Jason woke up feeling hopeful. He sat up in bed as he recalled all of the events of yesterday. It was Saturday so there was no real point of waking up early, but he fought against going back to sleep. Ilana needed him to be vigilant.

He got dressed in some light clothes and headed outside for a jog. It was a long way to the gym on foot, but he could make it. He took his cell phone with him just in case something happened, although he doubted much would happen today. He just had a good feeling about it.

On the way to the gym he passed the bus stop and saw Kristin there. She gave him a wave as she sat on the bench, dressed in similar workout clothes.

"It's a long jog, you know," she warned him.

"Yeah, I know," Jason said, stopping for a moment to rest as he approached. "But I can make it."

"No, you can't," Kristin told him. "Take the bus with me. My car's in the shop and I need to have a nice, normal day after all of Kimmy's insanity."

"Huh?" Jason asked, feigning ignorance. The bus approached and they got on with some of the others. Jason was relieved to have enough money to get to the gym.

"I know about as much as you do, I think," Kristin said. "But Kimmy didn't and I understand she dragged you guys on some crazy misadventure."

"Did Lance tell you about that?" Jason asked. She nodded.

"Obviously, I don't have Kimmy's number, but Lance said I apparently missed out on some crazy shit," she said. Jason winced at her vulgar word; he wasn't used to that sort of talk. "Mr. Lunis is…"

"Yeah, we all know now, I guess," Jason remarked. He noticed other people on the bus staring at them and remembered to keep his voice low.

"Don't mind them," Kristin urged. "We're just two folks heading to the gym, after all."

"Yeah." After a moment he added, "What did you want to say to me on the bus?"

"Well, I need to literally compare notes," Kristin explained. "How has this whole 'my girlfriend is an alien princess' thing working for you?"

"I don't know," Jason said. "I just want to help her in any way I can. And if she has to go back to her home planet soon, well, I'd like to go with her, but if she doesn't want me to then I guess that's that."

"Honestly, I don't know what to make of all this," Kristin admitted. "We know they're serious, we know they can do amazing stuff. We just don't know what their ultimate goal is. How long they intend to be here. I'd like it if we could find out, just so that I can have a good sense of…how long this crazy monster stuff keeps happening."

"I don't care about that," Jason said. "If it gets really bad they can just move elsewhere. I can do a long-distance relationship if I need to."

"Well, I can't," Kristin said. "But at the same time, I think Ilana's the reason the aliens keep coming."

"Yeah, but…" Jason's phone suddenly rang. It was Mark.

"Oh, wow, you're awake. I guess this is a good time, then!" he told Jason before he could even say hello.

"What's happened?" Jason asked.

"Mr. Murphy…he's been arrested. Espionage. The school's quiet about it, but…I saw it on the news."

"What country?" Jason asked.

"They haven't said. But Solomon got a hold of me this morning. He told me he got approached by someone from the alien planet. Mutrad, he called it. The news says the CIA has him, but Solomon told me it's really G3."

Jason's jaw dropped. This was the world he lived in now.

. . . . . .

"No one is leaving the house," Octus told Lance and Ilana. He had gotten a similar call from Solomon the night before, after Ilana had gone to bed. Now the trio was in the living room, discussing the morning's news.

"Fine," Lance said. "I'll be working out in my room if you guys need me."

"I would encourage you to stay with Ilana and I downstairs," Octus urged. Lance scowled and stood up.

"I don't need you telling me what to do," Lance said. "You can't just hack into my brain as easily as you did Kimmy."

"Lance!" Ilana scolded. "It was a mistake, can't you just let it go?"

"Not when it sets a precedent," Lance told her. He went back upstairs to get away from the two of them.

"This isn't about that," Octus told him. "I have finished analyzing the documents we received a while ago from the moon base, and now is the perfect time for you two to take a look at them." Octus handed each of them a stack of papers he had printed out himself.

"I'm not wasting my time reading… 'Review of Earth-visiting Mutradi'? 'A Prediction of the Status of the King?'"

"We need to read that one first!" Ilana insisted.

"You can," Lance said, sitting back down again to start reading. "This sort of thing is vital to our mission and isn't relevant to everything that's been going on with us three lately."

"I'm glad you see it my way, Lance," Octus remarked.

"This doesn't let you off the hook, Octus," Lance warned as he began to read. "I'm just taking advantage of this situation to read some vital information."

"Which I copied for you," Octus pointed out. "And Ranaron, the frog-like Mutradi currently working for G3, translated. Be sure to thank him sometime, too."

"I'll get the thank-you note started once this is done!" Ilana promised.

Lance rolled his eyes and tried to tune them out as he read.

AN: I had two choices with the documents: Either retcon them out or actually sit down and write them. So I'm doing the latter. Hopefully this won't be too boring for you, as these are intended to shed some light on things. We won't be focusing on them exclusively, either, as shown by the beginning part of this chapter.