After taking almost twenty minutes to wake from their sterile prison, the newly freed prisoners struggled through the many after-effects of being on ice. Groggy and disorientated, these eclectic assortment of abductees lurched from side to side on uncoordinated legs like a freshly made zombie horde.

  “Buddy,” Justine called out in her most non-threatening voice to a slightly bewildered looking man still dressed in his pajamas. Unshaven, the newly freed prisoner was in the process of ignoring her warnings until she gave him one of her patented “death” stares. “Stop trying to crawl back into the tube. I need everyone heading in this direction.”

  “But I had a ten o’clock wake up call.” The man said as he looked through bloodshot eyes around the stark white room. “And when did they paint the lobby?”

  “Paint the lobby?” Justine not so gently placed a hand on the man’s shoulder and politely guided him to where the other prisoners had begun to gather. Hoping to mitigate the shock, she decided deception was preferable to forcing the truth. “We did it while you were asleep, sir.”

  “Oh...” Still slightly hungover from being awaken, the man accepted the flimsy excuse and followed her instructions about joining the rest of the group.

  “Why are they acting slightly intoxicated? I don’t know whether to assist them or have them perform a field sobriety test.”

  “That’s on me, Agent Rushing.” Hoover said in her ear. “I thought slightly tipsy might allow for easier handling.”

  “The tubes can make them drunk?”

  “Not drunk per se.” Hoover paused. “It’s more like coming off general anesthesia. They’re not inebriated. They’re just mildly pliable.”

  “And the tubes can do that?”

  “That and a whole lot more.”

  Not wanting to dig too deeply into Hoover’s unlicensed anesthetic business, she occupied herself with waiting for the prisoners to finish reviving. Once everyone was out of their tube, she said “Now if you could all just move in that direction...”

  She pointed toward the exit, but all her words seemed to accomplish was triggering a mad rush for the corridor. Slightly overwhelmed, Justine tried her best to herd the prisoners forward, but this task was abnormally difficult since she was the only one doing it. And why was she the only one doing it?

  Well, because Foster and Joseph were too busy standing off by themselves ignoring her plight. Apparently, the two of them thought pouring over streams of data on the large healing screen was more important than helping with the large group of humans stampeding headlong toward the exit.

  Now, up until this point, Justine had tried to give them a wide berth considering the crushing news Joseph had just received about his body. But the lack of assistance with all this mess was starting to rub her raw. So, the FBI agent reacted in a manner befitting her calm and cool demeanor.

  “Hey!” She yelled out to her teammates through a collection of confused refugees. “A little help?”

  Upon hearing her loud and final call for help, Joseph whispered something under his breath to a slightly distracted Foster. Only half nodding in response, the scientist offered only a quick two-word response. Satisfied with the abbreviated answer, the deputy slunk into the crowd of prisoners as they all swept into the corridor without saying much of anything at all.

  Left alone, Foster began to attach one of the upgraded phones to the base of the healing machine. On the screen, the data streams disappeared and were replaced with a single word, COLLATING.

  Curious as to what the scientist was up to, she weaved forward through the last of the stragglers and asked, “What’s that for?”

  “Nothing in this place is networked, remember?” He finished the last of his tinkering on the device, then adjusted his satchel across his shoulder. “This little beauty will allow Hoover to relay a command signal when we need to activate the device to go home.”

  “So, it has to stay here?” Justine frowned at the idea of leaving even one cool toy behind on the station. “It’s a shame to leave good tech in the field.”

  “Well, it’s either that...” He smiled as he watched her practically salivate over the sleek phone. “Or one of us has to stay behind to press the button.”

  “No!” Justine’s mood changed quickly at the thought of someone being left behind on this space station. “Everyone’s going home.”

  “Not everyone is going home.” Foster turned toward the exit in time to see Joseph helping a confused grandmother over the threshold and into the corridor. They both stared at one another in silence as neither knew what to say about the deputy’s dream of returning to his planet being crushed.

  Finally, Justine found the words to accurately convey her emotions around that dream and Joseph’s deceased Solon body. “Fuck the Arbiters.”

  Foster thought about adding to her succinct statement. But nothing salient or helpful came to mind. So, without saying anything else on the matter, they quickly joined the others as they trekked back down the long, dust filled corridor.

  Over the next few minutes, the trio was bombarded by a range of different questions in a variety of different dialects and attitudes. In fact, the whole experience reminded Justine of a summer she’d spent working at a local amusement park. Everyone was different, and every one of them had a problem.

