Alien in the House

at hyperspeed. I don’t believe every single representative is going to read every word, let alone find the line that Dad and I found, over and over again, in a plethora of legislative bills that have almost nothing to do with each other, and also almost nothing to do with the line being snuck in.”
    “I’d agree with that in general,” Tito said, as he and Nurse Carter joined us. “But not for one in particular. We can guarantee that Santiago Reyes read every bill that he was given. And I’d bet he found the same things you did.”
    “What did you all find?” Jeff asked. “I’m obviously the only one not clued in.”
    I held up the last bill, which I still had in my hand. “This bill is supposedly about making the nation’s schools better. But get a load of this particular sentence—and really pay attention, because Dad and I found this or close to it in every one of the bills now sitting in your lap.”
    “Edge of our seats,” Jeff said, sarcasm knob only at a sleepy six on the scale.
    “
You
will be. I think Tito and Magdalena are already aware. From the middle of a paragraph describing school bus specifications in extremely boring detail, we have this gem: No aliens not naturally from Earth shall be allowed to overrule any U.S. state or federal government law, mandate, or directive, now or in perpetuity.”
    We were all quiet for a few long moments. Tito cleared his throat. “That’s what Santiago was doing. He had a listing of every bill and the specific anti-alien lines from them. He had the ones about human illegals called out, too. This shouldn’t surprise anyone in the room, but there were a lot less of those than the ones clearly put in to cover the A-Cs both of Earth and elsewhere.”
    “I understand why this is bad, but what does it all mean?” Nurse Carter asked.
    Seemed obvious to me. “It means we know why all the representatives are being killed.”



CHAPTER 75
    “H OW DO THESE lines correlate to the murder or suspected murder of over twenty people?” Jeff asked.
    “Edmund Brewer told me that he’d been amazed to discover that two dozen people could mean the difference between a bill’s passage or failure. He also said that they were worried about filibusters and that this legislation is considered important.”
    “So?” Jeff asked.
    “So somebody has influenced every single one of the committees that worked on these bills. That’s a lot of influence. And yet, other than Club Fifty-One and similar crackpot groups we’ve discovered in the recent months, there is no functioning Anti-A-C lobby out there. So who got this line or its close cousin into every single one of these bills?”
    “An enemy, I get it,” Jeff said. “But why does that equal murder?”
    “I’m with Jeff,” Tito said. “I’m not seeing how these bills are related to anyone dying.”
    Resisted the impulse to heave a sigh. Also resisted the impulse to wake Chuckie up and have him come in here so I’d have some help with my conspiracy theory. I was here, I was up, time to go it alone. Always the way.
    “Ah,” Nurse Carter said. “There was something else. One line, near the bottom of what we think is the second page. ‘There is more going on than just this. Must find out what.’ We think it’s the last thing he wrote.”
    “See?”
    “Still not seeing anything other than Santiago being suspicious about how those lines got into every bill,” Tito said. “It makes sense he’d think more was going on.”
    “Santiago died at our dinner party and the President asked New Mexico’s governor to appoint Jeff. That’s pretty much never been done before.”
    “Everything that’s happened this year has pretty much never been done before, Kitty,” Tito said. “Appointing a representative is a lot less touchy than halting all general elections and everything else governments, ours and everyone else’s, have done since the invasion.”
    “But I thought we’d decided my appointment was done to prevent an anti-alien faction from taking over,” Jeff said.
    “Yes, and I’m sure that’s the excuse the President gave the governor. It’s a great excuse. But I think if Eugene had succeeded and killed Brewer instead, the President would have done the same thing, only asking California’s governor to choose an appointee. He needed precedent to be set.”
    “You’re saying the President is behind all the killings?” Dad asked, sounding shocked and worried.
    “No. I think the President has