When Terri gets back

James and Sally had spent the time waiting for their mother checking in on Aurora, and talking about what they might be able to manage as an emergency plan.

"What if one of you stays here, and I take her to Mom's for a while?"

Sally squinted at him. "Pretty sure they're watching Mom's place."

"...Fran?"

Sally scoffed, and rolled her eyes. "Oh, yeah that's a phone call that'll go well. "Hey, Franny, remember my brother you think is suuuuper weird? Can he come stay over and hide an alien in your apartment?"

"Okay, okay...dang... Fran thinks I'm weird?"

"Duh, you spent all your time in your room playing with electric engines and junk. Remember what you said when she flashed you her tits at the Halloween party?"

"Not my fault her nipples look like 50 volt capacitors..."

"No, but it's weird to compare. And when you showed her one, she spent the next two days looking up ways to make your nipple smaller."

He pursed his lips. "Okay so maybe that was...overboard."

"And very weird. You know how most big brothers treat their sister's friends? Annoying, or maybe if they're only two years older, they perv on them a little bit. Maybe flirt."

"I wasn't really...into Fran."

"No shit...still. Fran is out, I'm not about to ask her that. What about Lee?"

James shook his head vigorously. "Big no. He's got too many people in places with three letter acronyms connected to him. He'd turn her in before risking that scandal."

They heard Terri's voice as the front door opened.

"Sorry that took so long. Those two from earlier we're trying to follow me...which means they were parked outside somewhere. They might come back. I managed to ditch them at one of the last stores, but I never got a look at their car."

James hugged her after she put the ingredients on his counter. "Thanks, mom...I didn't mean to get you guys wrapped up in anything."

Terry gave him a light swat on the back of his head. "None of that. You're my kids, it'd be more troublesome for me if you left me out of it and I found out later on."

Sally piped up, "We were just trying to think of an emergency plan in case they close in."

Terri shook her head. "No plan to be made. We don't know what they might do...I don't think they are who they say the are."

Sally and James both looked confused.

"They said they're from the placement program, but did you see any i.d.?"

James thought back, eventually shaking his head. "Nnno..."

"Me neither. NPP has official badges they show when they pop up, like CPS. I think they want her for something else."

"Something else? Like what?", James asked.

Terri sighed. "I couldn't guess...but it means we need to be extremely careful. They're already willing to break the law for this. It could be the only reason they haven't already done anything is that they don't know for sure if she's here."