Universal Alien

by Gini Koch

  “Impressive. And I don’t remember this at all.”

  “Long stories,” Martini said quickly. “And ones you don’t want right now, trust me. Just know that you’re the one who brought Chernobog over onto our side and that Olga’s never wrong, if you can figure out what she’s telling you. Which you usually can.”

  “Go my Cosmic Alternate.”

  “Right.” Abigail hugged me. “And go you, too. You’ll do great. Call us if you need anything, we’ll have someone up and ready twenty-four seven until you guys are all back.” She left the apartment with us, but took the stairs.

  “You don’t mean we’re leaving from where the animals are and where Jamie supposedly wants to go, do you?” I asked Martini as I picked Jamie up and we headed for the elevator. If the Peregrines were along, they were in their Invisible Mode, but I had a feeling more than just Bruno were coming with.

  “No. We bought the other building on this block, and have a raised, covered walkway that connects them. It’s where Hacker International, as your Cosmic Alternate calls them, live and work. And, ah, you need to be prepared.”

  “For what?”

  “For Stryker Dane.”

  “Stryker’s here? That’s great!”

  “Ah, yeah. Great. Per Chuck, and based on your descriptions of the Stryker in your world, you’re not going to be able to handle how he looks in this world.”

  “Oh my God. Did he have an accident or something?”

  “Ah. No. Just . . . try to control whatever reaction you have, okay? And we have not told them what’s going on, so you literally have to act normal, normal for my Kitty, around them.”

  “What is that normal?”

  “Sarcasm and one-upmanship.”

  “Oh. So how it was with Eddy when I first met him. Gotcha.”

  “Probably exactly like that,” Martini muttered.

  We got out of the elevator on the second floor and the others joined us, rolling suitcases in hand, Secret Service agents included. Meaning we had a lot of people. Wanted to ask if we always rolled with this much of an entourage, then realized that no one seemed fazed, so of course they did.

  Christopher and Amy were there, too, presumably to see us off. Len and Kyle took the luggage from Martini as we headed down the hallway. Had no idea what to say to the agents. “I’m so sorry about what happened,” was all I could come up with.

  “Those are the risks,” Evalyne said briskly. “We would really appreciate you two not trying to escape from us in the future, however.” She sounded unhappy with us, not that this was a surprise.

  “They weren’t after them,” Kyle said. “Think about it. They’re after the people protecting them, but not them. At least, not this time.”

  “Seems like it,” Phoebe said. “However, our jobs are to protect the three of you. And Mister Reynolds as well.”

  “Where are they, by the way?”

  “Waiting for us in the Zoo,” Crawford said. “Reynolds is giving the hackers some directions and Richard and Buchanan are there to ensure that the recording artists you’ve added to the team don’t get into trouble or break something.”

  The walkway was impressive. When I looked outside I saw protestors. Managed not to ask what was going on, only because I could see some of the signs. They were protesting that aliens were on the planet and that Martini was in public office.

  “People like that,” Evalyne said softly to me, “are part of what we’re supposed to protect you from.”

  “Who protects the protectors, though? It’s a two-way street. If we can protect you, we should.”

  She sighed. “We appreciate that sentiment, Kitty. But if you hadn’t left in the middle of the night—”

  “Eight of your peers might be alive. I know.”

  “Kyle’s right,” Len said. “Why were they sent to eight different gates? That screams setup to me. And I know it screams setup to all of you, too, Kitty especially.”

  People around me stiffened, Evalyne and Phoebe in particular. “Mister Goodman sent them to their locations,” Phoebe said. “To cover all the bases . . .”

  This wasn’t good. These people weren’t stupid, and they were all about to figure out what some of us knew already. But that just meant Goodman was going to catch on and put whatever his Doomsday Plan was into action.

  Evalyne looked at me, and then looked at Martini. “Cut the chatter,” she said, using her In Charge voice. “We’ll discuss this when we’re all at Sydney Base.”

