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“I have enough training to know what I’m doing. I could easily hack into the BEEPR servers and send the notifications to my MOD. I’ve thought about it … a lot.” He shoves his hands into his lab coat pockets and rocks back on his heels, his eyes far away. “But I haven’t acted on it. That’s what makes me very different from you.”
I smirk, taking that as a compliment. “My reasons make sense though. Why would you want to fake Hero? You left Hero training.”
“Because capturing a villain with my own two hands is about the only way I’ll ever get a sample of villain power. I spent several years in Hero training and the urge to stop evil still runs through my veins. Although research is my passion, sometimes I practically salivate at the idea of capturing a villain and using him for my research. Hell, I’d depower him myself with a scalpel and a magnet.”
“A slow, gruesome depowering.” I laugh. “That’s harsh. I approve.” I hold out my fist and he taps his fist to mine.
“Unlike you, I’m scared of what would happen to me if I broke protocol like that.” He runs a hand over his messy, pulled-back hair. “But sometimes … man, the urge to track down and stop a villain is almost overwhelming.”
Chills creep up my arms. Every word he said parallels my own thoughts about villains. It’s one thing to want evil to be cast out from the world, but it’s another thing to desire to use your own hands to do it. The yearning to rip away the power that enables villains to hurt is the strongest emotion I’ve ever felt.
If only the examiners could know what is in my heart. How could anyone suspect that I’m actually an evil villain myself, when my greatest wish is to destroy them?
Things are phenomenally better between Evan and me now that we’ve had our little talk and hug-it-out session. He spends the next two days showing me around the research facility, (no, those aren’t torture devices). Allowing me to play with his experiments, (abruptly banning me from the massive thing that splits atoms). Explaining things using words I didn’t understand, (electrophoresis?), and just generally showing me how ridiculously smart he is while remaining humble about it all.
The only unfortunate thing about crashing uninvited at Evan’s is that I have to act like I’m him for the duration of my stay. White T-shirts and black sweatpants with the drawstring pulled extra tight are all I wear, and showering in his shower means I always smell like Winterfresh Mountain Spring body wash.
When I asked him how a shampoo company could possibly know what a spring in the mountains during the winter smells like, he shrugged and told me I think too much about things that don’t matter. Then I flipped my hair across his face and said, “Do you like my hair, baby? It’s Winterfresh, like a mountain spring.” And he shoved me on the bed and told me if I didn’t like his toiletries then I could shower in the salt water outside. Turns out we really get along when we’re not preoccupied with being jerks to each other.
I spread my arms open, relaxing on a beanbag as it hovers three feet off the floor in Evan’s living room. I toss my head back. “I could get used to this.”
He’s controlling the hover device with a remote he made with spare parts from other remotes. The idea, something he affectionately calls the Cloud Bag, is from the collection of inventions he created for kids. He’s dedicated an entire floor of the Research building to what Evan hopes to market as a Toys-R-Us sort of store for Super kids.
He moves the joystick that came from a video game controller and the beanbag swooshes to the right, taking me with it. “It is nice having someone else here to be my guinea pig.” The pencil between his teeth muffles his voice as he holds out a tape measure from the floor to the bottom of my hovercraft.
I hold on as he swings the beanbag to the left, stopping just before sending me head first into the wall. He takes a measurement again, marking it on a notepad with Star Wars characters on the front. “I can’t test everything out on myself, and so far I’ve only tested this with a hundred-pound weight.” He snorts. “That’s not nearly enough to test the strength of the hover engine.”
“Not nearly enough?” I fling myself off the beanbag, sending it crashing into the ceiling. “Excuse you.” I catch it before it hits the newly fixed coffee table on its descent. “You don’t know how much I weigh.”
He laughs. “More than a hundred pounds, princess.”
In lieu of retaliating, I change the subject. “I never thought I’d say this because, you know, Research is for total nerds.” I point at him with my index finger under my nose, pretending to scratch my lip. “But this place is cool. I could see myself working here if the Hero thing doesn’t work out. It would be more fun tha
n being a Retriever.”
“You’ve worked hard to be a Hero—you shouldn’t give up that soon. Besides, who would hire you? Certainly not the only employee whom you just called a nerd.”
I cross my arms. “I’d think that employee would be honored to hire me.”
His reply is as instant as the finger gun he shoots at me. “Good thing you aren’t paid to think.”
I throw the beanbag chair in his face—a friendly, non-evil gesture that makes him grab my hand and twist it around my back, pinning me to his chest. “Ev-an,” I groan, gasping for breath through the ridiculous smile plastered on my face. I may be trained in villainy, but I know flirting when I see it. “You can’t flirt with me during a lockdown.” My eyes narrow. “It’s unethical.”
He releases me and presses a hand to his forehead, slowly dragging it down so his face pulls into a creepy shape. “Wow. I kind of forgot about the lockdown. I’m a terrible person.”
“You aren’t,” I assure him. “It’s easy to forget about the rest of the world when you’re here. I do feel bad though, having fun with you while everyone else is stuck in their homes wondering what’s going on.”
A sly smile nears me as he takes a step forward, pressing his forehead to mine. “I’ve definitely forgotten about the rest of the world.”
The brightness in Evan’s smile could rival the sun. He’s been working in the lab all morning and he’s wearing his nerd glasses and a lab coat to prove it. He rocks back and forth on his heels, standing just close enough to the television to be an annoying distraction. I slide to the right on the couch, tapping the X button furiously on my game controller. Evan clears his throat. I roll my eyes.
“What is it, Evan? And if those hipster glasses are an attempt to make me fall in love, try again.”
“You should pause the game,” he says with all the jubilant excitement of a kid on Christmas morning. I yank the controller to the right—as if that’ll somehow make my character move in the game—and fire off several shots into enemy territory. “Come on, Maci, I need you to pause the game.”
“I need you to pause your face.” The last two words come out in a grunt of panic as an enemy jumps out of nowhere and shoots me in the chest. I duck behind an old school bus to reload my gun, but it’s too late. I’m dead.
I pause the game, place the controller neatly in my lap, and fold my arms across my chest. “You have my full attention, Mr. Letta. I’m dead, by the way. I hope you’re happy.”
