Keep Trying to Find, part 8

[tamcranver]

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7



Tour break-ups, thought Lindsey, sucked. Sucked rotten donkey balls.

Like it wasn’t bad enough that a guy she’d really, really liked had turned out to be… some kind of deluded manipulator who wanted her to share his delusions, or whatever the fuck Gerard had turned out to be. Despite her efforts to keep the whole thing under wraps, she also had to deal with the shit that came from everybody knowing everybody else’s business—or at least, thinking they did.

“Hey,” one of the venue managers had asked, just out of earshot of Bob, “I heard you dated one of his nephews. Is it true that they’re all in, like, a polygamist death cult?”

Emily, one of the girls who sold merch for MSI, had comforted her by saying, “I’m sorry, honey. Men always fucking cheat, don’t they?”

She was even getting it from her band. Ever since she and Gerard had had their…thing, Gerard had pretty much been absent backstage during the shows. Sometimes Lindsey looked for him in the audience, but whatever—it didn’t matter to her one way or the other. Maybe it was better that he kept his distance, given the givens. But of course Jimmy and Kitty and Steve noticed, so of course, after a week of playing like the angriest chick to ever pick up a bass, after a show where’d she’d felt ready to duplicate her fire-breathing trick, Jimmy turned to her and said, “Yo, Lyn, where’s your groupie?”

Lindsey gritted her teeth. Pretty much the last thing in the world she wanted to do was talk or even think about Gerard right now. She’d actually been making a concerted effort for the last week to think about anything else. “He’s NOT my fucking groupie!” she snapped, a little louder than she’d meant to.

Jimmy raised his eyebrows at that. “Whatever,” he said. “You were the fucking man tonight! Badass, sister, bad-fucking-ass.”

“I felt pretty good,” Lindsey admitted. Sometimes, when you were that angry and confused and crushed, rocking the hell out was a powerful release.

“Mm-hmm,” said Steve skeptically. “Yeah, you and me are gonna have a talk, real soon. Hey, Bob!” he called over Lindsey’s head, to where Bob was gathering up a few pieces of Dan’s drum kit in preparation for the Used’s set. “Did your nephew break Lindsey’s heart? Is there gonna have to be a throwdown?”

Bob straightened up and gave Steve a flat look. “Do you really want to get into this now?” He didn’t even look at Lindsey, and for some reason, she was relieved. If he was pissed at her, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

Steve’s eyebrows shot up. “Dude, I was only kidding!” He looked inquiringly at Lindsey before making a face and saying, “Jimmy and Kitty and I can totally take all those Used motherfuckers!”

“Speak for yourself,” said Kitty dubiously, sizing Bob up.

Ray had come up behind Bob, carrying an amp and staring at them all curiously, and Matt and the guys from the Used were close behind Ray. “Shut the fuck up,” Lindsey whispered loudly to Steve. If she was gonna have to talk about this, she wasn’t fucking doing it in front of a crowd of people.

Of course, her friends being the immense assholes that they were, Jimmy totally ignored her and shouted, “Hey, motherfuckers, you ready for some West Side Story shit?” over her head at the Used, topping it off with what he obviously thought were some sweet dance moves.

“Fuck, yeah!” Jepha shouted back, raising his fists like they were gonna have a boxing match right there on the stage. Dropping them suddenly, he asked, “Wait, who gets to be Maria?”

“I feel pretty, oh so pretty, I feel pretty and witty and GAY!” Bert sang. “Fuckers, I am totally Maria.”

“Hey,” said Quinn, turning to Lindsey, “why are we throwing down again? Is this about you and Gerard breaking up?”

Lindsey wanted to crawl into a hole and die, or maybe just go somewhere where she’d never have to talk to another human being ever again. “Fuck off,” she said to Quinn. “It’s about all you assholes screwing up Steve and Bert’s beautiful love.”

While Steve and Bert stared contemplatively at each other and Bob, Ray, and Matt pushed past them to set up for the Used’s show, Lindsey slipped backstage to grab a beer from the greenroom and make her escape.

She hadn’t felt so emo in years, she thought as she sat in her bunk, staring at the ceiling and sipping her beer. But then, all her previous breakups had been for pretty normal reasons—guy was too smothering, long-distance relationship wasn’t gonna work, girl decided she was “just experimenting,” guy was dumping her for that girl in 2nd period calc who would go on to be prom queen. Okay, that one had hurt. But she’d never broken up with a guy because he’d claimed to be an alien and then made her hallucinate shit. Not until Gerard. She didn’t know if it hurt more because she’d misjudged him so badly, or because she still didn’t understand what had happened, or because…well, whatever. It might have been because she was still in those first flushes of infatuation, she thought. That was a bad time for things to go down the crapper.

The door of the bus closed loudly, and she closed her eyes. Maybe if she pretended to be asleep, she wouldn’t have to talk to anyone.

“Lindsey?” It was Kitty. “You okay?”

She kept her eyes closed, and tried to breathe slower.

“Come on, we know you’re awake.” Great, Steve was here, too. “That fake-ass sleeping isn’t fooling anyone.”

Lindsey sat up with a groan. “Fucking what?” she said. “It’s not enough that you guys have to publicly discuss my breakups, but I have to be there while you do it?”

“Sorry about that,” said Steve, making a face and actually sounding pretty apologetic. “I didn’t know you guys had broken up. I thought maybe you were just fighting or something—I was just trying to get a laugh out of you.”

“Well, you clearly haven’t been listening to the tour gossip.”

“I never do,” said Kitty. “If I wanted to hear about how I’m secretly pregnant with Jimmy’s lovechild, I’d get on the internet. So, what happened with you and Gerard?”

Lindsey contemplated coming right out and saying it, but then again, she really had seen the shoes bouncing around in midair, the leaves forming an outline of a dancing person, and she still hadn’t figured out how Gerard could have slipped her a hallucinogen in the time between the end of the set and their scene in the woods. Maybe she was going completely insane, and if so, she wasn’t super keen on Kitty and Steve knowing. “It’s hard to explain,” she said finally.

Steve made a rude noise. “Wrong answer!” he said. “Come on!”

“You don’t have to tell us anything, but we promise, we won’t tell anyone else if you don’t want us to,” said Kitty with a sincere look on her face. “We’re your friends. We just want to help.”

Lindsey still wasn’t wild about talking about what had happened, but the idea of getting some comfort from her friends was pretty tempting. “Okay,” she said haltingly. “It’s like…what do you do if someone tells you so totally unbelievable, it has to be a lie, but then they keep trying to convince you that it’s true, and it makes you wonder if all the other stuff they told you was a lie, too?” Come to think of it, a lot of what Gerard had told her was pretty strange—the weird culty group in the sticks, the ‘getting orphaned three times’ thing. Maybe it had all been a ploy for sympathy, or the build-up to this big deception. Or delusion.

