Camp Alien (8 page)

E
VERYONE STARED AT ME.
“Excuse me?” Chuckie asked finally.

Heaved a sigh. “Look, we're forgetting something really key.” More blank stares. “Why are we no longer interested in whatever Monica Strauss had going on?”

“Because she's dead,” Reader said as if this was obvious, which, in that sense, it was.

“Right. But Other Me didn't trust her at all, and Elaine Armstrong didn't, either, from what she said.”

“But Monica Strauss
is
dead,” Serene said.

“Yes, but that doesn't mean that she's not the one who put the Kitty-Bot into action.”

There was silence. “I think I speak for everyone,” Tim said finally, “when I say that I have no idea what you're getting at.”

Always the way. “I'll just pretend you're all still in shock about there being another me around. Again. Okay, so, let's pretend that all that happened this past week didn't. The Mastermind didn't roll his Doomsday Plan, no one died, and it's business as usual. In fact, let's pretend that it
is
a week ago. We don't know that Stephanie's trying out for a recurring role on a CW series based on DC Comics characters. We don't know that Drax exists. NASA Base isn't in jeopardy. It's Washington Business As Usual.”

“Okay,” Serene said slowly. “And?”

“And . . . Strauss was a political animal. She wanted to be the President. She was our first suspect when Operation Epidemic started going beyond weird. Maybe she also wanted to be or was an Apprentice.”

“So?” Chuckie asked, sounding as if the wheels were turning but definitely needed more oil to run smoothly.

“So, what plan did Straus have in play a week or so ago? Or, more importantly, what meeting was Armstrong supposed to be having at Camp David in the past few days?”

Mom jerked. “Peace accords. There are issues in the Middle East, you know, as there always are. The Israeli Prime Minister and the President of Iraq were supposed to be here to try to work things out. That was canceled the moment the President's train was attacked and is supposed to be rescheduled, now, once Jeff feels confident he can preside.”

“Was Jeff supposed to be there, too, for these talks?” Because if so he hadn't mentioned it to me.

“Yes, but he'd insisted that he wasn't going to bring his family and would be spending each night at home. As the Vice President and the father of two small children, that was approved, and the gates make it safe and easy to achieve. Mostly we didn't want Charlie to create . . . issues, and no one was naïve enough to think that if Jeff was going to be sleeping there that you and the children would just stay home and behave.”

“I'll be insulted for our family later, Mom.”

“Not an insult, kitten. We just all know you.”

“Blah, blah, blah. So, anyway, was Strauss supposed to be there?”

“No,” Mom said. “She was supposed to be in D.C. to keep things running. I'd have been there, though.”

“And we have a perfect little plan. ‘I' show up with an urgent message. There is no way in the world Jeff wouldn't insist on my being let in, and you'd support it, too, Mom. Then the wife of the Vice President, aka an alien, and the daughter of the Head of the P.T.C.U. blows up the President, VP, and the visiting dignitaries. Strauss takes over and gets rid of the A-Cs, or has them so on the run that they have to do whatever she wants in order to keep from being deported or put into concentration camps.”

“But you would be alive to prove that it wasn't you who did it,” Tim pointed out.

“Yes, presuming she didn't have assassins in play to kill me or similar.”

“And we should never assume that,” Chuckie said. “Even with the protections you've . . . had.”

“Yeah.” Did my best not to think about what had happened to those protections. “But I'd be so busy scrambling while my husband and mother had just been murdered that, let's face it, I'd be out of control and so would the rest of us.”

Reader nodded. “I can easily see you saying something that would have gotten us all in trouble, and I'm not trying to be mean.”

“No, I agree with you. Plus, whenever this plan was put into effect, Cliff was still running things. But I don't think he had a real hand in this.”

“Why not?” Tim asked.

“Because it's counter to what he wanted,” Chuckie replied. “I think it's safe to go with the idea that Strauss was vying to become the Mastermind.”

“I agree, Secret Agent Man. I think she might have been in the Apprentice Tryouts, but this says ‘I'm done listening to you.'”

“So, now what?” Evalyne asked. “Do we assume it's all over? Or do we assume there are more attacks put in motion by a dead woman?”

“Never assume it's over, that's my motto.” Heaved a sigh. “But this part of it is over for now and, before you all get in line to bawl me out, save it for later. I know I need to change clothes and probably shower. But first I need to race to the Embassy and be sure my children aren't being kidnapped by a robot that looks like me.”

“Stay here,” Mom said. “I contacted the Embassy while you were having your little rumble. Everyone's fine, the Embassy and the children are secure, and everyone's on high alert. Missy is monitoring for ‘you' coming into the Embassy any way other than via gate or a presidential cavalcade. The Embassy is in lockdown other than for gate traffic. She'll alert every authority known to God if ‘you're' seen coming in from the streets. And that goes for everyone else who might be a duplicate. Right now, we're only to access the Embassy via gates or advise Missy otherwise.”

