by Gini Koch
“Do the A-Cs go to that room a lot?” I was trying to come up with something, but my Agatha Christie didn’t appear to be working. I was a lot better with the motivations of parasitic superbeings and psychos, apparently. Then again, it seemed as though we had at least one, maybe many more, psychos running around here, so maybe I’d hit on something soon.
“No. Most of us don’t work with the computers, at least not in terms of maintenance.”
“Why do you have a key?”
Alfred shot me a look over his shoulder. I saw Martini’s “you’re annoying but cute so I’ll answer” look. I’d been told that Martini looked like his father, but no one had mentioned the similar personalities. “I’m the highest ranking A-C at this facility. I have a key to everything.”
Authority ran in the family, and I had to admit this wasn’t too much of a surprise—Martini had indicated his father was essentially the head of the scientific stuff. “So you were the target for the bomb.”
“I don’t think so. It didn’t go off until you all arrived.”
“No, it didn’t go off until Jeff arrived.” I clutched Target No. 2’s waist. “The bomb was closest to you two.” My mystery caller’s words rang in my head. “Oh, not again.”
“Not again what?” Martini sounded confused.
“We have two freaking plans going at the same damn time again.” Why couldn’t the homicidal psychopaths and world conquering megalomaniacs take turns?
“Why so?”
“The caller said they’d kill me and my boyfriend unless I left the state. But we’ve had two attacks that were trying to kill all of us, you and your father specifically in the last one. I wasn’t the target, you were.” Oh, I hated where this line of reasoning was taking me. “So, for whatever reason, those running Plan A want the Martini men dead.”
“Fine, that seems at least a workable hypothesis.”
“Why would they want to kill me and Jeffrey?” Alfred sounded far less convinced.
“Maybe they think Jeff can do whatever it is you do here. Or that he will do whatever it is you would do here.” This sounded lamer said aloud than in my head.
Strangely enough, my most confusing statements seemed to make the most sense to Alfred. He nodded his head. “Okay, that I could see.” Really? I hoped he’d explain it to me, I was confusing myself.
“Great. So, Plan A is to get rid of the Martinis, and I’d guess that all the others on Alpha Team are targets, too. But Plan B isn’t the same thing. Whoever called me wants me to leave, and take Jeff with me, but they aren’t in on whatever Plan A is, because they didn’t say ‘leave or we kill all your friends’ or ‘leave or we kill all the A-Cs.’ ”
“Who did you piss off, girlfriend?” Reader asked.
“The list is so long,” Christopher said. “Really, do we have all day to go through potential suspects?”
“I’m ignoring you.” Besides, I didn’t have a suitable comeback. “I think we need to figure out who wants to kill Alpha Team and Alfred, and why.” Something niggled. “Alfred? Do you know Leventhal Reid? He’s one of the House Representatives from Florida.”
He nodded. “Somewhat. He’s not a particularly friendly man, but he’s been here before, always on House business of some kind.”
“What does he look at? What kinds of questions does he ask?”
“He’s never here alone.” Alfred chuckled. “There are a variety of subcommittees whose work affects or is affected by what we do here. Those committee members come for arranged visits. It’s a formal, and standard, process.”
“How often?”
Alfred shrugged. “Probably twice a year. Sometimes more, depending on what’s going on. Sometimes we have several visits in a row, because different subcommittees are here and they all have different and not always interrelated questions.”
“How many people know you’re all here?”
“Not as many as it seems.”
“It seems like everyone.”
Alfred shook his head. “The politicians don’t all know that we’re . . . different. American Centaurion is considered a U.S. territory, if you will, similar to Puerto Rico. That’s how most know us.”
“Layers of security and need-to-know,” Martini added. “Ranked like all other Military Intelligence. I know you have briefing papers about it. You got them the day you were confirmed as the Head of Airborne.”
