“I was the first one through the gate,” Colette said. “I didn’t stop to calibrate it, because calibration for the Dome means we can send as many through as fast as we need. But that’s not true of going elsewhere. We should have had difficulties coming here. But we didn’t.”
“So it’s safe to assume that whoever changed the gate calibration wasn’t the same as whoever put Casey into action,” Chuckie said. Might not have been in the room with him, but I could still see the wheels turning. Just didn’t think he was getting anything, based on how it looked like a migraine might be on his near horizon.
“Why make Casey or whatever it was look so bad that I was called in?” Tito asked. “An epidemic scare would have resulted in a lockdown—is that the only reason? Because if it is, why did she explode?”
“Because,” one of the frat boys said, “you didn’t fall for it.”
CHAPTER 20
THE GUY WHO’D SPOKEN reminded me a little bit of Len and his pal reminded me a tad of Kyle, at least as they’d been when I’d first met them. These two were in a frat, meaning they were in college, and they were likely jocks. Whether they were like Len and Kyle and therefore smart jocks was the question of the moment.
“Name, rank, serial number,” I said to him. “As in, where are you from, where do you go to school, and which frat are you two in?”
“I’m Bud, this is Cujo,” he indicated the bigger guy. “We’re from Chicago but we live in Tallahassee now. Alpha Tau Omega fraternity at Florida State.”
“Not PIKEs?” Kyle asked suspiciously. Knew why. Kyle ran my Cause which, when I was the wife of the Vice President, had been getting antirape programs into colleges across the country, modeling the program on what Kyle had created at USC after he and Len had run into me in Vegas. Kyle, therefore, knew every problem frat on every campus. He’d recently mentioned that the Pi Kappa Alpha chapter in Florida had been getting in trouble a lot.
Bud shook his head. “No, we’re in a good frat.”
“That remains to be seen,” Len said.
Bud and Cujo glared at him. Decided I had more questions. “Seriously, no one’s mother named them after a Stephen King killer dog or a beer. Real names, dudes, now.”
Bud grinned. “I’m Barnaby Ramsey, he’s Carlton Shepherd.”
“Better. We can go back to Bud and Cujo now. So, what team are you two on?”
“Football,” Cujo said. “On scholarship. I’m on special teams. Bud’s a running back.”
“Called it.” Okay, so they weren’t exactly the same as Len and Kyle, but they were damn close. “Bud, you said that the Casey-Bot exploded because I didn’t fall for it. You have any more on that?”
He shrugged. “If we’re going with her being some kind of robot or android or whatever, then she was programmed, right?” Most of the room nodded. “So, those chicks are right—she acted weird when the cops weren’t around. When they were, she was all raving. When they weren’t she was just quiet and sitting there on her bench.”
“Like she was turned off,” Cujo added.
The ragged man who’d thanked us for getting them chairs leaned forward. “The boys are right. I’m Mickey and this is Garfield,” he indicated the other homeless man. Chose not to demand their last names or anything else—they weren’t in any condition for me to be snarky or hard on them. “We were watching her ’cause she was interesting.”
“She didn’t try to talk to no one,” Garfield said. “She didn’t even look at the other girls.”
“She looked at the men?” Chuckie asked.
Mickey nodded. “She looked us over once or twice while she was sitting but that was it.”
“She smirked at us,” Garfield said, sounding offended. “Like she was so superior. But we wasn’t roughed up by the cops when they brought us in. We went like gentlemen.”
Mickey nodded emphatically. “We did. We don’t argue with the police doing their jobs.”
Melville heaved a sigh. “Mickey and Garfield are regulars, Kitty. So are Star, sorry, Jane, and Rhonda. Meriel, it’s her first time in.”
“You guys keep track of all that?”
Officer Larry nodded. “We try to stay up on all our repeat offenders. For various reasons.”
Would have questioned this more, but the K-9 unit was quite specialized and, frankly, knowing them, I didn’t really doubt that they and the rest of their squad were tracking everything they could. They looked for patterns beyond normal police work. It was the reason we’d become allies, really. And the reason it made sense that our enemies would figure that they’d have contacted me right away. As had been pointed out more than once, we had a predictable playbook.
“The jocks and the classy drunks are first-timers,” Officer Curly added. “At least around here.”
“We’re visiting friends in town,” Bud said. “But we don’t have records at home or at school.”
“Jocks never do,” Melville muttered. Len and Kyle both rolled their eyes at me. Managed not to laugh, but only just.
Looked at the guys in suits. They both looked about forty, normally decent looking, the blond in a navy pinstripe and the black-haired one in charcoal. They looked like any typical businessmen or political movers and shakers—dressed well, well coiffed despite being in lockup, and, unlike the hookers, the homeless men, and the frat boys, totally bored.
“You two gentlemen have anything to add to this?”
The blond opened his mouth, but words didn’t come out. Instead, there was a shrieking sound.
CHAPTER 21
EVERYONE JUMPED, the homeless men and the working girls in particular, as the man slammed his mouth shut without ever getting to say a word and winced, along with the rest of the room. Not that I could blame them—the alarm was loud and insistent.
“I know that sound,” Reader said from the LSR. “That’s a bad sound.”
“Scramble,” Jeff said to him, Commander in Chief Voice on Full. Didn’t have to ask who was scrambling where, as Reader, Tim, Lorraine, and Claudia got up and disappeared from view. Checked out the rest of those in the LSR. Couldn’t see Buchanan, Siler, and Wruck and assumed they were either already on their way or possibly here already.
Prince, Duke, and Riley also scrambled, right over to me. They were trying to guard me, but they were in pain from the sounds. Tried to cover their ears, but they had six ears and I only had two hands. Seeing the dogs’ distress Kevin covered Riley’s ears and Evalyne covered Duke’s while I did my best for Prince.
A-Cs were pouring out of various rooms and hallways, all Field agents as near as I could tell. Some of them were older, so I assumed this meant that they’d been sent over from Dulce. Sure, Caliente Base might be considered separate, but there was no way the rest of Centaurion Division was going to ignore an emergency at this Base.