***LUCA***

When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I see is silvery fog drifting over the city. I sit up, startled, briefly forgetting where I am. Then I relax as last night's memories finally return to me. What I don't remember, however, is Gideon sleeping in the armchair next to mine. So when I inadvertently yawn in his face, he instantly recoils from my morning breath and nearly falls over the other side.

"Sorry about that," I laugh, looking away from him so he doesn't see me blushing.

"Yeah, it's all good," he says, leveraging himself into a sitting position and then getting back on his feet. "I'm worse, I bet."

"I'll take your word for it."

Yawns really do appear to be contagious, because the first thing Gideon does before he gets moving is to do so himself. Then he stretches his arms and scratches his legs. "I'm not used to sleeping in my clothes," he explains.

"Same," Paul says. I think our talking just woke him up.

"Yeah," I laugh at him. "Alex told me you like to sleep in your underwear."

Surprised, Paul asks, "He remembered that?" He starts scratching his head instead. "Huh. I thought, after the way that weekend ended, all the good parts got driven out of his mind."

"He didn't tell me till much later," I say. "We were watching The Flash, and this one guy had no shirt on, and Alex said he looked like you getting ready for bed."

"I think I know which part you're talking about," Paul says. "The other guy was still wearing pants, though."

"I didn't know you watched The Flash."

"I didn't used to," Paul says, walking across the room and knocking lightly on the bathroom door. "I was always more of an Agents of SHIELD guy. But then Aron got me into it, along with Arrow." Since nobody's in the bathroom, he goes in there. I follow suit a minute later, after he's done. Then we return to our seats. We're the only ones here in the living room. Mattia and Kensi are crashing down the hall in another one-room apartment set aside for Annie, and Russell's in his room because none of us other guys wanted to take his bed.

"I dunno about you," I say, stretching my wings through my shirt-slits, "but I'm hella hungry." I pull my phone out of my pants and check my messages. It's not even eight in the morning, and I've already got a shitload of them from Mom, Dad, Marco, and even Gio. I send the same generically reassuring text back to all of them: "Everything's fine. I'm just saving the world, is all. Love you, miss you, be back soon. :)"

"So am I," Paul says, creeping over to the kitchen. "Hmm...I'm not even sure where to find the breakfast stuff, though."

"Check the freezer," I suggest. "There's always toaster waffles. That's universal."

He opens and shuts the freezer, the rubber seal on the door squeaking slightly as it engages. "Shit, there's nothing in here but frozen berries. What does this guy eat, smoothies? Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's not something I'd have every day."

"They're among the only things I can trust myself to make," Russell says as he opens his bedroom door and emerges. Not unike Alex, his choice of sleepwear is an old, slightly-too-small graphic tee (advertising "Bluth's Original Frozen Bananas") and plaid boxers. He yawns, his raven-like wings stretching and filling a good chunk of the apartment's main room. "In my family, the real cook is my baby brother, Harlan. He's about you guys' age. Great in the kitchen, but he's still a lonely single Pringle. Probably 'cause he insists on blazing up by the pool on the weekends, instead of going out and meeting other people."

"'Blazing up?'" I repeat. It's not a term I've heard, outside of The Breakfast Club. "You don't mean...?"

"Smoking weed? Yeah, I do," Russell snickers. "It's legal back home, but not for him 'cause he's underage, so he relies on this friend of his who's already eighteen to keep him supplied." He laughs to himself, then adds, "Well, I just had a really inappropriate thought."

"What about?" Gideon asks, dialing up the sass.

Russell swallows. "Um...I can't say. But I can tell you my dad has a few choice words for Harlan's supplier." He uses his thumb to scratch the stubble above his lip. "The politest of which is what the Thais might call a 'ladyboy.'"

"Ew, don't say that." Gideon grimaces and sticks out his tongue, even making a gagging noise for good measure. "My mother would always...she'd use that phrase against me all the time."

"Really?" Paul asks.

