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Chapter 42 – Wrapped UpGeorge Mack was not having a good day. He couldn’t remember a worse day. Not even the day Danielle Atron fired him. Not even the day she had him kidnapped — the first time. Not even the moment when he realized he was the worst father in the history of fatherhood, because his little girl Alex had desperately needed his help for four years and he had never put the pieces together to figure it out, and even worse, his daughters hadn’t trusted him enough to come tell him what had happened to Alex.
No, today he had been taken prisoner. His wife had been kidnapped. Ray had been kidnapped. Everyone at the high school had been endangered. His younger daughter had needed to fight a supervillain, and was now putting her life on the line to rescue him and Barbara. He had been forced to sit in a car for nearly two interminable hours, listening to Lars gloating about Danielle’s great plans and how he was profiting from them.
And now he was locked in a concrete ‘prison’ room, complete with jail cells made of steel bars. He and Barb and Ray, in three of the five cells. He didn’t want to think about who Danielle had in mind for the other two cells. But from the way Lars had talked, Danielle and her people suspected that Alex might not be Terawatt, just someone who knew Terawatt’s secret, so perhaps Danielle planned to capture Alex and Terawatt both.
And he was hearing over the loudspeaker as Danielle Atron fought Alex in a super-powered battle that had the potential to destroy this entire building while he and Barb and Ray were locked inside it.
Then Danielle yelled, “Lars! Carlton! Kill ’em! Now!”
He had seen Carlton lurking in the background, while Lars and two heavily armed minions pushed him into this cell. So he knew what Danielle had in mind. He turned to Barb and said, “It’s time. We don’t have any choice anymore.”
Ray pointed down at the stain over his pants pocket. “I had some, but it got broken, probably when they grabbed me.”
Barb unbuttoned her blouse one button and said, “It’s okay. I have four vials. Alex was a little frantic about us having enough, and so …” She reached into her bra and pulled out a wide strip of elastic, folded over and sewed so it had four tiny side-by-side pockets. In each one was a vial, carefully protected by the elastic.
Ray said, “Good, because I don’t think we have any time left. Those guys with Carlton and Lars? Not lookin’ friendly.”
George took one of the vials and drank the contents. It didn’t taste as awful as he had expected. He said, “Their guns looked a lot less friendly.”
He glanced over as Ray dropped his now-empty vial and plopped down on the concrete floor of the cell. Ray groaned, “Oh, man, I don’t feel so good.”
Barb said, “I’m feeling kind of rocky, too, and my head hurts. I think maybe we didn’t give Alex enough credit on how she handled this.”
George didn’t feel unstable, like Ray, or achy, like Barb, but there was a burning in his arms and hands that made him suspect what he was going to be able to do.
He had never wanted this. He had worried about the stability of something like this once he found out it was even possible. He had worried about the stability of the person, once Alex started telling him about those supervillains. And now he was doing it to himself, because Alex needed him to.
Sparks started glistening on his fingertips. He stepped forward and grabbed the steel bars, grounding himself so his power wasn’t a threat to everyone else in the room.
He looked over. Barbara was sitting on her bunk, and her hair was lifting about her face like there was a breeze in the room. Ray was lying on the floor, and parts of his skin were turning silvery for a few seconds at a time.
It was happening. It was happening, and on the schedule he had predicted when he studied Alex’s biochemistry. It might even be happening fast enough. Alex’s Sam Carter had suggested this as one emergency measure. But it was always easier to come up with ideas for emergency measures than to make them work and then deal with the consequences afterward.
Lars burst into the room with the two minions. Lars had that handgun, and both minions had what looked to George’s inexpert eye like submachine guns. Carlton closed the door behind them, but cowered behind Lars. He was unarmed and clearly unhappy about having to kill anyone. Not that he looked like he was going to stop anyone from committing murder.
George thrust his hands out past the steel bars and pointed his fingers at the two minions. He pushed with everything he could muster.
Lightning leapt from his fingertips. Real lightning. Ball lightning shot forward, hitting one minion and making the other one dive for the floor.
How did he manage to miss a guy standing not twenty feet in front of him? This was harder than it looked. He pushed again, and lightning shot out of his fingertips again. One of the bolts hit the diving minion, while the other missed, exploding against the far wall.
Barb snarled at Lars and reached out like she could grab his gun. The gun suddenly ripped out of his hand and smashed him in the face. He squawked and staggered back, reaching for his bleeding nose. The gun swung downward and smashed into his groin. He gasped and grabbed his crotch. The gun slugged him in the stomach, making him wheeze in pain. The gun smashed down on the top of his head, causing his eyes to roll up in his head as he collapsed into unconsciousness. The gun rose up again and smashed down into his ribs.
George looked over at his wife and gasped in horror. She was glowing yellow, and the raw hatred on her face scared him. He knew Barb had been angry at what Lars had done to him, and what Lars had done to Annie, and what Lars had tried to do to Alex, but he hadn’t ever seen this kind of fury in his gentle Barbara before.
It was the GC-161. Barb was having a mental breakdown, just like a lot of the GC-161 supervillains. George tried, “Barb! You’re killing him!”
