“Goodnight Rob!”

  Alethia waved and held her plastic smile in place as best she could. Under her breath she added, “You stupid jerk.” She said the words just softly enough that only her friend Karen could hear them.

  Alethia knew she did not need to say that, but those words served a dual purpose. They insulted Karen’s borderline abusive husband and let Karen know how Alethia felt. But only revealed a shadow of the feeling; a sprinkle so light that Alethia could continued to deny the uncomfortable truth behind those words: Alethia was attracted to Karen. Desperately so.

  “I am sorry he was behaving poorly tonight. I forgot to wake him up in time for frisbee golf.”

  Alethia bit her lip. Times like this only heaped confusion over her, like the feeling of watching a perfectly sorted series of index cards fall to the ground. Or when you are twelve and your mother rearranges your closet, or worse, discards things she thinks you no longer need.

  Alethia wanted to tell Karen the truth. There was nothing borderline about her husband’s abuse. He was a manipulative liar who obstructed or ruined anything in Karen’s life that did not involve him directly. But, in the interest of truth, that move would force Alethia to tell Karen her own truth. That Alethia was falling in love with her friend and had been for months. Maybe even years.

  As a compromise, Alethia hugged Karen and said,

  “It is not your fault he is mean to you.”

  Karen sighed and said,

  “I told you. The therapist and the psychologist all say we need to keep adjusting his medication. That’s not fair Allie.”

  Alethia smiled and nodded.

  Karen grinned back and said,

  “That means you don’t really agree. You are an open book, Alethia Thompson.”

  “Okay, you’re right. I just want Rob to treat you right. That’s all.”

  “You don’t see the good stuff Allie. It’s weird to talk about the good stuff. Who needs advice about that? So don’t base your opinion of him just on things like this.”

  That only worsened Alethia’s confusion. Karen the kind, the honest, the compassionate. She should have been treated like a queen. That was how Alethia would heave treated her.

  If only she could tell Karen the truth.

  Instead she changed the subject,

  “That fire team thing you pulled during our match was pretty neat. Have you been planning that long?”

  Karen blushed. Yet another beautiful part of her was her modesty. She was one of the top wargamers in the city and she still turned red if you mentioned it. Even in private.

  Karen shook her dark brown wavy hair and said,

  “No. I stole that from an online friend.”

  “I think it’s so cool you study strategy like this.”

  “There is no other way to stay competitive. You could do it too, if you cared enough.”

  Alethia did not really agree with that. She would never be as good as Karen even if she were more invested in the game. But she only played wargames for the chance to spend time with Karen and Richard in a tolerable setting. That and for a chance to pursue her art. Since Rob would always be present with those two, role playing games were out. As was going to the local comic book shop, Swords, Bags and Boards.

  That thought led to the next, she had to wake up tomorrow morning early to teach a freshman Bio section.

  “Crap Karen. I need to leave! I am so sorry. It’s too late for me to stay and chat anymore!”

  “Right, you’re teaching Bio 401 tomorrow, right? I feel sorry for you.”

  “The only real drag is the contingent of ID kids in the back.”

  “ID?”

  Alethia groaned,

  “Intelligent Design. They are not fans of evolution.”

  “Ugh. I am extra sorry.”

  “Tell me about it, I bet you never get grad students or upper divisions with a political axe to grind, right?”

  “Nope. If you are taking Cellular Microbiology or Genetic Sciences, you tend to have already settled the question of evolution in your mind. How’s the dissertation coming along?”

  “Ugh. Double ugh. I already got a lecture last week about lab priorities from Doc Sayers.”

  “What happened?”

  “I booked them way ahead of time, but I am running parallel inks for two straight weeks. Sayers was irritated that I am just going to be idle watching samples cure and cook. He’s right. My lab plan just overlooked that part.”

  Karen patted Alethia on the shoulder,

  “It’s the advisor’s job to give you corrections. You might find that seeding him with something to be unhappy about proves useful. Anyway, I won’t keep you. Thanks again for staying while the smoke clears.”

  Alethia hugged Karen,

  “I love staying here with you. There is no need to thank me.”

