Camp Alien (19 page)

T
HE ROOM STARED AT ME.
“I'm lost,” Jeff said. Most heads nodded.

“Me too, Kitty,” Chuckie said.

“I'm with you,” Amy said via speakerphone. “But only because of what we were discussing right before you suddenly had a burning desire to come back to the White House.”

“I'm not,” Christopher admitted.

“That's because of your emotional attachments. Okay, look, I was thinking about Lizzie because she's a great kid, and she shouldn't be.”

“Why shouldn't she be?” Jeff asked, sounding almost as protective as he did whenever he perceived even the slightest threat to Jamie or Charlie.

“Okay, follow me. Lizzie's parents were traitors. They wanted her to join them in their plan to literally kill half the world. She refused because she knew they were evil. At age eleven she was not only willing to defy her parents but she was willing to die in order to try to save the world. Meaning she's braver than adults several times her age.”

“That's never been in dispute,” Chuckie said.

“Right. So, she was rescued by an assassin, and yet she's still fighting on the side of right. And I'd bet that Siler's a lot more willing to be a good guy because Lizzie sees him as a hero and, in fact,
expects
him to be a hero. And she's still a great kid, still brave, still fighting for right. She had to leave her cushy school because she was protecting people weaker than herself.”

“So who's her opposite?” Jeff asked.

“Seriously? Only Ames has this one? Stephanie. Stephanie is Lizzie's opposite. And not just because she's an A-C and Lizzie's a human. Stephanie only had one parent who was a traitor, not two. And yet . . .”

“She was being influenced by Clarence,” Christopher said. Most of the other A-Cs nodded. Serene and White, however, did not. Had a feeling they'd joined Amy on my side of the thinking.

“Yeah? Let's look at a different scenario than the one we've all been buying for years. Stephanie was the one who gave Christopher and all the other men on Alpha Team key chains that had bugs in them, which were used against us for at least a year. We'd always thought that she'd been duped into doing so by her father.”

“Well, of course,” Jeff said. “She was just a teenager.”

“Yeah? Lizzie was
eleven
. But let's continue on my little path here. What if we're wrong? What if the Original Clarence didn't actually dupe her? What if he brought her over fully way back when?”

“How?” Gower asked.

“Maybe she heard something or saw something she shouldn't have and confronted her father. Sure, most of you are terribly trusting, but Stephanie doesn't seem to suffer from that particular failing.” Stephanie was a Dazzler, after all, and even those Dazzlers considered dumb as posts by the others were still MENSA material for humans. Meaning she'd have been able to put two and two together without trouble. “There was more than enough going on that Clarence was privy to, after all, so the chances are high that she caught something.”

“Okay,” Reader said slowly. “Let's say you're right. Are you going where I think you're going?”

“God, I hope so. I'm saying that this means that she's done all that she's done against us of her own free will.”

“I have trouble buying that,” Jeff said, sounding angry and dismissive.

“Because you still see her as a little girl and you love her. And she's been exploiting that for a really long time. Look, I never considered Clarence all that bright for an A-C, and while he was ambitious, he was always willing to go up the ladder by being someone's muscle or employee. Clarence wasn't an independent thinker. TCC isn't really, either, but
he hasn't been tainted, so he's sweet and caring, but still, very willing to follow. But, what if Stephanie isn't like her father in that way? What if she is, in fact, quite a strong, independent thinker?”

Could see the wheels turning in Chuckie's mind. More people in the room looked as if they were considering this. Jeff and Christopher, however, were flat-out rejecting, based on Patented Glare #5 coming from Christopher and a glower from Jeff that was at least going for the Bronze in the Glare Olympics.

Forged on. “Stephanie knew where all of Cliff's hideouts were. And that means she had access to all of his information. Maybe she'd been spending all her time after disappearing not hiding from him due to fear, but hiding from Cliff so that she could gather all the intelligence she possibly could.”

“Let's say she has,” Mom said slowly. “Where are you going with this line of thought?”

“Stephanie has all of Cliff's data, or all that she could get her mitts on, which was probably a lot. He didn't think she was all that smart—you can tell by how he treated her. He thinks he's smarter than LaRue, too. Frankly, he thinks he's smarter than everyone, that's why he had to try to destroy Chuckie. So it's likely he didn't take the precautions around her that he should have.”

“Meaning she had access to the androids,” Tim said. “And she had access to Drax, too. So she could set the Kendrick Android to steal the helicarrier and whoever else was around.”

“Welcome home, Megalomaniac Lad. That is exactly what I mean. I think the reason we can't find the invisible helicarrier is that the person who had it stolen hasn't had an opportunity to get it. She was still faking Drax out—why not, after all? Get all the tech from him you can, just like you did with Cliff. And then we raided them and she's now in the supermax prison without a way to tell the android or androids what to do next.”