  “You can’t arrest us for being one with the planet, pig.” The surfer pulled away from Joseph’s hand as he tried to nudge him into the elevator gently. “Why is it always about the Haight?”

  “Hate?” Joseph was already on edge of losing his sanity from his loss. So now wasn’t the time for some weird kind of protest. “I don’t hate you.”

  “Really, dude.” The surfer just stood there defiantly waiting for this man in a uniform to make a move. “You’d be the first cop not to.”

  “You’ve got to me kidding me.” Joseph said in an exasperated tone. Finally, after an interminable amount of time, Joseph decided to give peace a chance as he waved his hand toward the door and said, “Please.”

  “That’s all we want man… human rights. That’s what the Haight is all about.”

  In utter bewilderment, Foster, Justine, and Joseph watched the surfer step into the elevator without another bit of protest. Stranger still, the blonde man began to help the others get on the elevator too.

  “What does ‘Haight’ mean?” Joseph asked, perplexed by the twist of meaning. “Am I wrong with the meaning of that word? Because I’m guessing he’s not talking about not liking someone”

  “No,” Hoover said in the tone of a man with a thorn in his foot. “He’s talking about Haight Ashbury… not the word hate.”

  “What does that mean?” Foster asked with an air of genuine curiosity. “What is Haight Ashbury?”

  “It means he’s a hippy,” Hoover sounded disgusted by even having to say the word out loud. “Maybe we should leave him here to be implanted. It’s not too late.”

  “I don’t think so, Hoover.” Foster said to his friend with a slight chuckle. Was his program becoming a world destroying AI? Too soon to tell, he thought. “Besides, there’s nothing wrong with hippies.”

  “You’re so na?ve, Foster.”

  “What’s wrong, Hoover.” Justine asked. “You don’t believe in flower power?”

  “No, Agent Rushing.” The AI’s voice once again slipped into that computer, take over the world tone. “And neither should you.”

  “Subtle, Hoover.” Justine said in an exasperated tone. “Real subtle.”

  After making sure everyone was safe aboard, Foster stepped onto the transportation tube and pressed the part of the control panel diagram that represented the docking bay. Within a second, the large elevator doors silently slid shut. But before their downward journey could begin, a voice rose above the rest.

  “I don’t understand.” A grey, withered-looking train conductor stepped forward just as the doors closed on the highly overloaded transport tube. “The southern train was due to leave this morning. I was meant to be on it.”

  “Sir,” Justine tried her best to present a calming face to the confused man. Obviously, the gentleman was just a little thrown off that everything here wasn’t running on coal power, “Sorry about that. You’ll just have to catch the next one.”

  “But there’s mail to deliver, packages for Christmas. They can’t be late, Miss.”

  “Don’t worry about that.” She reached out, took hold of his callused hand and in with the kindest voice the non-FBI agent could muster said, “Somebody already took care of them.”

  “Really?” At her words, the conductor seemed to visibly relax upon hearing someone else had taken up the job. “Thank goodness. Christmas isn’t a time for disappointment.”

  Once the elevator started moving, the start of the trip was relatively quiet. Except for more of the obvious questions about where they were or how come everything here looked so strange. However, about halfway to the bottom, the crowd started to turn somewhat agitated when the tube lurched wildly between levels.

  Seeing the shift in mood, Foster knew intimately what settled down a group of stressed-out people more than anything else: a great view. “Hoover…” He said, pretending like he was talking to Justine. “Can you please give me a sunset?”

  “Anything in particular?”

  He looked at Justine to see if she had any suggestions. When she offered none, Foster said, “dealer’s choice.”

  Without another word in response, the darkened hull of the transportation tube slowly turned into a large multi-panel window. And projected onto this OLER window was one of the prettiest sunsets any of them had ever seen. Almost immediately, the sight of nature washed away the group’s frustrations.

  And for a moment, none of them were trapped on a deserted space station hovering over a black hole. No. They were all home and safe. “That was quick thinking,” Justine said, standing right next to the wall. “But why a sunset?”

  “I don’t really know.” Foster pressed a finger on the image of the sun and left it there for a couple of seconds. “I probably could have projected some falling snow, but I’ve had enough of cold weather for a while.”

  As she marveled at how real the clouds seemed to be as they floated over the skyline, the little girl in tightly wrapped pigtails started yanking at her shirt. “Is it suppertime, Miss? I can’t miss suppertime.”

