Alien Diplomacy (17 page)

I heard what sounded like dog snuffles and cat hisses. Sure enough, we got through the bedroom door and were attacked by a tide of canines. “Dad, why are all the animals here?” I managed to get this out without Duchess, our pit bull, getting her tongue into my mouth, but it took some work on my part.

Dad graciously took Jamie out of my arms. Jeff was otherwise occupied. Dudley, our Great Dane, had his paws on Jeff’s shoulders and was giving him a friendly face wash while Dottie, the Dalmatian, had her paws on Jeff’s waist, the better for him to pet her while also being mauled by Dudley. Duke, our black Lab, was trying to shove Duchess out of the way so he could monopolize my attention.

“Argh! Sol, a little help?”

“Sure, Jeff. Dogs, sit.” My father’s command garnered the typical response—the dogs ignored him entirely.

I channeled Mom. “Dogs—SIT!” All four dog butts hit the ground. “That’s better. Dad, again, not that it’s not great to get a dog bath, and it’s still better than being in the Potomac, but what’s going on?”

“Jeff didn’t tell you?” Dad asked, far too innocently.

“Um, no. Jeff hasn’t told me anything. Something about not wanting to ruin a surprise.”

“Oh. Um. Well.” Dad looked guilty. “Your mother hasn’t said anything?”

“No. When I’ve talked to her, Mom’s been busy with all the excitement—”

Jeff cleared his throat in that “shut up, shut up” sort of way. “Yeah, Angela’s been tied up, Sol. So why don’t you tell Kitty the good news?”

Wonderful, Mom was hiding the fact that she was doing active fieldwork from Dad again, and that probably meant no one had told him about everything that had happened the day before. Plus, he wasn’t freaking out and demanding to ensure that Jamie was in one
piece, so the likelihood was good that Dad was being protected for his own peace of mind. Wondered how long that would last with the current situation going on and gave it no more than an hour.

“So, what’s the news that has you and all the pets here?” A horrible thought flashed through my mind. “Oh, my God, Dad, did they attack you or the house?”

“Did who attack me? The pets? No, of course not. No, they’re here so you can take them.”

“Excuse me?”

Dad coughed. “Jeff said it wouldn’t be a problem.”

“We’re pet sitting? Where are you guys going?” Where could Mom possibly be planning to go, with us at the terrorism alert level we were at?

Dad chuckled. “We’re not taking a trip, kitten. We’re just coming here.”

“Dad, yesterday was a long, stressful day, and I haven’t been up long enough nor ingested enough Coke to be able to catch the most obvious of innuendos. I’m clueless.”

He sighed. “Kitten, the Office of the President has been asking your mother for this for a long time. Before you met Jeff she was able to legitimately stay in Arizona. But now that you’re here, the President can’t see any reason for her not to be as well.”

“Mom’s here all the time.”

“Yeah,” Jeff said. “And she’s having trouble explaining how she’s showing up in less than a minute when someone needs her, when it should take her hours.”

My parents had a gate installed in their house. It made a lot of sense, but I could see how the regular use of it could cause Mom, and us, some awkward explanations. “Um, so?”

“And, what with our little Jamie-Kat here,” Dad went on, as he kissed her head, “it just seems to make a lot of sense. We’re going to be in a no-pets building, and Jeff said you had plenty of space and staff to help.”

“Dad, really, what the heck are you talking about?”

Dad smiled at me. “We stayed in Arizona because it was a safer, more normal upbringing for you. But now that you’re here, your mother is acquiescing to what the President’s people have been asking her to do for years. Your mother and I are moving to D.C.”

“O
H, DAD, REALLY? THAT’S SO GREAT!
But what about our house?”

“Oh, we’ll still keep it. It’s paid off, after all. But, we’re going to rent it out to Tim and Alicia.” Alicia was Tim’s fiancée. They were getting married soon, and Alicia wasn’t ready to stop working for the airlines. Living in a regular house made sense for them—Tim was one of the few human males working for us who’d actually chosen to marry a human girl. They were totally exotic for our generation of A-C agents.

