Tyler coughed as he pulled the air filter from the beat up 2080 model Personal Utility Aircraft. After replacing it, he restarted the conveyer, sending that aerocar out and the next one in. This one was brand new. Tyler opened its door and pressed the "guy with a wrench" logo on the dash. It needed a new barometric adapter.

Hearing the click of heels behind him, he turned to see his ex-girlfriend, Monique, sashaying toward him in a conservative business suit. Not being conservative, she had left all but the bottom two buttons of her blouse undone.

"Hey, Ty!" Her green eyes beamed at him.

"What are you doing here? This your aerocar?" Tyler sneezed.

"Bless you. That's not exactly my air car. It's not exactly…strictly…an aerocar," she said as she fiddled with her collar.

The 'car' made a sucking pop noise and oozed into the form of a small girl with golden locks and an impish grin.

"Hi, Ty. You tickled me!" The changeling hopped off the conveyer, rolled into a ball, and bounced up and down.

"Hi, Jolan," he said to the bouncing ball. "Monique, you don't have a public permit for her. What's she doing out?"

"Relax. No one's here."

"What do you want?"

"I just need you to watch her for a couple hours after work. I have to be in Seattle at 3PM their time."

"No way! Besides, I have a cold. She might get it." Tyler wiped his runny nose on a reasonably clean spot of his coverall sleeve.

"She doesn't get colds. She isolates the virus and starves it out until it dies."

"That's handy. Don't suppose it occurred to you that I don't feel like babysitting when I'm sick?"

Jolan stretched and spiraled like a corkscrew to the ceiling, gathered on a light fixture and executed a swan dive into ... herself. She became a pool of ... something on impact with the floor. Changelings from Dannvian 8 could do that.

"What's in Seattle?" Tyler folded his arms across his chest.

"A hearing with the Alien Immigration Counsel. Please. I can pay you. I get a substantial salary as foster parent to a changeling."

Earth had taken in one hundred Dannvian changelings as refugees when their star went nova. The AIC injected them with sub-molecular tracking markers and assigned human guardians to the undisciplined infants and children. The guardians' homes were hermetically sealed to keep the changelings from escaping. Getting even a temporary public permit was tough.

"Not interested. I can't handle her for ten minutes, let alone two hours. Don't they provide for stuff like that? Respite care or something?"

"Umm, yeah. The respite worker canceled at the last minute and they won't let me bring her with."

"No. Jolan's a good kid and all but you're gonna have to ask someone else. Now if you don't mind, I need to let the next car in and get back to work. You better let me send her out as a car or I could get run in for grand theft, aero."

The pool of Jolan wiggled like gelatin. Monique yanked on it and threw it back onto the conveyer belt. Jolan morphed back into an aerocar. Monique left as Tyler switched the conveyer on.

Poor Niquie must be stir-crazy by now.

Three PUAs later, Tyler plopped into his own aerocar. The only way he'd ever consent to babysitting that urchin would be in shape-shifting shackles. He wondered if such things existed. "Home," he said to the PUA's nav comp.

Tyler woke up when his PUA landed and plugged in. He trudged up the steps from the garage. "House, raise temp five degrees. Display sudoku and news highlights on living room screen."

"Good evening, Tyler." The housebot tilted its metalic head. "House tells me you're running a fever. Can I get you an antipyretic or prepare some chicken soup?"

"No, Jiles. Just get me a beer."

"Very good, sir. I digi-signed for a package. I think it may be more books. It weighed 45 kilograms. I left it by your bedroom bookcase. Dinner will be ready in twenty minutes."

Tyler sat on the massage chair and took off his shoes while the newscaster droned on about the latest health fad. "News off. Music on. Twenty Cent Blues." He called out a few numbers for the sudoku, then turned that off too. His cold made it hard to concentrate.

Jiles handed him his beer and retreated to the kitchen.

Tyler couldn't taste it. At least it's cold and wet. John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom" chased his cares away as he leaned his head back for a neck massage and closed his eyes.

Hearing the bot wheel back in, Tyler looked up just in time to see it fling his shoes against the screen and spin at a nauseating speed. It giggled in a girl's voice. Tyler's heart raced as his adrenalin spiked.

"Jiles! Stop! What do you think you're doing?"

The robot giggled and threw coasters around the room like Frisbees.

"What the heck? Stop, you piece of crap, second-rate robot."

The phone rang.

"House. Run diagnostic on Jiles. Answer call, audio only.

"Tyler here," he said.

"You okay? Did you get the package?" Monique's unmistakable, deceptively soothing voice.

"What package? What are you…oh no…you didn't!"

"Sorry, love. I'll be back at ten. She loves spaghetti. Thanks." She hung up before he could protest.

Jolan-as-Jiles giggled and bounced on pogo feet. Tyler looked on in horror as Jolan came down on his glass-n-brass dining table, sending shards everywhere.

"Jiles, spaghetti for Jolan."

"Jiles is in diagnostic mode still," said the house comp. "I will let him know when diagnostics are complete."

Jolan-as-steamroller was rolling over what was left of the furniture.

"Cancel diagnostic. Get Jiles back here."

"His defective system will not allow an override once diagnostics have been initiated," said House.

"Right," he said, through gritted teeth. That's how he could afford the bot.

He took a deep breath. "Jolan, I need to clean up this glass. Would you mind watching cartoons, bouncing on the bed or…"

Jolan, now walking on the ceiling in the form of a gigantic spider, gazed at him with her eight eyes.

"Jolan, do you want spaghetti?"

She stopped in the center of the ceiling, nodded and began spinning a web.

"Then you need to stop breaking things and change back to a little girl until it's ready."

"Girls are boring," Jolan said in a squeaky voice, "'Sides, I'm not done with my web." She turned and shot a line of sticky silk Tyler's way, hitting him in the face.

The web smelled sickening sweet. He could hardly breathe. He reached his hand up to wipe it off but that only plastered his hand there as well. He thought about calling for help. But Jolan would end up deported to who knew where if she didn't get lynched in transport. She's just a kid. She doesn't know any better.

He strained against the web to speak. The web was too tight. He quit struggling. She'd take it off. Or Jiles would eventually. How long is that diagnostic program, anyhow? His next thought made his blood run cold.

He tried again to speak. Smaller movements. Carefully measured. "Jo'am," he mumbled through the webbing, "wha' hapnn oo the resp ..."

"The other babysitter?" she asked while spinning him around and around, covering him in silk.

Tyler nodded.

"He stopped breathing. Then he couldn't cook or play with me. You won't stop breathing, will you Ty?"