by Gini Koch
Cliff was clearly in his office. I’d seen it. It was typical D.C. High-Up Worker Bee Dull and Semi-Stately. However, I’d also been to Horn’s office, and he wasn’t in it. I hadn’t seen whatever F.B.I. bomb defusing area he and Serene were at—in fact, I had no idea if they were in the D.C. area, back here at Dulce with everyone else, or in another clandestine location—so I concentrated on their screen. Which was why I caught sight of a younger Dazzler who looked familiar.
Nudged Jeff. “Who’s that with Serene and Vander?” I whispered.
“Our niece,” he replied in kind.
“You have a tonnage of nieces and nephews, Jeff.”
“But only one old enough to be working outside of school. That’s Stephanie, Sylvia’s oldest. You know her.” Sylvia was the eldest of Jeff’s five older sisters, and she’d married and started her family first as well. Stephanie was the oldest Martini grandchild, therefore.
“Yeah, just haven’t seen her since . . .” Since shortly after I’d had to kill her father, Clarence Valentino, during Operation Sherlock. He’d been a major traitor and had been trying to kill me and a lot of other people, but he was still her father, and while Sylvia had understood, we’d given their children the old Killed in Action story.
Stephanie was, like all female A-Cs, gorgeous. But she’d changed a lot in the past couple of years, leaving the awkward teenaged stage for the more mature, almost-a-real-young-adult stage. She’d be about 19 now.
Thought about the high-security cells again. Clarence had been released from them by Alfred, Jeff’s father, because Sylvia had been so upset by his incarceration. He’d then been taken out of the solar system, along with Ronaldo Al Dejahl, by LaRue DeMorte Gaultier, via a ship stolen from Alpha Four. Our lives were always filled with fun complexities like that.
So Stephanie had to know her father was a traitor. Maybe her younger siblings didn’t know or weren’t clear, but she’d been old enough to understand everything that had been going on, and all Dazzlers were not just great looking, but also brilliant. How hard would it have been for her to put two and two together? And if how she’d been when we first met was still how she was, she wasn’t afraid to speak her mind.
But I hadn’t heard anything from anyone about Stephanie’s reactions to what had happened to her father, or what he’d done to her people, other than the usual platitudes everyone, human or alien, says during and about bad situations.
Jeff and I had talked about how to deal with his sisters and their families, in part because most of their husbands had worked for the former Diplomatic Corps and weren’t exactly confirmed to be on the side of right. Jeff had felt that my not trying to make amends with anyone and just letting him, Alfred, Lucinda, and White handle it was the right way to go. And because of his empathic talent, I’d acquiesced.
So, other than Marianne’s family, who we saw fairly frequently, we only saw the rest of his sisters and their families on holidays or when jobs crossed, which was rarely, and I’d been busy enough that I hadn’t thought about it a lot. Marianne was the youngest of Jeff’s sisters, so I had the most in common with her, and her youngest daughter, Kimmie, had been our flower girl, so we were more closely bonded.
I was an only child, and these days I worked with most of my closest friends—I didn’t miss or even think about sibling interaction when Chuckie, Amy, and Caroline were right there, let alone Reader, Lorraine, and Claudia. And Jeff and Christopher were always together, which, though they were cousins, tended to cover my sibling thoughts about either one of them.
All of the Martini grandchildren were talented—about fifty-fifty empaths to imageers—and all of them were closer to Jeff and Christopher’s levels than normal A-C standards. Kimmie was empathic. But I had no idea what talent Stephanie had. Wondered if, in addition to anything else, she was, like Camilla was and Doreen was learning to be, a Liar.
Camilla was undercover in Gaultier Enterprises somewhere, and Chuckie wouldn’t let me contact her. So asking for her expert opinion was, sadly, out. Doreen was across the room and it would take too long to explain to her why I was suspicious. It wouldn’t take all that long, really—Doreen was high up there in smarts on the Dazzler Scale—but any time could be too much time.
