"That's it!" Artie cried, throwing his gloves aside in disgust. "Reality TV has ruined television, now it's ruined Artifacts!"

Claudia looked up from her research. "Oh, come on, Artifacts have been turning people into zombies and creating volcanos and they made that one bondage book super-popular. This isn't the worst thing Artifacts have ever done."

Sitting on the exam table, Pete gave a nod. "Claudia's right, Artie. You should listen to her." Then he turned away from both of them, staring into the middle distance as if addressing someone who wasn't there. "Artie's bad attitude was really starting to annoy me. I know he's a valuable member of the tribe and all, but this game is fifty percent mental, and there, he is not pulling his weight." Then Pete held a hand up to his mouth and dropped his voice. "Not that pulling his weight's an easy thing. I don't think Artie's given up as many reubens per day as he promised he would on New Year's…"

Artie strongly considered ripping out some of what little hair he had left. "This is not a reality show! There is no camera! Stop making confessionals!"

Pete snapped out of The Real World and went back to the real world. "Sorry, Artie." He held up his hand. In it was... "The first Immunity Idol that Survivor ever used. Powerful mojo! And hey, not all that bad. You get to hear all the pearls of wisdom right now instead of waiting for my memoirs." Again, he looked off into the middle distance. "Of course, I love making jokes and keeping morale up, and I know the whole tribe loves it too, but it's not easy being 'on' all the time. They're smart people, and you've got to worry that if they find out too much, they can use it against you. I'm not here to make friends, I'm here to win."

"You are here to make friends," Claudia told him. "You've put it on five separate status updates."

"You follow my Facebook?" Pete asked.

"You follow his Facebook?" Artie asked.

"The pictures he takes of his snacks deserve a Pulitzer. The man can make nachos into art."

Pete looked off into the middle distance. "Claudia's a sweet kid, and I appreciate that she knows a good food pic when she sees one. But the new Natalie Dormer sidecut? Talk about playing Follow The Leader! Why do these white chicks always gotta play Single White Female with the last bitch they seen on E?" His head snapped back. "Wow, that was verging on racially insensitive."

"Forget about minorities, you insulted my hair!"

HG, coming into the Warehouse's medical room, grabbed Claudia in a quick, playful hug. "There, there. I won't let the bad man hurt you with his nasty, nasty words."

Pete growled, trying to shake the Immunity Idol loose from his fused hand once more. "C'mon, guys, did this really merit calling in Jane Bond?" Middle distance. "It seems more and more like HG is getting called in to 'consult' on Myka and me's cases. And I think I know where that consultation is happening, hey-hey-hey." He snapped his fingers in a Z. "I'm sorry, I love black people! This is not me!"

"If Mr. Lattimer has made us all suitably cringe," HG led, "my new strain of Liquid Suppressant Agent is coming along quite nicely. It should free him, although I doubt he'll have feeling in his left hand for a good two weeks."

Middle distance. "Two weeks of Strangers? That really is an Extreme Challenge."

HG's brow furrowed. "Why would he need to meet strangers if his left hand were numb? Would he not be able to shake hands to introduce himself…?"

"It really bothered me that HG didn't know what a Stranger was. This chick acted so—"

"Down, boy!" Claudia yelped. "Even reality shows have censors."

HG decided that, much like the seventies, this was something about the modern world that she was better off not knowing. "Myka will be bringing up the Suppressant shortly. In the meantime, I would like to go over a few little… oddities of the newer, stronger 'goo.' First of all, do you have any seafood allergies? I do mean any."

In short order, Myka was up in the medical room, a canister that looked distinctly like a prop from The Blob in hand. Inside, semi-sentient Jell-O was looking around curiously. "If this doesn't get that Artifact, nothing will. How's Pete doing?"

"I know it's the first thing people think of, seeing how macho I am and then that my two female counterparts are obviously super into each other. But honestly, I never understood the attraction of a boy-girl-girl threesome. You're outnumbered! And then some guys go ahead and talk foursome, like, man, you're tampering in God's domain…"

Myka looked at the others, who appeared positively stoned by their exposure to Pete's inner monologue. "I can't tell if he's doing worse or better."

"He's thought about spooning with Steve," Claudia reported.

"In the line of duty! We may be in a situation where we need to pool our body heat, and I've gotta be comfortable with that!"

"Hands up, everyone. If Pete bribes us all with his famous mimosas," Myka suggested, "we can all tell Dr. Cho that his inner thoughts are a series of Frank Miller caption boxes. You know, manly stuff about dark, crime-ridden cities…"

"He does think about Batman a lot," Claudia reasoned. "And surprisingly a lot about my jackets."

