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Alien in the House

Alien in the House

Titel: Alien in the House Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: Gini Koch
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unaware?”
    “I don’t know,” Hammy answered slowly. “He’s been dead long enough that I didn’t spend as much time on him as I did some of the others.”
    “Huh. Well, if there was ever a man who wanted to perpetrate evil on the world for grins and giggles, it was him.”
    “We’ll go over it, Missus Chief. Head off before your husband tries to kill all of us out of jealous frustration.”
    “I don’t think it’s jealousy right now, Malcolm, so much as my current and total entertaining failure.”
    “We’ll fix that,” Raj said confidently.
    Buchanan, Len, and Kyle all exchanged a look that said they didn’t believe this was possible.
    “I currently like Raj more than all of you. Put together.”
    Buchanan grinned. “Then I’ll make a note to expect the Junior Ambassador to become the new focus of Mister Chief’s jealousy in about five minutes from now.”



CHAPTER 17
    O N THAT NOTE of potentially prescient doom, Raj, the boys, and I left. I took Len’s hand, Raj grabbed Kyle, and we used the slow hyperspeed to get to the walkway section on the second floor. The boys only gagged a little when we stopped.
    “Good job, Kitty,” Len managed. “We didn’t overshoot or hit a wall or anything.”
    “Christopher’s been making me practice.” A lot. And I was doing it because these days he was at Evil Personal Trainer From Hell levels. But it had paid off all day today, so that was one in the semi-win column.
    We walked quickly down the corridor. It was nicely done, very sturdy, with bulletproof glass on either side, so you could look out onto the street and Sheridan Circle without the risk of a sniper killing you—a design perk I personally appreciated.
    Both ends of the corridor could also be sealed off, again with strong doors whose windows had bulletproof glass. We might not be housing in the Bunker district of D.C., but we were going to ensure that we couldn’t be easily overrun or overtaken.
    The Zoo’s street level was where our animals “housed” when they were on display. Because we’d had to gut and redo most of this building, we’d actually left the second floor as mostly open space with a full, top-of-the-line and giant kitchen, as well as a whole bank of bathrooms. Per A-C regulations, only one stall had a gate in it.
    The fourth floor was for extra Embassy personnel and staff, as needed. Some on a rotating basis, some, like the A-Cs assigned to walk our dogs, were sticking around until they could score a better job. The fifth floor now housed Hacker International, along with their fantastic state-of-the-art computer center and our stationary floater gate, which was much less of an oxymoron than Military Intelligence.
    Stairs were the only option from the first floor to the second floor. A-Cs could all move faster than any elevator, and we didn’t want the general public having easy access to the upper levels. Once on the second floor, however, there were two elevators that handled the rest of the floors. We waved to the A-Cs and humans on food prep duty—I chose not to ask what world famous chef was shouting orders at everyone as we went by—and got into one of said elevators.
    Pierre had set things up so that we could alter the second floor any way that we needed or wanted to. However, he’d also ensured the third floor would be a showcase.
    The elevator doors opened and for a moment I wasn’t sure if Jamie had had a hand in the decorations. The place glittered, though it wasn’t glittering in pink, so that was one small one for the win column.
    The floors were shiny marble; the walls were covered with fine art interspersed with fine sculptures. We had a blown glass ceiling filled with celestial bodies, including a glass bas-relief of the Alpha Centauri system.
    I was used to all of this, though I still questioned the wisdom of these very expensive, very breakable things being housed in the Zoo. But Pierre insisted that’s what insurance was for.
    For tonight’s festivities, Pierre had added small, white, twinkling lights all over the place. It was like stepping into a fairyland.
    A fairyland that was doubling as the Correspondents’ Dinner Lite. We’d discussed it, and while one long table sounded extremely royal, common sense said that round tables seating ten would probably be more practical. So the third floor looked like the prettiest, glitteriest convention ballroom ever.
    Jeff was at the very far end of the room, naturally. Pierre had the room laid out

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