“I wish we could use the radio, Clyde,” Elliot Guess complained to his boss. “How we going to contact the local police without it?  That damned tower over there blocks our transmissions.”

“You’ll have to hike over that hill when something happens, Elliot.  It should work from there. These microwaves are only line-of-sight.”

“Well, I wish they’d pass that damned bill on conspiracy being a crime. Hoover says they’ll keep on trying.  Just being here like this should be against the law.” Elliot was a great complainer.

“Wait a minute, Elliot. Get moving and get the locals up here. Tell them to call Hoover for more agents. I just noticed something,” Clyde told him. “The mob is using cocaine and the bikers are smoking weed. I’ll bet there are drugs all over this place.  We can arrest them for that. Hell, by the time the locals get all the way up here, they’ll probably do something else against the law,” Clyde told his fellow FBI agent. “You go get the local cops, and the rest of us’ll surround and arrest them.”

“Wait a minute, Clyde,” another agent piped up, “it’s my turn to work the radio.”

“No, mine. You did it the last time, Joe,” a third yelled.

“I gotta take a crap first,” from a fourth, echoed by the other two. None of them wanted to try to arrest hundreds of armed felons.

While the FBI agents were arguing over who got to live, Lois and Jose made their way down to the encampment, intent on destroying it. As they entered the camp, they tried to increase their mass so as to make themselves invulnerable to handgun fire.

“I must be doing something wrong, Lois. I don’t feel any heavier.”

“Neither do I.  Something is very wrong here.”

They hadn’t found any sentries. Since it wasn’t illegal to meet in the woods, the planners weren’t worried about police. There would probably be guards at the meeting itself, since criminal plans would be discussed.

“What are we going to do?” Jose asked.

“Don’t get yourself shot,” Lois advised her companion. “Use your other training. You take the bikers and I’ll get the mobsters.  After that, we’ll both work on the street-punks and Chinese gangs.”

Tai Heng Rong sat on a stump outside his tent, watching bikers at play. The grizzled tong leader shook his head at their antics. Bikers were racing motorcycles at each other, daring the other to swerve. About half the time neither did and the cycles crashed together with a loud noise. If someone were injured, they were taken into one of the tents and the cycle dragged away to make room for two others. Another two idiots would take their places, roar their engines, race at each other, and the game continue. The rough ground, mostly rocks and stumps, only made it more interesting.

Rong was the only person in the camp to notice two new people coming in from the woods. He had an excellent memory, which had helped many times in his rise to prominence. What struck him was the way the two walked, more a glide. he’d seen it before, long ago in his youth.

As the two separated, with the man gliding toward the bikers, Rong remembered. . . .

He recalled a time long before, when he was only a small boy in China. He’d seen the local warlord talking with three strangers in black robes. It was a demonstration of abilities from a secret society — he couldn’t remember the name. The three strangers and his warlord walked through the town square where a large group of prisoners stood, guarded by soldiers.

The boy, Tai Heng Rong, was too far away to hear what was being said. He was at a crowded market with his father to shop. While his father negotiated with a merchant, Rong watched the group of soldiers and their captives.

A shouted order brought all the soldiers back to the noble warlord, leaving the prisoners standing alone in the middle of the crowded square. One of the soldiers yelled something like “run” to the prisoners. Meanwhile, the three strangers remained talking to the warlord, seemingly paying no attention to soldiers or captives.

The prisoners did run, mixing with the crowd and going off in all directions. Rong saw one of the strangers nod to the other two.  The three of them seemed to become blurs. They moved through the crowd, not even nudging shoppers but, everywhere they ran, prisoners dropped to the ground — dead.

Within ten minutes, the three were back with the warlord, soldiers going out to drag bodies back. Rong could see the warlord counting bodies and then smiling at the strangers. The group went back to the palace.  Later, his warlord had won that long ago conflict.

That was what Rong remembered, as he saw the distinctive walk of those two strangers at a camp in faraway Virginia.  The name came back to him.  “ShoaKi.”

Terrified at the implication, Rong hurried as fast as his old legs could carry him, to find the other tong leader. They had to get out of the camp, and damned quick.

Handsome Harry and his boss Shitface were sitting in front of their tent, making plans for their own demands at the coming meeting, when Harry saw a Mexican man casually walking among the biker tents. The cyclists didn’t get along with street gangs, and he was surprised to see one of them in his section of the camp.

“Hey, asshole, you lost or somethin’?” he yelled at Jose. “Wha’ the hell you doin’ oer’ ‘ere?

Thinking it was as good a place to start as any, Jose wandered over to the pair. He hadn’t seen many of the riders around.  Tired of racing, the uninjured were sleeping in preparation for nighttime festivities.

“I was thinking of buying a motorcycle. Thought you might have one for sale?” Jose asked, looking around.

“Yeah? You got cash? We don’t trust you wetbacks worth a fuck?” Shitface asked.

“Sure, got the money right on me,” Jose lied.

Seeing a chance for amusement before robbing the guy, Harry and Shitface led him to the line of motorcycles, the gang’s pride and joy and more important than any woman.

“Now this one here is worth $10,000.  You got that much?” Shitface asked.

He showed Jose his own expensive ride, seeking to impress him with its value. Jose looked the vehicle over, gently rubbing its handlebars. It had a half-dozen hand-grenades hanging from the bars, three on each side and painted in primary colors as decorations.

“Tell you what.  I’ll make a trade.” Jose smiled at the man. “The bike for your life?”

As he spoke, he removed a couple of Lois’s pens from his shirt pocket, balancing them in his right hand.

“He gonna kill us, Shitface.  How bout ‘at?” Handsome Harry laughed. His friend was confused. He was the one who was supposed to threaten, not the victim.

“You gotta be shittin’ me?  Just gimme your money and get back to your asshole buddies. And stay the hell away from here,” Shitface ordered Jose.

“Your call?  Which will it be?”

The two hoodlums only laughed.

