by Gini Koch
“If you two could detach from each other for a moment? It’ll make it easier to show you what’s going on.”
Martini let me go, slowly. I took his hand and gave it a squeeze. He relaxed a bit. “Chuckie, what is going on?”
He looked at his watch. “You’ll see in . . . oh . . . about a minute and a half. Might want to let White and your other boys know it’s almost showtime.”
“Christopher, we’re almost set.”
“Yeah, the C.I.A. graciously joined us just now.”
“Jerry, you have federal company yet?”
“Yes, ma’am, Commander. We are in position.” Jerry and the rest of my flyboys always went into Supreme Military Mode whenever we were dealing with anyone outside Centaurion Division. No one in Centaurion liked having to deal with the C.I.A.’s ET Division. Except me. I didn’t mind if we were dealing with Chuckie, but only if we were dealing with him.
Chuckie reached into his coat pocket and pulled out some goggles. “You might want to put these on.” He handed them to me and tossed a pair each to Martini and Reader.
I put them on, which, of course, required me to let go of Martini’s hand. Chuckie smoothly took the opportunity to take my arm as soon as the goggles were on. “You’ll want to pay close attention, Kitty.”
“Why me? I mean, over everyone else?” I was trying not to give off any kind of emotion other than professional interest. Being betrothed to the most powerful empath on Earth had a lot of advantages. But Chuckie had become an in-person part of my life again on a much more consistent basis starting when Martini and I had been in a very rough patch. I define “rough patch” to mean he was drugged out of his mind by an alienhating conspiracy, and said conspirators almost murdered me in a truly horrible way. We were supposedly past all that, but since Chuckie had proposed during this time, and I’d considered it, Martini was never happy when Chuckie was around.
Chuckie sighed. “You’ll see.”
Martini was on my other side and took my other hand. I held his hand tightly, but I could feel how angry he was. “Reynolds, you want to loosen your grip on her?”
“No. Though you should hold on tighter as well.” Chuckie reached out, grabbed Reader’s arm, and pulled him over. “Hang on.”
“Um, why?”
No sooner were those words out of my mouth, than we found out why.
CHAPTER 2
THE SHOCK WAVES HIT, and the sky lit up. Animas, Hatchet, and Chiricahua Peaks formed a very shallow triangle in the southern parts of Arizona and New Mexico. But this area was a hotbed of alien activity—most landings happened here, both intentional and of the crash-landing kind. No one knew why. I just figured aliens were attracted to mountainous desert areas. Martini said they were attracted to me, but I didn’t really believe him.
If the parasitic superbeings the A-Cs had originally been sent to Earth to deal with kept to this area, too, our lives would be a lot simpler. Sadly, they landed all over the world, but they still seemed to prefer the United States in terms of overall percentage of attacks. The U.S. was the immigration country of choice even for alien jellyfish things that turned humans into scary monsters. It made you proud, really.
But what we were seeing didn’t resemble a parasite or a superbeing in any way. The lights were a bizarre pattern, but we were high enough up that we could see them clearly. Geometric shapes, interesting and different, but not Earthly. And yet, they were vaguely familiar.
Walkies were crackling. “Jeff, what do you see?” Christopher was shouting.
“Same as you, I’d bet,” Martini said.
“Is Kitty okay? I can’t raise her!” This from Tim.
“She’s fine. Jeff’s got one hand, Reynolds has the other,” Reader replied.
“Nice,” Jerry said sarcastically. “And thanks to the C.I.A. for the heads-up on this one.”
“You all okay?” Martini asked, his voice crisp, annoyed, and all business. He went into Commander Mode a lot around Chuckie, but always when any of us were in real or perceived danger.
Everyone was confirmed to be still standing on terra firma and seeing a pretty laser light show. “All we need is Pink Floyd playing in the background.”
“You’ve got it on your iPod, I’m sure,” Chuckie said. “You have everything.”
“True.” Chuckie did know me very well. Martini hated that, as well.
“How often is this happening?” Martini asked.
“It’s a pattern. It showed up once last year. We investigated—nothing. Would have pulled Centaurion in, but you were dealing with the Mephistopheles situation.” Or, as I called it, my introduction to my new life, since this was how I’d joined up as a Centaurion agent. I also called it Operation Fugly, which caused universal wincing whenever I said it aloud. No idea why—my names for things were always a lot more realistic than those the various government divisions came up with.
“You could have mentioned it when that was over,” Martini said, sarcasm heading to full.
“We could have, but we had other pressing issues. It manifested again six months later.” He let that one hang while we did the math. Six months later was right about when I was flying a stolen Mazda3 through the desert with a scary sociopath who also happened to be a politician chasing me. Though from what my mother and Chuckie both said, that description was redundant. Operation Drug Addict gave me nightmares only a few times a month now. Martini, who could pick up emotions even when others were sleeping, was possibly happier about that than I was.
“How soon after?” Martini asked, his voice clipped.
“The next night. Then it happened again, three months later. To the day.”
I thought about it. “Um . . . you mean on my birthday?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, I don’t like where this is going,” Reader said.
“Neither do we,” Chuckie continued. “It showed up again six weeks later. Then one month later. Then three weeks later. Then two weeks. Then one.”
