Summary: They've got the best computers and coffee and smack.

Byers was definitely in a better mood Wednesday morning. At least two hours of last night had verged on a religious experience, and he was feeling a lot more relaxed. As Langly pushed him against the wall of the shower and shoved deeply into him, he was willing to concede that the Frog was a prank, the Wal-Mart truck was a coincidence, the Blue Thing was just smoke, the lake monster was, well, a snake eating a turtle, maybe, or a conger eel. Something not worth worrying about, in any event. He braced himself against the cool tiles with a forearm and pushed back into Langly's thrusts.

"Oh, God…" Langly groaned. "So good…"

Byers was in full agreement, but couldn't express any sentiment more complicated than soft moans. He was almost sorry when Langly's grasp on his cock tightened, knowing orgasm wasn't far off. He enjoyed the fleeting moments on the edge of that abyss almost as much as he enjoyed the freefall of climax itself.

Then it was over, and he stood panting under the hot water, Langly half-supporting him. Langly grinned, way too perky for the hour. "Let's get some coffee. Today's gonna be a good day."

"Just as long as we don't spot any more lake monsters or dead people."

"Or Blue Things."

"Those either."

"I wonder if there's a Starbucks somewhere in this godforsaken town."

"It'd be pretty newsworthy if there isn't."

**

Jimmy spent breakfast cheerfully speculating on who or what they might run into today. Byers did his best to not let it dent his mood. Langly's hand in his lap under the table seemed to help. If Jimmy (or for that matter the waiter) noticed Langly's peculiarly single-handed eating style, he gave no sign of it.

Byers reflected again on how easily Langly could make him stupid. Then Langly gave him the lopsided grin he'd never grown tired of. He handed Jimmy some money and stood abruptly, knowing only the van lay between Langly and a PDA of world-class proportions.

"I'm going to check the equipment. Meet you outside," he said, trying very hard to ignore Jimmy's knowing grin as Langly followed him out. Byers thought of Jimmy's knowing grin as a threshold for the knowing grins of the rest of the world.

Jimmy was a nice guy, but, to be perfectly honest, he wasn't, well, he just wasn't that bright. So when Jimmy caught something, you could pretty much assume the rest of the world had already reeled it in, gutted and fried it. Jimmy's knowing grin represented the knowing grins of thousands of people with room temperature IQs or higher. It could be… embarrassing.

Langly was nanoseconds away from wearing John's suit, with him still in it, by the time they got to the van.

"What is with you lately?" Byers demanded.

Langly shrugged. "I guess weirdness just makes me horny."

Byers covered his face. "I'm going to have to keep you off with a stick."

"It'd be easier if you'd just come on over to the Dark Side, baby."

Byers did, for a few minutes anyway, but when they heard Jimmy approaching, he reverted to the Forces of Good. "Grab the maps, will you? Let's see what we have today."

**

"Good reporter or bad reporter?"

"What?" J. Wayne asked.

"It's your story. You wanna be good reporter or bad reporter?"

J. Wayne glanced at his neat suit, and then at Frohike's customary leather look. "I'd probably better be the good reporter."

Frohike laughed. "You got it. Ring the bell, kid."

They waited a minute, and then tried again. After what seemed an interminable wait, a short, fat man with a gin blossom and a bad cold opened the door and shot J. Wayne a wary look. "I'm pretty happy with my own religion, okay?"

Frohike shoved rudely past him. "Hey, that's great, who cares. We're the press."

J. Wayne followed him inside. "I'm sorry, Mr. Payter? We had an appointment? I'm Wayne Arthur, and this is my associate. We spoke on the phone?"

Payter seemed to relax a little, and Frohike hid a grin.

"Oh, yeah, I remember. Now, you said you weren't with Powder Keg anymore?" He gestured vaguely at what apparently was the carcass of a lumbering tartan beast of some variety. Frohike flashed a look at J. Wayne, and remained standing. It helped with the menace, he'd found.

J. Wayne, less than delighted, sat gingerly on the edge, not all that sure if it was going to collapse under him—or move, for that matter.

"No, sir, I'm not. At the moment, I'm working with the Lone Gunman Group." That sounded faintly ominous, despite J. Wayne's polite tone. Frohike's amusement grew. The kid was a natural.

"Oh." Payter seemed to want to ask a question about that, but kept it to himself.

Frohike seemed to be making him nervous, which was, after all, the point. Even the most cooperative witness, when dealing with the fringe press, didn't quite take them seriously. The vague air of menace and secrecy made people less inclined to treat them like some goofy tabloid.

Not to mention the fact that lying to the media seemed to be hardwired into the human psyche. It could be kind of depressing, really.

"Well," Payter said with an uneasy half-laugh. "What do you want to know?"

