by Gini Koch
“You’ve chosen to go my way and have everyone listen to tunes while fighting?” Took the iPod off repeat. “It’s Not Over” by Daughtry came on. And now I was certain Algar was controlling my iPod, because that song wasn’t on this particular playlist.
“No, they’re sending white noise type of signals,” Reader replied. “It’s a way to prevent them from being mind controlled.”
“How’d you come up with that?”
“Your mother,” Jerry replied with a grin. The other flyboys also seemed to find this funny.
“Seriously?”
Hughes grinned even wider than Jerry. “Yeah. Your mother’s been teaching all of Alpha and Airborne how to block mind control, hypnotic suggestion, or brainwashing.”
“Oh. Great.” She hadn’t taught me, but perhaps that was because she felt I was already able to resist all of those things. Or else she didn’t feel the need to share her special techniques with her only daughter.
Walker laughed. “Don’t look so hurt, Kitty. Your mother said she hasn’t bothered to teach you because you can’t concentrate on anything for too long anyway.”
“Wow, I feel the love.”
“Medical arriving now,” Reader shared. Sure enough a variety of Dazzlers came through with gurneys and med kits. Knew for a fact they were from NASA Base, mostly because they all nodded to or hugged Serene as they trotted past to get to the wide variety of injured, banged up, headachey Field agents.
Some Field agents dressed normally, but wearing the headphones, arrived and fanned out. “We’ll ensure all personnel transfer to Caliente Base, sir,” one said to Jeff.
“Agents reporting personnel in housing,” Reader said. “Limited resistance. Jeff, I want Alpha, Airborne, and Embassy teams in Security with me now. That includes you, Doctor Hernandez.”
Tito shrugged. “They can use me here.”
“We’re going to need you more elsewhere,” Reader said, voice tight. “Seriously, get in here. Now.”
“Where is Security Main anyway?”
Everyone stared at me. “You mean you don’t know?” Tim asked finally.
“Dudes, seriously, it’s me. This place is like the biggest rat maze ever. And before you point out that I lived here, let me point out so what? Mazes aren’t my thing.”
“Trust me,” Jeff said. “If you blindfolded her and put her anywhere in the Science Center, she’d have no idea where she was. If, on the other hand, you blindfolded her and put her in a room with a bunch of her CDs, she could tell you which was which, what band, what year, and do a comparative analysis.”
“What’s your point? And, more to the point, where’s Security actually at?”
Jeff shook his head with a sigh. “It’s the other half of this level.”
CHAPTER 40
LET THAT SIT ON THE AIR A BIT. “Is it?” I asked finally. “And has it always been?”
“Yes,” Gower said. “There are maps on every floor, you know. Security is clearly marked.”
“Maps. Really?”
“Really,” White said, obviously trying not to laugh. “The information was in the briefing books you got when you first joined us, as well.”
“Was it?” Maybe it was. I’d finally clawed my way through those gut-busters after Operation Destruction, but since I wasn’t living at the Science Center any more, I’d skimmed the chapters on it, which had meant I could skim a good third of the reading matter. I hated being near isolation, so I rarely ventured here. Even when Jeff was in isolation, I tended to stay away—my stress levels always rose and he was powerful enough that he could feel me, even isolated, when I was that close.
“And you thought she read those?” Jeff asked.
“I did. Just not, you know, every single word.”
“I’d bet on every third word,” Christopher said. “But James is waiting for us. We should go give Kitty a tour.”
“I know where it is,” Chuckie said as Christopher headed off through the Isolation Chamber Maze and the rest of us followed him. “And I never lived here.”
“You slept over. I think.”
“I did. But not as often as you slept over.”
“Blah, blah, blah. This from the guy who had to basically lead me around our high school all freshman year?”
“Good point. Mazes aren’t your skill. Neither are floor plans.”