Reader snorted. “Jeff, you seriously think she ever read them? I’d bet cash money she didn’t even look at them. I’d bet more money she dumped them somewhere, probably in my room with a note saying, ‘Give me the high level view.’ I’ll look when we’re finally home.”
I shot Reader my most derisive look. He didn’t seem fazed. “I’ve looked at them.” Briefly. They were long and boring, from the little I’d skimmed. “And I didn’t give them to you, James.” I even knew where they were. Bottom right dresser drawer in my bedroom in the Lair. All neatly stacked and waiting for me to have the time, and interest, to send myself to Civics: American Centaurion class. So far, I was missing all the lectures, but I planned to cram and ace the final somehow.
Decided I didn’t want Martini fully aware that I hadn’t read anything and so was, by A-C standards, asking stupid questions. “So, Alfred, does Reid come every time?”
“Yes. He’s involved in many of the subcommittees that have an interest in us. Not all of them, mind you.”
“How many years?”
Alfred pursed his lips. “Oh, call it ten or twelve.”
“Has Turco been around that long?”
“No. He came on sometime after Representative Reid started visiting. I doubt the Representative is involved. He’s not the only politician who’s here on a regular basis. We have some Congressmen and -women who are here even more than Representative Reid. And I doubt any of them are trying to harm us or what we’re doing here.”
I managed to hold the snide comment in. This was Martini’s father, after all. Plus, the A-Cs weren’t really trained to look at humans as their enemies—even when they were. In the past few months, I’d come to realize the view the majority of A-Cs held was that they were here to protect and defend the Earth from the parasites, and if they could help in other ways, well then they were going to. They felt they owed it to their adopted homeland, even the purists who still hoped to go back to Alpha Centauri one day.
Despite having to deal with Earth governments and all the related bureaus and divisions those dragged with them, the A-Cs seemed remarkably naïve when it came to how low down and dirty humans could be. Maybe it was because they seemed unable to lie that they believed humans were the same way.
But we weren’t, and I knew in my gut that whoever was behind Plan A was a human. The question of the moment was whether Turco was in on whatever was going down or if he was being manipulated. It was hard to judge with limited time with him, and I didn’t want my personal dislike to cloud my judgment.
Then again, Martini felt my female intuition was normally right, and my mother felt listening to my gut was better in some cases than rational thought. My gut really wanted to kick Turco’s face in.
We reached the others outside of quarantine before I could come up with a decision on what Turco’s game was. We brought everyone up to speed on the bodies and my current theories. Thankfully, Gower was on my side. “I don’t think Plan B’s in effect yet,” he said. “I’d guess the threat was the start.”
“I’ll stay alert.” The threat to the A-Cs seemed a lot better planned and certainly more focused on effective mayhem. “Let’s go see the astronauts.”
“We can’t all go in there,” Alfred said. “They’re under quarantine for a reason. You can monitor them from the medical observation lab.”
“Can we talk to them from there?”
“Not usually.” Alfred looked uncomfortable. “It’s for observation. We can listen in from the lab, but they can’t hear us. They have terminals they can use to type requests and so forth with.”
“What are
they saying or requesting?”
“They’re saying nothing’s wrong and are requesting to leave quarantine.”
“Are they sick?” I hoped not; we were talking about Gower’s brother.
“Not that we can tell, and they say they feel normal. But we identified a living entity that hit and entered the ship, and we can’t find it now.”
“We’re all trained to kill superbeings.” I felt I was stating the obvious, but who knew what Alfred really thought we did all day.
“None of them have manifested.” Alfred sounded like I was testing his patience. Well, he wouldn’t be the first man, A-C, or Martini I’d done that to.
“Maybe they’re lying in wait.”
“Maybe you should go to the lab and observe.”
“Isn’t someone in there, observing right now?”
Alfred sighed. “No. You insisted on everyone being herded into one place. That included the observation team.”
Good point. “Everyone other than the astronauts.”
