by Gini Koch
“Kitty, you’re under oath not to reveal my true identity!”
“Eddy, dude, you are not Superman. But, just to make you feel better, I’m kinda Wolver
ine. With boobs, of course.”
“Of course. They still nice and perky?”
“Dude, Chuckie and my husband both will break your neck if you ask me that question again.”
“He always was jealous.”
“My husband? Yeah, how’d you know?”
“I meant Chuck. Told me you were his and I was never allowed to make a move.”
I managed to refrain from sharing that in the Possible Alternatives to Jeff Olympics, Stryker’s chances were slimmer than the Jamaican bobsled team’s and let this one go. Sent a mental thank you to Chuckie for preventing an embarrassing and beyond gross situation in the past. Figured I’d handle the upcoming one with more grace and style than when I was younger—I had a lot of extra muscle with me.
Franklin cursed quietly. “Here it is. Edward Simms. Chrˀist.” He stood up. “Let’s go.”
“Be there shortly, Eddy.”
“Kitty, I’m not prepared to receive visitors!” He sounded panicked.
“Pity. ’Cause I’m coming right now.” I looked at Franklin’s expression and felt I had all the confirmation I needed. “With a bunch of tough guys . . . and your boss.”
Yi
CHAPTER 67
I HUNG UP AND DROPPED my phone in my purse. “I’m assuming we can walk it, Colonel?”
He nodded. “Yes. The ‘bunker’ is close by.” Franklin looked seriously pissed.
“Do we want everyone to go?” White asked.
I considered. “I think we can use the addition of the skills, experience, and mindset of the Bahraini Royal Army, and that goes double for Mossad. Ambassadress, are you up for it?”
“Absolutely, Ambassador. As long as you call me Mona.”
“Works for me, and call me Kitty. Everyone else I feel is needed, Mister White. Unless you think we need someone protecting Colonel Franklin’s office or the gate within.”
“It’s been secure all this time,” Franklin said. “I believe we can leave it.”
I wasn’t so sure, but this was Franklin’s call, not mine.
“I actually was wondering if you wanted to leave the parrot and Mister Joel Oliver,” White said dryly.
“Oh. MJO, I’m betting wild horses wouldn’t keep you away.”
“Correct as always, Ambassador. I’ll do my best to keep the lovely Miss Bellie quiet.”
Bellie nuzzled up against him. “Bellie likes Mister!”
“Bellie, you cheap slut. What is Jeff going to think when he sees you cheating on him?” I hoped he’d think that Bellie needed to stay with Oliver, but I doubted my luck would be that good.
Franklin stalked out, and we all trotted after him like a flock of really big ducklings. We were headed up the road, so to speak, but on a path that led us behind some buildings. They all looked military and official to me, and I tried to spot landmarks, in case we had to run back to Franklin’s office. However, all I came up with was that military bases really looked a lot alike—dull. If I got lost, I’d call Mom—she’d undoubtedly been here before and had the entire layout memorized.
Unfortunately, I had time to think but didn’t feel that speaking aloud was a good idea when we were out in the open, so to speak. Which meant I stressed about Jeff and Chuckie. Interstellar invasions were the big picture, sure, but people I loved dearly were in much more immediate danger. This wasn’t helping. Focused on getting to Stryker. If nothing else, I could take out the fear and worry by kicking him.
We reached a boring looking building, which was saying a lot, all things considered. Based on my Inverse Boredom Rule—which said the more boring a building looked, the more vital and secret its function—we were heading into Super-Duper High-Security Clearance Territory.
Franklin ushered us inside, then took us downstairs. Down a lot of stairs and a lot of levels. We walked it, instead of taking an elevator, which I found interesting. I knew Stryker well, and, frankly, the idea of him taking stairs, ever, was kind of farfetched. More farfetched than what was going on with the rest of the galaxy right now, as I thought about it.
“Colonel, why are we taking the stairs instead of the newfangled elevator?”
Franklin shook his head. “Stairs are safer.”
“Security is breached,” Oren said.
“How so?”
