"It's so easy to fall down a rabbit hole with this stuff." Taura shook her head. "I was looking up some animated series from the 1980s and … wow. That was a weird fucking decade."

"Heh. I've seen a few of those. The writers seemed to be utterly clueless when it came to science." Corona shook her head and Jack grinned.

"If you wanna see her go into a rant, just start asking her about specific shows."

"Oh, I've heard a few of them." Taura laughed. "At risk of breaking the mood … let's see … oh, I just watched the opening credits for one early-80s series and it's comedy gold."

"Let 'er rip."

"You asked for it. Thundarr the Barbarian."

"Oh, goddamn it!" Corona snarled. "I've only seen the intro sequence. Couldn't bear to watch any more. One bit of it had a planet passing between Earth and its moon. First of all, it wasn't big enough to be a planet. It wasn't much bigger than the moon. Second ..."

"And we have liftoff," Jack said with a shit-eating grin.

"Second! Its gravity was apparently strong enough to crack the moon in half and rip part of Earth's atmosphere off without flinging either of them out of their orbits. Anything that could do that would just straight-up shatter Earth! Or, at least, cause them to crash into each other or go shooting off into space or falling into the sun. And it would take a lot longer than two thousand years for the surviving life forms to evolve into the things in the opening credits. It'd be more like millions of years! Hundreds of millions! Not that anything would actually survive the initial event." Corona took a deep breath. "Goddamn it!"

"Whew." Taura aimed a wide-eyed stare at her and backed away slowly. Corona noticed it and snickered.

"Calm your tits," Jack said, and she laughed and tugged on the handcuffs.

"Can't reach 'em from here. Maybe one of you could try."

"First things first." Jack brushed the feather across her belly again and she fired off another blast of giggling. "That's more like it."

"Take it easy, Jack." Taura chuckled. "I haven't asked a question yet, much less gotten an incorrect answer."

"Oh, that's right. Sorry, honey. Got ahead of myself." Jack pulled the feather away and let her catch her breath. "Okay, Taura, fire away."

"First of all, I think that rant should be worth five points. So ..." Taura added them to the holofield. "You're halfway there."

"I've been halfway there a few times already." Corona shook her head and sighed.

"Well, here's one I know you've seen before, so your chances are pretty good. Aliens."

"Oh, yeah." Corona grinned and nodded. "Fantastic movie for Halloween. Fun movie, but it has its flaws. Like, I'm sorry, but those guys are not marines." She cleared her throat and braced herself. "Anyway, hit me with your best shot."

"Okay. I'm sure you remember the APC."

"Oh, yeah, that thing was too weird-looking to forget. I never bought it as the kind of troop transport they used it for in the movie. Too low to the ground. It would've gotten stuck on most of the terrain on that planet." Corona shrugged. "Anyway, what about it?"

"Well, it was another type of vehicle entirely, but one that actually existed in real life. The filmmakers found it somewhere, liked the way it looked, and used a modified version. So … what kind of vehicle was it?"

"Ohhh … I'm gonna get you for this. Seriously, guys, revenge is gonna be sweet. And it's gonna be served hot!" Corona laughed, but then she sighed.

"Well, how about a hint?" Jack swirled the feather above her and her eyes tracked its movements. "The real-life vehicle was used for towing something."

"That sure narrows it down."

"Towing a much larger vehicle. I mean, really big."

"Okay … a bus?"

He made a buzzing sound. "Sorry, no."

"Waitwaitwaitwait! Uh … one of those huge dump trucks with tires that are taller than I am?"

"Nope."

"Argh, dammit! Okay, what, then?"

"Airplanes. Like, jumbo jets, if I remember correctly."

Taura nodded. "Correct!" She reached into the holofield and deleted Corona's accumulated points.

Corona sighed again. "Just promise me that you'll unlock these if I need to take a dump, okay?"

Jack burst out laughing. "Absolutely. We're not barbarians."

"Yeah, this is all in good fun. And speaking of which ..." Taura commanded the TickleBot to scamper up and down Corona's abs. Jack jumped in and went after both of her sides at once. She tried to double over and howled with laughter.

Jack suddenly flicked the feather up to the tip of her muzzle and wiggled it across her nostrils. Her face contorted and she drew in a deep breath.

"Oh, no, that's gonna …" She released a truly monstrous sneeze, hunching forward violently and jerking her legs up. The cuffs pulled tight and her arms and legs kept going. The industrial-strength cuffs held up under the sudden attack, but the bed didn't -- it bent in the middle, the head and foot folding in on Corona with a shriek of twisting metal.

Taura gasped, clamped both hands over her mouth, and stared with wide, shocked eyes. Jack stared at the twisted wreckage of the bed with a look of dull surprise, his mouth hanging open slightly and his eyes blinking several times. Corona shook her head, grimaced, coughed, and took a cautious breath.

"Wow, that was ..." She seemed to notice her new pose and glanced around, taking in the twisted bed frame with slowly widening eyes. "Oh."

"Oh," Taura said, her voice muffled by her hands. "Oh. Wow."

"Holy shit." Corona continued running her eyes over the destroyed bed as if unable to comprehend what she saw. "Um ..."

"I, uh … didn't … expect … well ..." Jack shook his head as if coming out of a daze. "Guess we're not sleeping here tonight."

"Guys," Shakira's voice suddenly came from downstairs, "is everything okay up there? That wasn't a good sound."

All three of them turned to stare at the door. Corona glanced over the bed again and back up to the door.

"Um ..."