Alien in the House (55 page)

T
HE RECEPTION WENT
more slowly than the wedding had, but it was fun and comfortable, and Chuckie looked incredibly happy and more relaxed than I'd seen him in at least a year. Naomi looked like her old self, only with more confidence and a happy glow I'd never seen before.

The joy of seeing them both so happy and right together made all the horror from the past few days move into “the past.” I still wanted to find and stop all the evil bad guy plans, but that's what tomorrow was for. Today was, as Nathalie had requested, happy.

Kyle and I were back in charge of the music, so “Beyond Beautiful” by Aerosmith was playing. Most of the guests were dancing, Jamie included. Cliff was her current partner and she was having a blast. Had a feeling she was going to expect a wedding and reception as her birthday cap-off every year.

Vance and Gadoire had joined us. Gadoire had a clean bill of health, and was confirmed as human. Reader was dancing with Nathalie, and she seemed okay. Not deliriously happy, but better than she'd been. She was tough, and we'd help her. She and Jeff could be the bonded newbies in the House and have each other's backs. It was more than a lot of people got.

Senators McMillan and Armstrong and their wives had joined us as well. They were sitting with Lillian Culver while she made phone calls. Abner was going to pull through, and our medical team and a team from Dulce were watching him. Tito was still with him, but Nurse Carter was up and dancing with White.

The music switched to “You and Me” by Lifehouse. Jeff and I took a break from the dance floor and sat down, me in his lap. “Think they liked it?” he asked me.

“I think you just proved to Chuckie, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you're really his good, true friend, which is the best present he could ever get. Yes, he loved it and Naomi needed it. You're really the biggest romantic softie in the world, you know that, right?”

“As long as you like that, I'm good with it.”

“I don't like it, Jeff. I love it, and everything else about you.”

He hugged me. “Good to know.” He was about to kiss me when the music stopped.

“Attention, please,” Raj said. The room stopped and turned toward his voice. Made a mental note to ensure Raj always used his power for good. “We have an important announcement.”

The guests moved to the sides of the room. Michael was standing next to Raj. He looked incredibly nervous. “The road to Chuck and Naomi's wedding was really long, and for a while I wasn't sure this day would ever come. The events of the past few days have pointed out to me that nothing in life is certain, including tomorrow.”

He cleared his throat. “So, I've asked permission of the man who's very much like a father to you,” he said as he walked over to Caroline and took her hand. Caroline looked like she didn't know whether this was a joke or not. “Senator McMillan told me that a real man is bold and takes chances for the important things.”

Michael went down on one knee. Caroline's expression changed to shock. He pulled a ring box out of his pocket. “Caroline Chase, I'd like to know if you'd be willing to make an honest man out of me and marry me.”

“Yes,” Caroline managed, right before she burst into tears. Michael stood up and kissed her, among cheers and congratulations. “Everybody Loves a Happy Ending” by Tears for Fears came on our Embassy Airwaves.

Jeff sighed happily. “Nice to see them both settle down.”

“Did you know this was coming?”

“Amazingly, yes, because neither one of them is sporting an emotional blocker or overlay. Had to tell Michael to hold off until the reception—he was revved up and ready to propose at Jamie's party.”

“This was better.”

Jeff hugged me. “I agree. This is the best, though.” Then he kissed me. And, as with so many things, he was right.

Coming in December 2013:

the eighth novel in the
Alien
series

from Gini Koch

ALIEN RESEARCH

Read on for a sneak preview

“A
MBASSADOR,
would you please tell the Committee your full name?”

“Katherine Sarah Katt Martini.”

“Do you know the whereabouts of one Herbert Gaultier?”

“No.” My bet was Hell, but the Committee probably didn't want to hear that.

“Do you know if he's alive or dead?”

I hesitated. I was under oath. “I think he's dead.”

“Do you?” The senator in charge of the hearing leaned forward. “Is that because you killed him?”

“No. I didn't kill him.” Christopher White had killed him. But he'd had to.

