Touched by an Alien

your clothes?” They were still in the standard issue Armani fatigues.
    “What do you think? Jeans?” Lorraine asked, as she rolled up some bandages. I got a sinking feeling that everyone expected to be hurt, if not to die.
    “Jeans, sturdy shoes you can run in and are comfy, shirt, jacket, the usual.” Of course, this was the usual to me. Maybe not to them.
    “Okay, we’ll be ready in a couple of minutes,” Claudia said.
    I looked at the medical supplies. “Jeff’s not doing well. Anything you can give him that’ll help him function? He’s with my parents right now.”
    The girls passed a look between them. “Adrenaline,” Lorraine said. Claudia nodded. “It’ll help him a bit. I’ll get more, you give him what we have now?”
    “Yeah. You coming with me?” Claudia asked as she grabbed a hypodermic and a small vial and headed toward the door.
    “No,” Christopher answered before I could. “We still need to get ready. Can you get him to the launch site?”
    “Sure.” Claudia looked from me to Christopher, gave us a weak smile, then left. I looked at Lorraine out of the corner of my eye—she was giving the two of us a suspicious look, too. Great.
    Christopher and I left the room, heading for the elevators again. “That was fun. Are they empathic?”
    “No, most female A-Cs don’t have those kinds of talent. Female talents run to science, medicine, mathematics. Almost all empaths, imageers, and troubadours are male. Dream reading is rare, and that goes pretty evenly to either sex.” They weren’t even empaths and they were onto the fact that something had happened between me and Christopher. Wonderful.
    “Troubadours?” This was a new one. On the elevator, heading up again.
    “Entertainers, really.” He didn’t sound impressed. “They function as politicians for us here.”
    “Your father?”
    “No. Not everyone gets these talents. He’s just a regular A-C.”
    I wanted to ask where he’d inherited the talent from, but something in his expression told me now wasn’t the right time. We got off, and this time I was pretty sure we were on my floor. Sure enough, Christopher headed for my room.
    “You have any idea where the launch site is?” he asked as he ushered me inside.
    “None. You don’t want either one of us around Jeff right now, do you?”
    “You less than me. I’ve already guessed—you want to use anger to draw Mephistopheles. So, let’s draw him where we want him, not here. The adrenaline will help him build back some of the burned out empathic synapses, at least for a little while. But the minute Jeff’s around you, he’s going to get angry.”
    “Can’t wait. You going to change?”
    “No. We’re used to working in these clothes. But you’re right to get Claudia and Lorraine into something different.” He looked away from me. “Are you in love with him?”
    “I don’t know. I’ve known you all less than two days. Kind of fast to make that sort of declaration. At least for me.”
    He nodded and turned toward the door. “I’ll wait for you in the hall.”
    I didn’t argue. As soon as the door was shut, I went into the bedroom. The bed was made—this place was like a hotel. I didn’t know if I was glad there was no evidence of everything Martini and I had engaged in or if I missed it. I tried to feel lucky that both Martini and Christopher wanted me, but I couldn’t. Getting between friends was never a good idea, and getting between blood relatives was worse. And now that I knew what was going on, it was sort of hard to hate Christopher. It was a lot easier to imagine what letting him have his way with me in the elevator would have been like.
    That line of thought aroused me far too much, and I forced my mind back to the problem at hand: Why did Mephistopheles want the two of them dead?
    I pondered this as I searched for my clothes, which were neatly folded in one of the dresser drawers. I had no idea who handled the maid and laundry services around here, but I wanted to ask them to drop by my apartment once a week.
    There had to be something more to why Mephistopheles wanted to get rid of the two of them, and I had to figure it out fast, or one or all of us was going to be dead. And why was I so important to all of this? I knew I was—the memories, or whatever was causing me to think of things I wouldn’t normally, told me so.
    Happily, my Aerosmith shirt was clean. I needed my boys more than ever. I dug through my purse, got my iPod out and