Felix took ninety seconds to collect herself before slowly standing up and moving carefully to the front of the audience, Carlisle at her side. It wasn’t hard to act like a stunned frog. She hadn’t expected to see Mika, again, let alone on this side of the universe. With Carlisle to steady her and make apologetic faces to those she disturbed on her way forward, Felix reached the podium. Placing one hand on the guard rail in front of the podium, she stared up at the reptiloid warrior who was so much more than cannon fodder.

  For lizardine command to have risked sending Mika, meant they had something very important to say—and that it probably wasn’t something humanity wanted to hear, but would have little choice about taking note of. Forcing the need to apologize back behind her teeth, Felix looked up and realized Mika had registered her presence.

  She tensed for the inevitable exposure when he spoke to her and demanded government compliance, and was surprised when his gold-flecked gaze seemed to pass right over her head. He hadn’t missed her, though. A flip of the nictating membranes when his eyes crossed her gaze confirmed his awareness. He had just chosen to let her cover stand. Like the man said, this was no mere warrior, and he’d grasped the situation well.

  The young man on the dais opened his mouth, drawing breath to speak. Mika didn’t give him a chance, but cut smoothly across him, overriding the speaker system and causing technicians to scramble to check the podium settings. Mika’s voice carried clear and strong, and chirringly amused to the guests.

  “Greetings, gentlefolk,” he said. “I see from your dress and your amusement that you are not, perhaps, the government officials that were promised.”

  Nervous laughter greeted him, and he rewarded it with a drop-jawed lizardine ‘smile,’ before continuing.

  “No doubt, then, you will later bid for access to me, my technology and my knowledge, and this humanitarian organization will gain a much-needed injection of funds to pour into its business plan.”

  Felix became aware of the sudden tension near the lectern on the dais, of the way John Saunders raised his hand over a particular point as though he could shut Mika’s interview down at any time. Mika must have noticed, too, for he changed topic with the speed of one who desperately needed to get his message across.

  “I am a native of the world you call Aquapearl, a diplomat of sorts.”

  “Spy,” muttered someone representing a technological research company.

  “Assassin,” murmured a syndicate member.

  “Saboteur,” commented one of those standing with a mineral exploration group.

  Mika acknowledged the comments with brief tilts of his head.

  “There are other, less savory terms for some of the tasks I do,” he agreed, and once again drew smiles, “but first I thought I would talk a little to you about my race and what we are. We are chameleons of the worst sort. We can hide in plain sight, alter our skin to match our backgrounds, bend light to blend in. Of course, we couldn’t do that with our clothes on, so we had to develop other means of hiding our more…offensive attributes.”

  Mika paused, appearing to enjoy the looks of surprise, shock, and curiosity on his audience’s faces. Then he hid his amusement, and continued.

  “The truth is our forms are a relic of our earlier days. While your ancestors were prancing about, scratching their dangly bits in public, we already had a built-in physiological means of keeping ours out of sight, and out of the way of branches and other things we might get caught on. It was a long time before our clothing technology caught up with the rest of us, but our battle armor is the best in the known worlds.”

  As he said it, Mika reached up and touched the center of his breast bone—the point directly over his heart. He was smiling as the suit snapped around him. He was showing fangs, as the visor dropped into place. He was gone before the guards could react.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Felix stared, open-mouthed, at the space he’d occupied. When had the lizardine developed that little trick? The one where the force bars melted out of existence to allow an armored warrior to pass, and then snapped back into reality once more? And since when could a suit of battle armor remain invisible and undetected during capture and incarceration? And—

  Carlisle grabbed her by the arm and dragged her down closer to the floor. Shielding her with his body, he dragged her to one side of the room, but not back toward the door they had come in by. Behind them, one of the syndicate guards noticed what they were doing and followed. The other agency’s members were nowhere in sight. Taking advantage of the uproar, no doubt. Felix wished them luck, and let Carlisle destroy the door lock to get her through. The syndicate members followed, closing the door behind them.

