Alien Diplomacy (27 page)

Gower nodded and pulled out his phone, presumably to score some Pontifex-level Field support. White had never rolled without a lot of backup; I wasn’t excited to see Gower still acting like he was the Head of Recruitment instead of the religious leader of the entire Earth A-C population. Then again, Christopher had mentioned we were all having trouble adjusting. Then also again, Gower had ACE riding shotgun in his consciousness. Which begged a question.

Gower hung up, so I asked said beggar. “Paul, what’s ACE’s status right now?”

“He’s uncomfortable, but hasn’t asked to talk to you. Which,” Gower added with a sigh, “usually means ACE approves of whatever it is you have planned.”

“ACE is the best.”

“ACE?” Caroline asked.

“Later, Caro. Like when we’re all somewhere a lot safer than here. We’ll do the whole high-level debrief then.”

“Kitty, your massive limo invasion might get some of the bystanders out of the way, but even if it removes all of them, we still have a world of hurt eyeballing us,” Tim pointed out.

“Mister White and I are going to create a diversion. You all are going to ensure that Chuckie and Caroline get out of here safely. Whether that means you get into the bathroom or take one of the many limos coming, I don’t care.”

“I care,” Chuckie said. “We want to take a gate. I’ve had enough of our people being delayed, shot at, and driven off the road.” Caroline’s eyes widened, and she looked, if possible, even more worried than she had been.

Reader nodded. “Great, thanks Gladys.” He hung up. “Reynolds, we’re going to get a floater gate. It’ll show once Kitty rolls her diversion. Whatever it’s going to be.”

“Kitty, I want to know what your plan is,” Chuckie said, in his “won’t take no for an answer” voice I knew so well. “And I want to know before you roll it.”

I considered my options and tuned my iPod to my Hate This Place playlist. It was getting a lot of use. I scrolled through to Fall
Out Boy’s “I Don’t Care.” By now, I didn’t care what anyone thought or wanted. I was sick and tired of being trapped in this crazy town with all these crazy people who were, once again, trying to kill everyone I cared about.

“Richard and I are going to engage the gaggle of goons waiting for us by the bathroom with a gate. Should we successfully get into the bathroom, we’re going to use the gate in it to get home.”

“And what are you going to do when, as is so much more likely, you don’t get into that bathroom?” Chuckie asked, clearly voicing everyone else’s concern.

I sighed. “We’re going to lure them away from you all and the floater gate. Once you’re all off the premises, I guarantee you they’ll leave the limos and travelers alone and go after me and Richard.”

“Then what?” Tim asked.

White shrugged. “Then we kick butt and take names.”

“You are such a natural, Mister White.”

“Kitty, that sounds really dangerous,” Caroline said nervously. “Isn’t your husband going to have a fit?”

“He’ll have kittens,” Reader said with a snicker. It was nice to see that his ability to be the comic relief wasn’t waning, despite his promotion to head man.

“He’s used to me. Caro, look, don’t panic. Just do what the boys say. Boys, be good, get back to the Embassy.”

“And be ready to pull your butt out of the fire,” Chuckie added. “Right?”

“Of course right.” I didn’t expect to need it, but then again, it never hurt to have Plan Z in place, too. “Ready, Mister White?”

“Ready whenever you are, Missus Martini.”

“Awesome. Then let’s go be the New Avengers again and cause some mayhem.”

W
HITE AND I STEPPED US AWAY
from our group and toward the latest Goon Squad. Yes, what I wanted was right by them and the bathroom, but it was too close. I wandered us off, casually, searching for another option.

“Mister White, when you were Pontifex, you seemed to have an unlimited supply of whatever kind of cash you might need.”

“True enough, Missus Martini. What of it?”

“Do you still have that? Sort of like former presidents still have Secret Service details? Still on you and in active use?”

“I do indeed. Again, what of it?”

“I’m shocked you can’t guess. Must be three months of us doing absolutely nothing interesting making you rusty.” Happily, I spotted an option in the vicinity, within sight and sound of the Goons and everyone else. It was also located by an elevator and an escalator. It was the best we were going to get, so that meant it was perfect. I wanted the many innocents going in a direction away from the Goons, after all.

“My shame knows no bounds. But I still have no idea why my having money would help in this instance. I doubt these men are bribable, at least, not in this situation.”

“Pull your wallet out, and get ready to follow my lead.” While he did as requested, I put in my headphones, and hit play. I grabbed White’s free hand and started off. “Rick, honey, I’d like you to become a crazed philanthropist when I say go. Got it?”

“I do, Kathy, I do.” Nice to know he remembered our undercover nicknames from Operation Confusion. I was all over nostalgia for that—we’d kicked butt big time.

We went to the ATM machine I’d spotted. It was one of the ones that wasn’t actually attached to any bank and also charged an outrageous transaction fee. Good. No one was going to feel a twinge of guilt, particularly me.

Fall Out Boy were sharing their disdain for others’ opinions, and I was revved. Now was as good a time as any. “Ready?” I asked softly. White nodded. “Then here we go.” I took a deep breath and screamed. “Oh, my GOD! It’s raining money!”

White used hyperspeed and started spraying money out. I grabbed a chunk of bills and did the same, still squealing my head off.

Unsurprisingly, it worked.

