Alien Proliferation

Tito looked better than most of our guys, which was the textbook example of damning with faint praise.
    “Stay away from my wife,” Brian managed to growl. He was on Tito’s other side. Al Dejahl backhanded him.
    “Stop it!” Amy was close to hysterical.
    I could see Kevin, Michael, Reader, and Tim clearly—like the others, they looked like crap. Those four were on Chuckie’s other side, so closer to me and White. The flyboys, who were on Brian’s other side, looked no better, but it was hard to be sure from this distance. But they all seemed alive. Tim was closest to us, Jerry farthest. I had no idea how to get any of them out of here safely, let alone all of them.
    Another thought occurred, and I pulled White’s head down. “How in the world did they catch all of them? Tito can take an A-C without help, let alone the rest of them working together.”
    “Perhaps whatever was used on Paul was used on the others.”
    “Where are the rest of the people who would have kept the women in line? Or carried the unconscious bodies?”
    We looked. I couldn’t spot anyone else. Meanwhile, Jeff was being tortured, and I knew he was going to be close to dying soon. Everyone loved to hurt my men, Jeff in particular.
    Ran through my inventory of what I had to use. Me, White, six Poofs, an iPod, hairspray, cell phone, and the adrenaline harpoon. None of these screamed “cavalry coming” other than if I lucked out and got to Jeff before he died. I’d seen the Poofs devour a man in front of me, but that man had been trying to kill me. Had a crazy thought I decided to table for later.
    They sent another emotional hit at Jeff, and his whole body writhed in agony. He was panting from the pain.
    “Leave him alone,” Christopher snarled.
    “Oh, we can’t do that,” Robert Coleman said. “We have a new leader, and we need to make sure no one is stupid enough to suggest Jeffrey as the next Pontifex.”
    “My father’s not going to let you get away with this.”
    Coleman snorted. “Please. He’s only survived this long because he’s had you and Jeffrey to protect him. Gower’s dead, so the one weapon you had has gone back to the cosmos, or dissipated.”
    I yanked White’s head down. “You said the PPB net would collapse not dissipate.”
    “Yes, because I know and they don’t. One thing I did learn from my father—tell your diplomats only what they need to know in order to do their jobs. High-level secrets are for those who can keep them.”
    “Your new leader’s a fake.” I wasn’t sure how Chuckie was managing to talk, but he sounded insolent, too.
    “Yes, of course he is.” Coleman laughed. “I do share one viewpoint with Jeffrey and Christopher—I’m sick of having to take any kind of order from you.” He walked over and hit Chuckie in the ribs. I heard a crack. Chuckie hissed in pain. I shook from rage, and White squeezed my hand. I forced myself to relax.
    The sound of footsteps reached us. White and I moved back farther into the shadows. What looked like a platoon of men entered the room on the opposite side from us. I knew some of them, and the rest looked vaguely familiar. They were C.I.A. people I’d met over the course of the last year or so. None of them were part of the ETD, nor were they the top dogs elsewhere, but then again, the top dogs weren’t usually the ones who had to do a power play to get on top, just to stay there. All of them looked nasty, and there were more of them than there were of our guys.
    “Why are they all still alive?” the last man into the room asked. I knew the voice, and I knew him, at least, now—Cooper. He looked smug and bored. I managed not to hiss and attack, but it took the most effort so far. So now I knew who was in charge of all of this, at least from the C.I.A.’s side.
    “We don’t have what we need yet,” the fake Al Dejahl said.
    “Have one of the diplomats go to the Science Center, grab the spawn, grab the pregnant idiot, and nuke the place.” Cooper said this as if he were giving an order for a latte. I already hated this guy, but now I hated him even more for that and also for calling Jamie names. I was getting tired of everyone calling my baby “spawn.” They didn’t mean it in the cool, superhero way.
    “Katt’s there. She won’t let her daughter or granddaughter out of her sight.” I recognized this voice, a woman’s. Camilla stepped into the light. “You’ll need to draw them here, just like I told you.”
    “How the