Alien Collective by Gini Koch Read Free Book Online Page A

a few ‘closed door’ meetings where they’ve had her around for photo ops.”
    “They’re going for the full-on flag, Mom, and apple pie approach,” Oliver said. “Emphasis on mom, since they’re using her to show that ‘decent women’ support them.”
    “But how would she have known about bombs? Would the Cleary-Maurer campaign really be willing to try to blow up their competition?”
    “You’d be surprised what politicians will do to win office,” Culver said dryly. Figured that, out of everyone in the room, she’d know best.
    Vance cocked his head. “You know, Kitty, she said that you needed to stop taking an interest in the election and, if you did, ‘they’ would leave you alone.”
    “You think this is all related to the election?” Serene asked. “Even the bombs at NASA Base?”
    “If Kitty, as the Ambassador, is making the statement that she is against the Cleary-Maurer ticket, then the assumption would be that all the A-Cs are also against the Cleary-Maurer ticket,” Mona said.
    “I don’t tell them how to vote.”
    Abigail snorted. “Yes, you do. You’re the Ambassador, and the Pontifex and Alpha Team agree with you. That’s all it takes—we tend to vote as a bloc.”
    “Really?”
    Every A-C in the room nodded. It so figured.
    Yet something else I was getting to learn on the fly. This I knew for a fact hadn’t been in the gut-busting Briefing Books of Boredom I’d finally managed to get through. They were a blur of points of parliamentary procedure, maps that merely looked like eye charts combined with mazes, and an unreal amount of if-then statements, but a statement pointing out that every A-C voted the party line would have caught my eye.
    Buchanan got off his phone and rejoined us. “Miraculously, no one was hurt. Anywhere. Best we can tell is that these were all warnings, a sort of ‘see what we can do?’ kind of effort. Designed to frighten and intimidate without the bad side effects of killing people.”
    “Our enemies are starting to attempt to be humane in some way? What’s this world coming to?”
    “Why kill a registered voter?” Culver said. Like everyone else in my circle, she had a sarcasm knob. The horrifying fact that I was likely to become friendlier with this woman than I’d ever planned or wanted waved merrily at me. Chose to ignore this horror due to all the other crap going on. I’d save it for later, when I was feeling good about things, just to bring me back down to reality. “They want Cleary-Maurer to win, and you can’t win if the swing voters are all dead.”
    “I wouldn’t count on the ‘no harm’ mindset to last,” Buchanan said. “The assumption is that they’re trying to show that they mean business to get what they want without killing . . . but that they did this to show that they can and will kill if needed.”
    “Ah, so business as usual, gotcha.”
    He managed a small grin. “Probably. Proud of you, all of you, for not losing it, by the way.”
    “We’re good under fire,” Amy said. “But Kitty was trying to figure out what’s going on and I think Vance and the others have it right—it’s related to the elections.”
    “Okay, so we oppose Cleary-Maurer. So what? We haven’t endorsed whoever’s running against them, so what does it matter?”
    Everyone in the room gave me the “really?” look. Was glad Jamie and the other kids weren’t here—wouldn’t have wanted them to join in on this look and I had a feeling they would have.
    “Oh, fine, fine. Yes, okay, Senator Armstrong is running and likely to get his party’s nomination. Senator McMillan’s already endorsed him. And we’re close to both of them and while we haven’t said anything outright yet it’s only a matter of time before we start waving Armstrong for President flags.”
    Culver, Vance, and Nathalie exchanged a look. “Ah . . .” Nathalie said. “Kitty?”
    “Oh goody, something else I don’t know but am going to find out. Thank God I