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Chapter 87 – DocAlex decided Jack was learning way too much about her. The submarine sandwiches were on her favorite bread, and were sliced roast beef with cheddar cheese. Mmm. And mayo and regular yellow mustard, even if her mom liked Grey Poupon better. And whole lettuce and sliced tomatoes and sliced sweet red bell peppers and sweet red onions and sliced black olives. That was definitely a sign that he knew too much about what she liked on sandwiches.
And she hoped there was a full dopp kit in the gym bag, because after those onions she was so going to need to brush her teeth before she let Janet look in her mouth.
Oh, holy crud! What if Janet wanted to look … elsewhere? She cringed. She’d never had a gynecological exam, but Nicole said they were awful. And humiliating. And the doctors used ice cold stuff that they stuck into you.
She mentally shook herself. She was nearly eighteen. She needed to be seeing a real doctor. She wasn’t invulnerable and disease-proof. For all she knew, the GC-161 might make her more prone to all kinds of icky stuff she hadn’t thought about. If she was burning calories extra fast, and her biochemical pathways were extra freaky, was she going to someday get cancers that grew extra fast in extra freaky ways? Were there diseases that naturally went with weirdness in your biochemical pathways? And she needed to do the gynecologist thing, no matter how mega-ick it sounded, and she needed to talk to someone about proper birth control for her body, since she wasn’t planning on staying a virgin forever. She was hoping Ray would want to marry her, like maybe after they both finished college. And she could move wherever he wanted to live, because she was going to be a world-roaming photojournalist who could be based out of her home. And who jetted off once in a while to save people from freakiness.
So she had changed from Terawatt back to Alex, and she was in comfy clothes, and she was just chatting with Hanna while they both wrote up their reports. Alex had gotten her two standard forms done while they had waited for the Cessna to get permission to taxi out to the runway. New York City airports were really, really busy, so even the military bases had to work with the complicated flight patterns. And there had been some big fat Galaxy waiting for permission to waddle down the runway. Jack had joked, “Why can’t we have one of those? We could have a couple Humvees in the cargo hold, and a small restaurant so we could keep Tera fed.”
Hanna had a big bruise on one cheek that kind of made her eye look swollen, and she had a huge bruise on her jaw that Jack was making Hanna keep an icepack on, even if Hanna didn’t want to bother. Sergeant Scott and Sergeant Walters and Major Finn had gone with the helicopter, so it was just Jack and Alex and Hanna and Grover in the Cessna. Jack kept referring to it as the ‘children’s table’. Naturally, Grover had to explain it to Hanna.
Alex felt really sad that Hanna had never been at a children’s table. Hanna had never been at a real Thanksgiving dinner, or had a real Christmas, or gotten a valentine from that special boy, or any of the stuff that most Americans just took for granted.
Once everyone had a chance to chat and work some on their reports, they were already landing at the base. After all, it was a fast jet, and New York City was just not that far from the northern edge of West Virginia.
She hadn’t even thought about what she was supposed to do next, because it was nighttime and she wasn’t home. But Jack said, “I called your folks and told them you were staying with Hanna overnight and getting a check-up in the morning before flying home. Your mom said for you to be a responsible guest.”
Oh, boy. Alex figured that last part meant Jack really had called her folks. She checked her phone. It wasn’t even midnight yet, so it was before nine back home. She called home as soon as they landed. “Hi, Mom, sorry I’m calling late, but I wanted you to know I’m fine, and I’ll be back tomorrow.”
Her mom asked, “And is Colonel O’Neill really going to get you a proper medical check-up? You haven’t had one in years, you know. And getting Louis to go to your doctor and pretend to be ‘Alex Mack’ is not the same as actually getting a check-up.”
Alex winced a little, because that little adventure hadn’t gone well, and her mom had hit the roof when Alex finally confessed everything. But she replied, “Yes, Mom. I think it’ll be with Hanna’s mom. Her new mom. Dr. Fraiser. Other-Sam and other-Hermione really liked her.”
Her mom paused for a long time and finally suggested, “Maybe you should talk to her about birth control options for your biochemistry.”
