Alien in the House

the floor, rolling around, begging them to stop being so funny.
    Of course, if they’d told me my parents and best guy friend from high school had masqueraded as normal while actually leading secret lives drenched in espionage, or that I’d also be besties with a former top international male model, I’d have probably had to go to the hospital from hilarity overload.
    We walked to the first floor with said former male model and went to the front door to find said best guy friend from high school, Charles Reynolds, head of the E-T Division for the C.I.A., chatting with Pierre.
    Chuckie wasn’t alone, however. Cliff Goodman, the current Head of Special Immigration Services reporting directly to the Secretary of Homeland Security, stood there with him. With Jeff and Reader here, we had a lot of power standing in our foyer.
    “Why are you both here so early?” Reader asked. He sounded mildly annoyed. This seemed to be the Standard Reaction Mode for whoever was the Head of Field for Centaurion Division when dealing with Chuckie.
    “Not that it isn’t great to see you both,” I added. Hey, I was the Co-Head Diplomat and I tried to practice my diplomatic skills whenever it was convenient and easy. “Unless you’re bringing news of doom and gloom, and then come back later, okay?” I also didn’t like to overdo the practicing.
    Chuckie grinned. “No, for once, not coming by to share how the world’s going to end tomorrow.”
    Good. I wouldn’t have to tell Walter to spin “Paint it Black” by the Rolling Stones. Though I had Stones songs on the playlist for tonight’s festivities because the British ambassador was supposed to be in attendance and I wanted to play more nicely than I had before and pretend I thought the Stones were sort of in the same league as Aerosmith, even though Aerosmith was the greatest and the Stones were merely good.
    Cliff nodded. “Under the circumstances, the Department wanted to ensure that you and we feel your Embassy is secure. I decided to come by with Chuck, as opposed to sending a team here.”
    “Thanks, we appreciate that,” Jeff said. “So, what do you need to see?”
    “Any common areas the guests will be in,” Cliff replied. “This is really just a formality, not a white glove test.”
    “Excuse me?” Jeff sounded confused, which wasn’t a surprise.
    “Earth saying. Your mother would understand it.” This I knew for fact. Happily, the A-C Operations team, who I called the Elves because I never, ever saw them perform their wondrous and magical duties, handled the cleaning of every A-C facility, including the Embassy. If the cleaning was left up to me, we’d be decorating in the finest of Washington, D.C. dust. I didn’t hate housekeeping, but we weren’t exactly best buds forever, either.
    Jeff grunted. “So, where do we start?”
    “Basement,” Cliff said. “Let’s do this quickly so you can all get back to prepping for the party tonight.”
    “You all go on ahead,” Chuckie said. “I need to talk to Kitty for a minute.”
    Jeff gave us both a searching look, shrugged, kissed my cheek, and he and the other men trotted off. This was the result of massive personal growth on Jeff’s part, much of which had happened because he’d finally caught on that Chuckie was no longer in love with me and was, in fact, in love with Naomi Gower, who was one of Jeff’s cousins.
    I waited until the others were out of earshot. “Okay, what’s going on?”
    “I need to run some things by you, and I don’t want an audience for it.”
    “Is this about the two dead representatives and the one really sick one?”
    “No.” He gave me the “you so crazy” look. I got that look a lot. “Why would those incidents, however tragic, be related to tonight’s party or any of us in any way?”
    “Dude, I figured it was safer to ask. You know how they teach you how to spell ‘assume’, right?”
    Chuckie shook his head with a laugh, and led me down the hall into Jeff’s office, closing the door behind us. He sat at the edge of Jeff’s desk. “I need you to talk to ACE.”
    ACE was a collective superconsciousness I’d managed to channel into Paul Gower what seemed like eons ago but was, in reality, only about two years prior. Gower was not only one of Chuckie’s future brothers-in-law, but he was also the current Supreme Pontifex for the A-Cs, or, as I liked to think of it, their Pope With Benefits.
    “Why don’t you ask Paul whatever it is you need to ask