Rod didn’t crave metal as much now as when his powers were growing, but sometimes he still got hungry for it. The easiest metal to eat that they’d found so far were bolts bought in a big, inexpensive bag. Rod swung the bag onto his shoulder and brought it up to the hardware store’s front desk.
“I’ve been seeing you in here a lot, lately,” said Gary, behind the counter. “What’re you building, Rod? A treehouse?”
“I think you’re going senile, Gary. I think you think I’m seven.”
The older man rolled his eyes. “Boy, someday someone’s going to smack you.”
“Oh, Dad does that all the time. That’s why I have such poor self-esteem.”
“And if you keep talking like that, you’re going to get your father in trouble. Not everyone understands your sense of humor.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Rod headed through the store toward the back door. He should probably start going to some big box hardware store for his metal needs, where there would be no one to notice how often he came in and get suspicious. But he’d wanted to throw Gary a bone. He knew from Dad the store wasn’t doing that great, lately, and Stephanie had plenty of money to throw away on metal, which is why they hadn’t bothered to find a cheaper source of it.
There was someone in his way, blocking the back door. Rod blinked in surprise. People didn’t normally get in his way.
It was Sammy Lecker, one of the most annoying kids in Rod’s schoolyear and now definitely the most annoying Blue. “Wh—What are you doing here?” he asked, annoyingly.
“You understand that’s an idiotic question, right? I assume you’re here for the same reason. Do me a favor and tell Gary you’re building a treehouse.”
“You can’t—you can’t come here anymore. This is where we come.”
Rod couldn’t help laughing. “Dude, maybe try that again later when you’ve got the big boys with you. Because as it is it just comes across as adorable.”
He surged past Sammy, knocking him with his shoulder, and out the back door. It opened onto a parking lot shared between the hardware store and the Indian restaurant next door. The restaurant didn’t open until noon, so the parking lot was empty, and the road wasn’t visible from here.
“I’m serious,” said Sammy from behind him.
Rod stopped and turned to face the kid. “No you’re not.”
“What?”
“You’re not serious. Unless you’re genuinely stupid. You genuinely stupid, Sammy?”
Sammy’s face got very red very quick. “You don’t come here anymore. None of you. We’re not—we’re not establishing that pattern.”
Rod thought about that for a second. Then he leaned back and kicked the brick wall next to Sammy. He kicked it hard enough that it cracked, and when he put his foot down bits of brick crumbled off and fell to the ground. “See you later, Sammy-lammy,” he said as he turned and walked away.
Something hit Rod square in the back. Buzzing, metallic pain roared from the center of his back down through his legs, and he collapsed, convulsing, to the ground. His cheek hit the hard, rocky asphalt. He tried to push himself up, but his arms weren’t working right. He hurt. He hurt. He hurt.
Finally he got his body under control again and pushed himself to his feet.
Sammy was almost out of the parking lot, and when he looked back and saw Rod getting up he started to run.
With Rod’s super-legs, it only took a moment to catch up.
#
Connor and Stephanie were playing a flower-colored video game meant for little girls when Rod got back from the hardware store. “I come bearing scrap metal,” he said, dropping a jangling bag on the floor by the couch. “Do you wanna get lunch and have some of these for desert?”
“Rod,” said Stephanie. “You’re bleeding.”
Connor’s eyes flickered to his friend. “Your knuckles. Your knuckles are bleeding.”
“There was a complication. I left out the back entrance and ran into Sammy Lecker. We might have fought a bit.”
“You ‘fought’ Samuel Lecker?” Samuel was probably the least intimidating kid in their schoolyear. He was a full head shorter than Connor (and therefore Rod) and he’d worn a bow tie to the last school dance. He insisted on going by “Samuel” like a pilgrim or something.
Rod rolled his eyes. “I can hear those quotemarks. What do you think I did with him if I didn’t fight him? Join his sewing circle?”
Connor thought about giving up, then, and leaving for lunch already. But he remembered how Priya didn’t just fold and pretend to agree with the rest of the Reds, even when it made everyone mad at her. Connor might not so much agree with Priya, but there was definitely something admirable about that. “I think maybe you beat him up,” he said.
Something flashed across Rod’s face—offended anger?—but he was smiling again a split second later. “Would I do anything so ungentlemanly? It’s a fair fight or nothing for this man of honor.”
“Samuel Lecker is tiny. Samuel Lecker is a gecko.”
“Samuel Lecker has electric hands. Super powers are the really great equalizer, Connor.”
“If you took him by surprise at the beginning and grabbed his hands, he wouldn’t have been able to hurt you.”
“You were not there, dude.”
“You have blood on your knuckles. Did you break any bones?”
“You were not there. But sure, keep fantasizing. What does the blow by blow matter anyway?”
“It matters whether you got into a fight or you beat a guy up.”
Rod clapped Connor, briefly, on the shoulder. “Connor McGinger O’Freckle-neck, your finely tuned moral sense is an inspiration to us all.”
“I’m not pretending to be righteous or something, Rod. I’m just saying we can be fighters without being bullies.”
“Cool. Do you want burgers or tacos?”
“I’m not getting tacos with you.”