  We were across the walkway and in a large room that had what appeared to be a bank of bathroom stalls against one wall, a gigantic, industrial kitchen at the far end, an elevator, two stairwells, and nothing else in it.

  “No,” Martini said. “We’ll discuss it now.” He jerked his head at Singh. “Search them.”

  Singh nodded, pulled out his bug finder, and ran it over every one of the Secret Service agents. “They’re all clean. No bugs, no trackers, no emotional blockers or overlays.”

  “Great.” Martini took a deep breath. “You all know we feel that we have a Mastermind who’s running all the actions against us.” Everyone nodded. “Well, we’ve determined who that is.”

  “Cliff Goodman,” Evalyne said, voice like ice.

  Martini nodded. “We think your coworkers were murdered in an attempt to frame Malcolm Buchanan and get him out of the way. It didn’t work, but only because we figured out what was going on in time.”

  “How could he have done that?” one of the male agents whose name I hadn’t been told or hadn’t caught asked. “And why?”

  “Why?” Singh asked. “Why does anyone betray their country and the people who trust them? Money, power, influence.”

  “And more,” Martini said. “Since we’ve arrived on this planet, people have tried to control us to use us for their own ends, not for the reasons we came here—to protect and help our adopted world.”

  Everyone looked at me. No, not at me—at Jamie. I held her a little more tightly. “They want Jamie.” We shouldn’t be talking about this in front of her, but I had no idea how to stop this conversation.

  Jamie hugged me. “It’s okay, Mommy.”

  “It’s not if one of you is working for Goodman, instead of working for the good of your country,” Singh said.

  “No.” Everyone looked at me again. “I don’t want people working for the good of their country. I want people around us who are working for what’s right and decent. People who don’t want a crazed madman to take a little girl and use her in ways I honestly don’t even want to imagine. I want those kinds of people around us. You can do a lot of evil under the guise of doing good for your country. We want people around us who won’t use those excuses to betray us, kill us, or use us.”

  “Kitty’s right,” Serene said. “If you’re not with us, you’re against us. Plain and simple.”

  “In other words,” I said, “choose your side.”

  “And,” Martini added, “choose it now.”

  CHAPTER 68

  EVALYNE AND PHOEBE exchanged a look. “With you,” Evalyne said, as they both stepped across the invisible line Singh had created when he’d searched the agents. “For all the reasons you named and one more—the agents who were murdered were our friends, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to help the man who intentionally sent them to their deaths.”

  The other agents stepped across, one by one. The first one, the one who’d asked why Goodman would have done what he did, was the last man standing on the other side. “I want proof, not speculation, before I make the decision to betray my official orders.”

  “This is the Vice President of the United States,” Phoebe said. “He overrules someone at Homeland Security.”

  “It’s a legitimate request,” Martini said. “But, we have no proof. Only the connection of events taken to their logical conclusion. I know you’re new to t
he team, Sam, but we want to get the proof you want. Will you help us?”

  The agent relaxed. In fact, he’d relaxed when Martini had said that we had no proof. “Sure.”

  It was one thing to trust. But if your entire demand in order to give that trust was proof, relaxing when the confirmation of no proof was given was a contrary reaction. Malcolm wasn’t here. I wasn’t sure if anyone else would listen to me. But had to give it a shot. “Stop him, he’s working for Goodman.”

  Everyone gaped at me. Everyone other than Christopher. He moved faster than I could blink, grabbed Sam’s arms, and pulled them behind his back. Sam struggled, but he wasn’t going anywhere. “What the hell? Is this how you killed everyone else?”

  “Note that he thinks we killed those agents. Or else he’s spouting the party line. But he’s not on our side.”

  “He didn’t show as having any bugs or overlays,” Singh said, sounding uncertain.

  “And I didn’t feel anything wrong from him beyond suspicion and some fear,” Martini added.

  “If he’s focused on fooling you, maybe he can.”

