by Gini Koch
“No. You killed them, and your wife, a long time ago, because you were doing the whole tampering with things man is not wont to and all that jazz. These aren’t really your children and never were. You wouldn’t have done all the things you did with them, to them, made them do what you have, if you believed they were human.”
“How can you say that?” he asked me. “I care for them. They’re mine.”
“Yeah? Why didn’t you clone your wife, then?”
“She…her…Madeline forbade it.”
“Right, the same Madeline who, along with Yates, suggested cloning the kiddies didn’t somehow also suggest cloning her brilliant sister? Pull the other one.”
“We didn’t have the right DNA for Cybele.”
“I’ll bet. So, using whatever excuses passed muster, you didn’t clone your wife, who I definitely believe you loved very much. Speaking of those you love very much, where’s your parrot, Bellie? The one you named after your wife?”
Marling stared at me. “Safe at home in her cage.”
“Exactly. She’s a living thing you love. So you have her safely out of it. You haven’t made a clone of the bird.”
“Water’s rising and spreading,” Jeff murmured. “And he feels like he’s just come out of the Washington Wife class.”
I knew what that meant. “How do we destroy these supersoldiers?”
Marling laughed, and it was the laugh of a crazy man with nothing left to lose. “You don’t.” He looked right at me. “Trust me. Compared to what else is out there, these are your friends.” Then he yanked on the wires as the water reached his feet.
CHAPTER 87
I GRABBED CHUCKIE AND BOLTED, Jeff and Christopher right there along with me. They grabbed Reader and Tim as we ran by them. The A-Cs down here had already grabbed whatever stray human was near them and headed for the stairs.
The lights went out, which wasn’t too surprising. “I dropped the remote,” Chuckie shouted as we got into the stairwell, right before he started gagging.
“We need that!”
No sooner were the words out of my mouth than I felt something move past us. It felt fluffy. It was Fluffy, back in a flash on Chuckie’s shoulder with the remote in its mouth.
“Good Poof!”
Fluffy purred at me, then went into Chuckie’s pocket, remote still in its mouth.
The ground was shaking. I looked behind us. Sure enough, the supersoldiers were marching after us. “Um, Fluffy must have activated something.” They stepped right on the remains of Bryce and Leslie, smashing the rest of them as flat as their heads. I was too revved up to have this affect my stomach, but I had a feeling I’d be having vomit-inducing nightmares soon enough.
The supersoldiers caught up to us and stopped walking. “Great,” Jeff said. “What the hell are we going to do with them?”
“They seem benign unless activated,” Chuckie said.
“Not if we crack their crispy shells and let the chewy goodness inside out.”
“We can’t leave them here,” Christopher pointed out.
“Not a problem,” Tim said. He was speaking softly to someone. I looked. He was talking to Harlie and Poofikins.
“There you two are!” They purred at me, then disappeared. “What’s going on?”
“Once you disappeared after giving Amy the big hint about what was going on, we all regrouped,” Reader answered. “Senator McMillan had us start evacuation procedures. Doreen was communing with someone.”
“Someone?”
“Not ACE, per Paul. But whoever the hell she was talking to told us to get the nukes, she was directing the Poofs including telling them to help the rest of us, and so on.” He shook his head. “She’s almost as bossy as you are, girlfriend.”
“Hilarious. So, Tim, what’s coming?”
“We’re going to airlift these things out of here.”
“How? We’re underground.”
“Why don’t you let Alpha and Airborne handle this?” Reader asked pointedly.
“Because none of you are fast enough to escape the electrified water.”
A whole lot of A-Cs arrived, carrying equipment. “Ambassadors,” Chuckie said carefully, “I believe it would be best if you rejoined the other guests.”
“Et tu, Brute?”
He grinned. “Seriously. Get out of here.”
“You’re not coming?” Jeff asked.
Chuckie patted his pocket. “I’m the only one who knows how to work the remote. Besides, the international playboy running away when things are bad isn’t going to surprise anyone who notices.”
