Chapter Sixteen
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“Five are down that I saw,” Nova reported as they reached ground level and hurried to the front of the convenience store. “A car drove in as four people hit the ground. The driver jumped out to help and immediately got taken down by whatever affected the other humans. He must have forgotten to put the car in Park, because it rolled and took out several stacks of a brand-new shipment at Satellite Tire. Snow tires rolled everywhere, including onto the highway…”
Cam stopped short of the door and stared outside. A disturbing stillness characterized the chaotic scene. Black rubber circles dotted the area. A newer model car, engine still running, driver’s door ajar, butted up against a diminished stack of tires beside Satellite Tire. A man lay facedown between the pumps and Satellite Tire, and Cam guessed he was the driver who’d tried to help. An SUV and a compact, gas nozzles stuck in the tanks, waited beside the pumps. A woman in capris and a halter top slumped beside the compact’s front end, head to chest and squeegee still held in one hand. Three other humans could be seen from where he stood.
He hoped they were only unconscious.
Cam reached for the door. Diesel pulled him back. “What are you doing?”
“Going outside.”
“What if you go down, too?”
“Then you’ll know whatever it is affects Alphas, too.”
“No.”
“No?”
“I’m not risking you as an experiment. We need to take the time to assess the situation before anyone goes outside.”
He knew his brother was right, but he didn’t have to like it. “Fine.”
The three brothers, Nova trailing Diesel, spread out along the front of the store to get different vantage points.
Cam glanced at the counter, then did a double-take. The cashier, a skinny kid with a mop of dark hair, faced away from the counter. Huddled in the corner, he held a phone receiver with a white-knuckled hand and spoke in a low but urgent tone, ignoring the mayhem in the lot. He looked over his shoulder, saw the Grey brothers, and flinched. He said something hurriedly into the receiver and hung up.
Cam saw the problem immediately. He wasn’t sure if he should just be grateful or put a hand on his chest to keep his heart from leaping outside his body in supreme relief.
“Hold on,” he called out to Diesel and Axel. “They aren’t down because of the venting.”
“How do you know?” Diesel asked.
Wordlessly, he pointed at the kid’s hip. Diesel and Axel moved toward the counter.
“Space potatoes. What an idiot.” Axel pushed out a breath.
“Carl!” Diesel called out rather loudly.
The kid came to attention like a soldier under orders. The movement jostled the Defender strapped at his waist, freeing it and the jammed-on trigger from the edge of the counter.
Cam could have kicked himself. He’d never considered a trigger guard. The wheels started spinning in his head that perhaps he needed to add the feature to the next Defender upgrade.
“What?” Carl asked, sounding defensive. He seemed angry over the interruption to his phone call.
“Why do you have a Defender strapped to your hip?”
Even a flinty-toned Diesel didn’t seem to scare this kid. “We always keep a Defender behind the counter here for emergencies.”
“That’s not what I asked.” Diesel confiscated the Defender and looked at the controls. He pointed outside. “Look what you just did.”
Grudgingly, the kid looked at the gas pumps. His teenage insolence fell away and he gaped at the spectacle of fallen humans and rubber tires dotting the lot like daisies in a field.
“It’s set for ten minutes,” Diesel said. “At a guess, I’d say we’ve already lost at least five. We’re going to have to work fast to make sure no one’s hurt and get everyone back in place.”
The brothers looked up at the sound of running feet from the rear of the store. Gage and a team of six, all wearing containment suits and carrying med kits, crowded in from the office corridor.
“False alarm, Gage,” Diesel called out. “They were all downed by a Defender. We’ll need all hands on deck to help clear up the mess, though, before they wake up.”
“You got it, Diesel. My team can stay to help while I get back to our patients.”
Axel raced outside. He carefully checked over the first patron he came to, seeing no injuries. He put the guy back inside his SUV as Cam and one of Gage’s techs did the same for the young couple—one half of which was the woman with the squeegee—on the other side of the pump station. Two tire store employees raced out to get the driver of the car that had taken out their tires. They pushed the vehicle toward the pumps and parked it behind the couple’s compact as if he was waiting in line. It wasn’t perfect, but they did what they had to do. Protecting their secret was paramount.
The last patron was an older Alpha with a cane. He’d dropped it when he fell. Cam worried about broken bones, but the guy was awake by the time they got to him. Ed owned Satellite Tire.
“Sorry,” he said. “I tripped over my own gol-durn feet racing over here when I saw the tires rolling onto the highway.”
Cam blew out a breath of relief. “Not your fault, Ed.”
“Did Carl have the Defender strapped to his hip again?”
“How’d you know?”
“He’s done it before. I told him he shouldn’t, but those young whippersnappers never listen to old man wisdom.”
