[It's not that he hasn't noticed she's a kid. It's that he's entirely used to kids taking on world-rending terrors. Admittedly, even Jamie is a little older, but he doesn't have a knee-jerk response to the simple fact of her age. And at sixteen, he's only so responsible himself.]

[And he's tired. The camera's held in his tail, creating the illusion that it's levitating unsteadily along with him while his hands are busy with cooking.]

There might or might not be anyone that you're looking for here. Did you just get out of the ship?

There's only one frequency here, as far as I know. All the communicators are linked. Oh, and it's monitored by the bad guys, so it's mostly just for chit-chat.

Um...

[And no he has no idea what she's talking about.]

They're just called The Authorities. Definitely bad news. Try and don't cheese them off, ja? That's take-away lesson number one.

And that is the kind of thing we don't say on the network.

[Not that he looks like he disapproves or anything.]

Anyway, none of us knows how we got here or who brought us, and we seem to come from different worlds and times. So, um, that's weird, but that's the other big thing to get used to. Bad guys in the domed city and people from all kinds of universes.

It would be a pretty strange thing to make up. Not that everyone here is super trustworthy or anything, but the basics about being kidnapped and waking up on a spaceship? That's pretty straightforward, even if it's nuts.

[He has room in his head for both.]

[She's ahead of him, then.]

Uh, well, one time I accidentally tripped a booby-trapped lab and my sister beamed me into another dimension with the only piece of tech that didn't blow up. So I guess we sort of stole that from a nerd, but he didn't mind much, since I got him out of the time pocket on my way back out.

[Ah, memories.]

[Either she thinks he's joking or her life is about as odd as his.]

Nein, that has never happened to me.

[Is that an insult, now? All by itself, even?]

Every time I think I have the hang of English...