I'm behindddddd!!!! Thank you everyone who is egging me on and making me feel guilty about not writing. I'm hopefully going to explode into a mass amount of words over the next few days. I'm certainly going to try writing as much as I can tomorrow (yay for not working!) and then I've got half of Friday. I'm hoping I can be caught up with where I need to be by the time I go to bed on Friday. I'm just crossing my fingers. D:


"Why does it matter? You shouldn't have answered in the first place. You don't need to talk to him."

"Yes I do Fiona."

"No... you don't."

"Look, Fiona. It is really hard to find a guy who's willing to date you when you can pick up a car and lift it over your head. Guys tend to be really intimidated by that, you know. I don't have the advantage of being normal like you--"

"I'm not normal."

"Okay, fine. I don't have the advantage of being as beautiful and flawless as you are."

"I'm not flawless."

"Okay. Whatever, Fiona. Whatever you say."

They finished their meal in awkward silence.

#

"What did you do that for?!" Thomas whipped around angrily.

Feline Fatale shrugged. "Boss said he wanted to speak with you, and you are in no way important enough to be allwed to just ignore him when he calls."

"Mister Menace doesn't deserve your manic loyalty."

"You think I don't know that?"

They shared a mutual laugh and the cat burglar handed back Thomas' phone.

"So, Flexion," she bgan with a crafty smile, "how is our little hero doing?"

"Oh, Maverick? She's positively devastated by the sound of it. She's definitely no where near s confident as she was when you last saw her in action."

"This plan of yours... I have to admit it, at first I was more than just a bit skeptical about it, but it looks like it's going to actually work."

"Of course it's going to work--I thought of it. Now then, what does our esteemed financier want from me this time?"

"I don't know. You know how he gets. He probably wants you to gell him how great he is again. Honestly, the guy needs to take a seminar or something in improving poor self-confidence or something. He can have such an inferiority complex sometimes."

#

"So what is this all about, Fiona? You said that you would explain things to me on the way to your house, and then when I asked you, you told me you'd tell me at once we got there. And then when we were at your house, you refused to tell me anything! What is going on?"

They were driving again, headed away from the city. Behind them, the sun was already setting, framing the sky line with deep pastels.

"How do you know he was telling the truth?"

"What?"

“How. Do. You. Know. He was. Telling. The truth.” Fiona enunciated each word carefully, as if Liz never stood a chance of understanding the complex sounds she was making.

“I don’t, Fi. I just have to hope he is and go with it.”

#

Starla was nervous; she really, really, really should not be doing this. But she was. And it totally wasn't like her at all. She was pretty sure that this sort of thing could get her kicked out of the League. Really though, without Maverick, she wasn't sure if it was worth staying. Of course, she knew that there were people who would be disappointed and give her a hassle over it, but somebody had to do this and it seemed as if she were the only one willing to. Maverick surely would have supported her decision if she had been able to consult her about this.

Speaking of Maverick, this was the sort of thing that she would probably do. Yes, this was decidedly just the sort of thing Maverick would do. Not Starla. No, never in a million years would Starla ever do this--ever. Except, with the sort of bad luck she had, Maverick wasn't around to do it, and it didn't seem that anyone else was willing to do it and so the task fell to her.

It was a wicked thing, fate was, making her do this. She wasn't even sure if she was doing everything as she was supposed to.

Well, she had checked for anyone coming. And that had to be a major part of sneaking into an enemy base--right? Or, was it a lair? Lightning Lad was always telling her she thought too much. She wished he was here right now; she could use his cool head. But she really couldn't risk letting anyone know where she was, especially Lightning Lad. He had finally been promoted to a full-time League member, and there was no way she was going to do anything that could get him--or any of her other friends, for that matter--in trouble.

Currently she was scaling the side of an innocent enough building. Really, it had been quite hard to track down just where these villain people were staying. Why couldn't it be like in the movies, where the villain's base of operations was always really obvious and really easy to spot and really, really easy to sneak into. It just wasn't fair.

She had managed to find the place by tailing Sniper after spoiling her last hit two days ago, but she hadn't had a chance to investigate the place until now. She was pretty sure no one knew she was here, but there was really no way of telling until she was caught and tortured for all the information she knew about the League. Blessedly, she knew very little. The League didn't seem to want to entrust one of its youngest recruits with sensitive information that may be damning should it fall into the wrong hands. Hopefully, Sniper, Femme Fatale, and Flexion would believe her when she told them that. With her luck, though, they'd probably think she was Power House in disguise.

