Touched by an Alien (27 page)

“Yet, who was at the scene when my personal flying nightmare showed up? Martini and Christopher. The heads of their divisions. Sort of overkill for a single superbeing, and before you try to say otherwise, there were other manifestations the same day, because agents were bringing in other boxes while we were at the storage facility. Agents who apparently could function without Christopher or Martini telling them what to do.”

“So you lucked out,” Martini said.

“No, you all just managed to avoid telling me something. It’s about the only way you all successfully lie. You don’t tell a falsehood, you just don’t share the full details, unless you’re asked a question point-blank. So, get ready. You all knew Ronald Yates was in Pueblo Caliente, didn’t you? And that’s why the heads of their divisions and, for want of an easier word, your Pope, were in attendance. Correct?”

Oh, easily correct. Not a one of them could meet my eye. Reader was looking up at the ceiling. He was grinning.

“I’ll take the silence as confirmation. Oh, and all those SUVs full of agents who went with us to the crash site? They weren’t along to protect me. They were along to protect
you
, Pope White.”

“We use a different word,” he said quietly. “Pope is really not appropriate.”

“True, you get to marry and have kids. I could call you Rabbi Richard, but you could make it easier and just tell me what the title is.” Silence. No problem—I knew how to get things out of these boys. “Bossa Nova? The Head Cheese? Mister Big? Papa Grande? The Head Honcho? Numero Uno? The Grand Poobah?”

Martini started to laugh. It was a relief in more ways than one. “I really like Bossa Nova,” he said to White. “You should consider it.”

“He’s the Sovereign Pontifex,” Christopher snapped. I’d figured he would end up the one to crack first. I was making fun of his father, after all. I decided not to point out the title would translate to Pope—they weren’t stupid, and it’s safer to try to blend in with the dominant religion of your new land.

“And he’s the religious leader of your tribe. Which, I do realize, makes him your official leader. But like the Pope, he doesn’t run the operations so much as he’s the face of them. To the governments and to anyone who might want to talk to the head man. It’s really impressive to the new recruits, too. Until we figure out that the Sovereign Pontifex here never actually calls any shots.”

“Oh, I call a few,” White said with what I realized was a smile. “I’m the one who passes judgment on whether or not an Earth recruit actually has what we require to join the team.”

“Which is why you showed up at the courthouse with your adjunct,” I nodded at Gower. “Or is he just called personal assistant?”

“He’s called the Head of Recruitment,” White said. “Officially, that is.”

“When did I pass the test?”

White managed a chuckle. “In the warehouse.”

“Thought so. You stopped ordering people around after that and never seemed fazed when Martini and Christopher were giving directions.” I looked at Martini. “It was really obvious you were high up when we were in the dome at the crash site. Only the head honchos get to tell people whose entire job is guarding something to shove off, and get to do so with no arguments whatsoever.”

He shrugged. “I told you, most people like me.”

“So you claim. Now, I don’t think we have a lot of time. I need to get a lot of information, and we need to form a plan for what to do and how to survive it. I really only want to discuss this with the people who’ll be going on this little journey with me.”

“Why don’t you want any of the rest of us?” Gower asked. “We haven’t been getting in your way all that much, and we might have some ideas that could help.”

“I don’t want you around, Paul, because you and the Pontifex here have to convince the various government agencies to clear out of a very large, secluded, and unpopulated desert area and not get involved, no matter what.”

“Kitty, we need artillery to kill these things,” Reader said, sounding worried.

“Apparently that doesn’t work on Mephistopheles. So we’re going with my plan.”

“What, we’ll all be armed with hairspray?” Martini asked, sounding as though he wasn’t going to be surprised if I said yes.

“In a way, yes.”

Dang. He looked surprised.

AFTER A LITTLE MORE WRANGLING
, whining, and useless posturing, White and Gower left. Finally. Alone at last. Just me and the five other people I was going to put into mortal peril. I wondered if my mother felt like this every time she told her terrorism unit their next assignments. I had a horrible suspicion she did.

Claudia and Lorraine looked excited, Reader looked slightly worried, and Christopher and Martini still looked pissed off and suspicious.

“Now that it’s just us, want to tell me what’s going on?”

Martini shrugged. “You know most of it already.”

“Oh? Let’s see . . . Mephistopheles manifests a few times a year. When, why, what’s the pattern?”

“There is no pattern,” Christopher said. “If there were, we’d have identified it.”

“Really? Like you identified that the Ancients’ manual was a religious text?” I decided that, as they went, Glare #5, which he was shooting at me right now, was probably his best. Eyes narrowed yet sending out laser beams of fury, face tensed, mouth poised to snarl something. Very impressive.

“Point taken,” Martini said, defusing Christopher’s snarl. “Feel free to tell us what you, having less than two days of this kind of experience, would like the rest of us to do. You know, those of us who have spent years,” he nodded his head toward Reader, “or merely our entire lives in this line of work.”

“Ooooh, that’s put me in my place. Only . . . I don’t have a place to be put into here. However, I know exactly where I fit in Mephistopheles’ plan. And you don’t.”

“You’re supposed to birth the babies,” Reader said, managing to keep a straight face.

“Only sort of.” Got their attention again with that one. Good. “See, there’s a problem with implanting a memory in someone else.”

“Uppity attitude?” Martini sounded as though he was headed back to normal. His body language was more relaxed—he was leaning his forearm against the wall, other hand on his hip—and his expression was amused.

“Limited control.” I sat on the edge of the conference table. “Mephistopheles can’t have had a lot of recent experience with this—I’m the first woman he’s touched in twenty years.”

“Lucky him,” Christopher muttered.

“He’d like to get lucky,” Reader said with a grin. Great, he’d appointed himself comic relief.

