You look amazing, champ. Exquisite! I just need you to hold that position for two beats.”

Jacob was holding hands with a woman who looked somewhat but not exactly like his mother on a set that looked somewhat but not exactly like his house on a planet that was absolutely nothing like any place he had ever been. His “mother” was a bit younger than his real mom and her skin was lighter, and Jacob found the differences somewhat offensive. Catalina had assured him she was the closest approximation they could find on short notice.

A director in dark black sunglasses directed his every move and facial expression. Jacob was growing very tired of trying to act out his everyday life. Also, he was reasonably sure he had seen the Astral actress on a daytime soap opera he had watched one day when he was home from school.

It had been Catalina’s idea to humanize Jacob by filming a campaign commercial that would portray him as a normal, average, and unthreatening kid from Earth, but nothing about arriving at Planet Cut! Cut! or pretending that the actress was his mom felt normal. In fact, the whole thing was quite bizarre and uncomfortable.

“Hi,” Jacob said to the camera, reciting the lines that Catalina had written for him. “I’m Jacob Wonderbar, just a normal kid from Earth. This is my mom. She’s an Earther too. You might be surprised that she doesn’t make me live in a basement and eat mice for dinner. Nope. She wants what’s best for me, and hopes that someday I’ll grow up and keep her entertained in her twilight years, just like any other mom.”

Jacob thought the lines were stupid, but Catalina insisted they would help him with the Astral mother demographic.

“Great, champ!” the director shouted. “Now, just look at your mom, and I want you to look very, very sad. Like, so crazy sad as if your dog flew away mixed with your grandmother dying mixed with seeing the last scene of Astral Tuesday. Go with that! Work it!”

“Hey,” Jacob whispered to the actress as he tried to look sad. “Have you been to Earth?”

“Don’t lose the feeling!” the director shouted. “I mean, Jacob darling, you’ve got to own this scene. Own it! Sad, champ. Look very sad.”

“Many times,” the woman whispered. “You know, many of the people you see in Hollywood are Astrals…”

Jacob let go of her hand in surprise and forgot about looking sad. “How many Astrals are on—”

The director shoved over his cloth director’s chair and yelled, “Cut! Cut! You people… Ugh! The magic is gone. I can’t work under these conditions. EVERYONE TAKE FIVE!” The director wandered off muttering to himself and Jacob thought he heard him sobbing when he reached his trailer.

Catalina stepped over, clapping. “Jakey, this is great!”

There were many words that Jacob would have used to describe the experience of filming the campaign commercial, and great was not one of them.

“Just one more scene to go,” she said. “We want to dramatize what happened with your dad leaving you behind and—”

“How do you know about my dad?” Jacob said, the blood suddenly rushing through his ears. He had never once spoken to Catalina about his father, and in fact he hardly ever even talked to Sarah and Dexter about it. They at least had the common sense and decency to broach the topic very lightly and carefully so that whenever Jacob didn’t want to talk about it he didn’t have to, and they certainly would have known without asking that he wouldn’t want the whole thing paraded around in front of Astrals as a way of getting a few more votes. He looked around at the crew members fussing with props in the house and touching up the paint. He loathed the idea of talking about his father in front of them.

“Oh,” Catalina said. “Oh, Jakey, well… You do remember that I was there with you aboard Praiseworthy last time you were in space when you found the pipe and wanted to go looking for your dad and you had that big fight with Sarah and Dex? I haven’t been investigating you or anything. I just thought it was a dramatic moment that—”

“What do you know about it?” he said, trying not to yell.

Catalina’s face went white, and she looked as if she couldn’t decide whether to smile or cry. “Nothing, Jacob. Nothing. I just thought… You know, not everyone has two parents, and that’s something that many Astrals can relate to. It Astralizes you.”

In a distant region of his brain he realized that he had never heard Catalina mention her mother and hadn’t really thought about the fact that there wasn’t a queen of the universe. But he was too mad about the commercial and the mention of his dad to calm down. That actress was not his mom and didn’t even look like his mom. Catalina was always trying to make things fine by faking everything.

“Where’s Dexter?” Jacob asked. He knew that Dexter would understand.

Catalina wiped a fleck of mascara out of her eyelash. “He’s taking care of the monkeys.”

Jacob started walking away, but Catalina jumped in front of him.

“Jacob,” Catalina said quietly. “I’m sorry if I made you upset. I… I care about you. I really, really do. You know that, right?”

Jacob stared at her a moment and thought about the wrinkled postcard sitting on his shelf back on Earth. “Have you ever heard of a place called Dakota, Arizona?”

Catalina blinked. “What? I…”

“Have you ever heard of a place called Dakota, Arizona?!”

“No!” she said quickly. “No, I haven’t. Is that where you’re from?”

Jacob shook his head and kept walking. He knew he shouldn’t be so frustrated with Catalina, that she was just trying to help, and she had done her best to jump-start the campaign. He also knew that she really did like him, maybe too much. But she just didn’t understand him. He didn’t want to fake being an Astral, even if it worked.

It was time for him to be himself. And it was time to plan something bigger than a campaign commercial. To do something really spectacular.

“I’ll be in my trailer,” he said, and he walked away.

He waited for Catalina to challenge him, but she let him go.