"But of course I forgot to ask him. I guess there's tomorrow. We don't have nearly enough resources for individual days to make a difference in what we can and can't accomplish."

Trouble shrugs. "Yeah. And, you know, whatever these people are doing, they're not blowing anything up or conquering anybody. At least not so's you notice. Maybe they don't have that many resources, either. Maybe pod people and zappers are their only tricks."

"Pod people, zappers, however they're hiding when they're monster-shaped, and, if they are aliens after all, however they got here," clarifies Bella. "That's the realistic minimum - they could theoretically be here by accident and not have that mechanism under control, crash landing or surprise portal or something - and the hiding could be by relatively mundane mechanisms, but still."

"What I wanna know," muses Trouble, "is how our razor-studded friend got into the closed bookstore around midnight before he chased that other dude out."

"Pod people can turn into monsters and that one so chose for some reason even though he wound up using a ranged weapon, there's a secret passage or compartment or something to a monster hideout, they can teleport but under relatively limited circumstances, it sprouted there overnight - hideout requires the fewest extra assumptions, but it could be any of those."

"Next question's why either of them was there," says Trouble. "I'd almost say it has to be hideout. Otherwise you have to explain what else they were doing there and how it went so badly south that Mister Pointy ran out on the street to zap the guy. And he went back in afterward, too, didn't he? To do what? Crawl back into his hole, I bet. Or I guess he could've been going to get chewed out by his boss first - but then why was the boss in there?"

"Hideout seems like the best explanation. This is a long, long chain of inferences, though, and any link in it could be broken - not enough data."

"Right," says Trouble. "And I'd poke my head in and look for secret tunnels if all I had to worry about was getting vaporized by trigger-happy demons, but then there's the part where they maybe have mind control."

"I'm so with you. On the mind control not being an acceptable risk, not on the willingness to get vaporized." She swallows.

"Yeah, not a lot of people are with me on that one."

"Me too," says Trouble. "I'd say I hope Reggie's not, but I already get him back plenty often, so it's not like I can imagine he's dead or anything."

Bella shivers again.

Trouble shrugs.

The door opens, and in comes Renée. She pokes her head into the living room. "Hi, Trouble. Staying the night again?"

"Yep," says Trouble.

"All right. Bella, did you do all right for dinner?"

"Spaghetti," shrugs Bella. "Robin and Ethan were over too but they're gone now."

"Ooh, dinner for five. Is there dessert left?"

"Yeah, we didn't eat the entire cake."

"It's really great cake," brags Trouble. "You should have some!"

"Don't mind if I do," chuckles Renée, and off she goes.