Not Your Sidekick

by C. B. Lee

  The forest is foreboding, and then there are reinforcements, and all is lost except when a new warrior joins the fray, a stunning beauty with red curls and—

  “You. Number twenty-four,” says a curt voice, and Jess is startled right out of the story.

  Her sandwiches and tea are set on her table, and the worker mutters “Con nhỏ này,” before she goes back to the counter where responsible customers pick up their orders from the correct place.

  Jess bites her lip. She does know that phrase; she’s heard it enough. That girl. It’s not really derogatory, but the only times she’s heard it was when her parents were talking to each other in annoyed, hushed whispers. They didn’t use her name, but she knew they were talking about her anyway.

  She glances at the other people in the restaurant. Are they looking down on her, too? Looking down on her for not being fluent, not following procedure, not living up to her heritage, any of it. Jess often feels as if she's not Chinese enough in certain situations and not Vietnamese enough in others. It’s awkward when you're not quite one but not quite the other.

  Jess sighs. She takes one sandwich out to eat now and stuffs the other in her backpack. She unwraps the sandwich and takes a bite. The juxtaposition of the crisp baguette and the thin slices of chả lụa chay is perfect with the pickled vegetables and jalapeños. There are few soy proteins that Jess genuinely enjoys, and the way the imitation chả lụa is seasoned, Jess really can’t tell it from the meat version. The Thai tea is sweet and refreshing, and she enjoys her meal for a bit before going back to writing.

  Jess only looks up when she has to stop and un-smudge some of the ink on her left palm and hears a familiar voice.

  “Oh gosh, why did you pick this place? It’s so fobby! My mom eats here!”

  Elizabeth Phang and what looks like the rest of the AHHS volleyball team come into the shop, and no, no, please no—

  A flash of reddish-gold hair.

  Yup, it’s the entire volleyball team, which means Abby Jones, captain of said team, is also with this group, and they’re all going to see Jess sitting in the corner eating her sandwich with crumbs all over her face like an absolute nerd. Jess shrinks into herself and pulls her hood over her head.

  Why are they here? Didn’t Elizabeth declare this place incredibly uncool ever since Jess tried to bring up the idea of selling the Vietnamese sandwiches as the AHHS Honor Society fundraiser at the fall harvest festival? (Elizabeth’s idea to sell cheesecake from the Pie Factory downtown was voted into the plan.)

  Denise Ho, who Jess doesn’t quite mind so much, walks in after Elizabeth and laughs at her comment. “Well, yeah, but that’s the point! Team dinner means we try something new! And you know you wanna give them something authentic and awesome.”

  Elizabeth grumbles, and Jess tries to finish her bite. Jess would leave, but it’s raining a lot harder now, and even though the bus stop is right outside, the next one won’t be here for another forty minutes.

  Jess just hopes that her sweatshirt is inconspicuous enough. She doesn’t care if Elizabeth or Denise see her; she’s used to teasing from them.

  The three of them actually used to be pretty good friends. The Asian community in Andover is close-knit, and their parents had sent them all to the same Chinese school. Although Jess could speak Cantonese well enough, she’d struggled with Mandarin and Vietnamese, especially the written forms. As there wasn’t a Vietnamese language school in Andover, her parents had settled on sending her off to Sacred Heart Chinese Language Academy every Saturday.

  The school, with students of all ages, from grade school kids still learning their buh-pu-muh-fuhs to older students taking more advanced classes, was not without its cliques.

  Jess, Elizabeth, and Denise were the only three girls in her grade level. The other students, mostly children of more-recent immigrants, had formed close friendships already at their Chinese language pre-school. Jess felt an immediate bond with Elizabeth and Denise. The trio goofed off during classes. After all, they weren’t being graded; they went every Saturday to stay out of their parents’ hair and learn a bit about the language and the culture.

