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Chapter 152 – March Comes in Like a LionAlex slowly started to relax. She found out she just couldn’t be all tense and prepared for every second of every day. And after a whole week of nothing, she found she couldn’t be all tense and prepared, except when her tPhone rang. She figured it was like guard duty: no matter how alert you were at the start, after a while you were all bored and tired and yawn-y.
There was nothing happening, except normal stuff. Senator Kinsey was pretending to be all pleased with the SRI and all of General Jackson’s agencies, even if Jack totally didn’t believe it. Okay, neither did anyone else. There was no sign of Maggie Walsh or Danielle Atron or any new monsters. There wasn’t even a new story out of Toronto about their maybe-superhero or superheroine or superheroes.
About the only thing that happened in the second half of February was Willow Rosenberg, CEO of Red Tree Software, drove down to Paradise Valley to visit her new bestie, photographer A.L. Mack, and they went bicycling just outside of town with A.L. Mack’s boyfriend the basketball star. There were pictures of them up on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter before they even got back to Alex’s house. And boy, was Shar happy to see Auntie Willow, and it didn’t have anything to do with the new Barbie stuff Willow brought for Shar.
And who knew there were now ‘disguise’ outfits for Terawatt Barbie and Sidekick Skipper? There was ‘Girl Scout Troop Leader and Girl Scout’ with official certification from the Girl Scouts, and ‘business executive with new intern’ and ‘sexy trick-or-treaters’. And that was just what Willow had bought for Shar. There were also like ten other disguise outfits and a ‘Terawatt’s secret hideout’ set for sale, so Alex figured Shar would be making out like a bandit come birthday time.
Alex let Willow shower in her folks’ bathroom, while she showered in her bathroom and Ray dashed home to shower at his house. Then Willow stayed for dinner and watched ‘The Iron Giant’ with Shar even though everyone pretty much knew the entire movie by heart by then. Even Ray. They could have acted it out themselves, except that nobody would want to play the part of that jerkhead Kent.
Okay, there was also the little thing where Willow called Alex on the tPhone one afternoon to tell her there were several heavily-armed felons driving a stolen Humvee up I-5 at crazy speeds and shooting stolen M16s and AK-47s at the police following them. So Terawatt flew over to I-5 and south until she spotted the Hummer. She just hit the Hummer’s electrical system with a lightning bolt and fried it. Then as it ground to an abrupt halt, she yanked the weapons out of the badguys’ hands with her TK and let the police arrest the guys. She was back home before it was even time to go pick up Shar.
* * *
March came in like a lion, with a couple of big storms off the Pacific. And a phone call from Jack and Willow. “Hey, Tera, how’d you feel about Annie Farrell making another appearance?”
“What kind of appearance?” she asked suspiciously.
Willow bubbled, “It’s a trip to London! The E.U. Terawatt Liaison office is having their quarterly meeting, and it’s in London this time, and Hermione Granger’s in charge of it, so she’s hoping Annie Farrell can come along with Jack. And maybe Terawatt will show up for a meet-and-greet thing.”
Alex checked uncomfortably, “And is this going to make that general mad at me again?”
Jack answered, “Not this time. Seems you’ve been chatty with Hermione, and so she knows how much trouble you got into for your last two visits, so General Baylor and a couple of his staff are invited, too, just to make those damn Yanks happy. And Hermione phrased it as ‘Terawatt requested we invite you’ so you should get some big brownie points out of this one.”
Willow added, “And Hermione wanted to make sure we scheduled things so Annie Farrell could have one night out, probably having dinner with Hermione and her duke.”
Alex insisted, “Ron’s not a duke, and he’s the last son in the family, so he’s never going to be the duke.”
Willow tried, “Did you know his mom’s a real princess?”
Alex admitted, “Umm, yeah. She’s …” She had to stop and think hard to recall what Harry and Hermione had said, even if she had looked it all up when she got home because it was pretty amazing meeting the son of a real princess. “Oh, yeah. She’s the younger daughter of Prince Frederick of Prussia. Ron’s kind of embarrassed about it. He kind of said people act all weird around him once they find out.”
Jack airily said, “What’s the big deal? I heard Shar was a real Disney princess. That has to be better.”
Alex pretended to ignore him and asked, “So when’s the big meeting?”
Willow said, “Second week of March, Wednesday through Friday. So we’ll be leaving on Tuesday.”
“Oh, crud!” Alex complained. “My spring break’s the week after that. Why couldn’t it be then?”
