by Gini Koch
He nodded. “She told us, me and Jeff, that she was.”
My throat felt tight. They’d been ten years old. Too early to become men. “She couldn’t put the memory, the feeling, into your mind—you’d create an image from it, and then you’d know . . .” I couldn’t finish that sentence.
Christopher could. “I’d know my grandfather raped my mother, his son’s wife.” He looked back at me. “We can’t tell my father.”
“I think he knows, or at least suspects.”
“I don’t want to find out you’re wrong.”
“That’s fair.”
“Why Jeff?”
“Who else? He’s the most powerful empath your race has—I’m sure your mother knew that. She was training him, after all.” He nodded. I didn’t mention the glowing cube I’d seen. I didn’t want to let either one of them know what Terry had shown me. “So she did some empathic thing, I have no idea what—Jeff might not either—and programmed him. He knew she gave him something to pass along, but nothing more.” Martini had been looking for me all his life. It made my heart ache to think about it.
Christopher closed his eyes. “You know, there were a few years when I hated him.”
“After Lissa?”
“Yeah. They would have killed her no matter what, though. I know that now.” He managed a weak smile. “At least they didn’t get Jeff.”
“He loves you very much.”
“I know. He’s more than my cousin, more than a brother.”
“Yeah, she showed me. She knew that when it mattered, you two would always stand together.”
“That almost fell apart these last couple of days,” he said with a chuckle.
“No, actually, Jeff offered to step aside so we could be together. Right before Mephistopheles did his tap dance on our car.”
“They won’t let him marry you. I know you don’t want to believe it, but it’s true.”
“We’ll see. I’ve known all of you for less than a week. I think I can stand dating a bit before racing off to the chapel with Jeff.”
“He’ll suggest it the second he can walk again.”
“It’s part of his charm.”
“Is that what you call it?”
“Yeah. What was your mother like?”
He leaned his head back. “Like I used to be. Like Jeff is now.”
“You miss it? How you used to be, I mean.”
“Sometimes.” He grinned. “Jeff does it better than I ever did, though.”
“What’s that?”
“Being human. It’s what all of us born on Earth want, to be human. Jeff passes without any issues. Not so easy for the rest of us.”
“I’ll start calling you Chris if that’ll help.”
“No. Don’t take this the wrong way, but my mother called me Chris. And asked everyone to call her Terry, though only Jeff did.” He gave a short laugh. “You’d have liked her, and she’d have loved you.”
I felt a pang for her—so alone in this world, so clear on what her race needed to do to survive, and murdered by the person who should have helped her. I realized I had two people to avenge, not one.
“My mom really cares about you,” I reminded him. “I think she’d be very open to, well, covering what you’d let her of the mother stuff.”
“And here I thought she just wanted to marry me off to you.”
“Oh, she did and probably still does.”
“Your father prefers Jeff.”
“Really? Sure didn’t seem like it.”
“Trust me.”
We sat there in silence for a few minutes, petting the cats. It was relaxing. For a few minutes. Then the memory of the creepy Mortal Kombat Crypt Isolation Chambers inserted itself in my mind, chuckling evilly.
“Can we get out of here?”
“You want to tour the Science Center?”
“Been there, done that, still have no idea where I am at any given time. No, I mean get out of here.”
He stretched. “You want to go to Pueblo Caliente?”
“Yeah, I do. Even if it’s just to get another change of clothes.”
“Okay. Not a surprise, by the way.”
“Oh? I thought you weren’t empathic.”
“I’m not, but I remember what it was like for James, the first few days. He was overwhelmed and burned out and just wanted to go home and remember what it was like to be a regular human who didn’t know aliens walked the Earth.”
“We safe to go?”
“Sure, I have the highest security clearance. You do too, now.”
“I meant from a safety perspective.”
He grinned. “I think I can catch you if you fall out of a plane.”
“I’d rather take a gate.”
“I call that personal growth. But I’m not carrying you through it—that’s Jeff’s jurisdiction.”
“That’s fine. Just promise me we’ll run slowly and land in a clean men’s bathroom.”
“Boy, are you picky.”
CHAPTER 56
WE WENT TO MY ROOM so I could grab my purse, then strolled to the elevator banks. Still stood on opposite sides of the car from each other. No need to put ourselves into another awkward situation.
We got to a gate, calibrations were made, and then we whooshed off to the men’s room at Saguaro International. It felt like years since I’d been here, not days. We were between flights, and the bathroom didn’t require me to act like an idiot, which was a relief, although I was a little let down. I’d prepared a great routine.
We strolled out. “You want to take a cab?” Christopher asked me.
“Do you guys do that? I mean, no gray car, no hyperspeed?”
“Sometimes.”
It was a human thing to do, and he wanted to be human. I might not be allowed to call him Chris, but I could help drag him along. “Sure. You have money?”
He grinned. “Always.”
We walked to the curb, and he held the door for me, but this time he climbed in next to me. I gave my address, as well as the fastest way to get there at this time of day, and we drove off.
“You folks got no luggage?” the driver asked.
