Kitty Katt 11: Alien Separation (4 page)

C
HUCKIE WAS QUIET,
which was a good sign. I hoped. Hard as it was not to run my yap nervously, I allowed him to process what I'd said by keeping said yap firmly shut.

After a good long minute, he swallowed. “So, you're saying that the man I think is my best friend, the man I was going to have be my best man at my wedding, the one guy I think ‘gets me,' that man is actually the person responsible for my wife's death?”

“And every other action against us and you, specifically. Yes, that's what I'm saying.”

“Ah.”

Cleared my throat. “Ah, do I have to tackle you before you make a mad dash for The Retribution Railroad?”

He shook his head slowly. “No. I understand why no one wanted to tell me. And . . . I can't tell you how much I appreciate that you were the one to break this news to me. Alone.”

“You need to go to a workout room and hit something and maybe scream a lot?”

“No. I want to save the rage. I know that's what you do these days—you use the rage to control your power, to ensure you're mad enough to kill if you have to.”

“Yeah, I do—”

The door slammed open, rudely interrupting me, and Jeff, Buchanan, and Gower were there. Gower was built like Jeff and Buchanan—big and buff. He was also black, bald, beautiful, and Reader's husband. More pertinently in this situation, he was the Supreme Pontifex of the A-C's religion. Why he was with Jeff and Buchanan wasn't hard to guess—bring the head religious man when you have someone about to totally lose it.

All of them looked worried and ready to tackle someone. And all three of them came to a screeching halt, looking confused.

Chuckie managed a small smile. “Sorry, Jeff. Yes, I'm sure my emotions are off the charts. But as I just told Kitty, I've spent a lifetime banking anger and turning it into something that works in my favor.”

Gower came and sat on Chuckie's other side. “Chuck, seriously, I'm here for you, we all are.”

“I know, Paul. And I appreciate that, truly. But Kitty needs to debrief us and we need to do the same for her.”

The three other men looked like they didn't believe it could be this easy. “Ah, are you sure?” Jeff asked. “Because, trust me, you don't feel like you're banking anger or turning it into something useful. You're ready to kill.”

“I am.” Chuckie stood up. “You just have no idea how many times throughout my life I've wanted to kill someone who's wronged me, or Kitty. I know the expectation was that I'd go on a rampage, and, honestly, if Kitty hadn't told me what was going on privately that could have happened. But . . . we have a history of this, of watching each other's backs, of giving each other the bad news the other one doesn't want to hear but has to. I'll be okay.”

“Really?” Buchanan sounded no more convinced than Jeff had.

“Really.” Chuckie's eyes glittered. “What you all forget is that I'm both an extremely patient person and I've been in covert and clandestine ops for my entire adult life. You don't rise up in the C.I.A. by losing it anytime something goes wrong or someone tries to kill you or kills someone on your team or someone who you care about. You rise up in the Agency by being smart enough to solve problems off-book, without any dirt flying back onto you or anyone else you need to protect.”

Gower nodded. “You're much less . . . impulsive than, say, Jeff is.”

“Anyone is less impulsive than Jeff,” Chuckie said with a laugh. The others laughed, too, and I felt the room relax. “Understand—I'm
going
to kill him. But I'll do it when it's not going to cause us all more problems than it solves. It's going to be slow, horrific, and as painful as I can possibly make it. And I'm going to make sure he knows it's me who's killing him, and that I know why he deserves to die.
But
, that won't happen until, as I said, it's in a place or a way that doesn't ruin all of us.”

“What do you think?” Buchanan asked Jeff.

Who cocked his head. I could tell he was concentrating on Chuckie. Jeff nodded slowly. “When you're with Kitty, you really can't hide your emotions from me. Naomi could, and did, hide them from me when you two were falling in love, and you're pretty good at it when you're not with Kitty. But when you are you're almost as clear a read as she is.”

“That's good, I guess,” Chuckie said.

Jeff nodded. “It is. Chuck's under control,” he said to Buchanan. “For now.” He turned back to Chuckie. “But you and we need to be on guard—because that control feels tenuous. And it's going to be tested the moment you see Goodman again.”

Chuckie shrugged. “I never did anything to you when you essentially took Kitty from me. I won't do anything to him until it's the right time.”

“Hey, I thought we were past that.” Jeff sounded hurt.

Chuckie walked over and clapped Jeff on the shoulder. “We are. Well past that. And I was glad of it before but I'm incredibly grateful now that you, not Cliff, were my best man. Thank you for that, Jeff. So much.”

