by Gini Koch
“It’s the First Lady!” someone with a microphone and camera crew shouted, and we were surrounded fast. The questions started coming even faster.
“What are you doing here?” “We heard the White House was under quarantine.” “Is the new President dead already?” “Is this your new boyfriend?” “Did your people cause this epidemic?” “Why aren’t you saving everyone?” “Why aren’t you doing something?” “Why aren’t you saving us?”
TCC was right next to me, so presumably he was the new boyfriend that had been referred to. The rest of our group was bunched up behind us. A quick look over my shoulder shared that we were cut off and essentially trapped. No way to use hyperspeed right now, not after I’d been recognized.
Reporters were still shouting questions and crowding us.
“Kitty, you’re on every news station,” William said.
“And I’m not stopping it,” Serene added. “I don’t know if you prepared a speech, but now’s the best hope you have for getting the nation’s attention.”
So, basically, I wasn’t all dressed up or ready, and God alone knew what my hair looked like, but I was on the national news and whatever I said was going to be used for or against us for the rest of our lives. Always the way. And also routine. And also sucky.
The phone clicked off, which was sort of panic inducing, since now I had no link to Serene and William. But music started. “The World is Watching” by Two Door Cinema Club.
So, scratch national news and replace with international news! I definitely wasn’t ready for my close-up. However my close-up was ready for me and apparently Algar was at the musical controls. There was probably never going to be a better time.
Cleared my throat. Some of the reporters stopped shrieking at me. Not all, but some, so it was a start.
Decided to go with what TCC had said in Texas. “We’re here looking for one of my nieces. His daughter.” Indicated TCC. If Stephanie was watching, maybe this would bring her out. Or cause her to try to kill me. Maybe both.
“Why are you risking everyone to come out of quarantine for one of your family members?” a male reporter snarled.
“Because we haven’t heard from her, our family is worried, everyone’s at risk, and quarantine isn’t going to work.”
“Why not?” another reporter shouted.
Oh well. Now or never. Might as well go out in a blaze of glory. “Because the vaccine that Clifford Goodman is telling all of you is the cure is actually the disease.”
“Because you created it?” a female reporter asked.
“No. Cliff Goodman created it. He’s the reason President Armstrong is dead. And he’s the reason so many others are dead already or going to be very soon.”
“You’re saying there is no cure for this alien flu?” Couldn’t keep which reporter was shouting which question. Decided not to care.
“No. I’m saying that the so-called alien flu was created by Cliff Goodman and his cronies in order to take control of this country.”
“As opposed to it being brought by all those alien animals you house, or by those aliens who came to take over our country yesterday?” This was from a reporter I vaguely recognized. Knew he was anti-alien, so this question coming from him wasn’t a shock.
“Correct. I’m saying that this so-called alien flu was created by a human being, Clifford Goodman, the current head of FEMA. Intentionally. To kill as many of us as possible. And by ‘us’ I mean humans, A-Cs, and visiting aliens.”
The music changed to “My Only Enemy” by American Hi-Fi. So, what happened next didn’t come as a complete surprise.
“That’s one hell of an accusation,” Cliff said. He walked over, surrounded by reporters, but they moved a bit, so that it was like he and I were in the outline of a figure eight. “But, since you have absolutely no proof, it’s just yet another example of how you and the rest of those aligned with the A-Cs have deceived us for all these years.”
“You’re the deceiver.” Just managed not to say Decepticon. Score one for diplomatic experience. “You pretended to care about this country and its people, but all you care about is lining your own pockets and power. You’re in with the Cuban Mob and you’ve been behind half a dozen murderous conspiracies in the last five years alone.”
The Cuban Mob was a guess, based on Bizarro World, but it struck home. For whatever reason, Cliff hadn’t been prepared for me to say it, and he jerked. And looked up over his shoulder.
Followed his gaze. Was pretty sure I saw figures on the roof of the hospital. Meaning where Sanchez and Lopez had gone was to support Cliff’s takeover bid. Figured I didn’t have long to live.