“Or burgers?”
“Rod, I’m not going to go out and eat with you and pretend I’m okay with you smashing up Samuel freaking Lecker.”
“Your protest refusal-to-get-tacos has been noted. What do you want to eat, Steph?”
“Um…”
Rod’s phone rang, playing one of those stupid fuzzy rock songs he liked, the ones that sounded like they’d been recorded on a broken microphone. He looked surprised when he saw who was calling, and put up a finger to keep Connor and Stephanie from saying anything.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
“Yeah?” he said, answering the phone. “Uh-huh. More or less. I agree with that statement in the abstract. Fine by me. We don’t want any of the normals to see us. Sure, that’ll work.”
He slipped the phone back into his pocket and looked back up at the others. “That was Danny. He wants to meet up.”
###
PHONE CALL BETWEEN ELIAS KAPLAN AND JONATHAN AKIYAMA (RECORDING)
[E.K.] So what’s happening to me exactly? You said machines. What kinds of machines? They’re obviously altering my brain somehow, but how exactly? How do people even know how to do this? Holifeld Company made the Grays, right? Why? And what do the Reds and Blues have to do with anything?
[J.A.] I will answer those questions for you soon enough.
[E.K.] Soon enough? That’s the third “soon enough” in like five minutes. What’s the point of giving me your number if you aren’t going to answer my questions?
[J.A.] If we sated your curiosity now, you would tell Miss Carpenter.
[E.K.] Why shouldn’t I tell Kess?
[J.A.] Call me again, Mr. Kaplan. When you are more advanced.
###
Priya rushed to Stephanie’s as soon as she saw Connor’s message. When she got there, Connor, Rod, Harry, and Stephanie were waiting out front. “Where’s everyone else?” she asked.
“Me and Danny agreed on five people each,” said Rod. “So no one’s outnumbered.”
Priya frowned in confusion. “And you chose me as your fifth?”
“No, I chose Harry. Connor and Stephanie voted you in.”
“Are you going to fight with us, Priya?” asked Harry. “If there’s a fight?”
She ignored the question. “So why exactly does Danny want a meeting?”
“Actually he called it a summit.”
Connor raised a skeptical eyebrow. “A summit? Like we’re Greece and they’re Turkey or something?”
“Maybe we’re Turkey and they’re Greece,” said Stephanie. “Which one of those is the bad guy?”
Rod half-smiled. “I don’t think there’s an official bad guy there, Steph.”
“So why exactly,” repeated Priya, “does Danny want a summit?”
“Rod beat a guy up,” said Connor.
“What?”
Rod shrugged. “If you say so, dude.”
Stephanie leaned closer to Priya. “All Rod said was that he got into a fight.”
“It was Samuel Lecker,” said Connor. “Did you ever meet him, Priya?”
She shook her head.
“Well, he’s not a fighter.” He glared at Rod. “And you were a jerk to him before all this even happened. You know that, right?”
“You shouldn’t judge me by my past, Ginger. I’m a new man. A man with superpowers.”
“Jerks with superpowers are no good for anyone.”
Rod just rolled his eyes at that.
Priya had seen Connor and Rod squabble before, but she’d never witnessed Connor hold his ground like that. It was surprisingly… sexy? Wrong word. Probably.
She squeezed Connor’s elbow, just to show she was on his side, and said, “So where are we summiting?”
#
Priya had only started hanging out with Danny and his friends a week or so before summer vacation, so she’d never seen Greenlake High School. It was nice, all brick and glass and clean green landscaping. “Property taxes, you know,” said Connor when she commented on it. He seemed embarrassed. Art classes were held in a squat brick outbuilding which also housed band and music classes. Lorraine had a key. “She’s Ms. Lyman the art teacher’s favorite human being,” Connor explained. “She had Lorraine lock up once last semester and forgot to get her extra key back.”
On a summer Saturday, the campus was deserted. The only other car in the parking lot was a familiar silver sedan—Danny’s. The four Greenlake kids led the way to the art building, where they found the door unlocked. Inside was a pretty standard high school art room—linoleum floors, plastic chairs lined up along tables arranged in u-shape, a paint-spattered sink, a table weighed down with paint bottles. Inspirational posters on the walls—You Miss 100% of the Shots You Don’t Take and etcetera.
The five Blues sat on one side of a long table, facing the door. Danny, Lorraine, Kess, and two boys Priya didn’t know, one of whom—
“Rod.”
“You should see the other guy,” said Rod. Though for once he wasn’t smirking. It was hard to tell, but he looked as if he might actually regret giving this short, slight boy two ugly black eyes, a swollen nose and a split lip. That was something in Rod’s favor, Priya supposed.
Except no, she affirmed to herself a moment lataer, it wasn’t. Regrets did nothing for anyone, least of all this poor beat-up boy, and Rod got no points for them.
Rod nodded at each of the Blues in turn. “Danny, Sammy, Blue-Hair, Big-Hair… You.”
“This is Bradley,” said Danny. “Samuel’s cousin. He’s homeschooled, so you might not have met him. Why don’t you guys sit down.”
