Alien Tango

than me at any time, even when he was injured. He flipped us, so he was on top of me. This wasn’t good, because he was still thrashing, the floor was hard and very wet, and until the adrenaline wore off a little, he was close to out of his mind from pain and the rush, and he could kill me without realizing it.
    Someone pulled Martini off me. Two someones, Jerry and the man I had to figure was Martini, Sr. He looked awful, but not as bad as he had. They managed to get Martini onto his back. I was able to get to my knees and move to his head. “Shhh, Jeff, shhh.” I stroked his head and face. “Baby, it’s okay, please let it pass.” He was still thrashing, but it was slowing. “Jeff, you’re okay. Come on back, baby, please.”
    He blinked, and his eyes started to look less wild. His breathing was labored, not a good sign. I was about to start screaming for medical when Lorraine and Joe ran up. She moved Jerry aside and started doing things to Martini, faster than I could see. Joe held his legs, and Jerry moved around to help Martini, Sr., stand.
    “Keep him here,” Lorraine snapped. “I’ll take care of him in a minute.” She looked at me. “How’s his back?”
    “Bloody.” I didn’t want to add “horribly mutilated” to that statement, because I was hoping I hadn’t seen it correctly in the heat of the moment.
    She nodded. “We need to turn him, just on his side.” I put Martini’s head onto my thighs, and then we moved him. He gave a shout of pain. It sucked, but it brought him fully back.
    Lorraine sprayed something on him, and Martini made a hissing sound. I stroked his head while she pulled what looked like a huge amount of shrapnel out of his body. “Jeff, hang on.”
    He reached up and grabbed my hand. “You were supposed to run away.” I could tell his teeth were clenched. Lorraine was busy doing things but at the A-C hyperspeed level, so I couldn’t really tell what. Not that I wanted to know. I just wanted it to work.
    “And miss the opportunity to ruin another suit? C’mon.” I stroked his hair. “Our team’s still alive.” I hoped.
    Lorraine nodded. “Paul’s okay, Claudia was doing a good job with Christopher. You already got James and Tim going. Jeff’s the worst, by far.”
    “Kevin’s okay, too. Human, works for my mother, he joined us in Pueblo Caliente,” I explained for Lorraine’s benefit.
    “Our Fed’s okay? He need mouth-to-mouth?” Martini’s teeth were still clenched, but the sarcasm came through anyway.
    “You always come out of this like a jerk, so I’m not going to grace that with a reply.” I bent down and kissed his head. “No,” I whispered. He squeezed my hand.
    Lorraine worked on Martini for what seemed like forever but was probably only fifteen minutes. I couldn’t tell, I was too busy trying not to think about what his back could end up looking like. A-Cs healed much faster than humans, and I just prayed this applied to regenerating chunks of flesh.
    “Okay,” Lorraine said as she sprayed something else onto his back—I had no idea what it was, but it wasn’t the same can she’d used at first. “Get Jeff out of these clothes. Leave his pants on, he was only hurt from the waist up, which is truly lucky. Alfred, you lie down.”
    She and Joe focused on Martini, Sr., while Jerry and I got Martini into a sitting position. I considered how to best get him undressed, then figured the clothes were ruined anyway. I ripped what was left of the back off and then took the fabric off each arm. His skin was burned and bloody, but I could see it repairing itself. There were large patches of something sewn onto his back—they dissolved as the flesh repaired. I had to look away, so I checked his chest. Seemed fine. And arousing. Good, I was heading back to normal.
    Martini kissed me. “Thanks for saving us, baby.”
    I stroked his face. “Any time.”
    I thought I was going to start to lose it when some men came over. They all looked official and human. “What the hell happened?” one of them, a bulldog of a man, barked at us. “What did you people do?” You people. He was actually trying to blame the A-Cs for this attack.
    I snapped. I was already in a crouch and I leaped and tackled him to the ground. “You son of a bitch, what do you think happened?” I sat on his torso and started hitting him. “You have no freaking security in this damned building, and you have the nerve to act like this is their fault?”
    I was landing some