Alien Tango

“Don’t tell me, let me guess. He asked you to marry him.”
    “You’re good.”
    “You’re hot.”
    “Why aren’t you straight?”
    “It would make things too easy. Look, Jeff’s a mess, but I think Serene’s got everyone on the right track. Lorraine’s freaked out, since she gave him the bad juice.”
    “She didn’t know. Tell her I can’t afford for her to lose it, she may have to come save our lives shortly.”
    “Why don’t we come to you?”
    “Because one member of Alpha out in danger’s enough.” I filled him in on Chuckie’s theory. By the time I was done, we were at the end of Terminal Three. We went outside and now had to get across traffic. Chuckie doubled us back, and we waited for the airport bus. I couldn’t speak for him, but I felt naked and exposed.
    “Stay on the phone with me,” Reader said. “That’s an order from Christopher.”
    “I’ll do my best.” I remembered that I hadn’t plugged it in to recharge since we’d gotten back from Florida— worry over what we were missing and Martini’s personality switch had been all-consuming. Oh, well, the batteries had that A-C extended life thing going for them, I probably had hours worth of phone life left.
    The bus arrived, we boarded, sat in the back. Chuckie put his arm around me, and I tried not to pull away or enjoy it. I also tried not to give in to the desire to bury my face in his chest and pretend none of this was going on. Gave up, leaned against him, and let him hug me. Felt a little better. “So, we’ll get to the Dome and get back to where, Caliente or Home Base?”
    “Caliente. I don’t think we can move Jeff.” There was something funny in Reader’s voice.
    “Is Jeff alive?”
    “Yes.” There was something about how he said that one syllable—something was wrong. More wrong than everything that was already wrong, that is.
    “What aren’t you telling me?” Reader didn’t answer. “James, kind of stressed here, being pursued in evening dress by evil, horrible, ugly men who want to kill us. No time to be holding the horror back, okay?”
    He sighed. “We don’t actually know where he is.”
    “ What ?”
    “Calm down! He’s here somewhere. We think.”
    “How could you lose him? He’s kind of big.”
    “We had him strapped into an isolation chamber. Claudia and Tim went to check on him, he was gone. Straps were broken.”
    My turn to be silent. “You haven’t gotten the drug out of him, have you?”
    “Takes a while to flush. We thought we’d gotten some of it. But if it’s affecting the brain and emotion areas Serene said, then. . . . ”
    “Then he’s totally nuts, and stronger than normal.” I felt scared and guilty. I should have realized something was wrong and taken care of him. He was sick and I’d been with him two weeks and hadn’t figured it out.
    “It’s not your fault. No one else figured it out either.” Reader’s voice sounded faint.
    We got off the bus and ran into Terminal Two. I checked my phone. “James, I’m almost out of battery.” It figured. I didn’t even bother to curse my luck, I was so used to it working like this by now.
    “Does your latest paramour have a phone?”
    “We’re at the bathroom, hopefully it won’t matter.” Hopefully it wouldn’t, because my phone died. I dumped it back in my handbag which I hooked over my neck. Why let a good habit lie fallow?
    We got into the men’s room, only one stall occupied. Of course the stall we needed. Chuckie banged on the door. “Open up!”
    “It’s taken,” a man’s grumpy voice answered. “There’s plenty free.”
    “We need this one,” Chuckie said.
    “We? What do you mean, we?”
    “Get off and get out,” I said.
    “What, you two couldn’t get a room?”
    I looked at Chuckie. “This is my life. I’m always in gross men’s bathrooms trying to get in or out of a stall.”
    “Maybe you shouldn’t have become a crack whore,” the man’s voice suggested.
    “She’s not a crack whore,” Chuckie snarled.
    “Sorry. Meth addict.”
    “I’m not on drugs, you horrible man. I’m a federal agent.” I had a badge back in my hotel suite to prove it, too.
    “Yeah, yeah, and I’m Tom Cruise, I just fly cheap because I’m thrifty.” The toilet finally flushed.
    The stall door opened to expose a heavyset middle-aged man who looked both unimpressed to see us and rather disgusted. Chuckie grabbed the man and tossed him out of the stall. He ended up behind me. Chuckie grabbed