“MOM!” she squeaked.
Her mom insisted, “Now I believe you about San Diego. But you’re nearly eighteen. You’re going to be going off to college next fall. And who else can you talk to about this sort of thing? I really don’t know if birth control pills would work for you, and I definitely don’t want you experimenting to find out!”
She was going to die of embarrassment. She was mega-glad this wasn’t on speakerphone. But she managed to squeak out, “Okay.”
“Take care, and we’ll see you tomorrow.”
Jack strolled over and told her, “Oh, and I gave Sergeant Meadows a heads-up that Terawatt was out of town on important business, so you’re off the hook for tomorrow.”
Alex grimaced. “Crud! I like martial arts. And I like him.”
Jack shrugged. “Hey, it’s only one time.”
Alex frowned. “But I only get one meeting a week as it is. I could really use more.”
Hanna stepped over, swinging her bag like it was full of balloons. “Come on! Mom says you can stay at our house tonight!”
Alex burst into a huge grin. “That’s awesome! Let’s go!”
They ran off the tarmac, while Jack called out, “I still need those reports!”
Alex asked, “Did you get yours done?”
Hanna said, “I will finish it tomorrow morning. How about you?”
Alex admitted, “I got my personnel docs done, and the first two parts of my report, but I’m still working on the part where Terawatt and Batman did the superhero team-up thing.”
Hanna smiled excitedly. “I really enjoyed it when we got to team up against the green lady and the giant.”
“Poison Ivy and Bane,” Alex told her. “I didn’t name ’em.”
Hanna said, “I do not think ‘Batman’ is a good name either. I like ‘Action Girl’, though.”
Alex reminded her, “In five years, you’ll be twenty-one, and you’ll think it makes you sound too childish.”
Hanna grinned. “Then should we give Colonel Jack a ‘childish’ codename? Like ‘Action Boy’?
“The Military Kid.”
Hanna slipped into a pretty good imitation of Jack’s speech patterns. “Colonel Because … Seriously?”
Alex laughed all the way to where Janet’s car was waiting for them.
Janet was already out of the car. She hugged Hanna and stopped to check Hanna’s face. She frowned. “Young lady, when we get home, I am checking for fractures, and not just on that pretty face. So don’t think wearing a long-sleeved shirt is going to keep me from finding out about some injuries. And I am going to have some words with the colonel.”
Alex defended her friend. “Jack wasn’t even on the op, he was doing all the bureaucratic stuff he hates, and Riley was up in the helicopter, and Stewart was way back at a backstop position for picking Klar up if he had to follow Batman. And I could’ve ordered her back, but I had my hands full.”
Hanna grinned. “The Batman was there, but there were two brand-new supervillains for us to fight.”
Alex explained, “It was a good thing we showed up, because Batman’s really fast for a regular human, but he was way out of his weight class. We had a woman who controls plants and breathes poison pollen on people, and a giant guy who’s pretty much one ginormous muscle. And they brought a guy who’s insanely good with knives, and a guy who sicked mechanical remote control weapons on people, and over half a dozen goons with machine pistols. So the two of us, plus Klar, plus Batman. And we could’ve used some help.”
Hanna smiled. “The giant was very fun to fight. He is stronger than me, and he is very well trained in a variety of martial arts, some of which do not look like anything I have learned. Yet.”
Alex added, “I think this guy would have killed Batman inside another ten minutes, unless Batman had a bunch of gadgets I don’t know about. I don’t even think Riley could take him. And the guy had helpers to keep Batman from using his gadgets or being able to focus on him. Plus Poison Ivy had plants to attack us.”
“Poison Ivy?” Janet asked suspiciously.
Alex nodded. “Poison Ivy. I didn’t name her. And the big guy was Bane. I think they need to go to the supervillain renaming and costume re-design workshop, because she was dressed in a leaf bathing suit and he was dressed like the biggest masked Mexican wrestler of all time.”
Janet drove them through the streets. “The supervillain renaming and costume re-design workshop?”
