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Chapter 31 – ConversationsAlex was still a little tired when she got up the next morning, because she had ended up staying up late to get all her homework and studying done. That, and watching the eleven o’clock news and the eleven-thirty news with her folks to see what people said about Terawatt.
And watching some of the late-night cable news programs to see what they were saying. Some of the really right-wing guys Alex didn’t like were saying that superheroes helping the police was good, just like letting people carry concealed weapons or letting citizens do bounty hunting. And some of the left-wing guys Alex did like were saying that letting masked vigilantes run around beating up people in violation of their rights was the next step to a police state. Ugh. She’d never thought she’d be agreeing with Rush Limbaugh and disagreeing with National Public Radio. Why did things have to be so complicated?
It had turned out a bunch of news teams got her whole conversation with Captain Collins, so he was on the hook for deputizing a masked citizen who really could be anybody, maybe even a wanted criminal or something. The mayor’s office and the governor were already worrying about the legality of deputizing a masked superhero who might really turn out to be a supervillain, or just a bad guy, or at least someone with a criminal record. She knew Captain Collins would get away with it without getting in trouble as soon as he explained to his bosses about the whole Homeland Security thing.
And then every cameraman had gotten film of her flying to the front doors and floating in, and then a few minutes later the ‘criminals’ surrendered and came out with their hands up, and calmly walked right into the police van with the super-secure cells in it. And there were no deaths or injuries or damaged buildings. But Ray had texted her that there were already bloggers complaining that there wasn’t a giant super-battle out in the street where people could film it. Some people were totally whiners. And weasels.
And then Louis had texted her that some of the sleazy Terawatt sites were complaining because there wasn’t lots of sexy shots of her punching guys and stuff. So along with the whiners and weasels, there were sleazoids. What was going to happen when a fat, unattractive girl got superpowers and started superheroing? People would probably be spectacularly nasty to her, and make fun of her.
Terawatt would probably need to step in and do something about that, before the girl decided to be a supervillain instead. Alex decided she needed to call Willow and keep an eye out for problems like that. And maybe Willow could make the sleazy Terawatt websites crash a couple times a day.
* * *
Alex did all the usual morning stuff, and made sure her uniform was in her car, and also brought her wig inside so she could brush and comb it for the day. She made a mental note to wash her uniform, too. What did superheroes in apartments do? Drive hundreds of miles away so they could use a laundromat where no one knew them? Alex knew from Selina that Batman had a huge mansion with a butler, so he could get his uniforms cleaned any time he wanted, but what about normal superheroes?
Before she drove in to school, she called Captain Collins on her Terawatt phone. It took several minutes to get through to him, because apparently he was getting tons of phone calls from reporters and cranks and loonies. And naturally, he didn’t believe she was Terawatt.
She made sure her voice was right, and she said, “Captain, we both know that you were operating under direct orders from Homeland Security, and that Captain Riley Finn gave you those orders. Does anyone else know that?”
“Okay, so maybe you’re really Terawatt. Or a really good prankster.”
She said, “Meet me on top of police headquarters at exactly 11:50. Bring anyone you need to convince that you really were following national security directives. I’ll meet you there. I need to have you or someone higher up than you tell me that I really have been formally deputized by the city of Paradise Valley, and that it has not been rescinded. And I’ll be flying in, so you’ll know it’s really me.”
“Anything else?”
She said, “Yes, I know that you’re not seeing my cell phone number. But if I am deputized, then you or someone else in the police department should have my number. Perhaps the head of the city’s SWAT group. I’ll provide a number for you when we meet.”
“I still don’t believe you.”
She said, “It will only take two minutes of your time to find out. If I’m not flying onto the roof of your building at exactly 11:50 today, you’ll know this was a ruse.”
She hung up and got moving off to school. Only, as she drove, she started worrying. What if there was a police call about supervillains committing a crime right at 11:50? She’d have to skip the meeting, and Captain Collins would never believe her again!
School was … school. Pete and Paul were mad at her, Eakin wasn’t speaking to her, Jack wouldn’t stop complaining to her, and Libby was still not back in classes. She had two of the good photographers going off to cover intermural baseball and track, and she was crossing her fingers that the school teams would do better this year than last year.
And she had Ray meeting her for lunch out by the tennis court so he could be her alibi. She grabbed her bag out of her car, and went out with him near the big rocks. Then the two of them ate for a few minutes before it was time for her to leave. They looked around to make sure no one was watching, and she morphed. She puddled into the bag, grabbed her superhero uniform, and headed down the nearest storm drain. Then she worked her way down the pipes to a really big pipe, and came out about a mile away from the school. She flew up into the air and stayed silvery all the way to police headquarters. It was about three miles away, but at her top speed it only took her a couple of minutes.
She timed it just right, and she went normal just before she landed in front of Captain Collins, who was standing there with an older guy she didn’t know, and an old guy she did know: the mayor, who she’d seen in plenty of pictures.
Collins said, “Terawatt. Glad to see you.”
