Ditto Ditto (22 page)

Operation: Happy Family

Aubrey is working again--she works a lot, okay?  That means it’s just me and Liz for movie night.  There’s yet another strange anime movie playing on the television, the bowl of popcorn is almost gone, and Liz is rooting for some guy that turns into a pig whenever he gets hit by cold water.  Yeah, this is a typical weekend.

“Moooom,” I say, moving closer and giving her my biggest innocent look.

“Whaaaat?” she asks in the same tone.

“I think you and Taurus should make it official.”

“What?” she almost yelps, clearly thrown off guard.

“Like go out in public or work together as partners or something!  It’d be on television EVERYWHERE,” I say.

“No, wait, let’s back up here,” she says.  “WHAT exactly are we making official, anyway?”

“That you’re dating,” I say cheerfully.  “That way all the other girls know he’s taken.  He’s a seriously good looking guy, you know.  I’m surprised there isn’t, like, a line-up of super girls trying to get into Central just to take a chance.”

She gives me a dirty look, one that almost makes me laugh.  Sometimes she’s just TOO easy.  “We’re just friends,” she says stubbornly.  “He can date whoever he wants.”

“Oh?  Then I’ll pass that on to Falconess next time we have a mentorship class,” I say.  “Actually, I’ve got her number and it’s a Friday night, so maybe I should--” I go on, pulling out my phone.  She grabs it before I can tap on the screen.

“NOT Falconess!” she says.

“Mmm… how about Skystep?  She turned out to be okay, after all!”

“ABSOLUTELY NOT,” she yells, holding my phone far away from me.  “She’s insane!”

“Mmm… maybe Jeanie knows someone, then?” I offer.  “She’s been in the fighting game for a while, right?  I bet she’s met lots of super girls!”

She looks like she’s going to crush my phone, I realize a bit too late.  The crunching sound makes me wince.  “Taurus is perfectly fine focusing on his work,” she says, handing me the broken phone.  “Sorry… um, why don’t you go get Nico to fix this for you?” she adds a bit guiltily.

“You killed my phone,” I say, taking the crushed piece of metal.

“I’m sorry,” she repeats.

“You totally OWE me for that, you know--if the sim card is crushed I’ll lose all my selfies.”

“I--”

“In repayment, you have to go out on a date with Taurus!” I announce.

“Over selfies?” she says incredulously.

“I have some really great ones with Trent!” I tell her.  “And Zoe, and Adanna, and--”

“Okay, okay!” she says.  “I’ll do whatever you want!”

“I’ve already got the outfit picked out!” I say excitedly, hopping to my feet and running for her bedroom.  “You’re going out for dinner, by the way.  Taurus has reservations!”

“What? NOW?” she yelps, jumping to her feet and racing past me into her bathroom.  “You could have told me earlier!” she yells through the door.

“That never works!” I call back as I lay out the outfit on her bed and head for the door.  I swing it open, grinning widely at the sight of Taurus standing there in a suit with flowers in his hand.

“Nice job,” he says, bumping fists with me.

“I sacrificed my phone for this, so you’d better make it good,” I tell him, letting him in.

“Are you really okay with me taking your movie night?” he asks.

“Trent said he’d come over,” I say.  “We’re going to watch My Neighbor Totoro!”

“Does he know that?” he asks as Liz comes out, looking amazing.

“Not yet,” I say, standing on tiptoe to close his mouth for him.  It was hanging open.  “Now get going, I’ve got a date to get ready for!” I add, shoving them both out the door.

Coffee Coffee

Ken watches blankly as Emily holds out her coffee cup to Jeanie.  He actually doesn’t know when she got the cup, he’s never actually seen her drink coffee before.  It’s a little worrisome, actually.  Not as worrisome as giving Carla coffee would be, but still enough to give him pause.  “Emily?” he asks.

“Can I get more of the creamer stuff in it?  I can still taste the coffee,” Emily says, looking in the cup with a little frown.

“Of course!” Jeanie says.

“Am I the only one that’s wondering about this?” Ken asks, since Emily hasn’t replied to him yet.

“Nope,” Trent says, but that’s the only word that makes it out around his mouthful of pancake.  Jack grunts, but that’s all anyone gets out of him on pancake day, so Ken ignores it.

“She said she has a deal with God,” Aubrey says, eating much more properly than his boys do.  “Something about staying awake for church?”

“I see...” Ken says, taking a drink of his own coffee and thinking for a long moment.  He watches as Emily gulps the coffee down.  A part of him is almost looking forward to seeing the tiny redhead hyped up on coffee–the other part reminds him that he’s the one that has to do the preaching.  “You ah, realize it doesn’t work like that, don’t you?”

