Life Light (3 page)

“I’m not done lecturing your dad,” I tell him with a hint of a pout.

“You can call him when we get there.”

“Oh, good idea! I’ll also call Mastermental and make sure he does what I suggested,” I say as I’m dragged away. I glance over my shoulder at the still stunned looking Andre and blow him a kiss. "I only do this because I love you!” I say.

He starts laughing.

“Bye, Grandpa!” Emily says, giving him one last hug before chasing after us. She’s decided on what she wants to call people, lately, and there’s no point in arguing it. It’s actually only Liz that even bothers to try once in a while--usually over her calling Taurus “Dad.” The change shocked me a bit the first time I heard it, but now I’m pretty used to it. I’m actually wondering if I should start calling them that, too.

We head through the check-in, going through all the procedures. Liz is detained as she tries to go through the machine, much to my worry. The fact that the lights start to flicker when she steps to her side and raises her arms might have something to do with it. I can practically imagine what they’re seeing on that screen. “If you could follow me, ma’am,” the female security officer says, leading her into a secluded section. A second later I hear a loud yelp of shock and a profuse amount of apologizing--from the security lady, not Liz. Taurus actually snorts with laughter. Well, he does until they call him into the secluded area after he’s scanned, as well. I can practically imagine the awkwardness of trying to pat him down. In fact I hear them talking quietly when I listen closely enough.

“Really, I appreciate the hard work you do for our country,” Taurus says in a bland tone. “I’m not sure what you’re looking for, though. If there’s a problem with my size or race, or
hair
--“

“No, sir, of course not,” the man checking him says. “We’re just expected to do this with this type of hair and... your type.”

“With construction workers?”

“No, of course not! With your
type
.”

“I’m Baptist,” Taurus says dryly, “not that I’ve been to church in years. Is that a problem?”

“Not that type, either,” the man says. I’m trying not to laugh, because I’ve finally caught on. “The same type as your lady friend from earlier,” he whispers.

“Oooooh. Right. Want to see my card for that?” Taurus says as I choke on a laugh. “Since the cat’s out of the bag.”

“If you would, please? It’d save us both a lot of time.” There’s the rustling sound of them moving and Taurus comes out, looking dryly amused.

“You should get your school cards out,” he says silently as he walks over to the rope separating him from me and Emily, “Liz almost shorted out both of their machines. They know what we are.”

“Is that going to be a problem?” I ask.

“Shouldn’t be,” he says, “since Mastermental tends to have ‘arrangements’ with the larger transportation providers. I’d think this place was at the top of the list.”

“Ma’am,” the same woman that talked to Liz says as I step into the machine and spread out my arms, getting scanned. “If you could come with me--“

I go to the items that had just been scanned and dig through my purse, pulling out my wallet and showing her my school ID. It’s specialized, complete with a tiny hologram of me that appears if I press my finger to my picture. The woman looks shocked for a moment before motioning me through. I glance back to see Emily getting scanned and flashing her own card. She doesn’t bother with the hologram.

We head in, grabbing our things from the scanner and joining Taurus and Liz--who’s messing with her wig again. She gives up quickly and we head to the corner furthest away from the norms. Taurus automatically sits down in the seat closest to them, his long legs stretching out in front of him. He’s like a wall between curious onlookers and the rest of us.

“I think we should teleport to get home,” Emily says quietly as she digs through her backpack and pulls out her phone, “we’re just a tiny bit too obvious.”

“It would have been fine if they hadn’t been so nosy,” Liz complains, crossing her arms as well.

“It’s fine,” Taurus says, covering a yawn with his hand. “It’s all going to be just fine.” He drapes an arm over the back of Liz’s chair, but she’s still so irritated by the body search that she doesn’t even seem to notice. “Why don’t you turn your bracelet on, Liz?” he asks silently. “We’ll be in pretty tight quarters soon.”

“Oh, yeah, good idea,” Liz says, bringing up her sleeve and touching the stone on her bracelet. It starts to glow, but she covers it up by slipping the sleeve over it.

I dig out my phone, bringing up the email from last night. For a long moment I just stare at it--long enough to get a curious look from the others. I close the window. I’ll email her when I get to the Arctic, I tell myself, when I have the privacy to write properly. A phone text seems lacking right now.

***

“Time to get up,” I hear Taurus say. I wake up slowly, realizing that someone’s leaning on me and I, in turn, am leaning against someone else. I’m not even that surprised to see a head of bright red hair under my chin.

“Wake up, Emily,” I say as she snuggles closer. I look up at Liz, who has her arms wrapped around us and is using Taurus as her backrest. She’s still sound asleep, as well. I poke Emily when words don’t work, and she wakes up. She looks up at me sleepily, grinning slightly.

“Mornin’,” she says happily, hugging me briefly before jumping to her feet. “Are we ready to board the plane?”