People came running from all over the terminal as we sprayed the money in the direction away from the Goon Squad. As they arrived, many squealed along with me and called to their friends and relatives. Others tried to jostle for position. A couple of airport employees actually tried to protect the money. It was chaos, but chaos that was centered far enough away that the Goon Squad would have to leave position to regain a hostage opportunity.

I looked around. Some of the Goons were heading toward the rest of our group. However, I saw a shimmering and watched as the rest of our team disappeared through the floater gate, using hyperspeed. Absolutely no one noticed, other than possibly some of the Goon Squad, at least the ones who slammed into the Security Desk as the gate disappeared.

Not all the Goons were busy explaining why they’d lunged at the desk, though—some were looking like they really wanted in on the money grab. I had no guess as to what the balloon man had been paid, but he’d dropped a balloon mid-giraffe and raced over along with everyone else.

White did something to the cash machine, and it actually began spewing money, too. “Great thinking.”

He nodded. “I can now comprehend the plan, and part two has to be the two of us running in the opposite direction.”

“I love having the best of the best as my partner. Ready?”

“Yes, the machine shows no signs of slowing.” He threw some more money, a big roll, up high and the money fell like big, greenish snowflakes. The entire terminal was filled with people grabbing the cash. We were also getting jostled. Time to go.

I grabbed his hand and we shoved through the crowd. I smiled sweetly at the Goon Squad and we ran for the escalator heading down. We didn’t stand there, we ran down the steps, but at human speeds.

We reached the bottom, and I looked back. I didn’t have time for a full head count, but it looked as if the majority if not all of the Goons were after us. So far, so very good.

White yanked me, hard, and ran us back up on the up escalator. “Why are we going back up?”

“More of them coming,” he replied shortly. I looked behind us. He wasn’t kidding. While I’d been checking out the first Squadron of Goons, another plethora had shown up on the lower level.

We crested the top, and I saw a sign for the elevated Metro station. I dragged White along, and we raced up the escalators, Miss Li’s “Bourgeois Shangri-La” on my personal soundtrack. I agreed with her—we really did need to get away.

“Why the Metro? I was under the impression the trains weren’t running.”

“Right. So we can have the Goon Squadron chase us there, and no one’s in danger.”

“Other than us.”

“Well, that was the point, right?”

“I though the point was everyone escaping unharmed.”

“Oh, ye of little faith.” We ran, pursued by a lot of goons. We were only dodging them because White was controlling when we used a burst of hyperspeed and when we just ran at human normal. “You’re really good at altering our speed.”

“I’ve been doing this for decades, Missus Martini. You’ve been learning for three months. There are some things I’ll naturally be more expert at. This is one of them.”

“No complaints here.” There were no trains in the station and no other travelers, either. I looked around. There were, however, more goons than I could count. “Did we seriously just get roles in
The Matrix Really Reloaded
or something?”

“No. We’re just popular.”

“Well, at least they’re not shooting at us.”

“True enough. Possibly because we’re trapped.”

This was sort of true. We couldn’t make it back into the airport because every doorway was blocked by a lot of goon bods. However, that hadn’t been my plan anyway.

I jumped onto the tracks, pulling White along. “Which way heads us back toward the Embassy?”

“I believe this one,” he said as we took off at human normal. The platform was raised, and neither one of us wanted to risk falling off.

The sun was starting to set, and I realized the day had really gone by quickly—something to be said for your best friends giving
birth combined with a lot of intrigue. It also meant we had even fewer hours to figure out what was going on. However, this wasn’t my exact concern at the moment, so I decided to table those worries for later, like when we were back at the Embassy.

We kept running, the sound of Clutch’s “Electric Worry” revving me so that I didn’t feel all sprinted out. Despite years of track training, which said that runners who looked behind them lost their races, I turned around. “No one’s following us.”

We both slowed down to a decent jog. “Are we still alone?” White asked a few minutes later.

I checked again. “Yeah, we are.”

“Does that mean we can stop running now?”

We both heard the sound at the same time.

“Um. No. I think that means we want to run as fast as humanly possible. And by humanly, I really mean alienly, at the best hyperspeed either one of us can manage.”

The headlight confirmed to our eyes what our ears had already picked up. The Metro was running again.

N
OT ONLY WAS THE TRAIN HEADING RIGHT FOR US,
but it was going a lot faster than I figured it should be if it planned to stop for passengers. Then again, I had a feeling the only passengers planned were me and White, and if we became train hood ornaments, that was undoubtedly in the bad guys’ playbook under the “happy outcomes to troublesome problems” header.

“Back or forward?” White asked.

“Rock or hard place, you mean.” We were still up in the air and it was too far to jump off the tracks and have a hope of landing safely. We also had no time to make the decision. “Jumper” by Third Eye Blind came on my iPod and, along with it, an idea. Worked for me. I did what I’d been doing for the past couple of years. I went for the crazy.

I took off, dragging White with me, heading right for the train. The jump was going to require split second timing as well as a sincere hope that White was up for it. “Do you trust me?” I shouted as we raced toward the train racing right back at us.

“Yes.”

“Then jump as high as you can right now!”

We jumped. Our momentum allowed us some lift, but clearly Michael wasn’t the only A-C who could jump, because White was the reason we actually landed on the top of the train instead of into its windshield.

“Don’t stop!” he shouted, as we continued to run along the top of the train. He didn’t have to tell me why—the station had a roof, and we’d be slammed into it if we didn’t keep on running in the opposite direction.