I Become Shadow (20 page)

“Do you do this every class?” Gareth asked me out of the corner of his mouth.

“Pretty much,” I said casually as I folded the paper.

“You are an impressive girl.”

I shrugged and gave him a wink. He went back to taking more than copious notes, literally writing down everything the Prof said or wrote on the board.

I went to back my paper and almost started laughing out loud when I read the front-page headline:
POLICE SEARCHING FOR SUPERHERO
.

Apparently, my story about the random person coming to save us and chasing after the imaginary third attacker had stuck. The group of kids from the fountain had eaten it up and told anyone who would listen. One of the girls even “swore” she saw a cloaked figure scale one of the campus buildings. Right. The cloaked figure of embellishment, maybe. But the police had bought it, every word. They and the school were convinced that it was all the work of some local vigilante. They wanted to bring him in for questioning. The Editorial Board on the Opinion Page wanted to give him a medal. Shocking how it’s always a
him
, huh?

The police were also looking for the girl and boy who were
saved
by the amazing superhero. But all that witnesses were able to tell the police about the victims was that they were of college age and wearing jeans. So it was more of a plea by the police for the two victims to come forward. Like your little brother begging for you to let him play with you.
Come on, pleeease. Pleeease come in for questioning?
Not gonna happen. I looked at my outfit and the absurdity of it. I was more than in the clear, yet here I was dressed like a fifteen-year-old white rapper.

I finished the crossword as class ended. I would normally leave and wait for Gareth to make his way out, so I’d never seen what exactly he did between the moment I boogied out of class and the moment he followed. It was one of the only parts of day I didn’t have my eyes on him. I could finally put this mystery to bed.

He had taken about eight full pages of notes, front and back. Page by page he read them to himself.
So this is why it
takes him so long to get outside
. Finished, he folded them up, picked up his bag, and stood up.

“Ready?”

I nodded. We moved down the row toward the door. When we reached the exit he dropped his folded-up notes into the trash.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

I took the papers out of the trash. “You don’t have to try and impress me or anything, Gareth. Here, keep your notes.”

I handed the pages back to him and he grinned. “I never keep notes. Ever.” And he tossed the pages right back in the garbage. He gave a wry smile, pointed to his forehead and said, “I keep it all up here.”

“Don’t let me be a bad influence on you, please don’t do this,” I said seriously.

“I have a photographic memory, Ren. Once I read it, I have it forever.” He laughed to himself. “You thought I did that to impress you? Man, you and your ego. Think all three of us can fit through the door at once?” Still grinning, he left me to follow.

I was stunned. More than that, I was impressed. “You really have a photographic memory?” I asked as I caught up.

“Yup.”

“Cool. What’s it like?”

“You mean to remember everything?”

I nodded.

He shrugged. “Handy.”

Over the next few weeks I spent more time with Gareth, in spite of my daily resolution to cool off toward him. We developed what he called a fake relationship, with me being his fake girlfriend. As he said, oozing with sarcasm: “You know, the one you buy dinner and gifts for, and spill your guts to, but never sleep with. Love it.”

Hey, it gave me more reasons to be with him, which I wasn’t going to turn down. Was I worried about getting in the way of what he did or became? Kind of, but judging by his attitude, and the fact that he still spent most of his waking hours in a lab, it was pretty easy to guess he would become some kind of great scientist or something. So with that in mind, I figured as long as I never kept him from his work, how bad could hanging out with him be? He even told me that spending time with me cleared his mind. His words, I swear: he was able to get more work done knowing he’d get to see me after. So really,
by breaking the rules I was actually helping, you know? Convinced yet? Me neither.

Was this better than obeying orders and leaving him alone? Hell, no. But who’s perfect, right? After what I’d gone through I could be a little selfish for a bit.

