AI - Alpha Part 12

That was an understatement beyond all others. He couldn't walk out of the house and get in a car with

Jamie as a hostage. He would give his life first. But if he refused, Alpha might shoot Jamie.

"Grampy?" Jamie was awake now and watching Alpha. "Why does the lady have a gun?"

"Shhhh." Sweat trickled down his temple. "We'll talk later."

Alpha jerked her rifle at the door. "Go."

Had it been only him, Thomas would have challenged her. But he couldn't risk it with Jamie. He left the

room, aware of Alpha at his back, and went down the stairs. Her footsteps were almost silent behind him. Almost. He could see her in the mirror at the bottom of the stairs, her face devoid of expression. A machine. Jamie clung to him.

Outside, a cool wind blew across them. Thomas nestled Jamie deeper in his arms. He was wearing his jeans and sweater, but he had no jacket he could pull around to keep her warm.

"Where are we going?" she asked in a small voice.

"Just for a ride." He kept his answer calm, but his mind was working furiously. If Alpha took them away, a good chance existed they would never make it back alive. Jamie was especially vulnerable. She had no use to Alpha beyond forcing Thomas's cooperation while Alpha transported him to someplace better secured. He could face any torture or hards.h.i.+p for himself, but he would die before he let them touch his granddaughter.

"In the carport," Alpha said behind him, to his left. He s.h.i.+fted Jamie to his right arm.

A beige car waited in the hover port, dimly visible in the light from a window of his house. The vehicle resembled the cars used by the NIA to transport prisoners, the type of vehicle that blended with traffic.

No one would notice it.

"Put her in the back," Alpha said.

Thomas glanced around the yard, desperate for anything that could help. His own vehicle sat at the front

curb. "She needs her car seat. I can get it from my car."

"I don't think so." Alpha spoke tightly, though why she would simulate tension, he had no idea. "Put her in the back of my car, General. If you make trouble, I'll shoot.""I'm no use to you if I'm dead."Alpha shrugged. "I'm just carrying out orders. I didn't write the program. I just execute it."Thomas wished she had used a different word than execute. Holding Jamie close, he went to the carport."Grampy?" Her voice was shaking. "I'm cold.""Don't worry," he murmured. "I'll take care of everything." He reached Alpha's car and held Jamie in one arm while he opened the back door. He was aware of Alpha behind him, though he wasn't sure where. She was unnaturally quiet, more than a human could manage. His muscles clenched as he put Jamie on the backseat. She stared up with huge, frightened eyes, and he knew, absolutely knew, he couldn't go through with this.

Stay, he mouthed to her. Don't talk. Don't move.She stayed completely still, not even nodding her head. He hoped she understood.Thomas turned slowly to Alpha. He took in everything he could, how she held her gun in her right hand, the tautness of her posture, the way she kept too far back for him to reach her with a lunge.

"Get in the driver's seat," she said. "Keys are on the dash."

"All right." He gauged the distance between them. Two steps. And she had enhanced reflexes. No way

could he reach her before she shot him. But if she took them in that car, Jamie could die, not because Alpha wished to kill her but because Jamie could become a liability. At a gut level, Thomas didn't believe Alpha could shoot Jamie without cause. The same relentless logic that drove her to carry out Charon's orders would keep her from killing without reason. If he attacked Alpha, she would shoot him to avoid becoming a prisoner again, but then she would have no reason to take Jamie. If he wasn't deluding himself about Alpha's intent, she would leave the girl and escape. If.

"Move," Alpha told him.

So he moved-at her.

As Thomas lunged, he shouted to wake up his neighbors. In the instant before he barreled into Alpha, he

felt as if he were floating. It would take only one serrated bullet from her gun to liquefy his internal

organs and tear apart his back.

Then he slammed into Alpha and they crashed to the ground. He struggled for the gun, but he was woefully outcla.s.sed by her strength and speed. He heard a sharp crack, but he felt nothing-yet.

Alpha wrenched away from him and rolled to her feet. She hit him across the shoulders with the stock of her gun, and he sprawled on the ground. In the few seconds it took him to recover, she disappeared.

When he scrambled to his feet, his right leg collapsed and he lurched toward the car. It was only then that he realized his next-door neighbors had come out on their porch.

