Alien in Chief (3 page)

CHAPTER 3

S
TEPHANIE WAS JEFF'S NIECE,
his eldest sister's eldest daughter. Her father, Clarence Valentino, had been an A-C traitor of the highest order. And I'd had to kill him. But not before he'd turned Stephanie.

Understandably, she'd blamed us for her father's death and joined the Mastermind's team with gusto. That had gotten her arrested at the end of Operation Defection Election. But that hadn't kept her down.

During the campaign she'd somehow been released into Cleary's custody—partly because she'd only been nineteen, partly because the case had been made for extenuating circumstances and insanity due to grief over her father's death and all that jazz—meaning a lot of strings had been pulled, undoubtedly by the Mastermind, who we all knew Cleary had been working with.

And, because of that pull, her record had been wiped clean, at least her record with the government. With us, not so much, but the A-Cs were all willing to forgive if she wasn't going to try to kill everyone again.

Stephanie had seemed semi-normal for a while and appeared to be toeing the legal line, though she'd avoided all the A-Cs, even her mother and siblings. Cleary had seemed to think he and his family had rehabilitated her, and they'd
treated her like family, though Cleary was still on the side of the Mastermind at the time.

But unfortunately, the best laid plans of mice and men and all that, she'd also started sleeping with the Mastermind. And then he'd had her kill eight of our Secret Service detail during Operation Bizarro World.

Stephanie had freaked out and disappeared, which we'd discovered right at the start of Operation Civil War. There were two theories about her disappearance. One was that she was faking us out, so that we'd come after her and walk into a trap. The other was that she was afraid of the Mastermind and hiding from him. The longer she was gone—and she'd been gone for over a year and a half now—the more credible the second theory seemed.

There was also the theory that said Stephanie was dead, killed by the Mastermind. While we never discounted that one, if she'd been sighted, that would be a good thing. Barring her once again trying to murder people.

“Are you sure it was her?” I asked as I sat down at the small conference table we had in this room.

“Fairly sure,” Chuckie said.

“Very sure,” Cleary said.

Looked to Buchanan. Who shrugged. “I didn't see any of it, Missus Chief. I was just near enough that when Reynolds called I could get to them the quickest.”

Wondered why Buchanan had been near to Chuckie, versus near to me, for this particular situation. Chose to table the question for later. “What happened?”

“The governor was finishing a meeting with several lobbyists,” Chuckie said. “I was . . . observing the meeting.”

“He was spying on us, he means,” Cleary said, without a lot of animosity. Chuckie just shrugged.

“What was the meeting about?”

“Whether or not to close NASA Base,” Cleary replied.

Well, that was new. And now it made a lot of sense why
Chuckie had been “observing” this meeting. “Why would anyone want to close NASA Base?”

“I have no idea,” Cleary said. “I certainly have no desire to do so.”

“But you did, during your Presidential campaign,” Chuckie pointed out, as the music changed to “A Letter to Both Sides” by the Fixx. “And the people who you met with are still pushing for it, even though you've dropped it to have a better chance of success in the next election, or the one after.”

Cleary nodded. “That's very true. At any rate, we finished the meeting, and as we were leaving the restaurant, I saw Stephanie across the street. As soon as she saw me she disappeared. I thought she'd run away from me. But then someone took a shot at me.”

“Excuse me? No one's mentioned that Florida's governor was attacked on our streets.”

“The restaurant lets out into the back, where there's an alley and a small parking lot,” Chuckie explained. “So that people can leave without being seen together, if needed.”

“Gotcha. But still, shots tend to draw attention.”

“Not,” Chuckie said dryly, “when they're done with a bow and arrow.”

“What, Stephanie's become Green Arrow or Huntress? I don't buy it.”

Sure, Stephanie was a traitor and a murderer, but she was still a young woman, only twenty-one years old. Maybe she thought Cleary wanted to shut down the Base and so was trying to protect her family. Maybe not. But she was so young, there was a chance she could be salvaged, saved, redeemed. Again.

And we'd brought just the person to do it home from another solar system.

