Camp Alien (57 page)

Abner was trying to regain his balance and not go down. But he was near Samara and was waving his arms around as you do when you're trying not to fall. Abner continued to represent for my side of things by knocking into Samara, which shoved Samara into the pool. A couple of Samara's staff jumped in to help him and Vance managed to keep Abner from going down or going in.

“That can't be good,” Lizzie said.

Proving that Lizzie was well trained in understatement, what surfaced out of the pool wasn't Samara. And while it wasn't a shock, at least to me, it certainly was a gigantic surprise.

“J
ERRY, I'M BACK,
and hells to the yeah, I want all five of you.” Heard him relay the order to Hughes. Could just hear him over the screaming and shouting from around the pool. “Definitely grab Tito and the princesses, regardless of where they are. Have them take floater gates here if you can't get them into the ship within a minute. Frankly, bring anyone who's good in a fight, but take no time to grab them. Floater gates are everyone's friends right now.”

“Give them the override protocol,” Chuckie said. “The phrase is ‘Kitty's mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.' That should work for any and all US and Centaurion personnel.”

“Seriously?” Chuckie nodded emphatically. “Okay, Jerry—”

“I heard him, Commander. Love it.”

“Me too. Make your arrival faster than fast and arm the ship for bear. Or in this case, giant squid.”

Well, it might have been a giant squid coming out of the pool. Or a giant octopus. Was having trouble counting the arms or tentacles or whatever they were since they were flailing around so quickly. It was big, Kraken-sized if I was any judge, and a sort of glistening black. The glistening seeming to come from ichor and mucus, not pretty skin. It had claws at the end of each tentacle, along with myriad suckers on each tentacle that looked like round mouths full of teeth.

The bulbous head portion had the monster look with a caricature of Samara's face in the middle along with giant eyes that were, naturally, doing the glowing red thing so popular with the in-control superbeing set. Had no idea
how long Samara had been combined with the superbeing, but if Jeff was right and he wasn't one of the old ones, then someone had found a parasite and infected him and managed to keep him in control of the change. Neither option was comforting.

“What do you mean?” Jerry asked.

“Superbeing formation. Seems like old times. Literally.”

“God. On it!” He hung up. Just in time for us to watch one of the Iraqis who'd jumped in to save Samara get speared through the middle by one of the claws at the end of the tentacles.

“Oh, my God,” Raj said. “Can this get any worse? They're filming.” He pointed to the news crews who were foolishly not running. Well, Oliver was dragging Jenkins away and shouting at the others, presumably telling them “run, you fools,” but they weren't listening.

Figured the speared person would be dead. That's what normally happened when a superbeing hit someone, be they human or A-C. The Samarapus dropped the body into the pool while everyone else was dodging tentacles and claws.

The body didn't float, it went under. And came up a slightly smaller version of the Samarapus. “It's worse,” I shared as I pulled out my earbuds, plugged them in, put them into my ears, and pulled up my music. “I'd like everyone to not ask if it can get worse because it always can. We need to get all civilians down into that tunnel thing you talked about, Chuckie. And that includes you and Lizzie.”

“The hell it does,” they both said in unison. Chose to ignore the unison thing. Bigger issues were at stake, including that Samarapus, Jr. had speared someone in the Israeli entourage and dropped said person into the pool. Sure enough, that person came up as a superbeing. An even smaller Samarapus. At this rate, in about six more spearings, we'd have a Samarapus that was about Jeff's size. That was me, going for the positive outlook.

The Samarapus caught the other Iraqi who'd gotten into the pool and was desperately trying to get out. Speared him, too. He went down and came up a Samarapus, Jr. Our luck held firm.

All of this had taken less than two minutes. What would happen in the next minutes wasn't pretty to contemplate.

“We need to get people away from those things. They're making new ones without issue and that's technically impossible. Avoid getting speared, please and thank you.” Put my purse over my neck, hit play on my phone, shoved it into my back pocket, heaved a sigh, and ran. “Victorious” from Panic! At the Disco came on. Sincerely hoped I was on the Algar Channel.

Headed for one of the Secret Service who was too near to the edge of the pool and tackled him. A tentacle just missed him.

