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Chapter 127 – Visiting HoursSo plain old Alex Mack missed two days of school while ‘meeting another potential Corcoran College mentor’ and had makeup homework to catch up on. Bleah. Fortunately, the perks of being a superheroine apparently included having Ray and Louis and Nicole get the homework assignments for her and include their own homework answers to make things easier, even if there was no way she was trusting Louis’s computations for her own chem homework. Louis was terrible on computing pH values. She so needed to sit down with him and go over some examples with him and help him get things straightened out.
She also had to remember Jack’s cover story about the videographer she met with, and what she noticed about Washington D.C. with the Umbrella story breaking all over the planet. It turned out that Jack’s IT guys were making sure that every time ordinary Alex Mack took one of these ‘trips to Corcoran College’ there were airline tickets and a seat assignment and a hotel room and the whole deal, so that no one was going to be able to go back and find that Alex hadn’t really made those trips.
On the not-so-great side, Jack called to tell her that Terawatt was going to have to make a press statement about the Umbrella Corp mess, and it would probably be next week. In Davenport, Iowa. On a school day. Ugh.
* * *
It turned out that Louis was messing up one step on the pH conversions to hydrogen ion activity and back, so Alex got that cleared up for him in like half a study period, even if logarithms and anti-logarithms were not Louis’ strong point. And then Marsha gave Alex a hug, because exams were coming up really soon and she was worried about Louis’ chem grade.
On Thursday, there was good news. Well, mostly-good news. Willow called on the tPhone. “Guess wha-at?” she sing-songed. “Riley gets to go home tomorrow! Or at least get out of quarantine!”
“Is he all okay now?” Alex worried.
“Weeeeell … sort of.” Willow backpedaled. “Mostly. They decided he’s not contagious at all, and he doesn’t have any more viruses in his system, and he’s got nice anti-evil-virus antibodies zooming through his system, but his healing rate is still really high.”
“How high?” Alex wondered.
Willow stalled. “Umm, so high that Jack’s calling him Sabretooth when he talks with me. And Hank Marshall says they’re really worried Riley could get freaky auto-immune diseases or maybe cancers that spread insanely fast. Jack says Riley better not get cancer, because he’d have to start calling him Deadpool instead, and Jack wants to keep the wacky funster thing for himself, and I told him that was totally not of the funny, but you know how Jack is.”
Alex nodded, even though she was talking on the tPhone instead of Skyping. “Yeah, he hides all the worry and emotion stuff behind the jokes. Lots of guys do that.”
Willow went on, “And Jack sort of magically got Jill Valentine into the SRI by telling Top Banana that the SRI can keep an eye on her better that way. That, and she’s already got Delta Force training.”
“Who’s Top Banana?”
Willow explained, “Umm, you’ve heard Jack calling George Hammond ‘Big Cheese’, right?”
“Well, yeah …”
“So Top Banana is Big Cheese’s boss, General Jackson. Remember him? These days, George pretty much answers to him, the Joint Chiefs, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the President. That’s about it. Jack says it’s because we’re so awesome that we’re making the SRI and the HWAAA and the whole DHS look really good.”
Alex checked, “But we can still call Jack Pinkie Pie, right?”
Willow giggled. “I accidentally spilled, and Jack found out, and he pointed at me and said, ‘that’s Pinkamena Pie to you and anypony else!’ And he did the Pinkie Pie expression thing like he was leaning in from outside the frame. It was really funny.”
Alex hadn’t thought Jack would be a ‘My Little Pony’ kind of guy. Even if Jack was totally a closet cartoon nerd. Jack was probably embarrassed to go to something like San Diego Comic Con because then everyone would find out he was a huge comic book and cartoon and superhero and movie geek. And he could totally do cosplay if he didn’t want to be recognized. Maybe he could go as MacGyver, or as that doctor on those really old soap reruns Alex’s mom watched when she thought no one was looking. He kind of looked like those guys to start with, so it would be easy.
