"You can't see it or make it work?"

"You've known him how long and you somehow think Chuck trusted us with that information?" Stryker shook his head, obviously dismayed with my nave nature.

I decided not to spend the time going for a battle of the witty put-downs. Instead, I did what the A-Cs with us were doing-I looked for the gate. Well, all the A-Cs other than Jennifer, who was clearly engrossed in helping Ravi. She seemed intently engrossed, meaning that she was probably giving in to the Dazzler Weakness-brains. Which spelled potentially lucky times for Ravi.

However, we needed to get the gate found and calibrated. Which wasn't as easy as it sounded. "I don't see it anywhere in the room," Naomi said.

"I looked behind all the pizza boxes and other crap, too," Abigail added.

"Seriously, why aren't we going for the obvious? Dudes, where's the bathroom?"

Henry led us to a door behind a bank of large servers. He opened the door. We all stepped back. "Wow. Does the cleaning lady like never come here?"

Henry gave me a dirty look. "It's fine for our delicate needs."

"I'm refraining from comment. So I don't have to breathe. Jeremy, you're low man on the totem pole. Find the gate."

The Gower girls, White, and I backed away. Jeremy shot me a look that said he'd liked me just fine up until now, then stuck his head into the room. He pulled it out fast. "If it's in there, it's really hidden well."

Henry closed the door. "Sorry. Feel free to clean it to your personal requirements."

"Dude, that would require a self-contained nuke." I looked around. "Where does Chuckie appear from, when he drops in via Gate Express?"

"No idea," Henry said. "He sneaks up on us."

We left the bathroom area. "Yuri, when Chuckie sneaks up on you guys, do you hear him coming from one area more than any other?"

Omega Red seemed to give this consideration. At least, he cocked his head to the right, instead of to the left, which I chose to believe meant he'd stopped thinking about one thing to concentrate on my question.

"I'm not positive. But I believe he comes from the side nearest the bathroom."

We trooped back to the area. A pseudo wall/hallway was created by the servers, separating the bathroom area from the rest of Hacker Central. But Jeremy said the gate wasn't in the bathroom.

My brain chose to remind me that NASA Base had apparently had a server box that had contained a dead body instead of computer equipment. "Open the server boxes."

"No!" Stryker shouted. "Don't do it!"

CHAPTER 77.

WE ALL FROZE. "Um, why not, Eddy?"

"You'll damage everything, including what we're working on."

We all relaxed somewhat. "Fine. Thanks for the total freak-out-we hadn't had one of those in, what, a minute, minute and a half? Besides, one of these things is not like the others." I listened at each one. They all hummed as though they had computer stuff going on inside them. I touched them. All felt warm or hot, depending.

I noted something-this room wasn't freezing cold. "Eddy, how are the big servers kept from overheating? This room doesn't feel like a meat locker."

"Individual cooling units directly above and below the servers."

"Jeremy, you're tall. See which server top doesn't seem ice cold."

He checked the top of each server. "All seem cold, all have air conditioning ducts directly over them, and all ducts are blowing cold air.

I sighed to myself. Someone was going to have to check out the floor level. I knew who that someone was going to end up being. Always the way.

I got down on my hands and knees and carefully put a hand under each server. Naturally, it wasn't until I reached the server closest to the wall that it didn't feel cold. "I may have it. Let's open this sucker up."

"Kitty, if you're wrong, you slow us down or worse," Stryker said. In a normal tone this time. How refreshing.

"Eddy, if I'm right, I speed us up a lot." I stood up. There was a panel back here. Hit it with my hand, then jumped back. Hey, the last time I'd done that, a dead body had fallen onto me.

This time, however and thankfully, nothing fell out. The back panel did pop open, though, silently. The door had equipment attached to it, but it was obviously there to make noise and warmth, because the server was empty inside. Well, empty if you were looking with human eyes. "I've found the gate."

White calibrated while Tito and his big box of papers joined us. "What do you want me to tell everyone?" he asked as White stepped out of the server box and indicated it was ready to go.

"The truth. Make sure they're focused on figuring out how to control the superbeings, supersoldiers, and androids. Beyond that, I'm open to suggestions."

He nodded. "We'll manage, Kitty. We had just as much bad going on when I joined up, and we handled it. We'll do it again."

"God, I love your optimism."

Tito grinned. "One of us has to look on the bright side."

"Will you check on Jamie and make sure she's okay? Not missing me or Jeff too much? Not worried? That's she's been fed and changed and-"

"Kitty," Tito interrupted me gently. "She's fine. Your father's there, Amy's there, Alfred and Lucinda are there, right?" I nodded. "Plus the rest of the Embassy staff. She's in good hands. But I promise I'll make a hundred percent sure she's fine."

"Thanks, Tito."

"No problem. She's my patient, remember. That means I have to watch out for her, too." He stepped through the gate. The slow fade was still icky to watch.

"Christopher confirms Tito's there," Naomi said. "Glad our phones still work."

"Oh, they'll knock them out soon enough. They know how dependent we are on telecommunications."

"Well, let's hope they don't do that before we find what you're looking for," Henry said.

"Speaking of which, where do we actually start digging?" Big George asked. "A direction, any direction, would be helpful."

Armstrong cleared his throat. "Gaultier Enterprises would be where I'd recommend. As well as determining the whereabouts of Esteban Cantu and Colonel Hamlin."

"Titan Enterprises, too, along with anything related to Antony Marling." I gave them the spelling. "And the Pentagon. Search anything related to Madeline Cartwright. Oh, and lest we forget, anything related to Ronald Yates."

