Alien Diplomacy

the button I thought corresponded with Spiky.
    Of course, I had no idea which way was up for the remote. I found out, though. Because I’d actually activated a soldier at the back, not the front. It stepped around and stood right next to me and Adriana.
    The voices were coming closer. I hit the button for the supersoldier that had moved. It didn’t make it go to the off position, as I’d hoped it would. Instead it activated in a way we hadn’t seen yet—it was much more “awake” than Spiky had been. Not good.
    “What the hell?” It was Leslie, and she sounded pissed. Adriana and I dodged behind nearby supersoldiers. The activated one just stood there.
    “Here, Kitty, Kitty,” Bryce called. Hilarious.
    I couldn’t see them, ergo I wasn’t in a position to shoot, so I hit the button for the activated supersoldier again. It moved from where it had been and headed toward where the voices had come from. It stopped walking. But I hadn’t pushed anything.
    “Stop playing around,” Marling said. “We know you’re here. I have no idea how you were able to get the drop on Madeline, but I have the master remote.”
    Well, that was bad news. I could see Adriana. She shook her head, vehemently. I took this to mean she didn’t believe Marling. I considered. Cartwright hadn’t seemed the type to allow someone else to have the master anything. So either Marling was lying, or he and I both had masters.
    I heard footsteps, and Adriana disappeared from my view. I took this as a hint to keep moving. The supersoldiers were wide as well as tall, so they did provide good hiding, but there were three people looking for two of us.
    “Found the bad Kitty,” Bryce called out. He was really enjoying the cat jokes a little too much. He also had a gun trained on me. I wasn’t going to be able to shoot before he could.
    But I could press buttons without him noticing. So I pushed the three on the side.



CHAPTER 85
    T HE SUPERSOLDIERS CAME TO LIFE. This was good in that Bryce was too busy to shoot at me. Of course, he was too busy screaming and running, because whatever I’d hit had said “KILL” to these things.
    They were flailing and stomping around. No projectiles going yet, but getting trampled was just as crappy a way to die as getting shot.
    Adriana leaped out of the way of a couple of metal feet, which meant she was exposed. I ran and grabbed her. We both hit the ground as bullets flew around where she’d been. I’d used hyperspeed without thinking about it. I hoped that was a good thing.
    But since the hyperjuice was flowing, might as well continue to use it. I ran toward Marling. Of course, I overshot. Oh, I hit him. We just kept going until we did my standard hyperspeed move and slammed into a wall.
    On the plus side, this knocked him out. I grabbed his remote and ran back. Overshot. Ended up in front of the stairwell just as the door opened to reveal Amy and Caroline.
    “What are you two doing here?”
    “Following that bitch Leslie Manning,” Amy said.
    “To back you up,” Caroline added.
    “Caro and I saw her come back in the ballroom without you, and we knew she must have done something to you.”
    “Ames and I figured we’d be more useful here. The others are handling the evacuation. Chuck and some of the others are after the people who started shooting after the fire alarms went off.”
    “Was anyone hurt?”
    “Nope. Senator McMillan took over, and everyone listened to him,” Amy said proudly.
    “Yeah. He and Ames figured out your clue, and we got rolling,” Caroline added. “Nice to know all your friends from high school are as smart as you and Chuck, Kit-Kat.”
    Amy beamed. Well, one good thing had come out of this—Amy and Caroline had clearly bonded. Amy’s expression went back to pissed off. “We’ll have to congratulate each other later, Caro. Where’s Leslie?”
    Crap. “Um, follow me. Or the sound of screaming.” I turned around and ran off.
    This time I slammed into a supersoldier. Well, it was sort of what I’d been aiming for. It grabbed at me, but its hand, or handlike thing froze when it got near me. I had no idea why.
    There were walls down in this part of the rat maze already. I hoped we weren’t going to destroy any bearing walls and then figured, if this fight continued for too long, of course we would. But maybe I could get things under control before that happened.
    Bryce and Leslie were shooting at the supersoldiers near them. I had no idea why. The bullets