Alien Research

CHAPTER 56

IT WAS A GOOD THING I wasn’t hoping for gasps of surprise or horror, because I didn’t get many, though Nurse Carter came through in a big way. Of course, she was the only one who wasn’t an active member of Alpha Team, who wasn’t determined to never let me know I’d surprised them, and who hadn’t been in the conference room with us.

“Why are you sure?” Chuckie asked. “I can tell you’re sure, and I’m inclined to agree, but I want to know your thinking first.”

“Because they took Melanie and Emily hostage. And there was no reason. They didn’t take Walter or the Barones, who are actively working in the Embassy. They didn’t try to lure Alfred and Lucinda or any of the rest of Jeff’s family into the trap. They had freaking Alpha and Airborne captive, and they left them. So they wanted Melanie and Emily, specifically, and there’s only one reason in the world why they’d be more appealing as hostages than anyone else I’ve named, and it’s because they’re the only ones who work with Tito on the Yates Gene project and also assist at all hybrid births.”

“Makes sense to me,” Tim said. “But do you think Gladys, or any of the other A-Cs, have figured out the connection you just made?”

“Jeff has because he can read me so easily and he went out of his way to help us get out of the room.”

“Christopher hasn’t,” Amy said. “And not because I think my husband’s stupid or unobservant. But he’s been distracted and moody like I’ve never seen, for the past few weeks, really, and I honestly think he was paying more attention to the inside of his own head than anything else going on.”

Chose not to share why I knew Amy was probably accurate. “Raj and Richard, maybe. Lucinda probably not. Gladys? Let’s just hope not.”

“Doreen might have,” Irving said. “But if she did, she won’t say anything.”

“Yeah, she’s our best untrained liar, well, her and Richard. And Raj.” Okay, we had some A-Cs really coming along in terms of lying. Good for us, I hoped. “Speaking of which, we need to contact our trained liar. How soon can we get in touch with Camilla?”

Chuckie shook his head. “There’s almost nothing you can say that will make it worthwhile to risk her cover.”

“We need to get into Gaultier and get our data back, while also wiping our theirs.”

“Not sure escalation’s the right answer, Kitty,” Tim said.

“Not sure allowing them access to all our work on superbeing genetics is the right answer, either,” Lorraine countered. “They could figure out what Tito has, or at least what the missing links are, with all the work we’ve done over the decades.”

“Gladys is in there with our moms,” Claudia said, worry clear. “They know what we know and what Tito knows.”

“I don’t think Gladys will do anything while she’s in the Embassy,” Irving said.

“Really? Like she wouldn’t in the Science Center? I think that she won’t do anything because our enemies currently think they’ve won, and that’s the only reason.”

“We won’t have long before Chernobog drills down and discovers that what they want they don’t have,” Omega Red added. “Hours, not days.”

“There’s decades’ worth of data, and Chernobog isn’t an A-C. We may have days. But I’m with Yuri—whether it’s days or it’s hours, we won’t have as much time as we’d like.”

“If we want into Gaultier, we’ll need to have Camilla’s help,” Amy said. “There’s no way they’re going to leave things unprotected long enough for us to find what we need, hyperspeed or no hyperspeed.”

“Don’t suppose we can do like Al Dejahl and pull an older move of our own, like just flipping their fire alarm to clear out the building,” Tim said with a laugh.

“Oh, Megalomaniac Lad, there are times when I just don’t know how I function without you by my side on a regular basis. That’s it.”

“There’s no way a fire alarm will clear out everyone we need,” Amy said. “Gaultier’s equipment is state-of-the-art. And I wouldn’t leave my special, evil brews and ill-gotten data unprotected, fire or no fire.”

“There’s more than one way to clear out a building. And when push comes to shove, we can use an effective weapon—public opinion. Besides, we don’t need everyone out, just the people who can give orders.”

“You mind explaining that?” Chuckie asked. “Because while we followed you on everything else, I guarantee none of us know what you’re talking about right now.”

“So few ever do, Chuckie. So few ever do. Hang on.” Sent Jeff a text. Happily, or un-, depending on whose viewpoint you went with, the A-Cs had decided that they needed to support the President’s wishes, or else it would look like the protestors had won. Good, that played into my plan.

Verified one other thing, and got another happy reply, and the additional news that Gladys and Lucinda were heading back to join the rest of the Gowers and their closer relatives and share the group’s decision, meaning that the rest of our gang was on their way over to join us.

Seeing as they were all A-Cs, they were with us by the time I finished reading Jeff’s text.

Brought them quickly up to speed. Interestingly, only Christopher was shocked by the revelations. Amy was right—he was really distracted. He’d admitted why to pretty much everyone here, other than his wife, and I was fairly sure she was the last person he wanted to tell. But we’d deal with Christopher’s issues later.

“Kitty has a plan, but, as always, we don’t know what it is,” Chuckie said when we were done with the catching up.

“Blah, blah, blah. Just wanted the rest of the team over here so I didn’t have to say it twice. But first, a couple of questions. Am I right in thinking that no one has actually ever seen an A-C funeral because you really don’t do them anything like humans do and no one outside of Centaurion Division would have had cause to attend?”

“That’s right,” White said. “We’ve attended human funerals, of course, but only our personnel have ever attended one of ours.”

“Super. We need to use the funeral. I realize that’s totally disrespectful, but I worked with Michael plenty of times, and I can guarantee that he’d be okay with it if it meant we caught the people who killed him and Fuzzball.”

“I agree,” Jeff said. “At least, about Michael. I have no idea what your plan is, other than that you’re really excited about it and you expect me not to be.”

“Right, because you’re not going to be in on the action. None of the men are.”

“Why not?” Chuckie asked.

I shrugged. “Because men in this country don’t wear veils.”