I stared. I might have gaped. A lot of other people stared. Neither Ray nor Claire showed any sign of noticing. She gave him a pleased smile, he walked her over to the table, and she sat down next to me as he returned to his seat across from me. Then they acted as if nothing had happened, although the first thing Claire did when she opened her lunchbox was pass Ray a cupcake.
“So what do you want to make?” Ray asked, reminding me of what we hadn’t had a chance to discuss.
Had something happened between Claire and Ray? No, Claire’s attention was entirely on me as she suggested, “You should hold out for something actually superhero-ey. A jet pack or freeze ray or something.”
I’d been thinking about this. “The problem with a lot of that is power. You may have noticed that everything I’ve made either plugs into the wall or was just chemistry.”
“Except The Machine,” Claire corrected me.
“And that thing that talks in German,” Ray added.
That got to the crux of the matter. “I don’t know what’s with the German grenade. I think it’s purely mechanical, just weird. The Machine has the awesome power source. It sucks up energy. Bright light, heat, radiation, electricity, even some physical force. Anything beyond regular room temperature it absorbs, stores, and uses to power itself. I wish I could duplicate it.” I couldn’t. The idea was intriguing. Just divert and convert the energy that’s always around whenever it reached any sort of imbalance. I really, really wanted that thought to inspire my super power. It didn’t.
“You can’t plug a freeze ray into a wall socket. That defeats the purpose,” Ray agreed.
“I might be able to build something crazy like miniature fusion reactors, but the whole idea scares the daylights out of me. Dad knows exactly what his inventions do. I have to hope they’re kind of what I asked for. That’s not a good place to be with nuclear power.” I really had been thinking about this. And more than that. If my power didn’t like duplicating itself, coming up with different power sources could get complicated, fast.
Ray put on Whimsically Thoughtful Smile A. “I like the miniature fusion reactor idea. I bet, instead of blowing up, it would give the whole school super powers.”
I sighed, with a touch of growl. “That would be great. I’d live just long enough for my parents to kill me.”
Claire passed me some Chinese stir fry. “Eat. We’ll try to figure out power sources this afternoon. I’m sure if we can’t think of anything, your power will answer the question for us.”
How could I argue with that? I ate.
I didn’t see Ray on the way down to the lab after school, and he wasn’t in the lab. Had he disappeared again? Just for this moment, I was grateful. I ducked into one of the empty back rooms and changed into my jumpsuit as fast as possible. Just in time because, as I slipped my glasses into their pouch and lowered the helmet visor, the elevator hummed.
It was Claire who stepped out as I reentered the lab. “Is Ray not here yet?” she asked, echoing my thoughts.
“Not yet,” I answered, hoping “yet” really was the operative word.
Claire wasn’t just echoing my thoughts; she’d gone past me. “If he shows up, I was thinking of asking him to help me practice my powers.”
It had been a question, really. I responded with one of my own. “Why Ray? If you’re practicing turning it on and off, you can use me as a target. Just warn me.”
“No, it needs a boy. I want to find out if small amounts of my cute power make me more attractive, and how much it takes to flip that to a purely platonic interest.” She snickered, and I giggled nervously. Maybe Claire did need a chaperone.
My objection had nothing to do with Claire’s virtue. “I think that would be cruel. The only question is if it would be a little cruel, or really cruel.”
Claire scowled, crossing her arms and pursing her lips in the classic protruding lower lip pout. Even prepared for it, I wasn’t sure if her powers had slipped a fraction, or if she was just being theatrical. Cute wasn’t hard for her to pull off to begin with.
It had to be her power. I normally didn’t notice or think about it like this. And she’d just shut it off again. “I wish you were wrong, but you’re right. He seemed like he’d loosened up so much at lunch today, I thought it would just be, you know, fun.”
“He’s different today, isn’t he? Not ‘pod person’ different, but different.”
That perked Claire up again, bringing out a cheerful smile. “I was worried that his best friends both getting super powers would make him feel left out. Instead, it’s given him confidence.”