"Most of those people are dead," Stryker pointed out.

"Yeah. 'Cause all those dead people pissed me off, tried to kill people I love, and also tried to take over the world."

Hacker International turned as one, Ravi included, hell, Omega Red included, and stared at me. "Kitty, are you saying you killed all of them?" Stryker asked carefully.

"I killed Yates. Christopher actually killed Gaultier. Adriana killed Cartwright. And Marling killed himself."

"Oh. So, you've only killed one bad guy?" Henry asked nervously.

"No, I've killed more. Leventhal Reid and Howard Taft, for example. Well, really, Jeff killed Reid." I considered. "I think I'm losing count." Hacker International all looked mildly terrified. "So, um, get to work." They flung themselves back to their tasks at hand.

"Found Esteban Cantu through GPS in his cell phone," Omega Red said shortly. "He's in his home. Same with Colonel Marvin Hamlin. He's in his residence."

"Bet you fifty bucks their phones are home but they aren't."

"We don't have surveillance in their residences," Omega Red shared. "So I have no way of knowing."

"I can't ask for an A-C field team to investigate; they're all deployed."

"Search for alternate signatures," Franklin said. "I'll send people to both locations."

He made the call while I tried not to fret, drum my fingers, or tap my foot. Human speeds really lacked a certain something when time was of the essence.

"Yuri, track Hamlin from Friday. That's the day he disappeared."

"I saw Esteban this morning," Armstrong said.

"Track Cantu from today, then."

"Oh, yes, no problem," Omega Red said under his breath.

"I heard that, and good." A thought occurred. I sent a text to Lorraine. She replied quickly in the affirmative. I went to Omega Red. "Yuri, put the addresses up on screen." He did as requested. I sent them to Lorraine. "Colonel, tell your people to expect some Alpha Centaurion agents to be joining them. They'll probably be at the locations, searching, by the time your teams arrive."

"I thought all Field teams were deployed."

I shrugged. "They are. But in times of war, we let the gals help out."

"Do you mean what I suspect you mean, Missus Martini?"

"You know it, Mister White. Lorraine and Claudia just promoted some of the younger female A-Cs who want to expand past math, science, and medicine into the exciting world of action, danger, and romance. Welcome to the future."

CHAPTER 78.

"THEY WON'T HAVE MUCH TRAINING," White said. He sounded worried.

"Ah, that's where you're wrong. Apparently Lorraine and Claudia have been approached by a good number of gals who want to expand their horizons. They've been training them."

"Do James and Tim know about this?"

I coughed. Not if I knew my girls. I'd trained them to do whatever and beg forgiveness later. Hey, it'd been working for us so far. "Oh, I'm sure they'll be great with it. I mean, look at Jennifer here! She's an active imageer, blazing the trail for her sisters in butt kicking. So to speak."

Of course, now we both had to look at her. Jennifer didn't seem ready for action right now. She was comfortably settled on Ravi's desk and appeared to be staying there. However, I'd seen her earlier in the day, so I chose to remain optimistic.

"Ah, yes. I'm completely reassured." White's sarcasm knob was firmly at eleven.

Henry cursed quietly. "Kitty, you're not going to like this," he said, saving me from any more uncomfortable explanations.

"I haven't liked much this weekend, Henry, so what's next on my Anti Hit Parade?"

"I have the news feeds running. Senator Armstrong has been listed as missing by his limo driver. 'Hasn't been seen since he entered the American Centaurion Embassy' is a direct line from this article."

"Doesn't one have to be missing for forty-eight hours before the authorities panic?" Armstrong asked.

"Regular people, yes," Henry said. "Public figures who disappear before public meetings in mysterious ways, however, get press."

"I was at the One World Festival," Armstrong said.

"For too brief a time," Khalid said. "You spent that time assisting us."

"Yes, and I think he was seen," Henry replied. "However, that's not necessarily good news, either. There's another article that's insinuating the senator was kidnapped along with the Bahraini Ambassadress. And another asking if the senator did the kidnapping of the Ambassadress."

"What are the reactions?" Franklin asked.

"Not good. Sending them to the guest terminal." Henry pointed to a space that was relatively clean, if you didn't mind that there were stacks of books and file folders around the terminal and in the guest chair.

Oliver and the Middle Eastern Contingent went to have a look. Well, Oliver and Mona went to look. The Middle Eastern Muscle spent their time moving things so that Mona, at least, could sit down.

"There is more talk of war," Mona said. She sounded on the verge of tears.

"Ugly talk," Oliver added. "The kind that can cause buttons to be pushed down."

"Well, that's not good."

"Your way with the understatement remains intact, I see, Missus Martini."

"Rick, honey, I'm going to have to hurt you."

"Kitty!" Ravi shouted, sparing us from more news updates, fretting, and sarcasm. "I've communicated with the scientists who are reverse engineering the android. We've been able to identify and isolate a homing signal. It was tricky, because the signal was within the self-destruct mechanism, but we've got it."

"Ravi found it," Jennifer added proudly. I refrained from humming U2's "Two Hearts Beat as One" but only because I didn't want to have to explain myself or give White the opening for another Sarcasm Zinger. I wondered if Jennifer was going to share the news of Hacker International with the rest of the Dazzlers or keep them all for herself.

"Ravi, you continue to rock above all other reverse engineers who have come before, exist now, or shall come in the future." Good news, any good news, was such a pleasant shock, I wanted to kiss Ravi. But figured I'd let Jennifer handle that.