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TWENTY
She landed me next to my clothes. Jake's were already gone.
Demorphing was awkward. It was tense in my head. I dressed by rote, without paying attention, afraid of the sliver of relief I felt at still being able to.
Her mood was on my mind the entire walk back to my house. I hit the back porch, hit the back door, pulled my shoes off in the mudroom and put my socks in the laundry. Walked inside.
My dad was in his easy chair. There was a PBS documentary about bears playing. A rerun, it had been on last month. He was still watching.
His eyes moved to me. Paused. He broke out in a grin and tried to hide it.
"Have fun?" He asked dryly. "Get some good walking in?"
I blinked, thrown by the difference between Aftran's mood and my dad's. "Yeah, you know me, I…" I fumbled, my brain all out of clever words. "Love… walking. In nature."
He looked like he was trying not to laugh. He looked back at the TV. I started to walk past when he said, "your shirt is on inside out. You might want to change before your mother gets home."
I looked down. And, yes, underneath my overalls I could see the hem down my side.
I looked up and saw amusement on my dad's face, mixed with interest and mild reproach. "Do we need to have a talk?"
"No, dad." Oh no. Oh no... "It's—"
I thought. I came up with nothing. Letting him think Jake and I were making out in the woods was better than any alternative I could come up with. I couldn't exactly say ' oh, no, dad, don't worry, I can't even imagine dating right now. I just left a war I've been fighting for over a year because I can't keep killing and I don't have any privacy at all from the alien slug in my brain, the one that I'm negotiating with to try and save Earth. But thanks for worrying! You're amazing. I love you. '
He certainly wasn't going to buy that I'd gone on a platonic walk in the woods.
"You don't need to worry." I said instead. "I'm not stupid." My stomach turned to ice. Flipped over.
I was lying to every person in my life.
I escaped upstairs before he could answer.
«I'm going out.» Aftran said after I'd shut the door and sat down on my bed. She was telling, not asking.
«What?» I asked stupidly.
She stood me up. Shucked off my overalls and shirt, changed. Grabbed flip-flops and walked downstairs. Went outside through the kitchen side door.
The walk out to the woods beyond the far side fields was silent. Aftran hopped the fence and strode in. Got a few hundred feet into the trees and shucked my clothes back off again. I was slightly cold in just a spandex sports bra and bike pants.
She had me out of the trees and rising into the sky in two minutes.
«So where am I going?» I was a little concerned. And I wanted the tense silence in my head to stop.
«It's occurred to me that you want information, and we know a meeting is taking place today.»
«You're listening in on The Sharing?»
«Yes.»
«Oh.» I didn't know what to say to that. It wasn't what I expected.
«I'm— worried,» she said. «I have a… hunch… I want to check out.» She flew towards the beach.
«What kind of a hunch?» I didn't want to jump to conclusions, but she was frightening me a little.
«My last assignment,» she said. «Karen's father. There have— I am worried I may have failed to account for all the effects of Karen's death.»
«You think—» Oh no. «You think they're going to try to infest him?» I thought hard. «But… wasn't it difficult? Weren't you trying for months?»
She was silent for a long moment. Sad, suddenly. «She didn't want me to,» she said at last, very quietly.
What? I tensed, silent, unsure I'd understood that correctly—
«I had four opportunities,» she continued. «Karen was young, but she was still old enough to understand that her father being infested would be bad for more than just her, effect more than how she'd feel. She didn't want me to. It was our biggest disagreement.»
«You were stalling.» My voice was small, stunned. How hadn't I realized?! I'd seen firsthand how smart and capable she was. I'd seen what she could do in just a week, and she'd infested Karen for months. Almost a year.
«...Yes,» she said. «It wasn't permanent, I couldn't do it forever, but… yes.»
«So now you think they'll go after him. Right after his child died.» I felt awful. Bereavement did funny things to people. Could make them more susceptible to manipulation.
Below me, a bunch of event tents were pitched in an open area just a few blocks from the beach. There was a park, a parking lot, and a decrepit two-story building.
