by Gini Koch
Desperately wanted to know what was going on with our Bot Initiative, but had the sense to not ask about it with all the kids here. Tried not to wonder or worry if they were able to read our minds, because I had a feeling that they could.
Jamie, who was sitting between me and Lizzie, patted my hand. “It’s okay, Mommy,” she said quietly. “Fairy Godfather ACE has rules.”
ACE was a Physic-Psycho Barrier that worked like a sentient net that the fine folks on Alpha Four had created then put around Earth when they’d banished our A-Cs here. But they’d included their talents in ACE’s creation, and the empathic part of him had gotten attached to Earth and its inhabitants, so when ACE had become self-aware it had also become attached to Earth and its inhabitants. I’d been the one to communicate with ACE and channel it into Gower. And once I’d put Alexander on the throne of Alpha Four, he’d released ACE from bondage. But ACE had stayed with us.
ACE had also helped Naomi, Abigail, and Serene when they were young and their powers had manifested and terrified them. It had helped me when I’d almost died in childbirth. It had helped the others giving birth to hybrid children. ACE was our loving observer and we were, as I’d put it way back when, ACE’s penguins—the flock it watched over and cared about and loved, while trying not to interfere too much, so as to not affect and change us.
But there were a lot of powerful beings out there, including other superconsciousnesses. We’d been visited by some of these, acting like the Superconsciousness Police, during Operation Defection Election. They’d sort of taken ACE away from us. But once Naomi had become a superconsciousness herself, she’d rescued ACE. But ACE had to make compromises.
ACE’s compromise was that it would share mind space with someone on Earth who was not powerful. And so ACE joined with Jamie. Because, as a child, she had no power in this world. That she was probably the most powerful person on our planet—at least until we’d gotten an influx of a tonnage of different aliens—hadn’t figured into the equation. Basically, ACE had managed to find the Superconsciousness Loophole and had exploited it for all of our benefit.
Over time ACE had joined dead astronauts and then dead people we cared about into its collective consciousness. ACE wasn’t really male or female, but most of the time we referred to ACE as male, probably because he’d started out inside of men.
Sometimes Jamie argued with ACE, but apparently not all the time. “Okay, that’s good, Jamie-Kat. Fairy Godfather ACE has been around a lot longer than you have. You need to listen to him.”
“Oh, I do, Mommy. Unless he’s wrong. Then I don’t.”
Shoved away the fear these casual statements of hers gave me. “You know, Fairy Godfather ACE has a lot to teach you, Jamie-Kat. You don’t know everything yet, even though I’m sure sometimes it seems like you do.”
She nodded. “He does. And I know I still have things to learn, Mommy. Don’t worry.” And with that she turned to Lizzie and started talking about the cookies they’d made.
When ACE was in Gower I’d chatted with him all the time. Now, I had to wait until Jamie was asleep—because I wasn’t going to discuss terrible people trying to kill us or any other huge issues with my little girl being awake and aware, and this way ACE could keep our conversations from her. This new way of communicating was also best if I was asleep, too, which made getting coherent questions out somewhat problematic. However, clearly I needed to have a chat with ACE sooner as opposed to later.
Charlie was between me and Jeff so I couldn’t share what was going on. However, in addition to being the most powerful empath in the world, due to his Surcenthumain Boost, he could pretty much read my mind. He’d been working at doing this with Jamie, Chuckie, and a few others.
Dawned on me that every A-C talent was a form of telepathy. I’d sort of always known that, but hadn’t given it a lot of focus or thought. However, if Jeff had developed stronger telepathy due to Surcenthumain and I had due to the Beta Eight waterfruit, that Charlie was telekinetic and Jamie and the other kids were doing mental connecting wasn’t all that surprising.
“We really are the X-Men.” Hadn’t meant to say that aloud, but, as per my usual, my mouth had engaged without my brain’s permission.
Jeff laughed. “I thought we were the Justice League.”
