Put up the paw. He stopped. “Let her finish, Jeff.”
Jamie beamed at me. “Thank you, Mommy.” She turned to Jeff. “Just because we’re little doesn’t mean we can’t do things. If we don’t help, then you can’t win, and if you don’t win, then everything dies.”
“Well, just this solar system,” Jeff said. He winced. “Not that this is what we want.”
“And all the people in it,” I felt compelled to add. “Which currently includes us.”
“Not just here,” Jamie said. “Everything will die. Sooner than it should, I mean.”
Strongly doubted Denise was teaching death and dying courses to the kids, and knew they weren’t in Sidwell’s curriculum until higher grades. There was no way in hell that ACE or Lilith had been handing out this kind of information to Jamie. Naomi, on the other hand, might have, and Algar was a definite possibility. But regardless of the source, one thing was accurate. “She’s right, Jeff. Every Power That Be has been telling me this, in one way or another. We have to do whatever we can to save this system.”
“But that was you, me, the others. Not the kids.”
“The kids are on this trip for a reason. Everyone is on this trip for a reason. Every person has a role. Some of those roles aren’t clear. Some are more important than others. But everyone has their part in all of this. Our kids included. You and Christopher had to grow up at ten. At least this is our children’s choice, not a choice forced upon them.”
Speaking of people whose roles I wasn’t clear on, Vance and Alicia came in. Both were wearing communicators. Hacker International was having a field day making us into the crew of the Enterprise.
“There you are,” Vance said. “The bridge got a panicked call that you, Jeff, and Kristie were missing. Alicia and I got assigned to the least likely places you’d be hiding.”
“Score one for us,” Alicia said.
Vance tapped his communicator. “Found them, they’re fine. They’ll be back soon, I’m sure. Just tell everyone to carry on with whatever while the King and Queen are having a meeting of state.”
“He’s good,” Jeff said to me.
Alicia cocked her head. “What are we interrupting?”
What the hell. Gave them the fast Recap Girl Update. When I was done, both of them looked impressed but not worried. “So, since you guys are here, you want to add in your thoughts?”
Alicia didn’t answer. She came over and knelt next to Charlie. “I think it’s time we tell them. They need to know. It will help, I promise.”
“I guess,” Charlie said truculently.
Alicia put her arm around him. “A few days before Jeff’s speech I was driving to work. I was stopped at a light, the light turned green, I looked, no one coming. So I started across the intersection. Out of nowhere, an SUV careened down the street at a very high speed, heading right for me. It was going to T-bone me, on my side. And I had nowhere to go, it was all happening too fast for me to brake or floor it or anything else.”
She hugged Charlie. “But then that SUV flew up and over my car, while my car and I got moved into a safe parking place a block away. The SUV crashed into a pole, but no one in the car was hurt. The driver was drunk, at eight in the morning, so when the police heard him say that his car was flying, they didn’t believe him.”
“That doesn’t mean it was Charlie,” Jeff said hopefully.
Alicia and I exchanged the “men” look. “Right before the cars moved, I heard someone say, ‘Don’t worry, Auntie Alicia, I got you,’ and then the accident that probably would have killed me was miraculously avoided. I talked to Charlie about it once we were up here in space, privately. He begged me not to tell anyone.” Her expression went hard. “Because he was afraid that he’d get in trouble. For saving my life.”
Knelt down and hugged Charlie, Alicia, and Jamie as my music changed to “Help The Children” by MC Hammer. “I’m so proud of you guys. Your sister told you what was happening, didn’t she?”
“I did,” Jamie admitted.
“Good. Protectors gotta protect. It’s our thing. Your father understands that, even if he doesn’t want to admit it.”
“Jeff,” Alicia said, looking up at him, “your son is already a Field agent. You just haven’t acknowledged it.”
Jeff heaved a sigh, knelt down, and joined the group hug. “You’re right. And . . . I can’t ask anyone to be less than they are. My children especially.”
“The love in the room is great, isn’t it?” Vance said to Kristie. “Think it’s going to save the day or are we just singing kumbaya?”
“I think Code Name: First Children is going to be a great spinoff series, that’s what I think.”
“Kristie . . .”
“Heh. Gotcha. Again. Man, are you easy to bait.”
“You’re hilarious.” We stopped hugging and everyone stood up. Well, now I knew why Alicia was with us. Vance’s turn to man up and prove why he’d been dragged along. “Vance, do you have anything to add, suggest, or say regarding what’s going on?”
He shrugged. “I was your enemy once. So were a lot of people. Kristie blackmailed you to get on the team.”
“Hey,” she said.
“Oh, it’s true, we’re all past it, and stop acting shocked that we all remember. Anyway, Vance, go on.”
“I just think that you’ve got a good track record for turning people who were against you to your side. Guy and I always say that anyone who bets against you is an idiot. You’ll always find a way to win. I think you’ve found the way—you’re just afraid to trust that Cradus has the same ability you do, and afraid to go with what you know you have to do, because it’s your kids that will be involved.”
“But they’ve been involved before,” Kristie said. “A lot.”
“They have,” Jeff said with a sigh.
“By the way,” Vance said, “have you looked at the solar system recently?”
“How recently?”
“I haven’t, really,” Jeff said. “I was pulled here quickly and I didn’t really pay attention to anything much other than the fact that ACE was taking me somewhere.”
“Well, it’s boring waiting while everyone else is doing something,” Vance said. “By now, Denise is out of ideas for what to do to keep the children from their own form of mutiny. So she’s asked the rest of the adults who have nothing to do for ideas. I suggested that the kids work on puzzles. Mother made some. They completed them fast, enjoyed it, and wanted more. So,” he shrugged, “the kids worked on the next puzzles they could find.”
“Link up,” Jeff said. We all did and he raced us to the Observation Lounge and my music changed to “Where Do the Children Play?” by Cat Stevens. “What the hell?”
One of the inner planets had been put back together.
We stared at it for a long moment. “Vance, thank you. I now know why you came along. And I know what to do. But first, a question. What’s holding the planet together? Puzzles interlock. Blown-up planets probably don’t.”
“The other kids,” Jamie said. “It’s not hard once Charlie moved everything and Wasim explained how gravity works.”