Friday, April 29

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Gourmet and Theseus—Jessica and Tanner—dropped Bianca and me off at Walnut Tower. Jessica drove her Corvette, while Tanner white-knuckled the panic bar in the shotgun seat. I had no idea when they’d gotten together; if someone had told me the unserious, fun-loving girl would fall for Thesu-ass in our first semester, I wouldn’t have believed it.

But they were great as a double date, and we hadn’t caught up in so long. Not since February. And none of us had homework—not homework we wanted to do, anyway. So an evening out was perfect.

“Thanks,” I said, heart racing almost as fast as Gourmet’s—Jessica’s—driving. Bianca was already wobbling back toward Walnut Tower. “I’d catch that movie with you, but we’ve already got a plan for the rest of the night.”

“I can’t quite put my finger on what,” Tanner said. It was a lot easier to think of him as a Tanner than Gourmet as a Jessica.

“It’s no biggie. I’m sure We Dance in Dying Moonlight will be playing next week, too,” Jessica said.

“And I’m sure I’ll want to see it even less the second time around,” Tanner complained.

“Bye, guys,” I said, leaving them both to their bickering as I hurried to catch up with Bianca. It hadn’t just been a double date, either. Today was a special day for a bunch of reasons.

The Ilnean Imperial delegation had arrived in Yorkston to negotiate for Rocko and the rest of the Networks’ release. They’d been stuck in Almhurst, New Riker’s, and a half-dozen other prisons since February. Finally, after weeks of talks, the Network’s cruiser was moving out of our solar system—with all the Network’s producers and employees on board, plus a handful of Ilneat guards.

Frankly, I didn’t care what happened to Rocko once they returned to the Greater Ilneat Prosperity Community. There’d been something about legal issues the Network might be facing back home, and they’d lost so much money they probably couldn’t pay their investors, but what mattered to me was that they, and all the other producers, were gone.

So, tonight’s dinner had been about celebrating that.

They’d also started negotiations for the New Gotham Accords.

Right now, there were some…disagreements…about the status of powered and unpowered people, the Episode Cities, and…well, just about everything else. But with Mindstorm, Stella-Lunar, and a dozen of the heaviest-hitting major leaguers at the table, along with delegations of unpowered diplomats from the largest cities and countries on Earth, disagreements were inevitable.

The most optimistic timeline for an agreement was two years. Most of the talking heads said four to five.

But it was a start. And it was worth celebrating.

We’d been invited. Some of the heads of state didn’t care that I was a sophomore in college; they only cared that I was a world-famous hero now. But I didn’t want to suit up again until the future was a little more clear—or at least until Bee and I knew what the possibilities might be. Theseus was working again, and Gourmet was shooting her first Gourmet’s Glutton Hour episode since January next week. But Bee and I weren’t ready yet.

We didn’t want to go back to the way things were.

I didn’t know what future I wanted to make yet, but I knew it had to be different. And until I knew, Magical Girl Understudy was staying in my head. And in Tails’s

My hand slipped into Bee’s, and we hurried upstairs. We had an hour until 7:30, when Su-Bin and Cam would come over. And I had just the game for them.

But first, I needed some Bee time.

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The doorbell rang at seven thirty-six, and Bee climbed off my lap, flushed red. We’d gotten a little, uh, distracted. Just making out, but from the way she looked at me, there’d be more later.

Bee’s lipstick was smudged, and she looked sweaty as she grabbed her shirt and fled for the bathroom. “You get it. I’ve gotta get decent.”

“Dammit, Bee,” I cursed under my breath, buttoning my own shirt up. I checked my hair—tousled and messy but acceptable—and sprayed deodorant under my arms, then hurried to the door. They were late, but we’d been so busy we hadn’t bothered getting ready. They’d understand, though. They’d have to understand.

Cam—all two-fifty-plus of him, stuck out his hand. “Thanks for having us over for this. What’s the game?”

I winced. The game was still in my room, still in its plastic wrap. I’d watched a video of it, but it wasn’t exactly a two-player game, so we hadn’t played it. “It’s about finding connections between words. Come on in—booze can go on the counter, and I’ve got snack bowls somewhere. Thanks for supplying tonight. We had some other stuff come up.”

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Cam stepped inside, and I backpedaled to give the big guy some space. He nodded and headed for the kitchen, where we’d—thankfully—gotten the table set up before distraction set in.

That left me with Su-Bin.

I hadn’t talked to her since the day we’d raided The Agent’s lair. We’d texted a lot while I was coming up with my press conference speech, but she hadn’t called me, and I hadn’t wanted to push it. But then the texts had dried up…until earlier this month. I remembered the first one.

I’d offered to have her over, and after some discussion, she’d accepted. And now, here she was, in all her tiny glory—with soda cup in hand.

“Uh, hi,” I said to the first person I’d talked to—probably my first friend—at TU.

“Hi. Show me the game.”

I slipped away to our bedroom, taking care to keep the door shut so Cam and Su-Bin wouldn’t see Bee’s mess, and dug around until I found it. It featured a man in a suit and a professionally-dressed woman silhouetted against a wildly orange and purple background. I retrieved it, tucking it under my arm and carrying it to the coffee table. Cam had already occupied the couch, claiming it for him and Su-bin, so I shrugged and pulled up a spot on the floor.

