Universal Alien

by Gini Koch

  Took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay. So, why did we switch places? As in, why not have her just show up, save the day, and come home?”

  “We have no idea,” Richard said. “This is, to our knowledge, the first ‘switch’ that’s happened.”

  “Lucky me.”

  “Truly. Could you tell us what your life is like where you come from?”

  “Uh, sure, I’ll aim for high-level. Charles and I have been married for eight years, we’re wealthy—he made his money in convenience stores and then more of it in the stock market.”

  Martini nodded at Charles. “That’s the same, then.”

  “We live half the year in Australia and half the year in D.C. We’re normally not in the States right now, but Charles’ third career is being part of a think tank, and they needed him back.” Everyone I could see looked like they didn’t believe this. Decided to forge on. “I homeschool our children. James is the top male model in the world, and Charles manages his career. My father is a history professor, though he’s been on sabbatical since . . . Mom died.”

  “What are the odds?” Martini asked Charles.

  Who looked at Mom. “High. Angela, would you have recruited me into the C.I.A. if Kitty and I had gotten married when we went to Vegas together that time?”

  “Yes, and for the same reasons—you were too intelligent and looking into too many things the government needed to keep hidden. I’d have recruited you faster, because you were absolutely on a watch list until you came inside.”

  “How did you and Reynolds meet me?” James asked.

  “We went on a worldwide honeymoon. We met you in Paris. You were horrified that we hadn’t had a real church wedding, so you arranged one for us. You were our best man. You’re our best friend. Why are you calling him Reynolds? You call him Chuck, you’re one of the only ones who’s allowed to.”

  “We didn’t meet in that way in this world,” James said gently. “So I’d have known you almost as long as you’ve been married. Angela?”

  She nodded. “I’d have recruited you, too, I’m sure. Your being a fashion model would be a great cover and allow you to go everywhere. Charles being your manager screams ‘cover story’ to me, too.”

  “Are all of our friends in Australia in the C.I.A., too? Or are they all just in ASIS?”

  “Not sure,” Mom said. “They could be in Australia’s Secret Intelligence Service. What do they do?”

  “Well, the freaking Prime Minister and his wife run the damn country, but the rest of our friends there are doctors and lawyers and government workers and such.” The entire room drew in their breath. Ignored them. “We’ve known most of our circle since we hit Australia. We discovered I was pregnant with Charlie when we were in Australia and everyone was so great to us, and they loved that Charles was brilliant, so we just sort of . . . stayed.”

  “So,” Richard said carefully, “you’re intimate friends with Australia’s Prime Minister?”

  “Yes, as I said. We met through their eldest daughter and they sort of took us under their wings. Are you going to tell me that he’s a space alien or a spy?”

  “No, not at all. However, I believe that you may be here to save our day as well.” Richard looked around. “We’re all thinking the same thing, yes?” All heads nodded.

  “Kitty,” Charles said, “our Kitty, just insulted the Prime Minister in a really huge way. International incident kind of way.”

  “What in the world could she have done? Tony’s like the coolest guy in the world.” Well, that depended on which party you belonged to and which socioeconomic level you lived in. Dad, Charles, and I all felt that Tony was a true politician, with all the negatives that came along with that career choice, but the Costellos had been wonderful friends to us, and ultimately, that mattered more.

  “She did this.” Charles made the V for Victory sign, only he had his palm turned in.

  “Oh my God. She did not!”

  “Half of us have no idea why you and Raj freaked out about that, by the way,” James said.

  “James, seriously, are you high? She flipped him off in Australian!” I turned to Richard. “What did Tony do?”

  “Before or after Jeffrey accidentally spilled coffee all over him and his wife? Or before or after you threw your entire cup of coffee at and on him?”

  “Both happened because Kitty was falling,” Martini said quickly. “But, yeah.”

  “So, let me get this straight. The wife of the Vice President, in other words, me, flipped off the Australian Prime Minister and tossed her coffee at him, then her husband, the Vice President, threw coffee onto the Prime Couple?” Everyone nodded. “God, I hope their kids weren’t around, too.”

  “No, they were spared.” Richard seemed to find this funny.

  “So not amused. So I insulted my friends? Fantastic.”

  “No,” Charles said. “Our Kitty, who has never met these people prior to these past couple of days, insulted them. You, however, can hopefully help us figure out how to fix this situation, which has basically made one of our closest political allies incredibly angry.”

  “Well, most of the Australian people probably think this is fab, since they, like the people here, live to pick on their leaders.”

  “This happened at a cricket match,” Charles added.

  “Who won? Was it our team playing?”

  Everyone looked at each other. “More than anything else she’s said,” Martini said, “this convinces me that Tim’s theory is correct.”

  “He’s not a popular politician,” Mom said, sort of hopefully.

  “Name one who is,” Charles countered.

  Martini shrugged. “To Chuck’s point, I’m not popular, and neither is Vince. And we had an amazing come-from-behind victory, which would make you think we were popular, only you’d be wrong. Vincent Armstrong, our current President,” he said to me.

  “Whatever you say. So, really, back to the cricket match. Who was playing? Who won?”

