|
|
Chapter 5 – CodenamesAlex went and moved the clothes from the washer into the dryer, while her dad put the dessert on the table and her mom got plates and flatware into the dishwasher. Ray helped, too. He cleaned up the rice cooker and put it in the dish drainer to dry. She gave him a kiss on the cheek for helping. She was planning on saving the serious kissing for later, when her mom and dad weren’t standing right there.
They sat down and dished up slices of pound cake with cherry topping drizzled over it. Her mom and dad had small pieces, while Ray got a huge piece. Okay, her piece was pretty big, too. Her folks hadn’t missed that she ate a lot without gaining weight. And she ate a lot of junk food when she was away from home. Like all the doughnuts she had at Gloria’s, because she usually ate one or two good-sized doughnuts every time she worked at the shop and every time she went in for a snack. She made a point of eating healthy at school, just because she’d spent so long hiding her secret from everyone, especially Kelly, who was incredibly nosy sometimes. And if she ate junk food for lunch at the school cafeteria, someone like Kelly or Donna would make a big deal about it. Like they were scared that gaining a couple pounds might be contagious or something.
Ray ate his cake and then said, “I hereby call this Secret Alex Mack Super Team meeting to order.”
Her dad grinned, and her mom rolled her eyes. Alex said, “Can we call it something simpler?”
Ray said, “We’ll have to work on that after we figure out your superhero name.”
Her dad said, “I think Pikachu would be good.”
“Dad!” she squawked. “I don’t wanna be an electrical rodent!”
Ray snorted as he tried not to laugh. Her mom just smiled.
Ray said, “I was thinking Kilowatt.”
Her dad said, “How about Megawatt?”
She fussed, “He’s a supervillain in a cartoon!”
Her dad just shrugged. “Then how about Gigawatt or Terawatt?”
Her mom said, “Gigawatt? Who wants a superhero name if nobody agrees on how to pronounce it? And I don’t want my daughter using a name that sounds like ‘jiggle-what’ especially if she’s going to be wearing a padded bra.”
Ray looked at her and said, “Terawatt is pretty cool sounding.”
She finally said, “Okay, that one goes on the list.” Her mom wrote it down.
Once she thought about it, she said, “Oh. That reminds me. We need to step up our operational security.”
Her mom gaped at her, and her dad asked, “Where did you pick up that phrase?”
She blushed a little. “That’s what Sam called it. But Sam’s career military.”
Her dad asked, “She’s the one who’s also an astrophysicist and a published author?”
“Right,” she nodded. “Her boss Jack said her brain was like a national treasure. She blushed really red when she heard him. But she’s probably like the smartest person in her universe.”
Ray said, “So what’s up with operational security for us?”
She said, “Well, we need to not write stuff down unless we shred it or burn the paper afterward. And anything on a computer needs to be encrypted with really good encryption. And anything accessible over the net needs segregation. And nothing on phones, because they can be lost or jacked. So I don’t know what the top of the line security stuff is, but I was thinking we only put stuff on one thumb drive, which I keep hidden behind the wall in my room, where no one would even think about looking for it.”
Her dad said, “I have a really good paper shredder in our home office. It does crosscuts, too.” She knew it chopped paper up into tiny rectangles, which would be a nightmare to figure out how to put back in the right order.
She nodded. “That sounds good. And we need a boring name for the group. We could call it rummy night, like we just sit around and play cards. Ray could say he’s going to his girlfriend’s house because he has to play rummy with her parents, and no one would want to tag along.”
Her dad said, “I’ll look into some equipment to detect bugs and phone taps. We ought to be doing that at work and at all the houses of the staff at project lead level and up anyway, so I can legitimately have that done for our house. And our cars.”
“Ooh, I hadn’t thought about the cars,” Alex muttered.
Ray asked, “Can we have Louis’s mouth monitored?”
She and her mom giggled, while her dad frowned a little. The whole family knew why Danielle Atron found out about her just before the plant’s first GC-161 products were going to go out the door, and her folks were still a little touchy about it.
Holy crow, that would have been a nightmare. A million Alex Macks and super-crooks running amok all over the country? People with no control blasting off lightning bolts everywhere you looked? Or spazzing out with their morphing? Or burping bubbles, or glowing weird colors, or accidentally getting superstrength that went away at really bad times? That would have been way beyond bad.
