Alien Research

CHAPTER 72

“WE CAN’T LET THEM get into that chopper!”

“We also can’t let it shoot its missiles,” Jeff said. “It has Stingers and Hellfires on it. With those they can blow up the base and kill everyone here.”

“I’m more concerned with the guns,” Christopher said. “Since those can kill all of us without blowing us up.”

So much of what was going on was explained. Pity none of us were going to have time to let Chuckie and Reader know that all the disparate crap was connected, at least not until Guantanamo was under attack.

We were a good two miles away from where we’d been, near a grouping of tan buildings clearly designed to blend in with the ground when viewed from above, surrounded by chain link fencing with barbed wire wrapped all around it. There were guard shacks at each corner, outside the fencing.

There was a lot of dirt around—Mahin wouldn’t need to worry about having her version of ammunition. There was a decent amount of foliage a little ways away. Close enough that you could see it from this area but far enough to be too far if you were locked up inside and guards were in the shacks.

Unfortunately, the foliage was much closer to the people we were chasing than to us, and there was no way we would want to get into what looked like a detention compound because that would make us even better targets than we already were.

“Scatter!” Jeff shouted, as he dragged me down and away from a spray of the bullets Christopher was correct to be worried about.

Christopher dropped the bag of Poof Traps as he grabbed Mahin and pulled her the opposite way. As bullets ripped through the duffel, the traps rolled onto the ground. I didn’t remember any of us closing them, but closed they were, all round balls of weird, shiny, mesh, like alien whiffle balls.

“All Poofs, spread out and go to Chuckie and James and Richard and the rest of our team! Protect them and the rest of the good people. And protect yourselves, too!” My purse felt lighter, which was good.

“Stop being the crazy Poof lady and keep moving,” Jeff said, as he pulled me to my feet and zipped us around in a serpentine pattern.

“How can they see us to shoot? We’re moving at hyperspeed.” Looked up at the helicopter—there was more than one person in it. “One of them has to be an A-C or a hybrid.”

“This detail helps us how?” Jeff asked as we just barely kept ahead of the bullets, which sprayed into the dirt.

Mahin had her hands out and a dirt devil quickly formed. Fortunately Christopher tackled her right before the bullets ripped into her. The dirt devil collapsed back onto the ground.

Looked back at the chopper in time to see them aiming in such a way that they’d hit both me and Jeff. Pulled out of Jeff’s grasp and shoved him away. The bullets just missed him.

I tumbled backward so they missed me, too. I landed on the Poof Traps. Always the way. Mahin was trying to get a dirt tornado going, meaning that she was the recipient of most of the chopper’s firepower. It was clear that she needed to be able to concentrate to get said tornado going, and unsurprisingly, the people she’d recently been aligned with knew this. Christopher was spending his time pulling her to safety, meaning neither one of them was effective and both were targets.

Grabbed one of the Poof Traps and threw it as hard as I could at the helicopter, mostly out of frustrated rage but also because, well, you never knew what might work.

To my complete surprise, not only did the trap hit the helicopter, but it dinged it. An idea formed, but I couldn’t do it myself. “Mahin, Christopher! We need fastballs, and we need them now!”

Christopher ran over, grabbed a couple of the traps, and threw them with impressive accuracy and speed. The helicopter was definitely being affected. We both tossed a couple more, then had to scatter again, as they fired at us again.

Mahin joined us as we regrouped and Christopher sent several into the chopper, one of which cracked its windshield. The pilot had been coming closer to us, but pulled up now to get out of range.

“How long do you need to get a dirt tornado going?”

“Longer than they’re giving me,” she said as we threw a couple of traps and then had to run. “Once I really get it going I can hold it as long as I’m conscious, but getting enough dirt going to really create enough mass takes—” Whatever she was going to say was cut short by both of us having to leap in opposite directions to avoid bullets.

“They’re covered with dirt,” I said as we regrouped and I tossed her a couple traps. “See if you can work with them.”

“But . . .” She looked uncertain. “I don’t know what these are made of, but I don’t think I can move them.”

“And you’ll never know unless you try,” Christopher snapped. “Stop making excuses for what you can’t do and focus on what you can. You control the earth. So, control it. Focus on the dirt.” He threw another trap and hit again, though the chopper was getting out of range, at least for us to hit it. It wasn’t so far away that whatever it was shooting at us wasn’t going to hurt or kill.

“He has a point. And while necessity is indeed the mother of invention, I’ve always found panic to be the father of ability. And it’s good to honor both father and mother.”

Speaking of honoring my mother, I had a gun on me, and it was high damn time to use it. Dug it out of my purse as I ran in the serpentine pattern we were currently all so fond of because it was keeping us alive.

Jeff hadn’t joined us at the pitching range—he’d chosen to go after the people we were still trying to catch. They in turn were emboldened by having their snazzy escape vehicle here and shooting at us, so they’d turned and were attacking him. The only positive on this was that the helicopter wasn’t shooting at Jeff because he was embroiled with the three of them.

Only, it wasn’t really three of them.

I’d seen Android Gladys fight. The real Gladys either had none of the moves her android had, or else she was so damn good that she looked like she was attacking Jeff while actually hitting Kozlow and Ronaldo. I voted for the latter.

The good thing was that Jeff seemed to be doing well in this fight so far, and the others didn’t appear to have caught on that Gladys was hitting them instead of Jeff yet. The bad thing was that my gun was useless—there was no way I could be sure I wouldn’t shoot Jeff.

The helicopter wasn’t close enough that I thought my shots would have a good enough effect and I didn’t have an unlimited number of clips with me. Better to conserve the bullets for when they wouldn’t be wasted for sure. For once remembered to set the safety, shoved the gun into the back of my pants, and contemplated my options while I did a rolling leap to get away from another burst of bullets.

Christopher was running out of Poof Traps to throw, which was bad because whoever was in the chopper had figured that out and was shooting both to hit and keep Christopher back from where the traps had landed.

“Mahin,” I shouted, “if you can’t use your powers to toss them, use your powers to bring them back.”

Didn’t stop to wait to see if she could manage it. Decided instead to gather some up and toss them from another angle. They were fairly easy to spot, because of how they caught the sunlight. They weren’t easy to get to, though, because of bullets and the wind being created by the helicopter blades. The only saving grace was that I was in jeans instead of a ripped dress. Otherwise, this was causing me some nostalgia for the end of Operation Drug Addict.

The chopper’s pilot had noted we were pretty much out of our impromptu ammo, and he started lowering toward us again. This created a hell of a lot of wind and therefore even more dirt and dust were flying up.

“Get down!” Mahin shouted. She wasn’t up to Jeff’s bellowing ability, but she wasn’t bad. She was also creating a dust devil, thanks to the assist the chopper was providing.

This version of dirt tornado sparkled here and there—Mahin had figured out how to move the Poof Traps, and they were swirling up and around within the tornado.