by Gini Koch
We stayed on the ground, and Reader pulled me into his lap, locked his legs around my body, and supported my hold on the nozzle. “You know, right now I really wish I was straight. Even though I can’t see your face because of whatever it is you’re wearing.”
“I’m here for you if you ever want to give it a shot. And this is a T-shirt, and it probably saved your life, so I’m not going to apologize for the look. Tim’s to our left, and he’s out. I have no idea where anyone else we know is, and less idea where the fire’s coming from.”
“That I can help with.” Reader aimed the hose, and then we started laying down a steady stream of water back and forth.
“What happened?” I might was well get the details now.
“Jeff, Kevin, and Paul all made it into this room, then something blew up. I tried to get to the fire hose, but I couldn’t. I think whatever exploded had some kind of knockout gas in it.”
My fear spiked. “I don’t know where Christopher went. But we heard the explosion. Why isn’t the fire alarm going or the sprinklers sprinkling?”
“I’m guessing because they want us dead.”
Damn, that was my guess, too. “Why didn’t I pass out?”
“Maybe your impromptu burka did the trick. Or the gas dissipated due to the smoke. Or something. I’m just grateful for one small favor. And that you never obey anything Jeff or Christopher tell you to do.”
“Why change what’s been working?” The smoke was starting to clear up, and I could see the flames. We trained the water on them, and they started to die. I could now make out other water, coming from the opposite side of the room.
Out of nowhere, the sprinklers and alarm started at the same time. I didn’t know you could be more than drenched, but Reader and I were that much wetter in moments. “There are guys lying facedown,” I shouted to Reader.
“I think I can control the hose, you get them turned over.”
We disentangled, and while I could tell he was struggling with it, Reader had better control alone than I had. The smoke was lessened enough that I took my shirt off and left it with Reader. Then I moved as fast as I could and got to Tim, moved him into a sitting position and slapped his face. He coughed and came to. “No time, people are lying facedown in water. Get moving!”
He nodded and got to his hands and knees. I helped him up, and he staggered off toward Reader and the men lying that way.
It was undoubtedly wrong of me, but I was looking for my guys, only. I found Kevin first—apparently the humans had been hit faster with whatever it was. I got him turned over—he was still breathing. I was so frightened I didn’t even take time to regret there was no need for me to do mouth-to-mouth. I slapped him and, like Tim, he came around.
Same process—got him to his feet and sent him off to get others out of danger. I tried to figure where my A-Cs would have gone and had to guess straight toward whatever had been blown up. Not that they were idiots, but the hyperspeed would have kicked in, and I knew their first inclination would be to put out the fire.
I found Gower first. He was on his back, but that just meant water was raining down on him. He was breathing, but it was more shallow than the humans’ breath had been. I managed to get him sitting up. He was big like Martini, and it was hard to do. His head lolled back against my shoulder. “Paul, come on, wake up.” I slapped him. Nothing. I guessed this was really bad, but I knew next to nothing about medicine.
But I knew people who did.
CHAPTER 24
I DUG MY CELL OUT of my purse and made the call.
“Hello?” Lorraine answered on the second ring.
“We’re at Code Red. No time, no arguments, no delays. Break necks if you have to. I need you and Claudia at the Kennedy Space Center like ten minutes ago. If there’s any way, arrive inside our jet and come in that way.” Who knew? Maybe there were minigates installed on the thing. “Bring full medical. I think Paul’s dying, and I’m guessing Christopher and Jeff will be worse.”
“On it.” She hung up, and I waited and prayed.
Lorraine and Claudia were female A-Cs. Like the men, the women were beyond gorgeous, and, to myself, I called them the Dazzlers. Because, young or old, on their worst days they still looked better than I could manage on my best. Lorraine was a buxom blonde a few years younger than me, Claudia was a winsome brunette about my age. I’d tried to hate them but couldn’t manage it because they were just so darned nice. They’d become my closest A-C girlfriends during Operation Fugly and were considered a part of my team. They didn’t go on a lot of fieldwork, but they were the only female A-Cs authorized to do so, again because of me.
