Alien Diplomacy

complexity of who we’re stationing where.”
    “Do we even know enough to station anyone anywhere?”
    Tim shrugged. “Sort of. We know we need people inside at the ball, and we have that more than covered. But we need teams on standby, and we don’t know where, what they’ll really need to be prepared for, nothing.”
    I considered this. “Guys, we routinely kill superbeings. Why are you all so freaked out?”
    Reader sighed. “Girlfriend, it’s not the same situation. We’re exposed here, in a way none of us have any experience with. One wrong move, and Centaurion Division is shown to everyone to be not of this world. A different wrong move means someone—maybe one, maybe many—dies.”
    “We’re hiding in plain sight even more than we used to,” Serene added. “It’s making it harder and harder for Imageering to do what we’re supposed to in terms of cover-ups.”
    “You mean I’m making it harder.”
    Reader made the exasperation sound. “No. Stop trying to shoulder all the blame. This is new for everyone. The former Diplomatic Corps was in place for twenty years, and they were all conversant in what their jobs entailed. We’ve all had new jobs for about three months.”
    “Speaking of which,” Tim said, “I see Jerry wasn’t lying. You don’t have your purse with you, and we all know you don’t have your phone.”
    “Geez, sorry. It happens.”
    “Every time it does, I need to reach you urgently,” Tim said flatly. “Let’s work on you keeping at least your phone with you at all times going forward.”
    “Sorry, I’ll go find my phone right now.”
    “No need,” Tim said with a grin, as he reached into his pocket and handed me a new cell. “It’s programmed with all your settings.”
    “How?” It looked just like my old one, only it was pristine, with no scratches or anything. I knew it wouldn’t look like this for long—none of my phones ever did. With the current situation, I gave it no more than a day before it was at least blemished, if not destroyed.
    “The wonders of modern A-C technology,” Reader said. “Now that you’re equipped with the basics again, try to remember that we still have less than no idea of what’s going on, and we need to get a handle on it, and quickly.”
    Jeff, Christopher, and White joined us while I was getting my phone responsibility lecture. Jeff took Jamie from Reader and snuggled her. “Everything’s taken care of.”
    “What talents did they display?”
    Christopher shrugged. “Hard to say. They’re more like Jamie than the rest of us, but I don’t think they’re as powerful.”
    “Or if they are, it’s muted,” Jeff said.
    “You know, you need to figure out how to pass along the techniques.” I ignored Christopher’s Glare #1. “Seriously, guys. Serene, Abigail, and Naomi need to know how to do this.” I didn’t add “just in case,” but I could tell Jeff knew I was thinking it.
    He sighed. “You’re right. But not right now. Mostly,” he said as my mouth started to open, “because we haven’t had enough time to determine if we actually can pass along the abilities or not.”
    “Oh, fine.” We still hadn’t found the glowing cube Terry, Christopher’s late mother, had used to pass the knowledge of putting in blocks, as well as a wide variety of other things, to Jeff and Christopher when they were young. Without it, if Jeff and Christopher indeed weren’t able to pass along how to install blocks, it meant that if we lost one of them, we lost the ability. Forever.
    I was distracted from this cheerful line of thought by my new phone ringing.
    It wasn’t a number I knew. Based on past experience, this was never good. I prepared myself for a death threat, and answered.



CHAPTER 28
    “H ELLO?”
    “Miss Katt?” It was a woman’s voice, but I didn’t recognize it any more than I had the phone number. I waited for her to start screaming at me. “Hello? Miss Katt?” Huh. No screaming. Scored it one for the win column.
    “Possibly. Who’s this?”
    “This is Nurse Carter from the Georgetown University Medical Center. Is this Miss Katt?” She had a slight accent that sounded Hispanic of some kind to me.
    “Ah, yes. I’m fine, thanks for the follow up.” Why was everyone calling me Miss Katt all of a sudden? I didn’t think Jeff had filed divorce papers, even though I’d probably given him good reason to over the last few months. And even if he had, surely Chuckie, at least, would have