Alien Nation

by Gini Koch

  “What is the best prize?” he asked quietly.

  “You get to spend quality time with your mother.”

  “Are you insane?” Christopher shouted. “He can’t move in!”

  “He can and he just might, if he manages to be the level of helpful I’m demanding. Russell, this is a one-time only deal and the offer will not remain on the table for long. You’ll get to live in the American Centaurion Embassy complex. You’ll be restricted to a bedroom-bathroom-living room kind of hotel setup with no windows, and I’d plan on having the living room wall that’s along the hallway be made out of really thick glass, so we can watch you from near and far. Your rooms will be reinforced with steel and whatever else they’re using these days to make them inescapable.” Why not? The Elves could pretty much do anything. “You won’t be able to leave that set of rooms, unless you’re under heavy guard, and even then it will only be to walk down the hall to say hi to your mother.”

  “Jeff, you cannot let her do this,” Christopher said urgently.

  Ignored him. “You will not be allowed any access to a phone or any electronics you might be able to manipulate. If we think you’re okay with a television, you’ll get that, but what you watch will be severely limited and monitored twenty-four-seven. You’ll be monitored twenty-four-seven as well.”

  “How will you manage this? The State Department will want me and the pressure Israel will put on you will make giving me to them worthwhile.”

  “Oh, as to that, you’ll be dead. At least as far as the world is concerned. Your mother has some excellent computer skills, in case you weren’t aware.”

  “What about the torture?” He asked it as if it was an expected addition, the way you’d ask the hotel desk clerk if there was an iron and ironing board in your room.

  “We don’t do that,” Jeff said.

  Kozlow snorted. “Right. I realize you haven’t been the top man for too long, but you can’t be that naïve.”

  “A-Cs don’t torture. Humans do. I’ll torture you beyond your most terrifying nightmares if any of the intel you give us is wrong, or leads us into a trap. And if you think you’ll just fool me, guess again. You’ll be going with us, with a gun in your back, and with an explosive in your head.”

  “Kitty, I’m not allowing this,” Christopher snarled. “Regardless of what you say.” Prince came on my personal airwaves, singing “Let’s Go Crazy.” Nice to get Algar’s approval.

  Turned away from Kozlow and got right up into Christopher’s face. “Cliff has Chuckie,” I snarled right back, only I ensured that I sounded far scarier than Christopher. “I saved you first. Consider that before you speak again. And if you’re ever insubordinate to me again in a situation like this I will rip your tongue out in front of everyone and then use it to wipe my ass. Is that clear?”

  Christopher’s jaw dropped. “Ah . . .”

  “Say you’re sorry, son,” White said calmly. “Right now. You know better than to speak to her that way.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Mean it.” I was still snarling.

  “I . . . mean it, Kitty. I apologize. Sincerely.” Christopher was looking at me like he’d never seen me before.

  Nodded, then turned back to Kozlow. Shot him a bright smile and ensured my eyes were opened just a little too wide. “So, Russell, what’s your pleasure? Door Number Three or a bullet through your brain right now?”

  “They don’t know how crazy you are,” he said, sounding frightened and also impressed. “Or that you’re really the one in charge. They have no idea. They think you’re lucky and stupid, but not crazy and running the show. If you’re serious about the offer, I’ll tell you everything. I know where all the strongholds are, all the different doomsday plans, and where Cliff is right now. Which is where I assume your friend is, too.”

  “Russell, this could be the start of a beautiful jailer and prisoner relationship. You’ll be rolling on G-Company, too, but they will also think you’re dead, so no harm there, right?”

  “Right . . . boss. No harm there.”

  “Good man. Christopher, take a lesson in how to speak to me. And, as of right now, Christopher, continue to stay silent because the sound of your voice is bothering me and if it bothers me any longer you’ll be a dead man. Boys, insert the explosive. Just in case,” I said nicely to Kozlow.

  “Yeah, I understand. Cliff didn’t take those out until you guys exposed him.”

