Alien Education

by Gini Koch

  Somehow or other, despite this place being huge, we’d run out of living space. Jeff and I were alone in the gigantic Presidential Suite because Jamie and Charlie were in the West and East bedrooms, respectively, and had refused to sleep in our rooms with us unless thunderstorms and such were happening. Therefore, we had Lizzie and our nanny, Colette’s eldest sister Nadine, in the Queen’s Bedroom. We’d turned the West Sitting Hall into a playroom and entertainment center for our family and all personnel that were living in the White House with us.

  The Third Floor had been remodeled to handle all of our personnel, and we were at capacity, in no small part because the majority of our animals—Earth native and galactic-foreign exotic—had come with us and had to stay somewhere, since kennels were out of the question because I wanted my father to continue to speak to me. Of course, the animals all slept with Jamie, Charlie, and Lizzie. A few faithful ones slept with us, but most of the animals had abandoned me and Jeff for the kids.

  The East Sitting Room was historic and we had to leave it alone. We actively utilized the President’s Dining Room and connected kitchen. The Yellow Oval Room and the Treaty Room were both important enough that we kept them as they were. So I could put Wasim and Naveed in the Cosmetology Room—aka where Vance, Akiko, and Pierre desperately tried to work their magic on me when I had to do public appearances—or I could put them into the Lincoln Bedroom.

  Normally, I’d have shoved them into rooms over at Blair House or the American Centaurion Embassy, which was where most alien visitors stayed. But these were not normal circumstances. And besides, I didn’t plan on us having anyone else staying with us anyway.

  Wasim brightened up a bit. “Grandfather says that’s where he and Grandmother stayed when they visited. Grandmother is still using the vase and towel sets you gave her.”

  White House towels were a “thing.” I hadn’t known this the first time someone had asked me to get them a set, but had discovered they were highly coveted shortly thereafter. So, we’d contacted the vendor and Jeff had had a tonnage of towel sets made up, which we’d paid for ourselves, just as we would any other gift. We kept them on hand to give to people, and I’d never had such luck with presents in my life.

  The vase had been chosen by Abner and filled with special arrangements every other day while the King and Queen were here. We’d also arranged to have the vase filled with flowers weekly once they’d gone home, seeing as hyperspeed and gates made that really easy to do.

  “I’m glad she’s enjoying them.” I was. It was nice to know that we were making someone happy somewhere.

  “We will stay here,” Wasim told the Middle Eastern Contingent in a tone that I was pretty sure he was hoping sounded royal. It didn’t. It sounded like a dorky kid trying to be tough. He was really going to have a rough time at an American school.

  Why Raheem wanted him here, with me and Lizzie, registered. It wasn’t just for the clearly hoped-for love connection. It was to have Wasim protected beyond what a bodyguard could do.

  Naveed bowed his head. “As you command.”

  “As you wish,” Mona said, also bowing her head. Knew her well enough to be pretty sure she was relieved and worried both.

  “Thank you for your good service to our person,” Wasim said, still trying to be Extremely Royal and still failing utterly.

  Noted Lizzie out of the corner of my eye. She was studying Wasim, head cocked a bit to the right. She didn’t look derisive, and I had a feeling she’d come to the same conclusion I had.

  Colette’s words from earlier came back. It was hard to come into any tight-knit group and acclimate easily. And while there were a ton of us, we were indeed tight. And Mrs. Maurer had compared him to an exchange student—far from home and all alone. Much more alone now, since we’d just taken away nine men he’d thought would die to protect him.

  Didn’t think about it. Went to Wasim and hugged him. “Welcome home. We’re really glad to have you with us, Wasim.”

  He hugged me back and I felt his body sort of relax against mine. “Thank you, Your Highness.”

  “Kitty, hon. You call me Kitty unless we’re impressing someone.” Let him go and went to Naveed. “I’m not sure if you’re a hugger or if, should I try to hug you, you’d freak out.”

  Naveed smiled at me. The first smile I’d seen on his face. Looked good on him. “I think that, today, a handshake is more than acceptable. Royalty don’t . . . hug their retainers where we come from.” He put his hand out.

