Alien Research

CHAPTER 64

I’D THOUGHT OF THE LAIR, where Jeff and I had lived during the first part of my tenure with Centaurion Division. And in the Lair I was. Unlike a gate transfer, there was no nausea. Cube travel was definitely the way to go.

We were in the living room, in front of the TV, facing the couch, which was exactly what I’d seen in my mind.

There was a glittery square right in front of me. Reached for it and therefore touched it, and was right back on the bed in the isolation chamber. “Wow.”

Touched the cube again and was right back in the Lair. “Cool.” Now that I was here, contemplated wandering around. However, there was a lot going on, and besides, someone was going to notice that I was here, instead of in the Embassy, and I didn’t want to explain the Cube Gate to random people at this precise time. Did wonder what Algar was up to, but now probably wasn’t the time to try to visit him. So I touched the floating square.

Only, this time, I’d been thinking about Algar. And that’s where I ended up. “Whoops.”

I was in the weird reclamation area again, right on the tank platform I’d been on before. The room looked even bigger than when I’d been here before, but I was too shocked to really examine too much. Algar looked surprised, so there was that.

Harlie and Poofikins purred loudly, jumped off my shoulders and onto Algar’s, and rubbed up against him like he was their long-lost bestie. Wasn’t so shocked that this was lost on me.

Algar recovered faster than me. “Well, I see you’ve found the gate and figured out how to use it.”

“Um, sort of.” Saw a pile of glittery things in the far corner of the room.

“Good. Carry on.” With that, he snapped his fingers and Bruno and I were back in the isolation room at the Embassy.

Put Bruno down on the bed. “Care to explain all that to me?”

Bruno shot me the “I’m An Innocent Birdie” look. Gave him my Death Glare in return. I won. Bruno flapped his wings, cooed, squawked, and did some serious head bobbing that could have qualified him for any major urban hip-hop competition.

“Ah.” Cleared my throat. “Harlie, Poofikins, come to Kitty.” The Poofs appeared, both still purring happily. I sat down cross-legged on the bed. “I think it’s time we played the Guess Where I’m From game.”

The Poofs gave Bruno their own versions of the Death Glare. Bruno glared right back. Picked him up and put him in my lap. “Beings from this universe gotta stick together, kids.”

The Poofs looked sad, so I picked them up, too, and gave them a cuddle. “Kitty still loves her Poofies, you know that.” Received happy purrs. Put the Poofs on Bruno’s back, so I could look at them. “Okay, I expect some animal honesty. First off, while Bruno really is an Alpha Four animal, it appears that my Poofies are not, at least in terms of ancestry.”

The Poofs mewed. They sounded apologetic.

“Oh, I get it. Until Kitty knew about Algar, Kitty couldn’t know who brought the Poofies to this universe. But that’s where you’re from, isn’t it, the Black Hole Universe?”

The Poofs acknowledged that this was so.

Which explained a whole lot, especially things like how they went large and toothy and then back to small, how they got all over the place, probably how they’d found the Z’porrah’s power cubes, let alone ingested and regurgitated them without issue, and potentially more.

“Algar brought you with him when he left home, like Mom and Dad brought the cats and dogs here, right? Because you take your pets with you if you’re moving far, far away.”

Received more Poof purrs for confirmation.

I could see the rest of it. Algar had gotten himself in trouble, and he’d wandered the universe, being sure to keep ahead of the other Black Hole People who were searching for him. He found an out of the way place to hang out. And because he’d liked the first King of Alpha Four, he’d given him his Poofs as pets and protectors, so Algar could concentrate on taking out the trash and being sure he wasn’t discovered. And it gave the Poofs someone to belong to, just in case Algar was caught.

“You’re sort of helping with the whole free will issue, right?”

This question earned a lot of Poof mewling and jumping up and down in response.

“Ah, gotcha. Noninvolvement unless it’s vital to the overall long-term plan.” Patted them. “But sometimes you ignore the long-term plan, don’t you?”

The Poofs mewed and purred. They attached to us, like we attached to them, and therefore, as animals will, they protected those they loved.

“That pile of glittery things I saw in Algar’s personal water reclamation plant, those are the Z’porrah power cubes, aren’t they? And Algar lets you take them if you feel you need to, because you get to have free will, just like everyone else, right?”

Poof purrs confirmed that I was right on. Bruno clucked to show that he still felt I was the coolest, smartest chick on the planet.

Resisted the urge to agree with them, because I hadn’t really been sure until now. But now I was certain—Algar was trying to fix his big mistake. In a very long-term way, but if you’re immortal, what’s a few thousand years, let alone a few decades?

This explained why the Poofs had almost died out on Alpha Four—their real owner had left them. Algar really was a jerk, because it was clear the Poofs still loved him, even though he’d left them alone on Alpha Four for decades. Maybe he’d done it for one of his free will reasons, but it still sucked.

Harlie mewed at me.

“Huh? Yeah, I do think he’s kind of a jerk.”

Harlie mewed in a very serious fashion.

“Really? So when Jeff gave me the Unity Necklace it triggered more than just Alpha Four’s impressive light show? Interesting. And, well, I guess if you guys didn’t object to the plan I’m okay with it.”

