"How about Herman Melville?"

"Dead authors are magically alive in your universe?"

"No, his parents were literary. He's a police officer in D.C. Part of the K-Nine squad." I was typing as I was talking, and D.C.'s roster came up. No Melville. No one I recognized at all. Even the dogs didn't look right, though it was hard to be sure with German Shepherds. But I knew Prince well, and Prince wasn't in the pictures. "But he's not a K-Nine cop here."

"Hmmm . . . looks like he might have joined the military. This him?"

Checked it out. Sure enough, it was. "Yes! That's him. And that's Prince, his dog, too. Is there a picture of their unit?" Reader tossed up some pics. "Yes, that's all of them. Well, not all of these guys are familiar, but most of them are. Great, they're good help to have. Where are they stationed?"

"Arlington," Reader said quietly. "The entire squadron was wiped out by suicide bombers when they were doing a search for civilian casualties in Kandahar."

My throat was tight. "Dogs too?"

"Dogs too. Buried with their handlers, though. So there's that."

"Yeah." We were quiet for a minute while I did my best not to cry and Reader waited for me to lose it. Got it under control. Barely, but there. "War, what is it good for?"

"Absolutely nothing."

"Say it again. So why are we all always fighting?"

"Don't know. The prevailing thought is that aliens would come and show us a better way."

"Aliens came and were instantly turned into something to fight over."

"People are people, babe. That's all I've got for you."

We went back to searching. Found Mr. Joel Oliver easily. He was a hugely respected journalist and was in the Middle East, covering the war. Sure, we could contact him, but if he wasn't The Crazy Conspiracy Reporter here, then he either wouldn't believe us or we'd ruin his reputation. Shared this with Reader, who agreed.

"Leave the ones with good lives alone, girlfriend. It's a good motto to stick to. Huh."

"What?"

"Your Tim is around our age?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Look over here, is this him?"

Leaned over to see a picture of a cute, grinning guy I recognized. Hair was styled a little differently, and he was in a blue shirt and contrasting blue tie, but otherwise, he looked the same. "Yes! That's him!"

"Really."

"Why do you sound so down about this? He's alive isn't he?"

Reader sighed. "Oh yes, he's alive. I found him by accident. He's just won an award, which is why he popped when I did a new search."

"Super, an award for what?"

"He's the best kindergarten and first grade combined teacher in Los Angeles."

CHAPTER 46.

LET THAT SIT ON THE AIR for a moment. "Tim is a teacher? Of little kids?"

"Yep." Reader was clearly trying to control his Inner Hyena. "I can see why you want to find him-he can teach the kids while we race off to fight evil."

"But . . . he's my Megalomaniac Lad."

"No, Kitty," he said gently, laughter gone. "He's a grade school teacher. A popular one, too. Great at his job. Let's not ruin this life he seems very happy with by swooping in and saying, 'Hi, we're C.I.A. and our friend from another universe swears she needs help only you can provide.' It sets a bad precedent. Oh, and he's married."

"To Alicia?"

"No. His wife is another teacher, named Lori. She won for best fifth grade teacher in Los Angeles. Basically, they're the SoCal K-through-Twelve Power Couple. But superheroes they aren't. I'm sorry."

My flyboys and K-9 pals were all dead, along with my mother, my Oracle, and my Superhacker. Stryker was a successful author but not a government hacker and the rest of Hacker International remained completely off-grid. Len and Kyle were in the NFL, Mona was probably in Bahrain, MJO was a respected war correspondent, and Tim was teaching school and had never met Alicia. There was no point in my looking for her now.

No hybrids could be here, so looking for Erika Gower was out, especially since I didn't know what her maiden name had been. Irving Weisman was a science nerd and hated action-if I needed brains I had Chuckie, so leaving Irving alone sounded like a kindness.

Contacting humans we'd worked with for one mission wasn't worthwhile. Looking for enemies seemed stupid, and more work than we might have time for. Same again for my Washington Wife colleagues. Finding Vance might be helpful, but he wasn't a fighter. Same with any and all politicians. Well, maybe not one.

"Found t.i.to Hernandez yet?" I asked while I did a search for Evander Horn.

"Yeah, I think I have. He's a doctor in Las Vegas. Looks happy. I think this is another one to leave alone."

"Unless we're injured in Sin City, yeah. Have you found my master a.s.sa.s.sins yet?"

"Nope. If they exist, I think they're off-grid."

"Figures." My search actually produced results. Par for this course, they were depressing results. Horn had died in the car accident that, in my world, had caused burns over 75% of his body. Considered one of the worst highway accidents of the past decades, everyone involved had died. But in my world, Horn had saved most of these people.

Depressed as h.e.l.l, I forged on. Realized I hadn't looked for one person. Wasn't sure why I'd forgotten him-the ultimate nature of our relationship, I guess.

"See if you can find Brian Dwyer. He went to high school with me and Charles, Amy, and Sheila." I'd found Sheila simply by asking Chuckie about her. Happily, she was still married to Roger and they had four kids and lived where they did in my world and we were still friends. One person unchanged.

Per Caroline, my sorority sisters were all fine, though some of them had different jobs or were married when they weren't in my world or vice versa. But none of them were b.u.t.t kickers in this or any other world, as far as I could extrapolate.

Reader cleared his throat. "Hang on a second." He got up and went to Chuckie. They spoke for a few seconds, then Chuckie raced over to me.

"Who are you trying to find, Kitty?"

"Brian Dwyer."

