by Gini Koch
“They’re good people, the humans and the aliens you’re torturing both. They saved me, and they didn’t have to. How can you do this?”
Gaultier walked over to Chuckie. “As I recall, Amy, you always hated this one.”
“Leave him alone!” Amy flung herself at the bars. “He was right, he was always right! He told me you were a greedy son of a bitch when we were in tenth grade. He knew what you were when we were children!”
Interesting. I’d had no idea. Explained a lot of their mutual animosity.
Gaultier laughed and leaned into Chuckie’s face. “Every businessman is a greedy son of a bitch. You’re one of us now, you know that.” He leaned closer. “You’re greedier than me, Reynolds. Coveting another man’s wife. It was so easy to center things around her—she’s the belle of the alien ball, isn’t she? She was a slut when she was in school, and she’s a slut now.”
Chuckie lunged toward Gaultier and slammed his forehead into Gaultier’s nose. Blood spurted as Gaultier staggered back. “Kill that bastard!”
I got ready to run, but Cooper shook his head. “Need him until we get the slut and the spawn.”
White leaned down. “Good control. Proud of you.”
“I was not that much of a slut! I mean, it’s not like I was the only girl who did the deed before I was married.”
“They’re baiting men who love you. No man wants to hear the name of the woman he loves or cares about dragged through the mud.”
“Why?” Coleman asked. “We could kill all the humans right now.”
“You’re all morons.” Al Dejahl sounded disgusted. “Kill them and we have no leverage.”
“You let us kill the others.” Barbara sounded like she’d enjoyed that.
“For scientific purposes, yes.” Cooper sounded as if he were explaining something to a five year old. “We’ve studied all the hybrids other than the five, excuse me, six now in existence. It’ll help to compare standard empathic and imageer brains and bodies to the others. But until we have what we want, Mister Al Dejahl is right, the rest of these are too useful.”
“She’ll come for just one of them,” Barbara said. “Kill the others, let Jeffrey hang on until she arrives.” Nice to know they were expecting me.
“She won’t come. She’s not that stupid.” Jeff could barely talk.
Barbara laughed. “Your little feminist throwback? Of course she’ll come. She’s on her way. Baby in tow, I’m sure. After all, there’s no baby formula in the Science Center, is there? We made sure of that. So it’s mother’s milk, or the baby starves. Though she might be a poor enough mother to allow that, I’m sure her own mother won’t. So, I’d expect the whole little family to arrive.”
I could see how this would have made sense, and I might have even suggested it if Sheila hadn’t been there with the breast pump. Got a huge love for La Leche League all of a sudden. But these people didn’t seem to know us at all. So whoever was feeding them their information was doing a great job—of helping us.
Camilla nodded. “I’m sure Missus Coleman is right—Missus Martini’s been complaining about not being allowed to do anything since the baby showed up. Look, I can’t stay here too long. They’ll notice I’m gone soon enough.”
“We’re almost ready to put Operation Expansion into effect, Mister Cooper,” a different C.I.A. operative said.
“You’re sure they’re not inside?” Cooper sounded frustrated.
“No, sir. We’ve checked all adults inside the cathedral. No sign of Missus Martini or Mister White.”
“Maybe they’re still trying to find Gower’s body.” Cooper shrugged. “Okay, keep on torturing Martini here until the baby can’t take it and shows up, with or without her mother. Mister Al Dejahl has to start the ceremony.”
They were ready to leave, and that meant we were out of time. I had no sane idea of what to do. Pulled my iPod out, took my purse off. Tuned to Tina Turner’s “Steel Claw” and put it on repeat.
“Any ideas, Missus Martini?” White asked in my ear.
“Only the crazy one.”
CHAPTER 58
I LET GO OF WHITE’S HAND and walked into the room. “Hey, I heard there was a cool BDSM party going on that I just couldn’t miss.”
Well, that got the full room’s attention. All the C.I.A. guys had guns it seemed, and they all pulled them and pointed them at me.
“How nice of you to arrive,” Cooper said to me. “Excellent timing.”
