by Gini Koch
Christopher spoke again. “Jeff, this’ll take both of us.”
Martini let go of my hand and stood up. “Right.” He walked over to the middle of the table and so did Christopher. They were on the same side as Gower was, so on my right. The women who were sitting in this area got up and moved out of the way. No one was speaking.
The image went back to singular—no longer an image per person, just the entire table filled with this shot of the ninth-story window, with “me” and my buddy, Ronald Yates, framed within it. He had his arm around “my” waist, and I wanted to barf.
Christopher put his hand on my image, palm flat against it. Martini put his on top of Christopher’s. It looked as if they were doing a two-man “go team” move, only their hands stayed in place.
After what seemed like the longest minute of my life, they took their hands away and looked at each other. “It’s not her,” Christopher said.
“Nope. It’s not human, either,” Martini added.
“What the hell is going on?” Mom asked, echoing my thoughts this time.
“And, not that I’m arguing, but how could you tell it wasn’t me?”
Gower was the one to answer. “We’ve each got different talents, things on A-C that aren’t odd or even special, but things that are amazing on Earth. Jeff’s our strongest empath. Christopher’s our strongest imageer.”
“Come again?”
Gower managed a grin. “Someone who can touch a real image and know the person whose image is being touched. Our imageers can manipulate images, too, live or after the image is captured. It’s a common trait on our home planet.”
“The Earth tribes who think pictures take a part of their soul are right, to a degree,” Christopher explained. “The pictures copy the image of the souls and the minds, just as they copy the image of the body.”
“Yeah, if we were still on A-C, Christopher would be an artist,” Martini added.
“It’s an artistic trait?” Mom sounded suspicious.
Christopher shrugged. “On Alpha Centauri. Here it’s a useful trait for what we do.”
“Like wiretapping only different,” I suggested.
He shook his head. “Your mind is amazing. The way it does and doesn’t work, I mean.”
Mom, put her hand on my arm before I could offer up a suitable retort. “Yes, but you’re saying that’s not Kitty’s mind in that image.”
“Right,” Martini said quickly, presumably to prevent me from lunging for Christopher’s throat again. “I can feel the person through Christopher. That’s not a human woman. It’s not an A-C woman, either. I have no idea what that thing is, but it’s not Kitty.”
“I think it’s a machine,” Christopher said. “It doesn’t have a human mind at all. Close, but very different at the same time.”
“And he complains when I say the same thing,” I muttered to Mom.
“Later, please think about this,” Mom whispered back. “I mean, really think about it.” She spoke in a louder tone. “But the big question is, why?”
Everyone was silent. I decided to do some thinking right then, but not about Christopher. “What about the man with whatever is supposed to be me? Is that really Yates?”
“Good question,” Christopher said. I almost fainted. He and Martini did their hand thing again. But this time it was fast. “Oh, yeah, that’s him,” Christopher said, as they snatched their hands away. He sounded repulsed.
“He’s gross?”
“All the superbeings are . . . unpleasant for us,” Gower answered, as I watched women near both Christopher and Martini hand them some sort of hand wipes, which the two of them used as if they were germaphobes who’d just shaken hands with a leper.
“How’d he get from Arizona to New York in time to attack my mother?”
“Private jet would do it,” Reader said. “He wouldn’t even have to use any powers, just get in the Yates private SST and you’re there. He had several hours between the two attacks, after all.”
“SST?” Oh, good, something else I didn’t know.
“Supersonic transport,” Mom translated. “Okay, no argument, he’s got more than one. But again, why?”
Silence. It was nice to think with the aliens—they seemed to think with their minds, not their mouths. Of course, I was a human. But the two other humans in the room were keeping their traps shut, and I decided to follow suit.
Which worked for a while. Problem was, sitting in silence for me means I am no longer thinking about whatever it is I’m supposed to. My mind wandered before the first half a minute, thinking about the entire day, kissing Martini, how I’d discovered my mother was not who I’d thought she was, kissing Martini, how it was sort of shocking the person I had the most relatability to right now was a former top male fashion model, kissing Martini, wondering if Reader and Gower went to clubs or just stayed in, kissing Martini, and wondering if Dad was going to show up soon. None of this got me any closer to anything other than possibly falling into bed with Martini.