Jose’s hand flashed.

Both of the bikers sported pens in their left eye-sockets. Their brains being pierced, they dropped lifelessly to the ground, legs kicking weakly.

Even as they fell, Jose began yanking grenades off the handlebars and throwing them into the four biker tents. The last two were thrown farther, into the street-gang area.  Smiling, Jose went looking for survivors.

After the blasts, he saw two bikers running from a row of portable toilets and quickly dispatched them. By the time he was finished, he found his job being done for him. The remaining bikers had attacked the street-gangs and a fight was in progress, each blaming the other for the grenades.

Jose stood back and watched as the two gangs decimated each other. Lois was right, he decided.  This was easier than he’d thought.  He did wish he could make himself invulnerable, though, with all the bullets zipping around.

Lois noticed a lot of activity in the Chinese part of the camp but wanted to save them for last. The Italians were more important.  She found only a few old men in the mob tents, the rest being in the lodge building itself.

“Where’s everyone at?” she asked one of the over-aged gangsters.

Two of them were watching the third trying to strap on an aluminum leg. It was a special device, with built-in shotgun, and hard to manage without blowing the tent to shreds.

“What’s it to you, Chink?” the one with the false leg looked up and asked. “What you want in here? You hooking or something?”

“Naw, not really.  Let me help you with that.” Lois reached down and, grasping the metal appendage, inserted it into his brain through a still-open mouth. “There, fits good, don’t it?”

She grinned at the other two, surprised, mobsters.

One of them tried to rise, only to meet a blow from her hand, dislocating his neck vertebra. The last mobster was more than willing to talk.

“Inside, they’re inside the lodge, fixing it up for the meeting. You ain’t gonna kill me are you? I told you what you wanted to know.”

Lois smiled at the old mobster, picking a loose twig up from the dirt floor of the tent.

“Thanks, and yep.” She poked the twig through an ear and into his brain.

The woman spotted a Thompson submachine gun on one of the beds. Since she couldn’t increase her weight, and there were a lot of the goons, she picked up the auto-firing device and made certain it was loaded. Then she casually walked toward the lodge building, carrying the weapon under one arm.

Anna was still in her tent. The only female among her contemporaries, she had a small one to herself.  The woman was reading a book on flower arranging, looking over in time to see Lois enter the lodge building.

“I’ve seen her before,” Anna told herself, searching her memory. “Now where was it?” As she pondered, there were explosions at the other end of the camp, then a surge of gunfire.

Hurriedly putting on expensive leather boots, Anna grabbed an automatic rifle from a folding table and hurried out to see what was going on.

About that time, there were sirens in the distance, sounding like police cars. Anna knew that the roads into the camp had been blocked and were guarded, but something had to be wrong, and that girl might be part of it.

It was then that Anna remembered.  She’d seen that woman in Yugoslavia.  The one she’d caught looking through a window at the cocaine.  The time when Lois had been found in an off-limits area there. That was too much of a coincidence for Anna.  She continued toward the lodge, but much more carefully.

Inside the building, Clyde and his companions had the mafia crew lined up against one wall, putting handcuffs on them from a burlap bag of the devices. At the sound of explosions and then gunfire, a few of the mobsters turned and attacked the FBI men.

Now a fight was in progress, even as Lois came in. Since all of them were dressed alike, and she recognized only Clyde, she didn’t know what to do but watch.

As a group of already handcuffed prisoners tried to shoulder their way through a closed door, she started by gunning that bunch down. At least she could figure they weren’t police. Her gunfire caused the fighters to pause and look at her. The FBI recovered first and lined the mobsters back against the wall.

While Lois had been killing mobsters, Anna came up behind her. Using her rifle as a club, Anna slammed Lois in the back of the head with its barrel, knocking the half-Chinese woman to the floor.

As Lois lay unconscious, Anna aimed her rifle at the girl’s head, smiling as she slowly squeezed the trigger.

Clyde, seeing Lois and also recognizing her, was helping with the prisoners. He happened to look over in time to see Anna sneaking up behind the other woman. Clyde ran at the two of them, shouting as he ran.

“Watch out, she’s behind you,” Clyde yelled, and reached for his gun. He watched as Lois fell, recognizing her from the DA fiasco.

Before her weapon fired, Anna heard him and paused.  The gun-moll raised her rifle, snapping off a shot at the man with the gun.

Missing, she decided it would be prudent to get the hell out of there.  Turning, Anna ran for the woods, leaving everything behind. Having been born and raised in the dreaded swamps of Sicily, she would rather take her chances in the wilderness.

When the local police finally made their way to the campground, Jose looked around for Lois.  Not seeing her, but with the place flooded with uniformed officers, he followed instructions and tried to snap back to the apartment.  Like with his attempt to increase mass, he found he couldn’t do it.

Not being as comfortable in the woods as Anna, Jose surrendered to the police — still watching for Lois. Maybe she would rescue him, he hoped.  Jose knew she wouldn’t want him to kill policemen.

He did look up and see the huge tower above them, with its large dish-like extension.  Later, while waiting in a cell downtown, he tried again and easily snapped back to the apartment.  He also noticed his mass changing ability worked again.

Lois came to in the backseat of an FBI sedan.  She was handcuffed and woke with her head in Clyde’s lap.

He was still engaged in bandaging that head — or trying to. The dummies he’d practiced on in FBI training hadn’t had hair on them.  Lois’s long black mane got in the way.  He didn’t want to put tape on it, and certainly didn’t want to cut it off.  So he simply used yard after yard of gauze, making a large white lump over her ears and jaw. A jumble of partially emptied first-aid kits were spread around his legs.

“Hi,” Lois mumbled through several layers of cloth, “good to see you again.”

Woozily, and with his help, she managed to sit up in the back seat.

