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corrupted, the ones from today are completely gone.”
    “Internal sabotage,” Chuckie said, and from his tone, he was certain. “Not good. Any clues as to who did it?”
    “No, sir,” William said. “Imageering contacted Commander White already. He’s ordered a full investigation.”
    “It’ll have to do.” Chuckie didn’t look happy, and I couldn’t blame him. I also couldn’t control another yawn. “I’ll add this to the pile of things we need to know about. Please guard those reports—you two are the only proof we have now that something was wrong with those superbeings.”
    “Yes, sir,” Wayne said with a small smile. “We’ll guard them with our lives.”
    Chuckie managed a short laugh. “Good job.”
    Jeff seemed to be struggling with something. “I’ll walk you out,” he said finally. “You two, take down the equipment.”
    They left while William and Wayne did as instructed. “You didn’t give me a file,” I mentioned.
    Wayne laughed. “We’re already clear you wouldn’t read it.” He grinned and put a folder into my nightstand. “Here’s a copy for later, though. You know, when you get around to it. In about a year.”
    “Wow, you are good. So, what’s the CliffsNotes version?”
    They both looked at me blankly for a moment. A-Cs were capable of reading at hyperspeed, too, so why read an abbreviated version? William recovered first. “You want the highlights, Commander?”
    “Please and thank you.”
    “We think they’re genetically engineered,” Wayne said. “But there’s no human in there.”
    “That we can tell,” William added. “Didn’t feel like there’s parasite in there, either.”
    “That we can tell,” Wayne said. “They didn’t feel . . . right.”
    “Robotic?”
    “Could be,” Wayne allowed. “But if so, it’s a more natural robot.”
    “Like an android?”
    William shrugged. “Could be. We don’t really work with this side of things. Kill ’em, get the folks to safety, that’s our normal assignment.”
    “Why are you doing live at the exciting scene of my bedroom, then?”
    They exchanged a quick glance. “Ah, special assignment,” William said.
    That meant either they were being punished or they were specially selected. “Assigned by whom?”
    “Commander White,” William answered.
    So, handpicked. Unless Christopher was really interested in seeing how my space cadet ways messed with their minds. I voted for the former. “Why you two?”
    Wayne’s turn to shrug. “We’re really good. Commander White doesn’t trust the C.I.A. any more than any of the rest of us do.”
    “So, what did he have you read on Chuckie?”
    They both busied themselves with the screens. I doubted these two were going to fall into the “able to lie to us” category.
    “Dudes, don’t make me pull rank. What were you monitoring Chuckie for?”
    “Whatever he might be hiding,” Wayne said.
    “Chuckie’s not hiding something from us.”
    “Everybody’s hiding something, Commander,” Wayne said as Jeff came back in, accompanied by several other A-Cs who were clearly along to help with clearing out the video stuff. “Everybody. But not always for the same reasons.”

 
    CHAPTER 7
     
    O N THAT CRYPTIC NOTE, the brothers left, equipment and extra A-Cs in tow. “You want to explain that?” Jeff asked me.
    “No. You want to explain what you were talking about with Chuckie?”
    He grinned. “No, other than to say we’re not going to panic or spend undue amounts of time on the supersoldier theory just yet. Christopher’s handling the loss of our recordings, so you can stop worrying about that. You want to nap or are you hungry?”
    “Both.”
    Jeff laughed and hypersped out of the room, returning shortly with a couple of laden food trays. The rest of the day shifted back into the normal, dull routine of me being really pregnant and him being really great about it. In between, I napped and he did the paperwork part of his job. It was an