  For the next few minutes, the skinny young girl, whose name Justine learned was Jessica Davis, couldn’t stop asking about suppertime.

  “My mama makes the best fried chicken in the valley.” She said in a thick, southern accent. “Every Saturday night, she makes a mess, and all our kin folk comes over for a piece.” She rubbed her belly at the thought of a freshly cooked drumstick. “I’m so hungry.”

  Justine didn’t know quite what to say considering the fact her mother had probably passed away years ago. Heck. Perhaps all their mothers and fathers were gone already. So instead of trying to explain the painful truth to a kid out of time, she just held the girl's hand and said, “Soon honey… soon.”

  After that, things calmed down considerably. So much so, that the aboriginal man started painting stick figures on the walls of the elevator with dried clay. However, Justine couldn’t help shake the feeling that something was still off when her companions began having what appeared to be another intense conversation.

  And even when the conversation ended, something still seemed to distress the deputy. Thus, prompted by his apprehension, Foster showed Joseph something on the 2D version of the tablet. Immediately, the deputy’s spirit brightened at the image, and he hurried away toward the elevator doors.

  Disaster averted. She watched as Foster scanned the room only to find a suspicious Justine looking at him. “This is all you.” He said in an obvious attempt to distract from what she had just seen. Pointing to the sea of people migrating around the elevator, he offered. “I bet Fitz Hume is going to have a heart attack when you walk these guys into his office.”

  For a couple of moments, she thought about confronting him and asking just what the hell was going on with the two of them. But again, she erred on the side of a distraught Joseph and decided to let her instincts stay under control.

  “Something tells me I won’t get within two miles of Bleaker.” Justine said, referring to what would surely be a lengthy debrief, followed by some careful work reintegrating each one of them back into society. All the while, Fitz Hume would probably be doing his best to keep the whole thing secret.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Knowing the NSA the way she did, they would probably blame the entire thing on swamp gas or rogue Al Qaeda agents. And since the freed prisoners probably had no memory of being taken, any cover story produced for them would be more than plausible. “Still, it would be nice to see him shit himself. Just a little bit.”

  A minute later, the transportation tube came to a controlled stop on level one. And just like that, the intrepid trio of explorers had come full circle back to the beginning.

  “Just stay close to the entrance,” the FBI agent called out to the first people trickling out of the elevator. Feeling like an overworked matador, she ducked in and around the rushing throng of bodies, trying her best to give them directions.

  “Jessica.” The girl heard her name and turned around to see a concerned Justine wagging a finger at her. “Move off to the side and wait for me. We’re just about out of here.”

  After saying ‘we’re just about out of here’, Justine realized that none of them knew exactly where here was, herself included. She found this fact extremely funny and immediately started laughing.

  “Has Hoover got the machine up and running yet?” She called out over her own laughter to a straggling Foster and Joseph once the elevator was empty. Deep into another clandestine talk, it took a second before either of them acknowledged her question.

  “I don’t know,” Foster mumbled quietly as he pointed to something on his tablet’s screen. “I’ve been busy.”

  “You’ve been busy?” Justine’s annoyance level was coming very close to punching Foster in the head when the fourth member of the team spoke up.

  “You could have just asked me, Agent Rushing.”

  “What?” Justine felt her face go flush with embarrassment. Why had she asked for Foster’s help first and not Hoovers? For all her talk of science fiction tropes, you would think she would take every advantage of having her own personal Artificial Intelligence. “Point taken, then how long before we can get out of here?”

  “Nothing but good news on that front, I’m happy to say.” He waited for her to say, ‘not again’, but she remained oddly quiet. “Since the unit was activated a couple of days ago, I was able to bypass a lot of the safety and start-up protocols. As of five minutes ago, the machine is fully powered. All we need to do is activate it.”

  Hearing actual good news, Justine let out a sigh of relief. This little excursion, the good and the bad aspects of it, had been all her idea. And after bringing everyone to the razor’s edge, the reprieve offered in heading back to earth was intoxicating.

  “I was wondering,” she said as Foster drifted within arm’s distance. “When we get back and put all of this to bed, do you have any plans?” She didn’t want to act too needy, but this man and his bag of toys were starting to grow on her. “I thought maybe we could go see a movie or something?”

  Joseph recognized the stench of human flirtation a mile away, so he hurried further into the crowd to escape the incoming tidal wave of awkwardness.

  “No plans,” Foster said as he tightened the strap on his satchel. “But as far as movies go, I haven’t been to the theater in about nine years.”

