Phia's Fragile and Fantastic Fingers || ONC 2023

Robo-Raptors and Rivals

"Rumor has it John's powers are-" Casey pouts her lips and wiggles a finger until it drops off to the floor. A condescending motion that makes me grit my teeth. "Petering out."

I suppress the growl that fights up my throat. Casey can honest to god screw herself.

"We're still on it," I snap. "I haven't heard anything different so you're sniffing around bad rumors."

"It's not." Casey is famously jealous of Mercy, who couldn't pay her any less mind. Casey's taken the lack of attention as a challenge to destroy John and I.

I hate the acid that burns inside me when she talks.

Casey smiles like the cheshire cat, and my insides freeze.

"My team just got the case this morning," she says. "Apparently Mercy declined the latest mission."

I'm about to tell Casey exactly where she can shove her information, when I realize Mercy did have to skip out on class for thirty minutes yesterday. She didn't mention why and it never came up. Apparently it was a mission brief.

And she said no.

The ice in my veins reaches absolute zero. Explodes. I shove the round table right into Casey's stomach and get up. Casey coughs. 

Well, screw Casey and screw Mercy. 

I don't look at my enemy, wheezing and sputtering, as I shoot for the door. I keep my eyes level on the exit and try to keep my heart from beating out of my ears. I'm about to kill Mercy.

I stomp down a hall, hit a locked door. My card doesn't work the first time. I slam my card at the screen again. Get through. Down the hall. My stomach's a clenched fist of vile fury.

And then I slam open our bedroom door.

Mercy is on her bed.

"Do you know what Casey Moore just told me?" I make sure I sneer with as much venom as I can muster. Mercy tilts her head and raises one perfect eyebrow. She's sitting cross-legged with her tablet at her side on her freshly washed duvet. The room smells like laundry detergent and pine sol.

"What the hell? Have you been cleaning?" Mercy's eyes slowly follow me as I stomp around the room to see the clean floors and a pile of my laundry washed and folded in my basket. I wonder if she knew how pissed I would be, but she does this sometimes, just because I can't always keep up with existing. I've been fine though. I'm fine. And laundry's not why I'm here anyway.

"You gave up the Robo-raptor case!" I snap, just to make sure she knows how very, incredibly, viseraly in-my-gut angry I am. "To her!"

"She got the Raptor case?" Mercy asks. She says it like she's just found out we're having carrots for lunch, or that the elevator in the training center is down. I'm fuming.

"YES! Casey's team has OUR case." I annunciate every word in case the meaning has somehow escaped our fearless leader.

Mercy reads my irritation, but she clearly doesn't read the seriousness of the situation.

"Phi," she sighs and looks away from me, "it's not like we could have done it right now anyway." I growl and step right into her line of sight which is vaguely, wearily on our shared desk.

"Care to share with the class why?"

Mercy tangles her hands in her lap. She looks more fragile than I've ever seen her. She looks at my eyes, and then my hair and my hands, and then she looks at me. Fully and totally,

and then she lies.

"John's powers are being strange, and I have the SATs coming up. I want to get that out of the way so I can get into University."

I have no response. I stand stock still while my brain reboots, crashes, then reboots again.

"The SATs?" I say. The letters leave a bitter taste in my mouth. It's such a weak, stupid useless lie that it makes me feel hollowed out, like I'm not even worth her creativity. I know Mercy can lie, even if she can't lie to John and I. "We've been tracking Brant and his off-the-rails robo-bros since before Penelope-" I lick my lips around the word died, then continue "-and you just give that up to the worst people on campus?"

"I didn't choose Casey's team," Mercy says diplomatically. It's infuriating how calm she is.

"But they got it."

"Yes."

I don't know what else to say. I don't have anything else to say to get Mercy to feel what I'm feeling. She doesn't get it. She doesn't care. She's moved on. She's going to ace her SATs so she can leave with John as soon as he's officially declared useless to YEPP.

Mercy will never know what I'm feeling. I'm nauseous with rage. My eyes prickle with hurt, and somewhere under that I think I might feel shame. Shame at storming out of the cafeteria and yelling at Mercy, and being so horribly me, again.

I guess it's better that Mercy and John are leaving soon. They'll get away from me. I wonder how long I have left with them. A few weeks, a few months, maybe? It's not like John and Mercy have talked to me about their plans. They've never asked me to plan with them. They're just going to go.

And I'll be alone, again.

Alone. Alone...

"Phi?"

I'm breathing hard, biting my lip and hoping the ball of anger in my stomach isn't morphing into despair as fast as I think it might be. I hope that anger isn't leaking out of my eyes. I'm staring hard at the bed frame under Mercy's crossed legs.

I can't say "yeah?" If I say anything I'm going to cry, and it's not going to stop. Mercy and John are going to leave me.

"How about we watch a movie together?" Mercy suggests. She unfolds her legs and scoots to the edge of her bed.

We used to do that. When it was the three of us. Penelope had a whole list of movies she wanted us to see, because Mercy had grown up with angels and gods and didn't exactly have Disney Plus and I watched more R-rated movies than I probably should have and missed out on kids movies and Penelope just wanted to spend time with us... 

Watching movies with Penelope was like traveling a world with soft blankets and softer landings. Next to her, on our beds, was what home felt like.

Mercy and I tried, after she was gone, to sit and watch movies, but it was never the same, not without Penelope's enthusiasm and her list and her...everything.

Mercy's not taking my silence as a no.

"I've been wanting to watch," she pauses and I know she's making this up, "The Ghostbusters movie with Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones? I bet you would like it. Girl power and all that." She's trying so hard.

I sniff and bite my lip harder. With all the power in my body I nod without tearing up. I press my thumbs into my eyes like I can press tears back into my body. I'm mad at Mercy. So freaking mad, but I can't think of anywhere else to go, or anywhere I want to be that's not close to her, for as long as I can get her, for as long as she lets me.