Nanowrimo Chapter 4

Today Paige begins her life as a sidekick and embarks on her first job.

Chapter 4
This costume fad. It's quite annoying.
-Kingpin, Ultimate Spider Man Issue #11

The next morning I was just fixing up my makeup when there was a knock on the door. It was 11:40, and I was going to have to head over to Claire’s pretty soon. I ignored the door as I always did - it was probably for one of my roommates.
“Paige!” Cat called. “It’s for you!” Who would be at the door for me? I put on my glasses and apprehensively opened my door. It was the guy, Owen, from the party last night, awkwardly fidgeting as he waited at the door for me.
“Um…hi?” I said, still not sure why he was here. “Did you forget something?”
“My dignity,” he said. “I think I left it behind when I asked if you would be okay with the yawn and stretch.”
“Well, what happens in the dorm stays in the dorm,” I said. “Bye!” I went to close the door but he stopped it with his foot. “Yes?”
“I just really wanted to apologize,” he said. “I was kind of a douche bag yesterday, and you said you were having a bad day, and you didn’t really deserve having some drunk douche nozzle annoying you.” I checked my watch. 11:45. The limo would be here any minute. I had to get rid of this guy.
“Really, it’s fine,” I said, going to close the door again but he stopped it once again with his foot.
“I want to make it up to you though,” he said. He was almost cute in his earnestness, his bright blue eyes wide with sincerity.
“No really, that’s fine,” I said. “It was no problem at all.”
“Do you want to go to a movie sometime or something?” he asked.
“Maybe when we get to know each other when you’re not tipsy,” I said. I glanced outside and saw the black limo. “I really have to go get ready for work. Really, it’s totally fine.”
“Okay then, no worries,” he said. I closed the door and headed back to my room.
“So then our billet turned out to be this cross-dresser!” Raina was saying into her cell phone. “It was the weirdest exchange student we’ve ever hosted. My parents were uncomfortable with it, but they couldn’t very well send him back to Mexico!”
I wondered what her home life was like.

I climbed into the back of the limo and the driver nodded at me and pulled away from the curb without speaking.
“So uh…these limos can’t be very good for the environment,” I said.
“Public transit doesn’t reach Claire’s home,” he said.
“You guys should go green,” I said.
“I do what Claire wants,” he said. He sounded kind of cultish. I made a mental note to not drink Kool-Aid if offered.
The ride took about fifteen minutes and I was dropped off in front of the mansion, a retread of my steps yesterday.
“Smell you later,” I said. The driver didn’t reply. Bunch of surly people she had working for her. I wondered if Claire chose them that way. I looked up at the imposing mansion and steeled myself for encounters with both Wellesley and Claire.
I rang the doorbell and the door was answered immediately by Wellesley, almost as if he knew I was there.
“Delbert Grady!” I said. “What’s up?” Wellesley ignored me and spoke into a hidden mouthpiece.
“Miss Queen, she’s here.” I looked up to see Claire walking down the stairs like a parody of ever single teen movie with a prom that I had ever seen. She looked completely put together with dark wash jeans and a white blazer over a green camisole. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail with absolutely no loose hairs. I wondered if we would ever be close enough that I could ask her for hairstyle tips.
“Hello, Paige,” she said, a small smile on her face.
“What up,” I said. No reply. She approached me and clasped her hands in front of her.
“From this moment on, you will be maintaining a secret identity. You have to sustain a divide between the two. You have to not only physically look different - you have to act different, you have to be a different person. If they find out your secret identity, it’s over. I’ll have to wipe your memory and you go back to your boring life. Got it?”
This was sounding slightly depressing.
“Uh huh,” I said.
“We’ll start with the physical differences between your two selves,” she said. “I had a costume made for you upstairs. Follow me.” She turned and started walking briskly back up the staircase. I had to trot a little to catch up to her.
“So uh, how big is this place anyway?” I asked.
“Bigger than you think,” was her reply. Would it kill anyone to give me a straight answer around here?
