Alien Diplomacy

by Gini Koch

  White chuckled as we reached the basement. Jeff calibrated the gate, which was good. Now that I was enhanced I could actually see the gate. Of course, I couldn’t calibrate it. I contemplated the necessity of learning and had to admit it was high. All airport gates recalibrated to the Dome, which was the main gate hub located on the Ancients’ original crash site. But I had no idea if the Embassy gate did the same thing. And knowing where I was tossing myself to would probably be a good addition to my assortment of skills.

  Jeff ushered everyone through as White took Jamie from me. “I’ll hold onto our Jamie Katherine, since I assume you’ll be going through in your usual manner.”

  “You know it,” I replied cheerfully, while Jamie snuggled into White’s chest. The gates tended to make me nauseous at best. My preferred way to use them was to have Jeff holding me with my face buried in his neck. “Wise man keeps baby safe from mother’s potential vomit.”

  “Yes, I do know how much you enjoy these trips. Don’t dawdle,” he reminded us. With that, he walked through.

  Jeff grinned as he recalibrated the gate for two full-sized travelers. “I’d love to dawdle, but I think you’re too worried to enjoy it.”

  “Probably. But we can make up for it later.”

  “Good plan.” Jeff swept me up into his arms, I shoved my face into his neck, he walked us through. Three seconds or so of total awful and we stepped out on what I called the Bat Cave level of the Dulce Science Center.

  There were A-Cs bustling about doing all sorts of serious, keeping the world safe from the nasty things trying to destroy it stuff. I still didn’t know what half the equipment did or what the majority of the many screens of all shapes and sizes showed. But I was happy to be standing here, at the heart of Centaurion Division, where the work everyone did mattered.

  Jeff put me down. “Feeling okay, baby?”

  I sort of grunted. Not so much, really. The gates remained the bane of my existence.

  “Where to, Missus Martini?” White asked. I could tell everyone else was thinking the same question.

  “Hang on, still trying not to barf.” Thankfully, breakfast had been hours ago. I was cool with the fact it looked like we were going to miss lunch.

  I got my stomach under control and realized I had no idea where, in the vastness that was the Science Center, Lorraine and Claudia actually were. Or if they were even in the Science Center.

  Jeff got his phone out. “Huh. No missed calls.” Everyone else checked their phones, too. The lack of someone trying to reach them was shared.

  “Look, call it my feminine intuition. Call one of the flyboys or check with Gladys. Meanwhile, we can head either to medical or to their living quarters.”

  “They could be in a meeting,” Serene said. “I left everyone in one when I came over for Tito’s exam.”

  “Kitty, is this just an exercise in your needing to make us all race around for nothing?” Christopher snapped. “Because right now all I see is business as usual going on. No emergencies.”

  “Let’s discuss this on the way to the elevator banks.” I strode off, wondering if I’d misinterpreted ACE’s comments. Right now, Christopher seemed right, and if that was the case, I was going to have a whole bunch of really annoyed people on my hands.

  Jeff caught up to me. “Baby, are you sure you’re just not being jumpy for no reason?” he asked me quietly.

  The elevators opened before I could reply, to show Jerry standing there, phone in hand, looking worried. He gaped at us. As he did so, everyone’s phones started ringing. “You’re here,” Jerry managed, as he hung up his phone.

  “We are indeed. What’s going on?”

  “I’ve been trying to call you. Why aren’t you answering your phone?”

  “It’s in my purse. I think.”

  Jerry gaped at me. “And you don’t have your purse with you?”

  “Um, no. Actually, no, I don’t.”

  Jerry stared at me. “Who are you, and what have you done with Kitty?”

  “Just put it down to my still adapting with little grace and absolutely no skill to my fabulous new position. Are Lorraine and Claudia okay?”

  Jerry blinked. “Yes, I mean, they should be.” He looked around. “How did you all know to come over now?”

  “A big penguin told me. Look, what’s going on?”

  Jerry grinned. “The miracle of birth. Times two.”

  CHAPTER 26

  “I KNEW IT!” IT WAS NICE TO BE RIGHT, especially because Christopher had the grace to look chagrined.