Emily stares at him.  “It doesn’t?”

“Nope.  God doesn’t do deals, He helps you out because He loves you,” he says, “and you try to do right because you love Him.”

“Just because He loves me?” Emily asks.

“That’s right.  That’s why Jesus came, too–because He loves you.”

“So... I don’t have to stay awake through church?”

“Well, we’d appreciate you staying awake–“

”Thank GOD!” she says, putting the coffee down and shoving it away.  “I don’t like that stuff at all,” she adds, making a face, “and I don’t want to be five feet tall for the rest of my life!  Coffee stunts your growth, you know?”

Ken smiles slightly and picks up her cup, finishing it for her.  Waste not, want not.

They head out for church a little while later, along with Summer, Zoe, and Sunny, and drive to the small building where the church now gathers.  The group stumbles out of their cars and head inside, where they head for their various classes.  By the time Ken’s at the pulpit, he’s forgotten about Emily’s “deal with God” entirely.

Then he hears her snoring.  Inwardly he sighs, looking at the little redhead laid out on the front pew.  Maybe he should have told her AFTER church was over.

Coming Soon:

CAPE HIGH

BOOK TEN: SUNNY DAZE

I lift my hand, letting the wind breeze through my fingers as we drive down the road.  Everything except the road is green.  Once in a while you see a herd of cattle, lounging next to small ponds or standing under tall trees.  This is Kansas.  Flat, boring, fields as far as the eye can see.  I glance over at my mom, watching her sing along with that CD she’s constantly listening to--this folk singer lady.  She’s beautiful.  No, not the folk singer--my mom.  I still find it hard to believe we got her back.

I guess I should introduce myself, huh?  The name is Sunny Rosenthorn, I’m a fifteen year old super that goes to Cape High.  My dad’s the principal.  His name is Nico, he’s a technopath like my twin sister, Zoe.  I take after mom--she’s an elementalist that specializes in plants.  Her name is Summer, but the world knows her as Lady Rose.  For almost two years she was missing--kidnapped by a very dangerous woman, but we got her back.  We also got our father, who we’d never met because he was stuck in the Cape Cells.  So now that I’ve done the whole little recap thing, I should probably tell you why we’re driving through Kansas.

Ever since Mom recovered from her kidnapping she’s been dragging me out on the weekends to the farms in the area.  We help with the planting, with the growing, even help with animals, although neither of us have animal powers.  She can’t fly, so she bullied Dad into giving us his old Firebird--after he made it Eco-friendly, and gave it a better stereo system.  We have access to all the music on the internet and yet she still keeps listening to this CD over and over again.

“Where are we going today?” I ask her.  She gives me a brilliant smile, as if she can’t wait to be up to our knees in whatever dirty job she’s got planned.

“There’s a small farm near Arlington,” she says cheerfully.  “They emailed me asking for help with their corn crop--they think it’s going to be a long, cold winter this year.”

“Okay,” I say, leaning back as far as I can in my chair and closing my eyes.  Arlington’s far enough away that I can take a nap.

“Honey, no sleeping, we have something important to discuss,” she says. 

“Yeah?  What?” I ask, reluctantly opening my eyes again.

“Well, Pan called last night--he said you were planning on joining the boys for their summer camp?” she says in a questioning tone.  “Honey, I know your father’s an ex super villain, but I can’t say--”

“I’m not doing it to become a super villain,” I say before she can jump to some crazy conclusion.  “I… I want to know more about Adanna,” I finally admit, feeling extremely stupid.  “And she’s hard to get some stuff out of--a lot of stuff, really, so I figure if I get a bit of training like she got, from her dad, maybe… maybe I can see where she’s coming from better.”

She hesitates, which surprises me.  I figured she would encourage me, or something, because I’m trying so hard.  She looks over at me before facing the street again.  “Honey… don’t you think you’re a bit… young to be this serious?” she asks quietly.  “Relationships don’t always work out--”

“I know,” I say, turning to stare out the window again.  “But they definitely won’t work if you don’t put in some effort, right?  I mean, Dad’s practically bending over backwards for you, right?  He offered you a different car, he offered to fly us both, he even made sure this has a fully equipped security system when you insisted on us doing this alone--”

“That’s different,” she says.

“How is it different?” I ask her.

“Your dad and I--we’re--” she lets out a sigh, reaching out a hand and ruffling my hair.  “I just don’t want to see you hurt,” she tells me.  “I like Adanna a lot, Sunny, but you’re both really young.”

“Yeah?  What about Max and Zoe?” I ask.  “You don’t seem to be panicking over those two!”