“Who was your contractor, MC Escher? Because man, this is a screwy place,” I said.
“Same person who designed the Batcave,” she said.
“No way! Batman’s real?” I exclaimed.
“No,” she said.
Oh okay, then. That was a joke. A very unexpected joke. She opened a door and gestured me through. The woman who measured me yesterday was standing silently in the corner.
“What do you think?” she asked. I couldn’t speak. I was speechless. I was completely without words.
In front of me was a mannequin with my “costume” on it. I’m not even sure it was big enough to be a whole costume. It was all the same shade of dark purple. It was a bra top with two straps criss-crossing the stomach, for no purpose as far as I could tell. This was paired with the tiniest shorts I had ever seen. I’m not even sure the inseam was even four inches. Underneath the shorts were a pair of fishnets that ran into a pair of purple suede ankle boots with a three inch heel. The bandit mask was also purple and covered the top half of the mannequin’s face and went around the chin. I stared. And stared. This was not computing. I was supposed to wear that?
“Well?”
“Oh dear God,” I said, when I regained the power of speech. “This is possibly the most inconvenient outfit I have ever seen in my life.” Her eyes narrowed.
“I mean…wow,” I said. “I can’t wear this. This is straight out of a comic book, but the difference between Black Canary and me is that a) I’m not living in a Frank Miller comic and b) I’m a real person.”
“What’s wrong with it?” she asked.
“What’s wrong with it?” I almost laughed. “Well, let’s see. For one thing, I can’t walk, let alone run, in three inch heels. What if I have to go outside? I’ll freeze. How am I going to be a good sidekick when I’m always worried about a wardrobe malfunction? I mean, the only thing you could do to make this worse is add a strap of pouches around the thigh and tell everyone the costume was designed by Rob Liefeld. I’m not wearing this. There’s no way. No. No no. Not a chance.”
“Anything else?” she asked. I was sure it was rhetorical but I answered anyway.
“Yeah,” I said. “If you’ll notice, I don’t have the, uh…”
“Assets?”
“Assets to fill this out. I’ll look lame. Plus I don’t have a six pack. I don’t even have a two pack.”
“Fine,” she said. She turned to the seamstress. “Bring in the other one.”
“Oh good God, there’s another one?” I asked. Claire didn’t reply and the seamstress came back shortly, pushing a mannequin on wheels.
This one was dressed in a dark purple catsuit that zipped up all the way under its chin. It was wearing purple leather gloves and purple boots with no heels that came up to mid-shin. I considered it. Okay, it was really tight and I couldn’t even begin to imagine how my rear would look. On the other hand, the boots had no heel and I was all covered. I could compromise. Besides, I had the feeling that if I rejected this one as vehemently as I rejected the first costume, Claire was not going to be happy.
“I can handle this,” I said.
“Good,” Claire said. “Because these are your only choices. Put it on.”
“Why? You took my measurements. I’m sure it will fit,” I said.
“We’re testing out your capabilities today,” Claire said. “Routine, easy stuff.” A jolt of fear ran through me.
“What, today? I don’t even get a training montage?” I hadn’t really thought as far as actually doing stuff. I felt close to panic - what if I got caught? What if I was shot? I couldn’t handle myself in a fight! I couldn’t even run very fast!
“In my opinion, the best way to learn is by doing,” Claire said. “Get dressed. I’ll be back in five minutes with someone else.”