Alex insisted, “Sure! Because they looked dorky, and their names are just … not cool. I mean, she was really pretty, even if she was green, but she was wearing a maillot made out of leaves. What is the deal with that? What happens if there’s a wind? And his costume just looked stupid on him. Especially the mask. Now, Hanna looked great.”
Janet casually asked, “Is there … anything else I ought to know about?”
Uh-oh. Alex knew that mom tone.
Hanna calmly said, “I do not think so.”
Alex decided she’d better rescue Hanna. “There might be some stuff on the news tomorrow, because Action Girl made a dramatic entrance in New York City in front of some people with cameras.”
Janet just muttered, “My daughter is having a sleepover with her friend, and so I just happen to have the superheroines of the world in my house tonight. That’s so … surreal.”
Alex asked, “You can’t forget Jo. She’s really strong. I mean, not ‘Hanna’ strong, but I’m pretty sure she’s stronger than Graham.”
Hanna nodded. “She has very good reflexes, and a lot of martial arts training. I would like to do more sparring with her.”
Janet asked, “So, is this what you two are going to stay up talking about? Fighting people and who’s stronger than who?”
Alex told her, “I was gonna show Hanna my computer tablet, and maybe see what video games she likes. Acid Burn taught me a couple moves in Marvel vs. Capcom.”
Janet smiled. “Is Willow your videogame sensei?”
Alex said, “Willow is my everything-computer-ish sensei.”
Janet told them in a mom tone, “Well, you two, don’t stay up too late, because you’re both going in with me at oh eight hundred whether you’re tired or not.”
Alex told her, “I’m getting up early so I have time to wash my hair and stuff, because wearing that wig all day is pretty blech.”
Hanna asked, “Is it really necessary? You would fight just as well without it. Putting my hair up in a braid makes sense, because long hair provides an opponent with another grappling point.”
Alex explained, “It’s for the disguise part. Lots of people have seen me, and they’ve seen Terawatt, and lots of people know where I live, and some of them would come kill me if they knew I was Terawatt. Or they’d kill Mom and Dad. Or Annie. Or Ray. Danielle Atron? She’d probably just kill everyone in the whole city.”
Janet asked, “But doesn’t Danielle Atron have relatives in Paradise Valley?”
Alex shrugged. “I don’t know if she has any relatives except in Paradise Valley. But she’s not what you’d call a family-oriented person. She’s pretty much just a me-oriented person. If it doesn’t help Number One, she doesn’t care.”
Hanna thought it over. “That seems very short-sighted.”
Alex said, “Well, I think she’s a sociopath. She cares about money and power, but that’s about it.”
Janet muttered darkly, “She sounds like a lovely person.”
Alex agreed, “Since she’s tried to kill me maybe a dozen times, and she’s tried to kill Mom and Dad and Ray twice, she’s pretty much my arch-enemy, like in the comic books.”
Janet’s eyebrows went up. “I thought Maggie Walsh was your arch-enemy.”
Hanna argued, “No, Dr. Walsh is my arch-enemy. But in the comic books Grover showed me, you can team up with someone and fight their arch-enemy together.”
Alex said, “Yeah. And Maggie Walsh is only number two on my list. Although she’s really creepy.”
Janet muttered, “Since I have Hanna now, she’s my arch-enemy, too.”
Alex grinned. “I think she’s Jack’s arch-enemy now, too.”
Hanna asked, “What about Willow?”
Alex managed not to smile too much. “No, Willow’s arch-enemy will always be Cordelia Chase.” Janet and Hanna both gave her these ‘who is that?’ looks.
Janet asked, “What about Azure Crush? And Psych? And the fire-thrower who attacked your school? And the Tromaville Monster? And now Poison Ivy and Bane?”
Alex shook her head. “They may think I’m their arch-enemy, but they’re not my arch-enemy.”
When they got to Janet’s house, Alex found out that Hanna had a lovely room with a single bed that had a rollout bed underneath it, so Hanna could have someone over for sleepovers. Hanna’s bookcase was loaded down with books and comics and graphic novels and stuff. Her desk had a laptop and a big stack of CDs and DVDs. Her closet had a slew of dresses and skirts and pants and tops, while her chest of drawers had all kinds of nice stuff. It was like everything Hanna had missed out on for so long was now a giant part of her life. Just seeing all that made Alex so happy she got kind of teary.
