Just let me be brave

Atalanta felt like she'd been born in the wrong place.

She was a forest fire, born in a sleepy town of brittle, dry wood. Her whole life had been spent watching timid neighbours walk around with their eyes glued to the ground. People all around her bit their tongues, bullied into submission by the few bullies who ran this town.

At some point, she stopped being quiet about her hatred of the place.

And the whole town hated Atalanta too.

She dressed differently (not necessarily better) but she liked to try new things. Like a neon yellow jacket, or really over the top hairdos. She was often angry, no, furious with her town's attitude of meekness, weakness, and complacency.

Her life's motto was "Move fast and break things", but the townspeople's spines had been broken a long time ago.

Atalanta's family was no better. One day, out of the blue, her mother told her, "It's okay you know?"

Her mother sounded pitying, and all of Atalanta's efforts went into being polite.

"What?" Atalanta asked, looking up from the clothes she was shoving into the washing machine.

"You don't have to prove anything, beating that punching bag. You know, your brother can hit it longer and harder than you can."

What the hell was she supposed to say to that? "I don't need advice from someone who spent fifteen years being someone else's punching bag?"

Atalanta bit her tongue from the tidal wave of angry retorts and things she'd like to say. It wouldn't go over well, and on top of that, it was mean and hurtful.

Not only did she live in a town of people afraid of their own shadows (and immigrants, rock music, grocery chains, TikTok trends), she also lived in a family of people too scared to hear the truth.

Atalanta could fume all night, but her mother wouldn't get it. Rather than yell, break something, and get nowhere, Atalanta did the next best thing.

She skateboarded all the way to Melanie's house.

Melanie Calvo was a genius, anime-obsessed nerd, who wanted to leave the town more than anybody Atalanta knew. Except herself.

Lately, Melanie and her had been working on something kind of stupid, but also the coolest thing ever.

The music playing in Melanie's room was practically making the walls shake, and it covered up the sounds of Atalanta tripping over Ms Calvo's garden to get close to the house.

"Of course, you're still working." Atalanta rolled her eyes, carefully climbing into Melanie's open window. Two fans rattled in the corners, and Melanie turned from her desk, grinning.

"Perfect timing, because I've made a breakthrough." Melanie declared, rushing over and shutting the window. "Okay, technically, you did."

"What? Was it the stabilizing factor?" Atalanta followed Melanie quickly over to the desk. It was covered in paper, printouts of research papers, notes, doodles, and granola bar wrappers.

Atalanta scanned the mess, wishing for the millionth time that Mel would switch to paperless.

"Okay, remember how we kept getting stuck at the powers actually sticking? Like none of our models would actually get powered up?" Melanie asked excitedly, hands waving all over the place.

Atalanta grinned affectionately and nodded. "Yes. So-"

"Last time you told me about alternative splicing, remember?"

"Oh my God, our new genes are getting spliced out?" Atalanta shouted, snatching the paper Mel was holding. "They're not getting translated!"

"Yup!" Melanie squealed. "So, I realized-"

"We gotta do it the mRNA vaccine route, like literally stick the instructions into our bodies." Atalanta flipped over the sheet of paper and started jotting down materials, procedures.

"Atalanta-"

Atalanta muttered, adding some diagrams. "This is insane, and you are a genius, by the way."

"We kind of both are, but you need to listen." Melanie smiled when Atalanta looked up. "I made it already." She held up a vial.

"What?" Atalanta exploded, reaching out, but then scared to touch it. "No way, no way."

"It's the real thing, I had my dad help, and I totally lied that it was a DNA vaccine we were testing on a mouse." Melanie winced at the memory. Her father was a renowned biohacker and his home lab had started all this.

Atalanta finally took it. "We need to test it, now, tonight! This is-" She gasped, in complete disbelief.

"All our mice have been tested on already, and dad says we have to wait until the next ones get bred." Melanie pouted. "I know, I should've told you, but it's your birthday tomorrow and I really, really wanted it to be special." She punched Atalanta lightly on the shoulder.

