Touched by an Alien

how?”
    “Good point.”
    “Okay, we’re all set,” Lorraine’s pilot said. “Tell your boy on the ground to move out.”
    “I’m on the intercom too, flyboy.”
    “No need to get touchy, son,” Claudia’s pilot shared.
    “I don’t take orders from you, either, Top Gun. Girlfriend?”
    “Move out, James. Meet us at the rendezvous point.”
    “You got it.”
    “Rendezvous point?” Martini asked quietly.
    “Where we first parked. He’ll know. Head there, too, Tim.”
    “Absolutely, your in-charge-ness.”
    “A trip back to Triple A could be in your future.”
    “The owner likes me. I think I’m safe.”
    “Don’t count on it.” I looked closely at the Pachyderm and Serpent. They were rolling around on the ground, but the big purpley thing seemed to be slowing down. “Can one of the extra jets do a flyby and tell me if the butt-ugly elephant-thing’s eyes are still glowing red or not?”
    “Will do, ma’am.” This was a new voice. Apparently the whole team was patched in. It was chummy in a weird sort of way.
    “He called me ma’am. I like that better than little lady.”
    “He thinks you’re a superior officer,” Martini shared. “Little lady will be back the moment he finds out you’re a civilian.”
    “Humph.”
    “Ma’am? Butt-ugly elephant-thing’s eyes are not glowing now. Repeat, not glowing now.”
    “I like him. And, um, boys in the big planes? I think we can dump the water now. If it’s boiling.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” a new voice crackled. “We’ve maintained appropriate temperature.”
    “Good, good. Carry on. Hit the huge black snake.”
    “Roger that.”
    “I feel all military and official.”
    “She’s drunk with power again.” Christopher looked back at Martini. “I thought you said you could handle her.”
    “I think she’s cute when she’s giving orders.” He reached over and stroked the back of my neck. It made me want to purr.
    We pulled up by the semicrushed SUV. Reader was a few moments behind us. The Humvee was covered with goo. “Can James get out of there safely?”
    “Ummm … I’m not sure.” Christopher sounded much less than not sure.
    “Paul?”
    “Yes, Kitty?”
    “How much heat can a Humvee withstand?”
    Silence.
    “You’re not going to suggest what I think you are, are you, girlfriend?”
    “Yes, she is,” Gower’s voice came back. “It can withstand the water, but it’ll be hot as hell in there, Jamie.”
    Jamie? It was a cute pet name. But it occurred to me that the danger we were in had to be higher than I thought, if Gower was using it over a wideband intercom system.
    “Why me?” Reader asked. “I know, because the humans have to stick together.” He barreled off toward the mass of superbeing flesh on the ground.
    As he did so, the jets started firing at what was left of the Killer. I could see them hitting, and the thing started to disintegrate. “Bullets work on that.”
    “Wish we’d known that earlier,” Reader said.
    “It’s only working because you weakened it so much, James. It’s superstructure was damaged by the repeated—”
    “Lorraine? Hon? I don’t care right now as I’m heading for the boiling carwash.”
    Reader reached the mass of dying fugly just as the first plane dropped a load of boiling water onto the area. The Serpent writhed and screamed—a sound best not described, ever.
    The second plane dropped its load. The Serpent bubbled, writhed, and screamed some more, and the Humvee seemed clean. But it wasn’t leaving the area. A third plane dumped water and the Serpent exploded.
    There were cheers from the various aircraft. But the Humvee wasn’t moving.
    A scary thought occurred to me. “At what heat level does rubber melt?”

CHAPTER 45
    THE BEDLAM STARTED , with a lot of male voices talking over each other. I tried to make out what the girls might be adding, but I couldn’t. The men in my car were suggesting their thoughts as well. What no one was doing was offering any kind of idea if Reader was stuck, trapped, alive, dead, or dying.
    My mother had always told me that in a panic situation, the person who can stay calm and be prepared was the one most likely to live and help others live. I put my earphones on and tuned my iPod to the song I wanted to hear. In this case, I wasn’t going with the tried and true—I was going with what I considered the best hard rock song ever made.
    Martini was leaning forward, barking orders into the intercom, so he wasn’t paying any