Alien Education Read online

  “Look, we point-blank know that the two of you were involved with all the Fem-Bot projects. Feel more than free to try to deny it, but we have proof.” We didn’t, but I knew Mom’s expression wouldn’t reveal that. Just hoped no one else’s did. Also really hoped the empaths were ready to work. “I’m just curious as to why you’re turning on your partners all of a sudden. Though that’s kind of your ‘thing,’ isn’t it? I mean, you both turned on ‘poor Janelle’ already. What’s to stop you from turning on your NSA partner? Let alone your other partners?”

  “We’re not,” Lee said. “We’re coming to you for protection.”

  Let that one sit on the air for a few long moments. “Come again?”

  “You’re protecting her,” Lee pointed to Lizzie. “If you’ll protect a murderous teenager, why not us? It’s clear that you’ll protect those who give you something in return. We have things to give in return for protection.”

  Had to hand it to them—this was a new one.

  “You have Janelle in protective custody,” Somerall pointed out, possibly because I hadn’t said anything. “And Amos Tobin, too. We want the same protection. Frankly, we have far more to offer you than either one of them does.”

  New and getting newer. Decided to follow the best sales advice out there and keep my trap shut. Because whenever the question was asked, the offer made, or the definitive statement given—or, in this case, the bizarre exposed to the light of day—she who spoke next lost.

  Once again, hoped the rest of the team was on the same page as I was, because I wasn’t planning to say another word.

  Not that I had to. “Whatever Janelle and Amos know, we have more,” Lee said. “Lots more.”

  They’d been given the once-over with an OVS, per Walter. So they weren’t androids, Fem-Bots or, in Somerall’s case, Man-Bots. They weren’t likely to be clones. Jeff felt they were wearing emotional overlays and those hadn’t been found during their search, but that just meant the overlays were internal somehow, either surgically inserted or merely swallowed, to come out naturally later, icky a thought as that was.

  Continued to keep quiet, in part to see what they’d say next and in other part because I literally had no idea of what to say. However, they were now staring at me. Nervously. This wasn’t a look I was familiar with from Somerall, and had to bet that it was rare for Lee, too. Clearly, I needed to make sounds.

  “Um . . . yeah?”

  “Yes,” Lee said swiftly. “And we’re taking a terrible risk being outside.”

  My brain nudged. “You were dropped off by whoever drove you here. You were outside getting searched for far longer than we’ve been out here.”

  “True,” Somerall said. “However, we have powerful enemies.”

  Chose not to comment because, as far as I was concerned, Jeff and I were their enemies, and I could certainly agree that we were quite powerful. Most of it was power we hadn’t wanted, but at least we didn’t create fake versions of people in order to create world- and galaxy-threatening problems.

  My brain nudged more. “This person who you say looks like Christopher, how long have you known him?”

  “Not long,” Lee replied. “Just a few months, really. We were introduced to him by a . . . mutual friend.”

  “Name names or, once again, we’re done here.” Pulled my phone out of my purse, though, and sent a text. I was tired of doing all the heavy lifting on this one.

  Lee and Somerall didn’t speak until I looked up from my phone. Apparently they were either waiting to see if I was going to say something else or they were being polite and waiting for my full attention. Decided I didn’t care which it was and gave them the “I’m bored, impress me” look. It wasn’t a look I used a lot, but I’d been a teenaged girl, so that look was still in my repertoire. Noted that Lizzie had the look on her face already.

  Somerall sighed. “Gideon Cleary’s former aide.”

  Gideon Cleary was the governor of Florida and had been a major political rival and enemy of ours and the late Vincent Armstrong’s back when Armstrong and Jeff were running for President and VP. He’d been tight with the Mastermind’s organization. However, events from Operations Bizarro World and Epidemic had made him see the light of the side of right, and he’d left the Mastermind’s team and joined ours.

  However, his aide was indeed someone we knew well—Stephanie Valentino.

  My requested backup arrived now. Showing that Vance’s instructions about not looking as if you were racing were listened to at all the levels, they walked over to us, though I knew they’d used hyperspeed to get here quickly.