On the plus side, the reporters were silent and, because they’d shut up and there was clearly something going on with bright lights shining, the mob began to form around us. But it was far less unruly, presumably because the people in the mob wanted to hear what was being said.
Cliff recovered. He shook his head sadly. “It makes me sad to see how you’re trying to blame me for what you and your people have done. All to put your husband in the White House.” This earned some nasty sounds from the crowd.
“My husband is probably the only politician on this planet who doesn’t want to be a politician at all. But he’s accepted what he has to do in order to serve the country that took his people in, and he does it. But kill people to get there? No. Kill innocent people to get more power? No. That’s not Jeff’s thing. But it’s sure yours, Cliff.”
“See, Kitty, the problem with accusations you can’t back up is that you just sound like a sad little girl, grasping at a conspiracy theory to hide behind.”
“Oh,” a voice boomed out, “she has proof. And lots of it.”
CHAPTER 88
MISTER JOEL OLIVER was on the scene, and he wasn’t alone. Colonel Hamlin was with him. Didn’t see Buchanan anywhere, though. However, “Caught, Can We Get A Witness?” by Public Enemy was now on my airwaves.
“I’ve just done an exclusive interview with Colonel Marvin Hamlin,” Oliver said, voice still booming. He had a full camera crew with them, too, and extra lighting. “It’s streaming live right now. And in that interview, Colonel Hamlin, Clifford Goodman’s former direct superior, explains just why he had to fake his own death and go into hiding, to avoid being murdered by this man.” Oliver pointed at Cliff.
Cliff honestly looked shocked out of his mind to see Hamlin standing there. “Did you clone him?” he blurted out.
“No,” I said quickly. “Because the only people doing cloning of actual human beings are you and your cronies.”
“They’ve done more than that!” Gideon Cleary shoved through, with Cameron Maurer and Bruce Jenkins.
Why Jenkins was here was easy—he was a reporter, this was the news event of possibly the decade, and he knew both Cleary and Maurer. How he’d convinced Walter to let him out of the Embassy was the big question, followed by the question of how he’d gotten Cleary out of the White House, though I suspected Jeff had probably had something to do with both of those.
Maurer being here, on the other hand, was a surprise, albeit a pleasant one.
Maurer had been turned into an unwilling android during Operation Defection Election. We’d saved him, but I honestly hadn’t realized that Cleary was in any form of contact with Maurer, since Cleary had known Maurer was an android well before we’d discovered it. And now we were friends with Cleary and it appeared that he and Maurer had buried the hatchet. Politics, it was an amazing thing. As Armstrong had loved to tell me, it made for strange bedfellows. Shoved down the pang thinking about Armstrong gave me—I needed to focus all my attention on the current situation.
“They turned Cameron into an android,” Cleary said. “Cliff and his people did that, not the A-Cs or their friends.”
Maurer was in a t-shirt. He took it off and opened his chest. To show the interior workings of an android. Ther
e were a lot of screams from the crowd. Couldn’t blame them. The first time I’d seen it I’d been pretty horrified, too.
Maurer closed his chest up and put his shirt back on. “Cliff Goodman did this to me,” he said calmly. “So that he’d have an army of androids to do his bidding.”
“You can’t prove it!” Goodman shouted. Realized I’d never seen him lose his cool before. “This is all innuendo and lies from a bunch of lunatics who are trying to use me to further their political careers.”
“We have proof,” Claudia shouted, as she and Lorraine helped Langston Whitmore into the spotlight. It was getting hella crowded on this very public stage. Was amazed the girls were getting through, then realized Field agents were moving people at hyperspeed. I couldn’t see it anymore, but as the crowd parted, I could tell that they had to be there.
Whitmore looked horrible. “I’m dying,” he said. “From the alien flu.”
Cliff looked relieved. “See? The Secretary of Transportation knows who’s responsible.”