Wondered why I was stressing about Stephanie right now, other than the fact that I’d seen her somewhere I wasn’t expecting. Maybe because of the song, “Pumped Up Kicks”. It had a cheerful, earwormy tune, but it was about a kid getting ready to go off and kill people. And Algar was a lyrics-focused clue giver.
The conversations washed over and around me—I concentrated on the screen with Serene, Horn, and Stephanie in it.
Horn and Serene were sitting—it looked like they were either waiting for their cue to talk or had already; they seemed alert and interested but not like they were going to be adding in at the moment. Stephanie was behind them, and she appeared to be taking notes.
“What’s Stephanie doing with Vander and Serene?” I asked Christopher, who was on my other side, in a whisper, since Jeff seemed to actually be paying attention.
“She’s working for Vander as one of his assistants,” he whispered back. “Favor to us kind of thing. And it’s good experience for her.”
“Yeah. Who asked for her to be put into that position?”
“Why? What’s wrong?” He didn’t sound annoyed or snarky—he sounded worried. Good.
I hadn’t taken my eyes off the screen. So I saw when Stephanie looked up and saw me. Her eyes narrowed and she shot me a look of pure venom. Her gaze shifted—the venom was being directed toward Christopher, too.
Considered this. She’d been the one who’d given Christopher and all the rest of the guys keychains as Arrival Day presents when I was pregnant with Jamie. Those keychains had had bugs in them, bugs put there by our Enemies of the Day at that time, which had included the former Diplomatic Corps, and Clarence.
Those keychains were part of how Christopher had been manipulated into becoming a Surcenthumain addict. I’d thought, we’d all thought, that Clarence had tricked her into doing it. Most had assumed Stephanie had no idea there was anything untoward inside her gifts. And no one, not even Jeff, maybe especially not Jeff, had asked her if she’d known what she was doing.
And if we asked her now, what would all the empaths feel? Nothing wrong. Because if she was working for our enemies, then she was one of the first people who they’d given an emotional overlay device to. Maybe she’d been the main tester for them—see if your Uncle Jeff can tell that you hate his wife’s guts, and your Uncle Christopher’s guts, too.
Algar had been warning me. That meant there probably wasn’t a lot of time. We’d lost far too many people I cared about last year—I wasn’t willing to lose Serene, and I had a feeling she was going to be the first in the line of fire. Her son, Patrick, was almost as talented as Jamie, and he didn’t have ACE inside him. They’d tried to get Patrick, and by extension, Jamie, last year by holding his father hostage and torturing him. That was why Michael and Fuzzball were dead—they’d been killed trying to protect Brian.
Serene would be an even stronger lure for her son, and that would mean that it was Horn who was going to die first, so that we would all know the situation was serious. Okay, so Serene was second in the line of fire; made things worse, not better. Plus, the death of the guy in charge of the F.B.I.’s Alien Affairs Division, especially at the hand of an A-C, would be bad for us in more ways than I could count.
Took Christopher’s hand in mine. “Do you trust me?”
To his great credit, he neither tried to drop my hand nor asked me if I was crazy. “Yeah, I do.”
“Then get the two of us to wherever Vander and Serene are at the fastest speed you’ve ever used in your life.”
CHAPTER 32
I’D EXPERIENCED CHRISTOPHER’S Flash Level of speed before. But this was faster than he’d ever used with me yet.
His Surcenthumain boost had expanded his talents to a frightening degree. But after a while, the new
abilities had all faded, leaving him back to his just regular Better Than All The Other Imageers level. But his hyper-hyperspeed had stuck around.
For whatever reason, Christopher had held onto all the extra speed ability the drug had given him, and then some. He and I still worked regularly on my reverse-inherited A-C abilities and talents, but he also worked on his own. And especially after Operation Infiltration, he focused on speed and distance.
Field agents had to be able to run twenty-five miles at a go. Jeff and Christopher had always been able to do fifty. But now? Now Jeff could do several hundred before he overtaxed himself. And Christopher was up to a thousand miles without breaking a sweat.
And I was about the only one who knew it.