After Alex cleaned up and washed her face and put on her pajamas and had another snack, Hanna showed her what she was playing: Mass Effect and Crysis and Tomb Raider. Alex saw right away that it was a really old Tomb Raider, so she knew just what she was going to buy Hanna for Christmas. Alex showed Hanna some of the cool games she’d been playing lately, and they ended up in a big battle for Marvel vs. Capcom supremacy. Hanna had faster reflexes, but Alex had played the game a lot longer, and she knew a few special moves Willow had shown her, so Alex won, eleven matches to nine. Alex was pretty sure the game controllers weren’t designed for anyone with Hanna’s reflexes, or Hanna would have won more.
* * *
In the morning, Alex showered and put on clean underwear before going with the same bra and top and pants she’d worn yesterday. Most of yesterday had been a Terawatt uniform day, so her top and pants and bra were still really clean. Okay, she’d only worn that pair of underwear for a few hours, but still … underwear.
Janet was rushing around, making sure Hanna ate right and was ready in plenty of time. Breakfast was juice, and milk, and cold cereal, and toast with butter and jelly, and eggs if you wanted to fix them yourself and then clean up afterward. Hanna had two eggs that were barely cooked. Alex had six eggs, scrambled hard. And three bowls of Count Chocula, which her mom never bought.
Janet spotted Alex wolfing down the Count Chocula and complained, “Grover introduced her to bad cereal. I don’t buy it, but it keeps sneaking its way onto my shelves. I have my suspicions about how that could be happening.”
Hanna looked at Janet like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. “Is it brought in by aliens?”
Janet frowned at her. “Young lady, I am not fooled for a second by that face.”
Alex asked, “Where does it come from?”
Janet scowled. “I suspect Grover. Deborah buys the worst cereals known to man. The other week, Grover was showing her Captain Crunch and Applejacks. At least Jack doesn’t buy anything worse than Life Cereal and Wheat Chex. And I know it’s not Major Finn. When he eats cereal, it’s homemade oatmeal like his mother makes.”
Alex admitted, “I like Applejacks, but I never really liked Captain Crunch. Even with the crunchberries.”
Hanna perked up. “I haven’t had the kind with crunchberries yet.” Out of the corner of her eye, Alex saw Janet wince slightly.
Alex finished eating and helped Hanna clean up in the kitchen, while Janet put on her uniform. Then Alex grabbed her gym bag, and they all rode over to the base infirmary. Alex stowed her gym bag in Janet’s office, and Janet showed Alex to an examining room, while she sent Hanna off for x-rays.
Alex undressed and put on the embarrassing gown that didn’t cover all of her back and stopped way too short. Then she waited.
Janet came bustling in. Alex caught the merest glimpse of a nurse in the hallway. Janet told her, “You’re need-to-know. I don’t want anyone identifying your samples with anything other than a codename, which isn’t going to start with a ‘T’. So this will be completely safe for you.”
Then Janet did the whole exam thing by herself, including lots of blood samples, and a tissue biopsy that hurt, and a scraping inside her cheek which didn’t. Then there was stuff outside the room, like the peeing in a cup, and a CAT scan. And finally, there was the gynecological exam, which you not only had to lie on your back for, but you had to put your feet in these stirrups so they were a mile apart. And the thing Janet stuck in her was mega-icky, but not ice cold, like her friends said it would be.
Janet told her, “Okay, you can get dressed. I’ll be back in three minutes, after I turn these samples in.”
Alex just grabbed her clothes, went silvery, pulled the clothes in, too, and went back to normal fully dressed.
Janet gaped, but just said, “Okay, that was odder than I expected.”
When Janet came back, she took Alex to her office for a private talk. Janet explained, “We’ll have details on your DNA and your blood chemistry and a few other things, but not today. Give me a week, and call me. Now you look very healthy, with more muscle tone than most girls your age work for. Do you have any concerns? Any unusual symptoms that aren’t like what you normally see? Allergies? Anything?”