“Everybody get away from the pool!” Jeff bellowed. No one bellowed like my man, and if there were people elsewhere in Camp David, was sure they'd heard him. Good, hopefully that meant the marines were coming.

“Get civilians underground,” I told the Secret Service guy I'd saved. “And get yourself underground too.”

“You have to be protected,” he said.

“The hell she does.” Keith stepped through a floater gate, followed by Daniel, Joshua, Marcus, and Lucas. The A-Cs went into automatic Superbeing Containment Mode. Daniel shouted some orders, and the other A-Cs who'd been on service duty dropped that act and leaped into the action they'd been trained for. “You do what the Commander says, and you do it now!” Keith bellowed. He was quite good at bellowing, too. Not up to Jeff's standards, but then, none were.

The agent Keith was shouting at scrambled to his feet, looked around, saw someone screaming, grabbed her, and dragged her toward the door for the cabin.

Keith pulled me to my feet. “What do you want me doing?”

“Making the Secret Service lose their death wish. Anyone those things hit is going to turn into a superbeing. We have to kill them, and that takes a lot.” And we'd have to find where the parasite was. If there was one. “Get them and anyone else you can underground if at all possible.”

Keith nodded and started shouting orders. Amazingly enough, the other Secret Service agents listened to him. Apparently it helped that he was the biggest.

We split up, because I needed to hit the hyperspeed and knock Jeff out of the way of three tentacles he wasn't aware of, because he was too busy grabbing Elaine Armstrong and
getting her out of the way of a huge tentacle from Samarapus heading right for her. I also had to grab my Uncle Mort, who was calmly firing at the Samarapus but who was, therefore, the focus of a lot of tentacles.

Hit Jeff and Elaine first and kept going, ramming all of us into Uncle Mort. Thankfully, my speed and momentum propelled all of us out of tentacle reach. At least for now. Took all of us to the ground but the tentacles missed us all, so chose to see this as a total win. “Uncle Mort, get Elaine to that bunker thing.”

“I know where it is,” she said, voice shaking. “It has tunnels that lead to Raven Rock.”

“I heard that was a myth.” Though, as I thought of it, Chuckie had only said it was a myth after we were out of college, meaning after Mom had recruited him into the CIA.

“It's not.”

“Get everyone there, to Raven Rock,” Jeff said to Uncle Mort. “And that's an order. You take my children, Elaine, and whoever's down there already, and get them to safety.”

“I'm a Marine son, I don't hide.”

“You're the Commander of the Joint Chiefs and we're under attack,” I said. “And the Commander in Chief just gave you a direct order.”

Uncle Mort shot the hairy eyeball at me. “I can still turn you over my knee, young lady.”

“Only when I'm wrong, and you know I'm not.” Looked at the pool. We had a couple more Samarapus the Thirds and at least another Samarapus, Jr. “We're too slow. And, oh joy, they're getting out of the pool.” Without issues, which wasn't that big a surprise, really. Superbeings were hella hearty.

Jeff looked around. “Raj!”

Raj hypersped over, dodging tentacles like a pro. “What do you need?”

“We need an A-C in the tunnels,” Jeff said. “That's you, your job right now. I also want Doreen, Paul, and Richard down there.”

“Doreen and Paul, yes. Richard stays here.” Pointed. White was busy tossing civilians to Daniel and the others, who were running them off to the cabin. Saw something unsettling. “We need to protect the cabin!”

“What?” Jeff asked. But I didn't stop to explain. Harpaz was being hustled into the cabin by some well-meaning but uninformed Secret Service agents, meaning he was going to get underground. Where my children were.

Hit Harpaz at full hyperspeed and knocked him out of the hold of the agents, which was what I'd hoped for. Knew that he was likely to explode soon because Abner's drink had indeed landed on him and he was blinking like a strobe light. Considered using him to blow up a Samarapus or two, but knew that our luck never ran in that direction. Noted that “Victorious” was on repeat. Meaning I was missing something that Algar wanted me to pay attention to, and it surely wasn't that he wanted me to win because that was a given.

