Alien Proliferation

they?”
    “Yes.” He took a deep breath. “You want to know about the cube, don’t you?”
    “Yes. And how the blocks do and will work for Jamie. But if it’s too upsetting for you, we could wait.” Even though I wasn’t sleepy any more. Stressful conversations with my husband tended to wake me up for some reason.
    “No, it’s not upsetting. When I was born and had . . . so many problems, Aunt Terry realized someone was going to have to find a way to protect our stronger empaths, beyond isolation chambers and what we did typically, because she figured if there was one who manifested early, there could be more. When Christopher was born and turned out to be as strong an imageer as I was an empath, she realized stronger talents could be cropping up all over.”
    Considering most A-C talents showed up in the teenage years and Jeff’s and Christopher’s talents had appeared at birth, Terry being the only one worried about the potential for stronger, earlier talent manifestations seemed odder than the fact that she’d figured out what to do about it. But my experience with the A-Cs had shown that most of them really didn’t like to rock the boat or question the status quo or those in authority, even if they weren’t happy with the rules they were living under. That Terry had and Jeff did regularly identified them as mavericks, not trendsetters, of the AC community.
    “Makes sense. What did she do?”
    “She created a program, almost like a computer program, that could be implanted into someone’s mind.”
    “Sounds pretty advanced.”
    “She had help, I’d guess. Not sure from whom, but she was good with science and medicine, as well as being our Head Diplomat and a strong empath.”
    Female empaths were rare, so Terry being unusual in other ways wasn’t too surprising. “But you don’t know who helped her?”
    “No idea. She never said, and I could be wrong. No one has ever asked me or Christopher about the cube, so maybe she did it alone.”
    I thought about it. “It could have been some older A-Cs who helped her, too. They might have passed away before you were old enough for them to ask.”
    “That makes sense.” He sighed. “The cube was the transference system to get the programming into us. I don’t know that I can explain how it worked. We opened the cube, looked at it, and the information downloaded.”
    “What happened to the cube?”
    Jeff was silent. I shifted so I could look at his face. He was looking at Jamie, not at me, but his expression was one I was used to—he was trying to lie.
    Chuckie’s undoubtedly accurate belief that there were some A-Cs who could lie notwithstanding, I surely wasn’t married to one of them. “Jeff, it’s me. Look at me, and tell me the truth, because whatever you’re thinking of saying right now is an utter fabrication, and I already know it.”
    He sighed again and met my gaze. “Fine. The information was programmed specifically for me and Christopher. I think it was attached to our DNA in some way. The information went in, we both passed out, when we woke up, the cube was gone.”
    Interesting. “Did you look for it?”
    He shot me a dirty look. “Of course we looked for it. We couldn’t find it.”
    “Where were you, when this happened? The Embassy, with Richard, or with your parents?”
    “My parents.”
    “Ah.”
    “Ah?”
    I sighed. “One of your family found it, Jeff. And if they didn’t understand it, they took it to figure out what was going on with the cube. However, since we don’t have this process as an open, admitted function, I’m betting whoever found the cube knew exactly what it was for and took it, either to hide it away forever or to use it against your people.”
    Jeff looked worried. “I don’t know.”
    Before we could discuss this any further, there was a knock at the door and my mother put her head in. “Kitten, Jeff, can I disturb you for a minute?”
    Mom sounded strange. She kind of looked strange, too. “Sure, Mom. What’s wrong?” I asked as she came in and shut the door.
    She gave me the “are you crazy, is that your problem?” look. I was garnering that one a lot these days. “Jeff, you all look very cozy, but could I have some time alone with Kitty, please?”
    “Sure.” Jeff got out of bed quickly. “I’ll just, uh . . .”
    “Jeff, find your mom and dad and ask them about what we were talking about. Really monitor for emotions. I’m praying one of them found it, but we need