Alien Diplomacy (20 page)

“I
am
,” Claudia said, sounding kind of hurt and a lot annoyed.

“Well, push harder,” Tito said.

I could hear more information filtering through. Absolutely none of it seemed like real words, other than the baby’s names. They weren’t images, either. It was a lot of feelings and what I assumed were baby animal senses stuff.

But whatever was really going on, it worked.

“We have Sean,” Tito called. He gave the baby to Emily, and spent a few minutes doing something to Claudia. I chose not to look. I hadn’t wanted to know when it was me; I really didn’t want to know when it was someone else.

Sean was already cleaned and in Claudia’s arms by the time Tito was done, since Emily had worked at hyperspeed. The moment he was finished, Tito ran over to Lorraine. “You’re up, Ross. Push, Lorraine.”

“I am. Hard.”

“Push harder than that.”

She glared at him but did as requested, and, sure enough, within a matter of moments we had a second baby. Ross was handed off to Melanie while Tito did the same whatever to Lorraine.

We got out of our latest Wonder Quintuplets formation and relaxed. Jamie seemed quite pleased, and I got the impression she was talking to the two new arrivals. But if so, I couldn’t access it anymore.

In short order, we had two happy families relaxing and making calls to the other sets of grandparents. Tito made a call and sent agent teams off to get Joe’s and Randy’s parents.

Since we were already there, we took the opportunity to see the babies first, made the standard comments, and congratulated the parents. As with Jamie, I didn’t really see either parent in the babies yet. But I assumed I would. I didn’t really care. My two best A-C girlfriends had their healthy baby boys, and they were both okay, with their human husbands both proud and relieved. As far as I was concerned, whatever else happened, this was worth the risks.

Yes,
ACE said in my head.
Ross and Sean will be worth the risks. Just as Jamie is. And Kitty was.

I was a risk?

Childbirth is always a risk. ACE cannot assist for all, but in some cases, ACE must.

Cases like these?

Yes. Kitty did well.

Only because of you, ACE.

ACE can only do because of Kitty. And for that, ACE might love Kitty most of all.

I
FELT ACE HUG MY MIND,
which always made me feel warm and loved. Then he broke the connection. I heaved a sigh and got ready to leave so others could come in.

“Kitty,” Lorraine said, “thanks.”

“Yeah,” Claudia chimed in. “You’re always there when we need you.”

“You’re both always there for me.” I went to both of them and kissed their foreheads. “That’s what friends are for, remember?”

Serene, Jamie, and I left. We were replaced by the rest of Airborne and all of Alpha. Jeff, Christopher, and White stayed outside with us.

“You want to tell us what was really going on?” Jeff asked as Naomi and Abigail joined us.

“Hard to say.”

Naomi snorted. “Jeff, Chuck’s given you reports on what we can do, I know he has.”

Jeff had the grace to look embarrassed. “I haven’t read them yet.”

I rolled my eyes. “Because they’re from Chuckie?”

He sighed. “Actually, no. Because I’ve been too busy reading everything related to our current mission.”

“You need to, ah, test the boys,” Abigail said. “I’m not sure what they’ve got, but they’ll need the same protection you two did for Jamie.”

Jeff and Christopher exchanged a look. “Does everyone know?” Christopher snapped at me.

“No, just those we’ve told or who have figured it out. I think you two can come out of the special powers closet by now.”

White sighed. “Son, it’s a good thing. And let’s do as Abigail suggests. Right now.” He might be retired, but White still held his authority from when he’d been Pontifex.

The three men went in as Serene, Reader, and Tim came out. “Paul’s in there doing Pontifex stuff,” Reader shared as he took his goddaughter and gave her a cuddle. He shook his head. “I don’t know whether to be relieved or upset about the timing.”

“Why either one?”

“As Captains, both Lorraine and Claudia were insisting on going to the President’s Ball tomorrow night. Now, there’s no way. I want their husbands staying with them, too, and their parents. Which in one sense is great, because now I don’t have to worry about them getting hurt or going into labor at a bad time.”

“But,” Tim said with a sigh, “that reduces Airborne to Matt, Chip, Jerry, and me.”

“And cuts down our available A-C agents, too.”

Reader nodded. “However, I’d rather have them safely here than quite unsafely there.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Just alters the complexity of who we’re stationing where.”

“Do we even know enough to station anyone anywhere?”

Tim shrugged. “Sort of. We know we need people inside at the ball, and we have that more than covered. But we need teams on standby, and we don’t know where, what they’ll really need to be prepared for, nothing.”

I considered this. “Guys, we routinely kill superbeings. Why are you all so freaked out?”

Reader sighed. “Girlfriend, it’s not the same situation. We’re exposed here, in a way none of us have any experience with. One wrong move, and Centaurion Division is shown to everyone to be not of this world. A different wrong move means someone—maybe one, maybe many—dies.”

“We’re hiding in plain sight even more than we used to,” Serene added. “It’s making it harder and harder for Imageering to do what we’re supposed to in terms of cover-ups.”

“You mean I’m making it harder.”

Reader made the exasperation sound. “No. Stop trying to shoulder all the blame. This is new for everyone. The former Diplomatic Corps was in place for twenty years, and they were all conversant in what their jobs entailed. We’ve all had new jobs for about three months.”

“Speaking of which,” Tim said, “I see Jerry wasn’t lying. You don’t have your purse with you, and we all know you don’t have your phone.”

“Geez, sorry. It happens.”