They were dating two of my flyboys, Lieutenant Joe Billings and Captain Randy Muir. Killing big fugly monsters seemed to make for solid romantic relationships.
I was counting in my head. We were at a minute since I’d called, and Gower’s breathing was worse. I wanted to find Martini and Christopher, but I couldn’t just leave Gower lying on the ground.
Two minutes, and I heard the sound of running feet. The girls were there, my five pilots with them. All of them had medical cases. A-Cs could move humans at hyperspeed via touch, and we’d learned that as long as the contact was there, one A-C could move several linked humans. Thankfully, the girls had taken the initiative to do so.
Joe and Lorraine took over with Gower, and I raced off, the rest of them with me. Hughes and Walker spotted some folks down to our right. They weren’t Christopher or Martini so I didn’t care, but those two sheared off to handle them.
We found Christopher next. He was out, facedown. I got him turned over, and he was like Gower—shallow breathing and no response to stimuli. Claudia and Randy started CPR.
“I’m going to find Jeff.”
Claudia nodded. “Kitty, more than anything, he’ll need the adrenaline.”
“Got it.” I took off, Jerry with me.
Other people were coming in now, most of them doing what we were, trying to revive the fallen. I couldn’t find Martini anywhere, and my panic was going into overdrive.
Jerry grabbed my arm. “There!” He’d spotted some bodies that were very near where the flames had come from.
We ran. I couldn’t remember running faster even during a championship race. Martini was facedown, and he was hurt, I could tell. He was on top of another man, also facedown and hurt. It was clear from what I could see of the wreckage that Martini had taken the brunt of the hit in order to protect the other man.
I moved Martini carefully. He was still alive, but barely. Jerry moved the other man. “Jeff’s dad works here?”
“Yeah, why?” I looked over. Even hurt, the resemblance was clear. “Oh, God.” Of course Martini would head toward and try to protect his father. I couldn’t guess which one of them had been the target, might have been both.
“His dad an empath?” Jerry was all business.
“No, standard A-C.”
“Doing CPR, then.” Jerry started, and I turned back to Martini.
He was the world’s most powerful empath, and that meant he could push himself harder and longer than the other empaths. It also meant that when his empathic synapses burned out and emotional blocks wore down, he crashed harder and faster than the other empaths. And when he crashed, if he went too long without isolation or any other kind of regenerative fluids, he had to have adrenaline. Shot directly into his hearts. Or he’d die.
My hands were shaking, but I forced them to stop. You didn’t save someone by panicking. That was for later, when things had calmed down. I dug through my purse and found the harpoon case. Ripped his shirt open. Too scared to consider how hot he looked even unconscious and possibly dying. That meant I was beyond terrified.
I heard Jerry’s patient start to come around. One small favor.
I filled the harpoon, kissed Martini on the forehead, and said what I always did against his skin. “I love you, Jeff.” Then I plunged it straight into his hearts.
His eyes flew open, and he bellowed. I pulled t
he harpoon out and got it back into the case. This was hard to do because, as always, he was thrashing, and I had to throw my body on top of his to keep him somewhat under control. I had to get the needle put away—there had been an incident early on when he’d grabbed it while thrashing and had unintentionally almost killed me with it.
Harpoon away, I moved so that I was fully on top of him, my arms and legs trying to keep his still. “Jeff, Jeff, baby, try to calm down.” He was still bellowing. This was always awful, and it was worse now because I knew he was hurting himself more. “Jeff, it’s Kitty. Try to relax. You’re hurt, Jeff, I have to get you to medical.”
His eyes were wild, and he was stronger than me at any time, even when he was injured. He flipped us, so he was on top of me. This wasn’t good, because he was still thrashing, the floor was hard and very wet, and until the adrenaline wore off a little, he was close to out of his mind from pain and the rush, and he could kill me without realizing it.