Jack smirked. “Well, all you have to do is call Hermione up and tell her you have high school classes to attend, and that won’t wreck your secret ID at all, and I’m sure a bunch of stuffy European liaison types won’t mind having their schedules all mucked up for a snotty American superheroine …”
Alex stuck her tongue out at the phone and just pretended Jack could see her.
* * *
The next thing was on Thursday, when Jack’s office was having their first official web conference with soon-to-be-new-intern Annie Mack, along with some of the other SRI people and a cooperator. Only Jack scheduled it for three o’clock his time, so it was at lunchtime on the West Coast. That meant Alex could be on the call!
Jack having a copy of her complete schedule really made her life a lot easier. She was totally glad he wasn’t one of those jerk bosses you heard about who deliberately scheduled stuff at times that would be mega-cruddy for you.
So, after calculus class, Alex walked out to the tennis courts with Ray for a private lunch over by the big school boulders DRAke and DRApe, which now had some mean anti-Libby stuff scrawled on their sides and nobody had painted over the graffiti yet. Then she puddled into the water runoff pipes and came up half a mile away before she flew over to her favorite runoff pipe and puddled home. She flew into her room, dived into her gym bag under the bed to change into Terawatt, and flew down to the home office, where she had her computer all set up for Skyping. She’d had an idea after looking at Terawatt Barbie’s secret lair, so she had a fake background that was really just a blue bedsheet held taut with her TK, so anyone looking at the image on her webcam would think she was in a room with a blue wall behind her.
Maybe she should design a ‘fake wall’ she could paint on the bedsheet, so Terawatt’s secret lair would have fancy computers and fancy cabinets and fancy science gear. She was thinking about those walls in the module up at the space station with all the cool physics and biochem gear. Maybe she could take a picture of a wall like that, and get it blown up bigger than poster size, and hold that as the background behind her so it would look like she was in her secret lair full of scientific gear that she probably did amazing scientific stuff with.
Back to business. She already had the computer up and running with the conferencing software set to call Willow’s system, so as soon as she flew into the room and went normal, she clicked on the start button and she was into the web conference in a matter of seconds.
“Terawatt here. Sorry I’m late, but an emergency arose.”
“Tera! Glad you could join in.” Jack was sitting there in West Virginia with Riley and Walter. Dr. Lee was at Base Two, sitting with Lieutenant Marshall and Dr. Ledbetter. Alex’s dad was sitting at his desk in his office, with Scooter at his side. Annie was sitting in a cluttered office with a fifty-ish female professor who looked kind of frumpy. Okay, Annie didn’t exact look like she was off the cover of Seventeen magazine either. Maybe it was a thing. Or maybe that was how Annie-types dressed when they were busy concentrating on biochemistry and they didn’t have little sisters to bug them to wear something better. And to fix their hair, because both of them needed to get a haircut, and Annie’s professor really needed a hairdo that didn’t make her ears look like that.
Jack went on, “I think you know everyone except our new summer intern Annie Mack and Professor Mona Camden.”
Alex remembered who else she wasn’t supposed to know. “Pleased to meet you, Ms. Mack and Dr. Camden. I remember rescuing Dr. Mack, but I don’t know his associate.”
Alex was totally not expecting Annie’s teacher to go all fangirl. “Oh! Terawatt! It’s a real honor! I mean … I always wanted to meet you … I had no idea this work was connected with you! I … umm … Can I have your autograph?” Then she turned bright red like she thought she’d just been the most socially awkward person ever.
While Alex’s dad introduced Scooter, who was way cooler about meeting Terawatt on a web conference, probably because he knew about Terawatt being all over Paradise Valley for a couple years, Annie tried to cover for her teacher. “Ooh, Terawatt, this is so neat. I know you said you don’t give out autographs for security reasons, but are we going to get to meet you for real this summer?”
Dr. Camden was still red in the face, but she managed, “Umm, yes, it would be really … nice if I … umm, we could meet you. As part of Annie’s work, I mean. Not that I wouldn’t want to meet you otherwise! I mean …”
Alex interrupted to save the poor woman. “I will likely be at General O’Neill’s base several times this summer, as well as Team Two’s base, and I will probably be in California on a regular basis this summer. They do seem to have more crises than anyone else.”
“Except Iowa. Maybe Tokyo,” added Jack just to be a pain. Alex made an effort not to wince. Jack went on, “We were discussing research topics with Dr. Mack. It’s extremely convenient Miss Mack already had clearance due to work she’s done in Paradise Valley. But I’m expecting we’ll need a week or two of training and orientation out here first, then at least a month working with Dr. Lee and Lieutenant Marshall and their people, probably followed by some work with our cooperators in Paradise Valley, and then we should see where Miss Mack can achieve her potential the best at that point, either our auxiliary base or Paradise Valley. And once we have a Top Secret clearance for you, too, Dr. Camden, we’ll see about arranging some meetings you can participate in.”