  Somerall and Lee looked shocked. “Ah, Mister President,” Somerall managed. “So kind of you to join us.”

  “The Director of the CIA felt that we were needed here.” Jeff smiled as he came over to me and gave me a peck on the cheek. “Loved the text you sent Chuck,” he whispered. “I need Superman and Batman.”

  “Hey, it worked,” I whispered back.

  Chuckie strode over to Somerall and Lee. “I realize you’ve been searched and declared clean. However, I don’t believe that you are. So, why are you here? The real reason, not whatever line of crap you’ve been trying to hand the First Lady.”

  Lee rolled her eyes. “It’s not a line we’ve been telling her. We’ll tell you the same thing. The person in charge of the robotics project that has made copies of the First Lady and Janelle Gardiner is the exact double of the President’s cousin.”

  Had a hold of Jeff’s hand, and I squeezed it hard and did my best to send an emotional signal for him to relax. “We were just at the part where Ansom and Talia were sharing that they were introduced to Fake Christopher by Stephanie.”

  Jeff heaved a sigh. “Fabulous. So, why are you here and sharing this? We know the two of you are up to your armpits in all of that as well.”

  Somerall nodded. “Yes, we were. We aren’t anymore. Things are . . . out of hand.”

  “Out of hand how?” Chuckie asked in his dangerous James Bond About To Kill Blofeld way.

  “He’s taking it to extremes,” Lee said.

  “Extremes. You mean you were just fine with creating a freaking army of Fem-Bots who looked just like me and sending them against us during an important peace summit at Camp David, but now, for some reason, you’re getting dainty?”

  “Yes,” Lee snapped.

  “Fem-Bots?” Somerall asked. “That’s a good name for them. We just call them robots.”

  “I like to name things, sue me. You still haven’t shared what Fake Christopher is doing.”

  “I’d also like to know where you got your emotional overlays from,” Jeff said genially. “They’re pretty good.”

  Both of them blinked. “Ah,” Somerall said slowly, “we don’t have emotional overlays on.”

  Heard Mom snort softly behind me. Yeah, I didn’t buy it, either.

  “Pull the other one, it has bells on.” I could say this with confidence because Jeff was just that damned good, and if he said he’d been practicing spotting minute anomalies, then he was so spotting them coming from these two. Frankly, I’d expected better from both Somerall and Lee, and, based on Chuckie’s expression, he had, too.

  Lee shook her head. “No, Ansom’s not lying. We don’t have any kind of emotional blockers or overlays on. We’re coming to you for help—we wanted to ensure that you were all clear that we’re telling the truth.”

  “However,” Jeff said, “your emotions are off. Just a little, but I can tell.”

  The two empaths on my team both nodded. “The President is correct,” Daniel said in his cute South African accent. “There’s something wrong with their emotions.”

  “They’re more off than the Kristie-Bot was this morning,” Marcus added in his cute Spanish accent. I really enjoyed having an international team, especially at times when I could relax a tad and enjoy it. This morning
had not been one of those times but, for whatever reason, Somerall and Lee weren’t stressing me out nearly as much as being on Good Day USA! had.

  Jeff grunted. “And you wonder why I’m jealous all the time. I’ve read the Kristie-Bot,” he said in a louder voice, “and she reads more correctly than you two do.”

  Lee and Somerall looked at each other. “Do you think he did something to us?” Lee asked, sounding worried.

  Somerall shook his head. “I have no idea.”

  “Look, the Little Theater presentation is great,” Chuckie said, sounding bored. “But you’re both full of it. I recommend that we take them into custody, thereby removing everyone’s favorite targets for assassination from public view, and then get back to the serious matters of state that we’re all dealing with.”

  No sooner were the words out of his mouth than I heard Bruno’s Peregrine Shriek of Warning, followed by another sound that was never a good one. Someone was shooting. At us.

  CHAPTER 12

  HYPERSPEED AND PEOPLE trained to work with superfast beings meant that our teams leapt into action.