“We’re having an affair. My husband thinks I’m out with the girls, his wife thinks he’s in Omaha.” Christopher looked at me as if I were insane.
The cabbie nodded. “Makes sense. You live close?”
“I live here, he lives in Vegas.”
“Ah, Sin City. Guess you can’t meet up there, though, huh?”
“Nope, but this works out. I use my friend’s apartment.”
“Nice friend.”
“She owes me.” I leaned back in the seat and patted Christopher’s leg. “Relax, honey, we finally get a few hours alone.”
The cabbie chuckled. “Your boyfriend’s probably worried your husband’ll drive by and spot the two of you together.”
“Yeah,” Christopher muttered.
“I could put my head in your lap.”
“No, not in the cab,” Christopher said quickly. He looked panicked.
The cabbie chuckled again. “No cameras in this cab, honey. You feel free to have a good time if you want to.”
“Thanks, but I guess we’ll wait.”
We reached my apartment, and Christopher paid up. I made him give the cabbie a generous tip. “Good luck to you two. Hope I get your fare next time.” He drove off, still chuckling.
“Why did you do that?” Christopher demanded as we went upstairs. “Are you crazy, is that your problem?”
I laughed. “You need to relax. It was fun. And your expressions were priceless.”
“Jeff wouldn’t find it funny.”
“No, he’d find it hilarious. And if he’d been in the cab with me, he’d have let me ‘hide.’ ”
“I’m not Jeff.”
I patted his cheek. “I know. But I like you anyway.”
We got inside, and I took a look around. “Someone’s been in here.”
“How can you tell? It was a mess when I wa
s here before, it’s a mess now.”
“It’s my mess, and it’s been moved.” Only a bit, but everything was moved a bit. I took his hand. “In case we have to leave quickly,” I explained as he gave me a panicked look.
We walked through. All my fish were dead. “Overfeeding?”
“Maybe. Maybe they think I love my fish.”
“Who could love fish?”
“Someone, I’m sure, just not me.” I moved us through the apartment, opening everything carefully. We got into the bedroom. No one there. I pulled out a suitcase, shook it out, and then started to toss clothes into it. I moved all my pictures into another bag. There wasn’t that much more I needed, though I grabbed my spare hairspray and put it in my purse.
Christopher checked under the bed. “Nothing. You sure stuff’s been moved?”
“Yeah. You sure you didn’t see anything foreign on anything I packed?”
“No, all your concert T-shirts are devoid of suspicious powders.”
“I packed other things.”
“But nothing else carefully.”
I looked at my bed. “Christopher? I think there’s something in my bed.”
“Bomb?”
“Could be.” No sooner had I said that than whatever it was moved under the covers. I managed not to scream.
Christopher looked at it closely. “Are you afraid of snakes?”
“Pathologically.”
“That popular knowledge?”
“I’m a girl, the bet is always good for snake fear.”
“It’s a snake, then.”
“Rattler?”
“Most likely.”
I was taking this extremely well. “We have to kill it. By we, of course, I mean you. I’ll stand here and scream.”
“No screaming. Screaming tells the people watching your apartment you’ve found their gift.”
“Oh, great.”
“I don’t want to let go of you. You’re right, we’re going to have to move fast. But I need something to use to cut the snake’s head off.”
“You think you can do that?”
“Um, yeah. Hyperspeed and all.”
Duh. “Right. I have knives in the kitchen.”
“No, needs to be in this room. I think if we go back into the kitchen, we’ll be dead.”
“Why?”
“I can hear ticking.”
The Nareemas were not only the landlords but the owners of the entire building. Since they’d come from that very war-torn country and were total paranoids, they were well trained in hasty exits. They routinely made the tenants practice emergency escapes—a small price to pay for great apartments in a great location at a very reasonable rate.
In addition to the drills, all the apartments had an emergency alarm installed, always in the kitchen and bedroom areas, high enough up that most kiddies couldn’t reach the pull levers but most adults could.
The emergency alarm sounded vastly different from the fire alarm, and the Nareemas literally made each tenant sign a contract that if they heard the emergency alarm, they would grab all living creatures, only, and run like hell out of the building. They kept a roster of all the living things. I hadn’t included my fish on the list, but if you considered a cockroach a pet, the Nareemas had it marked on your lease.
If the building was going to go, I was going to clear out my neighbors if at all possible, and the snake could fend for itself.
I looked around quickly. Anything else I had to have before it blew to smithereens? I grabbed my laptop bag after a quick examination that showed no bombs or slitheries. Because I traveled a lot for work, it contained my passport and all my personal information, and it was also where I stored checkbooks and other important things. I cleared out some more clothes and shoes, filling my five-piece luggage set to the brim.
“How do you expect us to carry all this?” Christopher asked as I continued to pack like mad one-handed.
“You sling this one over your neck,” I put my garment bag over him, “and you hold the really big rolling one.” I slung my purse over my neck to one side and the laptop bag over my neck to the other. Cosmetics bag that actually contained my personal care items hooked through the smaller bag that hooked to the medium rolling bag. “There, all set.”
