"You can't be serious." Armstrong sounded horrified and a little repulsed. Charming as always.

"Dude, did I sound serious? Look, you're stressed. We all get it. Sit down, have some lemonade or iced tea, eat a couple of those little cakes, you'll feel better. Mister Joel Oliver is the only reason my first set of poses for Playmate of the Year haven't already hit the newsstands. Let's stop with the posturing and protestations and get down to business."

Armstrong didn't look as though he actually wanted to sit, but he did. He kept his briefcase in his lap. It was definitely not the same one he'd left at Martini Manor.

I looked at Len. He shook his head. "Clean."

"Of course I didn't bring any bugs with me," Armstrong snapped.

"And that would be the first time in our entire relationship when you haven't."

He had the grace to look slightly ashamed. "I can't be too careful."

"I know. You'd miss out on so many blackmail opportunities. Speaking of which, let's see the latest shots."

Armstrong looked pointedly at Olga. "I'm not sure that's a good idea."

Olga smiled. "Senator, I can assure you that I am the soul of discretion."

"Dude, Olga knows everything, all the time. I have no idea how she knows, mind you, but she does. Her Magic 8-Ball is never wrong. If it's relevant to her interests, she probably knows what you had for dinner last night. Stop being coy. She's our friend and we trust her. You're the one we're not sure about."

"Have it your way." He opened the briefcase and handed a folder to me.

I pulled the pictures out. "Huh."

"What?" White asked. "Oh, and when do the rest of us get to see them?"

"I want to show them to you in front of Jeff. It's so much more satisfying that way." I looked at Armstrong. "Was there a note with these?"

"No. With the set that showed you and Reynolds there was. But these just arrived this morning in that envelope."

It was an amazingly bland envelope, your typical manila that usually held boring documents for safe delivery. The address was Armstrong's D.C. one, no return address listed.

"Senator, did the other pictures go to you in D.C., too?"

"Yes."

I looked at the pictures some more. As with the set costarring Chuckie, I appeared to be having quite the good time. In fact, it was a very familiar time. I dug my phone out. "Hey, Christopher, are you anywhere close to home?" I could hear background noises that certainly didn't sound as if they were emanating from our Embassy.

"Ah, not really. Why?"

"We have new dirty pictures."

"Great. Need me to read them?"

"Yeah, but I need you to think back to the ones of me and Chuckie first."

"If I must."

"You must. If you can."

"Not hard, I read them yesterday." Nice to see he was at Full Snark Level.

"Goody. Look, is it possible for you to, I don't know, timestamp them?"

"Wow, a new Kittyism. Want to translate that for normal people?"

"Since when are you considered normal?"

"You know what I mean."

"Yes, I do. Okay, what I mean is-could you get a read on when each picture happened? As in, what day or month or whatever it was that my picture was taken from, and the same for when Chuckie's picture was taken from?"

He was quiet for a few seconds. "You mean, was each person photographed last week or last year, that sort of thing?"

"Yes."

"Hang on." He was quiet for a longer while. "Yeah, I think . . . I think your picture was from about a year ago. But Reynolds . . ." I waited. "Reynolds' picture was only from a month or so ago."

"Interesting." Very, very interesting. "Barring you killing a superbeing or saving someone's life, I think I need you at the Romanian Embassy five seconds ago."

Christopher sighed. "I'll clear it with Jeff and James and be right there."

"Use a floater gate or the really fast hyperspeed. Olga has refreshments." This wasn't said so much as a lure, since Christopher was, like Jeff, a very healthy eater. But when he used his Super Flash Level Hyperspeed, he needed to replenish, and he preferred food to sleep for it under most circumstances.

"Got it. Be there soon."

I hung up and looked back to Armstrong. "Senator, do you remember when you might have been doing whichever sexual positions you're photographed in?" I handed the pictures back to him.

Len, Kyle and White all got up and stood behind him. Oliver smiled at me, then joined them. Wonderful. I looked at Olga. She was laughing quietly while she snuggled Jamie.

He thumbed through them and shook his head. "Not really. They're, ah, a little more, um . . ."

"Athletic?" Len suggested.

"Wild?" Kyle said.

"More like what I'd expect to see from Jeffrey," was White's quite insightful statement. "At least, based on my memories from when we were all housed at the Dulce Science Center."

Before I could reply or think up a suitable comeback, Adriana stuck her head in. "Excuse me, Ambassadress, but we have another arrival."

Christopher came in. A-Cs never sweated-even the hottest days in Pueblo Caliente were cooler than their home planet-but he wasn't breathing hard, either. Superpowers were where it was at.