“Someone else? To do what?” I asked. I didn’t get a reply, and Claire left, closing the door softly behind her. I turned back to the intimidating piece of spandex and leather in front of me. It took a bit of struggling, but I finally got the whole suit off the mannequin and laid it on the bed. I took off my clothes and stepped into the catsuit. I had to pull on it pretty hard to get the stupid thing over my hips and then the top half zipped up like a jacket. The zipper chafed on my chest and stomach so I pulled on my tank top and then zipped the rest of the catsuit up over top. The bottom of the collar stopped just short of my chin. I pulled the mask on over my face, and I was delighted to learn that it fit perfectly. Lastly I pulled on the boots (which were surprisingly comfortable) and the leather gloves. I moved over to stand in front of a full length mirror. My stomach protruded just slightly, but it was hard to catch unless you were staring. I turned around and looked back to view my behind. Thank God, it didn’t look that bad. I still felt like a complete tool wearing something like this, but it didn’t look as terrible as I was expecting. This suit was going to make me feel so self-conscious. As I was analyzing myself, there was a knock on the door.
“Come in,” I said, moving away from the mirror. Claire came back into the room, trailed by yet another silent woman pushing a trolley of what appeared to be hair products.
“Sit down here,” Claire said, pointing to a chair. I obeyed. “You have very, um…memorable hair,” she said, pulling out the curly strands and letting them spring back again.
“Uh huh…” I said, not sure where this was going.
“Whenever we go out, you’ll need to change it,” she said. “That’s where Marisa here comes in.” Marisa solemnly held up a ceramic straightener. “We’re going to straighten your hair. Take it from Superman - just change your hairstyle, and no one will recognize you.”
“Sounds just dandy,” I said. It took about an hour, but I ended up with a head of stick straight hair. Marisa pulled my bangs back and fastened them at the back of my head. I put on my mask over my hair and looked at myself in the mirror. I didn’t look half bad. Claire gave me a pair of contacts.
“How the hell do I put these in?” I asked.
“Just put them on your eyeballs,” Claire said. “It’s not difficult.” There was a pause as I attempted to put the contacts in.
“Your codename is Violet Claw,” she said.
“But…this costume isn’t violet,” I pointed out.
“I like the way it sounds, and I like this colour,” Claire snapped.
“Okay, okay,” I said, holding up my hands. “Whatever.”
“This is a contract job,” she said. “Our client wants a rare Incan statue owned by Mr. Michael Copeland. We’re going to steal it.”
“What does it look like?” I asked.
“It looks like an Incan idol statue,” she said. “It’s a fat man sitting down, and the statue should be green.”
“That’s specific,” I mumbled.
“Mr. Copeland and his family are out of the country until next week and I possess the code to the burglar alarm. This should be just a routine job.”
“Should be?” I asked.
“Things can always go wrong,” she said. “But don’t worry about that.”
Don’t worry about it? Pretty impossible now that she brought it up.
“Here’s the plan,” she continued. “We’ll be driven to a location a few blocks from Mr. Copeland’s house. We’ll stay in the shadows and alleys all the way to the target house.”
“What if someone sees us?” I asked. I gestured to what I was wearing. “We aren’t exactly discreet looking.”
“They won’t,” she said. “We’ll enter through the back door of Mr. Copeland’s residence after entering the code for the burglar alarm. According to our client, the statue is kept in his bedroom, located upstairs. Your job is to retrieve the statue while I stay downstairs and make sure there we left no trace coming inside and check for any other alarms we may have tripped. Once you have the statue, we’ll go back out to the alley behind the house, where our ride will be waiting. Got it?”
I was starting to experience extreme fear. I could only nod. Okay, it sounded easy-ish I guess - it wasn’t rocket science, certainly - but my brain could only concentrate on what could go wrong. I could get killed. I could go to jail. Despite Claire’s assertion that she stole things for fun, I couldn’t imagine how it could be enjoyable in any way. I shouldn’t have taken the job. But I mean, it was either this or get my memory wiped, and this was less invasive. I couldn’t help thinking that my mom would kill me if she ever found out.
“Paige,” she said sharply. “Do you understand?” I swallowed, and it felt like I was ingesting a bowling ball. One of the really heavy ones that I could never lift.
“Absolutely,” I said, smiling weakly.
“Good,” she said. “Go downstairs and I’ll meet you there.” She turned without a word and left. I slowly stood up and breathed in deeply. Calm. I was calm and collected. I could do this. I would be fine.