  “Nine years?” The thought of someone being deprived of movie popcorn for such a long time seemed a harsher punishment to her than waterboarding. “So that means you’ve never seen a movie in IMAX before? You’ve never seen a 3D movie before?”

  “Haven’t seen anything in IMAX before. But if you’re talking about a 3d Movie, does a movie of the week and glasses on a pizza box count?”

  “I guess.” Her words were more sympathetic than confirmatory. Who still put 3D glasses on a pizza box? And for that matter, who still showed 3D movies on TV? “But technology has come a long way since red and blue cardboard glasses.”

  “You’re probably right about that.” Still, Foster shook his tablet at her with the air of someone who was already at the finish line long before you even started the race. “Though, I doubt either one of those things has anything on me.”

  “No,” she conceded his point with a grin. “I guess they don’t.”

  “Still…” His face appeared to frown and smile at the same time. “You never know. Seeing a movie with a crowd of people always made the movie better to me.”

  “Right?” Justine’s mood lightened at the door swinging open in his answer.

  With that, the group of Earth refugees had one distraction left to traverse before they reached the beaming platform. And if you asked Justine Rushing, this distraction would be the most difficult to navigate. But much to her surprise and sadness, the group shuffled past the squadron of flying saucers saying very little as they went.

  Stunned by their ambivalence, Justine found herself pointing to each one as they passed by. Surely, she thought, one of the prisoners would be taken aback by such an alien sight. But most regarded the silver plates quickly, digested what they saw even quicker, then chalked them up to one more thing about this place they would probably never understand.

  Only the little girl named Jessica said anything as she tore away from the group to walk under one of them. “It’s big.”

  “It’s a flying saucer.” Justine said with the enthusiasm of a White House tour guide. “Have you ever heard of a flying saucer?”

  Jessica looked up at the machine with a concerned look on her face. “It kind of looks like the thing that was stealing our chickens last night.”

  “Chickens?” Justine wondered if aliens made an anal probe that small. “Something like this was stealing chickens?”

  “Maybe,” she said earnestly. “I couldn’t really tell with all the bright lights. But the shape looks familiar.”

  Not wanting to have an in-depth conversation with a small child from the past about 4th Kind Encounters, Justine simply shooed the young girl back toward the rest of the group and prayed very intently that her memories remained static about that night. This silent march continued on for about another twenty feet.

  It stopped when a well-trained traffic specialist voice cut through the silence.

  “Right here, folks.” Joseph, who had moved to the front of the group, stopped just short of the spot where they had first arrived. Waving his hands as a signal to halt, the deputy began to help the bonneted grandmother over the small rise and into the transportation ring. “This is the end of the line.”

  Again, without having to be told twice, the group complied with Joseph’s directions. Even the surfer seemed mellow enough now to follow his orders. Surprisingly, it wasn’t until Justine saw the grizzled conductor salute Joseph that she finally put two and two together. Joseph was still wearing his uniform.

  And most people from the past tended to trust a man in uniform.

  “Twenty-two,” she said after chasing Jessica around with her eyes. There were twenty-two prisoners when they started, and if she wasn’t mistaken, her count had twenty-two prisoners standing patiently here at the end. “Is everyone alright?”

  The question was simple enough that even the prisoners that didn’t speak English could understand and respond. When everyone nodded in the affirmative, Justine added, “Then just one more minute, and we’ll take you home.”

  Justine turned around to find Foster smiling at her.

  “Can you do me a favor?” His tone was soft and inviting. Before she could stop herself, Justine was beaming at the thought of doing something… anything for him. Trying very hard not to look like a complete idiot, she bit down on her lip. What had happened to her over the past four days? She didn’t beam at people.

  “Yes.” She tried to play it cool. “What do you need?”

  Out of nowhere, Foster grasped one of her hands. Usually, she would have reacted very differently to that overture. But for the sake of Foster’s unbroken wrist, she tempered her normal instincts. “When you get back…” He placed something small and flat in her hand. “I need you to press this button.”

  Without breaking eye contact, she turned it over in her hand and without looking knew what it was. Foster had given her one of the upgraded cell phones.

  “What’s this for?” She asked curiously.

  “Remember how you said the healing machine could be helpful back on Earth?”

  She nodded. She also recalled something about all of them becoming rich in the process. That thought made her stupid grin grow even wider. “Yeah. I remember.”

