by Gini Koch
“No one’s going to look too closely. If the head doesn’t seem wrong on the neck, then it looks real to ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the public.”
Christopher opened his eyes. “It’s you. From last night.”
“That’s what I thought. Can you tell a difference in the Armstrong makeup?”
“Yeah, but it’s difficult. The brain and face are where we get most input from. And Mister Joel Oliver’s right—the senator’s body has been fiddled with a lot more than yours.”
“Fiddled with? Is that a technical term?”
I was treated to Patented Glare #2. “It’s very hard to read. The head is definitely the senator’s. From a few months ago, I think. The body, though . . . it’s hard to be positive, but I don’t think it’s his. It feels . . . familiar, so I’m willing to say it’s Jeff’s body.”
“Thought so.” I made another call. “James, I know you’re busy.”
“Like you wouldn’t believe, girlfriend.”
“Well, let me add a wrinkle. I’m calling you because I know if I call Gladys directly she’ll ask me if I have your okay.”
“On pins and needles.”
“I actually figure you’re on duty, but whatever. Senator Armstrong received new dirty pictures today. Only instead of me with Chuckie, I’ve branched out and am with the senator, having the time of my life.”
He groaned. “Can it get worse?”
“Oh, yes. Yes, it can. This is what I pulled Christopher away for.” As I said this Christopher made the “shut up, shut up” motions.
“What do you mean?” Reader sounded pissed. “He left his post? Why wasn’t I informed?”
“Um, political emergency. And I’m claiming diplomatic immunity for us both. Anyway, snarl once you know the full details.”
“Can’t wait. Go ahead.”
“The part of the picture that’s me is from last night. And I think someone superimposed Armstrong’s head onto Jeff’s body and then did some really fancy photoshopping.”
Reader was quiet for a couple moments. “How in the hell did someone get intimate pictures of the two of you from last night?”
“You’ve won Jeopardy’s Daily Double! That’s exactly my question. I’d love someone from Centaurion Division to give me an answer that isn’t going to make Jeff pop a vessel, but I’m not betting any of us are going to like the answer.”
“The Embassy was scanned several times last night,” Len said. “Because of—”
“Circumstances,” White interrupted quickly.
“Right,” I said. “Len reminds us that the Embassy was scanned a lot last night. And these pictures are from, um, before that happened.”
“Jeff said something about weird gifts from Alpha Four, but we’ve been too busy to get all the details.”
“Not to worry, I’ll fill you in later. So, aside from the fact that someone, yet again, is too cheap to buy their own porn and has decided to choose the American Centaurion Channel for all their video needs, what the hell do we do?”
“I have no idea.”
“Great.”
“I could try to turn straight and we could run away from all this.”
“That, as always, sounds like such a wonderful plan. You never keep up your end of it, though.”
“Oh, I keep my end up all the time.”
“I knew you were going to say that, the moment the words left my mouth. So, going to make good on your teasing?”
“Nope, sorry, still gay.”
“Paul’s lucky.”
“So’s Jeff. At least, we were all lucky before. I’m not so sure about now. I wish to hell you’d passed that HSAC test. I need to run things by you like nobody’s business.”
“I’ll bet. So, until you turn straight or I get another chance to take that test and see what happens, what do we do about these pictures?”
“I’ll have Gladys run every scan we can do on the Embassy.”
“Run Chuckie’s place, too. I’d thought his picture was from a lot longer ago than Christopher says it is.”
“Fabulous. Should we do the same for Senator Armstrong’s places?”
I thought about it. “No. I’m sure they took his head from any number of sources. He’s a public figure, plenty of pictures to use.”
“Gotcha. And that makes sense. How soon will the pictures hit the street?”
“No idea. There was no note in the senator’s Express Porn Package.”
“Okay. I have no idea what our next move is or should be.
We’re very tied up here.”
“At the International One World Festival?”
“Could be.”
“Super. I’m going to figure out what’s going on, you know. One way or another.”
