Alien in Chief (20 page)

CHAPTER 38

A
PPARENTLY USING
the phone instead of the iPod had been the way to go. Answered, using my nifty earbuds' call answer thingy, which I was sure was the technical term. “Hello?”

There was no sound on the other end.

Gave it another go, just in case this was a telemarketer. “Hello? We probably don't want any, whatever it is.”

Still no sound.

Contemplated the options. Hung up. And the music started right back up. I was impressed—the music had put itself on hold, so I wasn't missing a thing sonically. One for the win column. Sure, it was a small, almost insignificant one, but I'd learned a long time ago to take whatever wins I could get and treasure them.

Stood up and turned to Buchanan and the boys, who were all looking at me while I slid my phone into my front pocket and put my purse over my neck. “Expect imminent attack imminently.” Sent a mental message to Bruno and Ginger and any Poofs who might be listening in on the Kitty Channel.

“From whom and where?” Buchanan asked.

“Blocked number just called with no one on the other end. The last time that happened I almost died.” The last time that had happened, frankly, had been at the end of
Operation Drug Addict, and the person on the other end of the line had been Leventhal Reid, using GPS to find where I was.

Sure, the Ronald Yates/Mephistopheles in-control superbeing had been bad. Sure LaRue Demorte Gaultier was, as it turned out, an Ancient, a shape-shifting alien bent on working with her own race's mortal enemies, and ours, the Z'porrah. And sure, Cliff Goodman was the Mastermind. And there was a long list of other evil baddies we'd faced and some we'd face again.

But there was no one, on any planet so far, who personified evil in the way that Leventhal Reid did. He was like a human snake, the venomous kind, and I was terrified of snakes.

“I have no idea from whom, but I have a guess. As for where, wherever my phone signal is, is my best guess.”

The door opened and Jeff came running in. “Whatever blocker Monica has on, it isn't blocking anyone other than her. What's wrong? Where is he?”

“He who?” Evalyne asked.

“Leventhal Reid,” Jeff snarled.

“He's dead,” Phoebe reminded him as Joseph and Rob ran in. Clearly Jeff had used hyperspeed to get to me and they'd just taken good guesses at to where he'd gone. “I realize you feel there's at least one clone of him around, but from what you've told us, that clone would still be an adolescent.”

“No. Those clones were on the fast-aging plan. Reid could be my age now. Frankly, he could even be older. And that might not have been him. But I think it was someone trying to get a position on where we are.”

No sooner said than I heard the distinct thump of something—or, more likely, someone—landing on our roof. And then another. And another.

Jeff and I looked at each other. Then took off running. At hyperspeed, of course.

The War Room car doubled as the safe house for the train. But Armstrong and Elaine, and my mother, were in Rail Force One, not in the War Room.

Jeff and I were headed for the same car, and we slammed through the War Room like it wasn't even there and were in the President's car in less than a second. Which was good, because I heard more thumps on the roof. Had a really good guess for who was hitching a ride on this train, and it wasn't hobos.

We got there in time to hear Evalyne shouting over the walkie-talkie. “Get Slick and Sophistication into the War Room, STAT!”

Oh, sure, this wasn't really direction being given to me and Jeff, but since we were there already, we grabbed them and anyone around them—which meant Jeff had Armstrong and Tito, who had the presence of mind to grab both his medical bag and Ariel, and I had Elaine and Mom, who grabbed Strauss—and took off.

Heard Raj shout to have everyone link hands, and he and the rest of the A-Cs were right behind us with the rest who's been in or around the President, including Grady, who was the President's steward.

Raj slammed the forward door shut and hit the special locking mechanism. No one was getting in from that side without a blowtorch and several months of time or a gigantic bomb. Sadly, I figured our enemies had Plan B on their persons.

As he did so, those who'd been in our car came running in, Len dragging Javier behind him, Kyle shooing the private dining car's staff ahead of him.

Knew what was going to happen if we let it. The Secret Service, the boys, and Buchanan were all going to try to keep me and Jeff in this car. But there were people on this train, all of them included, who didn't have the skills, the talents, the experience, and most importantly, the fast healing regeneration that Jeff and I did.

We might be able to get all of the civilians in here in time—we had enough A-Cs here to do it. But, when it came down to it, in this situation, we really only had one goal—to keep the President safe.

“You're both staying here now,” Buchanan said to me and Jeff, right on cue. “Lock it down,” he told Joseph, who was nearest to the door. And Joseph leaped to do just that.