Barb snarled, “Shut it, George. He deserves every bit of it, the bastard! He hunted down my baby, and he was so horrible to my Annie, and he treated you like dirt!”
George yelped, “Ray! Get us out of here!”
And it worked. Ray puddled out of his clothes, between the bars of his cell, over to the far wall, and up to the keyring hanging on the hook there. Ray couldn’t pick up the keys, but that didn’t surprise George, since Ray hadn’t managed to get his clothes to go silvery with him. No, they were lying on the floor of Ray’s cell. Ray knocked the keys to the ground and pushed them along in front of him, until they were inches from George’s cell door.
Carlton tried to sneak over to the door to get out, but Ray puddled over and blocked Carlton’s way. George didn’t think Ray could do anything to Carlton like that, but Carlton still backed away frantically.
George tried to pick up the keys, but he couldn’t stop the electricity sparking from his fingers. How in heck did Alex manage not to go crazy her first couple days like this? How did she manage to hide these powers from everybody … well, everybody except Annie and Ray?
Barb growled, “Carlton. The guy who sabotaged my older daughter’s science fair project and tried to dump the blame on my younger daughter. I’ve wanted to do this for a long time.”
George watched as Carlton’s underwear suddenly leapt out of the front and back of his pants. Both parts of the underwear jumped straight up so hard Carlton was lifted off his feet by his tighty whities, which were suddenly a lot tighter than normal. Carlton screeched like a banshee as he received the worst wedgie in history. He came down on top of Ray, who rolled off to the side like he was hurt.
Barb sagged from her efforts and collapsed to her knees. But she snapped, “Hang on, you little creep, give me a minute to rest, and I’ll do better.”
Carlton made a panicked squeak and staggered from the room as fast as he could move with his hands clamped to his groin and his knees locked together.
George looked at the fury on Barb’s face and realized he didn’t have time to get control over his lightning. He made a fast grab for the keys, accidentally spot welding two of them to the keyring. Then he held onto a bar of the cell to ground himself as he hastily tried the keys. He got lucky, and the second key unlocked his cell.
He looked at his wife, and he realized she was coming apart emotionally. All the pain and worry she had felt for years was coming forth, and these guys were about to suffer for it. He had no way to keep her from attacking the unconscious men, or even killing them. And he had no antidote.
* * *
Jack wasn’t ready to move, but Grover Dunn was just a kid. A kid who didn’t even have shoes or shorts. He couldn’t let a kid get hurt on an assignment like this one. And Jack had no idea how much trouble Terawatt was in. If he knew his crazy bad-guys, Atron had probably hit Terawatt with a couple of gallons of antidote and was trying to beat her to a pulp.
And that was why he and his team were moving in bounding overwatch across an open terrain toward a building he couldn’t blast first, when there were probably mercenaries in decent cover waiting to blow his kiester off.
They got within forty yards of the doorway when two men popped up on his four and his eight. The guys had been dug in and hidden under tarps with gravel scattered over the tops so they were pretty much invisible. Grover sure wouldn’t have seen them. And they had SAWs pointing his way. Three more men popped up from behind those fifty-gallon drums, and the middle one had a heavy machine gun.
A smug merc wearing a French Legionnaire’s jacket stepped out of the warehouse doorway and said in a Spanish accent, “Perhaps you should surrender before I have my men blast you into tiny fragments.”
Jack said into his mike, “Burn!”
Willow hadn’t had a lot of trouble setting up what Jack wanted. The mercenaries were using cellular for their wireless communications since they were near several good cell towers. And she’d picked up all their comm IDs. And Jack had a good idea. All she had to do was wait until he called her name. Well, Acid Burn’s name.
So when she heard Jack say “Burn!” into his mike, she slapped the key she had hot-keyed just for this.
Major Rojo was too experienced to stand around and do the supervillain gloating that Atron would undoubtedly be doing. He was just going to disarm these operatives, and if they gave him any trouble, he would shoot them. He didn’t want to kill some men who might really be U.S. Defense Department, but he would if he had to. He started to gesture to two of his team to move in from the rear and converge on the opponents, when he heard the older one say ‘burn’.
And suddenly there was an agonizing screaming into his earjack. It sounded like a hundred fingernails scratching down a blackboard, only at two hundred decibels. He clapped his hands to his ears and struggled not to fall to his knees.
Riley watched as every one of the mercs grabbed their ears and keeled over helplessly. He reminded himself — not for the first time — to stay on the good side of Alex and her hacker friend.
* * *
Danielle Atron stayed normal so she could gloat. “Aren’t you going to rush off to save your little friends, before Lars and my minions shoot them full of h–…?”
Alex flew in as fast as she could and wrapped her fist in a telekinetic shell. Then, before Danielle could react, Alex punched her right in the jaw as hard as she could. Her speed, all her strength, all the anger she’d built up for Atron over years, plus a telekinetic shell to protect her knuckles.
Danielle flew backward six feet and landed flat on her back. She didn’t get back up.
Alex found that she didn’t care if she’d broken Danielle’s jaw or given her a concussion. She just felt … immense satisfaction.