I forced myself to think some more. Why me? Really, why me? I wasn’t anything special. Oh, sure, I had a mother who was apparently the queen of antiterrorism, but I wasn’t involved with any of that.
Something inside my brain kicked, very hard. What had Mom said, the first thing she’d said, about Yates? Not that he was a monster, not that he was a tycoon, not that he was disgusting. She’d said he was the head of a terrorist organization I’d never heard of. But Mom had heard of it.
So maybe that meant Yates had heard of Mom.
CHAPTER 18
“UM, WHEN IS MY FATHER GETTING HERE?”
I got a lot of “looks” from around the table, but Gower recovered the quickest. “He’ll be here shortly. He’s with four agents, and they’ve reported in regularly.”
“They’re not taking a gate?”
“No, why?” Gower gave me a penetrating stare. “You want to share what you’re worried about?”
“My family, the safety of the nation and the free world, stuff like that. I’ll explain it all, but we need our entire extended family under a heavier watch than you’ve done so far. And make sure it is our family, when you go to take them away to whatever hollow mountain in their general neighborhoods you feel is safe.”
“No argument,” Gower said slowly. “But why?”
“Because this isn’t about me.” I looked over at Mom, who had a suspicious but confused look on her face. “It’s about you. You’re outed, Mom, in whatever ways that means in your line of work. Yates isn’t after me for me; he’s after me to stop you and whatever it is you’re doing to his terrorist operation.”
I looked back to Christopher and Martini for some sort of confirmation. “You both felt it—that’s not a real person next to Yates. But it’s something that looks just like me, down to the choice of suit. I was released from jury duty early, but I’d been on the ninth floor. Either their timing didn’t work out or—”
“Or the men who tried to stop us from getting your car were sent to kill you,” Christopher finished.
“Say what?” Mom and I shouted in unison.
He sighed. “I didn’t mention it because I thought they were there because of us. There are Earth agencies trying to stop us, you know. It’s why we didn’t take your car to your apartment—we didn’t want someone following it and attacking you because you were associated with us. But with this . . .” He shrugged again. “I think you’re right.”
Another reason to faint, but I let it pass. “So, you think the superbeing I took out was part of Yates’ plan?”
“No, I think it saved your life,” Martini said. He looked to Christopher, who nodded, and then looked back at me. He was trying to hide it, but I could see a lot of worry, and fear, in his eyes. “If it hadn’t formed, you’d have gone to get your car and been murdered. We don’t monitor those. I mean, I feel them, all our empaths do, but we’ve managed to learn how to ignore them, because we’ve had no choice. You learn to block and filter emotions or you go insane. So you’d have be
en killed. They’d have replaced you with whatever that is, and no one would have noticed.”
“I’d have noticed,” Mom said dryly. “It might look like my daughter, but a couple of words in and it would have been clear.”
“It’s a robot, Mom. A couple of words in, once it was in the house, and then it goes boom, and you and Dad are dead. They aren’t trying to stop you. They’re trying to kill you.” I looked back to Christopher and Martini. “That’s why Yates attacked Mom at the airport. Because his first plan got wrecked and everyone saw me on national television, alive and well. You screwing that up was probably a really good thing.”
“Thanks, I think,” Christopher said with a grimace that, if I chose to be charitable, was probably more of a smile.
“Yates owns a lot of media,” Reader added. “But he’s also got his fingers in other industries, and robotics is one of them.”
“So he raced back to New York, because he’d know early that the airports were being shut down due to fear of more terrorist attacks. Speaking of which, how was he allowed to land, and what the hell were you doing on a commercial flight?”
“Money and power have their privileges,” Mom said.
Reader nodded. “You’d be amazed at how the rules don’t apply to the truly wealthy, influential people of the world.”