"I thought 'ladyboy' was the opposite of what you are," I say.

Gideon shrugs. "Same difference, as far as that woman was concerned." He turns around and pulls up his T-shirt. "Look under my left wing."

Paul and I stand side by side, wondering why Gideon doesn't just unfold his wing through the back of his shirt. It's unusual for him to show this much skin - he's still so self-conscious about his body, even though it's morphed into a masculine form over time. Then we finally discover what it is he's having us look for - a long, ugly scar running diagonally up the small of his back. It starts within a hair of his lumbar vertebrae, then finally ends about eight inches later, level with his chest.

"Is that..." I twitch as I imagine the pain he must have endured to get that scar. "Is that from your parents?"

"Yep." Gideon moves away and retracts his wings, then pulls down his shirt and turns around. "You know how they had these electric feather trimmers in the late 90s?"

"I've heard of them." I did a report on the subject a few months ago for my US History class, from which I've retained a considerable amount of information that I never expected to come in handy again (most of which is thanks to having a history teacher's son as my roommate and study partner.) Created as a matter of convenience and as an analogue to electric razors, electric feather trimmers are best-known, sadly, as major contributors to a short-lived "curtained wings" fashion craze a little over twenty years ago. To achieve that look, people would buzz their all-important primary feathers down to an eighth of their normal length, maybe even less, while leaving the rest of the feathers intact. Not only did the result look hideous, but the buzzed feathers wrecked people's abilities to fly properly. It actually became a game among gangbangers (and wannabe "wangsters") in certain big cities to target guys with curtained wings, knowing that A) they'd be proudly showing off their new looks as best they could, which meant they basically dressed as Chippendales while clubbing - you know, at the club, if you want me to sound like Stiles Stilinski; and B) they wouldn't be able to simply fly away to safety. And then, with the infinite stupid creativity so common to their ranks, the gangs, every time they'd get caught bashing a curtained dude, would invoke the tired old "gay panic" defense, claiming that Curtained had hit on them. It didn't help that the style was especially popular in the gay community, either.

"One of those was responsible for this," Gideon says, pointing to his back. "My mom brought one of them with her to Earth, and we all used it to keep our feathers down to keep up our 'normal-human' masquerade." He laughs bitterly. "And...and it was literally the thing that turned me against them. Or, I mean, against my mom. I didn't hate them until she got distracted, the trimmer slipped, and she cut me by mistake." He sits in the chair he slept in, leans forward, and rests his chin on folded hands. "Then she had my dad come in - he was a surgeon, so they thought he could do it right. But he'd been out of practice for years, 'cause he'd just been reduced to being a nurse on Earth, pretty much..." He realizes he's rambling and gets back on topic. "Long story short, I ended up getting sick. Nothing life-threatening, but enough to keep me out of school for a week. And I-I always suspected it was an infection from that cut. 'Cause, obviously, I had to keep my wing open until my dad was done, otherwise I'd get blood in my feathers, and it would've been a bitch to clean out...so I had the cut open to the air for about an hour. And who knows how well he sterilized his equipment? I sure as shit don't."

The rest of us can only stare at him after this brief but harrowing monologue. Sometimes, it's easy to forget how rough Gideon's had it. At least he's got friends now, and his dad's finally reconnected with him. His past is behind him now. Although I'm sure he wishes Alex could have killed his mom after she killed Gabe. I don't think Gideon could bring himself to strike such a blow. He's grown in so many senses of the word, but I really hope he never has to have the balls to kill his own blood, even if they deserve it.

Russell leaves the room long enough to get fully dressed. When he comes back out, Paul asks him, "So, if there's nothing to have for breakfast, are we supposed to scour the neighborhood looking for a decent donut shop or something?"

"There's a bakery down the street that puts your mom's to shame," Russell says with a smile. "No offense, but just try their white chocolate-raspberry scones and tell me Lana's are better."

"Is that a challenge?"

