Alien vs. Alien (52 page)

Decided not to push it. Keeping the bad guys monologing was my specialty, and hopefully it’d give us time for reinforcements of some kind to arrive. “Really? You know, Jamie’s an A-C, too.”

“She’s a hybrid. More powerful. More useful, too.” Al Dejahl grinned at me. “Your husband should have killed me when he had the chance.”

“Yeah. You’re part of the group that mistakes kindness and charity for weakness.” I looked at the three Z’porrah in front of me. “So, Big Birds, you’re good with this? Our people showed mercy to this man and didn’t kill him. He and his pals exiled themselves as opposed to facing fair trial. And they’ve lied to you about who they are in our world, they’re threatening an infant as well as thousands of innocent people—and you’re still willing to stand with them?”

The Z’porrah stared at me. “You are rude,” one said.

“Um, sorry, but you invaded our world and attacked. No introductions, no declarations of war, no polite requests for surrender. Just wham, bam, look at my parasites, ma’am. Where I come from, we call that being
extremely
rude.”

“None stand with you,” the second Z’porrah said.

I looked behind me. Yep, all the people were there. And more. Turned back. “I see a heck of a lot of people standing there.”

The third Z’porrah shook its head. “Your own
flock is not what we mean.”

“You mean that because we don’t have other alien races other than human and A-C here that this means we’re okay to be destroyed?”

The Z’porrah all rolled their eyes. In unison. As the unison thing went, eye rolling in unison was the most icky and unsettling of any I’d experienced so far. “None stand with you. You have destroyed life on this planet. We see no reason not to destroy you.”

“Ohhhh, you’re doing this for ecology! Got it. You’re ecoterrorists and we’re your next target. Gotcha. Of course, you destroying us makes you no better than we are, but I doubt that matters to birdbrains.”

“You insult us,” the first Z’porrah said.

“No. You’re ugly and your mother hen dresses you funny is an insult. Calling you what you are isn’t an insult. By the way? We’re sick and tired of you coming by, probing and freaking out our people. Why you have that intricate tunnel system is a little confusing, though, because you aren’t blinking in the sunlight, so you don’t live underground.”

The second Z’porrah’s eyes narrowed. “You have found the network?”

I thought about it, what the subterranean tunnels and dead zones had looked like. Could it be their version of a computer network? Wished Chuckie was here, or anyone from Hacker International, because they’d have known right off.

Decided to go for it. “Yes.”

The three birds screeched in unison. They sounded like Bruno and the rest of the Peregrines, only at least a hundred times louder.

“Destroy them!” the third Z’porrah screamed. “The apes must not have network!”

Whoops.

CHAPTER 97

I
WASN’T SURE WHAT THE Z’PORRAH
were expecting when they gave their destruction order. But I had to bet that what happened wasn’t it.

Jamie woke up, screaming and clawing. She also turned into a Peregrine. Lola, to be exact. Lola clawed and bit at Clarence, who also started screaming and hitting at her.

Big mistake. The rest of the Peregrine flock appeared, and they were pissed. They attacked Clarence and the others, clawing at their Space Togas and everything underneath. The scene in front of me turned into a lot of claws, beaks, and feathers.

At the same time, I heard screams from behind me. Risked a look. People were pointing and running in the opposite direction. Looked where they were pointing, which was at the downed supersoldier. The soldier part was destroyed. The super part wasn’t.

A superbeing staggered out of its shell. It might have been hurt, but it wasn’t dead by a long shot. Claws, talons, other scary projections jutted from what I charitably chose to think of as its body. As near as I could tell, its head was in what on a human would be its stomach. It screamed, and really gave the Z’porrah a run for their screeching money.

The superbeing did what superbeings did—it destroyed.

Had to assume it was seriously pissed from being trapped and controlled inside the supersoldier shell—after all, ACE had told me that whatever was inside the supersoldiers was sentient. It swiped viciously at the people near it, most of whom were Field agents. Not that only our people took hits. The ground was now officially red with blood.

Supersoldiers ran toward us, trampling people who were, yet again, running away in panic. The superbeing was definitely of the tooth, claws, slice and dice variety, and it was slashing through the crowd.

But not everyone was running away from it. Some people ran toward it. And, shockingly, they weren’t wearing black Armani suits.

They looked like regular people, but as they swarmed over the superbeing, I realized they were androids, because no human or A-C could take the damage the superbeing was handing out and still hang on and fight back.

This was great in one way, but we were now in between the proverbial rock and hard place. If a supersoldier was downed by one of the Z’porrah ships, it was going to open up and release its special surprise inside, which would then start destroying all the things it had been protecting previously.