  Alethia drove home on her own. Unlike Richard or Robert, Alethia did not indulge her vices if she was responsible for her own travel. That was why they had to game at Rob’s house. It was in walking distance for Richard and Rob did not have to drive anywhere afterwards.

  Karen did not drive.

  Alethia would have been fine picking Richard up and driving him around. Even when he was drunk and stoned, he was more than tolerable. Though not as funny as he thought. If not for the drunk part, Alethia really would not have minded at all.

  Her blue Toyota turned out of the cul du sac where Karen lived and Alethia swerved and screeched her tires to a stop as something blue and electric exploded in front of her car. She ran up on the sidewalk and managed to stop before she hit one of the brick flower pot / mailbox combos that were so popular in this neighborhood.

  Alethia debated leaving the car. She was safer inside than she was out, but she was too concerned that she might have hit someone. She opened the door to see a figure lying in the street covered in silver. She ran to the figure and he groaned.

  Alethia shouted,

  “Oh my god, you’re alive! Thank god! Don’t try to move!”

  The man shivered and rose on his two feet. He wore a kind of onesie that was silver throughout. Alethia thought, Maybe this is an alien? as the man faced her and shivered terribly a moment.

  He said, “Oh good. It’s you,” and fell over.

  Alethia felt for the man’s pulse. His heart was beating so fast that the medical training Alethia lacked insisted she call an ambulance for the stranger. She thought he was a stranger. But as she heaved him into her car, she saw something oddly familiar in his face. His voice had been distinct too. Native Texan with a hint of the midwest. Alethia could not quite put her finger on who the man reminded her of. Exhaustion and stress from knowing that she might be making colossal mistake kept her alert and far too keyed up for the drive home. A miracle or guardian angel ensured her safe arrival at home. Alethia could not carry the man herself, so she retrieved the landlord’s wheelbarrow.

  He said she could use anything in the shed, so there.

  The man’s arms flailed out of the wheelbarrow as she pushed it into her house. Alethia would have counseled anyone watching to call the police based on what they saw. She had to hope that no one was watching or if they were, they did not have her Baptist raised conscience.

  The man still breathed slowly while his heart thundered along like a herd of horses. Alethia was now worried that his pulse might indicate a bigger problem than could be treated by resting in a stranger’s home. The web confirmed her fears. She had her cellphone on, dialing 9-1-1 when the man opened his eyes and said,

  “Allie? What are you doing here? It’s dangerous here.”

  She dropped her phone without hitting the call button. That voice belonged to Richard.

  “Jesus Richard, what is going on?”

  He grinned and croaked,

  “You mean who and don’t call me that. Jesus Richard’s my cousin.”

  He giggled and coughed some.

  “Oh god. Did I hit you with my car?”

  Richard laughed some more,

  “If you did, I would hate to see the other guy.”

  Now his whole body took up shivering again. It grew so bad that Alethia could hear his teeth chattering. She took several blankets out of her small bedroom closet and covered Richard with them. It had been cold outside tonight, so maybe he fell and had been lying in the street? That did not explain the electric flash nor the weird unitard he wore. Of course that might be a cosplay thing and Alethia simply did not notice him wearing it earlier.

  Blankets covering him, Richard started to settle down. He still shivered, but now it was occasional and less severe. As soon as the shivering lessened, Richard passed out on her couch. Oddly, he did not smell of pot or alcohol.

  Alethia felt anxious enough that she used her own small vaporizer. She did not smoke. That could hurt you. Vaporization might only be a tiny fraction better, but it was still better. If not for the legality and cost, she might have made her own baked goods. The drug did its job and Alethia found herself able to sleep through the night.

  When she woke for work that morning, Alethia felt exhausted. She brewed coffee automatically in her magenta underwear before she realized Richard stayed over again. A yelp tried to escape from her mouth, but she managed to corral it before it went and woke him. Back in her room, she threw shorts on and checked herself in the mirror. Today would be a foundation and eyeshadow day.

  More and more of those lately.

  Alethia’s mind wanted her to know how foggy and unhappy it felt without coffee. She needed to feed it before it became nasty. The alarm from the coffeemaker went off because she forgot to set it to quiet.

