Alien vs. Alien (44 page)

CHAPTER 80

“T
ELL ME THE EMBASSY ISN’T
being bombed. And I’m not kidding about that.”

“We are not under attack, Chief,” Walter shared. “And I’m not kidding about that, either.”

The biggest screen in the room—which heretofore had had the schematic of the world with all the dead zones and tunnels on it—flashed to much more active life.

“We have action in th e D.C. area tunnels,” Big George shouted.

“We have action in areas other than the tunnels,” Omega Red added as more beeping started. “France and Paraguay have gone hot.”

“Ah, Kitty?” Henry said nervously. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything.” Well, I’d made a wish. “I wish the alien armada would go away without harming us or the Alpha Centaurion system. Make it so.”

“Kitty, are you high?” Stryker asked.

“No. Just in case I’ve somehow gotten super wishing powers, though, I figured I’d toss another one out there to the Powers That Be. Yuri, what do you mean about hot in terms of France and Paraguay? We’ve seen and are seeing the action onscreen, and it’s been hot there for a while now.”

“Not what I mean. It’s a long explanation that I’m not going to try to give you because Chuck isn’t here to translate it for you. Suffice to say, we’ve got some electronic signals that aren’t normal.”

“They match the ones Ravi isolated,” Henry shared.

“Hone in and confirm locations, numbers, access points, and potential hostiles,” Franklin said.

Before I could ask Big George what was going on in the tunnels, I heard a step behind me. I spun around to see Christopher standing there, Patented Glare #3 going strong.

“What are you doing here?”

“And how did you get in?” William asked. “The basement gate is secured because of the Embassy’s shield.”

Christopher shared Patented Glare #4 with William. “I came in via the floater gate you have in this room. And, Kitty, I’m doing what I spent my life training for. You’re not the only one who can ‘resign.’ ”

“But we need you managing things at the Dome.”

He snorted. “The last time you were there? Sure. Now? Now I have five women running things.”

“Claudia and Lorraine are taking over?”

“Oh, yes, believe me, but they’re actually not the ones running the show.” He shook his head. “Commander Dwyer reminded everyone that with James and Tim off dealing with the superbeings and supersoldiers, she, as the Head of Imageering, was in charge.”

“Serene countermanded you? Really? How did she say this?” I normally thought of Serene as sweetness and innocence on the hoof.

“She didn’t exactly say it.” Christopher looked slightly embarrassed. “She snarled it. Over the intercom system.”

“She’s very pregnant.”

“And she’s apparently been watching you, because she pulled rank faster than I can run.”

I could see White. He looked quietly pleased. “Okay, but how did the Security team handle it?”

“You mean after they wet themselves? Trust me, when she’s angry, Serene’s really able to channel when she was crazy and trying to kill you and anyone around you.”

“That’s my girl. But still, why are you here? You weren’t supposed to resign. We need someone to be the face of American Centaurion if everything goes to hell.”

Christopher snorted again and switched to Patented Glare #1. “The moment Tito shared what was going on, Doreen said that if anyone was going to actually pretend to be the Ambassador in charge, it was going to be the one person with actual experience. She said to tell you that she has no issue returning to her regular position within the Embassy once things are normal, but until then, she said she’s taken over the diplomatic responsibilities.”

“What did Paul say about this?”

“You mean our Pontifex? Our Pontifex was politely told that, while he is indeed a member of Alpha Team, it’s more of a figurehead position, and as the religious ruler of our people and the vessel for ACE, he’d be sitting in his chair, under guard. He’s allowed to speak, I think, but only when spoken to. ACE, by the way, can butt in whenever, not that I think that’s going to happen. Before I was told to leave, Paul was allowed to share that ACE still seems distracted and distant.”

“Works for me.” Well, the part about ACE didn’t, but hopefully we’d solve ACE’s problems, too. “So, Serene, Doreen, Claudia, and Lorraine is four. Who’s the fifth gal in the A-C Girl Power Club?”

“My wife. And I can’t thank you enough for that.”

“How is Amy being one of the ones in charge my fault?”

“Oh, I don’t know. ‘Kitty’s not the only one who can handle an emergency or keep things going. Get out of here and do something useful and let those of us who understand crisis management handle the civilians.’ So, basically, thanks to you, my own wife kicked me out of the Dome.”

I managed to keep a straight face, but it took effort. “But they let Tito stay?”

