Alien Education

by Gini Koch

  “I need the greatest warrior in the galaxy.” Despite my focus on Jeff’s hotness, the beach was starting to fade away. Did my best to hold onto the dream and, if not the dream, at least Jeff’s naked body.

  “And you’re talking to me why?”

  “Because your reputation precedes you.”

  Things had been relatively quiet on the Political Crap front, even quieter on the Evil Megalomaniac front, and the Marauding Aliens front had been blissfully silent. Apparently this last one was silent no longer, though.

  Visions of Jeff’s naked body washed fully away. I was now officially bitter. “Super. As dreams go, this one stinks. Just sayin’.”

  “My mind has traveled through the DreamScape in order to find you.”

  “Whee. I think you got lost somewhere along the way.”

  Really wondered if I’d eaten something that was causing this kind of bizarreness. But we hadn’t had a State Dinner, I hadn’t snuck in a huge amount of junk food, and the White House chef wasn’t prone to making anything bad. Chef was far healthier in what he prepared than I’d ever been. And I’d only had two of his chocolate mousses for dessert, so it couldn’t be that.

  “No, I’ve worked my way through the DreamScape to find you. I need your help.”

  This dream wasn’t going away. Tried to wake up. Failed. “So you said. And I ask again—why me? And what the heck is the DreamScape, anyway? That sounds like an old Dennis Quaid movie.” I could find it in my libido to add in Dennis Quaid too. Dennis Quaid, Ewan McGregor, and Jeff would be a combination I could enjoy for a really long time. In another dream. One not being constantly interrupted by an alien I didn’t know and didn’t want to know. Had to wonder if other people had dreams like this. Probably not. I was “lucky” this way.

  “Why you is because you always manage to win. The DreamScape is the realm that connects us all. And I have no idea who Dennis Quaid is or what a movie is, either.”

  “Uh huh, right, pull the other one. It has not interested bells on and all that jazz.”

  “The fate of my world depends upon you.”

  “Doubt it. Sincerely doubt it. I officially want to tell myself that this kind of dream is not on my particular Netflix queue and I don’t want anything similar to it suggested, either.”

  “I don’t understand you.”

  “So few ever do. Look, good luck with whatever you’ve got going on wherever in my subconscious you happen to be. But I’m not your girl.”

  “I’m not in your subconscious.”

  “But that’s what my wily subconscious would say, now, wouldn’t it?”

  “I don’t know.” The voice sounded desperate. “My name is Ixtha. Please help me.”

  “Well, that’s different. What’s my name, then?” I mean, my subconscious certainly knew my name.

  “I only know you as the Warrior Queen.”

  “Right. Not as the First Lady of the United States, not as the Queen Regent of Earth for the Annocusal Royal Family of Alpha Four, and not as Earth’s Galactic Representative to the Galactic Council. But as the Warrior Queen. Gotcha. I think you were looking for Queen Renata of the Free Women of Beta Twelve.”

  “I have no idea who those people are or what those titles mean.” Ixtha sounded serious. Which was odd, because my subconscious certainly knew all the various and current roles I was stuck doing whether I liked them or not.

  Figured I’d try one last title. “What about Shealla? Do you know her?” That was my God Name on Beta Eight.

  “Yes! Shealla is the Warrior Queen. You are Shealla?”

  “If you already knew, why’d you ask?”

  “I don’t . . . what? What do you mean? I don’t understand you.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t know my name.” Well, my Beta Eight name, but still it was a name I answered to. Though Shealla was supposed to be the Queen of the Gods and the Giver of Names, not the Warrior Queen. “Then again, my wily subconscious also knows that name.”

  “I am not in your subconscious! I am in your dream, via the DreamScape. I have searched for you for so long, Shealla. I need your help, my people need your help. You who have saved so many, why will you not hear my plea?”

  “Because I think you’re a figment of my vivid and overworked imagination. Though Ixtha is a cool name I haven’t heard before, so go team in terms of my creativity.”

  “I am real, Shealla. As real as you are.”

