Camp Alien

by Gini Koch

  “How do I know you won’t just try to incarcerate me?” Drax finally asked.

  Damn, Drax actually could think. Bummer. Looked to Kevin again. He nodded. “Because I give you my word that we won’t. Both you and Stephanie can come here without worry. The first time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that I’m used to people being sneaky bastards, Gustav, and that if you and Stephanie think that you’re going to fool us and come in here and create mayhem, you’re both sadly mistaken. We won’t arrest either one of you or fill you full of lead, but if either one of you so much as twitches in a manner deemed threatening, all bets are off, and your heads will be, too.”

  Waited again.

  “Ah,” Drax said finally, “I don’t really understand you.”

  “So few ever do, Gustav. So few ever do.” Though, frankly, a human would have caught most of this. Not only was Drax an alien, I truly didn’t think he’d been on Earth all that long. “So, this generous offer of you returning our people and planes without issue or harm then you getting a chance to share the wonder that is Drax Industrial with us isn’t going to stay on the table for long. You literally have until I hang up.”

  “What happens if I say no?”

  Looked to Buchanan and held up the DUH paper with a questioning look. He nodded emphatically. Good. We had Drax for certain.

  “You and Stephanie die.”

  CHAPTER 6

  WHILE WE WAITED for Drax’s reaction to this, Culver waved at me. She had a pad and pen, too, and she had one word written on the paper she was holding up. Nodded—she was right, I’d forgotten a key point.

  “Ah . . .” Drax said finally. “That seems rather . . . extreme.”

  “Does it? This from the guy who irradiated commandos and had them attack the President of the United States in order to make an introduction. Just out of curiosity, dude, what’s your version of sedate?”

  “Madam First Lady, clearly we got off on the wrong foot.”

  “Yeah, we did. Speaking of which, was Stephanie trying to put crossbow arrows into a variety of our friends—such as Don McMillan, Gideon Cleary, and Lillian Culver—on your order, using her own wacked-out initiative, or by suggestion of Thomas Kendrick from Titan Security?”

  The room went very still, though there were a lot of heads swiveling back and forth between Culver and me. She rolled her eyes and winked at me. Yeah, no matter how much I might want to pretend this woman was still the Joker, if she was, she’d joined up with the rest of the Suicide Squad and was working with Batman to destroy a much bigger threat.

  Of course, by mentioning Titan I was giving Drax an out. What he’d do with it was going to be the most interesting part of this entire conversation.

  While we waited Drax out, Buchanan stepped out of the room. Wondered what was going on. Didn’t have long to wait. He came back, looking seriously pissed. Wrote on my pad of paper and it wasn’t good news. Drax had some kind of GPS scrambling going on. Our agents had indeed gone to where we’d identified Drax as being only to find an empty warehouse. It had been searched by P.T.C.U. and Field agents and they’d all found exactly nothing.

  Wrote back. Buchanan scribbled that, yes, he’d had them search for invisible things, too, using the goggles we’d gotten off of the No Longer Invisible Commandos. Nada.

  Didn’t let this throw off my groove. This just meant that Drax actually did have some tech we might want to use.

  Wruck, who was still standing behind me, leaned over and read what Buchanan had written. He nodded to me, then pulled Buchanan out of the room.

  Drax cleared his throat. “I see that your people hit a warehouse.”

  Didn’t let this throw off my groove either. “We did. What of it?”

  “I wasn’t there. But that means you’re tracing this call.”

  “Does it?”

  “Ah . . . yes?”

  “Because, so far as I know, you just confirmed that you felt that ‘my’ people hit a warehouse you’re monitoring.”

  “Yes?”

  “Which is, let’s face it, rather suspicious, isn’t it, Gustav?”

  “I don’t understand you.”

  “I’ve mentioned that I’m used to that already. I’ll talk slower. You were monitoring a warehouse, which is suspicious, since that begs the question of why you were so monitoring. So, I’m going to ask that beggar. Why?”

