Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed. Slightly shorter chapter here than usual, but real life has been evil and I haven't had time to get much writing done.

"Hey, Jinksy!"

Steve told his heart firmly to get back in his chest as Claudia flung herself down on the couch beside him. "Hey, Claude. I didn't hear you come in. What's up?"

"I'm bored."

"And I'm suddenly afraid for my life."

She grinned. "What are you doing? I mean, aside from avoiding Artie and day billion-and-two of inventory?"

"Reading." He held up the tablet manual. "Promise me something?"

"Probably, but what?"

"That we will never, ever switch bodies." He should probably be reading the old cases from Myka and Pete—and Claudia and Artie—in order, but he'd gotten pulled into this one from a link in the the chapter on statue-type artifacts, and…well, nothing against Claudia, but he just did not want to go there.

She shook her head. "Hate to break it to you Jinksy, but if I promise it's going to be the first thing that happens on our next case. You know, the other kind of jinx?" She shrugged. "Although, for what it's worth, switching bodies is pretty high on my list of things to avoid too. Especially the exploding part that follows."

"Exploding part?" He frowned down at the manual. "I haven't gotten to that yet."

"It's pretty gross."

"It sounds like it."

There was silence for a minute, and then. "Jinksy, I'm bored."

He obviously wasn't going to get any more reading done today, and he sighed and thumbed the manual off. "You've got something planned?"

She brightened. "I finally started on some updates to the Gooery yesterday, but I kind of need some help moving the new components into place."

"What's the Gooery?"

"A much better name for the Neutralizer Processing Center." She made a face. "I could do it myself if Artie hadn't gotten mad and taken away the parts I was using to build an anti-gravity generator. I mean, it wasn't like I put a big ding in Muck's EMF coil."

"Sure, but after lunch?" he asked after a moment, deciding not to comment on the anti-gravity thing. Officially lunch was what he was doing now—or at least that was the excuse he'd used to escape the Warehouse half an hour ago—but since Leena had been drafted to help with inventory there hadn't been anything ready-made and he'd never quite gotten around to making himself a sandwich. He was really getting spoiled by the whole B&B thing.

"Okay, after lunch," she agreed quickly. "Tacos?"

"Sure."

She spent most of the ride to the restaurant explaining what she was doing, or at least what she was planning to do, to the Neutralizer Processing Center, the majority of which went right over Steve's head, but when they finally arrived the décor was enough to silence them both. And then Steve pulled out his phone. "Wow. We're halfway through October already. When did that happen?"

"I'm not sure. It was just summer like two minutes ago." She pointed at the item beside the cash register. "That's creepy, though. I mean, unusually creepy."

"Yeah, a dancing bat with three eyes is a little out there." He shook his head. "So what are the Halloween traditions around here?"

Claudia shrugged. "Not much. I mean, last year Pete tried to rearrange one of the Warehouse aisles to make our own little haunted house thing, but Artie found out before he got anything except the coffin moved, and…." She trailed off with another shrug.

"Right." Steve wasn't even going to ask what a coffin was doing in the Warehouse.

"Anyway, we'll probably do movie night or something like that, but it's not like Univille is party central. Heck, I don't even think there were any trick-or-treaters that came by Leena's last year. Which, now that I think about it, was probably a good thing because she bought Reeses and Twizzlers and between Pete and Myka they were gone in like two minutes."

"And, of course, you didn't help."

"Of course not."

"Lie."

She rolled her eyes. "Well, duh."

He shook his head and stepped up to the counter to order. He'd probably deserved that.

"High school? Are you nuts? I didn't even go to high school the first time around," Claudia declared.

"Lie," Steve murmured. Granted that he knew she hadn't finished, but she had gone.

"Fine, Mr. Semantics—and by the way, that gets old—I went for about two minutes, decided that it wasn't for me, and after I left I hacked myself a diploma and didn't look back. I'm pretty sure I told you that already."

"Well, you're going to have to try," Artie said. "Because the local police have already been leaning on the kids because of their drug theory, and so far that's only made them close ranks further."'

"Well, if it's an artifact not a drug, they've got nothing to say," Steve said. "It's not closing ranks, it's telling the truth. It's not their fault if it's not a truth the police want to hear."

"The point," Artie said with a glare in his direction, "is that I don't think sending in federal agents is going to help in this situation. We know that the affected teenagers all attended the same high school so that's a reasonable place to start, and since we have a conveniently almost-teenage agent…." He waved a hand vaguely.

"Well, I don't think it's convenient," she muttered, and then brightened abruptly. "In fact, it's so inconvenient that I couldn't possibly go right now. I have to finish work in the Gooery."

"I thought you said you only had the new monitoring system left to calibrate," Steve said, and then winced at the glare she gave him as she opened her mouth to replay.

"If you followed the plans I approved," Artie interrupted before she could say anything, "I'm sure that I will have no trouble finishing the calibrations myself. I did run this place for years before you showed up, after all. Now, officially you and your brother just moved to the area, and you'll be starting school on Monday. Steve, that leaves you free to visit the police station as an agent, just in case they do get something."

Steve nodded. "Sounds good."

"Yeah, 'cause you're not the one stuck going to high school."

"Hey, I went all four years the first time around. Consider it payback."

"I'm so getting you a plane ticket for a middle seat between two screaming babies."

She didn't, but Steve suspected that it had more to do with the fact that the plane sat two to a side and there was a decided lack of small children anywhere onboard than a lack of desire on her part. At least if the glares she kept shooting at him were any indication. "Come on, Claude," he said finally. "It's not like it's the end of the world. Besides, I thought you'd be jumping at the chance for an undercover gig." Not that it was what he'd call deep cover, but still.

"Not at a high school."

"You'll be fine." He nudged her arm lightly. "Hey, at least you'll get a chance to be around people closer to your own age for a little while. A little younger, maybe, but a year or two isn't so much."

She gave him an annoyed look. "When, exactly, did you get the impression that I want to be around people my own age? Like I told Artie when he started muttering about colleges way back when: I'm not my own age. And do you know the kind of mess he's going to make of my work in the Gooery?"

"I promise that I will help you fix it again when we get back," he said after a minute. "Besides, what about your ex-boyfriend? He had to be close to your age, right?" At least Steve hoped so because as much as it was none of his business—Claudia would be the first to tell him so if he was ever stupid enough to comment on it out loud—he couldn't say that he'd be happy if a guy his age started nosing around her, never mind anybody any older.

"You mean the guy in witness protection from the mob because of his hacking skills? Not to state the obvious, but he's not what you'd call a normal representation of my age bracket either. And anyway, he's twenty-three. Twenty-four, now, I guess."

"All right, fine, maybe not the best example," Steve acknowledged. "But I think Artie's right. I'll go and talk to the police and see what they've got, but it's the kids we need information from, and they're more likely to talk to someone their age than yet another authority figure."

She sighed. "Yeah, I know. I just…I'm not always so good with people."

He nudged her arm again. "You'll be fine. Just relax. Be yourself."

"Be myself?" She gave him a mildly horrified look. "Is there some sort of Fountain of Crappy Advice in the Warehouse that I haven't found yet that tells people to say things like that? I mean, seriously."

"What?"

"Myself is the last thing I should be, I proved that before."

He wasn't sure what 'before' she was talking about, but before he could push she sighed and shook her head and pulled out her headphones, turning to stare out the window. Great. What a good way to start the case.