When Rich got back from his little diversion with the soldier girl, he noticed Becca was nowhere to be found.
"Beccaaaa!" he called out. "Rebecca, where are you?" She wasn't in the kitchen, or the dining room, or the living room. Furtively, he knocked on the door of his sister's bedroom. He couldn't hear anything coming from the other side: no TV, no video games, no music, no nothing.
"Well, if you're not going to answer your own brother, I'm coming in!" But the room was empty. Even the bed was still made.
Suddenly really worried, Rich considered the possibility that Stinger had hit the house while he was busy with his weekly quarry visit. For a minute, he just paced through the house, checking and double-checking every room. There was no sign of forced entry or a struggle.
I swear, if Stinger laid one hand on Becca or Dad, I'm really taking the gloves off! Do they think I couldn't easily just snap the necks of their soldiers? I could!
Fear led to anger, and anger was in the process of leading to hate. Rich was about halfway through the process of falling to the dark side when he heard a noise from the garage.
"The garage! I didn't check there!" Almost tripping over the coffee table in his haste, Richard sprinted across the house and through the little hallway that led to the place they kept Dad's car, and a lot of old junk besides.
"Oh, thank god!" He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw his twin, alive and well, going through some stacked boxes.
Becca chuckled. "The goddess is a woman, Rich. Haven't you ever read the bible? Miss that day in Sunday school?"
Oh, good thing he didn't commit that faux pas in mixed company. Little tells like that were likely the most dangerous, precisely because they were little enough for him not to notice he was doing them. "I was worried, Becca!" he said indignantly. "When I couldn't find you after I got back from the little battle, I feared the worst. It was a tough fight, too. Stinger mutants are getting stronger."
"Sorry, Rich," she said sheepishly. "When you flashbanged me with your Future Hero transformation, I forgot where I was and what I was doing. Then, I suddenly got an odd craving to play Dad's old Sega Genesis. That's why I was out here, looking for it. I know it's somewhere in the garage."
He smiled nostalgically. "You remember when she, I mean he, would play the Sega CD Dune game for us? That's my first gaming memory."
"Mine too," Becca said fondly. They shared a nice little moment. When your mom, or rather your dad, in a reverse world, was a computer programmer, it came with all sorts of benefits, like not having to ask for games for your birthday or Christmas. Dad already bought them for himself!
"You remember that old Windows 95 machine the whole family played Doom on? He taught us C++ on that!" It was true. Rich knew what a for loop was before he knew what a verb was. That knowledge had turned into a career in his first life. He'd always be grateful to his parents for being technical people who got their kids interested in it early.
"Aw man, yeah! You know, Mrs. Fekete also teaches the AP computer science elective. You going to take it with me?"
Rich shook his head. "Nah, I already know how to code. I'm taking auto shop."
"Julie won't like that," Becca pointed out. "You will literally be the only boy in there. They'll all hit on you constantly."
He joined his sister in rummaging through the old boxes stacked up on the walls. "Don't care. I want to learn about machines and stuff this time around. Wouldn't majoring in mechanical engineering and learning about cars be cool? Programming is lame in comparison."
"Such a mollygirl..." Becca muttered under her breath, but Rich caught it. "You know Julie is planning for you to be her trophy husband, right? If things work out, you won't have to work at all. I was messaging her on AIM earlier. She has a one-on-one session with her private quarterback coach all day."
"I know," Rich said. "Real pro prospects have stuff like that, costs thousands of dollars. I have to know, because we schedule around it. Julie is only allowed to date me because she is keeping up with her extra training. Did you know I actually had to have an interview with her private nutritionist to make sure the food I prepared for her was good enough?"
"Rich people are wild," Becca said. Feeling around for something in a box that Rich couldn't see, she pulled out the old Genesis. "Jackpot, and the games are in the box next to it. You want to help me set it up?"
He was about to agree when something Becca said earlier started to bother him. "I flashbanged you, you said. You forgot where you were?"
