by Gini Koch
Managed to get the box out, but we had to flip it. “Not a problem. We need to place the top in the open door anyway.” Explained the deadly gas thing.
White looked from box to doorway and back. “I don’t believe we can do it, and still not take a full shot of the gas.” He took a deep breath. “Please tell Christopher that I love him and, of course, forgive him for the addiction. Please tell Paul, should he survive, that I expect he’ll make an excellent Pontifex.”
I didn’t like where this was heading. I looked at the box, on its side, the bottom facing me. For whatever reason, it reminded me of the Escalade that Reid had tried to kill me with. The one Jeff had flipped on its side. The one he’d ripped the undercarriage out of. “They said the gas would come out when we unlocked the box . . . not when we opened the box.”
“Pardon?”
“Take a deep-ass breath and hold it, Mister White.” I did, and then I slammed my fist into the bottom of the box.
CHAPTER 52
JEFF HAD NEVER MENTIONED that hitting things still hurt when you were an enhanced individual. Wished he had. However, my hand wasn’t broken, and the box bottom was bending. I hit it again, and the seam along one side started to separate. Grabbed it and pulled.
The back of the metal box came off. No gas, at least, nothing I could see. Had to take another breath. White did, too. There was what looked like the bottom of a coffin in here. Hilarious sense of humor Gaultier and his goons had.
Slammed my hand into it, hit through the wood and landed on metal. Figured. A few more slams and I could rip the wood part off. A bit more and the metal gave. I pulled the bottom panel off and flung it away as Gower’s big, heavy body rolled onto me.
I was slammed onto the floor of the hidden compartment. Gower wasn’t moving. The fun just never stopped. I listened for heartbeats—faint, very faint, but there.
“He’s alive, I think. Get him off me!”
“Working at it, Missus Martini.” Gower was lifted off me. I helped White get him out of the compartment.
I got out, too, and looked around. “Where’s the coffin?”
“I tossed it, just in case.”
“Wow, seriously, consider going active. You rock, Mister White.”
“I take that as a great compliment. Let’s bring Paul back from the edge of death first, shall we?”
We didn’t have a med kit with us, which was my oversight. What a surprise. White did the slam the hearts thing while I did the mouth-breathing thing. Managed not to wonder if Gower and Reader had ever seriously considered the whole going bi and adding me in thing, though, even scared, it took effort.
A few minutes of this and Gower started coughing. Coughing was good. No air for so long could mean brain damage, though, and that would be unbelievably bad.
Gower’s eyes fluttered open. “Kitty? Richard?” He sounded shocked and confused. “Where are we?”
“God, am I glad you’re not brain-dead.”
“Nice to see you, too.” Gower looked at White. “What’s going on?” He blinked. “Everyone’s in danger.”
“We know, Paul,” White said reassuringly. “You were in worse danger, however.”
“How’s ACE?”
Gower closed his eyes. “Relieved.” He chuckled. “ACE says he knew Kitty would save us.” His eyes opened. “You saved us over Jeff and James.”
I shrugged. “Jeff trained me really well on that good of the many idea.”
“Yeah. We were in a warehouse.”
“That was Trap Point Two. Everyone’s in Notre Dame, or they were last time I checked.” We helped Gower to his feet.
“Why are they at one of the biggest tourism spots in France?”
“No idea.” I blinked. “Oh, my God. I have a great idea. Well, it’s a horrible idea, but still, great if you’re a freaking megalomaniac looking to make a bazillion dollars.”
“Mind sharing?” White put Gower’s arm around his shoulders. “I feel okay, Richard.”
“You don’t look okay. Missus Martini? The horrible plan is, what?”
“I think they’re going to test the drug in its gaseous form.”
“Why?” Gower didn’t sound convinced. “On a bunch of random tourists? Why would they want to do that? There’s no control, no way to follow the test subjects.”
“No idea. I’ll find out when I get there.”
“When we get there.” Gower twitched and sighed. “ACE agrees with you.”
