Alien Collective

by Gini Koch

  So it was just like the Peregrines. Proof, as if I’d needed it, that this guy was a Yates Offspring of some kind. Wondered where all those Poofs and Peregrines I’d called in for help had gone. Hoped it was to save the day, versus being dead or captured or whatever everyone else was.

  “Nice. So, how long can you hold a blend?” He glared. Decent enough under the circumstances, though nowhere close to Christopher’s level. I shrugged. “If we’re going to die anyway, and you seem set on that course, why not share the wonder that is you for the few minutes you have left to be you?”

  Amazingly enough, this logic seemed to make him talkative. It was nice to see that my ability to mind-meld with the psychos, lunatics, and megalomaniacs remained a hundred percent consistent. “It . . . depends on how tired I am. The longest I’ve done is five minutes.”

  “Not a long time. How did you manage to infiltrate the tunnel system? It’s big and had a lot of cameras in it.”

  “I’m bleeding.”

  “Thanks for the update, Captain Obvious. You’re going to die shortly anyway, per you. Answer the question and maybe I’ll stop pointing my gun at you. Well, no, I won’t. But I might toss you something to tie your leg up with.”

  Prince increased his growling, to indicate that he was ready, willing, and able to go for the groin.

  “Fine. I blend near the cameras and when I’m past them, I stop. Like turning a light switch on and off.”

  “Wow. Impressive. I say again that I’m having just the teensy-weensiest problem believing that our enemies want to lose your special set of skills, especially over an empty building.”

  “My killing you would bring honor to my family,” he said.

  “Really? You have a wife and kids and all that?”

  He looked just slightly embarrassed. “No. Not yet.”

  “Not ever if, you know, we blow up or die from some horrible poison. Just saying. So, your mother and the man who raised you as his son, they’re all for you murdering people?”

  His eyes flashed with anger and hatred. “My parents are dead.”

  Interesting. No Yates Offspring we’d found so far had a living parental unit left. Wasn’t sure if this was merely coincidence or if they’d been killed off to prep Ronnie’s Kids to join the family business. But if I was a betting girl, which I was, my money was on the latter.

  “So, what family are you honoring? The one that just found you somewhere in the last year?”

  “How did you know that? That they made contact within the last year?”

  Couldn’t help it, I sighed. “Dude, seriously. Your fantastic relatives tried this with us last year. And the year before that, really. You weren’t in either group. Meaning they found you between the last action and now. As in, we captured or turned the ones they found last year, and you and whoever else they’ve recruited are this year’s models.”

  A flicker of concern flashed across his face. “What else do you know?”

  “That you’re going to bleed out soon. Beyond that, don’t know your name, don’t know your country of origin but assume it’s somewhere in the Middle East, assume your mother was a human because you don’t look drop dead gorgeous and if you had imageering ability you’d have used it already.”

  “Imageering?”

  “Wow. They didn’t tell you much at all, did they?”

  He shrugged and looked down.

  They hadn’t told Mahin anything, either, during Operation Infiltration; just enough for her to try to kill us, but not enough to know what was really going on. Which, based on that experience, meant they thought this guy might be open to changing sides, just like Mahin had. But that wasn’t a guarantee. If he’d only been recruited recently, they might not have spent the time.

  Went right back to the relevant conundrum—who would want a guy who could basically go chameleon to take a suicide mission?

  The answer was simple: no one. Meaning one of two things—either he wasn’t really on a suicide mission, or they didn’t know what he could actually do.

  Examined him again. He wasn’t looking at me, right after I’d made the comment about him not being told much. This was textbook “A-C trying to lie.” Only he wasn’t a full A-C. But that didn’t mean the human side was in charge—the hybrids I knew didn’t lie well either.

  Decided to go for it. “And you didn’t tell them much, either, did you? As in, they have no idea that you can blend. They just figured you’d use hyperspeed to sneak the poison bombs into my Embassy. So, why didn’t you share that with your new brothers in arms?”

  He looked up and looked surprised. “How did you know?”

  “I’m a good guesser. So, how long before your bombs go off?”