“We look ridiculous.”
“Maybe so, but I just want to get my stuff out.”
“How can you even stand?”
“Practice.”
“You don’t want us to save the Coca-Cola and frozen dinners, too?”
“Yes, but you said we couldn’t go back into the kitchen.” I thought fondly of my stereo equipment and TV, but I had my iPod and all its paraphernalia with me, so my music was safe. “You ready?”
“I was ready fifteen minutes ago.”
“Fine.” I hit the alarm. “Let’s go.”
We moved at a sluggish version of hyperspeed. It was enough to get us out of the building without being seen, at least as far as I could tell, since no one seemed to know we were there. We stopped in the park and watched. The folks in my building were pouring out. Good.
Everyone was out, pets and children in tow, over at the park where Mr. Nareema was counting noses and Mrs. Nareema and their children were counting pets. Mr. Nareema announced all humans but me accounted for, and the rest of the clan shared that all the pets were present, too, when the bomb went off. It was impressive. But if the Nareemas hadn’t been totally paranoid, at least some of these people would have been killed. Innocent people.
“I want to hunt Yates down, okay?”
“Works for me. I don’t think I can get us back to the airport with all this stuff, though.”
“Can you get us back to wherever you stashed my car?”
“That I can do.”
“Okay, give me a minute.” I took the bags off and ran over to our clutch of tenants before the Nareemas could call my parents to tell them I was dead.
I shared my living status, feigned ignorance about all the whys and wherefores, and, joyous reunion over, headed back to Christopher. No one mentioned him or my luggage.
“Did you do something to their minds?”
He shrugged. “Just made them see me with your dogs, not your luggage. It’ll make it easier all the way around.”
“Do you need to manipulate any images before we go?”
“No. This wasn’t caused by a superbeing.”
“In that sense.”
“Good point.” Christopher looked around. “Nice area.”
“Yeah.”
“You can’t come back here to live, you know.”
“Picking that up. I’m sure I have options.” My parents’ house, for one. “Can I rent a room in the Science Center?”
Christopher chuckled. “Sure. Most agents don’t pay rent.”
“Oh, bonus.” This A-C gig did have its advantages.
“Let’s get out of here before someone else tries to blow you up.”
“I thought this was all in a day’s work for you.”
“Superbeings, yes. The additional action you drag along? Not so much.”
“I’m special.”
Christopher smiled. “True.”
CHAPTER 57
I PUT THE LUGGAGE BACK ON, he took my hand, and we moved at slow hyperspeed, which should have been an oxymoron but wasn’t. We were still moving too fast to be seen clearly, but I wasn’t nauseated at all. We reached a part of the desert preserve and moved toward an abandoned dam.
“We’re at another alien crash site, aren’t we?” I asked as we slowed to human speed.
“Yeah, how did you know about that?”
“One of my best friends was into this stuff.” He still was, but why share that? I might need a source they weren’t mind manipulating. “The rumor is that this dam was actually built to hide an alien burial ground or something.”
“Actually, it was built so we could have a safe location here. A lot of activity goes on in Arizona, so we needed a small base.”
“Makes sens
e.” We moved into what looked like a cave. “You sure this is safe and hasn’t been infiltrated?”
“Hands up.” This wasn’t a familiar voice.
We put our hands up. Christopher kept hold of mine, though. “What’s your rank?” he asked, sounding very calm.
“Amateur.”
I felt Christopher relax. “It’s me.”
A guy who was far too handsome to be human stepped out of the darkness. “Sorry, Commander, but you know the rules.”
“Just get someone to take this luggage,” Christopher said as he dumped my garment bag on the ground. “It weighs a ton.”
The guard spoke into a com attached to his shoulder, and within seconds more A-Cs appeared. They took my luggage, and then we wandered in.
“Welcome to Caliente Base,” Christopher said as we got fully inside, and I saw a mini version of the first floor I’d ever seen at the Science Center.
“You all were here when my superbeing created, weren’t you?”
“Yep. Monitoring Yates.”
“So Jeff didn’t run to a gate to get to the airport to get to me.”
“No, he ran from here. It’s farther, actually.”
“Awww, I’m touched, and I wasn’t mad, just clarifying.”
“I need to check a couple of things,” Christopher said, as he let go of my hand.
“Do I get to watch?”
“Sure. I’ll warn you if I have to talk at regular A-C speeds.” We went to a set of consoles and monitors that sat in front of some huge screens, similar to the conference table from the debriefing session, only these screens were on the walls. As there had been in the Field command center room back at the Science Center, there were images from all over the world. Unlike the Field stuff I’d seen, these all seemed random—I didn’t spot any superbeings in any of the shots. Some were news feeds, some were streaming video, some seemed to be from cell phones. A variety of the images would show up on the consoles, where some A-Cs were sitting, looking intent.
“How do you get all of this?”
“We created your satellite and cell phone technology,” Christopher replied absently. “We have a constant wiretap going.”
“I feel so Watergate.”
“We’re really only looking for parasites and superbeing activity.”
“Where’s Yates?”