“Good. Mister White, can you please call for another floater gate? I want Paul back in Dulce pronto.” White pulled his phone out and dialed. “Interesting that we’re still alone in this compartment.”
White shrugged. “We were moving more quickly than I think you realized. It’s doubtful that anyone in any individual car heard us long enough to worry about it. And clearly our enemies felt that even if we found Paul, we’d be killed while trying to rescue him.”
“Good point. Let’s keep Paul nice and safe and disappoint them completely.”
“Kitty, I don’t know why you want me, and ACE, to go back. I have to think we’d be able to help you.”
“Paul, if you die while ACE is inside you, the PPB net will collapse and destroy the Earth. Call me crazy, but that makes you more indispensable than Richard.”
“Oh.” Gower looked shaken. “Maybe . . . maybe ACE shouldn’t be in me?”
I hugged him. “ACE belongs in you, Paul. It’ll be fine. I’ll get everyone, foil the plan, and we’ll be back before you know it.” I was human, I could lie well.
“Or you could be killed.” Couldn’t lie that well, apparently. Gower shook his head. “I don’t like it. You shouldn’t be here at all.”
“Could have let you die, voted against it. Take care of everyone, my baby in particular.”
“I’ll do my best.”
There was something in the way he said it. “Um . . . are you really okay, Paul?”
“Yes.”
Still something. Gower sounded doubtful and worried, and he wasn’t looking at me. “Paul, what’s wrong?”
He sighed. “ACE wants us to go back and go into isolation.”
“Um, why?”
Gower took a deep breath. “ACE had to use . . . resources he’s not . . . used to in order to keep me alive.”
I thought about this. “Is ACE hurt?”
“Not like we’d consider hurt, but, yes. Drained, might be the better way of putting it. ACE needs to recharge, and he’s saying in order to do that, I need to sleep, heavily.” Gower swallowed hard. “That means we can’t help you, at least not until ACE is recovered at least somewhat.”
I’d accepted from day one that ACE wasn’t going to save us unless he could be settled in his collective consciousness about it. And when White had shared that if Gower died, the PPB net that was the “physical” part of ACE would collapse and destroy the Earth, that had made sense to me, but only because I thought ACE would be essentially trapped in the vessel that was Gower’s body.
The idea that ACE, a superconsciousness, could be drained or damaged just like anyone else wasn’t one that had ever occurred to me. Now that it had, I had to consciously force myself not to freak out.
I cleared my throat. “Ah, what about Jamie?”
Gower managed a weak smile. “ACE says that the blocks Jeff put in are protecting her well enough. He also says that Christopher should wait to put in the imageering blocks until everyone’s safely home again.”
So that was why and how Jamie could actually tell me where everyone was—ACE wasn’t muting her imageering powers, which, clearly, she had. I decided I could marvel about this, freak out about this, or get back to the business of saving the day and marvel and freak about everything at a later time. I went with the latter.
“Okay, we’ll handle it. You get yourself and ACE back to the Science Center and into a nice isolation chamber pronto.”
“Gate coming in a moment,” White said.
I looked over to where he was standing. “Wow, I can se
e the gate. I mean, not some shimmering or trick of light, the real gate itself. Awesome. This drug’s fab.”
“Please, one addict on Alpha Team was enough,” Gower muttered.
“Dude, I didn’t shoot up, and I’m not ingesting more. I just like the results. Not all the lab rats get the cancer, you know.”
Gower looked at me. “That may be the test, at Notre Dame.”
“Yeah, good point. I’ll keep my supereyes peeled. Love to all, have medical check you over while in isolation or something, and let us know when you and ACE are feeling better.” I didn’t add that I hoped this would be soon. Healing took however long it took, and wishing it would go faster never sped anything up—I had lots of experience with Jeff in isolation to know that by now.
“Paul, go through now,” White said. Gower hugged me, nodded to White, who was still on his phone, then walked through the gate. “Good, thank you. We would like to go to Notre Dame now. Oh, really? Interesting. Then, land us elsewhere. Perfect.” He looked at me. “The team has been, as near as Gladys can tell, captured. No idea of how. They landed in the square in front of the cathedral and went off the grid then.”