Kept on running. Was really glad we'd taken the time to tour this place, even if it had been at hyperspeed, because I had something of a clue as to where I was going. Oh, not a big clue, but a clue, nonetheless.

Harpaz was fighting me, and he was strong, far too strong to be a human, and too strong to be an A-C, either. Just right for an android. But I was fully enraged and the skills were working perfectly, which included strength. What to do with him was the issue. Because, right now, I was trying to kill someone who hadn't identified officially as a threat. And, as Buchanan had pointed out at the NSA black site, “I say so” wasn't going to hold up anywhere, let alone in a court of law.

Happily, found what I was looking for with only a few detours. Reached the barracks to discover that, as always, things could get worse. There were indeed marines and sailors here, and they were armed. But they weren't fighting superbeings and, based on what was going on, they weren't going to be able to.

They were fighting a Fem-Bot army. A Fem-Bot army made up of me. And there were fifty of them at least.

T
HEY'D DONE A
good job with this set. Whatever the Original Kitty-Bot's issues, her choice of clothing being out of date had definitely been one of them. These Kitty-Bots were all in jeans, Converse, and t-shirts. No purses, though. Adding insult to injury, they were all in red band t-shirts. The same shirt and the same band—the Rolling Stones.

So, whoever had created these Fem-Bots had a sense of humor, knew that I'd mentioned that Aerosmith was better than the Stones more than once and always at inopportune times, and was also wanting to ensure that, should I be around, the other Fem-Bots would know because I'd be wearing the wrong shirt.

Too sophisticated for Stephanie, who didn't have a sense of humor I was aware of, but potentially just right for either Strauss or the Tinkerer. Or whoever was actually now running the Fem-Bot Project, since the idea that there was a schism between whoever was left on Strauss' team and the NSA seemed very likely.

On the plus side, they weren't alone. My Uncle Mort was there, shouting orders, telling the troops that these weren't real women. Which was going to suck for me, but that was so par for my natural course. Of course, reality said that Uncle Mort was either still arguing with Jeff, speared by a tentacle, or, hopefully, getting everyone to safety in the hollow mountain. Meaning this wasn't really Uncle Mort.

Meaning Wruck was here.

Ran right to him. “John!”

He turned and smiled. “Good to see you.”

“Not really. This is an android. And he's going to blow soon and we can't have him die without being revealed to be an android first.”

Siler appeared out of nowhere and grabbed Harpaz out of my arms. He held him while Wruck changed one finger to look like a pencil and stabbed it into Harpaz's ear. The android stopped struggling and went still.

“God, am I glad you two are okay. And here. How'd you all get in here?”

“Same here,” Siler said, while Wruck bellowed that the marines needed to note that I was in a black Aerosmith shirt and therefore the real woman to be protected not killed. Hoped they'd heard him, but there was a lot of gunfire, so it was hard to be sure. “There's a back gate. The Fem-Bots used one as a decoy then overwhelmed the gate guards. The guards are all dead, it happened too fast for us to stop it.”

“They aren't the only dead we have.” Filled them in fast on the superbeing situation. “Think these attacks are coordinated?”

“No, not at all,” Siler said as he dropped the Harpaz android to the ground as I grabbed a Kitty-Bot. He took one arm, I took the other, and we played tug-of-war. “They're not supporting each other properly. This is just a prime opportunity that your various enemies are capitalizing on.”

“We're just so lucky, aren't we? Plus, I'm sure Strauss gave whoever's in charge of the Fem-Bots the heads up that the peace summit would be a great place and time to attack, since they had to know that was when she was planning to use the Original Kitty-Bot.”

“We've been trailing this platoon since Malcolm was taken. They walked here from the facility, or, rather, from the woods behind the facility, which is where we caught their trail. We all only arrived a few minutes ago. Have you found him?”

“And the others who were taken, yes, we have.”

“Good. Glad to see you got out of wherever you were and seem unscathed, too.” He looked worried as we ripped the Fem-Bot's arms off. “Legs next. Is—”

We both grabbed a leg while the Fem-Bot tried to kick us, unsuccessfully. She fell forward and her face smashed into the ground. Chose not to take this personally. “Quick
Girl is fine. Refusing to go underground, though.” Decided not to share that I had no idea where she was—why make Siler as worried about her as I was?

