Alien Proliferation

the alien sex god. Denied a Christmas I didn’t care about. Denied baby showers I didn’t want. Denied getting to be a mother. Denied getting to see my friends have their kids. Denied what I did want and what I didn’t, indiscriminately. And for no good reason that I could see. I was not a happy girl.
    Fascinatingly, anger seemed to speed me along that string. I was sailing toward something. I hoped it was the right something, between my righteous wrath about denial and why I didn’t like it.
    Do not ask me how, but I managed, disembodied and pissed off, to trip over my own string. This was—as I thought about it and watched my perspective go end over end while the string wrapped around whatever was functioning as “me” for this experience—the story of my life. Figured I was at least going out in my own personal style, whatever that was. Decided again that I really didn’t want to go.
    I know I’ll forget all this. I’ll forget it all right away if you let me go back and live out the life I’m supposed to with Jeff. Bargaining—could not remember where that was on the Death and Dying steps. Refused to leave it. I was not getting to Acceptance, at least not without a fight. Oh, and I’m not kidding. If I get back there and then you kill Jeff, I’ll figure out a way to come and kick your butt for it.
    Did some more disembodied tumbling. It was less nauseating than going through a gate, the alien transference system that still looked more like an airport metal detector than anything else, but this was damning with faint praise.
    I had to ask why I could feel all this stuff if I was on this side of dying. Added resentment to my anger about being denied. I got to do the whole “see the other side” thing while totally sick to my stomach.
    Had another thought. Oh, and you’re not trading me for Jamie, either. I want my whole family—me, Jeff, and Jamie—all together. And any other kids we might have. None of this family tragedy stuff. Jeff’s had enough of that already, and, for that matter, so has Christopher. Losing Terry was more than they deserved, and then they lost Lissa, and they don’t deserve this, either.
    Terry was Christopher’s mother, who’d pretty much been murdered by the head in-control superbeing when the boys were ten. Lissa was the A-C girl they’d both wanted to marry, who’d been murdered by a different in-control superbeing. I was the human girl they’d both wanted to marry. I couldn’t imagine how Jeff would recover from losing me in childbirth. Not at all leaped to mind. Christopher might not, either. And they needed to reproduce. I’d known that since Operation Fugly, when I’d taken out the two in-control superbeings who had killed Terry and Lissa.
    You don’t want Mephistopheles to win, now, do you? I mean, all that work, just to wipe out the chances of Jeff and Christopher having kids and doing whatever your master plan here is? I don’t think so, Big Guy. Really, it’s a bad choice for you.
    Yeah, focus the greater power on the suffering of others and the master plan, whatever the heck it was. Still figured that was Bargaining. I was great with Bargaining. And Anger. That was a step. Ah, college—how it all came back to me at odd moments.
    Kept tumbling while the universe wheel spun. Wondered if the other Kittys in the other universes were feeling dizzy or nauseated right now. Kind of hoped they weren’t. Didn’t seem fair. Of course, none of this was fair. Back to Resentment.
    Tried to focus on Jeff again. Heard something now. It was being repeated over and over again. Recognized it—Mi Sh-beirach, the Jewish prayer for healing. Figured my father was handling the asking nicely portion of this event and was glad someone was.
    Realizing my parents must know I was floating around in the ether made me angrier. They’d been looking forward to being grandparents, in part because they could then say all the things I’d done the same and differently as my own child. Added this “denied” to my long list.
    Heard something else, also being repeated over and over. It was fast—I couldn’t make out the words—but I recognized who was making the sounds. Richard White was the Sovereign Pontifex of the Earth A-Cs, their religious leader. I guessed he was praying, too, but all the beings from the Alpha-Centauri system naturally talked faster than humans could comprehend—they learned how to slow down to deal with humans. Apparently they prayed that fast, too.