“And I was on a commercial flight because this trip wasn’t a job for the government. I was doing some consulting for a large international conglomerate whose name you don’t need to know. They made the travel arrangements. First class,” Mom added. “Not as good as the private jet, but, you know, better for their bottom line.”
My mother’s life was so much more interesting than I’d ever guessed. I wanted to review every year of my life and figure out which of my memories and beliefs were based on reality and which were not, but now wasn’t the time. “I think we can assume Yates knew your travel plans. You couldn’t come home, so he went to you.”
Mom nodded slowly. “It makes sense. We’re close to proving he’s the head of Al Dejahl.”
“And you’re in charge of that operation, aren’t you?”
“Yes. But I’m not the only one involved.” She looked at Gower. “We need the rest of my terrorism unit under protection, too.”
“Come with me. We’ll get that taken care of right now.”
Mom and Gower raced out of the room. Everyone else looked around at each other. Finally one of the Dazzlers spoke up. I thought she resembled a young Sophia Loren.
“So, is this a superbeing issue or an American government issue?”
“Does it matter?” I wondered if they were going to consider just letting my family be slaughtered.
“Yes and no,” White answered. “Superbeings are involved, so it’s us. But the threat is to American counterterrorism. We have certain responsibilities in that case.”
“You have to let those agencies know it’s time to work together?”
“We have to let them know to stay the hell out of our way,” Christopher replied. His father didn’t argue.
Reader pushed off his glass wall. “I’ll take care of it.” Sophia’s look-alike and the one who really looked like Raquel Welch when she was in that fur bikini went with him. I hated myself for not being sorry to see them go. I also felt bad I had no interest in getting to know any of the females. I had been a lot happier surrounded by all the males. I wondered if Reader preferred hanging with the Dazzlers or if, by now, he was comfortable merely being one of the boys. It might be different for him, since he was gay and drop-dead gorgeous, but I had a feeling it wasn’t.
Turned out, the other females wanted to get to know me, however. “Maybe now’s a good time for those introductions. I’m Lorraine.” This was from one who looked younger than me, had a figure to die for, and blonde hair I was pretty sure wasn’t dyed. She was beautiful. “I’m a junior member of the Exoskeleton team.”
“We work on trying to figure out why and how the parasites turn a human into a superbeing without killing the human,” another added. “Oh, and I’m Claudia.” She had long, flowing brown hair, big brown eyes, and, just like Lorraine, a killer figure. She was about my age. I found myself hoping she was Martini’s sister so that maybe I could not hate her. “Oh, and that was my mother, Emily, and Lorraine’s mother, Melanie, who went out with James,” she added. “They’re part of the Liaison team, working with Earth scientists and government agencies on mutually beneficial projects.”
It certainly ran in families. “It must be nice to get to work so closely with your mothers,” was all I could think of as an insightful comment.
Both of them nodded, but where the older women in the room couldn’t see, Lorraine rolled her eyes and Claudia mouthed “not really.” I started to like them.
They went around the table, giving first name introductions and highlighting which scientific team they were on. Apparently, this meeting had been invitation only, and each team had sent one or two representatives to get the information and report back.
“How many people work here?” I asked once the round robin had stopped. I’d given up trying to learn any more names. I figured I’d deal with it as I went along.
“Several thousand at any one time, more during a state of emergency,” Lorraine answered. “Earth agencies have the top three levels. We have the bottom ten. There are two levels in between that we share.”
“This place goes down fifteen stories?” Suddenly I felt claustrophobic.
Claudia nodded. “It’s safer that way. For more reasons than the alien parasitic threat.”
One of the other women, who I thought was called Bernice, or Bethany, or something that started with a B, began explaining why it was great to be buried in the ground, what they did on each floor, and how some of the floors were just given over to living quarters. While a bed sounded great, B-girl didn’t have the most engaging speaking voice. This thrilled me for all of thirty seconds. Then I started to get bored. Then sleepy. Then very sleepy.
