I didn’t live at the Base.

Abram thought that it was best that I carry on living back home, at least for now. He said that I was a unique case because I lived in the city where Miracle Force was headquartered and that it would be better for my emotional wellbeing for the time being.

He assured me and Mom that our apartment would be watched and that Viper wouldn’t try anything again under these circumstances. They had missed their chance. Our neighbours were also reasured by the police that they would be watching to make sure another ‘burglary’ didn’t happen again, and Abram paid for our fornt door to be repaired.

Whenever we left the apartment block a security detail followed us. It wasn’t obvious. But when I was out walking to the mall or grocery shopping or running an errand for Mom if I looked hard enough I could usually spot the well-built man in civilian clothes but wearing dark glasses following me about twenty paces away. If I looked really hard I could see the transparent earpiece he wore too.

My teachers sent me work to do at home. They had been told that I had been involved in another fight outside of school (which was true) and that I was recovering from injuries in hospital (which was not). Mr Oswald from Physics sent me detailed questions to do with a sticky note that said ‘Take care of yourself, Gonzalo.’ My Chemistry teacher sent me a fat textbook with detailed instructions. The other teachers weren’t so helpful.

Mrs Dean, my English teacher, though, asked me to start working on a long creative writing project. I thought about what to write about for a bit then decided I would write about my powers: how they had developed and what had happened to me since. I was forbidden by Abram to tell anyone about my powers and training except for Mom, but it’s not like Mrs Dean or anyone else would believe the account was true anyway, and the project served as a helpful outlet to process everything that had happened to me. That was happening to me. I enjoyed writing it.

I did my schoolwork in the mornings. In the afternoon, right after lunch, a driver would come to pick me up and take me to Miracle Force HQ--not in a limo this time but in one of those white minivans they used to ferry kids and old people to and from hospitals. At the Base I caught up with Mute, we trained in the workout room, and we had lessons. Different lessons to the kind I used to have at school. Abram, sometimes others from the UN or the US military, taught us. They taught us survival skills, international politics, principles of hand to hand combat, negotiation strategies--you name it, they taught it. It was much more interesting than school.

My life settled into a rhythm of schoolwork at home and training at The Base, until one Friday I got an unexpected visitor.

I was sat at my messy little desk working on my English project when I heard the bell of our apartment go. It was early evening so Mom was home from work. Outside my bedroom I heard her walk to the front door and pick up the intercom.

“Hello? Yes. Yes…… Oh! Of course! Come in, I’ll get him for you.” The buzzer sounded which meant Mom had allowed someone to open the door to our building.

“Who is it, Mom?” I called from my desk.

“Gonzalo?” she called back. “Someone’s here to see you!”

That’s odd. I had already been at training that afternoon, so it couldn’t be the minivan coming to collect me. Unless I had left something back at Base and they were dropping it off? But I was pretty sure I hadn’t.

I wondered who it could be as I left my bedroom and walked down our apartment corridor to join Mom at our front door. “Who?”

“Somebody from your school,” said Mom, with a wry smile. What could that mean?

Three tentative knocks rapped on the other side of the door. Our old door used to have a little peephole you could look through to see who was standing on the other side, but the new one that they had bought us to replace it when it had been bashed in didn’t, so I undid the deadbolt and opened it to be greeted by…

“Ali…”

Recognition punched me in the gut. She was just standing there, dark skin glowing in the white strip-light of the corridor, clutching some school books to her chest, a little opaque plastic bag hanging out of her right hand. Her black hair hung down past her shoulders. It was definitely her. She bit her bottom lip.

What is she doing here? I thought. I had tried to banish her from my mind for the last few weeks, replacing her with Miracle Force, but she had kept creeping back into it. And now she was at my door. I couldn’t very well banish her from here. Could I? I wanted to pull her in and give her a hug and push her away and slam the door in her face all at the same time, but Mom was standing next to me so I couldn’t do any of those things.

I still hadn’t said anything else so Ali said “Er...Hi? Sorry I haven’t visited earlier. It took a while for me to realise you weren’t coming back to school anytime soon, and it took a while to track down your address. Can I come in? I brought hummus.” She lifted the plastic bag.

