Not Your Villain

by C. B. Lee

  Abby scoffs. “Please, I’d make fun of you whether you were terrible or fantastic.”

  They seem so happy together. Bells is not bitter. He’s not. He’s happy for his friends, really.

  “Bells, you’re not working Friday, right? You should come!”

  Bells can picture it already: Jess and Abby making eyes at each other, and Emma and Carlos ostensibly on their—what, sixth date, no, seventh. He can’t believe the guy’s lasted this long. Is this going to be a thing? Jess and Abby, Emma and Carlos…

  Just a few months ago, he was the youngest hero in the Heroes’ League of Heroes. Now, he’s a wanted “villain”… and a fifth wheel.

  Or, maybe not.

  “I can bring a date too, right?” Bells isn’t sure why he blurts it out, and regrets it immediately because now he has to bring a date, especially given the way Emma grins at him.

  “Of course! You didn’t tell me you were seeing anyone!” She all but squeals.

  “Uh, we just started dating,” Bells says. “Hey, I gotta go; see you guys later!”

  Christine answers the holocall with a bored, “What’s up?”

  She’s lounging on her bed in silk pajamas, eyeing Bells with carefully disguised disinterest. The wire crinoline of her superhero outfit is beside her on a mannequin.

  “Hey, are you busy Friday?” Bells asks.

  “Maybe,” she says. “Why?”

  “Do you like bowling?”

  “Does anyone?”

  Bells laughs. “Uh, a few of my friends and I are gonna go. Do you want to come with me?”

  Christine sits up. “Are you asking me on a date? I thought we figured out that wouldn’t work for us.”

  Bells rubs the back of his neck. “No, no, as a friend? Would you like to come?”

  “So it’s not a date?”

  Bells tries his best to explain. “Look, my friends all have dates, and I’m the only single one, please will you come…”

  Christine quirks one eyebrow.

  “Pretend to be my date?” Bells winces as he says it. It’s a lot to ask.

  Christine grins and winks at Bells. “Sounds like fun. Who are you trying to make jealous?”

  Bells groans. “Is it that obvious?”

  * * *

  Christine picks him up in a silver designer car, a model with its own solar panel instead of a hookup to use at charging stations. The sleek car looks out of place on his street. “You ready? We’re gonna be the cutest, most adoring couple.”

  Bells snorts. He’s just hoping for believable.

  “Come on. You trusted me with your secret identity—your real one. You don’t trust me to be able to act? Look, I even dressed up the way the kids do nowadays.” She gestures at her outfit: a trendy pink-and-green dress instead of her usual blouse-and-petticoat combo.

  “Aw, I like your style. You don’t have to change that.”

  “Good,” she says. “I was thinking of my character and her motives, but I didn’t have time to come up with a backstory for this glitzy, pop princess vibe.” Christine’s outfit shimmers and then changes to a cropped pink jacket over a dress with a full skirt.

  The car’s computer voice speaks up. “Destination?”

  “Andover Bowling Alley,” Christine says. From the console she grabs a bag of potato crisps. “Snack?”

  Bells munches on the savory chips and takes the offered soda from the car’s fridge. Riding in a car equipped with the latest of everything is fun. They chat about The Hay Hay’s new pop song and some of Christine’s new clothing designs and soon they arrive.

  Bells is nervous. He’s told Emma everything about anyone he’s dated from his first kiss. What if he and Christine don’t pull this off?

  “Hmm.” Christine eyes the dilapidated building. The flickering holosign projecting the word BOWL is broken; the lights simply proclaim B O.

  “Yeah, it isn’t much. We’re not Vegas, I know,” Bells adds, laughing.

  “Psh, it looks great.” Christine pushes open the doors and they walk in.

  The bowling alley is empty. Christine swipes her DED at the counter, then turns the control pad over to him. Bells enters his shoe size, and then Christine, smirking, takes it away.

  “What?”

  “You’ll see,” she says, finishing signing in with a flourish.

  The dispenser beeps. Bells takes out two pairs of shoes, hands hers to Christine and tugs his on while he watches a lane flicker to life. The holopins glow and almost look real. Real pins or not, Bells is terrible at bowling.