  Crap crap crap She chanted in her head as she ran back into the living room to turn the sound off. Richard had not stirred, unusual for him. He was a heck of a light sleeper, even on a bender like this. She checked him again and debated calling EMS.

  “This is stupid.”

  Alethia bent down and shook Richard. She started with a nice, gentle rocking and worked up to using some force. His eyes fluttered open and he smiled.

  “Allie. Good to see you.”

  “Yeah, I guess you really tied one over. You look weird, Richard.”

  “Uh huh. Goodnight.”

  He was snoring and out again, but at least he was alive and not comatose.

  She decided he would keep until after her teaching sections this morning, but set up the usual webcam incase he hurt himself or something.

  Every other part of her life was running behind that morning. She paired everything down to the essentials. Her morning jog got shelved along with morning reading. Coffee and toast were already in hand. Papers though, those were critical. Thankfully, Alethia spent the evening before going to Karen’s house checking papers. But she left assigning and entering the actual grades until the morning. She was running late last night too.

  Five minutes to spare and she finished the last of her daily assignments. Alethia was dressed — the shorts and t-shirt were exchanged for jeans and a light sweater — and at the bus stop in time to make her classes and maybe even chat with Laura, one of her fellow TAs before class.

  She walked through the doors to the biology department’s building with almost fifteen minutes to spare. Laura was nowhere to be seen, but the hallways roared with the press of students. Most left there classes to go somewhere else. But a growing number began to push against those leaving.

  “Alethia?”

  The woman’s voice turned out to be Laura,

  “Hey girl! Are you looking forward to sections tonight?”

  “I am, did you mean to skip out on the TA meeting today?”

  Alethia panicked,

  “Oh crap! Crap crap crap! I guess they missed me?”

  Laura readjusted her grip on the stack of notes in her hands. Alethia liked Laura for that reason. She was old school in how she kept her notes. Otherwise, Laura was a svelte cheerleader type that Alethia would never have spent time with during high school.

  “I don’t think they did. Everyone in the department seemed kinda distracted today. You still might want to check in and let anyone who might have been paying attention know what was up.”

  “Thanks Laura, good luck with your classes!”

  She flashed Alethia a bright white smile. Alethia could not help but suspect that the other woman had an ulterior motive for speaking with Alethia. But she could not decide what it was.

  Classes flew by.

  The day’s assignments were handed out via email along with grades for individual assignments. That was nice because that meant that Alethia could focus on teaching instead of paperwork or other distractions.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  With the classes she taught over, Alethia checked her webcam to see that Richard was still asleep on her couch. She sighed. He was like having a weird older brother, something that Alethia could only imagine as an only child. Richard’s fate safely assured, she started to head off for her own classes. But an email alert from a student arrived informing her that she made a mistake grading. She checked it and found out he was right. Alethia cursed herself. These all went to her TA supervisor and she was not happy with the dearth of attention Alethia had been giving her TA duties.

  She closed up her computer and left her hand on the lid. This would be the fourth or fifth set of mistakes in grading. This was one of those stupid areas where no one really suffered — Alethia just corrected the errors and moved on normally — but the administration had decided to ‘hold teaching assistants to a higher standard’ which was a fun new way of reminding all of them they were disposable and could be replaced in an eye blink by new crop of even more desperate graduate students. The fact that she still needed these teaching hours for her degree did not seem to be a factor. Hopefully Doctor Sayers could do something for her. He was well-liked and convincing.

  At least her next classes were all graduate sections. For these, Alethia took pen and paper notes. The click-clack of computer keyboards in the room was still distracting, but Alethia had slowly grown accustomed to the sound.

  With the reminder that she had a TA meeting today, Alethia recalled that she also had kingdom activities today. Rachel would be at weapons’ practice which would give Alethia enough exercise to make up for skipping her jog this morning.

  Professor Schmidt’s work in mono-cellular genetics could not compete with arms practice, so Alethia also knew she needed to go today, even if her schedule ended up hectic, again.