Willow got back on track. “So Jack’s gonna keep Riley on-site for a little while with the CDC guys and Lieutenant Marshall and Jill Valentine, just in case, because everyone’s totally with the freaking about people trying to create a zombie apocalypse. Even if they got the yuck in the HQ basement taken care of before it leaked, and they got the storm drain runoff sanitized and anti-virused, and there don’t seem to be any infected ooky things running around loose, and the National Guard’s working with the CDC and the National Park Service out around the Spencer Mansion, trapping animals and checking for t-virus exposure.”
“Well, at least that part’s going pretty good.”
* * *
And then, a few hours later, Hermione called.
Alex looked at the Caller ID and grinned. “Hi, Hermione!”
But Hermione sounded kind of grumpy. “Hello, Tera. I wanted you to know we got the Ashford estate cleaned without any loss of life, even if they had scientists in an underground lab working on the things you warned me about, and the idiot scientists let everything loose in a rather stupid attempt to make a getaway.”
“What happened?”
Hermione sighed. “As Harry put it, there were mad scientist bits all over the bottom two levels. But Harry’s team had enough heavy weaponry to stop everything, and then we moved in CBW teams to scour the place and make sure there won’t be anything else getting infected. The teams in Spain lost eight people, three of them infectees they didn’t treat with the anti-viral soon enough, so that op was quite nasty. And I was in an APC running communications at the Ashford estates, so at least Ron didn’t fuss about my putting myself at risk again. So please thank your Colonel O’Neill for the tactical intelligence and the U.S.A.F. jet with the doses of anti-virus.”
“I can do that,” Alex said. “And you can Skype with me if you’d like.”
“Thank you,” Hermione replied. She suddenly sounded grumpier. “And that’s the other thing. Harry apparently told his team I know you personally and I can call you at the drop of a hat.”
“You can!” Alex insisted. “You totally can. I would love it if you just called to say hi and tell me how things were going.”
“Umm … thank you.” Hermione sounded really embarrassed. “Somehow, I thought you would be more like Terawatt in person, or more like Annie Farrell. And Harry and Ron both think you’re a miracle worker. I have no idea how you got one of the early Double Oh Sixes to put pressure on the SIS, but they’re letting Harry be. For now, at least. And it turned out that taking down the Ashfords put a serious crimp in the funding for the late Lord Deathstrike’s forces, and the way Umbrella stock is dropping is hurting them even more, so Harry thinks they’re going to be crippled for the next several years. Ron says Drake is going to have to figure out how to work for a living. I don’t like Drake or his parents, but cracks like that are really not fair. But Ron and Drake have disliked each other since they were toddlers, and their families really dislike each other, so they don’t seem to be able to put any of this behind them.”
Alex told her, “Well, if there’s anything Terawatt can do, or the SRI, just let me know.”
Hermione paused and then said, “I just find it very odd that you’re willing to do all this for me — and Ron and Harry — because of … someone else.”
Alex insisted, “Someone else who just happens to be so much like you it’s scary, and who really helped me a lot. That told me all I needed to know about you. And you’ve proven yourself. You’re the reason we were able to save Rome and New York and Tokyo, not me. I might have helped with the monsters on Petrie’s Island, but I never would have gone through those files and realized that other labs were doing the same experiment. And if we had delayed even twenty-four or forty-eight hours, we might have lost at least one of those cities. Maybe all three.”
“I’m glad we’re not Skyping, because I’m blushing like … like a redheaded Wellesley right now.”
* * *
Jack made her do these one-hour-long Skype sessions with a DHS psychiatrist, and she might have said no, but he was just so worried about her. It was really … well it was really touching and it made her feel like crying. She had to put on her Terawatt uniform for the sessions, though. At least the psychiatrist didn’t think there was anything wrong with even a superheroine needing to talk about something as icky as that op had been.