“Yeah,” I say, feeling once again that now-familiar shock. I know what happened to Emily. I know all about the two sisters and how they abused Emily when she lived with them--and it still stuns me how much she trusts me, even though I’m in the exact same position they were. She’s never looked at me as if I were a threat; in fact she’s constantly telling me how much she loves me. I swore the first time she told me that, that I would be the best big sister in the world. It's easier said than done, but I've been trying my best.

As a group we get up, heading for the line and boarding the plane. This flight takes almost ten hours, I think as we enter first class and sit down. I’m so glad that Nico booked us the best seats. Taurus puts all of our carry-ons in the luggage rack overhead and sits down next to Liz. Emily and I are already in our seats, watching the luggage head for the plane.

“You ever try flying?” Emily asks.

“Jack’s taken me out a few times,” I say, smiling at the memories. “It’s a lot of fun.”

“Yeah, it is,” she says. “Sometimes I’m jealous of Trent.”

I laugh at her. “You’ve got an amazing ability, too, you know. Sometimes I’m jealous of everyone in the school,” I say. “I can’t do anything really amazing--“

“Everything you do is amazing,” Taurus interrupts. I look at him. “Don’t ever doubt that, Aubrey.”

I give him a grateful smile before digging out my phone so I can play games when the plane gets high enough. The Flight Attendant steps to the front and we stop talking as she goes through the usual spiel. Soon we’re taking off. I look out the window, watching. “I’m going to miss everyone,” I say quietly.

“We’ll be back in no time,” Emily says. “Can you believe we’re actually going to meet Duplicitous? This is going to be so amazing!”

“Yeah,” I say. “That seems to be the word of the day, don’t you think?”

“Nah, if it’s going to be the word of the day it needs to be something fancier,” she declares. “It should be better than ‘amazing.’”

“Something better than amazing?” I ask her. “Okay, I’m game, what should it be?”

“Super-ific,” she says.

“Making up a word doesn’t count!”

“Sure it does! Or maybe you prefer something like terrif-tastic?”

“That sounds like a tax gone wrong,” I complain.

“You are way too picky,” she tells me.

“You aren’t picky enough. If it’s going to be the word of the day it needs to be--to be amazing!”

“We already decided against amazing!”

“I meant the word needs to be an amazing word!” I say, starting to laugh. “I vote ‘ridiculous.’”

“No, you vote ridiculously,” she says. “You need to pay attention to grammar!”

“So you can’t be grammatically wrong, but you can make up words?”

“As long as you do it terrif-tastically,” she says, sticking her nose in the air in a haughty manner.

Even Taurus and Liz start laughing at that.

“So,” Nico says as he looks at Andre, “Aubrey got to you, huh?”

“I’m supposed to be running a company,” Andre says dryly, dropping down in a chair at the table nearest Nico’s desk. They’re in the Science Classroom, where Nico always is. “Instead, I call Mastermental and get assigned to you for the week.”

“You’ve got people that do most of the running of your company, already, though, don’t you?”

“I’ve got a C.E.O. But I’m not that certain he’s up to the job--“

“If he isn’t, fire him,” Nico says callously. “So what, exactly, did Aubrey want you to do?”

“She thinks I need more exercise in both forms, says I need to eat more fruits and veggies, and that she’s only bullying me because she loves me,” Andre sums up, his legs stretching out in front of him. “I should have just booked a plane and joined them up in the Arctic, but I have to keep in touch here. If anything really does happen, I need to go in and fix it.”

Nico looks at him thoughtfully for a long moment and Andre can practically see his mind calculating. “You eat red meat?” he asks, startling Andre.

“Sure.”

“Don’t you turn into a bull?”

“It’s a bull eat bull world,” Andre says.

Nico just shakes his head before pulling a file off of his desk and tossing it to Andre. “This is what I’ll have you help me out with. We can take advantage of the fact that you own HTV, since that’s what started all of this.”

“What happened?” Andre asks.

“Someone saw Aubrey heal. Max and Aubrey think she’s another healer. I need you to find out for sure before we let her get too close to Aubrey.”

“Sounds interesting,” Andre says. “How do you propose I do that?”

“Have you ever spoken at a school before?”

***

“So have you written that person yet?” Emily asks several hours after taking off. It’s to keep my mind off of all the people that are stuffed into the plane with us. She’s picked up on my problem. A part of me really wants to go through the entire place, fixing all the problems I’m picking up on. A faulty heart valve here, the beginnings of dementia there--I’m literally squirming in my seat over them. I wonder if there’s a way I can do it without touching them. That would be awesome. I could just-- “Aubrey,” Emily repeats, nudging me.

“What?” I ask.

“Have you written the person that emailed Max?”

