CHAPTER 21
EVERYONE JUMPED, the homeless men and the working girls in particular, as the man slammed his mouth shut without ever getting to say a word and winced, along with the rest of the room. Not that I could blame them—the alarm was loud and insistent.
“I know that sound,” Reader said from the LSR. “That’s a bad sound.”
“Scramble,” Jeff said to him, Commander in Chief Voice on Full. Didn’t have to ask who was scrambling where, as Reader, Tim, Lorraine, and Claudia got up and disappeared from view. Checked out the rest of those in the LSR. Couldn’t see Buchanan, Siler, and Wruck and assumed they were either already on their way or possibly here already.
Prince, Duke, and Riley also scrambled, right over to me. They were trying to guard me, but they were in pain from the sounds. Tried to cover their ears, but they had six ears and I only had two hands. Seeing the dogs’ distress Kevin covered Riley’s ears and Evalyne covered Duke’s while I did my best for Prince.
A-Cs were pouring out of various rooms and hallways, all Field agents as near as I could tell. Some of them were older, so I assumed this meant that they’d been sent over from Dulce. Sure, Caliente Base might be considered separate, but there was no way the rest of Centaurion Division was going to ignore an emergency at this Base.
Sure enough, Buchanan came in and made a beeline for me. An A-C I didn’t recognize at all raced into the room right behind him and headed for Romeo. “We’re under some kind of attack,” he shared, sounding very worried and a little confused. Was amazed any of us could hear him, but presumably he’d learned to project from his diaphragm.
“Some kind?” I asked, as the alarm kept on singing us the song of its people. Refused to stand, even though Buchanan was tugging on my arm. Not only did I not want to leave until I knew what was going on, I had a dog’s ears to try to protect.
Romeo hit something on the table and we got the LSR on our individual screens and an exterior view on the rest of the table. The term “some kind” was actually appropriate.
There were what looked like hundreds of tiny dirigibles sailing down from the sky. Well, tiny wasn’t quite right—they looked to be about three feet or so in length and probably around two feet in diameter.
“Is there a steampunk fair or festival happening around here that we weren’t informed of?” I asked as Alpha Team came into the room. We were at Marx Brothers territory. That happened to me a lot. Figured now wasn’t the time to mention it, however.
“No,” Chuckie shouted from the LSR. He had to shout—the alarms remained hella loud. “No kite festivals or hot air balloon events, either.”
“Shut those alarms off,” Kevin thundered. Romeo did something and the sounds muted. The alarms were still going, but now they were at elevator music level. “Thank you.”
“Make that quadruple for me and about a million-fold for Prince, Duke, and Riley.” The dogs heaved huge doggy sighs of relief. They licked Evalyne and Kevin, then buried their heads in my lap. Rubbed their necks, with assists from Evalyne and Kevin. “Our favorite law officers want you two to know that they love you both almost as much as me right now.”
“I’m flattered,” Evalyne said.
Kevin grinned. “Me, too. It’s always nice to have more friends.”
“We need to get you back to the White House now,” Buchanan said, interrupting our doggy lovefest.
“No.” Looked closer at the images. Some of the dirigibles, those already on the ground, were turning into what looked a lot like turtles. Memory nudged. “Did anyone else notice the turtle statues that were in the D.C.P.D. bathroom?”
“We have no statuary in our bathrooms,” Melville said.
“Yeah you do.” Looked more closely at the screen. “Or rather, you did. Lorraine or Claudia, can anyone other than an A-C calibrate a gate?”
“Sure,” Lorraine said. “It’s not that complex. Seeing through the cloaking is a bigger issue than turning the dial.”
“Well, that would depend, though,” Claudia countered. “I don’t think Kitty means could she do it or could Kevin do it or even if one of these new, ah, temporary team members could do it. I think she means could they do it.” She pointed to the screen.
“Got it in one. I saw three turtle statues in the bathroom. And they looked a lot like the space turtles landing all over the outside of Caliente Base.”
“It’s time to go,” Buchanan said in a tone that brooked no argument.
Pity, because I was going to ford that brook. “Again, Malcolm, no, and I mean that in my totally FLOTUS Willing to Declare Sovereignty Again way of mine. Ev and Pheebs, did either one of you notice the turtle statues?”
“I didn’t,” Evalyne admitted while Buchanan cooled his jets. He’d been with me when I’d declared the helicarrier I was in as its own nation. Knew that, brave as he was, he didn’t want to be the focus of my wrath.
