Alien Research

CHAPTER 81

EVERYONE LOOKED AT ME EXPECTANTLY, which was nice. “We’re just going to take them.”

Got a lot of the “you so crazy” looks. “Wouldn’t that be, I don’t know, the exact opposite of being a covert team?” Naomi asked, clearly once again speaking for everyone.

Heaved a sigh and forged on. “If we cared that they knew we’d been here, then, yes, we’d need to copy these and leave no trace. But, point of fact, we don’t care. Let them know we’ve retaliated. Let them panic, and, above all, let them freaking recreate the work they don’t have on computer because they’re going Old School for this one to avoid having their data found, stolen, or corrupted.”

“If we didn’t care, why did we bother to pick all these locks?” Buchanan asked, sarcasm knob definitely heading for eleven.

“Ahhh, well, we want to lock them back up. Confuse our enemies a little longer. Sort of thing.”

“I have a different question,” Adriana said, nicely saving me from my admittedly lame answer. “How are we going to get a hundred and ten binders of this size out of this facility?” She’d counted? She was Olga’s granddaughter—of course she’d counted. “We aren’t sure that we can get back into the room we came in through, in part because people may be in it. So how do we get out, let alone with all this data?”

I was about to admit that I had absolutely no idea when I heard a soft mewing. Looked into my purse—sure enough, despite my direct order to the contrary, I had Poofs on Board. Sent a silent thank you to Algar and gave myself a “duh” just to be fair. “Poofs assemble.”

In moments there was a blanket of adorable fluffy cuteness at my feet. Resisted the urge to snuggle all of them—we had work to do. Decided saying I’d told them to stay home would be both stupid and pointless. “Poofies, can you help Kitty? We need these big binders to get safely home to the Embassy and to my dad. Can you help us do that?”

Harlie purred at me, mewled with authority to the other Poofs, and the Poofs went large, each one gulped a binder, then they went small and disappeared.

“I don’t want to leave that way,” Amy said. “If we have a choice, I mean.”

“Look, I think we’re okay now. Everyone has their own Poof, right?” Buchanan and Adriana cleared their throats. “Well, almost everyone and you two are on my mini team. So, for the rest of you, if you’re in trouble once we separate, you call your Poof and ask for help getting out of here.”

Naomi shook her head. “Kitty, they listen to you.” Chose not to mention that, no, they didn’t all the time, like tonight. “But when it’s us they listen to us like . . . like . . .”

“Like cats or dogs do,” Abigail finished. “If they feel like understanding, they do it. If not, not.”

“They listen to Richard.”

“Because he’s with you when they do so and they want to,” Naomi said patiently. “But, look, it doesn’t matter. It’s worth a shot, right? You mentioned separating. Who’s going where?”

“You, Abby, and Amy can go to the floor above, Lorraine, Claudia, and Serene go to the one two levels up.”

“What if we need locks picked?” Lorraine asked. “No one showed us how to do it.”

Buchanan gave us all the brave smile of a Scout Master being forced to teach his troop something they weren’t ready for just so they could get one more stupid badge. But he did it. First, he showed everyone how to relock something with the lock picks. Then, after Naomi, Abigail, and Adriana went off to lock up and Amy and I, Klutzy and Klutzier, were put back onto guard duty, he showed the others how to pick locks and lock them right back up again.

This task completed and everyone other than me and Amy sporting their Lock Picking Badge, we followed Adriana through the maze to a long corridor that ended at a steel door.

“Do we need to pick this lock?” I asked.

Buchanan gave me a look that said he feared that I’d taken a blow to the head that he’d missed somehow. He pointed to the flashing box on the wall near the door. “It needs a keycard.”

“Do we have such a beast?”

“I do.” He pulled a keycard out of his backpack. “Here’s the thing—once I put this in it will short out this keycard lock and any others attached to it electronically. Once I pull it out, they’ll all go back to normal.”

“Wow, the government has some cool toys.”

“It’s Israeli,” Buchanan said. “And it’s still experimental.”

“Sorry, Mossad has some cool toys.” Didn’t have to ask how he’d gotten it. Mom was former Mossad and still top of their Most Successful Graduate list. It didn’t surprise me to discover they sent their prototypes to her for her to test out and give the thumbs up or thumbs down sign. For all I knew, Mom sent them requests for toys she’d like them to create.

“I’m stuck on the word ‘experimental,’” Amy said. “Does that mean you don’t know if it works or not?”

