Alien vs. Alien

great guy. I have no idea why I didn’t realize it before.”
    Christopher coughed. We’d moved from throat clearing to coughing as the new noises epidemic. “No idea at all, Jeff. Wouldn’t be your typical jealousy thing, would it?”
    “Or the Alpha Male fighting thing.”
    Jeff shrugged. “Things of the past.”
    Christopher and I both coughed. It was the new epidemic for sure. “I’ll start the betting pool,” Christopher said to me.
    “This is touching,” Franklin said. “But since we have an alien armada about to invade and likely conquer us, I believe we’d all appreciate knowing what you two gentlemen have been up to.”
    “What do you mean, we have an alien armada on the way?” Jeff asked, Commander voice back on full.
    “I’m pulling rank,” Franklin said. “As Commander of Andrews Air Force Base, or whatever’s left of it, I want your intel first. We’ll catch you up after that.”
    “What do you mean, whatever’s left of it?” Chuckie asked.
    “Long story. I’m with Colonel Franklin—you show us yours and then we’ll show you ours. And make it snappy. We don’t know how much time we actually have before they show up.”
    Jeff nodded and looked around. “Who are all—”
    “Later. They’ve all done the spit shake and pinky swear, or will do as soon as we have time. Your intel now. Introductions after you get some adrenaline. Now, Jeff. I mean it. We’re all seriously tired, pissed, and stressed.”
    “Fine. You told me to find Reynolds, which I did.”
    “Just as Clarence showed up out of nowhere,” Chuckie added, still holding onto Naomi.
    “Clarence tried to grab Reynolds, I was able to get him first. I saw that Clarence had . . . something of mine.” I could tell he didn’t want me sharing what I’d seen him use to get us back here with anyone else.
    “The glowing cu*be Terry gave you when you were ten.”
    Jeff gaped at me. “Why are you discussing that here when—?”
    “Seriously, Jeff, hurry the hell up and stop being coy. Figure everyone in this room knows or should know all about what’s going on. You two are way behind on the Bad Guy Scheme du Jour.”
    “Fine. I saw the cube, realized he must have been the one who took it from my parents’ home. Then Clarence took off. We were both fine, and Reynolds agreed Clarence was the highest security risk at the Festival. So we followed him.”
    “For miles,” Chuckie said. “At hyperspeed.”
    “Right. So, we caught him at some golf course. While Reynolds was on his hands and knees throwing up, Clarence and I got into a fight.”
    “He’s taken Surcenthumain. A lot of it, from what I could see.”
    “Yeah, baby, he has. I was able to get the cube away from him, but only because he knocked me down and I grabbed it as I was falling. Once I had it, I grabbed Reynolds, only Clarence attacked us again. He hits hard, and I hadn’t been winning the fight in the first place. I wanted to get the hell away and get the two of us to safety.”
    “And?”
    Jeff shrugged. “And all of a sudden, we weren’t on a golf course anymore.”

    Yi

CHAPTER 89

    “W E WERE IN A ROOM,” Chuckie said. “The movement that took us there was similar to when we were all taken to Alpha Four, only much faster.”
    “Just like Jeff used to get us back here.”
    He nodded. “So, once inside, we were safe from Clarence.”
    “And anything else,” Jeff said. “We couldn’t get out.”
    Chuckie looked around the room. “You activated the protocols?”
    “Yes, we’re all caught up, Director Fury. And everyone here knows about the tunnel system and the rooms.”
    “Great. Based on what I already knew, I realized we had to be in a dead zone, and based on where we’d been when the cube activated, I figured we were inside the dead zone still being mapped. We couldn’t receive or send any electronic signals, and Martini had no empathic abilities at all.”
    “I couldn’t read Reynolds, and he was right next to me.”
    “Wow, we’ve officially found A-C kryptonite. Wonderful.”
    “Our watches stopped working, too,” Chuckie said. “So we didn’t have a clear idea of the passage of time.”
    Naomi sniffled and looked up at him. “Great excuse. I don’t think I buy it any more than Kitty will.”
    Chuckie smiled at her, and it was a smile I remembered from long ago. I savored the warm, fuzzy moment. I wasn’t sure how many more we were going to get. “Sorry,” he said again. “But we didn’t realize anyone was