CeeCee beamed and grabbed Hope’s hand. “Sure thing! We’ll order an onion loaf for the table.”
“What’s an onion loaf?”
I rolled my eyes at their retreating backs. “Hi, Mom. What’s up? Did I forget something at home?”
“Nicki, ai nako, anak! Why are you not answering Tita Maria’s texts, huh?”
I quickly glanced down at my phone screen. Ten messages total, seven from Tita Maria, and three from mom. Oops. “I was driving, Mom. You know I don’t have a hands-free for my phone.”
“Whatever, Nicki. No excuse! There is a crisis! What type of ate are you, that you can’t even pick up your phone when there’s an emergency?”
I grimaced. If mom was invoking my status as “ate” (a Tagalog term that strictly speaking means “older sister” but really means “older female relative of any kind”) things were about to get real. “Which cousin is it this time? Is it Isabella? Did she get another piercing? Where is it this time?
“Aiyah, Nicki, don’t joke! It’s Ollie! He’s all over the news, bah! Something about that silly Neptune statue earlier today. It’s on the Facebook and the Twitter, Tita Maria says!”
“What do you mean, it’s all over Facebook?”
“I don’t know, Nicki, I can’t get to my, my, my, thing. You set it up, daddy messed up our tablet again. Check your text messages, OK, Tita Maria sent you all this.”
I barely stifled a frustrated scream. “Yes, Mom, OK, OK! I’ll check them.”
“And what time you gonna be home, huh? It’s not good for three girls to be out so late alone, with no boyfriends. Some man might follow you home, hurt you or something.”
“Mom, I can literally electrify any man who touches me, CeeCee can melt their brains with a single note, and Hope Corrigan is a frickin’ indestructible, flying human tank. I think we’ll be fine.”
“Don’t take that tone with me! I’m your mother! I’m just worried about you!”
I grit my teeth. “Yes. Yes. Sorry, Mom. I’ll get right on this Ollie situation. Bye.”
Pressing the end button on my phone before my mother could launch into a lecture about healthy eating, (so not a possibility at Frankie’s) I slid my finger over to my texts and groaned.
Tita Maria, who was decidedly more tech-savvy than either of my parents (she was less an auntie, and more like a distant, slightly elder cousin), had sent me five different news article links that all embedded the same video. I hit play to be greeted by the sight of my kid cousin Ollie in cheesy, movie-villain half-lighting, voice enhanced by many, many echo-y filters. And a fedora. He was wearing an actual fedora. I could only pray it was ironic.
“I AM THE FUTURE.” Another Ollie appeared on screen, facing the first Ollie.
“I AM HERE TO FREE YOU FROM THE TREACHEROUS SLAVERY OF THE PAST.” Both Ollies turned to face forward and spoke in unison.
“I CLAIM CREATOR STATUS FOR THE AVANTE-GARDE PERFORMANCE ART PIECE, ‘NEPTUNE AWAKENZ (GAIA WEEPZ)’”
(Yes, he pronounced the parentheses. I almost smacked my smartphone screen).
“BE TREPIDATIOUS, MY DOPED UP DENIZENS OF DEGRADATION! MY THOUGHT CAMPAIGN TO ENLIGHTEN YOU MINDLESS DRONES OF WESTERN SOCIETY HAS JUST BEGUN! JOIN ME FOR MY INTERACTIVE AUTOMATON LASER RECREATION OF THE BATTLE OF THE MONITOR AND THE MERRIMACK! IT…IS...A METAPHOR!”
Seriously? How many SAT words can he fit into a single Vine?
“Information for the event is listed in the box below, and don’t forget to like, favorite, and subscribe!” he continued on the video. “And ladies,” he said smirking slyly at the camera, actually tipping his fedora at audience. “My information’s down there too. HMU, kk?”
I growled, dropped my phone into my purse and proceeded to bang my head against my car door. “I am going to kill him!” I growled. “No, I’m going to disable his Facebook and crush his laptop between my shark jaws.”
“Now that I’d pay to see,” CeeCee called out cheerfully from the restaurant doorway. “Bee Tee Dubs, our table’s ready.”
“Be right there,” I sighed, “Just let me make one more call.” I waited until CeeCee went back inside before I pulled out my phone and dialed Ollie. It went straight to voicemail.
“Yo, this is Ollie’s phone. I’m probably awakening the proletariat to my artistic vision’s cause for social justice. Leave a message at the beep, or text it, cos I’m lightning fast with the emojis, ladies.”