Someone pulled Martini off me. Two someones, Jerry and the man I had to figure was Martini, Sr. He looked awful, but not as bad as he had. They managed to get Martini onto his back. I was able to get to my knees and move to his head. “Shhh, Jeff, shhh.” I stroked his head and face. “Baby, it’s okay, please let it pass.” He was still thrashing, but it was slowing. “Jeff, you’re okay. Come on back, baby, please.”
He blinked, and his eyes started to look less wild. His breathing was labored, not a good sign. I was about to start screaming for medical when Lorraine and Joe ran up. She moved Jerry aside and started doing things to Martini, faster than I could see. Joe held his legs, and Jerry moved around to help Martini, Sr., stand.
“Keep him here,” Lorraine snapped. “I’ll take care of him in a minute.” She looked at me. “How’s his back?”
“Bloody.” I didn’t want to add “horribly mutilated” to that statement, because I was hoping I hadn’t seen it correctly in the heat of the moment.
She nodded. “We need to turn him, just on his side.” I put Martini’s head onto my thighs, and then we moved him. He gave a shout of pain. It sucked, but it brought him fully back.
Lorraine sprayed something on him, and Martini made a hissing sound. I stroked his head while she pulled what looked like a huge amount of shrapnel out of his body. “Jeff, hang on.”
He reached up and grabbed my hand. “You were supposed to run away.” I could tell his teeth were clenched. Lorraine was busy doing things but at the A-C hyperspeed level, so I couldn’t really tell what. Not that I wanted to know. I just wanted it to work.
“And miss the opportunity to ruin another suit? C’mon.” I stroked his hair. “Our team’s still alive.” I hoped.
Lorraine nodded. “Paul’s okay, Claudia was doing a good job with Christopher. You already got James and Tim going. Jeff’s the worst, by far.”
“Kevin’s okay, too. Human, works for my mother, he joined us in Pueblo Caliente,” I explained for Lorraine’s benefit.
“Our Fed’s okay? He need mouth-to-mouth?” Martini’s teeth were still clenched, but the sarcasm came through anyway.
“You always come out of this like a jerk, so I’m not going to grace that with a reply.” I bent down and kissed his head. “No,” I whispered. He squeezed my hand.
Lorraine worked on Martini for what seemed like forever but was probably only fifteen minutes. I couldn’t tell, I was too busy trying not to think about what his back could end up looking like. A-Cs healed much faster than humans, and I just prayed this applied to regenerating chunks of flesh.
“Okay,” Lorraine said as she sprayed something else onto his back—I had no idea what it was, but it wasn’t the same can she’d used at first. “Get Jeff out of these clothes. Leave his pants on, he was only hurt from the waist up, which is truly lucky. Alfred, you lie down.”
She and Joe focused on Martini, Sr., while Jerry and I got Martini into a sitting position. I considered how to best get him undressed, then figured the clothes were ruined anyway. I ripped what was left of the back off and then took the fabric off each arm. His skin was burned and bloody, but I could see it repairing itself. There were large patches of something sewn onto his back—they dissolved as the flesh repaired. I had to look away, so I checked his chest. Seemed fine. And arousing. Good, I was heading back to normal.
Martini kissed me. “Thanks for saving us, baby.”
I stroked his face. “Any time.”
I thought I was going to start to lose it when some men came over. They all looked official and human. “What the hell happened?” one of them, a bulldog of a man, barked at us. “What did you people do?” You people. He was actually trying to blame the A-Cs for this attack.
I snapped. I was already in a crouch and I leaped and tackled him to the ground. “You son of a bitch, what do you think happened?” I sat on his torso and started hitting him. “You have no freaking security in this damned building, and you have the nerve to act like this is their fault?”
I was landing some great shots. The men with him might have tried to do something to stop me, but Jerry and Joe had guns trained on them. Which was fine with me, because I wanted to kill this guy.
“Stop! Who the hell are you? Stop hitting me!” He was trying to grab my wrists, but I had his body under control, and my adrenaline was pumped so high I could move faster and hit hard.