Well, at least Louis learned his lesson and started keeping her secret. Even if he ran his mouth constantly about everything else. And Alex learned her lesson. You needed to tell the people who you should be trusting anyway. Like her parents. And Robyn and Nicole. Wow, Robyn had been really mad at her when she found out Alex had been lying to her for four years about this stuff. So now, Team Alex was her, and three family members, and four friends. Selina said even Batman had people who knew who he really was, and he had hundreds and hundreds of people who wanted to know who he was so they could kill him or worse.
Her dad asked, “What about when Louis or Robyn is monitoring for you?”
She admitted, “Umm, they text me.”
Ray said, “And we know that’s traceable. So we need something to handle that.”
Her mom said, “Code words. You kids have hangouts all over town, so instead of texting ‘robbery at First Union Bank’, you could say ‘snacktime at Mario’s Diner’ or ‘meet me at Louie’s Snack Bar’.”
“That’s really good!” said her dad.
“Yeah,” she admitted. Because Mario’s was right across the street from the First Union Bank, and Louie’s was on the corner diagonally across from the bank. There was probably a hangout or something really near every possible target for miles and miles. They just needed to look at the jewelry stores and banks and stuff all over the area, and pick out a code word for each one of them.
Ray said, “And we should get a burner phone for Superheroine Girl to carry, so no one calls her on Alex’s phone.”
“Burner phone?” her mom asked suspiciously.
Ray said, “That’s what they call it on spy shows and cop shows on TV. A guy goes into a store and pays cash for a cell phone with like two hundred minutes pre-paid. Then he uses it for espionage or whatever, and it can’t be traced back to him.”
Her mom said, “Hmm, that’s a really good idea.”
Her dad teased her, “I still don’t see what’s wrong with Pikachu. I mean, you’re cute like Pikachu …”
“Dad!” she squeaked. “I’m not a yellow rat! And that’s final!”
Her folks just looked at each other and smiled.
Ray said, “Give it up, Alex. My folks do the same thing. Once we get old enough to help out around the house, they think we’re old enough to tease.”
Alex pushed onward, trying to ignore the whole teasing thing. “Selina gave me some electrical names I could use. Lightning, Volt, Shock, Livewire … I’m not sure I like Livewire, because Selina said she’s nuts.”
Her dad said, “At least we don’t live in a world full of superheroes and supervillains.”
Her mom just said, “Yet.” Then she glanced Alex’s way.
Her dad sighed and said, “Yet. I guess if we have GC-161, we’re likely to have other chemicals out there that could do even worse things to people.”
Her mom said, “I don’t like Volt. How about Voltron?”
Ray laughed into his glass of milk. “Mrs. Mack, that’s a really old Japanese super-robot cartoon that’s really lame.”
Her mom looked at Ray and said, “So I take it that would be a ‘no’ for Voltron.”
Her dad said, “Well, if you’re going that route, Lightning was the name for a really slow black man on the old ‘Amos and Andy’ show.”
“Okay, scratch that one,” Alex winced.
Her mom asked, “What about ‘Juice’? That’s electricity, and it’s also your shapeshifting. Because of that silvery puddle.”
Her dad asked, “Like Juice Newton?”
“Who’s that?” Alex wondered.
“Your mom used to really like Juice Newton. An old pop star.”
“Pass!” Alex insisted.
“Okay, what other names do you have in mind?” her mom asked in a snippy tone.
Alex admitted, “Not a lot. Selina said I could go with a generic ‘really powerful superheroine’ name, like Wonder Woman. Who’s awesome. And every guy there thought she was the sexiest thing ever.”
“Which one is she?” Ray asked.
Alex couldn’t help frowning. After five days of feeling like the ugly duckling in the superhero biz, then in came Faith and Hawkgirl and Wonder Woman, and she felt even more loser-esque. “She’s the one in the bathing suit and the tiara, with the …”
Her dad cupped his hands way out over his chest. “The enormous …” Then he caught her mom glaring at him. “… set of skills?”
“Yeah. Her,” she grumbled. “And she can pick up a tank, and she can bounce bullets off her bracelets, and she has a magic lasso that has superpowers of its own. And she’s a princess. Of the Amazon nation.”
Her mom said, “This Selina’s world sounds … really bizarre.”
Alex regrouped. “So anyways, Selina gave me some other choices: Wonder Woman, Superwoman, or Power Woman. She said Supergirl and Power Girl both had to put up with being stuck with ‘girl’ in their names even after they grew up, so it wasn’t a good idea to go with that unless I had to.”
Her dad said, “Well, I think Superwoman describes you.”
Ray said, “I like Power Woman, because you have some cool powers.”
Her mom said, “Alex, what do you think?”
And she admitted, “I kind of think Power Woman sounds like someone who’s super strong, so I don’t want to go with that. And I don’t feel like I measure up to the real Wonder Woman.”