“Ollie, you little shit,” I hissed into my phone, glancing up to make sure nobody was eavesdropping. “You are so, so very dead. I am so not going to be able to cover your ass this time. Call me, you little twerp. Before I have to convince the General that vaporizing your pretentious little ass is overkill.”
Three pulled pork platters, three orders of coleslaw, and five St. George’s Hard Brewed Lemonade’s later, Hope was giving CeeCee and me a knowing grin. Well, I was getting the knowing grin. At that point, Ceecee was lost in her own barbecue-and-beer fueled world, dancing to the jukebox in the corner.
“You’re kidding me,” I growled over the rim of my (sixth) hard lemonade. “What are you, a cyborg?”
Hope shrugged. “Alcohol’s a poison—my body fights it off. I thought you had a super-metabolism?”
I glared at her. “I’m also Asian. Alcohol will fade on me much faster than the normal person, but it hits me twice as fast.”
“HEY GUYS! WE SHOULD TOTALLY GO NEXT DOOR AND GET JELLO SHOTS!”
I leaned back against the booth and sighed. “CeeCee, I’m DD for tonight. You know even my mighty morphin’ body has limits. Not to mention, I need to—well, I’ve got a family thing.” I snuck a look at my phone again. Ollie hadn’t called, or even texted back.
“Awwww man, not a family thing!” CeeCee replied in a totally obnoxious, totally drunk sort of way. “Come on, Nicki! I called Missy. She’s at some protest or something but she’ll be done in time to pick us up!”
“I have my car, CeeCee. And yes, a family thing. You know my mom; she’s not gonna let me off the hook for this. And besides, Missy—”
“Who’s Missy? And what family thing?” Hope, completely unfairly, was not even a little drunk.
“Missy is CeeCee’s on-again-off-again girlfriend. She’s a wonderfully non-judgmental straight-edge,” I explained, side-stepping the family question. I wasn’t sure I was ready for Hope to know about my crazy family issues yet. CeeCee knew Ollie already, but CeeCee was part of my team. I had no idea how Hope would react to my cousin Ollie’s megalomaniacal, evil-Verne-genius, teenage horndog status.
“She’s not my GIRLFRIEND,” CeeCee slurred happily, sloppily draping herself over the table. “She’s my enlightened polyamorous partner.”
“Right, sorry. What CeeCee said. And by the way,” I glared at her, “I am NOT dealing with my car getting towed.”
CeeCee grinned. “No big; call HQ. They’ll totally take care of it for you.”
“Oh hell no,” I replied,“You know the General would go ballistic. “
Besides, I wanted to avoid HQ for a little bit. The General was probably going to find out about Ollie sooner rather than later; I just didn’t want to be there when he did. Between losing my job and pissing off an army of rabidly over-protective aunties, I would take the aunties…but only if I was forced to make that choice.
I still had a slim hope that Ollie would turn himself in, in a weird attempt to look more badass by getting arrested. A very slim hope, fueled by the knowledge that Ollie was obsessed with looking like a badass for the ladies.
“You know,” Hope interjected helpfully, “I could always airlift it back to your house and be right back.”
“WHAT?” I yelped. “Are you serious? I thought you didn’t want to even GO to karaoke. And isn’t there some kind of rule against that?”
“Against what? Utilizing my own powers to ensure the safety and wellbeing of my friends? Gosh, no. And also,” she added, with an innocent look, “I’m sort of curious as to what the limit of your metabolism is. What exa
ctly is in a jello shot?”
“You’ve never had a jello shot?”
“Nope,” Hope replied, “I just turned twenty-one a couple of weeks ago, and I was out of town. Before that, well, let’s just say I had a bad childhood experience with liquor that turned me off drinking for a while. After—” She closed her mouth on whatever she’d been about to say and shrugged. “There didn’t seem to be much point.”
CeeCee nodded sagely, in the exceedingly smug way only a very drunk person can nod. “I’ve been there, girlfriend. One time, my bestie and I drank an entire bottle of Hypnotiq and decided to see if my sound waves could, like, make us fly.”
I raised a judgmental eyebrow. “I’ve never heard this story.”
She waved a hand airily. “Whatever, it was a long time ago, like, in the careless youth of high school.”
“You’re just a junior in college, CeeCee.”
CeeCee waved her hands again, this time so flamboyantly, it looked like she was conducting an orchestra. “WHATEVER! The point is, the only way to get over an experience like that is to drink yourself under the table.”