On Beta Eight we'd discovered a clone of Clarence. The Clarence Clone had been created quickly and without all
the bells and whistles our Earth clones had. And he'd lived on a world where a large number of us—Jeff, Chuckie, and myself included—were somehow considered gods. And he still thought we were gods, even though we'd told him that we weren't.

He had some of the original Clarence's memories and mannerisms, but otherwise, he'd been a lonely, simple but not stupid, living Secret Sentry. He'd proved his worth and loyalty, and we'd brought him home with us.

Sylvia and their other children had been overjoyed. And, despite our explaining that this was a clone, they'd chosen to ignore us and act as though it was the original Clarence, who'd just had a terrible head trauma and memory loss.

The Clarence Clone had none of the mean or the evil that the original had developed in spades by the time Jamie was born. The Clone was more like the guy Sylvia had fallen in love with. So I could understand the desire to play pretend.

However, TCC, as we called him in shorthand, was the one person who could probably bring Stephanie in from the cold, and potentially even get her to confess. Because without her confessing to the fact that Clifford Goodman was the Mastermind, we had no solid proof that could convict him of anything in a court of law.

Of course, Cleary had been in the Mastermind's Inner Circle during Operation Defection Election. However, he hadn't known that Cliff was the Mastermind, or at least so he'd told us when he'd come fully over to our side after the events of Operations Bizarro World and Civil War and, frankly, we believed him. In part because Cliff hadn't launched whatever his Doomsday Plan might be against us, meaning Cleary hadn't told Cliff that we all knew who the Mastermind really was.

Cleary knew now, and had given us what intel he had, but because he
hadn't
known that Cliff was the Mastermind, he didn't have any information that worked as actual proof.
Cleary couldn't confirm that Cliff was the Mastermind, or that Cliff had done anything illegal, ever. It was all the “we were at this meeting together” or “he gave me a sealed letter” type of circumstantial evidence that would, at best, prove that Cliff had been one of the Mastermind's flunkies, but nothing more.

We had to take Cliff down definitively, and that meant we needed someone who'd seen him get his hands really dirty and who would also actually say so in a court of law. And that someone was Stephanie.

“No, I don't think she's become some amazing archer,” Chuckie said. “But she was close enough when she shot—using a crossbow, so stick with your Huntress analogy—that if I hadn't seen Cleary react to something I wouldn't have been near enough to knock him out of the way.”

“Are you okay?” I was asking Chuckie. I cared a hell of a lot more about him than I did Cleary. And, crap, I'd told Jeff to come home and that meant he could be in danger from whoever our Huntress actually was.

He smiled. “Yeah, I am. I alerted Jeff, by the way. He'll be coming home soon, alert and aware, and via a gate. Just in case. And yes, on my order.” Gates were alien tech that looked like airport metal detectors but could transport you thousands of miles in seconds. They were great, but still made me nauseous to use.

However, I wasn't the one using the gate, and they were safe. I relaxed. Always nice to have the smartest guy anywhere on my side and thinking ahead. “Good. So, I'm going to guess the next questions. Do we bring in outside help or not?”

Chuckie shook his head. “That's not the question, but nice try. The question is, do we activate TCC or not? I feel it's time. He's acclimated, he's willing, and if the governor really did see Stephanie, then she's active in some way and we need to try to catch her before the Mastermind, other enemies, or even the police do.”

We'd made it a point to refer to Cliff as the Mastermind so that we didn't give away that we knew who the Mastermind was to anyone we might not be able to trust. Sure, everyone in this room knew, but the concern was well-founded. We'd had a Secret Service agent working for the Mastermind who had been discovered just in time.

Sam Travis had been in C.I.A. custody for a long time now, with no access to anyone other than Mom and Chuckie. They'd made up some excuse that seemed to have appeased Cliff, in part because he'd been transferred out of Homeland Security around the same time. And apparently Dear Sam wasn't nearly as important as Stephanie, because no one had pulled any strings to get him out. Fine with me. I wasn't a fan of someone who'd been sleeping in my home while trying to destroy us, call me a Mean Girl.

“The police aren't going to catch an A-C, or at least not the human police.” Heaved a sigh and sat down. “Look, I know you think TCC is ready. But . . .”

“But you don't want to risk him getting hurt because you care about him,” Chuckie said gently. “However, he does understand the risks and, more than that, Stephanie and potentially many others are at even more risk of getting hurt.”

