Alien in the Family

Lorraine said. “Go ahead.”
    “Okay. Call Serene in while you’re waiting for us.”
    “Why?” Lorraine was speaking for everyone, I could tell.
    “Because we need someone who can see the real people, not what they appear to be. Serene might be the only one who can do that reliably. Get her here under guard.”
    “Okay. Brian will probably want to come along.”
    “Fine, we can use someone else we can trust who’ll be in life-threatening danger.”
    Lorraine managed a laugh and pulled out her phone. She and Claudia went into the room with Reader.
    The rest of us headed off. “Where is she?”
    “Fifteenth floor,” Christopher said. “Sorry, it’s the only place we have for this kind of lockdown.”
    “Not a problem.” I wasn’t going to let her get out, let alone into the Lair.
    “She thought she was killing your mate,” Christopher said as we got into the elevator. “Believe me, Reynolds is C.I.A.”
    Chuckie smile a very wolfish smile. “She tried to kill someone on my team. We have protocols.”
    “My mate?” Reader and I called them mates, sometimes, but I’d never heard an A-C refer to a spouse this way.
    Chuckie’s eyes were closed and I could see the conspiracy wheels turning. “Why did you ask about the Ancients?”
    “Because they were shapeshifters. I’m pretty sure they’re our angels from Bible stories. We’ve figured they had trouble adapting to our bad air when they came back in recent times, since they died on the A-C home world.” He opened his eyes. “No spacesuits.”
    He raised his eyebrow. “You’re kidding.”
    “No. Anyway, according to ACE, our A-Cs are the most advanced of those races.”
    “But that doesn’t mean the others weren’t around when the Ancients first came by,” Gower said. “But shapeshifting was an Ancient trait. They were trying to save the worlds, not destroy them.”
    I thought about Operation Fugly. “Why are we assuming that every one of the Ancients was good? I mean, Mephistopheles is proof the devil was around. Couldn’t some missionary have gone bad?”
    “They do all the time,” Tito offered. “I know plenty of priests who didn’t stay all that close to God. I mean, humans are fallible.”
    “The Ancients weren’t human,” Gower said.
    “That doesn’t mean they weren’t fallible. Or that they didn’t get tired and decide to settle down. Maybe they thought they’d help the warlike folks more by being there full time. There’s a ton of possibilities. But I think we’ve got Ancient blood in the folks from the warlike planet.”
    Christopher nodded. “Okay, I’m good with the working hypothesis. Now what?” We got out of the elevator and, happily, went the opposite way from the Lair.
    “Why the hell did she kiss me?” It still wasn’t computing. It had given her away, and anyone with half a brain would have known it would. Someone could imitate how Martini looked, but if he didn’t kiss the way he did, I’d know it wasn’t him.
    “She thought you looked hot,” Martini offered. “Why does it matter? You didn’t like it, did you?”
    We reached the holding cell. She was in there, extremely well strapped down. I could see signs of torture. I didn’t mind and figured I should. I saw her nose had been fixed, but it still had some tape on it. I took Martini’s jacket off and handed it back to him. “No, Jeff, I didn’t like it. You’re a far better kisser.”
    “Why are you wearing security tags?” Chuckie asked.
    “I sort of stole the clothes.”
    “Yeah, but I paid for them,” Martini said. “Here, hang on.” He fiddled with the tags. “Your other clothes and shoes are back in the suite in Vegas, by the way.”
    “Thanks, but, Jeff, the tags stain the clothes if you take them off wrong.”
    “Only if a human does it.” He held out the tags. They looked opened properly. He’d also taken off the price tags. I took a look and quickly looked down. The scary expensive clothes weren’t stained. “Thanks. And, um, thanks for not minding that I bought this.”
    “You look great. Maybe the outfit will last long enough to wear out to dinner, but I’m not betting on it.”
    “Me, either. So, Chuckie, do I want to know what you did to her?”
    “Probably not.”
    “It was less than I was ready to do to her,” Christopher said. I could tell he was serious. “The C.I.A. just has some techniques that are more quickly effective.”
    “Was she afraid of you?”
    “Not really. She seemed