Touched by an Alien

could talk through these tears; this was getting freakier by the moment.
    Christopher rocked me. “It’s okay.” He was quiet for a few moments while I made his shirt wet. Whoever did their laundry was not going to like me much. “We don’t know for sure if an in-control superbeing can see through the cloaking or not. But the Dome is safe, so figure they can’t. Right now, it’s probably the least of our worries.”
    Something dawned on me, a question I hadn’t asked. “What was Yates’ power? I mean, when he was on your home world? Like Jeff’s an empath and you’re an imageer.”
    “We have a variety of talents aside from those two. But Yates was unusual, a combination of both empath and imageer. Very rare. It’s one of the reasons he was made Sovereign Pontifex.”
    Things started to click together. “Can empaths make someone feel an emotion?”
    “No. Not even Jeff. They feel them, but they can’t manipulate them.”
    “But imageers manipulate images, right? Any image?” Thinking made the tears dry up. A double win.
    “Sure.” Christopher shifted me so we could look at each other. “Any image. We can create them, too. It’s molecular movement, really.” He looked wistful. “I used to think it was fun.”
    I considered how to phrase my next question. “Could you rearrange an image that wasn’t on a surface?”
    He gave me a look that said I was an odd girl. No argument there, especially after the last day and a half. “I don’t know, you mean, like on the air?”
    “Yeah, could you make a picture in the air? In here, for example?”
    He shrugged. “I can try if it matters.”
    “It matters.”
    Christopher leaned me up against the side of the elevator and made some movements in the air. While he was engaged, I took the opportunity to button my shirt. All the buttons were still intact, which was nothing short of miraculous. As I tucked my shirt back into my skirt, I saw a shimmering in the air.
    It took a while, but an image appeared. It was faint, but I could make out my sixteen-year-old face smiling at me, tiara in place.
    Only it wasn’t me. It was close, but I could see differences—wrong clothes, tiara not quite the same, nose a bit off, things like that. “Who is that?”
    “My mother. From long ago.”
    Clearly, Christopher was attracted to me because I looked like his mother. I didn’t know whether to be flattered or grossed out. I looked at his expression—he was staring at the picture he’d made in the air, his face a mask of sorrow. Okay, not the time to make a joke. Probably not the time to point out that she looked like me, either.
    I decided to go for noncommittal. “She looks very happy.”
    “She was.”
    “She’s not happy now?”
    “She’s been dead since I was ten.” The picture disappeared, and he turned toward me. “So, yes, I can create a picture on the air. What’s the point, though?”
    I was happy to move off mother issues. I got the impression he didn’t want me to say I was sorry for his loss, either. So I got right to it. “I’m wondering if someone who was an empath and an imageer could create memories and then manipulate them.”

CHAPTER 37
    CHRISTOPHER WAS DEFINITELY AN ALIEN . He didn’t start talking, ranting, or running. He looked thoughtful, but he didn’t say a word as he went to the elevator console and pushed a couple of buttons. We headed back up.
    “You think he planted a memory in your mind and is manipulating it?”
    We were back on the transient floor. At least, I thought we were. “Yes. Or something like it. Maybe that’s how Yates gathers his followers. I mean, all your powers are intact here, so it stands to reason his are, too. And my mother said he recruits based on knowing what someone wants and exploiting it.”
    “They’ve been joined for twenty years. Might be long enough for the powers to bleed from one entity into the other.”
    We walked down the hall, but I realized it wasn’t the transient floor—the living quarters all looked alike. “Where are we going?”
    “Getting Lorraine and Claudia.”
    The girls were roommates, as it turned out, which was both convenient and a relief. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with random Dazzlers right now.
    They were sitting in their living area packing supplies. “James has all the alcohol and firearms taken care of,” Claudia informed me without any ado after Lorraine had let us in. “We’ve got medical supplies, walkie-talkies, and water.”
    “How about