I snorted and chuckled at the undeserved smugness that laced the voice on the other end of the line.
“Yeah, it wasn’t hard with my face being plastered all over the news for days. Saving the president gets you some publicity. Who would have thought?” I pulled the handle on the side of Lizzy’s couch that turned my portion into a recliner. “What can I do for you today, Madam President?”
“Well, you’re a curt young man, aren’t you?” There was almost something playful in her voice, but it was buried behind the quiet intensity I expected from someone who was the leader of a major country during a global crisis. “Can a lady not properly thank the young man who saved her life after she learned his name?”
“Okay, you’re welcome. Any time, really.” There was a pause, one long enough that I wanted to hop off the call. “Well, if that’ll be it, thanks for giving me a ring.”
“I want to strike a deal with you.” She sounded unimpressed that she had to be the one to tell me. What, had she expected me to beg for this deal I didn’t know existed?
“Maybe should have led with that, but what kind of deal are you talking about? I’m not looking to do business with someone who thinks we’re second-class citizens and is okay with letting cities get razed just to avoid some paperwork. Plus, I already have one lady here who’s a headache, I don’t need another.”
“Oh, I’ll show you a headache.” Lizzy grabbed a shoe that was next to her and bonked me on the head with it.
“Your youthful rebellion was cute and endearing when we first met. Reminded me of myself when I was younger, but frankly, it’s already overstayed its welcome and you need to view this like an adult.” I could hear the tightness of the woman’s jaw, something that gave me immense satisfaction.
“Ah, right.” I felt my pulse quicken and my jaw clench. “Please, since I remind you so much of your glory days, please enlighten me of your youth. No doubt we had the exact same upbringing and the exact same problems. I can already see myself aiming for the Senate by the time I’m twenty-seven.”
There was silence on the other line for a few seconds. I thought the call might have dropped, but I wasn’t going to budge to check. Finally, there was the exhale of a deep breath on the other side.
“I know precisely where you live.” President Wallace was done sounding anything close to friendly. “I know you live with your older sister who had to finish raising you. I know you live with the pretty redhead who, funnily enough, is the only one I can’t actually get more information on. I know you’re good friends with Elizabeth Quick, Lorianna Davis, and the tall blonde that also evades our records. Pretty popular with all these beautiful women, aren’t you?
“Whatever your perception of me is, know this as a fact: everything I need to know about you is something I can get in less than twenty-four hours. There are people in this world who fancy themselves heroes, something you seem keen on proving for yourself. But I live in a reality where everything is grey, where the dreams I had and the ones you must take a backseat to pragmatic dealings that yield tangible results. You don’t have to like me, but even if you’re blinded by childish optimism, I know you’re smart enough to understand that you need allies. I do not need you. I know enough about you that I don’t think you can get far without me.”
Her cold and calculating demeanor did unsettle me, yet I didn’t find myself scared by her thinly-veiled contempt. “Look, if I really thought you could get to me in a way that mattered, I think you’d have already stopped McLeod. Or at the very least, you wouldn’t just let him run over cities freely. I'll level with you, okay? If you want to see all of this end, then we’re on the same page. Broadly speaking, anyway. Get in contact with my sister, she runs this whole thing. I bet you’ll get along great. Sorry to cut this short, but I have a few things to plan out with those ladies you mentioned before, including taking one to the hospital for a broken vagina.”
She started to say something, but I ended the call before the conversation could continue. I set my phone to the side and ran a hand down my face. “Right, so about this Vegas thing. What’s the-”
“You told the president of the United States that I have a broken vagina?” Lizzy was a mix of furious and amused. “Do you know how that’s going to be taken? She’s going to think you plowed me up and down my house until I couldn’t walk! Also, she’s going to think you’re a complete idiot.”
I frowned, though the idea of her thinking I was an idiot was an appealing one. “Huh, didn’t think about it that way. Technically, I didn’t tell her it was you that had a broken vagina. And, again with a technicality, you kind of couldn’t walk. You’ll have to take up that beef with the balance beam.”
