John was a strange man even by New Tech City standards. Standing six foot two, built like a linebacker, and blessed with coal black hair and a wardrobe to match, he cut an imposing figure, but the thing Jack noticed the most was how he sometimes spoke with all the glee of a schoolboy playing war in the gravelly rasp of a long-time smoker. Not that Jack had ever seen a cigarette in his hand. It was with that distinctive voice and a flapping trench coat that John first approached Jack and asked if he wanted to work for him. The job was simple: show up where and when he was told, transport goods from point A to B, and don't get caught. The compensation would be cash, or a share of the spoils if it was within reason, and if he did get caught, he was on his own.

For lack of other plans more than anything, Jack accepted the offer. It didn't take long for John to notice how good he was at smuggling things—though Jack kept his peculiar reason for that to himself—and soon the dealer was calling on him for the plum jobs, the ones he was willing to pay the most for because they typically involved the most expensive goods.

The diamonds gig had ranked up there, though the more Jack thought about it, the less certain he was whether the price had had to do with the rocks or with the risk from a group nobody wanted no trouble with. He also had an abiding paranoia that John actually knew about his connection to the infamous ring, such as it was, and wouldn't hesitate to exploit him for it if he could. The thing was, there was nothing exploitable in that relationship, and Jack really didn't want to get sent into fires just because his boss thought he was fireproof.

The two of them were meeting at Piggy's tonight, an illegitimate mobile eatery with a barely palatable menu and whose real business was deniable conversations. Piggy, the proprietor and sole staff member, was supposedly one of the first aliens to arrive in New Tech City, and was very conversant in the who-was-who and what-was-what of everything illicit within its borders. He knew, for instance, that Jack was a favorite of John's, so as soon as Jack sat down, well ahead of his boss like usual, Piggy slunk over and plunked a glass down in front of him.

"On the house," the proprietor said in a congested voice as unctuous as his demeanor. Jack tipped the glass in thanks, then stared at the owner with a sorry excuse of a smile until he went away. The drink, whatever it was, tasted strong enough to strip paint off a wall, and it was just as well because the only offerings Jack would have trusted to be fit for humans would have to have enough alcohol in them to kill whatever else might have killed him first. The taste aside, it wasn't an entirely unpleasant concoction. The evening was cold and just a few sips left a comfortable fire in his belly.

As he waited, a few more customers trickled in, all of them notably taking tables as far away from him as possible. That could have been Piggy's doing since the owner was making a credible attempt at affording Jack privacy, mostly by pretending to ignore him. Or it could have been plain old prejudice, not for being dark this time, but for being human. Distrust still ran deep between aliens and humans, especially those living in hard times.

A sudden red glow at the edge of his vision made him turn, but all he saw was John strolling leisurely towards his table, hands tucked in the deep pockets of his trademark coat. The dealer grinned when he saw Jack looking, revealing a set of gleaming white and impossibly even teeth. Jack lifted his chin a little in acknowledgment, but didn't attempt any other kind of expression because it would have undoubtedly come out as a grimace. For all of John's easy posturing, Jack knew he better appear damn well grateful for the gig and for John's favor even if it brought more unwanted attention instead of less.

"Jack." That gravelly voice just wasn't something he could get used to. Besides being so rough that it made him want to clear his own throat, it often sounded like it came from some place other than John. A few times—and it had taken Jack a while to put his finger on this one—John's words didn't quite follow his mouth, and in retrospect, Jack was glad he hadn't been able to figure it out in the moment because that shit was creepy as fuck. Nowadays he avoided looking at John's mouth whenever the dealer spoke.

"Sup, John. All's well, I trust?"

"Quite well. And yourself? Have you done anything with your share of the gold yet?"

Though Jack hadn't been involved in the job, one of his payments had, out of the blue, come in the form of tiny gold bars sealed in tiny protective packaging. Their tracking numbers were stamped clearly into the metal, so Jack suspected that John wasn't being generous so much as he was betting that most of his runners didn't have the means to anonymize the bars in order to spend them, nor would they lose or discard such pieces, which meant John could collect them back whenever he wanted and could probably pay whatever price he felt like too.

"Nope, still just sitting on it," Jack said. "Thought I'd wait for the market price to improve. No one is interested in spongy Earth metal right now, I guess."

"Not on its own, perhaps," John said mischievously, and Jack knew better than to ask questions.

