Alien vs. Alien

and anal probes, sort of thing. Most of the grunts have no clear idea what A-Cs can do, at least they didn’t when we tangled with them before. So, did anyone tell Officer Moe that we want to chat with them about our other little problem?”
    White sighed. “I did mention that we’d been hoping to meet up with the officers, but Officer Melville feels that they need to track down these Club Fifty-One terrorists much more than deal with faked dirty pictures.”
    “Can no longer argue with Officer Moe’s logic.”
    Buchanan nodded. “Get back to whatever it was you were doing with Senator Armstrong. I’ll stay on guard.”
    I thought about this. “If Len hadn’t looked out the window, would we have even known this was going on?”
    Buchanan grinned as he turned and walked away. “Guess that’s one you’ll never know, Missus Chief.”
    “Well, that was fun,” Christopher snapped. “Can we assume Club Fifty-One’s behind everything?”
    “Hardly, though it’s so ‘nice’ to know they’re back in action, and with a lot better support than they had a couple years ago. No, we need to get back to the others and to what I wanted to do before we were so rudely interrupted.”
    “And that is?” Christopher’s snark was at eleven and threatening to go for twelve, just to see if he could manaۀhe couldge it.
    “Establishing what’s gone and going on. We have nothing else to work with, unless and until the K-9 cops track down Casey or her cronies, and let’s admit it—that’s a real long shot based on the firepower that came to back them.”
    “What was their purpose?” White asked. “They seemed to achieve nothing.”
    “Ah, but, Mister White, you fail to realize—that’s the Club Fifty-One way.”
    “They flushed us out,” Christopher said. “Just like Senator Armstrong said.”
    “And Malcolm, too. And the K-9 cops. I didn’t realize Malcolm had them on speed dial.”
    “Mister Buchanan does seem to work in mysterious ways,” White said. “Sadly, though, I’m inclined to wonder if this was a stalling or distraction tactic only.
    “No. I think it was doing double duty.” Something about that nudged at me. “We need to get back to the others. Whether or not Club Fifty-One was trying to blow the block sky high or just waste our time, we have a lot of questions that remain unanswered.”
    “I’m still questioning why we have those stupid birds,” Christopher said. “They didn’t do a damn thing during this incident.”
    “Missus Martini told them to sit and stay and guard,” White said. “They obeyed, as far as we can tell.”
    “Have you told the others about the birds yet?” Christopher asked as he opened the door.
    “Oh, no. They’re still a super special secret just for the few of us.”
    He sighed. “I feel so lucky.”

    Yi

CHAPTER 37

    W E HEADED BACK UPSTAIRS to find everyone calm and safe. Jamie was happy to see us and demanded kisses from all three of us to make up for our long absence. Then she demanded to go back to Olga while Christopher compared notes with the others about what they’d seen differently from us—nothing—and where we thought this put us—nowhere.
    Christopher grilled Armstrong, but he seemed to know no more about Club 51 than the rest of us. He might have been lying, but we had more immediate questions and concerns, so I chose to believe him for the moment.
    Jamie happily back in Olga’s lap, I decided to get us back onto some kind of track. “So, Senator, enough about our good friends from Club Fifty-One. I’d like your thoughts about why someone would have given me a bizarre test in place of the real HSAC.”
    “How bizarre? You didn’t give me many details before.”
    “It was a psychological profile.”
    “They all are.”
    “They aren’t all like this. Every answer was set up tހo ensure I’d sound like a psycho, no matter how I answered. It was easily triple the length of everyone else’s tests. And the questions at the end related to Chuckie and Cantu. Nothing relating to Club Fifty-One, by the way, for those keeping score.”
    Armstrong’s eyes narrowed. “That makes absolutely no sense. Why didn’t you question it?”
    “Because she’s Kitty,” Christopher replied.
    “Ah.” Armstrong seemed to be considering. “Triple the length . . . you weren’t done when the attack started?”
    “I wasn’t even close to done when the attack started.” I thought about it. “I’d skipped ahead, though, and read the last