Tap-Dancing the Minefields Page 3

  “Before aliens come back,” Tank said slowly. Aliens. He had no idea why aliens were so much harder to believe than demons, and yet they were.

  “Aliens never left,” Aldrich said. “And that is so top secret that you just might be confined to this base for the remainder of your life.”

  “Clyde,” Lev snapped.

  “Lev, do not sugarcoat this.”

  “He’s one of the good guys. He helped us stop the pheromone leak, so think about where you would still be without him.” Lev definitely had some cranky in his voice.

  Aldrich crossed his arms over his chest. “In the plane, signing off on the technology we’re shipping back to New Mexico,” he said flatly.

  Lev blushed. “Okay, so maybe he didn’t save you. But the rest of us were in here with a malfunctioning environmental system.”

  “I thought John said it was functioning right, only maybe no one should have set off that function,” Tank said. He was still trying to figure out why a ship would have a mating-drive function, and any reasons his brain could come up with were creeping him out worse than the discussion of aliens.

  Lev squared off against Colonel Aldrich. “Do you see? He keeps calm even when being pummeled by alien hormones. Tell me we couldn’t use a few more calm heads around this place.”

  Aldrich studied Tank with that sharp gaze of his. “We could use some low-level support personnel in the commissary.”

  “The commissary? He disconnected conduits and avoided panicking when John did his completely inappropriate caveman routine.”

  “Out of bounds, Lev,” Aldrich said with more heat in his tone than Tank had heard yet.

  Lev immediately backed down. He didn’t do anything obvious, but Tank still got the impression that he regretted the comment about John. “Fair enough, but you can’t stick Tank in the kitchen and ask him to wash dishes.”

  Aldrich asked Tank, “What did you do before landing in the middle of my command?”

  Tank knew exactly what the colonel wanted, and he wasn’t inclined to make trouble. “Shifted boxes and cleaned floors.”

  Aldrich gave Lev a smug look.

  “Clyde,” Lev said, an odd tone in his voice.

  “Lev,” Aldrich answered in the exact same tone. If someone did that to Tank, he would assume the person was making fun of him.

  Sure enough, Lev threw his hands up. “Come on.”

  “You’re making this more difficult,” Aldrich said tersely.

  “He didn’t pee his pants when John threatened him.”

  “Lev.” Aldrich’s voice was sharp now, but Lev had a mulish expression that Tank normally associated with Ellie, and she had always gotten her way. Aldrich narrowed his eyes. “We’ll discuss this later.” Turning his back, Aldrich walked out of the room.

  Lev gave Tank a conspiratorial wink. Yep, whatever weirdness these folks had, Tank suspected he was now ground zero. Well, at least the next three years wouldn’t be boring. Lev reached over and squeezed Tank’s shoulder. “I guess I should have asked you first.” Lev pulled his hand back. “I mean, you probably didn’t plan for the closet and the….” His blush was back.

  “No, because I don’t normally plan for anything that good to happen to me. Well, the drugging wasn’t good, but I really enjoyed the sex. Anyway, my plans are more on the boring side, and that… that wasn’t boring.” Tank smiled, and the relief on Lev’s face was immediate. Maybe the physical attraction had started with alien hormones, but Tank was starting to fall a little in love with how Lev was willing to stand up for him and a little more in love with his smile.

  “Okay. I’ll tell you what. I’m going to set up the aptitude test I use with the baby engineers the Army sends me. Then I’ll have some baseline data. And don’t worry about Clyde—”

  “Clyde,” Tank said flatly. The man Lev had called for during sex. But Lev must have misunderstood Tank’s concerns, because he went flying off in a completely different direction.

