CHAPTER 30
JET
Creating a Heroic Identity is not merely a marketing tool—it is a new life that the extrahuman in question will adopt totally, for the remainder of their career and often beyond. It is a new skin that they must blend seamlessly with the old.
An Introduction to Alternate Identity, Chapter 2
Jet breathlessly ran into her room to get Iri. “Come on, they’ve posted the results!”
Iri arched a brow, then turned back to her chem text. “So? It’ll keep.”
“Come on,” Jet said. “Don’t you want to see?”
“What, the idiot they’ve paired me with? Why’d I want to see that?”
Jet felt her mouth gaping open, so she shut it with a click. Crossing her arms, she glared at Iri, who was freaking ignoring her. “I don’t know, maybe because this is the first step in our careers, in becoming full-fledged heroes?”
“Yeah, great. Go ahead and order me a big pile of cheer, because I just can’t be bothered to do it myself.”
“Christo, what’s with you? Don’t you want to see who you’re getting teamed with?”
“Not really.”
Mind-boggling. Utterly mind-boggling. “Why not?”
Iri shrugged, kept her gaze on her computer. “Like I said, it’ll keep.”
If this had been First Year, or even Second Year, Jet would have caved and left Iri to stew in her blatantly false apathy. But ever since getting her blessed, blessed earpiece, then becoming … friends … with Samson, Jet had discovered an inner strength she hadn’t known she’d possessed. So she grabbed Iri’s arm and bodily shoved her out of their room, with Iri squawking, loudly, that Jet was crazy.
Well, yeah, she probably was. But what did one thing have to do with another? Grinning, Jet pulled Iri along. As she led them down the hall, a number of students chuckled, and one girl clapped.
“At least let me get my boots on,” Iri yelled.
“And let you lock yourself in? No way, Princess.”
“Princess?”
Looking over her shoulder, Jet flashed Iri a toothy smile. “You’re so concerned about your boots, I thought maybe it was an accessory issue. You know, your bare feet clashing with your hairband, or something.”
“You’ve lost it,” Iri muttered, giving up. “Utterly lost it. I have a psycho for a roommate.” She raised her voice and called out to anyone listening: “A psycho for a roommate!”
Of course, that was when one of the proctors, Stretch, crossed their path. She elongated her arm to halt them in their tracks. “And what in the hell are you shouting about, Iridium?”
“Ma’am, my roommate just kidnapped me, which, I believe, is a Code Seven offense.” She gestured down to her bare feet. “Code Nine if I get a splinter.”
Stretch blinked at Iri, then at Iri’s feet. And then she glared at Jet, who smiled meekly and said, “Just excited to see about the pairing results, ma’am.”
Stretch sighed and shook her head. “Fine. But get there quieter. Some people actually are studying.”
“I was studying,” Iri muttered as Jet grabbed her arm again and led the way. “I was studying just fine until my psycho roommate kidnapped me. In broad daylight. In the freaking Academy. There’s no justice in the world. None.”
“Come on, I bet the crowd’s not so big yet.”
“You know, this is a total role reversal. You’re the one who’s always cooped up, trying to get ahead of the curriculum.”
“And you’re the one always telling me to lighten up,” Jet said, steering Iri toward the stairs. “I’m lightening.”
“You can’t lighten up, you psycho Shadow! You’re the dour one. I’m the obnoxious one.”
“You’re not allowed to have a monopoly on obnoxious-ness.”
“This is because of that boy,” Iri said, making sure to sound like every adult who ever disapproved of teenage romance.
“That boy,” Jet said, doing her best to ignore the warmth in her cheeks, “has nothing to do with wanting to see who we’re getting paired with.”
“You know that you won’t be partnered with Samson, right? I mean, not that you and he haven’t been doing your own style of partnering when no one’s looking …”
“Shhhh!” Jet darted her glance around, but there was no one else in the stairwell. For the moment. “Come on, keep it down!”
“What? You started.”
“Did not. Besides, Sam and I don’t do anything of the sort,” Jet said primly, holding the stairway door open for Iri. “We’re just friends. After you, Princess.”
Iri glared at her, then stood rooted to the spot until Jet sighed and marched through the door first. Iri followed. The two girls walked together down the main hall of the first floor, heading toward the assembly hall.
“Friends, she says. Hah.” Iri rolled her eyes. “If you ever kiss me the way you kiss him, I’m going to shove a strobe down your throat and boil your tongue.”
Jet giggled. “Admit it, you like him.”
“Sure, I like him. But you’re stupidly in love with him. It’s making you positively chipper. Hurts the whole sullen angsty almost-heroine thing you have going for you.”
“You’ve got Frostbite. I’ve got Samson.”
Iri burst out laughing. “Oh Jehovah, trust me, Frostbite and I are absolutely not friends the way you and Samson have redefined the word.”
Jet arched an eyebrow. “You really mean to tell me after all this time, you guys never …?”
“Nope.”
“Not once?”
“Nope.”
“Huh.” Jet paused, thinking about Samson’s lopsided grin, his rumbling laugh. His hands, so huge yet so gentle. “Sam and I haven’t. You know. Done it.”
“Christo,” Iri said, “if this is how you act from just kissing the big dope, I’m so freaking doomed when you actually let him in your pants. You’ll be all giddy and happy and shit. I won’t be able to take it.”
“I am happy,” Jet said, feeling a goofy smile on her face. “I really like him, Callie.”