  “Or he swallowed an emotional overlay,” Amy suggested. “I don’t think the detectors can tell if one of those things is ingested.”

  “Good point. Search him again, please,” Martini asked Christopher. “The old fashioned way, this time.”

  Len and Kyle held the agent while Christopher frisked him. “Nothing.”

  “Let’s see his wallet,” Crawford said. “And any other papers he might have on him. Just in case.”

  Christopher looked through the wallet at hyperspeed. At least I assumed so, because I couldn’t see anything his hands were doing, but suddenly he had a card in one hand and a seriously pissed expression. “It’s a Club Fifty-One membership card.” He handed it to Martini. Who looked ready to kill. Couldn’t blame him.

  “The only people who have those are our enemies,” Martini said, voice like ice.

  “We pointedly screened for anti-alien sentiments,” Phoebe said.

  “Clearly not well enough,” James said. “I’d like Christopher to go through the rest of your wallets, badges, and similar. That’s not exactly a request, by the way,” he added with a smile that was a lot more feral than cover boy.

  “Agreed,” Evalyne said, as she produced her wallet. The others followed suit.

  Christopher took just a few seconds. “No one else has anything anti-us on their person.” He smiled at me. Nice to know he knew how. “Good catch, Kitty.”

  “It’s what I’m here for.” Literally, as near as I could tell.

  Christopher gave everyone back their things, then Evalyne produced handcuffs and cuffed the agent. “What do we do with him? Until we have the proof we lack, I can’t turn him over to Homeland Security.”

  “We have holding cells at Dulce,” Singh said.

  “I wouldn’t send him there.” Everyone looked at me. Heaved a sigh. “That just puts an enemy into the center of your operations. He needs to be locked up, I’ll give you that, but not where, should he escape, he can cause more havoc.”

  “It’s a good point,” Martini said. “We have no idea what Sam’s training or mission might actually be.”

  “Let’s hope that no one else swallowed one of those things, because Amy’s suggestion sounds right.” Waited. Saying something nice about Amy didn’t kill me. Amazing.

  “We haven’t, but all you have is our word,” Evalyne said. The other agents nodded. Most of them looked seriously upset, but not with us, so that was a nice change.

  “I think we can trust them,” Martini said to me quietly. “Especially since I can feel all of them, and their emotions switched in a way the emotional blockers and enhancers don’t seem able to mimic. The rest of them have been with us for months and have never done anything but be incredibly loyal and put up with us.”

  “One small favor. I’ll take it.”

  “Where are we going to stash him?” Serene asked. “Like Jeff said, Kitty has a good point, but we normally use Dulce’s incarceration facilities.”

  Felt something feathery nudge my leg and looked down. Bruno looked at me and winked slowly. “Ah, why don’t we tie him up and leave him here, under Peregrine guard?”

  “That works,” Christopher said. “Kevin and I will keep him and the birds with us. The Peregrines will claw him up if he manages to get free.”

  Bruno indicated that he’d been going to Australia because of Sam, and that he and the rest of the flock looked forward to clawing Sam up if he didn’t cooperate with the authorities. Worked for me, but I decided not to share this information with anyone else.

  “We can do some interrogation, too,” Amy added. She didn’t sound like the questioning would be pleasant.

  Plan agreed to, Christopher and Amy decided they’d take the prisoner off instead of seeing us all the way to whatever gate we were going to. Kevin Lewis joined them before we all separated. I’d sort of met him during the gigantic info dump that everyone seemed to think I’d managed to memorize, but now that I saw him up close and personal I realized he was someone I knew in my world—he’d been over to my parents’ house when I was younger. He was a gorgeous black guy with at least as much charisma as Martini.

  “I’ll advise Angela,” he said once the situation was explained. “If she wants to take him, we’ll let the P.T.C.U. enjoy themselves. Until then, we’ll handle it. You guys go off and be diplomatic.”

  Kevin then helped Christopher with the prisoner—Sam hadn’t been too much for Christopher, but got the feeling they were muscling him around to prep him for a Good Cop/Bad Cop/Amy Cop routine. Worked for me.

