Not Your Sidekick (2 page)

Jess hates the fall; the days are so short. It's still only late afternoon, not even five o'clock.

She stalks into the empty living room and scowls, glad to be alone so no one will ask about her mood. Her brother isn't home from school, and her dad is probably flying around looking for trouble. Jess huffs and stomps upstairs to her room. The way the stairs clunk beneath her feet is satisfying, and Jess continues with more force than necessary. She's not paying attention and nearly trips over their MonRobot.

It cheeps sadly at her as it continues to struggle to climb the stairs. The wheel extensions are out, and it's rolling back and forth on the step, trapped. Another extension should allow it to maneuver household obstacles, but Jess can see the little arm sticking out of the back of the round body, waving about for balance.

“What are you doing, Chả? You know you always get stuck on the stairs.” Jess pets the round curve of the robot. “You're supposed to just clean downstairs. You don't have to vacuum up here; it doesn't even have carpet.”

Chả meeps at her.

“All right, little guy.” She sighs, picks up the poor thing, and carries it to the top of the stairs. Chả cheeps and begins vacuuming the floor, going back and forth slowly. The Trans got the robot about five years ago, and although Chả does a fairly good job of tidying up, it tends to be rather clumsy and forgetful. It'll repeat the same motion, over and over, without moving forward. They really should get a new one, but robots are ridiculously expensive. And Jess can't imagine replacing Chả, even if it doesn't do the household chores very well.

She pats the MonRobot once more, goes to her room, and throws herself on her bed.

Paper crunches beneath her. Jess scowls, grabbing whatever is between her and her soft bed. She squints at her handwriting. Did she start a homework assignment and forget—oh. It's her latest research reports on tests of her possible abilities.

Jess rereads her report on her attempt at calculating enhanced strength—now
that
was a disaster. Her arms still ache from last weekend's bench press incident. Jess scowls at the numbers, crunches the paper into a ball, tosses it aside, then discards another report, and another, until her bed is free of the evidence of all her attempts.

Jess flops on her back and spots the framed photograph of her parents, dressed as Shockwave and Smasher, vibrant and powerful, the pride of their small city. Her stomach curls with the sting of disappointing them.

Jess closes her eyes.

Her older sister Claudia had already been in the Meta-Human Training Program for two years by her seventeenth birthday when she got an offer to join the Heroes' League of Heroes when she graduated. The Trans had thrown a huge party to celebrate.

When Jess turns seventeen, it'll be official. She's not special.

Jess groans. She roots around and finally finds her DED on the floor, half under a sweater. She grabs the slim, square device by the wrist strap and looks at the small screen to see if she has any new messages, but the screen is dark and unresponsive.

Great, she let the battery die again.

It takes her another minute to find the charging dock on her cluttered desk. Jess plops the device onto the dock and it buzzes as it syncs with her desktop projector, which hums to life and throws multiple projections into the air—holopages from the Net, a half-finished homework assignment, pictures of Captain Orion, and a series of text messages from Emma and Bells. As the DED connects to the Net, it updates with new messages, and Jess is bombarded with rapidly scrolling notifications. The buzzing continues until Jess flicks the DED screen.

Jess scowls at the largest open holopage, which is projected above her desk. She'd been reading it and rereading it before she left, checking the fine print to see if there was any way she could qualify as a meta-human.

NORTH AMERICAN COLLECTIVE META-HUMAN REGISTRATION

Section 4.2 Power Classification
is determined by the total duration the citizen can utilize their meta-ability actively per twenty-four hour period.

CLASS-A
- More than two hours

CLASS-B-
One to two hours

CLASS-C-
Twenty minutes to one hour

CLASS-D
- Less than twenty minutes

Section 4.3 Meta-Human Training Requirements

The North American Collective understands that the meta-gene expresses itself in various and numerous forms and appreciates the documentation of all abilities. However, only abilities listed in Section 3.1 are currently accepted for application for Meta-Human Training. If you would like to register with a meta-ability not listed in Section 3.1, read subsection 3.1a and 3.1b on abilities that are not accepted. If your ability does not fall under the Unacceptable category, proceed to fill out the petition under Section 15.2.

Jess brushes aside the holopage, and the text disappears in trails of blue light. Ugh, registration. Jess doesn't even have one of the “unacceptable” abilities, like Emma's cousin, who can make his breath go minty fresh with just a thought, or her neighbor down the street, who can change the color of his fingernails. Well, three of them.

They're still considered meta-humans, though, and are registered, even if they didn't go through the training process to qualify for the League.

The holopage has re-formed after Jess' outburst, and she flicks the correct place to close it. All that's left hovering in the air are her messages from today.

From: Emma 1:22pm

hey are u ok? are u having a down day?

From: Bells 2:40pm

YOU DIDN'T RESPOND TO EMMA SHE THINKS YOU MIGHT BE SICK I HOPE YOU ARE OK I GOT YOUR HOMEWORK ALSO THE PIC PEOPLE CAME THRU AND I PLACED YOUR CUTIE ON THE CLASS PAGE AND HER HAIR LOOKED FIIIINE YOU MISSED OUT AM SENDING YOU HOLO

Warm fondness for her best friends distracts her from her disappointment. She clicks to open the attachment, and the DED projects a hologram. The likeness is indeed, very cute.
How do French braids even work?

To: Emma 5:23 pm

i'm fine, just didn't feel like school today <3

To: Bells 5:24 pm

thanks Bells it doesn't beat the braids she did in september but this is pretty, i'm sad i didn't get to see it in person

From: Emma 5:25pm

u sure, i can pick up bells and come over later?

Jess chats with her friends until they're reassured and she has caught up on what she missed today and then works on homework until Chả's welcome chirp alerts her that someone is home.

“How was your day at
school, honey?”