Piggy chose that moment to sidle back over, this time with a tall silver tumbler overflowing with vapor. "Welcome back, your eminence," he simpered, setting the cup down in front of John with a flourish. "This one's on me."

John wasn't annoyed by the interruption like Jack thought he would be. Instead, he picked up the tumbler and took a thoughtful swig. "I see you took my suggestion to add more jalapeños. This is much better than that last cup of sludge you served me."

"I'm glad you approve, your eminence."

"Your sniveling, however, could use some improvement. Leave us. Jack and I have business to discuss."

"Of course." Piggy turned to Jack briefly. "A refill?"

"I'm good, thanks."

The proprietor scurried off, and John threw back another mouthful of drink before settling his eyes on Jack. "You said you have something to speak to me about?"

"Yeah..." Jack decided it was worth the hesitation to organize his next words. "It's about that last run I did—which was delivered successfully, by the way—but I think there was someone else after it. After the drop, this guy shows up pretty much immediately inside the bar and takes the seat right next to mine. He doesn't say nothing outright, but he knows I've got the package on me and he isn't bothering trying to be subtle about it. He even orders a beer like he's got nothing else to worry about." Jack glanced at John. "I think he was one of Red's."

"I see. What makes you think he was working for Red?"

"Do you remember what people were saying about Red supposedly having brought on a psychic?" John nodded. "Well, this guy would definitely fit the bill. Somehow he traced exactly where the drop happened, every step of it, and when he came and sat down next to me, he gave me this look, and I got the weird feeling that he just...knew. Like, the way he'd seen everything that happened already, he also saw everything around us without barely looking up. Maybe he even saw what was gonna happen too."

The whole of that came out sounding only a little dumber than Jack had expected, and he quickly moved on before he could dwell on it futilely.

"He didn't try to stop us when we left, and no one followed us on the way to the warehouse. No one we could see, anyway," Jack conceded. He leveled his gaze with John's as evenly as he dared. "Was Red after that drop?"

The dealer, who had been listening patiently the whole time, leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers and looking so genuinely pensive that Jack started to hope maybe he really didn't know anything about it.

"I was not aware of any other interest in that delivery," John said finally. "But, as with all of them, that does not mean it doesn't exist. It is just a matter of who is interested enough to make an appearance, and as it turns out, Jack, your man, whoever he was, was interested enough. After you left the warehouse, someone came and stole the crystals back. They took out five of my guards to do it."

Jack's mouth dropped open. He still remembered how relieved he and Z had been when they were finally driving away from the warehouse, the package definitively out of their hands—John's news pretty much skewered that feeling all the way through. He was also startled that the job had been undone so quickly after. It was unsettling even after the fact to know that whoever had done it had probably not been far behind them after all, a pursuer both unseen and unshakeable. Someone apparently capable of taking out five of John's guards.

For the first time since that night, Jack thought about the man at the bar. How extraordinarily ordinary he had been, a consummate Joe Blow. Jack would probably forget his face in a week. He already forgot what the guy sounded like.

John was still waiting for Jack to say something, and when he didn't, the dealer mused a little too coolly, "It is a formidable foe you have led to us."

Jack didn't miss the censure in his boss's words. "Nothing we can't handle though, right?" he replied, hoping bravado wasn't the wrong way to go.

John raised one dark eyebrow, and the look he gave Jack was frankly appraising. Jack waited, idly fingering his glass like the look didn't bug him, and after a stillness that felt longer than it probably had been, John said, "That's what I like about you, Jack. Fortune favors the bold, as do I. It is a surer trait than whatever it is you believe to be true about Red's man."

Jack shrugged, aware that John had just managed to compliment and chide him in the same sentence. "You kind of need it in this job, don't you think?"

"Undoubtedly. And in fact, given this turn of events, I may have another job for you, one that you can no doubt handle."

The way that last word came out started up something queasy in Jack's stomach, but when John raised his tumbler for a toast, Jack did the same because that was what you did when your boss expected you to.

"To the bold," John said, and Jack drank anyway.

The first time Jack laid eyes on Marie had been under the flashing lights at Harlequin, where she sparkled in a little blue number and moved with abandon no matter what kind of music was playing. He would come to learn, several rendezvouses later, that she owned several such sparkly numbers in a rainbow of colors, but the blue one remained his favorite—first impressions and all that, but also because it made her gray eyes go blue whenever she wore it.