Alex stiffly said, “I would be interested in working with Ms. Mack as well, since I have some biochemistry research areas I would like to explore.”
Dr. Camden looked like she might faint at the idea of getting to work with Terawatt. She looked at Annie, then at the webcam, then back. She looked really embarrassed that she couldn’t be as calm about things as her student.
And Dr. Camden was still being all flustered thirty minutes later, when Alex had to end her part of the call to fly back to school and wolf down three energy bars instead of getting a decent lunch. But she wasn’t running late, so she had time to eat a sandwich and a banana too as she and Ray walked back to the school for fourth period.
* * *
That night, Annie called on the house phone right after dinner. Alex was expecting her to ask how long the fix had been in to get her the internship. Instead, Annie blurted out, “Oh, my gosh, are all the soldiers as hot as the general and the colonel? Because … whew! Not that the lieutenant isn’t pretty cute, but … wow.”
Alex admitted, “Well, the colonel is one of these Orphans, and so is his wife, who’s with Doctors Without Borders in Africa. And at the Roswell base you’ll probably meet Captain Miller and Lieutenant Lupo and Sergeant Carlson, and they’re all pretty hot, although Captain Miller’s the only one who’s not an Orphan. And Lieutenant Marshall’s really smart. He graduated first in his class from the Naval Academy, and he has a Ph.D. in biophysics, and he figured out the deal with those giant monster clams in like five minutes after he got a little evidence.”
Annie purred, “Well, I can sure see why Willow’s all hot for the general.”
Shar butted in, “Yeah, because he’s really funny, and he’s really nice to Auntie Willow, and if anybody’s mean to her, I bet he goes all general-y on ’em!”
Alex tried not to smile. “Yeah, that’s exactly right.”
And in the same happy tone of voice, Shar added, “And Auntie Willow thinks Uncle Jack is really good at sex stuff, too!”
Alex couldn’t keep from cringing.
Her mom instantly said, “Shar, we need to go have a little private talk about where you learned that, and why eavesdropping is bad and gets you in lots and lots of trouble, and why Auntie Willow would not want you to tell people things like that, and what your punishment is going to be.”
“Oh, crud!” Shar complained, in a tone that was really an awful lot like Alex.
So Alex and her dad talked with Annie about getting to do intern work for the SRI, while Alex’s mom had a long talk with Shar and then had her stay in her room for the rest of the night.
When her mom came back to the kitchen, Alex couldn’t help asking, “Eavesdropping?”
Her mom groaned. “Telepathy, this time anyway. Willow was in our back yard having a very personal phone chat with Jack that apparently included several things I never thought to include in The Talk or even The Other Talk, and Shar picked far too much of it up even though she was taking a bath at the time.”
Alex winced. “I guess I need to call Willow and warn her not to … get all chatty with Jack when she’s over here, because little pitchers have great big telepathically-assisted ears.”
Her mom shook her head, even as she started blushing some. “No, I think I need to call Willow, because she’s old enough to show more discretion, and I really don’t want to tell you what she was talking about.”
But Alex could guess, because Willow had talked about phone sex before, maybe a few too many times.
Her mom sighed. “And maybe, after this call, you and George could do all the kitchen clean-up, because now I need to give Shar … I suppose … The Talk, and depending on what she asks me about Willow, I may have to give her The Other Talk, even though she’s only eight.”
A high-pitched voice yelled from way up in Alex’s bedroom, “I’m nearly nine!”
Alex’s mom clapped her hand to her forehead and winced.
* * *
The rest of the week was pretty quiet, although Alex made Shar spend half an hour every evening practicing on not reading people’s minds. Shar complained a lot, because she said it was really hard not to. On the other hand, she didn’t want to telepathically learn icky stuff, and some of what Auntie Willow had been talking about was definitely getting into the ickiness category, and when Alex explained what a couple of the things were, Shar was like ‘YICK!’ and actually worked at it. For a while, until she got bored.
Alex got her American Lit paper on the significance of the Mississippi River in Huck Finn all done and edited, even though it wasn’t due until right after spring break. And she told her teachers she had to leave Tuesday to go back to Corcoran College, but she had all ‘A’s so nobody complained a whole lot. She got all her homework assignments for while she was gone, and Mister Hooper said she could make up the lab and the Friday quiz when she got back after spring break, even though she was willing to do the lab and take the quiz right then, and write the lab up while she was traveling and email it back to him. Okay, maybe it wouldn’t look as good emailed as it would on regular graph paper.
