Andie sat in her fuzzy Chewbacca bathrobe poised at the edge of her tub in the almost-empty apartment, stomach churning, fixing her gaze upon the little window of the pregnancy test wand. It became the center of her universe as the marble gleam of the modern bathroom, the vestigial scents of her coconut body wash, the spacesuit crumpled in a pile atop the bathroom scale, retreated into a background haze. She held her breath and concentrated, as if by doing so she could produce a negative result through sheer will.

"It'll be fine," Bad Andie soothed, breaking Andie's concentration. An irrational part of her worried this interruption would break the spell and screw up the outcome. But she pushed this aside, because right now she needed logic, not magic. Logic and nerve. "No matter what, I'll be with you."

"You're stuck with me now."

"Like crazy glue."

"Emphasis on crazy," Andie said. "Me, not you."

"No need to clarify. You giving up that hunk of male alien flesh makes you certifiable. It's not too late to change our mind. He doesn't even know what an idiot you are yet"

"He went to the ship to warn his father. Which means he's loyal to them. Even if I wish he was on my side, it's not fair for me to expect an Amu prince to betray his people. I'm destroying everything they've built on earth. All they've strived to attain for decades. If anyone found out he knew my plan and kept it a secret, he'd end up in space jail, or worse! For the rest of his life. Not to mention that the punishment for interspecies relations is death. If there is a child, it will be born a capital crime. I can't risk them killing our baby. At least with me out of the picture, he can try to make amends with his dad. He'll get over me," Andie said, impressed at her capacity for self-pity, self-delusion, and world-class wallowing.

"Huh?" Bad Andie blurted, interrupting Andie's ramblings of self-pity. "What does that mean?"

"What does what mean?"

"Three blue glowy lines. The pregnancy test. Did you already forget why we're hanging out in a moldy bathroom?"

"It's not moldy, and oh my god. You distracted me."

Andie scooped up the box from the floor and reread the directions. All it said was one red line: you're not pregnant, two: you are. Nothing at all about three blue lines glowing with what was apparently Neuronic energy. She threw the box across the room and missed the trash can. Then she tossed the wand, which also missed.

"I should've gotten the other brand. This one's broken."

"It's not broken, Andie. Face it. You're pregnant with a half-alien baby. As if your achy breasts, unnaturally glowing skin, increased bouts of nausea, zappy blue energy, mood swings, a Zut-master induced vision, and a suddenly affectionate spaceship weren't enough clues." Andie flopped her head into her hands. "But look at the bright side."

"Which is?"

"Even if the baby is born while we're hiding in the mountains of some far off country, tending goats, and trying to keep your half-alien child from zapping things in front of the rest of the goat-herder population, it can still run for president because you're a U.S. citizen."

"Why in the world would my child want to be president?"

"Because it would be hilarious. Any new alien civilizations popping over to earth for a brief invasion or a stint of intergalactic peace talks, or meeting their monthly abduction & probing quotas, would say 'take us to your leader' and it would be President Lieder." Bad Andie laughed uncontrollably. She even snorted. "I did not snort!"

The truth hit Andie's consciousness like a drug-laced Snickerdoodle. She unleashed an unearthly sob. Tears streamed down her face—cinnamon-flavored tears! "I'm pregnant."

"Finally, you accept the fact."

"Oliver will never meet his child." Her heart lurched.

Unrolling the toilet paper, Andie blew her nose and wiped away the tears. Catching a fuzzy glimpse at herself in the foggy mirror nearly made her fall off the edge of the tub—puffy eyes, ratty hair, and that damned glow, which kept getting worse.

It was almost a movie cliché when the sky turned from blaring light to dark, like a gray shroud unfurling from the heavens. Dead leaves chased one another in tornado-like swirls outside her bathroom window. The sort of movie lighting that let an audience know "things are about to get bad." But unlike a movie, there wasn't a screenwriter to make sure that in Act three, the heroine saves the day and ends up in a tropical paradise with the hot leading man.

Movie life is just better than real life.

Unless it's a horror movie ... because of all that blood. And axe murdering. And scary-mask wearing.

Well, movie life is better than real life in romantic comedies, anyway. And everyone knows that is the best kind of entertainment.

Andie clenched her fists. Get a grip! Stop acting like a damsel lashed to the railroad tracks by a villain who celebrates your impending two-dimensionality by twirling his long black mustache and cackling "mwahaha." You are a strong, intelligent, competent, motivated financial wizard. Act like it.

"Couldn't have thought it better myself," Bad Andie said.