Tonight she had on red, bright as a firetruck inside the club, but in the darkness of his car, it had dimmed to a lustier hue. They were both warm from an evening of dancing and drinks, too warm to make it home and too warm to keep their hands to themselves. Jack happily roamed the expanse of skin exposed by a shirt that barely qualified as clothing, and Marie nimbly returned the favor, her lithe fingers trailing fire everywhere as if his clothes weren't even there.

They were well on their way to third base when an explosion rent the night air, rattling the car's windows and making Marie scream. Jack tightened his arms reflexively when she collapsed against his chest, and for several seconds they lay together stock-still, their panting breaths and pounding hearts eclipsed by the ringing in their ears.

"What the stars was that?" Marie's voice sounded muffled and far away despite her mouth being only inches from his face. She pushed herself up on her arms to try to get a look outside.

"Hey." He tried to coax her back down by constricting his hold. "Be careful."

She pushed his arms away and rolled off him to crouch in the space behind the front seat, where she tugged her sort-of-shirt back into place impatiently. He couldn't see her expression with the way she was turned, but he saw her stiffen when the screaming started in earnest somewhere in the distance.

"We can't just stay here," she said, and was out of the car before he could protest. He sat up and scrambled after her with far less grace.

"What are you doing? You know you're supposed to run away from explosions, not towards them, right?"

"I'm trained in field medicine," she said, which was news to him. "If there are people hurt, I could help them. Are you coming or staying?"

Jack didn't know what he could do in an emergency like this, but Marie was clearly on the verge of running off and wasn't going to wait for anything, not even for him to insist she at least wear his jacket, which had been left in the car. So he ran with her, his mouth twisted the whole way at how unprotected she was by the little glittery strings across her back, the same strings he had thanked God for just minutes ago.

They skidded to a halt when they reached the main street, which had gone from hot spot to hot zone. People were streaming out of clubs and restaurants and running panicked in multiple directions. Several cars parked along the curb were overturned or aflame while others had been abandoned in the street, their doors hanging open with the engines still idling. A geyser of water spewed twenty feet in the air where a fire hydrant had been knocked over.

Even as they stood rooted by the sight, laser blasts streaked overhead and hit the scaffolding affixed to a building being repaired. Steel bars and wooden planks shattered on impact, flying with deadly force into the crowd below. Then all seven stories of the structure began to simultaneously collapse and tip forward, ripping away from the building bar by bar.

"We shouldn't be here!" Jack shouted over the renewed wave of screams, but Marie wasn't looking at him or the lurching disaster that was happening almost comically slow. Instead, her frozen stare was locked on a creature standing atop a light pole half a block away in the other direction. It was humanoid in shape and dressed in a black jumpsuit. Its silver head, probably a mask or a helmet of some kind, was studded with holes like a wiffle ball. Most notably, its right forearm seemed to have been replaced by an absurdly large gun barrel.

In the next moment, three things happened, possibly at the same time or possibly split seconds apart, he really couldn't tell. One, the seven-story scaffold finished collapsing in a thunderous and ground-rattling boom. Two, the creature on the light pole began firing into the street again, but it didn't seem to have a specific target this time. Three, Marie darted into the fray without any warning, and though he sprang after her the instant he realized it, he was already several paces behind.

An older couple sat in the middle of the street, speckled with dust and looking lost in the smoky air. The woman had her arms around the man awkwardly, holding him up as a gash on his head bled freely. It wasn't clear from a distance whether or not he was conscious. Marie dropped down on the man's other side and put an arm around his back to aid in propping him up.

"What happened?" Marie asked the woman.

"Here." Jack knelt down beside her. "Let me." Marie nodded and they carefully shifted the man's weight from her arm to his.

"He was hit by a beam when that platform came down," the woman said fretfully. "He says everything's spinning and he doesn't think he can stand."

Marie nodded in understanding and offered gentle reassurances, introducing herself and Jack as well. The woman, whose name was Paula, looked relieved for the help and grew more so as Marie asked the man's name—"Everybody calls me Lenny"—and proceeded to check his pulse, reflexes, and eyes, patiently explaining everything she did or was about to do in a clear and calm voice.

"I'm going to examine the wound on your head now. Hold it still and raise a hand if you need me to stop."

Marie rose onto her knees and very carefully laid her hands on either side of the gash, which continued to pulse blood, but not as heavily as before. The look in her eyes was sharp and probing, and Jack wondered what exactly she was looking for. Her silence and focus, for the several seconds it lasted, unfortunately also emphasized the havoc still going on all around them and he began to feel a twinge of impatience.

