Universal Alien

by Gini Koch

  “Yes. I honestly believe that she can handle anything tossed at her, and what you described would be something she’d be more than capable of surviving. And she’d protect the children at all costs, because she’d see your Jamie as hers, and she’d never leave two little boys, either.”

  “So, we assume she and the children are alive and that leaves us with the obvious hypothesis that either there’s more going on over there that she has to handle or that whatever switched us is going to switch us back whenever it feels like. Or never.”

  “Yes.”

  There was something in his tone—I was fairly sure that he was avoiding telling me something. The idea of being stuck here wasn’t horrible. But to be here and not be married to Charles, to not have my sons, to leave my father and friends without me, was the horrible thing. Then again, she’d hit her head worse than I had, to the point where Martini had clearly thought she was badly hurt. So she might have that terrible concussion and not know who she really was. Which created a lot of jealousy and panic that I could do nothing about. Shoved that worry to the side. I could take it out and enjoy it any time things got dull or I got comfortable, after all.

  Of course, there was another option. “What you’re not saying is that she hit the back of her head on concrete and was unconscious when you were taking her to the hospital. So she could have ended up blacked out in my car. And if that’s the case, then she and my children are all dead.”

  Martini held me more tightly. “No. She has fast regeneration, just like we do. She wasn’t dead or dying. She was hurt, and bleeding, but she was okay.”

  “You’re lying, I can hear it in your voice. She was knocked out, and you’re just saying this because you want to believe it. And you want me to believe it, too. In part because it’s what we both want, and in part so I don’t freak out.”

  “Yes.” This time I could tell he was telling the truth. “Keep in mind that I can run faster than you can see. Kitty was unconscious, yes, but really not for very long, at least if we assume you switched at the moment she felt weightless to me. I think she would have been out for about a minute. Which means she was probably coming around. After all you, were also unconscious when I . . . got you.”

  “Or whatever switched you two wanted you both in an unconscious state and therefore kept her in said state longer,” Charles said as he joined us in the bathroom. “There are other things here that we haven’t told you about, and they would be powerful enough to do something like that, especially if they felt it would be safer for Kitty. And yes, I was eavesdropping, I’m in the C.I.A., it’s just a natural habit. Besides, I was worried about Kitty. This Kitty. As well as the other one.”

  “Some things never change,” Martini said, but he didn’t sound angry. “You mean ACE, don’t you?”

  Charles nodded. “She’s about to meet Jamie, our Jamie. She needs to know.”

  “Know what? I thought you said there was nothing wrong with your Jamie?”

  “There isn’t,” Martini said soothingly.

  “Other than that she’s more talented than her father or uncle. Jamie may be the most powerful A-C we have. She’s done some amazing things. And she’s also housing a superconsciousness in her mind.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “We mentioned ACE, during the briefing,” Martini said.

  “No. You mentioned powerful aliens of all kinds, including some that were godlike or so far advanced that they were hard for our minds to comprehend. You never said one of them was living in my daughter’s head.”

  The bathroom door opened and a little girl trotted in. My little girl. Dressed differently, hair cut and styled a little differently, but still, my little girl. She came straight to me and sat in my lap and gave me a big hug. “Hi, Mommy.”

  “Jamie . . .” I hugged her back. “Mommy’s missed you.”

  “I know. But you’re with me now. Can we go to the zoo?”

  “Uh, sure. Not necessarily today, though.”

  “Jamie-Kat, does Missus Lewis know you’re out here?” Martini asked.

  “Yes, Daddy, she does. Mommy, how do you like it here? Is it nice for you?”

  Saw Charles stiffen and felt Martini do the same. “Ah . . . yes. It’s nice here. How do you like it here?”

  “If you like it, then why were you crying?” Jamie reached up and patted my cheek. “Don’t cry anymore. You’ll do it all right, Mommy. Don’t worry. You’re the right Mommy for the job.” Then she leaned up, gave me a kiss, stood up, gave Martini a kiss, hugged Charles’ legs, and trotted out of the room.

