Alien Research

by Gini Koch

  Buchanan squinted. “I think she’s drawing more of the drug into her.” He pointed, and sure enough, there was a glittering trail coming down from above and feeding into Naomi’s glowing aura.

  “I am,” Naomi said. Buchanan hadn’t been speaking loudly, so either her hearing was also heightened, or she was inside all our minds still, or both. Bet on both, because that was just how our luck ran. “The drug is increasing my powers.”

  “These aren’t your powers,” Chuckie said. “These are powers created by a drug that’s killing you.”

  “You wouldn’t let me take this before. If you’d really loved me, you would have. What I can do—I could have saved Michael, saved Gladys, saved everyone.”

  “Mimi, that’s the addict in you talking.” Maybe telling her the truth would help. At the rate things were going, probably couldn’t hurt.

  “I’m not an addict. I’m a god.”

  Oh goody. “You’re not a god. You’re high. Remember how my mom said she hoped you’d prove her wrong? You promised you would, Mimi. You promised.”

  She didn’t argue.

  Pressed this line of thought, in the hopes that it would work. “The Mastermind took your powers, Mimi. Father took them. Find out who he is. Search Reid and LaRue’s minds. Find the Mastermind, make all this worth it.”

  “We have ways of preventing that,” Reid said.

  “Oh, shut up,” Naomi said. And again, I had some hope.

  And then LaRue spoke up. “You know, if you did it right, you could bring your brother back. Alive, well, just like he was before he was murdered.”

  Naomi looked at LaRue. “What do you mean?” she asked. Hopefully.

  And I knew then that we’d lost Naomi forever.

  CHAPTER 89

  BUT I HAD TO TRY. Because maybe I was wrong. “Mimi, they’re lying. The only way to bring Michael back would be to clone him, like they already threatened to do. That’s not Michael.”

  “It’s really us,” Reid said. “And you know it.” He grinned at me, his evil, snake-like grin. “You’re just as scared of me now as you were when I almost did to you what you deserved in the desert.”

  “My God, that’s Leventhal Reid?” Jeff asked. “How?”

  “Cloning. It’s the next inevitable Bad Guy Plan phase. The chick’s LaRue, too, by the way. ’Cause we’re just that kind of lucky.”

  “Kitty already said their names, Jeff,” Chuckie said, voice tight. “Cloning was obvious, based on presumptions from earlier, what we’ve already seen, and what everyone said. Get with the program. Mimi,” he said in a louder voice, “you know they’re lying and even if they can bring Michael back, he wouldn’t want that.”

  “How can you say that?” she asked, as she spun toward us. “You don’t have the right to tell me what my brother would want. You can’t understand what it’s like to lose your brother.”

  “Oh, not the ‘only children don’t understand our special sibling bond’ crap. Trust me, only children form tight bonds. Why the hell do you think Chuckie and I are so close? Why Amy and I are? We understand, trust me. What we’re all saying, Mimi, is that we also knew your brother, and there’s no way in the world Michael would want you to bring him back from the dead like LaRue’s suggesting.”

  My dream came back to me. Michael wanted to move on, but he wasn’t sure that he’d be allowed to go. Because if we held him, brought him back in some way, then what would happen to his soul? These were the kinds of questions I could ask of ACE and the questions I didn’t want to ask of Algar.

  “I want my brother back!” Naomi was back to looking and sounding completely crazy.

  “Stop it,” Gower said, voice filled with authority, anger, and fear. “Naomi, stop this right now. This is not how we act, not what we do. We don’t become the evil our enemies are.”

  “Kind of wish you’d grabbed Christopher,” I said quietly to Buchanan. “Jeff and Serene didn’t addict knowingly or willingly, but he did, and he might get through to her.”

  “I can go back and get him, I can still see and maybe even reach my return cube point. But I don’t know that any of it’s going to work. If Reynolds can’t get through to her, don’t expect anyone else to.” He looked around. “We have a bigger issue. I don’t know how much longer this facility is going to hold.”