"You don't flatter your figure! I don't say anything because it's not my place, but you're working against your own shoulders—" Pete stopped sheepishly. "Mimosas for everyone. But not because I have a thing for Abby, I don't go for office romances."

"You don't have to actually have them inside the office," HG pointed out helpfully. "Although some of these desks are rather sturdy—"

Myka nearly pressed her hands together in prayer. "Please, no innuendos while Pete's brain is holding an open mike night. Artie is traumatized enough already."

"I eat lunch at my desk!"

"Oh, it wasn't your desk!"

"Not at first…"

"HG!"

"Myka!"

"Brad! Janet! Dr. Scott!" Claudia cried. Blank stares. "Oh, I'm the only one who's ever seen Rocky Horror?"

"With that new haircut, you're surprised?" Artie asked.

"You're taking Pete's side on haircare?"

"He opened the floodgates."

"Alright, everyone, enough!" Myka cried. "I know this has all been amusing, but there is still a dangerous Artifact whammying our friend. Let's fix that. Then we can all weight in on Claudia's hairdo, which I think is very chic."

"Oh no!" Claudia moaned. "Myka thinks I'm hip!"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Myka's been a lot more curt with people lately," Pete said into a camera that remained stubbornly nonexistent. "Like she's been harboring some anger. I think it's possible she found out that I slept with her sister."

Myka blinked. A long, slow blink, her eyes preparing their slow, volatile move to fully take in one Agent Pete Lattimer. "What?"

Pete jumped up from the exam table. "Nonononono—"

"You slept with my sister?"

"No, not like your sister your sister—like, your sistah, from another mistah! I meant it in a black way."

"I don't have any black friends! And I just realized how bad that sounds, but it's not like I tell any race jokes, so it balances out. And my sister?"

Pete looked into the middle distance. "Tracy was a very special lady and I felt a real connection with her. There are so many girls that don't feel real, you know, and she felt really real to me. Yeah, we definitely made a connection."

"Stop Bacheloring my sister!"

Helena tried to step in. "Myka, darling, as you said, he is under the influence of a mind-altering Artifact. Perhaps we should deal with that first, and then focus on this altogether disturbing revelation."

Myka forced a smile as she handed the new neutralizer goo to HG. "Helena, please do what I cannot and help Pete with his problem in an efficient and orderly manner. While I go away somewhere and plan the perfect murder." She glowered at Pete. "I read mystery novels, Lattimer. So many mystery novels!"

An hour later, Pete had his hand back, Artie had pulled rank and dragged Claudia off to do some 'actual work' (involving thoroughly scrubbing the Warehouse's desks), and Pete was wilting under the gaze of both Myka Bering and HG Wells.

"Just once," Myka said, "and only once, do I want to hear from you exactly how and why you had sexual intercourse with my sister, Tracy Bering."

"Does she have to be here for this?" Pete asked, eying Helena slightly suspiciously.

"I may still want to murder you. She's our resident expert in that."

"I only murder bad people," Helena promised.

Pete exhaled.

"But it's possible Myka will bribe me with sex, so no promises. In fact, I was just picturing that exact scenario when I discovered the most remarkable use for the showerhead in the bed and breakfast—"

"HG!"

Pete silently praised the heavens that he no longer has to voice his inner monologue. "Okay—it's a funny story, really—you'll laugh. You remember that party we went to at Tracy's last year, with the cake and the balloons and everything—what was it for…?"

"My birthday," Myka said, with the anger of a sun that has decided to commit murder.

Pete snapped his fingers. "That's right, I got you that hardbound collector's edition of Harry Potter books, that was thoughtful, right? Right?"

"You had sex with my sister at my birthday party?"

"…those books were signed by the guy who played Draco Malfoy in the movies. Remember?"

Pete's explanation as to how exactly he had had sex with Myka's sister was briefly interrupted by an attempted murder, Helena's foiling of the attempting murder, and Pete getting some ice for his eye.

"See if I get you anymore signed copies of anything," Pete muttered. "I had my eye on some signed V.C. Andrews books on eBay for next Christmas, but maybe I'll just let ErnestoXXX69XXX420 bid a little higher than me!"

"Pete, please get on with it," Helena instructed, sitting with Myka in her lap and only partly restraining her. "I think it'll be somewhat cathartic and thus I would like to try that to soothe her before we have to move on to concussions. You can have more than one, you know."