"Should I consider it one?" Russell cracks his knuckles, then picks up his phone from the kitchen counter, where it's been sitting and charging. He says that, unlike most smartphones, this Second 'Verse-issue model can go as long as two weeks without charging, instead of twenty-four hours. "Speaking of which," he adds, "you probably don't have your own chargers with you, do you?" Paul and I shake our heads. "Figured. Here, take these." He opens a drawer next to the small oven and pulls out a set of little black pods that resemble stud earrings, but with metal appendages at one end of each one. "I got iPhone, Droid, and Galaxy-compatible ones," he says. "Pick whichever one matches your phone."

"What are these?" I ask, picking out a little black dot and examining the business end closely. It looks like it should fit into the charging port on my phone, and sure enough, it does.

"Charging pods," Russell says, having Paul take one for himself. He's about to hand one to Gideon, but Gideon shakes his head - he never got his phone replaced after Annie accidentally destroyed its inner workings, I guess. "They reduce your phone's battery usage by eighty percent. So if your phone normally dies after one day of heavy use, it'll take five days instead with this baby plugged in."

Once the pods are in, Paul and I check the charge level on our phones. They're already skyrocketing. Before, my phone was at 59% charge, and Paul's at ten. Now, they're up to 72 and 21 percent, respectively, and this is only ten seconds after the pods are put on. My phone takes less than twenty to reach a full charge, and Paul's does so in a minute and a half. By that time, we're out the door and heading downstairs with the girls. Mattia was never one to take forever to get ready in the morning, and it seems Kensi's the same.

Before we reach our first stop, Paul finally gets out his phone and checks his voicemail. I hear him send me a brief thought: Aron. Judging from the look on his face, his brother sent him a similar message to the ones I've got on my phone.

Surprisingly, Russell doesn't do what I expect and tell him to stop. At first, I wonder why he doesn't seem to have a problem with any of us using our phones - Mattia's texting someone or other herself. But then he catches my thoughts and says, The more normal we look to others, the better. We should blend in as best we can right now.

Okay, I guess that makes sense. I move on ahead so I can talk to Russell. "Would it be possible to send messages to our friends on the other side?"

"I'm sending regular updates to Annie," he says. "Trust me, everyone's gonna know if everyone else is still alive every step of the way."

"You can call the Second 'Verse?" I ask.

"Yeah, but only me, 'cause I got a Second 'Verse phone," he says, waving his this way and that for a second. Like it's anything special at first blush - it doesn't look any different from, say, Mattia's phone. "Prime 'Verse phones can make calls across dimensions, but not through the Terminal. The technology for that hasn't gotten over here yet." He sighs heavily, then says, "I wish my sister were here, though. We need all the help we can get."

"Is that the 'we' we, or the royal 'we?'"

"Yes," Russell says with a soft laugh. "I was about to send another report to Annie, actually. You wanna send a voicemail my way? I can add that to the message before forwarding it to the other side."

"Well, now that I know I can..." I step aside into an alley between two buildings, then call Russell's phone and leave the voicemail for Alex. Nothing too fancy, just me wishing him luck on his side of things and hoping all this shit is over soon so we can finally start getting back to normal.

Russell's idea of breakfast turns out to be a bunch of those white chocolate-raspberry scones he was talking about before, and coffee to go with it. Nothing like espresso with two sugars to keep a guy awake when the fate of the world depends on him and his friends, right? They don't seem like much at first, but the scones turn out to be rich and filling, and, of course, the espresso wakes us all up instantly. Even Kensi, who's a self-admitted "morning hater." Paul and I are forced to reluctantly conclude that Doctor Sweet's is a more than worthy rival to the bakery and café at Smythe and Darknell's. Gideon, meanwhile, shrugs and says, "Nothing special. Not after my dad learned how to make café cubano."