  Heard a step behind me. “Never.”

  CHAPTER 16

  “MALCOLM, WHAT KEPT YOU?”

  “He was busy making us listen to see what you could get out of this guy,” Jeff said, sounding annoyed, as he stepped up next to me.

  “Bombs are found and neutralized,” Buchanan said as he went near to Prince and the Helpful Servant. “Both the ones here and the ones at the Israeli embassy.” He shot me a glance over his shoulder. “Your father ‘had a bad feeling’ and made Mossad do a search.”

  “My dad rocks.” No wonder Mom thought he was the greatest. “Our prisoner here is wearing either an empathic blocker or overlay, by the way, but I don’t know where on his person he has it stashed.”

  “Oh, I’m happy to look for that,” Buchanan said, in a very calm tone that did nothing to hide the threat.

  The Helpful Servant might have been suicidal, but he wasn’t stupid. He reached into his pocket and handed something to Buchanan. “I thought it was a tracking device.”

  “Sure you did,” Buchanan replied in the same calm yet totally threatening tone. “Thanks. Of course, I’m going to search you now. Struggle, try to get away, do anything I don’t like, and not only will the dog bite you and Missus Chief get to shoot you some more, but I’ll cause you pain like you’ve never experienced before.”

  The Helpful Servant didn’t argue, or try to do anything, while Buchanan searched him with extreme prejudice. Waited for him to demand our prisoner strip so he could do a cavity search, but I guess Buchanan wanted to protect Prince’s delicate sensibilities, didn’t have surgical gloves with him, or was saving that for whenever the Helpful Servant got uppity again, because he finished up and our prisoner was still clothed.

  “Nothing other than the so-called tracker,” Buchanan declared. “Not that I actually believe he thought this was anything other than what it actually is”

  “He might have thought that was a tracker, or I might have given him the idea and he ran with it, but we’ll get to that later. First, I want to know—where did you all go? Where are Jamie and the other kids? And Malcolm, how did you get back?”

  Jeff sighed. “We were taken to the Israeli Embassy and Pontifex’s Residence, all children included. I might say all children especially. They and all the adults with them were at the Pontifex’s Residence before the rest of us. Those who are in jobs of a more, ah, protective nature went to the Israelis—probably because the Pontifex’s Residence is maxed out. Not that I’m complaining about this, mind you. And no one went on their own power.”

  “Oh! My Poofies and Peregrines rescued all of you?”

  “Seemed like it,” Jeff said. “It happened faster than we could really see, but there was a lot of fur and feathers.”

  “Your favorites came and got me,” Buchanan said. “They seemed urgently upset, so I didn’t argue about going.” He shot an amused look at Jeff. “Unlike some people.”

  “I didn’t want to leave my wife alone and unprotected. Just call me a caveman.”

  “Later, when we’re alone.” Buchanan laughed, Jeff grinned, and the Helpful Servant glared. Truly, not up to Christopher’s standards by any stretch. Speaking of whom. “So, is it just the two of you here?”

  “No,” Christopher said, as he joined us. “As the fastest, I got t
o do bomb return duty. Everything’s with the F.B.I.’s Bomb Squad.”

  “Vander took control of this?”

  “Yes, and he and Goodman are back in their offices. Your mother kept Reynolds with her, though, and she’s still with Jamie and the others.”

  “It was a little bit of a fight between him, Chuck, and Cliff,” Jeff admitted. “Angela felt it was better for the overall situation, though, if the F.B.I. took point.”

  “Take this back to Serene,” Buchanan said, handing the disc to Christopher. “She’ll want to try to get something from it before it blows up.”

  “Oh, yes sir,” Christopher snarled. But he took the disc and disappeared.

  “Blows up?” the Helpful Servant asked. He sounded surprised. And like he was ready to pass out.

  “Your new friends are just the best, aren’t they? I’ll bet you can’t wait to find out what else they didn’t tell you.”

  “Are we letting him bleed out?” Buchanan asked. It was clear he wasn’t going to care if I said yes.