"Mel, we still need to test it tonight." Atalanta said, her voice sounding far away, even to her.

Melanie tilted her head to the side, in her trademark confused puppy way. "What? Did you not hear me?"

"I heard you, but we're gonna test it on me." Atalanta breathed out, hard, hand shaking as she held the vial out to Mel.

"No, are you insane? The risks are-"

"I don't want to be here for another second," Atalanta replied immediately. "I want the powers, or I want to fail. The mice didn't die, remember? They just remained..." She closed her eyes. "Please?"

Melanie was staring at her, her eyes wide. "What if it goes wrong?"

"What if it goes right?" Atalanta grinned, the same grin that had terrorized teachers, and gotten Melanie to do every crazy thing she'd ever suggested.

"Okay, if, if I agreed, how would we even get it into you?" Melanie pinched the bridge of her nose, gently placing down the vial as she rubbed her hands. It almost rolled off and both girls lunged to stop it.

"Oh my God, could you imagine if it fell?" Melanie laughed nervously and Atalanta glared at her.

"Sorry, bad joke. Okay back to-"

"We can just use a needle, dude. If nursing students and random people can figure it out, so can we." Atalanta urged, the drive thrumming in her blood. Once she got her mind on something, it rarely ever went away.

"Fine. Ugh, I hate myself. I think my mom has some old school needles for insulin." Melanie hummed in thought. "Okay, fine. God, I hate you, but fine!"

"I love you, and this is the best birthday gift ever." Atalanta jumped up in victory.

"Uh-huh, say that if it works." Melanie grinned a little too, disappearing downstairs.

Atalanta breathed in deeply. If this worked, months of research, planning, would pay off. Literal blood, sweat, and tears had gone into this.

They just needed to be more. To mean more.

Melanie came back after a little too long, and she set down rubbing alcohol, a needle, and some bandages. "Change your mind yet?"

"Not even close," Atalanta smirked. "I actually feel more ready now."

"You're incorrigible." Melanie declared. "Okay, do you know how to do this?"

They shared a look.

"Youtube," Melanie said.

"Wikihow," Atalanta suggested at the same time.

They discussed the general principles, and then used Atalanta's helmet strap as a tourniquet.

"Ew. Your veins are weird." Melanie informed her.

Atalanta made a face. "Gee, thanks."

"Last chance." Melanie inserted the needle into the vial.

"Still ready," Atalanta mumbled past the strap in her teeth, wiping her inner elbow with some rubbing alcohol.

Melanie breathed in deeply. "I've seen this done a million times." She told herself shakily, changing out the needle. "Million."

"I trust you." Atalanta held out her arm, holding the helmet strap with the other.

"If you die." Melanie's cold fingers ghosted her arm, making Atalanta shiver. "I swear, I'll-"

"Kill me?" Atalanta snorted, trying to project bravery.

"-never, ever talk to you again." Melanie breathed out again, her hand steadying. "Should I?"

Atalanta raised an eyebrow. "Oh, yeah, I've been waiting for you, go for it-OW!"

They probably should have used a needle meant for vaccines. The needle was somehow more painful than any ever before, and Atalanta gritted her teeth as Melanie pushed the contents into her veins.

"Okay, well, that's all of it," Melanie whispered, pulling out the needle. "I'm gonna get rid of it. Are you okay?"

Atalanta nodded, staring at the beading drop of blood. She wondered if she'd made a mistake.

Melanie padded off silently, and Atalanta waited. For the powers to kick in or something. The two of them had spent months researching gene sequences, figuring out what they needed to emphasize, what they needed the genetic code to read. What to add with CRISPR, but it kept failing.

It sounded silly, but both of them really wanted to be different. Melanie had been born in the wrong body, and Atalanta had always felt let down by hers.

Atalanta stuck a bandaid over the drop of blood, pressing down like nurses did. Maybe it wouldn't fail now.

