Something Between Us

Radiance #7.5: Things we need to talk about.

Science! Girl & Chained Lightning is a spinoff of Radiance; both stories take place around 2014 in a world where atypical abilities have become increasingly common, with the storyline following a group of minor-league superheroes based in Washington, DC. This one is all about belligerent couple Dr. Marissa Cotlin and her (former) favorite test subject Baz Grimes.

Compared to the rest of Science! Girl, the content rating here is much closer to Radiance. There’s some language and plenty of bad decisions, but what else is new?

Previously, Marissa’s expectant sister Mallory tried to talk her into joining her, and Christa noticed she was being used to defuse an argument between her and Baz about whether they should get married. This time, Marissa might be running out of road.

<Radiance #7 || Directory || Radiance #8 coming soon…>

Messages: Dr.-Mrs.-Mrs.-Dr. Mallory Cotlin-Ward

Mallory: Well. That Skype call with Mom went about as well as I thought it would.
Marissa: told u not to wait for second trimester to tell her
Mallory: Yes, yes, you’re very smart.
Mallory: Are you SURE you don’t want to like…announce your engagement or move to Austin or something?
Marissa: sorry babe, ur on ur own :)
Mallory: boo
Mallory: You know, I was really looking forward to doing cute cousin photos together at Thanksgiving.
Marissa: not this again
Mallory: I’M JUST SAYING.
Marissa: yeah ok! it will be adorable! but not right now! i am finally getting my frickin life together, remember! i have a **timeline**!!
Mallory: “a timeline” L M A O
Mallory: I will literally bet $50 that you’re already pregnant.
Mallory: …are you checking the calendar right now?
Marissa: no, omg. but also I will take that bet and win.

This had been about a week ago, the follow-up being an impulsive drugstore trip, a picture text, and then a call where they argued for five minutes over whether the shadow from the edge of her phone was actually a faint second line on the strip. Mal had told her ‘welcome to baby limbo’ and refused to pay up without a second negative test for confirmation. Marissa hadn’t bothered to say so, but was pretty sure this was all a mind game to convince her that she wanted to go off schedule.

It wasn’t going to work, though, because she had a plan. It might only exist in her head, but it was still a plan, and that was good enough. This was common sense, surely. There was no telling how things might go wrong if she just rushed in.

Marissa would argue that the last year had been a pretty good one for common sense and responsibility, overall. Another year like this one, and she might just shake that reputation as the family screwup. So what if she’d disappointed them up until now? Now she had that PhD, and enough of a corresponding bump in salary to start chipping away at her student loans, even after the upgrade from her old vermin-infested studio apartment. She’d largely stepped away from cape-fandom, no longer living on, as Sebastian put it, ‘social media and frozen snacks’. She’d even fixed things up with Dad and started texting both her sisters more often. And everyone liked her boyfriend…although his helpfulness in prodding her along toward responsibility probably had a lot to do with that.

He wasn’t entirely helpful, of course. The other thing Sebastian had always been good at was ignoring her plans. Possibly, in fact, it was less realistic to say that Marissa had a plan and more that she had a carefully plotted obstacle course for him to smash up. While he seemed happy to give her her own way most of the time, when he really wanted something, her new lover clearly had no shame about playing as dirty as it took to win; he’d immediately seduced her into taking time off work for Christmas, then moved on to pouting and calling her ‘princess’ until she agreed to keep to a routine when she was staying over. That kind of thing was fine when it came to the plan’s lesser details, such as when it seemed reasonable to admit she’d basically moved in with him already. She was less sure of whether to encourage his interference in the broad strokes.

She did want to get married—eventually. Marissa had told him so, more gently than usual, because it still threw her how soft and vulnerable Baz could become when he really dropped his guard. She’d thought he understood when she said she wasn’t ready to think about something so serious yet, especially given that the lab alarm had gone off about five minutes later and proven her point about how unstable their life was at the moment. She knew what he wanted, but surely he knew where she was coming from, too; she hadn’t worked back up yet to providing someone else’s structure without it coming at her own expense. The plan had a clear order of events, and knowing that him running off to deal with bad guys was the exception and not the rule was a critical early step.

So that’d been a hell of a Valentine’s Day, overall. And then what’d he done but turned right around and pulled that bullshit with the private security contract, like it was his commitment that had been in question! No, Sebastian was definitely planning to wear her down. And the worst part was, the charismatic son of a bitch would make sure she liked it. She might as well start scheming some kind of revenge now.

Scrolling further through her texts, she set that thought aside when she found the photo again that she’d sent Mallory on Sunday, flicking her fingers against the screen to zoom in. Marissa had tried her best all week to think about anything else, but there was something about it that felt off. Maybe it was just Mal getting to her; she had been reading test strips like this for a living for, what, five years now? That was clearly a valid test with control line present, results negative for antibody reaction to CG-beta. That should be that. She’d seen a friend or two over the years go down the rabbit hole of anxiously testing and retesting every single month, and god forbid it suck her in too. She was a big girl; she could handle waiting things out.

On the other hand, she’d bought the two-pack, and $50 was $50.

Marissa let her phone fall and bounce off the side of her face onto the bed beside her, silently fighting with herself before she gave in. Five minutes to get that second negative test, and then it’d be over with and she could enjoy her Saturday morning while gloating and waiting for her sister to pony up.

Three minutes later, she was picking up the test from the bathroom counter when the actual result caught her eye, and she almost knocked it to the floor instead. This time, there were two lines.