“I don’t know who you work for, lady, but even I can’t save you now.”  Clyde shook his head, with a sorrowful look on his face. “You killed a half-dozen handcuffed Federal prisoners — in cold blood.  I have to put you under arrest for murder,” he informed her, sadly. “There’s no way out of it.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she told him. “Thanks for the help. What happened to me, anyway? All I remember is waking up just now?”

He had to tell her about Anna. She had him describe the woman.

“Did you get her? I ran into her once before, I think anyway.”

“I don’t know. The local police took over and it was chaotic for awhile. We’ll sort it out back in town,” he told her. “Sorry I have to arrest you like this. Who are you anyway, and what agency do you work for?”

“You can call me Lois, and I can’t tell you the rest,” she told him, as she reached her heavily bandaged head over and tried to kiss his cheek through all the gauze around her mouth. “Thanks anyway, for saving me.”

Embarrassed and red-faced, Clyde looked away through his window, blushing while he tried to organize a kaleidoscope of emotions. Feeling the other side of the seat lighten, he looked over — to find her gone.

***

Back in Dallas, Jose wasn’t surprised when Lois snapped back, only at her appearance. They both returned to the village for medical care.

When she told Chu Li and the others about their temporary loss of powers and Jose mentioned the large pylon, they figured the tower had something to do with their problems. Later, a few quick snaps and visits to that and similar microwave installations proved them right.

***

The first thing Jones did was to put down a paper sack of groceries and then unlock a large padlock. He then opened a heavy wooden door at the front of the cave. It had been disguised as a sewage inspection site, something no vandal in his right mind would want to get near.

Josh had either been lucky or chosen well, since there was a road and housing development a couple of hundred feet from his cave entrance. There was evidence of kids playing near there but the door was set far to the rear of the cave and they hadn’t tried to break it in. Who would even be curious about a sewage tunnel?

When Mr. Jones entered the cave, Joshua Erickson was lying quietly on his dusty bed.  Jones was surprised when Josh sat up.  He’d grown used to seeing the man sleeping.

“How you feeling, sir,” Jones asked, sitting the sack down on a table.  It seemed that the food wasn’t needed.

“Why did you lock me in here, and who are you?” Josh asked, reasonable questions under the circumstances. “And what year is this?

“1961, March 5th. I found out about you from old books and papers. I want to offer you a job.”

“What kind of a job? And I have to find out what’s going on out there first,” Josh answered, he’d slept like that before, though not for as long a period, and knew damned well there would be a lot of changes when he woke. He wasn’t about to make any commitments until he understood what was going on.

“A government job. With the new one you helped to form,” Jones told him, “and I have things set up to help you get up to date. Movies  . . .  I forgot you don’t know what they are. Pictures about what’s happened while you were asleep.” Damn, this guy doesn’t even know what photographs are, Jones realized. “Listen, I have ways to educate you on those things, just trust me and come along.”

“If you know about me, you should also know not to lie to me,”  the man cautioned Jones. “I can move one hell of a lot faster than you. You have horses or a carriage with you, or do we have to walk? I’m not too steady yet, muscles still kind of stiff.”

“Don’t worry about it. I have good transportation.” Jones permitted himself a rare smile, –more like a horrible grimace. It looked like he had his last employee.

They were spat out of the depths of hell and onto the streets of snowy New York about two blocks north of CTH’s old high school.

“Ten bucks if anyone can spot an improvement.”

“Shut up, Satan,” said CTH.

“It wasn’t me,” said Satan.

It had been the Creed.  He was not the man she had met.  The two had always had the New York-Buffalo thing between them, but it had never been dark, before.  She brushed the matter aside and concentrated on the job at hand.

“Listen, people, the bad guys are winning by sheer weight of numbers.  But we have one round of experience on these people and we’re going to learn from what went before.  No fighting one-on-one and we depend on us being better.  We form a unit, we fight as a unit, we win as a unit.  Is that too complex for anybody?  No?  Good!”

“Rebel,” said Inversus.

“I got it, too, Inversus.  Let’s deal with the immediate issue, first.”

“Satan, I’m mounting you, hope you like the way I put that.  Creed, drop back in form, ramp up again, and get a horse.  You and me are at the center.  Ravenheart, to the Creed’s left.  Rebel Lodestone and Inversus, fly on the wings.  Outreguerre and Tablegrrrl, in the back, you are our artillery.  We will move forward, lock down resistance, then move on.”

“Good plan.  Mind if I take your right?”

“Dark?”

“If you’ll have me,” he said.

“You can take command,” said CTH.

“You’re doing fine,” said The Dark.

The Dark of a parallel Earth had died in that riot of that world.  CTH was going to make sure he didn’t die this time, too.

CTH got on her mobile to a contact in the police.  She told the team to move forward on the first batch of criminals.  These were no villain gang like the Skhaters or their parallels, the Bat Crap Crazy Gang.  They were just ordinary thugs, escaped criminals made as bad as a bad system filled with bad men could make them.  There were about twenty of them.

At CTH’s command, she, The Dark, and Outreguerre loosed smoke grenades.  Smoke enveloped the group from about the neck down.  They laughed because it didn’t blind them.

“Inversus, Rebel Lodestone.”

They took their cues and unleashed their magic.  The smoke turned into a solid and the gang was frozen.

“Do we leave a guard on them?” asked Melanie.  “They’re helpless like that.  Somebody could just come up and poke their eyes out.  And with the snow and cold, they’ll probably freeze.”

“Their problem, not ours,” said CTH.  But she called it in to her contact in the police.

The team moved out to the sounds of tough guys asking for mercy, making their way south to the next intersection, towards the Washington Irving High School.  Snow drifted down as if to purify the aftermath of battle.  Broken weapons lay everywhere; sprays of blood that would keep forensics busy for years were on walls, trees, and the ground; and there was a warning.

Hanging from a tree with mask off and guts pulled out and drifting loose was the Spybuster.  He was a hero of the dying days of the Cold War.  One of the Soviet Union’s last great projects was to destroy his reputation.  They got their agents to sell the idea that by catching spies, Spybuster was harming international relations.  Every night on the news someone would question what his motives were and just as often, what his real motives were.

