Alien vs. Alien

stages dotted all over. All of them had something going on, and every booth had lines at least four people wide and ten deep.
    The smells from the myriad food stalls dotted all over happily overpowered most of the smell of lots of people in onӀpily e place. I’d had two gate transfers recently, so the scents didn’t make me even remotely hungry, though some of them were giving it a good run in the Smells So Good You Have To Eat It category.
    It was easy to see why Naomi and Abigail hadn’t been able to spot anyone using their eyes—our group got separated merely because we headed toward what Armstrong indicated was the main stage at the same time a swell of people headed the other way, and I had a couple moments of panic before I could spot Buchanan, who was the tallest, or White, who was wearing the Parrot Identifier.
    We regrouped, and I put my purse over my head, after checking to make sure I still had Poofs on Board. I did, several unnamed ones in addition to Harlie and Poofikins. Good. Poof hitchhikers were never an issue.
    “This is insane,” Armstrong said. “I have no idea what we’re going to achieve here.”
    “Do we get you to the politician’s box or whatever it’s called?” I straddled Bruno so he wouldn’t get trampled.
    “I don’t relish the idea of letting the President know I didn’t attend his speech.” Armstrong looked toward the stage and squinted. “He’s not on now. We’ve got a native song and dance going on, and I think it’s from Venezuela, which was the third act for that stage after the President, presuming they didn’t alter the program after I left.”
    I looked around again and concentrated, focusing on the inner me and my Wolverine abilities. I had to grit my teeth, but when I hit the Laser Beams From My Eyes level, I could see a variety of people moving much faster than anyone else around them. They were all dressed in the Armani Fatigues, not that this came as a shock.
    “There are a tonnage of field teams here.”
    “Yes, there are,” White confirmed. “But they all seem quite intent.”
    And they all looked alike. Oh, sure, they varied in height, body structure, and skin tones—we had pureblooded A-Cs who could pass for every ethnic type on Earth, because Alpha Four had varying skin colors and body types just like we did. But, as I was still shocked to realize, all that beauty tended to look alike after a while, especially if there was a lot of it on display. Clearly Centaurion Division had called in field teams from every Base worldwide, because I saw A-Cs who—if they’d been standing still and in native costume other than the Armani Fatigues—anyone would have sworn were from India, China, Russia, Africa and South America.
    But none of them were standing still. They were, to an agent, looking incredibly busy, intent, and serious. They left hyperspeed to break up fights, return stolen wallets, take lost children to their parents, and generally act like the biggest bunch of Boy Scouts anyone had ever seen. Citizens safe, they went back to hyperspeed, looking for the next problem.
    It was impressive in the extreme, but I got an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. It wouldn’t take much to turn the A-Cs into the world’s police force. And while that had some good benefits associated with it, there were bigger downsides, starting with how fast the “police force” would be turned into the War Division. I gave it one big international incident. Like the one everyone was expecting to happen here.
    One agent set managed to stand out—because it consisted of a guy and a girl. TheӀapp guy was big, the girl was about my size. They were close enough, so I reached out and touched someone and managed to grab them both.
    They stopped moving and stared at me in shock. They looked about Walter’s age, early twenties. “I’m Ambassador Katt-Martini. We may have an emergency situation. Who are you and what are you doing here?”
    They looked at each other, then at me and at White. “I’m Jeremy Barone, this is my sister Jennifer. We’re policing the crowd.”
    “We actually have female field agents now that James is in charge?”
    Jennifer smiled. “I’m an imageer, Ambassador. My brother’s an empath. We work well together, and I’m not really good with math, science, or medicine, so I was approved for fieldwork.”
    Refrained from mentioning that the Dazzler version of “not good” at these pursuits was still probably Mensa material for the