Before Lizzy could finally kill me like our friendship had been leading up to, my phone started ringing again. I didn’t recognize the number, but the area code was a common one from my old hometown. Getting a call from Shamrock was even stranger than getting a call from President Wallace.
“This only happens because you’re the only person under thirty who still keeps their phone’s sound on.” Lizzy rolled her eyes.
“At least I can exercise without breaking my vagina, thank you very much. And at least my pants have pockets.” I had to stifle laughter when she punched me in the arm. Before it could go to voicemail, I managed to answer and put the phone back up against my ear. “Hello?”
“Hello? Ethan Harper? It’s Principal Davenport.”
It felt like years since I’d been in my old high school and I only barely remembered the principal there. Being a perfectly average, or maybe a little above average, student without a troublemaking streak meant my face-to-face interactions with Principal Davenport were limited. I could only recall talking to him in passing or seeing him talk to the entire student body.
“Hey there, Principal Davenport. How’ve you been?”
“Ah, please, call me James. I’m not your principal any longer.” It felt strange to acknowledge that he had a first name and a life outside of his job. He’d always been a principal to me, and really, I couldn’t prove he ever left school. I’d never seen Principal Davenport and the world outside my high school in the same place at the same time.
“I’d like to cut right to the chase. The success stories that come out of Cassidy Wheeler High School are few and far between. All the attacks that have happened over the past year have had students and faculty on edge. I was hoping that you would come to speak in front of the school.”
An uncomfortable heat ran up my neck. All things considered, speaking in front of the crowd on Clamor hadn’t been too bad since no one could understand what I was saying. I was essentially talking to a brick wall with a bunch of eyes. Speaking in front of apathetic teenagers who could understand the words coming out of my mouth was always going to be infinitely worse than speaking in front of a technologically superior alien race. Wasn’t that just the weirdest thought I had about the whole thing?
“What do you say?” I could hear the eagerness and desperation through the low quality of our phone call.
“Uh, why me? You mentioned not having a lot of success stories. I’ll give you that one, no offense. It wasn’t like I was ever a remarkable student. I wasn’t popular either. No sports and no extracurricular activities to speak of, unless you count feeling suffocated by the crowds in the tight hallways as volunteer work. In fact, I might have been the least interesting guy you ever had at that school.”
“Not remarkable? Mr. Harper, you wounded that menace and helped save a major city. I’d say that makes you quite remarkable.” My face went as hot as I was during that fateful moment in Glendale. “It won’t be much at all. You just talk about how you went here, how it made you a better man, and how proud you are to bridge the gap between us normal people and you heroes.”
“I’m not a hero. Never have been. You know, people who pick up garbage, those are the real heroes.” He wasn’t biting on my joke—not that it was, garbagemen were warriors out there—so I just sighed. “Sure, I’ll come talk. I have one condition, though. I want to bring my family.”
“I’m not sure if-”
“If I’m a success story, then it’s only because of the people that helped me get there. I’d like my family to be there. I’m sorry, but this is not something I’m willing to negotiate on.” If we’d been talking in the same room, I would have crossed my arms and puffed out my chest.
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“I understand. How many people do you plan on bringing?” At least he didn’t sound annoyed. I could live with him not being overly chipper about it.
For a moment, I thought about bringing almost everyone along. I’d already started to view Lizzy and Lori as sisters, so it felt right to include them. With a heavier heart than I had before Principal Davenport called, I decided it just wasn’t practical enough. “Myself, my sister, my fiancée, and our adopted-ish daughter. Sort of our daughter.”
“Do I want to ask?” There was the faintest hint of a smile on the other end.
“Please, feel free to ask about the first three!” I knew he wasn’t going to press for information and that he just needed a headcount. “Have to warn you though, long stories. Especially the fiancée part.”
“We’d be happy to accommodate. Congratulations on finding your soulmate so young, I wish you both the best.” I heard him scribble something down and mumble something about having a bunch of pizzas ordered for the students. At least when the school held big assemblies, they ordered some damn good pizza to make the students a little more enthused about everything. “Does two weeks work for you? September thirtieth?”