“Couldn't we call in Nightcrawler and my ‘uncles'?”

Benjamin Siler was the son of our first Mastermind, the Ronald Yates-Mephistopheles in-control superbeing, and one of our female Brains Behind the Throne biggies, Madeleine Cartwright. This probably made him our first hybrid. We hadn't discovered him until Operation Defection Election, but he was, until this generation, one of the only exceptionally talented male hybrids.

However, that hadn't been good enough for these people. His parents had done horrific experiments on him, turning him into someone who aged very slowly, among other things. One of those other things was his ability to “blend”—he kind of went chameleon and you couldn't see him, or
anyone he was touching. He made no noise and didn't reek of sulfur, but Nightcrawler still fit as a nickname.

His uncle had rescued him and trained him in said uncle's profession—assassination. In a nice merging of situations, I'd been sort of adopted by the two best assassins in the business, Peter “The Dingo” Kasperoff and his cousin Victor. They considered themselves my uncles, and, due to a variety of favors I'd done for them, they worked with Siler to protect me and mine.

“They're advised,” Buchanan said. I had a feeling he'd become an honorary member of Team Assassination during Operation Defection Election. “However, since we don't want her killed, I'm in agreement with the others—it's time to utilize the weapon you brought home from your trip to another solar system.”

“Yeah, about that,” Jeff said, coming into the room to “Hot” by Avril Lavigne. Considering he was tall, broad, the handsomest thing on two legs, with wavy brown hair, light brown eyes, and the sexiest smile in the galaxy along with the best naked body, the song was totally apt.

“Glad you're here, Jeff,” Cleary said, as Jeff nodded to him and the others.

“Thanks. I realize you're thinking of TCC as a weapon. Hi, baby,” he kissed my cheek as he sat down next to me and I did my best to wrench my mind from mentally undressing him and get it back onto business. “But the reason why Kitty's hesitant, and why I agree with that hesitation, is that, clone or not, Clarence is a real person. And he's a real person my sister and her kids are in love with and really can't emotionally handle losing again.”

“Yeah, I'm honestly far more concerned about the potential closing of NASA Base than Stephanie.”

Jeff nodded. “So is Vince. But on top of all this, we have another issue that is, I think, going to take precedence.”

CHAPTER 4

“C
AN'T WAIT,”
Chuckie said in a tone indicating that he really could.

“No, it can't.” Jeff sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “We've received a message from Alpha Four. And by ‘we' I mean me, the Office of the President, the Cabinet, and all the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Expect a call from Angela at any time.”

“We're all always happy to hear from Mom and I know we all want her take on the latest fun and frolic. But since you're already here, Jeff, what's the good word? I mean, I doubt they were sending springtime greetings or asking if this was a good time to drop by and see the cherry trees in bloom.”

Jeff laughed. “No, they weren't, at least as far as I know. And I don't know if I can call the word ‘good,' baby. Apparently the new Planetary Council—which includes representatives from Beta Eight, Alpha Seven, and Beta Sixteen, as well as the usual suspects—wants to visit Earth.”

“So,” I said as Fountain of Wayne's “I Want an Alien for Christmas” came over our airwaves, “they
do
want to see the cherry trees.”

“When?” Chuckie asked, expertly ignoring me. Decided to be a grown-up and not hum along with the song. Too loudly.

“Soon. From what we can tell, very soon. The request was in the usual overly formal vagueness that seems to be something the Alpha Four leadership loves to use.”

“They're not declaring war, right?” Cleary asked.

“No.” Jeff shot him a glare almost worthy of his cousin, Christopher White. Christopher was the unequivocal champion of glaring on this or any other world, but Jeff was really giving it a good shot for the silver medal. “They want to visit Earth. On a peace mission. At least as far as we can tell.”

Chuckie's phone beeped, he took a look, and grunted. “Angela just sent me the text. Yeah, it does sound like all they want to do is visit.” He looked up. “However, I'm not sure we should say yes.”

“I'm not sure we should, or can, say no,” Jeff countered. “I can't even begin to imagine the chaos another giant spaceship hovering overhead will cause, but it'll be worse if they use a warp gate of some kind and just show up on the steps of the Capitol building.”