"Lenny, is everything still spinning?" Marie asked.

The man opened his eyes slowly, looking suspicious at first, then surprised as he opened them the rest of the way. "No. Well, a little. It's better than it was, a lot better."

"Good. Does anyone have something I can wrap this wound with?"

"I have a scarf," Paula volunteered at once, and pulled the item from her handbag. It was a pretty peach-colored thing, gauzy but long. Marie folded the cloth in half, then deftly wrapped it around Lenny's head over the wound. Blood immediately seeped through the delicate fabric, and Jack thought it was kind of a shame that Paula would probably have to throw it out after this.

"We can move him," Marie declared. Though her manner was all business, Jack could see the gratitude in her eyes when she looked at him. "You ready?"

He nodded at the same time Lenny said, "Let's blow this popsicle stand."

Marie went around to his other side to take Paula's place, but the older woman protested.

"I'm sprier than I look," she insisted, and carefully wedged herself beneath her husband's arm. Marie didn't contest her, but stayed close in case she needed the help after all. On the count of three, Jack and Paula slowly levered Lenny to his feet. His first few steps were halting, but eventually grew more sure, and he was supporting most of his own weight too, which Jack assumed was a good sign.

As the four of them made their way toward the nearest escape route, Marie's head suddenly swiveled towards something only she had heard.

"I'm going back," she said. "There might be others who need help." She laid a hand on Paula's arm, but her gaze included all of them as she asked, "Will you be all right going the rest of the way?"

Jack didn't like it, not at all, but it wasn't his permission she was looking for.

"We'll be all right now," Paula answered for them. "Thanks to you, dear. Both of you." She glanced over at Jack as well. "God bless, and be careful."

"God bless," Lenny echoed, smiling for the first time.

"Thank you," said Marie. "To both of you as well."

She didn't leave without giving Jack one last look, this one reserved purely for him. It said thank you, it said I'm sorry, and it said let me go. Something in his chest tightened when she ran back into the bedlam and disappeared from sight.

When he finally looked away, both Paula and Lenny were regarding him sympathetically, and somehow that made it worse.

"Let's go," he said, forcing himself to focus.

Until this point, the wail of sirens had been a steady but distant sound for some time. They abruptly began to grow louder and reached a crescendo when a white motorcycle came speeding up the main avenue behind the attacker, its flashing red lights lighting up the buildings on either side. Its tires squealed as the rider skid sideways into an abrupt halt and jumped off almost before it stopped moving.

"SPD!" the rider shouted, and though he wore a red helmet, his voice rang out as loud and as clear as if he had used a megaphone. He could be heard over the noise of the chaos and down the entire block, and more than a few people turned their heads at the sound.

"Put your weapon down and your hands up!" the Red Ranger ordered. The weapon he leveled at the creature on the light pole didn't look like much competition for its oversized arm gun, but surprisingly, the creature complied. It bent its arms upward in a quick, jerky motion and stayed that way for all of half a second before a black-and-white Jeep bearing the same red sirens and "S.P.D." logo as the Red Ranger's motorcycle came skidding up. The creature immediately took aim and fired at both the Red Ranger and the Jeep. Four more people in brightly colored suits leapt out of the vehicle at the same time, weapons materializing in their hands and returning fire before their feet even touched the ground. One of their shots managed to knock the creature off the pole.

"Lee, Solan, secure the civilians!"

The Pink and Yellow Rangers broke away as commanded, and the Blue and Green Rangers shifted positions to cover for their loss. Together with the Red Ranger, the latter formed a triangle around the creature in an effort to contain it.

Pink and Yellow split up as they hurried towards the crowd, each one covering a side of the street as they rounded up stragglers and cleared a path for those who had been reluctant to leave the relative safety of the buildings.

"Stay together and keep moving!" the Yellow Ranger shouted. The mere presence of the Rangers, however, seemed to have inspired a greater calm and orderliness in the crowd already. As Jack passed by, the Ranger touched his shoulder with a gloved hand.

"There are ambulances on the next block if you need them," he said, and it was really, really weird to hear his voice like he wasn't wearing a helmet at all. Jack just nodded and the Ranger moved on.

