Alien vs. Alien

Marching into the dining room and sharing that this had all been a big misunderstanding didn’t seem like the smoothest way of handling the situation, but I didn’t have any other ideas.
    A throat cleared, and I looked over my shoulder to see Chuckie standing in the short hallway between the kitchen and dining room. He wasn’t alone. He had his hand over Amy’s mouth, and Jeff had a hold of Christopher.
    I glanced back at Lucinda. She looked trapped.
    “Hey, guys. What’s up?” I sort of felt trapped, too.
    Chuckie rolled his eyes and let Amy go. She shot him a dirty look, then walked over to me and Lucinda. “I don’t care if anyone else likes me,” she said to Lucinda. “I only care that the people who matter to Christopher like me. And you matter to him, no matter what you might think.”
    Jeff now let Christopher go. Christopher shot Patented Glare #1 at him, then came over to us. He took Lucinda’s hand. “You are my other mother. I just don’t always know how to let you know that.”
    Lucinda started crying again. I backed away while the three of them did the group hug thing A-Cs all seemed to do naturally.
    Jeff took my hand, and he and Chuckie walked me to the other side of the kitchen and out into the Great Room, where I was fairly sure the Martini grandkids performed Shakespeare when things were quiet, simply because it was certainly big enough to handle both the performers and a decent-sized audience.
    “You handled that well,” Chuckie said.
    “How long were you watching?”
    “Most of the time,” Jeff said. He looked at Chuckie. “If you knew, why tell my mother we couldn’t have the party?”
    “Because I didn’t think she’d want to discuss this in front of everyone. Oh, and duh.”
    “How is it the two of you figured out what was really going on when I’ve been here a month and had no clue?”
    Jeff sighed. “I’m an empath. Passing Reynolds’ ‘duh’ along to you, baby.”
    “I’m observant,” Chuckie mentioned. “As you know. So, doubling that duh.”
    “True enough. Okay, fine, don’t hand out another duh, I’m at capacity. So, while this is all working out, Lucinda brought up a really big issue—if Amy’s not being accepted by the A-C community at large, you know that means whoever’s still holding a torch for the whole purity of the race idea is going to use this to their advantage.”
    Chuckie sighed. “Very true. But since there are other things going on that you know nothing about, we need to get back to D.C. and determine what ranks where on our list of priorities.”
    “And we need to involve Alpha Team,” Jeff added. “Reynolds didn’t create a fake excuse for my mother not to throw a big party.”
    “I hate being out of the loop.”
    “Well, don’t worry,” Chuckie said. “We’ll be catching you up quickly. As soon as you’ve taken and passed the HSAC we can bring you up to speed.”
    This was a new one. “Excuse me? I’m not heading to law school. Am I?”
    Chuckie heaved a sigh. “No. The HSAC stands for High Security Administrative Clearance.”
    “I have a really high security clearance.”
    “Yes. You do. You don’t, however, have HSAC clearance.”
    “How do you know?”
    Chuckie gave me a look that clearly said I was dancing on his last nerve. “Because I have the complete records of which Centaurion Division personnel have what clearances. You don’t have this one. At least none of you who’ve been in Florida have it. The others have been cleared.”
    “You have?” I asked Jeff.
    Who shrugged. “It’s just a test, baby. It’s something we have to take as part of the Diplomatic Corps. Doreen said it’s been around for as long as she can remember. She took it again, even though she’d taken it before.”
    “Great. I haven’t studied.”
    Chuckie rolled his eyes. “There is nothing you can study for. This is a standard test, but it’s testing your reactions more than your knowledge.”
    “Clear as mud.”
    He ignored me. “However, it’s a U.S. Government test designed for anyone who works with or for Centaurion Division in a nonmilitary capacity.”
    “So I didn’t have to take this before because I was the Head of Airborne, as opposed to now, when I’m in the Diplomatic Corps.”
    “Nice of your brain to join the party.”
    “Careful, Secret Agent Man. I know where your bodies are buried.”
    “Which is precisely why you and the others have to pass this test. I need to get the rest of you passed and