Alien Collective

by Gini Koch

  “Let me go! We need to get out of here!”

  Serene and Horn ran out, her pulling him, Christopher right behind them. Once we were all outside I realized Christopher also had Stephanie’s phone. “Get away from the building!” He ran off.

  Buchanan hauled me off of Stephanie and grabbed her at the same time. She tried to get away, but Serene grabbed her other arm and she wasn’t going anywhere.

  Siler grabbed my free hand and Serene had Horn in hers. We took off, away from both the building and the lake, meaning toward the base of the nearby mountains.

  Christopher rejoined us, without Stephanie’s phone. “Down!”

  We all ducked and covered right as the bombs went off. Impressively. Both something in the middle of Groom Lake, which was where I assumed he’d thrown the phone, and the building we’d just been inside.

  “Phone was the trigger,” Christopher said. “But the entire place was rigged to blow.”

  “Yeah, we see that. Everyone okay?” Everyone assured me they were okay. “Great. Then someone beat the truth out of Stephanie. Or let me do it. I’m all for doing it. Start with asking who sent her the text telling her to go ahead and blow things up.”

  “Did you happen to look?” Buchanan asked Christopher, as he took over holding Stephanie, who was struggling a lot. She stopped as her uncle stood behind her, locked his hands around her upper arms, shoved her arms next to her torso, and shook her gently.

  “Stop it, now, or I’ll do something you won’t like that I might feel badly about later. Yeah,” Christopher said to Buchanan, “I did, actually, while running with a bomb that was ready to go off. Blocked number.”

  “Fantastic. So, can I hit her then?”

  “Stephanie did all that?” Serene asked, sounding shocked. Everyone other than Stephanie and Horn nodded. “But why?”

  Stephanie glared at us. She was pretty good. Not up to Christopher’s standards, but a lot closer than most managed. I gave her a Bronze. “You deserve it.”

  Serene looked even more shocked. “What do you mean? What have Vander or I ever done to you? Vander gave you a job and was planning on training you to become an F.B.I. agent. I’ve only taught you some things about explosives. How have either of us hurt you enough to make you want to kill us?”

  “She doesn’t want to kill you because of that, Serene. And I can practically guarantee that she’s not grateful for the opportunities, either. She was moving herself into a position to hurt us. Not just you two, all of us.”

  “I know Kitty’s right. But why are you doing this?” Christopher snarled.

  Stephanie tossed her head. “Killing traitors isn’t wrong.”

  “Wow, I hope one of us recorded that, so when your mother tries to get you released, we can play it for her and she can understand why we’re not letting you go.”

  She smirked. “I’m not going to stay captured long. I’m valuable.”

  “As an undercover agent, sure. As a captured traitor, I doubt it.”

  “I have a much bigger part to play than this,” she replied with a heavy dose of haughty. I’d heard that before, from her father. And . . . someone else. Recently. Tried to remember who, because it was probably important.

  “Ah, Kitty?” Horn said.

  The current situation shared that I’d have to search my memory banks later. Right now, what was going on was requiring my full attention. Because I turned around to see Siler holding Horn.

  Siler was also holding a gun, and it was up against Horn’s head.

  CHAPTER 34

  WOULD HAVE ASKED how Siler had gotten his hands on a gun, but we’d been in a well-stocked munitions bunker, everyone had been distracted, and he had hyperspeed.

  Said the only thing I could think of. “Well, this is an interesting new wrinkle. Oh, and, what the hell?”

  “Let her go,” Siler said calmly.

  “Is this a joke?” Christopher asked.

  “Are you laughing?” Siler countered. “No? Then assume it’s not a joke. You let her go, give her to me, and I’ll let your man here live.”

  No one was near enough to Siler and Horn to do anything, and Siler was an assassin with a lifetime of training who was also an A-C with probably more talents than he’d told us about. Felt stupid for trusting him. Checked Buchanan’s expression. Apparently I didn’t feel as stupid as Buchanan did. Go us.

