Alien vs. Alien

helpful, so we have a variety of equipment used to look out into space broadcasting from within the tunnels.”
    “Fine. But if no one can get into these supposed rooms,” Tito asked patiently, “how are we going to get them out? How are we even going to guess what room they’re in? Or tell if they’re really in one of these dead-zone rooms at all?”
    “Tito, you’re just batting a thousand on the tough questions, aren’t you? I don’t know. I’m hoping the Poofs can manage it. Somehow.”
    “I think if they could, they’d have done it already,” Abigail said.
    “Poofs?” Stryker asked.
    “Tell you later, Eddy.” There had to be more. Chuckie wouldn’t have arranged to have Stryker as his backup for this reason only. “Eddy, how do you contact Chuckie?”
    “He calls or comes by. Why?”
    “You don’t have some special way of tracking him?” I knew Chuckie had been tagged by the A-C Wildlife Association, just like the rest of us, not that this had helped. But maybe the hackers had something even better.
    “Not really. He’s the boss. He tracks us.”
    “How?”
    Stryker sighed and showed me his left wrist. It had a watch on it. “Nice to see the time. It’s only three in the afternoon? Wow, time drags when my guys are in danger.”
    I got the long-suffering look. “It’s also a tracker, Kitty. We all have one.” The rest of Hacker International flashed their wrists. “We can’t take them off, either.”
    White cleared his throat. “A-C technology.” The security stuff from NASA probably had a lot of A-C stuff in it too. Hoped that was a good thing.
    “Gotcha. So, what level of testing has Chuckie done on those?” I got blank looks. “I mean, how often has he tried to reach you, where does he check from?”
    “No idea,” Stryker said.
    Omega Red cocked his head. “Chuck’s been with the operative teams when they’ve investigated the tunnels we’ve explored so far, including close proximity to the dead-zone rooms.”
    “Yuri, you think Chuckie monitored you guys from there?”
    “I think it’s possible.”
    “Know where you’re going with this.” Ravi pulled off his watch and started doing some fiddling. “Going to take me a few minutes, though.”
    “I thought you couldn’t take them off.”
    “Still in contact with my skin,” Ravi answered. “As long as the contact is maintained, we don’t, ah, have to deal with consequences.”
    “Consequences?”
    Stryker gave me a long look. “You know him. What do you think the consequences are?”
    I pondered. “Heads explode sort of thing?”
    “Pretty much, yeah,” Stryker said.
    “And you agreed to that?”
    “I’m not a traitor, and if someone got to me, considering what intel I’ve got, honestly, better I explode.”
    “Eddy, I had no idea you were hero material.”
    He shrugged. “It’s a living.”
    “Where is he going with this?” Franklin asked.
    “If it can transmit one way, it can transmit the other.” I just hoped that Chuckie still had on whatever it was he wore that allowed him to track Hacker International. The memory of all my guys stripped to the waist and hanging in a Parisian dungeon flashed through my mind. I got the worried feeling again, since I didn’t think Chuckie was going to carry this tracker in his underwear.
    “What Kitty said,” Ravi muttered. “Do need to concentrate, since I don’t 뀀want my head to explode, if it’s all the same to you.”
    “Carry on.” While Ravi was occupied, I turned my attention back to Stryker. “So, Eddy, let’s take the horrible idea that Chuckie’s gone for good. What, in that case, does he expect you to do?”
    Stryker looked uncomfortable. “We don’t know he’s gone for good, Kitty.”
    “We don’t know that he’s still alive, either. Let’s say we presume Chuckie’s dead. Share what, in that case, you’re supposed to do, or watch me react as if Chuckie and my husband are truly dead and gone. Trust me, you’d rather tell us what Chuckie expects you to do.”
    Stryker didn’t seem eager to comply, if I took him not moving and looking uncomfortable to be clues.
    “Do it, whatever it is, or I’ll have you up on charges.” Franklin was really pissed.
    Stryker chose discretion over valor. “Fine.” He opened the lowest drawer on his desk and pulled out an envelope. It had “Contingency” written on it. I recognized the handwriting—I’d seen it since ninth grade.
    Stryker opened the envelope. And stared at it. “What