And a deep need to find the nearest bathroom as fast as humanly possible.
* * *
George hung onto a horizontal bar of his cell and let his lightning keep discharging into it. He looked over at Barb, who was absolutely furious, and only too anxious to beat those men to death with their own guns.
He said, “Barb? Barb! Hang on, I’ll have you out in a second.” He slid his arm along the bars so he could keep discharging electricity, and he struggled one-handed to unlock her cell, too.
As soon as he had her door unlocked, she shoved it open with her telekinesis and strode out of her cell.
He touched her on the arm, and his lightning jolted her. She shuddered helplessly for several seconds before she collapsed.
He didn’t dare touch her to see if she was all right. His fingers were sparking furiously, and he couldn’t make it stop!
* * *
Jack had all eight mercenaries disarmed and tied with zipcuffs. Wrists behind the back, and ankles cuffed, too. All eight were lying face-down on the gravel, which wasn’t comfortable. Tough. He left Scott to watch them, because any pro worth their salt could get out of zipcuffs in twenty seconds if no one was watching them.
He sprinted into the building with his two remaining men on his three and nine. Finn took the left wall, while Miller took the right. He charged across the floor to see if Terawatt needed help ASAP.
There was a mess of liquid all over one area, and Danielle Atron’s unconscious body had been dragged into it. The stuff looked like it might be the GC-161 antidote, which would mean Alex had been right about the kinds of stuff Atron was probably getting up to. He muttered to himself, “Oh, those wacky mad scientists.” But if Alex had felt the need to drag Atron into some GC-161 antidote … He fished out one of the two metal tubes he had in his gear, and poured the GC-161 antidote over Atron.
Speaking of which, man was he glad that Dr. Mackenzie had backed him on Maggie Walsh. That woman’s jungle gym was missing a few bolts. When he had told her she wasn’t accepted to the SRI, she had done everything except scream ‘those fools at the Institute said it couldn’t be done, but I’ll show them!’ With an evil laugh. He needed to thank Alex for that helpful hint, so something really hideous hadn’t happened.
And speaking of Alex, it looked like someone had worked a few things out of their system. Atron looked like she’d gone a round with Mike Tyson, not counting the ‘no ears bitten off’ part.
So … where was Alex? Where were her family members? Where were Atron’s other minions?
He checked his radio. “Stargate here. Atron is down. I need more antidote.” He had decided that the codenames for this little jaunt were going to be based on Alex’s stories, so he was ‘Stargate’, and Finn and Miller were ‘Vampire’ and ‘Demon’. They hadn’t liked that, which made it even more fun.
Finn answered, “Vampire here. I found Ghost, unconscious and netted, but alive. Two mercs down and a big control panel for their mines shredded, so it looks like he did an excellent job before they caught him. I’m zipcuffing the mercs just in case.”
Jack had noticed that some of the mercs were wearing IR goggles. That was probably how they caught Grover. He said, “Mash? Do you read that?”
He had brought a medic along, so he had someone who was fully briefed on the SRI already. And he had given Dr. Havens the codename ‘MASH’ like the old TV show. Janet had wanted to come along, but she was also an internist and a valuable medical researcher, so he didn’t want to risk her getting injured in the field. But she had heard Havens’ codename, and she had warned him that if he ever gave her the codename ‘Hot Lips’ he was going to be getting physicals with bent hypodermic needles.
Havens said, “Roger that. Are you giving me clearance to enter the hot zone?”
He said, “Yep. Make sure you got plenty of that antidote, because I want Atron and her people unpowered ASAP.”
Miller said, “Demon here. Found the hostages and minions. All hostages okay, all need antidote ASAP. I poured it on R and B, but G is insisting the others need more as soon as we can manage it. He’s just barely hanging on as it is. Three minions out cold, plus one holding his groin and crying like the mean kids at school don’t like him. He’s claiming there aren’t any more minions, for what that’s worth.”
Jack said, “Assume the hot zone has not — repeat, NOT — been cleared of all opponents. Once backup from Edwards arrives and takes all mercs into custody, I want a full sweep of this entire building and then the grounds and the surrounding warehouses, just in case. And remember, our backup is not cleared to know about Terawatt or the hostages.”
Speaking of which, where the hell was Terawatt?
Sergeant Scott said, “Untagged here. Mercs still in containment. Backup still ten minutes out. No exterior activity. Mash moving toward main entry.” Sergeant Scott had been kind of frustrated that he got tagged with the codename ‘Untagged’ but there were no Stewart Scott stories from Terawatt’s adventures in other dimensions.
Ten minutes? Damn. Way too much could change in even one minute, and there was still no sign of Terawatt. “Stargate to Vampire. Make sure Mash checks Ghost first, then send him past me on the way to Demon’s position.”
There was a sound like water running through pipes, and maybe a flushing toilet. It was coming from one of the areas his people didn’t have cleared, which was probably not a good thing.
He moved to the other side of Atron’s body and knelt down, so if someone came out of there shooting, they’d have to make an effort not to blast holes in their boss.
And Terawatt stepped out of a second-floor doorway to stand on the walkway. She gave him a shaky wave and flew up over the railing to land a couple yards from him. He noticed that she didn’t care that she was standing in what was probably GC-161 antidote.