  I spun and tackled Mom and Lizzie, who were thankfully next to each other. Jeff tackled me, and Len and Kyle covered all of us. Meanwhile, Chuckie pulled Somerall and Lee down, and the A-C Security team got the rest of my team down and covered. My Secret Service team covered Chuckie and our “guests” while Jeff’s team encircled our group dog pile.

  I could just see around Jeff’s arm and through Len’s legs. And what I saw were the three police dogs take off like bats out of hell.

  The Secret Service started moving us all inside, shouting orders and so forth, while the K-9 officers ran after their dogs. Meaning three dudes I really liked and their respective dogs I loved were heading for the danger, instead of away from it.

  As we got manhandled, noted that Bruno was now visible and he was flying in the lead. The dogs were following him. Followed their trajectory. They were heading toward the South Lawn.

  My brain nudged, hard. Walter had the shielding up on the complex, and we weren’t past the thirty-minute mark. Meaning whoever was shooting at us was inside the shield, as in, someone Walter thought was trustworthy.

  Didn’t have to take too long with the guessing. “It’s the Fake Christopher,” I said to Jeff. “And that means Bruno and the dogs, and the humans with the guns, will hesitate.” And that probably meant they’d all die. Because the gunshots weren’t stopping. Kicked off my pumps. “Mom, don’t let anyone follow us, just in case.”

  “Oh, of course not.” Mom’s sarcasm knob went well past eleven.

  Jeff nodded, tossed everyone off of us, grabbed my hand, and we took off after the K-9 squad.

  We caught up to the officers fast. “You get them to safety,” I said to Jeff, as I dropped his hand and kept running after the dogs.

  Dogs tend to be faster than humans, so they were well ahead of their handlers. However, they weren’t A-C dogs, and I caught up to them pretty quickly as they, and I, rounded a big tree that was surrounded by a lot of dense bushes to see exactly what I’d been expecting—someone who looked just like Christopher shooting a semiautomatic rifle.

  Shorter and smaller than Jeff, though still well-muscled, with lighter brown hair and green eyes, but still incredibly handsome. Yep, looked just like Christopher. Only Christopher wasn’t given to randomly shooting at anyone, let alone the people who had been shot at.

  He saw me and stopped shooting. The dogs encircled him, growling that he smelled wrong, while Bruno hovered over his head, squawking the same. “I come in peace.”

  Stopped running. “Sure you do. That’s why you’re shooting.”

  He shrugged and tossed the rifle to me. Jeff caught it. “I hate when you do things like this,” Jeff muttered to me. “Your mother has everyone under control, baby. Why do we have this gun now?” he asked our would-be assailant.

  “I’m shooting blanks,” Fake Christopher said.

  “Huh.” Jeff pulled out the rifle’s magazine. “They’re actually blanks.”

  “That’s different. So, if you’re here ‘in peace,’ why shoot at us, blanks or no?”

  “I needed to get your attention, time was of the essence, and I wanted to talk to the two of you alone,” he said as if this was obvious. Remembered that our enemies knew our playbook—it was obvious that Jeff and I would have been the ones to come first, security details or no. “The two who came to you are lying.”

  “Are they? What do you think they’ve told us?”

  “That I’m evil and they’re afraid of me.”

  Well, that was basically accurate. “And you’re saying that you’re not evil and no one should fear you?”

  He shrugged. “I was. I figured out how to overcome the programming.”

  It was weird, having a conversation with someone who really looked and sounded exactly like Christopher. Only he didn’t, in that sense, because Christopher was a glaring champion and, by now, would have hit us with at least one of his infamous Patented Glares. The Fake Christopher wasn’t glaring. At all. He seemed close to expressionless. Time to take the Megalomaniac Girl Leap.

  “You’re a Man-Bot, aren’t you?”

  “I was, if by that you mean a robotic version of a male person.”

  “I do indeed. Why did you create Fem-Bots of me and Janelle Gardiner?”

