One (One Universe) (3 page)

In junior high, Patrick Ryan, who could make people do anything he wanted by talking to them, convinced a girl to drive away with him in his car. The next day, she came to school dressed in the same clothes as the day before, and everyone knew what had happened with her. Her brother kicked the shit out of Patrick, but still.

I was relatively normal when I got to Superior High. Even tried to dress cute for my first day. Sean Cooper, the quarterback, started watching me, and a few days later, he was talking to me kind of a lot. Everything was fine until I realized his Super was strength.

One afternoon in an emptying hallway, he stood so close he forced me back against my locker and put his hand on my shoulder, and I realized everyone else was gone. He leaned down to kiss me, and everything closed in on me, and I told him to stop, but…

His thumb pressed on my cheek, and his breath steamed in my face, suffocating me. I tried to struggle away from him, but I guess he was angry that I didn’t want to kiss him because rage flooded his face, and he glared straight into my eyes as he dug his thumbs into my shoulders. The only way I stood a chance against his iron grip was a swift knobby knee to the balls.

Sometimes I still feel the bruises he left there, like they’ve been pressed into my bones.

Michael and Max were only in the third grade and too young to kick his ass, though they would have loved the chance. I never told them about it. Never told Mom and Dad either. They only thought I was having some pretty serious popularity problems, which, if they noticed how I started dressing after that day, made perfect sense.

Ever since then, I’ve hated to look right into a guy’s eyes. No matter how beautiful they are.

When I hop back in the car with Dad after last bell, I finally feel like I can take a deep breath. Even though I’ve always hated having to remember to plug in the damn electric car, I do love that it lets us ride home in silence. I park myself at the kitchen counter while Dad starts dinner.

My eyes flash to the vintage Public Super Service poster on the kitchen wall. A little girl flies up to a tree branch to rescue a kitten. Below the pigtailed heroine and the unbearably cute kitten, the poster reads, “Supers: Making the World a Better Place.” I know that Mom and Dad bought that poster 10 years ago, when I first went light, and had it framed for our kitchen. Probably hung it with tears in their eyes. That girl was supposed to be me.

“Do you want to talk about it? Your first day?” Mom calls as she enters the house, carefully setting her briefcase on the big bench in the hall. The boys’ shouts fill the back of the house. Mom sighs and walks over the kitchen counter, looking as exhausted as I feel.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” I say, shoving a piece of licorice in my mouth and a pack of snack cakes in my bag for tomorrow. I don’t mention history class. As awful as that holo-lecture was, it wouldn’t be as bad as going back to Superior. And besides, I know how to think for myself. My grandparents met in one of those camps. I already know they were less than comfortable, less than humane. I don’t need to sit in a school where I really don’t belong so a teacher can tell me the same thing.

The boys tromp in, dropping their gear all over the floor, which Mom hates. But instead of yelling at them, she just watches them jostling through the front hallway, punching each other on the shoulders.

“Mom, you okay?”

My words break her gaze. She shakes her head and looks at me for a second before answering. “Oh, yeah. Yes. Just thinking about…just some things at work.” She reaches out to pat my hand, and my shoulders stiffen.

Max tumbles into the kitchen dribbling a basketball and punches me on the shoulder. “D’you have to redo freshman year, Merrin?”

I snort and cuff him on the head. “Yeah, just like you need to go back to kindergarten.” He laughs, grabs a bag of chips from the cabinet, and heads toward the stairs. Michael strolls in after him and leans in to smack a kiss on my cheek.

“Glad to see you made it through in one piece,” he says.

“Thanks,” I mutter, squeezing his shoulder and swallowing hard. Michael darts his hands out in front of him to catch the basketball, which Max has hurled at him so quickly I barely had time to notice.

“What have I said about no sports in the house?” Mom growls.

The boys stifle laughs and head up to their room.

Mom sighs and opens the newsfeed on the touchscreen countertop. Julian Fisk, the head of the Biotech Hub, wearing his trademark impeccable suit, waves from the picture, flashing a grin back at me. The headline reads: FISK ANNOUNCES RENEWAL OF YOUTH OUTREACH INTERNSHIP PROGRAM.