“Okay, this is Code Names. I’ve never played it, it’s still in the wrapper, but I watched a little bit of it. It looks fun and goofy, so I’m thinking us versus you, in a battle of the word association game!” I said, peeling the wrapping off the box as Bee flopped down beside me, her knee bumping mine.

“You’re on,” Su-Bin said. We set up the words in a five-by-five grid, and I grabbed the first code card. “Alright, let’s see…uh, Propeller, 2.”

Bee rolled over, staring at the board. “Plane.”

“Yep.”

“And, uh…” She paused. “Uh, Wind?”

“No, that’s one of theirs. Sorry, babe.” I leaned over to kiss her, but she was already pushing herself up.

“I’m going to get a drinky drink. If I’m going to play this with Annie’s word choice, I’m gonna need it. Anyone else?”

All our hands went up. She stared at us for a second, then rolled her eyes. “Cam, help me out here. This girl’s only got two hands.”

“So…are we okay?” I asked Su-Bin three minutes later, staring at the kitchen. Cam and Bee had been gone for a long time—way too long for a quick drink run. Even if she’d been mixing something, it shouldn’t have taken this long. Which meant she and Cam had abandoned us on purpose. “I don’t mean to be blunt, but

“I don’t know, Annie,” Su-Bin said. “You lied to me for a year and a half. That’s pretty tough to get over.”

“Su-Bin, I didn’t lie to you. I lied to everyone. The secret identity thing felt important. Like, Rocko really stressed how important it was, how I needed my secret identity to keep my personal life separate from my superhero one. It all made sense when I was a teen, and I didn’t have any reason to question it until really recently.”

Su-Bin shook her head. “Who knew you were a superhero? Before the announcement, I mean.”

“My parents, my ex-boyfriend, Bee, and her parents. Plus the Superpower Studies program professors, the TU administrators, and Rocko and Pataki. That’s it. And that was too many, to be honest. I was horrified when Bee told me she knew.” I stood up and started pacing the living room, tapping my hand against my hip.

“That’s it, you’re sure. No one else?”

I paused. “I don’t think so. And I only told the TU people and Peter. Everyone else figured it out on their own. But you see why I couldn’t tell you, right? You were—are—in charge of APPEAL. I was a super you were targeting. There was no way you wouldn’t out me.”

“That’s true,” Su-Bin admitted. “We actually tried to run an information-finding campaign on you, but it didn’t work well. Everything about Magical Girl Undergrad and Tokyexico University led to the same public-facing page and nothing else. Same for every other super. Eventually, we gave up.”

“Well, that’s…concerning,” I said.

“I guess,” Su-Bin shrugged. “We needed a win. Never thought we’d get one from allying with Magical Girl Undergrad, though. You know, if the New Gotham Accords work out, it’ll be your fault.”

“Yeah, I’ve thought about that. They wanted me to be part of their talks, but I’d rather be a college kid for a while. I also declined all the medals, but they keep offering them, so I might have to accept,” I said.

“They’re giving you medals!?” Su-Bin asked. “Screw the game! Tell me about that!”

“So, we’re okay?” I asked.

“Sure, just spill it!”

Cam and Bianca chose that moment to come back, and I shot my girlfriend a glare. She rolled her eyes and smirked, then chugged from a bottle of something clear. “Yeah, spill it. Why did we decline those medals? They’d be such a bragging point, and I know for sure that Theseus accepted his.”

“Because I’m trying to be a better hero, and so are you. We shouldn’t be fighting evil for prizes—we should be fighting it to help people. Right, Bee?” I said.

She laughed. “Sure, Understudy, whatever you say. Now, I think it’s Su-Bin’s turn to pick a word.”

I poked my partner and girlfriend in the side and went for my own bottle. It turned out to be an IPA, but I didn’t mind the bitterness. I needed to get drunk if I wanted to deal with her for the next couple of hours.

“How about Arrow, Four,” Su-Bin said, smiling deviously.

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By the time Su-Bin and Cam packed up their snacks and left, Bianca was so drunk she didn’t care that we’d lost, and I was pleasantly tipsy. I held her hair for a minute, helped her strip down and put on pajamas, and tucked her into our bed. This wasn’t the first time I’d be the big spoon to keep her propped up sideways, and it wouldn’t be the last.

As I lay in bed with my hand around her chest, feeling her breathing, I couldn’t help but think about the negotiations in Yorkston and about why I’d really declined the medals a half-dozen governments had offered me.

They felt cheap, like prizes for a job half done.

None of this was over yet. It wouldn’t be over until the New Gotham Accords were signed and the Ilneats agreed to leave Earth alone. Even then, there’d be studios—human-run, but still studios—making money off the Style System. And where that happened, there’d be abuses. Unless we built Mrs. N’s better world, or Tranquility’s, we could be right back where we were.

So, as Bee breathed alcohol breath on my hand, I started planning out what Magical Girl Understudy would become. What she’d look like, what she’d fight for, and how I’d use her to build that world.

By the time I felt okay with Bee’s level of drunk and fell asleep myself, I’d thought for a long time. The Costume was coming together, and so was her goal. I had a month to set her up before the best moment for a big reveal.