by Gini Koch
“Have Gladys do your gate transfer.” I looked at White. He nodded emphatically.
“On it. I’ll bring med kits, too.”
“Always a good plan.” Hung up and considered. There were four other hybrids out and about. Three of them I knew I needed and probably wouldn’t be able to convince to hide out anyway. The fourth, however, I could get here based on the fact that I had cute girls who also needed protecting. Dialed again.
“Hey, Kitty, what’s up?”
“Michael, are you in the middle of anything?”
“Just waiting for the One World event to kick off in a few minutes. It’s dull waiting because nothing’s going on until launch. And after that, it’ll be hours of speeches. Basically, I’m in the middle of a long period of boredom.”
“Great! I’m going to save you from boredom.” I was saving everyone from boredom today, go me.
“I’m not supposed to leave my post.”
“What is your post and who are you with?”
“I’m in the audience and I’m alone.” He didn’t sound happy about the alone part.
“Seriously? Look, I need you for a plan of higher importance.”
“So you claim.”
“I have cute human girls who need protecting, and you’re the A-C for the job.”
“You do know my weakness.”
“I do. Zip over to the Romanian Embassy, will you? Use hyperspeed, please, not a gate.”
“Be there shortly. What do I tell James or Paul if they ask?”
“Tell them you need to pee.” He laughed and we hung up. I turned back to White. “We need a floater gate.”
“Already handled. I have a Bat-Line to Gladys just like you have with Mister Reynolds.”
“As always, you rock above all others, Mister White. Olga, Adriana, I’d really like the two of you to hide with the rest of our team.”
“Why so?” Olga asked. I was clear she already knew, but wanted to make sure I knew. Not a problem.
“Because after they don’t find us at the Embassy, they’re going to come here to find us. For all we know, they’ll come here first, just like the Club Fifty-One people did. Maybe because the Club Fifty-One people did. And if you and Adriana are here, they have hostages we care about. However, I don’t want your husband or the rest of your diplomatic mission panicking and searching for the two of you, either.”
Olga smiled. “Not to worry.” She nodded to Adriana, who went to the desk in the room, dialed the phone, and handed it to Olga. Olga spoke to someone in what I assumed was " face="Romanian, since I didn’t understand a word. But she said one sentence very slowly and clearly. Then she hung up. “We are fine. None will panic when we are not here.”
“Nice to see you and Andrei have a code phrase.”
“If you do not, you should rectify that error immediately.”
“Yes, ma’am. Just as soon as we ensure everyone’s all tucked away safely.” I looked around. They weren’t going to like what I was going to say next. “Richard and Senator Armstrong will stay with me. Len, Kyle, and Amy, you’re going with Adriana and Olga.”
They gaped at me. “Why?” Amy asked. It really was the Question of the Day.
“Because none of you are A-Cs, and I need people with the children, my child in particular, who I know will protect her.”
“Our jobs are to protect you,” Len said.
“Nope. You’re supposed to protect me and Jamie, and Chuckie said I was the boss unless he overruled me, and we don’t have time for you to call him. Malcolm’s around somewhere, he’ll show up when needed as was proved such a short while ago. Otherwise, I can’t do my job if I have to worry about my baby.”
Amy nodded. “You’re right. I’
ll be Team Lead on the inside.”
The boys looked like they were going to argue. White and Olga looked like they were trying not to laugh. I decided to forestall both outcomes. “Works for me, Ames.”
“Are we okay to keep our cells on?” Amy asked.
White nodded. “The Dome allows calls in and out but scrambles positioning. Even with the best GPS software, no one could determine where you were based on your phones.”
“Awesome. If you find you need supplies while you’re there, be sure to send one of the Security guys and have Len and Kyle scan them.” I looked to Bruno, who bobbed his head at me. Good. Any Peregrine Enforcers at the Dome would be on the alert as well.
“What about me?” Oliver asked. “I don’t believe you consider me a protector, but you haven’t given me an assigned duty.”
