by Gini Koch
“Works for me.”
Abigail gathered the few baby things we had for Jamie, including the Snugli, at hyperspeed, I realized. “Wow, I can see you. I mean, going fast. You’re clear, not blurry and not invisible. And I can tell you’re moving at hyperspeed, too.”
“I wonder when your mutation is going to stop.” Naomi sounded thoughtful.
“What if it doesn’t?” Abigail sounded worried.
“What if it regresses?” Naomi asked.
“Cross that bridge when I go to the dark side or when I turn all ‘Flowers for Algernon.’ For now, let’s go see what my family and yours have been up to.” I was dressed, stuff was gathered. I took Jamie, slung my purse over my shoulder, did a Poof check, and we took off for the library.
CHAPTER 45
REACHED THE LIBRARY and realized Doreen hadn’t been kidding—it was a full-fledged party. It looked like everyone other than the few A-Cs on agent or Security duty were in here. Jamie cuddled into my neck—I got the impression she didn’t like the noise and crowd, but I could have been putting my own feelings onto her.
Spotted Sheila and decided now was as good a time as any to stop being the worst friend in the world. The Gower girls said they’d catch up to me after I got some time with her and wandered off toward their mother, who was with Denise Lewis.
Trotted over to Sheila, did the squeal and hug thing. She had her youngest on her hip, and I had Jamie in my arms, so the hug wasn’t what it could have been, but it wasn’t a hug from someone who resented or hated me. She looked great. She’d always been between Amy and me in height and had dark hair and eyes to our fair.
We then did the fast catch-up thing, and while we did it, all our old jokes interspersed throughout, I felt myself relax. It was almost as if we were back in high school, but better, because we were both adults, settled into our lives, and, happily, those lives, while different, weren’t mutually exclusive.
“I can’t believe what you do now,” Sheila said with a laugh as I finished my really fast explanation of what the last couple of years had held for me. “Just glad your mom sent all those great-looking guys to rescue us.”
“Yeah, the visual benefits are wonderful.”
“I saw a picture of your husband. Boy, talk about gorgeous.”
“Yeah, Jeff’s a total hunk.”
“I’m sure you’ve heard this too much, but I was surprised you went for him and not his cousin. Saw him, too. Totally your type.”
“So the world seems to feel. If I was going to stick to that type, I’d have married Chuckie.” Whoops, that was a slip. Guilt high-fived itself.
Sheila shook her head. “I don’t know what’s more shocking—what you do and who you married, or how Chuck turned out.”
“Wow, you’re not hating on him?”
She laughed. “Uh, no. I married a nerd, remember? They make great mates.” Reader had said the same about A-Cs. Found myself wondering if Jeff counted as a nerd. He was really smart and funny. Couldn’t imagine awkward. Then again, if I’d met Chuckie now, I’d have trouble believing he’d ever been awkward, too. Resolved to ask to see Alfred’s pictures of Jeff and Christopher through the years. Thought about Alfred—something tickled in my mind. Couldn’t figure out what or why, though.
“I guess I don’t think of Roger as a nerd.”
“Me either, anymore. Honestly, if you’d told me you and Chuck were getting married, it wouldn’t have surprised me. He’s always been in love with you.” Guilt did a back flip while shouting “go team.”
“Thanks, I need that guilt from someone else.”
Sheila laughed again. “My mother said you have to marry who you’re really in love with, at least the first time.” She shook her head. “Amy thinks her dad loves his second wife more than her mother. I wouldn’t know, but she seems so adrift.”
“Ames? Adrift?” Maybe. I hadn’t seen her much in recent years, after all. “She never said anything like that to me.” Worry raced over to hang out with Guilt and chat.
“I’m probably just seeing things that aren’t there.”
“And maybe you aren’t. You were always Miss Insightful in school. What’s Ames shared with you that she hasn’t shared with me?”
Sheila looked thoughtful. “She said that your mom and Chuck had suspected her dad of being involved in whatever’s going on, and while she felt she had to defend him, especially against Chuck, in reality, sometimes she wonders how much he’s changed since we were young. It sounded like she never sees him, even though he goes to Europe all the time. I didn’t get the feeling they talk much, either.”
