Touched by an Alien

introductions. I’m Lorraine.” This was from one who looked younger than me, had a figure to die for, and blonde hair I was pretty sure wasn’t dyed. She was beautiful. “I’m a junior member of the Exoskeleton team.”
    “We work on trying to figure out why and how the parasites turn a human into a superbeing without killing the human,” another added. “Oh, and I’m Claudia.” She had long, flowing brown hair, big brown eyes, and, just like Lorraine, a killer figure. She was about my age. I found myself hoping she was Martini’s sister so that maybe I could not hate her. “Oh, and that was my mother, Emily, and Lorraine’s mother, Melanie, who went out with James,” she added. “They’re part of the Liaison team, working with Earth scientists and government agencies on mutually beneficial projects.”
    It certainly ran in families. “It must be nice to get to work so closely with your mothers,” was all I could think of as an insightful comment.
    Both of them nodded, but where the older women in the room couldn’t see, Lorraine rolled her eyes and Claudia mouthed “not really.” I started to like them.
    They went around the table, giving first name introductions and highlighting which scientific team they were on. Apparently, this meeting had been invitation only, and each team had sent one or two representatives to get the information and report back.
    “How many people work here?” I asked once the round robin had stopped. I’d given up trying to learn any more names. I figured I’d deal with it as I went along.
    “Several thousand at any one time, more during a state of emergency,” Lorraine answered. “Earth agencies have the top three levels. We have the bottom ten. There are two levels in between that we share.”
    “This place goes down fifteen stories?” Suddenly I felt claustrophobic.
    Claudia nodded. “It’s safer that way. For more reasons than the alien parasitic threat.”
    One of the other women, who I thought was called Bernice, or Bethany, or something that started with a B, began explaining why it was great to be buried in the ground, what they did on each floor, and how some of the floors were just given over to living quarters. While a bed sounded great, B-girl didn’t have the most engaging speaking voice. This thrilled me for all of thirty seconds. Then I started to get bored. Then sleepy. Then very sleepy.
    I managed to look at Lorraine and Claudia. Claudia was resting with her head on one hand, looking totally bored. Lorraine had leaned back in her chair and, if I was any judge, was fast asleep. I decided I liked them a lot.
    B-girl finished droning on, and there was silence. It dawned on me she’d asked me a question as her closing line. But I couldn’t bring up what it was.
    Amazingly, Christopher was the one who saved this situation. “I’m sure Kitty wants to get some sleep,” he said. “I think we can leave the rest of the debriefing for tomorrow. We’ve identified the real threat, and she’s not as integral to it as we’d first assumed.”
    I wanted to mention that I knew Mephistopheles’ parasite wanted to move west into my body, but I yawned instead. Widely. I couldn’t help it, I could barely keep my eyes open.
    “I’ll get her settled in,” Martini said.
    Christopher looked as if he were going argue, but White nodded. “Do. We need to ensure we’re monitoring the right things anyway.”
    The meeting broke up. I saw Claudia nudge Lorraine awake. The two of them hung back and left the meeting with me and Martini. “Sorry about Beverly,” Claudia said as we walked out. “She’s very enthusiastic.”
    “And dull as dust,” Lorraine said with a yawn. “I don’t know how you stayed conscious.”
    “She had me to look at,” Martini offered.
    Both of them laughed. “Yeah, right, like that’d keep a girl up,” Claudia said, nudging him in the ribs.
    Martini managed a chuckle, but he looked embarrassed, and not in a good way.
    “Um, just asking, you know, but which one of the guys do you think is the cutest?” I felt like an idiot, but I had to figure out if they were serious or not.
    Claudia shrugged. “We don’t really go that much for external looks. I know, it’s a big Earth thing, we get it. And we don’t judge. I mean, it’s the way your entire planet’s been raised. But, well, A-C women really like brains.”
    “Martini’s not all that dumb,” I said, wondering why I was even trying to make them think he was hot.