Alien vs. Alien

so that I can keep this secret from him.”
    “Me too.” I heaved a sigh. “Andrews?”
    “With all haste, yes. However, I believe the streets, rather than the Metro track or the Potomac, will be our best choice.”
    “It’s like you read my mind.”
    White chuckled. “I’m good that way.”

    Yi

CHAPTER 59

    W HITE TOOK MY HAND, AND WE HEADED OFF. Hyperspeeding through the streets was always interesting. The cars and people seemed to stand as still as the buildings, even though I knew they were moving.
    Field agents had to be able to run twenty-five miles without issue. The better ones did fifty. Jeff and Christopher, of course, were at the fifty-or-more level. So was White, and he always had been, since I’d first joined up with the Gang from Alpha Four. That none of our enemies still seemed to consider him a legitimate threat meant he remained our secret weapon. God knew we needed one.
    I’d been a sprinter in high school and college, so the distance was something I’d worked up to before Jamie had been born. Okay, I’d worked up to ten miles at a time. But that’s good for a sprinter.
    After Jamie, you’d have thought reverse-inheriting A-C powers would have meant I could do the fifty miles, easy. You’d have been wrong. No, I still struggled with distance. Fortunately, I was able to lean on White’s abilities and let him do the heavy-mileage-lifting. I assisted by not running out of breath and not barfing when we stopped. I was cool that way.
    We stopped at the main gate of the air force base. I had no idea why. When I was doing fieldwork with Jeff, we never let something like human security people and cameras that weren’t good enough to catch anyone using hyperspeed stop us. But here we were, being all polite and official. I wondered about White sometimes, and now was one of those times.
    Bruno was with us. I had no idea if he’d flown, run, or done some Peregrine Time Warp thing, but he looked remarkably unruffled.
    “Ambassador Martini from American Centaurion to see the Base Commander,” White said to the guards, who were looking completely freaked out by our arrival. Happily, they didn’t seem to notice Bruno, so that was one for the win column.
    “Where did you come from?” one asked while the other managed to use the phone in their gatehouse to share our request with the Powers That Be On Base.
    “The Mall.” Hey, it was true. “Great party going on down there. You guys should really be there. Our driver dropped us off,” I added, for the sake of not being detained in the wrong way and by the wrong people.
    “Oh.” The airman didn’t look convinced, but his gatehouse buddy shared we were cleared. “Walk on up. It’s a ways. You should have had your driver take you.”
    “He was late for an important meeting. Just like we are.” I hoped the hint would work.
    The guys on gate duty had apparently recovered from our surprise arrival. They looked at each other, and the one inside used the phone again. “Transport’s being sent for you.”
    “Thanks, you guys rock.” I leaned up and whispered to White. “Why did you stop us here? Aside from it being fun to freak out the guys on guard duty?”
    “I have no actual idea where on the base our team is,” he whispered back. “We could have run through the entire place and every room, but this way seemed more expedient.”
    I couldn’t argue with the logic, so I stayed quiet. Which wasn’t so hard, since our ride arrived fairly soon. A Jeep pulled up with two airmen in it. White and I were escorted into the back seat, Bruno settled himself on my lap, and we took off at a rapid rate of speed. This was great in that we were in a hurry but bad in that the Jeep was an open-top and the resulting breeze was having a field day with my hair.
    We pulled up somewhere—I couldn’t tell where because my hair had spent this drive flinging itself everywhere, but mostly in my face. I dug my hairbrush out, brushed my hair as quickly as I could, and pulled it back into a ponytail. All the better to see that our driver and his companion had their guns pointed at us.
    “Interesting. Mister White, what have I missed?”
    “You arrived under suspicious circumstances,” the driver said before White could reply. “Among other reasons. After you.” He indicated with his gun that we should get out and head inside the building, which had “Headquarters” emblazoned on its exterior.
    I put my hands up, but the other airman shook his head.