  “Do it,” I told Christopher. Received a nice shot of Patented Glare #4 as he reluctantly let Stephanie go.

  “Come here,” Siler said to her. She trotted over to him, Triumphant Smirk on High. “Hold his hand.” Stephanie took Horn’s hand as requested. Siler looked right at me. “I need to help a kindred spirit, Miss Katt. It’s nothing personal, I just have a job to do. The same as you do.” With that, the three of them disappeared.

  “Wait,” Buchanan said to Christopher, who looked ready to run, as he grabbed his arm to keep Christopher here.

  “He has Vander,” Christopher snarled. “I need to catch them. I can follow their footprints.”

  “No. And that’s an order. Take it as if it came from the P.T.C.U., because it does.”

  “If he hurts Vander it’ll be on you,” Christopher said. But he didn’t try to leave.

  Buchanan nodded, let go, went to where Siler had been standing, and knelt down. “Give it a moment.” He picked something up off the ground and put it into his pants pocket. “He’ll drop Horn shortly, I’d bet.”

  Sure enough, there was a tiny figure in the middle of Groom Lake. “It’s Vander,” Serene said, sounding relieved and confused. “I don’t understand what’s going on.”

  “Join the club.” Christopher zipped off and was back momentarily with Horn, who got to add insult to injury and spend some time throwing up. We were all going to miss Siler’s ability to pass along the Anti-Nausea Connection.

  “I can’t see Stephanie or Siler,” Serene said. “They’re out of my range.”

  “I didn’t see any trail I could follow once they dropped Vander,” Christopher said. “No idea why not, considering what they were standing on, but why the hell didn’t you let me go after them in the first place?” he asked Buchanan.

  “Because it occurred to me that Stephanie had to have had an exit strategy.”

  “What?” Serene asked. “Why would she?”

  “Because no one blows up things in the middle of nowhere to hang out, I get it, Malcolm.” Contemplated asking him what he’d picked up off the ground. Realized he wouldn’t tell me. Another thing to be saved for later. “But I was thinking she’d run to Home Base crying hysterically.”

  “I’m sure that was her main plan. But she didn’t come up with all of this on her own—and that means there was a backup plan in place for extradition. You heard her, she thinks she’s valuable even though she’s failed at her mission.”

  “So what?” Christopher asked. “She’s a teenager. She thinks she’s important regardless of the situation.”

  “Good call on the teenaged psyche, Christopher, but Malcolm thinks someone’s out here, waiting for her, or, I guess them. And if they don’t get them, they’re going to attack us.”

  “No, Missus Chief, I assume they’re going to attack us anyway. Which is why I didn’t want the person who can get us away to safety the fastest to run off straight into an ambush, because I assume we have other A-Cs helping her as well. Were you really unable to think ahead when you were in an active position or are you just incredibly rusty?” he asked Christopher.

  Buchanan was treated to Patented Glare #5, then Christopher turned to me. “Okay, Kitty, fine, I can see your point. We need to get over to Home Base, then, since someone thinks we’re going to be attacked.”

  “You sure we shouldn’t look for Stephanie’s pals?” I asked Buchanan as he took my hand and Serene’s.

  “Yes, Missus Chief, I am,” he said as Christopher grabbed me and Vander. We zipped off to Home Base, but at regular hyperspeed, for which I, personally, was grateful.

  And arrived just as Je
ff, Chuckie, Reader, Tim, Gower, and White walked out of the maintenance shack that hid the external gate on the base.

  “Why is Paul out here, in danger?” Christopher asked, while poor Horn dry heaved. Tito clearly hadn’t passed along the Hyperspeed Dramamine to him. Bummer.

  “Because this is part of my job,” Gower said calmly. He looked around. “I don’t see any danger, though.”

  “It’s handled for now,” Buchanan said. Saw him pass a sign to Chuckie, but no one else seemed to catch it.