Jeff pulled Chuckie in and hugged him tightly. Gower joined them. Group hugs were really an A-C thing, and I didn't mind them. But I knew better than to add into the Bro Hug right now. Chuckie didn't need me there, because I knew without asking that him crying would be a bad thing all the way around, and I was pretty sure he was close to breaking down right now.

Buchanan knew better, too. He stepped closer to me. “This solves the biggest issue. But we still have an entire set of people who cannot lie who know that Goodman is the Mastermind. We have to debrief each other and then move swiftly, before Goodman catches on and escalates whatever it is he's planning now.”

“Death ray. I'm telling you, that's what he's working on.”

“So you said. However, where the death ray is remains our first mystery.”

The others broke apart. “What's this about a death ray?” Chuckie asked.

“Debriefing,” Buchanan said in a tone that brooked no argument. “Now. And not here, either. I want everyone back in the Embassy. We can go there first, before any help is offered to Gideon Cleary.”

Both Chuckie and Gower looked lost. “What?” Gower asked.

“It's the usual long story. But I agree with Malcolm. Let's tell our stories at home.” Looked around. “By the way, where is Jamie?”

“I left her with your parents,” Jeff said. “Who also need this debriefing. Just like everyone else.”

“What about those who didn't know that Kitty switched universes?” Chuckie asked.

“I'm back. We can share the wonder that was my adventure in another world with them, since it's hugely relevant. They work with us—they'll all roll with the punches.”

Jeff hit the intercom button in the room. “We need a voice activated system put into all Bases,” he said, more to himself than anyone else.

“Yes, Mister Vice President?” Melissa asked.

“Melissa, please advise Commander Reader that we need all Washington, D.C., NASA Base, Euro Base, and Dulce Base personnel to vacate Sydney Base immediately. Dulce Base personnel should go to the American Centaurion Embassy. All others should go to their home Bases.”

“Is everything alright, sir?” Melissa sounded worried.

“Yes, we just need to get back to work on a variety of pressing issues. And the President wants me home, pronto.”

“I'll take care of it, Mister Vice President. I'll advise Launch to expect you all.”

“Thanks, Melissa.” Jeff hit the intercom button again to close the line. “Let's get packed up and back home so we can stay ahead of the latest situation that is laughingly called our normal lives. Ah, baby, why don't you stay here and help Chuck pack up?”

Chuckie laughed. “She doesn't have to ride herd on me, Jeff, but if it'll make you feel better, I'm fine with it.”

Jeff gave me a quick kiss, then he and the other men headed out. I shook my head. “I'd ask if I'd jumped into another universe if this wasn't the only one where I know Jeff is on Earth.”

“You're sure of that?” Chuckie asked me, as he went to the closet and pulled out a small rolling suitcase.

“As sure as I can be. I've seen what I call the Universe Wheel before—every time I've almost died. But I never remembered it until Operation Bizarro World happened.”

“Huh. Well, hopefully that knowledge will give us an edge, even if it's a small one.”

“A girl can dream.”

“Yeah.” He checked the suitcase. As I'd expected, it was already packed. The Operations Team, aka Algar, King of the Elves, was good that way. “Kitty . . . do you think that maybe my role in the greater existence is to be the guy who's never happy?”

Went to him and hugged him tightly. “No. You're happy in all the other universes I saw, even the ones where we aren't married to each other. And, I promise you—you'll be happy again in this universe, too. Even if I have to move heaven and earth for that to happen.”

He hugged me back. “Well, as long as you're still my friend, I'm good.”

“I'll always be your friend, Chuckie. In this world and all the others.”

He kissed my forehead. “And thank God for that.”

I
'D HAVE LIKED TO
have taken a look around Sydney Base, but since Other Me had done the full tour, me wanting one would sort of scream suspicious, concussion excuse or no concussion excuse.

On the other hand, it was nice to be heading home. It would be the afternoon of the day before today. Decided not to worry about it. Also decided that I would be within my jet-lagged rights to ask for one of Jeff's mother's brownies when we arrived. We hadn't had breakfast, after all.

Sydney Base's launch area was just like all the other Bases'—lots and lots of gates, those unlovely contraptions that looked like airport metal detectors but felt like hell on earth to step through, at least for me.

Happily, Jeff carried me though the gate, just like always. And I had to admit, after not knowing if I'd ever use a gate again in my life, even the nausea wasn't as bad as it could have been. Of course, I was also very glad we hadn't eaten yet, because the transfer from Sydney to D.C. was a long one, relatively speaking.

