Alien Collective

by Gini Koch

  “What did he say? I mean, I know you didn’t go.”

  “He expressed concern for my health, then Cameron came out of the same room. But he was acting strangely, so I think they just slammed his doors shut.”

  “Probably,” Chuckie said. “By the time we see him again, though, they’ll have recalibrated him. Cleary was there when Kitty was trying to get through to Maurer. They won’t wait to get him locked down.”

  “Then what?” Jeff asked Jenkins.

  “Then I hightailed it out of there and called the Ambassador and came here. Where, honestly, I don’t want to leave.” He shot Mrs. Maurer a commiserating smile. “I’m very happy to follow Nancy’s lead and hide with the people who aren’t actually trying to put a robot into the White House.”

  “Oh, I’m sure they’re trying to do worse than that. Who was it who came in after you, did you see him or her?”

  Jenkins nodded. “Senator Zachary Kramer.”

  “And yet Kramer didn’t make the trip to Home Base.” I exchanged a very meaningful look with Vance. “Thoughts?”

  He grimaced. “Zachary and Marcia are fully against you, and have been for ages, I told you that before. He must be jockeying for some kind of position within Gideon’s cabinet.”

  Had a very bad thought. “You know, Cameron Maurer is now a detriment, not an asset. They know we know he’s an android, and they know that we know how to destroy but also deal with androids.”

  “Every android has a self-destruct mechanism,” Chuckie said. “And I’m sure they can be remotely destructed, too.”

  “Does that mean we need to change Colonel Butler’s location?”

  “Wish you’d mentioned that before we moved him into the Science Center,” Christopher snapped.

  “It’ll be fine,” Jeff said, in a warning tone. Christopher rolled his eyes, but stopped snarking.

  “Didn’t think of it at the time, sorry,” Chuckie replied. “I was too busy keeping him from blowing up at Home Base.”

  Jenkins went pale. “He’s an android, too? My God, how many are there?”

  “Do you read Mister Joel Oliver’s columns?”

  Jenkins cast an ashamed look in Oliver’s direction. “Not as often as I should.”

  “Damn straight, dude. You need to get caught up. But to be clear, unlike you, MJO here doesn’t actually write fiction. You can learn a lot from him, and you might want to.” Looked around the table. “I go back to my original concern—are we at risk of someone blowing Butler up before we can help him?”

  “Probably.” Jeff sighed and pulled his phone out. “Hey James. Yeah, it’s been so long. Chuck just pointed out that Butler might have a destruct sequence that can be triggered automatically. Oh? Oh. Great. No need to take that tone. Yes, fine, I’ll relay that to the others. You’re really tense, I think you need a vacation.” He hung up.

  “That sounded fun.”

  “Yeah. James said to tell all of you that he’s already thought of that, and a fail-safe room has been constructed within one of the cells. They’re also close to having him completely offline, and are already checking for external triggering mechanisms. In other words, we need to stop trying to do Alpha Team’s jobs and do our own.”

  “You’re right, he does sound tense. So, Bruce, we’re going to want to get a full debrief on everything you have regarding the opposition’s campaign to see where they’ve planned to perpetrate more evil, and we’ll need that pronto.”

  “Already started, Ambassador,” Raj said. “Most of us have heard this story for the second time now.”

  “Blah, blah, blah, but good job. Does anyone know why the President called Cleary and Maurer in for a private ‘not a request’ meeting?”

  Jeff cleared his throat. “Ah, I do, baby. I called your mother and told her what was going on.”

  “Okay. I’m now worried that they’re going to set Maurer off to explode while they’re with the President and Mom.”

  “They won’t,” Jenkins said. “If they did that, the vice president would take over, and the party would run him for President and Armstrong for vice president. And that ticket would not lose.”

  “Why isn’t the current VP running?” Despite living in D.C. and having a career where knowing all this stuff was considered vital, I just couldn’t bring myself to care most of the time.

  “He’s spent eight years watching what the President’s gone through and decided that playing golf is a lot more rewarding,” Jenkins said.

  Oliver nodded. “He’s older and just wants to retire. If he had to step in for the end of the term, however, he would be the good soldier and run for president to support the party and the country.”