* * *
And then Alex had to get up way before three Tuesday morning so she could shower and dry her hair and eat a big breakfast and fly north to Travis Air Force Base. It was way faster flying up to Willow’s turf than driving, especially at the non-interstate parts of the drive. Still, she was a few minutes late, and Willow had already cleared the entrance gate and was putting her suitcases in the cargo hold when Alex flew over. But it was dark, and Alex was a fast-moving blob flying low to the ground, so no one noticed her.
Alex ducked through the open hatch into the Cessna and checked her stuff before going normal. A Terawatt gym bag was in the overhead compartment. The Annie Farrell clothing and stuff were hanging up by the little bathroom in Annie Farrell’s hanging bag. She pulled one uniform and the underthings and the disguise stuff into her puddle, dropped her Alex stuff in the bottom of the hanging bag, and ducked into the bathroom.
This time, they had some Captain Fisher disguise magic. There was a thing shaped like a body briefer or maybe a one-piece swimsuit, but it didn’t make her look slimmer. It made her look about twenty or thirty pounds heavier. It gave her another cup size up top, plus a wider waist, plus padding at her hips and buns. Okay, it looked kind of like her sister Annie’s body in a really good body briefer. But there was no way this Annie Farrell could fit into a Terawatt uniform. And the uniform was cut to fit over it, so she totally looked heftier. This was definitely not Terawatt’s body.
The makeup from Captain Fisher was way better than what she had used before. There was even this stuff to paint below her cheekbones, and when it dried and she put too much foundation on top, it looked like she had bad acne scars she was covering up with too much makeup. Ick. There was even a little drawing showing just where she should paint the stuff, and someone had Photoshopped her Annie Farrell ID so it had the almost-hidden acne scars on it, too.
Captain Fisher had to be a master of disguise, because he sure knew a lot about women’s makeup. The wig looked even more realistic, and was cut too short so it made Alex’s jaw look sort of protruding. Wow, even supermodels would look cruddy with this haircut. And Hanna. And the glasses were even worse, too. They were mega-hipster, and they didn’t look good on Annie Farrell. But Annie Farrell was supposed to be a hacker, so some eccentricity was probably expected, even with the ‘adjutant to a general’ deal.
Oh, and the shoes were really ugly. They looked awful, but they were really comfy. She was going to have to think of something nice to get Captain Fisher.
She checked in Annie Farrell’s hanging bag, and there were two more uniforms, two more pairs of shoes, another body briefer just like the one she was wearing, some more underwear, and one casual outfit. There was also an expandable rack to drape her wig on, and you could hang lingerie on it too if you needed to wash some undies while you were on travel. And the hanging bag was a little smaller and a little lighter than what she’d had the last time she went to Europe, because it had all these secret pockets inside, like in the space that usually got wasted up above the shoulders of your dresses, there was a pocket on each side, and one pocket had a collapsible hair dryer, and the other had a travel iron and spray bottle.
She folded up her hanging bag and walked out to slip it into the cargo hold with Willow’s stuff. Willow had two good-sized suitcases, one of which was a folding dress-bag. And Willow looked great, in a really pretty jersey dress with long sleeves and a long skirt so she’d stay warm on the long flight.
They took their seats in the Cessna, and it took off for the East Coast. It was going to land at Andrews Air Force Base to pick up General Baylor and his people, and Jack’s group would be there, too.
Willow was really excited to get to see Jack. “Oh, this is so great!” she bubbled. “I really hope he doesn’t have any evening meetings, because I brought some really pretty dresses for dinners out, and some really sexy lingerie, and I’ve got a collapsible cloth-sided suitcase in my hard-sided suitcase in case I get a chance to buy lots of souvenirs and things!”
Alex practiced on her Annie Farrell voice. “That’s very interesting, ma’am, but I have not yet been given the general’s schedule. You might be accompanying him to dinners, too.”
Willow giggled. “Oh, that’s awesome! Nobody would look at you and think you were Terawatt. The only thing that would be better would be some colored contact lenses. Give Annie some boring brown eyes instead of yours.”
Alex admitted, “There was a pair of contacts in the kit, but I never wear ’em so I’d need like a week or more to get used to having ’em in my eyes.”
Willow jumped topics. “Ooh, we ought to be able to get access to the meeting schedule and all that!”
So then they spent most of the trip to the East Coast working on Alex’s — Annie Farrell’s — tablet computer. Willow showed her how to use the new software and Jack’s official passwords for the conference to go into the E.U. Terawatt Liaison website the legal way and get all the files Jack was supposed to have. There was a Wednesday night formal dinner for the higher-ups, and they could all bring a plus-one, so Willow would be going to that. And the Thursday night things were all small workshops that Jack could skip out on. And the conference ended Friday in the middle of the afternoon so people could get back home at a reasonable hour, but Willow was hoping Jack would stay for the weekend and the two of them could play tourist.
