[Smells Like Teen Spirit]—❈—03:: PRT Negotiations [I]

It was Saturday morning, the morning after we (or rather Mom) spoke to Hannah, the PRT liaison, and we were ready to go meet the woman at the agreed location.

Well, I was ready, Mom was occupied with some unknown business in her room, her back to the open door.

I walk up behind her, peering over the top of her head without needing to stretch to see what she’s up to.

She’s on the phone, replying to a text from her boss, from the looks of it.

“Keep staring over my head like that and I’ll smack three inches out of you,” Mom says without turning, or interrupting her typing.

“Won’t do you any good,” I reply sassily. “I’m five foot five and you’re five foot one; you’ll actually need to smack four inches out of me for us to be eye to eye.”

Mom turns and tries to swat me.

I dodge, then, just to rub the height difference in even more, I lean in and kiss her, right on the crown of her head, before taking off for dear life.

—❈—

We reach the spot for the meet-up with Hannah ten minutes before the agreed time, only to find the woman already there, leaning on an SUV.

She’s wearing exactly what she said she would be; a red jacket, dark sunglasses, a Yankee baseball hat, and black boots with yellow laces.

Even the SUV is grey, like she’d said, but when Mom and I approach her she says nothing until after Mom gives the code.

“The grass is always greener on the other side of Nebraska,” Mom says.

“But on this side, we’ve got barbecue,” Hannah replies, then holds out a hand; “Hannah Washington,” she says in unneeded introduction. “Nice to finally meet face to face.”

“Um,” Mom hesitates for a moment. “Can we tell you our names?”

Hannah smiles, revealing perfect teeth.

“If you want,” she says. “I’m cleared to know.”

Mom hesitates once again, then looks at me, seeking my input.

Before I reply, I take a Whiff of Hannah.

The first thing I pick up is her curiosity in us, in me mostly.

She’s wondering about what kind of powers I have, what kind of person I am. My thoughts. My motivations.

Wrapped within and around that is caution, caution of a parahuman with largely unknown powers and motivations.

With that caution though, is a certain confidence.

This woman is fully confident that she’s faced worse threats than me and come out the other side. It is confidence that comes from something, a weapon.

But I don’t see a weapon on her. And besides, how powerful a weapon could it be that it would give her this much confidence?

It must be powerful though, because she’s—wait! A powerful weapon. A power. The weapon is a power. Or, more accurately, the power is a weapon.

…Huh. Hannah Washington is Miss Militia.

Mom’s hand on my shoulder brings me back to awareness of my surroundings.

“Is he okay?” Hannah asks, her smell telling me that while her concern is genuine, she’s also on guard. “Is this a side effect of one of his powers?”

“Yeah,” I agree, before Mom can say anything, “my nose. Smells get a little intense sometimes. I’m Aiden, by the way.” I hold out my hand. “Aiden Whitaker.”

Mom gives me a side-eye at that, but she goes along with it.

“Emily,” she says, introducing herself too.

“Nice to meet you,” Hannah says again.

She gestures at us to get in the car, and we obey, Mom riding shotgun.

“So,” Hannah says, making conversation as she drives, “you have super smell?”

The casualness of her question doesn’t mask the truth from my nose; this isn’t just idle curiosity. No, it’s curiosity that will work incredibly hard to get information about me.

There is nothing malicious about it though, so I don’t take it personally.

“Yeah, I do,” I say, answering her question. “Though, to be honest, it’s not that impressive compared to some of my other powers.”

Hannah suspects that I’m trying to change the subject, but she goes along with it anyway.

“Oh?” she asks leadingly. “More impressive than teleportation?”

“Depends,” I say slyly. “What’s your opinion on portals?”

Even through her dark shades, I can tell that Hannah stares at me through the rearview mirror.

“What’s the range?” she asks.

I blink. I’d actually never thought of that.

Thinking about it now though, the answer comes to me.

“Pretty sure I can go anywhere on Earth,” I say. “As long as I’ve seen it.”

Hannah quirks an eyebrow. “You mean, been there physically or—”

“Seen it,” I repeat. “A picture’s good enough.”

“You have no idea what it took for me to talk him out of opening a portal to The Eiffel Tower,” Mom says.

“What?” I ask defensively. “I wanted to see it; it’s cool.”

“I don’t think the French would have appreciated an American parahuman portaling into their country without permission,” Hannah says.

“That’s what I told him,” Mom says.

“And like I said, we could have gone in the middle of the night,” I argue. “No one would have seen us. You know, at this point, I’m starting to doubt if you even want to see The Eiffel Tower.”

“Not enough to become an international fugitive.”

I scoff. “You’re no fun.”

“Blame yourself,” Mom says. “Motherhood sucked all the fun out of me.”

I scoff again. “You know, this is why people shouldn’t have children,” I say. “It’s just not worth it.”

“Where were you to tell me that fifteen years ago?” Mom asks with fake annoyance.

“I don’t know,” I mumble. “Floating around somewhere in your belly, I guess.”

Hannah snorts. She tries to restrain it, but it comes out all the same.

And, despite my feelings on The Protectorate as a whole, I have to admit that I feel some pride at getting a snort out of the legendary Miss Militia.

The ride ends barely one minute later when we drive into an underground car park.

“There are two masks for you in the glove compartment,” Hannah tells Mom.

Mom opens said compartment and fishes out two cheap looking domino masks that actually seem to do a decent job at hiding someone’s identity.

“I’ll take the purple,” I say, and Mom hands it to me, before putting on the garish yellow herself.

“Come on,” Hannah says, exiting the car.

What follows is a ten minute journey that involves half a dozen flights of stairs and five security doors. All of which seem to require a unique 12-digit passcode that Hannah never has a problem typing out from memory.

Finally, we step through a door into an empty hallway, and head for the door at the end of it.

Hannah opens the door, revealing a conference room with a seated man in an expensive suit.

I take a whiff of him; some curiosity, but mostly a professional detachment that is somehow paired with a keen focus on me.

This man is here for business, and from his suit and briefcase, I’m guessing he’s a lawyer or something.

Hannah handles introductions.

“So,” the lawyer, Mr. McGill says to me, when we’re all seated, “you’re Musa.”

“That is me, yes,” I say.

“And the woman besides you is your legal guardian?” he asks pointing at Mom.

I give him a strange look. “Yeah?”

“I need you to answer definitively,” Mr. McGill says gently.

Yep, definitely a lawyer.

“Yes,” I say, speaking ‘definitively’. “She’s my mom.”

“And you want this woman to be here and to have decision-making power over you?” Mr. McGill continues.

I frown again.

“What’s going on?” Mom asks, and it’s Hannah who rushes to explain.

“Many young parahumans often have… abusive home situations. We like to give them the opportunity to hold decision-making power over themselves if they want it.”

Oh. That’s sad. I can’t imagine wanting to make such a big decision without Mom by my side.

I’m fourteen for God’s sake.

Mr. McGill asks a few more questions, and when my answers to all of them state definitively that yes, Mom is my legal guardian and yes, I want her here, he opens his briefcase and pulls out a folder from it.

“This is the wards contract,” he says, handing it to Mom. “Please, read it carefully.”

Mom opens the folder, revealing five pages of fine print, and, without further ado, she begins to read.

By the second page of the contract, Mom is frowning. By the fourth, one of her eyebrows have gone up and seem incapable of coming back down.

After the fifth and last, Mom carefully arranges the contract back into the folder and closes it.

Then she looks at our hosts and says calmly and definitively; “This contract is terrible.”