Temporary? Insanity

S.U.P.E.R.

“Most teenage girls would scream if they woke to find a ninja assassin in their bedroom. Alexandra just grinned. Finally, someone thought she was important enough to kill.”

When super-power wielding ninjas infiltrate the Earhart family’s Manhattan condo, fifteen-year-old secret agent Alexandra Earhart is thrilled by the challenge. But the incident sets off a string of events that includes being blackmailed by her employer, a powerful agency which regulates the world’s superheroes. Though she’s used to living a life of mystery, the level of confusion in Alexandra’s life starts to seriously tick her off. Plus, she’s scared. And Alexandra? Does not do scared.

Alexandra’s annoyance ratchets up several degrees when The Agency banishes her family to small-town Colorado and orders her to befriend local dork (and closet superhero), Quinn Underhill. But her belief that Quinn is worse than useless soon suffers a serious setback. Together, they battle brainwashed teenage superheroes, a mentally unstable super-villain, and their intense (but wavering) dislike for each other. They must unravel the mystery of what The Agency really wants from Alexandra (and who the real bad guys are) before it discovers Quinn’s secret or makes good on its threat to detonate the neural chip in her dad’s brain.

Chapter One Excerpt: Ninjas and Knives

Most teenage girls would scream if they woke up to find a ninja assassin in their bedroom. Alexandra just grinned. Finally, someone thought she was important enough to kill.

Judging by the ninja’s heavy footsteps, he had more muscle than skill, and he nearly tripped over her Grade Nine math textbook as he hunched over and edged closer to her bed. Despite the fact he wore the traditional black garb, there was no way this fumble-footed guy was the real deal. What a shame. She could use a challenge.

Manhattan’s city lights poured through her windows and reflected off the small knife clutched in his hand. She barely held in a laugh. Did he really think that would be enough to take her down?

Alexandra slowly drew her legs up into a crouching position, rolled onto her feet, and leapt off the bed. The springiness of the mattress gave her just enough lift to come down on top of his stooped-over shoulders, and one swift chop to his elbow joint sent his knife skittering uselessly under the bed. She whipped off his hood and dropped to the floor behind him with a soft thump, throwing the scrap of black fabric across the room. She had him now.

But then the ninja began to glow, his dark clothing eerily backlit by the green light pulsating beneath his skin. He turned to face her, smiling like a jack-o-lantern.

Crap. The guy had status.

“The knife was a decoy, little girl. Just to get you close. You’re coming with me.”

His clothing came alive with the fire of his power. Green flames licked down his arms and gathered in the palms of his hands. She threw herself into a roll but it was too late; one of the flames caught hold of the sleeve of her nightshirt. Alexandra smacked at it, but the fire spread, engulfing her in a cool-burning nimbus of sickly green. The crackle of the flames buzzed in her ears like a thousand starving mosquitoes.

A Binder. She couldn’t believe they’d sent a stinking Binder after her. Crappity-crap-crap-crap. She had to knock him out fast, before he took control.

“Sorry, but you’re not really my type. I don’t like a guy who can’t keep his hands to himself.”

She hurled herself at him but the Binder raised his hands and began wiggling his fingers, still smiling that creepy smile. Alexandra froze in midair and lifted higher off the ground. Her muscles began twitching. Soon she danced like a manic tap dancer, her feet sending flashes of green light across the slick wood of her bedroom floor. Alexandra scowled. She hated tap dancing.

The Binder laughed as he whipped his fingers about and made her dance at a more frantic pace. She quickly scanned the room while he was distracted. She was not spending the rest of her life as this sicko’s human puppet. There had to be something nearby that she could use as a weapon.

Before Alexandra could figure out how to access the nun-chucks hidden behind her headboard, the room flooded with light, and a dark figure sailed through the doorframe. He tackled the Binder and immobilized him with a few blows, their short but brutal battle illuminated by the Binder’s green glow.

Alexandra paused for a moment to admire her rescuer’s technique and then let out a gasp when she crashed to the floor. The Binder’s light extinguished as he lost consciousness and she bounced up onto her feet to glare at the bathrobe-clad figure standing over him.

“I was handling it, Dad.”