  “Well…” he pressed the phone deeper into her palm. “The plans for the machine are contained within it. This model has a burst transmitter, so once you press this switch…” He slowly guided her finger to a raised button near the top of the device. “The schematics will be uploaded directly to one of Hoover’s personal websites. From there, I have no doubt they’ll spread like wildfire.”

  “Wait a minute.” Justine didn’t understand why he was asking her to do this. “You should be the one.”

  “No.” Foster smile remained but something about it became almost remorseful. Gently, he let her hand fall out of his. “I have other plans.”

  “Hold on!” The terrible thought of him running began to gnaw at her. “I don’t know what you’re planning. But there’s no way that the director’s going to send you back to Wilson now. Not after all of this.” She turned around and surveyed the prisoners. “They’re the proof you need. You don’t have to run.”

  “Justine.” Foster smiled as sweetly and as apologetically as he could. There was an aspect to his eyes which betrayed something else, something darker. He wiped back a tear that was beginning to form on the corner of her eye. “I’m not planning on running.”

  For the first time since he put it there, she looked down at the sleek piece of metal resting in her hand. Then, her gaze drifted further downward. On the ground, Foster’s shoes were still completely covered in that fine powder. Why hadn’t he bothered to brush them off after the fight? This thought led to another innocuous question. Was there another pair back at his hotel room in Elmira? That thought led her to once again look at his shoes and where precisely they stood in contrast to her own.

  Why was he standing on the opposite side of the transport ring?

  “You’ve got to be shitting me.” Her anger flared up as this moron’s plan suddenly became clear to her. “You can’t be serious. You’re planning to stay on the station?”

  “No, Justine. I would be crazy to stay here on the station.” Foster tilted his head to one side as that sly grin came back with a vengeance. “That’s why I’m planning on using the escape shuttle to leave here.”

  “What?” She moved to leave the ring, but his stupid hand blocked her way.

  “Listen, I thought I was done with this whole thing after we found Joseph and his little toy. But you just had to go on a rescue mission.” He raised his eyebrows, but her face remained sternly pissed. “So, in the end, you got what you wanted. We rescued all these people and proved my theory unequivocally correct.”

  He gestured to the group.

  “But in the middle of all that, I kept running into more problems to solve. Like why are humans being abducted? And why are they being used as prison cells for murderers? Why is the station built from so many different technologies? And why, two hundred thousand years ago, were 50,000 implanted humans sent from this station to Earth?”

  “We can come back for those answers, Foster.” She tried reasoning, but she knew his stupid face wouldn’t listen. “It’s not like this station’s going anywhere.”

  “True.” His eyes fell back to the ground. “But there’s only one tablet. Once we leave, there is no coming back.”

  Justine frantically searched behind her, in the crowd, for Joseph. He would be able to explain to Foster how there were other means and possibilities. Hell, every time they ran across something, that pudgy man had seen a better version someplace else.

  “Joseph?” Her desperate voice echoed throughout the docking bay. “Joseph!”

  “I’m over here, Agent Rushing.”

  She looked toward his voice, expecting to see the man standing next to one of the freed prisoners. Instead, he had just moved out of the circle to stand behind Foster. She guessed he wasn’t planning on coming back either.

  “You…” Her brain was locked into a scary loop of logic. “Your body is useless, Joseph. You can’t go home.”

  Joseph sighed at her truthful yet hurtful words. “This ‘useless body’ carried me all the way here, Agent Rushing. Maybe it can take me home.”

  “Even if going home means you’ll probably die?”

  “Back there, I’m already dead. Besides, one more chance to see my home is worth a leap of faith, Agent Rushing. After all, you took a leap of faith on these people.”

  “This is ridiculous.” Again, she lifted her leg to join the two of them on the other side of the ring. And again, Foster put out his hand to stop her. “You’re both being ridiculous!”

  “I have spent my entire life solving puzzles. That’s what drives me. Sure, I could head back to Earth, stick it to Fitz Hume, maybe even spend some time trying to figure you out.” She involuntarily laughed at his words but still throttled the shit out of his arm. “But I would never be able to let this go. Never. My brain’s not wired that way.”

  “But I could…” Her words trailed off in a haze of unexpected tears. “Where will you go?”

  “Joseph’s world is a good place to start backtracking this mess. After that, I don’t know.”

  One more time, she raised her leg to join him, but Foster finally had enough. “I don’t drag people into my problems, Justine. You’ve just got to accept that.”

  “Why?” Her voice has lost some of its strength. “After all, I dragged you guys into mine.”

