Touched by an Alien

wants to complete his terrorism plan before he goes, which is why he’s upping the game against your mother,” Reader added. “It’s why the plans are intersecting; he must be in the advanced stages of whatever’s wrong.”
    Score two three-pointers for the humans. I could see A-C heads nodding around the room.
    “It would be cancer,” Mom offered. “Yates had it over twenty years ago. He wasn’t expected to live this long, but it went into remission.”
    “Because the parasite found him and turned him mostly invulnerable. It can’t cure him, but it must have slowed the cancer down by quite a lot.”
    “Knowing this is great,” Christopher said. “But what good does it do us?”
    The words sounded as if they were being dragged out of him. “We finally have bait.” Martini’s jaw was clenched, and he had the stone-face on, just as when he’d told me about their being religious exiles this morning.
    “What the hell are you talking about?” Christopher asked. He looked angry, but, then, so did my mother. I had a really good idea of what Martini meant.
    “We use Kitty as bait.” Martini’s voice was starting to sound like Beverly’s—monotonal.
    “Are you out of your mind?” Dad grabbed me and pulled me toward him. This wasn’t comfortable for either one of us, since I was sitting and the chair hit him in his gut, but I understood the reaction.
    “I’m the head of Field Operations,” Martini continued, voice still devoid of emotion. “We have someone who has been confirmed as a target by both Yates and Mephistopheles. We actually have a chance to do something about them, both of them.” He looked at me, and though his face was still like rock, I saw his eyes. If I’d thought they’d been filled with pain before, it was nothing compared to right now. “But only if you agree.”
    “She does not!” Mom was furious. “She’s not trained for anything like this operation will require. How dare you even suggest it?”
    I looked at Reader. He noticed and cocked his head. I raised an eyebrow. He nodded.
    “He’s got the right, Mom, because he’s the one in charge.” I managed to disentangle from Dad’s clutches and stand up again. I looked straight at Martini. “I pick who goes with me, I get some clothes I can move in, and I get fully briefed and equipped with all the standard field agent stuff.” He nodded.
    I looked at Gower. “I want James with me, Paul. But not you.”
    Gower looked as though I’d hit him in the gut. “Why?”
    “He’s not the one who needs to be angry. And I need someone who I can talk to, human-experience to human-experience.” I looked at Christopher. “You, however, should plan on coming along.”
    He managed a grin. “I kind of figured. If that’s all right with you,” he added to Martini in a rather nasty tone.
    “Fine.” Martini’s voice was still clipped. I didn’t have to see him naked to tell his whole body was tensed.
    I took another deep breath. “And I want some other female A-Cs with me.”
    This brought about pandemonium. From what I could make out through the shouting, the women were never allowed to do fieldwork. But I could also tell Lorraine and Claudia wanted to go with me.
    “SHUT UP!” Martini bellowing was impressive—deep, angry and loud, with reverberations that continued for several seconds. So A-C’s could indeed rage. Either that or all his empathic shields were down and he couldn’t take it.
    The room went deathly still. Martini seemed to calm instantly. “Thanks. Kitty, please explain why.”
    “Because I think part of the reason you can’t catch these superbeings, Mephistopheles in particular, is that you’re sending out the people who also can’t actually reproduce.”
    Dead silence. Alien think time. But I decided to answer the questions that were going to come. “There are probably a lot of ways to change someone internally so it doesn’t show externally, at least at first. However, there’s only one way that’s worked for all of recorded history.”
    “You impregnate them,” Reader said with a grin.
    I nodded. “In the case of this dream or implanted memory or whatever it is, I didn’t die, remember? And neither did Mephistopheles. He put something inside me that made me change. But I changed only internally. Externally, no one could tell the difference.” I took a deep breath and turned to White. “That’s why I’m the catalyst. I’m the first female Mephistopheles has been close enough to