  He cleared his throat. “Ah . . .”

  “Could it be because you expected ‘my’ people to go there to find your own sweet self?”

  “Could be,” he said slowly. “I have enemies.”

  “Yeah, color me just shocked that a man of your total finesse isn’t popular with everyone.” Decided not to mention that us not finding Drax at the first location was just going to make those searching for him even more eager to find him quickly as well as ensuring that they’d be far more pissed off. Why spoil Buchanan’s fun? “So, what’s your offer?”

  “Offer? Ah, do you mean my offer to exchange prisoners?”

  “No, that’s still not going to fly.”

  “But you haven’t found me.”

  “We’re willing to be Avis.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “We’re always willing to try harder. Seriously, Gustav, you’re not a human. Stop pretending that you are, it’s getting tiresome.” Time to utilize the intel I’d gotten from Wruck. “So, my guess, and this is just a guess, mind you, is that you’re a Vata from Vatusus. A planet near the galactic core,” I added for the rest of the room.

  Heard what sounded like a crashing sound. “Hang on!” Drax shouted, from what sounded far away. Waited a few seconds while I enjoyed the shocked looks on almost everyone’s faces, then he was back. “Sorry about that.”

  “Shock and surprise will make you drop your phone, won’t it?”

  “Ah . . . what planet were you talking about?”

  “Your home one. The one where the natives are able to mentally connect with technological things. As in, you think you’re using your mad skills to track us. Only, I have to give you a major duh on this one, dude. We’re in the White House. What a total shocker. And, regardless of your capabilities or not, you’re not learning anything at all about us that you didn’t already know. You’re not the smartest Vata on the hill, are you?”

  Wruck and Buchanan were back. They both looked rather pleased. Hoped this meant that our resident Ancient was able to reverse engineer a Vata’s mental signature.

  “I’m a technological genius!” Drax said finally, sounding insulted and freaked out. I had that effect on people.

  Buchanan wrote on my notepad.

  “Sure you are. Look, Gustav, I’m going to give you one last chance. What, exactly, would you and Stephanie like to do in order to get out of the situation you’ve dug yourselves into? Your next words will, literally, decide your fate.”

  Something about my tone, the situation, or the realization that I somehow knew about a planet almost no one on Earth had ever heard of before must have gotten through to him. He heaved a sigh. “I don’t have your people.”

  Buchanan looked ready to go into action. Put my hand up. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that, yes, I had them. Only they’re gone. As is my helicarrier.”

  “The invisible helicarrier, right?”

  “Yes, that’s the one.”

  Looked up at Buchanan who shook his head. Looked to Chuckie, who shook his head as well. So, Camilla hadn’t checked in and, if she’d engineered the Great Helicarrier Escape, she should have advised us by now.

  “So, who took all your prisoners and your fancy-shmancy S.H.I.E.L.D. tech?”

  He sighed again. “The person you named a little earlier—Thomas Kendrick.”

  CHAPTER 7

  I COULD TELL THAT everyone in the room wanted to be freaking out.
But since I was on a call they were all listening to, the humans managed to act like the A-Cs and keep quiet. Didn’t expect this to last.

  Decided to do everyone a favor. “Gustav, hang on, I’m going to put you on speakerphone. You’re now live to the room.” Well, to the part of the room that might not have been listening in already. Antoinette would now get to hear everything, lucky her. “So, let me ask you this—are you sure?”

  “Yes, sadly, I am. Thomas was here, I went to check on something he’d ordered. When I came back, he was gone, as were all the prisoners and the helicarrier.”

  “Where’s Stephanie?” Wondered if she was trading up or not.

  “With me.”

  Interesting. “Did she see anything?”

  “Ah, no. She wasn’t . . . here when it happened.”

  “You mean this happened when Stephanie and I were on TV last week, don’t you?” In other words, at the end of Operation Epidemic, when we were revealing Cliff to be the Mastermind to the world news organizations.