  “No. You dragged me into a mission to save people’s lives.” He stepped back and spread his arms out. “These people. We saved these people, Justine.” He took a step back in her direction. “But what I’m doing now is all for me. For my stupid problems.”

  “But...” She began to protest further but was cut off before any other reason could escape her lips.

  “You need to go home and live your life, Justine. The sad fact is we’ll probably end up being killed by a strange alien on some unknown planet. There’s no healing machine where we’re going. Hell…” He looked upward, beyond the docking bay’s darkened ceiling, to that at least 200,000-year-old escape shuttle. “We may not even be able to escape the black hole’s gravity.”

  Over his shoulder, Joseph thought about it for a moment before responding. “Book 11… Fifty-fifty.”

  “Never tell me the odds, Joseph.” Foster cocked his head and smiled.

  “This must be a joke. Right?” She didn’t understand any of this. “You’re willing to risk your life on something that crazy?”

  Foster felt a wave of déjà vu wash over him. For a moment, he was back at Wilson being condemned by Dr. Armstrong for espousing his theory. “It wouldn’t be the first time someone told me I was crazy, Justine. And as Joseph said, you did the same thing for these people.”

  “You can’t.” With that, Justine flung her arms around Foster and held him tightly against her.

  “You have to go, Justine.” He tried to pull away, but she fought him. “Fitz Hume will forgive you. Besides, with what’s on that phone, you’re going to be one of the richest, most famous people on the planet. Though, after that technology gets out, I don’t think anything on Earth will ever be the same.”

  He gently undid her arms and pushed her back inside the transportation ring. “Tell Mosley he can take credit for the machine if he wants. After all, he’s the dreamer.”

  Without another word, Foster backed away quickly.

  Frozen, her brain attempted to rationalize what was happening, but a part of her heart kept getting in the way. Wasn’t she happy just two minutes ago? She had felt light as a feather. But now her heart felt like it was cast in lead.

  In the distance, Joseph waved goodbye as the two men swiftly marched back toward the fleet of flying saucers before eventually disappearing behind them.

  “That idiot!” Her words were a mixture of sadness and controlled rage.

  During all this turmoil, Jessica and the conductor had eased closer to try and comfort their rescuer. When Justine realized what they were doing, she turned on them with angry tears filling her eyes and warned them. “He’s going to get himself killed, you know, as soon as I’m gone.”

  Unsure of why she was acting like a teenage girl again, Justine waited for them to agree with her point of view. But all they could offer was friendly smiles and pats on the back. And as misery and rage threatened to swallow her whole, something strange happened.

  “Agent Rushing,” the volume on her earpiece was so low, she almost didn’t hear it. “Have I ever told you how much I admire you?”

  “What?” Justine shook her head at the impossible words coming from the normally unsentimental AI. Hoover wasn’t making any more sense than his stupid creator. “Admire me? I thought you didn’t trust me.”

  “True.” The small phone vibrated once, and a countdown clock began to unspool: 5:00-4:59-4:58. “But I have a problem trusting anyone in this world other than him. Partly because of the way I was programmed, but more than that. I just know people. I study their habits, their feelings, their actions, especially when they think no one is paying attention.”

  “Boundaries, Hoover.” She remembered having this same conversation repeatedly over the last two days. Still, she couldn’t help but laugh weakly. “You’ve got to know your boundaries.”

  “Indeed.” The countdown timer hit four minutes. “And when I investigated your past, I found a person who didn’t apologize for being the way she was. Someone who would protect the people who needed protection. No matter the cost. Now, don’t get me wrong. I am still convinced that one day, you will be the death of Foster. But today’s not that day.”

  “I don’t understand.” The clouds over Justine’s mind began to part as a ray of sunlight threatened to break through. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying, he needs your protection, whether he wants it or not.”

  Before she could form a response, Jessica caught sight of the phone in Justine’s hand and tried to wriggle it free. “What is it? It looks swell.”

  Thrown off by the out-of-date slang word, Justine allowed the young girl to take the phone from her hand. Enthralled, Jessica turned the device over and over in her hand, trying desperately to take in every single detail.

  “You know…” Justine bent down on one knee and for a moment felt like Foster showing off one of his toys. “This thing is magic. Do you know what magic is?”

  “Yes,” the girl whispered under her breath. “Mama says magic is what dreams are made of.”

  “Exactly.” Justine’s tears dried up in an instant and her previous smile reasserted itself. “That’s exactly what it is.”