“She didn’t email Max, she emailed the Hall,” I say. “I wonder if Mastermental’s even seen it,” I add thoughtfully. “Think he’s looking into her, as well as Nico?”

“Nah, I bet he knows Nico’s on it,” Emily says.

“That doesn’t mean Mastermental can’t--“ I say.

“She’s right,” Liz says. “If Nico’s on a problem there’s no point in trying, even for Double M. He’s pretty much turned everything related to your generation over to Nico.”

“It shows how much he trusts him to get it done,” Taurus says. “With reason, of course--Nico’s solved a lot of problems just by being himself. Look at the clean-up program built into the school. We never even thought of having the capes clean up after themselves, now it’s part of the system. The mayor loves us for it.”

“It’s a pain in the neck,” Liz says darkly, “I’m still irritated with Nico for it--the only reason he set it up was because he was supposed to do it himself as part of his parole.”

“So he put Jack and Trent and them to work, instead?” I ask. My eyes widen as I realize just how dirty Nico plays. I burst out laughing, earning several looks from the other people in first class. We’ve been almost perfectly silent for the past few hours, I realize. They don’t know why I would suddenly start laughing. Whoops. Hopefully they think I'm just looking at my phone, or something.

“It’s ingenious,” Taurus says.

“It’s foul play,” Liz insists. “I love my brother dearly, but he’s always been a super villain at heart.”

“Absolutely true,” Emily and I agree.

“He’s using our boyfriends shamelessly,” I add with a nod.

“Oh, please, like it’s going to hurt them,” Emily says, waving it off. “It’s good for them and the city. When I debut, I’ll have to do it as well. He told me that, months ago.”

“I should talk to him,” Liz says.

“No, I don’t mind,” Emily says. “I’ll put Ditto and Repeat on duty, as well, it shouldn’t take that long, right?” I glance at her, only to stop as I see someone staring at us through the window.

“Em?” I say, nudging her.

“What?”

“We’ve got a visitor.” I barely manage to get that out before Skystep phases through the plane, stepping through the wall so she’s standing in front of Emily with her hands on her hips.

“You are in big trouble, little missy!” Skystep declares dramatically.

“Skye--Skye, shhh,” Emily says, looking a bit panicked. “They’ll toss us all off the plane!”

“You didn’t TELL ME!” Skye says, pouting blatantly. “Here you are going across the world--“

“Skye,” Liz says, a tiny little popping sound indicating she just blew her bracelet. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“LIZ!” Skye says, throwing herself at our foster mom, much to everyone’s shock. The last time they met Liz put her in a hospital. “How can you take our baby away without telling me?” Skye demands tearfully.

“Our baby?” Liz repeats blankly. We’ve got an audience, I notice, but Skye tends to have that reaction.

“We’re just going for a week,” Taurus says, reaching up and patting Skye on the head, since Liz is still bristling. “We’re visiting their grandparents.”

“Only a week?” Skye demands.

“Only a week,” Emily says. “I would have called you, but you didn’t answer your phone again.”

“Oh, that’s because my new roommate destroyed it,” Skye says. “She thought it was demon possessed when I used that laughing ringtone. It WAS sort of creepy, now that I think about it. But you DID call, right?”

“I did,” Emily says, “I swear I did. You need to get a new phone.”

“Why is Emily ‘our’ baby?” Liz demands.

“Because I’m her aunt!” Skye declares.

“She was best friends with my mom, remember?” Emily says silently. “In our world that qualifies her as aunt, just like Mega’s Trent and Jack’s uncle.”

“Okay... I’ll reluctantly accept that,” Liz says, relaxing now that it makes sense to her. The super world is really lax when it comes to family relationships. I think it’s because there are so few of us.

“Is there a problem here?” I hear a flight attendant ask in a rather shaky voice.

“No, ma’am, not at all,” Taurus says. “Everything is under control. Skystep just didn’t get there in time to tell us goodbye, isn’t that right, Skystep?”

“What is this about a new roommate?” Emily demands. “You didn’t pick someone dangerous, did you? How long have you known them?”

“This isn’t exactly the place to have this conversation,” Taurus says, nodding at all the flight attendants. There are four of them in the aisle, all watching Skye with terrified, yet stubborn expressions. “Skye, why don’t you go see Nico? See if he can’t get you a phone that can’t be destroyed, and he’ll send us your new number so you can talk to Emily whenever you want.”

“Really?” Skye asks.

“Really,” Taurus promises.

“Tell me where you’re going first.”

“The Arctic Circle,” Liz says, “to see my parents.”

“Oh--that makes them family, too! I want to come!”

“How does that--“

“But you didn’t bring any clothes for a place that cold,” Emily says seriously. “You need to pack for a trip like this, right?”

“I’ll go home and pack!” she says, sliding through the floor of the plane and leaving us all groaning.