I talked to my parents all the time, at least several times a week; sometimes several times a day. The idea of not being in contact with them, or them being nearby and not stopping to see me if we were living far apart, seemed almost unthinkable.
“Amy talks to my mom regularly.”
Sheila grinned. “So do I. Your parents stay in touch with us and, from what your mom’s said when we’ve chatted, your best friends from college, too. In addition to Chuck, I mean.”
This I knew to be true. Frankly, Mom kept in better touch with my friends than I did, which I chose to see as her being a great mom and helping me out, as opposed to me being a total loser as a friend and Mom desperately covering for me. “Well, my parents love you guys.”
“I know. Amy knows, too, so don’t worry about it. I want an important question answered, young lady.”
“Shoot.”
“How are you liking married life? You got the instant baby, that can be kind of hard.” Sheila looked ready to console me if I wanted to whine and to shake the pom-poms if I was cheering about it. That was one of her best qualities, her ability to support her friends no matter what.
“I like it. A lot. Jeff’s a great husband, and he’s a natural daddy.” Had a thought while I shoved Guilt and Worry away, hard. “You know, Jamie eats like a horse. My doctor was concerned she wasn’t getting enough milk, but she seems to be doing fine, at least so far. Did you go through anything like that?”
“Oh, yeah. Number Two was a chowhound. He still is.” She grimaced. “Look, I know you know they’re all buying baby stuff for you. I ordered something, too, but lord knows when it’ll get here. We used to share stuff all the time—you still up for it?”
“Sure, what?”
Sheila grinned. “Gonna help you stock up for the long winter.” She grabbed my arm and headed us off.
Sheila was carrying a huge diaper bag. I was envious. She led the way to a bathroom I didn’t even know existed in the library area. She looked pretty good for having four kids—I guess running after them kept her in shape. She reminded me of her mother. Amy reminded me of her own mom, too. And I was my mother’s little clone, apparently. Wondered if Jamie would be just like me. Sort of hoped so. But that made me want a little Jeff, too. He’d really gotten me focused on lots of kids over the less than two years I’d known him. Then again, maybe it was just because I loved him so much.
“What’s it like having four?”
“Never buy the lie that it’s easier the more you have. But, you know, they’re great. Each one’s different, but it’s neat to see yourself, your husband, and your families in them.”
There were some people in Jeff’s family I knew neither one of us wanted to see in our kids. My mind tickled again. Again, no idea of why.
“Where are Numbers One through Three?” They had names—Roger, Jr., David, Martin, and baby on the hip was Gerald—but they called them Numbers One through Four. It was their thing, and I’d always found it funny. Still did.
“Roger has them. Your dad’s having a field day with them. I think he’s hoping you have a boy next.” Sheila dumped her baby bag on the counter. This was a nice bathroom—tried to mark its location for the future. Gave up.
She dug something out—a lot of something. “What is that?”
“Nursing mother’s best friend. An electric breast pump.”
“Oh. Um. Ick.”
She laughed. “Your boobs look ready to explode.”
“I just fed Jamie, too.”
“So, pump. You can store up—it freezes, for at least two weeks without a lot of issue.” She winked. “It’s great if you want to have someone watch the baby while you and the husband practice making another baby.”
“You speak my language. Gimme the pump.”
The less said about the joys of pumping breast milk the better. Having Jamie right there was a help, according to Sheila of La Leche League, which is what I started calling her the moment the pump began. I felt for milk cows.
I was making boatloads of milk. It was almost horrifying. Sheila was really impressed. “God, you could be a professional wet nurse.”
“I think I’d almost rather die. I love breastfeeding Jamie. But I think Jeff would draw the line at sharing the rack with anyone other than his own child.”
“Oh, so he’s your usual then.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
She gave me a sly grin. “Possessive, protective, jealous—you know, what every serious boyfriend you ever had was like. What Chuck was like, only in a low-key way, at least, whenever you were around. If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have questioned the physical choices.”