“So, where are we going?”
White was back to his call. “Wonderful. Yes, going through together. Thank you.” He hung up and took my hand, then we walked through the gate.
And out into a bathroom.
CHAPTER 53
AT LEAST, I THOUGHT it was a bathroom. It was a small, disgusting room with a hole in the tiled floor, and that was about it. The smell was horrifying, almost as bad as the smell of dead fugly. “Where, in God’s name, are we? Besides the grossest exit point of my Centaurion career, and since I’ve been in a variety of Third World airports now, this is really saying a lot.”
“Bathroom in a little café down the street from the cathedral.” White edged us around the hole. “There are many times I’m thankful the Ancients landed in the United States.”
“Dude, I am so with you. Let’s get out of here.”
Opened the door, walked out. No one even blinked at us. Paris was a lot like Vegas in that way—anything went.
I dragged us to the counter and ordered two chocolate croissants and two café au laits. In decent French. I mean, it had been years, but it’s not hard to get that particular order out in native tongue. While we waited for our order, I forced White to take off his jacket and tie, which I used as an impromptu belt. Made him unbutton his shirt a bit and roll up the sleeves. Order arrived, White paid. Somehow, he had Euros, not dollars. I decided not to ask. Maybe he had his own personal A-C Elf.
We munched and sipped as we walked outside. “Not that I mind the snack, since I was a bit peckish, but why?”
“Everyone else barged in. Everyone else looked like a Centaurion operative, including Chuckie, since he seems to have adapted and wears an Armani suit all the time now. Which is freaky, in that sense.”
“You look like a tourist who likes rock and roll. What do I look like now?”
I snuggled next to him. “My sugar daddy.”
“I await Jeffrey’s reaction with mild terror. Though I’m relieved the weather isn’t too cold. However, this feels quite awkward.”
“Pretend. Because I think the only way we’re getting in there is if we look like tourists.”
“Won’t they recognize us?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Not sure how they’re identifying our agents, other than dress and showing up via a gate right where they expect us.”
We took our time eating. Well, sort of. We were both hungry, so the croissants disappeared fast. Sipped the coffee while we looked around. “Missus Martini, do you spy what I spy?”
“Yeah. A tonnage of children in uniforms. It’s school field trip day at Notre Dame, isn’t it?”
“Looks that way. Meaning the best test subjects in the world are about to be infected.”
“I agree. By the way, since we’re going undercover and all, at least until we’re blown, which, for us, could be in two seconds, call me Kathy and I’ll call you Rick.”
“Why?” He didn’t sound thrilled about the nickname.
“Because everyone calls me Kitty, and no one calls you Rick. It’s part of our supercool disguise, Rick honey.”
White managed not to wince. “Are you sure people won’t just assume, far more correctly, that I’m your father?”
“Rick, this is Paris, land of mistresses. It’s different for A-Cs, I guess, but trust me—as long as I put my arm around your waist, you put your arm around my shoulders, and we act lovey, everyone will assume you’re a typical cradle robber and I’m your sort of trophy wife.”
“A quick brush of your hair might make that more believable.”
“Wow, I see where Christopher’s snark comes from.” Pulled out my brush and did the hair thing. Noted I had all six Poofs with me. “Huh. Fluffy, Fuzzball, and Toby all did a runner. They’re with us, Mister . . . ah, Rick.”
“I see you’re as comfortable with the subterfuge as I am . . . Kathy.”
“You can call me honey, too. Just avoid ‘baby’ and maybe Jeff won’t care.”
“Truly, death by suffocation might be preferable. What is your thought about the Poofs?”
I considered them. “They like me best?”
“That I have always taken as a given.”
“No guess beyond that. But, you know, have Poofs, will travel.” I finished my coffee. “Ready to go visit the King of Gothic Architecture, Rick?”