  Interesting. Ensured my Crazy Killer Poker Face was fully in place. “Make it so,” I snapped at Siler and Buchanan. “Now.”

  They both nodded and manhandled Kozlow out of this area.

  “God,” Reader said quietly, “I love watching you work.”

  “It’s a gift and a skill.” Looked at Christopher. “Your timing was excellent and so were your reactions. Seriously, you were great. We need to remember that for when we need to do it again.”

  He gaped at me. “What . . . what are you talking about? You . . . you were acting insane. Are you okay? Did they dose you with something?”

  “I’m So Confused” by The Soul Rebels came on. “Oh.” Looked to White. “I thought he’d caught on. I know you did.”

  White chuckled. “I’m your partner for a reason. And I know that Malcolm and Benjamin were with you all the way.”

  “I never had a doubt.”

  “I caught on, too, you know,” Jeff said, sounding slightly jealous.

  “Me, too,” Jeremy said quickly.

  “Caught on to what?” Christopher asked, sounding like he was more than lost.

  Tim shook his head. “You were with her and part of the interrogation at the Pueblo Caliente airport.” Christopher continued to look blank and more than a little freaked out.

  Heaved a sigh. “Operation Drug Addict.” Christopher continued to look blank. “I was acting, Christopher. Just like a troubadour.” Wondered where Francine and the others were and hoped they were okay. If they were in the building they weren’t making themselves known.

  “That was an act?” Christopher now looked shocked.

  “Yeah. I thought you’d figured it out and were playing along.”

  “No, I had no idea. Why would you do that, act the way you did? Threaten me the way you did?”

  Heaved a sigh. “Because my audience respects crazy leaders with a plan and a willingness to kill their underlings if said underlings step out of line. He’d never have stuck around with Cliff otherwise once his exploding implant was removed, particularly since he shared that G-Company was respecting his skills. Which you heard. Hence why I thought you were playing along.”

  “No. I’m not an empath. I really think your idea is insane and shouldn’t be done.”

  “My ‘insane’ idea is to get the one person out of all the Crazy Eights who has any reason to want to help us to do so. I have both a big stick and an even bigger carrot. What we need from him is huge, he is the only one we have a prayer of getting this intel from, and it’s not something that we’re going to get via the normal methods, because if the dude was asking that nonchalantly about torture, he’s experienced it a lot and yet no one had a bead on Cliff until yesterday.”

  “But we have families living there. Kids.”

  “Your kid in particular, I know. However, he’ll be in the Zoo, spending his time trying to beat out Hacker International for his mother’s affections, in the most secure room the Operations Team can devise with help from a lot of humans who are sneakier than any A-C. And, since you weren’t clear and you don’t know, I wasn’t making this up—Cliff has Chuckie and I came to get you and the others first. I am willing to do a lot to find Cliff and stop him from hurting my best friend any more than he already has, and if that means Kozlow gets to live the rest of his days locked up in the Zoo like our private attraction, then I’m willing to do it.”

  “Unless you have a better idea for how we find
Charles that you can share within the next five minutes, son,” White said. “Then I know we’d all like to hear it.”

  Christopher shook his head. “I don’t. But, I do know that, whatever Cliff’s doing to Chuck, it won’t be pleasant.” He heaved a sigh. “And yeah, getting Chuck back is worth the compromise, Kitty. Though I may have to sleep with one eye open for the rest of my life.”

  “As if I won’t assign permanent Field teams to guard both Kozlow and the Embassy?” Reader asked. “More than there are already assigned, I mean.”

  “What James said, and dude, why are you such a drama llama all of a sudden? This kind of guard duty is what the Secret Service was made for.”

  Christopher might have gone on whining but Tim nudged me and pointed up. A small grate in the ceiling was opening. We all watched as Mossy dropped down from the ceiling to land on the desk in a catlike stance. Which was cute and kind of funny, though I knew better than to laugh.

  “Good of you to join us. And thanks for guarding everyone.”

  “What do you mean?” Christopher asked.