“What’s it on today?” My stomach felt as queasy as if I’d just walked through a gate from Arizona to Moscow.
“It’s been daily for the past week.” Chuckie sighed. “Anyone besides me find the light pattern somewhat familiar?”
“In a way,” I admitted. “But I can’t place it.”
“Same here,” Reader said.
Confirmation of familiar but not recognizable came from everyone but Martini. His grip on my hand was tighter, though.
Chuckie looked over at him. “Martini? Surely you recognize it?”
“Why the hell didn’t you bring us in on this sooner?” Martini growled.
“We had to verify where it was coming from.”
“That’s bullshit.” Martini sounded ready to get into a physical fight with Chuckie, and I started to get really worried.
Chuckie sighed. “True. We wanted to be sure it wasn’t something your people were doing intentionally. Point of fact, something you, personally, weren’t doing intentionally.”
“You have some goddamned nerve,” Martini snarled.
“It’s my job. Surprising as that may be to you after working together for the past three years.”
“We don’t work together,” Martini said through gritted teeth.
“Not so much, but we will be. You’ll find the orders when you get back. Until we have determined whether this is benign or a dangerous threat, Centaurion Division, Alpha Team in particular, will be reporting in to me. Oh,” he added, “and don’t try calling in the P.T.C.U. on this. Angela’s as worried about it as the rest of us are, and she already gave the final authorization.”
“Why did you call my mother in for whatever this is?” For some people, this would have been an odd question, all things considered. And a year ago, for me, it would have been. A year ago, I’d thought my mother was a consultant, my father was a history professor at A.S.U., and my best guy friend was merely a brilliant, globe-trotting multimillionaire.
Discovering aliens walked among us had opened up a
whole new world at home for me. Turned out my mother was the only non-Israeli, non-Jew ever in the Mossad, albeit retired now, so to speak. In between directing grad students and writing papers, my father moonlighted as an active member of NASA’s ET cryptology division. And Chuckie was seeing the world because he was not only in the C.I.A. but was the guy in charge of dealing with Centaurion Division. Discovering that my mother had suggested him for the job was merely icing on the liar’s cake my nearest and dearest had been feeding me for my entire life.
My mother was now the head of the Presidential Terrorism Control Unit, a federal agency most regular folks didn’t know existed. Of course, they didn’t know the C.I.A. and NASA both had Extraterrestrial divisions, nor did they know we had a full-on, ninety percent alien-staffed division called Centaurion, either. Most people probably slept better because of this ignorance.
“Because it clearly affects her daughter.” Chuckie sounded angry, just a little, and I didn’t think he was angry with me.
“Jeff? What’s going on?”
Martini didn’t answer. Chuckie sighed. “Kitty? What are you wearing around your neck?”
“The Unity Necklace Jeff gave me. Why?” By Alpha Centauri custom, this meant Martini and I were engaged to be married and both off the market. Which was great in terms of any and all A-Cs. But I didn’t have an engagement ring, so the majority of the humans I knew didn’t believe we were getting married.
“Oh . . . hell.” Reader sounded freaked. “What’s after her now?”
“Why is anything after me?”
“Kitty, look at the lights again. Look at them carefully.” Chuckie sounded amused.
“What’s so funny about this?” I was staring at them. They still seemed really familiar.
“Imagine the pattern as smaller. And hanging around your neck.”
I did. “Oh. Well, you didn’t say tilt it.”
“Right, I realize that makes all the difference.” Chuckie was definitely amused. But that humor left his voice when he spoke to Martini again. “I’d like to know what’s going on, Martini. And I’d like to know now. Or you’ll be explaining this at C.I.A. headquarters. In a private room.”
Martini was still speaking through clenched teeth. “I have no idea.”
I was moving from worried to scared, and I could see terrified waving at me from just around the next bend in the road. “Guys? Does anyone else realize the peak we’re on corresponds to the jewel in the necklace?”
“Yes,” Chuckie said. “I do. I’m guessing I’m the only one other than your fiancé, but I’m very clear on it.”
“Is that why we’re standing here?”
“Yes. What’s significant about this peak, Martini?”
“I have no idea.”
“Come on, you gave her the necklace.”
“It’s from our home world. It’s been in our family for centuries.”
“So your family has been planning to invade Earth for centuries?”
“We’re all here,” Christopher’s voice snarled from the walkie. “You, of all people, should know that.”
Something tickled in my brain. Maybe it was because I’d been focused the past few weeks on wedding invitations and seating arrangements and all the horrors that go along with a wedding. “Um . . .”
“I’m fully aware of it,” Chuckie said, calmly but with more anger in his tone. “I’m also aware you all brought the parasites with you.”
“Um . . .”
“No they didn’t and you know it,” Reader snarled. “They’re the only people stopping the parasites.”
“Um . . .”
“Which have slowed down since Kitty joined up.” Chuckie’s voice was starting to rise, too.
“Um . . .”
“They haven’t stopped, and they won’t stop, as far as we can tell,” Christopher snarled through the walkie.
“Um . . .”
