Touched by an Alien

involved.”
    Christopher sighed. “There are ways. I need to concentrate.”
    “Why?” His hands hadn’t left the monitor.
    “Because while you’re seeing the real thing here, I’m manipulating it for mass consumption. This is being filmed live.”
    I looked up at the larger screens. It looked similar to the monitor, but there were no A-Cs visible. The guy from the Jeep was just firing at nothing. “You know, if it’s being filmed, that means someone’s working the camera, right?”
    “Right. As far as I can tell, anyway. The camera operator isn’t in the picture, so I can’t touch or feel his image.”
    The empath closed his eyes. “Commander, I think we have a problem.”
    No sooner said than the camera jerked wildly and fell to the ground. “Um, Christopher? I think the parasite wants to explore its more artistic side.” The camera was still aimed toward the guy with the machine gun, who looked beyond terrified and also seemed to be screaming like a little girl. Something horrible and extremely nonhuman clawed at him. He was reduced to shreds in a matter of moments.
    Christopher cursed. “Send another team, now !”
    There were a few tense minutes while we watched the superbeing stomping around. The A-Cs on site were moving too fast to be seen. The main screen showed a regular citizen fighting the bad guys. Nice to see someone got to look like a hero. Finally, the action stopped, and there was nothing, just the Jeep sitting there idling. A disembodied voice came through over a speaker system. “All secured, Commander White. Footage in the camera altered.”
    “Good work. Clean up, box it, bring it home. Fast. That area’s not safe.” Christopher rubbed his temples. “Anything else?” he asked the lead empath.
    “Not right now, Commander. Not as far as we can tell.”
    “Good work. Okay,” he said to me. “Let’s get you back to the Science Center.”
    “You sure? This was kind of interesting.” And it was a refreshing change to merely watch the action. Plus, since it had been one incident and not fifty, there hadn’t been too much for me to take in.
    “You can watch from the Science Center, too, on even more screens, remember? I realize you were sick to your stomach when we were handling the clustered manifestations, but it’s a larger version of this.”
    I remembered, my stomach in particular. “Wow, my own multiplex of horror. It’s almost too good to be true.”
    We reached the motor pool area. “Your luggage is in your trunk, the car’s gassed up, and we made a few modifications,” the A-C who handed me my keys advised. “I think you’ll be pleased with the performance.”
    “It’s still painted black, right?”
    “Right.”
    “Then it’s all good.” Went to my car; it looked fine. We got in, and I examined the instrument panel. “Oh, yeah. Lexus does not an invisibility shield make.” It looked as though they’d installed all the alien bells and whistles. Fine with me. I never argued about a free upgrade.
    “What are you doing driving a Lexus anyway?” Christopher asked as he buckled up. “These things cost a fortune.”
    “This is their sporty, entry-level model, and I saved up for three years and took the bus or rode my bike instead of buying something I didn’t want, and I love this car, far more than any fish. It handles like a dream, gets good gas mileage, and is a stick shift, meaning that it’s for real drivers.” I meant it, I loved my car.
    “You and James can drool over it together. To me, it’s just a metal box that goes slower than I can.”
    “Philistine.”
    “Jeff’ll love it, don’t worry.”
    We drove to a gate, it was calibrated for the Science Center, and then we drove through. It was no better in my own car than it had been in the Navigator. “Do they install hyperspeed in the cars?”
    “No, get used to the gates.”
    “If I must.”
    We got to the Science Center without incident, which seemed like a first to me. My car was added into the motor pool there with instructions that it was mine, not for general use. Tim met us there. “Christopher, we had a report that a bomb went off in Pueblo Caliente.”
    “Yeah, it was at my apartment. Can I get my stuff to my room before we go into the next big briefing session?”
    Christopher nodded and called over some A-Cs I didn’t know but had seen around. “Run everything in these bags, computer especially, for bugs, bombs, toxins, and anything else you can think