"You feeling okay?" Melanie asked, closing the door behind her.

"Yeah, normal vaccine side effects kick in anywhere from a couple of hours, to twelve after injection."

"But this isn't a normal one." Melanie perched on the edge of her desk. "What if it works?"

"Or what if something went wrong? Proteins denatured, or it got rejected?" Atalanta got up, sighing heavily. "Even the CRISPR guy's stuff hardly ever works."

"Well, whether it works or not, you're the bravest person I know," Melanie said and Atalanta turned to look at her, feeling unusually melancholy. "If it doesn't work, then we'll try again. And again, and again. We can do this okay?"

Atalanta groaned, rubbing her eyes. "Yeah. You're right. God, I sound like a dick. Thank you for your help. And-"

"I know. But we did all this together, okay? Now, all we can do is wait. So how about, you and I watch a movie until it's twelve? When you're officially 19?"

Atalanta grinned, leaping onto Melanie's bed. "What do you want to watch?"

"Something with superheroes," Melanie smirked, pushing Atalanta away to make room. "Something with super strength, speed-"

"Laser eyes?"

"Freezing powers."

"Web shooting."

"Regeneration. And unbelievably snarky heroes."

"Well," Atalanta grinned, "Sounds like we have quite the marathon ahead of us."

"We need popcorn," Melanie said suddenly, pausing over her laptop's keyboard. "Go make it." She kicked Atalanta's leg.

Atalanta closed her eyes, throwing an arm over her face. "No, you go. I'm dying over here from your illegal vaccine."

She could feel Melanie's glare.

"That's not funny."

"I know. We never coded for super funniness. Or maybe, super helpfulness would've been better. Or-"

Melanie growled, flopping onto the mattress. "Would you please-"

Atalanta huffed, slowly standing up. "Okay, okay, I'm going. One super bowl of popcorn-"

"With butter."

"-with butter." Atalanta rolled her eyes, amending her statement. "Coming right up."

"Thank you." Melanie smiled, opening Netflix. "Hurry up, nerd!"

Atalanta scoffed, pretending to be hurt as she ran down the stairs.

She grabbed the packet of microwavable popcorn from the pantry and threw it on the counter, trying to be quiet enough not to wake the Calvos up.

Humming a little, she reached for the fridge door absentmindedly, trying to find butter for her royal highness-

Atalanta tugged the fridge door.

CRASH! The fridge door came right off and the fridge careened forward, sending glass bottles, jars, and eggs crashing to the floor.

"Oh my God!" Atalanta swore heavily and heard shouting from somewhere else in the house.

"Is there an intruder?"

"What the hell was that?"

Atalanta freaked as lights flipped on upstairs. "It's me, Mr. and Ms.Calvo, Atalanta, uh, I-"

"What did you do?" Melanie squealed, running down the stairs in a series of thuds.

"I can't even-" Atalanta frantically gestured to the mess.

"It's nothing, papai!" Melanie shouted, blanching at the mess. "How did you-oh my God did you-"

"Yes, yes!" Atalanta breathed out, getting on her knees to pick up the glass.

Melanie sliced some glass on Atalanta's finger.

"Ow, what the hell, Mel?!" Atalanta declared.

"Is someone hurt? Girls?" Ms. Calvo rushed towards them, one hand tying her nightgown. "Meu Deus, let me see that, Lantie, I'm a nurse."

Atalanta stammered, trying to get her hand back. "Oh, no, really-"

"Mamãe, no, there's no need!" Melanie hid the glass, also trying to help.

The cut healed right in front of them and Ms Calvo stared at it, and then at both of them.

"Is everything okay down there?" Mr. Calvo shouted and Atalanta looked at Melanie for help.

"Uh, there's a reasonable-I mean, we can totally-" Melanie swallowed heavily, quailing under her mother's dark glare.

Ms Calvo shouted, still holding Atalanta's hand. "Afonso, get down here! You'll never believe what they did this time!"