The door to the stairwell creaked open with Misto’s push, and Gadget half-expected them to come face-to-face with a mob of Cybermechazoids. But — wait, what? There were none. Coast was clear. But, wait . . . this didn’t make any sense. Where had they all gone? They had encountered six of them down on the second floor landing of the stairwell in the hotel . . . So didn't it make sense that the closer they got to the spaceship, the more there would be standing guard? Huh. Go figure. If this was Ravenkroft’s strategy, it was a damned peculiar one. But, regardless: The stairwell was clear of any Teenage Mutant Cybermechazoid Samurai, so Gadget breathed a sigh of relief. But remained suspicious as they climbed the narrow set of stairs to the rooftop. Misto went first; Gadget right behind him. The three girls brought up the rear, with Zo? in the lead, her body wreathed in glowing azure flames and her Vambraces held before her, almost criss-crossed but not quite; she was ready for anything. Sailor held her machine gun — had she ever fired a gun before? She looked like maybe she had been to a shooting range in her time; she looked like she knew how to hold it properly — at the ready, and Belladonna Nightshade brandished her longsword; light flashed off of the blade as she crept up, right behind Sailor.

  The early-morning air was cool and wet on his skin. Chilly. Gadget looked around. The rooftop of the Renaissance Regency Hotel And Convention Center was an enormous, flat, tar-and-gravel-topped structure dotted with large air conditioning units, pipes, antennae, and satellite dishes here and there, separated by wide-open spaces.

  “Well?” said Misto. “Where’s the alien ship?”

  “Yeah,” said Zo?. “I . . . don’t see anything.”

  Gadget glanced left, then right. What the fuck? The ship wasn’t here. But that was impossible! Fucking impossible! He had seen it! Right over . . . there. He turned to the left and looked toward the corner of the rooftop. That was where it should’ve been, dammit! But — wait — there was something else, there on the roof, about twenty feet in front of them. Zo? saw it — her — whatever — first:

  “Oh my God,” said Zo?, running from his side to the fallen, battered humanoid form lying in the gravel. “Oh my God, hello? Are you alright?” She knelt beside the human-shaped lump of a person — they appeared to be dressed in a trench-coat like garment, with a set of boots on over their leathery slacks, and . . . whoever they were, they appeared . . . to have a tail. The tail twitched excitedly in the air, though somewhat lazily, as though the person — or whatever they were — were only barely holding onto consciousness. Gadget exchanged a look with Misto, who shrugged, and together they started off toward the figure, whom Zo? was kneeling next to and whose shoulder she gently grasped, turning them over onto their back.

  The person — or more precisely, cat person — what the fuck? Cat person? Huh? — of indeterminate gender rolled over, their eyelids fluttering between open and closed rapidly. Bloody scratches covered their furry face; the bloody slash across their throat looked ugly, and had stained their fur a deep scarlet as the blood had run from it. They wore a strange-looking sort of body-suit, made apparently from some sort of kevlar weave — or something similar — and over it, a thick trench-coat, or duster, made of a leathery material of some sort. On their back (they were lying on it now) they wore what looked like some kind of jet-pack or life-support unit. And on their hips, a pair of deadly-looking ray-pistols, of some kind. Underneath the kevlar weave of their tunic, they had bled from several wounds. Gadget and the others gathered around Zo? and the fallen alien — for what else could this creature be? — and watched as Zo? shook it — her — him — whatever — awake.

  “Ship,” they muttered. “Get me . . . to my ship.”

  “She speaks English!” said Zo?, looking up at Gadget, her amazement plain.

  “You mean he speaks English,” corrected Sailor. “It’s a he.”

  “No, I think it’s a ‘she,’ definitely,” said Misto. “Positive of it.”

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  “No, it’s male,” said Belladonna Nightshade. “Pretty sure.

  “Well whatever they are — get your singular gender neutral pronouns right — ” said Zo?, “they’re hurt. Badly.”

  “My ship,” repeated the alien, with a little — but not much — force in their voice. “Get me . . . to my ship. Can repair . . . damage there.” They reached up and grabbed Zo? by the arm weakly. “Hurry.”