“Why not announce it to the general public?” As soon as the words were out of my mouth I put my hand up. “Never mind. I can think of all the reactions, and so many of them will be utter panic, with a lot of alien hating and alien worshipping thrown in.”

“Right.” Jeff sighed. “Even though everyone knows aliens are here and out there, it's been four years since the invasion. People have finally stopped jumping when they look up at the clouds.”

Operation Destruction seemed both very far away and, if I let my memory wander even a little ways, as if it had happened yesterday. “And this will only give Club Fifty-One and all the rest of the anti-alien lunatics something new to get all fired up about.”

Chuckie rubbed the back of his neck. “I'm honestly not sure how we get out of this. Insulting the Alpha Centauri system will never be in Earth's best interests.”

“Can you read the message? Just so the rest of us can know what you and Jeff do and feel all special, too.”

Chuckie barked a short laugh. “Sure. ‘To our honored relative and those he holds in esteem, we request the opportunity to come and welcome Earth fully into our galactic community. The Planetary Council, which now includes members from all our sentient worlds, will arrive at your convenience, in the manner most appropriate to the comfort of your people. We await your formal invitation. Yours in solidarity, Emperor Alexander the First.'”

“Emperor?”

Jeff nodded slowly. “Technically, he's the king of Alpha Four and, since we managed to keep that solar system from destroying itself, he's the leader of all the planets. That would make him the emperor.”

“They've never used that term before. The late and totally unlamented King Adolphus was the kind of dude to revel in the title of emperor, but he didn't use it, ever as far as I know. And he was far more controlling than Alexander is.”

“I think the wording comes from Councilor Leonidas,” Chuckie said. “And I'd imagine that wording is for us. Not ‘us' us, but for Earth. As in, the guy who rules all these planets is dropping by to say hi to his relatives. Toe the line.”

“Did Leonidas give you any secret Super Smart Guys Only message in this?” Probably sounded a little too hopeful, at least based on Buchanan's grin.

“Sadly, I don't think so.” Chuckie rubbed his forehead as Tears for Fears' “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” came on. “I'll study it, though, just in case I'm missing something.” All of a sudden, relatively soothing music or no, he looked like he was about to have a migraine.

In the olden days of about fourteen months ago, it would have taken a lot to get Chuckie headed for Migraine Land. After what had happened to him during Operation Civil War, however, his migraines hit fast and hard these days.
And he had mood swings that came right before or right after. Sometimes both.

I stood up. “Chuckie, I need to talk to you about something in private.”

Everyone in the room, Cleary included, had experienced Chuckie's mood swings and migraines. So no one argued. It was a fiction—what I needed to talk to him about was getting him to lie down and take the medicine that our Embassy doctor, Tito Hernandez, had come up with to help ease the pain. But it was a fiction we all used.

Chuckie shook his head. “I'm fine.”

“No,” Jeff said gently, “you're not. Go with Kitty, Chuck. We'll focus on all the issues, and we'll consult you before we do anything, I promise.”

Buchanan moved off the wall, and Chuckie saw him do it, presumably because Buchanan had wanted him to see him do it. Chuckie sighed. “Fine. You don't have to force me. Sure, Kitty, let's go talk about whatever.”

I gave Jeff a quick kiss, then took Chuckie's arm and led him out of the conference room and to the nearest elevator.

“I'm okay,” he muttered.

“You're not. The infirmary, or your room, which would you prefer?”

He sighed. “I'd prefer not to feel like a helpless detriment.”

“You're neither. But you were hurt, badly, and all of us want to help you get better as fast as you're able.” It had been fourteen months, so the term “fast” was kind of ridiculous but he didn't call me on it. “And none of us want to see you in pain, either.”

We got into the elevator and he leaned against the back wall. “I know.” He closed his eyes. “My room, I guess.”

I hit the button for the third floor. Not that this meant anything. The infirmary and the general housing and guest quarters were all on that floor.

“You know, I know she's out there somewhere, Kitty.”

“Who? Stephanie? I think we're thinking she's out there close by, aren't we?”

“Maybe, but that's not who I meant.”

“Who did you mean?”

“Mimi.”