He nodded. “Yes, they’re still in quarantine. Because we don’t know what’s going on.” Alfred indicated another hallway. “Let’s go to the lab.”
I looked pointedly at the door in front of us. It said “Quarantine.” “Let’s go in here instead and observe them in person.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Alfred said sternly. Really, it wasn’t intimidating. The Pontifex tried stern on me all the time, so did Martini and Christopher, with limited to no results. The only one who successfully pulled off stern with consequences was my mother. And I knew she’d tell me to go through that door.
“Dad, accept that Kitty’s going in there and save us all some pain.” Martini had his Commander voice on. “Paul’s going too. So are Christopher and I. And, before the protests start, guess what? We’re in a Field situation.”
Alfred gave Martini a long look. “Pulling rank, son?” “I don’t have to pull it.”
Alfred nodded slowly. “True enough.” He unlocked the door. “You know you’re at risk for whatever they have?”
“We’re at risk every damn day.” Martini sounded bored. “You want us wearing gas masks?”
“No, I suppose not.” Alfred sighed. “We’ll monitor you from the observation lab. Just be careful. We really have no idea if anything’s wrong or not.”
“At this point, we don’t know if they’re alive, either.” I had to say it. “It’s a great way to get rid of someone—throw them into quarantine, and then you can kill them while everyone else is running the other way.” Everyone stared at me. “What?”
“Why would you think someone wants to kill the astronauts?” Gower asked.
“Why did someone kill Karl Smith? Or the presumed cleaning lady? Or try to blow you all to smithereens? I have no freaking idea. The only answer I have is that the lunatics from Club 51 did their best to ensure we’d blow up before we got here. Otherwise, all we have to go on is Smith’s warning, which was that every A-C was in mortal peril and Centaurion Division as a whole was in jeopardy. Since I know we have an A-C in quarantine, I just sort of figure that he’s in as much danger as everyone else.”
“I hate it when you point out things like this,” Martini said.
“Why?”
“Because you’re so frequently right.”
CHAPTER 29
THE FOUR OF US WALKED down the long corridor Alfred had told us led to the main quarantine area. The men were walking so quickly I almost had to trot to keep up. Not that I could blame them.
The astronauts were in different, but adjacent, cells. Each door had thick glass on the top, presumably so observation would be easy. We got to Michael Gower’s first. He was a slightly smaller version of his older brother and looked bored out of his mind when we reached his door.
Gower hit the intercom. “Michael, are you okay?”
Michael looked over and gave Gower a huge smile. “Paul! Man, am I glad to see you.” He came over to the door. “Hey, Christopher, Jeff. And . . . who’s this?” His voice dropped down a bit and I got a different smile. I got the distinct impression that, unlike his older brother, Michael was not gay in any way.
“Katherine Katt,” Gower said. “She goes by Kitty.”
Michael’s smile got wider and more seductive. “Kitty Katt, huh? Great name.”
“She’s not a stripper,” Martini snapped. He also put his arm around my shoulders.
Michael chuckled. “Staked your claim already, Jeff?”
“Five months ago.” Martini sounded really annoyed. And jealous. I tried not to be flattered and failed.
I cleared my throat. “So, Michael, what happened to lock you and your crew up?”
He shook his head. “Damned if we know. Something hit the Valiant. We thought it was just space debris. But the sensors showed it as a living thing. Believe me, I was ready to fight off a parasite. But nothing happened. Mission Control had us come back.”
“You landed back right where you took off, though.”
“Did we?” He looked confused. “I don’t remember that.” He laughed. “Besides, that’s impossible.”
“You did it,” Gower said flatly. “I saw the video.”
“You don’t remember?” This was worrying.
“No. It got jumbled there for a bit, once we were hit and then nothing happened.”
“Do you remember landing?”
Michael nodded. “Yeah. It was just like we were in a simulator.”
I felt a niggling suspicion. “Let’s talk to the other astronauts.”
