The streets in Elsie sprawled and sprawled, winding around hills, serpentine up and down slopes, beaten gray asphalt worn bare and lineless in the best-traveled locations, otherwise crisp and curated as if the little spacefaring town could have visitors at any moment. A bathypelagian waved at Proxima from the back of a street-sweeper as it thrummed by, his barbels bristling in search of the next pile of trash to clean up. She saw a robot as well, in the driver's seat- rustic, bald, and one-armed, if the wires sticking out of their shoulder were any indication, but they seemed happy enough to be cruising around, and she waved back as they passed her by.

She'd have still been in the garage if she hadn't been ushered out by a buggish young man who still had two of his four hands on her forearm. Proxima never meant to give them a scare- the singer had yelped and tossed their microphone, and the drummer suddenly split into two shiny green teenagers, running in opposite directions.

"I've never seen Click turn that red. I guess they thought nobody was listening. --Hey, are you listening?"

She wasn't. It was her first time really taking in what sort of place Elsie was, and she found herself strangely enchanted, right there on the sidewalk. Her free hand settled on her hip as she looked high, high up, catching a glimpse of the weather generators' steady blue fog as it wrapped around the random swoops and spirals of a ceiling of machinery that seemed to go on for miles and miles in any direction.

"Hey!" She snapped out of it as the young bug- he had the impressive antennae of blattoid from Libra, but she thought it'd be rude to just guess- lightly slapped at her shoulder to get her attention.

"Huh? Oh! Sorry, I haven't been indoors much lately. I'm starting to appreciate it all over again. What were we talking about?"

"You, being a stranger in Click's house, for one."

"Early let me in. I, uh, made kind of a scene at the depot. He was kind enough to get me out of there, but I owe him some repairs.

She shuffled her feet a little bit, scraping at the concrete before regarding him with an apologetic smile. "So I expect to be here for a little while, I guess. Maybe we should get to know each other? I mean, all of us. Everyone in the garage, if you can round 'em up."

She paused for a beat, then laughed. "To be honest, you guys seem more my speed than good ol' Early."

Those shiny brown eyes got oh-so-wide, hearing that. This was not a blattoid who was often told he was cool. "Well, my name's Bones. Or, well, it kind of is. I kind of wish it was, anyway." He hefted a shiny trombone in his free hand and sighed at his reflection in the bell.

Proxima didn't know what to make of that. "Okay, well if it's not Bones, what is it?"

"Iiiiiiiiit's Boner!" said somebody who wasn't Boner.

"If anyone should be called Bones, it's Click. On account of their clicky bones. You don't even have bones, Boner!"

"Yeah, but-"

The shiny green girl was on the approach, saying all that and more. At least it seemed that she had resolved herself into one girl again. She was dressed in garish shades of mustard and ketchup, from the visor around her uncertain-shaped head to the untied sneakers with which she raced up behind them. The words "Cosmo Bowl" were embroidered on her polo shirt, right above a name tag that Proxima couldn't read. The interlocking symbols were squarish and imprecise, but it had to be a signature of some kind.

"You don't have any bones either..." Boner grumbled, defeated.

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"Who needs bones when you've got surface tension? --Who's your girlfriend, Boner?"

With an awkward little laugh, Proxima raised the hand that Boner had been holding onto. "Uh, hi. Call me Proxima. Proxy if you're in a real hurry, I guess. What's your name?"

"Well, just like Boner here," there was a punchy emphasis to the way she said it, and an actual punch, light and goopy, that landed against his shoulder. "I didn't get to pick a cool name for myself. I got stuck with Scatter. Maybe don't shorten that, even if you are in a hurry."

Proxima paused for a moment, then raised her eyebrows. "Yeah, that's fair."

Before either of them could carry on any longer, the garage door rolled up and out stalked the young person who'd been on the mic. There was no doubt about that being Early's kid- same nose, same Saggitarian ears, and a scowl that suggested that chip on their shoulder wasn't getting any lighter. Click clicked as they walked up to Proxima, shoulders rolling and crunching like boots on fresh snow underneath a black denim jacket.

"So did you break into my house, or what?" Their voice was coarse and defensive and punchy- great behind a mic, but a little frustrating up close and personal. Before Proxima could answer, Boner and Scatter both spoke up, talking over each other rapidly.

"She's from space-"

"And she broke your dad's crap!"

"And she's gotta fix it-"

"So she lives with you until she does!"

"Oh, that part's definitely not true," Proxima finally chimed in, stepping between the two to introduce herself yet again. "The rest is, though. I'm Proxima, I had a little bit of a crash landing, and your old man's helping me get my bearings. ...In exchange for me fixing what I broke. I like your sound! Very crunchy, lots of passion." Her hair flowed with light and static as she rewound video, pulling up the last image she caught before everything went sideways in the garage.

"Oh, no..." Click groaned. "Don't put that online." They reached for her hair, waving at the image, but it simply distorted and settled across a new row of fibers.

"C'mon, you should be proud!" She laughed warmly and stood up straight, setting her hands on her hips as she squinted at the garage. "Where do people do all their rocking out in this town, anyway? Not right here on the sidewalk, I'm guessing."

Boner certainly seemed proud enough, staring up at Proxima's hair with those big brown eyes. He mimicked what he saw of himself, adjusting his foot placement, leaning back, holding the trombone just so... until Scatter thwapped his back with a sticky green hand.

"Nowhere, anymore." Click huffed, crossing their arms. "We lost the only spot we had."

"Hence the name," Scatter offered, picking up the slack. "Cosmo Bowl had twelve lanes. And an arcade. And karaoke. And a skating rink."

Proxima already knew what happened. She'd seen it too many times. "Who did it?"

"Who else?" Boner shrugged with one set of arms, while the other pointed at a billboard on the other side of the street.

D.B.A. - A Century of Service and Quality! it read. A man's face filled the middle of the advertisement- he was clean-shaven, with thin lips and chilly grey eyes, his white hair swept straight back away from a hairline run so thin it was nearly gone altogether. Remember, with D.B.A. you can "Do 'Bout Anything!"

The fibers of her hair glittered and cycled colors as she reached out across the localnet, using Elsie's gigantic signal pylon as a relay to connect to the Sagittarian internet. She returned to conversation while she casually compiled everything she could learn about the man from the ad.

"They told us it was going one day, and it was gone the next," Scatter sighed. "D.B.A. doesn't waste any time. They promised us some big new thing on the news- Click, you're a big nerd, what did they say it was?"

"I don't see what me being a nerd has to do with it," Click grumped, folding their arms across their chest tightly. "Everyone watches the news if they wanna know what's going on."

"Yeah, if they're ooooold." Scatter turned to Proxima and rolled her eyes. It was a unique sight, watching two blobs of amber tilt without any resistance inside a sea of translucent green. "Maybe Click can't help it. Born old, just like their dad."

"D'you wanna know what's going on or not?"

"I do," Boner offered. Proxima agreed.

"They called it a gravity smasher. Apparently the plating under our feet can't last forever, and everything's gonna fly off into space if they don't knock down the Cosmo Bowl and build this thing as fast as they can."

"That's crap, the gravity's fine!" Scatter jumped as if that would prove it, but as soon as she was no more than six inches off the ground, a strange twanging noise burst out of the air beneath her, and she found herself suddenly upside-down, four feet up, scrambling to grab onto something.

Ever diligent, Boner offered a couple hands and pulled her down.

"Okay, maybe it's not fine, but they can't just knock down the Cosmo Bowl! I worked there! I was the whole night shift!"