And she looked bad. Not ‘been through a firefight’ bad or ‘been in a fistfight’ bad, but more like ‘bout of dysentery’ bad. She was pale and sweaty, and if he was willing to make a bet, she would probably feel cold and clammy to the touch. Her skin was looking sort of jaundiced, too. And she looked grim. Like she’d just been violently ill. He figured the flushing toilet meant she was so sick she couldn’t wait until reinforcements arrived.
He said, “Hey, Tera, you don’t look so good. Why don’t you lie down and wait here until our medic has a chance to look at you? He’s read in and everything.”
She groaned in a tone that he’d heard before in Southeast Asia. It was the ‘sir, I am trying desperately not to puke at this very second’ tone. “That counteragent my … support was working on? Side effects. Really major side effects.”
He gave her a grin. “Well, you did an awesome job. Atron, her mercs, her minions, the rescue, everything. The hostages are safe, and we’re getting ’em antidote as we speak.”
She moaned, “I don’t know if we got all the minions, and I really need to check on the hostages, and … I don’t feel too good.”
He said, “Can you sweep through some uncleared areas on your way to the hostages? I can’t leave Atron, and Grover’s down, and we’ve got like ten mercenaries to guard, too.”
She nodded queasily and took off again. He tapped his comm system again. “Terawatt’s up but feeling sick from a chemical. She’s on her way to the hostages, and checking some uncleared areas for us on the way. Assist in any way possible. Mash, check her out as much as the hostages will let you.”
“What? I mean, Mash to Stargate, will do, sir.”
His phone vibrated, and he clicked it. “Jack? Is … is everyone okay?”
He couldn’t keep the smile off his face as he teased her, “Stargate to Acid Burn. A-OK here. Terawatt took down Atron. Your comm attack took down our mercenary threats. Ghost is down but apparently okay. Hostages are all safe. Most or all the minions are rounded up.”
Acid Burn gasped, “Ghost? You took Grover along? I can’t believe you’d do that!”
He explained, “He wanted to, since this was for Tera. For me? Pretty sure he’d have said ‘call all those military types you know’.”
Dr. Havens came by and gave Danielle Atron a big shot of the antidote. He put it into her arm, even though Jack asked if he could inject it someplace that would hurt a lot more. Man, that Havens guy needed to loosen up a bit. Then Jack sent him off to the cells to check on the hostages.
George couldn’t stop the sparking long enough to hold the serum, so he had to let the doctor pour it into his mouth. But he was fine with that, as long as Barbara and Ray had gotten the first doses from Lieutenant Miller. Alex had talked about Miller and Finn and O’Neill, and George wasn’t very happy about some military men knowing Alex’s secret.
But they were helping now. That was really all he could ask for. Ray was nearly back to normal again, even if he was still too silvery to be able to hold on to his clothes. Barb was coming to, and looking a lot calmer. He was hanging on to the steel bars until he could stop sparking, so he wasn’t a threat to blast everything in sight with that lightning.
And Lieutenant Miller had let him know that Terawatt was safe. Very ill, but safe. He was surprised Alex was able to do much of anything, given what the side effects ought to be.
He watched as a not-quite-back-to-normal Ray half-crawled and half-oozed over to his clothes and struggled to pour himself into his pants before Barb was aware of her surroundings. He watched as the lieutenant expertly slapped zipcuffs on Lars and the two minions, while explaining that Carlton was zipcuffed to a pipe just outside the room.
But maybe it was all worth it. Danielle Atron was finally caught. Lars and Carlton were, too. They would be in some supermax prison until they were all old and gray. No one was going to be cranking out new GC-161 supervillains. Maybe this piece of the problem was finally covered.
He would have felt better if he didn’t know about Grover Dunn and the other invisible people. And all the super-powered threats Colonel O’Neill had mentioned to Alex, which she had then told him and Barb about in really vague terms.
If Alex was right, this was just the first wave. As more biochemicals got more sophisticated and had more potential to affect the human genome in disturbing ways, there would be more super-powered threats. And his little girl had decided that she had to be in the forefront of the people protecting everyone else. He was so darn proud of her. And so scared for her.
He took his hands off the bars, and watched as the sparks slowly diminished. He waited impatiently until it would be safe to touch somebody again.
Barb sat on the floor, looking in horror at the unconscious men, in particular Lars. She whimpered, “What was I thinking? I could’ve killed Lars! I could’ve killed all of them!”
Ray still sounded a little gurgly as he said, “Hey, Mrs. M., they deserved it. Especially Lars and Danielle. I would have given him a couple smacks, too, but I couldn’t.”
Barb put her face in her hands and sobbed. “I just wanted to kill them. I wanted to hit them over and over until they were just … What’s wrong with me?”
George risked shocking her, and he let go of the bars so that he could go over and hold her. He said, “It’s not you. It’s the GC-161. It changes biochemical pathways. But there are a lot of biochemical pathways in the brain. I think we’re really lucky that … someone we know didn’t have that happen, and turned out pretty stable.”