  Her advisor was not in his office, so Alethia bashed out a quick email letting him know why she missed the meeting today — sick friend — which was fine because it happened to be true. Her email also informed Alethia that she had successfully covered for Richard with his day job. She sighed. He would not be paid for missing work today, Alethia’s grant was fine as long as she was not arrested for a felony, caught committing fraud, or suffered academic probation. But if she was fired as a TA, she would be out in the streets, grant or no grant. She would have to find a new job if she wanted to stay in grad school in that case.

  None of those things were particularly likely. But she was still skating on thin ice.

  Back home, Richard slept like he was ill. He did not have a fever, but his pulse was down. In the light of day, he looked very different under the blanket. She knew it was her friend, but he might have been beaten up or something. A flash light did not do much to penetrate into the folds of blanket when he buried his head.

  This was too like Richard for Alethia. If he needed sleep, she would leave him alone for now. She could always lecture him later. She started to invite him to weapon’s practice, but if he felt like this he did not need to be out in the weak Texas winter trying to swing a sword.

  Alethia changed into sweatpants, an old UW shirt, and some minor padding for her chest and joints. These pads she used for Taekwondo growing up, so she had not needed to buy new ones for the SCA. Today was low pressure for Alethia. Almost everyone attended practice with their regular attire. The weapon master for their kingdom required protective equipment during practice, because he was responsible Alethia thought to herself. Unlike the weapon master for our barony.

  The idiot, Timaeus, would probably be present today. That was the only potential low point that lay before Alethia and made her reconsider attending practice every time she remembered. When she got off the bus, she only had two blocks to walk, practice was downtown near campus.

  Tony saw her before anyone else did, so her ran up to greet her. He tried to hug her, which was another potential point of badness. Alethia put her hands up and said,

  “I am sorry Tony, I am not ready for hugging yet.”

  He pulled up short and nodded. His long feathery locks fell into his eyes as he bowed in front of Alethia. That had been the first feature she noticed before they started dating. She had also appreciated his lean, whipcord tight body. But her present confusion had ended their relationship.

  “I am sorry Alethia. That was presumptuous of me. Forgive me?”

  He held out his hand while grinning at her through his hair. Alethai sighed; he knew how attractive she had once found that pose. The fact that it did nothing for her now was just a further indication of her troubles.

  “Of course you’re forgiven you big dork. Is Tiny Dumb here?”

  “You mean Timmeeey? Yeah, sorry Lethia. He’s gunning for you. Or swording. Whatever the right verb is. Swinging for you?”

  Alethia grinned and said,

  “Ugh, English majors. I guess I will warm up and try to deal with Tiny Dumb again.”

  Alethia threw her duffle next to the red and green duffle that belonged to Rachel. Out on the green, Rachel and five other combatants had squeezed themselves into heavy armor and were duking it out with loud clanging attacks. Alethia preferred light weapons to heavy. They felt more like the weapons she was familiar with from martial arts.

  “I see you decided to join us, Mara.”

  That would be Timaeus.

  “Howdy Tiny. What do you want?”

  “Perhaps your short memory and thin wit have deprived you of your sense? My name is Timaeus. Not Tiny.”

  He wore a purple and black doublet that he definitely made himself. The quality was incredible considering it was handmade by a total jerk. Alethia had wished he kept to himself among the tailors instead of interfering with her weapon practice.

  Alethia built up steam for an insult when a blonde woman wearing shorts and a light t-shirt despite the cold stepped in front of Tiny. Her hair was shaved around the back and sides, but it was left longer on the top so it hung just out of her eyes. She winked at Alethia when she said,

  “What ho villain. Your words give offense where none is needed. You have offended me and I insist that honor be satisfied.”

  Tiny looked at the woman and broke character,

  “Wait, who are you?”

  Five minutes after the heavy weapons melee broke up, Tiny and the newcomer squared off on the lawn. The woman held a long duct taped rod in hand and a small stick on her side. Tiny held a sword and short blade in both hands. He was a southpaw so that threw most of his opponents off.

  “Zoe is gonna win.”

  Alethia did not jump or shriek, but she started at the words whispered into her ear. She turned to see her best friend Rachel standing holding two warm styrofoam cups. She was grinning.

  “I should stab you for trying to startle me. If I could hold a sword straight today. Did you see me during practice?”