“Well, we sluts hate to miss it when all the hot guys are tied up waiting for us. So, let’s see. Humans have the guns, A-Cs have the speed. Should be fun.” The music was, in my opinion, Tina’s most rocking song ever, and it started to work on me. I could barely keep still. “You know, at a time like this, I just have to ask one question of you vicious bastards—WWWD?” I heard Chuckie start to laugh.
“What’s that stand for?” Barbara Coleman sneered. “How stupid am I?”
“Nah. What would Wolverine do? Oh, by the way, Professor X? Probably need your mad skills, too. And the answer to WWWD, Babs? He’d kick ass.”
I saw the humans start to fire their guns. I ran, at a hyperspeed I knew was faster than I’d gone yet because I ran around the bullets. Kung fu moves were flowing like never before, possibly because I was doing them at what seemed like a hundred miles an hour. Guns went flying and so did humans. White was in here, too, I could just see him. He was also kicking butt as though he did it every day. Maybe we were the new Avengers. Needed to get him a bowler hat and an umbrella.
The A-Cs leaped into action. Coleman was after me. I ran up the side of a wall, did a midair flip, caught his neck between my legs and squeezed. As we landed, I twisted. His neck looked funny.
“Hey, Babs!” I picked up her husband and tossed him onto Barbara. She screamed as she hit the floor.
“Poofs assemble!” I couldn’t help it, my first superhero fight was beyond what I’d ever imagined. I saw the six Poofs go huge and toothy as they poured in. I heard screams from the humans.
Decided it was time to get the rest of Girl Power going. Grabbed one of the Diplomatic Corps and slammed his head into the bars holding the women. Had to slam him a couple of times, but he finally opened the door. Sure, he was dead, but who had time to look for keys? Noted the Gower girls had some weird metal things on their heads. “Bombs?”
“Control devices.” Naomi was trying to get it off. “We can’t do anything with these on.” Guessed Chuckie and I weren’t the only ones who read the comics.
Three of the A-C female diplomats tried to gang up on me. This was fine. Did Dragon Guards the Well, which was a great form for multiple attackers. I found myself wishing my kung fu instructors were here to witness this. This was a black belt performance for sure. I did a leaping splits kick and hit two of them in the head. Maybe double black belt.
Melanie and Emily were pissed, and they waded in and started beating the two women I’d just kicked. I punched the third so hard she flew across the room, slammed into the bars above Jeff’s head, and then hit the ground.
Turned around and pulled the metal controllers off the Gower girls. Considered that I could use a weapon. Reached out, grabbed one of the iron bars, pulled. It flew into my hand.
There were several people ganged up on one, which one I realized was White. Spun my iron staff and waded in. It was a lot like when we’d fought the Alpha Four invasion—but I was better now. I cartwheeled through the air, landed with the staff point on the ground in the middle of the melee, and used the momentum to kick the head of the nearest bad guy. He went down, I stood on top of him and slammed the staff up and around. I aimed for heads—I didn’t want any of these people alive to do any more dirty work on the people I cared about.
I heard screaming and saw the rest of the bad guys who were still standing holding their heads and crumbling to the ground. Glanced toward the Gower girls. They glared in concentration, and their expressions said they were as pissed as me. I counted bad guy noses. We were missing Coope
r, Gaultier, the fake Al Dejahl, and Camilla. It figured.
“Kitty, we can’t get the chains off!” Melanie was trying to get Jeff unbound, Emily was working on Chuckie, and Amy was with Christopher, but no one was effective.
I looked at the three men. My men. All of them were my men. And they’d been tied up, beaten, tortured. Any one of them could have won a fair fight. But our enemies never fought fair.
The anger came, and it was massive. I saw Jeff’s expression—his eyes were wide, and he looked afraid. Of me. I didn’t want him to feel anything like this; I didn’t want to hurt him. I wrapped my mind around his and held it in a safe place, where nothing could hurt him. Then I looked at the chains holding him.
They flew off and slammed against the wall of the cell behind him.
Cool.
CHAPTER 59
I CONCENTRATED. ALL THE CHAINS holding the guys flew off and away, to slam against the back wall. Double cool.
