Touched by an Alien

people I was going to put into mortal peril. I wondered if my mother felt like this every time she told her terrorism unit their next assignments. I had a horrible suspicion she did.
    Claudia and Lorraine looked excited, Reader looked slightly worried, and Christopher and Martini still looked pissed off and suspicious.
    “Now that it’s just us, want to tell me what’s going on?”
    Martini shrugged. “You know most of it already.”
    “Oh? Let’s see … Mephistopheles manifests a few times a year. When, why, what’s the pattern?”
    “There is no pattern,” Christopher said. “If there were, we’d have identified it.”
    “Really? Like you identified that the Ancients’ manual was a religious text?” I decided that, as they went, Glare #5, which he was shooting at me right now, was probably his best. Eyes narrowed yet sending out laser beams of fury, face tensed, mouth poised to snarl something. Very impressive.
    “Point taken,” Martini said, defusing Christopher’s snarl. “Feel free to tell us what you, having less than two days of this kind of experience, would like the rest of us to do. You know, those of us who have spent years,” he nodded his head toward Reader, “or merely our entire lives in this line of work.”
    “Ooooh, that’s put me in my place. Only … I don’t have a place to be put into here. However, I know exactly where I fit in Mephistopheles’ plan. And you don’t.”
    “You’re supposed to birth the babies,” Reader said, managing to keep a straight face.
    “Only sort of.” Got their attention again with that one. Good. “See, there’s a problem with implanting a memory in someone else.”
    “Uppity attitude?” Martini sounded as though he was headed back to normal. His body language was more relaxed—he was leaning his forearm against the wall, other hand on his hip—and his expression was amused.
    “Limited control.” I sat on the edge of the conference table. “Mephistopheles can’t have had a lot of recent experience with this—I’m the first woman he’s touched in twenty years.”
    “Lucky him,” Christopher muttered.
    “He’d like to get lucky,” Reader said with a grin. Great, he’d appointed himself comic relief.
    “Not so much. Look, let’s make this clear—he doesn’t want to have sex with me, nor does he want me to carry a zillion little Mephisties around. He wants to use me to get to all of you.”
    “To stop us,” Lorraine said.
    “No, I think Mephistopheles and all the other superbeings are here because of you, not in spite of you.”
    “What do you mean, because of us?” Martini’s voice was low, but I recognized his expression—I’d seen it in the bathroom this morning. He’d also moved his back against the wall, crossed his arms over his chest, and one leg over the other at the ankle. It looked casual, but he was poised to move if he had to.
    “You know what I mean, Jeff. Maybe the others haven’t figured it out, but I really think you have.” I looked at Christopher. He looked like Martini—face set like stone, eyes tortured. “You’ve figured it out, too. God, it must suck to be the two of you.”
    “Thanks, we’re touched.” Christopher had moved closer to Martini and was standing in a similar position. It wasn’t a total surprise—when push was going to come to shove, it was going to be them against the world.
    “It’s not an insult. I can’t imagine how the two of you have kept it together all this time. But it’s the real reason Jeff didn’t want to tell me about your religion. And, for the three of you who have no idea of what I’m talking about, this stays here, among the six of us, only.”
    Claudia and Lorraine nodded slowly. They looked confused. Reader gave me a long look. “I know. Paul doesn’t, but I do.”
    “Because you figured it out a long time ago.” He nodded. I looked at Martini and Christopher again. “See, it helps when you’ve dealt with prejudice all your life. It makes it easier to spot the lies that get told to cover up bigotry and the resulting actions that come from it.”
    “Lies?” Claudia asked, sounding scared. “What do you mean, Kitty?”
    “You’ve all been told you were sent here to Earth because your religion made you outcasts on your home world and you wanted to help protect Earth, so your government sent you here as an easy fix.”
    I shook my head. I hoped I never had to tell my father about this. His righteous rage would go into overdrive.