I managed to look at Lorraine and Claudia. Claudia was resting with her head on one hand, looking totally bored. Lorraine had leaned back in her chair and, if I was any judge, was fast asleep. I decided I liked them a lot.
B-girl finished droning on, and there was silence. It dawned on me she’d asked me a question as her closing line. But I couldn’t bring up what it was.
Amazingly, Christopher was the one who saved this situation. “I’m sure Kitty wants to get some sleep,” he said. “I think we can leave the rest of the debriefing for tomorrow. We’ve identified the real threat, and she’s not as integral to it as we’d first assumed.”
I wanted to mention that I knew Mephistopheles’ parasite wanted to move west into my body, but I yawned instead. Widely. I couldn’t help it, I could barely keep my eyes open.
“I’ll get her settled in,” Martini said.
Christopher looked as if he were going argue, but White nodded. “Do. We need to ensure we’re monitoring the right things anyway.”
The meeting broke up. I saw Claudia nudge Lorraine awake. The two of them hung back and left the meeting with me and Martini. “Sorry about Beverly,” Claudia said as we walked out. “She’s very enthusiastic.”
“And dull as dust,” Lorraine said with a yawn. “I don’t know how you stayed conscious.”
“She had me to look at,” Martini offered.
Both of them laughed. “Yeah, right, like that’d keep a girl up,” Claudia said, nudging him in the ribs.
Martini managed a chuckle, but he looked embarrassed, and not in a good way.
“Um, just asking, you know, but which one of the guys do you think is the cutest?” I felt like an idiot, but I had to figure out if they were serious or not.
Claudia shrugged. “We don’t really go that much for external looks. I know, it’s a big Earth thing, we get it. And we don’t judge. I mean, it’s the way your entire planet’s been raised. But, well, A-C women really like brains.”
“Martini’s not all that dumb,” I
said, wondering why I was even trying to make them think he was hot. I mean,
I kind of wanted him for me, so this was not smart.
Lorraine snorted. “No, he’s not. But, um, gee, how do I say this?”
“You mean with me standing right here?” Martini asked, and I could tell he was working to keep his tone light. “Just tell her the truth. I don’t have the right IQ level.”
“But we love you anyway,” Claudia said, patting his cheek.
“So, um, who does have the right IQ level?” I was fascinated.
“It’s not IQ so much as aptitude,” Lorraine corrected. “I mean, your Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking, men like that, they’re geniuses, yes.”
“And so dreamy,” Claudia said. She was serious. I managed to keep my jaw closed, but it took effort.
“Yeah, but then they’re guys who just have aptitudes for science and stuff. Physicists, man, your good physicists are just so amazing.” Lorraine’s chest was heaving. I noted that Martini wasn’t looking at it. He wasn’t looking at me, either. He was looking up, and a quick glance told me it wasn’t at a threat. He was just trying to pretend he wasn’t here.
“Don’t forget the rocket scientists. Or the engineers who work on all the advanced projects,” Claudia reminded her. “Some of your astronauts are dreamy, too.” She was big on dreamy. I’d never considered using that word to apply to any of the people they were listing, though. Martini, Gower, Reader, even Christopher, sure, dreamy to the max. But not the Nerd Army. Somewhere, somehow, I was going to have to get a text to Chuckie—he deserved a cut of this action, and if they got hot for Bill Gates, they might die over someone smarter, younger, and a whole lot better looking.
“I mean, sex is great, don’t get me wrong,” Lorraine said as we headed toward what looked like a bank of elevators. “But without the mental connection, well . . .” She gave me a grin. “I’m sure you understand.”
“Uh, yeah. Totally.” None of the A-C men I’d met seemed like morons, so, truthfully, I didn’t actually understand, and I wondered if I ever would. It was as if I’d fallen into an episode of “Beauty and the Geek.” I wondered if I’d see Ashton Kutcher anywhere around. He’d be hard to pick out based solely on looks, but maybe he had the right kind of mind, and Claudia and Lorraine would be mooning over him.