“Wait, what? What did he tell you?” asked Steve, looking confused.

She hesitated again. If she came right out and said, "He told me he’s an alien,” they’d think it was just a joke unless she told them about the floating shoes thing and…well, she was still trying to wrap her head around just what that meant. She should have told them. She should have gotten security to figure out just what Gerard had done. But she thought of his stricken face, and the way everything had seemed totally normal until the dancing shoes, and she thought that maybe hallucinogenic drugs weren’t the problem. “Just trust me,” she said. “It couldn’t be true.”

“You sure he wasn’t just joking?” Kitty asked. At Lindsey’s nod, she said, “Well, if you’re not gonna tell us what he actually said…is it the kind of lie that’s a really big deal? Like, I dunno, he keeps telling you he’s not married, but you found his wedding pictures or something?”

Just how big a deal was someone thinking they were an alien? “I don’t even know if it was a lie,” she said. “I think maybe he thinks it’s true…which makes me think maybe he’s totally, completely delusional. But then…then he showed me, so maybe I’m delusional, too.”

“He showed you?” Steve frowned. “We’re not talking about the size of this guy’s dick, are we? Because I gotta tell you, that’s something I pretty much don’t ever, ever want to know.”

That startled a laugh out of Lindsey. “No,” she said. “It’s not about his dick.”

“Whew,” Steve said in exaggerated relief, wiping imaginary sweat from his forehead. More seriously, he added, “But the problem’s that he’s nuts, right? Not that he did something really bad? I mean, you’re okay and everything?”

For certain values of okay, values that meant, I have no fucking idea, and either I broke up with an alien or a completely unhinged wacko, and I’m not real fond of either option. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

“Good,” said Kitty. “’Cause I have to say, I didn’t feel good about our chances against the Used and company. I mean, I could totally take out Bert and Quinn with my wiles, and Jimmy and the crew could probably get Dan and Jepha, but I’m pretty sure Ray’s hair alone could beat Steve in a fight.”

Steve shook his head sadly. “Oh, ye of little faith.”

“I just call ’em like I see ‘em,” said Kitty matter-of-factly. She peered thoughtfully at Lindsey and said “You look like a girl who could use a good time, and the night is still young. Margaritas and the Evil Dead trilogy?”

“Jesus Christ, it’s like we’re the same person! That’s exactly what I was thinking!” Steve said before turning to raise his eyebrows inquisitively at Lindsey.

She dredged up a watery smile. It was really good to have friends, even if they were assholes sometimes. “Throw in Bubba Ho-Tep, and we’ve got a deal,” she said. The bright smiles she got from Steve and Kitty made her own more genuine.

She woke in the morning feeling hung-over but better—less shittily depressed, more willing to think about what had actually happened between her and Gerard. It wasn’t terribly easy, maneuvering out from between Steve and Kitty on the couch, but she managed. Throwing on a shirt that struck her as at least reasonably clean, she stepped off the bus and closed the door quietly behind her. She needed a little time alone, to walk and think. It was early, the grass on the edges of the parking lot still glistening with dew and mist wafting over the blacktop, and no one was around. It felt like she had the whole world to herself.

Question 1, she asked herself: Did she really think Gerard would have or could have drugged her?

Answer: No. Not really. All character judgments aside, he hadn’t had the opportunity. Theoretically, he could have spiked the water backstage while MSI was playing, but he couldn’t have known which bottle Lindsey would grab, and nobody else had been seeing floating shoes. Plus, Gerard hadn’t been pressing her for sex—he’d seemed kind of intimidated when she stuck her hand down his pants, actually—and who drugged someone with the sole purpose of convincing her that he was an alien?

Question 2: Were there any other, more plausible explanations for the whole “dancing shoes” incident?

Answer: Not that she could think of. It wasn’t like she was hitting the LSD or the shrooms. As far as she knew, she wasn’t given to hallucinations, and even if she were, how the hell would Gerard know? They’d been out in the fucking woods, so it wasn’t like he could have set it up with wires or fans or CGI or whatever. And theoretically, she supposed, it was possible that he could have some kind of psychic power and still be perfectly human, but was that really more plausible than his being an alien?

Which brought her to question 3: Given the givens, did she really think he could have been telling her the truth?

It seemed like such bullshit. Lindsey liked to think she was pretty open-minded about the possibility of life beyond Earth, but if there were aliens, what would they be doing wandering around watching concerts and dating human girls? The only thing she could think of was a slow invasion by infiltration, but seriously? Gerard, invading the planet? The whole idea just seemed too unbelievable for words.

She just couldn’t think of a better explanation.

She hadn’t reached any satisfactory conclusions, but her solitude was starting to dissipate. Some locals, walking their dogs, paused to stare at the buses, giving Lindsey a curious look; the Used, apparently not content with whatever West Side Story-style gang fighting they’d managed to get out of Jimmy and Kitty and Steve after Lindsey had left, were having a water balloon fight with Brand New; a group of people were hanging out outside of Brand New’s bus, watching Noah, their keyboard tech, doing tricks on a skateboard.

A couple of people disentangled themselves from the knot of techs and merch guys and girls to head over to where Lindsey was standing, and she felt herself stiffen as soon as she recognized Mikey. The other person was Alicia, one of Brand New’s techs, who was following Mikey with a kind of determined supportiveness that reminded Lindsey of a second in a duel or something. Maybe she wasn’t that far off the mark, she thought, getting a good look at Mikey’s grim expression.

She pasted on a tight, polite smile as they drew near. “Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” said Alicia, while Mikey nodded.

“So, um,” he said. “You know what my brother told you the other day?”

It wasn’t exactly easy to forget. Lindsey nodded.

“Okay. Well, don’t tell anyone else, or bad stuff will happen.” His voice was low and serious, and he stared intensely at her while he was talking.

Lindsey had to stop and stare at him for a minute. Was he actually threatening her, or what? Fuck, if he was an alien, too—she caught herself mid-thought, because obviously that was bullshit. Probably. But it wasn’t like a guy had to be an alien to be fucking creepy.

Alicia gave Mikey an unimpressed look and reached up to flick at his ear, and he grimaced. “Sorry,” he said. “I mean—I wasn’t trying to threaten you or anything. I meant bad stuff will happen to us if you tell.” He looked down at his feet for a moment before glancing up at Lindsey again, as serious as ever but looking a little more vulnerable. Maybe even a little scared. “Please. Don’t tell, okay?”

Nothing about it seemed like a joke, or like Mikey just trying to cover for his brother’s weirdness. Lindsey felt a shiver run across her back and shoulders and tried to cover it by shrugging. “I’m not gonna tell,” she said, and it was true—hell, if she hadn’t told Kitty and Steve, she wasn’t going to tell anyone. Who did you tell, anyway, when your sort of-ex-tour fling told you he was an alien and you actually kind of believed him?