Alex told her about the weird thing with the curry they had never been able to track down, and the time she couldn’t stop burping bubbles, and a couple of things like that. Then she tried not to blush. “And my mom and I both think I need to talk to you about … birth control.”
Janet said. “I noticed that you’re still a virgin. Are you sexually active in other ways?”
Alex blushed. “I have a really great boyfriend, but I haven’t let him go any farther than second base. And not even every time. And I’ve had Health Class. And then Mom gave me The Talk, and The Other Talk, and Willow gave me the X-rated version of The Other Talk, and let me tell you, I have never felt less like having sex than after hearing that talk, plus I was so embarrassed I thought I was gonna turn into a silvery puddle of embarrassment on the rug.”
Janet nodded firmly. “Good for Willow. And good for you. Do you know how many girls have sex by the time they’re eighteen?”
Alex admitted, “I had to learn that for Health Class, but I don’t remember anymore. I didn’t really believe it, anyway.”
Janet told her, “The numbers are pretty iffy, but figure a little over half. By the time they’re nineteen, that number jumps up to around two-thirds. So this is the time when you should be asking about birth control. Now, you said you had regular periods, but still, with your biochemistry, I don’t think we should be depending on a chemical approach. I think you should use a diaphragm.”
Alex cringed a little, because the diaphragm she’d seen in Health Class was huge, and couldn’t possibly go up into her, and would be mega-yucky to put in and take out, and would make sex about as much fun as some of those gross, perverted things on Julie’s call-girl data file. But did she have a lot of alternatives?
She sighed. “I’ve seen one in class, and they’re enormous. And I haven’t done it yet. Would they even fit in me?”
Janet said, “Yes, and I measured you, so I could order one that would be the right size for you. Oh, you might opt for a condom your first few times, but they’re not perfect. And depending on your partner to use what you need to be safe is not a good long-term strategy, even if he’s a nice boy.”
Alex suddenly got Willow’s explanation about holding a rolled-up condom in your mouth to put it on a boy, and … eww. She totally wasn’t ready to try that.
Janet asked, “You’re suddenly really uncomfortable. Did I say something wrong?”
Alex confessed, “Umm, well, Willow told me I needed to use a condom since I wasn’t on the pill or the shot or anything, and she told me how to hold a condom in your mouth and put it on your boyfriend, and I so couldn’t do that if I had to.”
Janet didn’t even blush. “It’s a good technique to know. I recommend you peel a banana and practice on that.”
Holy CRUD! At least that was better than what Willow said to practice on.
Janet went on, “If you’re going to opt for condoms as your method of choice, you need to carry the condoms around with you. If he forgets that one time you finally decide you really want to have that special night, then you’re stuck. Unfortunately, what usually happens in that situation is a loss of control, followed by unsafe sex, followed by a significant chance of the pitter-patter of little feet. And then there’s the risk of STDs and a host of other complications. Plus, we have no idea what the assorted chemicals in semen might do to you.”
“Oh, crud, that’s totally not fair,” Alex whimpered.
Janet nodded. “It’s not. But you wouldn’t be the first woman who was allergic to chemicals involved in sex. Still, if it turns out you are, then you’ll need to stick to condoms or the female condom, which you’d have to learn how to insert properly before intercourse.”
Alex just cringed. But Janet explained all the yucky details of all the options, and Alex finally gave in and let Janet order the right size diaphragm for her. Even if she felt icky just thinking about learning how to use it and practicing and all that stuff. And what could be more romantic that her telling Ray, “Hey, I’d love to finally have that special moment with you, but first I have to go off somewhere and ram a great, big dome up inside my private parts and then squirt goo in too so I’ll be all slimed and out of the mood and all that fun stuff.”
Well, her mom would be happy that Alex was being proactive on this. And her mom would be thrilled that Alex felt like not having sex for about a jillion years.