  “I saw the twitch and the mess that is your sword form. I brought armistice coffee. If you want the sweet caffeine, you have to agree to a preliminary cease fire.”

  Alethia laughed and scooted over so Rachel could share the bench with her. Alethia said,

  “Did you say her name was Zoe?”

  “Yeah, she’s one of my friends from Boston. She is also the weapon master for the whole kingdom. Or she was until she moved away.”

  “Oh. So this is about to be funny?”

  “That is exactly right.”

  Alethia redirected her attention in time to see the start of the bout. Zoe did not blink or move at the signal to start, so Tiny took his turn. Zoe’s liquid response shifted her stance one step into her opponent’s guard and brought the tip of her sword into Tiny’s lower ribs. The judge called the good hit right away.

  People watching sighed and quieted when that happened. Those who had been too distracted now watched to see if what their friends said was true.

  It was.

  Zoe was as tall as Tiny, both of them four inches taller than Alethia, so her reach did not suffer much compared to his. But her grace and speed exceeded Tiny’s by an unfair margin. Only two more encounters and she was declared the victor.

  He kneeled before Alethia and apologized,

  “My lady, I regret my hasty words, please see your way to forgiving my brashness.”

  Alethia nodded silently while she watched Zoe pull her face protection off. Honor satisfied, Tiny walked over to sulk with his groupies. Alethia walked over to Zoe,

  “Hey, I am Alethia. You’re Zoe, right?”

  “Nice to meet you. I hope I didn’t make any trouble for you there.”

  She had a thick east coast accent. Alethia wondered what Zoe thought of the Texas accents that surrounded her. They chatted for longer than Alethia had intended and she had to run home for food and to check back up on Richard. She excused herself from the conversation and ran to catch her bus before she missed it.

  Back at home, she microwaved some food and checked up on Richard again. If he was still in bed tomorrow morning, she would make him go to the doctor. Or maybe start paying rent.

  Alethia fell asleep in her room, logged into her homework grading account.

  “Allie! Wake up! You have to see this!”

  The voice reminded her of her dad, but it was too high pitched. He was still one of the few people who called her by that nickname.

  She opened her eyes and shouted, a strange looking man was standing over her bed trying to wake her up. She surprised him with her explosion of violence. Alethia kicked out at the man several times, using her own strikes to push her farther away from that side of her bed and away from the man.

  He took all of her kicks and quietly spoke. Adrenaline made Alethia’s ears ring, she said,

  “What?”

  “Allie, it’s Richard. I think you dragged me in here last night. In a wheel barrow?”

  Alethia now saw the silver unitard and Richard’s shaggy light brown hair. The cut made him look boyish, younger than his years. But that was how his hair had looked the previous day. Now the slight asymmetry in his eyes and nose was gone. His nose had shrunk so that it was more in proportion to the rest of his face. The rest of his lines had sharpened, like the difference between a rough sketch and a first line drawing.

  “Richard? What? Why do you look like that? How?”

  He had obviously lost weight too. At least fifty pounds in a few hours.

  Richard had his hands up, palms facing Alethia. He backed away from her and said,

  “I did not mean to scare you. How do I look different?”

  Alethia shrugged. How was she supposed to tell her friend that he went from looking a little above average to resembling a pouty male supermodel overnight. How good his jaw and chin looked added to Alethia’s existing confusion about her orientation. If she turned out to be honestly attracted to men, that would put a lot of uncomfortable possibilities to rest. And make certain future conversations very awkward.

  “I don’t know. Like you had a facelift? Or maybe you had what doctors want people to believe a facelift does? What’s going on?”

  “You will never believe what happened…”

  Richard described a series of insane sounding adventures. Alethia stopped him,

  “Do you mean this is a story or game you played or something?”

  “No Allie. This really happened!”

  “Um, like it felt so real?”

  Even asking the question, she was not sure where her skepticism came from. Richard stood there looking at her from behind a face he did not quite possess two days ago.

  Why was she having trouble with a time traveler wearing a bowler hat?

  Richard was wearing one of the outfits he claimed the time travelers used.

  “This sounds insane Richard. Do you have some kind of proof or something?”