  “Yeah? Figure out what my real name is, and then visit me again. Or don’t. Really, you disturbed a great dream and I’m still bitter about it.”

  “The longer we speak the better my connection is to you and I can search your mind for clues. Please give me that time, Shealla. I will do as you ask, discover your true name, and then you will help me and my people, yes?”

  “Sure, I guess. Why not, right?” Was going to add a really witty and sarcastic comment, but the sounds of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Universally Speaking” came on and thankfully dragged me into consciousness and away from the “DreamScape”.

  The little joys of greeting the dawn, especially after this Dream O’ Weirdness, were without number.

  • • •

  Normally I hated dragging up as early as we now had to since Jeff had become the President, but never had I been so happy to wake up. Let the music play and rolled over to see if Jeff was still in bed.

  He was not and I was displeased. Chose to blame my weird dream and got up. Checked for him in the bathroom. Not there. Trotted back and checked Mr. Clock in case I’d somehow slept through hours’ worth of musical alarm. I had not.

  Went to the living room. Nada. Was about to just give up and take a shower when the main door of our Presidential Suite opened and Jeff came in with a big breakfast tray. He grinned at my expression. “I didn’t mean to worry you, Kitty. I just thought it would be nice to have breakfast in bed today.”

  Ran through the potential reasons. Jeff was far more romantic than I was, and there might be something important I was missing. All our family birthdays were past—mine was the last one for several months, and it had been yesterday and we’d celebrated by going to Paris as a family—and I couldn’t come up with anything else.

  “Um, great!”

  Jeff laughed. “I’m giving the State of the Union address today while we christen the Distant Voyager and I just want to be alone with my wife before I have to do that.”

  “Oh! Right you are.” Felt bad. Jeff was in the middle of his accidental term as President and he took the job seriously. He’d been working with his team for weeks on his speech, meaning I should have remembered. Then again, turning thirty-five had felt very milestone-ish for me and Paris was awesome, and generally forgetting stuff like this was very par for my course.

  “Not a problem, baby, and don’t feel bad. Just eat with me and be my wife.”

  “That I can do!”

  We snuggled back into bed and had a lovely breakfast of eggs scrambled with lox, croissants, excellent coffee with cream, and fresh fruit. We talked about Paris and how great it had been to be there. We weren’t jet-lagged because we’d used gates—A-C technology that looked like airport metal detectors but were capable of moving you across the street or across the world in one step. They could move you to other planets, too, but we didn’t use them for that a lot and, now, we might not have to use them for that ever again.

  “I’m glad we were able to celebrate your birthday before the address,” Jeff said as we finished up.

  “Me too. And I’m sorry I forgot. Earth’s first manned, long-distance spaceship with true warp capability is a huge deal. I’m so glad it’s happened during your Presidency.”

  Jeff smiled. “Me, too, baby. It’s one of the few truly good things that’s happened that didn’t have something horrible attached to it.”

  “Well, I think that most of the aliens now liv
ing in our solar system would disagree with you, but I know what you mean.”

  Considered telling Jeff about my weird dream, but didn’t want to spoil his mood or slip up and mention my fantasizing about Ewan and Dennis. Besides, he’d just tell me that two chocolate mousses were too many and since I knew he was wrong and I was going to eat two, minimum, any time Chef made his mousse, what was the point of fighting?

  We showered together, which was one of my favorite things to do, ever, because we had great sexytimes in the shower and today was no exception. Once climaxed to the max, we got dried off, clothed, and ready.

  Our first stop was to check in on our children, Jamie, who had just turned six, Charlie, who was just over two, and our ward, Lizzie, who was now sixteen. They were all up and breakfasting in the family dining room on this floor of the White House Residence. They were with our live-in nanny, Nadine Alexis, her middle sister, Francine, who had the job of being my far-hotter FLOTUS double, and their youngest sister, Colette, who was my press secretary. All three sisters were A-Cs and lived in the White House with us, and they liked to breakfast together with the kids whenever they could.