  “You probably shouldn’t call him that. Actually, no one else calls him that, but he and I got trapped on one of the alien ships for about six months, and after a while you go stir crazy and annoying each other becomes a game.” Lev waved his hand as if none of that mattered. “But his bark is worse than his bite. He already got you assigned to enlisted barracks, but I’m going to let you in on a little secret. There’s a ton of open space on the ship—more than we could ever fill. You could get your own private room and bathroom if you’re willing to put up with the organic tech. Lots of the soldiers around would rather have concrete and wood, which is why we have the barracks, but you strike me as someone who is more mentally flexible than that.” Lev had a real ability to verbally dump a ton of shit at once.

  “I don’t know I’m that flexible,” Tank said. Honestly, the ship creeped him out, and that was true whether he called it demonic or alien. Although these guys seemed to be saying the two were the same. And if that was true, Marie and Zhu had a whole different sort of problem, but Tank didn’t know how to warn them about that because he was stuck under a secret base in Alaska for the next four months. He could only hope that someone would decide he was trustworthy enough to let out on leave eventually.

  That meant Tank was going to play nice. He could do that. “I guess I could try the alien upgrade,” he said. In return, Lev graced him with a brilliant smile.

  “Come on. I’ll show you.” Lev touched Tank’s arm and then pulled back, his face pink, before he headed for the door.

  The shyness hit Tank’s lusty button so hard that for a second he thought the hormones had started again. Unfortunately his cock just liked Lev that much, and somehow that desire made this whole situation feel so much more dangerous. Tank never did his best thinking when love was involved. Last time, he’d fucked up so bad that people had died.

  Chapter Three

  “SO, THIS is….” Tank looked around at the peculiar shapes and inclines. Although technically the room was natural, it felt artificial. Tank preferred drywall and ninety degree angles. This part of the downed ship had walls that resembled in places leathery skin stretched over bonelike structures. Instead of being square, the room was actually oval, with the narrow ends pinched.

  “The bed is really comfortable.” Lev climbed up a ladder that looked more like a tree and crawled into a bed that was about as wide as a full-size but twice as long.

  “The aliens must be freakishly tall,” Tank said as he considered the dimensions. After he’d signed a mile of nondisclosure agreements, he’d gotten the full rundown. Post-WWII jets were the first planes to spot the aliens. Apparently they hadn’t expected humans to develop that technology so quickly, so they were caught off guard. The US, Russia, China, and India all had units to deal with aliens, who still had a bad habit of showing up and either grabbing a bunch of people for experiments or just setting up shop in some small town and running research there.

  Current thinking was that the invaders were researchers with really scary technology that could kick ass. The American government had created the Incursion Force to protect civilians as best they could without open warfare or killing. They feared that if humans proved too dangerous, the scientists might show up with alien armies, and no one knew how that might end. So the president charged the IF with de-escalating conflicts, capturing and studying technology, and protecting civilians, in that exact order.

  Given some of the incidents, Tank would rather shoot some aliens between the eyes.

  The aliens had released a chemical that caused aggression in a small town in Kansas. In Montana, they were taking blood samples from newborns. Texas had some alien asshole who picked people up at night and returned them drunk for no apparent reason. In the 1970s, aliens had revealed themselves to one small cult and then tracked all the members. Overall, they were assholes.

  However, in the 1980s they had used a vaccine in cloud form to stop an outbreak of smallpox after an ecoterrorist had released it in a populated area in Ohio. Tank didn’t see the logic—not that he
was big with logic anyway, but still. The pieces he had didn’t fit together, and if what Tank had experienced for five years of his own life was one more experiment, he was going to gut someone and had a couple of specific someones in mind.

  But Tank couldn’t make the idea of alien experiments jibe with what he’d experienced. Demons made more sense to him. Marie and Zhu did have supernatural abilities, and Tank had met their demonic fathers. Okay, their fathers had tried to kill him, but Tank had seen their very non-alien-looking faces and non-alien-sized bodies. And when Mr. Peterson and his wife used spells to conjure and banish demons, the demons were actually conjured and banished. If these were all aliens, then why the hell would a spell work?

