“I have to be honest, I’m not entirely comfortable with you taking off so quickly,” Riley told Anya as she returned to the conference room and told Pan they were taking off.

“Well I’m a lot less comfortable with staying here while that masked guy is getting people to flock to him,” Anya replied.

“Bad guy?” Pan asked.

“Dunno yet, little guy,” Anya said and shrugged. She glanced at Riley, then frowned. The agent had been far kinder and more accommodating to her than she had any reason to expect. He knew she was basically a walking explosion factory and he’d risked his own ass, literally and figuratively, by meeting her with nothing but coffee and donuts.

“Are you gonna get fired or arrested if you let me go?” Anya asked.

“Right now I’m mostly treating you like a witness. And like I said, nobody’s breathing down my neck about this, yet. But it’s possible I could catch a lot of hell for just letting you walk out, yeah,” Riley nodded. “And like I said, if I start thinking you’re a real threat, or I get specific orders, I’ll do what I gotta. I know you could probably bring this whole building down on my head, but if it comes to that, so be it. How about this: you’ve shown yourself to be somewhat reliable. You tell me you’ll be back here tonight for the meeting with the bigwigs, I’ll believe you.”

“I don’t wanna tell you how to live your life,” Ramierez said, “but I’d do it. Show them you can play ball, they might field you instead of sticking you on the bench. Y’know? Give them less reason to be scared. And I’ll vouch for you, if you need it.”

Anya puffed her cheeks out. The mere thought of a room full of high-level government officials——senators, generals, agency directors——made her sweat. It was like getting sent to the principal as a kid times a million. Worse was what might come after.

It’s inevitable, Anya thought. Riley knows, his boss knows or she will will soon enough. I can always just run away later like I was planning to here.

“All right. I’ll do my best,” Anya said. “I dunno if I’m gonna get ambushed by an alien or if I’m going to go see Helmet-Head from the TV, but I’ll plan on being back here. Where’s this meeting and what time?”

Riley’s sigh of relief was almost comical. “Meet me back on the roof at 7:30 tonight. And try not to get killed or eaten or anything.”

“I’ll do my best,” Anya smirked and shook Riley’s hand. She bid the agent and Ramierez good-bye for now, and then messaged Samaira and Gary from the V-187 as she and Pan took off. She opened a video window in her menu that called both at the same time. Gary’s opened at once and revealed the old man in front of a pile of scrap and machine parts. Samaira’s answered a moment later and showed a clear blue sky, her hair whipping behind her.

“Heya,” Gary said without looking up from whatever he was doing. A tiny robot scrambled over some junk behind him and began cutting a piece of metal off the fender of a rusted car with a laser on the side of its head. “What’s going on, kid?”

“Just got done meeting the FBI. A lot of stuff is happening,” Anya said as she piloted the V-187 towards Gary’s gray dot. She saw Samaira’s blue one on the same course.

“The guy on the TV?” Samaira shouted over the wind blowing past her. Anya guessed she must be riding Chandrali through the air.

“Yup,” Anya said. “Gary, we’re on our way to you right now. We’ll talk about it there.”

“Sounds good,” Gary said without glancing up and then cut his video feed. Samaira just nodded and then her screen went blank.

“Are things bad?” Pan asked from the backseat.

“They’re different,” Anya said. “Hey Felix, can you find the location of the first alien that entered the atmosphere?”

“I sure can! Boom!” Felix said and made finger-guns at the map that appeared to Anya’s side. The hundreds of red dots vanished until there was only one: it was directly over the northern side of Beijing. Anya recognized it as one of the two aliens that had murdered 23 hosts as of last night. One of the two most powerful aliens on the planet.

“Geez,” Anya sighed. “He had to pick that spot, huh?”

The alien had moved on since then, and as of last night it and a few other aliens trailing behind it were somewhere in central China. Still, Anya dreaded being in the same timezone as that thing, let alone the place it had first touched down.

But maybe that was why this Renn person had called hosts to meet there: to form a group big enough to take it on before it could get stronger.

The V-187 descended on a large lot filled with junked cars and piles of metal, old electronics, and other trash near the edge of the Bronx. She set down near where she saw Gary working, surrounded by a dozen tiny robots scuttling around and cutting pieces of scrap and carrying them to his truck. Chandrali laid across the hood of his truck, sunning herself at full-size while Samaira rubbed her belly. Gary waved as Anya landed, and Samaira glanced around before squinting at the location of the V-187.

“Did you tell him already?” Anya asked as she and Pan exited the stealth craft. Samaira nodded and Gary glanced up from what he was building. He had on some kind of mechanical gloves that had numerous tools sprouting from the fingers: welding lasers, lights, magnifying glasses, wire cutters, soldering iron, and other equipment Anya didn’t recognize. He was building another robot, this one some kind of arachnid shape and heavily armored.