“It fits,” Chuckie said. “It fits well, honestly.”

White nodded. “I believe that Missus Martini is, as is so often the case, probably correct.”

“But . . . but she was just a kid,” Jeff protested. “She didn't know any better.”

Alexander cleared his throat. “I realize that I'm essentially an outsider in this situation, but if you remember, my brother was a traitor. He always coveted the throne, and hindsight shows me that he was a traitor from a young age. I believe that the excuse of ‘not knowing better' is a weak one, Jeff. And as a strong leader, you know this to be true.”

“Alex is right. Lizzie was eleven and she knew better. Stephanie was probably around fifteen, because I don't think she was in on this until after I hit the Centaurion scene, and I know that she still loved you and Christopher when I first met the family. So she was definitely old enough to know better, Jeff. You're going to have to accept that Malcolm's right—she's a lost cause and likely our current biggest threat.”

Serene cleared her throat. “I've had people researching the extended Martini family, since we have known traitors among them. Kitty's theory is more than a theory, Jeff. We have proof that Stephanie's been involved for at least as long as Kitty thinks.”

“What proof and why didn't you give this to me before?” Jeff snapped.

Serene walked up to him and got as in his face as she could, seeing that he was a good few inches taller. “I am the Head of Imageering and James is the Head of Field. You are not.” Her voice was icy and radiated authority, easily as much as Jeff, Christopher, or Reader ever had. “You are also compromised. Therefore, I had absolutely no need to tell you anything. I'd like you to remember that when you ask me anything again, ever, at any time.”

Jeff blinked. “Ah . . .”

“And Serene shatters the glass ceiling just that quickly. Can I make a guess as to what Serene's proof is?”

Serene turned to me and smiled. “Of course, Kitty.”

“I think Stephanie was the first test subject for the emotional manipulators. She's an empath, right?” Jeff and Serene both nodded. “And yet she had no idea that Cliff was two-timing her. I realize he was good at hiding his emotions, but no one is
that
good, at least not without help. But Stephanie didn't pick up anything, including, I think, that Jeff and Christopher still loved her.”

“How could she not pick that up?” Jeff asked. “She can manipulate her blocks, we taught all the kids how.”

“She wore the manipulators,” Christopher said, coming over to the Side of Megalomania. “And since she was the test subject, they probably tested an internal overlay on her, too, somewhere in the last couple of years.”

“Yes,” Serene said. “We've found a trail on the emotional overlays. It's taken us time because we lost all our data during the . . . internal attack. However, we've been working on this for almost three years now. The overlays came after the emotional blockers, but not as far behind as our experiences would indicate. However, an S.V. was listed as the initial tester in every case that we've found. It's not rocket science to assume those initials stand for Stephanie Valentino.”

“Could be Sylvia, of course,” I said. “But I sincerely doubt it. Because your sisters love you, Jeff. And their kids do, too. All but the ones turned against you by their fathers.”

“You know it's plural?” Jeff asked, sounding like he was going to need adrenaline.

“Not confirmed yet,” Serene said. “Stephanie is confirmed, but no others.”

“So where does this leave us?” Reader asked.

“It leaves us with a traitor to interrogate. I don't want Jeff and Christopher in the interrogation, though.”

“Who, then?” Reader shot me a fast grin. “I'd better be involved.”

“Of course. You, me, Serene, Chuckie, Siler, and Malcolm. You know, you get to be Good Cop and the rest of us will cover all the other Bad Cop levels.”

“That's fine,” Mom said. “Only that has to be tabled for now.” She got the room's attention and shot us all a look that could only be described as long-suffering.

“What?” Jeff sounded lost. “This is important. Especially if they're right, and I can feel that everyone here thinks they're right.”

“It may be important, but not in the greater scheme of things.” Mom's tone was brisk and no-nonsense. Wondered how many times she'd had talks like this with presidents. Figured more than she'd ever be allowed to tell me. “This issue is a family issue. A domestic issue at the most. But right now, the country needs strong leadership—not to have their President fretting over his delinquent niece. Those
peace talks have to happen, and soon. We must show that this country is back to functioning properly, or we become vulnerable to not only enemy nations but enemy planets. And I'm not saying this as your mother-in-law—I'm saying it as the Head of the P.T.C.U. The terrorist is incarcerated. That's good enough for the moment.”

“But we have people still missing,” Claudia said quietly.

