Alien in the Family

at least that was how it felt. But finally, I could feel the tension in the room go down. I risked a look over my shoulder—everyone was just standing there. Gower was by the bed, and he was crying. “Oh, no. Please, no.”
    The Dazzler in charge looked at me. “I call it a miracle.” Martini and I went over to the bed. Reader’s breathing was normal. “Full brain function, all internal organs functioning properly, we’ve tested, no paralysis. He’s going to have a hell of a headache when he comes to, but he should be back in action within a week or so.” She turned to Tito. “I don’t know how you did it, Doctor, but thank you.”
    Tito looked at me. “I’ll take the job.”
    “Welcome to Alpha Team,” Martini said. “I think I speak for all of us when I say we’re really glad to have you on board.”
    I tried to talk in my head, in the way I had with ACE before. Thank you, so much. More than I can really express.
    ACE just showed Tito what Tito already knew how to do, ACE said in my head. Tito is a good person. Kitty has chosen well again.
    Never better than choosing you, ACE.
    ACE is here to protect. She is not. I knew who he meant. They are coming, and they are evil. ACE will have to help Kitty to fight.
    Thank you.
    This is ACE’s world, too. I felt warm and loved, which was ACE’s way of hugging my mind, then he slipped away.
    Gower started to laugh. “Oh, hell.”
    “Paul, are you okay?”
    “He’s going to be pissed when he wakes up.” Gower was laughing as if there was really something funny going on.
    Martini let go of me and put his arm around Gower. “It’ll be fine. Come on, Paul, let’s get you resting.”
    “Nah, I’m fine. Now.” Gower looked up at us. “Jamie’s really going to be pissed, though.”
    “Um, why? I think being alive is going to make up for a lot.”
    Gower grinned, still laughing. “He’s bald.”
    I looked. Sure enough, they’d shaved his head. I’d been too upset to notice. “He’s got a great head, I think, anyway. He’ll look fine.” It was Reader. There was pretty much no way he couldn’t look awesome.
    “He’ll look hot,” Gower said. “But he thinks two baldies in a relationship is . . .” he started to laugh again, “. . . really gay.”
    Tito and I looked at each other, and we both started to laugh, too. “I’m straight, for the record,” Tito gasped out. “But my older brother’s gay, and, you know, he’s got the same opinion.”
    “What’s your brother do?”
    Tito grinned. “He’s a cop.”
    “Protection runs in the family,” Martini said. “Good to know.”
    “How long will James be out?” I asked when I finally stopped laughing.
    “Less time than if he was in a human hospital,” Martini replied. “We have things we can do that speed up human recovery. Not as fast as an A-C, but faster than normal.”
    “Good. We need to brief Tito and bring him up to speed on what’s going on. And I need to go kick some serious ass.”
    “Already done.” Chuckie’s voice came from behind us. He looked deadly. “We have the information we need.”
    “How?”
    Christopher came in. “The C.I.A. has different methods than we do.” He didn’t look upset about it.
    Chuckie looked over at Reader. “Is he going to be okay?”
    “Yeah. Luckily. Oh, Tito Hernandez, Charles Reynolds. He’s the head of the C.I.A.’s ET Division. Tito helped me and saved James’ life.”
    “He on the team now?” Chuckie managed a small smile.
    “Yeah, he is.”
    “Good. We have a lot of pain heading toward us, and you’ll be particularly gratified to know, Kitty, that, true to form, there’s more than one plan active.”
    “Oh, good. Routine.”

CHAPTER 21

    GOWER AND I ACTUALLY DIDN’T WANT to leave Reader’s room. The medical staff didn’t want all of us in it. We compromised and stood in the hall.
    “The assassin, and that’s what she is, isn’t with the Alpha Centaurion government,” Chuckie said without preamble. “She thought she was killing Jeff, by the way, so she’s not very bright.”
    “No, it’s not that.” I thought about it. “James and I looked like a couple.”
    “You want to explain that?” Martini asked.
    I rolled my eyes. “Sure. He had his arm around my shoulders; I had mine around his waist. He held me, kissed my head, that sort of thing. We were talking about my wedding dress; he was picking out sexy clothes for me. I can see how she’d confuse it.”
    “You have something you two were going