Written by Ian Brownlie
Mitra couldn’t be sure when PowerUpPlus appeared on her phone, because who sits scrolling through all their apps every day waiting for something mysterious to appear?
It was nothing she’d consciously downloaded, Mitra knew that much. It sounded ridiculous, like one of those apps that falsely claims to improve gaming performance. When she clicked on it a list of what sounded like powers from a rubbish superhero film appeared.
Huh. Weird.
Mr. Stevens had Mitra’s phone for the rest of the day. The blocky red and black layout of the PowerUpPlus app was distinctive enough to catch her teacher’s attention. When he gave it back to her Mitra had her socials to catch up on. The new app was pushed to the back of her mind.
A loud notification woke her the next day at 5am.
“Rude,” said Mitra, face muffled by her pillow.
PUP Tip of the day: Increase Stamina
Ha! thought Mitra. Nice idea. PE was second period and they were going for a long run. She hated being with the losers at the back, limping pathetically over the finish line.
She clicked and the blocky red and black screen appeared again. Stamina was now the first option, and it was flashing. She clicked again, curious to find out what it would say next.
A single bar showed twenty seven percent. Was that her stamina level? This app was wild. OK then, thought Mitra. What have I got to lose? She dragged the slider up so the bar was at 100%.
The app immediately switched to camera mode, with shifting red crosshairs:
TARGET…searching…
Mitra blinked, yawning. She tried to cancel out of the screen but it seemed to be stuck. She sighed, already bored, eyelids drooping.
In first period her phone vibrated. After seeing it was from PowerUpPlus she was only glad it hadn’t made the same loud noise that woke her.
TARGET…acquired
The crosshairs of the camera focused on Cris Belford. Mitra raised her eyebrows. Cris could run and run. Would the ‘target’ of the app be used as some kind of guideline by which her own stamina would be judged? Knowing how unlikely that was made it much easier for Mitra to OK the notification and forget about it.
*
The run itself felt dreamlike. Mitra started off at a good pace as usual, but rather than rapidly tail-off into a heavy-breathing mass of sprawling limbs and sweat Mitra found she was simply able to remain at that initial level.
She went past Cris at the halfway point, recognising the look of exhaustion on his face as she passed him.
“Good work, Mitra!” called Mrs. Phillips as she finished.
“Thanks, miss,” said Mitra.
“You must have been training hard, well done.”
The reality of what happened during the PE lesson only sank in during break time. Mitra sat ignoring her friends Dina and Stef while they discussed some new school drama, keeping her eyes firmly on Crispin Belford.
Cris was slumped by the door to the toilets, quiet at first, breathing still heavy, before he slowly began to join in his friends’ conversation.
Mitra felt her phone buzz and glanced down to see another PowerUpPlus Tip of the Day recommending that she improve her Hearing. She moved the slider from forty four percent to 100%, this time being told that three targets were required. Yeah, yeah, whatever, thought Mitra, okaying the three chosen students.
Looking over towards Cris, she could now hear every word he and his friends were saying:
“…not the end of the world, is it Cris?”
“We all have bad races, dude.”
They were trying to laugh off the issue but without much confidence. They actually sounded a little spooked.
“Guys,” said Crispin. “I’m in great shape. I’ve been training every day for the Championships. It doesn’t make sense. A bad race means a bad time, not completely failing to finish.”
“Might be coming down with a cold?”
“No,” said Cris.
“Someone spiked your water?”
“Not possible,” said Cris.
Mitra felt a trembling hand on her shoulder. Her friend Stef did not look at all well; a thin sliver of blood trickled from her ear. She tried to speak, but it was as if she couldn’t cope with the pressure, the pain, inside her head.
Two other students in the hall looked as if they were suffering similarly and Mitra got the connection. Reluctantly, she went into PowerUpPlus and slid her hearing back down to forty four percent. She heard no more from Cris, and Stef slowly started to improve.
Mitra’s phone vibrated once more before lunch, but she didn’t need to look at it. English was next and the last thing she wanted to do was read aloud from King Lear in front of the class. The app would offer to boost her Confidence but confidence wouldn’t stop her making mistakes. Even if the app could increase two things at once, she didn’t have time to be messing around with it for so long in class. Getting the phone confiscated was now her biggest concern.
“Hey!” called Allie, a girl she rarely interacted with, as they were waking out of the lunch hall. “Hey, you, hold up.”
“What?” said Mitra.
“Think you’re better than me, yeah?”
“Err, no.”
“No? So what’s with the stupid grin on your face as you ran past me this morning?”
“Since when did running fast become a crime?” said Mitra, a little more assertively than she’d meant to.
“Since you laughed at me when you did it,” said Allie. Before Mitra could deny it, Allie shoved her shoulder. “You know EXACTLY what you did.”
“Now now, girls,” said the risk-averse Mr. Dunlop as he moved past them in the corridor. ‘”Enough of that. Onto your next lesson, come on please.”
Allie smiled, biding her time until Mr. Dunlop moved away:
“You and me,” she whispered. “After school. We settle it.”
Mitra watched Allie strut off, gripping her phone tightly. Maybe, she thought, if I just put the level of Strength up to eighty percent rather than a hundred that might be OK? Especially if I’m taking some of it away from Allie. What could be the harm in that?
*
From a standing position, Mitra leaped from the grass outside the drama block right onto the sports hall roof.
It was dark, so she was fairly sure nobody had seen her. A costume would have made absolutely certain, but…nah, that wasn’t happening.
Mitra’s legs felt strong and she was sure she could have gone higher. The key, she’d found over the last six months, was using a combination of abilities. Even if you could acquire enough targets to put the Jump slider up close to 100% in PowerUpPlus, you still needed to up the Strength too.
She’d been able to catch ten people in the crosshairs tonight, and the sports centre was maybe twenty metres high. If she was finally going to do some good in this town Mitra needed to get on top of the much larger Grand Majestic Hotel so she could survey the area. Luckily the app would be able to find her more leg strength, more people, in the centre of town.
And yes, that would suck for those people, just like it sucked for Cris Belford (who didn’t come into school any more). She couldn’t train properly without all that Stamina though, and how else was she supposed to put this magical gift she’d been given to good use?
Mitra checked the app’s levels to make sure she could handle the jump back down to the ground. She couldn’t risk any broken bones.
This town needed a hero.
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Ian Brownlie lives with his family in Marlow, Bucks (UK). His work has been longlisted for the Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition and Searchlight’s Best Novel Opening award. He has had children’s poetry published in The Dirigible Balloon, Tyger Tyger, Little Thoughts Press, and The Toy. His poetry for adults has appeared in SHINE Quarterly, streetcake, Audi Locus, and Cosmic Daffodil, and was recently nominated for the Pushcart Prize. BlueSky: @ianbrownlie.bsky.social Instagram: @ibrownlie
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