  He presses the button on the ball dispenser, and a bright red ball clunks into place. Bells tests its weight and then rolls it down the lane. The ball promptly rolls into the gutter.

  “See what I mean? I’m terrible. Hey, what—!”

  Bells glances at the display overhead. CHAMELEON: 0. CRINOLINE: 0.

  “Come on, it’s funny,” Christine says.

  He grabs the control pad and ends the game. The names disappear. “You know Chameleon is wanted, right? I can’t afford to be caught.”

  Christine laughs. “You know people use fake names all the time, right? Everybody uses nicknames and joke names and superheroes’ names on these things. It doesn’t matter.”

  Bells becomes acutely aware of the front door, as though the Authorities are going to burst in at any second and arrest him. Nothing happens.

  “Okay, you’re probably right.”

  “Watch this.” Christine twirls on the floor and picks up her holoball. She scrunches her face, leans back, and rolls the ball.

  It streaks down the lane and hits the pins.

  “Strike!” Christine says and high fives Bells.

  Bells laughs. “You are good.”

  “Hi!”

  He turns around at the sound of Emma’s voice. She’s standing with Jess and Abby, regarding Christine. Emma looks great. Her curls are artfully piled atop her head, and she’s wearing the bracelet Bells gave her for her birthday last year. She hasn’t worn that in a while.

  “This is Christine,” Bells says, trying not to think about what the bracelet means. “We, uh, met at art camp. She lives in Vegas. My friends: Emma, Jess, and Abby.”

  Emma’s already hugging Christine and babbling. “… and it is so nice to meet you! Bells hasn’t dated in so long, so this is really exciting!”

  “Great to meet you too,” Christine says, without missing a beat. “Bells said this was a triple date?”

  “Oh, my boyfriend is on his way,” Emma says airily. “He said he wanted to pick up food for all of us.”

  “That’s nice of him,” Christine says. She glances at Bells with a slight smirk as Emma links her arm in hers, and they walk back to the shoe dispenser together.

  “Art camp, huh?” Jess says. “Isn’t that when you were…”

  “Uh, yeah,” Bells says. “She’s cool. I like her a lot. Like I said, we just started dating.”

  “That’s great,” Abby says. “So she’s also a…”

  Oh. He shouldn’t have said art camp; Bells forgot he told them that was code for Meta-Human Training. He hasn’t asked Christine if she was comfortable talking about her powers with other people. But they’re interrupted when the bowling alley doors open again.

  “Carlos!” Emma squeals, then runs to the door and greets him with a kiss that lasts much longer than any of the ones he’s seen in school.

  “Jess and Abby, right?” Christine says, handing them a pair of shoes each. “Great to meet you. Bells talks so much about his friends.”

  “Aw, really?” Emma says, hand-in-hand with Carlos.

  “Hi, I’m Carlos,” he says. He dimples when he smiles. “I brought sandwiches for everyone and snacks!”

  Up close, he looks like a classic holostar, as if he could have walked right off a movie set. He�
��s adorable and thoughtful. Bells wants to hate him.

  After a chorus of hellos and introductions, Bells joins in with a half-hearted, “Hey.”

  It unfolds like a movie, a coming-of-age teen drama in which Bells is a spectator, watching life happen. Carlos is a generous listener and a fantastic bowler. And if Bells had to rate all of the people Emma’s dated, he has to admit Carlos is the best. He cheers when Emma scores; he talks animatedly with Abby about her captaincy on the volleyball team. He gets into a long discussion with Jess about vintage superhero comics and even draws Christine into a conversation about current fashion trends.

  He’s nice and smart and gorgeous and there’s really no competition here at all.

  The conversation turns to sports, and Abby and Emma talk about volleyball and Carlos listens intently. Jess gives Bells a look, and he shrugs as if to say, I don’t have anything to add, why bother? Jess raises her eyebrows. He settles for throwing the bowling ball. Carlos is winning, of course, but no one has paid attention to the game in a while. His ball rolls into the gutter.