His brothers, Carl and Gage’s suited-up team members began to round up scattered tires and return them to neat stacks beside Ed’s shop.
“Next time you see something, call me.”
“I’m not a tattletale, Cam.”
“It’s not tattling when it comes to the colony’s safety.” Cam helped Ed stand, quickly changing the subject from wayward truck-stop employees. “I’ve never seen you with a cane.” Alphas rarely needed aid like this. They had healing abilities. Was Ed sick? Being affected differently by whatever was going on downstairs?
“It’s only temporary. I broke my gol-durn ankle a couple of days ago and my healing is just slow.”
“Slow?”
He nodded. “Getting old isn’t for sissies, young man. Alphas aren’t immune to age and all that comes with it. They get slower in their twilight years, too, just like the humans.”
“No doubt.”
“And I know what you’re thinking. Why don’t I just go on home to Alpha-Prime like every second Alpha old timer here?”
“Not what I was thinking at all, Ed.” Maybe a little. “I have no doubt you’ll recover and be back to your old self again in no time.”
“The thing is, I’ve been alone now for a quite a while. Lately, I’ve reconsidered having a romance in my later years.”
Ed? Romance? Cam absolutely did not want to discuss romance and all it entailed with the senior. How can I change the subject?
He nudged Ed, nodding at the pump area. The humans were waking up. The other Alphas hadn’t managed to gather all the rogue tires. He didn’t know how he’d explain the mess. Strong wind gust? Maybe. Mini tornado? Possibly. Act of nature? Another possibility. Alien Defender technology issue? No, absolutely not. Maybe no one would ask.
Ed cleared his throat, leaned close and whispered, “Do you think your aunt Dixie is looking for a sweetheart?”
Cam was so focused on the earthlings it took a couple of seconds to realize what Ed had asked.
“What?” The world around him fell away as the idea of Aunt Dixie romantically involved with Ed the Tire Man circulated in his head. Would it be better? Could it be worse? What if Aunt Dixie had a boyfriend? Maybe she’d be distracted and wouldn’t cause as much trouble. Hmm.
“Is she seeing anybody?” Ed asked as if fearful of the answer.
“I honestly don’t know. I haven’t seen her with anyone.”
“Would you put in a good word for me?”
“Of course, Ed, I’d be happy to. Aunt Dixie would be lucky to have you.”
“Aces. Thanks, my boy.”
“Sure thing.” Cam would have to share this tidbit with his brothers. They could discuss the pros and cons of a romance between Aunt Dixie and their neighbor. Axel approached, wiping the back of his hand over a brow shiny with sweat from slinging tires.
Nova came running outside. She was out of breath again. “Come downstairs. Bad news. Bad.”
Now what?
“Now what?” Axel said, echoing Cam’s thought.
Nova motioned urgently.
Diesel told his brothers, “You go. I’ll follow after I clean up this mess.” A couple of the earthlings seemed puzzled to find themselves where they were. Diesel was the best one to deal with the fallout from Carl’s accidental Defender use.
Nova led them directly to Gage just outside the double silver doors to the medical zone where they’d quarantined Prudence and her relatives.
“Bad news,” he said. “Now the neighbor across the street from the Westfall’s home has also come down with the same illness. He called for help. They brought him in while you were dealing with the situation up top.”
“It’s spreading further?” Easygoing Axel looked more worried than Cam had ever seen him.
Gage shrugged. “That’s what it looks like.”
Axel turned to Cam. “We’ll have to send a team to the aunt’s house.”
“I’ll go.” Cam blamed himself. If only he had turned Ria in immediately upon discovering her identity. If only she weren’t so beautiful and perfect for him. If only he hadn’t fallen in love at first sight. If, if, if didn’t do him any good since he couldn’t have done anything different. At no point did turning her in seriously cross his mind.
“You’re on vacation. And contrary to what I know you’re thinking right now, this isn’t your fault.” Axel put a hand on Cam’s shoulder.
“Sure it is. The moment I saw the picture her mother gave us, I should have turned her in.”
Axel frowned. “But you love her.”
“I do, but that’s beside the point. I broke the rules. A cardinal rule, in fact, and now we’re all paying the price for it.”
“Love isn’t beside the point, Cam, it is the point,” Axel said fiercely. “If you find someone you love, and that person feels the same way, nothing—especially a stupid arranged marriage—should stand in your way.”
“I didn’t know you felt this way.”
A strange smile shaped Axel’s mouth. “Well, I may have watched the two of you for a while before I rudely interjected myself into your moment at the mall. She loves you. You love her. It’s so obvious a blind person could see it. Love like that should never be considered wrong or inconvenient. It would be the height of foolishness to turn someone you love in because of a rule, cardinal or not. I know things look dire, but have faith. Eventually it will all work out.”