He flashed a half-smile. “She's the bravest kid I know.”

“Ditto. I need to get back to the superbeing situation, though.” And hopefully find Lizzie, Jeff, and Chuckie unscathed somewhere.

Noted a few Fem-Bots had broken through the marines and were heading off, presumably for the Aspen Lodge. The marines were riddling the Fem-Bots with bullets, but these were better made than the Kitty-Bot apparently, because they were taking a licking and definitely still kicking. Usually kicking a marine's gun away from him or her, slamming them into the ground, and moving on. Maybe these were Level Five Fem-Bots. Whether they were or not, there weren't enough marines to hold out unless they started using bazookas.

Yanked hard on the leg I had and Siler and I each ended up with another limb. “We'll hold them here if we can,” he said. “And will come help if we get them contained.”

“We need to preserve that android.” Pointed to Harpaz as I put a knee onto the Fem-Bot's back and, using all my strength, ripped her head off. “Without proof that he's an android, we'll be at war with Israel in a day. If the superbeings get over here, keep away from the tentacles. The very last thing in the world we need is either one of you turned into a superbeing.”

Mephistopheles had been stronger because he'd combined with Ronald Yates, a powerful A-C. Did not even want to contemplate what could happen if Wruck were to turn into a superbeing, mostly because I wanted to have a hope of sleeping again in the future.

“Which part explodes, head or body?” Siler asked.

“No freaking idea, just be sure you find out without blowing you and John up.” Ran after the loose Fem-Bots who were indeed heading for the Aspen Lodge. There were five of them, and they were fast. And there was only one of me.

As I thought this, four people landed from the air next to me and started running with me. Looked up in time to see a hatch closing. “Joe, Randy, Rahmi, and Rhee, it's good to see you guys.”

They were in the battle gear we'd used during our NSA
raid, and they had big guns with them, too. Was totally jealous.

“We'd have run here if we'd had to,” Randy said, “but Colonel Franklin is now on all of our speed dials, and he got us into the helicarrier in less than a minute.”

“Who's up there flying it with the other flyboys?”

“Gil Morgan and Thomas Kendrick,” Joe said. “The real one.”

“The Great Tito is aboard as well,” Rahmi said. “I felt he should remain above leading the attack.”

“In other words, you're doing the time-honored thing of doing your best to protect your man. Well done, that, princess. And I'm impressed with everyone's reaction time.”

“We are always ready for action,” Rhee said. “We used hyperspeed the moment Jerry called us.”

“Kendrick was there because Morgan was showing him the ship,” Randy said. “With Drax's permission.”

“I'll never, ever argue when things go our way.”

“Victorious” was still on repeat. The Algar Channel was big on repetition recently. Couldn't focus on whatever the clue was that Algar wanted me to get, though, because the five of us caught up to and tackled a Fem-Bot each.

These were definitely Fem-Bots, and not just because they looked like me. As with the Original Kitty-Bot, they were harder than humans or A-Cs, but not as hard as androids. Of course, that still meant they were difficult to contain. But I had a lot of practice.

The princesses had their battle staffs out and activated and they were using them effectively to destroy their two Fem-Bots. Joe and Randy were literally ripping their Fem-Bots apart with their bare hands. Show-offs, all four of them. I was actually having to fight with mine.

On the plus side, I had the Fem-Bot's back. Wrapped my legs around her waist, got her in a headlock and, as I'd done with the other one, pulled at her head. She had all four limbs intact, though, and I hadn't really done much damage to her when I'd knocked her down, so she was fighting me.

She grabbed my arms and tried to flip me over her head. It hurt, but I had a good lock and didn't lose it. She was spinning us around, not fast to throw me off, but because of being off balance.

“Kitty,” Randy called, “she's blinking a lot!”

Pulled harder. Her head remained attached. This was truly disappointing. She ran us toward the others, presumably to explode and kill all of us at the same time.

“Jump off,” Joe called. “Now!”