  Christine surprises him by kissing him wetly on the cheek and then whispering in his ear, “Laugh. Not too loudly, just pretend I told you something really hilarious, but we’re the only ones who get it.”

  Bells laughs and then pulls back and grins at her.

  “Aww, you guys are so cute,” Emma says, but her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

  “You said you lived in Vegas?” Carlos asks with friendly interest. “How’d you meet Bells?”

  “It was art camp in Aerial City, right Bells?” Emma says, fixing him with a smile. Bells can tell there’s an unspoken question. “It was so beautiful in Bells’ photos.”

  Christine gives Bells the briefest of looks. “Oh, it was so lovely, all that green and rustling of the trees. And the walkways, so romantic, you’re so high up…”

  Emma raises her eyebrows and laughs. “I bet a lot of your time was cut short because of how skittish Bells gets around heights.”

  “Yeah, we hung out a lot at the school, not so much the walkways,” Bells says hastily. “We did meet on one, and she saved me from having to walk alone.”

  Christine picks up the story and then engages them all with colorful anecdotes about Vegas and how she and Bells decided to keep in touch. All in all, it’s not a bad time, Bells decides, taking a bite of his sandwich. It’s delicious, of course.

  As they turn off their lanes, Carlos walks over to Bells. “So, I hear you’re a great artist! Love to see your work sometime.”

  “Ah, that’s kind of private,” Bells hedges.

  Emma snorts and playfully nudges Bells with her shoulder. “Bells barely lets us see what he’s working on; maybe if he’s finished something and feels happy with it, but yeah, tough luck there.”

  Bells wants to hate Carlos so badly, but he can’t. The guy is just too nice. Bells almost wants to date him.

  Everyone is hungry, so they decide to go to the automat. Bells and Christine drive in her silver car; pop music plays from the speakers.

  “Thank you,” Bells says. “I know this was a weird request.”

  “I had a lot of fun,” Christine says. “Your friends are cool.”

  He exhales in relief. Their charade isn’t quite over, but so far, it’s seemed to work.

  At the restaurant, Abby waves them over to a table. Jess is already at the food, a brightly lit wall of dispensers filled with various dishes, kept either hot or cool in the glass trays. She peers in each aperture before swiping her DED at the screen. Jess comes back to the table with two slices of pizza, a piece of apple pie, and a dish of macaroni and cheese, which she plops down in front of Abby.

  “Nice,” Abby says, and jabs her fork into the food.

  “Oh, cool, an automat! I’ve never been in one,” Christine says. “Seen them for snacks and stuff at, like, charging stations, but never an entire restaurant.”

  “Never been in an automat?” Emma asks, raising her eyebrows. “They don’t have them in Vegas?”

  Christine shrugs. “I’m sure they do, but my friends at home wouldn’t want to do stuff like this. My, ah, art friends, yeah, but all of them live super-far away.”

  “Oh,” Emma says, glancing from Bells to Christine. “That must have been a cool art camp. What kind of art do you do?”

  “Performance,” Christine says, as she locks arms with Bells and places a wet kiss on his cheek.

  Ch. 10...

  The house is empty; he misses his parents teasing each other in the kitchen, he even misses his brothers picking him up and calling him Baby-Bells.

  A run would help clear his mind. He doesn’t bother putting on a coat, just throws himself out into the cold. His breath is visible as he takes his usual route through the neighborhood, then veers off to the right, and then keeps going. And going. And going. He runs past warning signs and abandoned remnants of old buildings, following the barely there trail.

  Bells keeps running. He can’t get the images out of his head: Emma kissing Carlos, Jess and Abby giving each other fond glances. Everybody has someone. He waits for that moment when his head clears and he can run mindlessly, but it doesn’t happen.

  By the time Bells looks up he’s somewhere in the canyons, in the opposite direction from Abby’s home. He can see Andover sparkling in the distance. He sits, catches his breath, and flicks through his messages and call history. He pauses on the image of his father and before he knows it he’s activated the call function.

  The call rings and rings. “Hello—”

  “Dad,” Bells says, choking up.