“I realize that,” Mom said, rather gently. “But five of those people would be the first to tell you that there's a proper order to things and that ensuring that the country they've sworn to protect is secure is job one, and ensuring that the world won't blow up tomorrow is job two. Stephanie and their rescue would be job three.”

“The princesses would say that honor demands that we handle the peace talks first, too. However, the nice thing is that not everyone has to do the same thing at the same time.”

Mom shot me a look I was familiar with—her “let's see what you're going to try to fool me with this time” look. “You're going to need to be at Camp David, Kitty. For a variety of reasons, not the least of which is a message I received from Mossad earlier today.”

“No argument, Mom. But I can guarantee that I don't need to help Raj figure out logistics for the Club Fifty-One shindig, nor am I going to be needed to set up the peace talks.”

“You need to be seen,” Mom said, using her long-suffering mother voice. “At more things than you want to be.”

“See, this is why I'm so glad I hired Vance. Because I have a nifty solution to that problem, and precedent appears to have been really set for it, too.”

N
O ONE LIKED THE IDEA
of Francine covering for me at anything that was considered low FLOTUS involvement, but no one could argue against the logic either.

Happily, before we could really get into a fight about this, it was time for dinner. Per Nadine, the children and the adults with them were eating upstairs in the Family Dining Room. Tried to get permission to go up and eat with them, but was instantly overruled by pretty much everyone.

As with lunch, I wasn't allowed to sit near to Jeff. He had his part of the giant table, I had mine. Chuckie was on my side of things this time, which was a switch. Had a feeling he was on Kitty Wrangling Duty, but then again he might have wanted to grill Kendrick, since I had Vance on my other side and Culver, Abner, Kendrick, and Gadoire nearby. Nathalie and Horn had also joined us, though, so that was nice.

The food was even better than it had been at lunch. “Does Chef do midnight snacks?” I asked Vance.

He grinned. “I'll find out. I'm sure that your private kitchen is stocked.”

“I haven't rummaged through it yet. I haven't really investigated the complex yet.”

“Well, give it time.”

As we ate and chatted about totally inconsequential things—other than Kendrick, who was having a very intense conversation with Chuckie and Culver about all things Titan Security and how they were pro this administration—my mind wandered as it so frequently did. And it wandered to its favorite wandering place—thinking about where Jeff and I could have sex in this place.

Our new bedroom was obvious, and the kids' rooms were out completely. But there were a lot of other options. Made the decision that doing it in the Oval Office had to be Job One. Figured I could not possibly have been the first person to have thought of this, but had no way of asking how well cleaned the furniture was, at least not without giving Antoinette a heart attack. Oh well, I'd just have to risk it in the name of science and all that jazz.

The next question was when. Right now was, sadly, out. Besides, the kids were going to want some serious Daddy Time, and Lizzie probably needed to feel accepted and wanted, too. And lord knew when we were going to get all these people out of here. Decided I'd better table all the potential sexy times thinking for later, because it was hard to concentrate.

Realized Jeff had caught something of what I was thinking, because he caught my eye from far, far away and gave me a very slow, sexy smile. Okay, maybe we'd just stay up late.

Was interrupted from the only fun thoughts I'd had in ages by a question from Horn. “Kitty, are you keeping your Cause?”

“I think so, yeah.” The Cause was improving college security for coeds and doing antirape education and more for the male students. Kyle was really in charge of the Cause because he'd instituted a Best-in-Class version at USC. “Unless that's going to create problems for some reason.”

“No, I think it's a good choice,” Horn said. “I was going to suggest that you give Gideon an official position with the Cause.”

“Um, he's already a Governor.”

“But this is something that he could do as well, my dove,” Gadoire said. “And it would give Gideon much happiness, to be still shown to be, ah, important to your administration.”

Looked at Vance. “Your thoughts?” Noted the others, Abner in particular, looking at Vance with a lot of admiration.

Vance nodded. “I agree that we don't want Governor Cleary to feel shoved aside. And, I'm also certain that this will drive Senator Kramer nuts.”

“Make it so.”

“You really don't care for them, do you?” Abner asked.

“No, not really. Unlike some people who started off in an adversarial position to me,” all of whom were eating with me right now, technically Horn included, “the Kramers chose to become virulently anti-alien. I find it hard to like people like that.”

“Zachary isn't your friend,” Culver said, interrupting her side conversation.

“And I wouldn't put anything past Marcia,” Nathalie added. “She's very . . . focused on rising up.”

Someone else had been focused on rising up politically. Cameron Maurer's wife, Crystal. And she hadn't divorced him yet, even though she knew he was an android and they were living in separate states. This bore some investigation, and clearly I needed to give Mrs. Maurer a call or pay a visit, sooner as opposed to later.

