"I'm sure you weren't, because I'm sure whoever found whatever's under the Dome was a Yates loyalist."

"Let's say that's true. Why would the Ancients' ship crash right over a dead zone?" Christopher countered.

"Oh, sadly for all of us, I have an easy answer for that. Because it was brought down by something and landed pretty much on top of its killer, so to speak."

CHAPTER 85.

"ALRIGHT," BUCHANAN SAID SLOWLY. "Let's say you're right."

Christopher sighed. "She's usually right."

I went to him and put my hand on his forehead. "You okay?" Christopher rolled his eyes while Buchanan chuckled.

"Your file indicates a high degree of accuracy," Big George said.

"I'll bet it doesn't say it that nicely. But, Malcolm, where were you going with this?"

"What do we do about it? Race to the Dome? Get everyone out of the Dome? Shove them into these tunnels? Try to breach one of the dead zones? Evacuate half the world? And I think some focus has to be given to what Valentino wants in the Embassy."

"Those are all good questions. I think we leave everyone in the Dome for right now. As for Clarence . . . no guess for why he's trying to get into the Embassy. I'll toss 'he's trying to find something he or the others hid in the Embassy' into the collective hat. It's someone else's turn now."

Ravi cleared his throat, confirming the trend was now an epidemic. I realized he'd been quiet for quite a while. Checked. Nope, he and Jennifer weren't making out.

"Yes, Ravi? What have you been up to while the rest of us have been fretting?"

"Well, it occurred to me that we have these dead spots all over the globe. Chuck's had us focus mainly on the D.C. ones and some of the Eastern Seaboard, but he's also had us take a cursory glance at France and Paraguay."

"Do tell."

"There's a full tunnel network in the Paris area. A less sophisticated system is in Paraguay, in the Chaco region. We've been paying attention to these anyway, but our monitoring went hot earlier, remember?"

"Yeah, it was like fifteen minutes ago. I'm not that forgetful."

"Closer to twenty minutes, maybe a half hour," Stryker muttered.

Ravi chose to ignore my sarcasm while I ignored Stryker. I chalked both up to personal growth. "So, based on the information I have on the androids, they don't need a special sized room. They could be stored anywhere, including in the tunnel system, just waiting to activate."

"Are they in the tunnels somewhere?" Franklin asked hopefully.

"No. However, I then considered the supersoldiers. Chuck told us a very little bit about them, but I'm clear they were close to twelve feet tall, meaning no dead zone we've mapped so far could hold them. They're also too big to go through the tunnels. At least, the tunnels in the U.S."

"You're saying the tunnels and dead zones in France and Paraguay are bigger?"

Ravi shot me a hurt look. "Way to steal a man's big moment, Kitty."

"Just part of my charm."

"So you've always said. Anyway, yes. The android signatures were erratic, in part, I believe, because they're so well done that they appear almost a hundred percent human. But we also have a signal for the supersoldiers to work with, because Chuck brought one back here for me to play with."

"What the hell?" Stryker said. "I didn't know about that."

Ravi shrugged and looked smug. "You thought he was joking, so he knew you wouldn't take it seriously. Besides, you can't reverse engineer." Jennifer looked as if she'd made her future life choice and was already picking out curtains and china patterns. I checked-Jeremy looked as though he wished they were both back at the Mall. Brothers were like that, at least so far as I'd been told.

"Can too," Stryker muttered.

"So, what's the bottom line, Ravi?"

"The supersoldiers aren't trying to pass as human, so their signals are far more basic. With the information gleaned from the android we were able to identify commonalities between the android and supersoldier signals and isolate them from the general electronic chatter that runs twenty-four-seven."

"We?"

"I'm working remotely with the team in Dulce. Which is why we've moved so quickly. Anyway, we've identified where the signals came on-radar, if you will, cross-referenced against known formations and attacks, particularly the one at the President's Ball, which was the clearest data we have. Most of this data is from Centaurion Division, which Dulce shared with me, and I've cross-referenced. Then I cross-mapped it with dead zone parameters of enough presumed size to be able to house them, focused on Paris and the Chaco, and radiated out from there."

"And?" Franklin sounded impatient. I couldn't blame him. I didn't care how Ravi and his A-C team did it, if his answer was going to help.

"I've sent the coordinates to Commanders Reader and Crawford. Teams are converging."

"Um, the last I heard, Commanders Reader and Crawford were trying to bring down superbeings and supersoldiers alive while also trying not to die."

"Oh." Ravi looked surprised. "Sorry. I sent the kill switch information to them while you were all discussing everything else. Supersoldiers are down and under control."

We all turned and looked at the screen that had been running our Paris feed. Sure enough, there were no more explosions, and the supersoldiers were in a nice formation. I could see the Eiffel tower in the far distance. Happily, it appeared to be standing and in one piece. I put this into the win column, because said column was pretty empty.

"That covers France, right?"

"Yes."

"Awesome. So, what's going on in Paraguay? Are Tim and his team dead or still fighting? The kill switch can't work on a superbeing."

