Paranormals (Book 2): We Are Not Alone (36 page)

Callin placed his hand on her shoulder as he had Charl. “My sister, Della Lan.”

Della smiled at Steve, revealing the one “flaw” by human standards — she had the same all-molar teeth as her brethren ... but Steve was pretty damned sure that any heterosexual Earthman, himself very much included, could look past that oddity without a second thought.

“Vortex,” she stated, and the timbre of her voice was average enough to prove she might be an alien, but she wasn’t a goddess after all, “and Powerhouse?”

Steve nodded, while Lincoln choked out a simple, “Yes, ma’am.”

“I am waiting forward to meet you. I would like personally to thank you for all that you and your people to doing for us.”

Ah, translator talk
, Steve thought whimsically.
Somehow it didn’t have the same charm coming from Callin.

And while Steve was flitting around his inner monologue like an idiot, Powerhouse took the opportunity to step forward and say, “It’s our pleasure, ma’am. If there’s anything else you need, just let us know.”

Della smiled at Powerhouse now, and Steve could swear he saw the big guy shudder.

You snooze, you lose, Steve.

“Callin!” came another female voice from behind them.

Callin broke into a huge smile and said something in Taalu. Steve and Powerhouse turned around to meet the newcomer.

The Taalu woman moved down the center aisle toward them. She did not wear the tight uniform of Callin and his siblings, but rather loose robes that were no less striking in their white material. And “no less striking” was the perfect way to describe the rest of her: While she was noticeably older than Della, Steve could see the family resemblance
and
where Della had gotten her looks — if this woman didn’t turn out to be their mother, Steve would eat his mask. Her hair wasn’t quite as vibrant as Della’s, more of a bronze than gold, but it was every bit as enchanting.

Callin stepped between Steve and Powerhouse to meet the woman, and sure enough, she threw her arms around him and kissed his cheek in a very familiar display of maternal affection before speaking to him in a rush.

So they kiss like we do
 ... floated through Steve’s head before he could help it. He needed to remember that he was acting as Earth’s ambassador, and make sure not to behave like a smitten teenager. He also made a mental note to warn Shockwave to watch his mouth around the Taalu women — the last thing he needed was to have to explain to Callin why Mark had referred to his mother as a MILF.

If
all
the Taalu women are this beautiful, this could actually pose a new problem for their eventual integration into Earth’s community. A
pleasant
problem, but still something we will have to take into consideration.

Callin turned and, as Steve expected, said, “Vortex, Powerhouse, this is my mother, Jennica Lan. I’m afraid she hasn’t been outfitted with a translator; she says that she’s only just recovered from stasis enough to move around.”

Jennica eyed Steve’s cape and made to bow, but Callin explained the situation to her. Even so, she smiled and bowed halfway to both of them, saying something in Taalu as she did so.

“Mother,” Callin translated, “repeats my sister’s sentiments of appreciation.”

Steve nodded. “Please tell her—”

Being interrupted, just as he was about to voice pleasantries to the matriarch of the Taalu, by the theme song to the TV show
Law & Order
counted among Steve’s more surreal life moments. He was thrown for such a loop, he couldn’t grasp what in the world was going on until he absorbed that Powerhouse was fumbling for his phone.

“Sorry, I’m sorry, that’s Pendler’s ring tone ...” Powerhouse muttered as he withdrew his phone from his back pocket; Steve couldn’t see through Lincoln’s mask, but if he could, he was pretty sure he’d see a lot of blushing.

 “Oh, you gotta be kidding me,” Steve muttered aloud. “What’s it been, like, five minutes?” Sighing heavily, Steve said to Callin, “Sorry about this.”

Callin, one loving arm still around his mother’s shoulders, dismissed it. “This is why I left the hatch open. It may be something important.”

Steve wanted to scoff at that, but instead he bit his tongue and waited.

Powerhouse held the phone to his ear and whispered a greeting, his abashed eyes on the floor. But a short moment later, he looked up at Vortex. “Pendler is routing a call through from Lieutenant Takayasu.”