  “Oh yeah. Watch the Richard…”

  He seemed to concentrate a moment and nothing happened. He opened his eyes and looked at his hands,

  “Damnit. Something is wrong with the stealth field thing. Really the whole computer seems to be jacked up.”

  “Okay then super brain, show me something else?”

  Richard pointed to his head and shook it,

  “Duh, you are so right.”

  This time he did not quite disappear, but he moved so fast that Alethia had trouble keeping up. He did not quite move at a blur, but with the insane speed only professional athletes are capable of. He stood next to the couch he slept in, the one where Alethia sat, and lifted both her and the couch into the air. The wooden frame of the old couch creaked ominously and Richard said,

  “Uh oh.”

  As he put it back down.

  Alethis stared at him in shock.

  He was not making this up. It was real.

  “How did you do that?”

  “I am trying to tell you. Let me finish.”

  Alethia listened raptly to the rest of Richard’s story.

  “So you just left? Wow Richard, that is messed up.”

  “Hey, I never asked for any of this. But hey. Speaking of which… Do you want to be superheroes with me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Richard tapped the side of his unitard and a little pocket opened. He reached his hand in and drew out what looked like a vacuum-sealed package. It contained three small syringes. Two were filled with a blue liquid and one contained a green one. One package was already missing.

  “Allie. This makes you smarter, stronger, and faster. On top of all of that, it gives you a super power. I think mine is super speed. Maybe. We all might just be this fast. When I think about it hard enough I know that I am about as fast as Usain Bolt. Because somehow I know his land speed and I can calculate my own perfectly.”

  Richard stood and held the package out to Alethia. She had to admit that she was tempted by what he offered her. She started to accept, but a light came over Richard’s eyes and he pulled it back slightly.

  “We should bring this to Karen and Rob. What do you think?”

  Ten minutes later, Alethia was driving to Karen’s house. Richard looked excited like he was high, but he was totally lucid. He was texting on his phone, probably to confirm that the Taylor’s were home. Of course they were. Rob was out of work and Karen’s last class ended at seven. She would be grading papers about now while her husband brooded in his man-cave. On bad days he only emerged to torment her verbally and then retreat. Alethia thanked God they did not have children, though she prayed that Karen would find someone more suitable one day. She wanted them, Karen told Alethia that. One more secret she shared with Karen but not with Rob.

  Alethia did not think that they should share a superhero serum with Robert Taylor.

  Of all the people Alethia knew, he was the only one banned from Swords, Bags, and Boards. He had to have Karen buy his books for him every month, the ones he refused to buy online. She was still more than welcome to the store. Which gave the jerk one more reason to resent Karen. Alethia reminded herself that there was nothing she could do. Unless she was a superhero, of course. And maybe the serum or whatever would fix what was wrong with Rob. Not that Alethia considered that a great outcome either.

  But here she was on Karen’s front porch with Richard, waiting for one of them to come to the door. Karen answered, of course.

  “Hey you two! We don’t have gaming tonight, do we?”

  Richard walked in without an invitation, clearly he was not a vampire, Alethia cocked her head at Karen and whispered,

  “Sorry about this.”

  Karen beckoned her in to the house and locked the door behind them.

  “Richard was texting like mad. Is something wrong? He was also being very vague.”

  “You will have to see, Karen. It is a little hard to believe otherwise.”

  Karen squinted her eyes at Alethis and flicked her gaze toward Richard,

  “Are you too finally together?”

  Alethia put her hands up,

  “Oh no. Nothing like that. He stayed on my couch last night and today. I thought something was wrong. It was.”

  Richard shouted for Rob to come downstairs with them. If not for his perpetual scowl, Robert Taylor would have been dashing, even beautiful. But hunched over with a grimace on his face that warned the world to keep its distance, the proportions became grotesqueries. Mixed with the knowledge of how he treated Karen, Rob became a twisted corrupt king. Infirm from his own foul choices and odious habits.

  Karen said that the depression made him like this. Once he was kind and gentle. Alethia did not see it, but she could almost imagine it. Without the grimace and the hunched posture, without his selfish, narcissistic behavior, he might have looked okay.