Since anyone at the Embassy who wasn't “in the know” didn't know I'd been gone, our homecoming was somewhat anticlimactic. However, for me, it was great to come back. After all this bouncing around, I was truly able to look at the Embassy as home. Figured that probably meant we'd be moving again soon, because that was always the way things worked for me since I'd joined up with the gang from Alpha Four.

The Embassy was a full city block wide and long, and we had a raised walkway that attached to the building “next door,” which we'd nicknamed the Zoo, meaning we lived in two gigantic multi-story buildings. Normally I found our apartment—which took up half of the top floor of the Embassy—to be overly gigantic. But today it felt normal, possibly because I'd just spent time seeing how large Other Me's house was.

Jamie grabbed my hand and dragged me to the room next to our bedroom. “Mommy, look at my new room!” She flung the door open and pulled me in.

Managed not to gape, but only just. The room was Jamie's typical Shrine to Pink, and had all four dog beds, all the cat and Poof condos, and a lot of sleeping hammocks I realized were for the Peregrines, mostly because some of them were snoozing in said hammocks when we arrived. Those were new, but apparently very much appreciated by the avians.

Before I could give any comment on the room, however, the animals were on me, howling, purring, squawking, and generally letting me know that they'd missed me and I needed to pet each and every one of them right now if not sooner. As I was mobbed, noted that what seemed like every Peregrine or Poof—of which we had an almost uncountable number by now—had joined us in the room.

“The pets missed you, Mommy,” Jamie said, presumably in cased I'd missed this somehow.

“I can tell. Give me a second, sweetheart, before I admire your pretty room.” Looked over at Jeff as I gave Dudley the Great Dane, and Duke the Labrador vigorous pets. “Other Me approved the new digs?”

He nodded as I moved from the boy dogs to the girl dogs and gave Dottie, our Dalmatian, and Duchess, our Pit Bull, the same enthusiastic petting. “Everyone else says it was past time.”

“I'm not complaining.” I wasn't. Putting Jamie elsewhere literally hadn't occurred to me as a necessary thing to do. Was glad Other Me had taken care of some Normal Mommy things while we were switched.

Dogs handled, it was time to give the cats some love. Sugarfoot jumped into my arms to demand his snuggles. Once he was somewhat satisfied I handed him off to Jeff and picked up Candy and Kane and gave them lots of snuggling.

Pets from my parents and youth somewhat mollified first, chose to go for the smaller numbers next. “I see my Peregrines are all in attendance for the Reunion Revival!” Peregrines were Alpha Four birds that looked like peacocks and peahens on steroids. They were bred for protection and could go chameleon along with having the typical A-C hyperspeed.

We had twelve mated pairs hanging out in the Embassy, otherwise known as Earth's Alpha Four Principality, and all twenty-four of them hooted.

“Can I get a bird amen?” I raised my arms up.

More hoots and all wings up and flapping.

“Can I get
another
bird amen?” I waved my hands around, arms still up in the air.

Much louder hoots and all twenty-four flew up a little ways off the ground.

“Awesome! Gimme feather, everyone! Up high, down low, and double dutch!”

The Peregrines landed and trotted to me, one by one, to do hand and wing high fives up, down, and with both hands and wings. Each one got a scritchy-scatch between their wings, too.

This took some time, but the Peregrines, like the dogs and cats, seemed much happier.

This left only the Poofs. Poofs were presumed to be Alpha Four animals, but during Operation Infiltration I'd discovered that they were actually Black Hole Universe animals. This meant they had powers no one but one being fully understood. So far, said powers had saved our butts more than once. Of course said being was a Free Will Fanatic of the highest order, so the Poofs tended to act on their own initiative, and their own initiative was sometimes very different from what we'd all like.

The Poofs were normally small bundles of fluffy fur with no visible ears or tails, tiny paws, and black button eyes. They could also go Jeff-sized in a moment, complete with mouths of razor-sharp teeth. Small, they were the cutest things you'd ever seen in your life. Large, they were among the scariest cute things you'd ever seen in your life.

The Poofs were androgynous and considered to be pets of the Alpha Four Royal Family—of which Jeff's family, Christopher White, and the Gowers were all a part—and supposedly only mated when a Royal Wedding was imminent.

Wouldn't know it from Earth Poofs, though. We had and continued to have a Poof population explosion. Poofs bonded to whoever named them, and they weren't totally discerning about what name they decided was “theirs,” meaning we had a lot of people who had their own Poof these days. Most of those weren't here, but some had dropped by to say “Welcome Home.” All the unattached Poofs lived in the Embassy, because I said so, meaning there were a
lot
of Poofs in the room. Decided there was only one good way to deal with greeting them all.