“You don’t lose a colonel without something being wrong,” Jakob replied. “Let alone everything else we now know about.”
“It’s easy to trap and kill people in an elevator—they have nowhere to go,” Khalid added.
“We could get trapped on the stairs, too.”
“We could. However, most of us have weapons with us, and from what we’ve seen, some of you appear to be living weapons. We have a far better chance of survival on the stairs than in an elevator.” The way Oren said this, I figured that the Mossad had done various tests and studies, or the U.S. had, and they were all confident the results were accurate.
“He’s correct,” Franklin said.
“Fine, not arguing with my military advisors.”
“Missus Martini, you’re learning the diplomacy-speak so well.”
“Mister White, be careful with the sarcasm or I’ll start calling you Rick again.”
White chuckled. “I expect that within fifteen minutes, regardless of whether I use sarcasm or not.”
“Good point.” I refrained from asking what attacks everyone was expecting. Better prepared for anything than caught unawares because we were prepped for nothing.
We reached the bottom, finally, and Franklin led us down a long hallway with no doors at all except in the far distance.
“Colonel, sorry to be asking and all, but this sure seems like a bunker to me.”
“It is and it isn’t.” Franklin was great on the no information right now.
“How secure is it should, say, someone bomb the base?”
“Secure.”
“So it’s a bunker.”
“Not in the classic sense.”
“I love that we’re already good enough friends that we can play verbal gymnastics while trying to thwart an alien invasion. Where, exactly, are we going?”
“To one of the most classified, and secured, areas on base.”
We reached the doors. They had the usual “Authorized Personnel Only” signs and a lot of security doohickeys to get past. While Franklin slid his badge through the reader, typed in a series of codes on the keypad, and pulled out his keys, I listened at the door.
I could have sworn I heard the sounds of furniture being moved, quiet cursing, and similar. I’d have been worried, but it sounded familiar—I was pretty sure I’d sounde
d like this any time my parents had unexpectedly suggested they drop by for a visit when I lived in my old apartment. The A-C Elves ensured this scramble was a thing of my past, but I still remembered it vividly.
Franklin opened the door and we were greeted to an interesting sight. It resembled the Centaurion Command Centers—lots of computers, lots of TV screens, lots of official looking stuff. Lots of sound, too, coming from what looked like radio equipment and funky EKG machines.
But there were only a handful of guys in here, and none of them resembled military, let alone A-Cs. No uniforms, no neat and clean, no high and tights, no total hotness. Heavy emphasis on the no neat and clean, or at least not tidy. I wasn’t interested in doing a white glove test, but the clutter factor in here was scary high.
Sniffed carefully. Someone had sprayed a ton of Febreeze around. Thankfully.
I’d been right; they were frantically trying to straighten up. Franklin’s expression—barely controlled fury—told me they weren’t succeeding. However, I had to figure they hadn’t been hired for their military acumen or their ability to get a quarter to bounce on their beds.
White was taking in the scene as well. “Colonel, as Missus Martini aske
d, where specifically are we, exactly?”
Franklin didn’t need to answer—I already knew. “Gang, welcome to Hacker Central.”
Yi
CHAPTER 68
I TROTTED INSIDE, and there he was, furiously stacking old pizza boxes and Big Gulp cups. I did my best Columbia from Rocky Horror. “Eddy!” Long, squealing, and drawn out. Missed Chuckie—he’d have appreciated it and found it funny. No one else seemed to either get it or be impressed.
Stryker turned and gaped. “Kitty? You, ah, got here really fast.”
“Dude, we walked over from Headquarters and down an unreal number of steps. Not my fault you live like a pig. You know, like you always have.”
I did a quick study. Still an average-size guy if you ignored the gut and man-boobs, still wearing a “The Truth is Out There” shirt that I hoped was a newer edition than the one I’d become familiar with when I was in high school and college. Full beard, and it was still fairly unkempt. Hair still worn long and sort of curly. Stryker would have had beautiful hair if he ever took care of it. That was Stryker’s only attractive physical quality, thoughր if I believed him, he was supposedly lovely with his pants off. No amount of money in the world would be enough for me to want to find out, however.