I sighed, my resolve slowly diminishing. Honestly, the longer I stayed out, the more likely the General and all his DSA minions would be the ones to drag Ollie in. I really wasn’t that eager to go home and deal with my family.
I could probably tell my mother that I was obligated to take Astra out and entertain her, as part of my job. It’s not like she could fuss at me in front of a couple of white girls without “losing face.” My mother could never be what you called “taciturn,” or “soft-spoken,” but when it came to airing out family grievances in front of non-family, she tended to keep it on the DL.
“Fine,” I sighed again, taking my cellphone out and sending a brief text to my mother. “But you only get ONE SONG tonight, CeeCee. Better make it count.”
Five Hours Later
“WHAT’S CEECEE’S SONG COUNT?” Hope screamed in my ear over the drunken din inside the Salty Mermaid.
“I HAVE NO IDEA. SIX MAYBE?” I yelled back. “MORE JELLO SHOTS?” I offered her a fluorescent gelatin shooter that glowed highlighter yellow in the black lights of the bar.
She grimaced. “I GOTTA CONFESS—I’M REALLY NOT THAT MUCH OF A FAN OF JELLO.”
I shrugged, slid a finger around the inside edge to dislodge the alcoholic gelatin, and downed the shot. “MORE FOR ME!”
“HOW MANY OF THOSE HAVE YOU HAD?” she yelled.
“WHY DOES IT MATTER?”
“BECAUSE I’M PRETTY SURE ANY OF THE LIMITS YOU SET ON THE NIGHT HAVE BEEN SMASHED.”
“SMASHING LIMITS IS TOTALLY FEMINIST!” an oddly melodious shriek floated into our ears. I looked to my right. CeeCee had just exited the stage, still holding on to her microphone. “ALSO BY THE WAY,” CeeCee continued, flicking a button on her wrist watch. The ambient noise of the bar was instantly muffled. “Cone of silence, much?”
My jaw dropped, which was unfortunate because I still had some yellow jello in it. CeeCee calmly closed my mouth for me. I swallowed gratefully, then stared some more. “What the hell, CeeCee?”
“Eh, the Verne-types at DSA headquarters who gave me my megaphone also gave me this thing, just in case my powers malfunction in some way? It’ll contain my sound waves, you know? Just in case I, like, accidentally cause a sound apocalypse or whatever.”
“Pause,” Hope said, holding up a completely sober, steady hand (so, so unfair). “You could potentially cause a sound apocalypse?!”
CeeCee shrugged tipsily. “Eh, nobody really knows? I totally have this weird psychic ability with my voice where, like, everybody turns into my drooling minion. And also sometimes my higher notes give people totally hinky physical reactions? Like, sometimes people’s ears bleed or whatever. It’s hard to explain and PS: I’m sort of drunk right now. Nicki can explain better.”
Hope slowly turned to me, an expectant look of horror on her face.
“Ummm…” Finding scientifically accurate words to describe CeeCee’s weird power-set was hard….especially with this much alcoholic gelatin in my system. “Her voice vibrates at an as-yet-unknown frequency that seems to hypnotize people into doing whatever she says. But the frequency sometimes pyzo—physi—phi—it can cause ruptured blood vessels. But she has yet to target anybody unintentionally. Even when drunk.”
Hope cocked her head to the side again, as if somebody was whispering into her ear. “My sources say CeeCee hasn’t really been tested all that much in extreme circumstances, though?”
“Wait, what sources?” I asked, confused. “I mean sure, that’s true, because it’s not like CeeCee’s been an official cape for all that long. She’s had some sort of provisional internship with Camp Peary, but how would you even know that?”
“Ummm…” An awkward blush flooded her cheeks. “I got briefed…by…um…The General?”
“Wait, when?” I asked, suddenly suspicious. “I thought you just happened to be on the beach when Neptune hit. You didn’t even know who the General was.”
“Um, I was. On the beach, I mean. I talked to the General after. I just, um, got back from a trip…thing. Had to fly out to debrief in Washington.”
“…What thing?” CeeCee asked, curiously. “Where’d you go?”
“Um…nowhere, really. Hope’s blush deepened. “It was nothing.”
“You just said it was a thing.” I pointed out, drunkenly fixating on what she had just said. “How can it be nothing if it was a thing?”
