Refraction Read Online Free PDF

Crush said quietly, pushing the door open over Max’s shoulder, “can I sit at your lab table?”
    Max swallowed and worked his jaw a few times. “Yes,” he decided, then quietly panicked as his archnemesis cheerfully inserted himself right into Max’s routine.
     
     
    MAX WENT home that night very determined not to think about Crush at all, but the guy was worse than pink elephants. Once Max had stopped yelling at him and started talking to him, Crush’s goody two-shoes script had slowly slipped away and revealed a fascinating capacity for critical commentary.
    “I don’t like the school’s grilled cheese,” he’d admitted as he polished off his third sandwich in the cafeteria.
    “Mr. Boswell doesn’t consider extracurriculars when he assigns homework,” he had said, “even though he always lectures us on applying to the best colleges. Everyone knows you have to have extracurriculars for that!”
    “I don’t think our school has the best antibullying policy,” he’d confessed as they walked past the principal’s office.
    Ok, so he still sounded like a goody two-shoes, but he wasn’t thinking like one. Against his better judgment, Max was intrigued.
    Max was really intrigued. It was almost definitely going to become a huge problem, because Max was walking a tightrope right now, and he knew it. He had to make sure Crush didn’t figure out who he was, because everything he probably should have done to Crush, Crush definitely should do to him if he realized Max was Dynaman. Or at least the morally defensible superhero version of it. Max couldn’t afford to give Crush all the power over him Crush had inadvertently handed to Max.
    “What’s your real name?” Max had asked after physics.
    “Oh, it’s Crush.”
    “Wait… that’s not a nickname?”
    Crush had smiled, amused. “No….”
    “So you literally were born for greatness,” Max had said, realization dawning. “That’s disgusting.”
    “It’s not so bad.” Crush had grinned and shrugged, and Max had been struck by the knowledge that if Max had called Crush disgusting five hours later, the Crush would have tried to separate Dynaman’s head from his body.
    It was all very jarring and complicated and was bound to blow up in his face at some point. Max had watched enough movies to know that.
    These thoughts chased him all the way home, where he found his mother pacing in the kitchen, wearing a welding apron over her pajamas. Her left eyelid twitched occasionally.
    “How long have you been awake?” Max sighed, dropping his backpack into a chair.
    “Hmmm?”
    It’d definitely been a few days. She functioned well for about thirty-six hours, but after that she had trouble holding the thread of conversations. Too many ideas getting in the way.
    “You should at least wear work boots when you’re fabricating, you know.” He eyed her fuzzy slippers as he headed to the fridge for a snack.
    “They’ve moved the device,” she muttered to herself, smearing away one of the equations on the chalkboard. “Have to account for the viscosity of the mortar when….”
    Max rolled his eyes. “Seriously?” He pulled a package of string cheese and an errant screwdriver from the fridge, dropping them both on the kitchen table as he sprawled into an empty chair. “This is getting ridiculous. We’ve tried twice already—we’re not making any progress. Why don’t we just call the League?”
    This got his mother’s attention. She zeroed in on him, losing the frenetic edge as she found her focus.
    “Our colleagues are helpful at times, Max,” she said, wrinkling her nose, “but there are those on the League who don’t represent our ideals. As critical as the device is to our work, it is less dangerous in the hands of power hungry superheroes than power hungry supervillains.”
    Max raised a skeptical eyebrow.
    “Yes, Max. Superheroes at least have to maintain the illusion of altruism, which binds their hands and gives us more time to