“Who are we missing?” Jeff asked.
Reader was quiet for a few long seconds. He cleared his throat. “Emily Balducci, Jennifer Barone, Jeremy Barone, Melanie Colangelo, Brian Dwyer, Abigail Gower, Gladys Gower, Michael Gower, Naomi Gower-Reynolds, and Walter Ward.”
CHAPTER 41
GOWER, CHUCKIE, SERENE, LORRAINE, and Claudia all looked stricken. Couldn’t blame them and could definitely relate. Joe and Randy went to their wives and hugged them. Chuckie put one arm around Serene and the other around Gower.
“Why do they want Brian?” Serene asked piteously. “He’s not really part of us.”
“He’s your husband and our friend and he does work with us. And they took him during Operation Confusion, too. So it’s the same for Brian as with the others. We all care about them.”
“I care about my dad, too,” Lorraine said, her voice breaking. “Is he okay?” Joe hugged her tighter and kissed her head.
“Both Edward Colangelo and Zachary Balducci are on premises and fine,” Reader said. Claudia sagged into Randy. “And, before anyone asks, everyone’s been checked and verified as human, A-C, or hybrid. The only android was the one impersonating Gladys.”
“Why?”
Everyone looked at me. “Why ask why?” Jerry said. “They want to hurt us.”
“No, I mean why only one android? Once they had Gladys switched they could have brought in a thousand androids. Why only the one?”
“The one was all they needed,” Chuckie said.
“Why only take those specific ten people? All of you who were here when this started are valuable as hostages, valuable to the rest of us, and loaded with at least as much information as Gladys, and more than most of the others. Turn Alpha and Airborne into androids, control all of Centaurion Division.”
“We held out against the mind control,” Hughes suggested.
“No way in the world I buy that Naomi and Abigail fell under Ronaldo’s control. Powers burned out or not, I don’t buy it. And we know Walter held out, at least long enough to warn me.”
Reader spun around so fast I thought he’d fly off the chair. “What do you mean?”
“Embassy Team activated because Walter called me, on a non-assigned phone, I might add, to warn me that everyone here was in danger. He was cut off mid-sentence, but he gave me enough for us to roll.”
My phone rang before I could say any more. Dug it out of my purse and pulled out one of my earbuds. “William, are you okay?”
“Yes, Ambassador. Embassy is still secure as are all personnel who were here when you left, children and animals included. Are you able to safely get to a video monitor of some kind?”
“Lemme check. James, can we go to the Bat Cave? William says we need to see things that Security doesn’t allow us to see.”
“You go, I’ll stay here,” Reader said.
“No,” William replied urgently. “Commander Reader needs to go, too.”
“Gotcha. All of us. Now. Fast as we can.”
“Yes, Ambassador. Please hurry. Will send feed to Imageering Central Command at Dulce.”
“Run out, form A-C and human teams as you exit,” Jeff said, Commander Voice on full. “Don’t worry about holding onto ‘your’ human, just make sure none are without an A-C. Move out.”
Kevin came over to me. He had his phone out. “I’ve brought your mother up to speed. We have other issues going on in D.C., too, but she agrees this is top priority.”
“Good. Your family is safe.”
He gave me a relieved smile. “Thanks. Wish everyone else’s was, too.”
“Go,” Jeff said strongly to both of us.
We ran through, Jeff right behind us. He grabbed both of us and kept on running. We reached the third level quickly and headed to Field and Imageering Central Command.
These were two large connected rooms within the Bat Cave. As with so many other things, it always resembled a superhero inner sanctum to me. Lots of big screens, lots of computer terminals, lots of other things I still couldn’t identify.
That was the Field side. Imageering was the same, but it was loaded with monitors as well. Normally there was an A-C in front of every one. Today, there was no one. It was unnerving, a testament to how badly we’d been hit.
The next book in the Testament of How Much Things Sucked appeared onscreen. Both Field and Imageering had multiple screens that could be all one image or a variety of images. They each had a single biggie, too. And we had an interesting scene in front of us on the main Imageering screen.
Someone was filming live. It was easy to tell due to the fact that the camera wasn’t steady, it was panning around the room, stopping for a few seconds to show us the faces of the people in that room, and it had a convenient timer noting the date and the time, which was right now.
The hostages were all tied up to the walls, similar to how the guys had been in Paris during Operation Confusion. Clearly this was a look Ronaldo enjoyed.
The people were our missing members. Brian and Michael were stripped to the waist. The women were still in the female Armani Standard issue, but their shirtsleeves were ripped off.
They were all conscious, they didn’t look mind controlled, in part because they all looked frightened but as if they were trying to hide it, even Gladys, though she also looked furious. None of them were too successful in hiding the fear, possibly because A-Cs were terrible liars and because Brian had spent a lot of time around them.
“William, we’re here. Can you patch through to the command area instead of my phone?”
“Yes, but we need to patch through the audio as well as the visual.” My phone went dead and William’s voice came on over the com. “Screens went live all at the same time, all bases worldwide. Audio going live now.”
“I hope I have your attention,” a woman’s voice purred. It wasn’t a voice I recognized and yet it was vaguely familiar. “Gave you a couple of minutes to get everyone clustered around their televisions.”
“William, do we have two-way communications, or can they hear us even if we can’t respond?” I asked.
“No. It’s a broadcast feed. Barring them having installed a return feed in the Science Center somehow, they shouldn’t hear any of us, either.”
Christopher flipped on the Imageering Commander’s screen and put his hands on it. “I can’t feel anything,” Jeff said. “The emotional blockers are still in place. Should I get outside?”
“No,” Reader said. “They’ll have blockers with them, I can guarantee it. Christopher, what do you have?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean, nothing?” Reader asked.
Serene ran over and put her hands onto the screen. “I don’t have anything either!”
“They’ve found a way to block the imageers. That’s why they wanted to get in here. They could slag the computers from Home Base, but not install whatever imageering blockers they’ve created.” Had to give it to the League of Evil Geniuses—they were scary smart.
“Makes sense,” Jeff agreed. Chuckie nodded. He was staring at the screen intently. Of course, so was everyone else.
“Fine,” Reader said, in a tone that said it wasn’t. “Christopher, can you just find them?”
The camera panned around the room again and I realized that three people I expected to be there weren’t. “Where’re Walter and the Barones?”
“What do you mean?” William asked.
“Walter isn’t here, and neither are Jennifer and Jeremy. We figured they’d been taken with the others, but I don’t see them. William, can you read your screen?” William was the most powerful imageer after Christopher and Serene.