She made sure she was using her Terawatt voice and she said, “Captain Collins. Thank you for meeting with me. After what the news was saying, I thought it was important to find out if my deputization has been revoked.”
He said, “This is Chief of Police Wallace, and Mayor Baker.”
She nodded at each of them and said, “Pleased to meet you, gentlemen.”
The mayor said, “Terawatt, we’re very grateful to you for all that you’ve done, but we’re not sure the state or the feds will let us deputize you.”
She nodded, like that was what she was expecting to hear. She’d really been hoping they’d say she was deputized and they were proud of her. She said, “I understand. Just as long as you understand that Captain Collins was given very little choice when the Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security ordered him to pretend that it was a real bank robbery. They also pressed the bank officers to cooperate. Unfortunately, they had no other way of contacting me at the time.”
Captain Collins tugged on his collar, which wasn’t straight and had a dirty smudge on the inside, and said, “Thanks, Terawatt.”
She then pulled out the small piece of cardstock and handed it to the chief of police. “This has my secret phone number. Don’t let anyone else see it. But if you ever need me, you can call on me, whether I’m deputized or not. Stopping Danielle Atron’s super-crooks is more important than the recognition or the details.”
As she turned to fly away, the mayor said, “I’m glad you’re not mad at us. I would really rather have you deputized, but the state attorney general hit us with enough legal statutes to bury us, and the governor told us we’ll lose all state-supported insurance and access to disaster compensation if we deputize a superhero who can level buildings and injure hundreds of people at a time. They think we’re lucky we haven’t been sued yet. They don’t understand.”
The police chief said, “I’m still trying to get you covered under the Good Samaritan laws, even if they’re only supposed to cover medical assistance, but the state attorney general’s fighting us on this. He thinks that future lawsuits are going to sink the state, and he’s trying to get some laws drafted and put through the state legislature to protect us. But that may have to go to public vote, so this could take over a year.”
She nodded. “And Danielle Atron will be willing to spend millions of her stolen money to keep a law like that from happening.”
The mayor smirked. “Right. We can portray every opponent of the law as supporting super-powered criminals, and if we can show even one of the supporters is really a front for criminals, we’d win in a landslide.”
She lied, “Thank you for your time. I appreciate your honesty.” Then she flew back toward the creek before diving down and going silvery so she could dive into the stormwater runoff system again.
She flew up out of the right grate, puddled over to her bag, and slid back out dressed for school. She went normal and picked up one of her sandwiches. “Anything happen while I was gone?”
He shrugged. “Jack came by to bitch and moan at you some more. I told him you went to the bathroom. Doesn’t that guy have a life?”
She sighed. “You should see him in a meeting. He can’t let anyone else get anything done. He has to stand up and complain until it’s time to go home. You put him and Greta in the same room, and it’s impossible to get anything done. It takes like four meetings in a row just to make an announcement.”
* * *
The news that night was more of the same, as people were debating whether a superhero should get deputized, and whether a city could afford to deputize someone who might wreck a city block and kill a bunch of innocent bystanders by accident. People were talking about the problems with lawsuits just from police high speed pursuits and stuff. She wasn’t happy about how things looked.
So she was surprised when she was working on homework in her room and her Terawatt phone rang. She made sure her voice was right. “Terawatt here.”
“Jack O’Neill. I know I said I wanted us to do meets and greets and get used to each other first, but I think this is right up your alley. And I’m sure you know what’s going on with the deputizing problem and the lawsuit threats, so you’ll be happy to know that I won’t have that problem if you help us out. We have a possible supervillain situation in Normal, Illinois. And it may be linked to the JBH Chemical plant there.”
Oh, crud. Suddenly two completely different conversations crashed head-on into this one. She said, “I think my support people have flagged this one. A high school not far from the chemical plant? With complaints about a poltergeist?”
Jack said, “Bingo. Only our computers just upgraded this one, because the wacky poltergeist hijinks moved things up to two counts of murder one this evening.”
She said, “It may or may not be connected with the death of a Dr. Dunn, one of the chemists at the plant.”
Jack said, “Whoa, that’s something we didn’t have in our files. We’ll get on it. Where’d you hear about it?”
She fibbed a little. “We’ve been monitoring a new website. ‘Raising the Whistle’. It’s for scientists who think maybe they need to blow the whistle on their bosses or their company, and don’t know if they’re doing the right thing. Dunn’s name came up in their forums, and our software scavenged it.”
Jack said, “Roger that. I look forward to telling our hotshot IT people they missed this one. Now … can you go with us? We can pick you up Thursday morning early, and we’ll be in Normal, Illinois in no time. Then we start investigating. We’d all be working undercover, so no wearing the superheroine costume, at least for starters. I know that’s asking a lot of you, but I wouldn’t do it if I wasn’t worried this is going to escalate pretty fast.”
She gulped and said, “But I want to keep my secret identity secret.”
He said, “That’s okay. We’ll keep it between you and me and Riley and Graham. What do you say … Alex?”