Touched by an Alien

actually a huge depression,” he said with a small smile. “You can’t see it because it’s camouflaged.”
    “Okay. So? How does this help my mother?”
    “Who do you take after?” Martini asked.
    “What? Why is that a relevant question now?” I wanted to kick him but managed to refrain.
    “Just answer me. Who do you take after?” He didn’t seem like he was playing around.
    “My mother, mostly. At least so everyone says.”
    “Then she’ll be fine.” He smiled at the expression I knew was on my face. “If you take after her, then there’s more risk of another woman in your family killing another ‘terrorist’ than of your mother getting hurt.”
    I wanted to believe him, but it wasn’t easy. “Maybe.”
    “What’s your mother do for a living?” Gower asked, in a very soothing tone.
    “She’s a consultant.”
    “Consultant for what?” Gower prodded.
    Reader started to laugh. I turned, and he was holding a folder. He hadn’t had it before. “Acorn here did not fall far from the tree.”
    “Where did you get that from? And what does it say?” I tried to read it, but he moved it away from me.
    “Nope, you have to calm down and pay attention to what Paul’s trying to show you. Then, maybe I’ll let you see the file on your mother.” Reader winked. “It’s all good, you’ll be proud.”
    “ If I can have your attention,” Gower said.
    “Fine.” I was starting to hate all of them, not just Christopher.
    Gower reached out and pulled me next to him. “Put your hand on top of mine,” he instructed. I did, and then he moved our hands just a bit—and they disappeared. I pulled my hand back involuntarily, and there it was, still attached.
    He brought his hand out, too. “It’s an optical illusion. We have equipment hidden here. The residue from the Ancients’ crash boosts the power.”
    I thought about what they’d said in the car. “You have a transference machine here?”
    “Several,” White answered. “As Christopher told you, they don’t work for us to go back to A-C, but …”
    “They work just great to get you to, say, JFK Airport in New York?”
    “Exactly.”
    “There were some in the warehouse, too, weren’t there?”
    “Marry me,” Martini said.
    “Yes,” Gower answered. “It’s how we transport the dead superbeings back without issue.”
    “Okay, but how big are these things? Because I don’t think you had one at the courthouse.”
    “We all have personal models,” Gower said. But he wasn’t meeting my eyes.
    I looked at Martini. “I want the truth.”
    He grinned. “Say you’ll marry me first.”
    “I’ll marry you before any tree on Earth.”
    “Good enough for a start. We’re aliens, remember? Anyone with A-C blood has the ability to travel at what you’d call hyperspeed.”
    “So you’re like the Flash?”
    “No,” Gower sounded pained. “That’s a comic book character.”
    “Actually,” Reader interjected, “it’s a good comparison. Look, you know how the Flash had to eat a ton because he burned so much fuel?”
    “Yeah.” I hated having to admit, right here, under these circumstances, that I was a total comics geek-girl, but I didn’t have much choice. “But he also made sonic booms, and I haven’t heard those.”
    “Right. Because they don’t work like the Flash. Flash could go fast if he had enough fuel. They can go as fast as they need, but only for what they could do not moving fast.”
    “And it was starting to sound so clear.” I looked to Gower. “Your turn.”
    “Let’s say I can run five miles and not be dead tired,” Gower said. I nodded. “I can move those five miles as fast as I need to, blink of an eye kind of thing. But, if I can’t, say, run ten miles and not be exhausted, then I can’t run ten miles in the blink of an eye, either. I can only do whatever I’m physically in shape to do, nothing else. It’s why we all have to stay physically fit.”
    “As an example, I can make love for twelve hours straight,” Martini offered. “However, I’ve never tried to make it go faster, so maybe that’s not a good example.”
    “But, so far, your most winning argument.” I looked back to Reader. “So, back to the Flash. He also made the wind whoosh around you, blew newspapers, that sort of thing. They don’t.”
    “Right, ’cause they’re real. Think of it as them stopping time and moving through everything in a way that doesn’t create disturbance. They don’t stop time, but the way