According to rumor, when the Soviet Union collapsed, its protocol papers for the project were taken by the CIA.  They became the basis for the CIA’s program to make those with powers more tractable.  According to The Dark, the protocols weren’t limited to costumed targets.

“He was too old to do this,” said CTH.  “What was he, in his seventies?”

“He should have taken a defensible position and held it.  He could have protected the innocent,” said The Dark.

They cut him down and Ivo magically hid the body.  They would collect him later and see that he got a proper funeral.  According to rumor, some old KGB agents had promised when the day came they would attend out of respect.

The Creed dropped back in form then recited his poem.

“…this bitter truth rolls off our tongues,

Something wicked this way comes.”

When he mutated back into his more hideous form, he was astride a horse.

“His name is Jeremiad,” he said.

“We keep heading south.  We’ll take Washington Irving High School.  The militia, cops and deputised citizens will take it from us and hold it while we move out and take the next objective.”

They turned to go south but came to a roadblock.  Four villains, all females, and all unknown to CTH.  The Dark didn’t know them, either, and he knew everybody.  One of the four picked up a taxi and threw it at the team.  It arched, hit the ground, then skidded rooftop down along the ground.  Everyone scattered.  Rebel Lodestone caught the taxi in a beam of light.  The taxi stopped and the momentum became a kind of backlash that knocked the woman who threw it into the wall of a nearby building.

CTH noted she wore navy blue shirt and leggings, black pirate boots, gauntlets, and trunks.  She had a black domino mask, which struck CTH as useless because she had shaved her head.  Big, bald, black women with huge shoulders and arms should be a bit thin on the ground.  So why hadn’t CTH heard of this woman before now?

“Outreguerre, can you launch a gas grenade?”

“Non, mon capitaine, they are all poison.  But I can do this.”

With that he fired a bean bag round and hit muscles in the face.  It distracted her but did little more.  She was going to be tough.

A second member of the foursome came up.  She wore a white skirt with slits to show her barefoot legs and a strip of white cloth from waist around the neck and back. It did an inadequate job of covering her breasts. This one had a full head of light brown hair which was left loose.

She looked like it had been a long time since she had had a decent meal.  CTH could count the woman’s ribs from across the street.  There was a nipple slip and CTH wondered that some might call that view obscene and find her starvation acceptable.  The woman’s legs were stick thin and the skin on her thighs flapped each time she took a step.  By CTH’s estimation the woman had stopped her menses some time ago.

She raised her right arm straight, her first pointing at the team.  She brought her other hand up to the fist and drew it back, miming drawing a bow.  Lightning crackled in her hands and formed a strung bow with an arrow knocked.

She loosed.  A lightning arrow flew out. It turned the snowflakes in its path into steam, then hit the team.  It was ineffective: two of the team were in the air; The Dark, CTH, Outregurre, and Tablegrrrl were in insulated costumes.  The Creed and his horse just took the shock.  Mia Ravenheart went down.

“Tablegrrrl…”

“On it.”  Tablegrrrl twisted her head around and faced one of the panels on the tabletop.  She scrunched up her face and concentrated.  A blue mist emerged from the table and covered Mia.  Electrical burns started to heal and in a few moments, Ravenheart started to awaken.

“All right, people, they are not trying to defeat us.  These are delaying tactics.  So the bad guys need time to set something up.  Take them out fast,” said CTH.

A third member of the enemy stepped forward, like the four of them were showcasing what they could do.  She was a Native American, unless she came from Canada, which would make her an Aboriginal.  She had red skin and long black hair parted in the middle.  She wore a ceramic mask, much like the one Inversus had.   She had a red and black costume, with every item a combination of the two colors.  Her shirt was red with black side panels, her gloves were black with three red stripes down the back of the hand, the boots were black with a red stripe down the outside, her leggings were red with a black lightning bolt down the outside.

She raised a hand and it vanished.  When she drew back, her hand returned and it held a crystal globe.  CTH remembered there was a machine in the Creed’s basement that had spheres like that one.  They held images of worlds, star systems, embryos, and more.  This one just seemed to hold threads of color.

She threw the sphere at the team.  At the apogee of its flight the sphere broke open and the threads escaped.  They stretched out, lengthening as they went and sucking up all the color around them.  The world increasingly turned shades of gray.

“I am Dissequence,” said the woman.  “I am the random events that you must take and make something of.”

“You mean…” but that was as far as CTH got.  Her theory was confirmed when Inversus flew into a rage and drew several handkerchiefs out of her hat.  She threw these one at a time at Dissequence.  As the cloths were tossed they grew stiff and sharp edged.  They could have been multi-colored, but in the range of Dissequence’s spells they were different shades of gray.

Dissequence pulled out another sphere, one filled with clouds.  This one she threw to the ground where it shattered and all four of them disappeared.

“They’ve teleported,” said Ivo.

Inversus was also swearing up a storm.  Suddenly there was a billowing of smoke and the four of them were back.  Inversus and Dissequence tore each other with nails as much as using magic.  As they did, the two groups attacked each other.  There was nothing like a crisp, describable set of tactics.  Everybody hit.

Then Muscles threw a motorbike and Volt did the lightning bolt thing.  She mimed a machine gun into existence and lightning bullets started to spray.  The bike burst into flames and the whole thing hit the Creed.  CTH had been trained, and had trained herself non-stop to keep a cool head in the heat of battle.  But this time she simply froze.

“Darling.”

“Like this, boss.”  Satan stepped up.  He breathed in and the laws of physics went to the wall.  Satan siphoned off the flames as if they were poured into his mouth through a great, invisible funnel.  “Back atcha, bitch.”

Satan turned around and blew the flames at Volt.  Muscles stepped in and took the hit.  Dissequence took out the flames, then turned them at Inversus and the two were at it again.

