Alien Tango

to Chuckie always upset him. Texting meant that when he asked me what was going on and I lied, he’d have a harder time proving it.
    He replied immediately and took my evasiveness in better stride for this conversation than he had when we were speaking, so I congratulated myself on my wise decision-making. I tried to shove the standard pangs of guilt and remorse aside again—this wasn’t really the way you were supposed to treat your best friends, but I’d become a pro at it by now, and a part of me hated myself for it.
    Martini felt the guilt. “National security, baby,” he said softly. “Your parents have managed all these years, remember.”
    “True enough.” I cleared my throat and stomped down on the guilt. Back to the business of saving the world. Again. “Per Chuckie, this is a group who firmly believe that aliens walk among us.”
    “And?” Christopher sounded annoyed, which was natural for him, at least in my experience.
    “And they don’t like it. They’re anti-alien, not pro. Most of the conspiracy theorists want there to be aliens here, want to know them, want to discover that new worlds do exist. Or they want to prove the government’s lying. But they’re positively spun toward aliens.” I couldn’t blame them. I was quite positive toward mine.
    “Okay, so Club 51 people don’t like the idea of aliens?” Kevin didn’t sound convinced.
    “Right, to an extreme level. Think of them as the skinheads of the UFO community.”
    This was met by blank stares from Martini, Gower, and Christopher. Tim and Reader, however, were nodding. Kevin still didn’t look convinced. “So, skinheads beat people up. They don’t do suicide missions.”
    “These people are lunatics.”
    “Aliens exist,” Martini said. “In case you’d forgotten.”
    I rolled my eyes. “Yes, I know. But the general public does not. You’re considered a crackpot, at best, if you believe aliens are really here.” God knew, Chuckie had been saddled with the nickname of Conspiracy Chuck mainly because of his UFO fascination. “So, it stands to reason someone involved in a huge anti-alien underground organization would be more whacko than your average UFO whacko.”
    “True.” Thank God, Reader was backing me. “Unless you know for sure that the Roswell rumors are real, it’s sort of crazy to believe in them. We could call them more passionate, if we didn’t want to use crazy, since they’re right.”
    “Do these people believe or just want to believe? Jeff, can you tell?”
    He closed his eyes. “Not . . . really. The four we have pulled aside are hating on us all right now.”
    “Hate, not fear?”
    He nodded. “Hate. There are some others who are hating on us, too.”
    “Let’s pull those out of the lineup and search them. Oh, I want everyone on the plane, whether we thought they were suspicious or not, searched for a Club 51 card.”
    “Okay, I’ll get that started.” Kevin moved off.
    I grabbed Martini before he could follow. “You point them out to Kevin and then come right back. I want you staying with me. You too,” I said to the rest of them. “I want to do my own tests.”
    “Just what are those going to be?” Martini asked.
    “Trust me.”
    “Oh, God. I hate it when you say that.”

CHAPTER 14
    WE WENT OVER TO WHERE our confirmed suspects were. I got rid of the human police officers, and Gower brought some more A-Cs over. Our four little friends were surrounded, and they didn’t look happy.
    I wanted someone cracking, and while I thought Shannon would be the easiest, where was the fun in that? Besides, I really didn’t like Maureen.
    I had Reader and Tim slam Thompson into a chair, with the other three behind him. “I don’t know what this is all about,” he protested.
    “Oh, I think you do.” I made sure my voice was low, like I talked to Martini when we were leading up to ripping each other’s clothes off. I sashayed over and ran my hands over his shoulders. “I think you know exactly . . . what . . . we are.”
    His eyes widened. “Keep away from me.” His voice was shaking. Yep, either they thought we were all aliens or he really thought I was a troll. I had Martini, the gorgeous sex-god, to tell me otherwise, so I went with alien.
    “You can tell us who your mastermind is, willingly. Or . . . well, we have ways of making you talk.” I saw Reader working to keep himself from cracking up. Hey, I hadn’t used an accent.
    “I don’t know anything.” His eyes were