Touched by an Alien

would be hugely interesting, just as interesting as if they were nothing like us. Every single thing in that spaceship, starting with its mere existence, would be fascinating to anyone with at least a normal IQ.”
    “What do you think this all means?” White asked me. He seemed interested in my answer but not worried.
    “You come from Planet Hunk, sent to Earth to protect and serve. And make the ladies happy.”
    Martini started to laugh, which was sort of a relief. He finally looked at me again, and I was interested to see that his expression hadn’t changed much from what I was getting used to. He looked confident and interested and intelligent, but like White, he didn’t look worried.
    Gower shook his head. “You gotta give it to her, boss. She’s a smart one.”
    “It’s a little more complicated than that,” White said.
    “Well, gee, I have the time.”
    White shook his head. “Not here.”
    “No, right here. I’m tired of the game, whatever it is. You tell me what’s going on or you take me home and leave me the hell alone for the rest of my life. And that would include you,” I directed to Martini. He just grinned.
    “No. It’s easier to explain if you can see it,” White countered.
    “See what?”
    “The crash site. Our Science Center in Dulce, New Mexico. And Home Base.”
    “The UFO Tour,” Martini added cheerfully. “There are a lot of folks who’d pay good money for this.”
    “All of them considered crackpots.” One of them being one of my best friends, too, but that wasn’t important right now. “Of course, since they’re apparently right, I guess we should call them intuitive government whistle-blowers.”
    White shrugged. “There are reasons to lie. I’m sure you can guess most of them. But that’s not the point. Yes, we brought you here as a test. You needed to see that there were more of them, many more, than just the one you’d experienced yourself.”
    “What else?” I asked. “I mean, there has to be more to why you brought me here, first, than just to give me a private tour of the Museum of the Grotesque.”
    “I wanted to see you sweat,” Martini said. “I think it’s sexy. You do it really well, too.”
    “You could have done that back home and saved a fortune in jet fuel.”
    “It’s worth the cost. Not every day we recruit a hottie from Hot Town.” Martini was grinning as though he thought this was the first time someone had tried that one on me. Every female in Pueblo Caliente had heard a variation on that line by the time she was twelve.
    Gower rolled his eyes. “This may explain why we don’t have a lot of female operatives.”
    “Because of Mr. Horndog here?” It was a toss-up between that or Cliché Man, and I went for the more obvious trait.
    “I’m not a horndog,” Martini protested. “I just like you. The rest of them, pah, they’re nothing.”
    “Not buying it. Not buying any of it.” I looked around again. There were more men in here now, all of them clearly agents like Martini, White, and Gower. All of them were watching me and only me.
    A loud ringing started, which caused me and several of the men to jump. I recovered first and dug my cell phone out of my purse.
    “Don’t answer that,” Martini told me.
    “I thought you took that away from her on the plane,” I heard White say to Martini.
    “I would have, but she hid it back in her bag on the plane,” Martini replied. “Finding her keys was the only easy thing about that purse. You feel free to search through it for anything. Maybe the contents only respond to their owner or something, but it’s a nightmare in there.”
    “She’s a woman,” Gower chimed in.
    I checked who was calling and flipped the phone open. “Hi, Dad,” I said as loudly as possible.
    “Jeez, Kitty, stop screaming. Your mother is freaking out and wanted me to call.”
    “What’s wrong with Mom?”
    “She says she saw you tackle a terrorist at our courthouse on the news, while she was in the airport waiting for her plane.”
    “Dad? Can you hold on a second, please?” I covered the mouthpiece and looked over at White. “Just when was that ‘we’ll keep you out of the papers’ thing supposed to happen?” As I asked, it dawned on me that Amy was in France, Sheila lived on the East Coast, and Chuckie was most likely in Australia, which meant my little escapade had made not only the Pueblo Caliente news, but the news of the world.
    “Why?” he asked, looking worried.
    “Because I