  We were all quiet for a few long moments. “Okay,” I said finally, “is Jamie able to tell what people are feeling, like you can, Jeff?”

  “Yes,” he said. “And other things. But definitely she’s got empathic talent.”

  “Okay. The amazing things she’s done, describe some of them.”

  “As my Kitty would put it, she time warped from New Mexico to D.C. and kept a gigantic flying saucer from leveling all of the Mall area. And also from leveling her parents.”

  “During the second alien invasion we told you about,” Charles added. “The one Kitty calls Operation Destruction.”

  “Gotcha. So, uh, I have a crazy question.”

  “Go ahead,” Martini said. Charles nodded.

  “Am I the only one who thinks that Jamie just basically told us that she’s somehow involved with the Great Mommy Switch?”

  But before either one of them could answer me, a different male voice echoed through the bathroom. “Excuse me, Mister Vice President, but the President is here to see how Missus Vice President is feeling. And he’s not alone.”

  “Who’s with him, Walter?” Martini asked as he and Charles helped me up off the floor.

  “The Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Director of Alien Affairs for the F.B.I., and the Head of Special Immigration Services for Homeland Security. And there are more reporters on the street than Pierre and I can count.”

  CHAPTER 27

  APPARENTLY IT TOOK LONGER to wake up from being chloroformed than from being kicked in the head. More new knowledge.

  The delay was good, because the thing I was really noting was how slow everything and everyone was. Sure, no one in the room had hyperspeed in my universe. But we had the Elves and a wide variety of Field agents who were living to serve, and I’d gotten used to asking for a thing and having it right there by the time I was done with the words. Here, it was working at good old human slow.

  But, Pierre got me set up with a chair, card table, and wireless laptop. Then he scurried off to join Dad, Aunt Carla, and Caroline, who had taken the kids upstairs. In addition to their assigned “come up with the weird” tasks, I had them keeping an eye on the street, just in case our assassins had backup coming. The kids seemed excited by this assignment, the adults less so.

  Thankfully, my counterpart had that iPod I’d saved from the car, and it contained most of the same music I had. She even had the newest Neon Trees album, which seemed like the right choice for right now. Plugged the iPod into the computer and hit play. As “Love in the 21st Century” started, I relaxed. A little, at least. And, all things considered, a little was better than nothing.

  “So, who are you looking for?” Reader asked. “We may know some of them.”

  “People who are part of our team in my universe.” I was searching, but the realization that the names Timothy Crawford, Jerry Tucker, Matthew Hughes, Joseph Billings, and Randall Muir were really common was being shoved at me. Realized that I had no idea what Chip Walker’s real first name was. What a great boss and friend I was.

  And amazingly enough, not everyone had a picture on social media or similar, making identification close to impossible. Decided to try some educated guessing.

  Leonard Parker was also a common name, but Kyle Constantine wasn’t, at least, not as much. As the Ne
on Trees’ “Living in Another World” came on, I found Kyle, and therefore found Len. “Wow. So they went pro.”

  “Who?” Chuckie asked, looking over my shoulder. “What, you know some professional jocks in your world?”

  Len was the incoming quarterback for the Jets, and Kyle was their new defensive end; they’d been acquired from Oakland in a trade that was considered the smartest move the Jets had made in recent years. They were both considered great players, and the Jets were touted as being Super Bowl bound for the upcoming season.

  “Yeah, I do. They work for you, though, not the NFL. In my world.” Had a feeling I wasn’t going to get anywhere trying to contact them—they were both popular players and their social media feeds were gigantic. I’d have to catch them in person, and that was probably going to be hard. Though, not as hard as it might be, since I could use hyperspeed. But creeping on public figures could backfire, in more ways than I could count.

  “Right. As if I’d hire brainless jocks?”

  “They’re not brainless. They’re both really smart, Len especially. They’re good guys.” Got a lump in my throat as “I Love You, But I Hate Your Friends” came on. I missed my team. “Do we have any way of hacking into the Navy’s records? Five of the guys I’m searching for are Navy pilots.”