Mikey stared at her for a long moment as if he was trying to read her mind—and fuck, maybe he was—before he nodded, looking satisfied. “Cool,” he said.

Alicia smiled with relief, and Lindsey wondered if she knew about the alien thing, too. She and Mikey seemed to be getting pretty close. Lindsey remembered Gerard telling her that Mikey had a huge crush on Alicia, then hurriedly adding, “But don’t tell anyone. She has a boyfriend, and he’s trying not to be creepy. Mikey, not the boyfriend. I don’t even know the boyfriend, so I don’t know whether he’s creepy or not.”

God, Gerard was such a weirdo. And now, apparently, he was a weirdo of extraterrestrial proportions. But it still hurt her like a punch in the gut to think that whatever they had together was over.

Over? Fuck, maybe it had never existed. Maybe she was just part of his cover, maybe dating was something he did to hide his identity and blend in, maybe he had never really cared about her at all, and that idea sucked even more than the idea that they were broken up.

Wait, did she really think he was an alien?

Fuck it, she decided. Enough of this wussy, chickenshit navel-gazing. She had to talk to Gerard. And maybe it would end with them breaking up for good, and maybe it wouldn’t, and maybe it would end with her discovering something fantastic about life on other planets—like that it existed—and maybe it wouldn’t, but either way, she was a fucking adult and she could deal with her own problems.

She was pretty sure, she could, anyway. The closer she got to the RV, the slower and more reluctant her steps got and the stronger her urge got just to walk on by and deal with all of it later. But a couple of years of playing through injuries and hangovers and particularly crappy periods had made her pretty good at doing things she didn’t want to do, and so she made herself walk to the front door.

She took a deep breath, and knocked.

She wasn’t sure whether to be happy or unhappy that Gerard was the one to open the door—happy, because it meant she wouldn’t have to deal with Ray or Bob or Frank, unhappy because it meant there was no buffer between her and Gerard’s face, which abruptly went from downcast and unhappy to nervous and surprised as soon as he realized who was at the door.

She actually had had a bunch of ideas of what to say to him to start this conversation, but suddenly she couldn’t think of a single one of them, and the confidence she’d carefully built up abandoned her, leaving her feeling small and unsure. The only words that came to mind were, “Aliens, huh?” She wanted to smack herself immediately after the words escaped. It wasn’t like she really even believed in the whole story—it was totally ridiculous, right?—and even if she did, surely she could’ve come up with something wittier to say than that. If this whole thing was some kind of wacky practical joke, she was sure giving Gerard plenty of fuel.

But Gerard didn’t even crack a smile. He just said, “Yeah,” nodding slowly, his eyes never leaving hers.

“Oh,” Lindsey said. “Can you maybe show me one more time?”

Gerard didn’t ask what she wanted him to show her, he just looked around nervously and said, “Why don’t you come in, okay?”

It seemed like maybe a dumb idea to go into his RV, seeing as how if he was lying, he was either insane or a total scumbag, and if he was telling the truth, he was a goddamned alien. Still, she didn’t hesitate. There were plenty of people around, and she felt pretty good about her chances if it came to a fistfight between her and Gerard.

She stepped right in and looked around. It didn’t look like the recreational vehicle of a sociopath or anything—it looked the same as it had when she’d come to hang out and watch Saved by the Bell, with an open bag of Ruffles on the table and an unmade sofa-bed and clothes piled on the floor. They seemed to be alone, which was made her feel better than it probably should have. She sat on the bed and looked at Gerard while he closed the door and turned back to her.

“Um,” he said, his eyes moving back and forth between her and his feet. “So, this works better when I use my harmonica.” He dug it out of his pocket and blew a high, clear note. The pile of dirty clothes floated lightly up into the air and hovered, bouncing up and down a little when Gerard switched pitches on the harmonica. He played a descending scale, and the pile sank back to the floor, dirty socks rolling down from the top of it. Putting the harmonica back in his pocket, he looked at her with solemn, anxious eyes.

Right. Aliens, she thought, just a little hysterical. Her maybe-sort-of boyfriend person was an actual, honest-to-God extraterrestrial. She was out of disbelief at this point, and she couldn’t rationalize any of it away anymore. She just didn’t have it in her. “So,” she said tentatively, “you’re not, like…invading the earth to take us over, right?” Not that she’d know what to do if he were, but she thought it was still worth asking.

Gerard’s eyes widened, and he shook his head vehemently. “Oh, no, no way. We just needed someplace else to live, that’s all. Definitely not into world domination or anything.”

She looked him up and down, from his messy black hair to his untied shoes, and she studied the familiar curves of his face. Was any of it, was any part of the guy she thought she’d gotten to know and like, actually real? “Can I ask you something?”

He nodded again, as energetically as he’d shook his head before. “’Course. Anything.”

“Do you really look like that?” At his confused look, she gestured towards him. “You know. Are you really…humanoid, or is that just, like, a hologram, and underneath you look like the little green men or something?”

Gerard drew his eyebrows together, looking more confused than ever. “Um. No, I actually look like this. I mean, we’re genetically different, and I think our brains are, like, set up differently or something, but other than that, we’re pretty human.” He winced. “I don’t really like to say it like that, ‘cause, fuck, it’s kind of weird to admit you’re not human, but…that’s pretty much it.”

“So, more Clark Kent than My Favorite Martian, then?” she asked after a long pause, feeling stupid but not knowing what else to say.

“Oh, man, don’t even say that!” he said, sounding disgruntled. Before she could ask if she’d offended him, or apologize, he said, “I mean, okay, saving lives is obviously a noble thing to do—with great power comes great responsibility, and so on, and so forth. But seriously, if you’re gonna fly around saving people, and you don’t want anyone to find out who you are, wear a fucking mask. And don’t even get me started on how he fucking lies to everyone all the time in Smallville. He could totally have told Lana the truth.” He sat down on the bed, leaving a few feet between them but a lot closer than he had been, and gave her a tentative smile.

Lindsey smiled back. She’d only ever seen a few episodes of Smallville, but she’d definitely watched some Superman movies in her day, so super-powered stupidity wasn’t exactly a novel concept for her. “Hey, he doesn’t need a mask,” she said. “I mean, nobody recognizes him, right? Glasses, man, they make you completely unrecognizable.”

“No, you’re right,” he said, “stupidity’s just written into the whole Superman mythos, because seriously.” He rolled his eyes, “My brother used to have glasses, and then he got his eyes fixed, and guess what? I still recognized him. And Lois is supposed to be an investigative reporter, for Chrissakes. Oh, man, the whole thing with her and the Green Arrow in Smallville is just ridiculous.”