  Took his hand and shook it. Then pulled him in and hugged him anyway. “Our kind of royalty does, though. All the time.”

  He started laughing as I let go. “You are not conventional in any way, are you?”

  “Nope, not even a little bit. And I also know that, in your culture, shaking my hand is pretty much about as scandalous as my hugging you.”

  Naveed grinned. “It is. King Raheem, however, shook your hand. And you hugged him when he arrived at the White House for his visit. Indicating both that times are changing and you’re a very special person.”

  “Welcome to the team, Naveed. I think you’re going to fit right in.”

  CHAPTER 18

  WE HEADED UPSTAIRS and installed Wasim and Naveed in their quarters. The Elves had already been by and had rearranged the room—now there were two beds, and the look was a little more masculine.

  Once their luggage was dropped off, I showed them the rest of this floor, including who was sleeping where, explained what we’d done with the West Sitting Hall, and explained how the fridge in the Family Kitchen worked.

  Not that Wasim and Naveed had never seen a refrigerator before. But the way ours worked were definitely different.

  As far as the A-Cs and the general public that was intimate enough with them to be in A-C-controlled housing knew, there was an Operations Team consisting of dedicated A-Cs who handled clothing, housing, food, and any other requirements for the rest of the A-C population. I’d started calling them the Elves pretty much from day one, because that was how it seemed to me—like a fairy tale.

  Their work was achieved via a subatomic, spatiotemporal warp process, filtered through black hole technology causing a space-time shift with both a controlled event horizon and ergosphere that allowed safe transference of any and all materials, based on gate technology.

  Supposedly.

  The reality was that while almost everyone in the world believed this, there were a handful of us who knew differently—me, Paul Gower, and Richard White. And what we knew was that there was no Operations Team, no Elves, and while the science might indeed be as advertised or it might not, everything was achieved by one person snapping his fingers.

  That person was Algar, who was the God in the Machine for the A-Cs, and had been for millennia. Because he wasn’t human, A-C, or, frankly, from this universe. And, to make it even better, he was a criminal on the run. So to speak.

  Algar was from the Black Hole Universe, and he was in trouble because he was a Free Will Fanatic of the highest order. I had no idea of how many universes and galaxies he’d wandered through after committing his initial crimes against what the Black Hole People believed should be done—saving the races from themselves—before I’d met him. But he was literally the most powerful being in our particular galaxy, and I’d met a lot of powerful beings by now.

  Basically, he used the refrigerators and cupboards and hampers and such as portals. You wanted it? Ask at the portal, open the door, and there it was. Algar always delivered. While, at the same time, he ensured that thousands of people firmly believed he didn’t exist but an entire team of A-Cs doing this work did. It was impressive, really.

  Gower and White knew about Algar because they were the current and former Supreme Pontifexes of the A-Cs of Earth and he considered them needing to know. I knew because, for some reason, I appeared to be his favorite. Hundreds of years prior, whoever was the King of Alpha Fo
ur would have known Algar and what he could do. But as the bloodline had altered, and the mindset as well, Algar had chosen to align with Jeff’s father, Alfred, though Alfred didn’t know who Algar was or even that he existed, at least as far as I knew. So when Alfred had come to Earth, so had Algar.

  Gladys Gower, the original Head of Security for Centaurion Division, had known about Algar. Whether that meant William, and possibly Walter, knew, I couldn’t say. Because Algar was powerful enough to be able to prevent any of us from talking about him, and he shielded our minds and emotions as well, so no one else could read us thinking about him.

  So, I still thought of the Operations Team as the Elves for the most part, because those words Algar allowed me to say. And besides, I liked making him work a little.

  “You say what you want,” I explained in front of the fridge. “For example, I’d like a Coke and a donut, please. Then you open the door.” I so opened, to find a lot of Cokes and a pink box that held nice, fresh donuts in it.

  Removed the box and put it on the table. Grabbed one of the Cokes. “Anyone else want one, or would you prefer something else?”