  “Sure,” Reader said, producing a laptop from somewhere, the Secret Armory presumably. “Give me their names and ranks.”

  “Captain Jerry Tucker, Captain Matthew Hughes, Captain Randy Muir, Lieutenant Joseph Billings, Lieutenant Chip Walker.”

  “Wait, I thought you said they were all pilots.”

  “They are. Why?”

  Reader shook his head. “In the Navy, the title of Captain is only given if you’re commanding a ship.”

  “It’s not like that where I come from. They’re all from Top Gun and they’re all pilots. If they’ve been on a ship, it was a long time ago.”

  Reader shook his head. “Bizarre.”

  “Dude, I did mention that I’m in Bizarro World, right?”

  Received a nice shot of the cover boy smile. “Right. Okay, that might be why you couldn’t find them. They could have different ranks and even be in different branches of the service here.” He was intent for a few minutes while the Neon Trees shared that some things were “Unavoidable.”

  While Reader searched for my flyboys, I looked for Hacker International. Proving that they were either dead or still the top hackers around, the only one I could find was Stryker, and only because of his Taken Away series. “Charles, is this Eddy?” I showed him a picture of a guy who—if I squinted and allowed that I was in an alternate universe—looked like a slimmer, well groomed, incredibly confident, and rather suave version of Stryker.

  “Yes,” Chuckie confirmed. “He’s a successful author.”

  “Does he think aliens are around?”

  “Like I told you earlier, no, Kitty, he doesn’t.”

  “Right. It’s just . . . you’re sure this is Stryker Dane?”

  “As sure as I am that it’s also Eddy Simms, yeah. Why?”

  “No reason. He still has great hair.”

  “So you’ve always said. My Kitty took him wardrobe shopping and for a makeover when he hit the New York Times Bestseller list. He’s basically never looked back.”

  “Nice to know he’s still smart in this world.” My counterpart had managed this level of change in Stryker? She was amazing. I was proud of my other myself.

  “He’s actually in Australia right now. He’d planned his tour so we could spend time with him, then I got called back, so we’ll miss him.”

  As “Voices in the Hall” started, I heard Reader breathe in sharply and looked over at him. He seemed upset, but as he saw me look at him, he plastered on a bland expression. “Nope, sorry. Can’t find them.” He closed his laptop and stood up.

  “What is it? You found them, didn’t you?”

  Reader shook his head and I was prevented by following this up by the assassins starting to come to. Tabled for later, then. Turned off the music—no reason to make it remotely pleasant for them.

  It was interesting to watch Chuckie and Reader do an interrogation. Reader played Good Cop and Chuckie took Bad Cop. Buchanan took the role of Looming Muscle Who Likes to Hurt Prisoners.

  They scored names—after the usual “my name is Putin” or “Abraham Lincoln” crap. So, in addition to the two we knew, we felt confident we had Luis Sanchez and Julio Lopez. Maybe. Those were pretty common Cuban and Hispanic names, so there was no way to prove that they were telling the truth.

  Decided this was going far too slowly. Walked over to Bernie and picked her up. By her throat. And I held her off the ground. “This is me calm. Imagine me seriously pissed. Then understand that I’m going to know when you’re lying.”

  Her eyes were wide. “What?” she gasped out.

  “Leave her alone,” the man we’d identified at Raul snarled.

  “Or you’ll do what, exactly? Kill me and all the kids? Kill everyone in this house? Yeah, you’ve tried that already. You’ve failed.” Looked over at Raul while Bernie tried really hard to get free to no effect. She tried to hit and kick me. I hit her thigh, hard. She stopped trying. Superpowers rocked.

  “What do you want from us?” he snarled.

  “We want the obvious. Who hired you and why?”

  “We don’t ask why,” Sanchez said.

  “Right.” Gave Bernie a little shake. “I happen to know this is your wife, Raul. I also happen to know you love her. A lot. What would you do if I killed her?”

