Alien vs. Alien

timestamp—he’d arrived about when we had, which would make sense if he was called in to manage the test.
    There were plenty of other feeds, including some that showed walls, floors and ceilings exploding. Each explosion left a rather human-sized hole. I was kind of impressed. You couldn’t see that the cause of the explosions was me and Sandra slamming through.
    “It’s like watching a Bugs Bunny cartoon,” Tim said, as the feeds started over again. “Nice job, Kitty.”
    “Yeah, well, you try fighting off an android without weapons of any kind and then complain to me about some building damage. Speaking of which, what’s the status on my least favorite robot?”
    “You tossing her in with the ’gators shorted out her self-destruct mechanism,” Reader said. “So, damages aside, this could really be an actual win for our side. She’s being examined now. Lorraine and Claudia are overseeing it. They’ll let us know what they find.”
    “I want to see the results as soon as possible,” Chuckie said.
    “Oh, yes, sir,” Reader snapped. Clearly there was something about being the Head of the Field—it meant you weren’t nice at all to the guy who you reported to in the C.I.A.
    “You know what I don’t see in all the video feeds running on constant replay?” I said before any more alpha male sniping could continue. “I don’t see the people who attacked Jeff, Christopher, and Chuckie arriving. Nor do I see Sandra arriving.”
    “Maybe they were already there, lying thd Cdormant,” Serene suggested.
    “That would be a remarkably poor use of resources,” Chuckie said. “The android, fine I suppose you could leave her in some kind of stasis until activated. But the people who attacked the three of us were humans.”
    “You’re sure?” I asked.
    Christopher nodded. “They were a lot easier to beat than the androids we’ve faced. They could have been a problem if they’d surprised us, but they didn’t. Jeff and I handled them pretty easily.”
    I thought about this. “They weren’t prepared for an A-C to be there. Maybe Richard, but he was in the examination room with everyone else.” And every bad guy who knew that the former Pontifex now kicked butt was dead. “I wonder . . . Chuckie, did you mention that Jeff and Christopher would be along?”
    “No. It wasn’t relevant to the test.”
    “You think they were only after Reynolds, girlfriend?”
    “Yeah, James, I do. I think they wanted to get rid of me and Chuckie.”
    “What about the rest of us?” Amy asked. “We were all in the room, and that horrid android shot at us.”
    “No,” Buchanan said slowly. “She really only shot at me and Mister White because we were trying to help Kitty. She ignored the rest of you. I think she would have killed you if you’d gotten in the way, but you weren’t her target.”
    Jeff looked thoughtful. “The only reason we moved from the waiting area was because you were antsy,” he said to Chuckie. “If we hadn’t had the incident with the senator earlier in the day, would you have been as jumpy?”
    “Probably not,” Chuckie admitted. “And that means I’d have been right where they expected me.”
    “So Senator Armstrong, Monsieur Love, and dear Vance weren’t actually involved with or connected to the NASA attack.”

    Yi

CHAPTER 18

    E VERYONE IN THE ROOM AND ON-SCREEN looked at me. “Mind explaining that, Kitty?” Tim finally asked. “What does Senator Armstrong have to do with any of this?”
    I looked at Jeff. “Don’t they know?”
    He looked uncomfortable. “Not really.” Chuckie and Christopher looked equally embarrassed. So they’d kept this Embassy-Only. This news wasn’t going to make Alpha Team happy.
    “Jeff, what’s going on?” Reader asked. Interesting. He had a Commander Voice now. And it was on full.
    All the men in the room with me seemed remarkably embarrassed. Chuckie I could understand, in that sense. Maybe Jeff, too. But not the others.
    “Oh, for God’s sake. How old are all of you, twelve?” Amy turned to the screen. thd had the i“Someone doctored up dirty pictures of Kitty and Chuck doing the deed. That reporter who’s always hanging around warned Chuck they were out there. Senator Armstrong showed up with that weirdo, Guy Gadoire, and his husband, to share the pictures with us today. The senator said he wasn’t trying to blackmail Kitty and that the pictures had been sent to him anonymously. Not sure any of us buy that, but what