Pigeon hesitated. “Come on,” Summer insisted. He reached out a hand toward her, and the man tossed her aside and backed away. Pigeon charged him, arms outstretched, and Summer slapped her own handful of Shock Bits into her mouth. The bits of candy buzzed on her tongue and made her teeth tingle. The man twisted away from Pigeon and pulled a miniature crossbow out of his coat pocket, leveling it at him.

“That’s close enough,” the man ordered. Pigeon froze. After having dodged Pigeon, the man was facing mostly away from Summer.

“A crossbow?” Pigeon asked.

“I left my battle-ax in my other jeans,” the man said.

Summer dove. The man must have caught the motion out of the edge of his vision, because he swiveled toward her, but her hand grazed his shoe before he could do anything. A dazzling flash accompanied the sound of a gigantic bug zapper claiming a victim, and the man was hurled several yards down the sidewalk. His crossbow clattered into the street. Tendrils of smoke curled from Summer’s mouth. The Shock Bits had entirely dissolved, leaving behind a charred, metallic aftertaste.

Pigeon rushed the sprawling man. As the man sat up, Pigeon swatted him on the side of the head. A brilliant flash accompanied by an electric crackle sent the stunned man tumbling into the street.

“Come on,” Summer urged. She and Pigeon ran off down Main, turning down the side street beyond the museum. Looking back before rounding the corner, Summer no longer saw the stranger in the overcoat lying in the street.

*****

Timepiece or book? Although Nate guessed that the book was more important, he knew the pocket watch would be much easier to carry, and resolved it would be better to get one item than neither. Picking up the watch, he ran to the edge of the shelf.

The slack on his string was almost gone as Trevor reeled it in, and there was no way to tell him to pause, so Nate held the pocket watch over his head and dropped down through the gap between the shelf and the cabinet door, bypassing the second shelf and landing on the first. Not only was the impact painless—he felt nothing. Despite his best efforts to hold the timepiece high, Nate heard a bad sound when he landed, and saw that the glass covering the face of the watch had cracked.

Holding the timepiece under one arm and the plastic bottle under the other, Nate flung himself through the empty space where the glass had been, hugging his possessions tightly as the string pulled him swiftly back along the route he had taken. His path had wound around several tables and displays, so the ride was not smooth. Since he felt no pain, Nate’s only concern was protecting the pocket watch from further damage as he bumped around corners.

As the string dragged him, Nate managed to contort himself as needed to avoid getting hung up on anything. He promptly reached the base of the door and began to rise. He clung to the watch and the bottle as he reached the window above the door and Trevor tugged him through. Trevor kept his hands high, so instead of crashing to the floor, Nate swung wildly. A moment later Trevor set him down carefully.

From the floor, still clasping the timepiece in his unfeeling plastic arms, Nate watched as Trevor crouched down over his actual body and used his fingertips to push apart the eyelids of one eye. When Trevor blew sharply, Nate felt the wind on his eyeball. The sensation made him blink several times. When his eyelids stopped fluttering, Nate found that he was back in his own body.

“What’s going on out there?” Nate whispered, patting his face experimentally, grateful to have nerves again.

“I haven’t looked,” Trevor said. “Can’t be good.”

Nate picked up the pocket watch, the plastic bottle, and the doll. The timepiece seemed so small relative to having carried it as a diminutive plastic surgeon. He shoved the doll into a pocket. Trevor took the watch and the bottle. “Mrs. White said none of the second-story windows had alarms on them, right?” Nate asked.

“Right,” Trevor confirmed. “You thinking we might not want to go out the front?”

Nate pointed to a window at the end of the hall. “That should let us out over the alley,” he said.

They dashed down the hall. Trevor unlocked and opened the window. There was no roof outside—just a straight drop to the alley and a view of the post office roof across the way. The window had a screen. Trevor shoved it, and the screen tumbled to the alley below.

Nate and Trevor each put a Moon Rock in their mouths. The alley remained quiet. They waited for a moment to see if the rattle of the screen would summon anyone. Nobody approached. “Think there’s anybody out there?” Nate asked.

“They might be chasing the others,” Trevor said.

“I guess we jump over to the post office roof,” Nate said, although no sane person would have tried it without a Moon Rock.

Nodding, Trevor climbed out the window and pushed off, floating lazily over to the post office roof. Nate followed him, moving in a trajectory that lifted him comfortably over the clogged gutters and onto the relatively flat roof. Staying low and stepping gingerly, they crossed to the far side of the roof. They found a parking area on the far side of the post office that continued around to the back. The next building over was two stories high. Even with the Moon Rocks, it did not look like they could make the jump to that roof.

Trevor pointed to the back of the post office. They drifted over and looked down into a parking lot with several post office trucks. Nodding at each other, Nate and Trevor stepped off the roof, landing in an empty parking space with the force of a small hop.

“One left,” Trevor said, holding up his final Moon Rock. “Summer has the rest. Do we spit and run?”

“Leave it in,” Nate said. Behind the post office parking lot ran a chain-link fence that served as the rear boundary for several houses on a residential street. Nate motioned toward the fence. “Let’s bounce into that neighborhood.”

They sprang toward the fence, gliding high. Two more bounds and they would be over it and into the backyard. A bright beam from behind suddenly spotlighted them. “Now, there’s something you don’t see every day,” said a gruff voice.

Nate and Trevor touched down, leaping again. Nate glanced over his shoulder. A man in an overcoat was holding a long black flashlight with a blinding beam. Tall and bulky, he could certainly be the same man who had watched them from the front of the bar. The flashlight beam wobbled and Nate heard footfalls as the man sprinted after them.

“You go left, I’ll go right,” Nate said as they neared the pavement only a few yards shy of the fence. When they touched down, Trevor took off diagonally to the left. Nate veered right. Both of them easily cleared the fence. The flashlight stayed on Nate.