  Wasn’t sure if I’d seen it because I was expecting it, or if Buchanan had wanted me to. His Dr. Strange powers included the ability—which he, Mom, and Chuckie insisted was merely honed over time and experience, versus actual superpowers—to not have anyone notice him if he didn’t want to be noticed. So far, I hadn’t found that this ever failed, so if I’d seen something, chances were that he’d wanted me to. Interesting, and yet another thing to be put into the Ruminate On This Later file.

  Reader nodded. “Tim and I need to check in. We’ll be right back.” Those two headed off into the big building that housed most of our activities here.

  “Why did you use the external gate?” Christopher asked.

  “We figured we’d have to head right to you, son,” White said. “And you were all outside.”

  “How’d you know where we were?” I asked Jeff.

  “Really? I followed your emotional trail. It was clear until you reached that bunker, and then you went off my radar. So I knew where you were and that someone had an emotional blocker on them. The block stopped about a minute ago, which we’re told coincides with a lot of things exploding that no one at Home Base was prepared for.”

  “So the blocker was in her phone? Interesting choice. Similar to putting bugs in key chains. We always thought Clarence had come up with that idea, or the people he was working for. But I think Stephanie’s been willingly complicit for the past few years at least.”

  “You mind bringing us up to speed?” Chuckie asked. “Because, trust me, we’re not all on the same page. For instance, most of us don’t know why you and White took off in the first place.” He looked around. “And where the hell is Siler?”

  “Start at the beginning,” Jeff said to me, in the tone of a man who’s resigned to hearing things he doesn’t want to.

  “Ah . . . as to that . . . Stephanie gave me the stinkeye, and then did the same to Christopher . . .” Filled them in on all that had happened since my gut had shared that Stephanie was a traitor. No one disparaged my intuition, mostly because things had clearly gone boom, so there was that. “Siler helped us get everyone to safety, though,” I shared in conclusion, “so I’m still sort of surprised by what he did.”

  “He’s an assassin and not our friend,” Christopher said. “He told us as much. So it’s not actually a surprise. Though,” he added to the dirty looks Buchanan and I were shooting him, “I’ll give you that he was sure being helpful earlier.”

  “We’ll deal with it,” Jeff said. “We always do. It’ll be fine.”

  “I understand why you got the feeling something was going down,” Chuckie said, smoothly getting us off of the mistake in trust I and Buchanan had made. “And clearly, you were right. However, I don’t understand why our various enemies wanted to blow up Vander and Serene.”

  “I agree,” Serene said. “It’s not like we had anything of importance in the bunker. Well, explosives and weapons, obviously, but I mean information-wise. Our research isn’t here, or what’s left of here. I mean, we did some of the research there, live testing mostly, but the results are sent back, now, to the Science Center as well as Charles and Vander’s divisions.”

  “Not Cliff’s? This seems like something Homeland Security would be extremely interested in.”

  “No. I mean, they are interested, very much so. But he gets the information after the F.B.I. and C.I.A. have done their work on it. Chain of command kind of thing. So, nothing but supplies and equipment were destroyed. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “They were trying to kill the two of us,” Vander said as if it were obvious. Which, in a way, it was. But he wasn’t used to the levels of weird we got to deal with on a regular basis—in my world, nothing was ever simple or obvious.

  “But why?” Chuckie asked patiently. “Think about whatever you two have found recently. Not today—I’m willing to bet that whatever triggered this didn’t happen today because this took planning—but recently enough that it could cause our enemies worry.”

  “Stephanie didn’t act unusual until you arrived at the big meeting, Missus Martini,” White said thoughtfully. “I was watching her, actually.”

  “Why?” Chuckie asked. “It could be relevant.”

  White shook his head and sighed sadly. “It’s not relevant, Charles. I was watching her because I was proud of her.”

  “So does that mean Kitty’s arrival at the meeting was the trigger?” Jeff asked after a moment of sad, awkward silence.

  “Trigger for what?” Christopher asked. “All of this, whatever this actually is?”

  “Perhaps. Why was she giving you the, ah, stinkeye, son?” White asked.

  “She hates me now?” Christopher replied. “Why does it matter?”

