Alien Research

CHAPTER 92

WE ALL LOOKED AT GOWER. “Paul, is ACE back?”

Gower shook his head. “He’s not here, I can’t feel him.”

Because ACE cannot be with Paul any more. It was ACE’s voice, inside my head.

ACE? You’re back? You’re okay? We’ve been so worried about you and didn’t know what to do and—

ACE knows. ACE has been where Kitty could not go. Naomi came to free ACE. Naomi came just in time. ACE is grateful, but ACE is also sad. Naomi cannot come home now. Ever again.

Wanted to ask about that, but something else was more urgent. ACE, you sound different. Are you able to be here without being inside Paul?

Yes, but ACE must still have a host. ACE had to make promises in order to return. ACE has . . . broken laws. Laws Kitty cannot understand.

I’ve talked to Algar, I think I know what you mean, and that you’re right in that I probably can’t understand fully.

ACE had to promise to interfere less. Naomi did not save Kitty and the others, though Naomi provided the means by freeing ACE. But ACE did not save Kitty and the others, either. There was a long pause.

Then who did save us, ACE, if it wasn’t you or Naomi?

Jamie saved Kitty.

Looked at my daughter. She didn’t seem to be “there.” ACE, are you . . . inside . . . Jamie?

Yes. If ACE was to return to Kitty, ACE had to agree to inhabit someone who has no power in this world. ACE chose Jamie. ACE is sorry, but ACE had to choose a host who can filter properly.

Interesting choice. Jamie was probably the most powerful individual on the planet, but if you took “power” to mean influence within the world, she was less than two years old, and that meant completely powerless in terms of how the majority would choose to look at it. ACE had learned as much from us as we had from him.

I understand. Will it hurt her?

No! ACE would never hurt Jamie! But it will be hard for Jamie to allow ACE to speak, as Paul used to. Paul was ready. Jamie . . . Jamie says she is ready, but ACE does not believe this is true.

And this was also clever. If ACE was in trouble with the Universal Meddling Elder Gods or something because he’d interfered, then choosing to inhabit Jamie meant that his temptations would be fewer.

While we all had asked Gower to channel ACE to ask him for advice without hesitation, there was no way Jeff and I were going to do the same with our baby daughter. Asking a grown man for advice on how to prevent nuclear war or raving lunatics from kidnapping our children was one thing—asking your toddler who was the potential kidnappee was quite another.

Check and mate.

ACE is not Kitty’s enemy. ACE will never desert Kitty, but ACE could not inhabit Kitty. It was not . . . allowed. And ACE knows Kitty has searched for ACE. ACE has heard Kitty searching for ACE. It gave ACE . . . hope.

Hope. Is Naomi dead?

Not . . . really. Not as Michael and Fuzzball and Gladys are dead. ACE has joined them in, at their request. Fuzzball held Michael and Gladys here, waiting for ACE to return.

Good Poof.

Yes. But Naomi is not alive as Kitty is. Or even as ACE and Algar are. Naomi exists . . . elsewhere.

Did she trade herself for you?

No. ACE would not have allowed that. But what Naomi did to herself means Naomi cannot return to this world as anyone would know her. ACE is sorry. Chuckie will ask, but ACE cannot bring Naomi back to Chuckie or Chuckie to Naomi. Chuckie must stay here, where Chuckie belongs.

It’s not fair.

No, it is not. But Naomi made the choice. Freely.

Jamie said you were angry. Is that why? Or are you angry with me for letting it happen?

ACE is angry, yes. But ACE is not angry with Kitty or Jeff or the others. Naomi’s choice is not Kitty’s triumph or Kitty’s fault. ACE is angry that Kitty’s enemies have succeeded. ACE is angry that Michael, and Fuzzball, and Gladys are dead and that Naomi can never come back.

ACE is angry that ACE cannot fix what Kitty’s enemies have done. ACE cannot tell Kitty what to do or help Kitty. ACE cannot avenge Michael’s loss or support Naomi’s sacrifice. ACE cannot help Chuckie through this loss, or Caroline, or the others.

I understand.

And ACE is angry that others who do not care about Earth can require ACE to leave ACE’s penguins alone without ACE’s protection.

I’m sorry we put you into the position of being in trouble with your peers, ACE.

Algar had told me that by helping us ACE had put himself onto the wrong radars and clearly he hadn’t exaggerated. The two powerful beings who’d ended up watching over Earth were trapped between the rock of dependency and the hard place of free will, both constrained by their peers or more powerful beings from doing all they wanted to for the billions of human penguins they both watched over.

And yet they were both still here and, in their own ways, both still helping. They’d started out as distant observers and now were actively involved with keeping their favorite penguins alive. They risked for us, even though both of them would probably deny it. They risked themselves to take care of us, because that’s what you did for the beings you loved.

No. ACE is not sorry for anything ACE has done to help Kitty or the others. ACE loves ACE’s penguins. But right now, all ACE can do is tell Kitty that Kitty thinks right, and, Naomi knows that Kitty thinks right.

Right now. Well, that wasn’t permanent, or at least ACE had some kind of plan to work around his new restrictions. Just like Algar had found his ways to work around the restrictions he had in place to protect himself from discovery.

As for my thinking right, took that to mean I was correct and, despite what the bad guys wanted us to think, Chuckie wasn’t the Mastermind. It was a small comfort that I could tell him and the others that Naomi knew this before she’d left us. But small comforts were better than none.

Even though you can’t do what you have in the past, ACE, I’m glad you’re back. I’ve missed you.

ACE missed Kitty, too. ACE is happy with Jamie. No one can hurt Jamie because ACE is allowed to protect ACE.

Ah. So this was actually ACE’s checkmate. I wholeheartedly approved. Thanks, ACE. I swallowed. This is going to be the last time we talk like this, isn’t it?

Perhaps. When Jamie sleeps it will be . . . easier for her to allow ACE to interact. When Kitty sleeps it will also be easier.

Great, more weird dreams were in my future. Under the circumstances, I’d deal with them. Well, that’s more than we’ve had for quite a while. You won’t talk to me, or anyone else, if it would hurt Jamie, right?

Correct. ACE will not allow anything or anyone to hurt Jamie, including ACE.

Super, that’s all any parent can ask. ACE . . . welcome home.

Felt the warmth that meant ACE was hugging me in my mind. Reveled in it because it had been so long.

And then it was gone.

Algar had said we had to be careful of what we wished for. I’d asked for ACE back, and back he was, but the cost for ACE’s return was high, higher than any of us could have guessed, and I knew Algar had known it would be.

Whether the cost was worth it would depend on who you asked. I didn’t know, and I figured I might never know. And I couldn’t tell anyone. ACE hadn’t needed to tell me that, because I knew already.

Where Naomi was now, what Naomi was now, wasn’t something we were going to get to know. And sharing that she was “somewhere else” wouldn’t allow Chuckie, Gower, Abigail, or anyone else to heal. “Somewhere else” meant a search for El Dorado, and that meant focus and energy and more heartbreak, because ACE had said Naomi couldn’t come back and he hadn’t used any weasel words. He’d said never.

Jamie blinked and looked at me. “Mommy, why are you crying?”

“Because Auntie Mimi is gone, baby.”

Jamie opened her mouth, as if she was going to argue. Then she stopped, closed her mouth, and reached for me. I took her out of Dad’s arms and held her, while I let myself cry, in part so I wouldn’t have to listen to the sounds of other people’s tears.