  “You’ve reached Nicholas Broussard, owner of Broussard Family Farms and also Andover’s very own award-winning restaurant, Home Away from Home. I’m unavailable right now but our jambalaya special is available, now for only eight credits! Visit us at 44 Main Street for a little taste of home.”

  “I miss you,” Bells says to his dad’s recorded face. “You and Ma. I hope you guys are doing well, and I know you said not to call, so I don’t know when you’ll receive this message—”

  The DED blips.

  “Bells?”

  “Dad!” Just seeing his face again makes Bells feel better, safer.

  “Hey, son. What’s going on? Do you need me to help you with your T-shots?”

  Bells sniffs. “No, I’ve been doing it myself. I—” He stumbles on his words. If he talks about everything he’s feeling he might break down and cry. “I just missed you. How are you guys doing? Where are you?”

  “I can’t tell you that, but we’re safe. We’ve been doing lots of good work; there were a lot of people affected by Ca—er, Cindy’s experiments.”

  Orion? Is she still kidnapping meta-humans to experiment on? “Did you guys see her?”

  “No, we keep losing her. But we have put the word out and we’re getting everyone to safety.” Nick gives him a warm smile. “Don’t worry about us. Genevieve’s got a good group of people here, and everyone’s been very welcoming. And some good news! Councilmember Robledo has been great about stopping Kingston’s produce bill.”

  “That’s good,” Bells says. “One step at a time.” It seems small, especially knowing what needs to change. He remembers with a shudder how Kingston encouraged him when he was in the League and the threat the politician made when Bells refused to cooperate.

  “What about you?” His dad turns the question back to him, patient and easy, as if he knew Bells wasn’t ready to lead with it.

  Bells’ voice quavers. It tumbles out of him, first in bits and pieces, then every feeling he’s kept bottled up rushes forward: his loneliness, his aching worry, his guilt about focusing on his feelings because they’ve got bigger things to do.

  “Hey,” Nick says. “You’re going to be fine. All of this? It is important. You are important. And your friends haven’t forgotten you.”

 
“Thanks, Dad.”

  “I love you, okay? I gotta go, but remember that, and your friends love you too.”

  He says goodbye, feeling a bit better. He stands up and brushes dirt off himself. Bells looks at the mountains and turns around. He can retrace his steps. It’ll be a long run back, but he can do it.

  His DED chirps again.

  From: Jess 7:39 pm

  hey, can you come over to my house?

  To: Jess 7:39pm

  ARE YOU OKAY

  From: Jess 7:40pm

  yeah, i’m good. just wanted to hang out with you. you seemed really down at dinner <3 <3 <3

  Bells types out a YES, OKAY, and sends it with a smile.

  Jess welcomes him into the Trans’ home. “Hey, I’ve got pizza, your favorite, with three cheeses!”

  “Awesome,” Bells says.

  “Hey, this is for you!” Brendan offers Bells a box of chocolates and gives him a shy smile, then runs away.

  “Thanks!” Bells calls after him as Brendan disappears into his room.

  Jess laughs and gestures for him to follow her downstairs.

  Abby, already halfway through a slice, waves at him from the couch. She pushes a plate with three slices at Bells, who promptly digs in.

  Jess flops on the floor as her MonRobot buzzes around her, cheeping at Bells. Abby’s custom MonRobots—Jacks and Jills—whir around on the carpet.

  “Is Chả trying to vacuum my hair?” Jess asks tonelessly.

  The little round robot is, indeed, shuffling over to Jess and making its whirr whirr noise. Bells gently picks it up and turns it around, and Chả meeps at him, then makes a surprised beep when Jills bumps into him.

  “Do they know they’re playing tag?” Bells asks, amused.

  “I’m not sure,” Abby says. “They know they’re playing a game. At least they’re entertained.” She waves her pizza slice at Bells. “Does your family have a MonRobot?”

  Bells nods. “Yeah, but the house cleaning model is incredibly old, a 2116 model. We keep our newer ones at the restaurant.”

  “Aw, that wasn’t a good year,” Abby says. “A lot of the tech that year was pretty weird. But it still works, right?”