“What about Leventhal Reid?”

“Nope, didn't kill him, either.” My husband, Jeff, had killed Reid. To save my life.

“LaRue Demorte Gaultier—did you kill her?”

“No. Esteban Cantu killed her.” Accidentally, of course, but that one wasn't on me. “Then he was arrested. And I didn't kill him, either.” Other bad guys had killed him, before we could get information from him.

“John Cooper?”

“Nope, didn't do him in, either.” Charles Reynolds had killed Cooper. Again, in self-defense, defending me and himself.

“Ronaldo Al Dejahl, who killed him?”

“Um, everybody and nobody. Because my bet is that he's still alive. But lots of us have tried to kill him, and you should be grateful.” James Reader had used the first guy we thought was Ronaldo for a body shield, Jeff had beaten up the real one, but he'd escaped, and my bet was he'd survived the beat down he'd gotten during Operation Destruction, too, and was out there somewhere, waiting to strike.

The Committee didn't seem impressed. I didn't look around, but the room was huge and it seemed filled to capacity with a blur of official looking people in politically fashion-forward suits, all of whom were giving me the Frowny Face of Displeasure.

“The entire former American Centaurion Diplomatic Corps?” the senator in charge went on. “What about them? And Howard Taft? Antony Marling and Madeline Cartwright? Ronald Yates? And Beverly, that woman who had the most boring speaking voice in the world. Did you kill all of them and many others, including Gregory from Alpha Four, and Uma from Alpha Six, and the Mephistopheles in-control superbeing?”

Now, these were not so easy to not lie under oath about.

“Yes, sort of, well, yes, really in the case of Beverly and a bunch of the others. I didn't do Gregory in, though.” Tito Hernandez had done that. “I took out Moira from Beta Twelve, though.” Jeff had handled her mate, Kyrellis. Just barely, but he'd managed it. “They were all evil and trying to destroy everyone good and the Earth. By the way, how did you know Beverly was Miz Monotone?”

The Committee looked at me derisively. “We're in your dream,” the senator in charge said. “And we agree that whoever thought it was a good idea for you to be in such a public position was an idiot.”

“Can we sentence her yet?” one of the other Committee members asked. “Or at least ruin her husband's budding political career?” The rest of the Committee nodded eagerly. They were all over the idea of disgracing Representative Martini.

“Can I wake up now?”

“Do you want to?” the senator in charge asked.

“Am I hanging out with a Congressional Grand Jury when I wake up?”

“Not as far as any of us know. Today. Tomorrow? Who knows?”

“That's the story of my life. By the way, as far as dream men go, none of you are what I'd like to have the next time I have a horrible nightmare.”

“Who would you prefer?” the senator in charge asked.

“Billy Zane would be a good option, he doesn't get nearly enough work. Hugh Jackman. Chris Evans, really, anyone who starred in
The Avengers
would be acceptable. Tom Cruise, Will Smith, Nathan Fillion, pick a hot leading man of choice.”

“Sorry. You already live with the best looking people on Earth. You're stuck with us. See you next time, Ambassador.”

“Can't wait.”

The senator in charge nodded. “Tomorrow night will come soon enough.”

“As near as I can tell, only if I keep on killing bad guys.”

•   •   •

My eyes opened and I looked around. I wasn't in a big room with a lot of important people looking at me while I incriminated myself and everyone else I knew. I was lying in bed.

I'd had a version of this dream pretty much every night since Jeff had become the Appointed Representative for New Mexico's 2nd District, starting right after Operation Sherlock had concluded.

Sure, people being murdered left and right and my somehow becoming the “adopted niece” of the two best assassins in the business could give anyone nightmares. But those situations never came up in my dreams. No, I got the nightly reminder of what I was really stressed over—my husband was now in a very public position and we had a hell of a lot of skeletons in our big walk-in closet.