“Okay,” she said, laughing at his downright indignation.

He grinned at her. “No joke,” he said. “Frickin’ Superman gives aliens and humans a bad name. And what the fuck is the deal with that outfit, anyway?”

“What,” she said, “You don’t fly around in a blue spandex suit?” It suddenly occurred to her that it wasn’t as ridiculous a question as it seemed, and she asked, “Wait, can you fly?”

Gerard shrugged. “Eh, not really,” he said. “I can jump real high, and kind of hover, but it’s not really flying.”

Oh. Of course he could. Suddenly, Lindsey was feeling a lot more sober. This was a strange, strange thing to be confronted with. A thousand questions bubbled up in her mind, but the one that came out was, “So, you’ve been here for a while, then. On Earth, I mean.”

“Well, yeah.” He scratched uncomfortably at his hair, looking sidelong at Lindsey. “I’ve been here since I was five. Like, you remember when I told you my parents died in a boat accident?”

“Yeah,” she said, already knowing where this was going.

“Well, it was kind of more like a spaceship accident. Mikey and me got picked up by the Coast Guard, and….” He turned his head to look at her straight on, his expression earnest. “I hope you don’t think…I didn’t tell you where I really come from, but the rest of what I told you…I didn’t lie. We really did meet Frank at a group home, and we really did get adopted by my grandma. Just, in the middle, we got chased by a bunch of alien-chasing FBI agents.”

She had to laugh at that. “Oh, yeah, well, I can see how you might forget to mention that part.” She didn’t have the heart to get mad at him about it, though; it wasn’t like she would have believed him if he’d stuck that part in, anyway. Scooting a little closer, she asked, “So, where do you come from?”

He chewed on his lower lip thoughtfully for a moment before saying, “You can’t see it from here, but, um, you can see the galaxy, with a telescope. We called the galaxy Artarthra, but it doesn’t have a name here, just, you know, like a bunch of numbers and letters. The planet’s Amalthea. It’s, like, I dunno, 50 million light years away or something.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, feeling totally out of her element. “How can you be twenty years old and be from that far away? Shouldn’t you be, like, fifty million years old?”

Gerard shrugged. “We can travel faster than light, I guess.”

This was genuinely crazy shit, here. Gerard, Gerard, who watched all of Lindsey’s concerts and drew comic books and watched Smallville, was from fifty million light years away. He could travel faster than light. “How?” she found herself asking, and she couldn’t even blame herself for sounding awed. This was like, a major event in human history.

He shrugged again. “I don’t know, some science thing. I didn’t really pay attention in physics in school.”

And then she was laughing again. “Oh my God, Gerard,” she said. “You know this is totally crazy, right?”

He smiled tentatively. “Yeah, I guess. I mean, I was really weirded out when I first found out.”

“You didn’t know?” she asked. It was amazing how fast she could move from awed to amused to downright confused, she thought, but the situation was, admittedly, pretty unusual. It was hard to imagine not knowing you were an alien, Lindsey thought, but she’d never given the matter that much thought before.

“Nope,” said Gerard, shaking his head unnecessarily. “I mean, Mikey and I always knew we were pretty different, but not, like, alien different. And we couldn’t remember the crash, except in nightmares, and it wasn’t like our mom knew where we were from, either, so it was easy to just, you know, forget. We didn’t figure it out until we met Bob and Ray.”

“Wow.” Lindsey tried to imagine what it would feel like to suddenly discover at age fourteen that she was an alien. She almost thought it would’ve been a relief—she’d always felt so weird and out of place at that age that it would’ve been kind of nice to learn there was a reason for it. She wondered if that’s what Gerard and Mikey had felt like, or if they’d been scared, or confused.

“Well, like I said, it was pretty weird, and we were a little scared, but it was also sort of like, wow, we actually had family out there. And also, the super powers thing suddenly made sense. So that was cool.” Gerard paused, seeming to notice that she hadn’t actually wondered anything out loud. “Sorry,” he said, looking worried and genuinely penitent. “Man, I’m not even the mind reader in the family, seriously. Swear to God, I’m not trying to invade your privacy or anything. I don’t know, maybe it’s just that I spend more time thinking about what you’re thinking than with most people. Does that make any sense?”

“Um. I guess?” Lindsey said, waving one hand. She was a little weirded out, but also kind of flattered—he spent more time thinking about what she was thinking? Seriously? Plus, it actually made it easier to know that even if she couldn’t put stuff into words as well as she would’ve liked, Gerard could still figure out what she meant. “So, are you all psychic or something?”

“Mm, kind of,” said Gerard. “I mean, okay, most of us can hear thoughts if someone sends them to us, or, like, when a normal person—like, a human, not one of us—is thinking, I don’t usually get words, but I get the jist of stuff. I can’t send thoughts real well, though. Mikey, now, Mikey’s like a super-psychic. He’s really good at the whole mind-reading thing.”

“Is that why he doesn’t talk much?”

He nodded. “It drives Frank nuts, because sometimes he just forgets to talk out loud, and then I’ll start answering him out loud, and Frank has no idea what we’re talking about.”

“I can see that,” Lindsey said. It was so weird, she thought, how she was totally going along with this. Now that Gerard was coming out and talking about it, though, it made a lot of sense, and Gerard didn’t have any of the weird, secretive discomfort that had bugged her so much before, so she was more or less willing to accept what he said at face value. “So, wait, Frank’s human, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Gerard, nodding again. “Totally human. I think it sucks for him sometimes, living with us. Like, we love him, and he’s our best friend, but I think it’s weird for him. ‘Cause, like, not many of us know that much about Earth culture, you know, and just….” He shrugged. “I don’t know, I’m really glad we got to come here, and now he’s going out with Jamia, and I think it’s really good for him, you know? To come back and spend time with, I don’t know, normal Earth people.”

“Oh, yeah? Hasn’t it been good for you, too?” she asked, scooting even closer and pouting a little.

She wasn’t even thinking about what she was saying, really, just giving him a little shit, but Gerard went a dark, almost painful-looking red. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “It’s been…I mean, you…I’m really glad we met.”

There wasn’t a trace of dishonesty or flattery or anything in his face as he looked at her, and she could feel herself blushing, too. She suddenly felt ten times more awkward than she had a moment before, and for what felt like a long time, she couldn’t think of anything to say. Finally, she said, “Hey, um. I’m sorry I was kind of a bitch before.” She didn’t elaborate on what she meant by ‘before,’ but hey, Gerard was the psychic. He’d figure it out.

Gerard looked up then, with his eyes wide and his mouth open, like that was the last thing he ever expected her to say. “No way,” he said. “You weren’t. I mean, I’d just told you….”