"For starters," J. Wayne began, "I'm curious about the metal you sent me. Where exactly did it come from?"

Payter shrugged and looked away, which Frohike figured meant a lie was coming. He cleared his throat, but didn't say anything.

Payter focused on him for a split second, and then looked at J. Wayne again. He coughed a little, and sat down. "Maury. It was… just, sitting there, right? In a little pile. About a half-dozen pieces."

Frohike cleared his throat again and narrowed his eyes.

Payter stood up abruptly and went into the next room. J. Wayne glanced at Frohike, who gestured him to stay where he was. Payter returned with a wad of Kleenex. "Sorry. I got this summer cold."

J. Wayne smiled sympathetically. "I know how those are. What I'm mostly wondering is why the metal was still there. My understanding is that Maury was examined pretty thoroughly."

Payter gave a weasely smile. "I guess they missed it."

Frohike kept his sigh to himself and concentrated on projecting an air of disbelief. Not hard at all, under the circumstances.

J. Wayne let it go for the moment. "Did you take all the pieces?"

"Just a couple."

That seemed damned unlikely, in Frohike's considered opinion, and J. Wayne didn't look like he was buying it either. They waited. Eventually Payter felt compelled to fill the silence.

"I mean, I did, but I don't have them anymore. I mean, not with me."

The man was obviously lying. The most likely possibility was that he hoped to sell them the other pieces, but it could be something else.

J. Wayne frowned. "Can we go look at where you found them?"

Payter hesitated. "Sure, I guess. I mean, if I can remember. I'm not sure I can, though…"

Frohike pulled himself off the wall he was leaning against. "This is a load of crap. We're wasting our time here, and we've got other appointments to keep."

At about this point, Langly would have said something like "What other appointments" and Byers would have given that nervous chuckle he did when he was trying to lie, and he would have said something lame like "You know, the appointments". Then he would have stood up, blushing slightly, and said something like "Sorry to have—"

"Sorry to have taken up your time, Mr. Payter," J. Wayne said, standing up. "We'll be on our way now."

Frohike figured odds-on the guy would spill before they got to the door, but he didn't. He was still looking undecided and anxious, though, so they might have to try back in a couple days to see if he'd rethought.

J. Wayne was humiliated and disappointed when they got back into the rental and pulled away. "God, I can't believe I dragged you all the way across the country for this! I swear he was helpful before, I don't know what's wrong with him. God, I'm sorry, Mel."

"Relax, kid. He'll spill. It's just going to take a couple of days. In the meantime, let's see if we can get out to Maury with a metal detector, okay?"

J. Wayne slumped in the passenger seat, looking miserable. "Sorry."

"Don't worry about it. He's not our only way into this thing, okay? You figure out how to get us to Maury, and I'll get in touch with our contacts here. The UFO groups in the area will be buzzing. I know some of the people, and they'll talk." He glanced across at the kid. "It's not a dead end, okay? Someone talked to him before we got there. Probably our Men In Black."

J. Wayne looked up. "How do you know that?"

"He had four coffee cups on the table. Three of them were full, and cold. The creamer had skinned. I don't figure him for a regular entertainer."

He thought about it and nodded eventually. "You're right. I didn't notice that. Do you think he'll still talk to us, though? If they threatened him?"

"He's got your cell number."

"Yeah."

"He'll call by Saturday. If not, we'll go see him again Sunday. And you'll wear a gray suit, okay?"

J. Wayne glanced at his black jacket and pants and colored slightly. "Oh."

Frohike laughed. "Let's get back to the hotel."

**

J. Wayne managed to find a charter boat that would take them out to Maury the next morning, and a store that would rent them a decent metal detector. Frohike found himself amazed again at what money could do. It wasn't like they ever had much to play with themselves, so he hadn't had much opportunity to see it at work.

Without J. Wayne, they'd have spent three hours searching electronics stores for cheap components so he could make one, or waiting for the boys to get here with the van and the one they already had. They'd also have had to take a ferry and spend a lot of time trying to get out to the actual site, assuming it was even accessible by roads, which from the maps didn't look too likely. They needed to be on the beach, and the best way to get there was a boat.

Frohike had arranged to drop by the offices of one of his local contacts, and on the way he filled J. Wayne in. "This is WETHR Front. They're probably the biggest state-based UFO group in this neck of the woods, certainly the biggest in Washington. I've worked with a lot of these guys. They don't publish news on their own, they're strictly a research-and-book group. So they come to us with stories, sometimes. We dig out the story together, we print it as news, and later they write the books. It's a pretty good system."

J. Wayne nodded. "Okay. What's the name mean?"

Frohike shrugged slightly. "Standard stupid acronym. Washington Extra-Terrestrial Humanoid Research Front."

