Red Means Dead

Uber-Ultra Justice League Team Go!

I'm typing a quick note to mum and dad about the away mission when Mei flitters into my room, immediately demanding attention in a back burner sort of way so I save the message to drafts to finish and send later. Mei is as gentle as a butterfly and has the lasting effect of stepping on one when she enters a room. I do believe William Shakespeare was speaking of her when he penned, "though she be but little, she is fierce," all those years ago.

Tapping her fingers along a shelf, she coos at a picture of us at a cadet dance, one she's seen thousands of times but always acts like it's the first time. She straightens a small container holding a succulent that I permanently borrowed from Sulu and rubs off traces of dust that don't exist from her fingers before doing the same to her blue uniform.

Her mind is elsewhere, perhaps thinking about some of her animals in the lab, maybe already on Eris, wondering what spectacles we'll see, but most likely on a bloke she passed in the hallway just now.

A contented sigh escapes her lips.

"What's the spunk's name?"

She tries to affect confusion but quickly brightens when she knows she's not fooling me. "George. What a perfectly lovely, average name."

"Weren't you going on last week about how you loved Hikaru's name for being so unique? And then proceeded to tell me every minutiae you could about it?"

She tsks and scrunches her nose.

"I can't wait to hear all the scintillating details of the name 'George'."

"Stuff it, Oyster." Her words don't carry much heat. It's apparent she knows I'm just pulling her leg. "I didn't exactly hear you...what's the word? Wedge?"

"I believe you mean whinge."

"Whinge about it when I happened to mention it. In passing. Briefly one night. I believe on a Tuesday. A boring one at that."

"You had chocolate crackles. You could have been talking about waste recycling and I would have been all yours." I wrap my arms around her waist, resting my temple against hers as I walk us to my bed. "You know I live vicariously through you. Tell me all about George; a 'perfectly lovely' name."

"Isn't it?" She sighs, flopping us onto the bed and quickly working me into a fit of giggles about everything but boys.

After some time of nonsense and waxing philosophic, she asks, "What do you want to do tonight? We could braid each other's hair. Or have an Andorian Ushaan battle of honor."

"The second option sounds much more appealing."

"Maybe the winner could finally give our gang a name."

She has been trying to convince me since our Academy days that we are more than friends and I have to remind her there's no such thing as a gang of two. She has always brushed me off, though, and floats a possible name my way every few weeks or so, tries it out in passing but then changes her mind. Her favorite, Illumi-naughties, lasted a solid two months until she got paranoid that the real Illuminati would come after us.

"Well, we're obviously more than merely friends. We're like super friends. Oo! Like the Uber-Ultra Justice League Team Go!"

"I remember that show. Granddad and I used to watch it. Superman's great-great-grandson was gorgeous."

"So were the women. The Silver Arrow. And Aquawoman. I mean, it might as well have been about us."

"Can I be Silver Arrow? Her abs are fierce. And she shoots stuff with her laser arrows. And she's a Queen."

"As long as I can be Aquawoman." She giggles, making a fishy face. "Hey! We should go to the rec level and commandeer a room to watch old episodes! I'll get popcorn."