“Every time it does, I need to reach you urgently,” Tim said flatly. “Let’s work on you keeping at least your phone with you at all times going forward.”

“Sorry, I’ll go find my phone right now.”

“No need,” Tim said with a grin, as he reached into his pocket and handed me a new cell. “It’s programmed with all your settings.”

“How?” It looked just like my old one, only it was pristine, with no scratches or anything. I knew it wouldn’t look like this for long—none of my phones ever did. With the current situation, I gave it no more than a day before it was at least blemished, if not destroyed.

“The wonders of modern A-C technology,” Reader said. “Now that you’re equipped with the basics again, try to remember that we still have less than no idea of what’s going on, and we need to get a handle on it, and quickly.”

Jeff, Christopher, and White joined us while I was getting my phone responsibility lecture. Jeff took Jamie from Reader and snuggled her. “Everything’s taken care of.”

“What talents did they display?”

Christopher shrugged. “Hard to say. They’re more like Jamie than the rest of us, but I don’t think they’re as powerful.”

“Or if they are, it’s muted,” Jeff said.

“You know, you need to figure out how to pass along the techniques.” I ignored Christopher’s Glare #1. “Seriously, guys. Serene, Abigail, and Naomi need to know how to do this.” I didn’t add “just in case,” but I could tell Jeff knew I was thinking it.

He sighed. “You’re right. But not right now. Mostly,” he said as my mouth started to open, “because we haven’t had enough time to determine if we actually
can
pass along the abilities or not.”

“Oh, fine.” We still hadn’t found the glowing cube Terry, Christopher’s late mother, had used to pass the knowledge of putting in blocks, as well as a wide variety of other things, to Jeff and Christopher when they were young. Without it, if Jeff and Christopher indeed weren’t able to pass along how to install blocks, it meant that if we lost one of them, we lost the ability. Forever.

I was distracted from this cheerful line of thought by my new phone ringing.

It wasn’t a number I knew. Based on past experience, this was never good. I prepared myself for a death threat, and answered.

“H
ELLO?”

“Miss Katt?” It was a woman’s voice, but I didn’t recognize it any more than I had the phone number. I waited for her to start screaming at me. “Hello? Miss Katt?” Huh. No screaming. Scored it one for the win column.

“Possibly. Who’s this?”

“This is Nurse Carter from the Georgetown University Medical Center. Is this Miss Katt?” She had a slight accent that sounded Hispanic of some kind to me.

“Ah, yes. I’m fine, thanks for the follow up.” Why was everyone calling me Miss Katt all of a sudden? I didn’t think Jeff had filed divorce papers, even though I’d probably given him good reason to over the last few months. And even if he had, surely Chuckie, at least, would have mentioned it.

“I beg your pardon? I’m calling about your relative, Peter Kasperoff.”

“Who?”

“The man brought in from the crash yesterday, the one where the car went into the river?”

“Oh! Yes. Peter.” My would-be assassin had me listed as a relative? “I’m sorry, but why are you calling?”

“You’re listed as his next of kin.” Next of kin. Wow. I was moving up in the world of the weirdo assassins.

“Um, okay. What’s going on with him?”

“I’m sorry to tell you that he’s expired.”

“Expired? He’s out of code?”

“He’s passed away.”

“You mean he’s dead?” He’d been hurt, but he hadn’t been the one with a bullet in him, and he’d been well enough to pass me a secret disk before being admitted.

“Yes.”

“How did he die?”

“Heart arrest, based on hypothermia.”

“Huh. I really thought he’d pull through.”

“I’m sorry for your loss. We’d like you to come to the hospital to make arrangements and collect his personal items.”

I got the rest of the information, assured Nurse Carter I’d be right over, and hung up. “We need to table the blocks and babies discussion. I think we have bigger issues.”

Jeff cocked his head at me. “What’s going on?”

“Remember Peter from the river?” Jeff nodded. “Well, he’s a deader, and I’m apparently his next of kin. And somehow, he has personal items I need to collect from the hospital.”

Jeff stared at me. “You’re kidding.”

“No, unless this is the medical center’s idea of a great practical joke. We need to get back to the Embassy fast.” I considered my options and dialed. “Dad, are you done with your apartment thing?”

“Yes, I just finished about five minutes ago.”

“Great. Can you please come back to the Embassy and take over the Jamie babysitting gig a little sooner than you might have planned?”

“Sure, kitten. It’ll give me a chance to brief Walter on how to take care of the pets.”

Lucky Walter. “Great. We’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”

“You’re still in the infirmary?”

“Oh. No, we’re not.” I brought Dad up to speed on the new births.

“Tell the girls mazel tov for me, kitten. I’ll come by to see them when things aren’t so tense for you.”

“Thanks, Dad, I will.” I hung up, trotted into the still packed delivery room, shared Dad’s congratulations, told Tito what we were doing, and left.

Serene and the Gower girls opted to stick around in case Claudia or Lorraine needed help. Reader and Tim were still on duty, so they were also staying at Dulce. Reminding myself that our game was afoot in D.C., I grabbed Jeff and headed to the elevator banks, Christopher and White accompanying us.

White went to ensure the infirmary was out of lockdown. We left Christopher in the great room while we fed Jamie. I figured we
could be gone a while, so I pumped out another dairy’s worth of extra milk, just in case.

My father was waiting for us when we got done. Jamie squealed with joy to see her Papa Sol again so soon. “Where should I watch her?” Dad asked.