  Apparently Coke was the drink of choice or everyone was being polite, because everyone took a Coke, leaving the fridge bare. “Thank you,” I said to the fridge. Then I closed the door. “Oh, could I please have a mostly green banana, too?” Opened the door, and there it was. “Thanks again, you’re the best.”

  “Why do you thank the machine?” Wasim asked as we all munched our donuts.

  “Because someone’s doing the work. Bringing you whatever food you want, taking your dirty clothes, cleaning them, and putting them back. Giving you lovely new clothes to wear if you need them. Cleaning up after you. And when someone does something for you, no matter how big or how small, and no matter if you can see them do it or not, you say thank you.”

  Wasim nodded as I finished my donut and started in on my banana. It had been far too long since I’d eaten, and I knew without asking that Jeff wasn’t going to adjourn us for lunch promptly at noon, especially based on the day we’d had so far.

  Had Wasim and Naveed both give the old Talking To Inanimate Objects thing a try. They both asked for something that could only be found in the Middle East. And both of them got exactly what they’d wanted.

  Once we’d finished our snacks and Cokes, I got another one for the long journey to the LSR. Then I had Vance take my team, including Lizzie, Len, Kyle, and the Middle Eastern Contingent, including Wasim and Naveed, downstairs for an early lunch. I mean, one Coke and one donut could have only possibly taken the edge off of their hunger. The addition of a banana had only barely taken the edge off of mine. Besides, I liked to keep Chef on his toes, and I was fairly certain that Jeff wouldn’t want them eating with everyone in the LSR.

  Once they were all headed off, it was time to mosey over to the LSR, with Christopher and my two Security teams in tow. I was going to be late. Found the will to go on and sipped my Coke.

  “Think it’s safe to have Lizzie and the new kid across the hall from each other?” Christopher asked.

  “Yeah, because the teenagers are both sleeping with adult supervision. Otherwise? Hells to the no.” Not that I thought that either one of them was thinking about hooking up with the other. At the moment.

  He laughed. “Yeah. So, Chuck told me that we definitely have the robot in custody. The one Buchanan found.”

  “I prefer the term Man-Bot.”

  “I’m sure you do.” This earned me Patented Glare #2. “However, we’ll go with robot.”

  “Dude, you’ve known me how long? We’ll be going with Man-Bot, thank you very much.”

  He sighed. “Fine. Whatever makes you happy. At any rate, Chuck’s pretty sure that the Man-Bot that met up with the True Believers was the one that you and Jeff spoke with.”

  “Interestinger and more interestinger. And see? Using the term Man-Bot didn’t kill you or anything.”

  He groaned. “The Kitty-isms, they burn.”

  Laughed. “You’re doing them, too, now, you know.”

  “Don’t remind me. Anyway, no one’s gotten anything more about other Man-Bots from this one. So we have no idea how many more of them there are, just that they’re all likely to look like me.” He sounded down.

  “Now you know how I felt and feel. Trust me, Amy doesn’t want the robotic version of you. She wants the you that is the real you.”

  “It’s not that. I know how they got me as the prototype. I basically handed myself to them on a silver platter, because I was shooting up with the wonder drug.”

  Took his hand and squeezed it. “Everyone has something they’ve gone through. You don’t shoot Surcenthumain anymore and haven’t for years. Do you still have cravings?”

  “No. Honestly I haven’t for a long time. But it doesn’t matter. They had me where they wanted me. God alone knows what else they got from me.”

  “Yeah.” My brain nudged. Tried to figure out why.

  “I just wonder who else they’ve trapped in order to duplicate them.”

  My brain nudged, harder. “You know . . .”

  “What?” Christopher asked after a few long moments. “I know that look. What connection did you just make?”

  “Not sure. But here’s the question I need to ask—how is it I have a Fem-Bot?”

  “They made a Fem-Bot of you to kill your mother. We determined that before you’d been with us two full days.”