  “Well, I don’t know how,” Jerry said. “It just started. We were leaving a meeting, and both Lorraine and Claudia started to feel labor pains.” He backed into the elevator, and we followed him. “We do want to hurry.”

  “Yes,” Melanie said, “our babies come fast.”

  “Like you wouldn’t believe,” Jerry said under his breath. No one else but me seemed to hear him, possibly because they were all on their respective phones. I felt really out of the loop. However, from what I gathered by shamelessly eavesdropping, everyone was having the same conversation, which was essentially “hurry it up.”

  The elevator doors opened on the medical floor, and Melanie and Emily disappeared, using the serious Mama Bear Hyperspeed. Tito hung up his phone and ran after them. The rest of us looked at Jerry. “When they say fast, they mean fast,” he said with feeling.

  Christopher grabbed Jerry, Jeff grabbed me, and we all took off after the others. We were there in seconds, which was good, because even by the time we got there, things were hopping.

  The girls were in one large room that had two beds and a couple of typical hospital curtains to provide the privacy the girls clearly weren’t experiencing—there were a lot of men in there with them. I certainly knew what that felt like—awkward.

  “Out!” Tito thundered, right on cue. “Only the fathers.”

  I took Jamie out of White’s arms, grabbed Serene, and walked in. “And us, Tito. Trust me.”

  He gave me a long look, then nodded. “Fine. Shut the doors will you?”

  Serene did as he asked while I stood between the two beds. “You two are really carrying the ‘best friends do everything together’ thing a little far.”

  Both girls managed the labor equivalent of a chuckle, which was a gasping semi-yelp. Joe and Randy looked ready to pass out, particularly when they looked at me. Lorraine and Claudia’s fathers were there, too. They were functioning as gophers for Tito, Melanie, and Emily. So it was cozy, until their dads looked at me, worried. I was fairly sure why ACE had given me the huge hint earlier.

  “The babies are coming a little faster than normal,” Tito shared, sounding very calm. “So I need everyone doing what we ask immediately.”

  “I’ve called for extra help,” Emily shared, not managing to sound as calm as Tito.

  “Both babies are breach right now,” Melanie added. This remark caused every man in the room other than Tito to go pale.

  A number of younger Dazzlers prepped for nursing duty arrived. To a one, they looked grim. Not good. We didn’t need every hybrid birth to be a stress test for all involved.

  I motioned to Serene and she came over. “Why do you want me in here, Kitty? To see how it’s done?” she asked with total innocence. So far as I could tell, Serene didn’t do or even recognize sarcasm or irony.

  “No. I think we’re going to need to, ah, assist.” I looked at Jamie. “You know, the best thing for babies when they’re being born is to be head down.”

  “Yow!” Lorraine shouted.

  “Good,” Tito said. “Head’s down.”

  “Ow!” Claudia yelped.

  Tito trotted over to her. “Right, that’s what we want.” He looked at me. “Keep on doing whatever it is you’re doing, Kitty. Seriously.”

  Serene looked at me and Jamie. “Oh.” She nodded and took Jamie’s hand in hers. “What are you going to name them?” she asked.

  “We don’t know if they’re boys or girls,” Randy shared.
“So, per A-C traditions, we’ll name them when they come out.”

  “And you’re telling me that in nine months you haven’t discussed this, say, once?”

  Joe shot a look at Melanie. “No, ma’am.” Randy nodded his agreement. The girls were too busy shouting in pain and doing whatever their mothers, Tito, and the rest of the medical personnel were telling them to do to join in.

  “Dudes, seriously, I can tell when you’re lying.”

  Serene looked at me. “I think we need to name them now,” she said with some urgency. “Or know what their mothers call them.”

  “We’ve talked about boy and girl names,” Randy allowed.

  “Dudes, cough them up.”

  Before they could, two more people entered the room at hyperspeed. “Are we too late?” Naomi gasped out.

  “No,” Abigail said in reply. “Just in time.”

  Naomi grabbed Claudia’s hand, Abigail grabbed Lorraine’s, and they both grabbed Serene. “Keep in contact,” Serene said to me, quite calmly.