J. Wayne smiled. "I've heard worse."

"CSICOP," Frohike grinned.

"I always kind of liked that one. FUFOR," J. Wayne offered.

"NARG."

"What's that one?"

"Nevada Aerial Research Group."

"NARG. Perfect."

"There are worse. COUD-I."

"Could I?"

"C-O-U-D-I. Collectors of Unusual Data-International. They publish Anomalous Thoughts."

"Anomalous Thoughts," J. Wayne tried it out. "That's not a bad name, I guess. Not everyone can be The Smoking Gun."

Frohike grinned at him. "You'd be surprised how many organizations are."

J. Wayne laughed. "You never told me how you guys came up with The Lone Gunman."

"Another time, maybe. The guy we're going to meet here, Tim Ellis, is an old friend of mine. Mulder introduced us about a million years ago. Don't tell him about the trace though, okay? Don't mention Payter or Rickson, not until we get the lay of the land." He shrugged. "By the way, if Payter calls you, tell him to go to a pay phone, inside someplace like a store, and call you back. Don't let him say too much on his line."

The kid nodded. "You think he's being listened to?"

"No sense taking chances. Someone knew he was talking."

"Okay. Do you trust this Ellis guy?"

"As much as I trust any UFO type," Frohike grinned. "They're all a little wacko. Anyhow, if we strike out here, we've got some other places to try, and some of them do publish news, so let's just keep the trace and the names to ourselves, okay?"

"In other words, don't get scooped."

Frohike laughed. "Being scooped is bad, in any context."

**

Frohike was greeted in traditional hail-fellow-well-met style, which seemed to amuse J. Wayne. Ellis in particular was delighted to see them. He looked J. Wayne up and down appreciatively. "You trade in Jimmy for a compact version?"

Frohike snickered. "The new model. This one is even smarter than he looks."

J. Wayne blushed furiously, and looked around the office, trying not to make eye contact with anyone. "Uh, you look busy," he offered lamely.

Ellis shrugged. "There's a lot going on out here this month. Every nutcase in the county is reporting sightings. Even a couple of sane people are too," he grinned. "Who's your source, Mel?"

"Not yet, Timmy. Let's see what you've got first."

Ellis grinned wider. "Bigfoot."

"Bullshit."

"No, really."

"Bigfoot is a hoax, Tim. Even you know that."

Ellis sniffed with mock contempt. "Bigfoot may very well be an extra-terrestrial, for your information." Frohike snorted, and Ellis shrugged. "Whatever he is or isn't, we've got sightings. We've had about a half-dozen CEIII reports with hairy humanoids."

Frohike sighed. "So, what, Bigfoot's chauffeuring the Little Green Men now?"

Ellis motioned them into his office. "Ix-nay on the GM-Lay. You want to get me burned in effigy by the True Believers?"

Frohike laughed. "Like it'd be the first time. C'mon, you've got more than a Bigfoot."

"Several Bigfoot. Bigfeet? Bigfoots?" Ellis sat behind his desk and thought about it. "Okay. I'm gonna do you a big favor. We really made out on that last book, so I guess we owe you."

"Damn straight."

Ellis picked up his phone and spoke into it. "Kip, call Ditsy Dottie and tell her I'm bringing some friends to see her, and get one of the kids to copy all the new crap from this month." He paused. "Yeah, okay. Thanks, Kip."

He hung up and Frohike raised an eyebrow. "Ditsy Dottie?"

"You'll love her. She's one of those who calls herself a 'selectee'."

Frohike sighed. "The-Universe-Is-A-Friendly-Place?"

Ellis cracked a smile. "You got it. So, Maury. We've got sightings, we've got photos. No video footage yet, but it's only a matter of time. We have contacts, missing time, and abductions being reported, and we have Men In Black wandering around the place. Have a seat."

"We hear three Men In Black," Frohike commented.

"Yeah, okay. Sunglasses and hats. Bow ties and a black car."

"What kind of car?"

Ellis rolled his eyes. "Reports vary. We've got, let's see…" He pulled out a file and sifted through it. "Oldsmobile, Beemer, Caddy, oh, here's a good one, station wagon."

"Black?" Frohike asked with polite disbelief.

"Of course. I'm not sure I buy this one, though. The reporter is a guy—well, he's not exactly a model of sanity."

"Unlike Ditsy Dottie," Frohike said dryly.

Ellis laughed. "She's—what you'd call local color."

"You're sending out interviewers?"

"Yes, of course. I know what your next question is, Mel. How many are refusing to talk after they report."

Frohike tapped his nose. "Bingo."

"A few, not many. We've had over a hundred twenty reports since mid-June—"

"A hundred twenty in less than a month? That sounds more like a wave than a flap, Tim."