Iri’s mouth twitched, then she let out a dramatic sigh. “I’ll have to tell Derek that our Joannie’s in lurve. He’ll cry, you know. Kids grow up so fast these days.”
Jet’s blush deepened. “I think I am. In love.”
Iri draped an arm around her shoulder. “No shit, my friend. No shit. But you tell the big lug that if he breaks your heart, I’ll break his kneecaps.”
“You’re so good to me.”
“What are friends for?”
“Friends in the you-and-me way? Or in the me-and-Samson way?”
“Friends in the you-and-Samson way are for me to make fun of,” Iri said. “Oh goodie. We’re here. Now we can see who we’re stuck with for the rest of our Academic lives.”
The lobby outside of the assembly hall was swarming with Third Year students eager to see who they would be paired with for the duration of their studies, all buzzing over the posted results. Numerous instructors and a handful of proctors were all trying to keep some semblance of decorum. Jet wished them luck: a superpowered mob wasn’t a pretty sight.
Instead of shoving their way through, Jet and Iri hung by the back. As much as Jet was dying to know whom she’d be working with, training with, she sensed that Iri needed to talk.
Getting an Everyman to preach about the wonders of the extrahumans would have been easier.
“What’s eating you?” Jet asked softly. “All kidding aside, Iri, this isn’t like you. What’s wrong? Don’t you want to know?”
Iri pressed her lips together into a thin white line. For a moment, Jet thought she wasn’t going to tell her, but then Iri spoke, her voice clipped and quiet, sounding faintly British. “I’m not eager to make nice with some wet-eared hero wannabe. There are exactly two people I’m comfortable with, and one of them’s impossible for me to be paired with because the Academy is more mixed-gender phobic than most convents.” She slid a glance at Jet. “And the other one’s acting like she’s insane.”
Jet smiled. “In love.”
“Same thing.”
“Whoever you get paired with, you’re going to be great.” Jet bit her lip, then said, “How can you be anything but great? I wouldn’t have made it to Third Year without you.”
Iri waved her off. “You’d have found yourself another tutor.”
“No, dummy. Not that.” She lightly punched Iri’s arm. “Come on, you’re the smart one. You know what I mean.”
“Yeah,” Iri said, rubbing her arm. “And f*cking ow! What’s with you?”
“I’m trying to make a point. You’ve made Academy bearable. Hell, Iri, you’ve made it almost fun. And that doesn’t stop once we get paired with other people.”
“But I don’t want to be paired with anyone else.” Iri scrubbed a hand through her black hair. “Christo, could you imagine me covering Steele’s back?”
“Steele’s okay.”
“Yeah, but she’s more freaking by-the-book than you are!”
Jet smiled sweetly. “See? You won’t miss me at all …”
“I’m going to strobe your sheets when you’re sleeping.”
“And I’ll put creepers on your pillow when you’re not looking.”
The two girls shared a laugh, then grew quiet. Soon Iri said, “Seriously, Joannie. I like being myself around you and Derek the Dork.”
“You can still be yourself, even around a new partner.”
“Yeah, that’ll happen.”
“Why wouldn’t it?”
“I don’t want to have to break in another hero-in-training.”
“You know,” Jet said dryly, “you’re not so impossible to get along with. For a criminal.”
Iri smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “So says the kook.”
“Come on,” Jet said, pushing Iri forward. “Let’s see who we got. I’m sure it won’t be that bad.”
“It’ll be worse. Christo, they probably put me with LightBright …”
“And I’ll probably get Lady Luck. Let’s go.”
They weaved their way through the crowd, Iridium snarling at people who tried to block their path and Jet slinking between people like a snake. Or a shadow. Finally, they got to the results board.
And stared at their names, linked.
“Holy Jehovah in a minihover,” Iri breathed. “I don’t believe it!”
“See?” Jet’s grin stretched so wide that her cheeks threatened to fall off of her face. “See? Sometimes things work out better than we hope!”
“Yeah, yeah,” someone behind them called, “congratulations! Now get out of the way already!”
The two allowed themselves to be pushed out of the crush of students. When they were on the periphery of the crowd, they both whooped for joy, and to hell with the proctors.
“Light and Shadow, working together,” Iri crowed, pumping her fist. “I want to know who you slept with to get us paired.”
“Me?” Jet giggled. “I thought maybe you threatened someone.”
“This is going to be great!” Iri’s eyes lit with passion, and Jet practically saw her roommate’s—no, her partner’s—mind working on how the two of them would take the Academy by storm. “Light refraction and casting shadows … Damn, Jet, we could really make this thing work for us!”
“Striking terror into the hearts of villains?”
“You know it! Black and white, Joannie. You and me.”
“And Samson?”
Iri groaned. “I’d do almost anything for you, Jet. But I am absolutely, positively not agreeing to a threesome. But maybe I’ll let him sidekick.”
“‘Let,’ huh?”
Grinning hugely, they both nodded to Night, the proctor at the assembly hall’s entrance, who nodded in return. In his cold voice, he said, “Happy with the results, I take it?”
“Couldn’t be happier, sir,” Iri said brightly. “It’s almost enough to make me believe in guardian angels.”
Night smiled. Sort of. “And you, Jet?”
“I’m really happy, sir.” And she meant every word.
“Good.” This time, Night really smiled—wide enough for Jet to see his shockingly white teeth. “Enjoy the moment, girls. Because now the hard part is going to begin.”