Not Your Villain (Sidekick Squad #2)(4)
He plucks an apple from Simon’s bag and munches it. They’re good this year, sweet and just a little tart.
“That’s one credit, bro.” Simon raises his eyebrows at Bells and grabs the fruit.
“Hey!” Bells scowls, folding his arms.
“They’re going for twenty creds a bag right now in New Bright City,” Sean says. “Can’t believe the Collective is giving us only five.”
It doesn’t make much sense to Bells either, but an official looking holodoc arrives every year with the standard market prices. The Collective’s laws forbid farmers from selling their produce locally; instead, every farmer is required to sell directly to the Collective, which resupplies the twenty-four regions of the country. By the time everything is shipped and re-shipped, the price for consumers doubles.
“Well, I don’t have any extra credits.” Bells grabs the apple back. He blew a huge chunk of his savings going shopping with Emma last week; they found an artist who hand-dyed shoes, and he just had to have these green and blue ones. That doesn’t mean he can’t have the apple now, though. Bells looks Simon in the eye and licks the fruit very deliberately, all over the skin. “Plus, I’m family.”
“Simon,” Collette warns, grabbing the bag of apples and putting it in her lap. “We’ve got plenty to sell at—”
Nick begins singing at the top of his lungs.
Collette ignores him. “—Grassroots after we drop your brother off.”
“So you’re meeting them in Vegas?” Bells asks, hoping to learn more.
Like the location of Clairborne, he doesn’t know how his family evades Collective laws to sell local produce at affordable prices. His parents are paranoid; the fewer people who know, the better. He’ll be trusted with the secret when he’s finished with Meta-Human Training and won’t be going to government facilities anymore. That was an offhand thing his dad said once, but it needles at him a bit: that they think Bells’ desire to be a superhero isn’t going to be… permanent; that he’ll just come back to work the family business.
Simon reaches across Bells to poke Sean. “Hey, are you still using a drip system? In one of my agro classes we were talking about…”
Watching the landscape pass by, Bells tunes out the farm talk and eats his apple. The bright oranges and reds of the desert are familiar, yet the terrain is strange. The world outside his little desert town was just an idea, and all the places he only knew in holobooks and movies never seemed quite real until he traveled outside Andover for Meta-Human Training.
They pass through a swath of solar fields shining in the afternoon sun, and Bells marvels at how many panels there are.
“It looks like a huge lake mirroring the blue sky,” Sean says, and Bells remembers his older brother has never seen him off for training, has never come this way.
Simon nods. “Neat, isn’t it? The Vegas solar fields generate power not only for their city, but for cities all over the Western regions of the Collective.”
Bells tunes them out to focus on the sparkle of the sunlight on the panels. How do cities that aren’t next to perpetually sunny areas get their energy? Bells has some understanding of other power sources—geothermal, tidal generators, wind, steam—but he hasn’t seen them. What will Aerial City be like? Is it really in the trees?
The single-lane highway passes old signs and new. A billboard that features Captain Orion smiling heroically down at them reminds them to drive safely.
“As if this is driving.” Collette watches the car’s computer panel tick down the estimated arrival time.
Nick pats her shoulder. “Calm down. We’ve already removed the car’s access to the Net; we’re not being logged.”
“I know, but I hate not controlling the car.” Collette frowns at the panel.
The discussion is an old one; the need to keep Grassroots and their organization secret is coupled with a strong distrust of the Collective and, in turn, the League. Like every year since Bells started Meta-Human Training, this year the League asked Bells to participate in the ongoing research and development the League conducts at the center. In fact, the League came close to insisting. Bells knows they’ve never had a shapeshifter to test and that with their help he could learn much more about the extent of his powers, but the idea made his parents uncomfortable because the League increased the pressure every year.
Las Vegas seems to happen all at once. Hotels, casinos, metal and chrome skyscrapers, and walkways spring up all around them like a spindly metal forest. Bells looks up and up and up at their height; it never fails to fascinate him— Is that building shaped like a castle?
The lights and facades of the hotels and casinos are bright and fanciful in every possible color, a constant distraction. There is indeed a castle, and a pyramid, and a replica of the Eiffel Tower: love letters to places only the absurdly rich can go. Apparently, people used to fly internationally, when fossil fuel engines were still prominent. It’s very rare for people to travel outside the Collective as boat travel is incredibly expensive. These replicas of places abroad might be the only chance to be an international tourist.
The car slows to a stop in the middle of the street. “You have arrived at your destination,” the cool computer voice says.
“No, this is not our destination.” Nick flicks furiously at the car’s computer panel and brings up the keyboard.