Alien Proliferation

The video feeds were still active. Happily, most of the people who were being spied on were in my room at the Embassy, and, thankfully, the others seemed to still be at the party in the library.
    “Now what?”
    Chuckie sighed. “Now we go into that freezer and see just what One through Three really are.”

 
    CHAPTER 80
     
    “C AN’T WAIT. OH, WAIT. Can wait. Would love to wait.” I sighed. “Of course, they’re after my baby, so, back to can’t wait.”
    Chuckie nodded. “Ditto. So, where’s the hidden freezer?” He took the list of operatives from me, folded up the printouts, and shoved them into his inner jacket pocket.
    I led them over, and he pulled the handle. It opened, but nothing fell out. Because there was a big room back there. We all peered in. There were bags of various sizes hung up on meat hooks. I found myself wishing I’d listened to Jeff and changed clothes.
    “Wow, it’s going to keep on sucking until it just can’t suck any more, isn’t it?”
    “Looks that way.” Chuckie took my hand and indicated White should take the other, then we all stepped inside. It was freezing, but I was revved up on fear and horror, and it didn’t bother me as much as it could have. Chuckie looked down and jerked his head away. “I wish you’d put on some clothes.”
    I looked down. Yep, the torpedoes were doing a good imitation of getting ready to be ravaged by Jeff. “I didn’t know we’d be in a freaking meat locker.”
    All of us froze. “Oh, I wish you hadn’t said that. Because, as I look around at oddly shaped bags hanging on meat hooks, I’m hearing horror movie music in my head.”
    “Dude, you too? Thank God it’s not just me expecting to see severed limbs and such in the bags. But, you know, you’re the top man, so I’m not going to steal your thunder. You get to open them. I’ll wait by the door so I can run screaming back down the hall.” I pulled my phone out. “How the hell do they get reception down here?”
    Chuckie cleared his throat. “The phone system is twenty years old, Kitty. It’s run on landlines. Like all the rest of their computer equipment.” I was getting a look that said my time with Jeff had caused brain damage.
    “I can still beat you at chess.”
    He and I stared at each other. “Queen.” We said it in unison. Too creeped out to care.
    “Pardon?” White asked, sounding confused.
    “Operation Invasion was one big chess game, Mister White, remember? Realistically, every elaborate ruse is, in its own way. We haven’t won yet, because the White Queen is still free, and the King is not dead, merely locked up.”
    “Why are we black?” White still sounded confused.
    “Because white goes first. Our enemies always make the first moves. How you start the game matters, but how you end it is what counts.”
    Chuckie laughed. “And to think I had to beg you to join the Chess Club.”
    I shrugged. “Until I realized I was going to be the only girl, and the rest of the guys were all fun and cool like you.”
    He gave me a very fond look, and I wondered if I’d just put us right back to Jeff having to have the jealousy chat. Oh, well, more important things to worry about. Like what was in the icky bags and what One through Three would turn out to be.
    “Okay, Richard and I will look in the bags. Kitty, you look around for whatever else they have hidden here. Stay in sight of us, though, and, seriously, feel free to scream if you need us.”
    “You got it.” I was working to not scream. Screaming would be easy.
    The men went to the nearest bag and started to gingerly open it. I busied myself elsewhere. This room was bigger than the lab and seemed to be L-shaped. I examined the part of the room we were in first. Lots and lots of bags. Lots. Moved through them carefully. It was like the Hanging Forest of Horror in here.
    Got to the walls—a stainless steel counter ran along three quarters of the room—only the wall that held the door didn’t have any counter. On the metal counters were things that looked like very large, weird metal Crock-Pots. All of them had wiring and other oddities coming out and trailing along the counter, one hooked into the other, to create one long daisy chain of weird. It headed toward the end of the room I hadn’t examined yet.
    Heard gagging and spun around. Chuckie and White were closer to me. Both of them looked the way I felt after every gate transfer combined. “Okay,” Chuckie gagged out as they closed up the