“Your aunt is insane,” I tell Emily.

“I picked up on that,” she drawls. “But when I mentioned it to Century he said to just keep her happy, unless she's doing something bad. So far, I think he’s right.”

“I thought I was hard to handle,” Liz says. “Why would their being my parents make them her family?” she demands.

“Because I’m pretty sure she thinks you’re her new sister,” Taurus says blandly.

“I almost killed her,” Liz says.

“Sure, but from what I’ve seen of her career, that’s par for the course.”

“You looked her up?” Liz asks, looking offended.

“I started following it after she came north,” he says. “HTV is a sister-channel of South Branch’s HTV. I went through her entire history.” He looks at the single attendant still lingering nearby. “It’s fine,” he tells her firmly, “sorry about the inconvenience, though.”

“It’s--I just--“ she says, looking a bit flushed as she holds out a small book, “can I get your signatures?”

Taurus looks at the book, glances at Liz, and takes it with a sigh. “We get some famous people once in a while,” the attendant says as he signs it, “but you two are, by far, the most amazing.”

“See? Today’s word is definitely ‘amazing,’” I say to Emily.

“Hey, I just had a thought,” she says, ignoring me. “Why didn’t we just ask Andre if he had a personal jet we could borrow?”

The entire group goes silent, looking at Taurus.

“I didn’t think of it,” he admits sheepishly.

We groan.

***

It’s amazing how quickly the Hall works, Andre thinks as he pulls into the parking lot of the high school. Or maybe he should say how fast Nico works. Within a few hours of calling, the high school offered him a speaking opportunity. It isn’t the whole school, of course, just the kids that are in the drama club. That means the girl of the house that had approached the Hall. The son won’t be there. If it isn’t the girl, he’ll have to make other arrangements.

He walks into the school, pausing to show his credentials to the lady at the front desk of the office. There he waits for the teacher to come and get him. There are kids walking past, all of who look at him curiously, some with worried expressions. He knows exactly what they see--a large black man in an obviously tailored suit. His shoes are shined, his tie perfectly tied. A discreet diamond studs his tie and gold cuff-links glint from his wrists.

He would never dare to change into his Minotaur form in this outfit, he thinks as he reaches up and straightens his tie slightly. He would hate to rip the seams.

“Mr. Henderson?” a young woman in a suit dress asks, making him glance down. “I’m Renee Vine, the Drama Teacher. I’m here to introduce you to the drama club.”

“Thank you, Ms. Vine,” he says, moving beside her as she motions him to follow. He towers over her by a good foot and a half, even though she’s wearing heels. “I’ve been branching out lately, seeing about getting the younger generations interested in news careers.”

“Sir, I didn’t say this in front of the other teachers, but I know who you are,” she says as they reach an empty stairway. “I want to ask why the owner of Hero TV would be willing to come to a public high school on the verge of losing their credentials, looking for workers. I would assume that you could get workers from any college that you desired.”

“You’ve done your research,” Andre says, admiring her. Oh, he’d assumed that at least one of them would find out his identity, he just hadn’t expected them to call him on it. “But don’t you think that’s EXACTLY why I should be here? Your school has a high percentage of minorities, and you’re inner-city. The children here grow up thinking that there are no opportunities in their future. I want to disprove that. Will you deny them the chance to see a job that could potentially be in their future? I have a lot of jobs in my business, Ms. Vine--not just the ones that are on the screen.”

“So you’re serious about this?” she asks.

“If they become serious about it, I will be,” he says, realizing that he should have been doing this all along. She nods, heading down the stairs and opening a door. Andre steps through after her, looking over the crowd of teenagers with an evaluating gaze.

There are some of them that look a little like capes, he notes. They’re mostly towards the front of the room, watching him eagerly, but none of them are from the family he’d been sent pictures of. In fact, he thinks as he looks around, the girl--Alyssa Carter--isn’t here at all.

“Where’s Alyssa?” Ms. Vine demands as she looks around.

“Dunno,” one of the guys says, shrugging.

“You know Alyssa, Miss Vine, she’s constantly getting lost,” a girl says. The rest of the class snickers.

“That girl,” Ms. Vine says with an exasperated sigh, “she’s always late to class. I’ll go find her. Why don’t you start, Mr. Henderson?”

“Who is this guy, anyway?” one of the guys demands, giving Andre a surly look.

“My name is Andre Henderson,” Andre says, walking over to the desk and leaning against it. “I’m the owner of Hero TV.”

The entire room stares at him in shock as Ms. Vine heads out to find Alyssa. For a long moment they start whispering among themselves. He doesn’t mention the fact he can hear everything they say--he doesn’t really need to. By the end of the group chat, most have already decided that he’s a super. The expressions change from wary to excited as they all turn to watch him, waiting for him to go on.