Connor looked briefly annoyed—maybe he didn’t like how Danny assumed he was in charge of the meeting. But the Reds sat down anyway, taking seats opposite their counterparts. Priya sat across from Lorraine. Lorraine, who had Danny on one side of her and Kess on the other, which deeply bothered Priya for unreasonable reasons.
Kess raised her hand.
“Let’s hear from Big-Hair,” said Rod.
“So,” said Kess. She was clearly nervous. She had that round-eyed, close-to-panic look she got last summer when Priya convinced her to wear a bikini to the beach. “Since we’re here and we come in peace and everything, I have a question.”
“Kess,” said Danny gently, “we came here to talk about Samuel.”
“I know. But first. First before anyone gets angry, how do you find new people?”
“What do you mean?” asked Priya.
“How do you get new Reds?”
Stephanie spoke up. “We see someone and we know they’re a Red and they know they’re a Red. Like with me I ran into Rod at the grocery store and it just sort of clicked and I knew we belonged together. Not belonged together belonged together. You know what I mean.”
“Steph,” snapped Rod. “Why would you just tell her that? You don’t know why she wants to know.”
“I’m just curious,” said Kess. “I have theories about what’s happening to us and where it came from.”
“Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way,” said Danny, forcing the conversation away from Kess. “We need to talk about what happened at the hardware store. Samuel?”
The swollen-faced boy gave Danny a do-I-have-to look. Lorraine fixed him with a yes-you-have-to glare.
“Rod,” he said, his voice strained. “I’m sorry I lightninged you in the back. That was wrong of me.”
Connor looked as surprised at that as Priya felt.
“I accept your apology,” said Rod. “Can we go now? I’m pretty hungry.”
“We all accept your apology,” said Priya. “And we’re sorry that Rod reacted with violence.”
“Reacted with violence?” repeated Rod, indignant. “You don’t think their lightning bolts are violence?”
“We wanted to meet,” said Danny, “to apologize and make sure this was resolved, so nothing has to escalate from here.”
“We realize it must be hard to explain this to your parents,” said Priya.” She nodded at Samuel and his messed-up face. “We’re sorry about that.”
“Wait wait wait,” said Rod. “So, you guys assume I beat up Sammy Lecker for kicks. You find out he attacked me and yet I’m still the bad guy and the Blues are still our moral superiors?”
“Not all the Blues,” muttered Connor barely loud enough for Priya to hear the sharp undertone of sarcasm in his voice. “Just Danny.”
“I told you guys not to bring her," said Rod. "I told you she’d undermine our position.”
“Can we not do this in front of them?” Priya nodded at the Blues.
Lorraine grinned. “Oh please do. This is better than TV. I’m excited for when Rod and Priya eventually kiss.”
Priya’s whole body went suddenly hot. She shoved the table. The table edge hit Lorraine in the stomach and she snapped forward, her blue braids flying. Her elbows hit the tabletop with a thud. Priya jumped to her feet. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.” She put out her hands in a way she hoped seemed submissive
Lorraine snarled and lunged forward to grab Priya’s wrist. Priya froze, every muscle in her body threaded with pain and locked in place. She couldn’t move. She had to move. She couldn’t move.
Connor stood up and turned the table over. It clashed to the ground and the Blues jumped back, including Lorraine, who let go of Priya. Priya wavered on her feet but didn’t fall. The electricity left her with an odd, hollow, ringing feeling, the aftertaste of pain.
Lorraine started to raise her hand again. Priya jumped straight up, her strong legs sending her all the way to the ceiling, which she grabbed with her grippy hands. She kicked her sandals off and swung her feet up to crouch Spiderman-like, upside-down.
Below her, the two groups stood on opposite sides of the overturned table. The Blues had drawn together, covering each other’s sides, while the Reds had spread out, each one standing like they were ready to either jump forward or run away.
For a moment no one said anything. Priya’s chest felt stiff and heavy and unable to take in air.
Then Samuel gave a wordless yell and charged at Rod.
“Sam,” said the other boy, Samuel’s cousin, “seriously?”
Before Samuel could put his hands on Rod, Rod grabbed his arms and forced them back and over his head. A moment later he let go and shoved Samuel away, hard. Danny and the cousin caught him. Harry jumped over the table to tackle the cousin, but he’d barely touched the boy before Kess slapped him on his arm. Harry cried out and fell to his knees, clutching the arm with his other hand.
Priya darted forward across the ceiling and dropped behind Kess. She grabbed her sister’s wrists and pinned them to her sides. Kess struggled but Priya pulled her in tighter to her stomach. Kess’s blonde curls were in Priya’s face, smelling like vanilla shampoo.
Everyone else was in stand-off poses again. “We’re even,” said Danny. “We’re even.”
“Ya-ya,” said Rod, “keep hold of her until we’re out. Steph and Connor, you get Harry.”
The Reds backed out of the room. Priya pulled Kess with her to the door, then let go and followed the others.
They were almost to Stephanie’s car before anyone spoke. Priya avoided looking at Rod. “I—” she said. “I’m—” She couldn’t. She couldn’t apologize to him. “I didn’t know how much it hurts when they do that.”
“Well,” said Rod. “I’m sure it won’t be the last time you get zapped.”