“Somebody on the TV spilling the beans?” Gary asked.

“It was on the TV in the cafe I was waiting in,” Samaira said and stopped rubbing Chandrali. The saber-toothed cat looked up and huffed at Samaira. “Oh stop. You’ve had enough for now.”

“How was the FBI?” Gary asked. Anya laid out the basics of her meeting with Riley.

“They want us in front of a committee?” Samaira asked.

“Riley thinks it would be a good idea,” Anya said. “I’m inclined to agree, especially now. The average person probably won’t take that Renn guy at face value, but people in positions to know about what’s been going on, like government officials, probably will. Or at least they’ll believe part of what he’s saying. They may not believe it’s aliens, but they’ll probably buy that a bunch of powerful individuals are causing problems. That’ll be all they need to declare us enemies, unless we show them otherwise.”

“By walking right into their hands? No thank you, missy,” Gary said and shook his head as he attached a homemade mini-gun to what now looked like a robo-crab with guns for claws. Half a dozen tiny robots cut metal, melted it, and made bullets out of it and began loading belts of ammo into the armored gun-crab.

“Okay, but can you maybe see how normal people might see us as a threat?” Anya said and gestured at the small force of robots that all bristled with weapons. Gary looked around, then nodded and shrugged.

“Yeah. Fair,” he said. “But I’m not going in-person. I’ll send a representative.”

“I don’t think sending Sebastian the Killer Crab here in your place is a great idea, Gary,” Samaira said.

“Not that one, I’ll make another. Where was…ah! There we go,” Gary pointed at an old flatscreen TV with a crack in it and several of his servitor robots scurried over to it and brought it back to him. He set about fixing some of the wires in the back and attaching a slew of electronic components and wires and gears to it.

“Do we wanna go meet this guy?” Samaira asked Anya as Gary worked.

“He seems sketchy at best. Definitely got some super-villain vibes off him,” Anya replied. “Hell, all three of them. The guy in red looked like a mean Grim Reaper.”

“No kidding,” Samaira said. “Though if I’m being honest, you also look kinda scary in your armor.”

“What? No I don’t!” Anya said. “I look cool!”

“Eeeeh,” Samaira said and made a waggling gesture with her hand. “Half-and-half.”

“I think all of us are gonna look a little scary to anybody else,” Gary said. “Sam looks like a fairy princess or something, but her cat would’ve made me reach for my gun on sight.”

Chandrali flicked her tail and slapped Gary playfully in the back of the head with it. The old man ignored her save for a grunt and resumed his work.

“I’m not scary, am I?” Pan asked as he emerged from the V-187, a note of concern in his voice.

“Nah. Just very surprising to normal people,” Anya said. Pan nodded with obvious relief and clicked his claws together. He caught a few surprised looks from Samaira and Gary as he revealed himself, his new scales glittering in the sunlight, but neither said anything.

“If I book it, I can get to the meeting spot in China in a few hours or so. Then we can come back here for the committee meeting, assuming nothing goes wrong,” Anya said.

“Assumptions seem like bad ideas these days,” Gary said. He’d finished making his new robot. It was the height of a child, with skeletal metal arms and legs, and the flatscreen TV for its head. Gary took a cellphone out of his pocket, turned its camera on, and his face appeared on the robot’s screen.

“That’s kinda weird,” Samaira said.

“Don’t care. It works. Less threatening than the gun crab, though I think the government could use some threatening. They’re not the be-all, end-all they like to think they are.”

The gun-crab hummed to life and whirled its dual miniguns twice before it scuttled into the bed of Gary’s truck and powered down. The rest of the robots around the scrap yard also hurried into the back of the truck, many of them carrying hauls of parts. Gary threw the tarp over the bed and leaned against the side.

“My truck ain’t that fast. I’ll need another few minutes to boost the speed and keep it from flying apart at higher velocities. You willing to wait that long?” Gary asked.

“If it means we all stick together? Absolutely,” Anya said. “You both are fine with meeting Mr. Probably-A-Super-Villain?”

“Yeah. I have my reservations, but it’s obvious that teaming up with other hosts is the best way to not get killed by aliens, and you flying around yesterday wasn’t working out well until you ran into us,” Samaira said and Anya nodded. She had been wondering what the best way to find other hosts would be and could kick herself for not considering getting hosts to come to her. Even if the man in the gold mask wasn’t on the level, other hosts there might be.

Anya remembered she told Tori she’d meet her after the FBI, and called her friend. Tori picked up after one ring and Anya sighed when she heard her friend’s voice. It hadn’t even been a day, but she was surprised at how welcome the sound of a familiar voice was.

“Hey! Are you okay? Did they try to arrest you? Are you on the most wanted list? Did you punch any more cops?” Tori asked and Anya laughed at the excited, eager tone of her voice.