  “Yes,” he admitted.

  “Dude, why did you wait so long to contact us?”

  “Ah . . . you were busy?” He sounded like he knew this was as lame said aloud as he feared.

  “And just how did you think you were going to bluff us into giving you the Invisible Commandos back when you don’t, in fact, have anyone we actually want?”

  He sighed. “I was hoping to have them back by the time you agreed to do whatever deal you were going to agree to do.”

  Buchanan was talking quietly to Jeff and Chuckie, since they no longer had to listen to my conversation via Chuckie’s phone. Wasn’t so fully focused on my Standard Opening Gambit Call that I couldn’t pick up words here and there. Buchanan felt that, with what Wruck had given him, they actually had Drax and Stephanie surrounded and he wanted the go order.

  “Yeah, that’s not exactly working out for you. Guys, before you do whatever it is you want to do, I think we need to ask Lillian if this is in character for Kendrick.”

  “It’s not,” she said firmly. “He’s not your friend, but he’s not an idiot, either. No one could come to the U.S. government right now offering invisible tech and not immediately be assumed to be responsible for the terrorist attack on Rail Force One.”

  “And no one’s come forward,” Fritz Hochberg said. He was the current Secretary of Defense, though he, like so many others, felt that he’d failed at his job completely over the past couple of weeks. “We have had absolutely no chatter about anyone having Drax Industrial tech, an invisible helicarrier in particular.”

  “Nor have we received any offers of hostage exchange,” Horn added. “None of the Agencies have heard any word about our captured people.”

  “Oh, so it’s the old enemy of my enemy is my enemy thing again.”

  “Isn’t that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, Madam First Lady?” Drax asked, sounding confused again.

  “Depends on what you’re used to, Gustav. Look, I’m being hella nice here. What, exactly, now that most of your cards are on the table, do you actually want?”

  “I wanted to become the main armaments dealer to the United States and her allies,” he said, sounding frustrated. “I have tech that you all can use.”

  “You mean you brought tech from another world that works here and are trying to pass it off. Gotcha.”

  “No, this is my tech.”

  “Dude, I don’t even have to see your face to be able to tell that you’re lying. Again, this is me exercising more patience than any other person in the room. One last chance—what is it that you want, what you really, really want?” Now I wanted to hear the Spice Girls. Well, that wasn’t going to be happening during White House briefings, so I’d have to belay any musical enjoyment for a while.

  Drax was silent again while I heard Jeff agree that, should Drax not give me the answer I was looking for, whatever it was, Buchanan could give the go order.

  “To work with you to get my tech and your people back.”

  “Gosh, was that so hard? I guess male Vata are as big on protecting their dignity as male humans and A-Cs.”

  “I’m not . . . oh, fine, yes. I’m from another planet. Does that change anything?”

  “It makes me a lot more interested in meeting you.” And clearly it changed things for Jeff, Chuckie, and Buchanan, since Jeff nodded and Buchanan trotted out of the room, Wruck going with him.

  “That’s a good thing?”

  “Oh, yes. Gustav?”

  “Yes?”

  “What you do next will determine the next many things that will happen to you. I’d strongly recommend that you think long and hard about your reactions.”

  “My reactions to—” He stopped speaking. There was a lot of noise in the background. Was pretty sure I heard a woman making a fuss in the background.

  Looked over to Jeff. “I wasn’t done.”

  He shrugged. “I’d like to have that meeting, baby. Face-to-face.”

  The sounds of struggle and capture were still going on. “I want to actually verify where Thomas Kendrick is, and if he’s still a human or not.”

  Chuckie nodded. “Ahead of you.” He grinned. “My first act as the Director.”

  Tito and some of our scientists at the Dulce Science Center had created the Organic Validation Sensor, or OVS, which looked like the wands security folks used at airports to do the closer body checks, only with a lot more blinking lights. We had a lot of these now, and most Field teams carried small ones with them because androids had been an unwilling part of our lives for far too long now.