Shit.
Intending no personal offense to Pendler, Steve knew this changed things. He had hoped, desperately, that Takayasu and Shockwave were being called away to deal with some bureaucratic PCA nonsense, but Takayasu wouldn’t call them just to say he was on his way back; something serious must be going on.
Shit shit shit.

“Go ahead, Lieutenant,” Powerhouse was saying. He covered his other ear, even though no one on the bridge was speaking at that moment. “Lieutenant, please speak up. We’re inside the Arthian ship, so I’ve got a bad connection here ...”

Callin’s brother repeated, “ ‘Arth-ee-an’ ship?”

Callin said in a low voice, “It was our designation, a nickname. I’ll explain later.”

Immediately on the heels of that exchange, Powerhouse surprised Steve by handing him the phone. “The Lieutenant needs to talk to you,” he said. “The connection sucks.”

“Got it.” Then he said into the phone, “This is Vortex.”

“
Vortex, we’ve had an unexpected development here,
” came Takayasu’s scratchy, static-coated voice. Powerhouse wasn’t kidding about the poor connection; Steve pressed the phone harder against his ear, wishing he could take his mask off. “
I’m glad Lincoln said ‘Arthian’ before. Our new, very tall, old friend might be right about uninvited guests wanting to crash the party. And you never know when some pest might be tap-tap-tapping away. Do you understand what I mean?
”

 Steve swallowed hard. “I think I do.”

“
Good. Because you know that problem the Arthians were going to help us look into? You know, with our own pests that keep getting loose after we catch them in a trap?
”

That stumped Steve for a moment, until he remember that Callin had offered to help them track down the rogue or rogues responsible for busting other paranormals out of jail. “Okay, I think I’m with you so far.”

“
Believe it or not, it looks like we might both be dealing with the
same
pest.
”

Steve blinked at that. “No shit?”

“
No shit.
”

Everyone on the bridge, from Powerhouse to Callin’s mother, heard Steve’s tone of voice and grew very still. Steve looked around, then returned his attention to the phone.

“Tell me what you can.”

COOPER, TAKAYASU, SHOCKWAVE, AND VORTEX

Cooper’s nerves had been on edge for so long, he felt like he was walking some bizarre tightrope between awake and asleep — this was how he always imagined crackhead punks must feel, but at his age, he’d be lucky if he didn’t drop dead of a heart attack.

That might be better,
he thought, without really meaning it. He was just so sick of being afraid, waiting for that voice to speak up, right here in the closet with him. Those PCA guys had been gone for a while — he wasn’t sure how long, just that lunch had come and gone since they left.

Dear God
, he prayed,
please let this idea of theirs work. I can’t take much—

Cooper almost squeaked when the knocking sounded from the closet door. He fired up his shield before realizing that it was the proper code he’d worked out with Taka-whatever before they left; they’d made it different from the previous one he’d used with the warden, just in case.

“Mister Cooper,” he heard the Lieutenant said, “are you ready?”

Cooper swallowed. The truth was, he would never be ready for this ... but where would that leave him? So he dropped his shield and answered, “Yeah. I’m ready.”

A moment later, the door opened, and he forced himself to remain unshielded. He could see the Lieutenant and the Shockwave guy (both with tired, bloodshot eyes), and a few prison guards beyond them. Taka-whatever nodded to him. Chewing on his lower lip to keep it from quivering, Cooper nodded back, and left the utility closet for the first time since making it his personal cubbyhole.

Eyeing the six PCA guards, all of whom carried their stun rifles at the ready — he only recognized three of them; one bad-ass-wannabe punk was even wearing big sunglasses and an Army combat helmet, probably thinking he looked cool — Cooper asked the Lieutenant in a low voice, “How are we doing this?”

Speaking at normal volume, the Asian man said, “We’re going directly outside from here, but we’re not heading for the main gate. We’ll lead you around to the west side, where three laundry trucks will be waiting. We’ll load you into the back of the nearest truck, and once you’re inside, you turn on your shield.” Then, in the barest whisper and without moving his lips, he added, “If I tell you to ‘drop,’ you drop. Got it?”

Cooper started to answer verbally, then settled for a nod. Dear God, now that they were about to do this thing, he was so nervous he could feel his heartbeat in his eyeballs.

