Alien vs. Alien

limits.”
    “Note the red circle. Yeah, no kidding. The Dome is an incredible power source, but it’s so well hidden, and so well protected, that it’s always been left alone, by our enemies on Earth and from much farther away. What I want to know is this—is there a dead zone under the Dome, or secret tunnels leading to it?”
    “We haven’t had time to really map the Southwest,” Big George admitted. “There’s been so much to do locally, and much of that state is off limits anyway.”
    “Then let’s bet on the side of yes.” ACE had been far too specific about the Dome, far too willing to let me shove as many people in there as possible. The Dome was key to whatever was going on; that’s why it was ACE’s entire protection focus.
    “Why?” Christopher asked. He looked and sounded normal. Good. “The Dome goes down several levels. If our builders had discovered an almost impregnable secret room, I think they would have told us.”
    “Not if they were Yates loyalists, and, trust me, you have a lot more of them than you realize. There were even more when you were first exiled here. It would explain a lot, including how the Dome is the most hidden of all your Bases, why it’s never been attacked, and why it has so much power.”
    “It’s the half-life from the Ancients’ ship.”
    I had to remind myself that A-Cs were really raised not to question their elders. If the older folks said something, it was taken at face value unless and until pointedly proven to be incorrect.
    “We’ve been told it’s the half-life from the Ancients’ power supply. And I’m sure that’s true, in its way.” I was sure because 99.9% of A-Cs couldn’t lie believably to anyone,ۀ and the best lies were based in truth. They got around the deficiency by leaving things out, versus making things up. “What they left out, I’m almost a hundred percent certain, was that they found some other power source when they were building the Dome.”
    “If so, I was never informed,” White said.
    “I’m sure you weren’t, because I’m sure whoever found whatever’s under the Dome was a Yates loyalist.”
    “Let’s say that’s true. Why would the Ancients’ ship crash right over a dead zone?” Christopher countered.
    “Oh, sadly for all of us, I have an easy answer for that. Because it was brought down by something and landed pretty much on top of its killer, so to speak.”

    Yi

CHAPTER 85

    “A LRIGHT,” BUCHANAN SAID SLOWLY. “Let’s say you’re right.”
    Christopher sighed. “She’s usually right.”
    I went to him and put my hand on his forehead. “You okay?” Christopher rolled his eyes while Buchanan chuckled.
    “Your file indicates a high degree of accuracy,” Big George said.
    “I’ll bet it doesn’t say it that nicely. But, Malcolm, where were you going with this?”
    “What do we do about it? Race to the Dome? Get everyone out of the Dome? Shove them into these tunnels? Try to breach one of the dead zones? Evacuate half the world? And I think some focus has to be given to what Valentino wants in the Embassy.”
    “Those are all good questions. I think we leave everyone in the Dome for right now. As for Clarence . . . no guess for why he’s trying to get into the Embassy. I’ll toss ‘he’s trying to find something he or the others hid in the Embassy’ into the collective hat. It’s someone else’s turn now.”
    Ravi cleared his throat, confirming the trend was now an epidemic. I realized he’d been quiet for quite a while. Checked. Nope, he and Jennifer weren’t making out.
    “Yes, Ravi? What have you been up to while the rest of us have been fretting?”
    “Well, it occurred to me that we have these dead spots all over the globe. Chuck’s had us focus mainly on the D.C. ones and some of the Eastern Seaboard, but he’s also had us take a cursory glance at France and Paraguay.”
    “Do tell.”
    “There’s a full tunnel network in the Paris area. A less sophisticated system is in Paraguay, in the Chaco region. We’ve been paying attention to these anyway, but our monitoring went hot earlier, remember?”
    “Yeah, it was like fifteen minutes ago. I’m not that forgetful.”
    “Closer to twenty minutes, maybe a half hour,” Stryker mutteredހz.
    Ravi chose to ignore my sarcasm while I ignored Stryker. I chalked both up to personal growth. “So, based on the information I have on the androids, they don’t need a special sized room. They could be stored anywhere,