The Poofs were okay with being left because they’d been waiting, and been content to wait, for the next part of the long-term plan to roll slowly into action. Stopped trying to figure out how immortal or close-to-it beings thought and just chose to focus on the good fact that the Poofs had attached to us, versus the bad guys. Which Algar had obviously intended.

They lived a long time; White and Alfred had confirmed that. For all I knew, Harlie and Tenley were the original Poofs Algar had brought with him to our universe. “Fuzzball’s dead, though.”

This earned a lot of Poofy growls, which, because the Poofs were small, were adorable instead of scary.

“Yeah, Kitty really hates the Z’porrah, too. They’re very sore losers. How did they make the Poof Traps?”

The Poofs mewed in distress. Interesting. They didn’t know. This wasn’t good, but there were a lot of weird things out there in this universe, including a lot of other universes, apparently, so I probably didn’t need to know how the Z’porrah had created their Poof Traps. I only needed to know how to protect the Poofs from and destroy them.

Because I wasn’t letting our enemies kill any more of my Poofs, Black Hole Universe animals or not. In my heart and my mind, they were my Poofs, all of them, even if they were attached to someone else. Maybe Algar felt the same way. Wasn’t sure I wanted to ask him, though, in case I didn’t like his answer.

Algar had said immortals could be destroyed. But I’d seen Fuzzball with Michael in my dream, and Michael had pretty much insinuated they were together in the afterlife, if that’s what it was.

Decided I needed to get off this train of thought and onto one that would help me more with the next phase of my short-term plan.

“So you don’t actually need or use this gate.”

Bruno cawed. The Poofs didn’t use it, but the Peregrines did. The Peregrines had hyperspeed and, per Bruno, they could use their beaks and claws to open doors. So they’d found the Cube Gate and the Poofs had shared how and why to use it, because after I’d told them all to work together they’d agreed this was the right thing to do.

Algar was absolutely stacking the deck in favor of how he wanted things to turn out. But he wasn’t doing too much, because as he’d told me, too much would turn on the Bat Signal and the other Black Hole People would know where he was. But if we all thought of the Poofs as pets, and they and the Peregrines didn’t do too much for us, then the signal wouldn’t go off and Algar’s plan remained on track.

Wanted to test out the Cube Gate a little more and ask a lot more questions of the Poofs, but I was interrupted by a knock at our front door.

Moved the animals off my lap and rolled off the bed. The four of us trotted out, me closing the isolation room, nursery, and bedroom doors firmly, just in case.

Opened the front door to see Gladys standing there. “Hi, you’re awake.”

“I am. May I come in?”

“Sure.” She entered and headed for our living room. I followed. Noted that the Poofs had disappeared and Bruno had either joined them or gone to stealth mode. “Um, don’t take this the wrong way, but are you the real Gladys or a new android version?”

She snorted. “I’m the real one. Trust me, all facilities, the Embassy in particular, are on continuous scans right now.” She heaved a sigh. “Look, I’m here because I think I figured out where my half brother’s hiding out.”

“That’s great. But why are you telling me this in private, instead of, you know, calling everyone in for the big briefing so we can plan the raid or takedown or whatever?”

Gladys sat down on the loveseat. “When your daughter was born, and Ronaldo had us under his mind control, you and Richard fought him, and you were losing. But Jeffrey arrived in time.”

“Yeah, Jeff really kicked Ronnie’s butt.” Got all misty thinking about it. Jeff had been in Major Protective Mode, which I always found incredibly sexy.

“Right. Jeffrey was about to kill Ronaldo—but he wanted Richard’s order to do so. Richard stepped down as Pontifex because he couldn’t bring himself to actually give the order to kill Ronaldo, and he also could no longer deal with the idea of turning the other cheek.”

“Right, I remember. Paul was able to give that order, because that’s kind of what the Pontifex needs to do, right? Be the better person?”

“That’s right. So, let me ask you a question. Do you, in your heart, believe that Paul would be able to give that same order now?”

Didn’t have to think too hard on this one. “I’d like to say yes. Because I think Paul is that good a person.”

“I do, too. But here’s my dilemma—I don’t want to discover he’s not. I don’t want our people to discover that our Pontifex is unable to do the right thing all the time. There’s no one else trained or even close to ready—Paul couldn’t step down to avoid the decision. And the decision, whether he makes the right one or the wrong one, would eat at him. For the rest of his life.”

“Okay, I see the problem. Why are you discussing it with me and only me?”

“Because, when it comes right down to it, you’re your mother’s daughter.”

Thought about this, about the specific event Gladys was talking about. Mom had point-blank asked me why Jeff didn’t just kill Ronaldo and be done with it. And, frankly, Mom had been right, because Ronaldo had escaped, and he’d helped bring an alien invasion down on Earth. He’d tried to destroy our world, my world. And he’d tried to steal my baby girl while doing so.

“Don’t tell me, let me guess. You want us to do a commando raid and finish the job Jeff started.”

Gladys smiled. “I’d prefer to think of it as a fun, girl’s bonding excursion.”

“Gladys, I believe this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”