But on Friday, Alex got to be plain old Alex. In fact she got to be plain old ‘just Ray’s girlfriend’ and go to his basketball game and scream like crazy even though she was there getting video footage, and it came down to a last-second play, and Ray brought the ball down the court and faked a pass to Jackson that was such a great fake the guy guarding Ray totally went for it, so Ray took the open shot from just outside the three-point circle and won the game by one point at the buzzer! Alex jumped and screamed and acted like a maniac with the rest of the school for like a minute.
How weird was it that she now looked forward to times when she could be plain old Alex? A few years ago, back when she really was plain old Alex, she would have done anything to be popular and famous and all that. Being in high demand just wasn’t as great as it sounded.
Then she ‘got’ to be super-studious Alex, because she needed to study all weekend because first term exams were coming up next week, and she wanted to keep her ‘A’ average. And she had to squeeze some trips in there, too.
* * *
The first trip was Saturday night. She really wanted to go out on a date with Ray, but instead she had to fly to the East Coast in an SR-71 to go see famous billionaire playboy Bruce Paine. Yeah, like anyone outside Team Terawatt would ever believe that. And no one inside Team Terawatt was going to give her any sympathy for having to miss out on a date with Ray for this. Not even Ray, which was totally not fair. Even Shar and Willow thought flying off to New York City in a Blackbird to visit Batman was cooler than going out on a date with Ray.
A little before seven, she changed into her uniform and flew south down the interstate at eight thousand feet, like the last time. The chopper that met her whisked her off to the Blackbird on the tarmac at Edwards, and she was taking off before eight. She bailed out over New York City shortly before nine her time, which was midnight East Coast time, and she used Willow’s GPS app to zero in on stately Paine Manor, as Jack kept calling it for some weird reason.
At midnight on the dot, she dived down from a thousand feet up, rang the front doorbell with her TK, puddled under the door, and waited inside for Alfred. Alfred appeared in a couple of seconds, like he’d been lurking nearby for her to show up. He gave her a slight frown when he saw she was already inside.
She explained, “I figured it would be better just in case anyone had you under surveillance if I didn’t stand out on the front doorstep and be noticeable while I waited for you to let me in.”
He dryly said, “It does appear as if our security systems may need to be upgraded.” He turned and gestured for her to follow him. “This way, Ms. Terawatt.”
“Just Terawatt, please. Or Tera. And I’m sorry about the thing with the door,” she apologized. “You could just improve the ‘weatherstripping’ under the outside doors. And install blocks in the chimneys when you’re not using them and put really secure screens in the openings for your HVAC systems. Oh, and I can unlock your doors and windows from the outside with my TK, so you should make sure they’re all on a security system if they get opened even a fraction of an inch.”
He gave her a slightly raised eyebrow. “You are being remarkably helpful, considering.”
She shrugged. “Well, I am hoping to get something in return.”
He led her into a sitting room that was nicer than anything she’d seen in Paradise Valley, even in Libby’s house. Bruce Paine was standing by the fireplace in a super-expensive gray suit, while Julie was wearing a couture gown Alex would never be able to afford and sitting in an armchair that looked like it was probably a really expensive heirloom. Bruce casually asked, “And what would you be expecting in return?”
Okay, so he heard that. Good. She wasn’t going to be surprised if he had cameras and mikes all over the mansion so he could run off to his secret Bat-lair to study everything she did, once she left. She smiled. “Isn’t it obvious? I want you to trust me enough that we can help each other, especially on this kind of stuff. Like how Alfred used to be Double Oh Six before he retired, and he applied a little pressure on some SIS types just because I asked if he would. I really owe you guys for that.”
Bruce carefully pointed out, “I thought that the SIS very specifically told your Colonel O’Neill they were not going to let him look at Alfred’s files.”
She smiled, because this time she got to be the great detective, even though other-Selina had bragged on other-Bruce’s detective skills. “They didn’t. I have other resources. I found out from a European source that a former 006 applied some pressure to help my friend Harry. The only person that could be, given the circumstances, is Mister Pennyworth. QED. And we should introduce the Batman to Harry. He had his parents murdered in front of him when he was one, and the psycho who did it was after Harry for years, while Harry was still in high school and the psycho was running a secret cabal inside the English espionage community.”