True. I did think of Jeff as Superman, Christopher as the Flash, and Chuckie as Batman. And in Bizarro World I’d been Wonder Woman. “I guess we’re kind of both. And we already have our sidekicks.” After all, Lizzie felt that Siler was Mr. Dash and she was Quick Girl. As long as Wasim wasn’t as crazy as Deadpool, he had a really good shot of fitting in perfectly.
Jeff reached over and squeezed my hand. “It’ll be fine, baby. Whatever happens, we’ll handle it. Just like always.”
“Things just seem a little more . . . out there . . . than normal.”
Jeff grinned. “Or, as we call it, routine.”
CHAPTER 36
DINNER OVER, everyone took their children and headed home, which meant the Embassy, the Dulce Science Center, or NASA Base. Gates might make me sick, but they were pretty awesome, all things considered.
Nadine came and took Jamie and Charlie off for baths and such. She also escorted Wasim and Naveed down the hall to their room, in part, I was sure, because Nadine wanted to be sure that the teenaged boy was in his room before the teenaged girl got into hers.
Because Lizzie was my ward and we literally didn’t have the space to add on a family suite—and because the Elves had made it clear that they wanted Lizzie living with me—Siler still slept at the Embassy. So, they said their goodbyes and he left with the other Embassy families. And because she was a teenager and she wanted to and I wasn’t up to ordering her off to bed at the late hour of 7:30 p.m., Lizzie stayed in the dining room with us.
Serene sent Brian and Patrick ahead and took the time to brief me, Jeff, and, because she was here, Lizzie before she left. “I found nothing that indicates explosives at all in any of them. The Christopher-Bot does have an on and off switch, similar to the ones on Cameron Maurer and John Butler.”
“In his ear canal?” Hey, that’s how we’d stopped them from blowing up.
“No, that’s the kill switch for the self-destruct, and that only works on Marling-made androids, Kitty, you know that. The on/off switch is inside the body cavity.”
“Sue me for not remembering, and now I no longer want to know.”
Serene laughed. “I figured. At any rate, none of the four are going to explode, unless the explosives are so minute that they can’t be found with our equipment. Which is unlikely. Possible, because what isn’t, but unlikely.”
“What about the Christopher-Bot the Second melting and reforming?”
She grimaced. “That I don’t know. There’s nothing left of the goo for us to examine, and I’m concerned about taking a sample, based on what happened when the first one was blown apart. I think they’re probably made of some sort of semicrystalline material combined with whatever would give them a successful human appearance.”
Serene kept on talking, giving us a lecture on materials that could melt in the way the Christopher-Bot Parts had. My ears chose to shut off. Jeff and Lizzie appeared to be paying rapt attention. Either they were interested or were really good at faking it.
“So,” Serene concluded, “without being able to dismember the intact Christopher-Bot, I’m not sure that we can tell. I’d have better luck with our equipment in Dulce, but before any of you say it, yes, that might be the plan, to get him inside the Science Center. So we’re keeping him here in the containment unit.”
“Has he shown any interest in trying to break out like the Goo of Horror did?”
“Not as yet, but we have a lot of guards down there, since we’re keeping all four of them down there. And yes, they each have a bed and such now.”
“Go team.” Actively chose not to ask if any of them needed to use the ba
throom anymore, because I decided that I really didn’t want to know, one way or the other.
“What about the claim that Somerall and Lee were transmitting data?” Jeff asked.
Serene shook her head. “If they are, it’s via a process we can’t detect. I’m not willing to say definitively that they aren’t, but I feel about ninety percent confident that they don’t have the ability.”
“They could just use their phones,” Lizzie said offhandedly. She was looking at hers and texting. Actively chose not to ask her who she was talking to but it took effort.
We all stared at her. “What?” Jeff asked finally.
“I totes get it, that Christopher-Bot thing told you that those other two were broadcasting stuff. But the Bots don’t sound, well, as smart as regular people or the androids, and anyone can broadcast with a smartphone.”