She reached for the last handhold available to her and painstakingly dragged her body up and over the ledge onto the roof. Thank god she had not fallen. Taking a glance back down at where she had come from, it seemed a long way to fall, and she was by no means impervious to injury.

It would have been so much easier to just fly to the roof and break in from there, but she had noticed a nasty little habit that Sniper had of shooting down birds in her idle time, so Starla had figured she would get to the roof by more unconventional means than what her fellow super heroes would probably have used. Hopefully, she would be able to fight for her life when she was caught--if, she was caught--though, because by now she was exhausted.

She glanced around, looking for security cameras and the like and hoping desperately that she wasn't being stupid enough to walk into a trap that had been set for her. Maverick would have already known what to expect. She would have memorized the layout of the whole place and been completely up to date on the sorts of tricks and terrors that she could expect to encounter once inside. Starla knew that the building was made out of some sort of pretty light colored stone that wasn’t particularly easy to climb.

She was, hypothetically speaking, pretty damned screwed. Theoretically, however, there was still a chance that she would not know too much pain before her very untimely and completely inevitable death.

Well, no point in prolonging the unavoidable. She walked over to the door on the roof leading inside and into the villains’ lair. She opened it…

…and was not immediately eviscerated. Hmmm…well, that was surprising. But it had to mean good things considering she was about twenty steps into the building and was not yet dead. Already this mission was surpassing her expectations and a much greater success than she ever could have anticipated.

She rounded a corner and heard the sound of an elevator ping cheerily. Voices stepped out of the sound.

She backed up, flattening herself against the wall and wishing to herself that she had the ability to contort her body to the width of a single atom. Perhaps then she might stand some chance of surviving.

The voices drew closer to her, a man and a woman talking about nothing particularly exciting by the sound of it, and she resigned herself to going down with a fight. She may not be strong enough to give them hell, but she was sure going to try. She pulled herself up to her full height and prepared herself to charge.

“…and that Arch Cherie! Honestly, who uses a bow and arrow in these days and times? I’m telling you, a semi automatic rifle is where it’s at nowadays, and with the invention of gunpowder, that girl became completely obsolete”

“Aaah!”

“Argh!”

“That’s for calling me obsolete, you ass hole.”

Starla rounded the corner, prepared to make war with whatever crossed her path, only to be confronted by Arch Cherie, standing smugly over the bodies of Sniper and Spyder.

“Arch Cherie?!”

“Starla?”

“Wha- What are you doing here?”

“Leaving. What are you doing here?”

“I just got— um, here.” Starla started, and ended, realizing how ridiculous she sounded.

Arch Cherie lifted a delicate eyebrow. “Really now.”

Starla shrank down. “Um…yeah.”

“Okay. Fine.” Arch Cherie cocked her head to one side. “Let’s get out of here and you can copy my notes. I came from this way.” She turned and headed down a non-descript hallway.

“Why are you here?”

“What? I came to see if I could find anything out about that attack on Maverick’s friend what’s- her- name. Come on, I’d rather get out of here before Femme Fatale finds out we busted up her litter box.”

Starla stood there, more than a bit flabbergasted over the recent turn of events in her life.

“Are you coming, or do I need to inform the League that they need to start preparing a search party to come and look for you? What more do you want? I’m sorry I’m not Spangled Starr, but you’ll have to make do with what you’ve got.”

Starla shook herself out of her stupor.

“No…no. You… you’re… you’re more than fine. I don’t think… that is, I’m glad…” she glanced down, suddenly self-conscious in front of the older hero. “I’m happy that you were here.”

Arch Cherie looked at her, a bit confused. “Umm…thanks? But seriously—can we go now? I’d hate to have to explain to my mom that instead of bailing me out of jail, she has to break me out of a super villain’s chamber of death or whatever, okay?”

Starla smiled. “Sorry. I’m coming.”

#

“Don’t go! Girls and boys should be together! Don’t go! Girls and boys can rule the world! Don’t go! Boys and boys should be together! Don’t go! Girls and girls can rule the world!”

“Aw damn it that was our turn!”

Fiona slammed on the breaks and glanced over her shoulder as she backed up to turn right.