Rolled over. Sure enough, Jeff was in bed next to me. Mr. Clock said it was five in the morning. Heaved a sigh of relief and snuggled next to Jeff.

He made the low growl that sounded like a purr in his sleep and pulled me closer to him. Buried my face in between his awesome pecs, rubbed against the hair on his chest, and let his double heartbeats lull me back to sleep. Thankfully, this time, dreamless.

The smooth sounds of Robert Palmer's “Addicted to Love” woke me up. Jeff wasn't in bed with me. Not so unusual—he usually heard the alarm before I did.

Got up and trotted into the bathroom. No Jeff. Checked in the closet. No Jeff. Went to the nursery. No Jeff and no Jamie. No animals, either from Earth or Alpha Four, were in evidence, either. Wondered if I was, in fact, having another nightmare. Decided to check. “Com on!”

“Yes, Ambassador?” The voice wasn't Walter's. And Walter always called me Chief, because I was now the sole Chief of Mission. But the voice was familiar.

“Who is this?”

“It's William, Chief.” Walter's older brother.

“What is one of our top Imageers doing handling Embassy Security? Or, to put it another way, what's the point of this weird dream?”

“Ahhh, you're not asleep, at least as far as I know, Ambassador.”

“Well, if you were in my dream you'd say that.”

“Are you feeling alright, Ambassador? Do I need to have Doctor Hernandez or Nurse Carter go up and check you out?”

Contemplated if I felt awake as the music changed to The Pretender's version of “I Got You Babe.” One more song and I could confirm if this was the music mix Jeff had made for our anniversary or not. He'd put a lot of thought into it and I'd been using it as our wakeup music for the past two months.

“If I'm really awake, where are Jeff and Jamie?”

“Representative Martini took your daughter to daycare already, Ambassador. He asked me to tell you that she'd woken up early and he didn't want to wake you.”

“Why not?”

“He said you've been sleeping poorly.”

True enough. “Okay, so why are you here instead of Walter?”

“Walter's at a Security training session at Dulce.”

“Why is he at the Science Center for training?”

“Because there's a big dust storm around Home Base and the training session needs to be held both indoors and outdoors.”

“Gotcha. And you're here because . . . ?”

“Because someone needed to cover Embassy Security, and it was decided that I was the most trustworthy option.”

“Cannot argue with that logic. Other than to mention that I wasn't informed of any training sessions or temporary personnel switches.”

William cleared his throat. “Ah, you don't need to be informed, Ambassador. Gladys handles all of that, and if she says it's time for training, it's time for training, and if she says I'm covering during Walter's training session, then I'm covering.”

“Gotcha.” Couldn't argue. Gladys was the Head of Security for all A-C operations worldwide. She was considered scary formidable and I concurred on the scary. Three-plus years in and I'd never seen her in person, or seen a picture of her. I was okay with this, mostly because Gladys was one of the few people around who could intimidate me, and she had sarcasm down to an art form.

“Ambassador, do you need assistance in some way?”

“Why aren't you calling me Kitty?” The music changed to Tom Petty's “Yer So Bad.” Yep, we were on Jeff's 2nd Anniversary Mix, ergo, I was hopefully really awake.

William laughed. “Because Walter left me very specific instructions, and it's vital to the running of this Embassy that whoever's on the com call you Ambassador or Chief. Per his very detailed page about titles and why they matter here.”

“I love Walter. And you, too.”

“Always good to know. Representative Martini is downstairs, having a breakfast meeting with several politicians who are, per your husband, all friends. He said that if you were up in time you should join them.”

“How much time do I have?”

“They all just got here a few minutes ago, and I think this meeting will run long, so you should be good.”

“Awesome, thanks.” I took a shower and got dressed while ZZ Top's “Gimme All Your Lovin',” Wall Of Voodoo's “Hands Of Love,” Pat Benatar's “Never Wanna Leave You,” and Tina Turner's “Best” played.