And that was all the gossip we got to do, because the elevator hummed and rose back up to ground level. A few seconds later, it descended with Ray lugging a big and heavily loaded plastic bag. We both squealed, “Ray!” He handed me the bag, and I nearly dropped it. “Heavily loaded” was an understatement. What was in this thing?
I opened it up to find out. “Batteries? A lot of batteries? AA, watch batteries, 9 volts, Ds… is that one of those big block batteries for flashlights? Did you clean out a whole store? How did you afford them all?” Oops. I immediately felt stupid for asking. Ray never has money, and I didn’t want to rub his face in it.
Fortunately, he didn’t bat an eye. “The question is, what are you going to do with them?” he returned.
“Not much. They don’t solve my power problems. Like they are now, there’s no way…” I trailed off. I didn’t want to scare away the ghost of an image in my head. Like they were now, they couldn’t store enough electricity or provide it in the amounts I needed, but what if they were better batteries? Not filled with acids and metals, but something more exotic. I couldn’t duplicate The Machine’s power source, but maybe I could store what it—
That did it.
I was breathing heavily but not really exhausted when I came to, bent over a pile of batteries scattered across a work table. They all had new, shiny black plastic casings.
I’d blacked out again. Come on, couldn’t I get a handle on that?
No, not completely blacked out. Just badly lost track of time. I couldn’t remember how I made them, but I remembered using my metal press to clamp the battery casings back into place around a series of purple crystals. Crystals that could be charged with power. Power that I would get from The Machine, which clung to one of the still-empty wall sockets, jaws clamped around a power cable. I’d stuffed him in there before I started working, and he must be holding a lot of power by now.
Lifting my visor, I wiped my forehead and announced, “I’m back. Let’s see if this works.”
Claire shook her head. “Super batteries. I don’t know if I should applaud you or Ray. How did you know what she’d do?”
“I trusted her to be the best at what she does.” He threw it off as if it were no big deal, but my already weak knees threatened to fall out from under me. Would lowering my visor again just call attention to how hot my cheeks had turned?
“Time to test your faith,” I told him as I kneeled by the outlet and pulled out The Machine. I inserted the battery I’d been holding into his jaws and ordered, “Charge this.”
Purple light flicked on. Yes, that’s how I’d know how charged a battery was. I’d left a clear plastic strip, and it turned purple, then glowed purple. The Machine hadn’t frozen up when the battery stopped getting brighter, so he must have more juice. I plugged him back in and stood up.
Then a disappointing thought hit me. “Too bad I don’t have anything for it to power yet.”
Ray shrugged. “Chicken and the egg. You have the egg, so a chicken’s on the way.”
I set the battery down on the workbench to pick up another. The bench was already covered in tools. How many screwdrivers did I have, anyway? “I need to find somewhere to store these. Somewhere to store everything.”
“Shelves can’t be hard to build,” Claire replied, walking up next to me and picking up the glowing battery. Ray scooped up one of the big converted D cells, and walked over
to The Machine to fill it.
“They’ll be ugly. My mad scientist super power thinks it’s too good to build anything as trivial as a shelf,” I grumped.
“Maybe some kind of automatic storage system?” Claire suggested.
I shook my head. “Rotating storage bins? An unfolding system? It’s not biting. Maybe it’s waiting for an idea that uses electricity.” I gave a snorting little chuckle. “Like using static cling to stick the batteries to the wall with their own power. Not that that would work. You’d need to—”
It hit again. I hadn’t been expecting two inspirations in a row. “I’ve got another. Back up.”
Claire obeyed, fast. The batteries wouldn’t stick on their own power. I needed just the right electrical field. That pattern I saw in my head. Don’t think about it too much. This one was easy. Electrical circuits. I stripped off my gloves, grabbed an exacto knife, and slit them open. Snip the circuits. Rearrange them. Build up charge in this ring, shape it in—my inspiration flickered, but that’s fine. I let myself keep rearranging the circuits. Wrench a few levels around to make the smelter extrude a plastic cover, slip the fabric back over the circuitry, heat seal it to the edge of the plastic cover. Take two batteries from Ray and plug them into place. Pull the gloves back on.