Then the Lieutenant ordered, “Please hold your arms out from your sides and slowly turn around.”

“Hold my— wait, what now?”

“Hold your arms out, turn in a circle.”

This made no sense to Cooper whatsoever. “Why?”

“We want to make sure your prison uniform isn’t too dirty for travel.”

Cooper was on the verge of calling bullshit — what the hell was going on here? — but something in the Lieutenant’s eyes urged him to comply without comment. Mindful of his own warnings not to underestimate his invisible slave-driver, Cooper complied.

He had made it almost all the way around — feeling equal parts freaked out, bewildered, and silly — when the guard with the sunglasses coughed, and something about it sounded fake to Cooper’s ears. He almost stopped turning, but the Lieutenant had that insistent look again, so he scowled and finished his rotation.

“Lookin’ good,” Shockwave said ...

... and at the same time, Cooper just barely heard Taka-whatever mutter the word, “Where?”

“Ear,” the guard who had coughed whispered back. “Bad ear, right on the burn.” Like the Lieutenant earlier, he barely moved his lips as the spoke.

Why in the hell were they talking about his
ear
? On instinct, Cooper started to raise his hand, to touch his mangled feature, but the Lieutenant reached out and stopped him, then morphed the move into a “reassuring pat” on the arm.

“Let’s head out,” the Lieutenant said, and used that same contact to push Cooper along his way.

What the hell is going on here?
Cooper wanted to demand.
What about my ear? What have you people gotten me into, damn it?!

They all began moving as a unit; like it or not, he had agreed to this, and now he was along for the ride.

Navigating the hallway back to the front door was easy as pie, but when they hit the real outside, Cooper felt the beginnings of a panic attack. The guards shuffled themselves so that they formed a protective ring around him, but somehow that was less reassuring as it was nerve-wracking. He wanted, really wanted, to turn on his shield, but ...

Please, God, just get me into the laundry truck without hearing that voice again.

Evening was approaching, and to reach the west side of the prison, they had to march into the setting sun. The bright light killed Cooper’s eyes, giving him an instant headache ...

“Keep moving, Mister Cooper.”

The insistence in the Asian man’s voice brought the fear thrashing out of the back of his mind, where the setting sun had shoved it for all of three seconds. Just like that, the sunlight didn’t seem so bad anymore, because as long as he was seeing that, he was still alive.

“Corner,” the Lieutenant said.

“On it.” The Shockwave guy hustled ahead of the ring of guards, reaching the corner of the building ahead of them. He stood there for a second before stepping out with his fists in front of him.

The group rounded the corner behind the paranormal agent, who moved a few paces ahead of them toward ...

Oh, sweet Jesus, there they are — there’s the laundry trucks! Thank you, God. Why can’t we walk faster?!

Cooper’s perceptions aside, they were moving at a decent pace. They closed half the distance to the trucks in no time, and two more guards appeared beside it. One kept sweeping the area while the other opened the back.

Close now, so close. Please let this—

The guard on Cooper’s left, the one with the sunglasses, suddenly stopped. He was looking behind them and up — adrenaline pounded into Cooper’s bloodstream again, but when he turned to see what the guard was gawking at, he saw nothing ... but then, he
never
saw anything when that voice was around, did he?

The guard said, “Michael, four o’clock high.”

The Lieutenant told Cooper, “
Drop.
”

Cooper didn’t have to be told twice! He hit the dirt, then elevated off the ground as he turned his shield on. Feet were scrambling all around him, but no one said a thing ... and then that one guard’s Army helmet landed in front of him.

Jesus! Did the guy just lose his
head
?!

Even though he was inside his shield, he clasped his hands behind his neck and ducked, like the old school preparation for a nuclear bomb. But his attention was drawn to a very high-pitched whine coming from right next to him, and he twisted around just enough to look up at the decidedly
not
-headless guard with the sunglasses.

Except the guard wasn’t wearing sunglasses any longer. In their place Cooper saw a sheeny black mask — the guy must’ve been wearing it like a beany under the helmet — and it took Cooper a moment to make the connection.

It’s ... it’s the superhero guy! Vortex!