The fourth member stepped up.  She was Japanese, judging by her sense of style.  She had short black hair which she’d moussed into soft spikes.  Her eyeliner was bird wings in several shades of blue, the bottom of her nose was painted black, her lipstick was black, and on her cheeks were painted whiskers.  Below her lips were painted splashes of blood.  It was like she was the cat eating the bird.

She wore one red and one yellow high-topped sneakers, high enough to be wannabe wrestling boots.  She had counter-charged knee socks, red with the yellow sneaker, yellow with the red one.  She had a very short minidress.  On her chest was her symbol, which looked like a cute little animal’s face.  Radiating out from that was a complex wave pattern with the multi-colored bars apparently bouncing off various plastic brooches.

“Hi, hi, hi,” she said.  “I am Shindougaru but my agent thinks I should go by the name Jishingaru.  What do you think?  This is what I do.  Watch.  Watch.”

With that she started to shake.  Initially it looked like a really bad dance.  Then she began to speed up.  The shaking became a vibration.  There was a buzz as her vibrating started to push air molecules away.  Then she opened her mouth.

It wasn’t a scream as they are known.  It was as if she were directing the vibrations by something scream-like.  A wall of force hit the team.  They were thrown further than Muscles could toss a taxi.  The flyers managed to avoid hitting the ground, everyone else had to soak it up or just roll.

That wasn’t possible for Tablegrrrl.  Her table was gouged and her head was thrown free.  The Creed put it back before he picked up his head.  Suddenly, CTH realized Melanie and Jackson had some kind of link they hadn’t told her about.

Inversus was pretty well out of the picture, at least she neutralized Dissequence.  They still had Rebel Lodestone as a flyer, but there was no way he could handle everyone.  Muscles and Volt were keeping him tied up, able to use only shields and dodging.

Outreguerre shouldered his rifle and fired a shot all in one fluid motion.  It may have just been a test because the tracer bullet left a line from barrel to Shindougaru and straight through her to a wall.

“So cool.  If you vibrate your molecules outside the Boson particle field, you lose your mass and can go through walls or have bullets go through you.  It’s really funny if you’re having sex with someone at the time.  Ha ha ha.”

She said all of that without moving her mouth once, though she wiggled her head around a lot.  With that, Shindougaru put her hands into a tree, changed her vibratory rate, and the tree exploded.  Blast debris flew at them and the team could do nothing besides cover their eyes and ears.  Except for Satan, who seemed to have strengthened his defences against being blown into little gooey bits.  But Satan and Creed protected the others, taking the hit in full.

Satan, who was once the Devil, went berserk.  He breathed flames that set fire to everything they touched.  It was like he was not just breathing fire, but Greek fire.  It clung to stuff and just kept burning, even on stone, brick, and bitumen.  It melted snow piled high by ploughs and hardened by car exhaust.  But it didn’t affect Shindougaru.  She just smiled as she kept vibrating herself outside the fields of Boson particles, keeping herself out of danger’s reach.

Satan pressed the attack, and eventually he looked a lot less crazy.  She didn’t have mass, so she could not breathe.  She could vibrate air molecules to make a voice for herself, she could partially solidify to blow up a tree.  But if she made herself solid enough to breathe she would burn.  So he kept her in flames until she fainted.  Ivo quickly raised her by magic and put her out of range of the battle.

CTH looked at what was left.  Inversus and Dissequence were still going at each other, evenly matched and hating each other.

“Outrreguerre, go help your girlfriend.  Tip the balance in her favor.”

“I cannot, mademoiselle, they must fight this out between them.  Zey are fighting on different planes of existence.  Like zey are fighting with ideas as well as form.”

“Wonderful.  Then take out Volt, her power is all offence.”

Outreguerre took a ‘cussion grenade and lobbed it, almost lazily.  The thing went off and Volt was down.

That left Muscles.  The Creed attacked, using his head like a morning star.  Muscles grabbed a fire hydrant and ripped it from the ground.  Since the actual valve was below ground, in defiance of Hollywood principles, water did not gush everywhere.  But the hydrant did make a decent weapon.  Muscles didn’t swing it like a club, she rammed it straight down, minimizing impact area so she maximized damage.

The Creed swung his head.  CTH thought he missed but the head bypassed Muscles’ arm.  The hair wrapped around the fire hydrant.  The Creed hauled and the hydrant was pulled free and tossed aside.  He took a sock to the jaw for it, but he got her weapon away from her.

The two were evenly matched.  His head flailed, which was to the Creed’s advantage.  But Muscles could see better because her head wasn’t flailing about the place.  He hit harder, she hit more often.  Neither seemed to be wearing the other down.

CTH noted Jerimiad was being kept out of the fray.  Other horses would be brought into it, kicking and biting.  She thought it was cute that the Creed was protecting the horse after what happened to Marigold.  He really cared for those horses.

“Satan, go stomp on Muscles and don’t be tender about it.”

“You got it.  But how did you know her name?  She’s not even from this dimension.”

“Just get her.”

Satan ran up and bit Muscles on the head.  While his teeth were still in her flesh, he breathed fire.  Muscles screamed, turned, and punched Satan in the mouth.  Blood dripped and his mouth foamed.  The Creed belted her on the side of the head with his head.  Muscles screamed in rage and turned to attack the creed.  What she got was a pair of hooves in her back, knocking her to the ground.

The Creed started kicking Muscles in the head, right in the blister that Satan’s fire breath had caused.  Muscles could do nothing but try to cover up.  It was an ugly way to win.  CTH didn’t like it but she had to admit, she kind of called it that way.

It was so much easier when it was just her and The Dark catching one crook at a time.  The riot was a whole different scale of things.

“Outreguerre.  You know Inversus.  Is there any way we can get in on that fight?”

“Joining in, mon capitaine, not a problem.  But if we do, down the way, there will be hell to pay.”

“And hell will over charge you – I should know,” said Satan.

