Alien Tango

and those in the know did the whole “it’s no biggie” thing. Which would indicate that our senator was in the know. Which begged the “who all is in the know” question.
    Well, I was having dinner with the right people to ask.

CHAPTER 6
    I GOT BACK ON THE ROAD and pulled up in front of my parents’ house in a few minutes. I stared at it. I’d grown up here—standard middle-class tract home. Two stories, two-car garage, about twenty-five hundred square feet. Not tiny but not huge, either. Typical desert landscaping out front consisting of river rocks and a variety of cacti.
    For most of my life I’d figured I’d end up living in a similar type of house. Maybe a little bigger or smaller, maybe in a different city, even, but similar. Where I lived and what I did was in no way similar. But I liked it.
    My father was playing catch with our four dogs in the backyard. I didn’t have to see it—I could hear it. Our dogs lived to bark, and they had different barks for everything. They were clearly on, “Toy! Toy! Throw the toy!” as opposed to “Dangerous Intruder” or “Kitty is home, time to slobber!” I was grateful. I loved my dogs, but I wasn’t in the mood to shower.
    I found Mom in the kitchen. “Hi, kitten, where’s Jeff?” One of our cats, Sugarfoot, was sitting on the counter helping her, or at least mooching food. He purred as I came in, and I slung him over my shoulder.
    “Held up at C.I.A. headquarters. He’ll be here as soon as he can.” I gave her a peck. “What’s for dinner?”
    “I made a rib roast in honor of your first solo.”
    “Yum.” Our other two cats, Candy and Kane, came in for pets. I so petted and was rewarded with a lot of purring. One drawback to living in the Science Center was the No Pets Long-Term rule. I missed having the critters around all the time. “Caroline called.”
    “How is she?”
    “Excited. She got the job with the senator, asked me to thank you.”
    Mom smiled. “Good, she’s a very capable girl.”
    “So, you helped her get a job but not me?”
    “You have a job.”
    “You know what I mean. She said Chuckie helped her, too.” Come to think of it, Chuckie had never helped me get a job, either. Apparently my nearest and dearest either though I was Ms. Capable or didn’t want their reputations sullied by referring me for anything. Sadly, I voted with option number two.
    “I’m sure he did. Charles is very fond of all of your sorority sisters.”
    True. Unlike in high school, most of my college friends had liked him a lot, my sorority sisters in particular. We all did a lot better in school because Chuckie was very willing to tutor anyone at the sorority who needed it, and he was always willing to be available for whoever needed an escort. “Yeah, that was one worry of his that was needless.”
    Mom shrugged. “Your college friends were more . . . perceptive than your high school ones.”
    “I suppose. Amy and Sheila never needed tutoring, of course.”
    “Your sorority sisters liked Charles for more reasons than that.”
    “True enough. Caroline says Chuckie’s looking good.”
    “Good to hear. How was the rest of your day?” It was a legitimate question and Mom sounded casual, but I figured she was asking for a reason.
    “Fine.” Of course, Mom also had that scary-high security clearance and, unlike Chuckie, she knew aliens were on the planet and what they did with their time. “Coincidentally, we had a cluster of forming superbeings. In Paraguay of all places.”
    Mom jerked and looked up from the potatoes she was mashing. “Paraguay?”
    “Yeah. Jeff called in military support from Argentina and Brazil, and the Argentineans blew up the superbeings. But apparently the C.I.A. was on the scene and wanted the superbeings intact.”
    Mom’s eyes narrowed. “Any idea why?”
    I snorted. “To use as supersoldiers would be my guess.” “Is that why Jeff’s in Langley? To verify?”
    “Per what little I got, the head C.I.A. guy over Centaurion said he wasn’t involved and wanted a briefing.”
    Mom looked relieved for a moment, then turned back to the potatoes.
    “Caroline also said she might be going to Paraguay.”
    Mom was prepared, so she didn’t react as much, though the potatoes got a slightly more vicious mashing. “Interesting.”
    Before I could ask her why she cared about this—Paraguay, Caroline possibly going there, and that the head C.I.A. guy over Centaurion was at least pretending not to be