  Ellie had been the thinker of the group—Ellie and Zhu. Tank didn’t have the tools to understand any of this. So right now he was trying to keep two separate boxes in his head. In Box One he had his entire high school life, complete with demon ceremonies, back-alley sword fights, kidnappings, and demonic possession.

  In Box Two he had alien scientists using Earth as their petri dish and sometimes poking part of the dish with a stick to see what happened.

  Lev sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed. “You’re taking this better than most people. I think Clyde’s actually a little suspicious of your whole attitude. He mentioned looking for marijuana in your bags, because no one is this calm without chemical assistance.”

  Tank snorted. “The colonel is suspicious of everyone, as far as I can see.”

  “Yeah, he is, but he has precedent on his side.” Lev made a face.

  “I’m assuming ‘precedent’ means alien invaders.”

  Lev looked at him oddly.

  “Or not. Vocabulary is not my big strength.” Tank blushed. Nothing like showing off your ignorance in front of a man with a PhD in engineering. Dr. Lev Underwood. That’s who Tank had nailed in a closet. It didn’t take any special brains to know that Lev was way too good for Tank, but it was hard to keep it professional when Lev was sitting in the middle of Tank’s bed. “I’m not exactly brilliant.”

  Lev rolled his eyes. “Says the man who blew my aptitude test out of the water. Van Agteren had better improve, or I’m going to replace him as my second.”

  “Van Agteren has a PhD.” Tank really didn’t need Lev to lie just to make him feel better.

  “He took two weeks to figure out a creative solution to the leaking snot-conduit problem on the test.” Lev sounded disgusted.

  Tank couldn’t tell Lev that he’d spent a good chunk of his high school years playing with this sort of tech and trying to get pieces to work without outing his friends, but that experience gave him an unfair advantage. Tank imagined calling up Zhu and explaining that the government thought he was brilliant with demonic toys. The man would laugh until he broke a rib.

  Lev climbed down from the bed. “Are you going to take these quarters?”

  Tank did appreciate the idea of privacy. A bunk in the enlisted quarters meant living under the constant gaze of others. Given that most of the base knew Tank was an involuntary recruit, that felt a little like being guarded. “How does the bathroom work?”

  “It’s a little gross, but the biologists insist it’s far more hygienic than toilet paper. On the counter you’ll find an informal brochure they give to new people to explain how to use the various bits.”

  “It’s going to involve alien goo, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe?” Lev gave him a boyish smile, and Tank found most of his aggravation fading away. Despite being older, Lev still had a charm and youthfulness that made him cute. The way he was always adjusting his glasses and looking down as though not sure what to say was a major turn-on. Tank was used to being overpowered by bigger personalities, but with Lev, he felt like there was space for him.

  “It’s really fascinating, but if you think of this entire ship as a body, you’ll see why it’s a rather wet place to live. Living tissue is in constant need of feeding, and the various conduits and goo around here help make sure that all the parts receive nutrients. That’s important because all these parts have to stay in balance. I’m actually halfway through a master’s in developmental biology and embryology because you have to know the medical side of the systems as well as the mechanical one. I can’t even imagine the skill required to genetically engineer bone to take on the structure of interior walls or convince a mucus membrane to form around the working gears of a ballast system in order to function as lubricant.” Lev sounded so excited, but then he stopped. “I’m boring you, aren’t I?”

  “Um. No. I only look bored. It’s like resting bitch face, only more lethargic and effective at pissing off teachers and drill sergeants.” As far as Tank was concerned, anything that helped him understand this new reality fascinated the hell out of him. They’d barely won their fight against Marie’s father, and now Tank was having to reconsider every moment that had led up to their last fight—up to Ellie’s death. Every piece of information he could gather was one more puzzle piece, and he needed all the clues he could get. “I’m totally into hearing about mucus membranes.”

  From the suspicious look Lev gave him, he wasn’t buying it.

  “Hey, if you’re boring me, you’ll know it. Trust me. I’ll be making inappropriate jokes and trying to convince you that I have a sudden and undeniable urge for donuts.”

