Alien Tango

broke up.”
    “Why?” She sounded strained.
    “I really don’t know. Um, Serene, this is a horrible time for me to be talking about it.”
    “No, we have to talk right now. I can see you—you look really nice, by the way—but I can’t see who you’re with.”
    “Okay, not a shock. I’m with someone I went to school with. Tell Brian it’s Chuck.”
    She relayed the news, I could hear Brian making a snide comment in the background. “Look, something’s wrong with Jeff.” Serene sounded worried.
    “Yes, so everyone seems to think. I do, too.”
    “When did it start and what did he do?” Serene still sounded freaked, but I could hear the Dazzler scientific mind back there, too.
    “It started when we got back from Florida. He got more and more distant. Everything I said was a reason to break up. Every man I spoke to I was cheating on him with. He got belligerent, angry, cold. I could go on. It got worse every day, ending with this afternoon when he just didn’t care that I was leaving and seemed to want me to go.”
    Chuckie was listening to this, and his eyes were narrowed. I figured asking for privacy now was stupid.
    “Kitty, did anyone give Jeff something?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “A shot, something odd to eat, anything like that?”
    “Why do you ask?” My brain started whirring.
    “He sounds like me, only much, much faster. The drug they gave me works on the id; it focuses on your negative emotions, like jealousy and rage, and it enhances them. We studied it these last couple of weeks, and it’s self-replicating. The more you get, the more it creates inside you.”
    “That seems impossible.”
    “It’s A-C technology, okay? We’ve been working on ways to put humans and A-Cs into suspended animation.”
    “How much would you think he’d have to have taken to be this bad in two weeks?”
    “A lot. Not just one shot. It took months for me to get as . . . deranged as Jeff seems to be right now.”
    I thought about it and my mind went right back to the jet. “Hang on.” I looked at Chuckie. “I need help with a conspiracy theory.”
    “I’m your man.”
    I brought him up to speed very quickly on what had happened in Florida. “My question is, what’s the overall goal? I already know who’s behind it.”
    “Leventhal Reid.” I nodded. “Okay, so ultimate goal?” He pursed his lips. “Destroy Alpha Team. Take away Centaurion Division’s leaders, leave their Pontifex exposed and unprotected. Chaos enhances the ability to make bad decisions.”
    “How do you figure?” I decided I’d ask how he knew all this later.
    He shrugged. “Every attack was centered around Alpha Team, and around its leader in particular. Martini’s apparently out of his mind. You’re here, without him, without any of them, so without any form of backup. What are the others doing? Fighting with Martini or trying to figure out what the hell’s going on with him.”
    Serene spoke. “Brian just showed me a picture of your date.”
    “We’re not on a date.” Chuckie raised his eyebrow. “Well, not a planned date.”
    “I can see him now. He’s cute.”
    “Thanks.” This was getting surreal. “How’d Brian have a picture?”
    “He brought his yearbook.” Amazing. I didn’t know where mine was, Brian schlepped his from Florida to Arizona. “Chuck looks a lot better now.”
    “I agree.” I found myself wondering if all the drugs were really washed out of Serene’s system. “So how did the drugs get into Jeff’s system?”
    “I don’t know. Did he eat anything at the Space Center?”
    “Nothing other than what Alfred brought in—we were too busy dodging attacks. Besides, that was days prior to when Jeff started acting weird. Did Taft hit him with something, right before I killed him?”
    “No, nothing. When did he start, before you left Florida or when you got back?”
    “Once we were back. He was tired and worn out. We didn’t have time for him to go into isolation . . . ” My voice trailed off. There were standard things the A-Cs did for empaths who needed regeneration. Isolation, adrenaline, regenerative injections. Or, in the case of our flight home, an IV drip. That was sitting in an unprotected jet for two days. And it wouldn’t need a power chess piece to contaminate the drugs—a pawn would be better, more likely to be ignored or seem innocuous. “Serene, get to James, right away. Tell him whatever’s in Jeff’s system is in the medical bay of the jet we used in