  Alethia still did not quite know how to object to giving him super powers, especially now that he was here. Besides, what if Richard was right and this was the cure Rob and Karen had been looking for? Karen more so than Rob. Alethia shut her mouth and swallowed her objections.

  Richard recounted his impossible tale. Rob grew more and more sullen as Richard went on. When he reached the scene where the furniture turned out to be a projection or somehow dynamically fabricated, Rob stood up and shouted,

  “I’ve had enough of this! That’s just the danger room! You’re just telling us some game story when I have a raid I should be running? They already called in a sub for me, man. You know how much I love raid night!”

  He turned and stomped up the stairs. Richard moved so fast that a few papers flew off of the nearby furniture. He picked Rob up easily under the arms and said,

  “Buddy, this is for you. I would never mess with you like this.”

  Rob’s jaw hung open while Richard smiled and looked up at him. Then they both wooshed over back to Rob’s seat. Karen’s eyes bugged out of her head. She watched Richard and Rob carefully, studying Richard intensely.

  Richard sat back down and continued to tell his story. This time without interruption. He already had the syringes in his hands before he finished the telling.

  “So the reason I am here right now is to offer my three best friends, I guess my three only friends, the opportunity of the millennium. What do you think? There are only two blue syringes and we know what those do. Someone has to play double guinea pig and take the green one. The computer told me they were all intended for my team, so I think they should be safe.”

  Karen raised her hand and coughed, Richard nodded to her.

  “Safe? Are you kidding me? How long were you unconscious, Richard? Two, three days? Do you know what the full protocol is for this serum? Does it have to be diluted in saline?”

  He interrupted,

  “I know that one, I saw them empty mine into the saline bag.”

  Karen was not finished,

  “Are there support medications? Contraindications? Does the program have a strict dosing schedule? What else does the computer say?”

  Richard cleared his throat.

  “That’s the thing. Right now, the computer doesn’t say anything except error. About a dozen different errors no matter what I try. Not sure what is up with that.”

  Karen said,

  “So you are offering us the chance to take a drug you are not entirely sure how to administer whose side effects you do not know. But which promises to make time travel possible for all of us as well as give us super powers?”

  Richard’s smile grew and he said,

  “That is about it, yeah.”

  Karen shook her head,

  “Count me out then.”

  Rob looked sideways at his wife and said,

  “Count me in and I want the green pill, thank you.”

  Alethia swore she saw Richard shake his head, but he did not need to speak.

  Karen said,

  “Hold on Robert. I admit I would prefer you not do this, but if you are, please be conservative with your choices.”

  Richard nodded,

  “Karen’s right, dude. What if there is some special catch or something with this? I would play it safe too.”

  Alethia breathed a sigh of relief when Rob backed down in front of his wife and his best friend. On a bad night, that would have turned into a fight.

  Richard said,

  “Okay, we have one blue syringe for Rob and two remaining.”

  Karen said,

  “I think you will keep them both…”

  She stopped as Alethia reached her hand forward and said,

  “Allie, no way?”

  Alethia shrugged,

  “I am too curious not to. You saw what he did, right?”

  Karen took a breath like she was about to release a torrent of objections, but she held her breath and released a lone sigh instead.

  “You two are both adults. I suppose I need to babysit. Let me get the saline.”

  Alethia blinked her eyes,

  “Wait, you have saline here?”

  Richard laughed,

  “There was more than one reason I insisted we come here.”

  Alethia was starting to get cold feet by the time the saline bags were hooked up.

  “Richard, this did not hurt?”

  “The time travel thing did. But I was out for this. It was like a quiet, relaxing nap. With comic books.”

  Karen set the IVs in Rob and Alethia. She swabbed the sites with alcohol before hand and seemed to know what she was doing. Alethia was too nervous to ask why Karen and Rob had saline on hand when Richard prepared the two blue syringes.

  “Okay you guys, here they come.”

  The blue liquid dispersed into the sterile water like a cloud of octopus ink on the Discovery channel. Alethia tried to count the strands to calm herself as the pain rose through her body and lit her nerves on fire.

  She screamed herself hoarse long before Richard and Karen returned.