  “Unsure. He can go chameleon, so he’s useful. But he’ll need the entire four-footed portion of the K-Nine squad watching him, because he’s sneaky and Prince will need a break.”

  “You can probably stop pointing your gun at him,” Christopher said as he reappeared. Hyperspeed, it was the best.

  “Nope, I like our new friend right where I can see him.”

  “I’m not up to blending,” he told me. “I don’t think I can stand up any more, either.” So saying he slumped down against the wall and onto the floor.

  “Medical’s on the way,” Christopher said, as there were more steps behind me and Tito appeared, medical bag in hand, escorted by the Barones. Presumably they’d used the normal A-C hyperspeed to get here. Christopher’s Flash Level was hard on even Jeff, let alone any A-C who wasn’t enhanced.

  Tito took in the scene, shaking his head. “We can’t leave you alone for a minute, can we, Kitty?”

  “This wasn’t my fault! I’m not the Mad Blending Bomber.”

  “Blending?” Christopher asked. “Seriously? I thought I’d heard wrong before. You two were making smoothies or something?”

  The Helpful Servant shot Christopher a dirty look. Maybe I could like this guy somewhere down the line. “No,” I said, as Tito got to work on his latest patient, with Buchanan and the Barones standing guard and looking very threatening. “Blending is what he calls turning chameleon.”

  “I have a name,” the Helpful Servant snarled.

  “Not that he’s shared it with me or anything. I’m calling him the Helpful Servant.”

  This earned me WTF looks from everyone in the room, other than Tito, who was busy.

  “Why?” Christopher asked finally.

  Said Helpful Servant managed a bitter chuckle. “Because she thought I was part of this embassy’s staff when we met and I was trying to help her walk her dog.”

  “Got it in one!”

  “Oh, fantastic,” Christopher said. “This guy speaks Kitty.”

  “Why are you here instead of James? James doesn’t complain about how I talk. Ever.”

  “That you know of. James is doing his job, which currently consists of verifying that our bases are secure and determining where we’re all going to sleep tonight. There are multiple diplomatic missions that need to be housed and protected. And before you ask, Tim’s still with Airborne verifying our embassy’s status, Serene is with Horn at the F.B.I. doing things with bombs, and Claudia and Lorraine are remaining to guard the kids and Paul.”

  “Ah, so that’s why James let you two do a flashback and cover Malcolm.” This earned me a nice shot of Patented Glare #2. Chose to ignore it. “So, do we think everyone’s still in danger? And by everyone I guess, based on all that’s gone on, I literally mean everyone.”

  “Can’t tell yet,” Buchanan said. “The gas didn’t release into this embassy, or the Israeli’s, so both could be fine for habitation. We just don’t know if there are more bio-weapons coming.” He nudged the Helpful Servant with his foot. “Save yourself a lot of pain, and tell us what you know.”

  “Well they’re not coming from me,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “He’s telling the truth,” Jeff said.

  “You’re sure?” Buchanan asked.

  “Positive. I can read him now that you got that crap out of here.”

  “And?” I asked, clearly speaking for everyone else in the room, the Helpful Servant included.

  “And he’s not our friend, but he’s not necessarily our enemy either.”

  “Oh, the enemy of my enemy is my friend? First time for everything. Usually our enemies gang up on us and become best friends forever.”

  Tito tossed the Helpful Servant’s wallet to Buchanan, who took a look. “Interesting. Don’t count on the ‘friend’ part, Missus Chief.” He examined Tito’s patient more closely. “Well, I see why they trusted you. Not Missus Chief here—I mean the people who gave you the bio-weapons to use on us. I want to know what else is going on, and I want to know now.”

  “Give him a second,” Tito said. “I’m working without anesthetic and, trust me, this hurts.”

  “So, while we’re being nice, who is our potentially friendly bomber, here?”

  Buchanan tossed the wallet to Jeff. I would have complained but I still had my Glock out and trained on the Helpful Servant’s head. Just because he appeared to be controlled and out of it didn’t mean he actually was.

  Jeff examined the wallet and grunted. “Yeah, interesting. According to his ID, he’s not from the Middle East—he’s from France. If this isn’t doctored, his name is Benjamin Siler.”