  Naomi was still ranting and the teenagers were egging her on. “I’d shoot them but I know we want the information they hold,” Adriana said. “Kitty, I’m with Mister Buchanan—I think we need to get out of here.”

  “Not without Naomi.”

  “I’d like my sister back, too, Naomi,” White said calmly, when there was a break in her ranting. “However, that’s not the way the world works. People we love die.”

  “What if I could bring Aunt Terry back?” Naomi said. “Would you want to tell me not to do it?”

  White shook his head. “You couldn’t bring Terry back. Not really. Any more than those children you’re holding are the real LaRue and Leventhal. Oh, I’m sure they believe they are,” he said quickly as the kids opened their mouths. “But they aren’t. Souls don’t work like this, Naomi. Once the soul leaves the body, once that tie is severed, it can’t come back.”

  “People see the light and come back all the time,” Naomi argued. “Kitty died in childbirth but she came back.”

  “They do, and she did,” White agreed. “But their ties weren’t severed. Michael has been dead too long, Terry even longer. I don’t know what the children you’re holding really are, but I do know that the real LaRue and Leventhal they are not.”

  “Terry’s with ACE, the little bit of her that was left. And Michael could join ACE if—”

  “If ACE was back.” Naomi looked at me, then she pulled me up into the air, so I was right next to her. We were really high up now. “I see the dream you had, in your mind. Michael said he wanted to go, to leave us?”

  “Michael’s already left us,” I said gently. “He’s not alone—Fuzzball is with him. But neither one of them asked that I find a way to bring them back. They asked me to find a way to make everyone let them go.”

  “I don’t want him to go,” she said plaintively.

  “I know. But what about Paul and Abby? Paul’s in danger just by being here, and Abby doesn’t want to lose both her brothers and her sister. Jamie doesn’t want to lose her godmother. Your parents don’t want to lose their daughter. I don’t want to lose my friend. Chuckie doesn’t want to lose the wife he loves with all his heart.”

  “But I can protect everyone now.”

  “It’s not worth losing you, the Mimi we all know and love. Not to any of us, I promise you that. Mimi . . . we need to know who the Mastermind is. Whoever Father is, he hates Chuckie. He wants bad things to happen to you because that will break Chuckie’s heart.”

  She looked uncertain. “What if you’re wrong? What if . . .” She looked at Chuckie, then back to me. “What if what we think we know is wrong?”

  “It’s not,” I said firmly. “If what we thought was wrong, ACE would have let me know in some way, I know that, for certain. We’ll figure it out, I promise. Please, I’m begging you—let’s go home, all of us, together. Take the creepy teenagers with us, we’ll lock them up and question them. But let’s go back and just be us again. Please?”

  She looked into my eyes and I saw the Naomi I knew there again. “I can’t. I can see what I have to do.” She jerked. “He needs me, right now!”

  And with that, she dropped me, Reid, and LaRue, and literally flew up through the ceiling, the glow around her formed into an arrow point as it cut through the building.

  CHAPTER 90

  I FELL INTO JEFF’S ARMS, which was a relief in so many different ways. “You’ve still got it.”

  “Yeah, you make sure I have to practice all the time so I never lose it. Let’s get out of here, baby.”

  He wasn’t wrong about wanting to leave—the facility was starting to fall down around us. On the plus side, if we were all buried that would save
a lot on funeral costs since we were already so very far underground. Shockingly, didn’t find this all that much of a comfort.

  Jeff tried to get us to Buchanan, who in turn was trying to get to where I assumed his power cube entry point was. Gower and White were literally dragging Chuckie out of the way of falling chunks of building. Chuckie was staring up at the ceiling where Naomi had gone. I didn’t want to contemplate what he was thinking or feeling.

  “Kitty!” Adriana had her hand extended near absolutely nothing I could see. She’d come using the power cube gate, too, I assumed, meaning she was probably near her cube entry. “I can get us out! Hurry!”

  “Malcolm! Get everyone to Adriana!” My bellowing wasn’t up to Jeff’s standards, but I made do. Buchanan heard me and ran toward Gower and the others, which was good, because a chunk of concrete hit right where he’d been standing.