"This is why you Brits are the villains in all the Star Wars movies," Pete shot back. "Okay, so Tracy's husband had just left her, she's just had the baby, she was hosting your birthday party as a big show of how she had it altogether, but then little Sebastian, he wouldn't stop crying. And hey, here comes Uncle Pete the Secret Service agent, dressed in a nice sports jacket and you know how I am with kids. It's after the party, she's tired as hell, baby won't shut up, I tell her to kick back, have a Bud, let me take the little monster. What do you know, I start rocking him, he shuts up. So while Tracy's enjoying the peace and quiet, we start talking. Just little stuff at first, but then she's pouring her heart out about how the house is falling apart, she's tired all the time, her job isn't giving her any real maternity leave at all. And you know me, Mr. Sensitivity. I let her have a good cry, tell her everything's going to be cool, help her put the baby down. And he looks super cuddly all dogged out in his crib, so I've got all these maternal instincts flowing. Yeah, you wouldn't think a guy could get those, but we can. We can—"

Myka surged forward suddenly. "PATERNAL INSTINCTS! LEARN YOUR PREFIXES YOU GODDAMN—"

Helena pulled her back. "Myka, dearheart, dearheart, you have no alibi. You do not have an alibi."

"Let me bronze him?" Myka begged. "Just for a few decades? He'll like the 2040s, they'll probably have stopped making Paranormal Activity movies by then!"

"Shh, shh," Helena soothed. "Pete, finish your story. And there had better be a twist ending where you did not actually have sex with Myka's sister—"

"MY SISTER!"

"So we go downstairs," Pete explained. "It's late, all the guests have left, so I help her clean up, right, like a mensch? And all the while, she's talking about how big my arms are and how Myka's so lucky to have me as a partner and how my belt goes great with my loafers and you know, men need validation too. But I realize she's coming onto me, and of course she's my best friend's sister, so obviously I can't do anything about all the touching of me and the looks she's giving me and the way she says certain words, like bone, all light and girly, and how does that word even come up in conversation? I think she mentioned something about paleontology. That's another thing, she talked about dinosaurs, Myka! But I resisted. For the greater good."

"And then?" Myka asked.

"And then?" Helena asked.

"Then it turns out there was a lot of birthday cake left over and you, Myka, you didn't take any of it with you. She wants to lose her pregnancy weight, so obviously she can't eat it all by herself, so I let her sit me down at the kitchen table and I let her get me a big glass of milk and Myka, I don't know if you remember, but that was a really good cake. Helena, you were there, you had some, yes or no on the cake?"

Helena nodded slowly. "It was a superior example of a cake. A lot of them cover up the inadequacies of the cake itself with the frosting, but I found them both rich and scrumptious in proportion to the other."

"I would've enjoyed it without icing at all!" Pete argued.

"Yes, that's the mark of a good cake. There's a reason we say that a bonus is 'the icing on the cake,' but so many people just look at cakes as this bland—"

"Frosting delivery system!" Pete agreed. "Imagine if brownies were like that!"

"Enough!" Myka cried. "Unless you have some sort of sexual fetish for birthday cakes—"

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" Pete asked.

"Why did you bone my sister!?"

Pete frowned. "Hunh. I guess the word does come up in conversation."

"How!?"

"Well, she had gotten the last piece. Then she spilled it kinda… down her shirt. And the frosting, I mean, it was everywhere. And there was, like, a lot of everywhere for it to be everywhere. Cuz she'd just, y'know, popped that little one out. I mean, they were looking great. Even if I'd been a leg man, I would not have been after I'd seen them thangs…" Pete ended his sentence on a falsetto note which, he realized, was a good way to get Myka to glare at him.

As was breathing.

"They were looking quite nice," HG said, giving Myka's hand a placating pat.

Myka was not placated. "So, what, you got a washcloth and she couldn't just wipe herself off, so you had to have sex with her!"

Like Archimedes having his Eureka moment, Pete had a brief moment of self-awareness. He realized that "A washcloth was not involved," was not a good set of last words.

Myka blinked. "You…"

"There was frosting everywhere."

"My sister…"

"I know you care about the environment, Myka—"

"You and…"

"Starving children in Africa!"

"With my…"

"How could I let it go to waste?"

"You ate my birthday cake off my sister while you had sex with her," Myka said, with the quiet of a movie trailer just before the montage at the end started.