“I’m ignoring you. Anyway, I’d have thought Security would house higher up. What with the need to broadcast to all facilities and whatnot.” I was blithely ignoring that, yet again, I hadn’t paid attention. It hadn’t mattered until right now, anyway.
“We have our ways,” Gower said, sarcasm knob only at about a six on the scale.
“I see that. And, from what I’m seeing, they are dark and creepy ways.” Christopher was heading toward the far end of the isolation area. I’d never ventured this far—this level creeped me out too much, so I never wanted to be in it any longer than I had to.
This part of the level wasn’t well lit. In fact, it was downright dim bordering on Scary Street Corner in a Really Bad Neighborhood Dark. The far wall had an opening that you could easily miss because everything was so dark. Naturally, that was right where we were headed. The creepiest point in the creepiest level. Because it would disrupt the cosmos if we were heading to a bright, cheerful place for any reason at any time.
“Get into single file,” Christopher tossed over his shoulder. I was the only one not already moving into formation. Jeff took my shoulder and gently put me behind Chuckie, with Jeff behind me. Chuckie was behind White.
“Why?”
“Security isn’t as easily accessible as the rest of the facility,” White said as Chuckie and Jeff both heaved the Exasperation Sigh. “It’s based on full body scanning, so that someone can’t pretend to be someone else to get in.”
“Like take their hand or their eyeballs and fool the system?”
“I wouldn’t have put it quite so graphically, but that’s part of your charm, Missus Martini. And yes.”
“I can see the wisdom.”
“Can you?” Jeff asked. “I’m not sure.”
“Hilarious. And here I was, all worried that you’d been hurt.” We walked through the darker opening in the dark wall. Shockingly, the corridor was also dark. A-Cs had better vision, which I’d supposedly gotten along with regeneration, but I could barely make out anything. “Who designed this place? Wes Craven or Stephen King?”
“It’s set up this way to discourage people from coming by to chat or hang out,” Jeff shared. He kept his hand on my shoulder, which I appreciated.
“Yeah, well I can bet that works extremely well.” The corridor wasn’t all that long and then we reached another opening. It looked like there was nothing else, just blackness in front of us. “Another way to repel visitors?”
“Yeah. And it’s the entrance. It’s a special kind of gate. You walk through it, the system confirms you’re not carrying bombs, and that you’re someone authorized to enter Security Main. And before you ask, baby, yes, you are. You’ve been authorized since you joined up.”
“I’m honored. Sorta. And, is it black on both sides? As in, we can’t look in, and they can’t look out to see enemies are at the door or not?”
“Correct.”
“Wow. Are you guys trusting. And weird. But I’m already on record for the weird part. And probably the too trusting part, too.”
Chuckie walked through. It wasn’t a slow fade like with a regular gate. He was just sort of swallowed up by the blackness.
Jeff and I were the last in line. “You can’t carry me through this?”
“No. One at a time. It won’t make you sick. I promise.”
Heaved a sigh. “Fine. I’ll be a big girl.” The song on my iPod changed to “Out Go The Lights” by Aerosmith. Really wondered how much of a galaxy class jerk Algar actually was. He was enjoying his audio jokes, I knew that for certain.
Jeff kissed my cheek. “That’s my girl,” he murmured in my ear.
&
nbsp; Reminded myself that this wasn’t a good time to stop and suggest we do the deed right here. The corridor was dark enough that we could, but it wasn’t the right time and this entire level was never going to be the right place.
Stepped into the black. Jeff was right, it didn’t make me sick. Felt a very slight, almost pleasant tingling all over, and then I was through. “Wow. And I thought the Bat Cave level was impressive.”
The room I stepped into was well lit, and loaded with a ton of monitors, switches, microphones, and other impressive-looking apparatus I couldn’t name all over the place. This looked like a much bigger version of Walter’s Mini Command Center in the Embassy, which made sense. We had over twenty people in here and it seemed remarkably uncrowded.
As with Walter’s set-up, living quarters were attached. These rooms looked just like the rest of the Science Center’s housing—a combo of really nice hotel with some Industrial Boredom touches here and there.
