Alien vs. Alien

healing was great, but broken, smooshed, and scraped parts still hurt.
    The brilliance of hitting someone loaded with explosives didn’t occur to me until after I’d hit up against her, but fortunately Casey didn’t seem rigged to explode, and she either didn’t have a kill switch or she didn’t want to die, because we didn’t go boom.
    “What the hell is your damage this time?” I snarled at her as I reared up and prepared to hit her.
    “We’re trying to stop the invasion,” Casey snapped right back. “If we get rid of you, the rest of them won’t come and destroy us.”
    “You people are the biggest whack jobs going, you know that? How the hell did you get out of the hole the government tossed you into?”
    “We have powerful friends. If you kill me, more will come to take my place.”
    “Yeah . . . but
you’ll
be dead.”
    The logic of this didn’t seem lost on Casey, at least if the panic that flitted across her face was any indication.
    I was about to question her or hit her, or both, when I heard a sound I was familiar with, although I hadn’t heard one for a while now. Looked up to see several helicopters coming toward us. People with long-range guns were leaning out of the sides. They were wearing camouflage that covered their heads and faces and sunglasses that hid their eyes. They would have looked at home in a war zone. In the middle of Embassy Row, they looked surreal, or as if we were in the middle of a Michael Bay movie.
    Casey used my distraction to shove me off her and scramble to her feet. She started jumping and waving her arms. Apparently these were choppers she was expecting.
    “We’ll take it from here,” a distorted voice said from the nearest chopper via loudspeaker. “Untie and back away from the prisoners or we’ll shoot you where you stand.”
    Edged to the side of the roof and looked down. My guys were obliging, possibly because there were a lot of high-powered guns aimed at them.
    The freed Club 51 folks bolted for their cars and took off. This left Casey on the roof with no ride. Contemplated my options. Had to figure that if the people in the choppers were friendly they wouldn’t have had us let our enemies go. However, they weren’t shooting at us.
    All the choppers other than the one nearest to me and Casey flew off. The remaining one came closer and dropped a rope ladder down. Casey looked at me and smirked. “We’ll take care of you, all of you, later.” She grabbed the ladder and started climbing up.
    “Bet me.” One of the guns pointed right at me. I decided not to push my luck. “Guys, time to play catch!” I jumped over the side as the bullets hit where I’d been standing.
    Happily, Buchanan was up to Jeff’s standards when it came to catching me when I fell from a great height. I didn’t want to contemplate Jeff’s reactions as I landed in Buchanan’s arms—I was just happy to not be going splat.

    “Ooof! Missus Chief, perhaps it’s time to lay off the Cokes.”
    “You’re hilarious, Malcolm. Jeff never complains.”
    “They’re still shooting,” Christopher snapped. “We need to get inside. And the K-9 cops refused to get to safety.”
    Buchanan ran us into the doorway of the Romanian Embassy, then put me down. Christopher and White came with us. “The police officers said they were going to follow the helicopters,” White said. “None of them or their dogs were hit.”
    “They were only aiming for Kitty,” Christopher said. “Why?”
    “I’m popular?”
    “That kind of popularity we can do without,” Buchanan said. He cocked his head. “The last helicopter’s gone.”
    Christopher stepped away from the door and looked around. “Yeah, we’re all clear. So, do we go after them?”
    Buchanan shook his head. “I’ve called it in. It’ll be handled, if at all possible, but it shouldn’t be handled by any of you. So, since I’m sure to be asked, what was that all about?”
    “We think our good friends from the supposedly defunct but clearly still in action anti-alien Club Fifty-One were trying to blow up the Romanians as a statement, because the Romanians are our friends. And Casey said they wanted to get rid of us to prevent an alien invasion.”
    We all exchanged the “what the hell?” look. “Are these people unaware that you’re all here already?” Buchanan asked.
    “Talk to Chuckie about them, but most of the Club Fifty-One loons aren’t in the know. They think aliens are little green men with truth rays