“Jeff’s not . . . totally . . . um . . . okay, he’s just like that, yeah. But it’s sweet.”
“Yeah? You didn’t think so when you’d had it with Brian. So, who was better in bed, Chuck or Jeff?”
“Beg pardon?” I hadn’t told her I’d slept with Chuckie.
“Oh, come on. It’s me. He was hot for you from day one. And he’s tall, handsome, your normal physical type now, maybe a tad taller than your average, but I doubt that was a deterrent. You two went to Vegas together for a week. I remember talking to you about that trip. ‘Best vacation of my life’ were your exact words. The way you think, I know that meant you screwed like rabbits.”
“Yeah, okay, fine. Until I met Jeff, honestly, Chuckie was the best. By far.”
“Jeff’s better?”
“Jeff’s a freaking sex god.”
“You’re such a simple creature.”
“Almost male in my needs. Yeah, yeah, heard it from you before. Bitch.”
We both laughed. “I miss this,” Sheila said.
“Me too. Is it hard, being a wife and mother first?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes. But it’s usually worth it. But that’s me. Everyone’s different. I have a hard time imagining Amy as a wife, let alone a mother. But I think she really wants to find that special guy.”
“Yeah, well, they show up when you least expect them. I sure wasn’t expecting Jeff when he appeared.” Literally and figuratively.
“Yep, like the song says, you can’t hurry love.”
Finally done. I had pumped something like twenty bags of milk. “This looks like I’m starting my own dairy. Do you have any bags left?”
“Sure. In fact, you keep the rest of this box. You can always express by hand if you have to.”
“Ugh.” I took the box from her. The way she handed it to me, I saw the bottom. There was a mark there that looked vaguely familiar. I brought the box closer to my face. There was a circle divided into three parts, with the letters A, B, and C in each piece of the pie. Underneath were the words Aquitani, Belgae & Celts. I read them aloud.
“Three tribes of Gaul in Julius Caesar’s day. Why?” Sheila was changing Number Four’s diaper. She’d always been a history buff.
“They’re on the bottom of this box. You get Gallic breast milk bags?”
She laughed. “No, silly. I’m just a loyal shopper.”
“You’re Polish, married to an Englishman. If you can even count that, since you’re both like fourth generation Americans at least.”
Sheila looked over her shoulder and gave me a “duh” look. “That’s the baby products division of Gaultier International, idiot. Amy’s dad’s company?”
“He imports milk bags from France?”
“I doubt it.” She turned back to the diaper situation. “That’s his logo. Duh, Gaultier—three parts of the Gauls. Get it? He’s just proud of his heritage.”
“I thought he was an importer and exporter.”
“Sure, he is. But he’s almost as big as Proctor & Gamble. He’s got a lot of different businesses. One of them covers a lot of baby products. We buy his company’s generics, too.”
“Generics?”
She looked over her shoulder again. “You sure you should be out of bed so soon after delivering? Generic drugs, idiot.”
I stared at her. “Oh, my God.”
CHAPTER 46
I LOOKED AROUND. Worth a shot. “Com on!”
“Yes, Commander Martini?” Gladys sounded tired of hearing from me. I almost couldn’t blame her.
“Two things. I need someone to come and collect the incredible number of bags of breast milk I just squeezed out, get them into a freezer, and make sure that whoever has Jamie can get them as needed.”
“Not really Security’s job, but, as always, we’ll humor you. What else?”
“I need to know where Herbert Gaultier, of Gaultier International and a whole lot of other companies is, and I need to know immediately. Oh, and I’m leaving this bathroom. Have whoever’s coming to get the milk step on it.”
Two big Security A-Cs came in, looking embarrassed, carrying a cooler. I gave them the milk. “Take care of that, freeze it in a safe container pronto—safer than this cooler, by the way.”
“Yeah, that stuff’s worth its weight in gold.” Sheila shook her head. “I can’t believe what you do for a living now.”
The Security guys left, carrying my tonnage of milk. “It’s going to get more unbelievable fast.” I dug my phone out of my purse. Called Jeff. Nothing. Managed not to curse, only because Jamie was in my other arm.
