Alien Proliferation

you can be happy with this knowledge—they’re both a lot nicer than I am.”
    Clarence might have been a lot older than me, but he was still an A-C. He got up and lunged. Never got near me. Because Jeff grabbed him and threw him into the hall. Chuckie caught him and used his alien-nerve pinch, or whatever it was that pretty much ensured he, as a human, could take out an A-C if he needed to. Kevin cuffed Clarence in less than a second. My men were impressive, I had to admit it.
    “Keep him awake, Chuckie, I have some questions. Sylvia, has Clarence been this much of a jerk all your married life?” She looked shaken, and she didn’t answer. “Babe, we have that whole fate of the world and all the people we like in it thing going on again. Really, stop acting like you’re an idiot and get with the program. Answers, now. How long has your husband been like this?”
    “For years. But if you mean to this level, only since we met you.” Her voice was low and her eyes were cast down.
    “Yeah, I figured. I do bring out the best in people. Talk to your little brother for a minute, I think he’s going to pop a vessel and could use some big sister soothing. And vice versa, Jeff.”
    I went out and grabbed Clarence by the throat. I lifted him off the ground. “Wow, James, this is just like when I had that weird dream during Operation Fugly.”
    “It’s freaky from this vantage point, girlfriend, I can tell you that. What’s the plan with our favorite drug dealer here?” Reader sounded almost as angry as I felt.
    “What are you talking about?” Clarence gasped out.
    “AMY!” I bellowed. Not up to Jeff’s standards, but no one in two solar systems was.
    I heard a door open. “Kitty? Is everything okay?” She sounded as though she’d been hiding in her room. The door on the other side opened, and Doreen and Irving peeped out. Yeah, domestic disputes did that.
    “No. French class is a long way away for me, but not for you. Check my translation. Surhumain means superhuman, right?”
    “Right.”
    I started to squeeze Clarence’s neck. “Alpha and Airborne don’t have a special name for that crap you gave Christopher. We just call it the Club Fifty-One drug. But you called it Surcenthumain. Super Centaurion human, if I want to be literal. A French name for the most dangerous drug available to an A-C. Lord knows what it does to a human.” Though I had a good guess. I was holding a guy double my size off the floor, after all. “So, who’s making it, and how much is out there already?”
    He glared at me. “You have no idea of what you’re dealing with.”
    “No? I think I do. You’re dealing with Ronaldo Al Dejahl. In fact, all the Diplomatic Corps is. They don’t mind that he’s the son of Ronald Yates—they’re all for it. Because they’re on some purity of the race kick . . . still. Not that this plan works well for you all. But, boy, are some of you really hooked into it.”
    “You’re single-handedly destroying our race.”
    “Blah, blah, blah. I’m the single-handedly-ruin-it-all girl, go me. You’re using Christopher as a guinea pig. It’s been tested on Jeff and Serene, but not by A-Cs. In order to counter something, you have to know what it can do, and you have to have enough of it around to test. Then there’s the whole pure versus synthetic issue. We need to find out if Christopher’s been injecting pure or not.”
    “I have no idea.” Clarence, like most A-Cs, couldn’t lie. He was looking anywhere but at me.
    “Right. So, Al Dejahl’s offered, what? Money, power? So you can sell him this drug or, lord knows, just give it to him, and he can create a race of super-Centaurions? So they can take over the world?”
    Clarence glared at me. Not up to Christopher’s standards. No one was. Jeff had bellowing, Christopher had glaring—they were both the unquestioned champions of their events.
    “You people are aware that Ronaldo’s the product of a human mother?” Clarence’s mouth twitched, but he got it under control. I stared at him. “Jeff? I need to talk to Richard, immediately.”
    A cell was offered. I dropped Clarence and took it. Chuckie had the nerve-pinch thing going. Kevin punched Clarence in the gut, I figured just because he wanted to. I loved my guys.
    “Missus Martini. Jeffrey sounded very tense.”
    “Yes, well, we’ve discovered the usual ugliness. Mister White, how old was the man you met with, the one who said his name was Gaultier?”
    “He was