"Well, wasn't that something," Paula said after the three of them finally made it off the main avenue. Some of the people were gathering in a wide green space adjoining a church on the next block, one guarded by officers from both SPD and the NTPD around the perimeter. A triage area for the wounded had been established at the far end beside several ambulances that lined the curb, exactly as the Yellow Ranger had promised.

The resounding boom of renewed gunfire out on the main street made Jack start, and he wished he could feel the same kind of reassurance everyone else seemed to whenever the Rangers showed up. To them, the Rangers were heroes, the guardians of New Tech City and Earth from malignant forces and powerful crooks. To Jack, SPD had been nothing more than glorified cops with egos as big as their giant metal doghouse in the middle of the city.

As Jack and Paula approached the triage area with Lenny, an EMT ran up and guided them to a station. Together they lowered Lenny onto the cot, and Jack felt a small pang of guilt over his relief at finally being free. Lenny and Paula were sweet people, the kind that would have been nice to meet under other circumstances.

"Go after her," Lenny said unexpectedly, as if he'd read Jack's mind. When Jack looked at him in surprise, the older man just smiled knowingly in return. His gaze, Jack noted, was quite steady now.

The EMT moved in with their equipment, displacing Jack politely but firmly and cutting off his chance to reply. Still Jack hesitated, not wanting to be rude by leaving abruptly. But Paula was already sending him an air kiss in silent thank you while Lenny made shooing motions behind the EMT's back. Jack grinned and finally turned away.

The majority of people were actually bypassing the green space and moving on towards destinations unknown. Those who stopped seemed to be the ones who needed help or, like him, were searching for others. As Jack jogged down the center pathway, flashes of red teased him from here and there, but none turned out to be who he was looking for, and he'd made sure to look carefully—Marie was shorter than just about everybody he knew.

Back on the sidewalk now, he paused to consider the flow of people still funneling through the cross streets. Though the volume had thinned considerably, to the point where there were actually gaps in between people, the thought of trying to swim upstream against them was still intolerable.

"Screw that," he muttered.

He darted through the stream and put several more meters between himself and the crowd before he turned and ran straight through the wall of the building. Normally he was more discreet with his power, but tonight he figured anyone who thought they saw a guy running through walls could chalk it up to stress. He phased through everything in his path until he emerged back on the main street.

The battle had been pushed another block down, but the Rangers were now beset by several of those wiffle-headed things. Jack wasn't normally a voyeur, but this was one fight he couldn't look away from. A far cry from the petty skirmishes he knew between rabble with interests to protect and pride to lose, this was an all bets off, headlong, full contact clash with guns and batons and fists and mettle and not so much as a shield to hide behind. Sparks flew as steel collided, and the sounds easily crossed the distance to reverberate through his insides.

It wasn't until one of the creatures blew up—taking out a car, a tree, and a storefront with it—that Jack realized the things were robots, and that explained some shit, like having cannons for limbs, and the funky way they moved, and why they didn't flinch or falter when they got hit, not unless it fucked them up completely. Even the Rangers weren't immune to feeling punishment like that, not from what he could see.

He also saw that the amount of force in that shot that took out the wifflehead was stupidly dangerous. The street—and anyone on it—wasn't gonna survive that. The Rangers fought the way they did, in close contact, in order to meter the heat, both theirs and their enemies', because if they didn't, there wouldn't be anything left to save. They did inarguably withstand those lasers better than anything else did.

A direct volley drove the Red Ranger nearly to his knees, and their funny colored suits suddenly didn't seem so funny anymore.

A flicker of movement in the corner of his eye diverted Jack's attention, and he turned in time to see a shadow detach itself from the darkness beneath an awning. Black coat a-fluttering, it came over to stand beside him.

"Quite the show, isn't it?" John said, not looking the least bit perturbed by the raging battle. Jack hoped he meant only the battle. The thought that John might have seen him use his phasing ability just now made him apprehensive, so he carefully kept his eyes on the fight as well.

"Yeah, it is."

"That is respectable power. It doesn't belong in the hands of children." Jack froze, but John seemed to mistake his silence for insult. "No offense, Jack. I suppose the Rangers could be about your age." John held up his hands. "Not that I wish to make assumptions."

Jack echoed the gesture. "It's all good. What, if I may ask, are you doing out here anyway?"

"A little reconnaissance of sorts. I've learned of a potential new acquisition whose properties sound rather like that." He nodded towards the Rangers. "If the talk proves true..." The dealer's eyes gleamed. "Power is the real prize. Not money, not reputation, not pleasure, though those have their uses. Power, and the ability to control it, is what separates the strong from the weak, the rulers from the subjects," he gave Jack a side glance, "the bold from the meek."