Breakfast, however, doesn't do much to distract me, at least, from the real matter at hand. Even in the café, the morning news is talking about the damage done to the Alcatraz ferries last night. The damage we helped cause in order to save them. I resist the urge to say anything in front of anyone else, but I'm really not liking the fact that the news doesn't seem to know anything about the presence of real live bombs on board the boats. Granted, we did get rid of the C-4 and the wiring for the detonators, but I would've thought the security cam footage would have shown us carrying the bombs off the ferries, at least. Turns out, though, the footage was somehow lost. Probably Holly's people did it to erase any evidence of their crimes.

We're about to go back to our apartments when Russell's phone goes off loudly. I recognize the opening guitar riff - "Test For Echo" by Rush, a longtime favorite of mine that nobody's ever heard of. "Oh good," he says, turning his phone and checking whatever message he's just received. "We got a new job."

Seized by curiosity, I ask, "How do you get told about what we gotta do next?"

The answer lies in a very unlikely place - a blog called "Movie Tricks And Treats." "I have a contact in Holly's camp who writes this," Russell explains as I peruse the page. "See, it's well-known in our world that Primers are far more creative than natural-born scrivs. The theory is that because you guys have shorter lifespans, you have less time to make an impact artistically, if you're so inclined. So that pushes mortals to greater creative heights than us." He bites his lip as he cycles through the blog's entries. "And because a lot of that creativity lies in destruction, Holly takes a lot of inspiration from mortal fiction. That's why our insider writes this blog - not just as a fun catalog of cool action scenes, but as a way of warning us about what's coming next. Take a look at the top ten posts and you'll see what I mean."

On the top ten list are a few posts whose title references I understand immediately. Among them: "How To Kill A Helicopter With A Car" (Live Free Or Die Hard), "Over/Under On Saving The Ark" (the ark in question being the lost one from Raiders), and "SF Classic: Charger vs. Mustang" (Bullitt, and again on Alcatraz - funny I should bring that old show up now, huh?) But there are also some I don't recognize, such as "Moroccan Motorbike Chase" and "Hold On To Your Hat: Substrate Navigation For Dummies."

Then I see the third post from the top, and my mind slowly builds a connection. The title of this post is "Pulling A Panama," a reference to a little-known action movie from about ten years ago called Sahara, a favorite of Marco's and Dad's. The "Panama" is a trick pulled by main characters Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino, who are being attacked by Malian gunboats on the Niger River. In order to stop the bad guys, they cut the fuel line on their borrowed speedboat and tape a lit cigar next to the dripping gasoline, then rig the yacht to keep running, kamikaze-style, even after they jump overboard. The boat keeps going until the gas finally drips onto the cigar, igniting a massive explosion that takes out all their enemies.

The words don't even have a chance to come out of my mouth before Russell says, "Yeah, the Panama thing was a clue to last night's mission. Here, look..." He clicks on the post itself, and has me read the whole article. It describes the Panama scene in pretty accurate detail, but then there's one small thing - a suggestion that had Pitt and Giordino brought plastique on board the Calliope, they could've saved themselves the trouble of relying on minuscule amounts of gasoline and a tiny flame source, because it was such a ridiculous and contrived action-movie cliché.

"Interesting," Paul says as he reads the article over my shoulder. Since he's half a foot taller than I am, it's not hard for him to do. "So how come there are two articles above this one? Are we supposed to have two missions now?"

"No, I think one is for the Second 'Verse, and the other's for us," Mattia says. "Or am I wrong?"

"You're wrong," Russell says succinctly. "This blog is only for Prime 'Verse missions. But that means the Panama article should be second on the list, not third. Unless...?"

I take a glance at the top two articles' titles. Number Two: "Bomb In A Barrel: Blowing The Fake Solar Plant." Immediately, I know it's another Sahara reference, probably for the use of more conventional bombs on the boats.

Number One, meanwhile, is called "Electro Fiasco." I click on it and see a picture of a very familiar-looking location from another favorite movie of mine. Underneath the photo is the text of the article. I only read the first paragraph, and it's all I need.

