Alien vs. Alien (48 page)

“Seriously, Jeff, hurry the hell up and stop being coy. Figure everyone in this room knows or should know all about what’s going on. You two are way behind on the Bad Guy Scheme du Jour.”

“Fine. I saw the cube, realized he must have been the one who took it from my parents’ home. Then Clarence took off. We were both fine, and Reynolds agreed Clarence was the highest security risk at the Festival. So we followed him.”

“For miles,” Chuckie said. “At hyperspeed.”

“Right. So, we caught him at some golf course. While Reynolds was on his hands and knees throwing up, Clarence and I got into a fight.”

“He’s taken Surcenthumain. A lot of it, from what I could see.”

“Yeah, baby, he has. I was able to get the cube away from him, but only because he knocked me down and I grabbed it as I was falling. Once I had it, I grabbed Reynolds, only Clarence attacked us again. He hits hard, and I hadn’t been winning the fight in the first place. I wanted to get the hell away and get the two of us to safety.”

“And?”

Jeff shrugged. “And all of a sudden, we weren’t on a golf course anymore.”

CHAPTER 89

“W
E WERE IN A ROOM,”
Chuckie said. “The movement that took us there was similar to when we were all taken to Alpha Four, only much faster.”

“Just like Jeff used to get us back here.”

He nodded. “So, once inside, we were safe from Clarence.”

“And anything else,” Jeff said. “We couldn’t get out.”

Chuckie looked around the room. “You activated the protocols?”

“Yes, we’re all caught up, Director Fury. And everyone here knows about the tunnel system and the rooms.”

“Great. Based on what I already knew, I realized we had to be in a dead zone, and based on where we’d been when the cube activated, I figured we were inside the dead zone still being mapped. We couldn’t receive or send any electronic signals, and Martini had no empathic abilities at all.”

“I couldn’t read Reynolds, and he was right next to me.”

“Wow, we’ve officially found A-C kryptonite. Wonderful.”

“Our watches stopped working, too,” Chuckie said. “So we didn’t have a clear idea of the passage of time.”

Naomi sniffled and looked up at him. “Great excuse. I don’t think I buy it any more than Kitty will.”

Chuckie smiled at her, and it was a smile I remembered from long ago. I savored the warm, fuzzy moment. I wasn’t sure how many more we were going to get. “Sorry,” he said again. “But we didn’t realize anyone was looking for us.”

“Seriously? With Clarence running amok? With me point blank telling Jeff to get you because you were the assassination target of the day?”

Jeff sighed. “Baby, there was more going on. We weren’t alone in the room.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the glowing cube. “It turned out that this wasn’t the one Christopher and I had when we were little.”

Chuckie released one arm from around Naomi and reached into his pocket. “The only thing the room contained was this.” He pulled out another glowing cube. “Per Martini, this one isn’t the one he had as a child, either.”

“So, did you try the wishing we were somewhere else thing?”

“Yeah, after the ‘throw himself against every part of the walls’ attempt that lasted far longer than was good for anyone’s health, your husband did,” Chuckie said. He looked like he was trying not to laugh. “For what I’m guessing was an hour. With no success.”

“Yeah, yeah. It was more like fifteen minutes, if that. Reynolds finally convinced me to sit down and tell him what I knew about our cube and how it worked.”

“From what I can tell, your mother,” Chuckie said to Christopher, “was able to alter the cube you two used to be trained on your DNA signature. Maybe tuned to your talents. But set up just for the two of you. The ones Clarence had and we found are more . . . general.”

“How would my mother have ever found a cube like this?” Christopher asked. “They aren’t manmade and they aren’t something from our home world. Are they?” he asked White.

“I’d never heard of these until today, son.”

Chuckie’s wasn’t the only human mind that could move fast when needed. Mine liked to comply now and again as well. “Richard, I’m sorry, I know you don’t know this, but now’s apparently the time. I know Terry went to see Yates right after the Mephistopheles superbeing showed up. She was going to ask for his help. Instead, he infected her in some way. Whether it was with a parasite or something else, I’m not sure, but that’s what killed her.”

