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Show All the Variables & Other Love Stories 95 flesh against the picture window, and Kell curled up beside Lindsay and talked to himself until he drifted off. * The Touch of the Master's Hand The next morning everyone woke to the deep, resounding gong of the doorbell. A call circulated throughout the house for Anthony. He met two uniformed SETI agents on the porch enquiring after Travis's last known whereabouts. A caravan of unmarked vans lined the street. The abandoned lot next door had been demarcated in yellow tape. Several more men took soil samples from the front lawn. They wore plain black baseball caps and windbreakers labeled SEARCH FOR EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE. "What's this tomfoolery?" Feste wanted to know, but they wouldn't say. They wanted to know if anyone had noticed anything strange about the abandoned lot last night between 11 :55PM and 12:1 5AM Several of the neighbors had reported seeing an evanescent blue light from blocks away, and the SETI agents found it hard to believe no one at the party had seen anything. "A lot of drag addicts in this neighborhood," Feste said. "They probably see all kinds of things." Anthony wanted to tell Kell what was going on and found him cross-legged on the basement floor with his Ibanez in his lap and a stack of yellowing paper on top of the amp. Kell looked up, but Anthony told him not to stop playing, he wanted to hear this. The lead riff made his heart palpitate. "Oh my god," he said, "Oh god." Anthony found Lindsay and Feste in the living room. "Come hear what Kell's playing." |