"Right." Jack employed his best intelligent nod. "Is that what the talk says?"

John chuckled. "Not in so many words, I suppose." He finally turned to look at Jack fully for the first time. "And what about you? What brings you out here?"

"I was having a nice evening out with, uh...a friend when those things showed up and started shooting. Speak of, I really gotta go find her now. We got separated in the madness."

"Ah, of course. Go find your companion. We'll speak again soon."

John slipped back into the night as easily as he'd appeared, and Jack returned to near the place he had last seen Marie. Officers and medics had control of the scene now, plus firefighters who were searching the collapsed scaffolding for trapped individuals. Smoke from the still-burning fires enveloped the entire area in a sooty haze. Jack squinted experimentally, but his better-than-average night vision was made for the dark, not for this.

"Hey!" A PD officer had spotted him and was stalking over. "We need everyone off this street!"

As the man got closer, his eyes locked onto Jack's face and narrowed as if trying to place it. Jack shifted his own gaze to just above the officer's eyebrows—a de-escalation trick he'd learned—and kept his stance open like he had nothing to hide. The officer was taller than him and had a hard jaw, and Jack couldn't help raising his own chin in response as the officer stared him down.

Something red flashed beyond the officer's ear, and a pretty little voice rang out.

"Jack!"

The unexpected sound caught the officer off guard, and Jack could tell from his expression that he didn't know what to make of this girl striding out of the smoke in a sparkly red half-shirt, her arms and chest smeared with blood.

"Miss, are you hurt?" he asked, taking a step towards her as she approached.

"I'm fine," she assured him. Then she looked at Jack, who was frowning at the blood. "We can go. Most of the civilians have gotten out, and they have a handle on those who are left."

"Right," he said as if he'd been part of that all along.

"Be safe, officer," Marie said to the badge still looking at her, and it took the man a second to get over his perplexity.

"You too, miss."

For the second time that evening, Jack found himself walking down the cross street with the smell of blood wafting beside him. "We should get you something to clean off with, or at least a blanket."

Marie predictably dismissed the suggestion. "I'd rather save those supplies for people that need them," she said, but then frowned as a new thought struck her. "Does the sight bother you?"

"No," he said, and he decided to prove it by pulling her into his arms. She snuggled against him with a little purr of contentment, and it was hard to say at that point who was keeping who warm.

"So," he drawled after a little while. "Field medicine, huh? Does this mean you're gonna run out and be a hero every time the city gets attacked? Because that sort of thing happens around here more than we would like."

"No, not every time," she said, smiling against his chest.

"How'd you learn it?"

"My...the closest word you have would be 'godfather', I guess. He taught me the basics as well as self-defense. He'd fought in two wars himself and then some, so he's a rather strong advocate of survival and self-reliance." She turned her head in the direction of the battle. "He was a Power Ranger too."

"Hold up. Your 'godfather' was SPD?"

"No, not SPD. His team was native."

"What does that mean?"

"It means their Power originated from their planet, the world it was intended to protect. Native Ranger teams are usually chosen from the native population, hence the term. Those worlds have no need for the defense services of Space Patrol Delta."

"So you're saying some planets out there have SPD Rangers like Earth does, but others like..." He wanted to say 'Bavaria', but knew he'd be invariably wrong. For the life of him, he could never remember the name of the planet Marie had said she'd come from. "...like yours have 'native' Rangers, and your godfather was one of them?"

"You mean Karova?" Marie said innocently.

"Yeah, there."

"Yes, that's right."

"Is he still a Ranger?"

"No. There's a new team now."

"How'd they get the job?"

Marie shrugged. "Only they know. There isn't an academy like SPD has, if that's what you mean."

"How else would you learn something like that?"

"You'd have to ask them. It's different from planet to planet, for native teams anyway." Marie stopped tracing patterns against his back and glanced up. "You're awfully curious about this. How come?"

That is respectable power. It doesn't belong in the hands of children.

My godfather was a Power Ranger too.

Something was percolating in his brain, but it was too faint to know what or even why.

"I'm just learning a lot of new things tonight," he said, "including some things about you." He leaned down and touched his nose to hers. "You're not a Power Ranger, are you?"

She pecked him on the lips like he'd hoped she would. "No. Definitely not."