He knew Frankie wasn’t his boyfriend, but what if he could be? What if he forgot all about the Order,
what if they could have a life together? With all the alcohol diluting his guilt, such a dream felt within
reach.
His head was swimming beautifully. He could feel the bass reverberating in his bones, and the only
sensation he could detect through the bond was pure joy. It was Frankie’s mixing in with his own, and
Snod had never been so happy.
He wished the song could last forever, but the beat changed all too soon and Frankie was untangling
their bodies.
“Let’s go,” Frankie said, taking Snod’s hand and leading him over to get a hold of Lorenzo.
Lorenzo’s erratic dancing had lost much of its momentum, and he positively melted against Snod and
Frankie as they threw their arms around him. “Hey! You guys!” he exclaimed drunkenly. “Where have
you been?”
“Sorry, Lorenzo,” Frankie said, guiding him out toward the front of the club. “Had to have a little chat
with Obe! How are you feeling, buddy?”
“I’m fine,” Lorenzo replied in a very slurred voice that indicated he was anything but. He glared,
squinting one eye to focus on Snod as he demanded, “What did you do? I swear, robots!”
“I didn’t do anything!” Snod growled, nearly dropping Lorenzo on the sidewalk out of spite. It
wouldn’t have mattered if he had since Frankie could have easily held his friend’s weight by himself,
but Snod still considered it all the same.
“Robots!” Lorenzo snarled. “Little tiny nano bots that will crawl in through your nose and eat... wait!
Wait! Frankie!” He was suddenly excited, almost screaming, “I know how to cure you! I know how to
make you not a vampire!”
“Lorenzo!” Frankie hissed, shaking his friend. “Shhhh!”
“Okay! I’m sorry! I’m drunk, but I’m a drunk genius!” Lorenzo cackled. “The special secret thing we
can’t talk about because it’s a secret? It’s an endospore, and you can’t get through the walls. But we
don’t have to get through. We can Trojan horse that shit! With robots!”
Frankie stared in bewilderment at his intoxicated friend. “What do you mean? How?”
“The phagocytosis! We couldn’t figure out how to penetrate the cell wall, but it weakens when it’s
nom nom time!” Lorenzo went on excitedly. “I can make a tiny robot, a tiny cargo van robot, to
deliver a load into the bacterial cell and boom! Okay. Not literally boom, because that would be bad,
