Friday, November 27

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The news wouldn’t stop talking about supervillain aggression; all across the Evergreen, Foothills, and even Parker districts, the major league vils had come out of the woodworks. In theory, the Triad, Stella-Lunar, and even the In-Your-Endos were busy fighting.

In practice, Fursona and I had been on two patrols and were just finishing up our third, and we hadn’t so much as pushed our Tele-Portal call buttons. And, I crossed my fingers, we wouldn’t have to.

We had other plans tonight.

Eagle-sona flapped her way toward Mid-Town ahead of me, and I blazed a pink-and-blue trail across the sky on my sailboard. Neither of us wanted to find a supervillain tonight. We’d staked out our real target earlier in the week, and it was perfect for what we needed. Fursona landed quietly on the roof, and I joined her a moment later. “Phase One complete. Beginning Phase Two.”

“Shut up, Understudy,” Fursona said. She pulled up the vent, and we dropped the ten feet into the closed women’s restroom. Outside, the park was silent; no one was out and about, and no one had heard us enter.

We quickly untransformed and changed, the whole Eagle-sona suit somehow fitting inside Bianca’s backpack, and slipped out the door. “Phase Two complete,” I whispered in her ear. I had a longish, dark yellow wool dress on, plus flats.

“I said shut up, Annie,” Bee said, smiling and grabbing my hand. She’d opted for heels and was almost as tall as me—almost. Her blue dress brought out her eyes beautifully, though. “Come on. Reservation’s in fifteen minutes.”

Official TU policy was that all students needed to stay on campus, where it was safe. They didn’t want any super-related incidents like during Man vs. Nature, so the administration kept an eye on all the super-students—but Fursona and I had an ace in the hole. We’d told Tele-Portal we couldn’t do patrols for her anymore, and thirty minutes later, Braningham had worked his magic, and we had a license to leave campus.

Tonight, we planned on abusing that license for some good Italian food.

Bee practically skipped down the almost abandoned sidewalk, dragging me along. “Remember, no shop, no school, and especially no shop. Yes, I said shop twice. No, I’m not kidding about it.”

“Agreed. I need a break from it.” We stepped into Antonio’s Kitchen, got directed to a booth, and grabbed menus. “You know, I could have cooked most of this stuff.”

“Yes, but this way, you don’t have to. You need a break, like you just said,” Bee said, sticking her tongue out at me. “Now, tell me your deepest, darkest secret!”

“Oh god, that?” I asked, laughing and thinking hard. “Okay. How about this? When I was eight, in third grade, I told everyone in my class I was going to marry Locust.”

“Locust? Really? Wasn’t he an Italian villain?”

“Yep,” I said, flushing redder by the minute. When the waters came, I gratefully grabbed my cup and drained it. “He was, but he also had style, and he seemed like a really funny guy.”

“Yeah, glad you didn’t follow through on that. From what I hear, he got busted attacking the Colosseum. That was a bridge too far for the Italians, and—“

“Twenty in their super-prison. Yeah, it was a bad move, but I think a bunch of vils learned a lot about not attacking culturally important—this is drifting toward shop. Sorry.” I reached over the table and grabbed Bee’s hand. “What about yours?”

“One time, I ran away from home, got out of Tortuga West, and built a raft. I was two hundred feet off the beach when I decided I wanted to go home, so I spent the next hour fighting the tide, then had to walk home for two more hours because the waves had pushed me so far up the coast. I told my parents I’d been out playing. I told the police who found me the same thing, but I don’t think either of them believed me,” Bianca said.

“And you’re afraid of falling, not the ocean?” I asked, grinning.

“Yeah, but that’s not a deep, dark secret. That’s from my dad’s work truck. When I was a toddler, I toddled right off the tailgate and busted both my knees open. Ever since, heights aren’t great, and the skyscraper fall didn’t help. Sorry, it’s old news, but you brought it up.”

“Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Sorry again, by the way.” I waited for her to say something about the Gourmet Episode.

“It’s okay. I’m working on it with an online therapist.”

“Not with Dr. Ayers?” I asked.

“Nope. It’s not a Dr. Ayers problem. It’s a normal therapist’s problem.” Bee grinned sheepishly. “That’s too close to shop, though. I’m getting spaghetti. You?”

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

“Lasagna. It’s the one thing I don’t have the patience to deal with most of the time, and I’ve heard good things about it here.”

A few minutes later, the waiter came by to take our orders. Bee made a half-hearted attempt to get a glass of wine, then settled for more water when he raised an eyebrow. I laughed at her as he left. “You better tip him well for putting up with you, Bee.”

We’d worked through breadsticks, a salad, and several glasses of water, and the candles at the table had burned down to almost nothing by the time the food arrived. It felt silly being out on a date with Bee when we spent so much time together, but it was also really nice to set college and Heroics 101 aside for a bit. Not being followed by camera drones and just being Annie and Bee for a while was something we’d been doing less and less.

Was this what life would be like without powers? Or was it the constant pressure to get out there and be a super that did it? I thought back to our time on the beach near Tortuga West. Blowing off that Episode had felt great, and at the time, I’d just thought we’d been burned out from pushing hard to get to the minors, but what if that wasn’t it?