Janet came around her desk and stood Alex up, and then gave Alex a big hug. “I’m sorry this is making you feel so distressed, but you need to think about all of this now, instead of after it’s too late to do anything to fix it. And I’m sorry we have to go with a method that seems so gross and unattractive to you. You’ve done so much for Hanna … I’ll never be able to thank you for all you did … and I really wanted to help you.”
Alex hugged her back. “It’s okay. Sometimes life isn’t fair, it … just is.”
But it wasn’t really okay. On the flight home, she just felt sorry for herself for a while, until she finally broke down and cried for a long time.
Interlude XIVDanielle Atron leaned back on her chaise lounge and helped herself to another chocolate truffle. After all, it wasn’t as if she had to worry about gaining weight and getting fat. She wasn’t even working out for an hour and a half every day anymore, and she looked better than she had in fifteen years. Maybe twenty. She was in nothing but a bikini and a cover-up, and she knew she looked fabulous.
Mikhail hadn’t been happy when she reclaimed her Cayman Islands accounts, but he was smart enough not to push his luck. After all, she was a dozen times smarter than he was, and she had superpowers. The news footage of what she had done to her psycho cellmate had been all that it took to convince Mikhail to play nice. That, and the threat to grab his dick and use her electrokinesis to turn it into a charcoal briquette.
So she was living in the lap of luxury … for now. Until her funds ran low. She needed to address that. Mikhail had rented a lovely villa for her in San Clemente, about halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego. It was all in someone else’s name, so she couldn’t be traced through it. He paid the butler and chef and maids and gardener and pool boy out of funds she allocated, and she let him skim eight or ten percent of the money off the top while acting like she hadn’t noticed. She knew they were all illegal aliens that he had smuggled into America from Russia, but she didn’t care. Actually, she preferred it that way, since that made them a lot less likely to call the cops on her. It was just a shame that neither the gardener nor the pool boy was attractive enough to waste her time on.
Once again, she studied everything here in her ‘war room’. She had four televisions tuned to news programs, two computers showing news footage she had previously downloaded, and three whiteboards. And she still hadn’t figured out a guaranteed way to take down Terawatt.
She tried to use her telekinesis to pick up the eraser and clear off the third whiteboard, but she just didn’t have the fine control that Terawatt obviously had. The eraser pressed too hard and knocked the whiteboard over. She groaned to herself and got up to stand the board up again.
She erased plans A through F. They were obviously not going to work, and she was not about to jeopardize her freedom for a useless plan. She had learned that lesson the hard way.
She stepped over to one of the computers and had it run through a series of clips she had put together from all the news footage on Terawatt. This one was Montage E. She smiled to herself at the thought that Alex Mack’s photographic work was helping out Terawatt’s arch-enemy.
There. In that first recorded battle, Terawatt punched that thug so hard he flew maybe forty feet through the air.
And there. Terawatt taking down Azure Crush.
Danielle involuntarily rubbed her lower jaw, which had been cracked thanks to one super-strong bitch’s rock-hard fist. A cracked jaw that still ached once in a while, not to mention four teeth that had required visits to prison dentists so she didn’t lose them. The bitch hit like a locomotive. Danielle definitely wanted to avoid getting hit like that again.
Okay, so all the evidence was written down on whiteboard number one, and the obvious conclusions were on whiteboard number two. Terawatt had super-strength of unknown maximum levels, and was possibly nearly as strong as Azure Crush. Terawatt was also apparently bulletproof. Terawatt had a lot of telekinesis, with an unknown upper level, but with far more fine control than Danielle had managed to acquire — so far. Terawatt had electrokinesis with an unknown upper level, but probably a lot more than Danielle had; after all, Danielle had blasted the bitch with everything she had, and Terawatt just ignored it, while one blast from Terawatt had nearly knocked Danielle to her knees. Terawatt had far more control over her silver shapeshift than Danielle had over hers. Terawatt was immune to GC-161 antidote. Terawatt was immune to fire, based on the footage of her fight with Cready. Terawatt could fly.