Liz rolled her eyes. “Well, if you were telling me where we were going, then I might have been able to warn you we were about to miss that turn.” She glanced out the window. “Where did you get this CD anyways?”

“Huh? Oh, Fefe Dobson? I don’t know. I downloaded from somewhere.”

They were rolling slowly down a dirt road ridden with pot holes and huge giant bumps of doom.

“Fiona… where are we going?”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

“How original.”

#

“Umm… we’re not going back to the headquarters?”

Arch Cherie gave Starla one of her Looks. Starla had been getting those a lot lately now that they couldn’t be directed at Maverick.

“We can’t trust the League—“

“—But I thought your mom ran the League.”

“Just because my mom is in charge of it, doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“Oh.” Starla glanced out the building they were in. It was a mostly abandoned warehouse that was mostly empty. A punching bag hung in one corner and a few boxes sat in front of each window, as if trying to say, yes, I’m here and I’m being used so please don’t bulldoze me. Arch Cherie was making her way towards one pile of crates on the other side of the room. Starla hurried up, trying to catch up with her.

“Don’t follow me.”

Starla stopped. “Why not?”

“Because I’m changing and I’ve got body issues. Go wait in that corner by the rest of my stuff.”

She disappeared behind the crates.

Starla turned slowly and looked around the large room, trying to figure out which corner it was that Arch Cherie had meant. Finally, she spotted by the punching bag, an overturned wooden crate with a laptop sitting on top of it with a few thick and intimidating books. Starla made her way over to that set up, hoping that was what Arch Cherie had meant and praying that if it wasn’t she wouldn’t be wishing she had stayed with Sniper and Spyder.

When she reached it, she glanced around a bit guiltily like a child with her hand caught in the cookie jar, and then kneeled down to look at the things that Arch Cherie had left out.

She picked up one of the heavy books, and was surprised to see that it was an anatomy book. The others were similarly themed, all of them having something to do with the body or medical practices, and she understood none of them. Glancing at the screen of the laptop, she noted that surprisingly it hadn’t gone to the screen saver yet or even shut itself down. Starla tried to calculate how long it must have been running, quite unsuccessfully, since she only knew that it had taken roughly a half an hour for the two to get from the villains’ base to…wherever here was.

“Find anything interesting?”

Starla’s head jerked up, and she caught sight of her first glimpse of an un-costumed Arch Cherie.

She was dressed quite unremarkably in jeans and a t shirt for some band called Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Her dark blonde hair was pulled up into a pony tail and she was wearing blue plastic framed glasses. She wasn't extraordinarily beautiful, but she wasn't ugly either. She had a quite regular sense of prettiness to her that she wore with the easy grace of someone who has had it--really had it and possessed it, rather than shunning it or attempting to achieve some deeper level of beauty--all her life.

She was carrying an extra set of clothes and handed them to Starla.

"Go put these on."

"Umm..."

"Hurry up."

"...why?"

"Because I can't go around with you looking like that. Unlike some people, I like to keep my identity a secret."

Arch Cherie--no, this strange new girl--waited impatiently as Starla continued to gawk at her. She seemed to be doing quite a bit of that lately.

"Well....?"

"Oh, right." Starla mentally shook herself and shuffled off to the corner where this girl had emerged from.

She had been handed another t shirt, this time for some musical group called The Supremes, and a pair of skinny jeans. She pulled them on, noting with dismay that they fit just large enough on her to make her look extraordinarily awkward and unkempt. She hadn't been given a change of shoes, so she had no choice but to wear her boots with the jeans.

She looked extraordinarily ridiculous. There was no way she was going out there for this unfamiliar girl to gawk at her.

"Starla...? Are you coming?"

And apparently, her feet weren't going to cooperate with her brain, seeing as they were moving on their own in the direction of Arch Cherie's voice. Honestly, if she didn't know any better, she would think that she had been cross bred with some kind of pathetic and needy breed of dog.

The strange girl studied her as she rounded the crates.

"Hmmm... Well, I guess it was too much to hope for a perfect fit. Hopefully I have something back at the house that will fit you. You're much smaller than I thought you were. Oh well, hurry up."

"What do you do?"

She had blurted it out before she was able to stop herself. She was really beginning to wish she had stayed with Sniper and Spyder and awaited their awakening. Surely, whatever it was that they would have done to her would be better than what Arch Cherie was going to do to her now. You never asked about a hero’s secret identity. It was something private. It was something that was secret for a reason. It was something...