Part of this secrecy was simply because we wanted to keep whatever edge against our enemies that we could. Part was that we didn’t really relish the idea of Jeff and Christopher having to submit to a battery of tests to figure out why they could now perform at this level in terms of hyperspeed prowess.
This meant, however, that Christopher was faster than even regular A-Cs could see, so presumably to those in the conference room, we were there and then suddenly we were not. Was distracted from this thought because, as we sped up fifteen floors and out of the Science Center within the blink of an eye, I realized someone was holding my other hand. And I was pretty sure that someone wasn’t Jeff.
I was prepared to pretty much black out, because of how hard this speed level was for anyone other than Christopher to take, so it was a shock when I didn’t. It was also a shock that, once outside, we weren’t heading toward the east coast. It was more of a shock to look to my left and see Buchanan and Siler there.
“How the hell?”
“He knows you well,” Siler said, jerking his head toward Buchanan. “And I’m fast.”
“Almost there,” Christopher said. “I’ll stop just before we’re on top of them so you can all throw up.”
Thought about it as we whizzed by things I couldn’t even make out we were going so fast. “I don’t need to.”
“Me either,” Buchanan said. “No idea why.”
“It’s me,” Siler said, “my touch transference. I could explain it now, or we could do whatever the hell you’re planning on doing.”
“Where is the there we’re almost at?” I asked Christopher.
“Home Base.”
“Oh, a nice trip to Area Fifty-One. I guess that makes sense. But why are Vander and Serene here? You said they’d gone to Vander’s Bomb Unit place or whatever.”
They all stared at me, even Christopher. Hoped he wouldn’t trip on something.
“There’s a bombing range here,” Buchanan said as we approached the Nellis Air Force Base and didn’t actually go into it. “At Groom Lake.”
“And they used a gate to get here, Kitty,” Christopher said slowly. “And I assume they came here because Serene wanted to blow more things up than the F.B.I. felt comfortable with.”
“Fine. And yes, I’ll give myself the ‘duh.’ Let’s get this rescue mission rolling!”
“There’s no water,” Siler said as we ran across the so-called lake.
“It’s a salt flat,” Christopher said as we reached a concrete bunker on the far side from Home Base. “Get ready, I have no idea what our mission actually is.”
“Stopping a Second Generation Traitor from doing something very bad.”
“Stephanie?” Christopher asked.
“Yep.”
“Okay, I can make the logic leap.” He wrenched the door open and we zoomed in.
Once inside, we stopped. Sure enough, none of us needed to toss the cookies. The benefits of having Siler around seemed good so far.
There was no one in the entry area. That this place had an entry area was kind of surprising. There was more to this bunker than one room to hide from bomb blasts within. It was a lot larger than I’d expected it to be, too. Figured the A-Cs had something to do with all of that and chose not to ask about it, lest I get another “duh” added to my ever-growing pile.
Could hear the sound of voices. “. . . have no idea where they’ve gone or why.” Mom. Sounding tired, pissed, and suspicious.
“Is everything alright?” Horn was talking. Good, he was still in here.
“We’re fine here.” Chuckie’s voice. “They’ve only been gone a minute. Let’s continue. If there’s something going on I’m sure they’ll let us know.”
“They disappeared.” Cliff’s voice. “I think that’s significant, Chuck. Especially since they didn’t tell anyone where they were going, and Kitty had just gotten to the meeting as it was.”
“I think Kitty forgot something, that’s all.” That was Jeff. Had to figure he’d read my emotions, at least before we’d taken off. He probably couldn’t read them now—had to assume Stephanie had an emotional blocker or overlay on her person. “I’m sure she and Christopher will be back shortly. Serene, why don’t you tell us what you and Vander have discovered.”
Serene started sharing things about explosive ranges, the differential between older and newer self-destructs on various blockers we’d found, and other bomb-related things. My ears shared that they were done listening for now.