  “Well, that’s good, then, because that means Maurer won’t be killing my mother and the President, along with whoever else. But unless we can get him right after this meeting, he’s lost to us forever, I think. I’m sorry, Squeaky.”

  Mrs. Maurer looked at me. “Can you help him, if we save him somehow? Or will he always be a robotic copy of my son?”

  “We don’t know,” Chuckie said. “Butler’s the first android that could fight programming, and appears to have retained a sense of self as a human. We think it’s because he was turned unwillingly.”

  “There is no way the man I raised would willingly become what he has. I know you’re all worried that I’m horrified by his being turning into this . . . thing, and I am. But this is honestly a better explanation than him just turning against everything his family has ever stood for on a whim. I’m asking, though, because I’m willing to try something, but there’s no point if there’s no hope.”

  “There’s always hope. Always. It might be a tiny sliver of hope, but it’s always there. What’s your plan, Squeaky?”

  She pulled her phone out of her purse and dialed. It took a few seconds, but clearly someone picked up. “Cameron? Yes, it’s me. No, I’m fine. It’s you, dear, who are not fine.” She sighed. Could hear someone talking and assumed Maurer was telling her whatever party line he’d been programmed with.

  Looked at my hand. The numbers I’d written there were smudged. Pulled a pen out of my purse, got up, handed the pen to Chuckie, who was next to Jeff, and shoved my hand at him.

  The benefits of knowing someone since ninth grade were without number. He got it without my saying anything and wrote the numbers down clearly. Trotted over to Mrs. Maurer. “Squeaky,” I said softly, “read these to him.”

  “Cameron, dear, I’d like to share something with you.” She read the numbers slowly and carefully. “Cameron, did you hear me?” She repeated the numbers. “Dear, if you’re still in there, please come to the American Centaurion Embassy. We want to help you, dear. I miss my son and I want my son back. My son, not what they’ve turned you into. Yes.” She said the numbers one more time. “I hope to see you soon, Cameron dear.” Then she hung up.

  “How did it go?”

  She shook her head. “I honestly have no guess.”

  My phone rang. Jeff tried to dig it out of my purse, without success. Christopher put his hand in and pulled it out. “First try. Hello? Oh, hey, Angela. Yeah, it’s Christopher, Kitty’s just not near her phone. No, she’s fine, hang on.” He tossed the phone to me.

  “Hey Mom, what’s up?”

  “Cameron Maurer took a call from his mother and then took off running so fast that no one could stop him. We’re fortunate that he didn’t break down White House walls. What’s going on?”

  “Mom, I’ll call you back. If anyone says we killed Maurer, it’s a lie. It’ll be that he self-destructed on us.” Hung up. “Com on!”

  “Yes, Chief?”

  “Walter, we need a containment unit here pronto and all the kids and non-military trained personnel moved to the Pontifex’s Residence immediately. We have an android trying to come in from the cold depths of Hell.”

  CHAPTER 80

  “WE’LL WATCH THE DOOR,” Len said, as he and Kyle jumped up and ran to the foyer.

  “I’ll go with them, ju
st in case,” Raj said, as he zipped off.

  “I’m going to get Grandmother and ensure she goes,” Adriana said, as she ran off.

  “Ah, Ambassador?” Pierre asked nervously.

  “You and Vance and whoever else get the heck out of here. Make sure the kids are all over safely.”

  “I’m staying here,” Mrs. Maurer said firmly. “You need me. Cameron needs me.”

  “I agree. Bruce, MJO, staying or leaving?”

  “I want them leaving,” Jeff said, Commander Voice on Full. “Jennifer, Jeremy, get everyone out of here and do likewise.” The Barones grabbed people and they took off at hyperspeed. This left me, Jeff, Christopher, Chuckie, and Mrs. Maurer in the dining room. Flung my purse over my neck.

  “Chief,” Walter shared over the intercom, “your father suggests going to the Israeli Embassy instead of the Pontifex’s residence. Agents stationed with the Israelis report that embassy to be secured.”

  “Dad wants to party some more, doesn’t he? What does the Paul think?”