  “That needs to stop,” Crawford said. “Look we need to brief her on what she does and doesn’t like. And we need to do it fast.”

  “And then we need to get things fixed with Australia,” a new voice said. Spun around to see an incredibly handsome guy who was probably from India via the aliens in some way. “Because the Prime Minister is mad enough that he’s making noises about sending all their A-Cs back to the U.S., and that’s not good for anyone.”

  CHAPTER 19

  “RAJNISH SINGH,” Richard said. “He prefers to be called Raj.”

  “Why are you introducing me to Kitty?” Singh asked.

  “Bizarro World,” Crawford said.

  Singh’s eyes narrowed, he cocked his head a bit to the right, stared at me, then nodded. “Okay, how did it happen?”

  “Wow, does everyone here read the comics?”

  “Many of us did before we knew you, or rather, your counterpart,” James said with a grin, “but everyone else has been forced to in order to keep up. It does make some things easier. Raj, this falls under the highest need-to-know orders and that means no one outside of this room needs to know.”

  Singh nodded. “That makes sense. Embassy personnel will figure it out, though.”

  “Not if we do our jobs right,” Crawford said.

  “Look, the biggest issue that we’re all sort of stepping around is that this Kitty thinks she’s married to me, not Jeff.” Charles rubbed the back of his neck. “We’re already dealing with rumors of our ‘affair.’ Kitty acting like she doesn’t want Jeff touching her is only going to fuel that.”

  “What, you want me to commit adultery just to make it easier with the press?”

  “No,” Mom said quickly. “But you do have to pretend to be in love with Jeff.”

  “You two are big on the public displays of affection,” Lorraine said. “So, you’d better get us
ed to hanging onto him and kissing him, at the least.”

  “I haven’t kissed another man since Charles and I got married.” A horrible thought occurred. “What if she doesn’t realize she’s in Bizarro World? What if she’s sleeping with my husband?” All the old fears—that Charles was cheating on me whenever he went away on trips and I couldn’t reach him—surfaced. What if he’d figured it out and wanted to sleep with a different and, apparently, far cooler version of me?

  “Technically, it would be you doing it,” James said.

  “The hell it is.”

  “Look,” Christopher snapped, “this isn’t a game. We’re in the midst of a huge political situation. Worry about your sex life later.”

  One of the military guys nodded. “Jerry Tucker. I’m your favorite flyboy, just so you know. And, Christopher’s right—who’s zooming who isn’t important. Making sure America and Australia remain friends and ensuring that the A-Cs in other countries aren’t rounded up and shipped to America is vital.”

  “The precedent for that kind of thing isn’t good,” Claudia said.

  “The Holocaust. And all other forms of ethnic cleansing. Yeah, I know history. At least mine.”

  “It’s the same here,” Singh said. “And that means that, yes, you’re going to have to do uncomfortable things for the good of your country and your people. In your case, for the good of both your countries, and people you don’t realize are yours.”

  “But, you know, no pressure.”

  Crawford grinned. “You sound like our Kitty, so that’s a huge start.”

  “We need to get her back to the Embassy,” Serene said. “We need to stop having clandestine meetings in the middle of Walter Reed. I’d prefer to take her to the Science Center, by the way, but I’m not sure if that won’t cause more problems.”

  Charles shook his head. “Actually, that will solve most of them. We tell the press that she’s really hurt her head and being taking back to Centaurion Division for medical care. No one will question it, other than the staff here, since a bruised forehead isn’t all that big a deal.”

  “Nice to know you care. I have whiplash, too, I’m pretty sure. And if we weren’t anti-drug I’d down a couple of Valium if I could get my hands on them.”

  Charles gave me a funny look. “I do care, Kitty. But I can’t care like you want.”

  “Why not?”

  Charles looked lost. “Because . . .”

  “He married my sister,” Paul said, as he put his arm around Charles’ shoulders. “She was . . . murdered by our enemies. They’d only been married six months.”

  Charles had said something about this earlier, but it hadn’t really registered until now because I’d been panicking and thought he was being flippant toward me for some reason.

  “You married someone else?” Tried not to sound hurt or heartbroken. Failed, based on most of the expressions in the room, Charles’ in particular. He looked like he’d been punched in the gut, repeatedly.

  “He did,” Martini said gently, as he came over and took my hand. “So did you. Here. It took him a long time, but he’d finally moved on. I’ll explain it all later, when we debrief you. You’re going to have to accept that things are different here, but I promise I won’t do anything that makes you uncomfortable.”

  “Okay. I guess.” It wasn’t, but there was nothing I could do about the situation right now. Besides, Charles looked ready to break down, and I had a feeling both Paul and Martini had realized this. Before I had. Time to pull up the Big Girl Panties and deal. “So, now what?”

  “Now,” Martini said, “we take a gate to the Science Center, Raj and Angela cover the press and join us later, and we figure out how to fix everything—our problems and yours, too.”

  “Promises, promises.”

  Martini chuckled, then James made a call. There was a weird shimmering in the air again, and everyone in suits began stepping through it and then disappearing.

