The familiar blue wave ripples through me. I nearly drop the dinner plates in shock, but manage to compose myself.

I can hear talking from the living room, and I know it's Jon and Laurie exchanging greetings and maybe a few smiles. I choose to stay in the kitchen and admire my bird calendar for the hundredth time. December's picture is a royal American Eagle. They're aren't many left- only 100,000. It's a bit silly for a country's national bird to be going extinct. If we'd just gone with Franklin's wild turkey...

I barely notice as the room fills with blue light again. All is silent.

I set the table, humming a Billie Holiday song. Can't remember the name off-hand.

Jon's teleportation is starting to irk me- ten, twenty minutes later I'm attempting to carefully arrange these damn meatballs that keep rolling around on the spaghetti, and Jon's shockwaves disturb them. Again.

These kinds of things can't be rushed.

I call for Laurie, asking if it's her, even though it's obvious. It's a reflex.

It's somewhere around 10:30.

Hollis is telling me how way back when the Minutemen where still the Minutemen (and not just bumbling, hopeless civilians), how they'd take down those damn villains every night, how there'd be a frontpage story every damn day recording their wild, fantastical adventures in the night. How back in the old days, the Minutemen were right and just, and all was well with the world.

If only I'd been born twenty years earlier. If only.

Our Saturday-night beer sessions always leave me with a tinge of nostalgia. I was born after my time, and it makes my stomach flip when I think about it. The beer seems to help.

Before I know it, it's 11:30. Hollis' lit another cigarette. I keep telling him that at his age, he really shouldn't smoke. He keeps telling me that at his age, he doesn't care.

This could be useful. Pardon while I get things set up- I'm not used to this whole "internet" thing...