  “Pontifex Gower agrees that under the circumstances, our personnel being with others who can both protect and vouch for them is probably wise.”

  “Make it so, Walter. Immediately if not sooner, for all personnel. Tell the Pontifex we include him in the people we expect to go over. Tell Rahmi and Rhee I want them guarding the Pontifex, Jamie, the other kids, and their caretakers—they need to be on full alert. And please advise Alpha Team of what’s going on.” Why stress Reader out any more than we already had? “I want all visitors and residents of the Zoo transferred with extreme care, our prisoner in particular.”

  “Ah, the Pontifex says that the prisoner doesn’t wish to leave the premises. She insists it’s not because she’s afraid of the Israelis but because she thinks she’s figured out how to, ah, hot-wire an android.”

  “Gotcha. We’ll bring our android to the Zoo, then. Keep all fifth-floor personnel there, Walter, but get anyone else like Amy or Abigail out of there. And tell them to have the floater gate in the computer center calibrated for the Pontifex’s Residence in case we all have to fling ourselves through it really, really fast.”

  “Speaking of fast,” Christopher said, “we need to decide who’s grabbing the android when he shows up.”

  “Has to be you and me,” Jeff said. “I’ll grab him, you shove a pen or whatever in his ear.”

  “It has to be exact,” Chuckie said. “I know it looked like I just shoved that in randomly, but Ravi gave me specific instructions.”

  “Conveniently, you still have my pen in your hand. I’m willing to sacrifice it to the cause.” Hey, it wasn’t my Mont Blanc.

  “He’s here,” Kyle called.

  “Walter, are all the kids out?”

  “Yes, Chief, just now.”

  “Okay, keep the com open and be prepared to run really fast.” We all raced to the foyer to see Cameron Maurer come through the front door.

  “Mother?” he sounded funny. Fuzzy and almost metallic. This wasn’t a good sound.

  “Hurry, guys.”

  “Let them help you, Cameron,” Mrs. Maurer said. “Don’t fight them.”

  Jeff grabbed Maurer from behind. It was a good thing that Chuckie was the assigned Ear Stabber, though, because despite his mother’s admonition, Maurer almost tossed Jeff off. It took both him and Christopher to hold Maurer still.

  “Mother . . . I’m-m-m-m sorry.”

  “Hurry, Chuckie.”

  “Hope this works and we’re lucky a second time. Otherwise, been great knowing all of you.” With that, Chuckie slammed my pen into Maurer’s ear.

  Thankfully, the same thing that happened with Butler happened now. Maurer went still as if dead or inactivated. “To the computer lab,” Jeff said, then he and Christopher disappeared.

  Grabbed Chuckie and Mrs. Maurer, Raj grabbed Len and Kyle, and we took off after them, using the stairs because hyperspeed was faster than any elevator could ever hope to be.

  Met up with those who’d remained in the Zoo in a couple of seconds. Maurer was already flat on his back and Chernobog was giving instructions to Hacker International.

  A team of Field agents were setting up a 10x10x10 metal box at hyperspeed while another team impressively moved all the equipment to a safe distance while also not unplugging it or actually disturbing Hacker International and Chernobog. In addition to thick metal walls and a thick door, the containment room also had windows made out of the thickest glass I’d ever seen.

  Serene pulled me aside while White held Mrs. Maurer as she gagged. All four of us, just like everyone else in the room, were still poised to run. “Once Richard calmed things down, Chernobog cooperated. We have all our data back. We’re not done verifying, but it looks to be all here. Chernobog was motivated to find our work on defusing androids.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Yes, she’s terrified of the Dingo, though she’s trying to pretend she isn’t.”

  “She’s incredibly smart, and her being afraid proves it.”

  “Serene, we need you,” Stryker called as they rolled Maurer onto his stomach and opened the back of his head just as Jenkins had described. Was glad White was holding Mrs. Maurer, because it was horrible to see as a relative stranger, so it had to be infinitely worse for her to see her child this way. Her freaking out and sobbing was also a clue that this was, indeed, horrific for her to experience.

  “Commander, the containment room is ready,” one of the agents said.

