V Is for Villain

by Peter Moore

“Testi-whozit?”

  “Testicular atrophy. It’s when your nads shrink up from taking steroids. In other words, small nut leads to the name Peanut.”

  “Who told them my nuts shrank?”

  “I don’t know. Either they just guessed or maybe Javier knows somehow.”

  Peanut looked confused. “He told me it was because of the peanut butter I ate. Wait, so Boots and Layla don’t know about this, do they?”

  “Of course they do.”

  Peanut’s cheeks turned red from embarrassment. Then they turned dark, along with the rest of his face. “Javier said it was because…and he told the girls this crap about me having…peanuts?” His jaw set and he started to move past me.

  Stop. He did.

  Now I’m hungry. “I’m hungry,” Peanut said.

  “So why don’t you grab something to eat.”

  He nodded and opened the refrigerator. While he was looking inside, I went into his mind and found his memory of our conversation, right out on the surface. If thoughts had colors, that memory would have been dark red.

  I wiped it clean, easy as blotting a drop of water with a bath towel.63

  He stood up from looking in the refrigerator, blinked a few times, and said, “I forgot what I was looking for.”

  I shrugged. “Hey, I meant to ask you: why do they call you ‘Peanut,’ anyway?”

  “What?”

  “Why ‘Peanut’ of all things?”

  He looked at me, then smiled. “Are you kidding me?”

  “What?”

  “I thought you knew. It’s a good story. See, when I started taking Myomeg, I was hungry all the time, and whenever I had something to eat, I always had peanut butter with it.”

  I listened to him repeat the story, as if our earlier conversation had never happened.

  Tell the Truth

  Like I said: Peanut was easy. If I wanted my skills to be really useful, I had to be sure I could make them work on more challenging subjects.

  “I’d like to try something,” I said to Layla. It was just the two of us, parked in Javier’s car with the engine running a few blocks from my house. “Something we haven’t done before.”

  “Excuse me?” she said with an arched eyebrow.

  “A telepathy skill.”

  “What is it?”

  “Let me try it, and then I’ll tell you.”

  She squinted at me sideways. “Hm. Sounds a little suspicious.”

  “Nothing to worry about. I promise.” I reached over and turned off the ignition.

  “Okay,” she said really slowly. “I’ll trust you.” Go ahead.

  It’s about us.

  Pause. What about us?

  I was nervous. If this didn’t work out the way I planned, the way I hoped, it could cause a lot of tension between us.

  What’s wrong? she thought to me.

  Well, it’s like this, Layla. I think I’m kind of falling in love with you.

  The conscious part of her mind went blank for a few seconds, locking up, while various thoughts competed for dominance. Total mental confusion.

  I sent a CCP—clandestine command projection—to her. Let your guard down, I made her think. Tell him the truth.

  I thought you were. Falling for me, she thought.

  How do you feel about it? About me?

  I don’t know.

  Ugh. Not the answer I hoped to get. You don’t know? You don’t know if you’re in love with me? At all?

  Maybe. I think so. Oh, I don’t know. I’m confused.

  How? What are you confused about?

  I mean, I think I have feelings for you. I just don’t know if I’m totally in love with you.

  Okay, forget totally. How about a little?

  I don’t know if it’s a matter of degree. You’re either in love or you’re not.

  So which is it, then?

  Brad?

  I needed to use all my will and concentration not to dwell on what she was thinking, that she didn’t love me back. I had to renew the CCP to keep her telling me the truth.

  How can you not know how you feel?

  Because I’m not used to the feeling. You may not believe it, but I haven’t really had too many relationships. Nothing serious, anyway. Is it love I feel? Maybe. I just don’t know. Maybe it’s not. I’m confused.

  It should be simple. What do you feel?

  I feel…like this is going to make things really awkward and weird between us now.

  That won’t happen.

  How do you know?

  Because. I just do.

  The conversation was there in her mind, right in front of me. I wiped it clean and left no trace.

  Layla’s eyes looked a little fogged, dazed. I withdrew from her mind. She blinked fast three times. Her eyes were bright and alert. “So? Go ahead?”

  “Go ahead what?” I asked.

  “Do that telepathy thing you wanted to try.”

  “No, it’s okay. Never mind.”

  “What was it?”

  I shook my head. “I forget.” I reached to the keys and turned the engine back on. I didn’t want her to see my face.

  Like Minds

  Imay be evil, but I’m not a total bastard. I did feel guilty about getting Layla to tell me her feelings, erasing the conversation, and keeping the whole thing secret from her. That said, though, mind-sweeping it away would prevent any conscious awkwardness that would result from remembering everything that had passed between us.

  Awake in bed, I admitted it to myself: I loved her. Being in each other’s minds as much as we had been—well, that was an intimacy I’d never, ever had with anyone else. I was pretty sure it was the same for her. So why wasn’t she in love with me?

  She definitely liked my personality. A lot. I was sure of it. She thought I was funny. And we believed in the same stuff, as far as right and wrong, heroes and power, and all that. We liked spending time together.