Cam appreciated Axel’s optimism. He took a deep breath and exhaled, trying to dislodge the panic that was growing inside him at an exponential rate. He was grateful his brother could see the love he and Ria shared, but it wouldn’t make any difference in the end. Ria was trapped in an arranged marriage, and beyond the crazy notion of faking her death—which probably wouldn’t work anyway—he didn’t know how to free her.
With this mysterious illness running rampant in town—caused possibly by the lady’s maid coming ashore to find Ria—it was only a matter of time before the facts surfaced and they would be ruined. At best, his job here on Earth would be stripped from him and he’d be sent back to Alpha-Prime, separated from his family forever. At worst, he faced a quick trip to a gulag to serve hard time, breaking boulders into pea gravel with a sledgehammer until the day he died.
He would gladly take the fall for Ria, even if it meant dying in a gulag. But it hurt more than he could fathom that saving her would force her into a future with someone else.
He almost hoped for the gulag. If he was sent to Alpha-Prime, he’d be forced to witness her future life with another man, a dirt bag, no less. That was the very definition of hard time.
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Ria woke on Axel’s sofa refreshed and ready to do battle. If her mother had been near, she would have sought her out and explained her feelings. As she wasn’t, Ria waited impatiently for Cam or Axel or anyone to return. She gathered some courage and cracked open Axel’s office door to peek out. She saw nothing and no one. She opened the door wider. No one was around. There was not a sound nearby.
She stepped from the room, closed Axel’s office door and tiptoed down the hall until she reached the lounge where the cruise liner’s passenger had disembarked.
There were a few people in the large space that was described in the way station literature as a small town-sized area of fun. Ria skirted the edge, making her way toward the stairs leading up and out. She climbed the staircase, noting it looked different from the previous escape route she’d used. At the top of the stairs, she opened a door—and heard voices.
She crept down the hall. As she got closer, she recognized the speakers as Cam and Axel.
Cam said something like, “I didn’t know you felt this way.”
An air vent came alive beside her, muffling the first part of Axel’s response. She had to move closer to catch, “…it would be the height of foolishness to turn someone you love in because of a rule, cardinal or not. I know things look dire, but have faith. Eventually it will all work out.”
Cam loved her? That was good. He was thinking about turning her in? That wasn’t so good. She couldn’t blame him, though. This whole fiasco was her fault, starting with her bucket list and all she’d done to thumb her nose at the rules.
Ria knew only one thing: She wouldn’t let him suffer because of her. If it came down to it and there was no other choice, he couldn’t turn her in if she turned herself in.
“What are you doing there?”
A small scream escaped before she could stop it and Ria jumped a foot off the ground. She turned to see a stranger.
Her eyes dropped to the woman’s name tag and she said, “Hi, Nova.”
The woman ignored her friendly tone to say, “Who are you?”
“I’m a friend of Cam’s.”
Her brows furrowed. “How do you know my name?”
Ria pointed to her name tag.
The woman rolled her eyes and flashed a quick smile. “Forgive my rudeness. It’s been quite a day and I’ve just had too much excitement.”
Cam and Axel must have heard Ria’s scream, because they were right there, Cam demanding, “Are you okay? I heard you scream.”
“I’m fine.” She launched into his arms, kissed his mouth and said, “I won’t let you get into trouble over what I did.”
“What did you do?” Nova asked. The eager look in her wide eyes said louder than the words that she couldn’t wait to get a taste of possible gossip.
“Nothing,” Axel and Cam said. As Ria had come to expect, they punched each other and said, “Jinx!” The punching was likely their favorite part.
“I tried to escape an arranged marriage,” Ria said over their brotherly scuffle.
Nova frowned. “Gracious me, who hasn’t? I thought you were going to say something interesting.” She marched away, mumbling something about a withering grapevine in the greater township of Alienn.
Cam hugged Ria, sending her attention to his troubled face.
“Did it turn out to be crust-fish fever?” she asked.
“No.”
“That’s good, right?”
Axel shook his head. “Unfortunately, it’s worse. Now they think it’s a mutation. They aren’t quite sure because no one has ever seen anything like it before.”
Cam seemed lost in thought. Axel nudged him with an elbow. “What should we do? Give me a direction and I’ll go.”
“I might have an idea,” Cam said. “I’ve been working on a device that can detect certain dangerous substances. It’s a prototype, but I’ve tested it on a dozen or so common things. It might not tell us exactly what this is, but could identify whether something was toxic to Alphas.”
“Brilliant!”
Cam began walking, arm around Ria. His brother started to follow, but Cam turned abruptly. “Axel, go fetch Jack. We’ll send him in.”
“Jack,” Ria asked. “Who’s Jack?”