White clenched his jaw but otherwise didn’t betray emotion. Christopher put his arm around his father; Abigail took and squeezed White’s hand. “I’m fine, children,” he said quietly. “Confirmation of long suspected truth is something of a relief.”

“I know it was a long time ago, but do you know where Yates was the week before Terry got sick?”

“It still feels like yesterday most of the time, so yes, I do remember. He was in Washington, D.C. Rumors put him at his club.”

“Which we can safely assume was the same country club the dead zone is under. So, maybe he had the cube, maybe Terry followed him, something, but somewhere along the way, she found it. Figured out how to program it and brought it back with her. So she could pass on what Jeff and Christopher would need in order to survive without her.”

“But she never told me where she got it,” Jeff said. “Why not?”

“The same reason she didn’t tell you many other things. You were ten years old, and she was already giving you more responsibility than any child should have to bear.”

“So, how did you two get out?” Stryker asked. “The room’s impregnable.”

“With our tools, yes,” Chuckie said. “But not if you use the cubes properly.”

“Only works if you’re with the smartest guy in not just the room you’re in, but any room in the world,” Jeff said. Proudly. Wow. This was a red-letter day in a lot of ways.

“Thanks. It’s based on mental telepathy, which would sound like so much New Age junk if we didn’t have A-Cs doing similar every day of their lives. It requires more than wishing to make it work, however.”

“So how did Jeff manage it?”

They both chuckled. “Lucky accident, as near as we can tell,” Chuckie said. “He was pressing the right points of the cube at the right time, and was completely focused on his goal, which was a clear and simple goal.”

“How do you mean?” Buchanan asked.

“Martini wanted to get the two of us away from Clarence and to safety. That’s a clear goal. ‘I want to be rich’ isn’t as clear a goal, for example, because it’s not saying how you’re going to get rich, it’s not saying what you consider rich to be, and so on.”

“Makes sense.” Who was I to argue? I could talk to animals now. I had no That’s So Crazy leg to stand on.

“If you look at the cube, it’s set up almost exactly like a Rubik’s Cube,” Chuckie continued. He held up his cube. It glowed, but I could see that each side was faintly different in color from the others. “It moves similarly, so each square, row, and side means something. I’m nowhere close to determining how it works all the way around, but after a variety of experiments, we determined the right formation for traveling through the dead zone. We tested and ended up outside the walls.”

“We each went back in, separately,” Jeff said. “So the one in the tunnel could go for help if the one in the room couldn’t get back out. But the pattern is consistent. And the goal was simple—I want to be on the other side of this wall, in the room.”

“Or I want to be outside this room, in the tunnel. I was glad to be right on that one,” Chuckie said as he fiddled with his cube.

“We were looking to see what we could pick up from the tunnels when you found us,” Jeff added.

“Why were you two just sauntering along?” Christopher asked. “You were moving slowly by any standards, let alone ours.

“Because Reynolds threw up for ten minutes straight while I spent time on the losing end of a fight with Clarence, and then we both got to enjoy Clarence hitting us for a while, and then we were locked in a room with no water or food, and we’ve both used a lot of energy, and, speaking for both of us, we feel like crap. I have no hyperspeed left, and as Reynolds confirmed earlier, he can’t take hyperspeed right now anyway. We ehad no choice but to ‘saunter.’ ”

I looked at both their expressions. “You need adrenaline, don’t you?” I asked Jeff.

“No, I’m sure I’m fine.”

Tito sighed. “I’m sure you’re not, and we have a world of hurt heading for us, so let’s get you taken care of.”

While Jeff whined and complained and Tito, Christopher, and White overruled him, I put on my Recap Girl cape yet again and brought Jeff and Chuckie up to speed on what had gone on in their absence, which included introductions of those here and elsewhere they hadn’t officially met and all the other niceties.

I might have mentioned how distressed we all were with their being kidnapped and all that more than once, but who could blame me? Not Naomi, if her chiming in was any indication.