Bruce just had to show off his vast knowledge. “That would be the legendary Lord Deathstrike?”
She nodded. “And in case you ever need the intel, that was Thomas Arkeit Riddle, who was killed four or five years ago, even if his forces are still a problem for a chunk of the SIS over there.”
Bruce just said, “It seemed obvious.”
Julie asked him, “Why would it be obvious?”
So Alex told her, “He designed his codename so you can rearrange his full name to get ‘I am Lord Deathstrike’ which I thought was incredibly pretentious when I found out.”
Bruce nodded. “Exactly.”
She added, “And the Ashfords are part of the Deathstrike group’s money source, so the Umbrella disaster may cripple them financially for a few years.”
Bruce nodded again. “But they’re not the group’s only financial input.”
Alex said, “I don’t think I need to know the details on that, but if you could find a way to let Hermione Granger in the SIS data analysis section find out, I’d appreciate it.” She was really hoping he’d do it, and then he’d feel like Terawatt owed him a couple, so he’d stop sending her stuff that was too expensive.
But he moved on to the real reason she was there. “But you’re not here about that, or Umbrella. You’re here about my personal email account, which someone rooted through fairly recently.”
She told him, “We rooted through over a hundred people’s email accounts.”
He gave her a suspicious eyebrow. “A hundred? Not just one?”
Julie asked the other question. “And not a couple million?”
Alex insisted, “Over a hundred. And I think you probably already investigated the Breslynn Orphanage enough to know why we kept it that low.”
He growled in a half-Batman tone, “You already knew about the spike in mid-summer newborns turned over to the orphanage 25 to 31 years ago. The only way there could be a spike of exactly ten healthy newborns every year at the same time is if the babies were genetically selected or genetically engineered. And Howard R. Locke, the famous geneticist, was on the orphanage’s board of directors for those years.”
She carefully said, “It’s not your fault you’re smarter and stronger and faster and more driven than everyone else. You couldn’t do what you need to do if you weren’t. Because you’re not the only Orphan out there.”
“I take it you have a rather complete list of possibilities?” wondered Alfred.
Alex admitted, “We have a lot of names. Everyone in the target age group who was involved in the Umbrella mess is an Orphan, including virologist William Birkin, Alfred and Alexia Ashford, S.T.A.R.S. leader Albert Wesker, and a U.S. Representative and an Iowa state Senator and some bankers and stockbrokers and venture capitalists. S.T.A.R.S. Alpha Team member Jill Valentine is an Orphan, too, but she’s on our side. Plus every age-25-to-31 politician Umbrella gave money to, including Glenn Howard.”
Bruce pointed out, “Who has been trying to sabotage you for nearly a year.”
She nodded. “Yeah, we figure he’s been in on it since before he started badmouthing me. And then there’s Poison Ivy and Selina Kyle Christakos, who in one particular alternate dimension are supervillains who are particular pains in your side. The other Selina was a reformed jewel thief named Catwoman who used razor-sharp claws and a whip, and probably some other stuff I just didn’t see.”
Julie asked, “And you’re giving us these details because …?”
Alex admitted, “Because our Batman could have used the details on that other Poison Ivy, so I figure it can’t hurt to supply him with details on the other Selina.”
Bruce said, “You’re too young to be part of the Orphan group, but Howard Locke was linked to a CIA project at the time of his supposed suicide, and his partner in that was Margaret K. Walsh. You and Action Girl and Klar are all about the right age to be products of that research.”
She couldn’t help grinning. He really was smart. And really stubborn. “Well, Action Girl is the right age. And she’s the only survivor of Project Galinka, which is seriously scrubbed from the CIA’s project databases, so I’m pretty impressed you found Locke and Walsh and their connection to it. You already know who I am and how old I am, so you know I’m not connected to that.”
He added, “And Klar is Grover Dunn, Jr. of Bloomington-Normal, Illinois. Given that his deceased father was a research biochemist, it’s likely that Grover took some of his father’s incomplete work and … adapted it rather creatively.”