“That makes sense. But what about your job? Won’t it be the same issue as for Mom, only reversed, if you’re going back and forth to ASU all the time?”

“I’ve taken a sabbatical for this semester, so I can get us settled and see how things go. Professors do it all the time, kitten.”

“They usually have more going on than moving cross-country.”

“I do. I’m doing a in-depth study of this region with a focus on Washington’s secret pathways and underground tunnels, separating fact from fiction.”

“Like your own version of
National Treasure
? Sounds interesting.” Somewhat, but I wasn’t going to tell my dad that I was more interested in using those tunnels to escape Washington rather than study it. “So, when are you moving out here?”

“This week. That way, we can babysit our little Jamie-Kat and see you and Jeff and Amy and Christopher all the time.”

I chose not to mention the fact that we saw them all the time already. Gates or not, I wasn’t used to being this far away from my
parents, and having them close would mean I could run and hide with them if I screwed up too badly.

Because Amy had been one of my besties since high school, and also because her parents were both dead, my parents had stepped in and were covering all the parental duties for her as well. So far, they gave Amy a lot less guilt than they did me, but since Amy’s dad had been Operation Confusion’s Big Bad, and she’d discovered then that he’d murdered her mother years before, Amy probably needed the slack they cut her.

“We’ll be glad to have you guys close. Hopefully the pets will get along with the Poofs.”

“I’m sure it won’t be any problem,” Dad said with utter confidence. I didn’t share it, but then again, the Poofs were fully able to take care of themselves, and the cats and dogs had heretofore shown good self-preservation instincts, so I hoped for the best.

“Figure the jocks can walk the dogs when you’re not out,” Jeff said.

“I think that’s kind of below their pay grade, honestly.”

He shrugged. “Don’t care. Someone’s got to do it.”

“They like you best, Jeff.”

Jeff shot a glare at me almost worthy of Christopher. “I’m sure I’ll walk them with you. However, we’ll worry about dog walking schedules later.”

“I’ve got it all written down,” Dad said, handing Jeff a stuffed folder. “Feeding schedule, exercise, play times. I’m sure you’ll do fine. Walter has all the animals’ equipment; he’ll have it brought up shortly.”

Jeff gaped. I was saved from having to make a comment by another knock on the door. I went to get it to find Tito standing there. “Hi, what’s up?”

I got the Long-Suffering Doctor look. “You, Jamie, and Jeff are scheduled for tests today.”

We were? “Tests? What tests?”

He gave the Long-Suffering Doctor sigh. “The standard tests we do monthly to ensure the three of you are…progressing properly.”

“Oh, you mean the ones where we make sure we’re still more like the X-Men than the Thing?”

“Something like that, yes. I need the three of you in the medical bay. You were supposed to be there fifteen minutes ago.”

I managed not to say that Walter hadn’t reminded me. Walter might be stuck running my calendar, but this really wasn’t his responsibility.
“Sorry, my dad arrived with the pets, and it just sort of washed it out of my mind.” Not that I wouldn’t go for the easy blame lay if I could do it, of course.

“We can’t just leave the animals here,” Jeff said, making me wonder if he’d comprehended what my dad had told him and he’d apparently agreed to.

“Oh, they’ll be fine,” Dad said cheerfully. “But if you’re worried, just call in some of those nice agents who always escort me to the Bases. They love the pets.”

I doubted that very much, seeing as the A-C agents who got stuck with dog and cat duty always seemed like they’d rather be fighting a fugly than dealing with our animals. But I knew enough to keep my yap shut.

Jeff made the call, and four agents who’d clearly drawn the short straws arrived to pet sit. Dad insisted on coming down for the icky tests, so he carried Jamie.

We joined Christopher and Serene, who also had Surcenthumain running through their veins, in Tito’s Lab of Horrors. Actually, his setup was nice. His rooms were right next to the infirmary, and he’d made it rather cozy, if you ignored the Mixed Martial Arts and UFC posters that adorned most of the walls. Tito liked to combine his favorite hobby with his life’s work, which I couldn’t argue with. I liked the posters, but they didn’t exactly say “lie back and relax” to most people.