“Yeah,” said Lindsey, but the very fact that he was even saying that, like it hadn’t even occurred to him to think she was being bitchy, made her feel even worse. “No, it was definitely justifiable bitchiness, but…I’m pretty sure I knew you wouldn’t actually, like. Drug me or whatever. Just, this alien shit is totally insane, you know? It’s hard to know what to think when someone tells you something like that.”

Gerard nodded with a thoughtful expression on his face. “No, totally,” he said, “That makes sense. I don’t even know what I’d think if I were you.” His mouth twisted down on one side, and he added, “I feel like I should have figured out a better way to tell you. I didn’t really mean to freak you out.”

“Don’t worry about it.” It was weird--this was serious stuff they were talking about, but somehow Lindsey couldn’t stop herself from smiling. “It took a lot of guts to tell me something like that in the first place, so…thanks. I’m glad you….” Would it be too presumptuous to say trusted me? “Told me,” she said, wimping out.

Gerard’s eyes dropped to his shoes, and he twitched one shoulder in a sort-of shrug, looking uncomfortable all of a sudden. “I didn’t want to be dishonest or anything,” he mumbled. “I don’t know. Maybe I should’ve….” He was looking at the floor again.

“Should’ve what?” said Lindsey with a frown. How could he possibly be regretting telling her now, after she’d told him it was okay and she was glad that he’d trusted her enough to tell her such a big secret?

Gerard looked straight at her, his face solemn. “It’s not like I think you’d tell anyone, ‘cause I don’t. But….” His eyes darted back and forth, like he thought someone was hiding in the corners of Bob and Ray’s RV. “Okay, so, there are these guys from the FBI here. I mean, right here, going to the concerts and stuff. And they’re from this division of the FBI that hunts aliens, the one I mentioned earlier, and they almost caught us six years ago, and I’m really afraid that if they think you know about us they’re gonna…I don’t know, arrest you or something.”

Jesus. Lindsey couldn’t find it within herself to do anything but stare for a moment before mustering up the presence of mind to say, “Shit.”

Gerard twisted his mouth on one side, wrinkling his nose. “Yeah,” he said, exhaling loudly. “These guys are real assholes. I mean, six years ago, they threatened Bob and Ray, and they held a gun on Frank and said if Mikey and I didn’t go with them, they’d kill him. I don’t…I don’t know what we’re gonna do.”

Through the shock, Lindsey felt a twinge of fear work its way up her spine. Could the government even do that, threaten to kill a little kid just to get their hands on a couple of aliens? A couple of aliens who were just kids themselves, she reminded herself. Surely that had to be illegal—and there was security, they wouldn’t let just anyone get near enough to kill someone, to get at her or Jimmy or Kitty or Steve or Bob or Ray or…or Gerard. “You think…would they hurt you?”

Gerard looked at his shoes and said, “I don’t know. They’re not supposed to kill us, so they can study us and stuff, but….” He trailed off, and he didn’t have to say any more; Lindsey wasn’t a moron, she could figure out that whatever ‘studying’ aliens entailed, it probably wasn’t very pleasant for the aliens. “And they don’t seem to have a problem with shooting other people,” he added. “I don’t know why the government would let them get away with that, but I guess this whole alien-catching thing is a pretty high priority.”

“Jesus.” Now she understood what Mikey’d been saying earlier about bad things happening—but it sounded like he’d been wrong. The bad stuff wasn’t just aimed at him and Gerard, it was headed for all of them. “So, what,” she said, “are you guys going to have to go home? I mean, that’s why you couldn’t talk about where your town was, right—it’s like a secret?” That brought Gerard and Lindsey back to their original problem: it was hard to maintain a relationship when one of you was hiding in the middle of nowhere from the government. But now that Lindsey understood what the deal really was, that seemed like small potatoes.

“I don’t know,” said Gerard. He still wasn’t meeting her eyes. “I mean, Ray’s worried that if we go now, we’ll lead the FBI guys to the Republic—that’s our town—and then all of us’ll get caught, not just Mikey and me. But then on the other hand, if they catch us, maybe they’ll get that information out of us anyway. Interrogation and shit like that.” He paused, giving her a bashful, sideways look. “I really don’t want to go home right now. I mean, there’re all these new movies and comics and bands and stuff I haven’t seen in six years, and…you know. I like hanging out with you.”

His fingers were drumming nervously on the bed, and he kept biting his lip and giving her those glances out of the corner of his eye, and really, nobody could blame her for thinking he was adorable, alien or not. She put a hand on his shoulder, waiting for him to look her in the eye. “Hey,” she said. “Likewise.” Leaning in closer, she kissed him.

It wasn’t exactly the world’s most romantic kiss. They were sitting on Bob and Ray’s gross sofa-bed, and Gerard didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands, and when she reached up to run her fingers through his hair, she realized that he probably hadn’t showered in a while, because wow was his hair greasy. But somehow none of that stopped her from feeling simultaneously thrilled and relieved, like she’d reclaimed something she’d never thought she’d get back but didn’t want to do without.

“Wow,” he said when she finally pulled away. He looked kind of dazed, and she laughed.

“Wanna go grab some breakfast?” she asked. “It’s almost nine. My band was pretty pissed about the whole break-up thing, but they’ll be cool—I promise I won’t let them beat you up or anything.” A sobering thought occurred to her, though, and she asked, “Wait, can you go out? I mean, with the FBI guys around?”

Gerard shrugged. “Sure. I’m probably safer in a crowd than I am here. I bet they can’t really do anything in front of a bunch of people.”

It was a crappy-looking day out, muggy and gray with dark clouds on the horizon. Despite the early hour, it was already uncomfortably hot, and Lindsey had the sneaking suspicion that she was going to be a gross ball of sweat before she even stepped onto the stage tonight. Somehow, none of it bothered her. As she and Gerard stepped out of the RV, she felt better than she had all week.

Gerard, however, didn’t seem as upbeat. They hadn’t gotten far before he stopped, turning his head from side to side with a frown on his face. He kind of looked like a dog who’d gotten a whiff of an unfamiliar scent.

“What is it?” asked Lindsey.

“I don’t know,” Gerard said with an anxious little shrug. “I just…sometimes, we have bad feelings. Like something’s gonna happen. And, uh, I kind of have a bad feeling.”

Well, shit. Lindsey barely had time to process that before she registered the sound of screeching tires, way, way too close. She turned her head to see a black car with shaded windows hurtling across the parking lot in their direction. People were staring at it, but the space between the other buses and the RV was big enough that nobody was in danger of being run over, despite the car’s speed.

Nobody except them. Whatever the maniac behind the wheel wanted, running seemed like a good idea. There was a McDonald’s a hundred yards or so behind them; they could beat the car there if they were fast. “Hey,” she said, pulling Gerard’s arm and pointing to the McDonald’s. “Let’s go!”

