We were in Worcester. Voltron, now several hundred feet tall, toppled and began to fall on the city—then shrank to the size of a toy as the blameless citizens cowered in terror.
    There was a familiar black helicopter in the sky, full of our friends.
    "I have seldom been so happy to see someone," I sighed, flying over into conversational range. "Could someone tell us the date?"
    "It's October 30," Neil told me.
    "Son of a bitch!" All right, no points for eloquence, but it was something of a shock to find out we'd lost even more time than we thought.
    "Where's dad?" Dawn asked urgently.
    "He's right down there." I pointed.
    "Well, I have to say I'm glad to see you again," Larry said to Scott. "Who's been signing paychecks? The office is a total mess." He paused, looked at us. "Where's Albert?"
    "He wasn't with us," Scott told him, confused.
    "He went to go find you. He disappeared. I hope he wasn't inside the building...."
    "We didn't see him anywhere." I stared down at the collapsing ruins, stunned by the amount of time we'd lost, and now more so by this news. The only thing we've seen to date that gave him pause was TECH's giant spiderbot....
    Followed a series of happy reunions and much crowing from Phoenix Talon about having been right about the Toy Man, despite the fact that we still have no admissable evidence that Paulson was actually involved. And of course we're going to have to go back to the house in the Berkshires, though it will probably have been turned into an orphanage that will claim to have been there for fifteen years by now. I wonder if Neil would let me borrow his helicopter. And what kind of missiles it's carrying.
    Actually, I'm depressingly certain that he wouldn't let me borrow it, but would insist on coming along, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
    "Just glad I could be of help. You didn't call, so I figured something had to have gone wrong," Neil told me later on with a shrug. We'd all taken over a parking lot nearby so we could get sorted out.
    "Well, nice timing," I replied. "Oddly enough, whenever you guys turn up we seem to have buildings blowing up."
    "I noticed that. I took a couple days leave, y'know borrowed some equipment, cleared it with my boss and everything, but I'm not actually due back until Tuesday, so... I was just thinking what with tomorrow being Halloween and everything, whether you had any plans or anything?"
    "Halloween? Oddly enough I suspect we're going to be kind of busy," I replied dryly. "It tends to be a high crime night."
    "Well, I mean, do you need any help or anything?" he offered brightly. "I could be around."
    "If you're gonna be in town, sure," I shrugged without thinking much of it. "Tomorrow's going to be kind of busy, but I did want to check out that chopper before you go home." I mean, that was the point, right? Idiot that I am.
    "So tomorrow morning, then? I have a hotel room, so I'll just head back... have you done dinner yet?" he asked hesitantly.
    "I've been on an IV for the past three weeks."
    "So solid food appeals, doesn't appeal...? There might be somewhere in Worcester we could get soup or something," he suggested.
    "That doesn't sound like a bad idea." I decided I could deal with soup, and that Boston could live without me for a couple more hours; the others looked like they were going to head back right away. I wasn't really paying much attention to things, still shaking my head and muttering, "Three fucking weeks!" as we were seated.
    "Yeah, that's gotta be quite a shock. Can we—I don't think alcohol would be good for you after three weeks on an IV?" he gave me a questioning look.
    "Alcohol is never good for me," I replied without thinking. Especially just then, I could imagine what it would do to me.
    "Okay, why, does it go straight to your head?"
    "Metabolism things. Tea is good," I suggested.
    "Can we get a tea, and I'll just have water," he asked the waiter. "Uh, so, three weeks. What do you want to catch up on here? I'll try and fill you in. I mean, I'll try and tell you everything that happened."
    "Okay. What did we miss?" Evidently no major emergencies of a Wuxia sort, since we hadn't been hauled back to town instantly.
    "Well, the Giants won the Series, I don't know whether that matters to you or not... no," he decided seeing my shrug. "There've been a lot of theme villains in your town, I'm sure you've probably heard about that."
    "I'd say I'm shocked, but somehow I'm not."
    "Holly Shapiro's been ranting about the state government again...."
    "Not about us?" That was a surprise.
    "No, she's had very little to say about you, I think because you haven't been around. She did mention briefly once it became obvious that you'd been kidnapped, when Toy Man made the announcement on national television that he'd captured you—that was a week ago, and we've been looking all over the place ever since...."
    "I hate lost time."
    "Yeah, I had that, too, ever since the abduction. Anyway, that's neither here nor there."
    "If you say so." I filed that one away.
    "Um, let's see what else has been going on... no real good movies came out, we're not at war with anyone that I know of...."
    "Oh good, that's the sort of thing you really hate to find out."
    "President hasn't been impeached, looks like he's going to dodge the whole thing. Just claims he was entirely out of the loop."
    "Sure he was," I rolled my eyes.
    "I believe it."
    "Oh yeah."
    "And being part of a top-secret paramilitary organization myself, I have reason to believe. So, what was the—I did see snippets of your death-trap three week experience, because they were broadcast on national television...."
    "Oh, God." I looked heavenward. That ridiculous outfit—that ridiculous body! I don't know how she can stand it.

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