Alien in the Family

“Never used as an interrogation device,” Jerry said. “I’m with Reynolds. Punish me for my disobedience.”

I could hear Martini’s growl—it was on “rabid dog” and about to head to “enraged bear”. I decided to try to get things back under control. “Sorry, they’re Jeff’s now. Okay?”

“Lucky bastard,” Hughes and Walker said in unison.

“I’m begi

“Okay! So, we have an alien plot, possibly much more sinister than just asking me if I know which one is the fish fork and which is the butter knife. Can we focus? Either that, or I’m going down to the casino to play craps.”

“Can you change into a low-cut top before you do that?” Jerry asked.

I looked at Reader. “A little help?”

“I saw a great low-cut top in the women’s clothing store in that mall they have co

I put my hand on Reader’s forehead. “Are you okay?”

He shrugged. “Just trying to sound like one of the boys.” He flashed me his cover-boy grin. “C’mon, you know it’s fun to see Jeff almost pop a vessel.”

I rolled my eyes. “Not helping.” I looked back to Christopher. “Seriously, what did your dad have to say? About why you called him? His wedding? Royal? Bugged?”

Christopher was still staring at me. “I can’t believe you pulled your top up in front of all of us.”

I managed to refrain from mentioning that he’d seen the twins in all their glory a year ago. Apparently, he wasn’t as past all that as he said he was. “Christopher. Info from your dad. Needed now.”

Christopher handed me his phone. It was still open, and the call was still live.

“Mister White?” I figured formality might be a good idea.

“Here, Miss Katt. From what I picked up when Christopher stopped speaking to me midsentence, you’ve used the age-old technique of flashing to get the situation under control. Your ability to adapt on your feet remains impressive.”

“Thanks. Anything for the cause. Speaking of which, we found some weird Alpha Centaurion bug that Jeff and Christopher seemed to have dismantled or at least subdued.”

“Interesting. Alfred would know more about this than I, however.”

“Yes, but I don’t think I want to call Mister Martini at this exact moment.”

“Because Jeffrey’s ready to explode?”

“Wow, you do know him well.”

“Very. How is Mister Reynolds dealing with this?”

“He found the bug. Apparently the C.I.A. has some alien-detector thing. Does nothing by a human, turns purple by a hybrid, green by a pure A-C. And red by the bug. It also turned red by the Unity Necklace.”

“Interesting again. I truly would have expected the Unity Necklace to have become inactive. As we’ve seen, not the case.”

“So, they’re sentient? For real?”

“In a way. Call it smart metal. From our home world, obviously. We can’t make metals here work in the same way.”

“So, the bug, it would have had to have come from the home world?”

“Yes. However, all our families here have their Unity Necklaces. Any who might have been separated when we were exiled here would have made a new one before leaving.”

“How do the bugs work?”

“They attract to a Unity Necklace.” He said it like it was obvious.

“So, any bug can attach to any Unity Necklace?”

“No. Think of them less like a bug and more like a tracking device. These necklaces are hugely important in our culture. The loss of a necklace is devastating. In the past, we had several suicides over the accidental loss. Hence, the tracking devices were created.”

Wow. People killed themselves over losing their necklace? I’d have felt like total crap if I’d lost it, but I didn’t think I’d have gone suicidal. Then again, I wasn’t an A-C.

“So, how does the tracking device work?”

“It’s set to find its necklace. The ones Jeffrey and Christopher played with as children were the ones Alfred and I had for our necklaces. I would have thought they were the only ones in existence for those specific necklaces, but I believe my thinking is incorrect.”

“So, the tracking device finds the necklace, and then what?”

“It transmits location to the owner, by means of another piece of the intelligent metal.”

“Is that how they knew which mountain ranges to light up the night skies with?”

“No, that would have tracked based on Jeffrey.”

“How so?”

White sighed. “It’s more complex. If it’s not relevant at this moment, it would be easier to explain it to you in person.”

“There’s not a bottom line I can give to Chuckie?” Who, I knew without asking, would want a better answer than “tell you later.”

Another sigh. “I would be happy to share it with Mister Reynolds. He actually has the capacity to understand the explanation.”

“I’ll ignore that comment about my mental prowess.” I handed the phone to Chuckie. “You get the scientific mumbo jumbo, but I want the Pontifex back.”

Chuckie shrugged. “Hello, Pontifex White. No, I haven’t demanded this answer yet. Yes, she’s right, of course I’m about to.” He was quiet for a couple of minutes while the rest of us basically watched him listen to the phone. It didn’t seem to faze him, but I was used to that. “I understand. Yes, nothing we can do about it. Yes, that’s a good idea, thank you. Here’s Kitty.”

Chuckie handed me the phone. “It’s based on a process similar to how their Operations Team functions.” Oh, right, the Elves had an official title. “High-level math, higher-level science. Trust me when I tell you that you don’t want to know.” He looked at Martini. “We’ll be putting some people onto this—I don’t think we want the heads of American Centaurion tracked like timber wolves, at least not by our enemies.”

Martini snorted. “As if you’re not tracking us.”

Chuckie gri

“Right.”

I decided going back to my call with White was the better part of valor. “Okay, happy to have let Chuckie do the heavy thinking. But I do have another question, Mister White.”

“No insinuation that you’re not able to think heavily intended, Miss Katt. I just know where your strengths lie. So, please, do go ahead.”

“The night sky thing. Is that triggered from across space, or does it trigger closer to home?”

There was a pause. “The trigger would be Jeffrey, again, based on the complexities I shared with Mister Reynolds. However . . . I don’t know about the relationship between physical location and original home world.”

“You’re saying you don’t know if the light show went on at Alpha Centauri at the same time as here?”

“In a way. I’m saying I assumed all ties were severed when we came here. But if we were on our home world, the light show, as you call it, is an a

I looked at Martini. He still looked upset. But I could tell he was picking up my feelings, because he cocked his head and gave me a questioning look.

“So, Mister White—who’s here, watching Jeff?”

CHAPTER 11

“NO IDEA, MISS KATT. I have to say I doubt it’s any of our own people.”

Made sense but could be wrong. “You’d have told me Beverly was trustworthy, too, though.”

“Yes, good point. Bottom line is I have no idea.” He coughed. “That’s what Alpha Team is for.”

“Oh, fine, got the hint. Thanks so much. If someone a