Reader dropped his voice. “Good. And do it sooner rather than later.”
“Doing my best, James.”
“Yeah? Do what you really do best, girlfriend. Ask a lot of questions, whatever pops into your mind, and don’t stop asking.”
“Why?”
“That’s exactly what I mean. Love you, babe.” And with that, he hung up.
Yi
CHAPTER 34
I CONTEMPLATED MY MANY OPTIONS and chose to look at the pictures again. Reader wanted me asking questions, and my bet was he specifically wanted me asking one question. “Why?”
“Why what?” Olga asked.
There were a lot of why’s that what could be about. I tried to boil them all down to their most basic level. “Why is this happening?”
“Someone wants to blackmail me,” Armstrong said.
“Yeah? Then why were the first pictures sent to you of me and Chuckie?”
“They wanted to blackmail Mister Reynolds,” Len suggested, though he didn’t sound convinced.
“Then why send them to the senator, not to Chuckie?” I missed being able to do this with Reader, Tim, the flyboys, Lorraine and Claudia, Chuckie. I was used to going through all the weird with them. I couldn’t call Mom, Dad, or Jeff, either. I only had the people in this room and possibly Buchanan, who was who knew where and likely only able to drop hints the way Reader had.
“Is that the proper question?” Olga asked. Perfect. This meant she probably knew. I’d be annoyed about it later. If Olga knew, or had a really good guess, then we could hit onto the right idea, and she’d let us know it was the right idea.
A thought occurred. “Could Adriana come up and help with this?”
Olga looked pleased. “Why, yes. She is not aware of . . . everything.”
“Good. I guess.”
Adriana walked in the door. “You needed me, Ambassadress?”
“How in the world did you know?” Everyone looked at me. I thought about it. “Oh. Duh. Olga’s confined to a wheelchair for the most part. You have an I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get Up button, don’t you?”
Adriana laughed. “Of course she does.”
Eyed Olga’s wheelchair. It looked both sturdy and maneuverable. It also looked different from the one she’d had when we first met her; more like the sports-type chairs para-athletes used. There might indeed be a small keypad or similar in the armrests. Figured now waƀsn’t the time to ask if Olga had joined a wheelchair basketball team and chose to get back to the situation at hand.
“Great, we’re now all here. So, why send an android to kill me?”
“WHAT?” Armstrong looked freaked out.
“The ‘trouble’ at NASA Base was an android trying to kill me.”
He looked shaken. “I heard there was a problem, but I had no idea . . .”
“Who did you hear it from?” White asked.
Armstrong rolled his eyes. “I’m a senator for the great state of Florida. Things that happen at NASA Base affect me and my constituents. I’m always informed when we have security issues.” He shook his head. “But I was only told there was some structural damage.”
“There was.” I brought Armstrong and, technically, Adriana up to speed on all the goings on from the day before
, again leaving out anything that could let them guess I’d become Wolverine with Boobs and that we now possessed the Peregrines, all of whom appeared to be snoozing. So much for that Alert Avian Guardian hype. “So, that sort of brings me to what I’d consider the ultimate question right now.”
“Which is?” Armstrong asked, rather testily. Oh well, it’d been a long weekend so far for everyone.
“Why me?”
“Why not you?” Kyle said.
“No. We need to think and think hard.” Reader had said why was the question. “Why is this going on? Why now, why me, why Sandra the Android? Why give me the crazy HSAC test instead of the real one? Why send dirty pictures of me and Chuckie to someone in politics who is not actually our friend?”
Len nodded. “It would make more sense if they’d sent them to Senator McMillan.” McMillan was one of Arizona’s senators, and therefore my home state guy. My sorority sister and bestie, Carolyn, worked for him, too, as his Girl Friday. I knew McMillan now, and liked him very much, and I knew he liked me.
Armstrong nodded slowly. “True. I hadn’t thought about it. I assumed I was sent the pictures because I work closely with you and Reynolds, and I’m involved in a variety of committees and such that affect American Centaurion and Centaurion Division.”