“Oh, you have a duty, MJO. You’re going to be causing our distraction.”
Yi
CHAPTER 44
THE DOORBELL RANG. I realized it was the first time I’d ever heard it. Either Adriana was slipping, or she was so engrossed in our planning that she hadn’t noticed that we had someone arriving.
She, Len, and Kyle went downstairs. “Mister White, are you okay to take the senator over to our Embassy?”
He nodded, but Armstrong looked worried. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea for me to be seen going there.”
“Look, they aren’t releasiWorld Weekly News goes for it or not. We can spend precious time hiding you, or you can make life easy and just walk across the damn street.”
“Why don’t you want me at the Dome?”
“Because we still can’t trust you,” White said calmly. “For all we know, this is an elaborate ruse in order to get you positioned to hide with those our enemies want to kidnap.”
Armstrong opened his mouth—to argue, I was sure—but then he slammed it shut and nodded. “You’re right,” he said after a couple moments of what appeared to be contemplation. “I understand why you’d be distrustful. I do know where the Dome is, of course, so you’ve already taken a chance there.”
“Had to.” Hey, Christopher was right—chances were good that I’d still be on the phone, trying to make him guess what I meant.
“Yes. And aside from keeping me in your sights and under your control, so to speak, I also have clearances you may not, which we may need.”
“Good man, glad you’re on board. So, I want the two of you heading across the street now, so that Adriana can lock the door behind you.”
“You haven’t told Oliver there what you want him to do,” Armstrong pointed out.
“It’s Mister Joel Oliver, please,” he said. “And the Ambassador is waiting until you’re out of range so you don’t know what my part off the operation is.”
“And MJO shows yet again why I value his involvement.”
Armstrong nodded and stood up. “Shall we?” he asked White.
White stood as well and gave Olga a courtly bow. “Madame, please excuse me from escorting you.”
Olga smiled. “Just this once.”
“I assume I shouldn’t bother locking up our Embassy,” White said to me.
“Oh, do it, if only to stop petty thievery and to slow down the Bad Guys du Jour for a minute or two.”
“As you wish. I’ll see if I can arrange some sort of harness for the parrot.”
“A muzzle for preference.”
White chuckled and led Armstrong out as Adriana and the boys returned, with Michael Gower in tow. Michael was a slightly smaller version of his older brother—big, black, bald and beautiful. He was also the A-C Player of the Year for, as near as I could tell, his entire life.
This was evident in the fact that Adriana was getting his standard “you so hot, babe” smile, which he gave indiscriminately to any woman between the ages of 18 and 98. The smile was expanded to include me, Amy, and Olga.
Adriana had a large duffle bag. Clearly, she was trained to plan ahead. “Supplies,” she said with a smile, after Michael had been introduced to her grandmother. I assumed Adriana’s supplies included weapons of some kind, but that was probably good.
The boys also had duffels, and Jamie’s stroller was up here already, bat waased on my earlier instructions. I checked—the Poofs were sti
ll in it, looking expectant. Had to figure Olga and Adriana knew we had special pets. For all I knew, they knew the Peregrines were in the room with us. And I couldn’t send Oliver alone into danger without some kind of backup.
Reached in and took a Poof at random, handed it to Oliver. “Your Poof job is to assist Mister Joel Oliver here.”
It mewled at me and jumped into Oliver’s hand, where it mewled at him and purred.
“Well,” Oliver said. “Aren’t you a cute little button?” The Poof in his hands purred much louder.
“Ah, Kitty?” Michael asked. “Is that one attached?”
“Oops.” Unattached Poofs bonded to the person who named them. “Um . . . Button?”
The Poof turned, looked at me, purred even louder, then jumped onto Oliver’s shoulder and snuggled into his neck.
“Yes, Michael. It’s attached now.”
Oliver chuckled. “I didn’t actually mean to name it Button. But it fits.”
“Good. Okay, Button, you take care of MJO, and you report back to Harlie or Poofikins if he’s in trouble.” Button mewled at me and went into one of Oliver’s pockets.
