Here it is! Thanks to everyone on the boards who replied to my questions about blood tests. And to my two excellent BRs, of course.
Bonus points to anyone who recognizes the (heavily) adapted dialogue at the beginning of Ellie's narrative.
PART NINETEEN
*~Jay~*
***
Kaylie and I sat on the plane in absolute silence, both of us afraid to say anything. Finally, we were going on our first official NIA mission.
I was prepared for this. We both were. The training had been physically and mentally exhausting, and I felt as if my head was crammed full of information. I kept running scenarios over in my head, and reviewing what it was we were supposed to do. Sure, it was a pretty simple mission, but it was out of the country, so that had to count for something, right?
There was nothing I wanted more than to talk to Kaylie about all of this. She had to be just as excited as I was. But we were on a public plane, so talking about anything like that was completely out of the question. We were actually undercover at this moment, having boarded the plane with false passports. But it didn’t feel like we had really started yet. It didn’t take much to sit on a plane and look inconspicuous.
Finally giving into temptation, I glanced over at Kaylie. She looked outwardly calm, but I could see the way that her fingers tapped on the armrest excitedly.
“Excited?” I asked her.
“You are, too,” she replied.
“Yeah, I am.”
“Do you think we’ll be okay?” she asked me, suddenly biting her bottom lip nervously.
“Yeah, of course,” I replied. “Why wouldn’t we?”
“Well, it’s one thing to learn all those things, and another to actually use them,” she said. “What if we screw up/”
“We’ll be fine,” I reassured. “We know what we’re doing.” I didn’t want to go into any more detail on the plane, but I was sure Kaylie got my meaning. “Once we get going it’ll be great,” I told her.
The flight stewardess who had been making her way down the aisle finally reached us, and offered us drinks. “You two must be related,” she said as she was pouring our drinks.
“Yes,” I replied. The resemblance between us was strong enough that it would make sense to tell the truth in that aspect.
“We’re siblings,” Kaylie filled in.
“Well, that’s great that you’re travelling together,” she told us. “What made you decide to take this trip?”
“We have an uncle who offered to bring us out for a visit,” I told the stewardess. “We had some time off for Spring break, so we decided to go.”
“We’re both students,” Kaylie supplied quietly.
The stewardess left to go help other passengers, but Kaylie and I shared a smile between the two of us. We were getting a good start.
***
* * *
*~Ellie~*
The little gold plaque beneath the drawing bore the title ‘Lilies by the Pond’.
“I don’t see any lilies or a pond,” I complained to Jay.
I could feel his eyes rolling behind me.
“No, I’m serious!” I turned around to talk to him. “You ask me, it looks like he got his fancy charcoals out and just scribbled all over the paper.”
Jay grabbed my shoulders and spun me around to face the picture again. “You have to use your imagination when you look at modern art,” he instructed. “Open your mind to the artist’s inner feelings.”
I stared at the picture. “Hey wait a minute,” I said after a pause. “If you squint your eyes and tilt your head to the left, you can make out the outline of a eukaryotic chromosome!”
Jay’s head tilted as he tried my suggestion, but he caught himself before he looked too closely.
“Now you’re sucking me in too,” he grumbled. “Why do I even try? Great art to you is a framed copy of the Periodic Table of Elements.”
“Hey, I love those! Have you ever seen one of those 3-D representations? Talk about a conversation piece.” I wasn’t really this ignorant when it came to art, but it was fun to tease Jay.
Jay groaned. “If you need me, I’ll be over in that corner pretending I don’t know you.”
But he didn’t leave my side, and instead guided me to the next piece. I had been dubious when Jay had first told me about the art show, but when I thought about all the hours he had sat patiently in STAR Labs while I gave him impromptu lectures, I decided that I probably owed it to him.
“What on earth is this one?” I asked, trying not to be too loud, yet unable to completely contain myself.
“It’s untitled,” Jay commented, looking at the little plaque in front of the so-called piece.
“It’s a juice box with holes punched in it,” I retorted.
“The sign says the artist was heavily influenced by Dada.”
“Huh?”
“Dada,” Jay repeated patiently. “It was an art movement originating from Europe in the early twentieth century. The Dadaists were upset with what they perceived to be the falsity of society, of culture, of even art. Dada was a kind of anti-art that they created in rebellion. It was supposed to shock people out of the norm, and to stir up change. There was this one guy, Tristan Tzara. He created poetry by writing random words down on strips of paper and then drawing them from a hat.”
“Really?” I had no idea that Jay knew this kind of stuff.
“They saw themselves as heroes,” he continued. “And they were, in a way. Modernist art has stretched the minds of even uneducated people, but back then, things weren’t considered to be good art unless they showed a strong likeness of something concrete. This kind of thing was unheard of.”
“You like them, don’t you?”
“They had a lot of courage,” he shrugged. “To be able to do something like that in the midst of a world war is pretty admirable, I think. They weren’t afraid to be passionate for what they thought was right, even if it was an unpopular choice.”