  “This is how you guys appeared out of nowhere, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Martini confirmed. “You normally get nauseated by the transfer and I, ah, carry you through. You say it makes you feel better. The other Kitty you, I mean.”

  “Yeah, I figured that out. Um . . .” Looked at Charles.

  Who looked uncomfortable. “Jeff, I’ll go through before you. Kitty, really, if I’m essentially the same man in your world, I’ll understand.”

  “The hell you will, Mister Jealous.”

  Everyone else started laughing. Martini looked embarrassed and Charles looked like someone had just discovered some deep, dark secret.

  “So, you really do like just one type,” Lorraine said as she stopped laughing. She was about the only one. “Amy was right.”

  “Amy who?”

  “Amy Gaultier, now Gaultier-White,” Claudia replied, still giggling. “One of your besties from high school, now married to Christopher.”

  “Speaking of whom,” Christopher snapped. He didn’t appear to have a sense of humor he was aware of. “We’ll have to brief her. She’ll know this isn’t our Kitty right away.” As he said this, a different part of the air shimmered and a tall, willowy redhead appeared out of nowhere.

  “What are you talking about, Christopher? Kitty, are you okay?” she asked, looking and sounding worried.

  My fists clenched. “Just what the hell are you doing here, you bitch?”

  The laughter in the room ceased immediately. “What?” Christopher asked. “Kitty, what the hell?”

  I was too angry to speak. What the hell was Amy doing in this life, intertwined with it, apparently? Martini held me back from attacking her, which I’d kick him in the shins for later.

  Amy gaped at me. “Kitty? What do you mean? And why are you calling me a bitch?”

  “You know why,” I managed to growl out.

  “This isn’t actually our Kitty, this is the Kitty from Bizarro World,” Crawford said to Amy. He gave her a fast update while I contemplated if I could pound her face in before they all pulled me off of her or not. Sadly, had to bet on not.

  “Got it,” Amy said when Crawford was done. “Glad we’ve all learned to be instantly adaptable to whatever weird gets tossed at us.”

  “Some adaptation isn’t going to happen,” I snarled under my breath.

  “Kitty, why are you mad at me?” Amy asked. As if she didn’t know.

  I could see the wheels in Charles’ head turning. “Oh. You and I got married in Vegas, right?” I nodded. “And I’ll bet you called Amy to ask her to come out to be in our wedding.” Nodded again. “And she was likely . . . less than complimentary about your choice of a husband.”

  “That’s a polite way of putting it.”

  Amy had the grace to look guilty and embarrassed. “Yeah, I probably wouldn’t have been . . . supportive at that time, if what Tim just told me is true.”

  “It’s true,” James confirmed.

  “You said Charles was a loser and that you hoped I was marrying him because he now had money,” I confirmed through gritted teeth. “I verified that you weren’t joking and you verified a lot more nasty things about Charles, and me, for loving him. We haven’t spoken since, and I intend to keep it that way. Keep this heinous bitch away from me because I will beat the ever-living crap out of her if she comes near me.”

  CHAPTER 20

  “NOT AN OPTION,” Mom said. “And you’re going to get over it, all of it, right now.” Mom had her No Nonsense Voice going strong. “I don’t care what relationship you and Amy do or don’t have in your world. In this one, you’re best friends and you will act like such for the foreseeable future. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes.” My fists were still clenched. So were my teeth.

  “Kitty, I’m sorry. For the me in the other world, your world, I mean. I’m sure that she did say terrible things. I’ve said them about Chuck for
years, even after I discovered aliens were on the planet. But . . . Chuck and I are friends now. I’ve realized what you saw all those years ago—he’s really the smartest guy in any room and he’s not Conspiracy Chuck so much as totally in the know. This change in my attitude was made a lot easier since he’s literally never wrong and I’ve seen that proved over and over again.”

  “I was wrong about where Hoffa’s buried,” Charles said calmly, as he gave Amy a smile I could honestly say was fond.

  “Really? Where is Hoffa buried, then? You have a theory in my world—”

  “If we could get back to what matters,” Mom snapped. “Amy’s apologized. Kitty?”

  “Oh my God, really? I’m not a teenager anymore.”

  Mom gave me the Hairy Eyeball Look, crossed her arms over her chest, and tapped her fingers. Based on this posture, I was one word away from being grounded.

  I caved. “Apology accepted. If this world’s Charles has forgiven you, and only if.”

  He nodded. “I have. We’re all dealing with things so much more important than how I was treated in high school, that it’s relatively easy to get past.”

  Martini snorted. “Yeah, right. They’ve come to an accord in the recent term, baby, but before then, believe me, I have no issues believing that the Amy in your world hated the Chuck in that world and had no problem telling you so. And the dislike was definitely mutual. They get along now mostly because of you.”

  “You mean my Cosmic Alternate, but fine. Politics makes strange bedfellows and all that.”

  “And we’re in a political situation,” James said. “So let’s get going. Amy, you’ll get fully briefed along with Kitty. There was no way she wasn’t going to have to know anyway, so all of you who are glaring at me and Tim for ‘telling the secret’ can just cool your jets.”