"If it helps, it didn't have any of those little frosting roses on it…"

"RRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"You know," Helena said, driving the Prius as she, unlike Pete, had the use of both arms (not to mention how painful it is to work the pedals with only one broken toe), "while I've always been open to partner-swapping, this isn't what I had in mind."

"You're just pissed that Myka's been reassigned to work with Steve and Claudia. Which is just fine by me! Let her enjoy her little time-out in the Minor Leagues! We can handle the big times all on our own! Anyway, you should be happy to be with me on Team We Didn't Do Anything Wrong. You've seen Tracy, right? She's like an Olympic athlete in cuteness. Like a Russian ballerina who trained in having hair and eyes and… you're telling me you would've turned her down, if you and Myka weren't a thing?"

Helena groaned inwardly. "I suppose, were I not affianced, Tracy Bering would strike me as a very charming young lady and eminently suitable companionship."

"Exactly! She was a freshly minted MILF and she was offering free pizza. You don't turn down free pizza unless you're on a diet."

"Is that really what you heard me say?"

"I mean, I suppose if it were Hawaiian pizza, maybe, but Tracy was not Hawaiian pizza. She had things to prove, man. Hard to believe that was her first kid. Hard to believe."

Helena studiously studied the road ahead. "Do you think if Myka and I get married, that Artie would have to pair us together in the field? He's clearly doing this because he doesn't think we can effectively work as a unit while also exploring the pleasures of Sapphic romance."

"Yeah, total BS," Pete agreed. "The three of us never had any problem with that!"

"Well, to be fair, Myka and I did have something of a 'buzzkill,' as they say."

"Yeah? And what's that? Hey, a White Castle! Stop there, stop there! I know this car will smell like burrito-butt for the next hundred miles, but I'm willing to pay for both our meals and let you listen to one of your feminism podcasts."

"Has anyone ever told you that you set a too romantic mood in the workplace? It's a wonder Myka could keep her hands off you."

"Yeah, clearly it skips a generation—or does a little jig around the generation… whatever. Every other Bering finds me irresistible. I think I caught her dad giving me the eye once."

"If I got White Castle, would you be quiet while my podcasts played?"

"Hey, English, this is America. We're only quiet when watching sex scenes with our parents."

"Why would you watch—never mind. In time, Myka will calm down, forgive your momentary indiscretion, and I can go back to the romantic atmosphere of sharing a hotel room with Myka while you do not."

Pete nodded solemnly. "Now that it's just the two of us, can we still get separate rooms?"

"Almost certainly yes."

"Follow-up question: does Myka calming down have any major connection to it being a 'momentary indiscretion'?"

HG's smile was ill-suited to her face. "What do you mean, Agent Lattimer?"

"Just that the real issue is the fact that we had sex, not some other little detail like what I was wearing or where it took place or how many times it happened…"

"I realize the Warehouse is a source of endless wonder, but I refuse to believe you gave that woman multiple orgasms."

"One, never underestimate how frisky pregnancy hormones can make a body. Two—not what I meant."

HG pulled over to the side of the road. "How many times?"

"Well, you remember that time Tracy needed my help moving out of her place to somewhere a bit smaller?"

"Yes."

"Now remember that time Tracy needed my help baby-proofing the new place?"

"Yes…"

"Now remember that time Tracy needed my help setting up her internet—"

"How many times?"

"I don't know! Not that many! I mean, sure, she says the kid called me Da-da once, but babies have horrible elocution. He could've been saying anything. Plus, we did the cake thing again, so she could've had some frosting in her ear…"

"So, in essence, your sexual intercourse with Myka's sister is ongoing. We are simply in a down period which will eventually end and see you resuming your plundering of Tracy Bering's womanhood."

Pete's brow furrowed. "I never thought about it that way. I guess so. You should write another of those Time Machine novels!"

"…damn you, that is a good premise. Time travel by way of love affair. Very poetic."

"And I didn't know it—ic." Pete's phone buzzed. "Hey, I think I won that eBay bid. Won't Myka be surprised that after all this, I still got her a thoughtful—oh. It's her." He scowled. "She tweeted me a Facebook update."

"I don't understand what any of that means," Helena informed him.

"It's from Tracy's page. She updated her relationship status to in a relationship with Pah-Peeeeeeee…"

Pete's phone rang as he trailed off. He answered it.

"Seven days," Myka whispered, and hung up.

Pete put his hand on HG's shoulder. "Okay. First thing first. We're going to go to Eureka. We're going to see if they've got that moonbase running yet…"