There were four rooms like this. One was larger than the other three, and it didn’t take genius deductive reasoning to figure that Gladys had the biggest quarters and her three right-hand folks had the others. Which explained how Gladys appeared to be awake 24/7—the others took shifts, too, and alerted her for any issues. She probably didn’t get a lot of sleep, but more than I’d thought.
“Why aren’t there video screens in here? I mean, I get it; we don’t film our own people. But someone has to keep an eye on what’s going on outside, don’t they?”
“Yes, but that’s normally taken care of at Imageering and Field Central Command, or filtered through from the top level,” Jeff said, as he joined the rest of us. “If the Heads of Field or Imageering, and now Airborne, are unavailable, U.S. military at Home Base makes most of the ‘fire or don’t fire’ decisions.”
“What about some focus on the stairwells? We use those all the time, at least during ops like this one. And we were on a floor with maintenance and medical, meaning I’d believe there has to be some Security there.”
“We use people, we don’t use cameras,” White said. “We do at the Embassy, but not really anywhere else.”
“Why not?” Adriana asked. “It seems useful and remarkably trusting, as Kitty said.”
“Until the last few years, we weren’t focused on internal threats but external ones. Frankly, until Missus Martini joined up, none of our bases had ever been infiltrated.”
“Wow, glad I brought the magic with me. I do want to point out that NASA Base was infiltrated by Club Fifty-One.”
“Oh, I’m sure that wasn’t the first time, either. But we didn’t know of any prior to your most timely arrival. However, we have a whole section of our population who can merely touch an image and know everything about the person in the image.”
“Yes, I know. Christopher and Serene as examples of the strongest.”
“Yes. And we have a larger population that doesn’t want to feel that they’re being watched, more than watched, every moment, especially by their leaders. Our empaths use blocks to keep other’s emotions away from them unless it’s necessary for them to be open to all the emotions, but knowing they’re there tends to keep others’ emotions in check.”
“Having and using aren’t the same thing.”
“Human and A-C nature would suggest that someone would use that access inappropriately. I’m sure Christopher would have when he was young, just because those are the kinds of things the young do.”
“Thanks for that, Dad,” Christopher said.
White chuckled. “When you were younger, son. Now I know you’re the picture of restraint. And yes, Missus Martini, along with your husband and everyone else, I realize camera feeds could keep us safer. However, we’re focused outward and will remain that way under normal circumstances. Something about free will and all that.”
“Huh.” Knew when White was trying to tell me to drop it. Perhaps Algar functioned as the security camera feeds as part of his Operations job. Perhaps not. Hard to guess. Memory nudged. “Gladys has expanded talents, doesn’t she? She’s a memory reader-empath combo, right?”
“Yes,” White said.
“And she’s been the Head of Security since you all got here?”
“Yes,” Gower confirmed.
“That’s why she doesn’t need the screens. She’s reading everyone’s emotions and memories if necessary.”
“Yes,” Jeff said. “So, no screens. Again, we haven’t needed them before now. And yes, before you can say it, whine about it, or badger us about it, we’ll rectify this lack and make the appropriate changes once we’re not in the middle of a major crisis. To get us back on the actual issue of the hour, James and I searched this area already. There weren’t any signs of struggle.”
“Not good,” Chuckie said.
“It gets worse,” Reader said. He was sitting in what I figured was the Command Chair, and had a set of headphones on. They were clearly the new “look” for the good guys. “On the positive side, all our people in the Science Center are back under their own mental control. We have a lot of concussions to deal with, however.”
“Do we have medical to handle that?” I asked.
“Normally,” Tito replied. “But it’s all housed here, and everything in the Science Center we didn’t bring in should be considered suspect, adrenaline and other regenerative fluids in particular.”
“We’re on that already,” Reader said. “We’re transferring all injured to Caliente Base as needed. All equipment and supplies are being searched. So far, no contaminants. But they did far worse. All computer data is confirmed wiped, at Home Base and here.”