  Jess only went to the language school until seventh grade. She struggled at remembering the hundreds of different characters. It wasn’t as if her parents knew the written forms either, and as long as she could talk to them, she felt okay. She’d only kept going as long as she did because she liked hanging out with Elizabeth and Denise. Elizabeth liked making fun of the other students’ accents in English, at their fashion choices, at how they were clearly “fresh off the boat.” And that criticism didn’t stop with the other students, or fobs, as Elizabeth was quick to call them, but Elizabeth was critical of Jess’ everything, from her hair to the clothes she was wearing.

  Jess was uncomfortable with that, and then one time her mom had been picking her up from the Chinese school with a younger Brendan in the back seat. Brendan was quite precocious but he didn’t care much for fashion; he was wearing three different hats from the colleges that were courting him. Elizabeth was waiting with Jess in the parking lot, and as soon as she spotted Brendan, she started laughing her ass off.

  “Look at that kid. Gosh, he looks like such a nerd. What’s up with all those hats?”

  “He is a nerd,” Jess said hotly, “But he’s also my little brother. And he’s amazingly smart and applying to colleges already.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know. Sorry.” Elizabeth’s tone signified that she wasn’t really sorry that she’d insulted Jess’ little brother, and she went on to criticize someone else.

  Jess didn’t want to go back to the school after that, and then middle school had started, and it seemed Elizabeth and, by default, Denise hadn’t wanted to spend time with her anyway. She spent a few lonely lunches by herself, but then she met Bells and Emma and never missed Elizabeth and Denise. Those two went on to join the volleyball team and tried to make the best of their high school career, and Jess, living in Claudia’s shadow, gave up participating in anything.

  The varsity volleyball team is rowdy, still in their uniforms, and, yup, there’s Mrs. Delgado bringing up the rear. They must have just won a game and gone out to celebrate.

  Jess chances a peek and sighs.

  Abby is wearing her hair in a high ponytail, and a few errant curls are escaping from it, gently wafting on the nape of her neck. She smiles at one of her teammates and nods at what the other girl is saying, and then gets distracted by the menu on the wall. While the other girls are wrapped up in conversation, Abby looks around the restaurant, and her eyes light up when she sees the colorful stacked display of pastries and the Vietnamese desserts. She scans the room, and then locks gazes with Jess.

  Jess freezes. She’s not invisible, but she should just be a faceless maroon lump in a school sweater. It’s the sweater; Abby is smiling—smiling!—at her because she recognized the dancing horse, the Mustang’s mascot on the sweater, and it’s because Abby is nice and school spirit or solidarity—

  Oh good, she’s not looking anymore.

  It’s not as if she would have recognized Jess anyway.

  Jess hastily wraps the rest of her sandwich, stuffs it in her bag, takes another slurp of tea, and dashes out to wait for the bus in the rain.

  Ch.3...

  The next day, Jess ignores the entrees for the school lunch and gets a plate full of tater tots. Emma eyes Jess’ lunch and rolls her eyes, and then gives Jess a fresh apple from her bag lunch. Bells gives her half of his peanut butter jelly sandwich from home, too.

  It’s not that the food is completely inedible at school—but the government isn’t spending tons of money on the public high school lunch program. There are a lot of important things, like, running the country and making sure that there’s going to be enough food and power for everyone. And stuff like defense isn’t cheap either; having a strong military is important in case something like the Disasters ever
happens again.

  Idly scrolling through her messages on her DED display, Jess munches on the crispy potato bites. There are a few funny holos from Bells of cats wearing cute sweaters that she saw already and a whole bunch of notifications from the Captain Orion Fan Club. She’s set up for an alert for anything new about her hero, but usually what she gets is either something she’s already seen or the group discussing stuff.

  Jess deletes one message after another, and then she blinks, startled. “Hey, I got an interview!”

  Bells looks up from his sketchpad. “For what?”

  “This paid internship I applied for at Monroe Industries!”

  “Whoa, really? I didn’t even know they took high school interns. Is it like, super-competitive? Did you have to write like, five essays?” Emma asks. “Are you going to be working with the robots?”

