Alien Collective (17 page)

I
WAS BACK IN THE LAIR,
sitting on the bed, Poofs still in my lap. “Huh. As usual, not really getting the answers or help I was hoping for. Algar bats a thousand again.”

The Poofs looked up at me expectantly. Then they both hopped off my lap and curled up on the pillows, still giving me expectant looks.

“You think now’s a time to nap?”

Got a look from the Poofs indicating that they were concerned I’d hit my head somewhere along the way.

“Oh. Time to try to go to sleep and maybe talk to ACE. I knew that.”

Received looks that clearly said they hadn’t fallen for my lame excuse and I could stop pretending I hadn’t been totally clueless.

“Fine, fine. It’s been a hell of a stressful day so far, I see I’m forced to mention. I’m also forced to mention that, stressful or not, I’m not all that tired.”

The Poofs indicated that this was too bad, and yet, they also didn’t care—it was time to nap. Always the way.

Figured some music could help. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a Music To Bore Myself To Sleep By playlist, or anything by Jack Johnson. I tended not to have boring music. Considered the myriad choices on my iPod. Jewel was always an option, but I just wasn’t in the mood. Decided to randomly spin the dial. Ended up on Foster the People’s
Torches
album. As good a choice as any other. Put the iPod into the nice docking station we had in here and turned it on low.

As “Helena Beat” started, I lay down and the Poofs snuggled up into either side of my neck. My neck was my main erogenous zone, but thankfully whenever Jamie and the pets snuggled there, it was just nice, not arousing. Jeff was probably even happier about this than I was.

The Poofs started purring, which was always nice and relaxing. Took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Normally it took exhaustion or a number of great orgasms provided by Jeff for me to fall instantly asleep. However, either Algar or the Poofs, or maybe even ACE, were assisting, because I could feel myself slipping into sleep.

Half expected my “favorite” dream, where I was in front of a congressional hearing and screwing up. But someone decided to be kind. In a sense.

I was in a gray, formless mass. I’d seen this when Michael and Fuzzball had visited me in my sleep. Had no idea if this was a real place, or just what those in charge of my subconscious—which, in these cases, I never truly felt was me—wanted me to see. Why anyone would want me to see gray nothingness was beyond me, but why ask why?

Looked around. I wasn’t alone. Sadly, neither Michael nor Fuzzball were in evidence. Neither was anyone else I wanted to see.

No, I was hanging out in the gray nothing with none other than Mr. Supreme Evil, Mephistopheles, as he’d been in superbeing form—big, blood-red, and seriously fugly.

Mephistopheles looked like a giant faun—sorta human-ish on the top half, goat-like for the bottom parts. His arms were human-like, but his fingers ended in claws. The curling horns coming out of his forehead, his huge bat-wings, and the hair on his lower body were also blood-red. You had to give it to him—he had a theme, and he stuck to it.

“Are you kidding me? This is what I went to sleep for? Nightmares?”

Mephistopheles stared at me. “You. Why are you here?”

“Got me, Mephs. I was pretty much about to ask you the same thing. This is my dream, though, so I think you must be here because I’m stressed out about your offspring. Or something like that.”

“You were to create my offspring.”

“Oh, good point.” Right. There were no reproductive organs on any of the in-control superbeings I’d ever seen. “Fine, Ronald Yates’ offspring, then. He’s a part of you.”

Mephistopheles shook his head. “No. I allowed him to die. He died separately from me. We are not bound in the . . . ,” he looked around, “. . . afterlife?”

“You’re asking me? Seriously? I have no idea what’s going on. I took a nap in the hopes that my daughter was also napping so I could talk to ACE and see if I could get even the slightest clue about all the bad that’s coming down on us. You were not in my expected equation.” Thought about this question. “But, barring someone having gotten poisoned gas into the Science Center, I’m not dead.”

“I am.” He didn’t sound angry, or sad, just matter-of-fact.

“Yeah, you are. We killed you. You were one hard parasite to kill, I might add.”

He nodded. “I remember.” He sat down on the gray nothing. “What can I assist you with?”

“Um . . . you’re offering to help me?”

“I believe I am here to help you, yes.”

“Why? We were enemies.”

“No. I wanted to join with you. We were adversaries, yes, but not enemies.”

“I remember it differently.”

“I’m sure you do. However, I know I’m dead. And you are not. So, we are together here for a reason.”

“Why you, versus Ronald Yates?”

“Perhaps because what I know is of more use to you than what he might know.”

My brain decided to join the party. Algar had watched over the solar system Mephistopheles had ultimately destroyed. Ergo, Algar knew Mephistopheles, and Mephistopheles might know Algar, as well. But that relationship wasn’t what I needed confirmed.

The question was, who’d “brought” Mephistopheles here—Algar or ACE? Then again, it might not matter. If I was talking to Mephistopheles, I wasn’t talking to either one of them, meaning the other Busybody Powers That Be couldn’t really say they were interfering, or not interfering, depending on their particular slavish devotion.

So, what could I ask of Mephistopheles that would be relevant to what was going on? Had no clue. Decided I’d just start randomly asking things that I’d wondered about and see where it led me. Or, as I liked to think of it, routine.

“Why did you blow up your own sun? In your original solar system, I mean.”

“My people were not . . . behaving as I wanted them to. I threatened them with destruction. They didn’t believe I’d destroy us all if my demands were not met. But I did. I knew we would go on, and would find other worlds to conquer.”

“Yeah. That didn’t really work out like you’d planned.”

He shrugged. “Those are the risks of power, and power plays.”

“True enough. Speaking of risks, your people were used as cannon fodder by the Z’Porrah, when they attacked Earth.”

His eyes narrowed. “Are they still here, the Z’Porrah?”