Inversus could fly, it seemed Dissequence could not.  But Dissequence was both quick and a good throw.  She was hitting Inversus with a flurry of explosive spheres.  Inversus could do no more than hide behind her cape as concussive force and hails of glass fragments assailed her.

“Wait a minute…”  CTH looked around.  “Rebel Lodestone, we’re still in black and white.  What is it doing?  Is there a way around it?  …Something…”

“We’ve got to stop Dissequence…”

“We cannot, mon ami,” said Outreguerre.  “They are living principles, we mere mortals…”

“That’s you, Outreguerre.” said the Creed.  “I am a principle with a human host, just like them.”  With that he walked over, swung his head, and knocked Dissequence out.

“Creed, you’re a principle?  My boyfriend is…your normal self is the host?”

“CTH, focus on the mission,” said The Dark.

CTH put her fingers to the eyeslits of her mask.  She breathed in deep and waited as Inversus landed.  When the team was together she looked out.  The black-and-white was dissolving.  As the color came back to the area, CTH seemed more willing to act.

“That black-and-white was a depressant?”

“It’s more complicated than that and not essential now,” said the Creed.

“Form up.  We have Washington Irving High School to take just one block south of here.  Satan, you said Muscles came from another dimension.  I take it a lot of the people we’ve been facing…”

“Nearly all of them come from beyond the barrier, sweetheart.”

“So the first part of the plan is clear.  Bring the bad guys from several other dimensions.  Take the city by weight of numbers.  They have some other element to their plan, we’ve got to start by messing up the first part for them.”

CTH called her contact in the police force.  About ten minutes later a convoy of battle-damaged trucks and support troops showed up.  The four villains were put into the same trucks that had once held the team.  The unconscious bad guys were loaded one by one and the convoy moved out.

“They’re not going to hold them for any length of time, are they?” asked CTH.

“Dissequence is probably already free.  She may not be able to fly but she can teleport,” said Inversus.

CTH felt like everything in the universe was being dumped on her shoulders.  But she knew the thing she had to do now was concentrate on the job at hand.

“Form up, people, usual order,” said CTH.

“Ease up, honey.  You’re turning this into a military mission,” said the Creed.

“I’m trying to get the job done with minimum casualties.”

“No, you’re trying to decide whether you love me or my host.  Believe me, I’ve seen the signs with every relationship I’ve ever had.”

With that he took point, getting in front of everyone and making himself the target of any sniper or superpower going.

“Don’t go too fast, I’m slow,” said Tablegrrrl.

“I’ll teach you to fly when I think you’re ready, not before,” called the Creed.

With everybody talking they headed south.  They got almost no distance at all before the conversation stopped.  It was far worse than Spybuster.  Hanging from the trees of the street and the streetlights were the bodies of small children and heroes.

The children she didn’t know, but the similarity in ages made her think they had been taken from the one class to this place to face an awful death.  The heroes she had known, and many of them she had teamed with over the last two years.  There was Wahochiopi, a Native American with super speed; the Marvel with his MMA background; Lunos, with his invisibility and bright bursts of light; Metamorph, who could choose one of about twenty forms; Hypermass, who could add mass to her form without changing her dimensions and expel it as a mass or a blast of energy.

“Hypermass was my girlfriend.  We went shopping together.  She was the first person I ever revealed my identity to.”

But in the end it was the children.  And they made the decision one of empathy rather than revenge.  Someday, CTH wanted to be a mother.

“Oh, cry me a river…”

CTH turned to the voice.

“Lady Hasmat.”

“Hello, bitch,” said Lady Hasmat.

“Hello, useless bitch.”

“I found out who you are,” said Hasmat.  “Maybe you’d like to meet another one of us.  Her name is Darkfire.”

A woman came around the tree.  She had no mask so there was no doubt who she was.  She was Kelly Banks, the same age as CTH.  Her costume was also black and purple, but a purple base with black flames going up one leg and arm.  The black flames had purple borders to separate one flame from another.

Others stepped out of hiding until there were sixteen versions of Kelly Banks.  They were different ages, different hair colors, different costumes, probably different super powers.  But they were all Kelly.

“Bad news people.  Those heroes you took out?  Well, there’s always been a division between the heroes who stop criminals and those who handle natural disasters.  You faced them, let’s see what you can do against the A list.”

“You were never A list material, little girl.  Of all the versions of you throughout the multiverse, you are the only one who does not have superpowers.”

“Bite me, germ bitch.”

With that, CTH drew out a grenade and threw it.  Even as it flew, light came from Rebel Loadstone which changed its course.  It blew up harmlessly in the air.

“Kill your alternate self and it causes all kinds of problems with parallel Earths.  Time, like everything else, has a rule about conservation of energy…”

“Shut up, Lodestone,” said Inversus.  “Some of those children, some of those heroes, had destinies.  Those have been taken away so I am obliged to have my revenge.”

She waved her wand, white with black tips, and multicolored sparkles spread.  Sixteen forms of Kelly Banks rose into the air.

In hell, CTH had seen six men, all alike, each from a different parallel Earth.  That was six dimensions, this was sixteen, seventeen including herself.

“Inversus – anybody magical.  Are you sure that’s sixteen versions of me?  Yes?  Then the new Devil plans to break out of this stream of six universes!”

It was blatantly true.

Inversus let the versions of Kelly rise ever higher, and when they were a fatal distance up, she let them go.  They fell for a while, and even over that distance their screams could be heard.  Kelly felt nauseated with the helpless feeling of falling.  Then, suddenly, it stopped because every one of her doubles disappeared.

“Are they gone permanently?” asked CTH.

“No, they’ll be brought back,” said Inversus.

“Form up, move south.”

“What about the dead bodies, CTH?”

“We don’t have time, Dark.  The new Devil tried to delay us so he could complete something.  That something deals with parallel worlds, that’s why he had to release Satan.  We all had to be there again in the riot situation…”

“But I wasn’t there,” said The Dark.