As it turned out Gareth wasn’t so much a nerd by choice but by circumstance. It was something he felt obligated to be. As I got to know him more, he told me that he understood that the gift he had came with a responsibility to do something with it. He wanted to spend all day at the pool goofing off. He wished he was good at sports. But he wouldn’t, and he wasn’t. While it seemed like everyone else our age was trying their best to be on a reality show or score a touchdown or make crappy pop music, he was trying to do something good, something that could change the world. Or at the very least provide the stepping-stone for someone else to do it. And there was something honorable in that. Attractive, even.

IT HAD BEEN ABOUT
three weeks since the back alley slice-and-stomp, and not so surprisingly three weeks since the “superhero” was last spotted.

I’d lied when he’d called. I’d said I was working on a project too and would meet him outside the labs after for a burger. He’d asked when, all weirdly out of breath. Per my rule not to get in the way of his work, I told him whenever he was done because I had more than enough work to keep me busy. He’d bought it. It’s great how infatuation can blind someone. Or maybe I’m really good at lying. Probably a good mix of both.

Anyway, here I was, waiting as always on a sofa. I had been given a wide smile and thumbs-up from the old security guard.

Now Gareth was late. A text had come a little over ten minutes ago saying he’d be done in a few minutes, so now I was anxious. I was watching the elevator waiting for him. When the doors slid open, the anxiety evaporated. He jog-walked over to me, beyond giddy, and grabbed my hand as he said, “Come on!”

I let him pull me from the building and outside, all to the security guard’s amusement, of course. When he tried to drag me down the stairs I pulled my arm away and stopped.

“What’s going on?”

He kept grinning stupidly. “I did it.”

“Did what?” I responded.

He looked around as if looking for spies before saying, “Not here. Come on.”

He reached for my hand.

“I’m not holding your hand,” I said flatly. “Where are we going?”

“Back to the dorm.”

He slowly started to leave but kept looking at me, making sure I was going to follow him. Little did he know.

Lawrence was home and preoccupied with some video game in Gareth’s room, so we went into mine instead. (I always kept the weapons hidden in case of just such a surprise visit.) Once the door was closed Gareth dropped his bag and uttered, “I did it. I actually did it.”

And then he did his own version of a happy dance. It
was a bit more macho then mine, more fist pumps, a few awkward leg kicks, some victorious arm raises too, and a pelvic thrust, of course. I sat on the edge of my bed and waited for him to be done. Obviously, since he was this excited, that connection we shared made me feel overly so as well. I wanted to do a happy dance too but instead held it in. This was his moment.

A little out of breath and with his hair a mess, he stopped, turned toward me, and said, “Sorry.”

“Enlighten me.”

“I did it,” he said again.

“We’ve covered that part. What have you done?”

“I figured it out. Broke the code, so to speak. It’s not done and I’ll need who knows how long to perfect it, but I
should
be able to do it. Exciting, right?” When I didn’t answer he continued, “Oh, right, sorry. Okay, Ren, I think I’ve created a wheat seed that can grow without water.”

And …
was my first reaction.
Big deal
 … was my second. Then I thought about it.
Holy hell!
My eyes widened with recognition, as I fully understood the implications of it.

“It could grow anywhere,” I said. He nodded as I continued my out-loud thinking, “Deserts, droughts, wouldn’t matter.” I looked right at him as I said, “This could cure hunger. This will change the world.”

He nodded as our eyes locked. And then he did something I should have expected. He leaned in quickly and kissed me.

If the feeling I got being around him was a ten, then this was a gajillion. I felt like every nerve ending in my body were alive, exploding with pleasure. I wanted to live
in that feeling for the rest of my life. But then my stupid brain got in the way.

What the hell are you doing?

Before I could stop it, Old Brain took over. It was like an out-of-body experience. I watched my hands shove him backward, hard. His back and head slammed into the wall at the foot of my bed, and he rolled onto the floor.

He got up quickly, his face a fiery red. “I’m sorry. Oh, God, I’m so sorry. It was … I was excited, and you looked so …”

Little did he know I was currently in a be-all-end-all, battle royale with myself. I wanted nothing more than to grab him, slam him onto the bed, and get me a little more of whatever I had felt when he kissed me. But my brain, the one that calls the shots, was putting the kibosh on it. So I sat there staring at him, frozen like a broken-down robot. He grabbed his bag and when he reached the door said, “Really. I’m sorry. Say something. Oh, jeez. Please don’t … please don’t.” With no reaction or acknowledgment from me he slammed the door behind him, defeated, head down.

