Not Your Villain (Sidekick Squad #2)
C.B. Lee
Part 1: Get Ready
Ch. 1...
“Ten weeks?” Emma’s hologram is positively indignant, and her heart-shaped face is scrunched up in horror. Bells can’t see anything other than her face in the projection above his wrist, but he knows her arms are probably crossed and she’s about to—yep, there she goes. A little furrow pops up between her eyebrows, as it does whenever she’s annoyed. “Bells, that’s almost the whole summer!” The hologram flickers in and out as Emma moves. She shakes her head; her curls bounce.
“I know. I know. I just—it was a last-minute thing. I mean, I was on the waitlist and then someone dropped out, and it’s a really cool opportunity, with a scholarship and everything! I’ve never been in the North; it’ll be so cool!” Bells grins, hoping his excitement will be infectious.
“I know it will be cool and I’m happy that you got into this art program, but I wish you would have told me! Ten whole weeks without my best friend! What will I do?”
She’s pouting, and Bells sighs. The effect of the Emma Robledo pout can be devastating. He touches the holo, and it blips, distorting the image. Emma does the same, and the tiny blue pixels of her fingers reach for his.
A pang of longing courses through him. He’s going to miss her terribly. It’s awful lying to his friends about where he’s been these past few summers. Last year, he told them it was a soccer camp. The year before that, he said he was visiting his cousins in the California region.
“Well, you have volleyball practice and aren’t you learning to drive? I mean, you haven’t stopped talking about it since your moms agreed to teach you, and they were gonna get you your own car, right? And Jess—”
“Jess! Have you told Jess?” Emma shrieks.
Bells barely has time to shake his head before Emma rolls her eyes and flicks at her wrist, and then he hears another comm link connect. Jess’ face blooms out of shimmering blue light.
Jess waves, and her ponytail bobs. “Hey! Are we still on for movie night?”
“No,” Emma says. “Bells is leaving us for ten weeks!”
“What? Why? When?” Jess frowns. Her hologram glitches and flickers, and the sound fizzes in and out. The reception in the Tran household is always shoddy for some reason.
He starts over. “I got accepted to that summer art program in Aerial City. You know, very prestigious, dorm rooms, classes every day, field trips to museums…”
“What program? I didn’t even know you applied to one!” Jess raises her eyebrows.
“Uh… I didn’t know if I would get in.”
That much is true, but there’s no art program. The fictional summer camp does sound cool, but not as cool as what he’s actually going to do, which is learn how to be a hero.
Meta-Human Training is a huge, secretive business; there are applications and waitlists, even after the arduous process of registration. That took Bells long enough to complete because his parents didn’t like the idea of Meta-Human Training, but after Bells started shifting accidentally, they agreed that training was a good idea. He’s been going to the training program for the past three summers, but he’d been waitlisted this year. Yesterday, Bells got a message assuring him there was a spot for him if he wanted to take it—and he did.
“Aerial City is so far, Bells,” Jess says, frowning.
Technically, Bells won’t be in Aerial City. He doesn’t know exactly where the Meta-Human Training Center is; no one does. But his hovertrain ticket is for Aerial City, and he’ll be picked up there to go to the training center.
“Yeah, but it will be cool! I hear that all the buildings are built right into the trees.” Bells imagines giant trees, living and growing around stout little buildings on the ground. He hasn’t had time to go through the holopages the training center sent him about Aerial City. He’s been busy trying to finish his duties at his family’s restaurant and their farm, and packing.
“You better call us every night! I want to hear everything about what it’s like!” Emma says.
“Don’t forget about us,” Jess says. Alarm flits across her face. “Brendan, what are you—oh no, oh no—sorry, gotta go put this out, bye!”
Jess’ holo blinks and disappears.
Bells laughs. After last week’s incident with the pineapple, Jess’ little brother Brendan is restricted to only non-flammable experiments. Apparently he’s taking advantage since their parents are out of town this weekend.
“Ten credits says Jess comes back with no eyebrows again,” he says, snickering.
Emma snorts. “One eyebrow, and make that twenty credits.”
They grin at each other until the joke doesn’t seem so funny. He won’t be able to laugh and joke with Emma for the whole summer. He’ll have access to the Net, but holocalls are strictly prohibited due to the secrecy of the location.
Emma sighs. “Okay, when do you have to leave? We should hang out before you go. Jess has been going on and on about Vindicated 5. It just came out. Do you have time for a movie?”
“Em, I’m leaving in an hour.”
“What?”
The data exchange device beeps with the low-battery warning; Bells was too caught up with packing to charge it. He plops the slim device into the dock on his desk.