  “So if you go for donuts, I should take offense?” Lev sounded amused. “We might have a problem, because the nearest donut shop is several thousand miles away.”

  “Huh. No donuts in the kitchen?”

  “Sometimes, but honestly I don’t pay much attention,” Lev said. “I guess we have to learn to live without things up here.”

  “It’s not a big deal. I don’t even like donuts all that much, but they make a really good escape plan from boredom. Marie never did figure out why I kept running for the donut shop.” Zhu had known, but as the best friend, he’d been sworn to protect Tank’s deepest secrets.

  “Marie?”

  Tank hesitated. How did he describe how important Marie was to him? She was way more than a friend, but a lot of that bonding and love came from a mutual dedication to survival. Until he left New York, Tank had no idea how difficult it would be to explain things to normal, sane people, and it wasn’t even like Lev was in the deep and committed end of sane. “You know how I described Zhu?”

  “The guy who took everything apart, down to the last screw,” Lev agreed. “And the guy you think is better than you with machines, although I still maintain that you are amazingly gifted at working with this technology. You should think about studying engineering.”

  “Stop saying that.” Tank straddled one of the alien beams and propped his foot up on a conveniently placed ledge. “I am not into engineering, and if you keep implying I’m smart, someone is going to believe you.”

  “Tank, you blew through an assessment I use on people with PhDs in engineering. You figured out how to redirect biological systems in order to get them to integrate with the mechanical parts in ways that allow both to function. What would you call that other than being naturally talented at engineering?”

  “Being lucky,” Tank said. “It just seemed like some things fit together better than others.”

  “They seemed to fit?” Lev gave him a sharp look, and Tank remembered too late that the goal was to play dumb. Sure, with demon toys the blues always went on the right with the reds going to the left, but Tank wasn’t prepared to explain that they had figured that out by screwing around with a briefcase they’d stolen from Marie’s father. The briefcase had blown up and covered them all with demon slime when they’d crossed green with yellow. Never cross green with yellow. Tank had learned to run at the mere sight of yellowish green.

  He gave a helpless “aw shucks” shrug.

  “That’s called an ‘inarticulate expert.’ It means you understand systems, but your understanding is incomplete so you can’t explain it or put all the puzzle pieces together—but you still know the right answer because yo
ur subconscious gets it.”

  Tank could feel the weight of Lev’s high expectations like wearing a lead vest as he tried to swim. “Let’s just leave it at me being the part-time dishwasher and part-time engineering intern who doesn’t plan to do much but sit in the back and learn.”

  “Yeah, yeah, but the second you see some of the people I work with, you’re going to understand why I want you with your hands in the systems around here. I have biologists who get the living part and engineers who get the mechanics, but people who can cross that bridge and get how animate and inanimate parts work in tandem are frighteningly rare. You watch. You’re going to get frustrated with someone who is obviously doing something wrong and jump in. I give you three days of watching before one of my incredibly well-intentioned staff members has you pushing them to one side so you can fix something.”

  “And if you let me touch anything, I’m questioning your judgment,” Tank shot back.

  Lev laughed. “Three days. A PhD doesn’t mean anything when none of your classes taught you the systems involved. I trust you and your gut more than a lot of my mechanical engineers. Besides, this is a reverse-engineering project. We disabled the dangerous systems years ago.”

  “Like the mating-pheromone system?” Tank asked dryly.

  Lev blushed and dropped his gaze to the floor, which made his hair flop in front of his eyes. “Okay, maybe a few systems might prove problematic.”

  “Problematic?” That was one word for it. Tank had never seen so many military people embarrassed at one time. But it had given Tank some very happy memories that he felt a little bit guilty about. He should be more upset about the aliens taking away his control, but he hadn’t controlled his own life since he was fifteen. Maybe that made it easier for him. “Then again, it wasn’t all a problem.”

  Lev smiled. Tank was insanely proud of the fact that he had earned that expression.