“I did,” Phoebe said. “But I was waiting with you and Evalyne wasn’t.”
“I saw them, too,” Kevin said. Len and Kyle also chimed in with turtle statue sightings.
“So, those of us who waited in the bathroom saw them.” Looked around. “Where’s Siler?”
“Here.” He appeared out of nowhere. I enjoyed jumping due to being startled and watching the rest of the room do so, too. I knew that he hadn’t used hyperspeed for this—he’d blended. He grinned at me. “I like to make an entrance when the opportunity presents itself. And to anticipate your question, I’m sure that others can do what I can. The Peregrines can, chameleons on Earth can—that another race from another planet can blend or give themselves the appearance of being inanimate isn’t surprising at all.”
“Super-duper. Malcolm, despite your growling at me and muttering under your breath, the only place we’re going is outside. Jeff, that statement goes double for you if you’re still on audio with us. I don’t think this is an attack. And not only because I literally see no weapons being waved about.”
Heard some talking from the LSR, but it was clear they were speaking amongst themselves and weren’t trying to talk to us.
Reader and Tim exchanged a look then looked back at me. “You thinking what I’m thinking, girlfriend?” Reader asked.
“I sincerely hope so. I don’t think this particular part of the Upcoming Alien Invasion was spotted by our lookout because they’re all too small.”
Reader nodded. “And the rest of what I’m thinking is that they want an audience with you, Kitty. Specifically.”
“That tracks,” Buchanan said from behind me, sounding as if he’d accepted reality and had given up trying to remove me from the situation.
“Which is why you all ended up here,” Tim added. “They wanted you here for when the rest of them landed.”
“That makes sense. We’ll worry about how they can see and calibrate the gates later. Where is John?”
“No idea,” Buchanan said.
Siler shrugged. “He’s fine, wherever he is.”
“I honestly wasn’t worried. I was wondering if he could give us a rundown on who’s arriving in droves. Oh, and by the way, and I’m seriously just spitballing here, but have we done anything, anything at all, to alter what the rest of the world might be seeing on their TV screens and such?”
“Yes,” Jeff said, sarcasm knob already at eleven and threatening to go to twelve shortly. “Amazingly enough, we managed to figure out that we needed to take action. Serene and Christopher are handling it, in coordination with Dulce.”
“Our imageers are capable of this work,” Romeo said, just a tad stiffly.
“Yes, they are,” I said quickly. “But your base is the one under attack. Normally, it’s okay when your friends, families, and allies try to help out and protect you.”
“Deal with internal politics later, please,” Chuckie said. “We have a galactic issue that needs to take precedence and requires everyone’s focus.”
The issue didn’t look like much. The turtles were landing and then just sort of standing there, looking around. Wasn’t sure if I was reading their expressions correctly, but if I was, they looked hopeful and expectant, not threatening.
“We need to go out there and determine if we bring them in here or not. Christopher and Serene on this particular case or not, someone’s going to spot this and we’re going to have a lot of media here soon.”
“Not you,” Jeff said in the Growly Man Voice he still persisted in believing I obeyed outside of the bedroom. In all the time we’d known each other, I never had, but apparently his base emotion was optimism.
“Of course me,” I replied as I finally stood up. Stood up to get going but mostly because I knew Buchanan was clear that if he tried to grab me and run I’d kick him in the tenders. “Alpha Team is here. Doctor Strange and Nightcrawler are here. The Martian Manhunter is around somewhere.” I mean, I presumed Wruck was still around, since he’d come over with the others. “The K-Nine squad is here, and Prince, Duke, and Riley are ready to bite down hard.”
Interestingly enough, it was the mention of the dogs that caused Jeff to relax. Not that this was a surprise. Prince had saved Jeff’s life at the end of Operation Defection Election, and despite what he might want to insinuate, Jeff loved the animals as much as I did, and he believed in their willingness and ability to protect almost as much as I did.
“Fine,” Jeff said in a resigned tone. “Just be careful. All of you.”
Prince wuffed.
“Oh, good point. Prince wants to know what we’re doing with the sorta prisoners who are sorta on the team right now.”
“I supposed saying that they should go into cells in the facility will be met with complaints, derision, and whining,” Chuckie said. “So just ensure that they’re under guard and don’t allow people who were in lockup to be the first Earthlings these new aliens interact with.”
“I resent that,” Rhonda said.
“Me too,” Cujo agreed. “We’re not bad people.”
“Duly noted. It’s field trip time, gang. Let’s go see what the new turtles in town have to say for themselves.”