"Oh, I'm a med student."

...that Arch Cherie obviously didn't care about.

"What about you? You're still in high school, aren't you?"

"Uh yeah."

"When are you graduating?"

"I'm a junior now. I still have a while to go."

Arch Cherie smiled at her. "Don't worry. It's no where near as far away as it seems. Once you hit senior year, you're going to be wondering where all of your time went."

She knelt down and picked up a bag that Starla had failed to notice before. She close the laptop (apparently, she had shut it off while Starla was changing) and put it in, along with one of the smaller books. She shoved the rest of them into a sturdy and awfully cumbersome looking back pack and slung it over her shoulder.

"Well, come on then. We can talk back at my place. I'm pretty sure it's safe there."

She turned and headed towards the door they had entered through.

"But won't your mom--uh, Power House--be there?"

"What? No. I stay at an apartment near my school. There was no way I was going to stay home any longer than necessary, you know?"

"Oh."

Arch Cherie stepped through the door, and Starla hurried to follow her.

#

"So we're at a... ranch? And you are... going to confess that secretly you have a passion for the small farm life?"

Fiona gave her a Look that could have rivaled Arch Cherie's. Liz shrugged.

"What? Come on, what do you expect me to say? You've just kidnapped me and now you've dragged me off to some podunk place in the middle of nowhere. I've got better things to do than play this game with you, Fiona."

"If you had better things to do," the other girl ground out as she climbed out of her car, "then you'd be back home in the city, rather than here, with me. Anyways," she said, straightening up to her full height, "I think you'll find that this is going to be worth your while."

"Fine." Liz slammed the door. "But if it isn't, I'm owed a few favors down at the state penitentiary, and I will be doing everything I can to dump you there."

"Is that the best you can do? I'm shaking in my Jimmy Choos."

Fiona stepped past her and dug inside her purse until she came upon a key. She unlocked the door and cracked it open, peering inside. Liz tried to follow her, but Fiona blocked her entrance.

"Now look," Fiona said, "Some people, like you, have no problem with letting the world know all about their deep dark little secrets, okay? But some of us have scruples about letting the whole world in on our private moments, and if you come in here, I want you to know that if you say I word about any of this, I won't have to kill you. Got that?"

"What do you mean, you won't have to kill me?"

"I mean, someone will beat me to it. Got that? Now watch yourself, he's in a pretty sour mood right now. He's always been a bad loser."

Liz shook her head. "Fiona, I have no idea what you're talking about. Can you just let me in and drop all of the cryptic speak? It makes for a poor story."

Fiona shrugged. "Fine. But don't say I didn't warn you."

She stepped back from the door and gestured for Liz to enter.

It took a moment for Liz's eyes to adjust, but slowly a small stereotypical cabin interior came into view. She was entering inside a small kitchen/common room area, and to her right, there were obviously some sort of rooms.

She stepped in cautiously.

"Hey Fi... is there any way we can get some lights on in this place? I really kind of hate not being able to see where I am. Consequence of the job, you know."

Fiona stepped in and shut the door behind herself. "Sure thing."

She flipped a switch, and light flooded the room. She marched past Liz and walked back into the hall and hooked a sharp left.

Liz looked around, studying her surroundings. It was lived in, that much was obvious. There were dirty dishes in the sink, and a several boxes of Chinese take out had been left on the small kitchenette's table. In the common area, there were two small couches and a fireplace, but no television. She thought she could hear Fiona puttering about in the rooms beyond the next hallway. She could also hear someone else speaking with her.

"Hey, Fi…who's here?" She called out to the abyss, but met no answer. Whoever was back there with Fiona was angry, and Liz prepared herself to charge back there and rescue her former best friend.

She was saved the trouble, when Fiona furiously re-entered the common area.

"Fine then." She shouted back to whoever was in the other room. "Just stay here locked up then. I hope you starve and I'm not going to come back so I hope that tiny little magazine there can somehow last you several more weeks, because you are definitely not going to be able to leave this house anytime soon!"

She grabbed Liz. "Come on. We're going."

Liz angrily jerked her arm back

"Wait... what? You mean you dragged me here just so you could argue with someone, and now we're leaving? I don't even know why I'm here! What did you even need me for?"

Fiona dragged her towards the door.