“What in the hell are you gentlemen doing in here?” Franklin snarled.
Stryker stood up straight. Not much of an improvement. “Our jobs, sir. Supreme Commander Reynolds understands.”
I couldn’t control the Inner Hyena. “Oh, dude, did he really tell you to call him that?” I asked in between snorts of laughter. “God, I love Chuckie’s sense of humor.”
“Kitty, shut up,” Stryker hissed at me.
I rolled my eyes. “Colonel Franklin, I know you know why Eddy and the others are here in the ‘bunker.’ They’re C.I.A. operatives monitoring all incoming data for security threats and breaks.” I made eye contact with Stryker. “And I do mean all.”
“No idea what you mean, Kitty,” Stryker said, giving me the “shut up, shut up” look.
“Eddy? I’m married to a space alien, okay? Who, along with my oldest friend, is missing, snatched out of thin air kind of thing. Everyone with me knows about it. So stop with the ridiculous posturing. True believers here, okay?”
Stryker relaxed, a little. “Fine. Yes. We monitor all incoming and outgoing transmissions.”
“All?” Buchanan asked. “You mean worldwide?”
“He means world and galaxy and potentially universewide, don’t you Eddy? In fact, the information that has everyone in a tizzy was probably filtered to everyone from down here in the ‘bunker’.”
Stryker nodded. “We have the highest-level security clearances. And, yes, we’ve been monitoring the . . . activity.”
“You’re paid thirty thousand dollars a year,” Franklin snapped. “No one at that salary level has these kinds of clearances.”
I checked out our other bunker-mates, most of whom were, like Stryker, vacillating between looking at Franklin in a terrified manner and checking out Abigail, Naomi, and Jennifer while trying to pretend they weren’t so checking and while also trying to hide their drooling. Dazzlers had that effect.
One of the nervous droolers was tall, skinny, and black but otherwise matched Stryker, including in his love of the X-Files. One was small, scrawny, bald, and Chinese and also one with the idea that the X-Files was the best show ever. One looked Indian or Pakistani, but with an actual normal body build, and also wore a shirt proclaiming his X-Files devotion.
The last one, who was the only one not staring at the gals, was actually rather boring, albeit very Slavic-looking, if you didn’t notice the dark sunglasses and the fact that he looked as though he worked out. He was a big guy and normal for the regular world and therefore looked totally out of place here,. He was apparently also more open-minded, or else just held to the classics, because he broke the uniform and was in a vintage Star Wars shirt.
It was like entering the set of The Big Bang Theory. I refrained from asking why none of them were supporting that show, Eureka, Star Trek, Warehouse 13, Fringe, or Men in Black, let alone a host of other options. Maybe Sundays were X-Files days at the Hacker Central offices, and my big man in shades was just a rebel.
“They have those clearances if they’re not doing this so much for the money—because they all already have their own from a variety of other pursuits—but because they live for this stuff, and they also probably like the benefits.”
Stryker grimaced. “Yeah, so what? Government bennies are great, and we do a good job.”
“I’m sure you do. Colonel Franklin, you see before you the top hackers in the world, and if they’re not the top in some area, they know who is. Stryker Dane, aka Eddy Simms, resident U.F.O. expert and extraterrestrial languages expert.”
I pointed to the skinny black guy. “Big George Lecroix, who is Europe’s best hacker. Helps that Big George speaks, reads, and writes twenty languages fluently. And, no, I’m not making that up.”
Our scrawny Chinese guy was up next. “Doctor Wu, otherwise called Henry. He really has a doctorate, several, actually, and his last name really is Wu. The fact that his name is the same as a cool Steely Dan song is just an added bonus. Covers all the languages that Big George doesn’t, also a software expert. China’s best hacker.”
I pointed to our Indian. “Ravi Gaekwad, Indian, wait for it, their best hacker. He’s also big into both the software and hardware sides of the house—if you need it made or unmade, Ravi’s your guy.” I chose not to share his nickname.