Oh dear God, I was going to die.

Claire came down the stairs in her costume. It was a catsuit like mine, but it was unzipped several inches farther than I would have been comfortable with. It was emerald green, and her mask, unlike mine, covered the top of her head but left the bottom half of her face exposed, and it tied under the chin. She handed me a wireless earpiece with a small microphone attached, similar to a Bluetooth.
“Press this button,” she said, pointing to a button on the earpiece, “and you’ll be able to talk with me.” I put the communication device in my ear, where it fit perfectly.
“Try it out,” Claire said. I reached up and pressed the button.
“Testing, testing,” I said.
“I can hear you perfectly,” Claire said. She pressed the button on hers. “Can you hear me?”
“Roger that,” I said.
“I don’t think you used that phrase correctly,” she said. I shrugged. Claire wordlessly walked out the door and I followed. She led me to a waiting car, which surprisingly wasn’t a limo today. It was a silver, slightly dirty car.
“Watch this,” she said. She pulled something out of one of the pouches around her waist and pressed a button.
“So there’s actually stuff in the pouches!” I exclaimed. “Cool.”
“Look at the license plate,” she said. I squinted in the dim light provided by the outside house light. The license plate had changed!
“Wait…what?” I said in disbelief. “What happened?”
“When you have money, Miss Parker, you can commission anything,” she said.
“So what, do you have Q locked up in the basement or something?” I joked.
I wasn’t sure if she didn’t understand the reference or if she didn’t think the facetious question was worth replying to. In any case, she ignored me, as I was quickly beginning to discover was a recurring motif around this place.
“Every time we do a job, we change the license plate, just in case someone happens to notice what it was. Each one is registered, paid for, and perfectly legal.”
“Everything’s legal except for the little device that changes the plate on demand,” I said. “Gotcha.” Claire chose not to reply and instead climbed into the back of the car. I followed. The driver was the same one who always drove me places. I waved cheerfully and he nodded solemnly back in me. Would it kill anyone to crack a joke in this place? The seriousness was almost stifling.
“Can we listen to the radio or something?” I asked.
“No,” Claire said. And that was the end of that. You know when you’re in a constricted space with someone you maybe don’t like or someone you don’t know, and the silence is so loud it almost has mass? That’s what it was like in the car during that trip. The silence was ringing in my ears and I had the incredible urge to break it with a comment. Objectively, I knew that would be a bad idea, as anything said out of a panic to end an awkward silence was sure to be stupid. And yet I went and spoke anyway.
“Have you and Hurricane ever, uh…” I trailed off as Claire slowly turned to look at me. Well, I had to finish now. “Ever, um…had a thing?” Claire didn’t move her cool eyes from me. I immediately regretted speaking.
“Why do you say that?” she asked.
“Well uh, Batman had an on-again off-again thing with Catwoman, and um, in All-Star Batman and Robin Superman had a thing with Wonder Woman who was kind of, uh…” -I almost said “a bitch”, but then thought better of it - “Strong willed. So um…yeah,” I finished awkwardly.
“You’re basing an assumption on the fact that you once read it in a comic book?” she asked.
“Um…maybe?”
“No,” she said. “I have never had a thing with Hurricane.” And that was the end of that scintillating conversation. We rode in complete, total, and awkward silence for the rest of the ride.
“I’ll drive around town and then park in the back alley in twenty minutes,” the driver said.
“Thanks Hoke!” I said.
“You used that one already,” he said.
“I don’t know any other chauffeurs,” I admitted. The chauffeur had let us out right beside a deserted park. Claire quickly moved into the shadows and I followed her, trying to mimic her quick, gliding movements and failing. I felt like an elephant trying to mimic a panther. My earpiece crackled and Claire’s voice came through, causing me to jump about a foot in the air.
“Paige,” she said. “You’re going to have to move faster.”