“They like me better,” Tito said, as he rejoined us. “Glad you brought the gate along. I’ll ask how later.”

“Abigail and Naomi are hella awesome is how.”

“What about Captain Morgan?” Franklin asked. “Is he returning as well?”

“No.” Tito was also having trouble keeping a straight face. “We have a lot of single girls over there, for a variety of reasons. It was requested that he remain to help protect them and to ensure we had U.S. Military presence and advice.”

“Wow, awesome spin.” Nice to know Morgan met Dazzler requirements.

“Captain Morgan was deemed particularly necessary because all the single women were recruited into active duty,” Tito added with a rather wicked grin. “Supposedly our Head of Recruitment authorized it.”

“And I want to know when, where, how, and why you did that.” Christopher sounded pissed off and a little impressed.

“I’m sure I did authorize it, but it’s all a blur. Been so very, very busy and all that. But back to our missing captain. Are you saying the ladies liked Captain Morgan more than you, Tito?”

He laughed. “Nope. But he’s fresh meat.”

“Excuse me?” Franklin asked, sounding shocked and a little worried.

“A-C women prefer brains and brain capacity over anything else, Colonel. So, be happy, you have a smart guy as your adjunct.”

“It’s called being sapiosexual,” Tito added. “And it’s a definite perk that comes with working for Centaurion. Unlike Christopher, I was given the choice of staying or going. Serene’s close but not due yet, and there are plenty of doctors there, including Melanie and Emily, who are heading up whatever the other gals aren’t, assisted by Magdalena,” he said to White.

“And yet you chose to come back to help us?”

“I went to the bathroom before I came back, just in case. But everyone having moved back to the Embassy was the deciding factor.”

“You are the smart one, I’ve always said so. But not to worry—the Gower girls left Hacker International’s bathroom to be destroyed with the rest of the bunker.”

“Confirming their intelligence.”

“Too true. How’s Jamie?”

“Fine,” Tito said with a grin as Christopher snorted.

“Why does Christopher find that question funny?”

“Because Serene told me that as far as helpers went, Jamie was always more useful than I am. Jamie’s sitting with her Uncle Paul, along with Aunt Lucinda and Uncle Alfred and your father, and she’s having the time of her life.”

“Sorry Serene thinks Jamie’s more useful than you, Christopher.”

“I had to demand to be given a good-bye kiss. From Jamie
and
Amy.”

“Awww. She doesn’t seem to miss her mommy, and I’m not acting all down about it. Besides, I’m sure the girls are all just focused on doing their jobs and averting international and interstellar crises of epic proportions.”

“They’re crazed with power, you mean. I’m familiar with how it looks—I’ve seen it with you for over two years now.”

“Choosing to ignore your snippy attitude because things are going on. Right before you arrived, Big George said there was action in the tunnels.”

“Tunnels? Big George? What
is
going on?” Christopher sounded one syllable away from a full on snark fest.

“I thought you were briefed.”

“No. The
Commanders
and
Chiefs
were briefed. I was allowed to resign pending the end of the world.”

“Kitty,” Big George said urgently. “You need to look at this.”

CHAPTER 81

“T
ITO, RICHARD, MALCOLM—I
need to focus. Someone catch Christopher up on what’s going on.”

“I’ll do it,” White said. “I can talk the fastest.”

“I’ll assist,” William added with a grin. “I can talk fast, too.”

“True enough. Just do it in a far corner and at low levels.” As they did as requested, I did my best to ignore the sounds—A-Cs could talk at hyperspeed and hear at that level as well. But it was so fast that it had a negative effect on most humans, me in particular. Enhancement hadn’t made that any easier, either.

Instead, I focused on the screen as most of those standing clustered around to watch as well. “All I see is tunnel, Big George.”

“I’ve got heat readings. I’m following them. They were extremely faint before, but are slowly getting stronger, so whatever’s giving off the heat is getting closer to our sensors.”

“We don’t have sensors throughout the tunnels?”

“No. NASA’s been generous, but we’re talking thousands of miles of tunnels, limited personnel, and somewhat limited budget. Chuck’s been extremely careful about who goes down there, let alone who knows about this in the first place. We have cameras and security sensors all along what we call the Embassy Tunnel. We have security sensors along the tunnels we’ve finished mapping, but cameras are only placed intermittently, mostly near the dead zones.”

I saw a long, dark hallway. The camera was moving. “How is the camera moving?”

“It’s on a tread.”

“Wow.”