He gave her a shaky smile. “Can’t a father help out his little girl without getting scowled at? Kids these days. So independent.” He wobbled a little and nearly fell over.

“Dad?” Alexandra hesitantly reached out to him. She’d never seen him so shaken up.

He ignored her outstretched hand and grabbed hold of the bed to steady himself. “Later, honey. We’re executing Option Epsilon. Now.”

Alexandra’s hand dropped to her side. “You have got to be kidding me.”

He might as well have told her that he’d taken up the accordion and was joining a traveling polka band, that’s how surprised she was. Epsilon. E for Escape.

“Because of one stupid Binder dressed up like a ninja? That’s ridiculous. I totally had him where I wanted him.” More or less, anyway. Despite the tap dancing.

“No,” Dad replied. “Because of ten guys dressed up like ninjas, three of them with status. They even had a level two Morpher. He nearly got Mom. She’s doing her yoga routine on the bathroom floor right now, trying to fight off a panic attack.” He rubbed a hand through his mop of dark hair, looking a little freaked. And Dad was not the freaking out type. “This one,” he kicked at the guy on the floor, “got past me somehow.”

Alexandra couldn’t believe Dad wanted to run away. It was beyond mental. “But Epsilon? Seriously? You’re totally overreacting. We’ve been attacked before. It’s part of the job.”

She had to admit, if only to herself, that a third level Binder was a pretty big deal. But Epsilon meant leaving everything behind. They were safe now. Dad just had to see that.

“It’s my fault we didn’t leave sooner.” Dad tore her top sheet into thin strips, lashing the unconscious binder to the bed frame. Was he even listening to her?

“The Agency warned me that this could happen,” he continued. There, just there. He’d flinched away from making eye contact with her! “Let’s just say that our cover has been compromised.”

“Let’s just say? Dad, this isn’t like you. What’s going on?”

“Later, honey,” he replied. “Later.”

She swallowed a growl. Later. His new favorite word.

***

Alexandra’s eye twitched. Stupid eye. As if she needed it to tell her that she was tired and stressed. Life was messed up enough without her looking like one of the psychos she and Dad were always tracking down.

She caught herself glaring out the window of their rented sedan and made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat. What was she? The brooding main character from a corny made-for-TV movie? Outside, Colorado whizzed past, all mountains and trees and boredom.

This whole situation was insane. Mom kept going on about how they were safe now. Safe. Right. After all, it had been days since anyone tried to kill them. And now they were on their way to their new home in Nowhereville, their aliases fitting as well as a glove fits a walrus. She shifted her glare to her parents. It was, of course, all their fault.

Mom and Dad talked a lot about how they were in this together. As if running away from a bunch of lunatics is quality family time or something. There hadn’t been any lovey-dovey togetherness when Dad decided to give up his job at the training facility to become a field agent. They hadn’t consulted her, but guess who had to deal with the consequences when things went sour? Sure, Mom and Dad gave up their old life too. But they were old. It wasn’t like they had much of a life to give up anyway.

She killed the glare and slouched down in her seat, trying to get her parents out of her line of vision. Their new identities were creeping her out. It was as if one of those reality makeover shows had swallowed Mom and Dad up and then spat out two barely-recognizable strangers. Dad had ditched his Dockers and golf shirts in favor of a sleek leather jacket that made him look like a gangster. And Mom was dressed like the cover model for a women’s magazine, decked out in stylish jeans and a funky silk blouse. They were so . . . so glam.

Creepy didn’t begin to cover it.

Alexandra clutched her phone as if it were a flotation device in an increasingly choppy ocean. She felt like she was seconds away from drowning, and everyone around her kept pretending they were on dry land.

Well, at least she’d been allowed to keep one thing from before all this insanity began, even if The Agency had insisted on scouring it for bugs before letting her take it. She stabbed at the screen of the phone and brought up her calendar. It was full of events from her old life: assignments due, study dates, her fourteenth birthday party next month. More screen-stabbing sent her old life spiralling off into the trash. As if it were that easy. Delete old life, insert new one.

“You’re going to go blind if you keep staring at that itty-bitty screen, Alexandra,” Mom said.