Then Willow showed Alex how she could hack into the same website illegally, now that they knew its real IP address and a lot of details on the web architecture that Willow had gleaned while looking through the webpages.
Willow told her, “If you use an off-the-shelf program like, say, WordPress as your publishing platform, and it has a known flaw in it, then at the bottom of the page where you give credit to the codebase you’re using, you’re accidentally telling crackers how they can launch attacks at you. Now they’re using a homebrew system, but when we look at the source for each of the pages, it’s obvious what it’s based on, so …”
Crud, if Willow ever decided to destroy the world’s computer and telecom infrastructure, they were all so in trouble. It took her about ten minutes to crack the website and then work from there to get into the SIS data analysis section, and it took less than twenty more minutes to get into the secure webserver and leave messages for Hermione and Jimmy that supposedly came from each other instead of directly from Annie Farrell.
Willow gave her a big grin. “We have to keep up your rep, you know.”
Alex worried, “Well, yeah, I was thinking about that, and without you at your computers, how am I supposed to look like the world’s coolest hacker?”
Willow smirked with a totally Jack facial expression. “I’ve got enough hardware along. I’ll be watching your back all day. And Jack says if we need to give a telecom presentation, he’s going to bring me in as the special guest star.”
Alex told her, “You know what? Maybe you’re a good influence on Jack, but he’s a bad influence on you.”
Willow giggled, “That’s what I said about you and Jack!”
Alex thought that over. She could sure see where Jack had been a bad influence on her, like making her more snarky, but she could also see a whole bunch of ways Jack had been a good influence on her. And she couldn’t really see where she’d had an influence on Jack, unless maybe he was saying ‘crud’ some of the time now. The biggest influence she’d had on Jack had been telling him to be nice to Willow, and he’d already been doing that.
Maybe it was just that compared to Jack, everyone was a good influence.
So then Willow gave Alex some hints on how to be a good adjutant to Jack. Where ‘good’ was kind of a subjective word. Alex even giggled a few times. Then they spent the rest of the time talking about important stuff, like helping Lieutenant Lupo find a guy who wouldn’t freak that she could benchpress him and his sofa. And how Charlie O’Neill was like a teenaged Jack, and Hanna really liked him a ton. And how cute Riley and his wife were together. And how much better Sergeant Carlson and his wife were doing since the trip to Toronto, and how Graham’s girlfriend was taking Corinne under her wing. And how Azure Crush was helping the construction guys rebuild the Flynt mansion, because she could carry stuff and lift stuff that would normally take a tractor or a crane and maybe an hour.
Wow. It was hard to imagine the old Jo Baker helping people build a house.
Andrews Air Force Base was still Alex’s least favorite base ever, but they only had to land and fuel up and take on some more passengers. They didn’t have to go fight supervillains or go meet really crabby generals who acted like jerkheads. Willow did make sure that Alex moved up to one of the front seats, because bigshots were going to be getting onboard and Alex was supposed to be a lowly Air Force lieutenant.
They were using the Team One Cessna Citation X, which had eight seats. There were four seats on either side of the aisle, but the row one and row three seats faced backward. Basically that turned the plane into two four-person ‘conversation pits’. But that meant the important generals would be sitting at the back and pretty much choosing who got to sit with them.
When the plane taxied over to the fuel truck, Alex grabbed Jack’s valise off the floor and opened the cabin door so she could lower the stairs and everyone else could come in. Then she stepped down the stairs and stood at attention while she waited for Jack.
Jack was walking with General Baylor and Riley and Action Girl and two people Alex didn’t know, but she figured they were General Baylor’s staff people. One was a blocky-looking brunette woman in a major’s uniform, and the other was a tall, thin guy in a first lieutenant’s uniform. Plus there were two airmen wheeling a small cart that had half a dozen suitcases on it, plus something that looked like a plastic case for an oversized golf bag. Was the general planning on playing golf on this trip?
When Riley took the ‘golf bag’ off the cart and put it in the hold, Alex figured out what it was.
Jack strolled over while the airmen loaded the hold. “Ahh, lieutenant. Do you have my valise and my files?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And my fiancée?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And did you two conspire against me on the flight in?”
“Yes, sir! Also, General Hammond sent a dozen files for you to read and initial and comment on.”
General Baylor walked over and said, “Well, O’Neill, it looks like you’ve trained this one a little too well.”