Ellis winked at J. Wayne. "In Maryland, maybe. We have higher standards out here."

Frohike snorted. "If you're tryin' to impress the kid, don't bother. He doesn't know what the difference is. He's watchdog press, not ETH."

Ellis looked disappointed as J. Wayne blushed. He shrugged and explained. "Flap is a big to-do without much cause in the way of sightings. A wave is a big to-do with a high number of reporteds."

J. Wayne nodded. "Thanks."

"Anyway," Ellis continued, "we've had the usual set of statistics. Seventy percent of the callers fill out the forms we send them. Fifty percent of the callers agree to interviews. Nothing too different there. This time nine of those who agreed to interviews turned out to be unhelpful."

"Unhelpful?" J. Wayne asked.

"'Oh, it was a joke', 'I don't want to talk about it anymore', 'no one by that name here', etc. We usually get some of that. People get taunted by their family, friends, whatever, and decide not to go further with it. It happens. Out of a wave of a hundred, we'd probably get four of those. So, yeah, I'd say our friends with the sunglasses are having some effect, but not much. We've got…" he glanced through the file again, and stopped at a page in the back.

"Okay. We've had a hundred twenty-two sightings this window. So far. We get more every day. Ninety-one filled out the questionnaires we sent them. We called them back to set up interviews, and sixty-five agreed. Two of those later cancelled by phone, one made four appointments but was never home, the other six just refused to talk to our field investigators for various reasons. None of those cited MIB, of course. And nineteen of the interviews reported MIB visits."

A young man poked his head in the door without bothering to knock. "Dottie's making lunch, Tim," he said cheerfully.

Ellis laughed and stood up. "Come on, guys. You're going to love this. I'll run you over, you can leave your car here. They'll have the copies ready when we get back."

**

Dottie was a waif of a woman in a blue caftan and bare feet. She greeted them brightly, and instantly forgot their names. Frohike suspected the woman was absent-minded by long habit. She ushered them into the kitchen where she served them, with great ceremony, pancakes. With pink plastic Sporks.

"Pancakes for lunch?" Frohike asked.

"These are special pancakes," Dottie assured them. Everything that came out of her mouth seemed to be the victim of exclamation abuse. Frohike found himself wondering how on earth the woman decided which word to emphasize. It was a little like listening to Dr. Seuss Storytime. "I got the recipe from very special friends!"

Ellis was hiding a grin, and Frohike had a feeling he knew where this was about to go. "So when was the last time you heard from them, Dottie?" Ellis asked innocently.

"Three…" Dottie's face wrinkled and she sucked on her finger for a second, thinking. "Four, three, no, two! Two nights ago. Sunday night." She seemed pleased to be able to pin it down.

"It's Wednesday, Dottie."

"Well, last Wednesday, then."

"No, Dottie. I mean today is Wednesday. Sunday night was three days ago. But that's okay, Dottie. It doesn't really matter exactly what day. What'd they say this time?"

Dottie beamed, excited. "We're nearing a time of great importance!" she said proudly. "This window is only the beginning! They want us to understand. They want to help!"

Frohike stifled a sigh and took a bite of pancake to cover his annoyance and embarrassment as Dottie babbled on. He really hated these types. He knew enough about the ETEs to know that they weren't looking to commune with Earthlings in the interests of peace and love.

The pancake turned out to be a mistake, though. It was almost exactly as light and flavorful as plywood. No butter or syrup had been offered, which was a shame, because it was about the only thing that'd help him choke down the five Frisbees on his plate. Ellis' grin was just short of demonic. The man was going to hear about this.

"You're not eating!" Dottie suddenly interrupted herself to say to them. "This is a special recipe I got from my special friends!"

"The aliens gave you a pancake recipe," Frohike said leadenly.

She frowned at him. "Reticulans. And yes, they certainly did. I was on my way home from the library one night—"

"She works there," Ellis explained.

"—and I hadn't yet had dinner, I was running so late. We'd just had a huge shipment of new travel books I had to sort and code, and it was all so interesting I sort of lost track of time."

Imagine that, Frohike thought, but he didn't say anything.

"Now usually," she said with creepy sincerity, "they come for me when I'm already in bed, but since I was running so very late, they turned up while I was at the bus stop, and of course I knew I wouldn't get home until the next morning. But since I'd skipped lunch, and I hadn't had dinner, I begged them for something to eat, and they made me pancakes. They gave me some to bring home, and then the next day the commander dictated the recipe to me while I was on my lunch break."

"That's very interesting," J. Wayne contributed, trying as hard as he could to be polite. "Would it be okay for you to share the recipe?"

She beamed at him. "Of course, young man, I've forgotten your name…"

"Wayne, ma'am."