George knew just how lucky they really were, because Ray and Alex had told them about the GC-Divide chemical Alex got exposed to, and what it had done to her. One split of her had turned out to be an amoral monster who had no qualms about murdering the other half, not to mention the other things that version of Alex did before the recombination. His younger daughter could have become a supervillain. An insane supervillain. Or someone like that Libby Clemens or that Jo Baker could have gotten splashed with the GC-161, which would probably have been even worse.
Dr. Havens checked him again. Maybe George needed to call him a medic instead, because the man was wearing urban camouflage clothing, a web belt with a gun, and combat boots. Plus he had a lot of medical gear designed for field medicine. He gave George another dose of the antidote, and then he checked Barb and Ray. Apparently, Barb was doing well enough that she didn’t need more of the antidote, although Ray did.
And then, finally Alex flew in, looking amazingly heroic, even though she was obviously sick as a dog. He was so sorry he had made that counteragent. His little girl was horribly ill because of what he had created. At least it had worked.
Fortunately, Ray remembered that there was a secret identity to preserve, because George was ready to run over and just hug Alex for all she was worth. He said, “Terawatt! You saved us! We’re all okay. You should let the medical guy look at you.”
Barb looked at Alex and burst into tears. George just held Barb, because Barb wanted to go hold Alex and kiss her and try to make everything better.
George listened miserably while Terawatt described her symptoms and explained why she was sick. The doctor finally said, “It sounds like all I can do is treat the symptoms until they go away.” Dr. Havens had Alex take off her gloves and push up her sleeves so he could give her injections in her arms. He gave her a shot for the pain, and a shot for the nausea, and a shot for the GI tract problems, but they weren’t going to work instantly, and there was no guarantee they would work at all with Alex’s biochemistry.
On the other hand, after about ten minutes, Alex started getting really sleepy from the injections, so Ray scooped her up in his arms and carried her out.
The man who had to be Colonel O’Neill was waiting out there in the big open area, where Danielle Atron was still unconscious on the floor. George didn’t want to think about what Barb would have tried to do to Danielle if she had still been powered up. He didn’t want to think about what he would have tried to do to Danielle under the same circumstances.
But Colonel O’Neill just smiled fondly at Alex dozing in Ray’s arms and said, “You guys go ahead and skedaddle before the reinforcements show up.” He handed a folded piece of paper to Barb. Then he looked over his shoulder and said, “Hey! Finn! Come give these nice kidnap victims a hand.”
Another Hollywood-handsome man in fatigues trotted over. George suddenly understood why Alex had referred to Captain Finn as ‘Mister Iowa’. Captain Finn trotted over with a big smile and said, “Let me get you guys to your car so you can get out of here.”
Ray said, “And we need to find my phone.”
Captain Finn gave Ray a smile and a raised eyebrow. “One of those phones?”
Ray stammered, “Y-yeah.” Then he stopped and thought for a second. “I guess it’s in the car I was brought down here in.”
They walked out a side door toward George’s SUV, where his phone was sitting in the back seat where Lars had tossed it. George unlocked the car. Captain Finn helped Ray lift Alex in and get her settled in the seat next to Ray. They had her lying curled up on the back seat with her head in Ray’s lap and a blanket over her. The captain just smiled and said, “You take good care of her, okay?”
George grabbed his phone and called Willow. “Acid Burn? This is G.M.”
“Oh, hi,” Willow’s computer-altered voice said. “Colonel O’Neill was nice enough to fill me in on stuff. Is everything okay?”
George admitted, “Everything’s fine, except Terawatt’s really sick. She’s probably going to be sick like this for the next one to three days, until it’s out of her system.”
Willow asked, “And what about the next time she needs some anti-antidote?”
George frowned. “There isn’t going to be a next time. Given how sick she is, another dose could destroy her liver, or even kill her. We’ll just have to come up with a better plan.”
Willow asked, “Is there anything I can do to help?”
He said, “Well, we need to find Ray’s phone.”
She typed away for several seconds, and then said, “It’s roughly eight hundred feet north-northwest of you. It’s probably in the car he came in, which may be a plain white panel truck from what Tera told me.”
George oriented himself and looked. And there were two trucks way over there by one of the other warehouses, one of them a plain white panel truck, while the other was a heavy pickup truck with a covered back end. He got Barb in the front seat, and he drove everyone over to the panel truck.
And the truck was locked. Great. He said, “Burn, we may have to break in. The truck is locked and we don’t have the keys. And Terawatt is asleep.”
She typed away for a few seconds and finally said, “Sorry, no computer system with remote connectivity, or I could unlock it for you.”
He said, “It’s okay. I’ve got it.” He climbed out of the driver’s seat and opened the back. Then he took the tire iron, walked over to the truck, and smashed the window out of the side door. He simply reached in and unlocked it from the inside, and searched amid the junk until he found Ray’s phone. He took the phone. He was severely tempted to take the machine pistol lying on the floor, but he didn’t know how to shoot one, or even if he could make himself shoot it at another human being, and he didn’t want to think what would happen if a police officer found it in his car. Or his house. It wouldn’t have helped him today, anyway.