Alex frowned. “And it turned out to have some drastic side effects, like being stuck invisible permanently, and not being able to see in the visible light spectrum.”
“Ahh,” Bruce paused. “I should have expected that. So he sees in … what? The infrared or the ultraviolet?”
Julie winced. “He’s invisible and he can’t turn back? And he’s nearly blind? How does he get around and not get run over by cars or whatever?”
Alex just said, “It’s more like he’s completely colorblind. Maybe you guys should invite him and his girlfriend up some time, so you can talk things over. After Action Girl used her grapple guns — by the way, she said ‘thank you very much’ and she’s trying to think of something to get you as a thank you present but she has about as much pocket money as your average teenager — Klar would probably be thrilled with some Paine Technology.”
“And what do you want?” he asked suspiciously.
She managed not to roll her eyes. Much. “You already know what I want. I want to stop these whackos from taking over the world and killing 99.99% of the rest of us so we’re not cluttering up their planet. Two years ago, my big life goal was getting through high school without getting found out and not having to do a lot of work. One year ago, my big life goal was stopping the supervillains Danielle Atron was sending to loot my hometown. Now I’m just thinking globally instead of locally. And I want you to help me instead of helping the other Orphans.”
He stared at her. “Oddly enough, I want to know that you really want me to help you save the world, and not merely be able to take it over for yourself.”
She glared back at him. What a jerkhead! After everything she’d done, she still had people acting like she was Doctor Doom instead of Reed Richards. Okay, she’d expected him to be paranoid, just not this paranoid.
Alfred cleared his throat slightly. “Perhaps it would be helpful if you two could establish some sort of intermediate position.”
She angrily waved her arms in the air. “I’d settle for any kind of position! I told you my secret identity! I got the world’s best hacker to help you decrypt data! I helped you with Falcone! What more am I supposed to do? Duct tape a bomb to my head so you can blow me up whenever you think I’m going all Ernst Stavro Blofeld?”
Alfred dryly pointed out, “The young lady does have a point, sir. She has been remarkably accommodating.”
She crossed her arms under her breasts. “And that’s another thing. I don’t need stuff like that Canon camera body — which was totally awesome and I couldn’t even send you a real thank-you card — just because you feel guilty and you think you owe me stuff. All I want is for you to keep being a superhero. That’s it. If you worked with me or other superheroes on major stuff once in a while, it would be great, but I can live without. I just want you to not go over to the Dark Side of the Force!”
She would have ranted a lot longer, but Julie laughed out loud.
Bruce took a slow breath. “I … have a hard time trusting people. You already know that. And just because your goals are noble now doesn’t mean they’ll remain that way in the future.”
“Well, DUH,” she snapped. “Are you going to quote Lord Acton at me next? Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and lightning power corrupts electrically. The only way you can be sure I don’t turn into Doctor Doom and take over the planet is to hang out with me and go on missions with me and rescue me if I ever go bonkers. And let me tell you, having powers from a biochemical that messes with people’s brain chemistry is NOT real reassuring. My mom is the nicest person in the world, and she does social work and helps people for a living, and she took a dose when Danielle Atron kidnapped her, and she totally went psycho. My dad had to stop her until they could get antidote into her. Well, whose genes do you think I’m working from here? Hers! I haven’t gone loopy yet, but what’s gonna happen to me in five years, or ten years, or fifty years, assuming I even live that long? And I nearly died last week. Again. I’m up against Danielle Atron and Maggie Walsh and all these Orphans and their whole secret international terrorist organization and its splinter cells and every monster they create. So what happens when I finally lose one of these battles? Who’s gonna step in and help Action Girl and Klar and Colonel O’Neill? I need people like you working with me!”
He growled, “I’m not really the ‘follow orders blindly’ type, and I don’t want to be your second-in-command on Team Terawatt …”
“The Justice League,” she interrupted. “Not Team Terawatt. I snitched the name from your super-team in that other dimension, where you’re one of the three big cheeses, alongside an alien who can take a tactical nuke off his face and an Amazon princess who can throw a tank and bounce bullets off her wrist bracelets.”