“Your parallel was there, he died.  But there was one difference.  All those parallel my civilian identity.  But the original CTH was in the first riot.  She is parallel to my hero identity.  The parallel between now and then is not exact, so the new Devil has a disadvantage.”

They had not even started forming up when there was cracking, rumbling, and  shaking.  The buildings of the next intersection fell into a pit.  The pit expanded, swallowing up buildings, cars, trees, streetlights, and the bodies of the dead.

They turned and ran and no one thought to pick up and carry Melanie who wasn’t fast and could not run far.  She fell into the pit, screaming for help.  Then there was nothing.

The pit stopped expanding.  From the depths of it emerged the head of the Devil, goat-like but with the wrong horns and the tongue of a lamprey.  But the head was two hundred feet across and at its top was higher than that.

“Finish them all, my followers.  We are about to win the war.”

Lois is Assigned to Stop a Huge Mob Meeting.

She met Mr. Jones in the hallway. He was on his way to give her yet another manila folder, and another assignment.

“Since you’re already here, Lois,” he told her, “you might as well take care of this.”

Lois opened the envelope while in a taxi going to the airport. It seemed that some of the major criminal organizations in the United States were having a meeting at a remote location in rural Virginia. It included the Italian mob, some of the leading motorcycle gangs, big-city street gangs, and even a Chinese tong or two. It was an attempt to reorganize their endeavors, to avoid duplication, and to divide up the country for their criminal purposes.

Her mission was to destroy the effort and as many of the leaders as possible. To make such a disaster of the meeting that it would never again be attempted.

Mr. Jones explained, in the instructions, that if he called in the police it would mean dozens of lawsuits and lost cases.  It wasn’t illegal for people to meet.  And who could prove any nefarious purposes, with only invited guests there?  Lois had no such constraints.

The meeting was to be at a hunting lodge on the side of a mountain, on the north side of a small town named Pott’s Creek. The lodge had been there for a little under a hundred years, slowly deteriorating and briefly occupied by locals while hunting. A large modern microwave tower sat a hundred yards away, part of a missile defense network. The lodge had no running water or electricity. At least not normally.

A large electric generator had been hauled up the mountainside, and a small forest of tents put up among the trees. Canvas shelters enclosed holes for sanitation purposes and a row of water trucks completed the amenities. The log lodge-building itself sat next to the edge of a cliff on one side, its smokestacks pouring out black smoke from wood-burning stoves inside. It would take a lot of wood to cook for a couple of hundred or so criminal guests.

***

“Hey, man, I don’ no what we’s doin’ here anyhow. Them Wops just wan’ the whole hog fer demsels’ anyways. An we’s not givin’ um’ nothin,” “Handsome Harry,” so named because of his surprising lack of facial scars, complained to his leader. “An des’ here Chinks.  Man, I kin smell um’ all the way over heres.”

“Shut the fuck up, and pass the grass,” “Shitface” Evans ordered his lieutenant. Shitface claimed that name for a simple reason — he looked and smelled like shit. Dirty blond hair hung down to his ass, filthy and scarred face, broken nose, and half his eyebrows eaten off by lice.  His clothes smelled like urine because he liked to pee while riding his cycle, without bothering with a zipper. “The natural way,” he would say.

On the other side of the camp, Anna Sinestra was also complaining.

“Why the hell did Don Luigi agree to this damned place?” she bitched at “Pinky” Edwards, the East Coast representative. “Not even an inside toilet, and all the fucking bugs.”

Still cussing that damned chemist in Yugoslavia, she swatted at a cloud of mosquitoes.  Anna figured this was her punishment for the drug fiasco.

“I dunno’, Miss Anna.”  Pinky shoveled more sunscreen onto his face.  An albino, he hated the outdoors, the sun burning his skin. At least there’s a lot of shade here, thank God for that, he was thinking.

Among the crowd was a tent containing a contingent of FBI, masquerading as Canadian drug dealers.  They included Clyde Burrows. Clyde was in his tent, studying a book on US to Canadian translations. Its complexity boggled his mind. His mission was to spy on the talks and, when a law was finally broken, to arrest the entire group.  He had six other agents with him for the task. Because of the danger of leaks, local law enforcement had not yet been notified.

Since Clyde had done such a fine job on his last mission, Mr. Hoover had confidence in the agent.  With seven of them to a couple hundred or so criminals, the FBI had the bad guys surrounded.

***

While Lois was in her kitchen brewing a pot of tea, thinking it would help her think about how to handle the new assignment, she heard a noise in the living room. Looking through her kitchen door, she saw Peter and Jose had snapped in to visit.

“Lois, how you doing?” Peter smiled. As he spoke, her brother, Samuel, snapped in, burdened with luggage.

“I’m glad to see you, but what are the suitcases for?” She came over to hug all three, narrowly avoiding a kiss from the impetuous Jose.

“To see you, and then visit relatives in the old country,” Peter told her. “Don’t have any idea what these two are doing here.  Probably for free food.”

“Yeah, man. I need some tacos, ain’t had none for months,” from Jose. “Well, that and to visit a while, if you have room? School’s out for the next month while they build a new addition to the building.  The village had to hire outsiders and don’t want us practicing while they’re there.”

“And he wants to get out of work,” Samuel told her.

“I guess you can stay for a while, but I gotta leave on a mission,” Lois told them, “just as soon as I can pack.”

While she was occupied, Lois could see Jose practicing by snapping back to China and then to her apartment again, a newly acquired skill for him.

“You learn how to increase your mass yet, Jose?” she called from the bedroom before he could make another trip to China.

“Not much yet. That’s for next year. I can do it a little bit though, enough to lift five-hundred pounds.  The instructor doesn’t want me to strain myself yet.”  He went in to talk to her while she packed.  Samuel had gone back home and Peter, now that he knew Jose could get back by himself, had already snapped to Sweden with his luggage.