“Oh, it works, I’ve tested it already. The issue isn’t whether or not it works. The issues are these. First, we don’t know how many locks this will or won’t affect—if they’re all on the same grid, then it’ll probably hit all of them. If they’re not, we’re limited to this one card. Second, if it works on more than one lock, then anyone trying to use a keycard-protected door will know that something’s wrong, because their keycards won’t work but the doors will open anyway.”

“Where’s the experiment in all that?” Naomi asked.

Buchanan shrugged. “We also don’t know how long it will work.”

“Wow, that adds a special level of excitement to all of this, doesn’t it?”

“It lasted an hour when I tested it. I wasn’t able to test any longer.”

Chose not to ask why, because Buchanan’s reason undoubtedly related to national, international, or galactic security. Maybe all three.

“Fine,” Amy said. “So what do you propose we do? I thought we were going to split up. We can’t do that safely if you only have one card.”

“Sure we can.” Got everyone’s attention again, go me. “First off, this card works just like a regular badge scanner. If we just put it in and take it out, we can go in and out and no one’s the wiser. These things blip all the time. Malcolm goes up with everyone while Adriana and I examine the rest of this floor, at least what we can find of it. He lets everyone in, comes back to us, and we move on with this floor. You guys send him a text when you’re done, he goes to get you, and we regroup.”

“What if we can’t get through via text?” Claudia asked.

“Is it a perfect plan? No. And that’s what I like about it. Lots of room for initiative and on-the-fly alterations.”

“Lots of room to fail,” Lorraine said. She shrugged. “On the other hand, it’s as well-thought-out as any plan you’ve ever had, and considering your success rate is still the envy of the rest of Centaurion Division, I say we go for it.”

I was the envy of Centaurion Division? Decided now wasn’t the time to get the details, but it was still a nice ego boost. Chose not to ask if I was the envy because my plans were bad but we survived anyway. Figured I didn’t need any confidence de-boosting.

“Good.” Buchanan looked quietly pleased, and it dawned on me that he’d been testing us. Again. No wonder Mom and Olga both loved him.

He inserted the card, we opened the door, he pulled out the card, we all went through the door. Just like any other door in one of the Fortune 500 companies.

The door let us out into an elevator lobby. That’s all that was here, a bank of elevators, floor, and walls. The walls, even the ceiling, were all murals that looked hand painted, the floor was Italian marble or I wasn’t the Chief of Mission, and the chrome detailing on the elevators gleamed. Whoever had designed this section really wanted to show they had Taste and Refinement.

“This looks just like LaRue,” Amy said dismissively. “So now we know who had at least a hand in whatever’s going on down here.”

“I’d figure she and your father started whatever, and the current crop are just keeping it going, Ames. But it proves we have secret rooms to find.”

“Why so?” Naomi asked.

“Because this is a showcase entrance, but where we just came from is not overwhelmingly impressive. It didn’t suck, but it also didn’t say ‘Top Dawgs Hang Here.’ So there’s something else down here that the Gaultier bigwigs take their special tour groups to see, and it’s not what we’ve seen so far.”

It was a good thing we’d chosen the Take the Special Keycard With Us route, because the elevators, of course, needed a keycard to run. However, Buchanan didn’t want us using them anyway. “Nothing says ‘someone unauthorized is in the building’ like an elevator running when it’s not supposed to.” He looked around. “What facility doesn’t mark its stairwells?”

“You mean other than every A-C base worldwide? Those who either don’t have one or want to keep it hidden.”

Adriana checked the wall opposite the door we’d used. “There’s something here . . .” She pushed against it. Nothing. She shoved against the other side of what she felt was the door. Nothing.

Had an odd thought and went with it. Went to the wall where Adriana had pushed the first time. Pushed hard but quickly, more like a fast slam. The wall opened a little. “Or, someone who really wanted to show off how clever they were.”

“How did you know?” she asked me as we opened what was absolutely a door.

“It works just like those cabinets that close magnetically. I don’t think they’re trying to hide this area so much as be arty.”

“Yeah, again, that’s a LaRue move,” Amy agreed. She snorted. “Especially when we see what’s in here.”

What was in here were seven unisex bathrooms along the left-hand side and the stairwell at the far right corner. This room was done up just like the lobby, but the bathroom doors were more clearly marked. However, they opened in the same way as the door to the elevator lobby did—by pressing hard and fast.

Looked at Buchanan. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”