  A MonRobot flies by and picks up some trash. The school’s able to afford some of last year’s models. This one is sleek and efficient, chirping a greeting at the three of them as it passes by.

  Jess laughs. “No, I applied for this office position that was pretty vague, but I don’t think they’ll let me anywhere near the technical stuff. Probably just boring work, like filing or getting coffee, but a job’s a job, and I bet any college will look at Monroe Industries and be impressed, right? That’s if I get it, though.”

  “I bet you will,” Bells says.

  “Thanks.”

  Jess types a response, fingers flying through the projected mini-keyboard, to let them know when she’s available after school this week for an interview. By the end of lunch, she has an official message from M that says they want to fill the position as soon as possible and suggesting that, if she can’t come into the office today, they can do a video interview.

  Jess high-fives Emma and Bells and confirms for five o’clock.

  Jess gets home from school just as her mother returns from picking up Brendan from the college campus downtown.

  “Dad home today?” Jess asks. “I wanna use his office for a backdrop. I have a job interview via holo, and I need it to look really professional.”

  “Yeah, he’s out doing—” Mom casts a furtive look to see if any neighbors are listening in. “—the work, you know.”

  “Right,” Jess says as she goes inside. “I’m sure helping old ladies cross the street is a great purpose. Maybe one day the Mischiefs will show up again. I hope they do. Dad has been so weird about finding hero stuff to do.”

  They’re lucky they live in Andover, where the biggest thing to worry about is Master Mischief stealing all the oranges again or Mistress Mischief turning all the street signs upside down. The Mischiefs aren’t A-class villains; they have C-class powers, just like her parents. They’ve never harmed anyone, not like Dynamite, the cruel and heinous villain in New Bright City. Dynamite was responsible for that awful explosion in that shopping center. If Captain Orion hadn’t been there, the bomb could have destroyed half the region.

  But without the Mischiefs to stir up trouble, there isn’t much for a superhero to do: no switcheroos at the art museum, no thefts from local factories, no industrial supplies gone missing, not even strange robots playing pranks on people.

  The Mischiefs are just gone, without warning, or notice, and that’s strange for a couple known for their loud and dramatic stunts. Since they’ve disappeared, Smasher and Shockwave have no hero work to do, and Li Hua and Victor Tran have had to adapt.

  Jess’ dad has been acting really weird. He goes out of his way to do good deeds, until the mayor asked him to stop helping people cross the street. Jess’ mom, on the other hand, really happy about having extra time to work on her novel, has adapted very well to the lack of hero work. She’s even put in actual hours at her real estate “job.”

  It’s not Jess’ problem. But she does wish Dad would listen to Mom about maybe doing more at his “job,” or picking up a hobby.

  Jess, heart hammering, bounds up the stairs, two at a time. She drops her backpack and rushes back downstairs to the study. With a desk on one wall and a whole shelf of trophies, it’s a trophy room as much as an office, and Jess loves it, loves her parents’ personalities reflected on the walls and the knickknacks on the shelves, how it’s a mix of her mother’s love of bright colors and her father’s fastidious organization. She chuckles at all the static projections from the Gazette, holos of her parents as Smasher and Shockwave saving the day, and repositions the one of her mother lifting a car. That accidentally activates the news-holo clip. Jess takes a moment to watch her mother set the car aside and retrieve an injured cat. Wilton Lysander steps into the frame; his image flickers on the edge of the projection. “And Smasher once again shows that big muscles also come with a big heart—”

  Jess switches it off, and the holo freezes again on her mother’s determined face and on her biceps bulging in the sleeves of her Smasher outfit. As Jess tidies the room she looks at all the memorabilia and the special desktop with the League logo on it.

  Jess taps a numeric pattern on a hidden keypad on the shelf. The bookshelf beeps and revolves, hiding all the superhero memorabilia. The new bookshelf displays holos of the Trans on various vacations. There’s one holo of a young Claudia carrying a five-year-old Jess on her back, and the projection is frozen on the two of them laughing. Jess flicks it; the image comes to life: Claudia racing forward, holding Jess by the knees. “C’mon, Jessie Bessie, let’s fly!” the miniature Claudia giggles.

