Touched by an Alien

for.”
    As the picture rewound, I saw it again. “There, stop, go forward … right there.”
    Martini froze the picture, and I pointed to the ninth story. There was something familiar there. “Can this zoom in?” No sooner asked than done. We were now all staring at a window on the ninth floor of the courthouse. There were some people standing at the window, watching the carnage below. Two of them were very close to the glass. And one was wearing a suit that looked very familiar.
    We all stared at this image for a few long moments. “What’s the big deal about this window?” Mom asked finally. I assumed she was speaking for the entire room.
    Nothing that had happened all day surprised me more than who spoke up. “I see it,” Christopher said, and for the first time all day he didn’t sound angry or nasty—he sounded freaked out. “How can Kitty be down on the street, killing a superbeing, if she’s up in that window, watching the action?”
    “Get a load of who ‘I’m’ with,” I added, as I tried not to panic and failed utterly, if Martini’s hand squeeze was any indication. The picture zoomed in even more. Now it was easy to see “me” and the man next to me, even though the picture was fuzzy.
    “Ronald Yates.” Mom’s voice was like lead.
    In a room full of humans, I figured pandemonium would be breaking out right about now. In a room full of aliens, not so much. Everyone was staring at the pictures, studying them. What I found a particular relief was that no one was asking me how I’d managed to be in two places at once.
    Christopher spoke again. “Jeff, this’ll take both of us.”
    Martini let go of my hand and stood up. “Right.” He walked over to the middle of the table and so did Christopher. They were on the same side as Gower was, so on my right. The women who were sitting in this area got up and moved out of the way. No one was speaking.
    The image went back to singular—no longer an image per person, just the entire table filled with this shot of the ninth-story window, with “me” and my buddy, Ronald Yates, framed within it. He had his arm around “my” waist, and I wanted to barf.
    Christopher put his hand on my image, palm flat against it. Martini put his on top of Christopher’s. It looked as if they were doing a two-man “go team” move, only their hands stayed in place.
    After what seemed like the longest minute of my life, they took their hands away and looked at each other. “It’s not her,” Christopher said.
    “Nope. It’s not human, either,” Martini added.
    “What the hell is going on?” Mom asked, echoing my thoughts this time.
    “And, not that I’m arguing, but how could you tell it wasn’t me?”
    Gower was the one to answer. “We’ve each got different talents, things on A-C that aren’t odd or even special, but things that are amazing on Earth. Jeff’s our strongest empath. Christopher’s our strongest imageer.”
    “Come again?”
    Gower managed a grin. “Someone who can touch a real image and know the person whose image is being touched. Our imageers can manipulate images, too, live or after the image is captured. It’s a common trait on our home planet.”
    “The Earth tribes who think pictures take a part of their soul are right, to a degree,” Christopher explained. “The pictures copy the image of the souls and the minds, just as they copy the image of the body.”
    “Yeah, if we were still on A-C, Christopher would be an artist,” Martini added.
    “It’s an artistic trait?” Mom sounded suspicious.
    Christopher shrugged. “On Alpha Centauri. Here it’s a useful trait for what we do.”
    “Like wiretapping only different,” I suggested.
    He shook his head. “Your mind is amazing. The way it does and doesn’t work, I mean.”
    Mom, put her hand on my arm before I could offer up a suitable retort. “Yes, but you’re saying that’s not Kitty’s mind in that image.”
    “Right,” Martini said quickly, presumably to prevent me from lunging for Christopher’s throat again. “I can feel the person through Christopher. That’s not a human woman. It’s not an A-C woman, either. I have no idea what that thing is, but it’s not Kitty.”
    “I think it’s a machine,” Christopher said. “It doesn’t have a human mind at all. Close, but very different at the same time.”
    “And he complains when I say the same thing,” I muttered to Mom.
    “Later, please think about this,” Mom whispered back. “I