“So, I ask again, why me? I get that you work with me and Chuckie. But until this weekend, I would have never assumed you’d be on our side, ever.”
Armstrong had the grace to look a little embarrassed again. “Politics, you know. I don’t dislike you. Or Mister Reynolds, for that matter.”
I snorted. “Right. Because you do so much for him.”
He shrugged. “He’s a brilliant young man and quite driven. Men like him can be very dangerous.” I opened my mouth and he put his hand up. “I’m not saying he’s a bad guy, if you will. But brilliant, driven people tend to muck up the works. Or they take over. Or both.”
It was there. It was right there, tickling my mind. But I couldn’t quite get it. I looked at Oliver. “You said earlier that you wondered if the reactions everyone had were the expectedˀ the exp ones, didn’t you?”
“Somewhat. I said that I wondered if the reactions your husband and the senator had to the first set of pictures were the reactions the picture takers and/or picture senders wanted.”
“What would they want?” White asked. “Or, rather, what would they expect?”
“Normally, I’d have expected to see the pictures all over the newspapers or be asked for blackmail money,” Armstrong replied.
“But neither have happened,” Oliver pointed out.
“Senator, when did you get the pictures, the first set?”
“The day after you left D.C. for Florida. The note with them said there were things I needed to be aware of, and that was it.”
I rolled this around in my mind. But it was me, so in order to have the rolling do any good, I had to run my mouth. Never a problem. “So, before I ask some obvious questions, let me ask one that’s not so obvious. How did you and Esteban Cantu avoid being caught for Operations Confusion and Assassination?”
“Excuse me?” Armstrong sounded shocked out of his mind.
Christopher sighed. “There were major infiltration attempts when Kitty gave birth to Jamie, and then during the President’s Ball.”
“And you call them Operation Confusion and Operation Assassination?” Armstrong still sounded as though he couldn’t believe his ears. No idea why. The names I came up with for things actually made sense.
“No,” Christopher replied. “That’s what Kitty calls them. They have no official names, because they weren’t sanctioned actions.”
White cleared his throat. “Well, the first one does have an official name—The Parisian Action.”
“That sounds like an action movie starring Robert DeNiro and Matt Damon.”
Len and Kyle laughed. I got Patented Glare #1 from Christopher. White went on as if I hadn’t said anything. “I believe the other is referred to as the Titan Security Fiasco.”
“Aptly put. My names are better, of course.”
“Is now really the time?” Christopher sounded strained. Maybe he’d overdone it getting to us.
“Probably not. So, Senator, how’d you escape the P.T.C.U.’s net? Let alone the C.I.A.’s. And how did Cantu?”
“I had nothing to do with either one of those things. I have no idea what you’re talking about in terms of Operation Confusion or The Parisian Action. As for what happened at the President’s Ball, I was in as much danger as everyone else. I’d have been shot if an A-C agent hadn’t saved me in time.”
“Your wife wasn’t along.”
“She had food poisoning. I was thankful once all the shooting started, believe me. Even though she had to stay overnight at the Andrews hospital.”
“Why did you have your wife go to the Air Force base?”
He gave mˀtd">He ge the “duh” look. How nice. “It’s more secure. I’m a public official.”
Christopher, Len and Kyle were all texting. I decided to forge on while they waited for the answers to the questions I knew they were asking. “So, why didn’t Cantu bring a date?”
“I don’t know. I don’t ask him about his personal life. He’s divorced and I don’t share the female need to fix every single friend of mine up with anyone. Besides, he’s more of a colleague than a friend, per se.”
“Define the difference.”
Armstrong shot me a glare almost worthy of Christopher. “Friends are people you choose to spend time with. Colleagues are people you work with and with whom you form alliances.”
“Nice distancing.”
