Alien Diplomacy

heading toward the rest of our group. However, I saw a shimmering and watched as the rest of our team disappeared through the floater gate, using hyperspeed. Absolutely no one noticed, other than possibly some of the Goon Squad, at least the ones who slammed into the Security Desk as the gate disappeared.
    Not all the Goons were busy explaining why they’d lunged at the desk, though—some were looking like they really wanted in on the money grab. I had no guess as to what the balloon man had been paid, but he’d dropped a balloon mid-giraffe and raced over along with everyone else.
    White did something to the cash machine, and it actually began spewing money, too. “Great thinking.”
    He nodded. “I can now comprehend the plan, and part two has to be the two of us running in the opposite direction.”
    “I love having the best of the best as my partner. Ready?”
    “Yes, the machine shows no signs of slowing.” He threw some more money, a big roll, up high and the money fell like big, greenish snowflakes. The entire terminal was filled with people grabbing the cash. We were also getting jostled. Time to go.
    I grabbed his hand and we shoved through the crowd. I smiled sweetly at the Goon Squad and we ran for the escalator heading down. We didn’t stand there, we ran down the steps, but at human speeds.
    We reached the bottom, and I looked back. I didn’t have time for a full head count, but it looked as if the majority if not all of the Goons were after us. So far, so very good.
    White yanked me, hard, and ran us back up on the up escalator. “Why are we going back up?”
    “More of them coming,” he replied shortly. I looked behind us. He wasn’t kidding. While I’d been checking out the first Squadron of Goons, another plethora had shown up on the lower level.
    We crested the top, and I saw a sign for the elevated Metro station. I dragged White along, and we raced up the escalators, Miss Li’s “Bourgeois Shangri-La” on my personal soundtrack. I agreed with her—we really did need to get away.
    “Why the Metro? I was under the impression the trains weren’t running.”
    “Right. So we can have the Goon Squadron chase us there, and no one’s in danger.”
    “Other than us.”
    “Well, that was the point, right?”
    “I though the point was everyone escaping unharmed.”
    “Oh, ye of little faith.” We ran, pursued by a lot of goons. We were only dodging them because White was controlling when we used a burst of hyperspeed and when we just ran at human normal. “You’re really good at altering our speed.”
    “I’ve been doing this for decades, Missus Martini. You’ve been learning for three months. There are some things I’ll naturally be more expert at. This is one of them.”
    “No complaints here.” There were no trains in the station and no other travelers, either. I looked around. There were, however, more goons than I could count. “Did we seriously just get roles in The Matrix Really Reloaded or something?”
    “No. We’re just popular.”
    “Well, at least they’re not shooting at us.”
    “True enough. Possibly because we’re trapped.”
    This was sort of true. We couldn’t make it back into the airport because every doorway was blocked by a lot of goon bods. However, that hadn’t been my plan anyway.
    I jumped onto the tracks, pulling White along. “Which way heads us back toward the Embassy?”
    “I believe this one,” he said as we took off at human normal. The platform was raised, and neither one of us wanted to risk falling off.
    The sun was starting to set, and I realized the day had really gone by quickly—something to be said for your best friends givingbirth combined with a lot of intrigue. It also meant we had even fewer hours to figure out what was going on. However, this wasn’t my exact concern at the moment, so I decided to table those worries for later, like when we were back at the Embassy.
    We kept running, the sound of Clutch’s “Electric Worry” revving me so that I didn’t feel all sprinted out. Despite years of track training, which said that runners who looked behind them lost their races, I turned around. “No one’s following us.”
    We both slowed down to a decent jog. “Are we still alone?” White asked a few minutes later.
    I checked again. “Yeah, we are.”
    “Does that mean we can stop running now?”
    We both heard the sound at the same time.
    “Um. No. I think that means we want to run as fast as humanly