When we had battles like this in the middle of the desert, nothing really got messed up other than the cacti and poor desert animals. Here, though, there was so much to destroy—it already looked like World War III, and the attack hadn’t been going on for more than thirty minutes, if that.

Checked on the Peregrines. They were definitely holding their own. The Z’porrah’s Space Togas were in shreds, and LaRue and Al Dejahl didn’t look any better. But I could see what the Z’porrah looked like without their clothes on. And, to me, they no longer lookeÀd like birds. But I did realize what their heads had reminded me of.

They looked like miniature Tyrannosaurus Rexes. With wings.

So much seemed explained, but I had no one to share my new insights with. Not a problem, I had plenty of other things to do. Like not let my head hit the pavement when Al Dejahl broke through my Peregrine line and tackled me.

Tucked my head against him as we rolled down the stairs. Managed to flip him an extra time so that he landed on the bottom when we hit the pavement.

“What is it with you and beating up girls?” I slammed my fist into his face. He seemed shocked. So I hit him again. And again. Really, really hard. “You are not a nice guy.” Punctuated each word with a punch.

Sadly, he recovered and flipped us again. Tucked my head again so it didn’t hit, which was good. But he was on top of me, which was bad. He grabbed my throat so I couldn’t move my head, reared back, fist ready to slam into me.

Just like the last time he’d been attacking me, Al Dejahl wasn’t paying attention to one important piece of information. Jeff was around.

I heard the roar before I saw his fist hit, so I grabbed the fingers around my throat and pulled them apart. I was fairly sure I felt bones break. Then Jeff’s fist landed and Al Dejahl flew off me.

“You okay, baby?”

“Yes, because of you. Go get him, I’ll get LaRue.” Jeff took off; I scrambled to my feet and took a look around.

Clarence was down. I wasn’t sure if he was dead, but he wasn’t moving. The three Z’porrah were still fighting my Peregrines. LaRue wasn’t there with them, though. Scanned the crowd. Spotted her, running for the side of the Lincoln Memorial. The hell with that—I wasn’t letting her get into the tunnels.

Amazingly enough, there weren’t a lot of people where LaRue was heading. I didn’t really know why. I’d have thought the trees would have looked like inviting hiding places to someone, but apparently not. Fine, it would make it easier for me, and our side needed any break it could get.

Took off at hyperspeed. I was one with the rage at this point, power flowing through me, not having to think about running fast, dodging nimbly, hitting hard, seeing far. I caught LaRue within two seconds.

Slammed her into the ground, hit her face into the dirt a couple of times, flipped her over, and landed on her stomach with both knees.

“Ooof!” She didn’t make any other noise, possibly because I’d knocked all the wind out of her.

Pulled out my phone and selected the voice recorder. “Tell me who your contacts on Earth are.” She didn’t speak. I slapped her. “Tell me who your contacts on Earth are.” She glared at me. I leaned closer. “Tell me or I’ll kill you, right now. I’ve killed plenty of evil people by now, more than I think you know about. Killing you won’t make up for even one of the innocents who died here today. But it’ll be a good start. So talk . . . or die.”

I heard a gun cock and felt something hard at the back of my head. “I don’t think LaRue needs to cooperate with a traitor, Missus ÀusMartini.”

“Speaking of traitors, Cantu, I was wondering when you’d show up.” I slid my thumb on my phone from voice recorder to main menu. Hit the speed dial button and hoped he was in a position to answer. “So, were you the captain in Paraguay or Paris?”

“Paraguay, of course. South America is my turf, so to speak. Stand up slowly with your hands up.”

Held my phone so that he couldn’t see the face. “So, Esteban Cantu
of the Central Intelligence Agency, how long have you been conspiring with extraterrestrials known as the Z’porrah and known traitors and terrorists Clarence Valentino, LaRue Demorte Gaultier, Ronaldo Al Dejahl, and possibly the remnants and new beginnings of Club Fifty-One to overthrow Earth and take over?”

Cantu laughed. “I’m here to broker our surrender to a more powerful force. For the good of the country and the world, of course.”

“Of course. But you didn’t answer my very specific question. I just want to be sure that I’m hating you for the right reasons.”

“And not because you hope that you’ll be able to catch me in a confession? I’m disappointed in you.”

“As much as you’re disappointed in Senator Armstrong?”

“Some people don’t like to get their hands dirty.”

“Unlike you.”

“I do what needs to be done. Carefully.”