Oh, Danielle had figured out that she could lift herself in the air with her own telekinesis, but that wasn’t nearly the same thing as being able to fly like a jet at a hundred miles an hour or so, for hours on end. Danielle had managed to move herself up and down, and back and forth, but she had no more control over her movement than she had with that stupid eraser. She had practiced at night over the ocean with no witnesses, which was a lot less embarrassing, since she had accidentally dropped herself half a dozen times in less than thirty minutes. Her telekinesis was handy for making a fast escape over a prison fence or two, but it was useless for real flight.
Just as bad, Terawatt now had backup. She was helping the Feds, so she could call on Colonel Jack O’Neill and his mysterious SRI, which Mikhail said was apparently so dangerous that the Russians and the Japanese and the Ukrainians had all called on them for help. She could see a country like the Ukraine calling for outside help, but she couldn’t imagine what it would take to get the Japanese to admit they needed military help from Americans. And Mikhail had managed to get his hands on Major Rojo’s testimony. So Danielle knew Terawatt had used a strike team of up to half a dozen heavily-armed fighters, along with perhaps a dozen men in a secondary force. Plus she had at least one invisible fighter along, and communications support, plus probable computer support.
But the problems didn’t stop there. Danielle watched some of the new news footage of the New York City incident. Terawatt was clearly working with the Big Apple’s Batman and the mysterious Action Girl. Two more super-strong, super-fast allies to go with the invisible sidekicks. So any attack against Terawatt was likely to face not just Terawatt, but an entire super-team plus massive Defense Department firepower.
And there was no way to predict just how much firepower might show up, or how quickly it might arrive.
Then there was Carlton’s testimony. Danielle hadn’t realized the Macks had superpowers, too. She should have expected it. George had more access to GC-161 than she did, and he had invented the antidote formulation. And Terawatt had anticipated that Danielle would use the GC-161 and the antidote in an iterative cycle to acquire stable, useful powers. Undoubtedly, George had already done so. And if Carlton was right, George had electrokinesis, his wife had telekinesis, and the boy had the silver shapeshifting. There was no telling what powers Alex Mack had now.
All of those points together meant that Terawatt could call on up to seven or eight super-powered helpers, and massive military firepower. Plus, if anyone wanted to strike at Terawatt indirectly, the obvious targets weren’t helpless anymore.
Clearly, there was no point in any sort of direct action. That would certainly fail. Even an indirect assault was unlikely to succeed, given all the backup Terawatt now had on call. And how did you ambush someone who was super-strong, bulletproof, antidote-proof, could fly away at a hundred miles an hour, could think on her feet, and might pull a dozen fighters out of her hat at any moment?
Danielle erased plans G and H from the third whiteboard.
She walked back to the television covering the superhero news from New York City, and watched. It was author Chris Coughlin, talking about watching Terawatt and Action Girl and the Batman fight a team of supervillains.
That was it. She knew what to do. It wasn’t one of her original plans, but it was going to be her best option.
She would have to wait until tomorrow morning to make the phone calls, but then the planning and negotiations would begin. She smiled malevolently as she thought about the people who would detest what she wanted to do.
She ate another chocolate truffle, this one a luscious amaretto that had enough calories to make a supermodel explode. She smiled to herself. “GC-161: a minute on the lips, and never on the hips. That should have been our slogan.”
She called her butler. “Dmitri? I would like the pool ready for a swim, and then I would like dinner at seven. Two filets mignons medium rare, with haricots verts and … let me think … a large Caesar salad and a baked potato with chives. Extra butter and sour cream. Also, a baked Alaska for dessert. And tell Irina I would like a massage before the eleven o’clock news.”
She had another chocolate truffle, this one a white chocolate truffle with lemon curd. Then she rose to go take a swim, and she patted her stomach. Thanks to the GC-161, she had abs that would make Britney Spears break down and cry, and she wasn’t doing five miles and five hundred sit-ups a day for them, either. Irina was in her late twenties, and exercised relentlessly to keep her figure, and still didn’t have Danielle’s toned limbs or perfect abs.
Maybe she’d eat the entire baked Alaska, just to make Irina a little more envious …