Did as requested, but I didn't have a good way to propel myself, so I basically let go and fell onto my butt. This worked out, since Rahmi swung the glowing end of her laser staff and took the Fem-Bot's head off while Rhee did the same but took her down at the knees.

Scrambled to my feet. “Think she's going to explode?”

“No idea,” Joe said. “Do we go back and help the marines?”

“We had at least six superbeings the last time I checked, I think we go to them.” “Victorious” was still on, and could have sworn it was louder somehow. Paused for a moment and listened to the lyrics. Realized that Panic! was saying to turn up the crazy during the chorus of this song. Meaning I knew what to do.

Hit speed dial. Happily, he answered right away. “Kitty, what's going on? We got some garbled report from the TV news then it switched to a rerun of a Godzilla movie, and Lizzie has somehow put Centaurion into worldwide lockdown.”

“Serene must have gotten Imageering on the case, thank God. But no time for that right now. I need the Flash and the former Head of Imageering when it was busy fighting superbeings, aka you, at Camp David like five minutes ago. But don't come alone. Get Adriana and tell her we need Old Trusty. And bringing a rocket launcher yourself wouldn't be a bad idea.”

“We have a superbeing?”

“We have a plethora of superbeings that create new ones just like themselves, only a bit smaller, when they stab their tentacle claws into their victims. Avoid those. Get here. Now.” Hung up. My music went back to “Victorious,” though it had been midsong when I'd made my call.

“That's impossible,” Randy said. “Superbeings don't do that.”

“Yeah, well, we passed impossible a little while ago. And, trust me, this one does.”

“Anything else we need to know?” Joe asked.

“The original superbeing was the Iraqi President. I just
dropped off the android Israeli Prime Minister with Siler and Wruck who are, thank God, alive, well, and here, fighting alongside the marines who are fighting a ton of these Fem-Bots.”

“Let's move,” Rahmi said. She reached behind her and unslung the big gun she'd had on her back. “Here. I'm happier with my staff and you were, ah, not as effective as you could have been in that last skirmish.”

“I agree on the moving and the skirmishing. Thanks for the big gun, Rahmi, I appreciate it. Joe, Randy, you guys need to grab a hand to do the hyperspeed?”

“Let's find out,” Joe said, as he started running faster than I'd ever seen him do before.

The rest of us caught up with him, and I took the lead since I knew where we were going. Was about to turn to my left to get back to where I was pretty sure Aspen was when my music changed. The band was still Panic! At the Disco, but the song went to “Emperor's New Clothes.” Chose to grasp the clue and looked around. Spotted the small Shantanu portable city that was sort of to our right and relatively far from the Aspen Lodge. There was a Samarapus, Jr. and two Samarapus the Thirds flopping their way toward it.

Turned and headed for them. “If they get the Planetary Council or the Vata, God alone knows what kind of superbeing will form. We need to destroy these before we can help the others.”

“Are you sure they're in there?” Randy asked. “Weren't they at the thing everyone else was at?”

“No, they were staying inside so as not to create a spectacle.”

Rahmi snorted. “What do they call this?”

“I have no idea. I'm not sure if they realize that things are dire, it hasn't been going on all that long, really.” Seemed like forever but probably wasn't more than fifteen minutes, maybe less. Time moved slowly when you were fighting for your life and totally high on adrenaline.

The Samarapusses weren't making a lot of noise, really, though they were leaving a trail of what looked like black ink. And the sounds of fighting weren't carrying all that well. Probably due to all the trees or something. But if I listened hard I could hear the gunfire and the screams, but both were far away from where the Shantanu had set up
their portable quarters. And Christopher had indicated that the news wasn't covering this, thanks most likely to Imageering, and I doubted the Shantanu had brought a television along in the first place.

“Any guess for how to kill them?” Randy asked as he got the big gun he'd chosen off his back.

“Shoot them a lot. I have no idea if these are parasitic superbeings or if the Samarapus was lab created. I put nothing past The League of Evil Supergenius Megalomaniacs.”

Joe did the lock and load thing. “Then let's go hunt calamari.”

We lined up abreast and started firing at one of the Samarapus the Thirds, since it was closest to us.