Chuckie was overjoyed to discover Franklin was truly now the man in charge at Andrews and concerned about Hamlin’s disappearance, which he hadn’t been briefed on.

Ravi interrupted to demand information from Chuckie about how he controlled the nine supersoldiers in his charge. Once the information was relayed, and Chuckie confirmed that he, Reader, and Tim—and only he, Reader, and Tim—had access to where these nine supersoldiers were housed, I went back to theories and recaps. I’d gotten so good at this over the past couple of days that I didn’t miss a thing. White, Buchanan, Oliver, and the Middle Eastern Contingent even applauded when I was done.

The nice thing about Tito being here and Jeff not being at death’s door was that the adrenaline could go in via the vein in his arm rather than stabbed into his hearts. It was the most pleasant adrenaline injection of his I’d ever experienced.

Ravi chimed in again as all this finished up and Jeff was rolling his sleeve down. “We have confirmation of control of all supersoldiers, from teams in Paris and Paraguay. I’ve also apprised Commanders Reader and Crawford of our status.”

My phone beeped. I had a text. “James says that he and Tim are so thrilled that the two of you are alive and well, they plan to celebrate by kicking alien invader butt.” Another beep. “Tim says that he appreciates that we took forever to let them know you two were okay.”

“Enough with the guilt,” Jeff said. “Does my mother know I was missing?”

“Yes, indeed. And I’m sure she’ll make you feel even guiltier than I possibly can.” Another beep. “James says that, under the circumstances, now that Chuckie’s back, he’d like to suggest that we get Alpha Four’s help, pronto.”

Chuckie shook his head. “I don’t know why they wouldn’t be helping you already, even with me gone.”

“I explained that. World War Two. And such.”

“Yes, I know,” he said patiently. “But you’re at least as trusted by them as I am, Kitty.” He gave a mirthless chuckle. “Besides, what we really need is an ozone shield.”

“Why?” Jeff asked.

“It stopped the parasites when Alpha Four had theirs up.” My mind raced. “Oh. Wow. Um, I have a really clear and focused goal, Chuckie.”

“On it.”

“Do you think these things can do that?” Jeff asked, looking at the cube in his hand.

“Worth a shot. So, while Chuckie plays with our Outer Space Rubik’s Cube, where is the one Terry programmed? I’d figured Clarence stole it way back when.”

“Makes sense, but if he is the one who took it, he hid it somewhere,” Jeff said.

“The Embassy,” William said, before I could. “That’s why he’s trying to get in here. He lost his cube and knows where a spare is stored.”

“That must be how they were able to enter the dead zone they used for the secret lab—they had the cube and figured out how to work it.”

“We think each dead zone houses a cube,” Chuckie said. “I was hoping to test and see if we could get into one of the others with one of the two we have.”

“So does that mean our world is littered with these cubes?” Oren asked.

“Too little data to make an accurate hypothesis,” Henry said.

“Oh, but I’m here, and I’m great with making a really good guess. Yes, assume there are Power Cubes in every dead zone. And if we could find the one Clarence hid in here, we’d have three.” An idea formed. “Poofies, can you find the missing cube that mean old Clarence stole and hid?”

The three Poofs with us appeared from wherever they’d been. Harlie did a mewl-growl thing, and a few more Poofs appeared out of nowhere. I decided not to question. The Poofs bounced up and down, then disappeared.

“Great, the Poofs are on the hunt.” One problem down. I thought faster. “So, based on our earlier assumptions, I’m going to make another leap.”

“Why not?” Omega Red said. “It’s all speculation right now.”

“Oh, it won’t be speculation for long, Yuri. We know the Ancients came by more than once. I think it’s a safe bet that whatever the aliens are that are headed toward us, they dropped by, too. The Ancients hung around and interacted. But maybe these other aliens didn’t. They could have been like ACE—they came to watch and observe, maybe take some tests, but they’re supposed to be leaving us alone. They put their cubes and tunnels into the earth a long time ago, and they’re using building materials we can’t access or probe with A-C talents or Earth-based technology, so that probably means metals from another world.”