“Of course you can, my dear!” said my Mom before I could react. She ushered Ali in and shut the door behind her before I could stop her. “It’s so nice to get a visit from one of Gonzalo’s school friends! He has all these friends, I am sure of it, but does he tell his mother about any of them? Of course not!” Mom steered Ali to a chair in our kitchen and basically pushed her into it, taking the bag from her without even asking and unpacking the hummus and pita bread she had brought. “And so many girls, Gonzalo!” She winked me. “This one is very pretty.”

Heat rose in my stomach. I was furious with Mom, not only because of how cripplingly embarrassing she was being but because she had invited a traitor into our apartment. The last time I had seen Ali she had called me a “poor little nerdy kid with mental health problems” in front of practically my whole school year. What was she doing in my apartment now? How could she even dare to show her face to me again? Also, why did she even want to show her face to me again if that was what she really thought of me?

“Mom...could you excuse us for a moment?” I asked. “Do you mind if Ali and I talk in my room?”

Mom stopped in her tracks, mid-hummus-spreading. “Ok…” she said eventually. “You can eat these in your room together, I suppose. But no monkey business! I will be just in the next room.”

I didn’t even bother to correct her ridiculous command. “It’s this way,” I said to Ali.

Once we were in my room and I had closed the door behind us I put the food on my desk and sat down in my chair. Ali sat on my bed.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded immediately.

Ali tilted her head, frowning puzzlement. “What do you mean? I wanted to see how you are, how you’ve been recovering. I’m your friend.”

“Are you now?” I wasn’t going to hold back. I cut to the heart of the matter straight away. “That’s not what you said at Sam’s party.”

A flush rose in her cheeks. “Oh right, yeah… Look, about that, Gonzalo--”

“To be honest,” I cut her off, building up steam, “I’m surprised that you even have the nerve to show your face to me again.” What was I saying? Under any other circumstances I would be overjoyed to have a beautiful, living, breathing girl actually sitting in my bedroom. And in reality, not just in my imagination! But this was different. Ali had hurt me, badly. And a month of superhero training had given me a boldness I didn’t have before. Maybe if I accused her first then I could stop her hurting me any more. “What was it you called me at the party?” I went on. “‘A poor little nerdy kid with mental health problems’? How could you say that about me, Ali? After I confided in you? I told you about my powers! I let you in. I trusted you!”

“Look, I’m sorry, OK?” Ali managed to interject.

“‘Sorry’?” I had momentum now, I wasn’t going to stop. I stood up from my desk and started pacing up and down my tiny room as I laid into her verbally. “‘Sorry’ doesn’t cut it! Is that what you think of me? You think I really am just a poor little boy with mental health problems? That I made up all the stuff about my strength and invincibility? That I’m a sad creepy headcase who lives in a deluded fantasy world like his comic books? That was a really mean thing to say. Well I’ve proved they’re real now! After you left the party I fought back and beat up the football team. I even put some of them in hopsital for a while. You might not have heard about it because everyone who was there has been paid off to keep it quiet, but I bet someone’s blabbed about it to you. What do you think about my delusions now? It was your fault that I did what I did to those boys, Ali, because you said what you said! I can’t believe you would even show up here. You’re unbelievable.”

The truth was that I was deeply ashamed of what I had done to the football team, but I wasn’t about to admit that to Ali. I still couldn’t quite believe what I was saying, but I had had time to brood. I hadn’t realised just how much rage had been locked up inside of me until it all poured out. I sat down on my chair again, my hands shaking.

After a moment I risked a look at Ali.

Her lip was quivering. Water droplets filled her eyes, but she didn’t shed them. Crocodile tears, I was sure. At the same time, the kink in her forehead made her seem like she was contemplating saying something.

After a long time she said, in a voice that came from the back of her throat, choking back the tears, “I know you’re upset, Gonzalo, and I understand why. But don’t you see? I said those things to try to protect you. You told me that the doctor had told you not to tell anyone about your powers or give them away. I wanted those guys to take pity on you so they would stop trying to beat you up so you could stop acting. I didn’t want you to lose control and use your powers and get in trouble. I was covering for you, Gonzalo!”

My mouth fell open.

“Oh…”