“You’re right,” she says, letting out another sigh.  “I won’t get involved--I’ll just support you from the side, as always.”

“Thanks,” I say dryly, feeling a bit irritated.  “Do you think Max and Zoe are too young?” I ask, unable to help myself.

“A little,” she admits.  “Don’t tell your sister that, though, she questions herself about that sort of thing all the time.  I think Max is good for her, actually.”

“And you don’t think Adanna is good for me?” I demand.

“She could be--but without communication a relationship will wither, Sunny,” she says seriously.  “You can see how well it went for your father and me when we didn’t communicate properly--he wound up in the Cape Cells and I wound up raising twins on my own.”

“Okay, you’ve got a point,” I mutter, the one to sigh this time.  “I’m working on it.  Can we talk about something else?” I demand.  “Like when you and Dad are going to make it official?”

“Make it--like--like a wedding?”

“You’ve got two fifteen year old kids and are living together, Mom,” I say bluntly.

“We have separate rooms!” she protests.

“Mmhmm,” I say.

“We’re just sharing--” she lets out a laugh.  “I see exactly what you’re doing.  Fine.  Relationship talk is over for the day.”

I lean forward, tapping on the stereo a few times and bringing up something a lot faster paced.  “If I can’t sleep, don’t play music that makes me sleepy,” I tell her.

“There’s nothing wrong with my music!”

“I can fall asleep anywhere, Mom, but that would make ANYONE snore..”

“You should be growing out of that stage,” she says thoughtfully.  “Has your father checked your stats lately?”

“Nope.”

“Why don’t we do that when we get home?”

“Sure, why not?”

***

“So what we’ve got is Kunnins--who somehow wound up with the Tank kid down in Texas,” Nico starts out, his feet kicked up on his table just to annoy Mastermental.  It’s bad enough that he forced Double M all the way out to the school campus, he thinks in amusement, but to be disrespectful on top of it!  Man he loves his job.  “He kidnapped a scientist--Ginger Hanks, who’s a fully trained geneticist, and was using her twin sons as leverage.  We know he’s experimented on a dog, caused Star Born to experiment on herself, and has a past of experimenting on norms, as well.  This is too much like that episode with Star Born for my tastes,” he drawls.

“We also know he’s working with Shadowman,” Mastermental points out.

“Which brings in a touch of Collector, whoop-de-freaking-do,” Nico drawls.  “At least he doesn’t have a mentally slow version of my old man this go round.  Just the guy with the ability to kill an S-class tank if he’s sneaky enough.”

“Rather than complaining about dealing with the same situation as before, don’t you think you should figure out how to clean it up faster this time around?” Double M says patiently.

“That’s just it,” Nico says, “this can’t be the same situation as before, we’re dealing with two different people.  Something is going to change, or mess up--it’s natural.  We need to look at the bigger picture...  We know that one of his past goals was to replace or kill off supers, right?  Does he still have that goal?  And if he does, who would he go after first?”  He turns, looking at Mastermental silently for a long moment.

“You do realize I can read your mind,” Double M says.  “It takes away from the dramatic pause thing you’re trying to do--and I’m not sure you’re right.  While I do see the logic of taking me out first from your point of view, you need to remember that he’s living in the south.  If he’s going to take out one of the leaders, it would be Century, first.”

“But I really doubt Century would appreciate us thinking he could be taken out by a norm,” Nico says, willingly going with that line of thought.

“Of course he wouldn’t,” Double M agrees, sitting down on one of the long science tables and crossing his legs.  “Which is why we won’t mention it to him--we need something he won’t notice…”

“There’s one option,” Nico says thoughtfully, “of course, it would mean trusting some of my kids.”

“What’s that?”

“Panther is taking my villains for a week long camping trip.  Of course we can’t assume that Kunnins is ready to attack now, but we can find out if he’s sniffing around.  Panther and Max are well-versed in seeing plots like that--and if nothing comes of it, they’ll still have their special training.”

“And Jack and Ace?” Double M asks.  “I noticed you didn’t include them in your well-versed list.”

“Because Jack hasn’t plotted a thing in his life and Ace is still too new.”

“Are they the only ones going?”

“No.  Sunny’s going, too,” Nico says.  There’s a long moment of silence as the two look at each other.  Nico lets a little grin pull at his lips.  “He’ll be just as oblivious as the other two, I’m sure.”

“Have you called your father yet?” Double M asks, changing the subject.

“I’m still trying to talk Liz into being there when it happens,” Nico admits.

“And why is that?”

“I’m hoping to distract him with Mom.”