After that round, they flooded out of the classroom onto the small quad. The students from other schools kept a wide berth around Riley. Ms. Ngo ignored them and headed off in another direction, presumably towards the judges’ lounge.

“How could you say that?” Emma asked Riley on their way to their usual spot on the band room steps.

“What? Did I put my foot in my mouth again?” Riley pulled her sunglasses out of her purse, covering her eyes. The reflective surface showed Emma’s face back to her when she tried to look at Riley and see if she was serious.

“You don’t even know what you said?” Connor ran a hand through his shock of blonde hair. “How do you not know what you said?”

“What’s so wrong with suggesting superheroes be licensed and trained to use their powers? These powers are big and dangerous. What if they lose control?” Riley asked. “Besides, that’s how we do gun control.”

“It wasn’t that idea—though to be fair no one asked to have powers.” Connor sighed. “When you said supers ‘have to’ do work specific to their powers, it totally implied supers wouldn’t get to say no.”

“That wasn’t what I was trying to say,” Riley said. “I meant they could be hired—not that they couldn’t say no.”

“That’s what you said.” Emma meant to stop there, but the rest tumbled out anyway. “And you said supers should wear a patch on their clothes to identify them as supers. Like what the Nazis did before taking Jewish people to ghettos and concentration camps.”

Riley’s jaw dropped and she reached under her sunglasses to dab at her eyes.

“Your plan would make supers the government appointed slaves of anyone who had enough money to buy them.”

“What?” Riley gasped. “I didn’t mean that at all.”

“That’s what you said.” Emma’s voice shook as she sat on the brick steps to the band room.

Connor and Riley kept talking, but Emma stared at the small quad. Large trees lined the left side. The cement circle where they sat for lunch was empty. Was Emma that scary? Were all the supers so scary?

People acted like powers made supers different, inhuman even. But Emma wasn’t different. She was the same Emma she’d always been, a geeky fourteen-year-old girl. And now, a fourteen-year-old girl with this autism spectrum disorder diagnosis. Now, she was stuck with these powers that made everyone want to control her even more than Nan already did.

It wasn’t fair.

Emma’s hands stung. When she looked down, she saw she’d been digging her nails into her palms. She forced herself to relax.

And these powers… to Andres, getting powers meant he should drop out of school to be a full-time superhero. But was that because there was something else?

Connor and Riley’s faces were bright red. They were getting into it now. Riley kept arguing she hadn’t meant to discriminate against supers, but that supers were dangerous.

Emma swallowed over the lump in her throat. With the way people were reacting, Emma might become a criminal just for using her powers. Or else they might force her to be licensed as if she was a gun. These powers had set her up for all kinds of attention she didn’t want or need.

Connor stomped across the sidewalk to a nearby patch of grass.

Riley turned toward Emma. “You know I didn’t mean it like that, right?”

But Emma wasn’t ready to talk. “Sure.” Whatever Riley had meant didn’t matter. What she’d said did.

What other kinds of bad things could the government and just regular people do because Emma was a super? She needed to work harder to stick to her costume and cover her face.

But now, she needed to go find somewhere quiet to sit and think. A nice dark room where she could hang out by herself.

The other room let out. Ms. Range, Ollie, and Alex beelined for them. Connor followed them back but kept his distance from Riley.

“You scored some good points in there. Way to go guys,” Ms. Range said. She and the others were bubbling with excitement after the round.

Emma hadn’t even talked. If only she could forget about powers for a while. But she couldn’t. There were too many things she needed to keep in mind: the Super Commission, Strongman, Ice Queen, and all that Andres had said. Too much to think about what the regulations should be. Still, she’d better figure these things out before it was too late.

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“What about you folks?” Ms. Range asked. “How’d it go?”

“Horrible.” Riley’s shoulders curved forward and her mouth twitched like she was about to cry.

“It was pretty bad.” Emma wanted to reassure her friend, but Riley couldn’t wrap her head around the idea of what her friend would do to her if she found out who she really was.

“Oh, honey, what did you say this time?” A woman came from the parking lot behind them.

“Mom, I’m so glad you’re here.” Riley threw herself into the strict-looking woman’s arms.

“Of course, pumpkin. I mean, I’m sorry I can’t stay long enough to judge a round or anything, but I will always support my little girl.” She stepped back from Riley’s hug and with a gentle smile on her lips. “Now what did you say this time that’s got everyone’s knickers in a knot?”

“We were debating the supers and…”

“Supers…” Riley’s mom groaned as if talking about supers was driving her nuts. And maybe it was. Mrs. Vann was high up in the Force. And if Andres was causing problems for Uncle Frank, then the supers must be making waves with the cops, too.

