#169: Up North

“So, what have you been working on, lately?”
        Clarissa was still sweaty from the hot and heavy sex with Gene, who had risen from bed and put on his boxers. She watched his glistening body in the early morning light that bathed the modern Mies Van Der Rohe apartment. Scars were evident across his taut, brown musculature.

#168: Undercover Overachiever

Barnes presented himself at the office of Student Activities Director Ernie Penn Pierson promptly at eight-thirty Friday morning, tattered oboe case under his arm, to register late for the Robert Louis Stevenson Senior High School Summer Arts Camp. After he filled out the requisite paperwork, Ernie told him, “The camp’s half over, you know. Next week is the second and final week. And we knock off early today; you won’t get to some of your workshops until Monday.”

#167: The Scene of the Crime

John Bradford pulled into the visitors parking lot of Garden City Osteopathic Hospital in his 1978 Ford Fairlane with copyboy Barnes along for the ride. “You wait here,” he told Barnes. “Read your comic books.”

#166: The Tele-Organic Health Food Co-Op

On a fifteen-minute break from her job at the Tele-Organic Health Food Co-Op, Cody Revell sat on a weathered picnic table next to the store’s small parking lot, reading a copy of the daily newspaper, The Detroit Day. She was also smoking a light cigarette, a habit she’d picked up since landing on late twentieth-century earth.

#165: The Bizarre Files

Dallas and Hoskins clicked their utility belts about a block from the Newburgh Road hotel to become visible again.
        “Lucky you spirited away that spitfire before those Earthling agent types confiscated it,” said Dallas. “I just hope Hatori and Merino don’t find out you mislaid it—and that it was involved in that explosion. They’re the alpha-type personalities in our group and think they’re our den mothers. Munro and Jordyn I’m less worried about.”

#164: Roberts

Agent Lemon Lime woke with a start. “Did you hear that?” she asked. It had sounded to her like a thud, a boom, in the distance, like an artillery shell in war.

#163: One of Our Spitfires Is Missing

Hoskins woke up Dallas with a hoarse whisper.
        “C’mon, we’ve got to go back to the high school.”
        “What are you talking about?” said Dalam Malayu groggily. “It’s after midnight.”
        “I can’t find my spitfire anywhere,” said Hoskins, who by habit was already climbing into her Domain Fleet-issued starship uniform, ignoring the civilian earthling clothes they had worn during the day. “I must have left it in shop class.”