Serene pulled her phone out and started texting at hyperspeed. “I’ll have everyone searched for cell phones and similar. Anything found will be confiscated and checked.”
“We didn’t look for that?” I asked. “Not that it occurred to me, let me mention.”
“I didn’t,” Serene said. “And Tito was focused on the medical side. So, no, we let that ball drop. I’m sorry.”
“It happens,” Jeff said. “Let’s find out if we’ve been compromised or not before anyone falls on a sword.”
Serene’s phone beeped. “Huh. Yes, Kristie has a phone but she wasn’t doing anything with it. In fact, she has quite a number of missed calls and unanswered texts, all from the people she works with.”
“One down.”
She nodded as more messages came in. “Both Ansom and Talia have phones and they were indeed recording,” she growled.
“Recording, not sending?” I asked.
“Correct. There’s no sign that what they recorded was sent.”
“Damn.”
This earned me shocked looks from Jeff and Serene. Lizzie was still involved with her phone. “Why are you disappointed?” Jeff asked. “Did we want them sharing what we’re doing?”
“No, but now we don’t know who they were going to send that information to. Meaning that we can’t trust anything they tell us.”
“They could have been doing the recording to have blackmail on you, not to send to anyone else,” Lizzie said, still texting someone.
Gave up on being a non-helicopter-sorta-mom. “Who are you talking to?”
She looked up at me and grinned. “My dad. I was telling him he should have stuck around, so he asked me to tell him what you guys were talking about. He has a theory, by the way.”
We waited. “Are you planning to share what that is?” I asked finally.
“Oh, sure. Totes wasn’t sure if you cared.”
“Don’t give me teenaged attitude. It’s the wrong day for it.”
She laughed. “I wasn’t. I’m just still talking to my dad. Anyway, he thinks that, if they’re really unaware that their brains have been altered, then they might be being mind-controlled. He’s got a theory on who’s doing that.”
“Who?” I asked.
She shook her head. “He won’t tell me. He says he wants to be sure first.”
Jeff ran his hand through his hair. “Is there a reason he didn’t want to come back and share this in person?”
Lizzie nodded. “Yeppers. He’s getting Mister Buchanan and Mister Wruck and they’re going to handle it.”
Jeff groaned. “I don’t want people being randomly assassinated.”
“He said that’s not what they’re doing. He just is sure that you guys are going to tell him that his theory is wrong. So he wants to verify it first. He’ll tell you if they have to kill someone.”
“That’s not true. Malcolm will override any suggestion to let us know and Team Tough Guys will just handle it.”
Lizzie shrugged and put her phone away. “My dad said you’d say that. But we’re on radio silence now. His team is rolling.”
“It never ends,” Jeff muttered.
“It’ll be fine,” Serene said. “Go have some relaxed family time, Jeff. You need it.”
“You do, too,” he countered.
She smiled. “Which is why I’m going home right now.” With that she hugged all of us and trotted off.
The three of us headed down the hall to do the Nightly Rituals. Lizzie had been included in them since the day after Operation Immigration because Charlie and Jamie both wanted her there, and who were we to argue? Our routine was Charlie first, then Jamie, so we did the Rituals twice. So far none of us minded.
The three of us sang songs in pretty good harmony, each of us told each kid a story, we sang another song, then hugs and kisses all around, petting for the various and sundry animals—Earth native and alien—that were snoozing with each kid, then it was time to turn out the lights.
It was only 8:30 by now, and Lizzie was in no way ready for bed, so the three of us went into our big suite and hung out, while Nadine did the nanny “make sure the kids are really asleep” thing.
“Who do you think my dad’s after?” Lizzie asked the moment we were sitting down—me and Jeff on the couch and her in one of our fancy yet comfy armchairs—sipping Cokes, in her and my case, and water in Jeff’s, and she’d pulled her phone out. Though she only had it on the arm of her chair, and she wasn’t using it. One for the Teenaged Win Column.
“I have no idea,” Jeff said. “I also don’t know if I hope he’s right or wrong.”