“Will we be out of here soon?” Michael sounded bored again. “I’m sick of being in the zoo.”
“Who else has come by?” Christopher asked.
Michael shook his head. “Seems like everyone. Been a steady stream of people. No one asked questions, they just came and looked at us through the glass and left. Wouldn’t talk to us, either.”
We moved to the next room. “Something’s really wrong,” I said as softly as I could.
“Very.” Gower was talking in a low voice, too. “The only people coming through were medical, according to all the security logs.”
“Maybe he got hit on the head.”
“Maybe.” Gower didn’t sound convinced, but then, neither was I.
We reached the next cell, to find this astronaut asleep. We knocked on the glass, and he roused up. “Who’s there?”
“I’m Michael Gower’s brother, Paul.”
“I’m Daniel Chee. Nice to have a visitor who’ll talk to me.”
“Have you seen a lot of people?”
Chee came to the door. “Oh, there’re four of you. All talking?”
“Yes,” Martini and Christopher said together.
“Nice. And, yeah, lots of people have been by. None of them talked to us. We’re all tired of it by now.”
We ran through the whole hit by space debris and landed impossibly with Chee. His story was like Michael’s, though he didn’t have the parasitic superbeing worry. He’d been afraid their hull had been breached.
We went to visit astronaut number three. “This is getting freakier by the minute. Who was here, if the records don’t show anyone?”
“That they can’t remember the landing worries me more,” Gower said.
We reached the third door to find this occupant pacing. I knocked on the glass. “Hi, you okay in there?”
He spun and stared at us. “Kitty?” His eyes opened wide. “Kitty, is that you?”
“Um . . . yes.” I had no idea who he was. To my knowledge, I didn’t know an astronaut. He was about Christopher’s height and build, with straight black hair and bright blue eyes. The thought that he was Black Irish crossed my mind, but I didn’t know why. He was cute, not A-C gorgeous, not Reader cover-boy material, but normally cute, a guy all your friends would think was a catch in the looks department.
He came over to the door. “I can’t believe it. What are you doing here?”
“Um . . . investigating?” Close up he looked vague
ly familiar.
He smiled, and I had to admit it was a good smile. Not up to Martini’s standards, but still, attractive. It reminded me of something. “I wasn’t expecting to see you for another couple of weeks.” I heard Christopher whispering urgently to Martini.
“Um . . . yes. Well. Uh. . . . ” I gave up. “I’m really sorry, but, who are you?”
He looked shocked. But it was Christopher who answered. “Brian Dwyer. Your old boyfriend from high school.”
CHAPTER 30
CHRISTOPHER WAS THE STRONGEST imageer on the planet. During Operation Fugly, when Christopher was scoping out my place and, as it turned out, me, he’d spent a lot of time with the pictures I’d had on display. One of which was of me and Brian at my sixteenth birthday party, doing a wild version of the tango.
That Christopher was able to recognize Brian after seeing only one picture of him taken eleven years prior and I couldn’t recognize the guy I’d lost my virginity to without help said a lot about Christopher’s skills as an imageer and Martini’s as a sexual impresario.
That Brian recognized my voice after ten years was both impressive and confusing. I didn’t have to look at him to know Martini had no love for Brian in his expression. I was willing to bet Christopher didn’t, either.
But Brian was only looking at me. “C’mon, Kitty, I don’t look that different.”
He didn’t, but he also didn’t look seventeen any more. Or sound it. “Your voice is a lot deeper.” I had nothing else, and at least it sounded better than saying I hadn’t thought about him for a long while.
Brian grinned. “Yeah, and I’m taller, and, spoken modestly, God love me, more muscular.” He was indeed. The rhythms of his speech were starting to come back to me.
“I had no idea you were an astronaut.” Totally true. To say that my interest in space and the things related to it had only been piqued about five months ago was an understatement. I hadn’t been ignorant, but I hadn’t been overly curious, either.
“You still in marketing?”