"And so polite!" She cast a momentary glare at Frohike, and Ellis broke into a coughing fit.

"Sorry, sorry," he managed. "Dottie, can I have some water?"

"Oh, of course. And I'll get you the recipe, Wendell, you said? I like to keep copies of it for when people ask. People can really be so intrigued by the Reticulans, don't you think? But it's only natural. They're so fascinating…" She rambled on in that fashion as she went to the sink to get Ellis some water.

The look Frohike gave him would have burned chalk. Ellis fought down more laughter.

"Did you ask the commander about the cattle mutilations, Dottie?" Ellis asked once he could talk again.

"Cattle mutilations are bad karma. They have nothing to do with that," she said firmly. "It's the government trying to frighten people into thinking the Reticulans are a threat to us."

J. Wayne nodded. "That makes sense. Thank you for this," he waved the recipe card slightly. "They don't use salt?"

Dottie shook her head emphatically. "Salt is terribly bad for you. The commander told me they never use it."

Dottie spent the next three hours detailing her history as a "selectee", explaining the vaguely optimistic pronouncements made by the commander and the Reticulans, and pontificating on how to make the perfect flavorless pancake that weighed about the same as a manhole cover. Between topics, she patted J. Wayne on the head and praised him like a puppy, and glared at Frohike.

Ellis excused himself several times to make calls, which Frohike figured was just a blatant ruse to let him dash out to the car to laugh himself sick.

It was nearly four when they finally escaped from Dottie's Interstellar House of Pancakes. Frohike didn't say anything until they were about halfway back to the offices. Then he turned to Ellis and commented blandly, "Thanks, Jim. I owe you."

Ellis laughed the rest of the way back, then he helped carry boxes of the documents out to their rental. "Where's your bus?" he asked curiously. "The boys got it?"

"Yeah, they're driving out. With Jimmy," he added.

Ellis jerked his head at J. Wayne. "He's not your new copy?"

Frohike shrugged. "Freelance. He just quit Powder Keg."

"Assholes," Ellis offered casually. "Keep in touch, Mel. We should have more for you tomorrow, and I'll be interested to see what you make of all this."

Frohike nodded. "We've got some people to talk to. We'll holler when we've got something."

**

With each mile that passed and nothing weird happened, Byers felt his optimism for the trip return. Jimmy seemed faintly disappointed that they didn't meet anyone else they knew, but Byers didn't mind.

The call to Frohike was distracted, since they were immersed in the material Ellis had given them. Byers was philosophical about Payter. "He'll come around," he predicted.

"He wants to talk," Frohike agreed. "Where are you guys stopping tonight?"

They'd decided on a good-sized town that, it turned out, was holding some sort of corn-oriented festival. It was a nice evening and people seemed to be gathered in a park in the town center. As they walked across the street between the hotel and the restaurant, they could hear the strains of a brass band playing.

"Corn Days," Langly muttered. "Yokels."

Byers smiled. "No Wal-Mart though."

Langly snickered. "True."

It wasn't exactly a backwoods, though, as the hostess told them they'd probably have a fifteen minute wait for a table. Byers smiled, Jimmy shrugged, and Langly, not one for sitting still, disappeared to check his email.

**

Langly locked the door behind him and turned past a semi in the darkening parking lot, to find himself face to face, or face to plush mask, anyway, with a guy in a Mickey Mouse costume. At least he hoped it was a costume, or maybe two, in that Mickey seemed to be in pirate drag.

Presumably this was some kind of fallout from Corn Days, though he had no idea where any of it fit in, especially in Montana. "What's with the pirate getup?" he asked, curious. "We're landlocked, right?"

Mickey cocked his head to one side, tipped his hat, tapped his eye patch with one gloved finger, and gestured Langly closer.

"The parrot have a name?" Langly asked, taking the necessary steps towards him, and that was pretty much the last thing he remembered for a while.

**

Byers was shaking him, which hardly seemed fair, since he'd just barely gotten to sleep. And of course Byers had swiped all the blankets again. And, come to think of it, this bed wasn't very—Oh.

He opened his eyes, one at a time, as slowly as possible, giving the universe ample time to decide he wasn't laying on the pavement of a parking lot on the Montana border. The universe was its usual compliant self, in that that's exactly where it decided he should be.

He sat up, groaning. Something fell off his chest and clunked onto the ground beside him. Jimmy picked it up. It made a pathetic lowing noise, and they all stared at it.

"It's a cow-in-a-can," Jimmy said, baffled. "You know. You turn it over and it moos."

Byers blinked, and dismissed it for the moment. "Are you okay, Ri? What happened?"

"Did anybody get the name of that… mouse?" he asked helplessly.