“Jeez, you guys, you’re literally being too literary.” CeeCee snarked. “If I wanted to experiment with a modern retelling of Odysseus versus the Cyclops, I wouldn’t have dropped English 210. Bored bad, singing better. COME ON!” She yelped, bouncing like an extremely excited puppy. Switching off the cone of silence, she danced towards the stage.
“YES!” Hope exclaimed awkwardly, “KARAOKE SEEMS LIKE A GREAT IDEA.”
“…Oooookay….?” I replied. “DIDN’T YOU JUST SAY—”
“THIS WILL BE SO MUCH FUN!” She yelled, dragging me across the bar and up the stage steps after CeeCee, a nervous, manic smile on her face. “I’VE NEVER DONE KARAOKE IN A BAR BEFORE.”
“Cool story bro,” CeeCee drawled sarcastically. The sound of the bar patrons diminished slightly as we got to center stage. “Just read the words on the screen and try not to sound super preppy, ‘kay?”
“Wait, what?” Hope shrieked. “You picked a song already? What—“
“Oh, crap,” I groaned, “CeeCee, you didn’t—not—“
A thumping bass beat rumbled through the bar, syncopated sirens immediately following. “Oh shit,” I glared up at the stage. “This is so not appro—“
“What song is this?” Hope whispered in a panic. “I don’t listen to rap, I don’t really—”
A high snare rhythm started to intersperse with the sirens. “Oh girl,” I said, covering Hope’s mic with my palm. “Pray to whatever god you worship that this doesn’t end up on Viewtube.”
“What do you mean?”
CeeCee pushed me away from Hope and shoved the mic in her face. “THAT’S YOUR CUE, SISTER-FRIEND!” she shouted, with admittedly, just a hint of her super-powered persuasion.
“Uhh…Uhh,” Hope stared at the karaoke screen like a deer in the headlights. I cringed, steeling myself against embarrassment as she took a deep breath and belted out “I don’t wanna say/Fuck the authority—” and dropped her mic with a loud thud-crackle to clap her hands over her mouth, eyes wide with shock.
“Holy crap,” I scream-whispered at Cee, over the thrumming beat of MC Shadez of Gray’s villain rap track, WillFully Blind. “We just got Astra to drop the F-bomb. Suggestions?”
She snickered gleefully. “The show must go on.” Gloriously unconcerned, she grabbed up Hope’s mic and started to rap. “—But What happens when/the big bad kills/And the Good Guys’ skills/Include charging bills/Instead of cleaning up spills/And the media wants thrills/From Beverly Hills…”
Hope stared at u
s, horrified. “I just cursed on stage!” she hissed at me through trembling fingers. “You just made me curse on stage!”
I squirmed. “Yeah, ummm…sorry about that,” I whispered back. “This is sort of CeeCee’s signature song.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Serious as a Catholic Auntie during Holy Week,” I sighed. “But also, while she’s rapping with that weird hypno-voice of hers, nobody’s gonna notice us exiting the stage. C’mon.” I grabbed her hand and slowly walked backwards, angling towards the shadowy steps at the left of the stage. Hope followed me stiffly, one hand still clapped over her mouth.
With CeeCee hypnotizing the whole bar, we managed to slide outside, unnoticed by any of the other patrons.
“I can’t believe this,” She moaned, slumping against the alley wall. “Quin is going to kill me.”
“Wait, ‘Quin’? You—you mean The Harlequin?” I sputtered.
“Yeah. She manages the PR for the Sentinels and the Young Sentinels,” she explained. “And I’ve just performed the biggest Charlie Foxtrot imaginable.”
“Oh, come on,” I scoffed. “It can’t be that bad.”
“I’m Astra,” Hope retorted, sounding like she was about to cry. She slid down the wall and sat on the sidewalk, hugging her legs. “My image is all about being the all-American, sweet innocent girl next door. I mean, people didn’t even believe I was legally an adult until I got outed.”
A guilty, sinking feeling flooded my stomach. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “CeeCee probably just thought it was a harmless prank—”
A loud buzzing interrupted my apology. I grabbed my bag. “I’m sorry—I—“
She waved her hand at me graciously, yet somehow sarcastically, as if to say No, no, please do stop your awkward yet completely necessary apology to answer a frivolous text instead of figuring out how to fix the nuclear bomb you just dropped on my career. I don’t mind.
I glared at her. “It’s my work phone,” I explained defensively. “It could be import—oh, mother of pearl jam on FRENCH TOAST, are you serious?”
Wearing the Cape 6: Team-Ups and Crossovers Page 39