His twin nodded. "Yeah, anytime you transform, it's like I get disoriented or something, similar to the neuralizer from Women In Black. I thought you knew? It keeps your secret identity secret. People forget whatever just happened when you transform around them."
Crap. He had no idea. If it really worked that way, it was a load off his mind. Rich had been too reckless about transforming in public lately and was trying to be better. "Would you mind if I tested that?"
Becca looked interested. She put down the Genesis and turned to him. "You know, we haven't done much Future Hero stuff together. We've been so busy with school, training, our jobs, and everything. It would be cool to try to figure out your powers. I mean, my brother is a superhero. Shouldn't that be the most important thing?"
"You're right," Rich admitted. "Life just kept getting in the way. Technically, fighting Stinger is my mission. That's why they sent me back."
"Sent you back?" Sis was looking at him strangely.
Rich laughed uncomfortably. "Yeah, you know 'Future Hero'. I'm from the future." The admission brought only silence.
"So THAT'S what it was!" Becca was pointing at him with wide eyes. "You are so mature and organized. I thought it was just because you were a boy, but that doesn't explain it, not fully. Look at me, Rich!" She waved her hands over her body. "You transformed my life in less than half a year. I'm on the right track because you really are older and wiser." She struck her forehead with her palm. "This time around, you said. You've lived this life before. Your magic might be future technology. This is some heavy stuff, bro."
Rich looked away in embarrassment. "Can you keep it a secret?"
"Of course," Becca agreed immediately, then she looked thoughtful. "Say, you don't happen to know the future, do you? Any stock picks, lottery numbers? Things like that?"
Maybe, he considered, but thought better of it. "Nothing reliable. This world is different in a lot of little ways. It's the same but not exactly the same, you know? There's no way to be sure any knowledge I have would still apply, and I'm not confident the people who sent me back would want me messing with things. I'm here for Stinger. We can live a decent, ordinary life otherwise, but upsetting the timeline more than that is risky."
Becca looked a little disappointed at the lack of a get-rich-quick scheme, but eventually common sense won out. "You're right," she agreed. "So how do you want to test your ring?"
Rich considered his options. "We need some kind of control. Leave the garage and wait five minutes, then come back and tell me a number. The number is 'six', got it?"
"Got it!"
They started up their little experiment. After five minutes, Becca came back. "Okay, what's the number?" Rich asked.
"Six," she answered.
"Good. The new number is seven. Now watch me transform." He raised the Pureheart Ring:
"From a future dark
To a post not set,
Stinger hasn't won just yet,
With Pureheart Power, a noble mission,
Come forth! Future Hero! Henshin!"
Now clad in the Endram Armor, Richard Rice became Future Hero in the privacy of their garage. "What's the number?" he asked.
"Six," Becca replied.
Hmmm, so she at least remembers that much. He dispelled the armor. "You still remember I'm from the future, right?" Rich would really prefer not to have that conversation twice.
"Yes." Becca nodded.
They had Rebecca leave and come back multiple times, each time with a new number to remember. She would wait outside for varying lengths of time. In each subsequent instance, they shortened it. Eventually, they determined that directly witnessing Rich transform left an approximately sixty-second gap in memory. The witness also never noticed Rich disappear. His absence always "made sense" somehow.
Quick transforms in public are possible, he concluded, but Rich decided not to risk it unless absolutely necessary.
"I knew it!" They heard a woman with a slight Eastern European accent shout from outside the garage.
"Mrs. Fekete, I'm not sure what you thought you saw..." Rich dissembled. She was wearing a purple tank top and shorts, not quite the high fashion their physics teacher was usually clad in. Her dog was on a leash at her side as she entered without being invited.
"Save it, Mr. Rice. I was passing by and saw purple flashes emanating from your garage in regular intervals. That ring of yours is special, isn't it? The resonance of it permeates these surroundings." She adjusted her glasses. "I'm a scientist. I know these things."
