Alien Research

CHAPTER 42

THAT SAT ON THE AIR for a few long moments. We could hear the sounds of people being hit and trying not to let on that they were being hit.

“That’s impossible,” Jeff said finally. “They’re all internal, and the only way to deactivate them is to remove them.”

“Or dissolve them,” White said quietly.

“And that’s what we think was done,” Stryker said. “NASA Base has done the confirmations.”

We were all quiet again. More sounds of abuse coming from the room, and as the camera panned again, the team again looked worse for wear. “Well,” I said finally, “at least the chips didn’t self-destruct.”

“Failsafe,” White said.

“Yeah, you’re big on them, I remember.”

“Now that I have your full and undivided attention,” the woman in the room with our friends and family said, “I want you to listen to me very carefully. I’m going to do terrible things to one of your friends here until I get what I want.”

Something caught my eye, but the camera went out of range. “William, Eddy, someone, are we recording this?”

“Yes, Ambassador.”

“Great. Toss the recording up onto our many other screens. I need to see something that needs a freeze frame.”

“Kitty, it’s Henry. Yuri and I have some vocal confirmation. Female speaker is likely from South Florida.”

“You and Omega Red rock, Henry. Okay, that means this is Raul the Pissed Off and Now Dead Assassin’s chick, Annette Dier, who is also an assassin.”

“You can’t be sure of that,” Jeff said.

“Yes, actually, I can. I have my Megalomaniac Girl hat on and everything.”

“This is her area of expertise,” Chuckie said curtly. “Let her work.”

“Thanks. William, Eddy, someone rewind on a non-main screen to right when she was threatening a few seconds ago. I don’t need the audio, just the visual.”

Dier went on talking as a couple of the smaller screens in the room rewound. “We’re going to start with the human.” Serene sobbed and Chuckie put his arm around her again.

“Why Brian?” Jeff asked.

“Because he can’t regenerate and he has no fast healing. William, slow down the forward on my special view, will you?” The frames slowed down. “There! I thought I saw something.”

What I’d seen was Michael Gower. “What’s he doing?” Claudia asked.

“He’s working to get his hands free using hyperspeed. The camera only caught the start, when he was moving at human speeds.”

Couldn’t be sure, of course, but it looked like Michael was going to manage to get his hands free.

“Their feet aren’t tied,” Chuckie said. “Just their hands. He gets free, he has a real shot at doing something.”

“How can he get out when the others can’t?” Adriana asked.

“He’s an astronaut, so he’s in incredible shape, he works with us all the time, and for all I know he and Caroline do interesting things in the bedroom. But either they didn’t tie him as well as they thought, he knew what he was doing, or he got lucky, because I think he’s going to get free.”

There was no way anyone, not even an A-C, could be this close to getting free in just a couple minutes. Meaning they’d been wherever they were for a while. Our enemies had had plenty of time to get anywhere in the world and tons of mind-controlled A-Cs to help them get there.

“Kitty, we’re still unable to trace the feed,” Stryker shared. “It’s being bounced all over the world, but we can’t get a reading on the origination point.”

“They’re in the tunnels. Exactly where Mahin thought they were.”

“How can you be sure?” Reader asked. “Letting her work, Reynolds, stop shooting me the death glare, just need the confirmation of how she’s making these leaps.”

“During Operation Destruction video went out of the tunnels with no problem, but no empath or imageer could read through them. They’re not sending via one of our cameras, so we can’t trace it. And they told Mahin that’s where they were going.” Heard Tito quietly explaining who Mahin was for those who’d missed the outdoor entertainment.

“The tunnels are worldwide,” White said. “We’ll have a challenge finding them in time.”

Dier moved into camera range. She was blonde. She also had a knife. A very nasty, very sharp-looking knife. Aimed at Brian. Went for the crazy and sent a text to Buchanan and my dad.

“I think we’ll start with the smaller things first,” Dier purred as she did the Typical Bad Guy Knife Move and ran the flat of the blade against the side of Brian’s face. “Fingers. Toes. Eyes. Parts that will ensure you’re no longer a man.”

Brian blanched. “You’re a crazy psycho.”

Dier laughed. “You wish. No, I’m a professional.”

“Confirmation, that’s Annette Dier.”

“I agree,” Chuckie said.

Dier leaned closer to Brian. “And I’m very good at what I do.”

“Leave him alone,” Gladys said, with a lot of authority in her tone. “You want to terrorize someone? Try me.”

Dier went to Gladys, camera following her. She backhanded Gladys hard across her face. “You’ll speak when spoken to, and not before. You’re no longer necessary, didn’t you realize that earlier?”

She went back to Brian. “Now, where were we? Oh, right, I was about to torture you, slowly, and cut you up, bit by bit.”

Serene was sobbing and I was pretty sure she was only upright because Chuckie was holding her up. “Why are they doing this?” she asked. “They haven’t even asked us for anything.”

The realization of what they were doing dawned on me. “They can’t ask us for what they want.”

“Why not?” Jeff asked.

“Because they want Patrick. And Jamie.”

“How would this get them?” Adriana asked. “None of you would put the children at risk. No one in that room would agree to that trade, not even to save their own lives.”

“I agree. However, this set of bad guys has an interesting view. They thought Jamie could time warp to Jeff in Paris. They undoubtedly think Patrick can do the same. And if he can and if he goes, she’ll go with him.”

“How do you know that?” Jeff asked quietly.

“Because I wouldn’t let my friend go alone and neither will she.”

“Why take anyone else, then?” Reader asked. “Why not just take Brian?”

“They want ACE. They either want to bring him to them or have Paul bring him to them. Maybe they think they can contain ACE, destroy him, something. Ronaldo spent a lot of time with the Z’porrah, remember. I’m sure he has tricks we know nothing of.”

“I could be wrong,” Tim said, as Dier ran the side of the knife over Brian some more, “but this seems like a time to ask ACE for help, Kitty, Paul.”

Looked at Gower. He looked trapped. Time to come clean. But, as with Christopher, clearly I was the one who was going to have to do it. “ACE can’t help us. ACE isn’t here. He hasn’t been here since the tunnels went back to impenetrable, after Operation Destruction. He’s . . . hurt and in trouble, but it’s trouble we can’t help with. We don’t know how to get him back, only that he’s still out there somewhere and hasn’t really left us. But ACE intervening is not an option.”

Dead silence met this announcement. Which meant I didn’t have any trouble hearing my phone’s text sound alert. Checked it out. “Great. William, Malcolm is going to call you. You need to get a camera feed of what’s going on into wherever he is, pronto.”

“On it Ambassador, and on with Mister Buchanan right now.”

“What’s having him and your dad see this going to do?” Jeff asked.

“Other than upset Dad and piss Malcolm off? Nothing. But we have only one shot to figure out where our hostages are. It’s a shot in the sandstorm, but when all you’ve got available is the crazy, then the crazy is the shot worth taking.”