Someone’s arm went around my waist, and I was lifted into the air. “Stop, baby,” Martini said softly. The man started to get up, but Martini slammed him back down with his foot. “I feel like crap, and I’m getting seriously pissed. Who the hell are you, and why don’t you tell us what’s going on?”
“He’s Fred Turco,” Martini, Sr., answered. “He’s in charge of Security.”
“He sucks at it.” I’d given up on making a good impression a bomb ago. Martini flipped me around and put me down carefully, keeping a firm hold on me so I couldn’t lunge at Turco again.
Turco got to his feet. “Who the hell are you? I’d like to know so I get your name right on the police report.”
“She’s Katherine Katt.” Kevin was with us. “Her mother’s name is Angela Katt. You might have heard of her . . . she’s the head of the P.T.C.U. And I’m her second-in-command, Kevin Lewis. Let me say that we’re all really unimpressed over at the P.T.C.U. Apparently, any kind of terrorist can get into Kennedy, home grown or from outer space.” He looked around. “You can shut off the goddamned water now!” He thundered well. Not up to Martini’s standards, but no one could bellow like my man.
The water slowed and stopped. Turco was fuming. “She had no right to attack me.”
I tried to get out of Martini’s hold. “Let’s go, you little jerk!”
“She’s a bit upset,” Kevin said. “And is reflecting our entire team’s feelings about this matter. You’re the one who should be worried, Mr. Turco. Because unless you have a great explanation for how this attack on Centaurion personnel happened, I’m going to have you taken to Guantanamo for questioning.”
“You can’t do that,” Turco said, but he sounded unsure.
“Try me.” Kevin was almost as intimidating as my mother. If I hadn’t been impressed before, I would have been now.
“We don’t know,” Turco said sullenly. “No alarms went off. One of the workers alerted us to trouble.”
“The system must have been tampered with,” I told Kevin. “The room was filled with smoke and flames when I got in, and there were no alarms or sprinklers going off. They started after James and I had gotten some of the fire under control. Also, there had to be something else in the bomb—everyone was out too fast for smoke inhalation.”
He nodded. “I want this place in lockdown, and I want it locked down as of thirty minutes ago, if you get my drift.”
“Then I want a personnel check.”
“Your mother may be important, little girl, but you’re not. I don’t take orders from you,” Turco snarled.
Before I could try to leap out of Martini’s arms to tackle this gu
y again, Christopher was there and punched him in the face. Turco went down on his butt, holding his nose. “You talk to her with respect, or I just break your neck.” Christopher looked at me. “I told you to run away.”
“Jeff already complained about being alive. You too?”
“Let’s get this place locked down,” Kevin said. “Then I’ll be happy to let Centaurion Division do the interrogations.”
Turco looked nervous. “No. My people will be interrogated by a human.”
Martini let me go. “Great.” I walked over to Turco. “I’ll be glad to play the role of bad cop. And I have seven men with me who will be happy to play the roles of badder to baddest to oh-my-freaking-lord cop. They’re all military and A-C trained, and unlike our brothers from another planet, humans know about and love to torture.”
Turco swallowed. “You have no authority to do that.”
I pulled out the badge Mom had given me. “Wanna bet?”
I looked at the men who’d come with Turco. “This place, locked down, all personnel and visitor records in my hands within fifteen minutes, or I promise you’ll be spending the rest of your miserable lives somewhere in Siberia. We have a lovely exchange program, and they’re always thrilled when we send some Americans over instead of asking for them back.”
The men took a look at the badge, and then they raced off. I turned back to Turco. “You’ll get the fun of interrogation first. Jerry, Joe, pick this creep up.”
“Where do you want him, Commander?” Jerry asked.
“Let’s take him somewhere very private.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Turco said, trying to regain some authority. “I have an office here.”
“You lost your chance to play nicely several minutes ago. In the space of a few hours there have been two murderous attacks on my team. That makes me really irritable.” I moved right into his face. “And you know how we women get when we’re irritable.”
He had some gumption. Either that or he was suicidal. “That time of the month?”