“I’m fine, no, no, and no,” Anya said. “That agent I told you about was very reasonable. He wants me and some others to maybe talk to his bosses and the heads of other agencies, some senators.”

“Whoa, you gonna do it?”

“Yeah, probably. He also mentioned wanting to talk to and possibly hire you as some kind of alien menu consultant,” Anya said.

Silence from Tori.

“Tori?”

“Sorry. They want to pay me? Not arrest me?” Tori asked.

“Sounded like it. Riley, the agent, said that people with first-hand experience around the menu and hosts are basically limited to the hosts themselves, Ramierez, and you. Now him too, but he said the government’s desperate for any input whatsoever. He knew about you already, but it doesn’t sound like he’s going to push you or anything.”

“And he seems okay?” Tori asked.

“Yeah. He got me coffee and donuts.”

“You are such a cheap date.”

“Guilty. You gonna meet him?”

“He’s at 26 Federal Plaza?” Tori asked. When Anya confirmed that he was, she said, “I’ll think about it. You still have to come save me if I get arrested though.”

“I know. I promise. Did you see the other hosts on the news?” Anya asked.

“Yeah. Kinda scary. People at work are talking about it a lot. Most of them think it’s a hoax, but a lot of others think it explains a lot of the crazy stuff that’s been happening. You going to meet them too?”

“That’s why I called. I’m sorry. I know I said I’d meet you after the FBI but…”

“Hey, no need to apologize. Things are beyond crazy right now. If you have a good chance to meet other hosts, figure out what’s going on, all that, you should do it. I’m still gonna be here, or maybe with this Agent Riley. It would give me a solid excuse to ditch work early.”

“Thank you, Tori. I promise I’ll make it up to you,” Anya sighed.

“You can introduce me to these other hosts you met. How’s Pan the Pangolin, by the way?”

“He turned himself into a copper disco ball that can summon golems,” Anya said. Tori squealed on the other end of the phone and then guffawed.

“Take a video! Or pictures! Or no, I want to see him in person!” Tori said and laughed again. Anya smiled and shook her head.

“I gotta go, I’ll talk to you later,” Anya said. Tori said good-bye and assured Anya that she’d keep her posted if she went to see Riley. Anya hung up and turned to Samaira, Gary, and Pan. Gary was tinkering on the ground under his truck while Samaira sat on the edge of a ruined van and petted Chandrali. Pan was idly moving pieces of earth around with small motions of his claws and hopping from one foot to the other in excitement as he did.

“It’s like super digging!” Pan said.

“You summon a golem yet?” Anya asked.

“No, I thought we would be leaving again soon and didn’t want to make one and then make it go away so soon,” Pan replied.

“Your friend okay?” Samaira asked.

“Probably doing the best out of all of us,” Anya said. “How’s the truck upgrade, Gary?”

“Almost done,” Gary said. He lowered a welding mask over his face, and then used a torch on the end of one of his mechanical gloves to weld something into place. He pushed himself out from under the truck with a grunt and got to his feet.

“That should do it. Mach-3 capable and it won’t fly apart once we get up to speed,” Gary nodded. Anya raised an eyebrow at the truck.

“I mean, not that I’m doubting you, but it doesn’t look very aerodynamic,” Anya said.

“No, but the forcefield it projects can be manipulated to be sleeker than your alien Euro thing there. And it can take a hit on the nose and keep going.”

“Huh. Say, do you think you could make some upgrades to my V-187?” Anya asked.

“Probably. But would you know how to use them?”

“I could if you taught me or integrated them into the V-187’s existing control systems somehow,” Anya said.

Gary rubbed his chin and nodded. “Okay, see how today goes and then we’ll work something out. While we’re on the subject of me upgrading stuff, I’d love to get a look at Pan’s new scales and that armor you were wearing. It’d be good to get all the info I can about other alloys.”

“I’m fine with you looking at my armor, but you’ll have to ask Pan about his scales.”

“I’m okay if you wanna see one!” Pan said.

“We should get going for now, though. It’s already been an hour since the announcement was made, and it’ll take us a while to get to the meeting point. Everybody ready?” Anya asked.

“I’ll ride with Gary so he can look at my scales,” Pan said.

“You mind if Chandrali and I ride with you, then?” Samaira asked Anya. “It’s gonna be a bit crowded in Gary’s truck with him, Pan, me, and Chandrali.”

“Not at all,” Anya said and smiled. “Chandrali might have to shrink down though.”

“You heard the lady, fuzzball. Tiny time,” Samaira said. Chandrali yawned, showing her dagger-length fangs, shook her head, and then shrank to the size of a housecat.

“Lead on then,” Gary said as several of his servitor robots helped boost Pan into the cab of the truck. She, Samaira, and Chandrali took off in the V-187 and she put their destination on the craft’s HUD. She set the speed to max, strapped in, and shot through the sky towards Beijing.