"Let's face it, the climax of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is perhaps the most intensely gut-wrenching scene put to film in the lifetime of any and all of this blog's readers. But before the tears strike, there's a long and epic battle between Spidey and Electro at an Oscorp power plant in New York. Inspired by the now-defunct Solyndra testing grounds in San Francisco, this unique setting was, quite literally, made for one of the most vibrant and visually striking (if you'll excuse the pun) movie action scenes in recent memory."

I put two and two (or, more accurately, One and Two) together in no time. "Treasure Island," I say. "We have to get to Treasure Island!"

"What?" Gideon asks. Even though he's a big fan, he doesn't seem to have made the connection himself.

"Are you sure?" Mattia doesn't look sure whether or not to believe me.

Taking his phone back, Russell consults the screen and nods vigorously. "Yeah, he's right. Treasure Island's the next target. Come on! If we hurry, we'll be able to get there in five minutes!"

We take off into the air, winging our way east towards the bay. In front of us, the Bay Bridge arcs between the city and Yerba Buena Island, with the artificially-created Treasure Island sitting to its north.

I almost find it hard to believe that Treasure Island can be any major part of Holly's plans of terror. The place has been abandoned for almost a decade, ever since Solyndra, once an up-and-coming green-tech company from Spellman, bought the old military grounds and converted them into a floor model for their ideal future utopian city. All powered by their innovative tube-like solar panels, of course.

Sadly, innovation and the support of President Obama can only go so far. As I understand it, Solyndra's sweet product, while arguably more efficient than traditional solar panels because it could gather sunlight at all hours of the day without the need for rotation, was also expensive. Its use of metal components instead of cheaper silicone tended to break the bank, and eventually, it broke Solyndra itself. The only reason Treasure Island still exists in its current ghost-town state is because the mayor of San Francisco was convinced that someday, Solyndra's tech could finally be put to good use again.

Hopefully, Holly's people won't get the chance to bring Frank Garza's dream crashing down around his ears.

However, it's not looking likely that we'll be the ones to stop them.

Because no sooner do we land on the shores of Treasure Island than we hear men barking "FREEZE!" at us.

We put our hands up as, for the second time today, we get faced by armed guys. Thankfully, though, these guys look a little more official, like actual cops instead of scrivs disguised as guards.

It helps that standing behind them is Frank Garza himself, looking at us with his eyes probably the widest they've ever been.

"Hi," Russell says, waving one of his upraised hands. "How are you?"

I look from person to person, seeing all the cops relax their grips on their Tasers just a bit, and Garza crossing his arms. "I have a better question," he says, sounding dangerously authoritative. "Who are you?"

Behind him, a cadre of Asian businessmen talk amongst themselves. More than one scratches his head, confused by what's going on.

And behind these guys, on top of a nearby building (which I recognize as the one used for the exterior of the Berlin airport in Last Crusade), there's a shadowy figure in a dark outfit running across the roof.

Keeping my eye on this person, I telepathically alert Russell and the others. "Who are we?" he says, his hands going dark. "We...are just a figment of your imagination, Mr. Mayor."

He claps his hands and pushes them out in front of his face. Dark energy erupts everywhere, blocking the view of everyone in front of us. The cops fire, but miss us all.

We get back into the air and fly up to the roof just as our new enemy takes refuge behind a cluster of Solyndra tubes. Seconds later, the tubes explode, forcing us to brake in midair and shield our eyes as broken glass and metal fly around.

We stay still long enough to get Tased one by one.

Temporarily paralyzed, we fall to the ground, only prevented from reaching terminal velocity by the strong, retractable wires connecting us to the Tasers. In Heaven, these weapons are specially designed to aid in the capture of people trying to fly away. Provided the person carrying the Taser is strong enough, the weapon can be used as an anchor to keep its victim tethered in the air, and also to help lower them to the ground slowly and safely.

How I'm able to think about all this, I have no idea. But at least it distracts me from the agony of electrocution. Not to mention the embarrassment of being loaded into the back of a cop car.