  “If you do it without a warrant, that will cause some issues,” Culver shared.

  Chuckie shook his head. “It’s non-invasive, and, frankly, he won’t know it’s happening.”

  “Using the old ‘manipulate the gasses’ ploy?” I asked Jeff quietly.

  “Yep. Sometimes it’s effective. And yes, I realize it leaves us open. Right now, I’ll worry about impeachment later.”

  “Stop acting like that’s a good option,” Chuckie said.

  Jeff shrugged. “That will depend on who I choose as Vice President, won’t it?”

  “Kitty,” Wruck said via Drax’s phone, “we have Drax and Stephanie in custody. Would you like them brought to the White House or somewhere more secure?”

  “Oh, I’d say we’re pretty secure here, so let’s bring them in. I’m assuming everyone’s checked them for bombs and such?”

  “Yes, they’ve been thoroughly searched.”

  “Excellent. Why did you go on the raid?”

  He chuckled. “Because I know how to deal with Vata. And Benjamin knows how to deal with Stephanie.”

  “Oh, it’s a party. Great, hopefully he’s coming back with you.”

  “Yes, we’ll be to you shortly.” He hung up.

  Chuckie’s phone beeped and he grunted. “Interesting. Lillian, I believe we’re going to need your help.”

  “Thomas objected to being violated?” she asked, sarcasm knob heading toward eleven.

  “No, actually, as we said, he had no idea he was scanned. He’s eighty-nine percent organic, meaning he’s a human. However, that means we need to have him come here willingly. I’d like to ask you to ask him to join us.”

  “Now?” She had her phone out.

  “Yes, since Drax is on the way here.”

  “Which I’m sure you don’t want me to mention.”

  “Exactly. If he’s willing to come, though, please tell him that we have a security team standing by to escort him. For his safety, of course.”

  “Of course.” She stood up and stepped away. Chose not to get up and try to hear what she was saying. Culver had more than proved she was on our side. Kendrick, on the other hand, had not.

  However, I still had my Megalomaniac Girl cape on. “What do you think the odds are tha
t the person who stole Drax’s helicarrier wasn’t actually Kendrick but an android version of him working for the New Crazy Eights?”

  “You’re sticking with that moniker?” Chuckie asked.

  “Yeah, there are—with the five remaining Original Crazy Eights, the LaRue and Reid clones, and Cliff—eight of them. At least, I hope it’s only eight.”

  “Better than the Unmagnificent Seven Plus Their Leader, so I’ll live with it. And yes, to answer your question, I think there’s a strong likelihood.”

  “I think it’s a fifty-fifty shot,” Culver said, coming back into the room. “I know for a fact that Thomas is interested in integrating Drax Industrial’s tech into Titan Security.”

  “Integrating normally means a corporate merger, buyout, or contracts,” Reader said. “Not blatant theft.”

  Culver nodded. “Thomas is bold, but if what Drax described really happened, I’d have a hard time understanding his motivation. If it was to rescue captured people and return them to the U.S. and American Centaurion governments—and thereby become a hero and garner favorite vendor status—he should have done the rescue and return days ago.”

  “Stealing a helicarrier, five Navy supersonic jets, five Navy pilots, and a host of U.S. and Centaurion security personnel at the same time doesn’t say subtle, either. That’s a baroque supervillain move. I realize the dude was in the military, but heads of major corporations rarely decide to go all Rambo and handle these kinds of things alone.”

  Chuckie nodded. “Hence why we want him to come visit the White House. Lillian?”

  “He’s amenable. And sounded rather thrilled. He asked me if I’d negotiated a new contract for Titan with all of you. I gave him a vague reply, but that seemed a good mindset for him to have.”

  “That doesn’t sound like someone who’s just taken off with my team,” Tim said. “That sounds like a normal person reaction.”

  “We’ll find out soon enough,” Jeff said. “They should all be back here soon.”