Byers' look of irritated concern got a lot less irritated and a lot more concerned. "What mouse? Are you okay?"

Langly sighed and leaned against Byers. "A Mickey Mouse in a pirate costume sucker-punched me."

Jimmy stared. "Maybe he has a concussion or something. Do you know your name, Langly? How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Jimmy…" Byers ran his fingers over Langly's head, looking for lumps. "Ri? Do you think you need a doctor?"

Langly shook his head cautiously. "I just want to lay down, okay?"

Byers shrugged slightly, reserving judgment until they had some light. "On your feet, then. Jimmy, help me get him back to the room."

Jimmy picked him up by his shoulders and stood him on his feet, half-pushing him along behind Byers. Langly didn't complain, which worried Byers a little. He flipped the light switch and turned to look at his lover. "Lay down, I'll get a damp cloth. Your cheek is puffy. Somebody hit you?"

Langly slumped onto the bed. "Not somebody, Mickey Mouse." He glared at Jimmy. "Put that fucking thing down, will ya?"

Jimmy put down the cow-in-a-can, looking faintly abashed. "Are you sure you didn't trip over this?"

Langly sighed gustily. "Yes, I'm sure. A Mickey Mouse in a pirate costume decked me."

Byers came back with the washcloth and applied it to Langly's cheekbone. Langly hissed in pain and pulled back.

"Maybe we should get you to a doctor, Ri."

"Oh, yes, please," Langly said with trenchant sarcasm. "Let's find a doctor and tell him I got clocked by a big mouse. That's probably pretty common here, do you think? I don't think he'd laugh for, you know, much more than an hour or so, before he called the cops."

Jimmy blinked a little. "Maybe we should call the police."

Byers shook his head. "There's no point. We don't want to call attention to ourselves."

"I hate the fucking police," Langly muttered.

"We didn't do anything wrong," Jimmy insisted. "Why does it matter if they know who we are?"

"Jimmy, with what we do—it's really just better if we stay off the radar as much as we can. Our visibility is high enough, and we don't want to make it worse if there's no need. Besides, if they found him, we'd have to stay here while they took the report, and maybe a lineup—"

Langly interrupted. "Yeah, that'd be fun. 'Can you pick out the mouse that popped you one, sir? You're sure it's not the one with the cape? How about the short white one with the tall friend? He was plotting world domination earlier.'"

Byers came close to laughing. He stepped on the impulse and continued to try to explain. "—And we'd end up coming back for a trial, possibly."

Langly grunted. "Yeah, that'd look good in the local papers. 'DC Journalist Testifies Against Pirate Mouse In Assault'. No thanks. Anyway, I don't need anybody deciding I'm crazy. There's enough people out there who want our heads. Let's not give 'em them on a silver platter, okay? No fucking reports, no fucking doctors, and no fucking cops."

Byers sighed. "Jimmy, why don't you go see if you can get us some dinner for take-out." Once the door had closed, he sat next to Langly. "Does your head hurt?"

"Not really. Just my face." Langly seemed mildly disappointed at not being able to make a dramatic bid for sympathy over it. He shrugged. "Just where he thumped me."

"Someone in a Mickey Mouse costume?"

"Yeah. And a pirate costume."

Byers leaned in to check his eyes. They seemed okay. "I think I may need a little more explanation. There were two of them?"

"No." Langly half-sat up, taking the washcloth away. "The guy was wearin' a Mickey Mouse costume, but it had, like, a pirate hat, and an eye patch, and a sword, okay?" He closed his eyes. "And a stuffed parrot on his shoulder."

"In Montana? It's landlocked. Maybe some kind of weird Corn Days thing, I guess. But why would he hit you?"

"Beats me. It's not like he said anything. He just threw a punch at me."

"And then he gave you a cow-in-a-can."

Langly shrugged slightly. "I don't remember that part. I guess so."

Byers chewed on his lower lip, and gently pulled a twig out of Langly's hair. "You must have been out for about twenty minutes, you know. I'd really feel a lot better if you'd see a doctor."

"No way," Langly said firmly. "No fucking way. Not after the last time you made me see a doctor." He opened his eyes and found himself staring at John's intently concerned expression. Langly felt a little guilty. He grabbed John's hand where it was anxiously twisting his long hair, and brought it to his mouth for a kiss.

"It wasn't that long, anyway. I was on my way back when it happened. I'm okay, Johnny," he said softly. "It's okay. I promise."

Byers sighed. "I worry."

The kiss had turned into something with a little more tongue. "I know," Langly mumbled into his fingers.

"Ri, for God's sake," Byers said, exasperated. He tried to pull his hand away but Langly held on.

"You're so worried," Langly suggested slyly, "you could give me some first aid."