"Why are you hunting down your ex-boyfriend from high school?" He sounded both worried and jealous.

"Because in my world he got over me and is married to an A-C. He's also an astronaut. But he works with us all the time and seriously, I'm running out of people. Everyone I know is either dead, unfindable, or doing jobs that are so far from b.u.t.t kicking as to be ridiculous to hope they could help."

"Ah."

"Oh, G.o.d, is Brian dead, too?"

"Not . . . exactly." Chuckie squatted down so we were more face-to-face. "Brian didn't handle you and I getting married well. Amy was just insulting. Brian kind of . . . went nuts."

"Why?"

He sighed. "He'd sworn to you that he was going to do something to impress you and then he'd win you back."

"Oh, yeah. Mom remembered that speech. Me, not so much. Still, we didn't get married right out of high school or something."

"No, we didn't. But we got married right after I made several millions of dollars. Brian insisted that you'd only married me for my money and kept on bugging you to leave me for him. And by 'bugging' I mean we had to get a restraining order."

"I cannot believe that I'm such a femme fatale."

He grinned. "You are to some of us, at least. Anyway, he was following us like some people follow the Grateful Dead. He had to be stopped."

"You said he wasn't dead!"

"He's not. He's in a mental inst.i.tution. Angela was able to have him evaluated."

"How so? You can't just shove someone into a mental hospital without cause."

"There was cause. He attacked me. Fortunately, just me-you and the kids were nowhere around."

"Oh, my G.o.d. Did he hurt you?"

"No. I was already a trained C.I.A. agent by that time. He got a beatdown from me, but only enough to get him to stop and under control. He's doing well, though-I check on him periodically."

"Why? I mean, that's nice of you, as long as checking means making sure he's okay, not giving him shock treatments, but why bother?"

He stroked my cheek. "I understand how he felt. It was how I felt every day until we went to Vegas and you said 'yes.' I didn't snap because you were always my best friend. But Brian didn't have that."

"I dated plenty of guys who didn't think twice when we broke up."

"And you dated a couple who felt you were their entire world. I was the lucky one, and Brian wasn't. Anyway, he's improving. They had me visit him in person the last time I went and he handled it well. He may be able to be released. But not right now. He'd be willing to break out if you asked him to, but seeing you isn't what Brian needs."

"In so many ways, Bizarro World sucks. I wish I could bring you guys back with me."

He kissed my forehead. "I'm married to you in this world and we have three beautiful children. No matter what, Kitty, I wouldn't be willing to trade that for anything."

Leaned against him for a bit. "At least some of you are the same, or close enough."

"Yeah. You okay?"

"Yeah." Straightened up. "Go back to the powwow. I'll get you if I think of some other ex I want to look up."

He sauntered back to the other men and I turned back to the computer screen. Brian had been obsessed with me in my world, but he'd channeled that into becoming awesome and then, thankfully, into being a great husband to Serene, his perfect match in obsessiveness, and as a wonderful father to Patrick. But then, in my world, I hadn't married Chuckie. And aliens existed.

Reader came back and sat at his terminal. "Sorry, Kitty."

"It's okay. Um, is my Uncle Mort still in the Marines and still alive?"

"He is, I don't even have to do a search. But he's on the ground in Afghanistan running a cla.s.sified mission for the Corps. Can't drag him into this."

"b.u.mmer. Uncle Mort's so good at saving the day." He might not have an issue believing in the multiverse, either. Could try for Colonel Franklin or Captain Morgan, or heck, even Colonel Hamlin. But if by some miracle they weren't dead and we guessed wrong and they thought I was crazy, that would end badly for everyone. "Do you guys know Burton Falk?"

"Yeah, he was part of Buchanan's team. He's dead now."

That was it. I was out of humans I could think of and was almost afraid to try to come up with more. G.o.d forbid I search for my Secret Service detail-couldn't handle knowing if they'd all died, and if they were alive, well, I wasn't the wife of a politician here, so why would they help me?

"Why are so many people I care about dead in this world?"

"I don't know. No aliens, I guess."

Yeah, that was coming to be my conclusion, too. We lost human agents in my universe, of course. In fact, we'd lost one in my first days of finding out aliens were on the planet. However, before I could pursue that line of thinking, Leah called to us. "Kitty, James, we need you."

We got up and joined the others who were cl.u.s.tered around one of the bigger screens, which looked like it had a satellite map of D.C. up. "What's going on?"

Chuckie put his arm around me. "Now I'm glad you took the cat along." His voice was grim and he was shaking.

"What happened? What's wrong?"

Buchanan pointed to a portion of the map. It was zoomed in on just one street. The street where Chuckie and Other Me lived. The street was still there. Their beautiful house, on the other hand, was smoking ash.

CHAPTER 47.

"SO, THEY DIDN'T FOLLOW US, but we sure got the h.e.l.l out just in time." For whatever reason, all I could think of was that Jamie's mirrors were gone. Hopefully she didn't require magic mirrors in order to see the other universes, because if she did, we were now out of luck.

"Thank G.o.d you got Jamie to leave without a fight," Chuckie said quietly. "I think we got to safety because we moved faster than they expected us to."

Buchanan nodded. "Based on your normal patterns, you'd have still been there, dealing with Jamie when this happened."

Wondered if Jamie had left without a fight and told me to take the cat because she'd seen this coming. She hadn't acted afraid, nor had she said anything, so maybe not. And if not, that meant that Cliff had given the order to blow the house up after we were gone. "Would Cliff know you'd call Mossad for help?"