Alien Proliferation

to me all these years.”
    Jeff nodded. “Anyone who doesn’t will be considered a traitor. I don’t like traitors, in case anyone wasn’t sure.” He looked at me. “Let’s go.”
    I looked at White. “Embassy, Mister White?”
    White smiled. “I’d assume so, Missus Martini.”
    I looked up at Jeff. “Meet my newest recruit.”
    Jeff shook his head. “You’re like Typhoid Mary for adrenaline junkies.”
    “It’s a gift.” I took White’s hand. Jeff raised his eyebrow. “Hey, he’s my partner.”
    Jeff took my other hand. “So am I. And I have to guess you can handle a double dose of hyperspeed now.” We headed off to the launch area. “Embassy, now, all together.”
    “Yes, sir, Commander.” The A-C was the same one who’d worked the gate when White and I had left hours—or was it days?—ago. It seemed like days, but reality told me it was just hours.
    I looked around. He was the only A-C on the job in this area. “You’re back on duty fast.”
    He flashed a quick smile. “My brothers always said I ignored directions really well. I was able to resist the order to assemble and stay in the launch area.” He looked down. “I did give in to the mind control, though, finally.”
    “So did everyone else, including the Head of Security. I think you did pretty damned well, all things considered.”
    Jeff grunted. “I agree.”
    He looked proud for a moment. “Thank you, Commanders. Please be careful . . . again,” he said to me.
    “Will do.” My throat felt tight. “Do you know . . . were your brothers with Captain Crawford?” I held my breath. Maybe they’d been sent to Florida.
    He swallowed. “One of them was, yes.”
    I had to know. “Which one?”
    “Wayne.”
    The empath. The big, fun, nice empath who knew me well enough in a short time to know where I’d hidden a file. One of the only two who could back me and Chuckie on the superbeings as supersoldiers thing. “Why didn’t he go to Florida with William? Why did Tim break them up? They were a team.”
    “William’s married and has a baby due soon. He . . . he told me Captain Crawford said you’d want the expectant father to be safe.”
    “He was right.” I’d wanted all of them to be safe, though.
    The A-C looked at Jeff. “Gate’s ready, Commander.”
    Jeff nodded. “Thank you.”
    We walked through together. It occurred to me that I still didn’t know Wayne’s younger brother’s name. I didn’t have time to dwell on that, though. The gate still made me sick, and this time we weren’t landing on a moving train. I might be superenhanced, but gates were apparently going to stay the bane of my existence.
    It was dark, but I could see decently, only there wasn’t much to see, just a lot of boxes and the gate we’d exited through. “Where are we?” I whispered.
    “Basement.” Jeff was speaking softly. “Stay together. Richard, they won’t know you’re not Pontifex any more. Have no idea what that will or won’t mean, just be aware of it. Kitty, seriously, let me run in first, okay?”
    “Man thing?”
    “Yeah, I don’t want to see my wife killed, call me a caveman.”
    “Later, when we have a bassinet and the baby’s asleep.”
    White chuckled. “It’s nice to know she always focuses, Jeffrey.”
    We went up three sets of stairs to the second floor. I could hear raised voices. “How is one human managing to hold off our entire freaking team?”
    “We’re not as good with hostage situations as you are.” Jeff’s sarcasm knob was back to eleven.
    “Guess not.”
    We rounded a corner and ended up in a doorway to what I realized was a ballroom. Why the A-C Embassy had a ballroom I didn’t know, but I also didn’t have time to worry about it, because I saw how Gaultier had our team pinned.
    He didn’t just have Amy—he had all of Jeff’s family.

 
    CHAPTER 66
     
    E VERYONE BUT AMY WAS HELD in what looked like an electronic pen that locked them against a wall with no door or windows. The pen glowed and shimmered—I got the impression touching it was a bad idea.
    On the plus side, in addition to all of Jeff’s sisters, nieces, and nephews, the rest of his brothers-in-law were in the net as well, meaning they might not all be traitors like Clarence. I decided not to dwell on my new definition of “plus side.”
    Gaultier was in front of the pen. He had Amy in a chokehold and a gun at her head. We were in a doorway that was in the middle of the long room—Gaultier and his mass