  The rest of us got into the elevator. In shifts. Because there were a lot of people in the entourage. Each elevator shift had an A-C in it, presumably because no one felt too confident in the Secret Service all of a sudden.

  Martini, Jamie, and I were in the first group to go up, but that just meant that we got to hang out and wait for the others to join us. Nothing untoward happened, which was a nice change of pace.

  “Remember,” Martini said to me in a low voice as we waited outside a door that said Computer Center, “you have to control your reactions.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Had no idea why he was acting weird about Stryker, but I’d handle it, whatever it was.

  The last part of our group arrived and Martini opened the door. We entered what appeared to be a very large, very high-tech computer center, just like the door had indicated. It was a little reminiscent of the Bat Cave at the Science Center, but it wasn’t bustling with gorgeous people.

  Well, that wasn’t quite accurate. Charles, Richard, and Malcolm were in here, so handsome to gorgeous was covered. There were also two people in the room who were clearly A-Cs, a man and a woman, and they looked like they were siblings, too, and clearly a part of the Gorgeous Contingent. Amadhia and Aaron were also here, having an animated conversation with Richard and Malcolm, and helping to support the Good-Looking Human side of the house.

  The others, however, were not the most impressive specimens of manhood ever seen. I vaguely remembered who most of them were—Charles and I had met them at Stryker’s place a few times. But I hadn’t given any of them any thought in years, possibly because Stryker and Charles never mentioned them these days.

  However, as a guy with unkempt but still somehow nice hair, manboobs, an unkempt and unattractive beard, dirty shorts and an even dirtier Star Trek T-shirt turned around, I now understood why Charles had been worried and Martini had spent so much time prepping me.

  This wasn’t the Stryker I knew. Well, that wasn’t quite true. This was indeed the Stryker I’d known. I just thought I’d gotten rid of him eight years ago.

  CHAPTER 69

  AT HYPERSPEED it didn’t take us too long to reach the commandos. They were pinned down at the end of this long corridor, on either side of a concrete doorway
. We chose the side with the two commandos, versus four, and got out of the way.

  “Who’s shooting at you?” I asked the commando nearest me.

  “Not who, what.”

  Risked a look to see an impressively large Gatling gun surrounded by smaller versions, all shooting at the doorway, apparently without anyone there to fire them.

  “Is anyone hit?” Cantu asked.

  “No, sir. We got out of the way just in time.”

  Considered this. During Operation Sherlock, Clarence had set up a set of guns to “shoot” us, but they were filled with blanks because Raul the Pissed Off Assassin wanted to kill us personally. Perhaps that wasn’t either Clarence’s or Raul’s move, but Cliff’s.

  Maybe these guns were loaded with real bullets. But I couldn’t think of a better early warning system that doubled as a way for your enemies to use up all of their ammo than this. But there was really only one way to find out.

  Took my purse off and took Stripes out of it. Dug through to find a package of tissues. That’d do the trick. Sure I could use Other Me’s wallet, but that seemed wrong, somehow.

  Tossed the pack of tissues up high into the doorway. It fell down, with nothing hitting it.

  “Stop wasting ammo!” The commandos ignored me. Figured. “Esteban, tell them to stop shooting.”

  “Just because your tissues weren’t hit means nothing,” he replied.

  “Some men deserve what happens to them.” Ran out at hyperspeed. Nothing hit or even winged me, not because I was going fast but because there was nothing to be hit with.

  Got behind the guns to discover there was a projector there. Turned it off. Immediately the guns stopped firing and disappeared. Took a good look at the wall by the doorway—it was wired for sound. Looked up. Sure enough, this room had a high, sloping ceiling, and there was a grate, about two stories up, give or take.

  Everyone else poked their heads into the doorway. “Well, now that you’ve wasted your ammo and let the bad guys know we’re here, who wants to apologize for not stopping when I said so?”