I needed the team assembled fast. Considered my options. Dialed. “Lorraine, Code Red. Need you to get all of Airborne that’s in the facility into a conference room in the library, pronto. Make sure we have med kits.”
“On it.”
I looked around, then remembered I had their numbers programmed. Dialed again. “Abby, need you and Mimi to find me like now. We’re at Code Red.”
“Already picked up your panic, we’re heading to you now. Have your mother with us, by the way.”
“Love how you think.”
“Mimi already tried to call Chuck, no answer.”
Managed not to curse again. “Yeah, welcome to DEFCON Worse.”
“This is that field situation Chuck and Jeff were trying to keep us out of, right?”
“Got it in one.” I could see them now and hung up. We were near one of the larger conference rooms, and I headed inside, Sheila and Number Four trailing me. Mom and the Gower girls came in, the rest of the team right on their heels. Pregnant women can’t move all that fast, but even going at the slow version of hyperspeed, an A-C is faster than most humans.
Hughes was last in, and he shut the door. Happily, the room was soundproofed, and the noise level went down considerably. Did the latest nose check after everyone was seated. All five of my pilots, all three of my girls at various pregnancy levels, Brian, Abigail, Naomi, Sheila and Number Four, and my mother. Not enough A-Cs by far, but what we were going to have to go with.
Mom got up and took Jamie from me. She looked me up and down. “Clearly you’ve had the best pregnancy recovery in the world.”
I noted that the team were all staring at me. “Yeah, okay. I’m not supposed to tell you, per Chuckie and Jeff. But—”
“You’ve been affected by whatever the drug was they gave Jeff, because it’s in his DNA and so in Jamie, and Jamie was in you.” Lorraine said this as though it was obvious. It was, but everyone else had been shocked.
“Um, yeah. Did your mom tell you?”
She snorted. “Remember what Claudia and I were doing when we met you?” She’d always been buxom, but pregnancy really agreed with her. Unlike me, her blue eyes re
ally sparkled, her blonde hair looked luxurious, and she glowed, even while snorting at me.
“Erm . . .” Sort of not so much.
“We were on the Exoskeleton team,” Claudia answered for me, managing to look as good as Lorraine and managing to also remain almost as willowy as normal. She was a brunette, her brown eyes were freaking dewy, and her hair practically glistened. “We were trying to figure out why and how the parasites turned a human into a superbeing without killing the human. One figures that out by doing work at a genetic level.”
I comforted myself with the reminder that they were my best A-C girlfriends and maybe I’d look that good the next time around, now that I had all the Surcenthumain doing its thing inside me.
That I could keep on considering having more when Jamie wasn’t a week old probably wasn’t so much desire as having heard Jeff discuss “lots of kids” from the first hours I’d known him and constantly thereafter. He’d programmed me to plan on having an entire litter of children and, apparently, I was quite receptive to it, too.
Thought about a little Jeff again. Then thought about big Jeff and how he was in mortal peril and dragged my mind back to present terrors. I’d thought it was pregnancy that had made my mind wander. Wondered now if it was the drug. Forced myself to not think about it right now.
“Oh, right. Fine. Um. Great. Everyone says I’m not going to die early from it.” Well, I wasn’t thinking about it too much.
“I think it might extend your life, actually.” Lorraine had her Dazzler scientific mind tuned to high.
Mom coughed. “You mind explaining that for the laypeople in the room?”
“I’m Wolverine with boobs, Mom.” I didn’t add that I didn’t have the claws. For all I knew, they were coming.
Every human did the same thing—went bolt upright, leaned back, considered, nodded, and then relaxed. “Great. So, what’s the situation? You didn’t call us all in here to share that your comic book fascination has once again paid off.” My mother’s sarcasm knob went well past eleven. Then again, she wasn’t crying. I was good with the sarcasm.
“Alpha Team, with the addition of Kevin, Melanie, Emily, Amy, and Michael, are pretty much in life-threatening danger they aren’t prepared for.”
