Neither Niki nor Trevor said a word for the first block they walked, not knowing how to begin.

​     "Try the word thing," Malika said. "You start, Trevor. Say a word." 

     "What word do you want me to say?"

     "Any word. The first word that comes into your head."

     "Dream," Trevor said.

     "Exactly," Niki replied. "I had a dream last night, and you were part of it."

     "You were in my dream, too. I mean, you weren't, but..."

     "Exactly! I'm so glad you said that. You weren't in my dream, but the Niki that...yeah."

​     "Did you dream about fighting an eight-foot toad with serrated teeth?"

     "Mogs. Those aliens are called mogs."

     "That's right. I know that, although I don't know why I know that. My brain's getting invaded more and more by the second. That was a mog I fought, and not just any mog. It was ​the mog. What in the hell's going on with us, Niki?"

     Malika pointed across the street. 

     "There's a Starbucks," she said. "You want to go in that one?"

    "I want to walk a little more," Niki replied. "That all right with you, Mali?"

    "Do not ask me. This is not my movie."

    "You look exactly like the warrior in my dream," Trevor said. He patted his paunch. "I can't even pretend I'm the same person I was in my dream."

     "I like to stay in shape," Niki said. 

     "Because of the way you were raised," Trevor said, "or the way you had to raise yourself would probably be a better way to put it. You've had to defend yourself from the second you knew you could."

​     "And how do you think you know that?"

     "I have no idea. I'll tell you something else, though, and, again, I don't know why I know what I know."

     "That goes for me, too."

     "You call yourself Niki Creole, or, I mean, that's your name, right?"

     A pause, then, "Go on."

     "I know your actual name, the name on your birth certificate, the name your stepfather gave you and that you never tell anybody."

     "Okay, that does it." Malika got in Trevor's path, blocking his way. He ran full into her. She shoved him away, her face red with fury.

     "Who the fuck ​are you?" she yelled, "and don't give me anymore bullshit about dreams or anything like that. Where do you know my wife from? You some sort of government agent or something?"

     "Mali!" Niki got between Trevor and her wife. "I don't know what's going on, and it's confusing the hell out of me, but this man is no government agent."

     Niki looked at Trevor. "You're not, are you?"

     "I'm a writer. You know the Team Gotok action series?"

     "You're Dann O'Keefe?"

     "You've read my books?"

     "I've read them." 

CONTINUE