Jack smiled. “That’s the problem with adjutants and fiancées who can do anything with a computer or telecommunications. You’re completely at their mercy, and if you cause problems, then someone changes your ringtones to the Barbie theme song, puts your ring volume on high, and calls you while you’re in an important meeting.”
General Baylor snorted with amusement. “Could be worse. You could have an adjutant who takes orders from your wife. Speaking of which …” He waved his people over. “Major Kuhlman, Lieutenant Martin, you met Colonel Finn. This is General O’Neill’s adjutant and computer guru.”
Alex gave it her best ‘Annie Farrell’. “Lieutenant Annie Farrell, sir! And I’m only the general’s second best computer hacker. The best computer security expert on the planet is already on board.”
Lieutenant Martin grinned down at her. “What, he has Willow Rosenberg on board?”
She just looked at him. “As a matter of fact …”
Lieutenant Martin suddenly looked like he might wet himself with excitement. “You’re kidding. You have to be kidding! Red Tree Software herself? On our jet?” Alex was pretty sure he would have done a happy dance and totally spazzed out if he hadn’t been standing in front of two generals and a colonel and a major.
Major Kuhlman gave him a tolerant smile, like she was pretty much used to that kind of stuff from him. Alex figured Lieutenant Martin was really good at his job, so a few little things like this got overlooked. Pretty much like Jack. And really, Riley being an Orphan wouldn’t have been ‘overlooked’ if he wasn’t an awesome soldier who willingly put his life on the line regularly.
Then Jack said to General Baylor, “Okay, let’s break protocol so we can get the good seats at the back.” Then he walked into the jet, even though it was supposed to be lower ranks in first and out last. Major Kuhlman looked sympathetically at Alex like ‘you poor kid’.
Alex ended up with the ‘worst’ seat on the plane, in the front row facing backward, right behind the cabin door, looking at Action Girl. Even if that was where she had been planning on sitting. Lieutenant Martin was sitting across the aisle from her, trying hard not to stare at Action Girl or the back of Willow’s head. Major Kuhlman was across the aisle from Hanna. Willow and Riley were sitting in the third row, facing Jack and General Baylor. It sounded like General Baylor was getting into a heated discussion with Riley about Big Twelve and Big Ten sports, while Jack and Willow were just smiling at each other and probably playing footsie when no one was looking. They really were a cute couple.
Hanna said in her normal voice but with a little extra Scandinavian accent, “General O’Neill just revealed that I am not American, and I am the reason the SRI and Terawatt had to intervene originally, when the CIA had a rogue officer.”
Alex replied, “Right. The Marissa Weigler op. The CIA was not cooperative on that one.”
Hanna added, “Apparently, the liaison office has been concerned about a European girl being swept off to America and not allowed to return.”
Alex guessed, “Which would be why you’re in uniform, so they don’t get to find out your other identity.”
Hanna fibbed, “It would be very handy to be Terawatt and just fly over to Europe when you want.”
Lieutenant Martin whispered, “Terawatt can fly that far? And that fast?”
Alex just looked at him and said, “Classified, lieutenant.”
“Oh. Right. Sorry.”
Major Kuhlman smiled. “You’ll have to cut Martin a little slack. He’s our technology and superpowers expert, and he’s … enthusiastic.”
Lieutenant Martin admitted, “What she means is I’m a fanboy. General O’Neill told me I can’t pester Action Girl, or Terawatt if she shows up later in the week, or any Orphans.”
Alex pointed out, “Which means — this time, anyway — Colonel Finn and Ms. Rosenberg. Even though they’re both very nice people.”
Major Kuhlman said, “And it’s not every day you get to meet a real, live Medal of Honor winner.” Then leaned forward and whispered, “And …” Alex could tell from the major’s expression that she thought Riley was really hot.
Alex whispered back, “And ma’am, his wife is like a supermodel. If supermodels became doctors who cared for poor people in Africa.”
Major Kuhlman glanced over at Hanna and murmured, “I could do without meeting Terawatt. My self-esteem about my looks is low enough already.”
Alex wanted to defend herself, but she just said, “She’s nice, ma’am. A lot nicer than I expected. And she doesn’t mind that the general calls her Tera.”
Hanna volunteered, “She lets everyone call her Tera, if they want to. You would like her.”
Major Kuhlman focused on Alex. “And you’re sure Terawatt’s not an Orphan?”
Alex lied, “Definitely not. The general already had enough data on her to cross her off the list as soon as we came up with our profile.”
Lieutenant Martin wondered, “How did you come up with an Orphan profile?”