“How are you communicating then?”
Reader shot me the cover boy grin over his shoulder. “Backup systems. Ours and some from the military, courtesy of your friend Colonel Franklin. We’re considering this a terrorist attack on both American Centaurion and the U.S.A., so we have more options than we might have.” The grin faded. “However, we have more bad news.” He turned back to the command center stuff. “Personnel in the Center have been checked and verified. Happily, most are accounted for.”
“Who are we missing?” Jeff asked.
Reader was quiet for a few long seconds. He cleared his throat. “Emily Balducci, Jennifer Barone, Jeremy Barone, Melanie Colangelo, Brian Dwyer, Abigail Gower, Gladys Gower, Michael Gower, Naomi Gower-Reynolds, and Walter Ward.”
CHAPTER 41
GOWER, CHUCKIE, SERENE, LORRAINE, and Claudia all looked stricken. Couldn’t blame them and could definitely relate. Joe and Randy went to their wives and hugged them. Chuckie put one arm around Serene and the other around Gower.
“Why do they want Brian?” Serene asked piteously. “He’s not really part of us.”
“He’s your husband and our friend and he does work with us. And they took him during Operation Confusion, too. So it’s the same for Brian as with the others. We all care about them.”
“I care about my dad, too,” Lorraine said, her voice breaking. “Is he okay?” Joe hugged her tighter and kissed her head.
“Both Edward Colangelo and Zachary Balducci are on premises and fine,” Reader said. Claudia sagged into Randy. “And, before anyone asks, everyone’s been checked and verified as human, A-C, or hybrid. The only android was the one impersonating Gladys.”
“Why?”
Everyone looked at me. “Why ask why?” Jerry said. “They want to hurt us.”
“No, I mean why only one android? Once they had Gladys switched they could have brought in a thousand androids. Why only the one?”
“The one was all they needed,” Chuckie said.
“Why only take those specific ten people? All of you who were here when this started are valuable as hostages, valuable to the rest of us, and loaded with at least as much information as Gladys, and more than most of the others. Turn Alpha and Airborne into androids, control all of Centaurion Division.”
“We held out against the mind control,” Hughes suggested.
“No way in the world
I buy that Naomi and Abigail fell under Ronaldo’s control. Powers burned out or not, I don’t buy it. And we know Walter held out, at least long enough to warn me.”
Reader spun around so fast I thought he’d fly off the chair. “What do you mean?”
“Embassy Team activated because Walter called me, on a non-assigned phone, I might add, to warn me that everyone here was in danger. He was cut off mid-sentence, but he gave me enough for us to roll.”
My phone rang before I could say any more. Dug it out of my purse and pulled out one of my earbuds. “William, are you okay?”
“Yes, Ambassador. Embassy is still secure as are all personnel who were here when you left, children and animals included. Are you able to safely get to a video monitor of some kind?”
“Lemme check. James, can we go to the Bat Cave? William says we need to see things that Security doesn’t allow us to see.”
“You go, I’ll stay here,” Reader said.
“No,” William replied urgently. “Commander Reader needs to go, too.”
“Gotcha. All of us. Now. Fast as we can.”
“Yes, Ambassador. Please hurry. Will send feed to Imageering Central Command at Dulce.”
“Run out, form A-C and human teams as you exit,” Jeff said, Commander Voice on full. “Don’t worry about holding onto ‘your’ human, just make sure none are without an A-C. Move out.”
Kevin came over to me. He had his phone out. “I’ve brought your mother up to speed. We have other issues going on in D.C., too, but she agrees this is top priority.”
“Good. Your family is safe.”
He gave me a relieved smile. “Thanks. Wish everyone else’s was, too.”
“Go,” Jeff said strongly to both of us.
We ran through, Jeff right behind us. He grabbed both of us and kept on running. We reached the third level quickly and headed to Field and Imageering Central Command.
