One (One Universe)

don’t see a soul.
    “Welcome, Merrin,” the voice says.
    Then it dawns on me. My mouth gapes open. “Rosie is…your house?”
    Elias chuckles. “Yeah. R-O-S-I-E. Stands for ‘Residential and Office Service and Identification Engineer.’ Mom’s working on it for the Hub. The one over there doesn’t talk, yet, but we get the prototype. You’ll get used to her.”
    I seriously doubt that.
    The inside of the house gleams nearly as much as the outside. Not a scuff anywhere, not a smudge on a mirror or the perfect, shining glass walls. I smell something warm and yeasty and completely wonderful. Of course — Rosie’s great at pizza.
    His mom calls behind us, “Mr. Davis hitting you with the homework already?”
    Elias calls back, “Yeah. Be down for dinner.” We head down the hallway to the right where I can already hear Leni and Daniel settling in.
     
    Elias’s room feels more comfortable than the rest of the house. Instead of white walls against mahogany trim on wood floors, his room has high-piled carpet and posters on the walls. Giant throw pillows are scattered on the floor. There are a couple sweatshirts strewn at the foot of the bed, and I like it. It makes me feel at home.
    He settles himself on his bed but doesn’t offer me a place to sit, so I just stand. Now I’m only a head taller than him.
    “Can she… Can Rosie hear what we say?” I ask.
    “Only if you ask her to listen,” Elias says as he grabs a folding chair and sets it out for me. “You have to address her.”
    Somehow that information makes me feel better. I sit down and start pulling my tablet and reader out of my bag.
    “So,” Leni says from the desk chair, “Why did you transfer?”
    Normally I would have frozen at a question like this, but her smile is so genuine and she looks so much more normal now, especially since she changed out of those ridiculous white shoes and pleated skirt and into yoga pants and a hoodie.
    But I still can’t come up with an answer, not one that sounds normal anyway. So I glance over at Elias.
    He jumps in, saving me. “Leni, can you show her your, uh…”
    “Wait, what? She’s a One?” She turns her head up to look at me. “That’s a late transfer.” She’s still smiling, but her look is even more knowing now. I’m in some club of secrets that I really, really don’t want to be in. Even if it does mean, for the first time in my life, that I’m — well, in .
    He eyes me meaningfully. “I didn’t say she was a One. But she’s spent all this time at Superior as a Normal and come out relatively unscathed. And now she’s here.”
    I raise an eyebrow at him. This is what he thinks “unscathed” looks like?
    “And she thinks I’m creeping on her, but really I’m just trying to be nice.” Did I see his cheeks flush red?
    “But, um…” I interrupt. “I am. A One. My parents…or I thought…maybe a second would show. Obviously it didn’t.” I try to keep my face from falling. “No big deal.”
    Except that it’s the biggest deal ever.
    “Oh. Yeah.” Leni nods knowingly. Her eyes aren’t sparkling quite so much now, but still she turns around, unzips her hoodie and lets her shirt dip down off her shoulder an inch. An ugly, puckered, white and pink scar, about two inches wide, snakes from her neck, across her shoulder, and down the back of her arm.
    “What…” I ask, my head shaking, suddenly feeling sorry for this bright girl I hated only seconds ago.
    “I have combustibility. But not indestructibility or regeneration. Or that skin-oozing-plasma thing that some combustible Supers have. Even though that’s slower, it would have been… Anyway. Learned that the hard way in second grade,” she explains, her smile the same sad smile that Elias first gave me a few days ago when we first met. The idea of flames ripping through my flesh, and it not healing or protecting itself… I fight against a horrified shudder.
    “Whoa,” I say, a lump rising in my throat. The question’s out of my mouth before I can keep myself in check. “How do you keep from — you know — ” and I make a flaming motion with my hand in the air. “When you’re upset, or whatever?” I finish in a lowered voice.
    “Oh,” says Leni, “You know. Antidepressants. They tend to, uh…dull things.”
    Everyone’s quiet, watching me.
    Daniel starts the round of nervous laughter, changing the subject. I wonder how often he comes to her rescue like this, how many times he’s saved her from