,” Erin says. The woman nods slowly, still shellshocked.
“It’s falling!” someone cries.
Erin curses as the entire tub tips slowly, as if an invisible hand is knocking the whole thing over.
“Tech!” Erin shouts as she disperses the gnarled car door. With her power, she pulls the woman from the car and practically tosses her at TechStorm. “Help her!”
Anyone left on the street runs for cover. The knobbed lid slides off as the tub topples to its side. Erin catches the lid, though the force of its momentum jerks her toward the ground. She tightens her grip on it and steadies herself as the giant plastic tub collapses.
The impact shakes everything. The deafening clang of all those Legos crashing onto the street hurts her ears.
Righting the lid, Erin flips it to face the oncoming wave of Legos the size of full-grown men.
The two-stories worth of colorful bricks hit, pushing Erin and the lid back. She redoubles her effort, putting all her mental strength into slowing the tide and protecting the fleeing citizens.
And then TechStorm is at her side, or maybe it’s better to say all around her, spread out across the lid and bracing to take their portion of the weight. The flames of each of their propulsion systems blaze brighter from the increase in output.
The flow of giant Legos slows to a crawl, then a complete stop.
“One date isn’t everything,” TechStorm says. “Maybe you should give him another chance.”
“Or, I can nip this thing in the bud like I knew I should’ve. I just hope he takes it well when I break it to him tonight.”
Carefully, Erin lets the lid fall, the bricks piled against it cascade to the asphalt. The street looks like the floor of a kid’s room. Legos and overturned cars everywhere.
Erin drops to the street, hands on her knees to catch her breath.
The stillness only lasts seconds.
First a yellow brick springs into the air, then a second one joins it, then ten, then twenty. The clicking sounds of the pieces snapping together is as loud as thunder. Because, of course, spilling out all of one’s Legos is only the first step in building something.
“What now?” Erin groans.
And then—
Nothing.
Whatever was supposed to be built, Erin will never know. It all vanishes. Again.
“So,” Erin says staring at the stretch of street where just seconds ago the giant tub of Legos had caused so much chaos, “we probably shouldn’t put off finding Mr. Mytholic any longer. You got any leads? TechStorm?”
She raises an eyebrow at the nearest Bot, waits a few seconds before tapping it. “Still with me, Tech?”
“Huh?”
Erin frowns. It isn’t like TechStorm to space out. “Any leads on Mr. Mytholic?”
“Oh. Yeah. Um, according to Villainy NYC, it’s an online bulletin board where members post supervillain sightings, he ran out of an alley near Thirty-Fourth & Ninth a few days ago. Some rumors say there’s a secret bar somewhere in the area for C-list villains and henchmen. I stationed a Scouter at that intersection. It’ll ping me if Mr. Mytholic or any of his known associates pass through.”
“Or we can go check it out in person.”
“My Bot hasn’t spotted anything suspicious yet.”
“C’mon, let’s go down there and have a looksee. Maybe we’ll get lucky. I just need to stop by my dorm and change real quick.”
Ten minutes later, she emerges from her dorm room in jeans, a sweatshirt, and baseball cap.
“I thought you were changing into your costume,” says TechStorm.
His voice seems to come from nowhere. He’d been waiting patiently in the hall as she changed, but had insisted on switching to stealth mode before they flew onto campus. Erin tried to convince him that it wasn’t necessary. The students of New Am U are used to seeing a superhero around and would be cool about it, she’s said. But TechStorm wouldn’t be swayed.
“So the villains and henchmen can see me coming a mile away?” She pulls her hood up. “Tonight, I’m incognegro.”
“Hey, Erin!” Toya calls, coming around the corner at the end of the hall, the direction of the common room. “You seen Nate? A bunch of us are supposed to go to that freestyle rap battle in Jersey together.”
“Nope, sorry.”
“I’m about to tell everybody we can leave his butt behind. That guy is always flaking out last minute. Wait. Why are you here? Your date can’t be over yet.”
Erin lets out a long sigh, shaking her head. “The best part was when it got interrupted by some supervillain antics.”
“Girl, no. Not that bad!”
“I gotta go. I’ll tell you all about it later. And maybe Nate fell asleep in the robotics lab again? I think he pulled an all-nighter last night.”
Waving her goodbye, Erin turns toward the elevators. She catches a glimpse of Carter as the doors slide open.
Panicked, she spins back to TechStorm. Or to where she assumes TechStorm is, though she can’t say for sure, with him currently being invisible to the naked eye and all.
“Window!” she says, pushing her door back open. “Why am I still so stuck on using the elevator like a person who can’t fly?”
“Who are you talking to?” Toya asks.
“Later!”
Erin dives into her room, feeling a stirring of the air which she assumes is TechStorm following her. She’s already out the window as she mentally shoves the door shut.
Had Carter seen her?
He’d been on his Nokia, not quite angled toward the opening elevator doors. Hopefully, he’d been too engrossed in his phone call and didn’t spot her or her subsequent freak out after spotting him.
She’s fitted the screen back into the window frame behind TechStorm and is soaring away in less time than it should take for Carter to get down the hall. She doesn’t think he’ll knock on her door, but why take the risk? The next time they’re face to face, she’ll have to start what can only be an awkward talk with him.
She’d rather face a supervillain.
7
The intersection of 34th and 9th is aglow from the lights of store fronts and office buildings, headlights and streetlights. Its four busy corners are as ordinary as they come. Noisy traffic, a constant horde of roving pedestrians, the clash of old, browned brick and garishly colorful signs. And scaffolding. Of course, scaffolding.
There are a bit more tourists navigating the streets here than in other places, but Penn Station’s only a block away and a little past that, the Empire State Building and the Macy’s all of Erin’s out-of-town family wants to see whenever they’re visiting for the holidays.
Big crowds like this are perfect for blending in. Everyone is so engrossed in their own thing they pay no attention to the girl in a baseball cap waiting for the light to change beside them.
Doing her best to look as casual and inconspicuous as possible—the trick is to not try too hard to look casual and inconspicuous—Erin wanders in and out of the businesses in the area. The pizzeria, the hotel lobby, the music store.