  “Yes, but that’s not what I mean. I mean—how did they get me in the first place in order to gather the info to make the prototype? As in, how is it that the very first Fem-Bot was made in my complete likeness? She sounds like me, looks like me, moves pretty much like me. And yet, I was never in a situation where I was helpless and someone could have or would have been able to do whatever they did with you and Janelle Gardiner.”

  Christopher didn’t answer—Evalyne did. “Someone within the P.T.C.U. got specs on you somehow. That’s the only thing that makes sense. Or the CIA. But a government agency that worked with your mother seems the obvious answer.”

  “Yeah, I agree. So, here’s the next big question. Can we assume that it was Leventhal Reid? Or do we have a sleeper enemy that’s still out there?”

  CHAPTER 19

  WE REACHED THE LSR, which wasn’t that far away because, unlike the Original Situation Room, it wasn’t in the West Wing. No, it was back on the State Floor, the same floor as the Blue Room.

  The OSR, as we now referred to it, held about two dozen people at maximum. However, we tended to roll with two dozen people at minimum. The Cabinet Room held a few more, but we still ended up having far more people involved than, apparently, any other Administration prior.

  So, we’d had the Elves redo the State Dining room to make it function as the main meeting area that we could, at a moment’s notice, use A-Cs to alter right back into a dining room. We were nothing if not adaptable.

  Jeff still used the OSR for smaller meetings. Meaning he used it about once a month, max. Same with the Cabinet Room, used about once a week, usually late at night, with live-in White House personnel making up most of the attendance. And we occasionally had to use the OSR and the Cabinet Room for LSR overflow.

  All this meant, however, that Christopher and I were very much making an entrance when we arrived.

  In addition to Alpha Team and key Embassy staff, Jeff’s full Cabinet, all the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which included my Uncle Mort who was now their Chairman, my mother and several P.T.C.U. agents, including Kevin Lewis who was her right-hand man, many Congresspeople who were considered intimates including Senator Donald McMillan, who was Arizona’s senior senator and one of the few politicians we trusted fully, and a variety of staffers, human and A-C, none of whom I’d bothered to get to know yet because I was still working on remembering who all the Field agents were, were all in attendance.

  How
ever, there was one staffer in the room I knew really well—Caroline Chase, who was McMillan’s go-to girl and my sorority roommate and bestie. She was sitting next to Amy, both of whom gave me little waves of welcome, and they were surrounded by our Friendly Lobbyist Faction, meaning Culver, Gadoire, and Thomas Kendrick and, these days, Prince Gustav Drax, late of Vatusus, and his royal retainers. Yep, we might need an even bigger room than this one soon.

  Chuckie was back on-site, and he was sitting on one side of Jeff while Raj was on the other. Team Tough Guys were also in attendance, though they were on guard more than not. Felt bad for sending Len and Kyle off to eat—they enjoyed being a part of these big meetings far more than I did.

  However, it had probably been a good plan since there were notably no chairs available for me and Christopher. Steeled myself for a lecture of epic proportions.

  Jeff grinned at me. “No, that’s not happening. Chairs are coming.”

  Sure enough, the Chief Usher, Antoinette Reilly, came into the room, with White House personnel carrying several chairs. Chose not to ask why we hadn’t used A-Cs for this—there were times it was better to let the humans on staff do their jobs, and this was apparently one of them.

  Antoinette was a competent, pleasant, black woman in her late thirties. Before we’d arrived on her scene, her life had been filled with handling normal emergencies and keeping things going so that, in essence, everyone saw the ducks floating on the lake and no one saw the hysterical paddling underwater.

  All that changed the minute Jeff became President. Antoinette and I hadn’t gotten off to the greatest start, but she’d been right there with me during Operation Immigration and had flipped to the side of Team Adrenaline Junkie.

  She gave me an Atta Girl smile. “We’ll get you through this so you can focus on the children and their first day of normal school tomorrow.” Managed not to say that this would be its own form of stress and just smiled and nodded.

  The chairs for me and Christopher and, apparently, Antoinette were added next to Jeff, with Christopher between him and Raj, me between him and Chuckie, and Antoinette behind Jeff. Which begged a question.