“So, what am I going to be doing?” Oliver asked.
“I’ve run some ideas around in my mind, but most of them end with you being arrested and possibly killed. So I’m not going to mention them.”
“Good. I’m all for helping with the cause, but I’d like to see tomorrow, if you know what I mean.”
“I do. So what I’m going to ask you to do has more to do with you confusing whoever’s watching us more than anything else.”
“You’re sure we’re being watched?” Michael asked. The entire room snorted at him. “Whoa, just asking.”
Oliver nodded. “I believe it’s the safest best we have right now.”
“Me too. Okay, MJO, I want you heading over to Andrews Air Force Base. Demand to see the head man. Use whatever means necessary, but be sure that it’s obvious you’re trying to get into a military facility to warn them of an impending threat.”
“That’s a nice idea, but what makes you think I’ll get past the gate?”
This question had occurred to me, too. Luckily, I’d come up with an answer. The Club 51 folks had been good for something. “Tell them you have proof an alien invasion is imminent.”
He shook his head. “No one’s going to believe me. I have a reputation, and it’s not a good one.”
“On the contrary,” Olga said. “Your reputation is quite good among a select few.” She nodded toward the desk and said something in Romanian. Adriana went to the desk, opened a drawer, rummaged through, and pulled out what looked like an old-fashioned writing kit, complete with a candle and small wooden handle with metal at the end.
“I have to ask—first,somethi is that a sealing wax set?”
“Yes,” Olga replied. “I do like to have some touches from the past at hand.”
“Uh-huh, I’m sure. Here’s my next question—what are you two doing?”
Adriana was writing industriously; she handed whatever she’d written and the pen to Olga, who nodded again and signed what I was pretty sure was her name at the bottom. Adriana folded up the letter, lit the sealing wax, let it carefully drip onto the envelope, pressed the seal into, and handed it to Oliver with a little flourish.
“Presto, old fashioned correspondence. Why?” Olga gave me her Disappointed Teacher look. I sighed and gave my best guess. “Sending something this way up to Andrews is some Diplomats of the Old Republic thing, right?”
“In a sense,” she said with a smile. “It will help our friend to gain entry, which should assist in causing our enemies to watch the Air Force base more closely than . . . other places.”
“What do I say when I actually gain entry?” Oliver asked.
“Demand to speak to the man in charge, only. That should take some time. Also insinuate that others will be joining you at Andrews. Hopefully it’ll distract whoever the heck is watching us, at least long enough.”
“I hear and obey,” Oliver said with a smile. “Should I call for a cab?”
“Hail one, let it go by, hail another, you know the drill. Make it clear you think you’re being followed and are trying to hide your tracks.”
“I’ll do my best.” He nodded to all of us, then left. Adriana walked him down. I watched him from the window. He went to the Circle and started looking for transportation.
“So, what interesting thing do you have planned for me, Kitty?” Michael asked while we waited for Adriana to return and Oliver to score transportation.
Oliver had waved three cabs by before Adriana returned. “I locked the entire downstairs, drew all curtains, and generally made it look like we are hiding here.”
Oliver finally got into a cab. “Great. Let’s close the curtains in this room, too.”
“Kitty, what’s really going on, and what am I supposed to be doing?” Michael asked again as Adriana did as I’d asked.
I saw a shimmering in the air. “Tell you about it when we get there. Boys, please assist Olga through.”
Jamie’s diaper bag was still hooked onto her stroller. Amy grabbed the stroller, Adriana and the boys had their duffels, I had Jamie and my purse. All set.
I looked at Bruno. “You first or us?” He fluffed his feathers, then all the Peregrines flew into the stroller and settled down with the remainder of the Poofs with us. “Fine, you’re going in style.” Thankfully no one asked me what or who I was talking to.
The gate looked big enough to take at least three at a time. “Michael, you take Adriana through first. Boys, you and Olga next. Ames, then you and the stroller. Jamie a
nd I will bring up the rear.”