“I just don’t understand what it’s supposed to mean,” I said, staring at the juice box again.
“Nothing,” Jay replied. “Dada was all about destructing the accepted norms, and that included even the idea of meaning. According to the Dadaists, there was no meaning in the world, so they found meaning in meaninglessness. And I guess that’s where we differ,” he told me. “Although getting angry at the world can be a good thing, it’s impossible to live a life that’s completely focused on destruction. When you find your life is lacking in meaning, it’s your job to build a new one that’s full of it.”
I turned to look up at him. It wasn’t hard to recognize the parallels in his own life.
He acknowledged my discovery with half a smile. “That’s been something I’ve been learning throughout the last few months,” he told me.
“Jay-”
“There’s something I wanted to show you, Ellie,” he said quickly, before I could speak.
“Okay.”
“It was kind of the whole reason why I suggested this in the first place.” He led me past a few other pieces that people were clustered around and over to back of the room. We slipped past the bodies of fellow art appreciators until I could see the large sculpture standing slightly away from the wall.
I recognized individual pieces within the jumble. There was a bent bicycle wheel, sans tire, near the center, and the handlebars were close to the bottom. Pots, cutlery, and a few random bits of metal that I couldn’t identify also shaped the piece. But I found that the actual materials didn’t really matter in the big picture.
What mattered was the way that the old, rusted pieces contrasted against the shiny forks and knives in a way that made those points seem even more cold and deadly. And how the caved in wheel gave the piece a rotten core, and the smooth sides of the pots harshly reflected a flawed version of myself back at me. Roughly the shape and size of a man, the piece seemed huge; its empty eyes and hard shoulders making it even more intimidating. Unlike all the other things we had seen tonight, I didn’t have to work hard to understand this one. I didn’t even have to look at the little gold plaque, although I read it out of habit.
“My father,” the plaque read. “With fresh eyes. By Jason Stewart.”
“So that one day when I asked about the smell…”
“No, I didn’t have a kitchen accident,” Jay filled in. “Maybe I should’ve told you about it right away, but I wanted to do it this way for some reason.”
“This way is good,” I replied.
“So what do you think of it?” His voice seemed confident, but I could tell that he was nervous to be showing me this.
“I think,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “That this is a piece that’s built of meaning.”
* * *
I flew in the upstairs window of my parent’s place and, after changing quickly, started down the stairs. Jay wasn’t going to be getting off from the gym for a while longer, but I decided to come over now, and just have him meet me here later.
Ever since Jon and I had moved out, it had become a kind of tradition to meet once a week for supper at Mom and Dad’s. It didn’t take much effort to travel, so it was a pretty easy habit to keep. Uncle Brad and Aunt Lucy would come pretty often too, as well as some of Mom and Dad’s friends. Of course Jay and Kaylie were soon included in the tradition as well. I could hear Jim Olsen’s voice talking as I came down the stairs. Sometimes we would have to be careful if someone was over and didn’t know the family secret, but Jim had known about Dad before I did, so I wasn’t worried about explaining where I had come from. The strange thing was that Jim stopped talking as I came into the living room.
“What’s going on?” I asked the group.
Dad’s face was grim, and Mom had her hand clenched tight onto his.
“Jimmy was us telling what Jay and Kaylie’s father has been up to,” Dad told me quietly.
“Oh,” I replied.
“Ellie, did you know about this?” Mom asked.
I nodded. “Jay told me. Apparently his dad broke into his place and demanded that Jay tell him what we’re hiding. Jay refused, of course.”
“Well, according to my dad, he’s still looking,” Jim told me.
“Your dad?” I asked.
“Jack Olsen works for the NIA, Ellie,” Mom filled me in.
“Oh.”
“He gave me a call today,” Jim continued. “Said he put him as far off track as possible for now and is trying to convince him to give up altogether.”
“Does your dad know about us?” I asked.
“Well… I don’t really know,” Jimmy explained apologetically.
“Jack keeps things pretty close,” Dad explained. “We’ve had a few dealings with him over the years, and it’s possible that he would suspect something. But he’s not about to come out and say anything.”
“And we can hardly ask him if he knows that Clark Kent is Superman,” Mom added.
“I guess not,” I agreed with a smile.
“Even if he does know, there are far worse people than him who could find out,” Dad said with a frown, and I knew who he was talking about.
“Jay’s dad is looking in completely the wrong place,” I told them. “He thinks we’re foreign spies or something. If we had thought it would be a problem, we would’ve told you right away.”
“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens,” Mom said. “There’s nothing we can do that will help take suspicion off us.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” I apologized.
“We understand why you might’ve chosen not to,” Dad told me. “But for next time, we’d rather know what was going on.”
A noise upstairs distracted us from discussing the issue any further. It was Jon landing with Kaylie. They were discussing something loudly, and their voices got clearer as they came down the stairs.
“Because it’s dated!” Kaylie exclaimed. “That’s why. This isn’t the Dark Age anymore, Jon. We’re far past the suspicion that bad blood is what causes illness.”