  “Mossy was watching over you guys. He was ready to shoot Nerida and Kozlow if he had to, but he was waiting, just in case. He also altered the feeds to any areas where our teams were, so that what they saw was boring nothing or a lot of dust, depending, meaning those two had no reason to kill any of you.”

  Mossy looked impressed. “I wasn’t sure if you’d figured it out or not. Well done. Your newest recruit is an . . . interesting addition.”

  “You can whine about it with Christopher when we have time. Until then, we need to get prepped to save Chuckie.”

  Buchanan came back. “The ‘implant’ is in. Thank God there were staplers here. Nice to see you,” he said to Mossy.

  “You stapled him?” Christopher asked.

  “No, Siler did. On the back of his head. Under his hair. He knows not to try to take it out because it’ll explode if he does.”

  Jeff got a faraway look. “Yeah, he believes it. He’s kind of . . .”

  “Gullible. Yeah. I picked that up. Hence my Crazy Kitty Routine. He wants what most people want—to feel needed and important. And he hasn’t for a very long time, I don’t think.”

  Jeff nodded. “Yeah. He’s kind of excited about joining your team.” He shook his head. “Only my girl.”

  “Only your girl gets the results we need,” Buchanan said. “We have a location for where Cliff is. I think we need to focus on him first and then worry about finding his other strongholds, though the doomsday plans are also something of a must.”

  “Well, that means we have to keep Kozlow alive or we lose that intel,” Christopher pointed out. “Please don’t tell me that’s going to be my job.”

  “No,” Buchanan answered for me, “that will go to me and Siler. I have coordinates for the gates,” he said to Reader.

  “So how are we going in?” Jeff asked. “Sneak attack?”

  My music switched to “Hero Of The Day” by Metallica. “No. I think we want to use our newest team member to the fullest and let him be a hero for a few minutes.”

  CHAPTER 83

  “I DIDN’T THINK IT WAS POSSIBLE for me to hate a plan of yours more than I hate your moving Kozlow into the Embassy if he comes through like you expect,” Christopher said as we stepped out of our floater gate outside of Cliff’s hidden base on Kharg Island, in the Persian Gulf off the coast of Iran. “But, hard as it is to believe, I hate this plan even more.”

  “Blah, blah, blah. Fatherhood apparently suits you, but boy, is it cramping your kick-butt style.”

  “I agree with Missus Martini, son. Why so tense?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. We’re just trusting someone who’s been our sworn enemy for years with not only Chuck’s life, but Jeff’s, James’, Tim’s, Buchanan’s, and Siler’s. Why am I the only one who sees all the ways this could go wrong?”

  “You’re not,” Mossy said. “You’re just the one complaining about it the most.”

  “Mossy is my favorite, I’m just sayin’.”

  If Kozlow could be trusted, we had all the intel we could need for what to expect in terms of raiding this stronghold, including the fact that while I’d killed the original model, there were several clones of Nerida hanging about. Hers had been made with more autonomy than Lowe’s, in part because her powers had been stronger than his.

  Once we’d gotten the relevant info from Kozlow, we’d sent Jeremy back to the palace to brief Camilla and the others on what was going on, gather a variety of the supplies I’d requested from Raheem, and stand by.

  Per Jeremy via Camilla, as far as our worldwide intelligence knew, we only had Chuckie, Rahmi, Adriana, Francine, Wruck, Len, and Kyle unaccounted for. We at least had a guess for where Chuckie and Rahmi were, but the others were officially M.I.A.

  We’d verified that everyone we’d rescued from the Burj Khalifa was safe and well, and had also gotten an influx of weapons and ammo from Dulce sent to those of us still hanging out at the top of the Burj Khalifa and not getting to enjoy the view.

  I’d even taken the time to fill my empty clips because I’d had it. Despite hyperspeed and everyone’s wishes to the contrary, the various rescues and all the stuff with Kozlow and Nerida had taken time, and the prep for our guerilla attacks had taken more. It was after midnight when we finally rolled Mission: Trojan Horse. Actively chose not to worry about what Cliff was doing to Chuckie, as well as avoiding worrying about the others listed as missing, but it took effort.