“It’s hardly amazing, Kitty. We’ve had things like this since the moon landing, if not before. It’s how we patrol the sections that don’t have stationary cameras set up.”

“You aren’t going to tell me the moon landing was faked are you?”

“No, that’s Omega Red’s thing. I know it was real.”

“Okey-dokey. You can share your pet conspiracy theory with me later.”

“You’ll want me to. I’ve proven that the world governments create boy bands in order to subliminally control the citizenry.”

“Yeah, I’ll wait until we’ve saved the world to get into that one.”

“Fine. You like rock anyway.”

I chose to refrain from mentioning that I also had a nostalgic fondness for *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys. I didn’t listen to them all that often, though, so I was probably safe from the musical mind control.

Studied the picture on screen as the camera rolled along. Big George had said this was part of the D.C. tunnels, meaning it was connected to “our” tunnel and the Embassy.

Based on the use of a roving camera, knew it wasn’t near the Secret Lab, where they’d been creating Gaultier’s Zombie Army of Hot Guys. Even without the roving camera clue, we’d blown that up, and though A-C fail-safes meant the lab had explodeÀd in on itself, there had still been rubble. And I saw no rubble.

However, dark halls with murky-to-no lighting didn’t offer a lot of landmarks to compare against, and I’d only been down in our part of the tunnel system once.

Decided to stop keeping my questions to myself. “Big George, where is this, in the schematic of the underground tunnels?”

He tapped something onto his keyboard and another screen tossed up the D.C. area underground map. “It’s heading for the last dead zone, the one we’re not done mapping, but it’s not there yet. The sensors react and interfere with our mapping equipment, so we have very few sensors in this area.”

Because Big George had put up the map for this one underground area only, I could actually make out some of the words. “From the map, that dead zone looks to be near Langley.”

“It is.”

“But it’s also near Arlington, in that sense, and D.C.,” Stryker said. “It’s under the Washington Golf and Country Club.”

“Seriously?” Armstrong sounded concerned. “The President’s a member there. I’m a member there.”

“Everyone who’s anyone is a member there or good friends with a member there,” Franklin said. “It’s a perfect place to have a secret underground tunnel and room, too, because even if you’re not a member, if you’re someone’s invited guest, you’re ‘in’ once you’re there, and no one’s going to bother you.”

“If it’s really a room.” There were many other possibilities, which I chose not to share aloud. Why say “hidden bomb” right now? What good would it do if we couldn’t access the dead zones to verify?

“I think Amy’s father was a member there,” Christopher said quietly to me, as he, White, and William joined us.

“I’m sure he was. And that means LaRue probably still is.” I figured Ronald Yates, Antony Marling, and heck, even Madeline Cartwright had been members there. Or been pals with one. It was a safe bet every enemy we had was no more than two degrees of separation from a full-fledged member.

“No wonder your mother and Mister Reynolds have been careful,” Armstrong said. “The members of this country club are among the most powerful in the nation.”

“You should know, Senator. Are Mimi and Abby done meditating?”

“Yes,” Naomi said. “What do you need?”

“You two and Christopher—see if you can get a reading on Jeff or Chuckie.” Just because Big George had found some heat signatures, it didn’t mean they were emanating from the bodies we were looking for.

Christopher muttered something about every woman he knew bossing him around, but otherwise I could tell the three of them were concentra
ting.

Tried to be quiet while they were focused. Failed. “How deep are these tunnels?”

“Deep,” Big George said.

“There are tunnels under Washington,” Stryker added. “These are deeper. You did know that there were tunnels undeÀfr the city, didn’t you?”

“Yes, Eddy. Just like Disneyland, there’s a whole lot more underground that the regular folks don’t know about.”

“Just checking,” he grumbled. “Geez, bite a guy’s head off.”

“Get back to work, Eddy.”

“I’ve got something,” Naomi said. She and Abigail were already holding hands, but Naomi grabbed Christopher’s hand, too. “Need your help.”

“Two people,” Christopher said slowly. “The interference is extreme. I can’t tell if they’re human or A-C, let alone if they’re Jeff and Reynolds. I can just get that there’s something living in there and they . . . seem personlike.”

“Same here,” Abigail confirmed. Naomi nodded.

Something was bothering me. Something important. “I have a question.”

“Yes?” Big George asked.

“Why is it that three of the most powerful A-Cs on the planet are having more trouble reading what’s in that tunnel than a roving camera and some heat sensors?”