Her mom glanced down at her notes. “So it’s Terawatt or Juice or Superwoman?”
She nodded. “Let’s go with Terawatt.”
Ray grinned. “Hmm, looks like this rummy night is about over. ’Cause I’ve got Spanish homework to do, and my dad wants me to put the ‘scholar’ in scholar athlete.”
Her dad asked, “Are you going to be one of the starting guards next winter?”
Ray said, “Yeah, but Jackson wants to be the shooting guard real bad, so maybe I’ll be the point guard. Assuming he doesn’t get hurt again. And Tony’s healthy and passing English this time, so maybe we’ll have him as our center next year.”
Alex grinned. “Yeah, he’s really great at basketball. We just have to help him pass his classes. Then we’ll have a really good team!”
Her mom said, “I am officially declaring me as the winner of tonight’s rummy game. And I’m going to go work on Alex’s costume improvements.” She turned her head. “Oh, Alex, I got the wig, and I need to show you how to wrap it up and put it on.”
“Great, Mom. I’ll be with you in a couple minutes, and then I’ve got an English paper to start on.”
“Alex!” Ray complained. “She only assigned it today!”
Both her parents beamed at her like she was doing something really great. She went ahead and explained, “I want to try something Willow told me about paper writing. If it works, I’ll show you.”
Then she took Ray outside and kissed him goodnight. For as long as she could get away with. He was a really good kisser. She could’ve stood there kissing him for hours.
“Oh, crud.” She stopped when she felt her phone vibrating in her waistband. She pulled it out, and it was a text from her mom. ‘come in now’. “Oh, crud.” She kissed Ray quickly and said, “It’s my mom. Gotta go.”
Ray gave her a shrug and a smile. “When you gotta go …” He kissed her gently and took off toward his house.
She stormed into the dining room, where her mom was working on her costume some more. Before she could complain, her mom said, “My mom would flip the porchlight on and off until I came in, so pretty much the entire family and everybody on the whole block could guess what was going on.”
“Eww.”
Alex was going to talk with her mom about the costume then, but her dad dragged her out to the garage to see if she’d gotten superstrong. She wasn’t. She couldn’t lift the barbells even an inch. Her dad just scratched his head and said they’d check again in the morning. She sort of agreed, and went back to the dining room.
Her mom showed her what she’d been working on since she got home from classes at the university. She couldn’t help saying, “Wow.”
It was pretty awesome. Her mom had taken the long-sleeved white spandex leotard she had been using for a top, and replaced it with what looked like white patent leather, only shaped a lot more like the way Alex wanted Terawatt to look. She gasped, “Mom! How’d you do this? It’s amazing!”
Her mom said, “Well, I’ve been working with your figure on my sewing mannequin, but I put the padded bra on it first before I put the leotard on, and I sprayed it with this white plastic ‘artificial leather’ spray your father brought home from the plant for us to try out. And I molded it a bit as it dried, so it looks more superheroic.”
“Wow.”
Her mom grinned. “You said that already.”
She said, “This is just awesome. Now all we have to do is figure out how to make it bulletproof. And I need some heels for the outfit so everyone will think Terawatt is like five inches taller than me.”
Her mom said, “There’s a place near the university that sells shoes like that. I’ll go pick some up. It’s way too sleazy for you to go in there, anyway. Heck, it’s way too sleazy for me to go in there.”
Alex picked it up and studied it for a bit, before her face fell. “Umm, Mom? How am I supposed to put it on?”
Her mom looked at it for a second and winced. “Oh, honey!”
Because it wasn’t stretchy anymore. When it used to be a plain white leotard, she just stepped into it while it stretched a bunch, then pulled it up and slid her arms in, and then tugged the neckline up. After all, it was just an ordinary scoop neckline that was low enough to show her collarbones but high enough not to show even a hint of cleavage. And she liked it that way. The superheroines in the comic books Louis had were wearing totally skanky outfits. She didn’t see how they could fly or punch somebody without having a ‘wardrobe malfunction’ in front of everybody. She’d just die if that happened to her for real. But now, with the stuff sprayed on the leotard, it wouldn’t stretch enough to get in and out of it.
And she realized she didn’t need to get in and out of it like a normal girl. Not when she had her powers. She gave her mom a little smile and took the leotard up to her room, beckoning her mom to come along.
Her mom said, “I’m so sorry about the leotard. We can get a new one, and I guess I’ll need to figure out how to sew in a zipper in the back so we can do this all over again.”
Alex said, “It’s okay. I think I figured it out.”