Touched by an Alien

right now, okay?” I sounded like Mom. I hoped this was a good thing.
    “Oh, fine. Carry on.” He looked mildly annoyed but not enough for me to worry about.
    “Thanks. So the odds are in favor of no parasite ever catching an A-C with their emotions out of control, because most of that happens in the safety of your shielded fortresses. But we don’t have an epidemic of superbeings. Why not?”
    “The incidents are increasing, exponentially in the last twenty years,” Beverly supplied.
    The next connection waved merrily at me. “Twenty years. Exactly as long as Mephistopheles has been around, right?”
    “Right. So?” Beverly was really taking this personally. I wondered how involved in the original translations she’d been and figured pretty close. Oh, well, she and Christopher could start the We Hate Kitty club.
    “Think about it. He turns into a freaking devil.”
    “He’s found his version of Hell and wants to populate it with his own kind,” Reader said softly.
    “Yes. I think he’s calling them here. I don’t know how, but it’s at least a strong possibility.” I took a deep breath. This was the part I was really dreading. “And he’s figured out how to repopulate, because if we take this text to be an actual account, he probably helped create most of his race and was the reason they were cast out in the first place.”
    “How do you get that?” Gower asked.
    “Missionaries tend to go out in waves.”
    “Mind explaining that?” White asked with a laugh.
    “We have a lot of legends from Biblical times of angels coming to help us. I’m going to bet your planet does too. Every inhabited planet probably does. The Ancients were doing their best, after all. And if a missionary team didn’t return home, well, they were going out to the boondocks of the galaxy, right? The next team was probably just told to find them if they were able or report back if they weren’t.”
    “We told you, they couldn’t survive on our worlds,” Gower protested.
    “Maybe they couldn’t survive when they came in modern times because we’ve poisoned the air in both our worlds. You had to put up an ozone shield and we need one. Maybe our air or atmosphere was different several thousand years ago.”
    “Makes sense,” Martini said slowly. “Pollution is something our races have had time to adapt to gradually. The Ancients might not have given it thought, could have been past it in their world, too, so it wouldn’t occur to them.”
    “I’m back to how does this relate to Mephistopheles and Kitty’s theory that he’s the center of the Garden story?” Gower didn’t sound angry, just confused.
    “It’s in our religious texts. Maybe it’s in yours, too, maybe not. But the general Judeo-Christian opinion is that Lucifer fought with God for the throne and was cast out, along with his followers. Sent to Hell because of his hubris.”
    “So?” Beverly remained unimpressed, but I could see Martini’s face, and I figured he was following my train of thought because his face had drained of color.
    “One of the other names for Lucifer is the Morningstar. A star that was destroyed and sent away from Heaven, whether you consult the Earth Bible or the Ancients’ text.” I felt my throat go dry, but I pushed on. “Lucifer, now called Mephistopheles, considers that he has been sent here, to Hell—to rule over all its inhabitants in an eternity of torment and pain.”

CHAPTER 27
    NO BEDLAM THIS TIME , just silence. All the aliens were thinking. What a relief, someone else could take over that chore for a while.
    I sank back into my chair, and Dad patted my shoulder again. Claudia and Lorraine each took a hand and squeezed. It was nice to know they didn’t hate me.
    Interestingly, it was a human who broke the silence. “Why are you the catalyst?” Reader asked.
    “I have no idea.” But it was a good question and bore consideration. Dang, I was going to have to start thinking again. No rest for the psychotic-alien bait, apparently.
    “What do you mean, she’s the catalyst?” Beverly asked.
    Gower answered. “From what I saw in her mind, Mephistopheles implanted a memory into Kitty. A memory of how to create more superbeings. But I don’t know why.”
    “Yates is an old man. James, you’ve said that more than once.” I did my best to stay calm and not let this freak me out completely. “Yates must be dying. Mephistopheles wants to move to someone else before that happens.”
    “And Yates