"Grampy!" Jamie stared round-eyed from the car, seated in exactly the same place, her face terrified. He staggered to the vehicle, putting all his weight on his left leg, and grabbed her in his arms. He held her tight as he slid down against the car and sat heavily on the ground. His vision blurred. Voices were

yelling, but none of them sounded like Alpha."Wharington!" Someone crouched next to him, his neighbor, a heavy fellow named Travis."Your leg!" Travis said. "How could it bend that way?"Thomas didn't want to look at his leg, which was beginning to hurt. "The woman-did you see her?""Woman?" Travis asked. "Someone ran between your house and mine. Too tall for a woman."A female voice spoke behind him, but it was Travis's wife. "I meshed 911. They'll be here right away.""Grampy, don't die," Jamie pleaded."I won't," he whispered. And neither will you. Everything was dimming around him. He sagged against the car, refusing to unfold his protective curl around Jamie.

Somewhere a siren wailed. The light from Travis's porch showed several bystanders on the sidewalk.

Travis's wife was talking into the comm on her silver mesh glove. "He's hurt! Maybe shot. I don't know about the child. Hurry, please!"

"Wharington?" Travis asked. "Can you hear me?"

"Yes." Thomas barely croaked the word.

Jamie struggled in his hold. At first Thomas thought she was trying to get free, but then he realized she

was shrinking away from Travis.

"These are neighbors," he rasped. "They won't hurt you."

"Grampy." She was crying now. "They said the lady shot you."

"She didn't."

"She?" Travis asked. "It looked like a man."

"Bad lady," Jamie said. "Mean lady." She clutched her kitten.

The siren swelled until it drowned out their voices. An ambulance cut around the corner and swerved to

the curb while the onlookers scattered out of the way.

Thomas looked up at his neighbor. "Don't let them . . . separate Jamie from me. She'll be scared."

"I won't," Travis promised.

Medics jumped out of the ambulance and grabbed a stretcher from the back. As they ran to the carport,

Thomas slipped into oblivion.

The room was dimly lit. Thomas gradually became aware that he lay under a sheet and blankets. It took him a while to get his bearings as he awoke, but then he remembered: Alpha, Jamie, Travis. He was in a hospital room, one with blue walls rather than inst.i.tutional white. A carpet softened the floor and pastoral landscapes hung on the walls. Apparently that exorbitantly priced insurance his children had insisted on buying to augment his regular plan had useful benefits after all.

The lamp on his nightstand shed enough light to reveal Jamie sleeping on a nearby cot, her arms around a new stuffed animal. Visceral relief spread through him. She was all right. Moisture filled his eyes, but fortunately no one was here to see the iron general cry. He wiped it away before it could leak down his face.

He had been right about Alpha, that she wouldn't hurt the child without reason. Incredibly, it appeared Alpha wouldn't hurt him, either, even with reason. Perhaps she wasn't as calloused as she would have everyone believe. He couldn't be sure, though. She could have had any number of reasons for sparing his life.

Urgency replaced his relief: he had to contact the Pentagon and brief General Chang. He pulled down the covers and a.s.sessed his situation. Instead of a hospital gown, he had on white pajamas. The extra insurance was worth it for that alone, if he didn't have to wear one of those blasted open-back smock things. An accelerator-cast covered his right leg from foot to mid-thigh. The injury wasn't as serious as

he had feared, if they were already accelerating the bone growth. Then again, he didn't know what "already" meant. He could have been here for days.

As Thomas sat up, his head swam, and he had to sit still for a while, until his dizziness subsided. Then

he eased off the bed and stood up, favoring his broken leg. He laboriously made his way to the bureau against the wall. His clothes were folded in one drawer, and he found his mesh glove crumpled in the pocket of his jeans. Holding the glove, he limped to a chair by the bed and half sat, half fell into it, with his broken leg stretched in front of him.

He did his best to smooth out the wrinkles in the glove. "I ought to take better care of you," he muttered.

Then he felt silly for talking to a glove. He shouldn't scrunch it in his pocket, though. Meshes were hardy, but they could be scratched just as easily as his reading gla.s.ses when he crammed them into his pocket without their case.

He pulled on the glove and put in a call to Matheson. The screen on his palm gave the time as three minutes before midnight, and the date hadn't changed. He had only been here a few hours.

A drowsy voice came out of the mesh. "Matheson, here."

"C.J., this is Thomas Wharington."

"Sir! How are you?"

"Fine. How is our guest?"

"We're trying to find out why she left."

So they knew Alpha had escaped. That sounded like they hadn't located her, though. He couldn't ask for details until he was on a secured line or at the base. "I'll be in tomorrow morning."

"I didn't know the hospital released you," Matheson said. "The last I heard, you were unconscious."

"You knew I was here?"

"I found out when I tried to contact you about our guest's change in plans. General Chang had you

transferred to the Bethesda National Medical Center."

It made sense. Bethesda wasn't far from where he lived, and the Air Force could have people with the proper clearances a.s.signed to him, in case he mumbled cla.s.sified information in his sleep or while he