“Hey Bee, I know we’re not talking shop, but—“

My phone beeped the email pattern. “Shit. Hold that thought for a sec?”

“Sure, Annie. But I’m pretty iffy on shop talk.” Bianca slurped a noddle into her mouth. “This better be good.”

I glanced at my phone, said, “Shit,” again, and passed it to Bee. She read it, then shook her head. “She’s persistent. Su-Bin’s playing with fire if she wants you to get back on the radio with her. What’s her angle?”

“I’m not sure. I’m going to table all the shop talk, though. As team leader, I hereby declare tonight a shop-free time until we get back to campus.” Bee opened her mouth, and I held up a finger. “As the team leader, I’m empowered to make this decision, and no others, without talking to the rest of the team.”

“Fine,” she said, snorting. “We’ll put off the talk about Su-Bin until later. Let’s enjoy this date, dammit.”

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By the time we landed at Walnut Tower, a few flakes of snow had begun to fall, and I felt bloated and overstuffed. I hurried into the Green Room and raced to get to the bathroom before Bee; I’d already stashed normal clothes there, and when I emerged, it was in PJ bottoms and a plain gray T-shirt.

Bee, of course, was halfway undressed in the bedroom with a robe on the floor. She looked over her shoulder, then kept undressing. “Takes longer for me,” she said, wrapping the robe around her body.

“Uh-huh. Sure, babe,” I smirked. I flopped onto the couch, and she joined me, sprawled out and with the back of her head on my leg. I let a hand drift onto her stomach, and she smiled up at me.

“Okay, so what are you going to do about President Pak?”

“Su-Bin? I don’t know,” I said.

“No, we’re going to have Su-Bin over for game night next week. That’s already planned. Her and her boyfriend. It’ll be great; I’ll make sure there’s plenty to drink, you’ll cook again, and it’ll be a good time for all four of us. I’m talking about President Pak.” She reached under the coffee table and came up with a bottle. “Drinkie-drink?”

“Sure.” I waited while she fished up a pair of shot glasses, and we downed our first after clinking them together. “To us, powered or not. I think I’m going to do it.”

“You’re really going to get on the radio with her tomorrow? Holy shit, Annie, that’s walking into the lion’s den. There’s brave, and then there’s stupid, and that’s probably stupid.”

“Maybe so, but it’s a chance to move the needle a little with APPEAL. If you want, you can come with me, and Su-Bin’s already proposed scripting the whole conversation—and keeping it to five minutes this time. She’s got a possible script, and she’s willing to accept any changes except to her core message.” I was talking too fast, but I had to convince Bee that this was serious—and possible.

“And what’s that again? We hate supers?”

“No. Here’s the email again.”

Subject: Possible Collaboration with APPEAL

Magical Girl Understudy,

We’ve got some bad blood between us, but I think it’s important that we’re on the same page here. So, here’s the situation.

APPEAL chapters across North America are getting blamed for Golden Goose’s death. There aren’t any leads; they’ve even brought in supers with all sorts of crazy powers to try to look back, and all they see is a man in a mask, but no actual evidence. It could be a super, or it could be an unpowered person. Either way, APPEAL has denied any connections with it.

But you know as well as I do how fast rumors spread on campus. Better, even, because you’ve been on the receiving end. Sorry about that. I propose a truce. APPEAL has other goals besides getting in your way. If you join me on DJ Smooth’s radio show tomorrow and say you believe the larger APPEAL group wasn’t involved, I’ll stop having any APPEAL protests anywhere near you, and I’ll even let the Grant Building fiasco go.

If you’re interested, I’ll send you a script a couple of APPEAL members worked on. You can make any changes you want, and we’ll roll with them as long as they don’t make us look bad.

Thanks,

Su-Bin Pak

President, TU APPEAL Chapter

“Gimme your laptop,” Bianca said. She sat up, let me log in, and started typing while I watched and poured us another drink. She stopped after almost ten minutes of writing, deleting, and furrowing her brow. “Here. Send this.”

RE: Possible Collaboration with APPEAL

President Pak

At the moment, Fursona and I are both very busy studying for finals, pushing back minor league supervillains across the city, and doing our best to help with the major league ones. Unfortunately, we won’t have time to work with you on this until after finals week.

In the meantime, if you want to prove you’re serious about not going after us with your protests, you can stop making me your enemy. Stop protesting my old Episodes, and stop using me as an example of everything that’s wrong with superheroes. That’d help me trust you.

Send me your script. I’ll take a look for later,

Magical Girl Understudy

I nodded slowly and pressed ‘Send.’ Then I pushed Bee back down so her head was on my lap. I played with her curly black hair for a minute, then reached over to close the laptop. “Hey, Bee? No more shop talk tonight, okay?”

She winked up at me and propped herself up on one elbow. “What do you mean by that?”

I leaned forward to kiss her, but the motion accidentally dumped her on the floor between the couch and the coffee table. The bottle of vodka went flying, and I cursed before helping her up.

She scowled dramatically, then broke up into laughter. “Bedtime?”

“Yeah, bedtime. The script should come in tomorrow.” I grabbed her hand, and, this time, I dragged her along. “Until then, let’s not think about it.”