  “Raj asked me to let him know as soon as you were up, dressed, and had eaten,” Francine said. “Both of you. Should I advise him now?”

  “Sure,” Jeff said as he sat down between Jamie and Lizzie and pulled Charlie onto his lap.

  Wanted to ask if this was about White House business or something else. Rajnish Singh was an A-C who’d been bored out of his mind at New Delhi Base but had been ignored because he had troubadour talent. Troubadours affected people by modulating their voices, expressions, body language, and so forth. Meaning they were great actors and politicians, and both professions had been looked down up on by the residents of Alpha Four.

  Here, however, I’d found them and started giving them jobs to do, like impersonating people, handling our press and PR, and similar. But I wasn’t the only one who’d felt that the troubadours were being unfairly pushed aside and that they could do so much more for their people and their country and, now, their planet, if they were merely organized and focused.

  Like Raj, Francine and Colette were also troubadours. And they were part of the very clandestine but also very cool A-C CIA, which was made up of mostly troubadours, with some empaths, imageers, regular A-Cs, and even a few humans thrown in. I was considered an honorary member.

  Raj was the number two guy in that organization and he was also the number two guy in this one, because he’d been made Jeff’s Chief of Staff. So, him wanting to talk to us could be about the State of the Union address or it could be about something far less threatening. Or even something more threatening.

  We didn’t have to wait long to find out. Being an A-C, Raj used hyperspeed to get to us from wherever in the complex he’d been—the lower dining room, if I was going to take a guess, since that’s where all the White House staff, both ours and those who came with the building, so to speak, ate when they weren’t with us in the family dining room, the State dining room, or some other dining area. There were a lot of places to meet and eat in this complex, especially a lot most regular people didn’t know about, because the complex went down several floors, most of which weren’t talked about much.

  But, wherever he’d been, Raj was with us in about ten seconds. “We need to talk, just the three of us,” he said as he entered the room.

  Jeff’s eyes narrowed. “What is it? And why can’t I feel what it is?”

  “I’m testing the newest empathic blocker. You should be able to circumvent it, but I’m not allowed to tell you how. However, you need to do that circumventing elsewhere.”

  Jeff sighed. “The things we do to overcome our enemies.”

  Raj shrugged. “It’s a living.”

  Jeff and I gave the kids kisses. “We’ll be back soon,” I reassured. Not that I was positive that would be the case, but the kids were coming with us to the State of the Union address, so we’d have time together at least in the car.

  We went right back over to our rooms. “What’s going on?” Jeff asked as he closed the doors behind us. “And why the hell are you using a new piece of tech today of all days? I think I have enough stress going today.”

  “Sorry, but you’re about to have more.” Raj turned on the television to a major station.

  “We have reports coming in that the location for today’s State of the Union address,” the Serious Newscaster said, “Cape Canaveral, will be the focus of a terrorist attack.”

  The camera feed switched and we were looking at an elderly, apple-cheeked man with white hair and long, muttonchops sideburns. He looked kindly. He wasn’t. He was the religious leader of the most hateful, intolerant people in, these days, the world. Farley Pecker, Pastor to the Haters, Leader of the Club 51 True Believers.

  “The one true God will strike down these demons, these blasphemers, these aliens,” he spat the last word. “God will destroy their ship, the ship that they created to go find more of these aliens to bring back to Earth. To our world. The world that belongs only to humanity! Those who help to destroy this evil will be commended to the highest ranks of heaven, for they alone do God’s work!”

  During the thunderous applause, the feed went back to the Serious Newscaster. “Intelligence reports confirm that the Club Fifty-One True Believers organization is planning a massive attack on Earth’s first long-range spacecraft, the Distant Voyager. We go live to the Pentagon, right after these commercial messages.”

  “Why the hell was I not told about this?” Jeff asked.