I got up and grabbed the pictures. "I need you to read these," I said without any introductory preamble. Hey, things were going from weird to weirder by the second. "I know they're doctored. I know that's really me, though I was not, of course, having a fling with the senator here. I think the head is really Senator Armstrong's. I happen to believe the body is Jeff's, however. Only doctored. A lot."

Christopher took the pictures and put his hand on them and closed his eyes.

While he was doing this White studied the senator. "I realize he's built roughly like Jeffrey. But he's at least two decades older, and that shows in photographs."

"That could easily be achieved using age advancement techniques," Oliver said. "It's done for movies all the time, and law enforcement uses it regularly to catch criminals and kidnapped or missing children, among many other options."

"No one's going to look too closely. If the head doesn't seem wrong on the neck, then it looks real to ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the public."

Christopher opened his eyes. "It's you. From last night."

"That's what I thought. Can you tell a difference in the Armstrong makeup?"

"Yeah, but it's difficult. The brain and face are where we get most input from. And Mister Joel Oliver's right-the senator's body has been fiddled with a lot more than yours."

"Fiddled with? Is that a technical term?"

I was treated to Patented Glare #2. "It's very hard to read. The head is definitely the senator's. From a few months ago, I think. The body, though . . . it's hard to be positive, but I don't think it's his. It feels . . . familiar, so I'm willing to say it's Jeff's body."

"Thought so." I made another call. "James, I know you're busy."

"Like you wouldn't believe, girlfriend."

"Well, let me add a wrinkle. I'm calling you because I know if I call Gladys directly she'll ask me if I have your okay."

"On pins and needles."

"I actually figure you're on duty, but whatever. Senator Armstrong received new dirty pictures today. Only instead of me with Chuckie, I've branched out and am with the senator, having the time of my life."

He groaned. "Can it get worse?"

"Oh, yes. Yes, it can. This is what I pulled Christopher away for." As I said this Christopher made the "shut up, shut up" motions.

"What do you mean?" Reader sounded pissed. "He left his post? Why wasn't I informed?"

"Um, political emergency. And I'm claiming diplomatic immunity for us both. Anyway, snarl once you know the full details."

"Can't wait. Go ahead."

"The part of the picture that's me is from last night. And I think someone superimposed Armstrong's head onto Jeff's body and then did some really fancy photoshopping."

Reader was quiet for a couple moments. "How in the hell did someone get intimate pictures of the two of you from last night?"

"You've won Jeopardy's Daily Double! That's exactly my question. I'd love someone from Centaurion Division to give me an answer that isn't going to make Jeff pop a vessel, but I'm not betting any of us are going to like the answer."

"The Embassy was scanned several times last night," Len said. "Because of-"

"Circumstances," White interrupted quickly.

"Right," I said. "Len reminds us that the Embassy was scanned a lot last night. And these pictures are from, um, before that happened."

"Jeff said something about weird gifts from Alpha Four, but we've been too busy to get all the details."

"Not to worry, I'll fill you in later. So, aside from the fact that someone, yet again, is too cheap to buy their own porn and has decided to choose the American Centaurion Channel for all their video needs, what the hell do we do?"

"I have no idea."

"Great."

"I could try to turn straight and we could run away from all this."

"That, as always, sounds like such a wonderful plan. You never keep up your end of it, though."

"Oh, I keep my end up all the time."

"I knew you were going to say that, the moment the words left my mouth. So, going to make good on your teasing?"

"Nope, sorry, still gay."

"Paul's lucky."

"So's Jeff. At least, we were all lucky before. I'm not so sure about now. I wish to hell you'd passed that HSAC test. I need to run things by you like nobody's business."

"I'll bet. So, until you turn straight or I get another chance to take that test and see what happens, what do we do about these pictures?"

"I'll have Gladys run every scan we can do on the Embassy."

"Run Chuckie's place, too. I'd thought his picture was from a lot longer ago than Christopher says it is."

"Fabulous. Should we do the same for Senator Armstrong's places?"

I thought about it. "No. I'm sure they took his head from any number of sources. He's a public figure, plenty of pictures to use."

"Gotcha. And that makes sense. How soon will the pictures hit the street?"

"No idea. There was no note in the senator's Express Porn Package."

"Okay. I have no idea what our next move is or should be. We're very tied up here."

"At the International One World Festival?"

"Could be."

"Super. I'm going to figure out what's going on, you know. One way or another."

Reader dropped his voice. "Good. And do it sooner rather than later."

"Doing my best, James."

"Yeah? Do what you really do best, girlfriend. Ask a lot of questions, whatever pops into your mind, and don't stop asking."

"Why?"

"That's exactly what I mean. Love you, babe." And with that, he hung up.