  “I didn’t. I assisted, but the plan wasn’t mine.”

  “How many of you are there?”

  “I . . . don’t know.”

  Jeff grunted. “That’s not good. How did they get enough time with Christopher to copy him this exactly?”

  “You have to ask? When he was shooting up Surcenthumain before Jamie was born. Honestly, I’m surprised that they didn’t launch a Christopher-Bot strike well before this.”

  “They would have,” the now-confirmed Christopher-Bot said. “But other plans had higher priority.”

  “Whose plans?” I asked. “The Mastermind’s?”

  He nodded. “And others had plans, too. The group has . . . splintered recently.”

  “Due to us killing off a bunch of the leaders, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, you’re seriously not here to exact revenge?”

  He shook his head. “I told you, I overcame the programming.”

  “How?” Jeff asked flatly. “Androids doing that, I can see how they managed it. But you? You were never human to begin with.”

  “Not all androids were human to begin with,” the Christopher-Bot pointed out.

  “True enough, but the ones able to overcome their programming all were.” Considered things. “You were supposed to be put in place once they’d kidnapped Amy and created her Fem-Bot, weren’t you? Because there’s no way her husband wouldn’t notice that she was now an automaton.”

  “Yes.”

  “And then the two of you could self-destruct when you could take out the most of us and cause the most damage.”

  “Yes. The plan was that she would be at your Embassy and I’d be at the White House.”

  “Fantastic. Is that plan still active?”

  “Not anymore. I overcame my programming. I keep on saying that, but I don’t believe you understand what it means.”

  “We don’t, in that sense.”

  “It means I’m now autonomous and can make my own decisions.”

  “That’s great,” Jeff said, sarcasm knob at eleven and heading for twelve. “If only we felt we could believe you.”

  “How many more of you are there?” I asked again, before the conversation went in a way that, at this moment, didn’t matter. Hoped we’d get a better answer than we had before.

  “I’m . . . not sure. There could be many, there might only be me.” Well, it was sort of a better answer. Maybe if I asked three times all the Man-Bots would appear, just like it worked in Beetlejuice
.

  “Uh huh,” Jeff said. “There could be a million more of you, but you’re not sure? Right.”

  “We weren’t made to . . . know anything more than our programming. I know what I was programmed for. It was a solo mission. There might be more like me, but if there are, I haven’t seen them.”

  Jeff shrugged. “And we only have your word on that, for whatever that’s worth. So, again, you’re here to, what? Warn us against the humans who came to warn us against you?”

  The Christopher-Bot blinked. “They aren’t humans. Not anymore.”

  “They checked out as organic enough to pass as human,” I pointed out.

  He nodded. “Their bodies are all organic. Their brains no longer are.” He nodded behind us. “Same as their brains.”

  Turned to see Joe and Randy behind us, clearly ready to tackle the Christopher-Bot if necessary.

  “If it can be done with us,” Randy said, “then it can be done with anyone.”

  “As we saw earlier this morning,” Joe pointed out.

  Jeff groaned. “Does it get any better than this?”

  “Oh, just wait, I’m sure it will.”

  “Yes, it will,” the Christopher-Bot said. “Because they’re here to gather video of as many of you moving and talking as they can. So that the next generations of . . . Bots . . . will be able to move forward.”

  “Okay, so, let’s say we believe you. Who’s behind this if it’s not you and it’s not Ansom and Talia?” Sure, it was likely to be Stephanie and Trevor the Tinkerer. But it was extremely likely that we had other enemies out there we didn’t know about, and one of them could have been in charge. One of them worked for the NSA, or at least had worked, of that I was sure.

  “The same person who’s been behind all of this from the creation of the first Bot.”

  My phone rang before I could ask who this person was and verify that Ronald Yates hadn’t come back from the dead. Dug it out of my purse, which I’d wisely put cross-body before I’d left my office. “Walter, what’s up?”

  “Shields have to lower, Chief First Lady. We have deliveries at the gates as well as the Bahraini Diplomatic Mission.”