Byers pulled him close and held him tightly, still caught between worry and relief. "You need a doctor."

"Nah. I need…" he grinned, "the kiss of life."

Byers sighed again. "You need a straightjacket," he muttered into the straw-blond hair.

Langly twisted in his arms and latched onto his neck. Byers just knew he was going to leave a mark. "What the hell am I supposed to do with you?"

"I can think of some things." Byers could feel Langly grinning.

Byers had known him long enough that he could guess at a few of them, and he was also pretty sure that none of the things Langly had in mind involved Jimmy coming in with a couple of bags of food, which is in fact what happened next.

Byers pulled discreetly away and tried to straighten his collar, but from the way Jimmy was carefully not staring, he had a feeling the mark was still visible.

"It's burgers and stuff, okay? You didn't say what you wanted."

Byers nodded. "That's fine. Thank you, Jimmy." He took the bag Jimmy was holding out and set it on the table. "We'll see you in the morning, all right?"

"Sure thing." Jimmy moved closer and lowered his voice to what he probably thought of as a whisper. "You know you gotta keep an eye on him, right? Wake him up every couple hours in case he's got a concussion. Or he could die. That's what happens when a guy gets tagged like that."

Langly, behind them, made a noise that didn't sound exactly like "Thank you so much for the excellent advice," and Byers sighed. "He's okay, Jimmy. I'll make sure. See you in the morning."

Jimmy went next door, and Byers turned around to see Langly rolling his eyes.

"He means well," Byers commented.

Langly rooted through the bag. "Shame he doesn't think well."

Getting put down by a cartoon character didn't seem to have dented Langly's appetite at all, and Byers cautiously concluded he was probably all right.

Langly looked up. "Get your ass over here or I'll eat yours too, okay?" Byers hesitated, and Langly grinned. "Relax, Johnny. I'm not gonna bite you. Not till after dinner, anyway."

Byers sighed and shook his head. "Do you think some aspirin would help?"

Langly shrugged. "Couldn't hurt."

"All right. Did he bring any drinks?"

"Couple cans of Coke. Must've hit the vending machine."

"Well, he's thinking, at least," Byers said, taking the washcloth and disappearing into the bathroom for the aspirin.

"Yeah, he put 'em in on top. Crushed the hamburgers."

Byers came back and handed him the washcloth again. "Here. Hold this to your face. The big mouse that hit you may have disappeared, but you're going to have one where it hit you in the morning. Keep the cloth on it, and maybe the swelling will go down."

"Very funny," Langly grumbled.

Byers rubbed his shoulder and handed him the aspirin. "Take these, okay? You're sure your head doesn't hurt."

"Just my face." He glanced at Byers. "It's worse when I talk. Maybe you should see if you can keep me quiet."

Byers let out an explosive half-laugh. "Short of a gag…"

"Kinky, John."

Byers shook his head, but finally smiled. "You definitely need your head examined, you know that? Every time something like this happens, you're all over me."

Langly grinned. "It ain't just weirdness that makes me horny."

"No, it's practically everything."

"No, really. I've given this some thought. I think I don't have that fight-or-flight reflex they talk about. I think I have the flight-or-fuck one."

Byers pulled him close again and rubbed his back. "It's a good thing we're keeping you out of the gene pool, then."

"Make love, not war." Snickering. "Wouldn't it be a better world if everybody was like me?"

Byers' eyes widened in horror, or something closely akin to it. "Ri, if everybody was like you, I'd be dead of exhaustion by now."

"I don't share."

"You don't play very well with others, either," Byers observed.

"You don't think so?" Langly was doing his best to persuade with one hand, until he finally let go of the washcloth and went for it with both hands.

"Jesus!" Byers yelped. "That's cold!"

Langly laughed. "Let me warm you up."

"For God's sake…"

"Hey, what if Jimmy's right and I die from brain damage or something? You want to have refused my last request?"

"You must have brain damage. I can't imagine any other reason you'd suggest Jimmy was right about anything." He regarded his lover for a long moment with the serious blue eyes. "I don't think so. You got hit pretty hard, even I can tell that." He pulled Langly's head close again, carefully, and held him against his chest. "I think you need to just sleep, Ri."

Langly knew better than to whine. It wouldn't change John's mind. And besides, it wasn't unpleasant to have John's arms around him like this. It just wasn't—everything he wanted right now. But there were ways to get what he wanted, even if he didn't have The Pout working for him. So he forced himself to relax and kissed John's chest gently, sighing. "I'm okay, Johnny. Really."

Some of the tension went out of Byers. "I worry." He played with Langly's hair. "Listen, Ri, maybe I should get Jimmy over here to keep an eye on you—" Langly made a noise that wasn't wholly in sympathy with the plan, but Byers continued, "—and I'll go check things out at this festival. See if I can find your mouse."