My back was still to Cantu, so I couldn’t tell how close the gun was to my head. Hyperspeed did nothing for you if the bullet hit, and at this range, he wasn’t likely to miss.

Had a good view of LaRue, though. Between our little scuffle and what the Peregrines had done, she wasn’t looking too good. “Kill her, Esteban,” she said as she struggled to her feet. “And let’s get this moving.” She was in front of me but just too far away for me to grab.

“I agree. Good-bye, Missus Martini. Unlike all the rest of the people you’ve faced, I have no ego attached to gloating about having bested you. Power and survival are the best revenge.”

I dropped to the ground as the gunshot rang out.

CHAPTER 98

H
IT THE GROUND, ROLLED,
flipped to my feet, and landed in a fighting crouch. Did this all at hyperspeed, which was why I was still amazingly alive to channel Bruce Lee.

But Cantu wasn’t paying attention to me anymore. He was looking at LaRue, and his expression was shocked.

I looked at LaRue, too. She had a bullet in her brain. I could tell because there was a hole in her forehead, her eyes were wide with surprise, and she was falling backward in what seemed like slow motion.

Apparently we were all suƀarprised. I recovered from the shock the quickest. Well, LaRue wasn’t going to recover from anything anymore. But I tackled Cantu as LaRue’s body hit the ground.

Didn’t go for anything fancy, just broke the wrist that was holding his gun. He screamed. I shoved his gun away out of his reach but where I could still see it. Then I backhanded him.

“Who else is involved in this?” He didn’t answer. “Tell me or I’ll break the other wrist. And that’s just for starters.”

“You . . . won’t,” he said between gritted teeth. “You don’t . . . work like that.”

A man’s shoe stepped onto Cantu’s broken wrist. The shoe had a foot in it, too, which was nice. I wasn’t taking anything for granted right now.

“She doesn’t,” Chuckie said icily, gun trained on Cantu. “But as you well know,
we
do.”

Cantu managed to bark a laugh. “There won’t be any ‘we’ left, Reynolds, don’t you get it? They’re here, and they’re going to destroy us. Surrender would at least mean we got to survive. But you and your self-righteous do-gooder ideals—you’re the one who’s going to doom Earth. Not me. Never me.”

“Cantu, enough with your blah, blah, blah. Dude, seriously, what kept you?”

Chuckie helped me to my feet, and I took a look around. He wasn’t alone. My mother was here, along with Kevin and Buchanan and several guys who looked as if they were familiar with Guantanamo and extracting information. Everyone other than Chuckie and Buchanan was wearing their P.T.C.U. caps and vests.

“We couldn’t use a gate,” Chuckie said. “Floaters aren’t stable, and we’re not sure how long the gate system is going to last so it’s reserved for Field agents only right now.”

“Dammit. We could use a few floaters to get the people out of here. There’s a lot of dead and probably even more injured.”

“Can’t help them until we can be sure medical teams can get in without being destroyed themselves. Right now we have everything focused on the invaders.”

The muscle guys picked up Cantu and handcuffed him, despite his broken wrist. I chose not to care. Cantu glared at me. “This isn’t over.”

“No, but it’s over for you.” The muscle moved him away from the rest of us. Not too far, but to where he couldn’t hear us.

“Good work, kitten.”

“Thanks, Mom.” I hugged her and got her breath-stopping bear hug in return. “Air . . . Mom . . . need air . . .”

She laughed and let me go. “I was just worried about you. Nice work on the phone. It’s not enough, but it’s a good start.”

“Yeah, great. But Cantu here makes a good point—we need to get the Z’porrah under control or gone before someone launches a nuke. Oh, but, Chuckie, you and Hacker International need to know that the Z’porrah are an ancient race, they’ve been here before, a lot, and the underground tunnels and such are their version of a computer network.”

“Really? Interesting.”

“Yeah, I thought you’d enjoy that. They also look like mini T-Rexes with wings. Don’t even ask. And by mini, I mean shorter than me. But I think that they and the Ancients had rival breeding programs or species advancement programs in place. My bet is that the Z’porrah are why we had dinosaurs, and they’re still bitter that the dinos died out.”

“Maybe the Ancients got rid of them to make way for the mammals,” Buchanan suggested.

“Could be. At any rate, that’s what’s in those spaceships. And the three who beamed down don’t like me much. At all. They said I was rude, can you believe it?”

Mom, Chuckie, Kevin, and Buchanan all gave me looks that said they could easily believe it. Always the way.

Forged on. “Lola did an awesome fake out. Clarence thought he had Jamie when he had a really pissed off Peregrine instead.”