  Once my strike team was in position, the other half of the team would take a floater gate to where Cliff would expect them to exit. During our prep time Kozlow had fixed all our goggles—apparently his talent had been boosted by equipment in the Burj Khalifa’s broadcast level, and he’d been able to sort of short out minor kinds of equipment. Not cell phones, but our goggles had fallen under the level of what he could affect. And, happily, repairing them was within his ability, too.

  So, we were goggled up—though White and I still had our gas masks, and Christopher had Buchanan’s, clipped to our belts. Christopher had obtained dry pants and shoes because the Elves never failed to deliver, I had my purse, White had the rolling purse, and Mossy had sassy Turleen attitude. We were good.

  We were also far fewer than anyone would have liked. However, in order to both impress Cliff and ensure that Jeff wasn’t going into the Lair of the White Jerk alone, the rest of the guys kind of had to be with him.

  Had stopped my music while we were planning, but my earpiece was still in my ear and it was time to go back listening to the Algar Channel.

  Christopher looked like he wanted to give me grief over this, but wisely kept his mouth shut. Looked at my playlists, because presuming Algar was going to help was not my wisest choice. Of course, sometimes he was more helpful than others—found an “Island Retreat” playlist that I certainly hadn’t created. Hit play because I was good at comprehending obvious hints.

  Was rewarded with Frontline Assembly’s “Search and Destroy.” Which was nice, since our first part of the plan was to search the island to ensure that we weren’t all in the biggest trap known to mankind.

  Infrared was a blessing here, because this island had been ruined by bombing during one of the many wars in this region and it wasn’t loaded with safe places to walk, let alone run. In the day it would be bad enough—in the black of night it sucked. A lot.

  We took off at a slow hyperspeed trot, Christopher leading with White bringing up the rear, and me with Mossy, flying low and slow next to me, in the middle.

  We did the outer perimeter first. And we found something within thirty seconds—a dead body. As Christopher turned it over, realized it wasn’t just any dead body—it was Nerida. Or, I had to figure, her clone.

  “What killed her?” I asked quietly.

  “I can’t see anything,” Christopher said. “She looks unharm
ed.”

  “You shot the original,” White said. “And Lowe’s clones did what he did and said what he said.”

  “So, what, you think that it’s really just like Multiple Man? If the original is killed, all the clones die? Russell said hers were more autonomous than Lowe’s.”

  “That doesn’t mean the basic structure and connection is different,” Mossy said. “Let’s mark where the body is and move on.”

  Move on we did, and we completed the outer perimeter of the island. No traps that we found, but we did find something else—a body every quarter mile or so. All the bodies were Nerida, all appeared to have nothing wrong with them, and all appeared dead and not in stasis.

  As we checked the last body, my music changed to Pat Benatar’s “My Clone Sleeps Alone.” Reminded myself of two things—the first song had said to search and destroy. And we hadn’t lived by the rule of the double-tap.

  We were now all equipped with suppressors for our guns. Pulled mine and put a bullet through this clone’s head. The body jerked as I did this, as if it was trying to do a sit-up.

  “Why did you choose to make noise when we’re sneaking around?” Christopher asked, seeing as suppressors didn’t work in real life the way they did in movies.

  “The body shouldn’t have done that,” Mossy said, before I could reply. “A body dead that long shouldn’t have moved in that way. That was a death throe.”

  We all looked at each other and the others pulled out their pistols. We’d found, with this one, thirty-nine bodies. “Okay, Kitty, let me rephrase. Great plan, let’s go make more noise. My dad and I will go to the farthest point from here, split up, and start shooting. You two split from here and do the same. We know we can stop when we run into each other.”

  We all nodded, Christopher grabbed White and they took off. I went to the right and Mossy went to the left.

  Had plenty of bullets in this clip as I ran at hyperspeed, shot a possibly dead body in the head, watched it do that death jerk, ran off again, shot again, and so on. Simple math said that I shouldn’t have to do more than ten bodies before I ran into White or Christopher.