Becca looked at him. "Rich, Mrs. Fekete is a physicist, and your ring might be future technology. If anyone could help us..." she trailed off.
"Yes!" Mrs. Fekete nearly screamed. "I can help you! That ring has been tormenting me for months. I must know how it works!" The woman's pupils shrank to little pinpricks, and her eyes were almost completely white.
Rich sighed. Maybe telling an adult was the right move here. "Okay. Leave the garage and come back in thirty seconds." Once they were both out, he transformed again.
"You're Future Hero!" Mrs. Fekete shouted in recognition when she came back. "I have so many questions. What is the nature of your powers? What is your mission? Why did they send a boy?"
This was going to take a while. He and Becca explained as much as they could: how he received a magic ring, how he fought Stinger as Future Hero, how he was from the future, all of it. After that, they repeated the memory transformation experiment for her several times.
"How fascinating! These gaps in my memory are the result of your novel energy source! This is completely unknown to modern science. You must come to my lab at once!"
"But Mrs. Fekete," Rich tried to slow her down.
"You may call me Reka when we're working, my young Rice twins! Now to my lab!"
It wasn't much of a walk. Reka was their next-door neighbor, after all. She led them to a finished basement with all kinds of advanced machinery and laboratory equipment lying about. She left them briefly to change into a white lab coat.
"Where are the kids, Mrs. Fekete, I mean, Reka?" Becca asked.
"The children are at math camp and Brad is getting his hair done," she answered in a clipped tone. Wasn't Brad's hair really short? "He dyes it," she explained to Rich's questioning gaze. "We're in our forties, you know, and my beloved is troubled by a few strands of gray hair. Little does he know, I consider her just as beautiful as the day we met! But enough of that! We must test if the memory effect translates to video footage!"
The answer was yes. Rich transforming on camera fried the last sixty seconds. Good to know.
"Not magic, I think," Reka said thoughtfully. "My instruments can detect a surge of something when you transform. What did your little rhyme call it?"
"Pureheart Power," Rich said.
"Aha! Power can be measured! And anything that can be measured can be managed, my young Rices!" She bounced around her lab, calibrating machines and designing experiments on the fly. Rich was instructed to transform again and again, while instruments he didn't recognize took readings he couldn't parse. "Pureheart Power...could it be? The fifth force! The emotive force! It must be, it simply must!"
Reka was, to put it charitably, looking quite insane. "Aren't there only four fundamental forces, Mrs. Fekete?" Rich asked.
"Reka," she corrected without looking back at him. "A common misconception, Mr. Rice. There are four forces...that we know of. The universe has feelings, you see. How does an electron feel about being an electron? Do you ever wonder? All of these particles don't interact without a reason, you know. There is an order, a balance. Things fit together because our feelings make it so! Ours, and the universe itself! Electrons absolutely have feelings! They hate each other! Nothing happens without a reason!"
"But feelings aren't real!" Becca complained.
Reka turned sharply, eyes narrowed dangerously. "Aren't they, Miss Rice? Feelings are very real indeed. The emotive force imposes order out of chaos. It's why we don't all just collapse into goo. Emotions oppose entropy! We hold together because we want to! Those fools at the National Laboratory laughed at my research, but who's laughing now? We have evidence right here, before our very eyes! Your brother's ring can harness this energy, and in time, I will learn as well. Yes...yes..." She was rapidly falling into her own little world.
"Actually, there is something," Rich tried to get her attention. "I need a new weapon, or a new technique, or something. Stinger's mutants are getting stronger. In my last battle, I had no way to counter a mutant with a ranged attack. Do you think you could invent something for me?"
Greed, and something more, flashed in Reka's eyes. "I can do better than that, Mr. Rice. You will battle Stinger, and I will advise you. My lab and expertise are yours. Let us three be a team. Your sister and I will support you in all that you do. From this day forth, let us be the Future Force!"