Armstrong snorted. “Look, I’ll say this to you again—politics makes strange bedfellows. Esteban and I are both hoping to . . . achieve higher offices than we have. We help each other whenever we can, but that doesn’t make us friends. He’d say the same thing.” He appealed to White. “You, sir, as the former Pontifex, certainly understand what I’m saying.”
“Oh, I do. I’m sure Missus Martini does, as well. Whether or not we believe you is the question of the moment, Senator.”
“Well, he’s not lying about his wife,” Christopher said, looking at his phone. “She was held overnight due to a bad case of food poisoning.” He looked at Armstrong. “It says you were sick, as well.”
“Yes, but I recovered faster. And while I could excuse my poor wife, for me to miss the President’s Ball would have been career suicide.”
“Where did you eat? That gave you the food poisoning, I mean.”
Everyone looked at me like I was crazy. Everyone but Olga. She looked quietly pleased. Nice to know I was on the right track.
“We had dinner with . . .” Armstrong’s voice trailed off.
“With whom?”
“With Madeline Cartwright and Antony Marling. And Esteban and the others who we brought to your Embassy to meet you.”
Or, as I called them, the Cabal of Evil. “Were you at a restaurant?”
“No. Antony’s home.”
“Interesting. So, she wanted you alive and out of it.”
“She?” Armstrong sounded surprised.
“Madeline was the brains of the Titan team.” I looked at his expression. “Seriously? You didn’t know?”
“No.”
I considered. Decided I needed to be really sure. Dug out the phone again. “Be right back.”
Left the room and dialed. He answered on the first ring. “Hey, baby, what’s going on?”
“Hi, Jeff. Intrigue and all the rest of the usual crap. Listen, can you do a long-distance reading on Senator Armstrong?”
“Uh, sure. I have to find him, though.”
“He’s not with you right now, he’s with me. So, um, track on me and Christopher and Richard and you should find him.”
“I’m not even going to ask.”
“Because you’re reading my mind?”
“No. Because I’m listening to the tone of your voice. Hang on.” Jeff was quie
t for a little bit. “Okay, got him. He’s upset, feels incredibly betrayed, suspicious, and . . . frightened. He’s very frightened.”
“Of whom?”
“Of you.”
“Me?”
Jeff chuckled. “You’ve apparently impressed him. I can feel him comparing you to Reynolds and not liking what he’s coming up with.”
“He thinks I’m as smart as Chuckie?” Maybe I’d consider liking Armstrong somewhere down the road.
“Something along those lines, yeah. He’s also really angry with some people right now. So angry I can feel it directly focused.”
“Can you tell who?”
“Yeah. The late Madeline Cartwright and Antony Marling, and Esteban Cantu.”
“You’re reading his mind, aren’t you?”
“Not really.” He sounded evasive.
“Explain the not really portion.”
Jeff sighed. “You and Christopher aren’t the only ones who’ve been working on managing your stronger powers, you know. I want to be ready for whatever Jamie’s going to need and whatever new, frightening talents you’re going to come up with. So I’ve been working on emotional refinement, by which, before you ask, I mean filtering the emotional threads into clearer images. It’s like what I can do when I read your mind, but you’re still the only one I can really do that with.”
“Good.”
“You don’t want me reading someone else’s mind?”
“No. You’re not the only one with jealousy issues. I like that I’m the only one you can read that way. Not that I’d tell you not to try, since it could save our lives somewhere down the line, I’m sure. But still.”
He chuckled. “Not to worry. You’re still the only one for me, baby, heart, mind, and soul.”
“I wish you were here, right now.”
“Me too. But it doesn’t sound like we could be alone.”
“Sadly, no. So, can you tell if Armstrong is lying about not knowing anything about Operation Confusion or Operation Assassination?”
“I’ll try.” While he was quiet I basked in the glow of still being his main emotional focus. Hey, it had been a long month apart. “I’ve got . . . something. I can’t be really positive, but I’d say that the anger at Cantu, Marling, and Cartwright is focused around confusion and strˀusion anong feelings of being out of control and shoved aside.”