Only then did my brain give up the fight and allow me to slump backward onto my bed eyes closed, grinning like an idiot, like the way he’d been grinning when he told me what he’d done. I heard him go inside his room, and Lawrence’s muffled greeting. I lay there, trying to hold on to that feeling for as long as I could. This junkie was officially hooked.

After a good fifteen minutes, it had worn off enough for me to get up. I had some business to take care of before I could become officially worthless.

I pulled from my pocket a small, clear glass tablet that I kept on me at all times. At my touch it turned on and connected me directly to the FATE Center. If there was a situation, or update on our FIP that merited a question or response, we were supposed to let them know through this number. There was a
beep
. I stated my name and the voice recognition software cleared me through. As was protocol, I left a message describing what I had learned about Gareth’s creation. Said I “overheard him talking to a classmate.” I left out the parts about the mugging, our “fake” relationship, and the kiss. Was I covering my own ass? Yup. But logically speaking it was unnecessary information.

Satisfied with my report, I hung up.

THE NEXT MORNING, WHEN
Gareth left his room he knocked on my door—as per our usual routine. Only I didn’t answer it this time. He probably saw it as rightful punishment for what in his mind was a huge mistake; the lapse in judgment that had officially ended both the real and the fake relationship. But even though he did technically deserve it, I kept quiet for a different reason: to protect him from me. I hadn’t slept a wink. I’d been up all night thinking about him. Fantasizing about him. Okay, not so much about
him
, but how he had made me feel. It was like some kind of animalistic lust that I wasn’t sure I could control. So I didn’t answer the door because I was afraid of what I’d do to him if I did.

I knew the truth then. It was for this reason we had been told, repeatedly, never to make direct contact. Whatever
FATE had done to us during our link had some pretty intense side effects.

He finally slunk off.

Even as I followed Gareth to class from about fifty yards, it took every bit of my will not to sprint the distance between the two of us, grab him, and do something dirty in the bushes. No joking. It was the greatest self-control I’ve ever had to exert.

SURE ENOUGH, MY SANITY
improved as the week went on. Either I got stronger, or the feelings got weaker. It didn’t matter. Either way, by the time he left the lab at the end of that week I felt fine again. I finally felt confident I could resist whatever voodoo magic was going on inside me.

When Gareth knocked on my door that night—he hadn’t since that first morning when I didn’t answer—I figured he’d overcome his embarrassment, too. We could go back to being friends. It was time to let him in. I took a deep breath and slowly opened the door, making sure to keep both eyes on the floor. To him it probably looked like I was still angry about what had happened.

The proximity of being that close to him again hit me like a truck. Deep breaths, steady breaths.

“I’m so sorry,” he said for the thousandth time. “Are you okay?”

His voice rang in my ears, and when I finally looked at him, I gripped the door handle and my face flushed. I fought for control. As quickly as the beast rose up, threatening to take over and make me do unspeakably naughty things, I squashed it back down. Victory. For now.

I gave a small smile and said, “I am.”

I invited him in, and we spent the next hour talking about his work and what he had done while we’d avoided each other. Whenever he recounted what he’d done in a day it was always tough to pay attention since I already knew. It was even tougher not to call him out when he lied—about going to the gym, for example. (Really? Did he think I’d be impressed?) Alas, the life of a Shadow is a tough one …

I asked him for more information about the seed. I regretted it as he rattled off some mumbo jumbo about nutrient enrichment, hybrid species, encapsulating, super seeds, blah, blah, blah. It was so beyond me he could have been speaking in binary code and I probably would have understood about the same amount. Good thing I could zone out. I was too busy taking solace in the fact that our relationship could go back to being normal, or as normal as it could be.