Alien Proliferation

sex again?”
    Jeff started the hysterical laughing I assumed was what all new fathers did. I didn’t have a lot of experience with it, after all. Tito just chuckled. “You didn’t tear, so reasonably soon. But not too soon.”
    “Jeff, pull it together,” Christopher said quietly. “Everything’s okay now and heading back to normal.”
    Jeff nodded. “Only my girl.” He looked like he was contemplating laughing again. Or possibly crying. I wasn’t totally sure. I was tired enough, though, that I decided not to worry about it.
    Extra males removed and Tito happy with the results, he and Camilla left. I had a monitor on my wrist, and Jamie had one on hers. Tito and Camilla had the receptors. Melanie and Emily helped us get situated a little better on the bed, did the breastfeeding thing, which was pretty awesome. They left once we got going, leaving the three of us alone.
    Jeff stroked the baby’s head. His touch was gentle, but the movements looked deliberate to me.
    “Did you implant the blocks for her?” Jamie looked so peaceful I had to assume he had.
    “Yeah, just now. I don’t know how effective they’ll be. She’s more powerful than my sisters’ kids. There’s more than empathic in her, too.”
    “How can you tell?”
    “I just . . . can.”
    I yawned. I was even more tired all of a sudden. “Something you learned from that glowing cube thing?”
    Jeff stiffened and I remembered something. He didn’t know that I knew about the glowing cube thing. Whoops.

 
    CHAPTER 15
     
    “W HAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?” Jeff’s voice sounded strained.
    I considered lying, but didn’t have the energy for it. Besides, now this affected our child, so it was probably the time to get the pertinent details. “Terry showed it to me. In the implanted memory you put in way back when.”
    “Oh.” He sounded no less strained. “What . . . what did you see?”
    I contemplated how to safely answer this while I desperately focused on flowers in the hopes that he wouldn’t see or feel what I was thinking. I was pretty sure Terry had shown me her last acts before she died, when Jeff and Christopher were both ten. I didn’t think, based on the complications everyone seemed to insist I’d had, that Jeff would be able to handle seeing and essentially reliving those moments.
    “Oh, God. You saw her dying?” He clutched me. “Baby, I’m so sorry.”
    So much for my ability to multithink just after having given birth. Oh, well, nothing for it. “Jeff, it’s okay. She showed me so I’d understand, when the time came. So I’d know how and why she’d programmed you to find me. It wasn’t a bad thing for me to see—it was like seeing someone else’s dream.” And it had helped me to save the day during Operation Fugly, so, in my opinion, it was all good.
    “Is the implant still . . . in you?”
    This wasn’t really the conversation I’d planned to have to welcome our new arrival, but under the circumstances, I just went for it and hoped Jeff wouldn’t freak out. “No. There was a trace of Terry’s consciousness in me for a while, but ACE removed it. That part of Terry is a part of ACE’s collective consciousness now.”
    “Does Christopher know?”
    “No, and neither does Richard. Paul knows, and me, and now you. And that’s all. And I think that should stay all. I really don’t think Christopher could handle it.” I wasn’t sure that Jeff could handle it, and it was only his beloved aunt, not his beloved mother.
    “No, you’re right. And you were right not to tell anyone else.”
    “Are you sorry I told you now?”
    He hugged me. “No. In some ways, I wish you’d told me earlier, but I can understand why you didn’t.” He sounded guilty, as he always did in regard to the implanted memory.
    I sighed. “Baby, you need to stop with the guilt. It’s silly, especially after all this time. You didn’t do anything wrong.” I snuggled nearer to him. “I think the benefits received have far outweighed the fainting spell when we first met.”
    Jeff’s body relaxed a tiny bit. I noted that Jamie wasn’t reacting to any of this. In fact, she was asleep. We hadn’t burped her. My first hour as a mother, and I had a feeling I was already a failure. It figured. But pressing matters being what they were, I decided to merely start a list of my motherhood screw-ups to save everyone time and get back to the issues at hand. “The blocks you put into Jamie are really strong, aren’t