Alex told him, “We already had most of the Orphans in the country who really wanted to serve their country, thanks to the general. And we’d run into some suspicious characters who had exactly the same profile, and we found enough records on the Breslynn Orphanage and the other five orphanages to figure it all out. Our biggest problem is there are some people out there who have the right profile but may not be Orphans, or may be Orphans but not being evil. Like Khan Noonien Singh in India. When we catch ’em red-handed, like the Umbrella Corporation felons, that makes it all a lot easier.”
Major Kuhlman nodded. “We should talk about some inter-agency cooperation initiatives while we’re in London. We could provide all kinds of logistic and technical support the next time you and your superheroes need to run over to Europe, and that’s on top of what the EUTLO will want to offer.”
Alex nodded, but it still took her a moment to figure out that the EUTLO had to be the E.U. Terawatt Liaison Office. She said, “That sounds good to me, ma’am, but in the long run it’ll be up to the general, and Terawatt herself. As I understand it, General Baylor and Terawatt didn’t exactly hit it off, and he virtually accused her of being a supervillain, so you may have to meet with her and make nice.”
Major Kuhlman tried not to wince. “I … didn’t exactly get a transcript of that meeting, and Lieutenant Colonel Neale was the adjutant in attendance. But I didn’t realize it went that badly.”
Alex suggested, “Talk to Colonel Finn about it. He has an amazing memory, and he can probably quote exactly who said what. I wasn’t there either, but she was probably in a pretty nasty mood, too, since she got attacked by a supervillain in the hall on the way to the meeting even though it was smack in the middle of the base, so you know the badguys had help.” She wasn’t going to mention that the SRI thought it was probably a Collective plot with help from NID agents who didn’t know how badly they were being used.
Major Kuhlman grimaced. “Colonel Neale said something about that, but he also said she looked like she’d just been to the beauty parlor, not in a fight to the death.”
Alex gave her a girl-to-girl look and murmured, “I can imagine what else he said about her.”
Lieutenant Martin leaned over and whispered, “He couldn’t stop talking about her body. Especially the T and the A. And the abs. And the legs. And the lips. But you didn’t hear that from me.”
Eww. Alex sort-of-lied, “It would be great to be prettier, but I don’t think I’d want guys staring at me like that all the time.”
But Alex could tell Major Kuhlman was one of those ‘I would love to be oh so hot and I would dress so every guy would drool on himself when I walked down the street’ types. Or at least she thought she was, since she hadn’t actually experienced guys ogling her like that. Azure Crush was sure like that. Az was probably helping with construction while wearing the tiniest bikini in L.A. And skyscraper heels.
At least Alex was hoping Az was wearing at least a bikini. She could only imagine what Didi would be wearing if Didi had super-strength and invulnerability. Probably just a fig leaf. Maybe only a Band-Aid.
Once the jet leveled off and the co-pilot said they could move around the cabin, Alex ended up first going around and getting people drinks. At least it wasn’t like being a flight attendant and doing all that stuff. It was just getting cans out of the onboard fridge. Soda, carbonated water, fruit juice, and that kind of stuff. She had to bite the inside of her cheek when General Baylor wanted a Pepsi and Major Kuhlman reminded him about his wife’s orders for his diet and made him take a can of fruit juice instead.
Then Alex played Lieutenant Farrell and handed Jack his tablet computer and pulled up a couple of files Willow had showed her. “Sir, you need to read these two first, and send comments to General Hammond for review and distribution.”
Jack pretended to complain, “Ugh, paperwork. It haunts me even up here now. It’s no wonder Hammond loves you.”
“Whatever you say, sir.”
Willow said, “Behave yourself, Jack. Or I’ll tell George you’d like to read a lot more reports, just in case there’s something important in one.”
General Baylor asked, “We have internet access up here?”
Alex told him, “Yes, sir. We have Wifi with a hub on the sat phone, which Ms. Rosenberg set up so we have secure comms with a server inside the DHS. But you can get outside to the internet, if you want. I can show you, or Ms. Rosenberg can if she’d rather do it herself.”
General Baylor smiled at her. “I’ll talk with Ms. Rosenberg, and you can show my staffers.”
“Yes, sir.”
Alex sat back down, and Major Kuhlman whispered, “Just get me connected to the Wifi hub, and I can take it from there. And thanks for the Diet Coke.”
Lieutenant Martin murmured, “Yeah, ditto. And thanks for the Dew. Nobody ever brings Dew for us geeks. It’s why I’ve got a six-pack hidden in my bag.”
Alex explained, “We stocked it for Willow, so we’ve got stuff like that in the fridge. And there’s a stack of sandwiches we’ll break out at your lunchtime.”