  “I’d find a way to kill you, ugly.”

  I nodded and tossed Bernie down. Went over to Raul and punched him, hard, in the gut. He doubled over. “Guess what, asshole? I’m not going to give you that chance. You can tell us what we want to know and maybe we’ll turn you over to the proper authorities, which would give you a fighting chance to get free, wouldn’t it? Of course, not turning you over to the authorities and just taking our frustrations out on you is also appealing.”

  Chuckie put his hand on my shoulder. “There’s an easier way. Much easier.”

  “Oh, tell me you have truth serum here!”

  “We do.” Reader was tapping a hypodermic. “Who do you want to hit first.”

  “Shoot up Bernie over there. I hate her a lot.”

  “All I did was offer your children some candy,” she said peevishly. “Which you didn’t let them take.”

  Go Other Me, for not trusting strangers with candy. She was, apparently, smarter than me in a whole variety of ways. “Yeah? You did that so you could get up close and kill us very personally on a ‘play date.’ I’m really against that kind of crap, Bernie.”

  Bernie looked surprised, presumably that I knew her game plan. But she also looked a trifle smug. The thought occurred that she may have been trying to do to these kids exactly what she’d wanted to do with my Jamie—to kidnap them, not kill them.

  Moved to where I could see all their expressions. “So,” I asked casually, “why did you decide to change from kidnapping the kids to killing them?”

  Bernie’s eyes opened a bit wider and Lopez jerked just a little, but that was confirmation as far as I was concerned. But none of them spoke.

  “Time for the Sodium Pentothal,” Buchanan said.

  Raul sneered. “That won’t work on us.” Sanchez nodded and added his sneer to Raul’s. But Bernie didn’t look nearly as convinced, and neither did Lopez.

  “You have a lot of that?” I asked Reader. He nodded. Took the syringe from him and put it at Raul’s neck.

  “Don’t!” Bernie shouted. “You could kill him or paralyze him if you don’t know what you’re doing!”

  “Ah, now there’s the thing, isn’t it? Do I know what I’m doing? I’m getting seriously pissed at the delay . . . I promise you, I can indeed ram this into your husba
nd hard enough to kill him. And I don’t want to bother untying him to find an arm vein. So . . . what’s it going to be?”

  “We work for the Corporation,” Bernie said.

  I pressed the needle against Raul’s skin. “He twitches, this probably goes in. No freaking duh, Bernie. We know you’re assassins for the Cuban Mob. What we don’t know is who, exactly and precisely, told you to go kill us. Or why. We want to know both. There are four of you. If I screw up shooting the truth serum into Raul’s neck, I can just try again with you. And then your other boys here.”

  “So,” Buchanan said, falling nicely into the role of Badder Cop, “I guess the question is, who wants to die first? Or last?”

  “You’ll just kill us?” Lopez asked.

  “Sure. You’re assassins. If you’re not going to tell us what’s going on, then you’re not going to tell the F.B.I. or the C.I.A. or anyone else what’s going on. Meaning you have absolutely no value to us as people to hand over to our superiors.”

  “And the Corporation isn’t going to want you back badly enough to make a deal with us,” Reader added, sounding a little regretful. Was pretty sure it was faked—he was trying to be Good Cop, after all. “And what we want they won’t give us anyway.”

  “So what?” Raul asked through gritted teeth. “You’re just going to kill us anyway. Why should we make it easy for you?”

  Of course, this was the issue. I knew without asking that Buchanan would kill all four of them if he was allowed to. For all I knew, Chuckie and Reader would, too. Frankly, so would I—I, more than the three men, really knew what these assassins were capable of.

  Chuckie took the needle from me and grabbed Raul’s arm. “Good point. You’re the one in charge.” And with that he slammed the needle into Raul’s neck.

  CHAPTER 28

  RAUL JERKED, went rigid, and Chuckie dropped him to the floor, so that Raul was facing away from the others. Bernie screamed and Lopez jerked, big time. Sanchez kept his cool, but I could see him sweating.