“Yeah, Bruce Wayne always uses that excuse, too.”
Reader kissed my cheek. “Get upstairs. We’ll handle this. Carefully.”
“You’ll find Madeline Cartwright’s remains somewhere around here. She was the one in charge.”
“Not Marling?” Tim asked.
“No, not from what I learned.” Not from what I’d seen, either.
“Okay, we’ll get her, too.” Reader turned away from us and looked at the wreckage. “Can we get some lights?” Lights came on. “Great. Okay, Reynolds, let’s see if you can make these things help with cleanup.”
Jeff took my hand, and he, Christopher, and I headed upstairs, at human normal. I assumed the guys had burned out their hyperjuice. I’d certainly burned out mine. I could feel the exhaustion trying to shove in. “This feels weird.”
“Walking upstairs like humans, being really tired, or us leaving the rest of the work to James and Tim?” Jeff asked.
“All of the above.”
“Yeah,” Christopher said. “But…it was interesting.”
“What was?”
“Watching how Senator McMillan got things under control.”
“He was a war hero, so it’s not like he’s not used to giving orders.”
“Yeah. And he sits on Capitol Hill now.”
“He said it was because he didn’t know for sure that someone else would do a better job. That sometimes you have to do the job you don’t want to, because you’re the only one who can, or the only one you can trust to do it right, to the best of your ability.”
“We’d never have been able to stop this if we weren’t actually invited to the event,” Jeff said. “We had access only because we’re diplomats.”
“True enough. The former Diplomatic Corps was helping not only the Cabal of Evil but the League of Really Whacked Out Evil Super-Geniuses, too.” I filled them in on what I’d gotten from Cartwright and Marling. “So, the only reason we could stop this is because we’re doing their jobs now.”
Jeff put his arm around my shoulders. “Yeah, baby. And we probably wouldn’t have been able to save the day if you weren’t taking the Washington Wife class, either.”
“I suppose not.”
“Why were the androids even in that class?” Christopher asked.
“I’m not sure. I think in part to spy on the spouses of those in the Cabal of Evil, in case they learned too much. Some to keep an eye on what we were up to. Some, I’d guess, so they could be more human.”
“Didn’t work,” Christopher said.
“No, it did. Marling may be winning the award for World’s Most Maddest of Scientists, but he did really good work. It took fighting with them for me to realize they weren’t fully human.” Which begged its own set of creepy questions.
“How many others like them are out there?” Jeff asked, voicing Creepy Question Numero Uno, as we finally reached the level the ball had been on.
I stepped forward and grabbed the door handle. “No idea. It’s a problem for another day. At least I hope,” I said as I opened the door. To find myself face-to-face with Peter the Dingo Dog and his happy cousin, Surly Vic.
Shocking no one, they had guns out and trained on us. Time to see if Chuckie was right and I actually had profiling skills. “Your employers are dead.”
Peter shrugged. “We were paid to do a job. Turn around and go back downstairs.”
“No.”
He stared at me. “Then we’ll shoot you here.”
“Yeah? There are a ton of people on site paying attention. Everyone’s jumpy. Gunshots will absolutely demand attention, and you don’t have silencers on those guns, probably because you were originally supposed to create a ‘terrorist attack,’ and that’s better if it’s really noisy. So, I know why you want us to go downstairs. Not gonna happen. What’s going to happen is you’re going to put your guns away and leave.”
“Why would we do that?” Surly Vic asked.
“Because you two owe us, and it’s a blood debt.”
“I repaid that,” Peter said.
I snorted. “No, you didn’t. Passing me the clue was great, but that’s not repayment for my husband saving your life and the life of your cousin there.”
“You told him to.”
“Yes, but he did it. He didn’t have to. Any more than you have to actually kill us. This operation is in shambles, none of which is your fault. You’re the best there is. No one who matters will care that you didn’t complete your assignment after the people who’d paid you were dead. You’ll still have more work than you can probably handle.”
“There is such a thing as honor.”