  “Oh, good. Wonder Quintuplets to the rescue again.” I wasn’t too fazed by this, since the Gower girls and I had done something similar during Operation Confusion, but the expressions on Lorraine and Claudia’s fathers’ faces were rather priceless.

  I could feel the adults sending messages, but they weren’t going to me—they were going to Jamie. Who, as near as I could tell, was filtering them to the babies still in the womb in a way they’d comprehend. However, I could also tell Serene was right. The “Hey, you!” approach wasn’t working.

  “Dudes, names. Like now. Um, they’re both boys.” At least, so far as I could tell. I was seeing them inside their mothers’ stomachs, thanks to the Weird-O-Vision we were sharing in this mental hookup.

  “Ross Edward,” Joe said quickly. “For both of our dads.”

  “Sean Zachary,” Randy supplied. “Same reasons.”

  I wouldn’t have had to ask which names were from the human side, even if I hadn’t known. The A-Cs rarely went for single-syllable names.

  Both fathers in the room looked pleased, and they didn’t seem upset that they’d landed the middle name slots. Then they looked at their daughters and went right back to looking extremely worried.

  Serene nodded and looked at Jamie. “Let’s help Ross and Sean get here safely, okay? And make sure their mommies are safe, too.”

  “Faster is not better,” Naomi added gently. “Too slow isn’t good either.”

  “We want just right,” Abigail shared.

  I curbed a Goldilocks and the Three Bears comment, figuring it wouldn’t be met with any form of appreciation from anyone in the room.

  “What is ‘just right’?” I asked, since I didn’t know, and I wasn’t sure that Jamie knew, either.

  “They know now,” Serene said. “Don’t worry.”

  “Push, Claudia,” Tito said strongly. “Yours is coming first.”

  “I am,” Claudia said, sounding kind of hurt and a lot annoyed.

  “Well, push harder,” Tito said.

  I could hear more information filtering through. Absolutely none of it seemed like real words, other than the baby’s names. They weren’t images, either. It was a lot of feelings and what I assumed were baby animal senses stuff.

  But whatever was really going on, it worked.

  “We have Sean,” Tito called. He gave the baby to Emily, and spent a few minutes doing something to Claudia. I chose not to look. I hadn’t wanted to know when it was me; I really didn’t want to know when it was someone else.

  Sean was already cleaned and in Claudia’s arms by the time Tito was done, since Emily had worked at hyperspeed. The moment he was finished, Tito ran over to Lorraine. “You’re up, Ross. Push, Lorraine.”

  “I am. Hard.”

  “Push harder than that.”

  She glared at him but did as requested, and, sure enough, within a matter of moments we had a second baby. Ross was handed off to Melanie while Tito did the same whatever to Lorraine.

  We got out of our latest Wonder Quintuplets formation and relaxed. Jamie seemed quite pleased, and I got the impression she was talking to the two new arrivals. But if so, I couldn’t access it anymore.

  In short order, we had two happy families relaxing and making calls to the other sets of grandparents. Tito made a call and sent agent teams off to get Joe’s and Randy’s parents.

  Since we were already there, we took the opportunity to see the babies first, made the standard comments, and congratulated the parents. As with Jamie, I didn’t really see either parent in the babies yet. But I assumed I would. I didn’t really care. My two best A-C girlfriends had their healthy baby boys, and they were both okay, with their human husbands both proud and relieved. As far as I was concerned, whatever else happened, this was worth the risks.

  Yes, ACE said in my head.

  Ross and Sean will be worth the risks. Just as Jamie is. And Kitty was.

  I was a risk?

  Childbirth is always a risk. ACE cannot assist for all, but in some cases, ACE must.

  Cases like these?

  Yes. Kitty did well.

  Only because of you, ACE.

  ACE can only do because of Kitty. And for that, ACE might love Kitty most of all.

  CHAPTER 27

  I FELT ACE HUG MY MIND, which always made me feel warm and loved. Then he broke the connection. I heaved a sigh and got ready to leave so others could come in.

  “Kitty,” Lorraine said, “thanks.”