Melanie and Emily were there, as well. “You two really get around. I thought you were still science side.” All the Dazzlers were trained in medicine; some were better at it than others, but it was considered a natural part of their education, the way learning a foreign language was for humans.

Melanie laughed. “You know these medical tests are top secret. Who is Doctor Hernandez going to ask to assist him other than us?”

Emily nodded as she took Jamie from me and gave her lots of cuddles. “Besides, our little darling here loves her Aunties Emily and Melanie.” She gave her a kiss. “Jamie wants us all ready for the next hybrid babies to come.”

Since said babies belonged to Doreen, Lorraine, and Claudia, I couldn’t argue. Just as my parents had taken Amy under their wing when she’d lost her family, Melanie and Emily and their husbands had done the same with Doreen. The A-Cs were already one huge, extended family, but several of us were getting closer and more compacted in some interesting ways.

Jamie and I went in first. Blood was taken, orifices were probed,
brains were scanned, and reflexes were checked. Because we had two Dazzlers on duty, they did the analysis and such at hyperspeed, meaning we had instant results for Tito to look at and make the Doctor Frowny Face over.

“You’re still able to switch from human to enhanced easily,” Tito commented. “That’s good in some ways, but it means one or the other isn’t reflexive, so you’ll have the natural reaction most often.”

“I think I’m having human reactions that way. Normally, I mean. At least for me.”

“Good, and makes sense.” He tickled Jamie, then did the same fun stuff with her. “She’s really learning fast. She’s well beyond what most three month olds should be able to do.”

Melanie looked at the results and nodded. “Some of this is standard for A-C babies. But I agree. Her brain functions are still much higher than normal.”

I opened my mouth, but Emily beat me to it. “Yes, Kitty, she’s fine. So are you. Though neither one of your mutations has stabilized.”

“So, what does that mean, exactly? I’m still having trouble controlling the hyperspeed. Will Jamie have that issue?”

“So far, not that we can tell,” Melanie said. “Jamie’s progressing normally in terms of physical abilities. A little faster in some areas, as we said, but still nothing out of the ordinary.”

Emily snorted. “We saw you in Paris, Kitty. You had no trouble at all controlling your speed.”

I thought about it. “I was really revved up. ACE said I was under control because I was so enraged. But I thought that was because I was a new mother.”

“You’re still a new mother,” Melanie said with a laugh. “And the maternal instinct doesn’t fade away as your child grows.”

“It tends to get stronger,” Emily added.

Tito looked thoughtful. “The drug works on the id, and our limited knowledge of it shows that it’s very rage-related. Every time you’re really angry, does your control increase?”

“It’s only happened a few times, but yeah. But I don’t want to have to be furious twenty-four-seven in order to actually hit what I’m aiming at and not hit all the walls.”

“Your control may stabilize when your mutation does,” Melanie suggested.

“If I’m still mutating, does that mean instead of crashing into walls I’ll go through them?”

Tito shrugged. “We don’t know what it means yet, Kitty.”

“I know. I’d just like to have better control over my own body.”

He looked thoughtful again. “When you were rescuing us in Paris, were you thinking about controlling your powers?”

“No. I was thinking about saving all of you and killing the bad guys.”

“When you’re having control issues, are you thinking about controlling your powers?”

“I see where you’re going with this, and yes, I am.” I heaved a sigh. “So, let me guess what you’re going to tell me. Unlike what Frankie Goes to Hollywood would suggest, I should relax and just do it, right?”

“Right. So far, it’s not hurting you, so I think you’re better off allowing your body to react instinctively. Don’t dwell on what you can or can’t do, don’t worry about your control, just let your body and your reflexes do whatever comes naturally.”

ACE had said there was a tradeoff to the power real rage gave me, and it was exhaustion. That had been proved true, though I hadn’t really talked to anyone else about it, not even Jeff. I decided not to share this tidbit with my medical staff at this precise time. “Okay, whatever you say. And maybe it’s just something that’s an issue for me.”