“Yeah, there is. And if you kill us, any of us, then you’ve lost your honor. We saved your lives after you’d tried to kill us multiple times. If that doesn’t say ‘you owe us,’ then let me mention that us letting you go is more than fair.”
“We’re letting them go?” Christopher asked, sounding as shocked as the assassins in front of me looked.
“Yes. Because we have honor, too. They were doing a job. It’s not a job I approve of, but compared to everything else that’s going on, at least the goals are clean and clear. They’re paid to kill someone; they kill them, no freaky androids or supermonsters hiding in their closets. So,” I said to Peter, “you let us live and go away, and we don’t tell the authorities that we’ve seen you or that we’ve let you go.” Because I knew without asking that the authorities, who were Mom and Chuckie, would not be happy with this compromise.
“We could kill you and complete our work, and no one else would know,” Surly Vic said.
“You’d know. You’d owe a blood debt to us for the rest of your lives. And while you might take the three of us out, there are a lot more of us than there are of you. You’ll owe all of American Centaurion, and the ones left behind will find a way to make you pay, in blood, for the rest of your lives.”
Peter’s eyes narrowed. “How do we know you won’t attack us the moment we put our guns away?”
I looked right into his eyes. “Because I just gave you my word. You leave, you don’t kill anyone here, you don’t come back hunting us down, you get the hell out of Washington, and you leave Titan’s employment, and we let you go and tell no one that we’ve seen you or that you’ve made this bargain with us.”
He said something to Surly Vic in their native tongue. Surly Vic replied in kind. It was clear they were arguing. I cleared my throat, and they both looked at me, midargument. “Antony Marling and Madeline Cartwright are dead. Titan’s about to be taken down by the federal government. Think of me as your friend when I say this: You need to put distance between yourself and that company right now.”
Peter looked at me for a few seconds. Then he holstered his gun and barked something at Surly Vic, who holstered his as well. “As you say,” Peter said slowly. “This evens our debts. You have given me important information just as I gave you, and you have saved us and we have spared you.” His eyes flicked to Christopher.
“He’s my husband’s cousin. They feel the same way about each other as you and Vic do. And you tried to kill my baby and my friends.”
“Ah.” Peter nodded. “Then we will call it even in all ways.” He gave us a fleeting smile. “Until we have the misfortune to meet again, may you have pleasant days.” They spun on their heels, and took off at a trot I was fairly sure they could keep up for days.
“You know Jeff and I could have killed them before they could pull their triggers,” Christopher mentioned.
“Yeah, I figured you could.”
“So, why let them go?” Jeff asked.
I looked up at him. “Because, sometimes, it’s better to make a political compromise that leaves both sides feeling like they won.”
Jeff bent down and kissed me. “Spoken like a true diplomat.”
CHAPTER 88
WE MADE OUR WAY TO THE BALLROOM. Everyone was milling around and being ushered back inside by a lot of A-Cs. The Titan goons were nowhere to be seen.
“What happened to the Titan Force of Doom?” I spotted Doreen, Irving, and Tito and headed to them.
“Jeff, Paul, my dad, and I cleared them out,” Christopher said. “They were getting in the way of us actually being able to protect people and evacuate.”
“How about the Cabal of Evil?”
“No reason to hold them,” Jeff said. “But I’m sure Reynolds and your mother will find some incriminating evidence once they go through Titan’s files.”
Amy spotted us and ran over, Caroline, Adriana, Naomi, and Abigail with her. She hugged Christopher tightly, then looked at me. “Are you sure I’m human?”
“Yes,” Christopher and I said in unison.
She shook her head. “How would we know? I mean, my father was apparently best buds with that raging nutcase. What if…what if I’m not really me?”
I figured if that were the case Chuckie would have known, but maybe not. “You have emotions.”
“So did they,” Jeff said quietly. “That’s why I killed them. Not because they were androids, but because I could feel that they wanted to kill you.”
“Great,” Amy said with a sigh. “I’m not going to sleep well.”