Across the top of the building hung one of those big vinyl printed banners. It said 'The Sharing.' Below that was a second banner that said "SATURDAY FREE BBQ EXTRAVAGANZA! New Members Welcome!"
«That's what I'm afraid of,» she said. «That kind of wealth in the Empire's hands would greatly advance the invasion both here on Earth and on other planetary fronts. It's directly opposed to your goals.»
«Why are we flying near a Sharing meeting?»
Tobias's thought-speak was wary, just shy of urgent. Aftran's mood soured even more.
«I see trust was too much to ask for,» she snapped out.
«You've got Cassie infested. It's a miracle you're flying around at all.» His voice was flat. «You have to know the only reason you aren't being starved right now is her protecting you.»
Irritation and smugness reached me from her, twisted together. «Don't get in my way. I'm busy.»
«Why,» he ground out, «is the yeerk who just told us how it defected showing up at a Sharing meeting?!»
«There's a guy who can't get infested,» I said, distracted. Aftran had spotted Karen's father. She was ignoring Tobias. «She's trying to help me save him.»
She took me around the event in an arc, stayed high in the sky. The osprey's eyes were good enough that it didn't matter, even half a mile up I could see in more detail than I wanted to.
It was absolutely packed. There were picnic tables set up, and a little rickety stage with a dj and speakers blaring classic rock. They were handing out free plates of barbecue and sides to people in exchange for agreeing to come to a meeting.
The parking lot had been half cordoned off and there was a basketball game going. The park had a kids' wiffle ball game.
It made my stomach flip over and clench. The Sharing was really good at being fun and happy and welcoming right up until you got enslaved.
«Fly?» Aftran asked, pensive. «As long as we stay out of the member tents an insect should be fine.»
«Yeah.» I said. «The roof looks clear.»
She dove down slowly, away from the tents, on the far side of the building. As I got close Karen's father stood up from a table near the stage and threw away his plate.
He didn't sit back down. Instead, he headed opposite the stage, towards the member tents.
I got a bad feeling.
Aftran circled instead of landing. She swooped lower than I was comfortable with and glided over him as he got to the greeter at the closest tent.
He bent his head and spoke to the man. It was difficult to hear what he said with all the crowd noise and the music, but bird ears are surprisingly good.
"This host is an absolute nuisance," he muttered. "He better be worth it."
Aftran veered off. Let momentum carry me away from the tents and towards the ocean. Banked into a turn and started climbing from the thermal over the road. Turned for home.
The silence stretched.
«This is not good,» she said at last. «Most of his assets aren't accessible in the short-term, but there's still hundreds of millions at play.»
Hundreds. Of millions. I felt sick.
«The Empire won't need to covertly strip-mine the planet,» she said. «Not if they can simply use human's own money to purchase any required raw materials and get humans to do the labor for them.» Her voice turned grim. «There's going to be a building boom.»
«You want to tell me what's going on?!» Tobias snapped. He was wheeling in the sky above me, a mile or so off. «What was that?»
«That was me getting crucially valuable information,» she sniped back. «Would you like to know, or would you like to continue to cast aspersions on me?»
He was quiet.
Aftran had me halfway back to the farm when he said, «what information?»
«So I am worth speaking to civilly,» she fired off. «I couldn't tell under the attitude and sulking—»
«—A billionaire got infested.» I said right over her. «It's not good. The yeerks just got hundreds of millions of dollars.»
Tobias was silent for a heartbeat. «Oh—» His language got… crassly inventive.
«Millions!? » He demanded. «You said hundreds of millions of dollars?! »
«Yeah.» I said. It felt like I had rocks in my stomach. «I did.»
«Holy—» He cursed. «Oh, f— this is bad. Oh no. Oh this is so, so bad.»
He peeled off from me. «I gotta— go.» He said. «Oh, man.»
I watched him fly off. Aftran's frustration swirled around me.
«You're welcome!» She snapped.
Maybe he was out of thought-speak range. Maybe. That could have been why he didn't reply.