He drove home. Barb watched out the back of the van as a larger helicopter swooped in and a dozen armed soldiers leapt out to provide Colonel O’Neill with his ‘backup’. Once they were out of the warehouse area and she could no longer watch what was happening, she said, “At least it’s over. Danielle and her people will be in jail, and no more GC-161 supervillains are going to be attacking the city.”
Ray quietly pointed out from the back seat, “Umm, Mrs. Mack, there’s still more GC-161 supervillains out there.”
George forced himself to add, “And we know there are more supervillains out there, in other towns. Alex is going to want to stop them, too. And she may need Colonel O’Neill’s help for that.”
Ray asked, “What’s on the paper he gave you?”
Barb opened the paper and looked it over. “Good grief! He read an Air Force doctor at Camp Atron into the SRI and we can call on him as Alex’s personal doctor! There’s a phone number and a pager number and everything, and the colonel says this doctor will definitely keep quiet about everything, or else end up in Leavenworth for twenty-five to life.”
Ray said, “That colonel looks pretty friendly, but I wouldn’t want to find out what he’s like if he has to play hardball.”
George heard a faint buzzing, and finally Ray said, “Oh, hang on, it’s Terawatt’s phone.” He pulled it out of Alex’s glove and said, “Terawatt’s not available.” He flipped it to speakerphone so the whole car could hear.
Willow said, “I know. But I have a message you guys can give her.”
George said, “Go ahead, Acid Burn.”
Willow said, “I’ve found another ‘maybe’. The CIA has some internal traffic I’m trying to decrypt, but it looks like they’ve got two maybe-illegal units trying to track down a kid in Northern Africa who maybe has super-strength and maybe super-speed. They don’t seem to know, because she’s killed a lot of witnesses.”
Ray gulped. “Oh, God.”
Barb looked at George with horrified eyes, and he knew she had finally understood. This wasn’t just Danielle Atron. Danielle Atron was just the advance wave.
This was never going to stop. Ever.
Interlude VIWillow Rosenberg heard the front doorbell. Ugh. She was hard at work on some improvements to one of the computational algorithms in her GIS software, because some of this stuff was not well enough designed from a computational standpoint, and none of it was explicitly designed with parallel processing in mind, and some of it required really specialized techniques to make it usable in a parallel processing system because of the interdependence issues.
And really, who could be at her front door? No one came to visit her without checking ahead of time. Really, hardly anyone ever came to visit her, period.
Wow, that sounded so totally pathetic.
Anyway, her regular friends talked to her over the net, not in person. And Alex always checked ahead of time. Besides, Barb said Alex was still horribly sick from the anti-antidote stuff. So it was probably another salesman. Or Jehovah’s Witnesses. Or the College Painters people who came around every year, even though her house looked perfect. Or … maybe it was the CalPIRG people! She loved it when they came by.
She popped up an onscreen window so she could see the camera view of her front door. She had security cams on her doors and her garage and around her yard, along with all her other security stuff.
Whoa. That wasn’t a Jehovah’s Witness. And if that was a CalPIRG guy, she was signing whatever he had, even if it was a Save The Supervillains drive. Because that was the hunkiest guy who had ever come to her door. Ever.
He was wearing a massively cool leather jacket and khakis and a t-shirt and aviator-style sunglasses. He looked incredibly handsome for a guy who was probably early- to mid-forties, what with the graying hair and the rugged look and the flat stomach.
Oh, God, she was getting the hots for a guy she didn’t even know!
On second thought, she was thrilled to death to be getting the hots for a guy, because so not loving the lesbian thing. After all, she would so look horrible in a crewcut and combat boots and flannel shirts. Okay, that totally wasn’t fair, because Marci in Human Resources was out, and just looked like everybody else. Except for the super-short pixie hairdo that definitely wasn’t a crewcut, and Marci looked really cute in it. Although Marci’s girlfriend was totally the dyke-y stereotype, down to the softball scholarship when she was in college, and the boots, and the crazy-short hair that was practically a buzzcut.
She took off the earjack, walked to the front door, and cautiously opened it up. “Hello?”
Handsome Guy smoothly took off his sunglasses, revealing sparkling eyes that suddenly made her knees feel weak and made her tummy flutter. He gave her a big smile that made her think about knights on white horses sweeping away helpless redheaded damsels. He was even driving a red convertible sports car that was parked at the curb! She had a sudden fantasy of him whisking her off in that sports car to a fancy dinner, after which he would take her dancing, and they would waltz for hours. Not that she knew how to waltz, but in her fantasy, he would be just that good a dancer that it wouldn’t matter.
He beamed. “You’re Willow Rosenberg, right?”
She nodded and cautiously said, “Yes …” His voice sounded, well, oddly familiar …
He said, “We’ve talked on the phone plenty of times. I’m Colonel Jack O’Neill.”
Uh-oh.
“Can I come in, Acid Burn? Or would you rather I use the name S4l1x680 out here where your neighbors might hear?”
She suddenly thought her knees might actually give out for real. Or her stomach. Throwing up sounded like a really good idea right about now. Or passing out.