In the good old days before my daughter was born, I'd have taken longer to get ready, and not because I was skimping on the lather, rinse, repeat portions or anything now. During Operation Drug Addict some of our enemies had slipped some seriously strong, power altering drugs into Jeff's system, which he'd then passed along to our child when I'd gotten pregnant, and she'd in turn passed along to me. We were all about the sharing around here.

So I was now kind of half A-C, though differently from how Jamie was truly half A-C. I had the super-strength, which wasn't quite as good as the regular A-Cs under most circumstances, but was still pretty darned good for any human who wasn't nicknamed The Rock. I also had faster healing and regeneration, which was excellent.

I also had hyperspeed. Jamie was eighteen months old, and I was just now sort of getting to a place where I could use hyperspeed for normal, mundane things and not crash through a wall or knock myself out.

Jeff's cousin, Christopher White, had also become enhanced—though he'd done it intentionally—and he and I worked on my skills all the time. This month, the focus was on completing my personal routine using hyperspeed. So far, showering and drying off had gone well, but I used regular human for hair care because I didn't want to look like I had mange and it was really easy to yank your hair out when you were super strong.

As “Looking Hot” from No Doubt hit my personal airwaves, I trotted to our huge walk-in closet to choose today's ensemble. A-Cs were in love with the colors black and white, and Armani, in a way that made casual obsessions—like mine for all things Aerosmith or Golum's for the Ring—seem to be merely pale imitations of fidelity.

Therefore, my closet had a lot of black slim skirts, white oxfords, and a variety of black or black and white high heels in it. Happily, because I was both human, well, mostly human, and the ambassador, I got to wear colors and other styles, at least occasionally. And because I was me, I also had a lot of jeans, several pairs of Converse, and an extremely large and eclectic set of concert T-shirts and hoodies.

Political breakfast or no, it was the start of July and I was going for casual. Got into jeans, my Converse, and my newest Aerosmith T-shirt, because having Steven, Joe, and the rest of my boys on my chest ensured I would prevail over all obstacles. In honor of “Looking Hot,” I selected a cute No Doubt hoodie, because summer back East was still nothing like summer in Pueblo Caliente, Arizona, and I could easily get chilled. Plus it looked hella cute with this particular Aerosmith shirt.

Thusly dressed, I grabbed my purse. Yes, I lived on half of the top floor of the Embassy, and I was going down only six floors to get to the kitchen area. However, I'd learned a lot during my tenure with Centaurion Division, and one of the main lessons was that I always needed my purse and its contents handy.

I had a lot of different purses and handbags available to me, but Old Trusty, my big, black, cheap leather purse was still my go-to option. It took a licking and kept on holding everything and not falling apart. Ensured my Glock, my iPod, speakers, and earbuds, Jeff's adrenaline harpoon, my wallet, a bottle of extra hold hairspray, my brush and a scrunchie, and anything else I could think of were in it. Shoved my phone into the back pocket of my jeans.

Turned off the alarm clock as “Honey, Honey” from ABBA came on. Took the stairs down in part because using hyperspeed meant it was faster than taking one of the elevators, and in other part because it was likely Christopher was with Jeff, and I didn't feel like getting the “you need to practice all the time” lecture.

Reached the first floor in record time and without issue. Congratulated myself as I slowed to a human-speed walk. So far it'd been a cheerful hyperspeed morning.

The American Centaurion Embassy went up seven floors, down two which were basement and parking garage levels, and then went down a lot more due to the hidden elevator that connected us to the Tunnels of Doom. It was a city block long and wide, and since Operation Destruction, was connected via a steel and bulletproof glass walkway on the second floors to the neighboring building we now owned, operated, and had personnel living in, which was nicknamed The Zoo.

The first floor, being the main entryway and therefore the place the most people who weren't part of American Centaurion in some way would come in, had the most normal stuff in it. Offices, dining room, kitchen, and some small parlors and salons. No one was in any of the rooms as I went by, meaning they were likely all in the kitchen. This meeting seemed a lot more important all of a sudden.