Doreen took her hand and smiled. “You’re human. Trust me.” White, Gower, Michael, and most of the rest of our males filtered in and joined us, Len and Kyle among them. Adriana’s eyes lit up as the boys arrived.
I examined Doreen closely. “You’re communing with ACE, aren’t you?” She shook her head, a little smile on her face. I thought about it. “Oh. What’s your baby’s name?” Sure, the baby wasn’t born yet, but that hadn’t stopped any of the others from wanting their identities established before birth.
“Ezra Ira, after Irving’s grandfathers.” Doreen grinned. “I think we’ll be changing our religious views about knowing the sex of our babies.”
“Probably wise,” Gower said. “Richard, would you help me draft that?”
“Oh, you’ll be fine without my help, Paul,” White said as he gave me, Jeff, and Christopher hugs.
“We need to get home. Soon,” Doreen said meaningfully.
Tito put his hand on her stomach. “Yep.” He shook his head. “I’m not sure I approve, by the way. Not that I was consulted.”
“Approve?” Jeff asked.
“Consulted about what?” Christopher asked.
I thought about it. “ACE kept Ezra inside Doreen—so Ezra would be able to communicate with Jamie and Serene and his mother—didn’t he?”
“Something like that,” Doreen said. “I didn’t realize until things started to go down, of course.”
“Yeah, ACE works in all those mysterious ways. So, Ames, stop worrying.” Amy still didn’t look convinced. A thought occurred. “Where’s Mister Joel Oliver?”
“Right here,” he said, coming up. “Just finished getting all my shots. Great stuff.”
“Can you please take a picture of Amy here?”
“Certainly. Why?”
“Humor me. Doesn’t have to be great. Use a digital camera if you have one here.”
“Of course I do. Several. And film cameras, too, of course.”
“Good to know you’re ever the artist.”
Christopher laughed as Oliver took some snaps of all of us. He put out his hand and took the camera as soon as Oliver was done. He grinned. “Everyone’s exactly who and what we think they are. So, now you have proof from more th
an one source, so stop stressing.” He gave Oliver back his camera and pulled Amy back into his arms.
She sighed with relief, then looked around again. “Does something like this happen every time you guys go to a formal event?”
“You’ve seen my wedding video. Yeah, pretty much.”
Doreen and Naomi nodded emphatically. “We’re going to keep that designer in business,” Abigail said with a laugh.
“That settles it,” Amy said firmly. “Justice of the Peace.”
“Huh?” Christopher said.
“Screw the big wedding. My parents are gone, thank God in the case of my father, and I spent all night with people pretty much acting all scandalized because we’re living together and not married, like it’s nineteen-fifty or something. Let’s just do whatever your version of going to a judge and saying ‘I do’ is.”
Gower and White exchanged a very meaningful glance. “You’re sure?” White asked.
“Totally sure,” Amy said.
Christopher shrugged. “It’s up to her. I don’t care as long as it abides with our religion.”
“Conveniently,” White said, “we even have our favorite photographer present. Mister Joel Oliver, if you would?”
“What, now?” Christopher’s expression was priceless. Oliver clearly thought so, too, since he took a few quick snapshots.
“Yes,” White said, with a totally straight face. “Why wait any longer?”
Amy looked at Christopher’s face and laughed. “Let’s do it back at the Embassy. I think all of us could use a shower before the not-so-big event.”
“I’m all for a shower!”
Jeff laughed and hugged me. “Only my girl.” He nuzzled my ear. “Love your focus on the priorities.”
“No shower any time soon for Jeff,” Tito said, Doctor From Hell voice going.
“Why not?” I looked at Jeff’s chest. I could see a bruise over his hearts. “When did you get shot with adrenaline?”
“Right before we went downstairs to save you,” Christopher answered. “Jeff really overdid it. As usual.”
“So did you,” Tito said calmly. “I didn’t give you adrenaline. This time. But you’re headed for isolation, too, Christopher. So, let’s get back home.”