  What didn’t I have? What was I lacking?

  It was obvious. Of course. I didn’t have cool powers. Sure, she liked my telepathy and thought I was a great guy. But apparently that wasn’t enough. I knew what she wanted. I mean, what girl didn’t want a guy who had shoulders three feet wide, who could crush a brick in his hand, who could fly?

  I figured that if I had Blake’s powers and my personality, she’d fall for me totally and without question.

  Sure, I basically couldn’t stand his personality, but why did Blake get all the great genes for looks and powers?

  How the hell did that happen?

  I believed there was an explanation, and I was confident that I could find it by comparing my DNA with Blake’s. I had tried to get Mom to answer my questions, but the conversations always got derailed. They ended up with her feeling bad for me and me feeling frustrated.

  I had Layla ask Boots if she could help. And now it was looking a lot like she couldn’t.

  “I’m sorry. I tried everything,” Boots said. “I can’t get in there.” She sat back on her heels and stretched her neck. I was between her and Layla, the three of us gathered around Mom’s computer.

  We had been there for over two hours, since three o’clock. It wasn’t often—or ever, actually—that I had seen Boots so frustrated by a computer.

  “You said, ‘There’s not a computer system made by man or machine that I can’t bust into,’ and now you’re telling me you can’t get into this?” I said.

  “I said that there wasn’t a system I’d ever heard of that I couldn’t crack. I’ve never come up against the kind of security that GenLab has.” She waved her hands in a helpless gesture in front of the machine. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Is this the kind of thing you could resear
ch or something?” I asked.

  “My guess is that whoever set this megafirewall up has a whole bunch of alarms that’ll be triggered by any kind of search into its security.”

  “And you don’t know how to avoid that,” I said.

  “I’m not gonna take a chance. If GenLab security catches us, it’s a big, big deal. Sorry, but it’s too dangerous.”

  “No, I understand. You tried. Thanks.”

  “Now it’s gonna bother me. I’ll keep thinking, but no promises.” Boots pulled out the hijack cable that connected her computer to Mom’s. She started packing up her equipment.

  I looked over at Layla. If anyone could do it, it would have been her, Layla thought.

  I know. I think we’ll have to approach this another way.

  I’m not approaching anything anymore until you tell me what you’re trying to find.

  I didn’t respond.

  Don’t ignore. I know you read me.

  “We should get out of here before we leave serious heat signatures for the thermo-cameras to record,” I said.

  “I’m blocking the therm-cams, but anyways, I’m done,” Boots said. She snapped her computer case shut.

  “What’s going on here?”

  I swear my heart skipped a beat when I heard Mom’s voice. “Um…” I said.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, her voice getting louder.

  “Um…” I repeated. I had nothing. Nothing that would sound remotely believable. “You’re home early,” I said. Brilliant.

  “Yes, I am, and this is not what I expected to find. You know that you and your friends are not allowed in my study when I’m not here.” She looked over at the computer. It was still on. “What are you doing with my computer? Have you been trying to use my work—”

  “Mom, you look really tired.”

  “What? Don’t you worry about how tired I am. I want to know right now—”

  You’re really tired. You can’t stay awake for another second.

  I caught her under the arms before her knees touched the carpet. I can’t say how I did it, but I had slowed her thoughts down and made her fall asleep. I set her down in a chair. Her head lolled to the side.

  “I have an idea….” I said.

  Tapping In

  You think you can do it?” I asked.

  Boots shrugged. “Well, yeah. She’ll do all the tough stuff. I just have to record everything she does. That’s easy.”

  “And then you could duplicate it on your computer?”

  “Any computer. If she does the heavy lifting, I can do the rest, no problem.”

  “Are you going to tell me exactly what this is about or what?” Layla said.

  “Let’s just get it done and then I’ll explain.”

  Mom began to stir. I sat on the table next to the chair and started to examine her mind patterns while Boots connected her equipment to her computer.

  “Are you set?” I asked Boots.

  “Give me, like, one more minute,” she said. She was hooking up all kinds of cables between the three little mano-computers she had brought with her and Mom’s computer on the desk.

  I’m pissed at you, Layla thought to me.

  I know. I’m sorry. I promise I’ll explain, but we have to work fast now. “How are we doing over there?” I asked Boots.

  “I’m basically going to record every single keystroke, password, link—anything, really, that goes into and out of her computer. Now let me just finish…this…part…and…oh…kay. Yup. Whenever you’re ready.”

  I managed to pull Mom halfway out of her sleep. She sounded groggy when she asked, “What’s going on?” Still looking barely awake, she scanned the room with her half-closed eyes. “Who are these young ladies?” she slurred.

  “They’re friends, but never mind about them. I need you to do something for me. It’s important.”

  “All right, what?”

  “Log in to your GenLab account and pull up Blake’s gene map and then my gene map.”

  “Honey,” she said, looking lazily at the girls, “I can’t just pull that information up. It’s a security issue.”

  You have to pull up that information right away, I sent her way. Do it now.

