Alien Diplomacy

electrified water.”
    A whole lot of A-Cs arrived, carrying equipment. “Ambassadors,” Chuckie said carefully, “I believe it would be best if you rejoined the other guests.”
    “Et tu, Brute?”
    He grinned. “Seriously. Get out of here.”
    “You’re not coming?” Jeff asked.
    Chuckie patted his pocket. “I’m the only one who knows how to work the remote. Besides, the international playboy running away when things are bad isn’t going to surprise anyone who notices.”
    “Yeah, Bruce Wayne always uses that excuse, too.”
    Reader kissed my cheek. “Get upstairs. We’ll handle this. Carefully.”
    “You’ll find Madeline Cartwright’s remains somewhere around here. She was the one in charge.”
    “Not Marling?” Tim asked.
    “No, not from what I learned.” Not from what I’d seen, either.
    “Okay, we’ll get her, too.” Reader turned away from us and looked at the wreckage. “Can we get some lights?” Lights came on. “Great. Okay, Reynolds, let’s see if you can make these things help with cleanup.”
    Jeff took my hand, and he, Christopher, and I headed upstairs, at human normal. I assumed the guys had burned out their hyperjuice.I’d certainly burned out mine. I could feel the exhaustion trying to shove in. “This feels weird.”
    “Walking upstairs like humans, being really tired, or us leaving the rest of the work to James and Tim?” Jeff asked.
    “All of the above.”
    “Yeah,” Christopher said. “But…it was interesting.”
    “What was?”
    “Watching how Senator McMillan got things under control.”
    “He was a war hero, so it’s not like he’s not used to giving orders.”
    “Yeah. And he sits on Capitol Hill now.”
    “He said it was because he didn’t know for sure that someone else would do a better job. That sometimes you have to do the job you don’t want to, because you’re the only one who can, or the only one you can trust to do it right, to the best of your ability.”
    “We’d never have been able to stop this if we weren’t actually invited to the event,” Jeff said. “We had access only because we’re diplomats.”
    “True enough. The former Diplomatic Corps was helping not only the Cabal of Evil but the League of Really Whacked Out Evil Super-Geniuses, too.” I filled them in on what I’d gotten from Cartwright and Marling. “So, the only reason we could stop this is because we’re doing their jobs now.”
    Jeff put his arm around my shoulders. “Yeah, baby. And we probably wouldn’t have been able to save the day if you weren’t taking the Washington Wife class, either.”
    “I suppose not.”
    “Why were the androids even in that class?” Christopher asked.
    “I’m not sure. I think in part to spy on the spouses of those in the Cabal of Evil, in case they learned too much. Some to keep an eye on what we were up to. Some, I’d guess, so they could be more human.”
    “Didn’t work,” Christopher said.
    “No, it did. Marling may be winning the award for World’s Most Maddest of Scientists, but he did really good work. It took fighting with them for me to realize they weren’t fully human.” Which begged its own set of creepy questions.
    “How many others like them are out there?” Jeff asked, voicing Creepy Question Numero Uno, as we finally reached the level the ball had been on.
    I stepped forward and grabbed the door handle. “No idea. It’s a problem for another day. At least I hope,” I said as I opened thedoor. To find myself face-to-face with Peter the Dingo Dog and his happy cousin, Surly Vic.
    Shocking no one, they had guns out and trained on us. Time to see if Chuckie was right and I actually had profiling skills. “Your employers are dead.”
    Peter shrugged. “We were paid to do a job. Turn around and go back downstairs.”
    “No.”
    He stared at me. “Then we’ll shoot you here.”
    “Yeah? There are a ton of people on site paying attention. Everyone’s jumpy. Gunshots will absolutely demand attention, and you don’t have silencers on those guns, probably because you were originally supposed to create a ‘terrorist attack,’ and that’s better if it’s really noisy. So, I know why you want us to go downstairs. Not gonna happen. What’s going to happen is you’re going to put your guns away and leave.”
    “Why would we do that?” Surly Vic asked.
    “Because you two owe us, and it’s a blood debt.”
    “I repaid that,” Peter said.
    I snorted. “No, you didn’t. Passing me the