  “Where is your ship?” asked Zo?. “If it’s here, we can’t see it.”

  The creature raised a trembling arm — seemingly with great difficulty — and then raised its other hand, and with a tremor-ridden hand, pressed a button on its coat-sleeve, and then collapsed. Suddenly, from about five yards away from where they stood, there came a sound like the massive tumblers of a bank vault lock clunking into place . . . and then a whirring hum and whine, like a large generator cycling up to full power. Gadget looked around, searching for the source of the sound, and then — there it was: From out of the folds of the early-morning murk and shadows, there began to congeal a shape . . . which grew clearer and more precisely defined the longer he stared at it. It only took seconds for it to resolve; but those few seconds seemed to last a lifetime.

  From the time he had been knee-high and watching Star Trek reruns with his dad every Sunday morning — before his father’s untimely death from a heart attack when he had been twelve — he had dreamed of this day. Of First Contact. Of meeting Them. Of seeing — of actually setting his flesh and blood eyes — on a real, live extraterrestrial being from the stars. And of extending his hand in friendship to them, and of having it accepted. He had dreamed of the thrill that would run through his veins, would bubble through his blood, as he flashed them the Vulcan “live long and prosper” sigil and said to them, “On behalf of the Human Race, I welcome you to Earth. We come in peace.” And now, as he stood here, watching this — an actual, extraterrestrial spacecraft de-cloak and reveal itself to him, in a colossal act of trust on behalf of its alien pilot — his eyes briefly filled with tears of mingled joy, ecstasy, fear, wonder, awe, and — yes — a little terror. A slight chill ran up his spine: If there was a sense of purpose imposed upon the universe by design — which he seriously doubted, but, he could at least entertain the argument, right? — then these, he reasoned, were the moments he had been born to witness; the moments he had been saved from suicide in order to take part in and to see through.

  The ship looked like a squid that had been dropped into a cauldron of molten metal and cast into a frozen archetype, with a bubble of almost-opaque, rainbow-hued translucent glass stuck on the end where its head should’ve been. The word biomechanical seemed to suit it best. And from out of the bottom of the ship, an elevator-like compartment now descended, with a light shining within it. The glass doors parted, allowing entry.

  “C’mon,” said Misto, “you heard the lady. Er, gentleman. Whatever they are. Get them to the ship.” He lifted the now-unconscious alien into his arms and walked toward the elevator-like device. Gadget. Something had just occurred to him that totally deflated his earlier awe, wonder, and optimism. Talk about letting all the air out of someone’s tires; God, this was a horrible thought . . .

  “How do we know, exactly,” he said, “that this isn’t all some sort of elaborate trap set by Ravenkroft?”

  “I doubt it,” said Misto, buoying up his hopes. “For one thing — you were in Ravenkroft’s head. Tell me. Does this look like his ship?”

  “Well . . . no,” said Gadget. The spark of hope grew brighter within him.

  “Does this creature look like any of the biomechanoids he has in his employee?”

  “Well . . . no.”And suddenly, the spark of hope caught fire again.

  “And does the technology she has on her resemble anything that Ravenkroft has unleashed so far, or that he uses, or has on him?”

  “Well . . . no again.” Now that small flame of hope had ignited a blaze once again. Reassured, he nodded, and smiled. Yeah, okay. Misto was right. And this moment could live on in his memory, untarnished.

  “Okay then,” said Misto. “It’s decided, then. She’s in need, and we’re helping her. I indulged your heroic side. Now you indulge mine. You guys coming? The elevator is big enough for all of us, and there’s safety in numbers. Plus . . . weapons.”

  “Right,” said Gadget. He turned to Zo?, Sailor, and Belladonna Nightshade. And to Pumba, up on his shoulder. “Come on gang. We’re now officially boarding an alien spaceship. Get your phones ready to document this moment for posterity. No Instagramming, though. I have a feeling Weatherspark Dynamics might frown upon that.”

  Gadget followed Misto, who carried the unconscious alien in his arms, and the others followed him as they stepped into the glass elevator. The doors closed behind them obediently, and the elevator ascended into the alien ship.