Then Alex sat down and did some serious work for a while. Okay, it was reading the next Spanish assignment and then “The Red Badge of Courage” by Stephen Crane. It was totally unlike the stuff she’d read from earlier writers, and it was real. She’d been in real battles, and been shot at, and been hurt, and it just felt like Crane knew what he was talking about. He really understood what it was like to be afraid, and what it was like to go into a fight you didn’t think you could win but you had to go anyway. She needed to read some journal articles about the imagery and the symbolism, and then read that story again.
But it looked like she was working like everyone else. And it was really handy having just a tablet for Jack in the valise, instead of stacks of papers and tons of file folders. She was going to thank Willow a ton for that when they got to the hotel in London.
At lunchtime, she and Lieutenant Martin got the last choices on the sandwiches, so she had two egg salad sandwiches, which weren’t her favorite, but little lieutenants had to let the generals have the roast beef sandwiches and the other good stuff. After she gathered up the lunch trash, she went to the little bathroom and quickly wolfed down the last chicken sandwich and an energy bar.
Jack was asleep before she even got out of the bathroom. Willow rolled her eyes and handed her Jack’s tablet.
* * *
Jack was dreaming. He knew he was dreaming. He recognized the dream. It was Siberia. That first op, back before anyone knew what was out there. The Russians had already lost all their patrols, and a British team had gone in, along with a NATO team. Both went silent. A couple of Chinese teams had infiltrated on the south side of the region, and hadn’t been heard from since. Jack’s team went in the next morning, in a Russian truck, but with their Venom on standby at a secure base. They made better than fifty miles into the ‘dead zone’ where nobody came back from. They didn’t find any sign of the teams that had already gone in, so Jack made sure the Venom and some Russian backup was continuously getting their GPS signal. Finn was good with telecom gear, so Jack wasn’t worried about that part. He also had Gates and Miller and Merriman and Taylor along, so he was prepared. At least, he thought so.
They made camp. Jack wasn’t hearing the normal wildlife noises, and he wasn’t seeing the normal wildlife signs on the ground, so he set up a mod of a ‘Viet Cong protocols’ camp. Around the campfire and the two tents, they laid out a big circle of flammable material. Outside of that went the firelines to trigger all the spare weapons, and then outside of that went the tripwires and boobytraps. They had two Starlight scopes, but both were going wonky because of the cold. That couldn’t be good. And he made everyone hotbunk it. Not a popular decision, but he was edgy.
Merriman and Miller had the watch when Jack heard Merriman’s scream and he woke up. He was out of his sleeping bag and grabbing his weapon before the boobytraps went off and the weapons hanging on the firelines went off. He was out of the tent in time to see Miller shoot a flare into the fire circle and then dive over the flames to get inside it.
The … things outside the ring of fire took his breath away. They weren’t wolves. They looked like someone had taken a huge pack of wolves and sent them off to Dr. Moreau’s wackier brother for a vacation. Some of them were running on all fours. Some of them were on six legs. Some of them were loping forward on front legs like an orangutan’s. Some of them looked worse. Finn was already on the radio calling in the chopper before Jack started putting rounds into the things.
Bullets didn’t do nearly enough damage to the things. Fortunately, they really didn’t like the fire, or Jack’s camp would have been overrun already. Riley notified him that the Venom would be on-site in thirteen minutes. Jack wasn’t sure they had that long. And it wasn’t like they could get to the truck which was just outside the fire circle and was surrounded by more of the things. Jack had to shoot a couple of the things off the hood and roof of the truck, so they couldn’t leap over the fire and rip Jack’s team to pieces.
The fire started to die out in places just as the Venom dived down and dropped a couple of rope ladders. Finn stopped to defend their half of the fire circle, as the other half died away and things started encroaching. Then, once everyone else was in the chopper, Riley emptied his rifle and sprinted at the truck. One steeplechase-worthy leap put his foot on a fender, and he just kept going, in the best mountain goat imitation Jack had ever seen. Finn’s next foot landed on the hood, and then he was on the roof and leaping for the top half of the ladder. He scrambled up just ahead of something with apelike arms and a head more like a tiger than a wolf. Jack let Miller and Gates drag Finn in, while he hit the release and dropped that ladder. They wheeled about and got the hell out of there, to come back the next day with some serious firepower now that they finally knew what they were facing …
Riley looked up from his work when General O’Neill gasped and woke up with a start.
The general took a couple of breaths and then mouthed, “That dream.”
Riley clenched his jaws and thought several extremely bad words. He knew from painful experience which dream it was, and what it meant. He was really glad he’d packed all the gear Harriman suggested he leave behind this time.