Alien in the House

bills are important, they need to be voted on pretty much as soon as we officially convene for next year, meaning the first week of January, and I don’t think the President wants any suggestions of unfairness or foul play. He’s taken a lot of heat for suspending elections—this allows him to bring in new blood and ensure that Congress is completely filled.”
    There was a lot of foul play going on, regardless of the President’s desires, and things were hot and getting hotter, but now wasn’t the time to share all that with Brewer.
    “Makes sense. We’ll be joining you guys soon. Need to let Jeff know the good news that we get to relax for a little bit.” I also had to tell everyone else the very interesting news.
    “Not to worry, Pierre’s going to escort everyone out of the ballroom and get us settled in one of the salons downstairs while we wait for you. Still wish you could drink wine—I could use a glass by now.”
    “Dude, I could use a whole bottle by now. But such is life in the big A-C city.”
    Brewer laughed. “So I’m coming to learn.”
    Hung up. “Boys, we have bad news and we have interesting news.” Shared what Brewer had told me. “So, we get to put off the swearing-in for a whole additional hour. But we don’t get to stop worrying during that time, because I think Edmund just told us what’s going on.”
    “How so?” Gower asked. “It just sounds like the President wants to make sure that no one can complain that the bills that did or didn’t pass didn’t have a quorum.”
    “I think Kitty’s right,” Christopher said. “We need to go over what we found at Gaultier, and we need to do it now.”



CHAPTER 61
    W E DECIDED TO TAKE the time Brewer had bought us to do what Christopher wanted. We all raced off for the Zoo. I stayed with the humans while Jeff went on ahead with the A-Cs, so he and Gower could speak at hyperspeed to catch Christopher, White, and Raj up on what we’d learned.
    “What’s in the briefcase?” Chuckie asked as we humans or mostly-humans headed for the walkway.
    “All the papers and such Jeff and I found in the various offices we searched earlier today, Santiago’s included. Probably nothing but trash, but we figured it was better to take what we could find and throw it away here than to miss something important.”
    “I’m finding it hard to believe that all of this is going on because of a few bills going through the House,” Reader said.
    “It would depend on what’s in the bills,” Chuckie said. “But while there are a lot of bills relating to the A-Cs circulating, none of them are up for a vote yet, at least as far as I know.”
    “Some of the reps killed were from the Foreign Affairs and Homeland Security committees. Per Irene at Rayburn House, Foreign Affairs has lost four members.”
    “Could be related to what those committees are working on,” Chuckie said. “But the research shows that we have reps dead from a wide variety of committees. Transportation lost several, too. Over twenty dead means a lot of committees are down members.”
    “I’m having a harder time figuring out how that Vance guy is the only one who’s put this thing together,” Tim said.
    “Yeah, I know, but he’s claiming that he’s been hiding his smarts because they’re not as appreciated as political sway.”
    “That’s true enough,” Chuckie said. “But Tim brings up the relevant point—why Vance, versus Oliver, who looks for things like this?”
    “Maybe he’s not handling his sudden fame well,” Reader said thoughtfully.
    “What do you mean?” Chuckie asked.
    Reader shrugged. “When we were all outed, Jeff brought Oliver along with him and Alexander to the big summit meeting where Alexander laid down the law, remember?” Chuckie nodded. “Well, that sent a statement. Oliver’s still with the
World Weekly News
, which went from being ‘the world’s biggest rag’ to ‘the only paper telling the truth’ overnight. He’s become something of a celebrity.”
    “Vance said as much in the limo earlier today,” I added.
    “And Oliver was embarrassed by Vance’s fawning,” Reader said.
    “True. So, okay, MJO has probably been focused on handling his new popularity and fielding questions about us, versus looking for new conspiracies. But then, why was he snooping around the Embassy last night?”
    “That was still all about us,” Tim said. “I think James is right. So the two people most likely to pay attention to these