They ran, but the car actually sped up behind them. God, this wasn’t just some drunk driver, this was someone trying to hurt one of them. Lindsey wondered briefly which of them this asshole was after, but her curiosity was overwhelmed by disbelief and fear and worry when Gerard abruptly stopped and turned to look at the car. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his harmonica.

He blew a long, sharp note, followed by a loud trill, and to Lindsey’s amazement, the car slowed, its brakes screeching horribly. Gerard glared at it and played Darth Vader’s march from Star Wars, and the car rolled to a stop before its wheels started to spin in the opposite direction, carrying the car slowly backwards until something under the engine made a noise like a shotgun going off. The car stopped completely, then, black smoke billowing from the hood.

Jesus. Lindsey hadn’t realized Gerard’s harmonica powers were strong enough to stop a car in its tracks. They didn’t really have time to stop and marvel at it, though, because the car door was opening and a man in a dark suit was stepping out while Gerard stood stock-still and stared at him. “Come on, you dumbass!” she said, pulling at his arm again.

Her voice seemed to penetrate whatever weird haze Gerard was in, and he grabbed her hand and started running. They ran past the McDonald’s and part of the way around the block before ducking between two buildings to run to the MSI bus under the cover of the crowd. Lindsey felt like her heart would beat out of her chest as she slammed the bus door shut behind her.

Jimmy, Kitty, and Steve were all sitting on the couch, staring at them. “Howdy,” said Jimmy, raising an inquisitive eyebrow in Lindsey’s direction.

She couldn’t blame them for being confused. She probably looked like she’d just run a marathon—she sure felt like she had—and Gerard, the guy she’d just broken up with, as far as her band knew, was standing next to her with his hands on his knees, panting and gasping.

“Hey,” said Lindsey. That was about all she had breath for.

Steve rolled his eyes. “Oh, no, don’t tell us what’s going on. We prefer to guess. Me first—are you on the run from the cops?”

“Scary fucking cops,” Lindsey managed. “They just about ran us over with their car, whoever they were.” If those were the FBI agents Gerard and his family were on the run from, she couldn’t blame them at all for being scared.

“Oh,” Gerard breathed hoarsely. “Oh, fuck.”

“What the hell, bro?” asked Steve, turning his attention to Gerard. “One minute you’re breaking Lindsey’s heart, telling her some kind of impossible shit, the next minute you and her are getting chased by killer cops?”

Gerard looked up. “They’re not cops. I mean, I think they’re the FBI, but….” He gave Lindsey’s band a dubious look and leaned in close to her, whispering. “There’s something really weird about those guys.”

Weirder than being alien-hunting FBI agents?

“Hey,” said Kitty sharply. “No secrets, kids. Share with the class.”

Gerard looked dubiously at Lindsey. “Um…I can’t really…I need to go find Ray and Bob and tell them. About the FBI guys. You can stay and explain stuff. If you want, I mean.”

Fuck that, she thought, and Gerard must have heard it, because his eyes got big. Good. She wasn’t letting him wander off in search of Ray and Bob by himself—maybe she didn’t have any badass harmonica telekinesis, but she could hold her own, and at the very least she could be a witness if the creepy hit-and-runners took Gerard. Plus, she was seriously not in the mood to come up with a good lie for her band about what had gone down with the FBI and the alien shit. As a matter of fact, she wanted some explanations herself—hadn’t Gerard said that they weren’t interested in killing him and Mikey?

“Sorry, guys,” she said. “I’ll explain later.” She’d recovered enough, now. She grabbed Gerard’s hand. “Let’s go find Ray and Bob.”

“You’re sure?” Gerard asked.

Eh. Not really, but it wasn’t like she’d never done anything risky or stupid before, and if there was a better cause to risk your ass than protecting your alien boyfriend from being kidnapped by evil FBI agents, well, Lindsey didn’t want to hear about it. “Fuck yeah,” she said. “Let’s do this.”

**

“Good going, shit-for-brains,” said Brian, cuffing Jarvis upside the head. “You’re aware we want the heirs alive, right?”

“I wasn’t going to hit him,” Jarvis grumbled. “If you hadn’t been distracting me….”

“And you’re supposed to be the technologically proficient one,” Brian said irritably. “Move your ass. I’m driving.”

**

All things considered, Ray, thought, things were going pretty well.

Sure, since his fight with Lindsey, Gerard had been hiding in the RV or a hotel room, refusing to do anything but mope and draw and write what were undoubtedly angsty song lyrics—which was probably just as well, since the tour gossip had concluded that the breakup was all his fault, and pretty much no one outside of the Used and their crew was willing to hang out with him, anyway.

Sure, the FBI were still out there, somewhere, on the boys’ trail. Well, “somewhere” didn’t really cover it. Mikey’d started having bad dreams about them, and if Alicia was right, they had actually found the tour, and they were asking crew and fans about Gerard and Mikey. Which was, okay, really fucking scary.

But on the plus side, Alicia’d given them a pretty good description of the guys, and it was easy enough for them to tell security that the men in dark suits were stalkers and needed to be kept away. They had some really good guys doing security on this tour, so Ray felt pretty good about their ability to avoid the FBI guys until Brian Schechter came.

What’s more, Frank and Mikey had made up, so at least Ray and Bob didn’t have to deal with a pair of feuding teenage boys on top of everything else. And Lindsey had shown no signs of going around telling everyone what Gerard had said, despite Mikey’s having taken a week to ask her to keep quiet. And speaking of Mikey, it seemed that he’d finally convinced Alicia that he wasn’t a complete creep, so he wasn’t moping around all the time anymore. (Honestly, one depressed Way at a time was enough to deal with.) He’d hung out with her that morning and had come back cheerful and downright chatty--for Mikey, anyway. Plus, Ray was having a really good time jamming with Frank and Mikey and occasionally Alicia; he really thought that, with a little work, they could be putting out some genuinely decent songs. Well, if they got to stay the whole summer. And right now, he and Bob and Mikey were enjoying some top-quality eats at Waffle House.

So really, on the whole, things weren’t so bad.

“What are you grinning about?” Bob asked, his gruff tone belied by his own smile.

“Oh, nothing,” said Ray. “I was just thinking that, you know, all things considered, this summer’s going pretty well.”

As if sent by the gods of comedic timing, the bell hanging over the Waffle House’s door rang loudly and Mikey’s head shot up. Generally speaking, a serious and alert Mikey was a sign that some heavy shit was going down, so Ray turned to see Gerard and Lindsey pushing their way in, breathing heavily. Lindsey looked confused and on edge; Gerard just looked freaked.