Michael grinned at me, took Adriana’s hand, and they stepped through the gate. Here one second, gone the next. I ignored the slow fade everything did going through a gate because nausea wasn’t on my list of things to experience today.
The boys each took one side of Olga’s wheelchair and lifted it, then they stepped through.
“See you over there,” Amy said. She and the animal-laden stroller went through.
I steeled myself. I’d hated gate transfers from Day One with Centaurion Division, and gaining some A-C powers hadn’t made them any better. Going through the gates was, for me, a nauseating experience at best. I didn’t want to literally toss all the cookies I’d been scarfing down, and I really didn’t want to toss them onto Jamie.
Took a deep breath, relaxed. Took another, relaxed more. Took a third—and heard a step behind me. In an Embassy that was supposedly locked tight and devoid of anyone other than me and my baby.
Yi
CHAPTER 45
I WANTED TO FREEZE, but instead I spun around. And let out the breath I’d been holding.
“What the hell are you doing, Missus Chief?” Buchanan asked.
“Malcolm, are you part A-C?”
“Not that I know of. Why?”
“You have an amazing ability to sneak up on me.”
He shook his head. “Where’s everyone else?”
“Um, where I need to go. But you can come, too.”
“Oh. Great. Floater gate transfer?”
“Wow. Can you see the gate? I mean, I used to be able to see the gate, before, but only like a kind of faint shimmering.”
“I didn’t need to see it. Since you came inside, the number of people in the second floor study continued to increase and not all of the new arrivals came in through the front door. Mister White and Senator Armstrong went to the American Centaurion Embassy, but no one else has exited this building via conventional means. And now I’m in here, and the only people left inside this entire place are you and Baby Chief. It doesn’t take genius to figure out that you’ve been using floaters for some reason. Are you worried about another attack?”
“Yes, but not from the Club Fifty-One lunatics this time. At least, I don’t think so. Tell you the reason once we get to our next stop.”
He sighed, took Jamie from me and held her i
n one arm as he put his other arm around me and headed us toward the gate. “You don’t make this job easy.”
“As near as I can tell, it’s easy for you.” I steeled myself. And hoped Jeff wasn’t paying attention to me at this precise time.
Buchanan did a variety of things similarly toeas Jeff, and this was merely one of them. Whether Jeff would perceive this as being better or worse than Buchanan catching me I couldn’t guess. I didn’t really want Jeff and Buchanan to be forced to have the jealousy chat, in part because I didn’t think Jeff was going to cut Buchanan even half the slack he cut Chuckie, and said Chuckie slack was essentially nil.
However, we stepped through, and my worries about Jeff’s jealousy were wiped away by intense nausea. Buchanan’s arm tightened around me, which helped a little.
I’d heard the gates’ functioning explained as using a temporal warp filtered through black-hole technology or similar, allowing the fast, safe, movement of matter across a large physical space in a very short amount of perceived time.
That made as much sense to me as international politics, which so far had made almost no logical sense at all. Suffice to say that going through the gates felt like you were taking a very slow step while the world moved past you very, very quickly. I’d tried going through gates with my eyes open and my eyes closed. To date, the only way going through them had been even remotely pleasant was if Jeff was carrying me and I had my face buried in his neck.
Needless to say, since Jeff wasn’t here, I was nauseated by the time our feet hit the terra firma of the Dome’s interior.
Christopher was waiting for us and gave us a lovely shot of Patented Glare #2. “You took a while to get here.”
“Oh, my God, did Jeff ask you to cover the jealousy stuff if he wasn’t around? Malcolm got into the Romanian Embassy, God alone knows how, and found me and Jamie just before we were stepping through the gate.”
“Actually, I found them while the Ambassador was stalling going through,” Buchanan said as he let go of me and put Jamie in my arms. “I know how much she hates them—frankly, if I hadn’t come inside, she’d probably still be there, prepping for the trip.”
