Touched by an Alien (44 page)

Jerry shrugged. “We’re coming with you.” He looked over at Christopher. “By order of Angela Katt.” He looked back at me. “Your mother said to tell you she outranks everyone here, so do what you do best.”

“Cause trouble?” Christopher said with a sigh. “She’s great at that.”

I managed to refrain from making any comment. Other than one. “My mom outranks your dad. Deal.”

“He’s not military,” Christopher snapped as we started off toward the Science Center.

“Shouldn’t we be running?”

“Not if we want the flyboys with us.”

I thought about it. “I could hold your hand and Jerry’s hand. Maybe the others can link up, too. You’ve all told me it’s transferred through touch.”

Christopher looked at Jerry, who was grinning. “Sounds like a great idea.”

The pilots weren’t thrilled about holding hands, but Christopher made it clear that this was an order, not a suggestion. The other pilots were introduced as Lieutenant Chip Walker and Captain Matt Hughes. They both looked around twenty-five. “Are you sure you guys want to do this?” I didn’t want to lose another man. I could still see Cox’s plane explode if I allowed myself to think about it for even a second.

Hughes nodded. “Whoever’s taken over this facility helped murder Bill. Yeah, we’re coming along.”

“Glad to have you with us,” I said softly.

He gave me a small smile. “We all saw you and heard you, when Bill died. We’ve got your back for as long as you need us.”

With that, Hughes, Walker, and Jerry grasped each other’s wrists. More secure and also more manly looking. I took Jerry’s hand in my left and Christopher’s in my right, and we were off.

We came to a halt not at the Science Center but about half a mile away, in a wash in front of a large drainage pipe. It was hidden from the Center by a variety of cacti. The sun was starting to set. I hoped this was going to help us.

I was getting used to this mode of transportation, so my stomach was only flipping around, but the pilots were retching. Christopher glanced my way, looking smug. “You wanted to run.”

I shrugged. “It passes.”

“Like bad booze,” Walker gasped out.

“Not that we’d know anything about that,” Jerry added.

“Me either.” I didn’t want to wreck my reputation, whatever it was. “So, how do we get in?”

“We crawl.”

WE ALL HAD TO GO ON HANDS AND KNEES
. There was a little water but not much. Just enough to make our lower legs and hands wet. I did my best not to focus on what was probably growing in the water.

Christopher went first, then me, Jerry, Walker, and Hughes, bringing up the rear. The pilots all had flashlights with them, so Christopher had Walker’s, and Jerry and Hughes had theirs, all turned on. It was eerie but not all that scary in reality—I had four men surrounding me, so I was good. “Won’t they know we’re coming in this way?” I figured someone had to ask.

“No one knows about this other than me and Jeff.”

“Wanna explain that?”

“No, but I’m sure you’ll badger me until I do.” Gee, he knew me well already. “We weren’t based here when we were kids. We were . . . with my mother at East Base. But we would come out for visits. There was nothing to do, and my parents were always in high security meetings.”

Or they wanted to be alone, which would make sense. And who wants two young boys with you when you’re finally seeing your spouse after weeks or months of separation?

“So we wandered the Science Center. We discovered this drainage pipe when we were seven.” He chuckled. “Jeff didn’t trust that the adults wouldn’t try to stop us from playing in here, so we set up traps and a warning system to tell if anyone other than us came through here. No one ever did.”

We continued on and hit a fork in the pipe. There was a baseball bat, mitt, and ball leaning against the right-hand fork. They were covered with dust and spiderwebs. “Warning system?”

“No, we weren’t supposed to play ball in the Center. We smuggled these in here. We used to play in the wash.” He touched the mitt. “I could throw the ball two hundred miles an hour, and Jeff could hit it. It went what seemed like miles. I haven’t thought about this stuff in . . . years, really.”

My heart ached for both of them. They hadn’t really had childhoods, just stolen bits of one here and there. “Bring the bat and the ball.”

“Why?” Christopher sounded confused.

“Weapons,” Jerry answered for me.

“I’ll take them,” Hughes called. “Less likely for me to hit anyone with the bat in the back. Unless you want it, Commander.”

“No, that’s fine.” Christopher handed the ball and bat back to me, but slowly, as if he didn’t want to let anyone else touch them. “Mitt, too?”

“Only if it can block bullets.”

He chuckled. “Don’t think so.”

We left the mitt and moved on. We came across various traps little boys would set—none of them dangerous and also none of them tripped. Christopher was right—no one had come down here since the last time he and Jeff had, which, from the dust, looked to have been twenty years easily.

“This doesn’t really drain water?”

“It used to, before we arrived. Our engineers diverted the water runoff to recycle it, and this pipe wasn’t part of that plan.”

Poor pipe, discarded along with the their childhood. I was getting awfully sentimental about a long piece of metal, but it had been a trying couple of days.

We were crawling in silence when I heard something. “Hughes, you okay back there?”

“Fine, why?”

“I heard something. I thought you might have knocked the bat into the pipe.”

“Nope. I didn’t hear anything,” Hughes added.

The others chimed in. Only I had heard something.

“You’re just a little jumpy,” Walker suggested. “It’s natural.”

