“Who’s we?” the door asked.

Brenda seemed to be enjoying the fencing match; well, maybe not enjoying it, but at least neither surprised nor dismayed by it.

“Someone you’ll enjoy meeting,” she said. “He invented the… “

“He?” The voice sounded disappointed.

For the first time, Brenda frowned. “Come on, Ron. It’s cold and wet out here.”

“Okay. Okay. Come on in.”

The door clicked. Brenda pushed on it and it swung open. They stepped inside.

Oxnard blinked It was like the first time he had tried sky-diving. One minute you’re safely strapped into the plane and the next you’re out in the empty air, falling, disoriented, watching the blur of Earth spinning up to hit you.

The door slammed behind him. The entryway of the house was ablaze with fights. Oxnard and Brenda stood there dripping and disheveled, gaping at the cameras, people, props, chairs, lights.

“Smile!” a voice shouted. “You’re on candid camera.” “What?”

Ron Gabriel pushed past a tripod-mounted camera directly in front of them, a huge grin on his face.

“Only kidding, buhbula. Don’t panic.”

He was wearing nothing but a bath towel draped around his middle. He was a smallish, compactly built man in his thirties, Oxnard guessed: dark straight hair cut in the latest neo-Victorian mode, blazing dark eyes, hairy chest, the beginnings of a pot belly.

He grabbed Brenda and kissed her mightily. Then turning casually to Oxnard, he asked, “You her husband or something?”

“Or something,” Oxnard replied, feeling testy. “Hey come on, I’m paying overtime already!”

A large, lumpy, bearded man stepped out from behind the cameras. He was swathed in a green and purple dashiki. Some sort of optical viewer hung from a silver cord around his neck.