"I wanted you to meet someone. I thought you'd like to see he was alright, but clearly he's just going to whine and piss and moan and throw things and tell me everything I'm doing wrong." She turned back and yelled across the cabin. "Well, I 'm sorry I'm not super girl over here, but I tried my damn best!"

She tugged more insistently upon Liz. "Come on. We are going. I am not staying here one moment longer and I am NEVER COMING BACK!"

Liz heard something hard and heavy hit one of the walls. It was followed by some heavy cursing and the sound of something being dragged over towards them.

"Fio!"

The voice sounded vaguely familiar. No... it sounded more than just vaguely familiar. It sounded so horribly and painfully familiar that Liz felt compelled enough to reach over and pinch something just to be sure that it was actually happening.

"Ow! Why did you pinch me?"

"Sorry, Fi. I just had to be sure that this is real and that I wasn't dreaming."

The owner of the voice slowly made his way out of the room, hobbling on one leg because the other was heavily bandaged.

"Long Shot?"

"Go back to bed."

"Maverick."

Liz stared at her former mentor. Her former mentor stared back. Fiona marched forward and took one of Long Shot's arms.

"Roy you have got to stay off that leg. It is never going to get better if you keep getting up."

"What's she doing here?"

"I told you. I brought a friend I wanted you to meet. You said you didn't want to meet her." Fiona frowned. "Are you suffering from some kind of short term memory loss?"

Long Shot glared down at her. "I'm fine. Why didn't you tell me that you knew Maverick?"

"I tried. Just now. You didn't want to me hear me. That' s not my fault. Now go back to bed, Roy before I do something really crazy."

"You mean crazier than trying to nurse me back to health?"

He tried to move forward, against Fiona's insistent hold.

"I thought I told you to go to bed!"

"If someone more capable is here to take care of me, then it is my right as a patient to receive care from that person!"

"So what--you're saying that I'm not good at taking care of you?"

"There's a reason you're not the one who saves lives for a living."

Fiona glared at him and gave him a hard push. His injuries had clearly weakened him enough that her shove was able to move him back by about a foot or two.

"Bed. Now."

"Fine, Fio."

He turned and began hobbling off, calling over his shoulder, "Come on, Maverick. I need to have a few words with you."

Liz followed, quite confused. As she passed Fiona she hissed angrily, "You. Me. When this is done, I want answers."

Fiona rolled her eyes.

"Oh don't worry. You'll get your answers... and then some."

#

Starla had a harder time following Arch Cherie than she thought she would. The older girl was surprisingly good at blending in.

"Hey! Wait up Arch--"

She was thrown against the nearest wall, pinned down by a furious Arch Cherie.

"My. Name. Is. Amy. Got that, kid?"

"Umm... y- yeah. Amy. Got it."

"Good."

Amy loosened her hold on Starla.

"Good. I just... I just do not want to... you know..."

"Yeah... I think I know."

"Okay. Okay... um I guess... let's go."

#

"You live here?" Starla was amazed that Arch Cherie--no, Amy--was able to live in a dorm room with a room mate and still manage to keep her identity a secret.

"Yeah... I couldn't, like, afford the nicer dorms, you know." Amy was already slipping back into her "civilian" manner of speech, which Starla actually preferred. She made a mental note of the differences: Arch Cherie was a bossy nag with an attitude, but Amy was a sweet valley girl. The mask seemed to make all the difference.

"So is your room mate nice?"

Amy dropped her stuff on the bed that was farthest from the door. The dorm room was quite small, very typical and exactly the way that Starla had always envisioned that a college dorm room would look like. It had a light colored linoleum floor and light brick walls. Amy's room mate had done up her side of the room in deep, rich colors. Her two walls were covered with posters of various heavy metal screamo band that Starla honestly couldn't stand to listen to herself.

She couldn't help but wonder how much of a choice Arch Cherie--Amy-- had had in choosing her own room mate. It didn't seem as if they had much in common. The thought of Arch Cherie at a heavy metal concert, head banging and moshing, was about as realistic as a hippo taking a penguin into its custody--and just as hilarious. But then again, maybe it was exactly what Amy was into. Starla was suddenly saddened at the thought of how little she knew about any of her team mates. The only one who's actual name she had known before today was Maverick, and that was only because she didn't bother keeping her identity a secret from the public.

Her gaze drifted over the dorm room as Amy puttered about, doing this or that and saying something about something that suddenly didn't quite matter so much anymore.