“And, I said they should be licensed and hired out to use their powers, so their powers aren’t wasted.”

“That’s not what she said, Ms. Vann,” Connor’s voice took on a hardness Emma hadn’t known he possessed.

“It’s what I meant,” Riley grumbled.

Emma looked at Ms. Range to moderate, but her dark lips were pursed together, the excitement from the round lost. “I believe that’s what you meant,” Ms. Range said absently. “We’ve got to work on stopping before you talk to think about the implications of what you’re saying.”

“Your teacher is right, pumpkin.” Mrs. Vann nodded. “We’ve got to think our words and actions through.”

“You’re in charge of the Jamal Robinson investigation, right?” Ms. Range squared her shoulders and her tone turned darker like a raging bull.

“Yes.” Riley’s mom frowned and rose, a confused look on her face. “Though I’m not allowed to discuss ongoing—”

“I hear the officers involved are going to court soon. Will things work out the way they should?” Ms. Range asked.

“I’m not at liberty to say—”

Riley turned her confused look from her mother to Ms. Range. “You and Daddy said Jamal Robinson was a gangbanger, destined for a bad end.”

“Riles, dinner table talk should stay between us. Besides, I wasn’t in charge of the case yet and I wasn’t saying that in an official capacity.” Ms. Vann shrugged. “I guess I need to be careful when I comment on the news at home.”

Ms. Range smiled, but the skin around her eyes didn’t crinkle. “I’m going to turn in my score sheets then get some goodies to celebrate our good effort in the mock congress. What do you kids want? Cookies or brownies?”

“Cookies,” Emma said, but the rest of the team said brownies.

Ms. Range left, score sheet in hand. The other judges and coaches were already heading back towards the old gym from the judges’ room.

The Pueblo team split up with the freshman hanging out on the band room steps. Ollie and Emma didn’t quite mend fences, but they avoided the question of the Speedster, superheroes, and secret identities. It was easy enough when Connor was talking with them, and Riley and her mom a couple feet away. Emma told Ollie and Connor about her run-in with Nan.

“You still doing that piece on civil disobedience?” Connor asked.

“I’m only doing the mock congress this time around.” Emma glanced up at Connor’s blue eyes, then looked away. “I wanted to. Maybe next month at the tournament in Rose Junction.”

“If she even gets to go.” Ollie sighed. “Sounds like Nan still isn’t too happy with you.”

“I don’t even know what I did this time.” Emma sighed. “Besides, I feel like I can’t catch my breath with all the stuff going on.”

“I hear you.” Connor sighed. “It sucks being a freshman. I thought I was getting a hang of this high school thing, then—”

“Hey! Is that Ice Queen?” Alex pointed at the sky.

Ice Queen’s pale blue dress rippled in the breeze as Ice Queen emerged from behind the trees Emma had been staring at. The bright pink curls from her wig set heavy on her shoulders. She was flying right towards them and their spot on the band room steps.

“It is! Wooh! Go Ice Queen!” Connor shouted.

While everyone looked the other way, Emma glanced at her phone. Nothing on her police scanner app.

“What’s she doing here?” Ollie asked.

“Don’t know,” Emma said.

Maybe Ice Queen was practicing flying and hadn’t counted on the school being full of people on the weekend. But Emma touched the green face-paint through her bag just in case. If she needed to help with whatever the other super was doing, she was prepared. Even if her costume was in shreds.

Ice Queen shot a blast of ice through the tree towards the middle their group.

Ollie screamed and jumped back.

Alex and Connor dove towards their side of the steps.

Emma grabbed Ollie and dragged her down the other side of the band room.

Emma undid her top buttons and yanked her dress shirt off to reveal the torn spandex underneath.

“What happened to you?” Ollie asked.

Emma glanced down to see the carefully stenciled words Geek Fire had torn when Andres had tackled her. “I tried to help someone Speedster didn’t want me to help.”

As Emma unbuttoned her pants, Ollie caught her hand.

“You can’t go out there,” Ollie said. “You could get hurt.”

Ollie had a point. They should call that Super Commission guy. Finding supers was his job. Agent Johnson’s card was still in her backpack somewhere. Surely, he had a way of stopping bad supers from hurting people.

“You’re right.” Emma pulled out her phone and started digging through the small pocket for Agent Johnson’s card.

“What are you doing?” Ollie asked.

“Looking for Agent Johnson’s—”

“For Pete’s sake, I’m calling 911.” Ollie dialed and hit call.

Riley screamed. The same piercing sound she’d made when she broke her arm falling off the jungle gym in third grade. Emma’s stomach churned at the memory of her classmate’s arm flopping loose.

What was Ice Queen doing to her friend?