“No. We ran them off. With help. But still, off.”

“Good. So, who opposes you now?”

“Many people and things. My husband, your sort of grandson, is somehow running for vice president of the U.S. and the people on the other ticket are nasty haters. You’d love them. I have some powerful gossip columnist after me. I’m worried that the campaign or the gossip monger are going to reveal things, like us killing you.”

“None of your people would care that you killed me. You would be considered heroic. However, killing my counterpart, Yates, that will create problems. And all the other humans you’ve had to kill over these past years as well.”

“Yeah, exactly. We also need to find all of Ronnie’s Kids, as well as figure out what all our other enemies are planning. But that’s business as usual for us.”

“Why do you care about finding Yates’ offspring?”

“They’re all hella powerful in some way. Well, most of them. Depends on their mothers, really. And we’re pretty sure there are a lot of them. We need to see if we can get any of them onto the side of good. We were able to flip Mahin. And for all I know, we may flip Nightcrawler, too. Or at least keep him in the neutral zone. But there are others, and if we can find them, we have a hope of showing them the right path, sort of thing.”

“They are not powerful because of me.”

“You’re sure? You combining with him didn’t alter his genetics?”

“It did. But his genes, his power, is what was passed on, not mine.”

“That doesn’t sound possible.”

Received the “really?” look. Nice to know even the big fugly monster could shoot that one on me. “Many things that are real don’t seem possible to small minds. No offence meant.”

“Oh, none freaking taken. I don’t get it, and you can break down and explain for my tiny mind.”

“Touchy. My powers cannot be passed along in the way all of you reproduce. In order to share myself, I must become a part of you.”

“So, you ‘are’ the parasite? All the rest is just your . . . window dressing?”

“Yes, in essence. In the same way that you are not the bag of skin and bones you present, but instead infuse the skin and bones with your essence.”

The parasites were their souls. I’d pretty much always figured this, but it was sort of sad to know that we’d destroyed Mephistopheles’ people completely.

He seemed to know what I was thinking and shook his head. “Death is not the end. It is also not what we are discussing. We are discussing life.”

“True enough. But if you combined and altered Yates, I don’t see how that doesn’t alter him all the way around.”

“Possibly because our genetics cannot pass along in the way yours do and his did. I could not have mated with you as you did with your husband, or as Yates did with many women. We do not reproduce in the same way. By successfully combining with him, I altered Yates, but I could not alter the genetics he would pass along. Think of me as being a separate, yet fully integrated, part. When he mated I was not with him, in that sense. I was there, in my dormant state. But I was not mingled. We only combine when we are in our natural forms.”

“By natural you mean the forms like this one, what you were on your home world?”

“Yes. So the power would come from him. In these instances.”

“That makes sense I guess. Richard and Lucinda have no powers, but that just means their mother was a weak link. Gladys was incredibly powerful, and she was born well before Yates was exiled to Earth. He was what we call a sport, in our form of genetics. Is that why Tito can’t make more progress on the Yates Gene Research he’s been doing? And why our enemies haven’t, either, at least to our knowledge?”

“Yes. Yates’ genes were exceptional. It was why he and I could combine and survive.” He eyed me. “Yates was not the only one with exceptional genes.”

“Yeah, I’m sure Jeff and Christopher are loaded with exceptional. Nightcrawler, too, or he’d be dead.”

“More than them. But you should focus on the most urgent problem. Is finding these offspring the most urgent?”

“No, I guess not. At least my mom doesn’t think so. I guess the biggest problem, really, is the superconsciousness from the Eagle Nebula, named Sloshy.”

“Named that by you?”

“How’d you guess?”

“It rings of you. And I assume ‘Nightcrawler’ has another name. I doubt his mother gave him that one.”

“Wow, even dead beings of my nightmares have sarcasm knobs. I’m just that kind of lucky. Nightcrawler is Benjamin, the son of Yates and Madeleine Cartwright, when she was still Siler. Why are you here, really? Just missed having someone to be sarcastic at?”

He rolled his eyes. It was icky. Shocker. “These are your questions?”

“Blah, blah, blah. It’s not like I was prepared to see you, you know. We weren’t prepared for any of this.”

“Yes. And that is a problem. By now, vigilance should be your watchword.”

“You know, it’s funny, it
is
. And yet, since we don’t have insights into our enemies’ many plans and schemes, nor do we possess a bunch of telepaths, we’re constantly surprised. Just keeps life interesting. Anyway, how do we get rid of Sloshy, without him/her/it taking ACE away? And without hurting my daughter? And the various consciousnesses ACE has joined in over the years?”

“Why does it matter if ACE leaves your world?”

“Aside from the fact that ACE protects us and he’s residing inside my daughter? I promised him I’d protect him. I can’t do that if I allow something to take him away against his will. I’m sure you don’t need to ask me why I don’t want my daughter hurt in any way. Or why I don’t want to lose those who ACE joined in, either.”

“No, I understand. You challenged the entity.” A statement, not a question.

“Yeah, I did. Someone you know seems to think it was a great plan. No one else does.”

Mephistopheles mouth moved in a way that, charitably, might be called a smile. “You are good at that. You challenge those who are far stronger and more powerful than you are.” He reached out. Managed not to cringe—it was a dream, meaning he couldn’t actually hurt me.

And he didn’t. He, like Algar before him, patted my head. Gently. “You protect the weak and helpless, but you also protect the protectors. We have a name for that, where I come from. It isn’t pronounceable in your language. And it doesn’t translate well, either, beyond what I’ve just said. But it is a name of great honor.”

“Was it a name you had, before you lost it and killed everyone?”

He nodded and stood up. “It was. Sometimes I . . . miss that name. I have to go.”

“I don’t get to know the name or the word or whatever?”

“No.”