Chicago held the door open to the SlayerLair for Alex, Herbert, and Sammi and congratulated them as they entered.

“Had to be your biggest crowd ever. I’ll get the numbers and let you guys know.”

Sammi watched Chicago punch away at his wristwatch.

“It’s nice that the G’Daliens are celebrating their friendship with humans,” she said. “But I don’t get why they’re proud of how they gave up their home planet and ran from a bunch of space bullies.”

“Yeah,” said Alex. “I wish that rather than reenact how they wussed out, they’d invite those Cashmerians to that coliseum for real, so we could kick their butts, AlienSlayer-style!”

“It’s Klapthorians,” Old Man Herbert said. He was floating in his AirChair, making some much-needed attitude adjustments to SarcasmaTron. “It’s an important part of their history.”

Alex turned his attention to Old Man Herbert. “Speaking of history, since you’re Herbert, you’ve already gone through this. You must know what happens to us. What’s the deal? Do we ever get to fight aliens again?”

The 110-year-old inventor turned his AirChair around to face Alex. “It doesn’t work that way. Unlike you three, I reached this exact moment one day at a time, one month at a time, one year at a time. In short, I did it ‘old school,’ as the kids used to say. I aged.”

“Okay,” Alex said. “So you didn’t go through a wormhole like we did. But you still came from the same place, before the wormhole.” His face lit up suddenly. “Which means you had to have known me! So what happened to me? Where’d my old-guy version end up?”

There was a long pause. “This is not a wise conversation to have,” Young Herbert suddenly said. “We should stop.”

“What?!”

Alex jumped to his feet and marched straight at Herbert. “So you get a cool old dude version of yourself but I don’t? What’s that, another one of your ‘pre-agreed terms’?!”

Before Herbert could answer, Chicago broke in excitedly.

“Hey, great news, you guys! I just spoke with a reporter from the Total Universal Inside Access: Merwinsville! show, and they want to talk to me about an exclusive AlienSlayer interview! Isn’t that great?”

“Uh, no offense,” Sammi said. “But why do they want to meet with you?”

“She said she wanted to get some background info before the interview, from the ‘hero behind the heroes.’ That’s me! Awesome, right?!”

“Yeah. Awesome,” Sammi said, trying not to sound disappointed. “I guess we can grab pizza and ice cream some other time.”

“Oh! I totally forgot. But let’s face it—this is a little more important than pizza and ice cream, am I right? See you guys! I’ve gotta go change my shirt—maybe I’ll be on TV!”

Chicago ran out of the room, leaving an awkward silence, until Alex cleared his throat. “Hey, I’ll go grab some pizza with you if—”

“Forget it,” Sammi said, storming over to the smoothie bar. “I’m not hungry anyway.” She ordered a smoothie—for one—and slumped into a seat. Alex watched her. He seemed annoyed, and looked like he wanted to say something.

“Why is it so important to you to find you?” Herbert asked.

“Maybe I’m curious, okay?” Alex snapped back at Herbert. “Maybe I just wanna know how I turned out! Maybe I’m hoping to find a real partner to help me protect this city!”

They all stopped and looked at Alex. He looked around. Even he seemed surprised for a second. But only for a second. “Yeah. I said it. ’Cause it’s true—neither of you take alien slaying seriously anymore! Herbert’s only concerned with his little science experiments, and Sammi’s just hanging around waiting for her little pizza and ice cream dream date!”

An entire smoothie splattered against the wall, very close to Alex’s head. Sammi walked across the SlayerLair, past Alex, and straight up to Old Man Herbert. She looked angrier than they’d ever seen her.

“Mr. Slewg, if you know anything about what happened to the older version of me, good or bad, please keep it to yourself. I’d rather not know.”

She turned and stared daggers at Alex. Then she walked out of the room.

“Geez,” Herbert said. “And I thought I was supposed to be the jerky one.”

“HEY!” Alex suddenly shot back. “Don’t you ever talk about her that way, do you hear me?!”

“Or else what?”

“Or else I’ll pound you in that fat brain of yours, that’s what!”

“Without this fat brain, you wouldn’t even be here!”

“Without that fat brain, you wouldn’t be here!”

“That makes precisely zero sense!”

“You make precisely…negative zero sense!”

“That is a numeric impossibility!”

“ENOUGH!” Old Man Herbert zipped over and floated between them. He took a deep breath to calm himself. “Listen to me. The three of you are like electrons bound to the same nucleus—you’re apt to bang against one another now and again. This causes friction. But friction is the source of great energy.”

“Spare me the science lecture, old dude,” Alex said rudely.

“I’m just saying you’re lucky to have each other as friends, that’s all. Take my word for it. I know.”

Alex approached Old Man Herbert. “You know a lot of stuff, don’t you?” he said, studying the elderly genius. “Like what happened to me.”

The 110-year-old scientist glanced over at his younger self, then turned back to face Alex. He took a deep breath. “What happened to you isn’t any big secret. In fact, there was a time when you were kind of famous.”

Alex’s eyes grew wide. He grinned as he plopped into a big squishy chair.