Took a long drink of my Coke and pondered. “It’s like with Hamlin, I think. Nightcrawler thinks he knows who’s behind this, but he doesn’t think we’ll believe him. So he’s going to find the proof first.” Which begged the question of whom Siler suspected.
“That was a long, drawn-out process.” Jeff sounded worried.
“Yeah, but Team Tough Guys is very aware, and with John with them, they should be okay.”
“Wruck isn’t invincible,” Jeff reminded me.
“I know. But I’m not as worried as I could be. It’s clearly not Stephanie. If it was, he’d have just told us that.”
“I agree,” Lizzie said. “I don’t think he thinks it’s a friend. He didn’t say that you guys would be upset. He just didn’t think you’d believe his theory.”
“Meaning he thinks it’s someone we think it couldn’t be . . .” My brain nudged. Cliff had hidden as the Mastermind for far too long because of two things, one in particular—The Red Herring Gambit was a good one and worked nine times out of ten. We were Exhibit A for that, after all.
Meaning it was really damned likely that we’d screwed up. Big time.
CHAPTER 37
“WHAT?” JEFF ASKED. “I know that look. What connection did you make?”
“Is Chuckie on a mission, on a date, or just tired?”
“Huh?” Jeff stared at me. “Not that I think it’s relevant to what we’re talking about or what I asked you, but he’s on a date. Why? God, you don’t think Siler suspects Chuck, do you?”
“No, not at all. I just wanted him here when I shared my theory.”
Jeff shot me a look that reminded me of when he’d been ready to kill Chuckie over jealousy. “So, I’m suddenly not good enough or smart enough?”
Resisted the urge to roll my eyes and patted his hand instead. “No. I just enjoy sharing this with others who enjoy making the mental leaps with me.”
“When have I not mentally leaped with you? When have I not supported your theories?” Jeff sounded truly hurt, and I felt bad.
“I’m really not trying to hurt your feelings. I just . . .”
“She wants someone who isn’t going to be a Yes Man here,” Lizzie said. “I’m too young and you just said it, Jeff—you’ll always support her theories. So, you want James or Nana Angela, Kitty?”
“Um . . .”
They both looked at me. “
What?” Jeff asked. “You feel incredibly conflicted right now. You don’t suspect your mother, do you?” He sounded mildly horrified.
“Oh my God, of course not. However . . .”
“You think your mother will be upset with you?” Now Jeff sounded shocked.
“No, Mom rarely gets upset with me, even when I screw up or we all miss something obvious that, at the same time, isn’t obvious.”
“I’m not following you now, baby. At all.”
Refrained from mentioning that this was why I’d wanted Chuckie here. Jeff was smart and brave and all the wonderful things, but he didn’t think like me. And even though he tried hard and got better at it every day, Chuckie and Reader and Tim still got me faster. But I didn’t want Reader or Tim, in no small part because I knew they were with their spouses having actual quality time.
Or rather, I assumed they were. Realized I had no idea where Reader, Tim, and the rest of Airborne actually were. Or Tito, Gower, Rahmi, or Rhee for that matter. Perhaps they were all still with our Bots, meaning I could indeed grab them. Though another big meeting of a million people didn’t sound like a great plan—it sounded like we’d never get to bed and that would delay me and Jeff from having sex. Not only was sex with Jeff still number one with a bullet on my Best Things To Do Always And Often List, but after the day I’d had, I really wanted sexy times with my husband. A room full of people didn’t say “getting to bed early.” It said “not getting any sleep for all the crummy reasons.”
“I know, Jeff. And I also know I’m pussyfooting. I just . . . I want to be sure that what I’m thinking is really what I’m thinking. Because it’ll affect everyone, Mom in particular.”
“You don’t suspect your father?” Jeff was back to horrified.
“Oh my God, no. No, I don’t. This has literally nothing to do with Dad. At least as far as I know or can guess.”
“Oh!” Lizzie sat up straight. “You’re worried that your theory is going to make Nana Angela look bad, aren’t you?”