  “Yeah,” Claudia chimed in. “You’re always there when we need you.”

  “You’re both always there for me.” I went to both of them and kissed their foreheads. “That’s what friends are for, remember?”

  Serene, Jamie, and I left. We were replaced by the rest of Airborne and all of Alpha. Jeff, Christopher, and White stayed outside with us.

  “You want to tell us what was really going on?” Jeff asked as Naomi and Abigail joined us.

  “Hard to say.”

  Naomi snorted. “Jeff, Chuck’s given you reports on what we can do, I know he has.”

  Jeff had the grace to look embarrassed. “I haven’t read them yet.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Because they’re from Chuckie?”

  He sighed. “Actually, no. Because I’ve been too busy reading everything related to our current mission.”

  “You need to, ah, test the boys,” Abigail said. “I’m not sure what they’ve got, but they’ll need the same protection you two did for Jamie.”

  Jeff and Christopher exchanged a look. “Does everyone know?” Christopher snapped at me.

  “No, just those we’ve told or who have figured it out. I think you two can come out of the special powers closet by now.”

  White sighed. “Son, it’s a good thing. And let’s do as Abigail suggests. Right now.” He might be retired, but White still held his authority from when he’d been Pontifex.

  The three men went in as Serene, Reader, and Tim came out. “Paul’s in there doing Pontifex stuff,” Reader shared as he took his goddaughter and gave her a cuddle. He shook his head. “I don’t know whether to be relieved or upset about the timing.”

  “Why either one?”

  “As Captains, both Lorraine and Claudia were insisting on going to the President’s Ball tomorrow night. Now, there’s no way. I want their husbands staying with them, too, and their parents. Which in one sense is great, because now I don’t have to worry about them getting hurt or going into labor at a bad time.”

  “But,” Tim said with a sigh, “that reduces Airborne to Matt, Chip, Jerry, and me.”

  “And cuts down our available A-C agents, too.”

  Reader nodded. “However, I’d rather have them safely here than quite unsafely there.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Just alters the complexity of who we’re stationing where.”

  “Do we even know enough to station anyone anywhere?”

  Tim shrugged. “Sort of. We know we need people inside at the ball, and we hav
e that more than covered. But we need teams on standby, and we don’t know where, what they’ll really need to be prepared for, nothing.”

  I considered this. “Guys, we routinely kill superbeings. Why are you all so freaked out?”

  Reader sighed. “Girlfriend, it’s not the same situation. We’re exposed here, in a way none of us have any experience with. One wrong move, and Centaurion Division is shown to everyone to be not of this world. A different wrong move means someone—maybe one, maybe many—dies.”

  “We’re hiding in plain sight even more than we used to,” Serene added. “It’s making it harder and harder for Imageering to do what we’re supposed to in terms of cover-ups.”

  “You mean I’m making it harder.”

  Reader made the exasperation sound. “No. Stop trying to shoulder all the blame. This is new for everyone. The former Diplomatic Corps was in place for twenty years, and they were all conversant in what their jobs entailed. We’ve all had new jobs for about three months.”

  “Speaking of which,” Tim said, “I see Jerry wasn’t lying. You don’t have your purse with you, and we all know you don’t have your phone.”

  “Geez, sorry. It happens.”

  “Every time it does, I need to reach you urgently,” Tim said flatly. “Let’s work on you keeping at least your phone with you at all times going forward.”

  “Sorry, I’ll go find my phone right now.”

  “No need,” Tim said with a grin, as he reached into his pocket and handed me a new cell. “It’s programmed with all your settings.”

  “How?” It looked just like my old one, only it was pristine, with no scratches or anything. I knew it wouldn’t look like this for long—none of my phones ever did. With the current situation, I gave it no more than a day before it was at least blemished, if not destroyed.

  “The wonders of modern A-C technology,” Reader said. “Now that you’re equipped with the basics again, try to remember that we still have less than no idea of what’s going on, and we need to get a handle on it, and quickly.”

  Jeff, Christopher, and White joined us while I was getting my phone responsibility lecture. Jeff took Jamie from Reader and snuggled her. “Everything’s taken care of.”