I glanced at Lizzy who, being close enough to hear Principal Davenport, silently nodded. “Should be fine, but if something comes up, I’ll let you know. Can I reach you at this number?”
“Of course! Thank you again for doing this. I think the students will enjoy seeing you again.” He sounded like he genuinely believed it. I wasn’t going to be the one to tell him that the students didn’t care about me in the slightest.
We said some quick goodbyes and I ended the call, leaning as far back as I could go. “Do you think I should write a speech or just wing it?”
“Write one, is that a serious question? Do you know how bad it would be to not have something of a speech prepared before giving one?” Lizzy clicked her tongue. “I wish I could go. Rebecca and I could have fake fights for your hand in marriage. We both act super catty and bitchy toward each other, take turns to try and pull you aside, and try to slip our arms around yours. I think it’d be fun. A little hair-pulling brawl on your high school campus would go over great. We’d probably go viral.”
“I think that balance beam incident was some preemptive karma for your terrible idea.”
“Do you know how many boys would kill to have two hot women fight over them publicly? I don’t think you realize how lucky you are.” Feeling good enough to stand, she held out a hand and pulled me to my feet. With our size difference, it was mostly a symbolic gesture. “But, as much of a doofus as you are, I appreciate your help on this. I was thinking the sooner the better. Can you be ready in a couple of days?”
I shrugged. “I don’t see why not. I’ll just have to run it by Becks first.”
“Sounds good. I’ll text you when I have an update, yeah?”
“That’ll work. Happy to help and all, but I think I’m going to join everyone from this century and turn my phone on silent going forward.”
Leaving her to finish her exercise, crossing my fingers she had better results, the walk back home felt strange and longer than it should have. Searching for dangerous villains in Vegas, dealing with the president who might have thought I was less than human, and being the center of a high school assembly. I had no idea which of the three scared me the most. They all brought their own unique feelings of fear and anxiety, and of course, none of them could have been spaced out a little better to give me any time at all to breathe.
“Hey Shelly, I need your help scheduling all these things for me.” I opened the door to her office without knocking, staring down at my phone.
There was a yelp and the sound of papers scattering everywhere that forced me to look at the real world around me. Somewhere, deep in my head, a voice had been screaming that I might see something I couldn’t unsee if I looked up. But the yelp spooked me enough that my neck snapped up. Thankfully, she wasn’t in any kind of various state of undress alone or with Quinn, She had a hand over her chest and was breathing heavily like she just hauled a couch up the stairs.
“You scared the piss out of me, dude.” She shook her head and took in a deep breath. “Sorry, I’m just not used to people barging in on me in the office here. Rebecca and Megan didn’t do that much when you were gone.”
“Sorry, just have a few things on my mind. I wasn’t thinking about it when I walked in without knocking. Here, let me help pick these up for you.” I grabbed a few from the ground and Shelly sucked in a breath between her teeth.
“Give those to me,” she demanded, sticking her hand out at me.
“Whoa, why? What are these?” She started to come around the desk, a little too slow to stop me before I started reading them. “Snowberry Contingency: Lorianna Davis. Prone to emotional outbursts; may be easy to exploit. Can only manipulate the emotions of one person at a time, so multiple people can be used against her. If possible, a tranquilizer or sedative may prove effective in numbing her capacity to feel and limit her powers.”
“Give those to me now!” She screamed. Shelly yanked the papers from my hand and hurriedly stuffed them in a leather bag that she slung over her shoulder. “When I tell you I need something, I need you to not just read it. I need you to fucking hand it to me, okay?”
“What the hell was that? Why do you have a paper that says tranquilizing my friend might be useful?” She tried to make her way to the door. I hesitated for only a moment, not wanting to use my size against her as an advantage, but I had to. I blocked the door with my body. She glared at me, not used to me ever defying her words or body language.
“You were not supposed to see that.” She took a deep breath to compose herself. She saw I wasn’t going to move and we both knew she didn’t have a way to make me move. “Fine. The Snowberry Contingency is something I came up with for each and every person and their Anomaly here. It lists their mental, physical, and extraordinary strengths and weaknesses as best as I know them, along with some of the ways I think they can be neutralized.”