He smiled. “Don’t worry. You’re not in trouble. I just came by to chat for a few minutes, and do the meet-and-greet thing. It worked for Alex, I figured it would work for you.”
“I-I’m not in t-trouble?” she stuttered.
He walked in and gently steered her out of the atrium. “Are you okay? I didn’t mean to make you pass out or anything.”
She led him into the kitchen, and she fixed herself a big glass of ice water before plopping into a seat. “I … uhh …”
He gave her one of those to-die-for grins and said, “Don’t entertain much? ’Cause my mom would send me to my room for not offering a guest a drink, or a snack, or something.”
She finally remembered to say something intelligent. “Umm, colonel, I have no idea who Acid Burn is, other than the character from ‘Hackers’. And I know S4l1x680 was a notorious cracker and phreaker a dozen years ago, but he dropped off the face of the earth maybe four or five years ago. Bruce Schneier thinks maybe he’s in prison on unrelated charges.”
He grinned. “Jack. Call me Jack.” He stood up and opened the fridge like he belonged there. “Ooh, some Diet Coke for Alex. Wonder how often she flies up and visits.”
“Alex who?” she tried. “I don’t think I know anyone named Alex.” He just grinned some more, like he totally knew she was with the lying and it was just entertaining him.
He grabbed himself a regular coke, popped the tab, and sat down opposite her. “This is a nice, cozy kitchen. My place? Disaster area. Even if I get dishes washed, my son Charlie’ll make a mess whipping up something. He’s a much better cook than me, but he’s a lot messier.”
The whole horrible thing about Colonel O’Neill and his son and his late wife and the gun accident came back to Willow in a flash. Alex had moaned about that for like half an hour, since she felt so bad about it, and she had no one else to talk to about a lot of this stuff. Willow figured Alex could talk to Robyn or Nicole about that kind of stuff, and maybe even her mom, but Alex had talked to her about it, which admittedly had made Willow feel really great and even needed.
Crap. She was the confidante to a real superheroine, and she was blowing the secret identity thing massively.
He looked at her face for several seconds before he said, “Huh. I guess Alex told you about Charlie and Sarah. Or did you dig that up when you went through my DoD files?”
“I would never! I mean, there’s no evidence … I mean, I don’t! I mean …”
He grinned. “Relax, Willow. First off, you don’t need to panic just because I know as much about you as you know about me. So let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, in a land far, far away — if you were walking there instead of hopping in a car — there was this girl who was one of the best computer programmers in the country, even though she was only about twelve. And she wrote some software that my geeks tell me was elegant and creative and just too darn good for a mere kid. And she was rightfully proud of it, and she released it as freeware. And then this dork, who we’ll call, oh … how about Robert Horace Gorsky of Greenville, North Carolina, tried to steal her software and sell it as his own. And, lo and behold, S4l1x680 decided to crush his firewall, and trash his website, and search his computer, and send emails to everyone who didn’t know ol’ Robbie was ripping them off, and then let the FBI know he had child pornography on his computer, which S4l1x680 might have very cleverly planted.”
She gulped. She’d forgotten about that little incident in her past. Well, in S4l1x680’s past.
He spotted her reaction, but he just smiled. He said, “And then there was the time that one Cordelia Chase racked up an astonishing 417 parking and driving citations in a four-month period, and lost her driver’s license and also had her very expensive car towed. She claimed that she wasn’t even in town during a couple of the incidents, but every one of the computer copies of those driving citations had her handwritten signature on it. Oddly enough, it turned out that Miss Chase was, at the time, bullying that same nice little computer programmer.”
She winced. That really hadn’t been her finest moment. Even if figuring out how to circumvent the security on the city police department’s records was a really cool exercise that included a really sweet piece of programming.
He smirked. “From what we’ve been able to find out, Cordelia Chase probably deserved a lot worse than some expertly-faked parking tickets. But after Alex visited us down in Roswell and chatted with you on the phone, we kind of wondered who you were. Just like you wondered who we were. And we wondered if we could trust you, just like you wondered if you could trust us and you went poking around in a few files you’re really not supposed to have access to.”
“Eep.” She meant to say something smooth and graceful, but all that came out was a little squeak.
He said, “We put together a list of all the top telco gurus in the world, and all the top programmers in the world, and all the top network security gurus in the world. And you know what? You’re on all three. You’re one of the very few young women on the planet on any of them, and you’re on all three. Impressive. And you have an EE, too, so you have the skills to hack the chips in Alex’s phone, and the phones her support people have. But there aren’t many women who have an EE, much less an EE and a CE, like you do. Still, my people wanted to believe Alex’s hacker was more likely a guy using AutoTune to sound like a girl.” He put as much sarcasm in his voice as he could, “Because nerdy cracker and phreaker types are so secure in their masculinity that they’d do that.”
She admitted, “P$ychon4ut pretty much foamed at the mouth anytime anybody even suggested he wasn’t a virile, strictly het, ultra-atheist, macho man who had dozens of girlfriends. That was how we built a profile on him and figured out who he is. It was just easier to get him convicted and put away on other charges, like stalking and date rape. He’s a real sleazebag.”