“…that didn’t take long, did it?” I asked. I remembered almost everything. I didn’t understand what I’d done, except at that deep level where it all seemed obvious but I couldn’t put it into words.
“Five minutes?” Claire guessed..
Ray nodded. “Fifteen, tops. What do they do?”
Yes, that was the question. A question I had an answer for. I picked up the largest battery in my left hand and clenched my right fist. Position was important. Instead of just a fist, I had to form a tight ring.
I nearly let go when blue lightning arced around my fist. Then purple. They were hardly more than sparks, but the arcs got brighter, lasting long enough to crawl. My brain nudged me. I’d overdone it. If I charged any more, I’d have trouble taking the battery off the wall again!
I released my grip, pointing my right hand at the battery. A dozen beams of twisting blue and purple lightning shot out and into the battery. Okay, now I just had to place the battery against the wall and let go…
The battery stuck.
Claire did clap this time. Ray’s words came slowly, distant and stunned. “That is the coolest device I’ve seen in person. It has to be one of the inventions you show your parents. It looks superheroic.”
I pulled out the battery and checked it. If it wasn’t still full, I couldn’t tell. “Doesn’t eat much power, either. That or these are super super-batteries.” Half a dozen of the batteries on the table had glowing purple stripes now. Ray had been busy while I worked.
Ray was right. This, finally, was a superhero toy. I wanted to play with my new gloves, but while my batteries were still charged, I personally felt drained.
I leaned against my work table, hard. “Tell you what, guys, I’ve had enough inventing for today. I’d like to go home and get in a game, if a certain someone will log in when he gets home instead of disappearing.”
So we did. I walked home to clear my head. Home was just close enough that it would be faster walking than trying to call my Mom. Now was not the time to get her thinking about the lab anyway. A few more days and I’d be ready to spring my surprise.
Tuesday Ray was still wearing black, but I had more important issues on my mind, like an upgrade tree to candy chainsaws that would counter the regeneration and duplication of zombie rag dolls. That, and one other thing.
“How is the science fair display going? You have to put it up tomorrow, correct?” Ray asked over lunch.
I put my arms over my head. I’d have dropped my head on the cafeteria table if pudding weren’t in the way.
“That bad?” he guessed, wincing in sympathy.
I grunted. “Yes. Not really. I’ve been hoping a blinding ray from heaven would illuminate me as to how to make the judges swallow an invention. I get it. Technically it’s a really fancy baking soda volcano. I just wanted a way around that, and it’s not coming.”
“It bugs me. The only reason The Machine won’t change energy and manufacturing forever is that there’s only one of it. That should be more important than the rules.” The scowl on Ray’s face didn’t look right, and I was glad when it disappeared. I glanced over my shoulder. His welcoming smile was directed at Claire, who didn’t seem at all ruffled by the flirty tilt to it. Had something happened between them? Was that why Ray was so laid back and distracted this week? I had to be imagining it, because they both turned their attention right back to me. Maybe Claire’s power hit Ray harder than it hit me.
That was a slightly less welcome topic than the science fair, and the venting had eased my nerves already. I kept up with it. “You’ve just described half of the inventions mad scientists make.” I needed a better term than that for people like me, but if it was good enough for Mech, maybe I was too sensitive. “Dad is It, he’s the top, the best, because he can duplicate and record his processes, and he can only copy maybe half the stuff captured from supervillains. Then when he hands his notes and samples over to regular engineers they tell him it might as well be moon language.”
“That just makes my point. You’ve built something beyond the scientific process, not beneath it,” Ray insisted.
“Never found a good way to present The Machine?” Claire asked, giving me a pained grimace like Ray’s.