Jeff grabbed my hand and we took off, though we stopped at the edge of the dining car. The door slammed behind us and the locking mechanism clicked in. “Boy, are they going to be pissed at us.”

Jeff grinned. “Let's ensure that we stay alive and unharmed then, baby.”

“Thanks for not trying to make me stay there, by the way.”

“And the same to you. I just know you too well and I didn't want to have to hear about it for the rest of my life.”

“Freedom Train” by Lenny Kravitz came on and I realized we'd really moved fast, which was the idea. “Figure it's the Crazy Eights on the roofs.” Paused the music and listened. Didn't hear any more footsteps. Started the music up again. “They're going to spread out some of them, concentrate some of them on the War Room, and someone's going to go to the front of the train. All of them are killers and most of them are hybrids.”

“It's never easy, is it, baby?”

“Or, as we call it, routine.”

CHAPTER 39

“W
E NEED TO GET
the civilians into some form of safety,” I told Jeff as we headed for our car. I had an ocellar and a Peregrine to pick up.

Only the animals weren't in our car. Before I could fret about this, though, we had something else to occupy our attention—one of the Crazy Eights was coming in from the back of the car, impressive gun at the ready.

It was Nerida Alfero, the water-bending chick. There wasn't a lot of water around. Felt fairly confident I could take her.

Did my best to send Jeff a mental message that we had to get the civilians protected in some way, keep Gower safe, and the rest of our people mobilized, and he'd be better at doing that than I would. Plus Jeff might have some issues hitting a woman, and I had less than none.

Of course, I had to clear the path for him. So, you know, I charged. And as I did, my music changed to “Prize Fighter” by the Killers. Had to guess this wasn't on the playlist Kyle had created, meaning I was now on the Algar Channel. Worked for me.

She started shooting, but I was, by now, seriously pissed, and the skills always worked better when I was channeling She-Hulk. Dodged the bullets that looked like very
slow-moving pebbles, slammed into her, and wrenched the gun away from her. Tossed it to Jeff as he took off as mentally requested. We were a well-oiled politically incorrect team.

You'd think that someone who'd been rotting in the deepest supermax prison the government had would be out of shape. Apparently she was on the Thug Life Workout Plan, because chick had learned some moves.

We were doing some impressive hand-to-hand fighting. But it didn't stop her from talking. “We're here to end you murdering scum.” She threw a right, I blocked it, and punched her in the stomach.

“Hypocrite much? You're all about being murdering scum.” Hey, if it was a Talk While You Kick Ass fight, I was damned well going to represent. Tried to sweep her legs but she jumped out of the way.

“You killed my family.” She landed and tried for a groin shot. I did a backward somersault.

“This again? No, I didn't, and anyway, they're no more or less your family than other people on this train.” She was charging but I stayed down and did an upward kick as she got near. She flew back but landed on her feet. “And we had this discussion before. As I recall, you lost. Big time.”

She smirked. “There's losing that's not really losing, you know.” She did a rather impressive leaping scissors-kick. But I could tell she'd only done this in practice, never in real combat, because all I did was step out of the way, so all she crashed into was the dining table in our car.

Time to keep her talking, apparently, especially while she was struggling out of the table wreckage. Decided to play it smart and not charge in, in case she grabbed a table leg or something. “Sure there is. And then there's losing and really losing, like you and the other Crazy Eights are going to experience. Again, I might add.”

Heard the sounds of gunfire nearby as the music changed to “Crossfire” by Brandon Flowers. Apparently Algar was
in a Killers mood. I was certainly one with Brandon's band's name right now. Just hoped that my side would be the one doing the killing.

Based on noises and musical cues, had to figure I was needed elsewhere. But also had to figure I needed to make sure Nerida wasn't an issue.

She heard the gunfire, too, and smirked again as, sure enough, she came up with a table leg. Sometimes I was psychic, really. “It's hard to lose when you have insider information.” She came out swinging, I backed up ducking.

“Tell that to Martha Stewart. Anyway, what information could you losers possibly have?”

Guns blazing elsewhere or not, this info I probably needed to get out of her. Ducked another swing, trapped her arm between mine and my body while I gave her a roundhouse elbow to the face, stomped on her foot, and, as I backed away, wrenched the table leg out of her hand. As always when the skills were totally impressive, there was no one I cared about impressing around to see it.