Ran and caught Jeff as he was falling. Laid him gently on the ground. Raced around and caught all the other guys before they hit the ground, too. Everyone was in slow motion, I was moving so fast.
They were all hurt, some worse than others, but all badly. I grabbed Christopher’s hand. “Show me everyone here we care about.” Christopher closed his eyes, and I could see everyone’s internal damages. I grabbed Tito’s hand in my free one. “Fix them. Closest to death first. Abby, Mimi, link to me.” Naomi put her hand on my head, she and Abigail held hands, then Abigail touched Chuckie.
His lungs were punctured, and his other internal injuries were horrifying. I concentrated as information flowed from Christopher and Tito through me to the Gower girls. Chuckie’s head went back, and he shouted from pain—the repairs were hurting him. No anesthetic. I did the same for him as I had for Jeff, wrapped his mind in mine and kept it in a safe, loving place.
It took a bit—or maybe not, I couldn’t tell how fast things were moving any more—but Chuckie’s injuries were repaired. I released his mind gently.
We moved to Jeff next. For once I didn’t have to stab him in the heart, but only because we were restarting his hearts this way. His blocks were shot, so his mind was hurt as well as his body. Stayed calm while the repairs went on, just kept his mind wrapped in mine, soothed him, fixed his blocks and put them back up, while I caressed his mind and kept the pain and fear away from him.
And so it went. Fix one, move to the next, protect him from pain, do the repairs, move on. Christopher and Tito had to be repaired before some of the others, but it was a tossup as to who could claim to be the least injured.
After what seemed like hours, we were done. We got out of our weird Wonder Quintuplets link, and I looked for White. “Where’s Richard?”
“He said he wasn’t hurt. He went after the ones who escaped.” Emily’s voice shook.
“We need these bodies for anything, proof, burning in effigy, that sort of thing?”
“No,” Chuckie said. Naomi was helping him stand up. “Disappeared without a trace would be easier.”
“Poofies, enjoy your well-earned snackage.” The Poofs devoured. “Careful with Barbara, Poofies, she might give you indigestion.” Poofikins looked at me, purred, and crunched Barbara up. Loved my Poofs. Dead bodies were gone fast. Much Poof belching occurred, but I decided to ignore it and focus on the easy cleanup.
Melanie was staring at me as though she’d never seen me before. “Kitty . . .”
“Superpowers and Poofs rock. Going after Richard, he’s going to need me. Oh, by the way, Chuckie? You were, as always, right. We had a mole, but she was a double agent, which is why you were all still alive. Jeff and Christopher? For the last time, he’s the best and only friend we have in the C.I.A. Start treating him as such. James? Paul’s alive and well. Tim? You’re smarter than me, dude, good job. Love all of you, all my boys, very much. Stay here, I’ll be right back.”
I took off after my partner.
CHAPTER 60
I DIDN’T KNOW WHERE I was or where White had gone, but it didn’t matter. The Poofs were with me, and they clearly knew. We didn’t go the way the others had, we went the way we’d come in. Down through the trapdoor, which I didn’t bother to close, down the stairs, along the dark corridor.
I still had my iron staff, the Poofs were still large and in charge. I didn’t worry about altering memories when we arrived—I was too worried about children being altered for life.
Used the staff to semi-pole vault over the problems in the floor. I was so fast I probably didn’t need to, but better safe than sorry. Hit the intersection, went to the left. Came to stairs, old stairs like I’d seen in that brochure. We ran up them like they were nothing.
Reached a trapdoor and the Poofs stopped and went small. They jumped into the pockets of White’s jacket. I’d forgotten I was still wearing it. Opened the trapdoor carefully.
Unlike the Conciergerie, this room wasn’t empty. On the plus side, the trapdoor was in a corner where no one was. Managed to get the door opened quietly, pulled myself up. Pulled the staff out but laid it on the ground right away. I couldn’t imagine the reaction if I sauntered out with an iron staff in hand, but pandemonium leaped to mind.
Needed to slow down again. Changed my music to the first slow song I hit, Trik Turner’s “Friends and Family.” Fitting, really.
The place was packed to the gills. I noted the doors were closed. I would have bet money they were locked tight, too.