“Shouldn’t you be calling me Lexi now?” Alexandra grimaced a little at the snarky edge to her voice. Great. Soon they’d be wishing they’d taken Agent Chang’s advice to leave their ‘troubled teen’ with Grandma. Apparently it would be easier for The Agency to hide their family from enemy agents if they split up. Alexandra was grudgingly grateful to Dad for putting the kibosh on that crazy plan.

“We’re lucky The Agency let you keep your name at all,” Mom replied. “Having to go by a nickname isn’t so bad. You could have been called—”

“No,” Alexandra interrupted. “Don’t even go there. Whatever gag-worthy name you’re going to suggest will probably be the name of my new BFF.”

Mom and Dad laughed, but Alexandra caught a vague hint of panic hidden in the sound. They’d seemed so calm the last few days, despite ducking half-crazed ninjas wherever they went. After all that, why did they sound scared now?

Dad’s brown eyes filled the rear-view mirror and he waggled his bushy dark eyebrows at her. It made him look like a Muppet. “We need to fill out the paperwork for your new school tonight, so what’s it going to be? Lexi? Zandra? Ally? Alexa?”

“What about Lex?” Mom asked.

“Isn’t that the name of a super-villain?” There was a slight edge to Dad’s voice. “Lex Luthor—the Scummer who had it in for Superman. That’d be a bit . . . strange, considering.”

“Sure, Mom. And how about we pair that up with our real last name? Lex Earhart. Comic book super-villain meets mysteriously missing female aviator. Nice. And so appropriate given the circumstances.”

“I don’t know,” Dad replied. “It’s got . . . what’s it called? You know . . . starts with a ‘p’. Pizzazz!”

Mom laughed and turned in her seat to look at Alexandra. Something about the light pouring through the sunroof made her look older than forty-five. Her thick, dark hair had occasional strands of grey and fell like a curtain across half of her pale, lightly freckled face. A network of fine wrinkles crowded around each of her greyish-blue eyes, and Alexandra winced a little. She hated seeing herself plus thirty years every time she looked at Mom.

“Can you believe The Agency used to let him train new recruits?” Mom asked with a laugh.

Some of Alexandra’s grouchy mood slipped away, a smile stretching her cheeks for the first time in days.

“Hey!” Dad protested.

“Come on Dad, you’re not exactly the most articulate guy on the face of planet Earth.” There were five-year-olds with smoother verbal skills than Dad. If it weren’t for his other talents, The Agency would never have recruited him in the first place.

“Well, no. I mean, well, there’s always the time I . . . but I guess that was more of a. . . huh . . . wow.” He paused and flashed Alexandra a grin through the mirror. “You might have a point.”

“You can still take a guy out with just your thumb.” Mom patted him on the knee. “That’s a useful life skill.”

“Assuming we have a life left,” Dad replied quietly.

And just like that, reality came crashing down again. Dad saw something out in the field. Something that enemy agents would kill to keep quiet. The Agency could protect them, but things would never be the same ever again.

News alert: understatement of the year discovered.

Alexandra shifted uncomfortably when she heard the mournful tone in Dad’s voice. It made it harder to be mad at him, and she needed to be mad at him. Okay, so it was The Agency who’d sent them off into what they called “protective custody,” but it was easier to blame Dad. The Agency was a faceless organization, and when someone doesn’t have a face, it’s hard to imagine kicking it in. Besides, Dad was the one refusing to tell her why.

The feeling of betrayal crashed down on her again and she struggled to find a way to break free. “Look, let’s feel sorry for ourselves later, okay? I need to pee.”

Mom shuddered. She was such a germaphobe. Referring to bodily functions was a sure way to gross her out. Dad slowed the car and switched lanes. “All right, there’s a campground up ahead here. But be quick. You know how outdoor toilets upset your mother.”

“What’re you going to do to me if I’m not?” Alexandra asked with a forced smile. “Thumb me?”

Dad laughed as he casually turned off the turn signal. Gravel crackled under the car’s tires and the squat forms of green port-a-potties were visible through the nearby trees.

“Bob?” Mom’s voice was strained. “Why’s the turn signal still ticking?”

Dad slammed on the brakes. “Out! Now!”

Alexandra struggled with her seatbelt, certain somehow that this was finally it. She was going to die.