Touched by an Alien

or something growing out of their heads, but they all seemed genuinely nice. I was stopped by many of them as I walked across the large room, and every one asked if I was okay, told me my mother was the greatest, said I was a really brave young woman, or gave me some other atta-girl sentiment. It was as if I’d fallen onto the Planet of the Honestly Nice Cheerleaders. I didn’t fit in, but, boy, was I glad they didn’t seem to notice.
    When I finally made it to Reader, I wondered why Martini would even know I was alive, let alone be interested in kissing me. He had more gorgeous women around him in this room alone than there were in the entire American Southwest.
    Reader gave me a commiserating grin. “Now you know how I felt when I first joined up.”
    “But you were a top male model— the top for a long time.”
    He shrugged. “You’ve taken a look. It’s one thing to be attractive when other people around you are ordinary. When everyone’s gorgeous, you have to figure you’re not that great.”
    The idea that Reader would have had any kind of self-consciousness or felt unworthy lookswise with this group had never occurred to me. “Paul doesn’t seem to mind,” was all I could come up with that wasn’t going to make me sound both stupid and unobservant.
    “Yeah.” He gave me a big smile. “And he had a lot of gorgeous to compare me to.”
    “Oh, my feelings of total inadequacy in the looks department were showing?”
    “Just a little. Trust me, they’re both really into you for yourself. Including how you look. Which is great, take it from the gay man.”
    “Both?” I was going to ask him who he was talking about when White came over.
    “Finally. Miss Katt, I’d like to have you debrief us on your experiences with both the superbeing you eliminated and Mephistopheles.”
    “Nice to see you again, too. I’m fine thanks, how are you?” He didn’t crack a smile. Oh, well. No sense of humor in the son, why was I expecting one in the father? “What’s to debrief? Your agents were around for both, and I’ve already told you pretty much all that happened.”
    “Yes,” White said with a show of forced patience. “But I’d like you to debrief our lead scientific team.” He gestured behind him at several women who would have made Raquel Welch green with envy. The only saving grace was some of them looked about Raquel’s age, so I could tell myself Mom should be the one feeling inferior, not me. Of course, I knew my mother and doubted she’d feel inadequate against anyone.
    “Are you Angela’s girl?” one of them asked me.
    Angela? She’d been here no more than five minutes longer than me and she was already on a first name basis with the beauty queens?
    “Yep, that’s me.” I remembered Reader had said all the female A-Cs were scientists. Great, so they were better looking and smarter than me. For this I’d gotten up this morning?
    “Your mother is just the most amazing woman,” another one offered. “We’re totally in awe of her.”
    “Me, too.” I mean, I’d spent most of this day in total awe, over just about everything, including my mother.
    “Now, now,” I heard Mom’s voice behind me. She was chuckling in that way people do when they’re being complimented and want to pretend they don’t actually want to hear it. “This is really Kitty’s time.”
    Oh, great. This was my initiation into the Kick-Ass Females Club, wasn’t it? I mean, every one of the A-C women looked as though they could easily run as far and as fast, if not faster, than any of the men. There were some I could say looked downright Amazonian. All of them were stunning, and they ran the gamut to ensure that no man would ever be short of his “type.”
    And then there was me. I wasn’t Mossad trained. I wasn’t from Planet Dazzling. I was just a marketing manager from Pueblo Caliente, Arizona, who could wield a mean pen.
    I caught Reader’s eye. He grinned. “Welcome, fully, to my world.”

CHAPTER 17
    WHITE LED US INTO A GOOD-SIZED CONFERENCE room. Martini and Christopher were already in there, sitting at opposite ends of the long, oval table, glaring at each other. What a fun meeting this was going to be.
    The conference table gleamed in an odd way, and I assumed it was alien made or at least influenced. The chairs were all black and looked reasonably comfortable. There was no phone, screen, or whiteboard, though. Just glass panes on each side, so meeting in here would be like meeting in