“You had to go and jinx us, didn’t you?” Bob shook his head and stood up, striding firmly over to Gerard and Lindsey. “You guys okay?” he asked.

Gerard nodded quickly. Lindsey made a face and said, “Speak for yourself, dude. We’ve been running around all morning—apparently the Men in Black are looking to add vehicular manslaughter to their repertoire.”

What? Ray squirmed out of the booth, followed by Mikey. “They tried to kill you?” he asked, sounding shrill to his own ears. “What the fuck?”

“My thoughts exactly!” said Lindsey.

Gerard shook his head. “No. I mean, yeah, yeah, it did kind of look like they were trying to run over us, but I don’t think they were. They seemed—this is gonna sound super weird, but they seemed kind of familiar. And not just in the usual, ‘oh, I knew I was gonna see those guys’ way.”

“Familiar?” asked Ray. “Are these guys people we know?”

“I don’t know,” Gerard said with a shrug. “I don’t know. That’s just how it felt to me.”

The doorbell clanged again, and four men and a woman, all vaguely familiar, tramped in. One of them, tall and skinny with bright purple pants and an airbrushed jacket, grinned hugely at Mikey and Gerard. “Alien kids!” he said. “We’re supposed to tell you—the FBI guys chasing you? We’re pretty sure they’re aliens, too.”

There was a long silence, before Lindsey said, “Wait a minute, who the fuck are you?”

“Cobra Starship, bounty hunters extraordinaire,” said the woman, sounding rather long-suffering. “Gabe Saporta, Nate Novarro, Alex Suarez, Ryland Blackinton, and I’m Victoria Asher. Pleased to meet you. Again.”

“Oh, right!” Ray exclaimed, remembering where he knew them from. “You were with Pete Wentz and his assistant guy on Wolf Mountain!”

“You got it,” said Suarez. “We got a call from Patrick Stump a couple of weeks ago, saying the alien hunters were sniffing around again. But we’re pretty sure the guys doing the sniffing have some extraterrestrial origins of their own.”

“Or they’re in witness protection,” added Novarro.

“Or they’re in witness protection,” Suarez parroted obediently.

Gerard snapped his fingers. “That’s it!” he said. “That’s why they felt so familiar! They had mental shields just like people have back home!”

“Are you shitting me?” Bob sounded like he’d just about reached the end of his rope. “Why the hell are other Amaltheans trying to run over you with a car?”

“They might be Imperialists,” said Mikey. Ray jumped a little; he hadn’t even noticed Mikey standing behind him. Mikey gave him a wry look and continued, “Well, we left Amalthea to begin with because we didn’t want to be ruled by an emperor and the emperor was pissed. So maybe the emperor thought he’d follow us and get rid of the competition?” He shrugged. “I don’t know.” He frowned, and added, “Shit. I told Alicia that we’re illegal immigrants. If they’re psychic, they’re totally gonna see through that.”

Bob grabbed his head in his hands and groaned. “God. One of these days, I’m gonna sit you kids down and teach you how to keep a secret. Lesson 1? Stop telling people you’re an alien. Of any kind!”

Ray laid a hand on his shoulder. He could feel Bob getting tense again—more than likely his wrist was going to hurt like crap tonight. It always did when Bob got stressed. “Hey,” he said in what he hoped was a soothing tone of voice. “Alicia’s the one who saw the guys. Mikey had to tell her something, right?”

“I guess,” said Bob, not sounding reassured. “Fuck, I hope Schechter gets here soon.”

“Hey, is that memory-erasing dude?” added Saporta. “Man, that was awesome.”

“Yeah,” Mikey said drily. “Real awesome.”

Nobody seemed to know what to say after that. Lindsey was giving Gerard an inquisitive glance, but he and Mikey were staring at the Cobras in fascination. Bob’s expression couldn’t have said Fuck my life any clearer if he’d shouted it out loud. And the waitress, who had been bringing a pot of coffee over to their table to refill their mugs, looked like she was about ready to call the cops. Since no one else seemed to be offering any response, Ray said, “Thanks for the heads-up, guys. How about we take this whole thing somewhere a little more private?” To the waitress, he said, “Sorry about the commotion. I think we’re gonna head out.” He dug out his wallet and handed her a wad of cash, deliberately over-tipping.

They ended up taking the whole crew, Cobras and all, back to the RV. Bunny was pissed at the intrusion, but Dixie and Bauer could not possibly have been any happier at having new people to meet. Actually, more new people than expected, because Brian Schechter and a huge guy Ray didn’t even recognize were sitting on the unmade sofa bed.

“Uncle Brian!” Gerard practically flung himself at the man, followed by a slightly more awkward Mikey. Gerard pulled back and beamed hugely. With a sweeping gesture towards Lindsey, he said, “Uncle Brian, this is Lindsey. Lindsey, my Uncle Brian.”

“Um, hi,” said Lindsey with a hesitant little wave. “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” said Brian, nodding. “I just wish it could be under better circumstances.” Turning to Bob and Ray, he said, “I understand we’ve got some FBI guys poking around the tour?” He looked at Mikey and Gerard and frowned. “Some Amalthean FBI guys?”

Saporta looked crestfallen. “Man,” he said. “You really know how to steal a guy’s thunder.”

Brian rolled his eyes. “Sorry,” he said. “I’ll work on that whole ‘being psychic' thing in the future. Just for you.” To Bob and Ray, he said, “This Amalthean thing might make things a little trickier. I’m glad I brought back-up.” He pointed to the huge guy by his side. “This is my friend, Worm. He specializes in setting force-traps.”

“He does?” Mikey asked.

“Wait, what’s a force-trap?” Lindsey asked.

“What the hell’s all this about?” asked Suarez.

“Nice to meet you,” said Worm.

Dixie barked.

“Hey. QUIET!” shouted Bob, and everyone immediately stopped talking. Fixing Brian with a glare, he said, “Schechter. Do some explaining.”

Brian sighed. “Well. I just got here—I think you all are probably the ones who should be explaining the situation. But, okay, if these FBI guys are really Amalthean, I can tell you what I think is going on.”

“Do that,” said Bob firmly. Ray nodded—if Brian had some idea as to how and why the people who’d chased Gerard and Mikey’s people from their own planet were now chasing them around Earth, Ray was all ears.

“Okay,” said Brian. “Well, the first thing you should know is that our planet, Amalthea, is the capital of a huge, galaxy-wide empire, ruled by one guy. It wasn’t always that way—we started out as a kind of representative democracy-slash-socialist society before one family, the imperial line, took over. Not everyone’s a fan of the whole ‘colonizing and subjecting other planets’ thing, so there’s been a resistance movement for just about as long as there’s been an emperor.

