Alien in the Family

Emily, who looked like a young Sophia Loren, shook her head. “Nice to see things are always tense for you guys.”

We put the guns away. “Nice to see you. What’re you two doing here?”

Melanie shrugged as they started dragging several fully loaded luggage carts into the room. “James felt having people you could trust deliver your supplies, particularly Jeff’s adrenaline, would be a good idea.”

I loved Reader. “Great idea.”

“Plus, we wanted to have a good time, too.” Emily laughed at my expression. “Lucinda’s coming, we got the word. You’ll be happy we’re here, trust me.”

Lorraine and Claudia trotted over to help their mothers. “You’re going to stay?” Lorraine asked.

“We won’t cramp your style,” Melanie said. “Promise.”

“Sure, you say that now.” Lorraine gri

Melanie laughed. “We’ll see about that.” I’d never really questioned where Lorraine and Claudia got their personalities from. As mothers went, Melanie and Emily were my faves, right after my own and Chuckie’s mom. I pushed the fact that I didn’t really like Martini’s mother, and she really didn’t like me, as far down as possible.

“Are your husbands coming, too?”

Emily rolled her eyes. “No. They hate Vegas. Which is good, because that way we have contacts back at the Science Center we can trust. I can’t believe Imageering’s been infiltrated.”

“How did you know about that?”

Melanie shrugged. “The Science Center’s already been searched. We’re all clean, but you never know.”

“In five minutes?”

They exchanged glances. “Um, Kitty? Hyperspeed, remember?” Emily looked concerned. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Just overwhelmed.” A thought occurred. “Hey, do you two happen to know what this is?” I pointed to the dish of creepy food. “Don’t eat it, we think it’s poisoned.”

They stared at it. “It’s familiar . . .” Melanie shook her head. “I think it’s a dish from home.”

“You think? You don’t know for sure?”

“All of you always act like there are only two generations here,” Emily answered. “But really, there are three or more. We’re a lot younger than Jeff’s parents, as an example. We don’t count as the older generation, and since we have children in it, we don’t count as the younger generation, either. Our parents came as operatives, too, but they were older, and many of them aren’t with us any longer. We were little when we left the home world, but we remember it.”

This made sense, it just hadn’t really occurred to me. I felt unobservant, which was pretty much my par for any course.

Chuckie sauntered over. “Ladies, glad you could join us. Charles Reynolds.” He put his hand out.

Melanie took it first. “Right, the new boss.” She gave him an obvious up and down. “Hmmm. Well, I suppose if Jeff ever acts stupid again, you’re not a bad option.”

Chuckie managed to keep his jaw closed, but his eyes went wide. “Uh . . .” He offered his hand to Emily.

“Oh, Angela likes him,” Emily said chidingly as she shook his hand. “I’m sure he’s not as much of a jerk as the boys think he is. Nice grip.” She turned his hand over. “No manicure? You’re not the rich pompous ass they said. Interesting.”

Chuckie looked at me. “Are they for real?”

“They’re the heads of the Bluntness Division.”

Chuckie started to laugh. “Would you two mind sharing a room? We’re going to run out of space, I think.”

“Sure, we’d rather, girl sleepover kind of thing,” Melanie said. She gave him another close look. “Angela says we can trust you.”

Chuckie shrugged. “She’s known me half my life, and she recommended me for initial hire and promotions within the Agency. I’d assume she doesn’t hate me.”

“No, she doesn’t.” Emily was also giving Chuckie another once-over. “You sure this isn’t some elaborate attempt to win Kitty back?”

“There is no ‘back’ in that sense.” He didn’t sound flippant, he sounded regretful. My throat got tight. This was not a conversation I wanted to hear, or have Martini hear. I busied myself with staring at the mystery food.

“Huh. That’s not what my daughter said,” Melanie replied. Oh, great, Lorraine had filled her mother in on my love life.

“Well, it was a long time ago.” I recognized his tone of voice. Chuckie wasn’t enjoying this conversation, either.

“Nice to see you both, glad you’re staying, think you could stop torturing the two of them? And me?” Martini didn’t sound angry, at least not with me or Chuckie.

“Just protecting your interests, Jeff,” Emily said with a laugh.

“Right. Look, I hate him, he hates me, but even I’m sensitive enough to realize that standing here rubbing in who’s got the girl isn’t a great way to work together. And we have to work together.” Martini put emphasis on the last sentence.

Dazzlers of all ages were two things—gorgeous and brilliant. Melanie and Emily were no exceptions. They got the point. “Fine, fine. Well, how do we get a room?” Melanie said with a sigh.

“Reader’s probably got that covered,” Chuckie said. Our latest female additions wandered off to find him. “Thanks, I think,” he said to Martini.

“Don’t mention it. Really, don’t mention it. I hate having to remember you’re not the antichrist.”

“Yeah, I can relate. I hate having to remember that you’re not a moron.”

Play-nice time was over. Time to swallow the lump in my throat and keep things moving along smoothly. “Jeff, Emily and Melanie think this is a dish from your home world, but they’re not sure.” I was still staring at it. It was still unappetizing. It also hadn’t moved, so I decided I could sleep again.

“We’ll have my parents take a look when they get here.” Martini came over to me and stroked the back of my neck. “I’m not upset,” he said very softly.

I looked up at him. “Really?”

“Yeah. Any inroads he made were my fault. Hard to be upset with you about it.”

“Jeff, that was six months ago.”

“Seems like yesterday.”

“Sometimes. Not always.” I took a deep breath and tried to relax. “So, have we found out who infiltrated what?”

Martini grimaced. “In a way.”

“In a way?”

He sighed. “It’s both not as bad as we feared and worse.”

“Oh, good. Routine.”

CHAPTER 15

WE WERE ALL GROUPED AROUND the conference table again, Melanie and Emily included. The rest of Chuckie’s suite had been declared clean of alien stuff, and Martini and Christopher had done some additional checks using hyperspeed, so we all felt there were no human bugs other than the ones Chuckie had removed before the rest of us had arrived.

“Okay, we have at least one rogue imageer,” Christopher told us, and it was clear he was furious. “They’re damned good, too. The reason my team was so slow and confused was because ‘I’ had just been there an hour or so prior and given them different directions.”

“More than one rogue.” Chuckie, Reader, and I said this in unison.

Christopher rolled his eyes. “Why?”

“You all move fast, but not that fast. What was going on here required someone in place to catch any phone calls you made that would have tipped you off. So whoever was impersonating Christopher in Nevada or New Mexico wasn’t the same person.”

“New York,” Christopher said.

“Pardon?”

“Imageering bases out of New York and some out of Los Angeles. The media centers?” His snark was on full. “You know, you’ve worked with us for a year, you’d think you’d know that.”

“But you base out of Area Fifty-One and Dulce.”

“I’m on Alpha Team.” He looked at Martini. “Can you explain it to her later?”

“Sure, but she’s right. It’s more than one.” Martini sighed. “They imitated his voice, too, which is hard.”