  “No idea,” Raj said. “Director Reynolds and Director Curran have both received intelligence reports, but nothing to indicate an attack of this nature and at this time. They’ve spoken with the rest of those involved in counterterrorism and defense, as well as the heads of the other Alphabet Agencies, and no one has any intel that would indicated an attack of this magnitude.” Charles Reynolds was the Director of the CIA and my best guy friend since ninth grade. Tom Curran was the Director of the FBI. Normally, a terrorist threat of this magnitude would have gotten them out of bed early.

  “What about Mister Joel Oliver?” I asked. Oliver was truly the top investigative reporter on the planet. He’d been a laughingstock because he’d been insisting that the A-Cs had been here as long as they had and were doing the things they were doing. Once we were outed, during Operation Destruction, Oliver was given a lot more respect. But he was still the top man in his field.

  “He has the same intel as Directors Reynolds and Curran. Nothing of this magnitude, nothing happening here, nothing happening today.”

  The commercials ended and the news came back, showing us a female reporter standing outside the Pentagon. “I’m here reporting on the latest terrorist threat focused on the President’s State of the Union address. We can’t get anyone at the Pentagon to give us any answers,” the Investigative Newsgal said. “We’re not sure if they’re stonewalling us or just working frantically to stop this threat.”

  “What the hell?” Jeff asked, as she started repeating what the Serious Newscaster had said earlier. “What is going on?”

  A suspicion formed. “Raj, take off the emotional whatever you have on or turn it off. I think we’ve missed something.”

  “Like a viable terrorist threat,” Raj muttered, as he fiddled with something in his breast pocket.

  Jeff jerked. “Ah. I see why you wore that. Sorry. And, turn it back on, please.”

  Raj managed a chuckle. “Yes, I’m really upset. This has blindsided us, and I have nothing for you—we had today planned out and now . . . this.” He looked at me. “The other agency has nothing like this, either.” Meaning the A-C CIA was also blindsided.

  “I’m sure we don’t. But, again, I think we’re missing something, and it’s not good intelligence gatherers. What I think we’ve forgotten is the fact that this station is owned by YatesCorp. What are the
other stations saying?”

  “Well, they’re all running this story now,” Raj replied. “But this is the station that broke the story.”

  “Uh huh. And the ways the news is today, when one outlet makes a bold statement, the others just pick it up and run with it, they don’t investigate first.”

  “What, are you saying we don’t have a terrorist attack to worry about?” Jeff asked.

  “No, we do. But what I’m saying is that this is the terrorist attack.”

  Both men stared at me. “What?” Raj asked finally.

  “Dude, you must be really stressed out of your mind, because you’re usually faster than this. Jeff, too. I’m saying that this news story—this fake news story, I see I’m forced to add—is the terrorist attack. And it’s working, too.”

  Gini Koch lives in Hell’s Orientation Area (aka Phoenix, Arizona), works her butt off (sadly, not literally) by day, and writes by night with the rest of the beautiful people. She lives with her awesome husband, three dogs (aka The Canine Death Squad), and two cats (aka The Killer Kitties). She has one very wonderful and spoiled daughter, who will still tell you she’s not as spoiled as the pets (and she’d be right), and a fun son-in-law who doesn’t seem to mind that his mother-in-law is just this side of crazy.

  When she’s not writing, Gini spends her time cracking wise, staring at pictures of good looking leading men for “inspiration,” teaching her pets to “bring it,” and driving her husband insane asking, “Have I told you about this story idea yet?” She listens to every kind of music 24/7 (from Lifehouse to Pitbull and everything in between, particularly Aerosmith and Smash Mouth) and is a proud comics geek-girl willing to discuss at any time why Wolverine is the best superhero ever (even if Deadpool does get all the best lines).

  You can reach Gini via her website (www.ginikoch.com), email (gini@ginikoch.com), Facebook (facebook.com/Gini.Koch), Facebook Fan Page: Hairspray & Rock ‘n’ Roll (www.facebook.com/GiniKochAuthor), Pinterest (www.pinterest.com/ginikoch), Twitter (@GiniKoch), or her Official Fan Site, the Alien Collective Virtual HQ (thealiencollectivevirtualhq.blogspot.com/).