“Okay and thanks for being a good grandma, Mom. Clothing change time it is.”

Serene was looking at her phone. “I'll go with you, Kitty, to help you change.”

“So will we,” Evalyne said.

“No. Look, I'll be inside the freaking White House and, unless there's another Kitty-Bot in there, I just want to change and pretend we're normal people. Serene is the Head of Imageering—I'll be fine.”

“Fine,” Mom said with a sigh. “This ended far better than I'd thought it would. Let's get back inside and get back on track, since we have Drax and Kendrick both to deal with.”

“Yeah, please reassure Jeff that I'm fine and just want to change and all that.”

Chuckie nodded. “We'll try, but I doubt he'll take our words for it.”

“Oh, distract him by filling him in on all the new fun.”

Grabbed my discarded shoes and purse, then we all trotted inside and Serene and I went off for the room Jeff and I had been sleeping in.

It wasn't the room we'd actually be living in—we'd had our things put into a guest room this morning, because we didn't want to rush Elaine out. But it gave me someplace to go.

Fortunately, Serene knew where the room was. I wasn't comfortable finding my way around here yet, and since I wasn't going to be living in this room for the next years, I hadn't worried about memorizing its location.

We got inside and headed into my closet. “Okay, what's going on?” I asked her quietly while I stripped off my totally wrecked FLOTUS clothes and put my iPod and earbuds carefully back into my purse.

“I heard from Lorraine and Claudia. And they texted me, not Tim or James, because they want us, you and me, to join them.” Serene showed me her phone. There was a picture of what I presumed was Marion Villanova's apartment.

The apartment was, to put it nicely, completely trashed.

“This looks like a job for the police,” I said. “Not us.”

“Lorraine and Claudia insist that they feel something's wrong and want us there,” Serene said. Stared at the pictures as Serene scrolled through. Every room in Villanova's apartment was ransacked. And yet, the girls were right—something looked wrong.

“It's too staged,” I said finally. “That's what's bothering the girls, I think. But it also means we'll be going to an active crime scene, and the girls are already at one.”

Serene chuckled and texted something. Another picture appeared. Two sets of hands in plastic gloves. “I instituted a
policy that all Field agents must carry evidence gloves with them over a year ago,” Serene said. “I have enough with me to cover us, as well.”

“You rock. Think we can do it fast? They're only going to give me so much time before someone comes asking why it's taking me so long to get back downstairs.”

“I just sent James a message saying that I'm having you shower, possibly even take a bath, to calm you down and all that. That gives us a little more time. Hyperspeed will handle the rest.”

“Even getting out of our carefully guarded doors?”

She grinned. “I understand there are tunnels and lots and lots of secret ways in and out. We don't actually have to hit a tunnel—we're just going to use the deliveries entrance.”

Contemplated what to wear. Comfort and the realistic thought that I'd be far less easily spotted if I wasn't dressed as the First Lady won the day. Dressed at hyperspeed. Back to normal—jeans, Converse, and a t-shirt—in a couple of seconds, with no clothing accidents. One definitely for the win column.

To help with anonymity, I didn't choose a band shirt, even though not rolling with Aerosmith on my chest seemed like a bad omen. There was a plain black t-shirt in the closet, and I chose that.

Whether this was something that I'd brought over with me was a mystery. At the Embassy and all other A-C facilities, the Operations Team, aka the Elves, handled all things like this. Of course, I and a miniscule select few knew that there was no “team” or elves plural. There was one being—a Black Hole Universe being on the run for crimes against protecting the younger races, with the biggest hard-on for Free Will ever.

Whether or not Algar was going to take over the housekeeping and dry cleaning duties for the White House was unclear, and I hadn't had a lot of time to ask him. And now was definitely not the time, since Serene wasn't in Algar's Tiny Inner Circle.

Made sure I had all I could possibly need in my purse, my Glock and several clips included, then put my purse over my neck and I was ready to go.

Serene grabbed my hand and we took off, zipping
through the White House, down stairs, past a lot of humans, but no A-Cs. We had to do some backtracking and avoidance to be sure that we weren't seen by an A-C, since they could see us at hyperspeed. But we managed it, and were outside and off the White House grounds in less than a minute.

Hyperspeed being what it was, it took us only a few seconds to reach Georgetown and the building where Villanova lived. Serene steered us into an alleyway near it, though, where we were hidden. “I want to let them know to open the door for us so we aren't seen,” she said.

Took a cautious look around while she did so. Didn't see anything out of the ordinary for the area. Due to the university, Georgetown had a high student population, but it also had its share of young professionals and D.C. movers and shakers. I tried to spot anything amiss, but everything looked as it should.