The subtitle should say, “For Super-Extra-Gifted Super Kids Only.” They’re the ones who have been enrolling in mainstream Normal colleges like Harvard and Stanford in increasing numbers over the past few decades. Because, Normal or Super, smart kids are smart kids, and they want prestigious degrees in addition to working for the greater good at one of the Hubs.

It’s not enough anymore for the United States government to pay us for using our Supers, Mom and Dad keep commenting over dinner — now people want to be more integrated into mainstream Normal society than they have been since before the Wars. So the Hub has to do “outreach” — wants to keep our most talented kids close.

The curve of Fisk’s smile challenges me. It’s like he’s daring me to try for that internship. But if I’m getting that internship, it’s not to impress anyone or meet anyone’s challenge. It’s to save myself.

I stare at the countertop feed. I think I catch the phrase, “uncovering decade-old research,” but it’s hard to read most of it upside down. I let my eyes glaze over until the letters blend together and run through the checklist of steps I have left before my application is complete. I already got my freshman year transcript, sat for hours completing the tests until it felt like my stylus would rub my finger raw, and typed the essay. Only two pieces left. Signatures from Mom and Dad — which I would fake if they weren’t fingerprint verified — and a recommendation from Mr. Hoffman.

I sit there, gnawing on the candy and pretending I don’t notice Mom raising her eyes from the feed. She looks sad.

“What?” I snap.

“I didn’t know that still happened, sweetie.”

I look down and groan. The stool is now about three inches below me, and I can see down into Mom’s lap over the screen. I make myself heavy again and plunk down, scowling.

It happens when I lose control. Emotional control, that is.

It started three years ago in junior high, when I used to get teased for being so tiny. Before I knew it, I’d be freaking floating six inches above my seat, and everyone would laugh at me even more.

That day, I got home and Mom had the talk with me. Because she works at the Biotech Hub, she knows all the science behind it, and she talked me through it like most other moms talk to their daughters about boyfriends and birth control.

I would have killed to have been talking about boyfriends and birth control at that moment.

What I got was this: Supers have a genetic mutation that makes them do one awesome thing — lift twelve times their weight, light on fire, create or control electricity, stuff like that. The rest of their genes have to adapt to compensate or allow for that — be indestructible, conduct the spark. It’s like in-person, real-time evolution. Normally, these adaptations show up by puberty.

In Ones, they don’t show up. Ever. So there’s basically a hole in our genetic code. That makes it — the One — kind of unstable. It could manifest any time we’re freaked out, scared or depressed.

That was when I first figured out that having one power was way worse than having none at all.

Mom closes the news feed and reaches out to touch me. Her fingers half-rest, half-hover over my wrist, feather-light. She’s always danced around me like this, like I’m a weak little baby bird that never quite got the guts to fly out of the nest.

Last spring, I saw one of those baby birds. It kind of flopped down from the tree, but it was really determined. It kept hopping from its safe little nest to the street. Then it hopped all the way across, and it didn’t get hit by a car. That bird couldn’t fly, but it ended up okay.

I don’t think that’s inspirational — in fact, I think it’s really sad. And I think that damn baby bird was really lucky. I wonder if it ever did learn to fly, there on the other side of the street, while its family sat around eating fat worms and trying to ignore it.

I’m not that determined. I don’t think.

The little girl on the poster grins at me, and I stare at her, too tired to glare. The slogan makes my heart burn. “Saving the world,” my ass. I hadn’t heard that language at Superior ever. More like, “Building a better world for the poor Normals,” even though no one would say as much. Not out loud, anyway.

Dad walks over from the stove where he’s getting dinner ready. “Want to tell us about your first day?” Dad’s smile is weird. Plastic and cautious. Like he doesn’t expect it to be good news.

I wouldn’t want to disappoint him, I guess. I launch into a diatribe about how ridiculous everything at Normal was, from the hologram teachers to the rusty lockers to the idiot calc students to the disgusting vomit-colored walls.

He’s quiet for a moment. Then he asks, “So what really happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh, come on. You don’t expect me to believe that for a second. Not with that look on your face.”

I go to my default — not saying anything.