  They all hit the floor when the door blew inwards.

  So much for the reptiloid being unarmed and harmless, Felix thought, as the air moved above them; Mika was as invisible as he’d been when he’d left the dais.

  “Don’t shoot!” Carlisle shouted, and slapped the syndicate guard’s wrist.

  Across the hall, a large hole shattered into existence, drawing startled shouts and revealing the laboratory beyond. Felix grinned. At least she and Carlisle hadn’t been the only ones to sneak weapons past the institute’s security system.

  “Can you get us out of here?” she asked, loudly enough for the camera sound feed to pick it up.

  Carlisle caught her drift.

  “I don’t know. They didn’t exactly give us a map to follow.”

  Blatant lie though it was, they both looked about as though trying to get their bearings, drawing a growl of frustration from the syndicate group.

  “Bloody civilians,” one grumbled, while the bodyguard Carlisle had kicked gave them a calculating stare. “Take us out of here Collins.”

  Collins. Now Felix had a name to go with the bodyguard’s face. It probably wasn’t his real one, but you never knew your luck. For his part, Collins looked like he wanted to argue with his employer, but he didn’t. With his face creased into a frown, he guided his masters past Felix and Carlisle, taking only a minute to lean in and deliver a warning.

  “I know what you’re up to,” he said. “And I don’t like it.”

  He didn’t notice Carlisle’s light-fingered interference that deposited the door-destroying device in his pocket. Felix did, and struggled to maintain her expression of feigned innocence.

  Collins’ employers didn’t give her a second glance, as the guard led them unerringly down the corridor, taking a left at one intersection, then two rights and a sharp left to bring them to an emergency exit. That it was the fastest route out of the building was clear from the burnt remnants of the door dangling from its hinges. The lizardine must have passed that way, too. They clattered down a short flight of stairs and into an open quadrangle, fenced in by four buildings.

  Good one, Collins, Felix thought.

  “You do know you’re trespassing, don’t you?” Saunders asked, emerging from across the courtyard with half a dozen security officers moving in his wake.

  “We got lost,” Collins said.

  “And yet you were able to move unerringly to the only exit in this wing, something my employers are curious about.”

  “You can’t hold us,” Collins’ master said, and Saunders favored him with an amused look.

  “We could,” he said, “but we won’t. All we ask is a little time with your man, here. The rest of you can leave.”

  “Will we get him back?”

  The amusement disappeared from Saunders’ face.

  “Perhaps.”

  “Unharmed?” Collins boss had obviously chosen to ignore the lack of a definite ‘yes.’

  Collins switched his gaze from one to the other. His face showed disbelief and uncertainty, and he took a step away from his master. The sniper sitting at the window two floors above did not miss. The first Felix or Carlisle knew he was there was when a highly pressurized dart embedded itself in Collins’ back.

  He folded, unconscious before he hit the ground.

  “Is he dead?” his employer asked.

  Saunders raised his eyebrows.

  “Does it matter?” he replied, and gestured to where his dark-haired assistant had appeared at yet another door. “Kylie will show you out, now. Our apologies for any inconvenience you have suffered while visiting.”

  “You, too,” he added, looking at Felix and Carlisle. “Collins is the only one we want to speak to.”

  Felix noted his use of the guard’s name, and was certain the camera feed had picked up her falsehood in the corridor, not so certain Collins’ warning had gone unheard, but willing to pretend as long as their hosts were willing to ignore it.

  They made it to the street in quick time, Kylie not bothering with the niceties of a guided tour, but hurrying them past glass-windowed laboratories, through an open-plan office and back to the foyer. After showing the syndicate-men where their car was waiting, Kylie turned to Felix and Carlisle.

  “We ran your faces,” she said. “It would be best if you didn’t return, Captain. Lieutenant.”

  Some of Felix’s surprise must have shown, because Kylie went on to explain.

  “It wouldn’t do to have any government officials disappear while they visited our humanitarian research center. It might affect our funding,” she said, and walked back into the building.