“I do,” Whitmore said. “And it’s you, Cliff. You promised I wouldn’t get sick, and you lied. Then you told me you’d give me the cure, and you lied again. You told me you’d be President and I’d be your right-hand man, but that was a lie, too. But unlike the others you’ve killed or had murdered, I’m not going to take your secrets to my grave. I’ve already sent copies of all the documentation I’ve been keeping on you for years to every major news outlet in the world. As well as to the F.B.I. and C.I.A.”
Cliff looked wild-eyed. It was nice, and I hoped Chuckie was watching, but this all wasn’t enough.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said.
Everyone, including Cliff, turned to me. Even Cliff looked shocked.
“It doesn’t matter because the supervirus that Cliff created does indeed have an alien element to it. Unfortunately, it’s not an alien element from our Earth A-Cs, nor from any other species in the Alpha Centauri system. The element is from a planet very far away from us.”
“Does that mean you think we’re all going to die?” one of the reporters asked me.
“No,” a man’s deep voice said as “Magic Man” by Heart hit my airwaves. “Not on my watch.”
“Oh, my God,” one of the people in the crowd squealed. “It’s the new President!”
CHAPTER 89
SURE ENOUGH, JEFF, flanked by Christopher, Chuckie, Gower, Reader, Tim, and Raj, strode into what had become the public square, crowd control being provided again, I was sure, by Field agents I couldn’t see. Yeah, we were amassed in the hospital’s Emergency entrance area with overflow out onto Palmer Road, but right now, it was doing public square duty.
They were walking with purpose, but proving that I wasn’t at death’s door yet, I saw them moving in slow motion, like the heroes always did in every Michael Bay film. If they’d been shirtless, I’d have compared to Magic Mike, but since they had the nerve to be showing decorum during a national disaster, I’d have to make do. Always the way.
Had no idea where the Secret Service was, but they weren’t here as far as I could see. Didn’t matter. Unless Wruck’s blood held the secret to the cure, we were all dead anyway.
The guys all looked sick, because they were, but Jeff still radiated leadership and confidence. How anyone could look at him and not see The Leader of the Free World was beyond me, but then, I was slightly biased.
“I can feel the emotions of everyone here,” Jeff said to the crowd. “I know you’re frightened, angry, worried, and wondering just what the hell’s happened to your country. But I promise you that it’s going to be alright.”
“You really do feel their pain,” Cliff said sarcastically.
“I do. Clifford Goodman,” Jeff said, voice projecting, “I’m arresting you for treason for the murder of President Vincent Armstrong, and so many others.”
“See what lengths they’ll go to?” Cliff wasn’t shouting to the reporters anymore, but to the crowd around us. “These aliens want to control us, to take our resources, our lives, and,” he pointed to me, “our women!”
Couldn’t help it, the Inner Hyena released in a big way. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t speak for a few seconds. I was laughing so loudly that no one else tried to talk over me. Oliver having a portable microphone that he was holding near me probably helped with this.
“Oh, my God, dude, your blah, blah, blah is amazing,” I said as I caught my breath. “You’re making this sound like Mars Needs Women Two: The Martians Take Manhattan.” This earned some laughs from a few of the reporters—all the female ones—and some of the crowd, as well. “They didn’t come here to steal our fine bitches. Though, I think that all the gals in the audience will take one good look at the A-Cs and agree with me that if that packaging thinks I’m a total hottie, sign me up for interspecies marriage.”
There were some female whoops from the crowd. Good. We might all be close to dying for real, but not so close that looking at some of the hottest dudes around wasn’t giving many the will to go on.
Ensured my sarcasm knob was turned well past eleven as I pointed to Lorraine and Claudia, Abigail and Mahin. “And I’m sure that all the guys out there would, you know, actually rather die than get to mate with and potentially marry women who look like them.” Now there were some male wolf whistles.
“But right now, the only chance we all have to marry anyone and have lives and all that awesome jazz depends on one human doctor, a lot of A-C scientists, and two aliens who look like giant penguins.”
