I will say that I DID change Maddie’s response [start of YKK16] a few times. it went from [initially in draft] only having the bit where she thinks she is talking to an alien, to the later additions of both the Heroes bit, and then, I thought, lets add in a link to TGC.
It was interesting establishing some lore about what the Earnhardt’s [also alien] enemies could, and couldn’t, detect – like a mind read by Helena is cool [not detectable], but to plant a thought IN someone’s mind, that WOULD have, like, an energy signature that the forces loyal to the evil regime could lock onto, as its TOTALLY not of Earth.
Re the toy car, as well as a kinda Transformers ref, it does make sense – like what if a human found this completely foreign looking [in its orig alien form] device. Thoughts of Sam, in the TF movie, telling Michaela what he thinks of Bumblebee ..... “It's a robot. You know, like a super advanced robot. It's probably Japanese. Yeah, it's definitely Japanese.”
Can’t tell you anything more about Rachel just yet .................. REALLY give you something to ponder!!!