Alien Diplomacy

what if someone has an empathic shield up? Could you tell?”
    He shrugged. “No idea, baby. At all.”
    “So are you sure you’re reading people correctly?” Chuckie asked, pointedly looking at Nurse Carter.
    “Yes, because I’m getting plenty of emotions from her.” Jeff looked thoughtful. “Usually humans and A-Cs feel more than one emotion at any time. Terror usually wins out and holds the emotional stage alone, but otherwise, and sometimes even when terrified, we all have more going on than just one emotion.”
    “So maybe you can sort of monitor for someone exhibiting only a single emotion.”
    Jeff nodded. “The way you try to think about something benign when you don’t want me to know you’re upset, lusting after someone other than me, or angry with me.”
    Damn. The whole focusing on flowers thing didn’t work? This fooling the superempath stuff was clearly not my forté.
    Jeff grinned at me. “It’s okay, baby. I usually ignore you when you want me to. I figure it’s only polite.”
    “Humph. But anyway, clearly it would take someone with a lot of training, like Camilla had, someone having the Surcenthumain assist, or some kind of device that would block an empath without raising their internal flags.”
    Chuckie nodded slowly. “Your former Diplomatic Corps had, what, over twenty years to have people working on this? It would be doable in that time if you had empaths to use as test subjects.”
    “Which they did.” I shuddered. The memory of what had been done to our agents and hybrids before we’d caught on always lurked on the edge of my mind, waiting to jump out and scare the crap out of me while also making me sick to my stomach and enraged.
    William cleared his throat. “Ah, Commanders, Chiefs? Do you need me for anything else?”
    “Sorry,” Jeff said quietly. “Why don’t you get the rest of the teams back to Dulce?”
    William gave him a quick smile. “Happy to.”
    “Stop in and see Walter before you go,” I suggested. “He’s doing a great job, but I don’t think he believes us when we tell him so.”
    William chuckled. “I’m sure he doesn’t, but thanks, Chief, I will.”
    We waited until William was out of earshot. “Okay, I feel stupid and thoughtless for bringing that up in front of him.”
    Jeff shook his head. “He understands. We lose people all the time, including people we love. It’s part of our jobs and always has been. William understands more than most. He’s our best imageer right now, after Christopher and Serene.”
    “Then ensure he’s guarded,” Chuckie said. “Because we don’t know much, but we do know that there’s already been too much killing, and there’s bound to be more before this is through. And as of now, every Centaurion agent needs to be considered a target.”



CHAPTER 51
    “Y OU’RE A TARGET, TOO,” I MENTIONED. “In fact, I think you need to be under whatever guard everyone else is, Chuckie. My parents, too.”
    “We already have Centaurion and ETD guards with your parents, in addition to P.T.C.U. ones. I’ll be fine. Use the personnel for other people.”
    “Ha. Last big operation we had you were only fine by seconds. For all we know, you’re only here tonight because you and Mom were up all night doing interrogations and so were safe. But I’ll give you an option. You stay here in one of the empty guest rooms, I’ll let the personnel go elsewhere.” Jeff opened his mouth. “Do not start.”
    Jeff sighed. “I’m not. I agree with you. I think Reynolds should stay here until this is over.”
    Everyone, not just Chuckie and I, heck, even Nurse Carter, stared at him. “You okay?” Christopher managed to ask.
    Jeff rolled his eyes. “Kitty’s right. Someone’s trying to kill God alone knows who. Reynolds likes to act like he’s invulnerable, but he’s not. And I don’t want to have to deal with the hysterics my wife will go through if you’re hurt or killed,” he added to Chuckie.
    “Thanks, I think.” Chuckie sounded dazed. “Really? You want me here? Without extra threats or a pack of Dobermans outside my door?”
    I put my hand on Jeff’s forehead. “No fever.”
    Jeff gave all of us a dirty look, me in particular. “You ask me to behave in a mature fashion, but the moment I do…”
    “Just happily shocked, that’s all,” I said quickly. “Let me applaudthe grown-up moment. Chuckie, take some agents with you when you go to get your stuff. And before you start arguing, Mister Joel