Ravi shrugged. "It can when they're not real."

CHAPTER 86.

I LET THAT ONE SIT ON THE AIR for a bit while I considered how to phrase the next thing I was going to say. Went with the classics. "What the hell?"

Ravi sighed again. "They look like superbeings, but they aren't. They're supersoldiers designed to look like superbeings."

"How in the world is that possible?"

"The same way the supersoldiers are made, only these are covered with a clear metal, which is why they appear to be superbeings. The point is, though, that they have a kill switch, just as the others do."

"Wow, the Evil Genius Club really likes to give you options in your personal choice of destruction method, don't they?"

"How long have you had this information?" Christopher asked, voice tight.

"I've had the remnants of the supersoldier for about a week," Ravi said. "Because what happened at the President's Ball wasn't hidden from those in power, Chuck couldn't bring it to me until the release was cleared by his higher-ups. I had to work on it in secret because Chuck didn't want the other guys to know."

"Bastard," Stryker muttered.

"Why does Ravi get all the fun jobs?" Henry whined.

"Who authorized that, do you know?" Armstrong asked, before the rest of the guys could whine and complain.

"I can check if it's important."

"It is."

"What're you thinking, Senator?"

"It'll depend on who gave Reynolds the release."

Ravi typed away. I noted he was using both hands. "Ravi, your head hasn't exploded."

"No. I was able to reverse the tracker, with help from the good people at the Science Center. It won't make Chuck's head explode, don't panic."

"Who said I was panicking?"

"I know you. Anyway, while doing this I was also able to remove the kill switch. I've tried to track Chuck, but it's like everything else, the signal's not clear enough to be sure where he is. On the other hand, your team in Paraguay is, as we speak, taking control of the supersoldiers and pseudosuperbeings, just as the team in Paris is."

"How did you figure this out?" Christopher asked. "You didn't have one of the 'fake' superbeings to work with."

"Their signal signatures are similar to the one Chuck brought me. There are minor variations per supersoldier, of course, but frankly, the differences are more pronounced per 'batch' than per supersoldier."

"I was told . . . by someone who would know, that the supersoldiers Chuckie has under his control are different from all the others."

"Yes, their signals are indeed different. Stronger. I can't speak for anything else about them other than the signal they send. It's different, but not that different, if you will."

"Awesome. So, this is good news. Right?"

"Right."

"How many are there, can you tell?"

"Yes. Based on the signatures I can identify, we have at least a thousand."

That sat on the air for a longer bit. "Wow. That's, um, a lot."

"Only if they can fight the invaders," Franklin said. "Otherwise, ten thousand honestly wouldn't be that many."

I'd seen these things in action, Franklin hadn't. "Trust me, that's a lot. Good lord, do they have some factory or something?"

"Want my hypothesis?" Ravi asked.

"Sure."

"I believe the dead zones function as sections of a factory."

Henry snorted. "Too far apart to be useful."

"Oh, I don't know," Omega Red said. "It's quite possible. They do it with cars all the time."

"It's unwieldy," Big George shared, backing the Dr. Wu Team.

"How does this get Jeff and Reynolds back?" Christopher asked before Hacker International could go into a full-fledged, completely off-tangent discussion that would turn into a shouting match followed by a group sulk, none of which we had time to indulge, even though it tended to be worth the price of admission.

They were all quiet for a moment while Christopher treated everyone to Patented Glare #4. "It doesn't," Ravi said finally. "Sorry." He cleared his throat, ensuring the epidemic would continue. "Senator, just found it-Clifford Goodman from Homeland Security authorized the release."

"That's good, right? Cliff's a friend of Chuckie's."

Armstrong nodded slowly. "I think so."

"Interesting," Stryker said. "I've been looking at the C.I.A. files Big George found on all of you. Not sure what your teams are going to come up with, but this section seems key for what's going on. 'Team works well together. Separately they are much less effective. Separation of Katt-Martini from the rest of the team causes faster degeneration of effectiveness.'"

"Who wrote that report?" Buchanan asked.

Stryker shook his head. "It's been added to, by a variety of operatives, all of whom are using code names. It'll take time to decipher and use resources we have focused elsewhere."

"Really?"

"Really. You've used up all our servers and focus, Kitty, including the ones your folks added. If you want me to put resources here, you have to choose what other vital search or program you want stopped."

"Who added that information doesn't matter," Christopher said. "It proves why they spent so much effort getting Kitty away from the rest of us."

"I think they're selling your team short," Franklin said.

"Depends on who put that information in." I looked at Armstrong. "Senator, you and I discussed Leventhal Reid only a little while ago. I'm sure you were aware of what went down during Operation Drug Addict."

"Yes. Honestly, if my briefings have been even remotely accurate, this assessment is correct."

"Only if it presumes our personnel remain stagnant, and that's not the case. I point to what the gals are doing in the Dome as Exhibit A."

"Kitty, more activity in the tunnels," Big George said, as the picture on the big screen flashed from the map of New Mexico to the murky tunnel interior.

Sure enough, there was activity. Of a sort.