Shock trickled down her back like a stream of cold water. How—well—she knew how. There’d been plenty of that. It was the less immediate factors that didn’t make sense. Mallory, her only real data point for comparison, had been trying for years to get pregnant on purpose, and she wasn’t constantly being exposed to various research chemicals on top of others’ who-knew-what weirdness—secondhand cosmic radiation and what have you. Not to mention whatever all those years of experimentation might have done to Sebastian. Not to mention, either, that she was actually taking her birth control this time, because she was being responsible, damn it.

Preoccupied, Marissa jerked her hand back in surprise before she fully processed the knock at the door, sending the test skittering across the cold tiles under her feet. “Rissa?” Sebastian called from outside. “Did you move my work boots?”

She swallowed queasily, or tried to. “No. They’re still outside the back door, right? They needed hosing off…” He wasn’t answering. “Hey, you’re not pulling overtime today?”

But everything was quiet in the hall. By the time Marissa had pulled herself together somewhat, she found Sebastian sitting in the living room, leaning down to tighten his bootlaces in quick, sharp movements. He had the furniture arranged to create a walkway behind the couch, and as she stood at the back of it she could see the latest iteration of his power armor ready on the cushion next to him. The bottom seemed to fall out of her stomach; she’d been willing herself to believe this was some onsite emergency for his day job. Not Chained Lightning. Not this shit again.

She tried to keep her voice level. “What’s happened? I didn’t see anything.”

“No, Jake called me. Last night, then again about fifteen minutes ago. You weren’t sleepin’ well this week, so I wasn’t gonna wake you up until I knew for sure,” he said, not looking up. “It’s Christa. She went out yesterday and never made it back.”

Marissa nodded to herself, exhaling softly. She couldn’t begrudge him helping with that; she’d been worried about that girl for a while now. Her increasing coolness and distance would have all seemed normal, maybe the result of a personality clash or their philosophical differences on atypical abilities, if it weren’t for Lord Hades—or whatever was influencing him—hovering shadily around the edges. “Lady Radiance?” she asked.

“No sightings we could turn up. But he did find some reports of hellfire in the District.” Sebastian was standing already, sliding the harness over his shoulders. His face was set firmly, with none of his usual humor, in an expression that made her draw her hands back from where she’d rested them; he softened it when he saw her watching. “We still don’t know what happened exactly, but Jake went through her phone and managed to contact some of her vigilante friends. You remember Clare Harper?”

“Of course I do,” Marissa said. She remembered all their subjects. Harper, Clare Teresa, born Clare Caldwell in ’87, no family history or obvious genetic defects, spontaneous presentation with multiple forms of ESP after the birth of her first child in 2010. Dr. Marcos never did find a cause, and she hadn’t been part of the program for years. With psychics, they either adapted quickly or completely lost the plot.

“Mhm. Well, it’s a small world,” he said as he finished strapping in. “She’s niched down to scryin’ for the most part, directs traffic for the other heroes. Goes by Clarevoyante. The call this mornin’ was to let me know she was able to get Christa’s location. There’s a few ready to help, but it’s just me now that has any real experience with Hades and them, so—” He hesitated, looking back at her intently from the distance enforced by the couch between them. “I know I ain’t supposed to, technically.”

Marissa shook her head numbly. She might still be irritated with Sebastian, and more than a little rattled, but not so much that she’d get in his way. Everything on her mind could wait. “She’s ours. Go. Just…make sure you come back.”

Baz stepped around with a reassuring smile that had no such effect, and hefted her by the hips to put her on the back of the couch. “You clear your schedule,” he said, leaning in. “I’ll be back for you tonight.” Marissa let him kiss her with what feigned enthusiasm she could scrape up, for his sake, even though she felt like ice inside. When he pulled away to exchange goodbyes, she shoved her hands under her legs because she didn’t trust herself not to grab him again. This could wait. It would be fine.

“Maybe text Jake later on,” Sebastian added, looking back on his way out the door. “He’s not takin’ it well, not havin’ much he can do.”

How do you think I feel?

When he’d gone, Marissa rolled slowly down onto the couch and laid there with one leg kicked up and her head halfway off the side. She should call Jacob and let him vent, or call Mallory and confess, or at least go and stalk Clare’s Facebook—how was she doing?—but her body felt like an impossible weight to lift. Nothing had fully sunk in yet, and there were too many moving parts to any thought she might try to put together. A smell of burnt coffee from the direction of the kitchen overwhelmed any attempt almost immediately.

“I give up,” she said, challenging the universe aloud as she dropped an arm across her face. “There is no plan. I’m obviously not in charge here. Do your worst.”

Nothing spontaneously combusted in response, which was a relief. Marissa turned onto her side and pulled over a throw pillow to curl around, feeling just as silly as she did vindicated. There was no point in dramatics, was there? That wasn’t a trope she wanted to fall into. At least she could control that much.

Still, it was a long time before she managed to get up again.

<Radiance #7 || Directory || Radiance #8 coming soon…>

Thanks for reading! Radiance will be back on December 26 with #8, The Devil In Me, as Lady Radiance finds herself in the lair of her enemy—almost completely unprepared for what awaits her there. In the meantime, next week I’ll be sharing a Christmas-themed historical fiction story, plucked from the pile of “someday plots” for my motley crew of OSS agents and analysts.

Dr. Haber would appreciate it if his alleged friends would stop getting in the way. Can they not manage that, just for one evening, so that he can make it to Midnight Mass this year? He asks for so little. But perhaps, even so, he’s asking for the wrong things.

If you enjoyed this episode, you can show it by leaving a like or comment, sharing this post, or just continuing to read. :) Everyone’s welcome in the fan club!