Knew without asking that Wruck wouldn’t want me to mention him, particularly to the entire world. We’d been there, not that long ago, so I knew why he felt he had to hide. Maybe someday, if any of us got a someday, he’d be able to come out of this particular closet and share who he really was. And maybe on that day, we’d be, as a world, ready to accept and understand it. But that day wasn’t tonight.
Raj nodded and stepped forward. One of the reporters shoved a mic near him, and rather nicely set it to broadcast to the crowd. “The First Lady is correct.” Raj had his Troubadour Tones set to Somberly Soothe and Reassure. “We have scientists working to find a cure. If we’ll find it in time . . .” Raj spread his hands. “We don’t know if we’ll find the cure in time for all of us here to survive. But we do know that many people have bravely fought to protect you, and not just our people.”
My music changed to “Flip the Switch” by the Rolling Stones. Hoped Algar wasn’t telling me to do something, because I had no clue as to what I should be doing. Prepped myself for anything.
Raj looked around. I followed where his glance paused. On people in the crowd with anti-alien signs. “The Office of the President would like to thank the brave members of Club Fifty-One, who have been risking their lives all over the country to try to prevent any uninfected civilians from receiving the supposed vaccines that are, in fact, the killer virus created by Clifford Goodman.”
There was audible gasping from the reporters and the crowd. My bet was that the loudest gasps were from the Club 51 people themselves. The only reason I hadn’t reacted was Algar’s musical clue. Cliff looked furious. Good.
Raj went on without missing a beat. “The President will preside over a ceremony thanking you for your service once we’re able to coordinate it, after the loss of life due to this homegrown terrorist’s biological attack is assessed.”
Cliff was now in the middle of a set of circles. We were around him, the reporters were around us, and the crowd was around the reporters. There was a lot less shoving and such, undoubtedly due to the Troubadour Influence.
Jenkins had his phone to his ear, and went over to a reporter I recognized as being one of the biggies on one of the major networks. The reporter nodded and then their feed was on Jenkins.
“I’m Bruce Jenkins, and I’ve got Tom Curran, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, on the phone. For those of you wa
tching at home, you’ll see him on split screen. For those here, Director Curran has requested, due to the amount of substantial and substantiated evidence his office has received over the past week, that Clifford Goodman be arrested immediately under the charges of treason, terrorism, and premeditated murder.”
“Confirmed,” the reporter nearest to me said. The other reporters were getting the same information from their news desks as well.
Heard the sound of a large motorcycle I was sure was a Harley at the same time as Foreigner’s “Woman in Black” came on my airwaves. Knew who was coming. Just wasn’t sure if she was coming to praise Cliff or to bury him.
The crowd parted for Huntress to come in, because most of us were trained to let people in leather riding Harleys do what they wanted as opposed to getting our butts kicked by said Harley riders. She parked the bike and dismounted. Had to hand it to her—she looked pretty badass.
She was dressed as I’d seen her before, all in black leather, with the mask on and her crossbow on her back. Cliff stared at her and, for the first time tonight, he looked afraid. And, as when Huntress had almost killed him and me both, I was sure he wasn’t faking.
“Stephanie?” TCC asked.
Almost told him to be quiet but she spun toward him. “Who do you think I am?” She sounded angry. And a lot like I remembered Stephanie sounding. Made eye contact with Jeff. He nodded. So, it was her.
“My eldest daughter,” TCC said.
“How would you know?” She sounded angry. Yep, definitely Stephanie.
He shrugged. “A father always knows his daughter, even when she’s disguised.”
She stared at him for a few long second, then turned back to Cliff. “All these others aren’t the only ones who have dirt on you.”
He’d recovered from his fear, or at least was back to hiding it. He smirked. “What could you possibly have on me?”
She stalked up to him and got right in his face. “You know that saying they have about a woman scorned? You should have never let me find out that you were sleeping with LaRue and Annette. You should have never told each of them that you loved them. You should never have picked anyone over me. But you did. Or you picked none of us and just lied to us all. I don’t care. I have the data on everything you have and everywhere you have it. And I have copies stashed all over. Who do you think sent that information to the F.B.I. a week ago?”