Alien in the House

out of here, baby.”
    “Well, that bomb was intended for Cliff, not us. I think we need to get Cliff out of here.”
    Chuckie was helping Cliff up. Cliff seemed to be in shock. “I just got that car . . . that’s my dream car . . . it does everything and it’s good for the environment . . .”
    As Jeff helped me up I realized the blast had knocked a lot of the press on their butts, too. “Wow, that was one hell of an explosion. Chuckie, let’s get Cliff to the Embassy.”
    Chuckie nodded and put his arm around Cliff’s shoulders. “Come on, buddy. Let’s get you out of the rain.”
    “I have stuff in the car,” Cliff said, rather piteously. “I need my stuff.”
    Looked at the wreckage. “Unless it’s fire, fireproof, or improved by being blown up, you don’t need it. Let’s move, guys.”
    But we’d been too slow. The press were back on their feet and we were surrounded, fast, with a lot of people shouting questions at us.
    In the good old days, we would have just used hyperspeed to get out of this. But we couldn’t, because the press wasn’t surrounding four random people—they were surrounding four public figures.
    They were also shoving in closer and closer. Claustrophobia was going to become an issue, and if anyone shoved me, I had a feeling Jeff’s first official act as a representative was going to be to punch someone in the face.
    “That’s enough!” a man bellowed. The bellower wasn’t Jeff; it was Oliver. He didn’t bellow as well as Jeff did—no one could match Jeff’s bellowing abilities—but he sounded furious and very much in charge. Remembered that Oliver had covered war zones. “You will stop acting like a pack of wild dogs!”
    Looked back at the car. Explosions were one of the Dingo’s calling cards. Clearly he wasn’t aware that we liked Cliff, or else he had a contract that said he didn’t care.
    The paparazzi started to quiet, but there was still grumbling. “What’s wrong with all of you?” Oliver snarled. His voice was projecting, however. “These people need help. At least let them get the hell out of the rain before you barrage them with questions for which we all
know
they have no answers.”
    “We just want to know who the target was,” a woman shouted from the back. Couldn’t see her face, but I was pretty sure she was blonde.
    “Do you?” Oliver asked. “Perhaps you’re all too stupid to put two and two together. I, however, am not stupid, and neither are these people. And we’d all like to get out of the rain.”
    With that, Oliver reached his hand to me. I took it and grabbed Jeff with my other hand. Jeff grabbed Chuckie, who already had a hold of Cliff. Oliver shoved through the throng and we followed, staying connected.
    “The moment the five of us are out of sight, it would be a brilliant choice on the part of Representative Martini to take us to the fastest hyperspeed possible. I’m sure Mister Goodman will vomit the moment we stop, but I believe he’s going to do that anyway.”
    Risked a look behind me. Yeah, Cliff looked kind of green. “MJO, as always, you’re the man with the plan. Jeff, did you catch that?”
    “Yep. It’s going to be hard, because there are a lot of people heading toward us and it’s a long way to anything that will provide a legitimate excuse for how we disappeared.”
    “Jeff’s right.” Contemplated our options. “We’re basically across the street from Rayburn House.”
    “I like that plan,” Jeff said, as he turned to his left and pulled the rest of us along. “I want you all at a run,” he said with authority.
    Contemplated the options again. I liked these heels. Then again, the Elves seemed to have unlimited access to Armani, Aerosole, and, for all I knew, Converse and Levis. Therefore, I could play Cinderella. Kicked my heels off.
    Most sprinters like to run in shoes, but there were a few who preferred to run barefoot. I didn’t normally fall into the latter camp, but under the circumstances, I had less chance of slipping or falling behind. And I didn’t want to fall behind, because the moment the press had realized we were running, they gave chase.
    “Is this really a good idea?” Chuckie shouted as we all ran along. He was keeping Cliff moving, and the shock of the explosion seemed to be wearing off, potentially because Cliff was a really smart guy and it didn’t take genius to figure out that someone wanted him dead and that someone could still be around.
    “We’re