Alien vs. Alien

join with him.” They were driving enough parasites in front of them, effectively, that this seemed extremely likely. Figured. A guy like Yates wouldn’t connect with the Mephistopheles parasite by accident. Not in the world I got to live in.
    Stryker cleared his throat. Apparently the trend was really catching on. “Ah, Kitty? Didn’t you say you killed Yates?”
    “Yep. So, I’ll offer three guesses for who this group is going to be the most pissed off at, and the first two don’t count.”
    “But all of the secret rooms are under or near important places in the U.S.,” Buchanan pointed out. “How is that possible?”
    “Maybe they give off some kind of power. Maybe they’ve got some kind of attractor in them. Heck, maybe they emit some form of mind control. I doubt that the locations are random, either way. But based on what these ships look like, I’d say they’ve been dropping by frequently. Give the right person the suggestion for where to put the Pentagon, and presto, the Pentagon is on top of your dead zone. Oh, let’s call them what they are—hidden strongholds with God knows what inside.”
    “There are green circles around other places of importance outside of the United States, too,” Mona said.
    “Many,” Khalid chimed in. “I count at least fifty in our part of the world alone.”
    “Including in Israel,” Jakob added.
    “At least as many in Europe, even more in Asia,” Oren shared.
    “What does it all mean?” Jeremy asked.
    “We don’t know. Yet.” We needed to figure it out, before the invaders arrived to explain it to us.
    “So all the people who say they’ve been abducted by aliens are telling the truth?” Franklin asked.
    I looked at Stryker. He contrived to look innocent. “Oh, I’d say many, but certainly not all.” Stryker opened his mouth. “Eddy, think carefully before you let your ego do the talking.” He slammed his mouth shut. “Knew you were more intelligent than you seem.”
    “Does this mean the invasion has been in place for some time?” Armstrong asked. “As opposed to being something your enemies started on their own?”
    “Captains in place!” Bellie squawked. “Paraguay and Paris! Paraguay and Paris!”
    Oliver and the Middle Eastern Contingent were all trying to shush the bird. “I’m sorry,” Mona said. “She was doing so well.
    “The bird knows something,” Omega Red said.
    “Yes, Yuri, we know. Problem is, she only knows some things, not everything. And I don’t think we’ve asked her the right questions.”
    “Gil felt the bird had identified Esteban Cantu as one of those captains,” Franklin said.
    “Gil?” Christopher asked.
    “Captain Morgan. I thought you met him.”
    “I did. We weren’t on a first name basis before I was tossed out of the Dome. So, Cantu being involved isn’t a surprise. Bellie said he was a good man.”
    “Or she was identifying Goodman as another captain,” Buchanan added.
    “Or Hammy, who everyone says is a good man.”
    “Hammy?” Christopher asked.
    “Colonel Hamlin, as in Colonel Franklin’s mysteriously vanished predecessor. That’s his nickname. At any rate, Bellie knows something. Good luck to anyone figuring out what it is.”
    “We’ll work on it,” Oliver said.
    “You don’t want in on the alien invasion theories, MJO?”
    “When your thinking diverges from mine, I’ll chime in.”
    “Nice to get the
World Weekly News
stamp of approval.” I was about to toss off another witticism, when something caught my eye. It was a little something, and if I wasn’t enhanced, I’d never have seen it at all. “Wait a minute.” I stared at the space ships. “Is there any way to make the picture bigger? Just zoom in on one of the ships, doesn’t matter which one.”
    The image got larger. “Say when,” Henry said.
    It took several magnifications. “When. Okay, everyone, look at the top of the space ship. It’s a rounded dome, right?” The room chorused agreement. “Okay, inside that dome, does it look like there’s a more sparkly cube?”
    “Can’t tell,” Big George said. “The pictures too degraded.”
    Christopher went to the screen and touched it. He held his hand there a good minute. He turned back, and his face was pale. “I recognize something in that area of the ship. It’s faint, but familiar enough.”
    “You used one when you were little, right?”
    He stared at me. “My mother told you?” he asked finally. I felt White stiffen, just a bit.
    “In a