Alien in the House

them.”
    “All of them?” Jeff asked.
    “There are five different sets,” Henry replied. “They’re doing a lot of shady stuff over there. Anyway, I think we’ll be able to identify what’s going on with Gaultier.”
    “I’m also sure that Henry found the information on the emotional blockers and overlays,” Ravi said. “However, the encryption on those files is some of the toughest we’ve ever seen. It’s going to take a while to break.”
    “Be sure to include my dad in whatever you’re doing with that.”
    Stryker opened his mouth. “Do it,” Chuckie snapped.
    “I was
going
to say that we already hooked him in. Geez, Chuck, you’re as quick on the trigger as Kitty.”
    “We have a lot of dead people, Eddy, and not a lot of answers about what’s going on. And who the hell are you calling quick on the trigger anyway?”
    “Not you, Missus Martini,” White said with a smile. “However, what our young men here haven’t mentioned is, under the circumstances, disappointing. Other than within the late Mister Montgomery’s personal temporary office space, we’ve found no indication of anything to do with any representative, other than the usual military contracts and the like.”
    “So Gaultier is likely a dead end there. Which sucks.”
    “Gaultier is a dead end, but Eugene wasn’t.” Christopher handed me a bunch of papers. “We took everything of his from the facility, other than his laptop. No one seemed to care, other than the accounting manager who was in charge of his work, and he was more upset about having hired a lunatic murderer to help cover the load while he has three of his staff out on maternity leave than anything else.”
    “Pregnancy leaves confirmed and legitimate,” Amy added. “And Eugene wasn’t working on anything that seems too interesting, but we’re going to run all his information through everything, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that my father and his ilk are willing to be really intricately crazy.”
    “So true, Ames, so true. So, is it safe to assume that no one at Gaultier either knew about Eugene’s belief about hidden robots or was giving him the orders?”
    “Unless they read through his stuff, and it didn’t seem like anyone cared. For whatever reason, no one at Gaultier knew Eugene had killed anyone or was dead until we told them.” Christopher shook his head. “I’m happy the story’s been suppressed, but we weren’t the ones who did it, I’ve already checked with Serene.”
    “So the police didn’t release any information,” Chuckie said thoughtfully. “That was probably because Kitty brought in the K-9 squad. Have you heard back from them yet?”
    “Nope. What does Eugene’s mystery package say?”
    Reader sighed and took it from my hands. “Give me a minute.”
    “Your unwillingness to read anything other than comics is still with you, I see, Kitty,” Stryker said. “I don’t know how you got through college.”
    Chuckie and I exchanged a glance. He raised his eyebrow. I shrugged. While I appreciated his willingness to defend my intelligence honor with Hacker International, there was no point at this time. I’d make Stryker pay for that comment later.
    “Dude, ability and desire are not the same things. So, James, what do we have? I ask because Christopher, who’s read the file and could have shared already, seems reluctant to hog the information spotlight.”
    “I just thought you’d like to read the file,” Christopher snapped, gracing me with Patented Glare #1. “The rest of us already have.”
    “I haven’t,” Chuckie said.
    “Me, either,” Tim added. “Some of us don’t get to read at hyperspeed no matter how many times we ask.”
    “It’s pretty much what Kitty said Eugene told her,” Reader said. “Lots of buttering up of the operative, though. ‘Your intelligence and dedication to country’ and all that jazz. I can understand how someone could believe the robot theory, though. There’s full schematics in here.”
    “Are we lucky enough that they match what we know of the androids?” I asked, fully expecting that we wouldn’t be lucky.
    “No,” Ravi said. I was currently batting a thousand on my expectations, go me. “We’ve already run this information against what we have on the androids, and the supersoldiers. If these things are real, and with the way things go, I’d never suggest we assume they aren’t, they’re a different breed.”
    “Better, worse, or