  She got up from the couch and went to her chair.

  I stood a few feet behind her as she started logging in. I looked over to Boots, but she was concentrating on her screens. Layla looked up from the displays and nodded to me. She’s getting it, she thought to me.

  Mom leaned in close to the computer and opened her right eye wide for the retinal scan. Boots would now have a digital recording of Mom’s retina, which she could use or manipulate, if necessary.

  While Mom typed into her computer, Boots kept getting Aha! looks on her face, obviously when she saw how to get past the firewalls that had stopped her before.

  I looked over Mom’s shoulder as she navigated through screens. There was a word that kept appearing, many more times than I would have expected: Phaeton. It showed up in various phrases: Phaeton Research; Phaeton DNA Examination; Phaeton Reversion, and Phaeton Disposition, among others. Why would GenLab have so much interest in Phaetons? It was well known that GenLab was a contractor for the U.S. government. Maybe the DOD and BOMA64 had the GenLab geneticists analyze information about how Phaeton mutations went wrong.

  The thing that got to me, though, was that with all the information GenLab must have gathered, they couldn’t even try to help the Phaetons instead of hunt them down? Maybe reverse the faulty mutations? Hell, no. The government and corporations weren’t about to do anything to help anyone if it didn’t yield any profit for the big boys.

  But I knew it wasn’t the best time to be thinking about social injustice. We were breaking into the GenLab database, and this might be our last chance to get the info that would allow us access on our own.

  “So, now, what did you want to see?” Mom asked, her voice just a bit dreamy.

  “DNA profiles with gene ID. Blake’s and mine. How do you do a search?”

  “Just like this.”

  I watched carefully as she typed some more and navigated through a few screens before reaching Blake’s DNA profile.

  “You got all that?” I asked Boots. She nodded.

  On the screen was a 3-D model of DNA that could be rotated, magnified, exploded.

  “I need to know how to display the gene color codes,” I said. She showed me the commands. Blake’s DNA lit up with all his powered genes.

  “Okay, now let’s bring up mine.”

  And as if on cue, we all looked up when we heard the front door open and Blake bellow, “Hello? Anybody home?” followed by the sound of the door closing.

  “We have to stop right now,” I said. I turned to Boots and Layla. “You got it all? You know how to get in again?”

  “I got it,” Boots said.

  “You sure?”

  “I got it.”

  “Okay. Then gather up your gear, fast.” I turned to Mom. Log out and make sure not to leave a trail or set off any alarms in the system. When GenLab asks you tomorrow what you were looking up, you can tell them you’re doing research for a journal article you’re writing.

  Blake kept calling out to see if anyone was home. I swiveled Mom’s chair away from the computer. I crouched so my eyes were level with hers. This was going to be the key part, and I had to make sure I didn’t screw it up.

  I looked in her mind and found the center of her thoughts about our little group research project. I tried to make that central memory disappear, but I could feel that there were still traces of it, maybe because Mom had a very complicated thought pattern. It was taking a while to scrub every last bit of the memory from her mind.

  “Mom? Anyone? I know somebody’s home,” Blake called.


  “Go on out,” I said to Layla and Boots. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. I just have to finish up here. Go on.”

  While they left the room, I did one more scrub of Mom’s memory of the last hour or so. As far as I could tell, it was gone except for the faintest trace, which probably would feel to her less real or detailed than a dream.

  I put her back to sleep again and then carried her over to the couch across the room. I laid her back, put one of the journals on her stomach, and slipped her thumb in it, so when she woke up, it would seem like she’d stopped reading just for a minute to close her eyes and ended up drifting off.

  That was the best I could do.

  Critical

  On my way out of the study, I stopped at the bathroom in the back hall. I flushed the toilet, ran water in the sink for a few seconds, then opened the door a little louder than necessary.

  “…know him from school? You’re in the A-program, right?” Blake was saying when I got to the living room.

  “Yeah, we have some of the same classes,” Layla said.

  “Oh, hey. Didn’t know you were home,” I said.

  “Ah, here he is,” Blake said. “I was just meeting your little friends. Now, you, Layla? You’re not related to Kitty Keating, a.k.a. Felinity?”

  “She’s my sister.”

  “Ah. I’ve worked with Felinity a bunch of times. She’s great. A super member of the Power Division. So, how does she feel about you being in the A-program instead of the Academy?”

  Layla looked at me. Wow, she thought. He doesn’t even pretend to be subtle. Turning back to Blake, she said, “I don’t know how she feels. We don’t talk much.”

  “Well, that’s a shame. I’m guessing you’re pretty much in the same ship,”65 he said to Boots. “I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter. See, you may be wondering why I think it’s my business what your relationship with your families is. And you’d be right to wonder. It’s really not my business. What is my business, though, is what goes on in my own family. And like it or not, Brad is in my family.66 So I’ll tell you, I’m not happy about him being in that program. And like I told him, I’m also not happy about him hanging around the likes of you. So if you don’t mind, it would be super if you would leave now and, no offense or anything, but not come back again.”