“Or you can move a little slower!” I hissed. I looked up to see where she was. She was about twenty-five feet in front of me and was waving me over impatiently. I ran, trying my best to stay in the shadows, and stopped beside her. I tried to hide my heavy breathing. Claire, as always, was completely self-possessed.
“The park leads out to a back alley,” she said, pointing. “It’s lined with trees, so we shouldn’t be seen.”
“Shouldn’t be,” I said. “But there’s always a possibility?”
“Of course there’s always a possibility,” she said. “Nothing is a hundred percent. There’s always an element of risk.” I could sense this is what she found so attractive about stealing. For me though, it was the worst part. “Let’s go.” Claire darted into the alley and kept near to the trees. I had the uncomfortable feeling that came from being out of my depth, but there was nothing else to do but follow Claire to the house. Finally she scaled a small, decorative fence, and dropped into the Copelands’ backyard. I failed on my first attempt at climbing the fence, but semi-succeeded on my second, falling on my back as I dropped to the ground. Claire looked at me with barely concealed disgust.
“What?” I asked, getting up and dusting myself off.
“Paige, please try to remember that you’re representing me, representing Siege Spinner, whenever we do a job. It doesn’t reflect well on my reputation when you look so clumsy and awkward.” I bristled.
“Well, Siege Spinner, if we’re doing our job right, no one will see us, so I think your reputation as a lowlife is secure,” I snapped. Claire narrowed her eyes and almost stomped over to where I was sitting.
“What did you call me?” she asked quietly, icily.
“Siege Spinner?”
“You called me a lowlife,” she said. “I am not a lowlife. If you say that to me again, you will be severely injured.” The look in her eyes was almost as scary as the possibility of going to jail. I believed her that she would hurt me if I got her mad again. Since she could probably kill me with one hand tied behind her back, I shut up and followed her to the house.
Claire went to the burglar alarm on the outside of the house and punched in a code. She pulled some kind of silver gun - it kind of resembled a nil gun - out of the holster at her hip. It had a long, thin, silver needle coming out of the end, and she put that into the lock of the door.
“Lockaid lock release gun,” she explained. “It worked on almost every pin tumbler lock. It used to be available only to law enforcement, but now you can get it pretty much anywhere on the internet.” I nodded, for lack of any reply. There was a click, and she pushed the door open. It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the lack of light. Claire handed me a small pair of goggles. “Night vision,” she said. I put them on and everything took on a greenish tinge. I felt like I was in a Paris Hilton video.
“Where were you keeping these?” I asked.
“Ever hear of hammerspace?”
I didn’t ask.
“I’m going to stay here and make sure there aren’t any silent alarms,” Claire said. “You go upstairs and find the statue.”
“What if there are alarms upstairs?” I asked.
“In my experience, they’re always on the ground floor,” she said. “You’ll be fine. It’s in his bedroom.”
“Okaly dokaly,” I said. The stairs were right behind me and I slowly climbed them, feeling as if things were going to jump out of the shadows at me.
“Stay away from the windows!” Claire hissed.
“Got it,” I called back. The top of the staircase led to a hallway with about four rooms. The first one was a bathroom. I didn’t even bother looking. The next room was a bedroom, but it didn’t look lived in. I assumed it was a guest room. I did a quick scan, but there was nothing that looked like an Incan statue. However, the next room looked like a lived in bedroom. I could dimly see an unmade bed and a night table with a book on it. On the dresser was some kind of figurine that could be what I was looking for. I went over and picked it up. It looked like some kind of sitting man. I couldn’t tell whether it was green or not through the goggles, but I guessed this was the statue. I picked it up to bring it to Claire to confirm its authenticity, but just as I picked it up I was tackled my a large, dark object. The statue dropped out of my hands as I fell and rolled across the floor, coming to a stop when it hit the wall. My goggles flew off in the fall but thankfully, my mask remained intact. Whoever tackled me sat on my back and pinned my arms to the floor.
“I don’t think that’s yours, is it?” my attacker said.
“Aw, nuts,” was all I could think of to say.