Moved slowly through the throngs—it was packed with an unreal number of people. Headed toward the nave, where it looked like at least one of my targets was. I was pretty sure the fake Al Dejahl was there.
I stayed near the side so I’d hopefully not be spotted. I was close enough to see Al Dejahl clearly but not close enough to do anything when someone grabbed me, put his hand over my mouth and pulled a headphone out of my ear.
“Kathy, how good to see you.”
I relaxed and he let go. “Rick, you continue to impress and amaze.” Turned off my iPod and put it in one of the pockets. Patted the Poofs in there, too.
White moved us back against the wall. He put his arm around my shoulders, leaned down, and spoke softly in my ear. “I believe we’re back to your original theory. When I was fighting with Ronaldo there, I noted he had two heartbeats.”
“Huh. He’s not great looking.”
“Assume his mother wasn’t attractive. Presumably she had other positives.”
“Suppose so.” Interesting to be right, then wrong, then right again. My head hurt thinking about it. “Where’re Gaultier and Cooper?”
“No idea.”
“I hope Camilla’s gone back to Dulce.”
“As long as she’s a double agent, not a triple agent.”
“Good point. You know, you totally rocked in that fight.”
“Not as much as you. I’m terrified to ask how.”
“I’ll give you my guess later. Is Al Dejahl going to allow himself to be enhanced, too, do you think?”
“Doubtful. If they’re still doing experiments, then they don’t know long-term ramifications. By the way, I assume the plan is to kill everyone other than Jamie, so Alfred only has one living family member left. He would be willing to do anything to protect her, I’d assume, including give up patents.”
“Well, that may be their plan. We’re not letting that plan go any further.”
“I agree. Just wanted to share my thinking.”
“I’m so not kidding. You’re the freaking best agent we have.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere. What baby gift would you like?”
“I want us to kick these people back to the Stone Age.”
“Happy to do my best.”
We both scanned the room. No sign of obvious bad guys, no sign of Cooper or Gaultier. “Who put Camilla in place?”
“No idea. I would have suggested Mister Reynolds, but clearly not.”
Wanted to ponder that a bit more, but now probably wasn’t the time, at least not out
loud, so, for me, definitely not the time. Spent some time looking around; people were milling about, shifting, clearly waiting with a good degree of anticipation, meaning no one was likely to wander off and out of range of the bad guys. Pity.
Just when I was about to suggest hyperspeeding it and grabbing Al Dejahl, things got started. “How are we going to protect the kids? I can’t figure out where stuff’s coming from, let alone come up with an idea of how to get everyone out of here safely.”
“Maybe all we’ll be able to do is help them deal with their mutation. Not my preferred plan, but I’m not coming up with anything either.”
I felt someone come next to us and I nudged White. “Rick, honey, when do you think this ceremony’s going to start?”
“Soon, I think, Kathy. Let’s get closer.”
“Or you could, you know, let those of us trained to do this handle it from here.” I looked to my right. Jeff was standing there, looking particularly annoyed. He was also in a T-shirt that said “Faire l’amour avec moi.” I looked down. He was in jeans and Vans sneakers. My jaw dropped.
He closed it gently. “We bought out the gift shop down the street.” He looked at White. “Richard, get your hands off my wife.” He handed me my purse.
“Sorry, Jeffrey, we’re undercover. Meet my trophy wife, Kathy.” White lifted his arm so I could put my purse over my neck, then put it back around my shoulders.
I nodded. “Rick’s my sugar daddy.”
Jeff shook his head. “I’m out of it for a little while and my uncle steals my girl.”
I looked around. The rest of the team were in here, spread out. They were all in T-shirts. I’d never seen a group of A-C agents so casual in the entire time I’d known them. Christopher was across from us, Amy was with him. Abigail and Naomi were flanking Chuckie. The girls were in T-shirts and jeans, too. Jeff hadn’t been kidding, there was a happy gift store owner out of merchandise.
“How’d you get in?”
“Got out of the prison the way we’d been brought in, realized we looked like refugees, bought clothes, went to the ticket window, bought tickets. We got a group rate.”