Jess shovels more rice into her mouth. She chews and points apologetically at her face. Her dad adjusts his glasses as he looks across the table, making Jess roll her eyes. Why does he keep on his “civilian” disguise when he's at home? They all know he's a superhero. Her mom says it's something to do with maintaining appearances and practicing being normal, which is hilarious, considering their family. At least at home Mom doesn't try to pretend that she can't bench-press a car and doesn't wear the dorky fake prescription glasses that match her husband's. It's funny how they approach being just Victor and Li Hua Tran differently.

“All right, we'll get back to you,” Victor says, giving Jess a doting smile.

Brendan, Jess' youngest brother and all-around genius, pipes up. “Today I made a lot of progress on my experiment! It turns out that the problem I had with last week's sequence was that I didn't properly isolate—”

Jess has no idea what he's saying, but her parents seem reasonably impressed. Brendan is thirteen and precocious; he attends the local college and has been upstaging Jess ever since he was born. He hasn't demonstrated any meta-abilities, but Jess is sure he wouldn't have wanted to be a superhero even if he had. Brendan's more into… okay, Jess isn't sure exactly what he's studying. Something to do with plants and energy, but she has no doubt that Brendan's going to make a name for himself in the scientific community.

“That's really nice. We're very proud of you,” Li Hua says, smiling as she steals a piece of bok choy from her husband's plate. “Jess?”

Jess swallows, the rice sticking in her throat. “Been thinking about getting an internship or something. It's bound to look great for college, right?”

“Oh, that's a great idea!” her mom says, nodding in approval.

Victor perks up. “I know someone in the mayor's office is looking for an assistant, and Mayor Bradley owes me a favor—”

“Dad, I don't want to get my first job because of your favors as Shockwave, okay? I want to do it on my own terms, because of me and my own abilities.”

Her parents look at each other, and even Brendan has the audacity to snort. “What abilities, Jess?”

“Shut up.” Jess feels her face flush hot with embarrassment.

Of the three children in the Tran household, only one of them was born with the meta-abilities that are commonly known as superpowers. Claudia, the eldest, moved out of town after graduating from college and is now starting a fledgling life in Crystal Springs as a journalist slash superhero. Brendan is going to be a famous scientist and discover new things every day. Jess? Jess doesn't have powers. After today, she's exhausted every possible variable.

The only way she can move forward is to focus on what she
can
do. A job is a good idea, but she doesn't want it to be handed to her just because of who her parents are.

“
My
abilities,” Jess says, determined. “I might not know what all of those are, but I'm going to be good at something, you'll see.”

She leaves the table before she gets too frustrated to talk. She doesn't want this to turn into a conversation about her lackluster grades or her parents' expectations and then a comparison to either of her siblings. She puts her dishes in the dishwasher and hurries to her room.

As far as her high school career goes, Jess barely keeps a B grade point average as a junior and is fairly forgettable to all the faculty. She doesn't play any sports, never had any more than a passing interest in clubs, and certainly isn't winning science awards left and right like her younger brother or flying around fighting crime like her sister.

Jess groans and flicks the desktop sync on her DED. It flickers, and then her desktop projects a large workspace screen and a keyboard. Jess flicks through her documents. She could get started on a paper for world history, but that's not due till Friday. She can put that off. Besides, there are more pressing things, like following through with finding a job.

It has to be something cool, something she'll enjoy, and something that will look good on her college applications.

Jess pulls up one of the holopages her guidance counselor gave her, one that sorts listings of internships and volunteer opportunities by geographic location. She scowls, scrolling through listing after listing, rejecting one after another.

“Ugh, you need a job to get experience and experience to get a job!”

The Las Vegas Philharmonic needs someone for basic office work and to keep all their sheet music organized. It sounds okay, plus she'd be around creative people, and it looks as if they're okay with a high school student with no experience. It'd be a terrible commute, though; at least an hour if there's traffic. Andover isn't quite big enough to merit its own stop on the hovertrain route, so everyone who drives to Las Vegas is bottlenecked onto one road. It would be a long drive there and an even longer one back with all the people leaving Las Vegas for the outer cities.

Jess wants to do something
more.
She wants to make a difference somehow, even if her best talent is meticulously organizing things—which her mother says isn't actually a talent—and stubbornness.

Jess blinks when she sees the next company. “No way. Monroe Industries has high school internships?”

Jess clicks the link and glances outside her open bedroom door, where she can hear Chả busily cheeping away, still trying to vacuum. This MonRobot model was revolutionary when it came out, and it still functions today, if albeit a bit slower and quirkier. Any other brand would have been defunct by now.

Monroe Industries has state-of-the-art technology, and their products are everywhere from the home, to the office, to private schools. MonRobots can be programmed to perform any number of everyday tasks, from cleaning and cooking to being a personal assistant, although those advanced A.I. systems are incredibly expensive. Chả is one of the basic models, used primarily for household chores. The robots in the basic line aren't cheap, though. Jess remembers her parents being very excited about the discount they got for being in the Associated League of Heroes.

Jess scans the listing to see if she's qualified, and while a few science and business internships require experience and references, one position catches her eye.

WANTED:
Motivated intern for administrative and office support in select experimental research division. Responsibilities include word processing, creating spreadsheets and presentations, organizing reports and research data, and filing. Computer experience, Net research abilities, and strong communication skills are preferred. Sensitivity to confidential matters and discretion is required.

Jess taps her fingers on her chin. It's a paid position, as are all the other internships, but this one is surely going to be in high demand because of the entry-level qualifications. The DED listed for inquiry is registered to a person named M.

A quick search of the company's website brings up absolutely nothing about this person or the experimental division, so Jess doesn't have any other information with which to tailor her cover letter, but she's willing to try anyway.