Yes – the constant flow of Time had somehow oddly slowed…then, completely stopped!

Jess and Joe looked a bit silly, if they could only see each other, now frozen between one second and the next, mouths open in mid-munch of the excellent cheeseburgers that Eva/Lilly had cooked up. And the two 'incognito' FBI men were likewise like stone statues, now caught in mid-slurp of their chocolate and vanilla shakes.

Both Eva and Babs stood stock-still, as the woman in black now took off her dark sunglasses and gave them each a stare that could freeze a rampaging rhino in mid-step. It was that cold of an evil gaze!

Her companion simply sat down in the booth next to the quietly 'frozen' FBI men, his eye-wear remaining in place under his deep jet-black hat. His face and hands were, like the woman's, very pale and sickly looking… almost ghostly white in their skin-tone color. A small device with a red blinking light, which he had activated a minute ago, he now removed from under his deep black coat, placing it in squarely on top of his café table. Eva and Babs quickly glanced at that device, and their blood then felt just as ice water… and as cold as the strange man and woman's very blank-looking expressions. It was the alien device that had stopped all the humans in the cafe, and those for several blocks outside, in their normal forward movement through local 'Time-Flow'...

Suddenly, the dark-haired and pale-faced woman, dressed all in black spoke: "Why, exactly, are the two of you female aliens… here… on Earth?"

Babs (Sally) was too upset to even open her lovely mouth, and she let Eva (Lilly) speak for them both – and, as Eva was their mission leader, it was the proper etiquette… After all!

Eva had come out and around from the entry to the kitchen, and now stood next to her friend Babs. She put one arm around Babs' neck and shoulders, to comfort and calm her nervous mission mate. They were more than companions now - almost like sisters.

"We came here only after an Earth probe had made a reconnaissance of our home world… Venus. Our elders needed to know what the capabilities of the humans to travel into near-space planets are... or will be… soon," spoken by Eva in a matter-of-fact tone, and as unafraid in her vocal patterns as she was able to manage.

As unobtrusively as possible and with her free hand, Eva now grabbed onto the bright green pendant that hung from a slender silver chain that she always wore around her lovely neck. Lightning-fast, she tore the pendant from its chain and tossed it toward the woman in black. A blinding flash of light engulfed and surrounded Eva and Babs – a protective force-field wall/shield. But, sadly, not a micro-second before the man in black, sitting at his café table, had shot off a reddish bolt from an energy weapon that he had been concealing there under the table edge, right until this fateful moment!