  I was amazed. Neither Jeff nor Christopher reacted. Then again, they hadn’t spent the same time with her as I had during Operation Assassination, and they certainly hadn’t had to play the Anagram Game while falling down a hella tall garbage shaft.

  But before I freaked out totally, had to be sure. “Siler? As in your mother was Cybele Siler, who married Antony Marling?”

  “No,” Helpful Servant Siler said. “Cybele was my aunt. My mother was her sister, Madeleine.”

  Wanted to shut up, but couldn’t. Something about the total shock of it all. “Oh, my God. Your parents were Ronald Yates and Madeleine Cartwright.”

  Both of whom we’d killed.

  CHAPTER 17

  MADELEINE CARTWRIGHT had been the brains behind a lot of the Legacy Bad Guy Plans. She’d also infiltrated herself right into the heart of the Pentagon, and had been part of what I’d called the Cabal of Evil. And she’d tried to kill me during Operation Assassination.

  Adriana had killed her first, but it had been a very close call.

  While she and I had discussed her niece and nephew, and what her brother-in-law had ultimately done with them, with her blessing, Cartwright had never indicated that she had children of her own.

  Of course, I hadn’t asked. I’d been too busy learning that Marling’s children were actually Leslie Manning and Bryce Taylor. Marling did great work—he’d taken his dead children’s DNA and turned them into androids so real that they gave off emotional signals Jeff could pick up. If we hadn’t had to break them down to their metal and wires in order to stop them from killing most of the politicians in Washington, D.C., we wouldn’t have believed they were anything more or less than human.

  I knew Cartwright been one of Yates’ lovers. But it had never occurred to me that she might have had a child by him. Possibly because she was older than my mother.

  Something didn’t compute, though. Because this guy didn’t look like he was in his forties. “You’re too young.” Hey, it was better than saying that Jeff, Christopher, and I had combined to kill this guy’s father and that Adriana and I had basically killed his mother. And it was also true.

  “I know.” Siler, as I supposed I should think of him now, said. “And before you confess to the fact that you killed my parents, I’m not here to avenge them. They did . . . something to me. I don’t age like other peop
le do.”

  “Tito, can you wave your wand and see if he’s an android?”

  Tito shot me a “really?” look, but he pulled out the Organic Validation Sensor, or OVS, that he carried with him. Tito and some of our people at the Dulce Science Center had created it as a way to non-intrusively determine if someone was a human or an android.

  I’d been told that, other than newborns, who show as a hundred percent organic, no one is fully organic. Fillings, body art, a pin in your leg, and so on, all create an inorganic signature. There was a tipping point, of course—barring an artificial limb, you wanted to be 85% organic or more to be considered a non-android.

  That we’d had to create such an item was a testament to both Marling’s skills and his range—during Operation Destruction we’d managed to find and activate hundreds of androids to fight for us. But Chuckie still felt there were hundreds, maybe thousands, more that we hadn’t found.

  The OVS looked like the wands the TSA people used at airports to do the less unpleasant body frisks, only with a lot more blinking lights. The lights on Tito’s OVS weren’t blinking in a bad manner.

  “He’s human,” Tito said. “But the OVS won’t show something done at a genetic or molecular level if it’s something organic, versus man-made.”

  “I don’t know that I’m more or less human, or alien, than any of you,” Siler said. He looked very pale and sounded weaker than he had yet.

  “Tito, if you’re done, move away from him,” Jeff said. “Just in case.”

  Tito did as requested and came over next to me. “He’s lost a lot of blood. We need to get him to an infirmary or hospital, sooner as opposed to later.”

  “Thanks for caring, Doc.” Siler managed a chuckle. “Not going to hurt the guy who just patched me up. Your man’s right, though,” he jerked his head at Buchanan. “I’m not here to be your friend.”

  “No, you came to kill us,” Christopher snarled.

  Siler shrugged. “Sort of.” He seemed relaxed; far more relaxed than the situation warranted, considering he had four men, a woman who’d already shot him, and a dog all ready to attack if he moved wrong.