"You lost the Secrets of the Universe in a CARD GAME!" Mollie grabbed Snerdly's scrawny neck and lifted him two inches off the ground.

            He pulled away, rubbing his throat and sputtering. "Yeah, well…you all lost Jack and Denara!" Snerdly accused.

            "We really need to be a little more careful where we leave things," Bruce pointed out. "Decaf demi tasse anyone?"

            "Oh they'll be back," Tasha remarked brightly, her eyes darkening as they fell on Snerdly. "They ALWAYS come back…"

            "Besides," Snerdly continued. "I only lost SOME of the microscrolls…I still have this one…" From his pocket protector, Snerdly extracted an ink-covered chip.

            "Give me that!" Mollie snatched at it, but Snerdly's grip was tight. They all watched in horror as the chip popped like a tiddly-wink between Snerdly's fingers and flew across the room, where it came to abrupt halt when it hit the wall and slid under the main console.

            "I'll get it!" Craig and Hamish both said, falling to their bare knees and crawling towards the microscroll from two different directions. Inevitably, they crashed heads.

            "I said I'll get it!" They said together. "Owww." They moved apart and Hamish backed into Tasha who fell head over two inch stiletto heels under the console. Face first.

            "EEEEWWWW!" she cried, spitting out a dust bunny. "There's a BUG under here."

            "Like, what kind of bogus bug?" Sparki squatted down to get a looksee.

            "Duh! A gross one!" Tasha squealed.

            "Do you see the scroll?" Mollie asked eagerly.

            "Uh-huh. But it's stuck and I am NOT breaking a nail to get it."

            Sparki reached into her backpack and removed 11 Leggos, 18 Tinker Toys, a clock, a Chip Clip, three Triskets, a clothespin, one bag of gummi worms, three earrings, chopsticks and a wad of Silly Putty. Before anyone could blink, she constructed a motorized mechanical hand. It shot under the console, pushed Tasha aside, grabbed the bug and the scroll, and returned to Sparki, who pocketed everything.

            The others gaped, wide eyed.

            "Like, what?" Sparki asked, finally noticing.

            Before anyone could say anything, a loud, horrible beeping sound burst onto the bridge.

            "Stop it! Stop it before my soufflé falls!" Bruce fretted.

            Snerdly raced across the bridge and pressed a button. Suddenly a booming computerized voice cried out "Proximity alert! Prepare for crash in 0.5 minutes."

"We have an early warning system?!" Mollie accused. "Why has this never worked before?"

"Oh," said Snerdly smugly. "I disabled it in order to rewire the obfuscation peripheral nemesis cautionary attendant. Something must have slipped and reconnected it."

"I'll slip yer haid!" Hamish hollered.

"Oh," snipped Snerdly, "Are you still here?"

Hamish untied his sporran, grabbed the strings and swung it high, aiming for Snerdly's head. The others ducked; it hit the ficus tree and slammed into Snerdly on the rebound, knocking into the back of his head. Snerdly staggered forward, arms flailing wildly. He grabbed Sparki for balance, but she kicked him in the shin, sending him to the ground, where he rolled into Mollie and Tasha like an out of control gutter-bowling ball. Craig broke Tasha's fall, lost his balance and plowed into Sparki, who grabbed Hamish's arm for purchase. Within seconds, all were sprawled on the floor, arms and legs akimbo.

All but one.

Bruce surveyed the carnage and clucked his tongue. "Next time can we play NAKED Twister?" he grinned at Hamish, who scowled. "Oh here, honey," he continued, "you dropped your darling leather purse. Oops…"

The sporran fell from Bruce's limp fingers and spilled to the floor.

"Gimme that!" Hamish bellowed, snatching his dagger, a flask of whiskey, a chanter, a comb, a dubh, an autographed photo of Iain MacDonald and some aspirin from the floor.

"Wow!" commented Bruce. "All I can fit is a nail file in mine!"
            During this time, the other Neon Lites had managed to rise and were now somewhat vertical. The beeping noise had stopped and the band braced for impact as the ship collided with some trees, skimmed off the leaves and landed in a field.

Once the dust cleared, they all looked around.

"Where are we THIS time?" Mollie sighed.

"Well," Snerdly began calculating on the pocket computer he had won in a poker game. It was what had made him cocky enough to bet the microscrolls in another game, but that's another story. "If my calculations are correct, as they always are, then from our coordinates, I have been able to establish without provocation and altercation that we are on the planet Yagsiykniwyknit in the Llewllaf Norom System…"

"Hey look!" Tasha squealed.  "A gold bridge!"

"…Or in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco…" Snerdly finished.

Before anyone could reply, the ship was suddenly filled with black smoke that billowed and poured onto the bridge. The smoke was accompanied by a ghastly, horrific, odiferous odor.