“Well, about, hmm, I’d say a hundred years ago, the empress at the time was overthrown by her younger brother. He had some bullshit claim about her being unfit to rule because of her health or something, but really, it was a military coup. At first, the empress pretty much just wanted to get out of prison and get her throne back. But after a while, after talking to people in prison and doing some studying, she decided the whole imperial system was inherently flawed, and she joined the resistance movement. She was a huge help—even in prison, she still had a lot of influence, which she used to smuggle supplies in and political prisoners out.

“Well, the resistance movement looks after its own, so eventually we got her out. She took on a new name and started a new family.” He gave Gerard and Mikey, who’d been listening with the air of people who’d heard the story before, a sidelong glance. “Your family, by the way. I’m actually talking about your grandma.”

“What?” It was impossible to tell just who was asking the question, since about half a dozen were asking at once, including Gerard and Mikey.

“What the hell, Uncle Brian?! You never told us our grandma was the empress!” said Gerard incredulously. “I can’t believe she didn’t tell us!”

“What does that make us?” asked Mikey with a frown.

Brian narrowed his eyes irritably at them. “What do you mean, what does it make you? It doesn’t make you anything, except fucking targets. You know perfectly well we don’t believe in a hereditary monarchy. What, do you guys want to go oppress hundreds of planets because of who your grandma was?”

They looked kind of shamefaced at that, and Gerard said, “Um…no.” Ray couldn’t help but think, though, that he’d have a lot more questions than that if he’d found out his grandma was the empress of hundreds of alien planets.

“So, anyway,” Brian continued, “the whole imperial bloodline thing means that if someone wanted to overthrow the emperor and plant a new one on his throne, Gerard and Mikey would be pretty good options—which means the emperor is pretty much gonna want them dead. I mean, my guess is that if he’s sent agents who’ve managed to follow us this far, they’re really hoping to take down the whole Republic, but even if they can’t get all of us, they’re definitely gonna want some figureheads. A good execution does wonders to discourage rebellion.”

Jesus fuck. Ray didn’t think he’d felt so sick since he’d seen Viglione hold a gun to Frank’s head. Mikey looked as pale and frightened as Ray had ever seen him, and Gerard looked like he was going to puke, grabbing at Lindsey’s hand.

Bob moved closer to Mikey, putting a protective arm around his shoulder, and said, “Yeah, let’s try to avoid that.”

Brian nodded wearily. “That’s the plan, Bob.” He shot a stern look at the Cobras and said, “The fewer people who know the plan, the better. These guys can read minds. I really think you ought to leave. Go tell Stump what the deal is.”

“Don’t aliens have phones?” said Ryland. “We don’t have to go anywhere to tell Patrick what the deal is. We just call him up, and wham! Done deal.”

“I’ve even got some disposable cells so they can’t track us,” Alex said earnestly.

Gabe’s expression could probably be called a pout—a disturbing look on a grown man. “Come on, dude,” he said. “How often do you think we get to help out with this intergalactic Star Wars shit?”

Ray could totally sympathize. He was just lucky he fell in the ‘honorary uncle’ category—there was no way that Brian was gonna do anything without him and Bob.

Brian stared at the ceiling, looking as if he were praying for patience. Well, maybe he was; Ray still didn’t have that firm a grasp on Amalthean religion. “All right,” Brian said finally. “But you do what Worm and I say, when we say it, no arguments.”

“No arguments, cross my heart and hope to die,” said Gabe, literally crossing himself. “So what’s the plan, boss? There are just two of these imperialist douches, right? We can totally take them.”

“Couldn’t they conceivably call the rest of the FBI?” Victoria wanted to know. “I mean, technically, they are FBI agents, right?”

“That’s one possibility,” said Brian. “What worries me, though, is that if there are two Imperial agents here, there’s probably more where that came from. Those guys have some unbelievably massive military power, and I don’t believe for a minute that they just sent two guys. If I know that army—and I do, because I used to be in it—they’ve probably got a ship in orbit somewhere in this solar system, giving them instructions.”

“Holy shit,” said Bob, looking downright alarmed. “What kind of ship?”

“The kind of ship that could do some serious damage to Earth if whoever’s commanding it thinks this planet’s harboring fugitives,” Brian said soberly. “We’ve got to find those two, pronto. They’ve obviously been close enough to Gerard to find out where the Republic is, if he didn’t have his shields up.” He turned a sharp look on Gerard. “Well? Did you feel them poking around?”

Gerard, who clearly hadn’t expected the attention to be turned on him, looked like a deer caught in headlights. “Uh. I don’t think so?” he said. “I mean, I was doing my best to keep shielded.”

“No offense, kid,” said Brian, “but your best shield isn’t that good.” He narrowed his eyes and asked, “Hey, where’s Frank?”

“He and his girlfriend Jamia are hanging out with the merch kids,” said Ray. “Jamia’s been helping out the head merch girl for Brand New, and fuck, I get you—Frank and Jamia don’t have any mental shields at all. If the FBI guys find them….”

“Awesome. Just what I needed today,” Brian muttered. “We’ve got a million fucking kids coming to these shows, fucking media everywhere, and of course Frank’s told his girlfriend everything. I’m gonna fucking kill that kid.”

Worm, who’d been watching the proceedings with quiet interest, laid a hand on Brian’s shoulder. “Hey,” he said. “Relax.” He seemed to say something telepathic, and whatever it was, it made some of the tension leak out of Brian’s face.

“God,” Bob muttered to Ray, “could this possibly blow any more?”

“No,” said Ray, trying to keep the excitement out of his voice. He couldn’t help it. This was the kind of shit that happened in movies, not in his actual life. And somehow, the arrival of Brian and Worm and the Cobras like some kind of bizarre, multi-planet backup force made everything less like they were gonna get shot by a secret government agent and more like they were gonna save the Rebel Alliance from Darth Vader.

Bob stared at him. “Fuck. Ray, you’re totally excited about this, aren’t you?”

Damn. It seemed that Ray’s straight face sucked even more than he’d thought. “Maybe a little,” he said in a low voice. Maybe it was pointless, being quiet, seeing as how a third of the people in the room were psychic aliens, but Ray figured there was no point making his total disconnect from reality any more public than it needed to be.

“Goddamn,” said Bob, shaking his head. “You’re completely insane, you know that?” His voice was completely serious.

He was right, Ray thought guiltily. The fate of a whole people was hanging in the balance, and here Ray was, all psyched about it when real people, people they loved, were in danger.

“Hey.” Bob leaned in closer, a hint of a smile on his lips. “Don’t beat yourself up. I like a little insanity.”

Ray wanted pretty much nothing more than to close the distance between them, a few inches at the most, and kiss Bob. So of course, Mikey chose that moment to roll his eyes and said, “Jesus. You guys always pick the best times to get mushy.”

Damn kids.

Part 9