He laughed out loud. “So he’s off the threat list for now, huh? Good work.” He squared up his shoulders and said, “But I was thinking about the story Alex told us about going to another dimension and meeting six other women, all of them amazing, who were from completely different dimensions. One of them is Samantha Carter, the Air Force captain who’s with NASA. One of them has to be British, because of the whole British Ministry of Magic thing. That leaves four others. And it occurred to me: what would I do in Alex’s place? Incredible people who were incredible teammates with incredible talents? I’d bust my buns to see if I could find their equivalents in my world, and that’s who I’d try to get on my team. Which would mean that Alex’s hacker has to be a woman.
“In my award-winning acting role as Johnny J. Jacobson, most irritating reporter on the planet, I called up three different big names in computing security, and I asked them about the female computer gurus out there. Bruce Schneier? All I had to do was say ‘young, broad knowledge base, amazing programmer, babbles like mad …’ and he said, ‘oh, you mean Willow Rosenberg?’ ”
He gave her a big smirk, while she winced.
He leaned forward and said, “So, I did my usual pushy thing to get my people to do what I wanted, and my people did a little checking, and the funniest thing emerged. The week you were temporarily de-CEO’ed from Red Tree Software, you had a Saturday morning appointment here. Alex Mack, of Paradise Valley. Who you’ve been telling me you don’t know.”
She gulped. Hard. She had been saying she didn’t know Alex, and he had evidence she was lying about that one. This secret identity thing was so much harder than it sounded.
He leaned back and relaxed. “You’re the only person in the world who meets all of our criteria, and, lo and behold, you were also sought out by Terawatt. In person. She’s pretty amazing, isn’t she? But that definitely makes you our Acid Burn.”
She tried not to stammer as she asked, “W-what do you w-want?”
He smiled. “I want you to know you can call us when you need to. And if there’s some intel you need, I can get you NSA and NSC and DHS contacts so you can do it legally, or at least we can cover for you when you do it. What you’re doing for Alex is one of the most important computer activities in the world, and every other group doing computer work as important as yours has a staff of hundreds or maybe even thousands of computer techs, plus tons of government protection and security and stuff — even if my central computer group only has six people right now, not counting you, and I try not to outsource computing tasks to the big DHS pool. But if you want into a database you can’t touch, give me a call. If you want to crash a major website, give us a heads-up and tell us why, because we might have a better solution. Or we might want to get out the popcorn and lawn chairs so we can watch the fun.”
She couldn’t help giggling. Alex was right. Jack was really funny and really snarky. She sipped some of her water and asked, “And that’s all? You’re not gonna lock me up and throw away the key?”
“Fer cryin’ out loud!” he complained. “Absolutely not! I might get Walter to buy you some bigger and badder hardware, or get one of the telcos to cut you extra bandwidth whenever you want, but I’m not ruining this set-up. Maybe the best computer hacker in the world, and she wants to be on MY side? Hey, I’m not as dumb as I look. I’m keeping you and giving you anything you ask for. Same as with Alex. You two don’t realize how important you are, and how far I’m willing to go to protect you two. I’m even not putting any of this stuff in electronic files, so nobody’s ever going to scavenge our computers and track you two down.”
She asked, “So … anything I ask for?”
He said, “Within reason. I can’t get you a top-of-the-line Cray tomorrow. It would take me at least a month, and from what my IT guys tell me, you’d have to upgrade the HVAC and electricity in here first.”
She smiled and said, “I already have a parallel processing network.”
He asked, “And is it hidden in a dark cave, deep beneath the wilds of Silicon Valley?”
She grinned. “No, it’s in my living room.”
She walked him into her computer room, and he looked it over, admiring everything in there. He finally said, “This is pretty amazing. You are way better at computers than Angelina Jolie. And you’re just as pretty.”
“Me? No way.”
He smirked. “Yes, way.”
Okay, the world’s hottest guy. Who’s also an Air Force flyboy who makes Tom ‘Top Gun’ Cruise look lame. And who’s also a world-saving secret agent. Could he possibly be any sexier? And he thought she was pretty. Alex said the other Willow could be brave and daring and amazing. Okay …
She took a deep breath and did the most daring thing she had ever done in her life. “Umm, Jack, there is something you could do for me.”
“Yes? I don’t do taxes.”
She giggled and said, “Would you take me for a ride in that sports car? And buy me a nice dinner?”
His jaw dropped open in surprise. “You want to have dinner with me? I’m old! I have gray hair. And a teenaged son! You’re mid-twenties, and rich, and famous, and a smoking hot redhead who tries to hide it by not wearing makeup and keeping that hair up in a ponytail. Why don’t you have movie stars on speed dial for when you want to go out to dinner?”
She tried to give him a coy smile even if she wasn’t any good at the flirting thing. “If you take me to dinner, I’ll tell you all about the little programmer girl who had hardly any friends and hid behind a computer screen for years.”
He gave her another of those knee-weakening grins. “You got yourself a deal.”
She ran to the bathroom. She figured in two minutes she could undo her ponytail, comb her hair out, put on some lipstick, and apply some mascara.
And maybe, after dinner, she could find out if he knew how to waltz.