Chuckie's phone beeped before anyone else could comment. He read his text, grunted, and showed it to me. Buchanan and the rest were back and needed to see Chuckie, me, Jeff, Reader, Tim, and Serene immediately. Chuckie started texting those being requested.

Fortunately, we'd just finished dessert. “I'm sorry, gang, but a couple of us are needed in a private meeting. Vance, what's the proper way to excuse myself?”

He laughed. “Just like that is fine for your friends, Kitty.” Noted Kendrick looking pleased at being included in the general “friends” assessment. “Just graciously grab whoever else you need and we'll all be good here.” He leaned closer. “I'll ensure that everyone leaves sooner as opposed to later.”

“You're the best, Vance. By the way, give some thought to what we could ask Nancy Maurer to do. I'd love to have her on my staff in some way if she's willing.”

Chuckie and I stood and excused ourselves, and the others requested did as well. Jeff sort of left Hochberg, Elaine, and Mom in charge of his end of the table. Decided that I'd leave all of this to Vance and stop worrying about it.

We went to the Oval Office at hyperspeed. Definitely the right place to have sex, but not right now, unless Jeff and I were going to institute an Orgy Policy which I knew without asking Jeff was totally against.

Buchanan and the rest of the Spaceship Recovery Team were there. They also had a Special Guest Star—Colonel
Arthur Franklin, the man in charge of Andrews Air Force Base.

“Arthur, it's nice to see you. I hope, anyway.”

He laughed. “Always good to see you, Kitty. And I'm here because I wanted to discuss our special equipment issue with all of you.”

Jeff looked at Buchanan. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Yes. Right where Drax said it would be.”

“I'm not a liar,” Drax said huffily. “And the rest was
not
my fault.”

“Dude, that tends to be my line. What happened?”

Siler looked like he was trying not to laugh. Buchanan looked pissed. Wruck looked interested. And Drax looked defensive. Franklin, on the other hand, looked rather excited.

“Are we safe to assume that the ship did not uncloak where the general populace could see it?” Chuckie asked.

“Oh yes,” Franklin said. “Prince Gustav's ship is safely housed in one of our larger hangars. One restricted to top security clearances only.”

“So it's Prince Gustav now? What gives? You said you eschewed the title.”

“I did and do,” Drax muttered. “I'm not the one insisting on calling me that.”

“I suggested it,” Wruck said. “Under the circumstances.”

“What circumstances?” Jeff asked, sounding annoyed. “I'd like answers, gentlemen, not innuendos. As everyone's told me every minute of every hour of the last few days, I have a country to run.”

Tim and I exchanged a look. “You think?” he asked.

“Oh, I do, I really do. Can I take a guess?”

“Sure,” Buchanan said tiredly. “I'm willing to bet that you're going to be right, Missus Executive Chief, because what's going on is definitely in your wheelhouse.”

“Super. So, how many Vatusan ships came searching for their Runaway Royal?”

“Are you kidding me?” Jeff asked.

“No, and only two,” Franklin said. “They were kind enough to remain cloaked and are also parked in our hangar. There's room there for the stolen helicarrier, too, should it ever be found.”

“You know, Vata were explained to us,” Tim said. “Why can't you just mind-connect with your helicarrier and bring it back?” he asked Drax.

“I created it to be fully invulnerable to humans and Vata alike. Meaning I can't connect to it because I have its system blocked from external influence. And if I can't reach it, no one else can, either.”

“This was confirmed by the four Royal Retainers,” Franklin said.

“Four?” Jeff asked. “I thought you said there were two ships.”

“There were,” Buchanan replied. “But they're a lot smaller than what I think you're expecting. Drax's ship is reasonably large, presumably because he was bringing materials with him. The ships that the retainers are in? Those are about the size of a seven-forty-seven.”

“They could have flown something the size of this planet with only two on board,” Drax said. “We connect to our ships to fly them. It's, for us, a simple process, much easier than having a large crew. That was why and how I could come alone and use the interior space to carry my materials.”

“And they came here from the Galactic Core?” Chuckie asked.

Wruck nodded. “They're faster than the Z'porrah.”

“And we've experienced how fast the Z'porrah ships can jump. So, let's ask the twenty-four-thousand-dollar question: what is it the retainers want?”

“To ensure that His Royal Highness is safe and well,” Franklin said. “But they plan to stay here. Because that's their job—to babysit your arms dealer.”

“He's not our arms dealer,” Jeff said. Drax looked hurt and Jeff grunted. “Not officially and not yet, at any rate. Where are they, these retainers?”

“At the only place we could put them where they wouldn't cause more problems,” Siler replied cheerfully. “The Alpha Centaurion Embassy.”