Alien vs. Alien

believe meant he’d stopped thinking about one thing to concentrate on my question.
    “I’m not positive. But I believe he comes from the side nearest the bathroom.”
    We trooped back to the area. A pseudo wall/hallway was created by the servers, separating the bathroom area from the rest of Hacker Central. But Jeremy said the gate wasn’t in the bathroom.
    My brain chose to remind me that NASA Base had apparently had a server box that had contained a dead body instead of computer equipment. “Open the server boxes.”
    “No!” Stryker shouted. “Don’t do it!”

    Yi

CHAPTER 77

    W E ALL FROZE . “Um, why not, Eddy?”
    “You’ll damage everything, including what we’re working on.”
    We all relaxed somewhat. “Fine. Thanks for the total freak-out—we hadn’t had one of those in, what, a minute, minute and a half? Besides, one of these things is not like the others.” I listened at each one. They all hummed as though they had computer stuff going on inside them. I touched them. All felt warm or hot, depending.
    I noted something—this room wasn’t freezing cold. “Eddy, how are the big servers kept from overheating? This room doesn’t feel like a meat locker.”
    “Individual cooling units directly above and below the servers.”
    “Jeremy, you’re tall. See which server top doesn’t seem ice cold.”
    He checked the top of each server. “All seem cold, all have air conditioning ducts directly over them, and all ducts are blowing cold air.
    I sighed to myself. Someone was going to have to check out the floor level. I knew who that someone was going to end up being. Always the way.
    I got down on my hands and knees and carefully put a hand under each server. Naturally, it wasn’t until I reached the server closest to the wall that it didn’t feel cold. “I may have it. Let’s open this sucker up.”
    “Kitty, if you’re wrong, you slow us down or worse,” Stryker said. In a normal tone this time. How refreshing.
    “Eddy, if I’m right, I speed us up a lot.” I stood up. There was a panel back here. Hit it with my hand, then jumped back. Hey, the last time I’d done that, a dead body had fallen onto me.
    This time, however and thankfully, nothing fell out. The back panel did pop open, though, silently. The door had equipment attached to it, but it was obviously there to make noise and warmth, because the server was empty inside. Well, empty if you were looking with human eyes. “I’ve found the gate.”
    White calibrated while Tito and his big box of papers joined us. “What do you want me to tell everyone?” he asked as White stepped out of the server box and indicated it was ready to go.
    “The truth. Make sure they’re focused on figuring out how to control the superbeings, supersoldiers, and androids. Beyond that, I’m open to suggestions.”
    He nodded. “We’ll manage, Kitty. We had just as much bad going on when I joined up, and we handled it. We’ll do it again.”
    “God, I love your optimism.”
    Tito grinned. “One of us has to look on the bright side.”
    “Will you check on Jamie and make sure she’s okay? Not missing me or Jeff too much? Not worried? That’s she’s been fed and changed and—”
    “Kitty,” Tito interrupted me gently. “She’s fine. Your father’s there, Amy’s there, Alfred and Lucinda are there, right?” I nodded. “Plus the rest of the Embassy staff. She’s in good hands. But I promise I’ll make a hundred percent sure she’s fine.”
    “Thanks, Tito.”
    “No problem. She’s my patient, remember. That means I have to watch out for her, too.” He stepped through the gate. The slow fade was still icky to watch.
    “Christopher confirms Tito’s there,” Naomi said. “Glad our phones still work.”
    “Oh, they’ll knock them out soon enough. They know how dependent we are on telecommunications.”
    “Well, let’s hope they don’t do that before we find what you’re looking for,” Henry said.
    “Speaking of which, where do we actually start digging?” Big George asked. “A direction, any direction, would be helpful.”
    Armstrong cleared his throat. “Gaultier Enterprises would be where I’d recommend. As well as determining the whereabouts of Esteban Cantu and Colonel Hamlin.”
    “Titan Enterprises, too, along with anything related to Antony Marling.” I gave them the spelling. “And the Pentagon. Search anything related to Madeline Cartwright. Oh, and lest we forget, anything related to Ronald