  White shoved Gower and Chuckie toward Adriana as Jeff headed us for her as well. Caught movement out of the side of my eye—LaRue and Reid were up and running away, toward the hallway. “No, we have to catch them!” I wrenched out of Jeff’s arms and took off.

  Heard Jeff shouting to the others as I rounded the corner and got into the hallway. The door was open. Well, it was crushed, either by Naomi or by the collapsing building, which was also by Naomi in that sense, and there was a big hole where the door had been. Good enough for Stop the Crazed Clones Work. I sped up.

  Heard the pounding of feet behind me. “Where are you going?” Jeff asked, as he caught up to me. “And Richard, why the hell didn’t you go with the others?”

  “Aside from the fact that I slipped because of the various fluids on the floor you mean? I presume you’re going to need me more and I work better with your wife than you do, Jeffrey.”

  “Wise man probably has a point, Jeff,” I said quickly, before Jeff could argue. We were in the giant cave of monolithic mainframes. Amazingly enough, they were all intact and their room wasn’t falling apart. Yet. Presumed it was reinforced. Also presumed this wouldn’t last.

  “Where to?” Jeff asked as we rounded a corner and somehow were facing a wall I hadn’t expected. “I ask because this doesn’t look like the exit, and breaking through walls down here means we’re still underground.”

  Resisted the urge to curse. “This is a maze. Somewhere on the other side is the exit. We actually have two to choose from, if I can find them. I guarantee the Crazed Super Twins know where the hell they’re going. I, on the other hand, suck at mazes. I’ve been through this in the dark and have no idea how to backtrack. Don’t take this the wrong way, Mister White, but we’d have been better off with Malcolm along.”

  “Not necessarily,” White said. “There’s more than one way to work a maze, Missus Martini. Jeffrey, if you would be so kind as to help me?”

  With that, White leaned against the nearest mainframe to us. Jeff did the same. They both pushed. Heard more explosions. Backtracked a bit and looked around another monolithic mainframe to see a fireball billowing out of the hallway we’d just left.

  Decided I could help push and rejoined the men. “We’re playing dominoes?”

  “Only if it knocks them all down,” White said. “Harder, children. Time is of the essence.”

  “Hadn’t noticed,” Jeff said, sarcasm knob at eleven and rising.

  “On three,” White said. “One . . . two . . . three.” We all shoved as hard as we could, and the mainframe rocked a little. “Harder . . . again . . . and once more with feeling.”

  He was right, our last push did the trick and the mainframe went over. It slammed into another, which also went over, and slammed into another, and so on. The slamming sound stopped after about six, though.

  White took one of my hands and Jeff took the other. “We’ll need to go fast,” Jeff said as we all backed up. “They’re pretty slick on the outside.”

  We took off running and went up the side of the first mainframe. It was hard, but Jeff got to the top and dragged me and White along. The next part was tricky, since the boxes were at an angle to each other, like the straightest little mountain range ever. But we were moving at Jeff’s fast hyperspeed, meaning that we were able to jump and slide and jump again and keep on going.

  “Why didn’t Naomi find out who the Mastermind was?” Jeff asked as we reached the last fallen mainframe and he pulled me up onto the top of the next one, which was upright.

  “Because she’s afraid that she’ll discover it’s Chuckie.”

  “Is it?” Jeff asked, as we looked around to determine where to go.

  “No. But I can guarantee that Reid and LaRue were thinking of him as the Mastermind when Naomi grabbed us and was digging around in our minds.”

  “Not that I disagree with your theory, but why are they still trying so hard to make us believe that Charles is the one in charge?” White asked.

  “Going to let the Scott Baio joke pass because we’re busy. And, as for why, other than that they’re really stuck on a theme whether it works or not? The Mastermind hates Chuckie, and he wants him to be the fall guy for all of this. LaRue and Reid said he’d known Naomi would OD, so that means the Mastermind had them ready in case they were captured and questioned.”