While she happily prattled on about weapons of varying degrees of mass destruction, we crept through what looked a lot like the Bomb & Weapons Superstore. Had to figure Serene spent a lot of time here. As her current recap was illustrating, she loved explosives and considered her work with them to be like getting to do her favorite hobby full time. And she was scary good with them, too. The best we had, and that was saying a lot. She was, per Chuckie, one of the best the government had access to.
And yet, the Yates Family Players hadn’t tried to recruit her. Club 51 had drugged her in an attempt to kidnap her and hold her prisoner in order to use her skills. But no one had approached her to sway her to the cause of Yates Solidarity. There was something vital about this that I had to figure out.
Only, you know, after we saved Serene and Horn from Stephanie.
“Hold on,” Siler said in a low voice. “I’m going to blend us all so they can’t see us. Be as quiet as possible.”
Blending didn’t feel like any A-C talent I’d experienced before. It was kind of gently tingly. Assumed the feeling allowed the blended to know when they were and weren’t chameleoned up.
Thankfully, I could still see the three men with me. So, still holding hands, walking slowly, and stepping softly, we went to the doorway of the partitioned room our quarries were in.
The three of them were seated exactly as they had been a minute ago, when we’d been in the conference room at the Science Center watching them on our video screens. Only we were looking at their backs, so Stephanie was the closest to us.
Who, as we peered like creepy stalkers into the room, wasn’t really doing anything aggressive. Wondered if this was going to turn out to just be a big misunderstanding. If so, I was going to look like the worst aunt-by-marriage in the history of the world.
Wasn’t sure if we could be caught by the video feed—the doorway wasn’t in a direct line with it. Sure, we were technically invisible, but Siler had said he couldn’t hold it long. He might have been lying, or he might have been telling the truth, and if that was the case, we were going to appear out of nowhere soon.
Stephanie’s phone beeped. I could tell it was hers because she grabbed it and looked at it. Text, not call, because she texted back, at hyperspeed. Then she stood up.
“Excuse me, I need to clear up something on Mister Horn’s calendar.”
Horn looked at her over his shoulder. “Don’t be too long.”
“I won’t be a minute.” Stephanie headed out of the room.
Buchanan tugged at my hand and we followed her, still slowly and quietly. She wasn’t walking slowly, though. She headed for the door.
Looked back at the room. She’d left her phone on the conference table.
Well, no time like the present to either save the day or be shunne
d out of Jeff’s entire extended family.
Dropped Buchanan’s and Christopher’s hands. “Her phone’s a bomb!”
Then I launched myself at Stephanie.
CHAPTER 33
CLEARLY NO ONE had realized the four of us were in here, because I heard both Horn and Serene give the screams people do when they’re completely startled.
Stephanie jumped and spun around. She saw me, turned, and ran for the door. But I caught her before she reached it.
“Going somewhere?” I asked as I grabbed her arm and managed to spin her around.
She hit at me, but not with any real skill. So no one had trained her in fighting. “Leave me alone!”
“You hit like a girl.” I slammed a fist into her stomach. “And I note you’re not at all surprised to see me here.” Whoever had sent her the text had clearly told her to roll her part of the plan, and I was pretty sure said texter had also told her to assume we were here already.
She kicked at me as I managed to get behind her and wrap both of my arms around hers and her torso. “Get off me, you bitch,” she hissed as I squeezed.
“Is that any way to talk to your aunt? Besides, it’s hard to handle a call when you leave your phone behind. I’m just trying to make sure you do a good job.”
A man’s hand grabbed the back of my shirt. “Out,” Buchanan said. “Now!” He tossed us both toward the door, which Siler was holding open. How and when they’d taken the cuffs off I didn’t know. Decided now wasn’t the time to worry about it.
“Get off me!” Stephanie screamed. “You’re ruining everything!”
“Unless it was a surprise party with clowns, cake, and balloons, I’m sure we’re not.”
“I wish my daddy had killed you.”
“Yeah, I know. We killed him instead. These things happen.”
She struggled more, and because she was an A-C, she was strong. However, I was both trained and enhanced. Also however, she managed to knock us both off balance. We went to the ground. I ensured she was on the bottom.