He bulled on. “But you’ll still rule the team, because you’re the recognizable name, and most of the supers are people you’ve recruited.”
She clenched her teeth in frustration. He was really good at making people cranky. “Well, maybe that’s true right now, but we only have a couple of superheroes on the whole planet, and I don’t know if Tsurara can even leave Japan, given her condition.”
Bruce just gave her that lantern-jawed look. “Code name Tsurara, which means ‘icicle’. Cold powers. The young woman who helped you against Gojira. The Japanese have been making a great deal about her in their newspapers. Needing constant heat sources to keep from freezing everything around her could make transport intricate, but it could be managed.”
She went on, “When there’s dozens, or hundreds, of superheroes, the fact that I rescued Action Girl and Klar won’t count for much. What will count is if I’m the only one out there saving the world, and people think you’re some weird half-bat thing that only comes out at night in Gotham.”
Bruce glowered. He really had an impressive glower. She ought to take notes or something. “The criminals won’t be afraid of me if they know I’m something ordinary.”
She disagreed, “No way, they’ll be a lot more afraid. I’ve seen the other you, remember? The other you can scare supervillains.”
“I do believe I am going to side with the young miss in this case, sir.”
“Me, too, I think she’s right,” said Julie. “This is just what I was saying last week.”
Bruce gave the entire room a scowl. It was a really fierce scowl. Alex figured if Jack was here he would have made some snarky comment about that scowl peeling the expensive wallpaper off the walls.
Alex told him, “I’m not asking you to do anything different. Not right now, anyway. Just help me stop the Orphans. Let me know if you find any more of them. And when you find the ones already in the SRI, don’t be surprised, because you’re not the only Orphan who’s a good guy. Oh, and make sure all your systems are ready for the next attack by P$ychon4ut. He’s not in jail in Texas, like Acid Burn thought. She and a bunch of other white hats put him away on non-computer charges, but someone spent a lot of money getting a substitute in the Texas state pen in his place. We think he’s in India, working for Khan Noonien Singh, who may be an Orphan, too.”
Bruce frowned in thought. “The Singh family is an extremely powerful political family in India. If he’s part of that family, then he’ll be very difficult to deal with until he makes his first big move.”
Alex nodded. “Uh-huh. Unless he does something really stupid, which hasn’t been his M.O. so far. The American group screwed up massively, even if you figure some of their mistakes were due to someone hacking their computers and altering the DNA and RNA sequences they wanted to use. We’re assuming the main group or the India group put an Orphan in as a mole and tried to wipe out all of North America and also the Collective group that’s here, too. I’m guessing, based on what happened with the virus, that it was whichever side has Maggie Walsh.”
Julie couldn’t help making a small “Eww!”
Once Terawatt left, Bruce rushed down to the cave to check all his security footage. He had installed a small Doppler radar system in one of the attics, but it wasn’t doing an effective job of tracking her while she was in that silvery morph. He wasn’t too surprised, just discouraged. Effective radar reception required a roughly perpendicular, reflective surface for the radar waves to bounce off and return to the receptors. So he was going to have to find some other way to track flyers.
He was most bothered by Terawatt’s facile acceptance that any Orphans within the SRI had to be trustworthy. He was going to have to look into that, even though the files would be difficult to come by.
But he was most interested in her news about P$ychon4ut. If that cracker was on the loose again, then Bruce’s entire corporation needed to improve computer security. And if Acid Burn was one of the women who had helped put him away, then that definitely narrowed down the search for her.
He pulled up some files on P$ychon4ut and found what he was searching for. There were only three women in the entire list, and he could rule out two based on speech patterns. On the other hand … Willow Rosenberg, twenty-five and a life-long Cali girl. Bingo.
Then he pulled up a bio on her and realized something troubling. Willow Rosenberg. Extremely intelligent. Obviously dynamic and an effective CEO, which was an extremely rare combination with her level of programming skill. Obviously very attractive. Obviously adopted, given that photo of her with her parents. Age: twenty-five with a birthday that nearly matched his. Damn.