Chuckie and Mom exchanged a worried glance. “The Dome was evacuated,” Chuckie said slowly. “The Z’porrah have half their fleet firing directly on it.”

“Crap.” Well, that explained why we were having problems with the gates. “They’re trying to blow the planet. If the tunnels really are a computer network kind of setup, then the Dome is where the heart of everything is.”

“You’re sure?” Chuckie asked.

“Pretty darned.” ACE was guarding the Dome, not Washington D.C. I was positive.

“The U.S., Russia, and Israel already launched nuclear weapons at the Z’porrah ships,” Kevin said. “The nukes were destroyed in the air.”

“The Z’porrah fired on the Dome after those attacks,” Buchanan said. “They may not consider that they’re attacking us; in their minds they may think we started it.”

“Possibly, but I’m not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt right now.” I could still see the faces of the dead, wounded, and terrified. “What’s it like elsewhere?”

“As far as we know, they’re only attacking here and at the Dome,” Kevin said. “No retaliation was sent toward Russia or Israel, despite their having launched nukes, and the Z’porrah aren’t firing at the part of our country where the nukes launched from, either.”

“Was there fallout?” If there was, we were really seeing the start of World War III.

“No,” Mom said. “Something engulfed the fallout, all of it. And then the nuclear codes went dead. No one can fire anything world-destroying, nuclear or otherwise.”

“Did Naomi and Abigail do that?”

Chuckie shook his head. “They’re using the two Power Cubes we have to create shielding over this area. The Cubes are boosting their powers, and they already know how to create shields. It’s why the buildings aren’t completely destroyed. Yet.”

So ACE was still protecting us. I was certain he was the one who’d engulfed the fallout and then killed our ability to fire more bombs. “Why are the girls protecting the buildings? I mean, I get it, priceless, rare thiˀngs, can’t be replaced and all that. But the people . . . they can’t be replaced either.”

“It’s easier for them to cover the buildings because it gives them a shape to follow and also means they’re not protecting superbeings. They’re taking fewer direct hits this way, too. And they’re covering every building attached to the Mall, which means all the contents of those buildings, which includes people.”

“I didn’t see anyone running inside anything.”

“Reader gave the order for the Field teams to get all the civilians into the museums and memorials, other than Lincoln, so in addition to architecture, they’ve got countless people inside by now. It’s tricky to let people in and out of the shields, though, so I don’t know how much longer Mimi and Abby will be able to hold out.”

“The girls are tougher than you think. Where did everyone in the Dome go?”

“Into the tunnels,” Chuckie said. “The hackers were able to find the entrance for them. Easily.”

ACE again, I was sure. “Have we talked to anyone in the tunnels?”

“No, Mimi and Abby can’t spare the focus, White, Reader, and Crawford are busy, and Serene’s presumably in those tunnels. It’s a long way from New Mexico to D.C., and there are no gates in the tunnels.”

“Only Power Cubes. If you can find them.” I looked in my purse. No Poofs still. “You think the Poofs are with Jamie and the others in the tunnels?” I asked hopefully.

“Haven’t seen a Poof,” Mom said.

“I haven’t seen Fluffy since you sent the Poofs off to try to find the cube that used to belong to White and your husband.”

My husband. Last I’d seen him, he was fighting Al Dejahl. “I need to find Jeff.”

“We need to stop this invasion,” Mom corrected. “We were h
oping you had some ideas.”

“I don’t know, how do you stop a flock of birds or a bunch of dinosaurs? Kill the leader?”

“Maybe, but we don’t know who the leader is or are,” Chuckie said. “The three who came to the planet might be, but they might just be diplomats.”

“Duck hunting,” Buchanan said.

“Not sure a decoy will work, Malcolm.”

He shook his head. “Lure them out, one by one, and finish them off that way.”

“It could work, but it’s slow,” Chuckie said.

“Take out the quarterback,” Kevin said. “Or get the ball away from them.”

“Football?” Mom said. “Right now? Really?”

“That could work, too,” Buchanan said.

“Super Agent Man, any ideas?”

“Take the king.”

“So, you’re suggesting duck hunting, football, and chess?” Mom said. “No wonder yoˀu all work well with Kitty.”

“Thanks so much, Mom.”

She shook her head. “I say shoot to kill and let God sort ’em out.”

“I like where your head’s at. But, there’s only one way to find out which one of these great plans is going to work. Find the tunnel entrance that’s around here, and get anyone you can down into it.” I gave Mom a quick kiss and took off for the front of the Memorial.

To find more chaos than I remembered. And I remembered quite a bit.