With that, Andie flipped on CNN in the living room for company, marched into the bedroom, and propped up by a mountain of down pillows, opened her laptop, scrubbing her hands together in anticipation. Because if you're going to steal eight hundred million dollars, it would be a shame not to at least try to enjoy it.

Now, where to start? Andie opened her laptop and before anything else, changed her "Chris Pine as Captain Kirk" screensaver to "the Death Star being blown up by rebel forces," because it was important for her state of mind, not because she was procrastinating her foray into villainy.

She chewed her lip and logged into Sterling's Charles Schwab account. It would take cash to finance a large-scale illegal operation like this, and as the Treasurer of Sterling's loan-out corporation, Andie had full access. A long list of accounts filled the screen. Wow, Sterling's accounts had grown. She had over seven million dollars just at Schwab. Andie scrolled through the list to choose the best one to borrow from.

Jagged flashes of light shot across her Stormtrooper blanket, followed by a crack of thunder. The building rattled from gale-force winds, and the rain disgorged from the heavens, as if the gods decided earth needed a good laving to remove all the stains and toxins. A tall palm tree banged repeatedly against Andie's penthouse window, like a lunatic demanding entry. From the other room, Anderson Cooper said something about El Nino and climate change and an Armageddon-like storm, the worst to hit the west coast since 1939.

"Can we please get this over with?" Bad Andie whined. "All those numbers are giving me a headache. Plus, I've got reading to catch up on."

"More ghosts?"

"Naw. I've decided criminals are sexier than the dead. I'm going to start with "Felony in a Suit," then move on to "Criminal Intent," "Inside Man," "Cuffs, Kink, and Grand Larceny," and finally, "The Thug Who Stole My Heart ... and My Car.""

"Uh, sounds good. Can I ask you a question?"

"Can I stop you?"

"Nope. Okay, why did you read those romance novels?"

"When you're asleep or absorbed by your little number fixation, what else is there to do? I need entertainment."

"So you think I'm entertaining?"

"Is there any doubt?"

"Well, I feel the same way about you. Now, why don't you go read so I can concentrate?"

"I don't see why this is a problem. It's simple."

"How is it simple?"

"You're like a superhero, but in accounting form. Like you have assets and mad computer skills instead of x-ray vision and the ability to fly counterclockwise around the earth to turn back time. Instead of a cape, you have a Chewbacca bathrobe. See?"

"I think so. Thanks?"

"Any time. But seriously, why do you need to borrow money from Sterling?"

"Because it will take days before I'll be able to access the embezzled funds. In the meantime, I have to buy three things: a restaurant for the Zuts, a one-way plane ticket to Bhutan so I can get out of the U.S., and a shelf corporation."

"A shelf corporation?"

"Yeah. A shelf corporation is like a McDonald's Big Mac. It's made in advance, so all you have to do is go in and buy it. But with a shelf corporation, you get a ready-made business, not a lukewarm, rubbery burger patty topped with plastic 'cheese' and limp bread. The shelf corporation is where I am going to transfer the funds from the Star Enquirer. From there, I'll route the funds all over the world to places like the Cayman Islands, the Bahamas, and the Cook Islands, until the path is so convoluted, it's virtually untraceable."

"Sounds like the funds are going to have a better trip than we are."

"That's for sure. Then I will donate every penny of the eight hundred million dollars in Star Enquirer assets to Ban Plastic Surgery Now!"

"Oh, so you're like a Hollywood Robin Hood? Stealing from the rich and giving to the poor."

"Yes. I'm an ethical crook. Now stop chattering and let me work."

She placed her glowy fingertips on the keyboard, hoping the Amu hadn't deleted her access to the system or her authority to disburse funds without limit. Knowing the Amu and their slack procedures, she was pretty sure they wouldn't have taken these simple and important precautions. The bottom line was that they needed a human to handle their finances. They were financial idiots. And they weren't even advanced technologically. All that was the Gandulfians. The only thing the Amu excelled at was accepting massive amounts of adulation.

Except Oliver.

Sweet Oliver.

Andie held her breath as she entered her login information for the Star Enquirer accounts. Once she was inside, she would access their bank accounts from there, making it look to the bank like the transaction was originating from the Star Enquirer headquarters and not from a Hollywood penthouse apartment filled with little more than dust and dreams—most of her possessions packed away in color-coded boxes, ready for her to live a life that may never happen.

The spinning five-pointed gold star appeared on the screen. It seemed to take longer than normal. What if they listened to her about following internal control procedures and had blocked her? She would worry about that later. Right now, she would continue to hold her breath and pray the Amu hadn't paid attention to any of her advice.