“Geekwad?” Tito asked. “Really?” Never mind. Tito figured it out.
Ravi glared at him. “It’s a fine name where I come from. Particularly when pronounced properly.”
“Tito, now isn’t the time. Besides, his real nickname is Ravi the Geek, like Jimmy the Greek, only less flattering.”
“That’s not how I like to be introduced,” Ravi said sulkily. “And I prefer my name pronounced properly.”
“Oh, please. Like you haven’t heard that one as often as I’ve heard the ‘Hottie from Hot Town’ jokes? Let it pass. Last but in no way least, meet Omega Red, aka Yuri Stanislav. Yuri wears his sunglasses at night because he’s legally blind. So, really, they should have named him Daredevil, but he’s Russian, so, you know, had to go with the fitting code name and all. Killer with the audio cryptology among other pursuits.”
“You know all these guys but had no idea of what your parents did for a living?” Buchanan asked. I could tell he was trying not to crack up.
“Chuck could never keep a secret from you,” Stryker fumed. Sadly, I knew this to be untrue, since Chuckie had figured out what my parents really did when we were in high school and hadn’t shared. But I chose not to mention it.
“Why do you have a parrot and a huge peacock with you?” Ravi asked.
“They’d better not crap all over our equipment,” Big George added.
Bruno cooed. Bellie mercifully remained silent. “They seem pleasant,” Omega Red shared.
“I don’t like birds,” Henry said quietly. “They scare me. Just a little,” he added a touch too defensively.
“Whatever,” Stryker snapped. “It’s Kitty. Be happy she didn’t bring her dogs.”
“One party, Eddy, that’s all. One party when I had to dogsit and you and Chuckie insisted I had to attend. They didn’t break that much, anyway.”
“They destroyed my entire collection of Happy Meal collectibles.” Stryker sounded as though he’d had a collection of Ming vases on his shelf, not a bunch of kiddie toys.
“Not my fault they were covered with hamburger smell. Or that you left them just lying around.”
“They were up on a shelf that was at head height.”
“Give the bitterness a rest, Eddy, it was a decade ago. The people with me work with me in some capacity. In my current job, as Ambassador for American Centaurion.”
I did a really fast first name intro of everyone with me. The fact that I had a lot of people wi
th me registered at this point. This many people had probably never been in Hacker Central at one time, ever. Good, it’d be something for Hacker International to remember, a red-letter day sort of thing.
I had to figure Bruno had shown himself to one and all because they were trustworthy. Either that or Bruno wasn’t a good judge of character. I chose to go with the former.
“Now, charming introductions over. Your new boss of less than a week and the good senator from Florida may want a more thorough review of your skills, but we don’t have time right now. Two of the most important men in my life have been kidnapped with clear intent to do serious harm, and we have what appears to be the biggest alien armada ever on a direct course for little old Earth. As Chuckie likes to say, you’re either part of the solution or you’re part of the problem. So get to work.”
The hackers all looked at each other. “Doing what, exactly, Kitty?” Stryker asked finally.
I sighed. “Dude, seriously. Colonel Franklin has the huge Encyclopedia Centaurion in his office. In it, it lists that when we have lost the head of the C.I.A.’s Extra-Terrestrial Division, also known as Chuckie, we are to, against all logic and common sense, come to Stryker Dane for the save. So, save.”
“I need a protocol,” Stryker said. I got the feeling he wasn’t being co
ntrary.
“A protocol?”
He gave me a look I was familiar with. The “you’re giving me orders why?” look. “A protocol, a code phrase, something to indicate that I should trust you.”
“I know what they are. But it’s me, Kitty, remember? Known you almost as long as I’ve known Chuckie?”
Stryker shrugged. “You could turn on Chuck, be mind controlled, be a robot. I have to know I can trust you.”
I’d managed to keep the anger and fear somewhat at bay. But every minute we wasted was a minute I could bet Jeff and Chuckie were suffering in some horrifying way. And my baby was in both the safest and most dangerous place right now, and the longer we delayed, the more danger Jamie, ACE, anۀd everyone else were going to be in.