Axel said, “Jack is our up-for-anything brother. He’s the youngest of us, and we used to torture him the most. That’s probably why now he just volunteers for everything.”
“Suit him up,” Cam said.
Axel flipped off a casual salute. “Will do. Meet you in your lab, yes?”
“Yes. I need to make a few adjustments on the device, but it shouldn’t take long.”
Axel jogged away. Cam took Ria’s hand and led her to a door with another code box. He punched in the same number he’d used at the cabin. She tried not to look, but couldn’t help herself. If he didn’t want her to know, he should have hidden it better.
The door buzzed and popped open. She followed him into a large room with several tables covered in all manner of mechanical and technical-looking devices. All four walls were lined floor to ceiling with shelves holding a variety of books and supplies any alien mad scientist would be delighted to own. The overhead lights were as bright as daylight.
Ria stared around with interest. “I’ve been dying to see your lab, Cam.”
“Have you?” He sounded distracted as he searched the first table. None of the several small devices on it appeared to be what he was looking for. He moved to another table that held even more gadgets, eventually picking up a gray rectangular item about the size of a shoebox. It had a screen, two dials and several buttons. A silver antenna sprouted out the top.
He carried the device to a third table. This one looked more like a workspace, as room had been kept clear for a desktop computer, papers and tools. Cam took the cover off the box. Inside, lots of little working parts, lights, diodes, circuit boards and wires went in every which direction.
“What is that again?” Ria watched him use a tiny straight tool to twist and poke around his invention’s innards.
“Hmmm? Oh. An Alpha poison detector for both physical and gaseous substances.”
He didn’t stop what he was doing and barely seemed aware of her presence. He was definitely in his element. All he needed was a lab coat and a clipboard and he’d look like every scientist she’d ever seen, real or on broadcast videos. He was focused. He was talented. He was perfect.
Ria wanted a life with him so much, tears threatened to spill over her lids. She had to think of something else.
Since he was absorbed in his work, Ria left him to look around his laboratory, surreptitiously swiping at her eyes so he wouldn’t think she was a big crybaby.
She’d been impressed to find out Cam was the inventor everyone on Alpha-Prime was talking about, thanks to the Defender technology. The controlled chaos of his lab proved the Defender wasn’t his only brilliant idea. He had a busy, inquiring, fascinating mind.
And Ria was in love with him.
“Okay, that’s it.” Cam put his tool down and snapped the top back on the shoebox.
As he did, Axel and a guy dressed in a white suit, white helmet tucked under one arm, entered the lab. The newcomer definitely bore the Grey genes. There would be no mistaking him for anyone but a close relative of Cam, Axel and Diesel.
Axel performed the introductions. “Ria, this is our youngest brother, Jack.” He turned to the younger man. “Jack, this is Cam’s new girlfriend, Ria.”
“Cam has a girlfriend? That really is new,” Jack said with a grin, reaching out his hand to shake hers like all Earthers did. Ria was getting good at shaking hands.
“What is it you want me to do again?” Jack asked.
Cam handed him the gray shoebox. “We want you to go check out the house of a possible poison victim.”
“Poison victim?” he said warily. “What poison?”
“That’s why we’re sending you in with this device, to find out.”
“Got it.” He took the box from Cam.
Cam quickly gave Jack the rundown on how to operate the device. “This white button turns it on. The silver probe extension is what tests the air. This blue button will retrieve a sample of the air. Just push the blue button and wave it over the area you want to test. The results will show up on the screen as either toxic or non-toxic to Alphas.”
“Will it tell me what the poison is?”
“Likely not. It will only register a few basic toxins. You’ll have to bring the box back after you sample the entire house for a thorough report. Axel, you drive. Take the van with the portable decontamination unit. Whatever you do, Jack, do not get in the cab of the van with Axel before your suit and the exterior of the device get the green-light from the unit, or we might wind up being down one brother. I’ll monitor you through your helmet. When you get back, I’ll plug the data port into my computer to determine the exact substance if you find anything that registers as toxic.”
“Got it. I’m off to find the poison.” Jack, helmet in one hand, device in the other, headed out of the lab with Axel.
Cam watched them go, then walked over and took Ria in his arms. He kissed her.
“I love you, Ria. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I don’t ever want to be without you.”
Ria hugged him hard, searching her brain for anything that might help them stay together. She came up with nothing. Not a single thing. Tears again welled up in her eyes. This time, she let them fall. So what if she was a crybaby.
She sniffled, but then a measure of resolve straightened her spine.
When the ship docked the day after tomorrow, she’d talk to her mother. Whatever it took, she’d make her mother understand her feelings. She had to, because without Ruth Latham Borne changing her mind and calling off the arranged marriage, Ria and Cam were doomed.