"No thanks. Keep Jimmy the hell away from me."

Byers almost chuckled. "Are you afraid you won't be able to control yourself?"

Langly snorted. "Fuck the mouse, John. It's not like we'd press charges if you find him."

Byers shook his head. "I just don't like not knowing why this happened. This morning I thought someone might be following us. It worries me."

Langly's eyes narrowed. He'd noticed that too, but hadn't said anything. He decided on a distraction. "Listen, I'm gonna take a shower. Maybe it'll help." He stood up and swayed slightly, careful not to overdo it.

Byers grabbed him. "Hang on, you're going to fall over. You need to sleep, Ri. You can shower in the morning."

Langly shook his head. "My back's sore. I need a shower, Johnny."

Byers met his eyes, and then sighed heavily. "You win," he said in resignation. "Let's go take a shower." He glared at Langly. "But I want it on the record that I know exactly what you're up to, Ringo."

Langly struggled for innocent. "What?"

Byers shook his head. "Asshole."

"Very nice, John."

"Come on." Byers led him into the small bathroom and helped him strip.

Langly could see him searching his body for any signs he'd been hurt elsewhere. Some of the guilt returned. "He just pegged me, John. I'm okay."

"You said your back was sore," Byers said suspiciously, turning him around. "You must have hit the ground pretty hard."

Langly shrugged again. "I guess so. I just need a hot shower."

The stumble he made getting into the shower wasn't faked, but it was easier to let Byers think it was. There was a fine line between a Byers sympathetic enough to go along with what Langly wanted and a Byers so worried there was no arguing with him.

Letting Byers think he was exaggerating a genuine injury was usually just the right note, though the shower might have been a giveaway. Playing innocent could be hard when you were, well, hard. He followed John's eyes and grinned lopsidedly.

"Told you I'm fine."

Byers sighed and rubbed his neck. Langly leaned into it. "You're not fine. You're deranged. Move over and soak your back. Your shoulder looks like it got the worst of it."

Langly twisted his neck to see. "It's kinda red, isn't it."

"Yes," Byers sighed again. "Did he say anything to you?"

"Nope. He just laid me out."

"I'm starting to wonder if this whole thing was a mistake. Frohike says Payter isn't talking anymore."

Langly glanced at him. "The MIB visit?"

"Probably," Byers admitted. "Fro thinks he'll talk sooner or later. But this whole trip just has me… on edge."

Langly shrugged a little tiredly. "It's been weird, hasn't it."

Byers shook his head. "I'll say." He supported Langly under the hot water for a few minutes. "Feel better?"

"Yeah." Langly nodded. "I needed this."

"I know." Byers smiled. "'Fuck the mouse'?"

Langly laughed. "Fuck the mouse."

"Ri?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you eat all the fries, or just most of them?"

"Just most of 'em. And I expect to be rewarded for my restraint."

Byers sighed again. "Do I get to eat dinner before you fuck me into exhaustion?"

Langly grinned in triumph. "Anything you want, babe."

**

"I hate this town," Frohike commented idly on the way back from a very late dinner. It had taken several hours for the pancakes to settle.

"It's not, technically, raining."

"Marble-sized hailstones. Even in July, I'd be using an umbrella."

"I think they might actually be illegal here."

"Yeah, okay. That wouldn't surprise me. Still."

They gazed out the windshield at a green-haired woman in a short skirt, flannel shirt and Birks, standing on the sidewalk, waiting for a crosswalk signal. If she'd noticed the unusual weather, she gave no sign of it.

"It's not like there's even any traffic!"

J. Wayne shook his head. "I don't think I've ever seen anyone jaywalk in this city." He let it go. "What book did you guys do with WETHR Front?"

"We've done two. The first one was the hoaxed crop circles in Kennewick. It wasn't very popular. Then, about two years ago, we helped them with one about the wave around Hanford in '97."

J. Wayne glanced at him. "Nuclear Interests?"

"Done your homework."

"Uh, yeah. I didn't know that was you guys."

"It wasn't, really. We did a series on it, brought in a pile of new readers for us. Got us some contacts in the anti-nuke groups. That's really as far as it went for us. After that we turned the research over to Ellis' bunch and stepped away."

"You don't get anything out of the books?"

Frohike shrugged. "We don't make a lot of money. We're too busy getting stories to worry about the accounting, mostly."

J. Wayne just shook his head. "Fighting the good fight. That's what it's all about for you."

Frohike smiled in the streetlights, the look of a man at ease with his work in a very strange world. "Jim Hightower calls himself an agitator. You know what an agitator is? It's the thing in the washing machine that gets all the dirt out. Sometimes I think that's what we are."