“Ready.” Serene and I put on our plastic evidence gloves, and she grabbed me again. We zipped into the building and up the stairs, to where the next of the day's strange events awaited.

T
HE GIRLS WERE WAITING FOR US,
so we got inside Villanova's apartment without having to stop.

“Interesting fact number one,” Lorraine said without preamble, “is that this is the same building that Langston Whitmore lives in.”

“He's not here,” Claudia said. “He's still in the hospital, recovering. We checked his apartment, though, and nothing's disturbed from when we were there a few days ago.”

“Okay.” Looked around and stepped through the mess carefully while Serene gave Lorraine and Claudia the recap of what had happened while they were here. She did it at hyperspeed, meaning I pulled out my phone and earbuds and put music on immediately. Hyperspeed speech made most humans physically ill to hear, and I didn't need to leave DNA evidence here.

Hit random play and, with the sounds of Miss Li's “Come Over to My Place” protecting me from nausea and my phone in my back pocket, I examined the place.

It was a small apartment, all things considered. You entered into the living room with a small dining room to your right that connected to the kitchen, which connected to another room that looked to be Villanova's home office. That room and the living room connected to a small hall, where one found the guest bathroom and the quite spacious bedroom, which had its own full bathroom attached.

Everything that could be on the floor appeared to be. And yet, I could step through it fairly well, without stepping onto anything. There was a path, and it was easy enough to spot.

“What's wrong with this scene?” I asked as Serene finished and I lowered my volume so I could hear them talking clearly. I'd gotten the A-C enhanced hearing, too, and because I wanted music at any and all times, I'd ensured that I could listen to it and hear the sounds of approaching danger at the same time. “Aside from the ransacked version of the yellow brick road?” Fittingly, Elton John's “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” came on my personal airwaves.

“It's staged,” Claudia replied. “I'm sure you could see that when you looked at the pictures we sent over.” Serene and I both nodded.

“Nothing's broken,” Lorraine said. “That's what's bothering you. In addition to the path, I mean. This was carefully done.”

“Huh. So, that begs the very obvious question of why did someone bother?”

“Why do you think?” Serene asked. “And I mean you, Kitty. As in, what's your gut reaction?”

My Megalomaniac Girl cape was already on. Took the leap. “I think Villanova did this herself. That's why nothing's broken and why there's an easy enough path to follow. She didn't want to trash her stuff and she didn't want to step on any of it, either, presumably to ensure she didn't leave a footprint somehow.”

“I agree,” Serene said. “So the next question is, why did she do this?”

“She's either running to Cliff or she's running away,” Lorraine suggested.

“Or she's running to someone else,” Claudia said. “There are plenty of options.”

“And not just Drax or Kendrick,” Lorraine said. “We checked with the agents who picked Kendrick up, by the way, and there was no sign of Villanova at Titan.”

“Okay,” I said as I worked my way through the apartment, “Illegal Search” by LL Cool J providing accurate background tunes. “So, running to Cliff seems like an easy choice.” Went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. It wasn't empty but it wasn't full, either. Jeff was an old TV shows junkie, and I liked mystery shows a lot. There was milk and I looked at the expiration date. “Or not.”

“What have you found?” Claudia asked.

Opened the milk to be sure and slammed the top right
back on as fast as I could. Hyperspeed for the win. “This milk is two weeks out of code and smells it.” Dug through the rest of the fridge. Much food was rotting or out of code.

Checked out the freezer. It was empty other than four filled ice cube trays.

“So, she took off well before Operation Epidemic started. Meaning we have to ask ourselves why. And we also have to ask if she was involved in what Monica Strauss was planning, as in, is she part of Utilize the Kitty-Bot?”

“No idea,” Lorraine said. “There are no computers or notebooks with information around. There's no incriminating evidence at all, other than this mess.”

“Though I'd bet on yes,” Claudia said.

Closed the freezer and looked around as my music changed to “Mary Jane's Last Dance” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. “Why trash her apartment? She must be expecting the police to drop by. But why?”

“Because she's disappeared?” Serene asked.

There was a paper shredder in the office that connected to the kitchen. Went to that and opened it up. Lots of shredded things were in it. “Hold that thought. Need a trash bag.”

One was found and produced and we emptied the shredder's contents into it. Handed that to Lorraine. “Enjoy the puzzle.”

She had her mouth open, probably to provide a witty comeback, when we all heard a noise and froze. It was the sound of the door being unlocked.

We closed the door that connected the kitchen to the office, but not tightly, so we could see through it. Got it closed just as the outer door opened.

Fortunately, we were all trained operatives, because the fact that we all didn't gasp was impressive.

Christopher stepped inside, closing and locking the door behind him.