Did Terawatt realize that her computer hacker was yet another Orphan? And Rosenberg was supposedly dating Colonel Jack O’Neill, a man nearly twenty years her senior, when someone with her looks and money could be dating anyone. Was she a spy for these Orphans?
Willow … and Rosenberg … and bright red hair … Salix. And 680 nanometers in the E-M spectrum. He now had the identity of the infamous cracker S4l1x680. She must have started hacking international networks when she was eleven or twelve. And his IT groups were using Red Tree Software for several layers in their network security. No wonder Acid Burn had been able to waltz in through the corporate firewall and make herself at home.
Was Terawatt working with S4l1x680, or for her, or could it be the other way around? If Acid Burn was a part of The Collective, did Terawatt even realize she was being played? Could he even contact Terawatt without Acid Burn eavesdropping in on everything he had to say? And what if Terawatt was establishing her own group of Orphans and wanted him to help her pave the way for her own world takeover?
He needed to think this one over and make plans.
His computer beeped to signal a private email. What was Julie doing sending him email when she could walk downstairs …
It was Terawatt’s hacker Acid Burn. Who was really Willow Rosenberg. And she was already penetrating his systems like he had no network security whatsoever.
He opened the email in a code editor instead of his email program, just in case. Then he winced slightly. The six email headers except the last two were all obviously spoofed, and each had one capital word embedded just for him. The capital words, put together, read:
YOU ARE WAY TOO SUSPICIOUS BRUCE
Obviously, he wasn’t suspicious enough. He needed additional protections on his email servers. It would be really helpful if the papers he had researched on the subject hadn’t been co-authored or else reviewed by one Willow Rosenberg. He read over the email.
So I know you don’t trust us at all, which is really a shame because Alex is the nicest person ever. I bet you weren’t even nice to her. The next time, at least offer her a Diet Coke with ice. I hope Julie told you that you were being a jerk. Maybe Mister Pennyworth did, since I bet he’s the coolest butler ever. Alex probably didn’t tell you that I’m one of these Orphans, but I am, and she knows it. When I got that email from KOBO and I realized what it meant, I cried for maybe twenty minutes. Since you don’t trust us, let me tell you who else — besides me — you can be insanely suspicious of.
And that was followed by a list of five members of the SRI, with details on each of them, including that S.T.A.R.S. officer Valentine, who had changed job titles suspiciously quickly. As if he could assume these were really the SRI Orphans, or even a complete list of them.
And I bet you won’t trust this list, so call Jack and talk to him about it. Expect to get snarked at, Mister Untrusting.
He gritted his teeth. He needed to find a way to get ahead of these people, even though they knew things about him that he might not know himself, or that might not come to pass for several years. How did you defend yourself against knowledge given to others by a near-duplicate of yourself from another dimension?
And he would start by checking that the people on Rosenberg’s list really did have the qualifications to be some of these Orphans. Just because they knew he was untrusting didn’t mean he was going to let them lure him into mistakes in the opposite direction.
* * *
Alex had no trouble getting home. She used Willow’s GPS app on the tPhone to get to the Blackbird at the Air Force base, and then she was back in Paradise Valley an hour after that. She flew into her house just before eleven.
Her mom and dad were watching TV, with her mom on the exercise bike. Her dad smiled. “Shar wanted to wait up for you, but we told her she had to get in bed.”
Alex flew into her bedroom and changed into her regular clothes. Shar opened her eyes wide and grinned. “I got in the bed like I promised!” She held up the Pikachu plushie. “But Piki needs a good night kiss.”
Alex grinned and floated over. She gave Piki a big kiss on the head. “Mwah!”
Shar smiled sleepily. “Piki says ‘Pika pikapi pika peeeeeka!’ That means goodnight an’ I love you.” She snuggled in with Piki the Pikachu, and was asleep before Alex even had her calc book out.