“Nothing good. I’ll have to try to describe what it does as a test and pray for a C.” I shrugged, hoping to convey that I was okay with that. And I was, honestly.
Anyway, that raised a thought. “What about you, Ray? What are you turning in?”
He stared at me. Then he let out a sudden, sharp laugh. “Hah! Absolutely nothing! We’ve been so busy with super-powered stuff, I completely forgot.”
Yikes. “I’m sorry, Ray.”
He shrugged, and unlike me, he pulled it off. “Why? It’s a tiny part of the grade. I’ll still get an A. I dragged my heels so badly last year I never turned anything in. This time it’s for a good cause.”
Claire set a stack of cold pizza slices in front of me. I dug in, because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to ask.
End of the day and I still wasn’t sure what I meant to ask, but I meant to pin Ray until I worked it out. I headed for the side door he uses to leave school as soon as the closing bell rang.
Instead of the ambusher, I became the ambushee. As I came down the stairs and caught a glimpse of him standing by the door, he turned and charged up to me, grabbing my hands. He grinned at me. He had so many teeth. Okay, a stupid thought, but seeing all that shiny white, that’s how it hit me.
“Come here. Watch this!” he whispered to me. He pulled me down the stairs, and then left me to stand at the door while he wandered outside. Pulling out a pocket watch, he glanced at it, then took a book out of his backpack, and leaned against the wall to read.
Marcia and two of her friends walked past. He’d set up a mirror image of the confrontation two weeks ago. He couldn’t think she’d try the same thing.
He’d pegged her better than I had. She didn’t seem to notice him. She was looking at one of her friends instead, and I caught the words “Wait until you see it!” Her hand still darted out to grab the book.
The book moved, dropping a couple of inches just as she struck. She missed. Her head turned, and her face set in anger as she grabbed again. She moved so fast, she should have gotten it. The book only dipped, but she missed.
Ray had a moment’s advantage as she glared at him, stunned. He closed the book, folded his arms, and told Marcia, “I don’t get it. You’re obsessed with being better than everyone else, all the time. Why? You’ve got enough going for you. You’d be really cute if you weren’t so mean.”
That got her laughing, sharp and sarcastic. “Oh, please! Are you hitting on me?”
The contempt in her voice made me wince.
It rolled right off Ray. “Not likely. Dating a shrew like you would be a nightmare. I just kept thinking there had to be a better person underneath. I guess not!”
That wiped the sarcasm from Marcia’s face and replaced it with a stiff mask of hate. I didn’t see her move, but her friends each grabbed her by the arm. Her feet dragged, but she let them walk her away. Ray didn’t rub it in, except by watching with the same solemn concern.
“What did I just see?” Claire whispered from behind me. I’d been too distracted to notice her approach. All I could do now was shake my head and push the door the rest of the way open and walk out to meet Ray.
“Ray, what was that?” I asked him, hearing my voice peak in surprise.
That didn’t faze him either. On the contrary, he tucked his book away and stepped up to Claire and me, turned, and scooped an arm around each of our waists. “Exactly what it looked like. I meant every word. I decided I couldn’t be the better person if I didn’t try, just once, to find the other side of her.”
I had trouble listening. He’d slipped his arm around my back so casually. His hand stayed high on my hip, not intruding, but his arm was around my waist. I would never have expected him to do this to Claire, much less me. He had his arm around Claire, too, but that was it. Even if he didn’t make a single move further, he’d just made it clear that he knew exactly whether I was a girl or a boy.
I could feel my heart thumping in my chest as he pulled away from both of us, leaving us at the front door to the lab. “I’m sorry, ladies, but I’m going to play truant again this afternoon. I still have a lot to think about. Life seems different since my two best friends became superheroes.”
He walked off. I tried to slow down my heart. Not that I had any idea how to do that, but slow breaths helped. Realizing I’d just turned into a frightened rabbit and made a giant fool of myself did not.
“I guess if he wants to be alone, we have to let him. Do you want to get any building done today?” Claire asked me, her voice completely noncommittal.
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