“You know that’s not why they’re doing this, Kaylie,” Jon told her exhaustedly. “There are very good medical reasons-”
“None of which apply to us, Jon! We don’t have to worry about any of that with your… you-ness.”
“And you’re going to tell them that?”
“Well, no, but there has to be a way around it.” They entered the room, and Kaylie plopped down on the sofa beside me, and Jon sat beside her. “Hey, everyone,” she greeted glumly.
“What’s going on?” Lois asked in concern.
“Blood tests,” Kaylie spat moodily.
“In order to get our marriage license, we need to submit to a routine blood test,” Jon explained.
Dad frowned. “We didn’t need a blood test for our marriage license.”
“Apparently, the laws have changed,” Jon sighed. “So if we want to get married in New Troy, we have to have the test.”
This was pretty serious news. It impacted not only Jon, but also me. And any other future generations who happened to have powers. Sometimes, invulnerability was an annoyance more than anything else. Jon’s blood would look the same as a normal person’s in a simple test such as this, but there was no way any clinic nurse would be able to get at it.
“Ellie, is there any way you could sort of… knock me back enough to take that test?” Jon asked.
“Jon!” The vehement response came collectively from everyone sitting in the room.
“I guess not,” he replied.
“We’re not there yet, Jon,” I replied. “Trust me, we’re far from completely understanding the effect Kryptonite has on us.”
“And it’s dangerous to play around with it,” Dad added. “I know we’ve taken some risks in the past, but that’s only been when we’ve absolutely needed to.”
“Do you need to have anyone specific do the test?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” Jon replied.
“Then why don’t you get Aunt Lucy to sign off on it for you?” Mom asked. “Although she’s not practicing, she does have her MD, so there’s no reason why she can’t do it for you.”
“I guess that could work,” Jon agreed cautiously.
“Although it’s not as fun as getting knocked out with Kryptonite,” I said sarcastically, “it’s probably safer in the long run, smarty.”
Jon rolled his eyes at me, but didn’t bother responding.
We talked for a while longer about wedding plans, but I could tell that Kaylie was looking for a bit of a break tonight. Event planning didn’t seem to be an interest of Kaylie’s and weddings weren’t exactly low stress. As Maid of Honor, I had helped out when I could, along with Jon and the rest of the family, but the pressure ultimately rested on the bride.
I was trying to steer the conversation away from table centerpieces when we heard a car pull up in front, and someone get out. Curious, I peered through the wall of the house to see who it was.
“It’s Jay,” I announced, getting up and rushing to the door. I flung it open as he came up the walk. “It came?” I asked excitedly.
“The dealership called today and said it was in early,” he replied. “I decided to pick it up on my way here.”
“It’s nice,” I admired, taking in the sleek frame of Jay’s new car. “You’re right, it looks great in the red.”
Dad whistled his approval from the doorway as he came out to see. “Nice ride,” he complemented.
“It’s not the most practical,” Jay shrugged sheepishly.
“Convertibles never are,” Jim said. “But they make up for it big time.” It seemed that everyone had to come out to examine Jay’s new car.
“I thought you were supposed to wait until you turned forty to buy the sports car,” Kaylie teased playfully.
“You’re just jealous that your little sedan looks a pretty boring next to this gorgeous piece of machinery,” Jay replied.
“Hey, Jay!” Jim called. “Mind if I pop the hood on this?”
“Go ahead,” Jay shrugged. The male half of our group congregated in front of the engine.
Kaylie grabbed onto Jay’s jacket before he could join them. “Jay, whatever you do, don’t let Jon anywhere near the ignition,” she warned.
“What is it about guys and cars?” I mused. Kaylie, Mom, and I stood on the sidewalk as we watched everyone else study the engine. “Look at Jon. He can’t drive to save his life, and he’s still interested.”
“I really hope this doesn’t make him want to buy his own,” Kaylie said, paling at the thought.
“I don’t think so,” Mom replied. “It’s just the rush of the moment. Everyone’s interested. You know, there’s still a few more minutes until dinner’s ready. Jay would have some time to take you for a spin, Ellie.”
“I definitely would,” Jay replied. He had left the engine gawkers, and had come to rejoin us. “What do you say, Ellie?”
“Who says I’m even interested?” I replied, even though I kind of was. It was a pretty nice car.
“Just wait until you get inside,” Jay told me. “You won’t believe how fast this thing is. And with the top down, the wind is flying against your face and it feels even faster.”
“Hmm,” I nodded. “Yeah, that sounds a lot like… I don’t know, flying or something. Nothing like anything that I get to experience,” I said with innocence.
“But in this setting, I’ll be the one in control, which makes it completely different,” Jay replied. “Unless that’s a problem for you or something.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Mom, we’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”
“Better make it twenty,” Jay told her, winking down at me.
I didn’t say anything in response. Who knows? Maybe if I played my cards right, he might let me drive for a bit.