  “No time,” Ravi said urgently. He had a Bluetooth in his ear and was clearly talking to someone, probably at Dulce. “You have to start right now.”

  Jeff and Christopher were asked to move out of the way, and Serene went to work. I’d have watched but my phone chose this moment to ring again.

  I was glad for the distraction—medical stuff wasn’t my “thing” and while this was the least bloody medical stuff I’d seen, ever, it was still horrible. The tension in the room was high, too, because we were all waiting to go boom. Could tell the Field agents were wondering why they’d bothered to build a containment unit if we weren’t going to use it. Kind of agreed with them, but oh well.

  So, I happily answered the call as Jeff moved me near to the stationary floater gate we had in the lab—that always sounded like an oxymoron, but wasn’t.

  “Hi Mom. Kind of in a situation here.”

  “So your father’s told me. Thought you’d like to hear the latest, however. Per a statement Gideon Cleary just released, Cameron Maurer has taken ill and resigned from the campaign. They’re announcing that Zachary Kramer is stepping in as Cleary’s running mate.”

  “That’s hella fast. Wasn’t he just there with you and the President?”

  “Yes, and the moment Maurer left Cleary shared that this was something they were both about to tell us.”

  “Unreal. No one believes him, do they?”

  “Well, the Secretary of Transportation claims to.”

  “Langston Whitmore will side with anyone who hates us, so no surprise there. What about the rest?”

  “Varying degrees of suspicion. Frankly, I think most feel that Cleary made the decision because Maurer just acted like a crazy person in front of them.”

  “Makes sense. But can he do that? Isn’t their convention over?”

  “Yes, but precedent exists for this. Since you’re certain Maurer has been turned into an android, and we think Kramer’s still human, this is a positive.”

  “I’m not sure that Maurer’s going to come out of this as anything but an inoperable piece of machinery in a Cameron Suit.” Glanced over. Serene was deep inside his head.

  The positive, if you could call it that, was that I could see gray matter in there, surrounded by wires and such, but there. Meaning they’d presumably left his brain intact in some way. Maybe that’s why he and Butler had been able to fight the programming. Maybe we’d live to find out. However, I didn’t like Serene’s chances if he exploded, though, nor Ravi and Henry’s, since they were assist
ing her.

  “Just ensure that none of you die trying to save him.”

  “Doing our best and thanks for reminding me to be stressed out of my mind. I’d forgotten for all of one second. On the plus side, Serene says Chernobog gave us back all our data.”

  “Don’t trust it.”

  “Well, it seems to be helping. She’s motivated to not be assassinated.”

  Gasps in the room caused me to jump. Apparently they were gasps of appreciation, as Serene dropped some circuit thingy into Henry’s open palm. Went back to focusing on Mom’s latest warnings.

  “This is a woman who redefines the term ‘sly fox.’ Keep her where you can see her, keep her under the severest form of lock and key, and ensure that your computer experts aren’t so awed to be in her presence that they allow her to pull one over on them. Because she will if she can. Captivity isn’t something she enjoys.”

  “Gotcha. We’ll have Chuckie devise a clever plan once we see if, you know, we all survive this sorta rescue attempt. Oh, and tell me there are going to be amazingly stringent protections going on at our National Convention.”

  “There are.”

  “Great. Where’s it going to be, by the way.”

  “Why am I even remotely surprised that you don’t know? At the Baltimore Convention Center. Wisely keeping close to D.C. this year.”

  “Good to know.”

  “I’m sure it is, kitten. Try not to die, I’d miss you.”

  “Good to know. And, same here, Mom.”

  CHAPTER 81

  WE HUNG UP and I unwillingly turned my attention back to the drama happening on the computer lab floor.

  Serene was still digging around in the back of Maurer’s head like a brain surgeon. Or a computer technician. Kind of both.

  Henry was holding a lamp directly over Maurer’s head with one hand and all of the spare exploding parts with his other, which impressed me with Henry’s manliness more than anything he’d ever done before. Ravi was functioning as the Head Nurse and handing Serene instruments or taking them away, depending, while also passing along tips from whoever he was talking to at the Science Center.