“No.” He stood up, took our cups and napkins and threw them away. Came back, helped me out of my chair. Carried his jacket in one hand over his back, put his other arm around my shoulders. I put mine around his waist. “How’s this?”
“Honestly? You look like Timothy Dalton, only younger and hotter. Believe me, no woman’s going to question why I’m with a guy old enough to be my father.”
“No wonder Jeffrey was willing to do anything to marry you. My ego hasn’t been this inflated since we first met you and you insinuated I was a male model.”
I laughed and leaned up and kissed his cheek. “Hey, it’s true.” We strolled to the cathedral. It was hard to not just run like a crazy person, since I had no idea of what they were doing to whom but could pretty much bet that Jeff, Christopher, and Chuckie were going to be taking the brunt of it. However, we weren’t captured yet, so maybe our plan was working, or at least not failing miserably.
Sauntered up to the ticket counter. No issues, White paid for the tickets, we got in line to go in. Because it was the end of December, there weren’t too many tourists here, not like there would have been in summer. There were just tons and tons of kids. I didn’t know how French schools worked, but in America, they would have all been on vacation.
I spotted what looked like a teacher and did my best. “Pardon, um . . . je suis Americaine, et . . . um . . .” It had been a lot easier to order the food.
She was younger, dark, and pretty, and she laughed. “I speak English, Madame.”
“Oh, great. My husband and I were wondering, don’t you have a holiday break for schools like we do?”
She nodded. “We do, but this was a special treat from one of our philanthropists. The children are getting a special tour, sweets, and other gifts. Because of his schedule, we had to agree to have everyone come today. The cathedral wouldn’t close to the general public, but there aren’t many tourists here at this time of year.”
White and I exchanged a glance. “What a wonderful benefactor. Who is it?”
“Monsieur Ronaldo Al Dejahl. He runs several local and international companies.”
“Ah, well, thanks for the info.”
She nodded, then her class was called in. White and I were asked to wait in the nonexistent queue for the next free slots.
“I see you continue to be able to think like the megalomaniacs, Kathy.”
“It’s my gift, Rick. I wonder if they’ve spotted us yet.”
The door girl came back. “Entré vous. You may go in.”
We stepped through. Right behind the kids. A few other tourists raced up and were let in as well. I checked—they didn’t look like anything but tourists.
I’d never been to Notre Dame, but I’d seen a lot of pictures, and Amy had sent a ton of shots of every single Paris landmark when she’d first gotten the job overseas. So I had a familiarity with where we were. I knew something was wrong, because we weren’t going up the steps, which was what the brochure we’d gotten when we bought our tickets said we’d be doing. The idea was to get up to the top, look at the city and the gargoyles, then go back down. We weren’t doing that.
We were instead going right into the main chamber of the cathedral. I scanned the room. Tons of children, adults scattered here and there, no one I recognized. “We paid to go up, right?”
“Right. Per the brochure, cathedral entrance is free.”
“Then why are we in here?” I looked at the brochure. “There’s an underground crypt,” I murmured to White.
“That will be where everyone is.” He looked around. “But do we go down there or evacuate here?”
“No idea. I don’t think you and I can evacuate. We’d have to be able to do the thing with the gases, and even if I were somehow capable of it, I have no idea of how to do it.”
“And I have no implant.” He moved us casually to the side. “How do we get to the crypt?”
I studied the brochure. “Great. I think we have to go outside again. It seems that the entrance is across the plaza.”
“That may be, but there should be a way in there from here, too.”
“Maybe, but I can’t find it. Let’s go. We have to get to the others before we save the kids, I think. Besides, it doesn’t look like anything’s happening yet.” We went out the way we’d come in. The girl working the door looked shocked. “We wanted to go see the towers.”
“The towers are closed right now.” She didn’t seem concerned that we were leaving.
“Okay. How do we get into the crypt?”
“It is closed today, too.”
“Gee, honey, let’s get our money back.” I dragged White off. “Okay, so our people are in the crypt and they’re going to gas the kids in the cathedral. I feel so stressed.”