  A bitter pang sweeps through Jess, but she takes a deep breath. No time for feeling sorry about her powers now; she’s got a job interview.

  Jess syncs her DED to the desktop projector and brings up the video application. She checks to make sure everything looks good: the background, the lighting, and fiddles with the camera to get the best angle and distance. Jess looks at the T-shirt she threw on this morning, a hilarious graphic tee that reads “Master Mischief Was Right About the Cheese.” The shirt references an incident a few years ago when the villain drove her parents round the bend by stealing all the cheese products from every single Andover grocery store. A video of her dad ranting about what an awful crime this was went viral, but it turned out the cheese had been infected by a strain of mold that was deadly. Mischief had done something kind of heroic.

  Jess shakes off the thoughts of the weirdness of hero-villain dynamics when the boopbeepboopbeep sound announces her video call from Monroe Industries.

  Jess waves at accept call on the display and stands in front of the bookshelf, smiling. “Hello?”

  The screen is dark.

  A distorted electronic voice speaks. “Applicant number eighty-seven, Jessica Tran. High school junior, no listed talents or extracurricular activities.”

  “Excuse me,” Jess says.

  She can make out a blurry distortion, like someone moving in front of the camera; possibly a silhouette of a person sitting, but she can’t be sure.

  The electronic voice warbles. What’s with this company? They’re supposed to be a leader in the technology and they can’t seem to get their holocam to work. Well, the noise does sound like laughter. Maybe it’s a good sign?

  “I like your shirt,” the figure says.

  “Um, thank you.” Jess pulls on her shirt. She should have changed, but she wasted too much time messing with the camera and the background. It seems to be okay, though, if the interviewer likes the slogan.

  “All right, I decided, I’m hiring you,” the figure says.

  “Wait, what?”

  “Yes, good.”

  The questions spill out of Jess’ mouth. “What’s your name? What division will I be working for? Will I get to see the robots? I should tell you, the job description was super-vague and that I am probably not at all qualified to do any technical stuff. I made something explode in chemistry last year.”

  There’s some electronic whizzing in the background, and Jess think
s she sees a spark or two as the person—robot? Person controlling a robot? An android with a new type of artificial intelligence? “You can call me M, for a start.”

  “Only if I get to be Bond,” Jess says with a snort, and then realizes she’s not supposed to know who Bond is. Referring to contraband vintage media is definitely not the way to look professional. Fortunately, the figure doesn’t respond or react, and Jess exhales in relief. “M it is,” she says quickly.

  “Regarding the other questions, the division you’ll be working for is going to require the utmost discretion. I will tell you more, but you need to sign a non-disclosure agreement first,” M says. “You may have heard that Monroe Industries has had some financial setbacks recently.”

  Jess knows some trade weirdness is going on in New Bright City, but mostly the news has been about Captain Orion’s recent battle with Dynamite. Her mom and dad couldn’t stop watching the newsholos for a week, keeping an eye on the ongoing conflict. It was the talk of the town. There was even a running commentary on Captain Orion’s outfit and hairstyle and how every day she’d come to the battle with a new look.

  “That why you’re hiring high school students?”

  “Maybe. But you are very qualified! You didn’t have any typos in your resume,” M says. “And you didn’t freak out with the…”

  There’s a blurry gesture that Jess takes to mean the Darth Vader thing they’ve got going on.

  She interrupts. “… totally weird interview setup? You know it’s odd, considering you’re a multi-billion credit industry.”

  “Yeah, well, it was at your convenience! So you didn’t have to come into the office. We’re downtown; it can be difficult for a high school student. We don’t discriminate based on whether or not you have reliable transportation,” M says. “Okay, well, if you want to think about it, or if you want to visit me at the office, I’ll answer any questions you want.” M gives a downtown address and Jess makes a show of dutifully writing it down.