Alien Proliferation

a superbeing via their talents.
    Wayne handed him a wipe, which was the standard reaction from any A-C standing by an imageer who had to touch the superbeing images. “You’re sure?” he asked, and it was clear he wasn’t being funny.
    William looked at him. “Why do you ask?”
    “Your reaction time. You were slower than normal.”
    Chuckie’s eyes narrowed. “I hate to have to ask this, but can you touch the screens again and give us everything you can on what you get from them?”
    “Do the go-team move,” I suggested. I was greeted by blank stares from the brothers and a snort of laughter from Chuckie. “I know Wayne can feel whatever it is through William.” Jeff and Christopher had done this during Operation Fugly.
    “Ah,” Wayne said. “Sure. You up for it?” he asked his brother.
    William grimaced. “Yes.” He put his hands back on the screen. “They’re repugnant, evil, mindless—”
    “No,” Wayne said. “There’s a mind there. It’s not . . . normal.”
    “Do we consider superbeing minds to be normal?” Maybe they did. What I knew about the inner superbeing workings could fit onto a fingernail. I was all over how to kill them. I hadn’t found a real need to dig deeper—that’s what the Dazzlers were for.
    “I mean not normal for a superbeing.” Wayne looked at us over his shoulder. “There’s absolutely no rage emotion coming from them. There’s no emotion other than the desire to be obedient.”
    “ Aliens ,” I said instantly.
    “I don’t think so,” William said slowly.
    “No, I mean the movie Aliens . The bad people tried to make supersoldiers out of the horrible alien monsters.”
    “You’re sure you’re getting no emotional reading?” Chuckie asked Wayne.
    “Positive, sir.”
    “Me as well, sir,” William added.
    No sooner were the words out of his mouth than there were a series of explosions. The superbeings blew up. From what we could see, there were no traces left.
    Chuckie cursed while William and Wayne used their hand wipes. “Now we’ve got nothing to examine.”
    “Just like in Paraguay?”
    He turned to me. “I have no way of knowing if it was just like in Paraguay. Because there was nothing left to study. Your husband ensured that. And since he was on the scene here, I’m sure he’s ensuring all traces are gone in this instance, too.”
    “Well, it’s what we do,” I reminded him.
    “And they know that,” he muttered. He rubbed his forehead. “You two are probably the only proof we have that these weren’t normal superbeings. I’m sure no one else was monitoring like we did.”
    The brothers nodded. “Unlikely, sir,” William said. “Ah, what do you want us to do?”
    “Record your impressions, all of them,” Chuckie said briskly. “Leave nothing out. And then get that information to me as well as to Alpha Team. I want to be sure we have more than one copy of the data.”
    “Leave the equipment and take care of that now.” They nodded to me and zipped off. Chuckie started pacing. I knew he was thinking—I could see the conspiracy wheels turning. I could also tell he wasn’t getting anywhere. After five minutes of this, I couldn’t take it any more. “Dude, relax.”
    He shook his head. “Can’t. This is bad, and we have nothing to go on.”
    “Fine.” I patted the bed. “Sit while the wheels turn. You look seriously stressed.”
    I heard a step and a growl. “He sits and he’ll be seriously dead.”

 
    CHAPTER 6
     
    J EFF GLARED AT CHUCKIE as he walked in. “Why are you still here?”
    “Because we have a problem,” Chuckie said. He wasn’t looking at Jeff or me, and he was still pacing.
    Jeff somehow reined in the jealousy all on his own. Either he wanted to impress me, or Chuckie’s stress levels were particularly high. I figured on the latter. He shot a worried glance at Chuckie, then looked at me. “With the C.I.A.?”
    “In a way. More with what you were doing in Paris.”
    Jeff nodded. “Whatever we were fighting, they weren’t superbeings.”
    I felt all proud. “See, Chuckie? Someone other than us was monitoring the weird.”
    Chuckie heaved a sigh. “And that makes it better how?”
    “Pardon me, Mister Glass Half Empty.”
    “It doesn’t,” Jeff agreed. “We have nothing left to study.”
    “You weren’t able to contain them any other way?” Chuckie asked.
    “No. We weren’t the ones who destroyed them.”
    Chuckie spun so fast I was worried he’d fall over. “Explain