  “Makes sense,” Jeff said, pointing toward what I was fairly sure was the far wall. “I think I see the way out. Or it could just be some walls down.” Part of why we could see what I hoped was the wall we were looking for was indeed because the building was falling apart and therefore light was coming in from the upper levels and though fallen interior walls.

  “Walls down probably are the way out, Jeffrey,” White said, as he took the lead and we started running and jumping onto the tops of each mainframe.

  We’d just had to separate—White jumped left while Jeff and I jumped right—to avoid a chunk of ceiling that fell onto the mainframe we’d all been on, when something made me turn around. Lights were coming at us from behind. “Are those toy planes?”

  “I think they’re . . . drones? Small ones, but . . . Uncle Richard! Watch out behind you!”

  Jeff’s bellowing did two things—alerted White to the new danger which was good, and caused a reverberation that seemed to be the last straw for this area, which was bad, since that meant more ceiling gave way, meaning some of the servers we were hoping to leap onto now either had rubble on them or were down.

  The servers were a good fifteen feet tall, the metal they were encased with was slick, it was dark, and we had to jump from server to sever while the room shook and parts of it fell around us. That wasn’t so bad. Being shot at by small flying drones while we were doing all of that was the really bad part.

  “Down!” Jeff said as he pulled me to the right and a drone whizzed by. I lost my balance and went over the side. Fortunately Jeff had a hold of my hand and he was able to drag me back up.

  “Where’s Richard?” I didn’t see White anywhere.

  He’d been a couple servers away from us so we leaped toward where we’d seen him last. We couldn’t get onto the actual server because it had taken a direct hit from a big chunk of ceiling and was down.

  Made it to the server nearest this one and looked over the edge. White was on top of the downed server, dodging drones.

  Jeff got onto his stomach and reached his arm down. “Uncle Richard, jump!”

  Decided I needed to help and the best help I could give was to get rid of the drones. Dug around in my purse and pulled out my new Glock, flipped off the safety, and took aim.

  Mom had worked with me a lot on both rapid-fire and moving target techniques and I was a really good shot by now. Set my sights on the nearest drone and fired.

  Hit it three times and it exploded. Happily the debris didn’t hit either Jeff or White.

  Did the same with the next two, one of which took five shots to go boom, and one that took four. But three drones down wasn’t bad.

  Until I looked around and realized two things. One was that there were a lot more than three drones flying around here.

 
The other was that they were all heading for me.

  CHAPTER 91

  THE WAY I SAW IT, I had two options. I could try to hit every one of these drones with the few shots left in the clip—and then Jeff, White, and I could be shot to death by the remainder—or I could run and lead the drones away from the others.

  I had to jump back toward the drones, but I didn’t keep on going that way. I leaped to my left, then turned and headed for what I hoped was the far wall near where we’d first come into this area.

  When you’re being shot at, running in a serpentine movement is your best bet, because it’s a lot harder to hit a target that’s moving erratically. This was great in theory and when you were on terra firma, but fifteen feet up and on slick metal requiring all my track and field training, it was a different story.

  Jumping from server to server had been a hell of a lot easier when Jeff had been holding my hand. Hadn’t realized just how much he’d kept me from slipping until my third jump, which didn’t end up my final jump with my going splat at the end only because I was going fast enough that I was able to pretend I was hurdling and land on the next server in line.

  However, that meant I’d gone in a straight line for two jumps, and the drone shots were whizzing far too close to me.

  Had to dodge to my left to avoid a drone that was attempting a dive bomb, and while I made the jump, I landed in a skid on my left side. I wasn’t really hurt, but I also wasn’t steady, and I slid toward the edge.

  I was mostly over the edge when someone grabbed my purse and spun me around. I was able to grab White’s arm and, because of how he was lying on the top of the server, we both actually stayed on it.

  “This is reminiscent of Paris,” he said.

  “I could have officially done without an Operation Confusion flashback. Where’s Jeff?”

  “Leading the drones away. He’s the fastest and I guaranteed I wouldn’t let you fall.” White helped me to my feet. He kept a hold of my hand. “Shall we, Missus Martini?”