Starla studied Amy's side of the room. At first glance, it appeared to be undecorated and completely un-lived in. But as she studied things further, she noticed a few tell tale signs that Amy--and Arch Cherie lived there.

Her bed was made, unlike her room mate's, but it was obviously done hastily. Starla couldn't help but wonder what time it was exactly that Amy had rushed out of the dorm room. Had she instantly become Arch Cherie? Or, had she simply been running late for class and in a hurry to get to some other building on campus?

There was a small metal night stand sitting there next to Amy's bed, and Starla noted that Arch Cherie's communication device was thrown upon the top of it and covered half heartedly with a few papers. It didn't seem as if she had put much effort at all into hiding it. Did her room mate know about her extracurricular activities after all?

No... she couldn't. There was no way. Arch Cherie had been adamant about hiding her identity and keeping it safely protected from the public. She valued her private life. But then, she had told Starla her name just now, and had willingly brought her co-worker into her private domain without having been asked at all. Perhaps there was more to the older girl than Starla had originally though. How hopelessly cliche. Once again, the amateur underdog was underestimating (overestimating?) her team mates and was being proven hopelessly wrong.

Starla stepped about the room, being careful to not trip over the few things strewn about on the floor or to disrupt anything in the room. She was a bit worried that if she were to disturb anything that this careful scenario would shatter and she would suddenly be stuck high and dry with an angry--and deadly--Arch Cherie.

"So where's your room mate?" She asked, hoping to initiate some sort of conversation because the silence was beginning to grate on her nerves.

Amy shrugged. "No idea. Class or some club or something. She's really busy."

She was currently kneeling beneath a small desk, plugging in her laptop and messing with some wires there. Starla didn't need to be a super genius to figure out that she was stalling. She found that she didn't quite mind. Whatever it was that they were going to end up talking about, it was certainly something that she didn't quite want to think about.

She distracted herself once again by looking around the dorm room. She walked slowly over to Amy's as of yet un-named room mate's bed and studied the things that were there. There were several large books that were sitting stacked next to it on the floor, and she was intimidated by the hefty volumes until she realized they were all seven of the Harry Potter books. There, stacked in order from top to bottom were Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half- Blood Prince, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, along with the two "extra" books in the series: Magical Creatures and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages. Next to them, in a separate stack that seemed to contradict the youthful literature sitting next to it was a large volume containing the complete works of William Shakespeare, the complete works of Edgar Allen Poe, and the Complete Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, whatever that was.

Honestly, what was this girl studying?

Starla couldn't find any sort of text books whatsoever and the only sort of books that she could find were all of a similar sort of discord. Near the foot of her bed sat D'Aulere's Complete Book of Greek Mythology. Stacked on top of that large book were the DC Comic's Encyclopedia, first and second editions, and the Marvel Comics Encyclopedia, as well as the Complete Guide to Batman, and The Killing Joke. Next to those, in another stack (clearly this Amy's room mate had never heard of something called a book shelf before) was every single book in CS Lewis' The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe series. In yet another stack by the foot of the bed were several books detailing the histories of various presidents of the United States of America, and a few political commentary books.

It was rather astounding at how many books this girl had managed to cram into such a small space.

Starla knelt down, curious as to what could possibly be hiding beneath this enigma's bed, and discovered yet more books. She squinted at the under the bed sort of darkness, trying to read the titles.

There were so many books. She was able to make out the titles of only a few, and was still astounded at the range of reading materials that this un-named room mate had. She was able to read the titles of such ridiculous books as Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand/The Splendor and Misery of Bodies, of Cities, What To Do When Your Relatives from Mars Visit Unexpectedly, and "Uncle Dick" Wootton, the pioneer frontiersman of the Rocky Mountain region: An account of the adventures and thrilling experiences of the most noted American ... now living (Classics of the Old West).

The strains of some sort of orchestral rock opera type of song came on.

"Who's this?"

Amy glanced over at her from her spot by her lap top. "It's Panic at the Disco."

"Oh...yeah?" Starla said uncomittedly. She didn't want to admit that she had never actually listened to the highly popular band. "Which song is this again?"

"'There's a Good Reason These Tables Are Numbered Honey, You Just Haven't Thought of It Yet.'"

"Oh."

They stood there, staring at each other.

Clearly, this was going no where.