Alien vs. Alien

nothing’ readings from the sensors. We think Clarence has been back for about a week. Eddy.”
    “Yes? You want me to add something onto what I’m already doing, don’t you?”
    “You’re still sharp as a knife. Yeah. I need help with the conspiracy theories, and since Chuckie’s not here, you’re my next go-to guy.”
    “I’m so honored.” His tone didn’t say “honored,” of course. But I chose to ignore that.
    “You have a good understanding of what’s going on, so suck it up. First off, we have a massive, deep underground, tunnel system and a whole lot of big, cubelike dead zones, right?”
    “Right.”
    “So, what are the bad guys using these underground tunnels and supersecret rooms or whatever they really are for?”
    “As near as we can tell, not a damn thing.”
    “So why are these tunnels and dead zones in place? The one secret lab we destroyed, okay, I get why thˀjat was there. But why this intricate tunnel system, which clearly extends beyond the D.C. area? From what I can see, it doesn’t look like a vehicle could fit in there, so really amazing drug running can’t be the answer.”
    “It’s so nice that you just assume I know what you’re talking about.”
    “You saying you don’t?”
    “No. Just commenting on your faith in me.” Stryker was quiet for a few moments. “Obviously there’s more going on. But you’re wrong about the vehicle thing. I mean, a motorcycle would have no problem in these. Something larger could make it, too.”
    “But not a tank.”
    “No.” Stryker cleared his throat. “But you could probably use these tunnels to transport illegal weapons.”
    “But why?” Christopher asked. “These had to be put in place with the help of our former Diplomatic Corps. We were fooled by them for decades. Why go to all this trouble and then not use them for anything?”
    “I have a better question—do we think the tunnels are either manmade or A-C made?”

    Yi

CHAPTER 83

    “W HAT ARE YOU QUESTIONING?” Franklin asked. “Who put this system in place, when, or why?”
    “Colonel, all of the above. My other question, though, is how in the world could anyone on Earth put in something this intricate, this far underground, that’s also cloaked from everything we can throw at it, either human or A-C? I could buy the tunnel and secret lab when that’s all it seemed to be. Now? What’s on the screen is too intricate even for the most devious and dedicated of A-Cs, let alone humans.”
    It was silent except for the beeping. Nice to know I’d stumped the room.
    Franklin cleared his throat. I sensed a trend starting. “Ah, do you have a theory?”
    “Oh, sadly, I think I do. Can we see those pictures of the space armada on one of the screens again, please and thank you?” The pictures appeared. “You know, these spaceships look like what literally every human on Earth who’s reported a UFO describes as what they’ve seen.”
    “We can’t get any reading on them from the probes,” Franklin said. “But we can see them and photograph them. So they’re not hidden.”
    “No, they’re not hidden from our eyes or our cameras, apparently. For whatever reason, they don’t cloak like that.” I considered why. “Possibly because the last times they were here in force, we were so primitive it didn’t matter if they allowed themselves to be seen. Possibly because they don’t think we can hurt them even if we see them.”
    “Then explain that secret lab you, my father, and Reynolds found and destroyed.”
    “My guess? It was a coinkydink. The bad guys get them so much mo΀re frequently than the good guys do, after all. I’d bet they wanted their secret lab and discovered the tunnel and room by happy accident. They could have been drawn there, too. There are a lot of possibilities.
    “You think these aliens have been here before, just like the Ancients, don’t you?” Christopher asked.
    “Yeah, I do.” My feminine intuition shared that it thought so, too. It also thought we were screwed. Had to stop listening to the negative intuitive parts. “If they arrived before the A-Cs were sent here, Earth wouldn’t know about them and neither would any of you.”
    “Yates was here far longer than the rest of us,” White said quietly.
    “Yeah, I know. And I’m betting he knew whoever’s coming to visit.” Chances were they’d liked him, too, because they’d have had more in common with him. “Maybe they even brought the right parasite here, to