  “Because she wasn’t shooting that look at anyone else, other than you two,” Buchanan said. “And Mister White is right—she didn’t do anything untoward until Missus Chief arrived.”

  “But the text she got, that came after Christopher and I had left the meeting, when you all were discussing where we’d gone and Jeff was trying to cover. Someone gave her the go-ahead, and I think that someone figured we were on our way to the bunker.”

  “That would indicate someone who knows you well,” Buchanan said. “And also indicate someone who was a part of the meeting.”

  “Maybe,” Chuckie said. “It could also indicate exactly what you thought earlier, the reason you didn’t let White go after them—that she had an accomplice, at least one, out here, hidden, who told her that she had company and it was time to put the plan into high gear.”

  “So, do we search for them, have our people here at Home Base search for them, or just give up and go home?” Gower asked as Reader and Tim rejoined us.

  Reader shook his head. “Home Base has nothing, other than relief that no one died. Nothing showed as unusual until everything went boom.”

  I was about to say something when White’s eyes widened and what seemed like cloud cover darkened the area. “Missus Martini . . .”

  Spun around to see what he was looking at.

  Sure enough, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Instead, we were treated to the whole film encircling the Earth thing again. This time it didn’t go though anyone, for which I was grateful. However, instead of water, there was a dust devil spinning. This wouldn’t have been unusual for where we were, but it was forming near to us, and that meant around a whole lot of fighter jets. None of which were moving.

  The dust was forming into a shape. A person shape. It so figured.

  “Everyone? I have two things I want to say. First is that our timing remains consistent, meaning awful. Second is this—someone get Mahin here, faster than fast.”

  CHAPTER 35

  MAHIN’S TALENT WAS THAT of earthbending. Well, she called it something else, in part because she’d had a sad childhood bereft of cool comics and animated pop culture and so had never seen Avatar: The Last Airbender. Well, before she’d met me she hadn’t seen it. Now, that error had been rectified.

  She could call it whatever she wanted, but basically Mahin could move sand and dirt around with her mind. And right now, I figured we needed someone who could do that, because I was fairly certain the Entity Formerly Known as Sloshy was now going to be Known as Sandy.

  “It is time for the challenge,” Sandy Formerly Sloshy intoned. No longer sounded watery. Now it sounded dry and crumbly. Wasn’t an improvement.

  The looks weren’t an improvement, either. Whereas before it had been sort of see-through,
now it was solid, but constantly shifting, as if it was made of a zillion sand ants bustling around in their humanoid-shaped anthill. Was so very sorry my mind had come up with this description.

  Heard Reader on his phone, sounding stressed and official. He was requesting military aid.

  “James, don’t. That won’t work. Serene, get Vander inside and out of here, and by out of here, I mean back to the Science Center, with you.”

  “Kitty, are you sure?” she asked. “It looks like you could use my help.”

  “No, both of you, get out of here. And, seriously, someone get Mahin here.” Stepped closer to Sandy Formerly Sloshy to be between it and the rest of my team.

  “Handled,” Christopher said. “I took Serene and Vander back, as well. They’re both safe now. Well, as safe as any of us can be at the moment.”

  Clearly he’d decided that everyone with us was smart enough to figure out that we hadn’t used a gate to get us here in the first place, meaning they were smart enough to realize that Christopher’s Flash Level was great and getting greater.

  Heard the sounds of someone throwing up. More than one someone. Chose not to look behind me so I wouldn’t break eye contact with Sandy Formerly Sloshy and so I also wouldn’t have to see whoever tossing their cookies. I was smart like that.

  “You rock.”

  “I brought Tito, too, because he insisted. And the princesses.”

  “You’re a military genius, never let anyone tell you different. Tito, make sure Christopher doesn’t need adrenaline—he’s done a lot of long distance high speed running in a short period of time. Girls, once you have your stomachs back under control from Mister Christopher’s Wild Ride, I need the mad skills. Rahmi and Rhee, make me the happiest leader on Earth and tell me you brought your battle staffs.”

  “Of course we did,” Rahmi said, sounding just slightly offended.