Alien in the House

Chapter 26



“HANG ON A MOMENT.” Concentrated. In a few seconds, Bruno appeared, along with Harold, who was the male half of Christopher’s set of Peregrines.

Jeff jumped. “Geez, I hate how they do that. And just where the hell were you when people were being murdered?” he asked Bruno.

Bruno ruffled his feathers and warbled.

“Ah. Um, none of us were in danger, per Bruno.”

“Santiago died,” Jeff said flatly.

Bruno cawed at him, and he sounded pissed.

“Um, Bruno’s job isn’t to protect visiting dignitaries. His job is to protect the Royal Family and their Retainers. And, um, I’m quoting here. Bruno’s also got the Poofs’ backs on this one—it’s not their job, either.”

“What the hell?” Christopher snapped. “Then what good are they if they can’t stop someone from being killed in our home?”

Bruno squawked indignantly and Harold started in, too. I had two seriously pissed Peregrines facing off against two seriously annoyed men. Not good. Especially when Harlie, Poofikins, Christopher’s Poof, Toby, and a variety of other Poofs appeared, and started jumping up and down and mewling in a very angry manner.

I cleared my throat. Loudly. The Poofs and Peregrines quieted down. “Jeff, Christopher, let me explain something for you. The Peregrines and the Poofs are animals. Alpha Four animals, to be sure, but animals. They have very clear reasoning, therefore. They have been bred for thousands of years with one job and one job only. Deviation from that job isn’t in their makeup.”

Bruno squawked and nudged up against me, as Harlie and Poofikins jumped onto my shoulders, rubbed against my neck, and purred.

“What do they say?” Jeff asked tiredly.

“Bruno says that if I’d known to ask for them to watch for someone trying to kill a stranger, they’d have done their best. But that order would have had to have been given, and understood, in order for them to have taken action. And now, both of you need to apologize to the Poofs and Peregrines.”

“What?” Christopher practically shouted. “Why?”

“You’ve insulted them and hurt their feelings. I’d like to mention that insulting the animal that’s willing to take a bullet for you isn’t a good idea. It’s not their fault that we’re expecting them to think like people.” It was, point of fact, probably my fault.

“You’re right, baby. And it’s not your fault, either.”

“I thought the blocker was blocking you.”

“It’s blocking me from reading your emotions, but your expression’s crystal clear. And I’m sorry we got mad at the Poofs and Peregrines. They’re right—their jobs aren’t to protect our party guests. That’s our job.”

“Actually,” Raj said, “it’s the job of Security and Centaurion Division to provide protection for all of American Centaurion’s Diplomatic Corps and their guests.”

Something about what Raj said struck me, for the first time since we’d moved in here. “Christopher, apologize, right now. I need to ask something.”

He shot Patented Glare #4 at me, but Jeff nudged him, hard. “Fine. I apologize to the Poofs and Peregrines for getting mad at them.”

Toby sniffed and pointedly jumped onto my shoulder, as Harold came and stood on my other side. “Wow, they can totally tell when you’re lying.”

Christopher rolled his eyes. “Why is this relevant?”

“You want to search the tunnels? Then you’re taking Bruno and Harold and Toby with you. If they decide to forgive you, that is.” The elevator stopped, but no one kicked the wall plate to open the door.

White cleared his throat. “Why don’t the three animals in question go to the other side of the room with Christopher and straighten things out that way?” He shot Christopher an extremely parental “do what I say and shut your mouth” look. Christopher sighed and stepped away.

“Go on,” I said gently to Bruno. He, Harold, and Toby went over, unwillingly if I was any judge. “Okay, while they sort all that out, I have to ask—who did Security for the Embassy before we were here? Walter walked into a fully functional mini Command Center, so someone had to be doing the job.”

“Interesting question,” White said. “I honestly don’t know.”

Jeff looked at me. “We need to know, don’t we?”

“I think we do, yeah. Because we’ve already established that some of the human drivers who worked for the former Diplomatic Corps are still loyal to them. What about their Security team? Were they part of the horrible Gaultier’s Zombie Monsters experiments, or were they one with the cause?”

“Thing were so chaotic when we moved in, it never occurred to me to ask,” Jeff said. “And Gladys never said anything about Walter replacing an existing agent.”

“Maybe they’d gotten rid of Security, but I think we need to know, and soon.”

Christopher rejoined us. “I think I groveled enough to be forgiven. So, I’m going to check the tunnels. But before I go, do you think Hamlin was a human or an android fooling you, Kitty?”

“Love how you put that. We hadn’t determined before Jeff called me and Raj to dinner.”

“I’d bet on the real one,” Raj said.

“I think it’ll depend on what shape Malcolm is in if and when you find him.”

“Fine. I’ll search the system within a hundred mile radius. There’s no way they could get farther than that even in this time.”

“If they’re both really human, I don’t think they could get a quarter of that distance in the time since Raj, the boys, and I left them, but that’ll give us a good cushion. You won’t burn yourself out? That’s a lot of running.”

“I had a big meal, I’m good.”

“I believe the ambassador should unblock before Consul White goes. That way the ambassador can tell the moment he can feel again.”

“Call me Jeff, Raj, please. The formality when we’re in private meetings is killing me.”

“Good plan,” Christopher said.

“Well, it is if Jeff’s going to be okay doing it. I’m trying not to be stressed, by the way.”

“Yeah, baby, I’ll be fine, even if your stress is still high. Just give me a minute.” Jeff relaxed against me, took a deep breath, let it out, and relaxed some more. We were all quiet for a good couple of minutes. Couldn’t speak for anyone else but being silent that long was certainly hard for me. “Okay.”

“Before I go, let’s get a baseline—what can you feel?” Christopher asked. “Anything?”

“Yeah,” Jeff said finally. “Can’t feel any of you, not even Kitty, but I can feel the people over at the Zoo. They feel faint, but readable. I’m not picking up anything I shouldn’t. Then again, I wasn’t picking up anything earlier, including the fact that my wife was having visits from the presumed dead.”

He had a point. I wasn’t good enough to hide much from Jeff in the first place, and that he’d missed that I’d visited with two assassins, chased Clarence, and chatted with Hamlin seemed so unlikely as to be impossible.

My brain nudged—nice to know it was still with us. “You know, what are the odds—if someone could create an emotion-blocker that works to make Jeff empathically deaf, dumb, and blind—that this same someone couldn’t create an emotions-controller? The androids that Marling created were so good that they gave off human emotions and fooled Jeff and the other empaths. Good enough that we’re questioning if the Hamlin we met was the real deal or not. What if someone altered that technology and made it so that a person would give off specific, normal emotions, but not the biggies, like gloating and murderous intent?”

“I’d believe it’s quite good, Ambassador.”

“Raj, seriously, I’m with Jeff, start calling me Kitty. And I agree. We need to get that disk reverse engineered pronto.”

“Can we trust the reverse engineers?” Christopher asked. “I’m going to keep on coming back to this until we have some better answers than ‘I don’t know’ and ‘we’ll find out.’ If Colonel Hamlin is right, who, besides the five of us, can we actually trust?”

“Technically, you can’t trust me,” Raj said. “I haven’t been involved with any real activities until recently.”

My stomach sank. Raj was right. “What if we can’t trust anybody?”