“Neutralized?” I clenched my jaw. “Why do you think you need to neutralize a girl who’s barely five-two and weighs a hundred pounds soaking wet?”
“I don’t think I need to, Ethan.” She pointed a finger to her temple. “I have these in case we have to neutralize anyone.”
“‘We’? There’s more than one of you who thinks this way?”
Shelly must have realized she wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, so she sat down in her large chair and sorted some things on her desk. She was acting like my question wasn’t worth answering before her pens were organized, apparently. That pissed me off.
“Lori and Lizzy know, and before you say anything, they agreed to this.” When I opened my mouth to say how insane it was, she held up a hand to demand silence. “Listen to me. In the time you were gone, with Abigail stepping down, we had a lot of turncoats. The appeal of McLeod and Dii Consentes is already hard for a lot of weak-willed people with Anomalies to fight. When they saw a woman with no powers and no history here was stepping in for their stalwart and rocksteady Mrs. Carmichael, there were plenty who decided to jump ship.”
“And that makes you think-”
“Yes, it does! When I watched people who could possibly sink cities by thinking about it go to the protection of a man who has actually reduced a city to ash, yes, I do think that this was necessary. I know you’ve only been home for a cup of coffee, but there’s more a lot outside these walls than just your fiancée and your adopted daughter.” Shelly slammed her hand on her desk, making me flinch. The sight of that only softened her expression slightly.
“Yeah, I think I know that as much as anyone, considering I had to help fight in an alien war to get home!” I pointed to the scarred patches on my arms after I’d regained some of my nerve. “I’ve felt the world—worlds—outside of this house more than most people.”
She winced and her eyes darted down for a moment. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t how I wanted to say that.”
“It doesn’t matter how you wanted to say it! You have files on how to stop people just because they were born with something you’re afraid of because you can’t control us.” I slammed my hands down on her desk. She calmly closed her eyes, reacting to it much better than I had. “You want to talk about the world outside? If it wasn’t for these powers that I was born with and didn’t want, you’d still be working your loser, dead-end job for a small-town nobody lawyer. The only reason you’re here where you met your boyfriend and can have this cushy office job is because of me and these powers you want to neutralize so bad. Without these powers, we’d still be in a shitty little apartment where we could barely afford a secondhand television from over a decade ago! And yet, even with all of that, I’m still the one who has to risk his life to try and stop a man who cut down a city with a sword as hot as the sun.”
I expected her to say something, but when I searched her face, I only found pursed lips and wet eyes. Her entire body was tense, coiled like a snake. It felt like she wanted every excuse to just pull back and punch me in the face, even if it did more harm to her than it did to me. No one in our family ever hit each other, not on purpose. Even through my anger, I could see the restraint that prevented her from slapping me silly.
Instead, she let out a long breath. “I’m sorry that the life I gave you wasn’t the best. I know it wasn’t, but I did everything I could to provide as much as I could for you. I know the man who came out of that is better than the one standing in here right now. You don’t have to like what I’ve done here. I don’t expect you to. I’m still very proud of everything I did to get us here, even if I had to make tough choices to get us there. Oh, sorry, I’m proud of everything you did to get us here.”
She pulled two papers out of her bag and slammed them down in front of me. Without another word, she stormed out of her room, leaving only the sound of a faint sniffle in the air and a miserable pit in my stomach. With shaky hands, I grabbed the first paper and started to read.
Snowberry Contingency: Michelle Harper. Has a passively stoic appearance to others, but when opened up, is quite trusting of those around her. Makes personal attacks easier to execute for someone with patience who can gain her trust. Her brother, Ethan Harper, and his closest friends are so valuable to her, that she would be willing to risk the safety of Luna to keep them safe. As a human without an Anomaly, diminutive stature, and lack of any combat training, her strongest physical resistance is with a handgun or other firearm, making her an easy target for almost anyone with an Anomaly.
I ignored the knot in my throat while I set her paper down. The other one was mostly blank and had a bright sticky note on the front that had a frowning face on it.
Snowberry Contingency: Ethan Harper. I can’t bring myself to make this one.