“True. We’re expecting a whole slew of them now,” Chuckie said with a mirthless laugh.
“Um . . .”
“Look, we are not calling anyone here!” Martini was close to bellowing, but not quite there.
“Um . . .”
The walkie crackled. “ACE would like to mention that Kitty wishes to say something.” It was Gower’s voice, just slightly different, which meant ACE was in charge of their main consciousness.
The men with me all stopped bickering and looked at me. I could feel everyone else on the walkies listening. “Thanks, ACE.”
“ACE is happy to help.”
“Hold onto that thought.” I took a deep breath. “Jeff, when did you decide you wanted to marry me? I mean for real, not joking around.”
Martini gave an exasperated growl. “Why are you asking me that, when you know the answer? The day we met, okay? Is there a problem?”
“Yeah, but not with that.” I gulped. “Christopher’s actually not quite right.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” he snarked at me through the walkie.
“Well, I can’t speak for the other A-Cs, but the two of you actually don’t have all your families here on Earth.”
“Come again?” Martini asked, sounding confused and a little hurt and angry.
“Your dad and Christopher’s mother married into the family, they weren’t part of the original families who were exiled here.” The A-Cs on Earth were religious exiles from their home world, and they didn’t like to talk about it much.
“So?”
“You told me the necklace travels through the male line, right?”
“Right. Again, so? My father gave it to me to give to you.”
“That’s sweet. Who gave it to him?”
“His father.” Martini didn’t say “duh,” but I could feel him thinking it.
“Right. And you have no brothers, only sisters.”
“Right again. And, again, so?”
“Meaning you’re the last male in your family line.”
“Yes. And, again, what does that have to do with anything?”
Reader started to laugh. “Oh, my God. This is going to bring a whole new meaning to the term ‘reception from hell.’”
“What are you talking about?” Martini sounded angry and confused, and I could tell the hurt was still there.
“Are you sure?” Chuckie asked me.
“Pretty darned.”
“WHAT?” Martini bellowed. It was always impressive—no one had his bellowing ability. On the top of a mountain it was massive.
“Oh, hell!” Christopher sounded freaked. “I think Jeff just started an avalanche over here!”
“Get off,” Chuckie said calmly. “You’ve seen enough. Get into the chopper; we’ll meet back at Caliente Base. Same for the boys on Chiricahua.”
“No problem, the echo is still bouncing here. Tucker out.” Jerry signed off, and the walkies went quiet.
“What is going on?” Martini asked quietly.
The light show was fading. Chuckie let go of my arm, and I turned to Martini. “Jeff, baby? I think it’s a message.”
“From whom, to whom, about what?” He pulled me to him, and I could feel he was tense and shaking, and his hearts were pounding.
“From your relatives on Alpha Centauri. I think they’re coming for our wedding.”
CHAPTER 3
CALIENTE BASE WAS THE SMALLEST of all the U.S. Centaurion strongholds. Located just outside Pueblo Caliente, Arizona, it was originally supposed to merely provide a safe access for Centaurion personnel into Arizona, which had a lot of activity.
Until about six months prior, when I’d sort of led a second generation A-C uprising, declared the younger A-Cs who were of age to be political refugees, and had the U.S. government annex Caliente Base as the home base for our refugees. My way with people is legendary.
This had worked out better than it sounds, since Christopher’s father, Richard White, the A-C Sovereign Pontifex and therefore reigning religious leader of their large and extended clan, had, it turned out, been looking for a sm
ooth political way to allow interspecies marriages, based on my firmly held belief that it was going to be better for both humans and A-Cs in the short and the long run.
Most of us had lived at the Dulce Science Center prior to this, and Martini and I continued to keep quarters there, in what I called his Human Lair. But we spent at least half the time in Caliente Base as well, since the younger generation were still considered refugees by the American government.
We were in the main conference room in Caliente Base, which was on the tenth floor of the complex. A-C complexes went down, not up, so we were well underground. But A-C technology was quite advanced, and the lighting made you think you were seeing the sun. Well, in the day. In the current wee hours of the morning, all the lighting did was make you tired.
We had all of Alpha and Airborne teams with us, as well as Kevin Lewis, who was my mom’s right-hand man in the P.T.C.U. and assigned to a permanent position within Centaurion Division. He was a gorgeous black guy who looked as though he’d been a professional athlete. He had a great smile that included incredible teeth, and he was loaded with bags of charisma. He was also happily married, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t allowed to look at him. Sometimes I could do it without drooling, too.
With Kevin’s addition, it meant there were three women and just an entire roomful of hunky men with us. I loved briefings.
“Can’t you people do something about the lighting?” Chuckie asked. We were sitting in the romantic glow I loved when Martini and I were in the midst of an all-night sexathon. Trying to have a meeting like this was, at best, difficult.
“No.” Christopher’s snark was on high. “As we’ve already said, Caliente isn’t as sophisticated a base as Dulce.”
“Define sophisticated,” Chuckie muttered.
“Look, it doesn’t matter.” My necklace was off my neck and sitting in the middle of the conference table, which I knew upset Martini emotionally, even though he understood the need logically. “We can all see it. It’s pretty much an exact match for the light show from earlier tonight.”