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came because I never thought I’d live to see the day when Queen Brooke referred to anyone as her superior. And the relief? That came because if Brooke had superiors who had to approve her recommendations for Squad acceptance, that meant that the fate of the free world wasn’t
entirely
in the hands of my high school’s varsity cheerleaders.
    Brooke cleared her throat and tossed her ponytail over her other shoulder. “Next order of business,” she said. “The president called. There’s been another leak.”

CHAPTER 7
    Code Word: Thong
    “Three minutes until our holos expire. That means T-minus eighteen until showtime, people.”
    I stared at Brooke. It was funny—she said these things like I was supposed to have some earthly idea what she was talking about, which I most definitely did not. Between the whole “holo” thing and the half hour I’d just spent listening to a rundown on what appeared to be an information leak from the Pentagon/CIA (not me, I swear), I was more clueless than Alicia Silverstone in the title role.
    “Can you do
anything
with her in eighteen minutes?” Brooke’s question was directed at the twins, and it was all too clear to me that I was the “her” in question.
    Please God, I thought, let the answer to that question be no.
    “The hair’s going to take at least an hour,” Brittany (I think) sniffed. “And that’s if we speed up the dye process with Chloe’s little rearrangey thingy.”
    “Electron wave accelerator.”
    I took in Chloe’s correction. I wasn’t sure what was more disturbing—the fact that the twins were discussing dyeing my hair, or the fact that they were planning on using an electron wave accelerator to do it.
    “We could give her a wig,” Tiffany (?) suggested. “And change the clothes.”
    “I like my clothes.”
    “Whatever.” Brooke waved that comment aside with a flick of her hand. “Why don’t you guys just work on clothes for now,” she told the twins. “We’ve got to be back in the locker room in sixteen minutes, and Toby still hasn’t seen the rest of the Quad. Tara, finish her preliminary debriefing and take her by weaponry and aesthetics.”
    Finally, Brooke turned to address a comment (or, as I could already wager was more likely, an order) to me. “Come back to the gym after sixth period. Starting today, you’ll be excused from seventh for practice.”
    No more gym class with a neofascist softball coach yelling in my face? I could learn to live with that.
    “Britt, Tiff, you guys can Stage Five her while the rest of us debrief April this afternoon.”
    “Stage Five?” This time, I couldn’t keep the question in. If anyone was going to Stage Five me, someone sure as hell was going to tell me what a Stage Five was first.
    “A Stage Five makeover,” Brittany said, tossing her too shiny, too long, too gorgeous blond hair over her shoulder.
    Tiffany leaned forward to examine my eyebrows. “Better make that a Stage Six.”
    Tara reached out and lightly touched my shoulder just in time to keep me from leaping at Tiff. I’d had just about enough of the criticism twins. “Fourteen minutes,” Tara said. “We’d better get going.” With the ease of a skilled diplomat, she steered me away from the table, the twins, and Brooke’s mouth, which was already issuing new orders at top speed and high volume.
    “You’ll get used to it,” Tara promised.
    “The twins or
Mein Kampf
Barbie?” I nodded toward Brooke.
    “Both.”
    I followed her lead and we approached one of the far walls.
    Tara gestured to a small, squarish panel. “This is a touch pad,” she said. “You place your hand on it, like this.” She pressed her palm firmly against the square. A small flash of light rose from the bottom of the panel to the top, like a wave of concentrated laser beams.
    “Let me guess,” I said. “It scans your fingerprints?”
    Tara nodded. “Among other things.”
    “What other things?”
    The door slid itself open, and Tara stepped