I didn’t feel any jumpier than I had for the past couple of days. But the sound wasn’t repeated, and we had people to save, so I decided not to worry about it. There were plenty of other things to worry about. “Where does this pipe lead?”

“We’ll come out on the bottom level,” Christopher advised.

“Safe to assume the whole complex is taken?” Jerry asked.

“I think so. Christopher didn’t recognize the voice telling us we couldn’t land, and, let’s face it, they shot missiles at us.”

“Who do you think we’re dealing with?” Walker asked.

I thought about it. “The Al Dejahl terrorist organization.”

“You sure?” Christopher asked.

“Positive. It’d have to be more than one person to hold the entire Science Center hostage. From what my mother’s indicated, Al Dejahl has enough people, and this matters to Yates in a big way.”

“We’re not armed well to stop terrorists,” Jerry said.

“The element of surprise is on our side.”

“Jeez, Kitty, did you buy a book of clichés while I wasn’t looking?”

I resisted the impulse to hit Christopher in the butt, partially because he had a great butt and I didn’t think grabbing it right now would be a good idea no matter how I looked at it.

We continued and finally hit a grate. Christopher moved it easily, but I figured it would have taken two human men.

“Why isn’t it rusted?” I asked softly.

“Special alloy,” Christopher whispered back. “Now, cut the chatter.”

“Yes, sir, Commander.”

“I’m going to ask Jeff to wash your mouth out.”

I took that idea and ran with it, letting my mind wander through the gutter with it while we moved into the small utility room, clearly unused for decades. I really hoped Martini was going to be okay, because I wanted to jump his bones by the time Hughes was in the room with us.

“Okay, how do we tell the hostiles?” Walker asked.

“The people holding the weapons should be the hostiles.” Why was I the one answering this question?

Christopher nodded. “If they’ve taken every floor, we’re going to have to clear it and work our way to wherever they’re holding Jeff and the others.”

We moved out, staying in the same order as in the pipe. The floor was deserted. “Not a good sign,” Christopher said once we’d determined it was empty.

“No, it means they’ve herded everyone to, I hope, one level.”

“But we can’t assume that,” Hughes said.

“True. Are there stairs?”

“Of course.” Christopher gave me a look that said that was an idiot question.

“I haven’t seen them.”

He rolled his eyes and led us to an unmarked doorway. Sure enough, it was the stairwell. I guessed the aliens didn’t figure anyone would need to know where the stairs were. In case of emergency they’d just run out of the building at hyperspeed and be done with it.

We moved up through the A-C levels—no one anywhere, including in the transient wing. Well, no one human or A-C. Our dogs and cats were in my parents’ room, but they were the only living things there.

“Should we bring the hounds?” Jerry asked as Duke licked his face.

“Only if we want to make a really loud entrance and give doggie kisses to the terrorists.”

Duchess had jumped into Hughes’ arms and was licking all over him. “I thought pit bulls were deadly killers,” he said as he put her down.

“Only if they’re trained to it. Otherwise, you’re in greater danger of being licked to death.”

“She was really protective when I visited,” Christopher said.

I thought about it. She was the best trained of our dogs. “Okay, we’ll bring her along, but believe me, leave the others here.”

We hooked on Duchess’ lead and then moved out. Hughes had her and the baseball bat. Christopher took the baseball back since Hughes had his hands full. I figured he was finding it comforting because he was spinning it in his palm.

It was the same thing on the next floors—all deserted. It was eerie now for real. But we made good time since Christopher, after the second deserted floor, just ran from room to room.

“Which floor is the launch one?”

“Top. That’s probably where they are.”

We hit Floor Two and finally found activity. This was human medical, but there were people here. Not too many, just several armed guards around one door.

“That’s where they have Jeff and the others.”

“How the hell can you tell that?” Christopher asked me.

“Genetics.”

“Okay, so, we get them out.”

I knew exactly how Martini had felt when he’d had to suggest me as bait for Mephistopheles. “No.”

“No?” Christopher looked shocked and angry.

“Greatest number of people are in danger on the floor above us. Most of your population and, as a key point, almost all of your women. We have to save them, first, then come back down here.” I tried to focus on the fact that this was what Martini would have told me to do. I didn’t have to like it—the leader didn’t get the luxury of liking all the choices he or she needed to make.

“She’s right, Commander,” Hughes said quietly. “We need to clear the last floor.”

Christopher gave me a long look. “Jeff may be dead when we get back.”

“I know what he’d pick if I gave him the choice of saving him or saving your race. It’s the choice you two have made every day for two-thirds of your lives.”

Christopher nodded. “Let’s go.”

We moved up the stairwell to the top floor—away from all the people here who mattered to me. I knew now, without question, why war was hell.

WE MOVED UP THE STAIRWELL
The biggest positive to the unmarked doors was, I had to guess, the Al Dejahl team wouldn’t know what they were and therefore might have paid them no mind.

We reached the top floor and eased in. Hughes was doing a great job of keeping Duchess quiet. I couldn’t even hear her toenails. I looked back to see him carrying her. Smart and an animal lover. And handsome for a human. That I could still manage to make hunkiness comparisons was good. That I was making allowances for humans to be less gorgeous than A-Cs was a reflection of how natural this all seemed by now.