Alien Research

CHAPTER 37

AS THE SONG ON MY IPOD CHANGED, I was now certain Algar was controlling my playlist. Because the new song was “Kill Your Idols” by Static-X. A fine song to kick butt to, good, fast, angry beat, helpful lyrics. Put it on repeat.

Gladys did that creepy crack your neck just by tilting your head really hard thing. Was pretty sure she did it to be creepy. Chose to look at is as a challenge, to see if I could crack her neck a whole lot harder.

Unlike most of my opponents over the years, she wasn’t talking. That one insult seemed to have been it. Instead of chat, she launched herself at my legs.

I jumped up and did the splits. She flipped into a forward roll and as I came down and spun around, she tackled me, hitting my stomach with her head.

“Ooof!” I sounded like Mahin. And figured I knew how she’d felt when I was kicking her butt. I went backward, Gladys on top of me, straddling my chest, all the better to do her version of ground and pound. Her version sucked, and by sucked I mean hurt a lot.

Still had the baseball mitt on. It was working great as a defensive tool—I had it in front of my face for protection and absorption of blows.

“Defend your head!” Tito shouted. Ah, my MMA coach was watching on the sidelines. Or, more likely, coaching while he was also kicking butt, which was a standard move for him. For this I was grateful. I’d personally thought the mitt was handling the defensive end, but I put both arms up, bent in front of my face.

“Knee her back! Knee her back and work to get out!” Tito was full of good advice.

I’d pulled it off earlier when no one was around. Might as well give it a go here, in the presence of witnesses. Besides, Gladys was tough but she was also small.

Shifted my hips so I rocked her, slammed my knee into her back as hard as I could, while I shoved my arms at her with all my strength.

Gladys went back as my leg went up. The move worked perfectly again. The only problem was that Gladys was a lot shorter than Mahin. I did hit the back of her head, but with my shin. Which hurt like hell.

It stunned her, though, which was what I needed. Used the mitt to hit her with a slapping left and she went off of me to my right. I rolled to my left and scrambled to my feet.

She ran toward me again, and I decided it was time for my favorite Kung Fu technique—Crane Opens a Can of Whup-Ass.

Jumped to the side onto the leg whose shin wasn’t hurting with my other leg up. Blocked her with my nice pointy Crane Hands. Side blade kick to her knee. Okay, to her hip, she was really short. Two palm strikes to her head, another to the face, and a fourth to her floating ribs. Okay, to her damn shoulder. No wonder she was considered so formidable—she was hard as hell to hit correctly.

However, I was definitely rocking her. The next move was another kick to take out her knee. Gladys, seeing this, tried to swerve out of my reach. No worries. Crane Has Long Wings wasn’t hard to do from this position, either.

I chopped the back of her neck with the side of my right hand as hard as I could. She stumbled and almost lost her balance, but recovered and ran on. Into an open isolation chamber behind me, which I saw as I spun around to supposedly hit her with the second Crane Wing.

She came out with a hypodermic. Not this again. “What are you going to threaten to do to Jeff or Christopher this time?”

She looked at the hypo in her hand then back at me. “Nothing. I’m going to stab this through your eye. And there won’t be a single thing you can do about it.”

“I think there are several things I plan to do about it.” Thought madly about what weapons take-away forms I knew. Crane said this was not in the rules and requested a knife or a gun, since Crane and I actually knew how to take both of those away. Needles were long, sharp, pointy, and yet small, making them hard to stop. Crane said it was out of ideas. Baseball Mitt shared that it was ready to take whatever it had to for the team.

Gladys smiled. “I doubt they’ll work. ACE isn’t around to help you any more.”

Figured part of the problem with Gladys that Algar had mentioned was that she’d figured out somehow that ACE was indeed on hiatus. Not good. I needed a weapon. I could pull out my Glock and just shoot her, but that seemed extreme at the moment, and not in any small part because I didn’t want to blow away White’s sister in front of him. That just seemed so horribly wrong to do to anyone, let alone someone I cared about. I just wanted to knock her out—potentially into a bloody pulp, but still “out” was what I was shooting for.

Should have kept my purse on. Could have gotten the harpoon out without looking. Oh well, so much for that. Could always grab my own hypodermic out of the isolation chamber—they always had tons in there—but that seemed both scary and ridiculous, even for me. Plus that would mean my back would have to be to Gladys, and even for a second that didn’t sound wise.

She ran at me, hypo held like a knife, slashing as she got closer. She slashed and stabbed, I dodged, using the mitt to block.

Wanted her away from the people who were unconscious, my husband especially. So I started backing up.

“Running away so quickly?” she sneered.

“This? This isn’t running. When I run, you’ll know.”

More thrusts with the needle from her, more dodging and blocking from me. At this rate one of us was going to get tired, and it was a fifty-fifty chance it might be Gladys. Not the best odds. Time for something offensive.

Technically, she was so tiny I should have been able to just pretty much use my longer reach and smash her. But she was fast, skilled, and waving that needle around. Fighting Uma the Bitch Leader during Operation Invasion had been a lot easier. But I’d had an Amazonian battle staff to use then.

“Tito! I need a distance weapon of some kind!”

Something sailed through the air. “Kitty,” Rahmi shouted. “Catch!”

Put my right hand up and caught Rahmi’s battle staff. They were weighted more like a javelin—one end heavier than the other—but both ends glowed. The staff was activated which was nice. Activated, it resembled a double light saber, allowing its wielder to totally get their Darth Maul on.

“Gladys, just a mention. This staff can cut through you like butter. Don’t make me want to do that. You know this isn’t you. You’re being controlled by someone you happen to despise.”

“How would you know what is or isn’t me?” she asked. “Or who I despise?”

“You’re Richard’s sister. You telling me that you’re choosing Ronaldo over him?”

“Richard’s dead,” Gladys said. “I saw him die.”

Couldn’t risk looking around. “Mister White!”

“Here, Missus Martini. Essentially right behind you. Gladys, it’s me.”

She looked right at him. Right at him. “I have no idea who you are, but you’re not my brother.” She looked around. “And before any of you try to claim kinship with me, I don’t know who you are, just that you’re not who you say you are.” She looked back to me. “Other than you. I know who you are.”

“And just who is that?”

“You’re the reason Richard and the rest of my family are dead.” She said it calmly, as if it was longtime common knowledge. “You infiltrated us and destroyed us. And for that, you have to die.”

With that, she lunged toward me.