Coughing and choking, the Neon Lites spilled out of the ship, clutching their noses and screeching. Bruce was the loudest.

"My salmon and Limburger cheese soufflé!" he wailed. "It's BURNED!"

Once they had fresh San Francisco air in their lungs, the Neon Lites turned on Bruce with a look that could melt an iceberg.

"It's not my fault," he sniffed. "In all the excitement I simply forgot about it. NOW what will we do for dinner?"

"Well," stated Mollie decisively, "we certainly can't go back in there…"

"Yeah," Craig agreed whacking Hamish on the shoulder. "It smells like a fart factory!" The guys all guffawed and made noises like they were passing gas. The woman glared, not understanding the importance of bodily function humor to the males of their species.

"Let's go to a hotel," sparkles danced in Tasha's eyes. "One with ROOM SERVICE."

"Like totally way mondo cool idea!" Sparki was all for it.

"With what money?" The ever-practical Mollie burst their bubble.

"Aha!" said Snerdly, reaching into his back pocket. From it, he pulled a small, emerald-colored, flat square.

"Ooh," whispered Tasha in awe, "plastic Master Card."

"It's like the totally Limitless Credit Card! Histo primo way cool."

"We'll use this," said Snerdly with a swagger.

Within the hour, the Neon Lites were happily holed up in seven adjoining rooms (Hamish refused Bruce's offer to share) in the almost empty Happy Campers Hotel, Restaurant and Fruity Soap Shop just outside Golden Gate Park. Mollie, Sparki and Tasha immediately headed for the hot tub, discovering to their dismay that it was a COLD tub, since someone had forgotten to turn up the heat.

"Drat," sulked Tasha.

"It'll be hot soon enough…well soon…maybe twenty minutes or thirty, I'm not sure. We turned on the heat," came a cheerful voice behind them.

"Heat, shmeat," said another voice, "I'm dog tired and all I need is some SERIOUS R & R."

Mollie, Tasha and Sparki turned to see a blonde teenager with excellent fashion sense, and her auburn-haired, Vogue-impaired companion. Tasha began to mentally do a makeover.

"Hi. I'm Fluffy Winters. That's Pillow," said the blonde. "She has a last name, but no one ever uses it unless we need to remind people she's Jewish."

"We're kind of on sabbatical…because…well, we needed one and this seemed as good a place as any and because Fluffy heard there might be…so why are you here?" Pillow rambled smiling.

"Oh, because we crashed landed our space ship in the park and Bruce burned up dinner so the ship smells bad." Tasha was distracted as she mentally purchased Pillow a new wardrobe from the Macy's spring catalog.

"Right. Whatever. Come on, Pillow - things to do, stakes to make. Uh, see you around, okay?"
            "Shouldn't be hard," Pillow laughed, "there's no one else here." Fluffy grabbed her companion's arm and escorted her away.

"Strange girls," Mollie muttered.

There was a splash and the twins turned to see Sparki waist deep in hot tub water doing the butterfly stroke in place.

"Like most excellent body freeze, dudettes!" she called, rapidly turning blue.

Mollie stuck her big toe in and yelped. "It's freezing!"

"Duh," said Tasha, testing the water herself and jumping back like a cat in a bat tub.

"Floating in the tepid hot tub of life," Sparki commented.

"What does that mean?" Mollie put her hands on her hips.

Sparki shrugged. "Dunno. I heard some really cool chicks say that once and I have been looking for an excuse to use it ever since."

Mollie threw down her towel. "I'll see you later. I need a nap."

"What's eating her?" Tasha asked as Mollie stormed off.

"I totally think it's like the mondo problem is she hasn't been…"

Mollie didn't hear the rest because she was too wrapped up in her own thoughts. She let herself in her room (forgetting in her distraction to lock the door behind her) and threw herself on the bed. Mollie slept.

Hours later, Mollie was jolted to coherency when she landed on the floor with a definite WHUMPF. The sound of a high pitched scream had jarred her awake. She sprang from the carpet, unlocked the door and raced out. Tasha flew across the hall and smacked into a wall.

"Hey!" she cried, "I was standing there."

"What was that noise?" Mollie asked, staring at Tasha's fuzzy lime green slippers.

"Someone screaming." Tasha said helpfully.

Another scream came from outside Snerdly's room. Bruce stood in the doorway wringing his hands fretfully. A crowd of Neon Lites had amassed in the hall.

"Oh dear oh dear oh dear," fretted Bruce.

"What?" Mollie asked.

Bruce pointed a perfectly manicured finger inside the door. "He's dead," he gulped, sobbing.

The all stuck their heads in the doorway. Sure enough, lying on the baby-puke colored carpet, face down with a knife in his back was Snerdly.

"Oh," Tasha cried in dismay, "blood red is NOT his color!"