“Not so much. Look, let’s make this clear—he doesn’t want to have sex with me, nor does he want me to carry a zillion little Mephisties around. He wants to use me to get to all of you.”

“To stop us,” Lorraine said.

“No, I think Mephistopheles and all the other superbeings are here
because
of you, not in spite of you.”

“What do you mean, because of us?” Martini’s voice was low, but I recognized his expression—I’d seen it in the bathroom this morning. He’d also moved his back against the wall, crossed his arms over his chest, and one leg over the other at the ankle. It looked casual, but he was poised to move if he had to.

“You know what I mean, Jeff. Maybe the others haven’t figured it out, but I really think you have.” I looked at Christopher. He looked like Martini—face set like stone, eyes tortured. “You’ve figured it out, too. God, it must suck to be the two of you.”

“Thanks, we’re touched.” Christopher had moved closer to Martini and was standing in a similar position. It wasn’t a total surprise—when push was going to come to shove, it was going to be them against the world.

“It’s not an insult. I can’t imagine how the two of you have kept it together all this time. But it’s the real reason Jeff didn’t want to tell me about your religion. And, for the three of you who have no idea of what I’m talking about, this stays here, among the six of us, only.”

Claudia and Lorraine nodded slowly. They looked confused. Reader gave me a long look. “I know. Paul doesn’t, but I do.”

“Because you figured it out a long time ago.” He nodded. I looked at Martini and Christopher again. “See, it helps when you’ve dealt with prejudice all your life. It makes it easier to spot the lies that get told to cover up bigotry and the resulting actions that come from it.”

“Lies?” Claudia asked, sounding scared. “What do you mean, Kitty?”

“You’ve all been told you were sent here to Earth because your religion made you outcasts on your home world and you wanted to help protect Earth, so your government sent you here as an easy fix.”

I shook my head. I hoped I never had to tell my father about this. His righteous rage would go into overdrive. “But that sounds very familiar to me, as the granddaughter of people who were also part of what was, in some places, called a Final Solution.”

“The Holocaust,” Reader said quietly. “Over six million Jews, homosexuals, and others considered deviants murdered.”

“Your planet did it more humanely. For them. But not for you or for us. They sent you all here as bait.”

“No idea what you’re talking about,” Christopher said. He really couldn’t swing the lying thing, since he was looking at his shoes when he shared this.

“Funny you should say that, since I’ve never heard a bigger line of bullshit than the one you tried to hand me about your transference system working one way but not the other. If you were talking time travel, I might buy it. But you’re talking the laws of physics. I realize your planet’s very different from ours. But not so different that an A-C man and a human woman couldn’t have a functioning, normal child. Or is Paul some total freak by either race’s standards?”

“He’s as normal as the rest of us,” Martini said. “For what that’s worth.”

“So if it works one way, it can work the other. If the door on the other end isn’t locked, of course. Which it is. To you and to us.”

“What makes you think any of this, Kitty?” Lorraine asked. “We’ve been told the full history of our world and why we came to yours.”

“Have you? I doubt it. You’re a new example of the immigrant experience that America had in the early nineteen hundreds. People fled their homelands, many times due to religious persecution, to come settle in the Land of Opportunity. It’s what built this country. But what the immigrants told their children wasn’t always the total truth.”

“You’ve already said we can’t lie,” Christopher said. “Pick a side.”

“You
can’t
lie. But you all avoid giving out key information unless you’re asked point-blank. But you know what was interesting about the whole scenario when I said your translations were wrong?”

“I’ll play,” Martini said as he leaned his head back against the wall. “What?”

“Your Sovereign Pontifex wasn’t the one protesting against my charge. Oh, sure, he made a little show for the youngsters, but he wasn’t the one defending the translations. He left that to Beverly.”

“Because it’s her job,” Christopher snapped.

“No, because he can’t lie any better than the rest of you, and he’s started to pick up that I’m aware of it.” I looked at Reader. “How long did it take you to figure it out?”

He shrugged. “A few months, but I wasn’t kidding—we didn’t have the same level of action when I joined up. You’re right on schedule if I compress my first two months, and my first run-in with Mephistopheles into about a day and a half.”

Reader looked at Martini and Christopher. “I haven’t said anything because I couldn’t come up with any idea of how to fix it, so why make it harder for you guys?”

“Said what?” Martini asked. It was clear he was asking to ensure we actually had guessed right.

I answered. “That your home world sent you to Earth not to help us or give you someplace to go be useful but to use you all as bait to get the parasites distracted elsewhere.”

Reader nodded. “And they don’t want you back, any more than they want us to emigrate. We’re on our own together.”

“Why would they do that?” Claudia asked in a small voice. “We brought supplies to help. They still send us things.”

“Now and then,” Lorraine added.

“To ensure you don’t die out here, would be my guess.”

“Why would they need to?” Lorraine asked. “The ozone shield protects our home world.”

“Yeah, but can it or will it forever? If we take the Heaven and Hell situations literally, Hell is hot, very hot. You all come from a planet with double suns. I’d have to guess it’s pretty warm there, particularly since you all wear black in the desert in the summertime. And you don’t sweat while doing it. None of you sweat, not even when you’re running fifty miles in a second.” Not even Martini through hours of vigorous, fantastic sex. I’d sweated, but he hadn’t.

“If there was an entity searching for his new home and he came from someplace very hot, then why would he aim for, say, an ice planet or this little green and blue jewel in the middle of nowhere? He’d aim right for the planet with a lot of heat and burning suns, where his body would feel normal. The warehouse is boiling hot, yet none of you were uncomfortable there—and neither were the preserved bodies of the dead superbeings.”