“We know how to get into the car you think is all locked up nice and safely.” She grabbed décor and started throwing it at me. At not quite hyperspeed. Not at the slow version of it, just really fast. And yet, not
that
fast. There was something going on with these hybrids, something that hadn't been there before.

Thankfully, Algar didn't play “Something There” from the
Beauty and the Beast
soundtrack, but it was now singing harmony in my head along with Brandon.

Fortunately, Nerida tossing crap at me brought me back to the moment. Dodged glasses, batted a vase back at her, and backhanded a lamp in her general direction. I was a switch hitter, just like I was a switch hurdler. Not, again, that anyone was around to draft me for the Diamondbacks.

“You mean you have a traitor Secret Service agent and he has some intel that's giving all of you a very false sense of security.” I sincerely hoped.

She smirked again as she threw more stuff at me. Apparently this was her fave facial expression ever. “No. Sam's given us a very real look into how the security around all of you is managed.”

“When he was on our detail, sure. You seriously think we didn't mix it up to keep the bad guys guessing after he was incarcerated?” I again sincerely hoped.

We'd changed up how we did things, but whether the Secret Service had or not wasn't something I'd paid attention to. Added it onto the list of all the important things I didn't pay attention to until well after the fact and carried on by landing a great front ball kick to her stomach combined with my slamming the table leg against her head.

She flew back into a chair. Happily the force of my kick flipped her and the chair over, just as someone else arrived and “Jumping Someone Else's Train” by the Cure came on. It was White, and he grabbed my hand without comment and zoomed us out of there.

“Nice to see you, too, Mister White. I hadn't finished that fight.” We went through the dining car. No one inside it, which was another tiny one for the win column.

“She looked down and hopefully out and, if not, I just assume you'll finish it later, Missus Martini, and in style. However, we're needed and there's no one who does what we're going to have to better than the two of us.”

“I see the future by looking at the past. We're going on top of the train, aren't we?” We'd reached the War Room but didn't try to get in. The sound of gunfire was much louder and closer.

“We are. Mister Falk is trying to get to the engine to protect the engineer and crew from our enemies and he's in need of assistance.”

“How did he get past me? You're the only one who's come through.”

“He was in the forward personnel car and called back to us to alert us that we were under attack.”

“How?”

“We have these amazing devices called cellular phones. Perhaps you've heard of them?” White's sarcasm knob definitely went to eleven. “Burton has all our numbers programmed in. And, unlike some people, he used his ability to dial.”

“Oh, right. And bitter much? Jeff and I were busy getting people to safety.”

“Yes, so he explained when he reached us. While we were talking to Burton on speakerphone.”

“Gotcha. Sorry, I've just gotten so used to everyone talking into the air or at their wrists and lapels that someone using the phone to do something other than determine my position via GPS seems totally old fashioned.”

“Duly noted. In case you're wondering, we're under attack at the rear of the train as well as up here, we're trying to protect the civilians who aren't in the safe room car, and Jeffrey and Christopher may not yet be aware that I'm not there anymore.”

“Wise man is the sneakiest, I've always said it. Totally off topic, in that sense, but have you seen Ginger or Bruno?”

“No, I have not, nor have any Poofs made an appearance.”

“I'd complain about this, but when they're AWOL they're usually off doing something else key, so I'll just assume that's the case and find the will to go on.”

“That's the spirit.” White took hold of the ladder.

“You know . . .” Rummaged around in my purse and grabbed the goggles. “I have these in here sort of randomly. Now seems like it might be a good time to wear them.”

“Yes, probably.”

Slipped them on. They might have been night vision or something else vision, but I could see well through them, so that was all that mattered. They were holding my earbuds in place, so that was another one for the win column.

Noted White trying not to laugh. “How do I look?”

“I don't want a pair, if you have extras along.”

“I don't. It's really that bad a look?”

“If it's a choice between those or a catsuit, always choose catsuit. Don't risk a glance in a mirror and you'll be fine. I'm going up first. Please be prepared to pull me down quickly.” With that, he started up the ladder on the outside of the car.

I was right behind him, and I was ready to grab and pull. But he was looking forward and I figured one of us had better be looking behind, especially when “Back, Back Train” by Aerosmith came on my airwaves. Either that or Algar wasn't helping anymore and I was back on the playlist Kyle had made for me. Gave it even odds for either option.

So, Algar helping or not, I wasn't all that surprised when I saw someone coming up on the roof of the car we'd just left.