“Were the other kids nice?” he asks gently.

I shrug. “They were just kids. I mean…there was this one guy in that sorry excuse for an art class. And…in the hallway.” I rush the next sentence. “But I wouldn’t say he was nice.”

Dad looks at me, crinkling his eyebrows into a questioning expression.

“I don’t know. Whenever he looked at me, all I wanted to do was leave the room. It’s nothing. I’m just moving seats next class.”
Or skipping class. Or moving classes altogether.

“Doesn’t sound like ‘nothing’ to me.”

I grimace. “Yeah, well. That’s what it was. Nothing.”

He still watches me, but now he’s got this weird smile.

“What are you grinning at?” I say, and my cheeks feel hot.

I look down at my tablet where I’ve been doodling during our whole conversation. The whole stupid screen is covered with letter Es.

I glare down at it and swipe it blank. “One good thing, though. I think I saw Mr. Hoffman there. I think maybe he took a job at Nelson.” I clear my throat. “Um. Or something.”

“No. I know for a fact that he won’t be at Nelson High this year.” Dad’s voice is gentle but firm. Final.

I look up at him, raising my eyebrows. “I saw him. He was talking to the principal. At least, that’s who I think it was, and…”

“Merrin,” he says firmly. Dad never interrupts, not anyone. I narrow my eyes. “Merry Berry,” he corrects, immediately back to his old self. “I just know he won’t be there.”

“Well…okay.” That reaction from Dad was so weird, but it’s hard to keep the impatience out of my voice. “Do you think you could get him to tutor me or something? He was helping me with Orgo.”

Mom and Dad glance at each other, and my chest squeezes again.

“They don’t even have real teachers at Normal, Dad. They’re all remote, holograms, and their lectures were ridiculous. I did all that stuff in class last year.”

Dad squeezes Mom’s hand. “We’ll work something out.”

He sounds reluctant, and something seems off about the way he looks at Mom. My chest falls.

Science phenoms like me are usually headed for a career at the Biotech Center — if they’re Supers. That’s really all I want to do — experiment with chemicals and formulas I’ve never even dreamed of, help make the Supers’ lives better. Develop stuff to make the whole world better and maybe help myself while I’m at it. But Ones, and certainly not Normals, don’t work at any of the Hubs — security and all.

The horrible Nelson history class was really just the last straw. I’m applying for the internship because I can’t help but think that maybe I’ll be the One who changes things. A One who can actually change herself. But I can’t apply without Mr. Hoffman. He’s the only high school science teacher I’ve ever had.

I cast my eyes down at my hands, which I shift around on the counter, trying to find a position to fold them into that’ll keep me from punching something, or at least a comfortable place for them to rest. That place doesn’t exist.

I bang the rickety screened garage door open and take a deep breath when I see it. My dinky little drum kit. My promise of relief.

Playing the drums works when I’m angry, or when I’m desolate, which are pretty much my only two emotions, so that’s pretty much all the time. Which means — damn, I’m good.

I trip down the three concrete steps into the half of the garage reserved for me and my drums. Dad always parks his car out in the driveway, no questions asked.

I have an old twirly office chair to play on because that’s the only one we could find to adjust high enough for me to play. I check the feet — all the way down. I grin because it means my veiled threat to Michael and Max not to mess with my freaking drums didn’t go in one ear and out the other like it normally does.

I actually never mind when the twins mess with my drums since the set is so haphazard and cheap — $500 used and four years into my abuse to boot. Besides, at 10, the boys are still young enough to be cute when they know they’re in trouble.

Doesn’t excuse the fact that, at five foot three and growing like weeds, when they try to play my drums, they adjust them up. Then I usually stomp in the house, mess up their hair, and yell at them a little bit. Then I buy them cones from the Jet-Freeze down the road when they apologize.

I love those water-walking monsters.

I shake my shoulders, trying to loosen them, surprised at how creaky they feel. I’m sure it’s because I’ve got a ton going on inside me, and I honestly don’t know what to make of it. New school. New Merrin, maybe. One who’s not scared of everyone and hiding it by being pissed off and banging on the drums so loud that no one dares come near her.