Fell back onto Jamie's bed. “Poofies, come to Kitty!”

I was immediately enveloped by a blanket of fluffy adorableness. That was me, always taking one for the team.

While the Poofs and I had a massive Group Snugglefest, I checked out Jamie's room. Looked a lot like her old room, which had been the nursery attached to the master bedroom, but there were some differences. However, none of those differences were anything to worry about from a parental standpoint.

“I think your room is great, Jamie-Kat.”

She beamed and joined me and the Poofs on the bed. “I'm so glad you like it, Mommy!” She picked something up and showed it to me—a stuffed, pink, striped cat that said “Paris, je t'aime” in a little heart on its chest. “And look! You and Daddy brought this home to me from Paris! I named him Stripes!”

My throat got tight, for a couple of reasons. The first being the realization that we almost never thought to bring Jamie back anything from anywhere we went while on missions, meaning Other Me was still winning the Good Mother Competition she and I weren't really having with each other. I hadn't realized Jamie wanted a new room, hadn't thought to bring her a present, and pretty much was going to see her for five minutes here then send her to daycare. Well, not today. She was involved in what had happened—probably more than anyone other than me truly realized—and she was going to be with us today, briefing or no briefing. Presuming Jeff didn't freak out about it.

The second realization, however, was that I'd never see Stripes, the awesome, kick-butt cat I'd rescued and made part of the family in the other universe, or anyone else from said other universe ever again.

Felt tears coming and blinked as rapidly as possible to keep them in my eyes and not let Jamie think I was unhappy to be home or with anything she'd done.

Jeff, of course, picked up what was going on immediately. He gently moved the Poofs off of me and picked me up. “It's okay, baby,” he said quietly. “It's normal to feel like this.”

“But I'm so glad to be home.”

“I know. But they were all yours in that other world, too. Your Cosmic Alternate got attached to us, and while I know she's overjoyed to be home, I'm sure she's missing us a little bit, too. It's normal, and it doesn't mean you love any of us less. You attach to people quickly, and they do so with you just as fast. It's a loss, and you're allowed to grieve.”

Buried my face in Jeff's chest for a minute and let his heartbeats soothe me like they always did. Finally felt back in some kind of control. “We don't have time for me to miss them right now. Their major problem is handled. Ours is still out there.”

He kissed the top of my head. “That's my girl.” Jeff sighed. “I know you . . . don't want to send Jamie to Daycare. I'm not so sure that's a good idea.”

“Maybe not. But she's more aware of what happened than I think you realize.”

“No, we realize. It's just . . .”

“It's okay, Daddy,” Jamie said, as she came to us. Jeff picked her up so we could do a family hug. “It won't scare me.”

“I'm sure it won't, Jamie-Kat,” Jeff lied, as poorly as ever. “But we're going to be discussing grownup things that little girls shouldn't have to worry about.”

“You mean like how Mommy was gone and is back?”

I made the coughing sound. “I think, as I said, she's more aware of what went on than you are, Jeff.”

He looked worried. “But she's just a little girl.” He sounded even more worried. “She shouldn't have these worries shoved onto her.”

I leaned up and kissed his cheek. “And you and Christopher shouldn't have had to become men at age ten, either. Sometimes, we can't stop those things, we can only do what we can to protect those who are being forced to grow up too fast.”

“I'm taking Stripes with me,” Jamie announced. “He's the cat for the job.”

This earned her some extremely hurt looks from all the animals, cats especially. “It's okay,” I told them. “None of you were with me in the other universe. I found a cool cat, named Stripes, to help cover the kick-butt animal side of things. She saw him, I'm sure. Loving a stuffed animal in no way lessens the love for the real animals. I promise.”

Once again, the animals seemed somewhat appeased. Took a good look at them. “Did we lose a Poof somehow?” Had no idea why I thought we were down by one Poof—frankly, we had so many that we could have been down by a hundred Poofs and I shouldn't have been able to tell. But I was sure we were missing one.

Harlie and Poofikins mewled and jumped up and down.

“Oh. Really? Well, that's great then. And kind of awesome, too.”

“What's great?” Jeff asked, in the tone of a man who's long since stopped asking himself how his life got this crazy, but still wonders anyway.

“Other Me named and bonded with a Poof, and it went with her into the other universe. Which is great, because now Harlie won't be alone there.”

“What? Excuse me?” Jeff was speaking for himself and Harlie both.

Heaved another sigh. “Onward to the briefing. Everyone. Animals, too, I guess.”