“And I can stop bullets. Nothing big, though, like from high-powered rifles.” Jose finished, then added, “I thought I might be able to help you out a little, sort of a field trip?”

Lois gave it a little thought. There were supposed to be one hell of a lot of criminals to get rid of on her new assignment, but nothing real serious. They probably had handguns, maybe a few 9mm or .45cal submachine guns — nothing dangerous. And a little real-world practice might help him out.  To see if he could really kill, for instance.  Maybe it would be better to learn with her than on his own, she thought.  Since he could stop lighter bullets, and snap back if in trouble, Jose shouldn’t be in any real danger.

“All right, you can come along, but only if you promise to do exactly as I tell you,” she told him. “You have to pretend you’re in school and let me make the decisions.  All of them.”

“Yes, ma’am, whatever you say,” he agreed.

They sat at a table as Lois showed him how to plan a mission. She’d learned not to carry anything with her that couldn’t safely be left behind. The suitcases contained only generic items handled with gloves, mostly because airlines were suspicious of people traveling without baggage. She dumped new, but laundered, socks and underwear into a suitcase.

That way, the items looked like they had been used at least once but, since they’d been washed in a laundromat without any of her hairs or fingerprints, there was nothing a forensic expert could find on them that would identify Lois. The suitcases would pass a quick inspection but still tell nothing. Whatever she actually required in the way of clothing, she could snap home and get as needed.

One of the first things Lois did — when renting a car with false identification — was to buy a gallon gas-can and fill it.  If need be, she could use the gasoline to destroy the auto, erasing any fingerprints. Since she was a recent immigrant, her prints weren’t on record with the FBI, unless they had found some from one of her missions, but why take chances.  I’ll have to have Jones check that out, Lois thought, unless he already has.

“Don’t you have any of that ninja stuff?” Jose asked, watching her pack.

“Let me tell you something, Jose. The guy that started all that ‘ninja stuff’ was only a failed second-year student at the school. You remember those kids throwing that bulldozer around?”

“Yeah, I can’t wait to get that good.”

“Well you wouldn’t expect me to carry one of those around with me, would you?”

“Of course not.  That’s just for practicing.”

“That’s my point. We learn to make do with what we find.  Usually bare hands but if I need something I only have to look around for stones or something to use.  Here, try this.” She picked up several fountain pens lying on a dresser, handing them to Jose.

“What’ll I do with these?”

He held them uncertainly. Lois took them back and flung them overhand at a mural of a Chinese warrior riding a horse through her bedroom. They stuck, quivering in the wall, transecting the rider’s forehead in a neat row.

“See what I mean?” she asked, dumping a few spare notebook tablets in a suitcase.

“Damn. Let me try.” He pulled the pens out and tried to throw them. Most hit the wall flat. “I can’t do it.” Jose was crestfallen. It had looked so easy when Lois did it.

“You’re doing it wrong. Use your schooling and your mind, not only your hands.”

For the next hour, she instructed him.

“See, increase the mass in these fingers — for force and speed — while decreasing it in your middle finger — for control — and keep your mind focused on the target. Don’t think about aiming, let your mind do that part for you.”

They took a flight to Kentucky and rented a car there, driving on to Virginia. The hardest part of the trip was in finding the lodge. It necessitated a lot of hiking up, down, and around the mountain. Not being on any maps, all they knew was that it was somewhere around there, and near a large tower with a dish on top.  The tower was easy to find, but a wide deep gorge stood between them and the structure.

After a long detour, they approached the tower, spotting several plumes of dark smoke. Lois made certain Jose remembered his mind tricks for avoiding sentries.

***

Joshua Erickson, the Third Member of the Team.

Also in the state of Virginia, but closer to Washington DC, Joshua Erickson woke to find a dusty note on his chest.  Feeling refreshed from a very long sleep, he rose and stretched, knocking a century and a half of accumulated dust off his hairy chest. While rising, Josh felt something over his left nipple. It was a scotch-taped note.

“Please press the red button on waking,” was what the note told him. Shrugging, the now hungry man dressed, taking not-so-fresh clothing from a leather wardrobe in his cave. A strange black box sat on a bedside table. It had a prominent red button on its top. To make certain he got the message, the words “Press Me” were printed above the button.

Josh had a rare ability. He could slow down or speed up his perception of time. Born in the early eighteenth century, he’d discovered his gift as a teenager. A young Joshua had fought with George Washington’s army, as both a scout and spy against the British. He could speed up his perception of time to the point of walking into British encampments, studying and copying enemy documents and escaping — all in merely a few seconds of real-time and unnoticed by the enemy.

During a battle, Josh would help his comrades by running up to and spiking enemy cannon, turning loaded and primed muskets against their own troops and, in general, causing pandemonium among the enemy.

The downside was that at such high speeds he aged prematurely.  He’d also noticed that he would seem to recover those lost years by sleeping for long periods. Being an intelligent, but by then aging, man Josh found himself a nice cave and prepared it for a long sleep of at least a century.

He first took his money and invested, as a silent partner, in a few innovative businesses such as buggy whip manufacturing.  Josh figured that people would always have to travel.  That although buggies may change and evolve, the venerable buggy whip would stay essentially the same over the years.  At least that was what he’d thought.

Fortunately for him, he also bought a ten-percent interest in a gunpowder firm, which did in fact survive into the second-half of the twentieth-century. In fact, it not only survived, but was a half-billion dollar weapons manufacturing company by the time he awoke. A fact he would find out later.

Sealing the entrance of his out-of-the-way cave, hidden in the mountains, Josh lay down to sleep — after slowing his time perception as low as possible. What was to him a good night’s sleep spanned around 150 years.

Mr. Jones, through his vast resources and computers, somehow found out about Josh.  Maybe through the study of old records.  Nobody would ever know exactly how, but he did.  Jones had left the note and little black box with a red button.

Curious and dressed, Josh pressed the button. Having no knowledge of modern technology, he sat for awhile, waiting for something to happen. While waiting, the new, old, newly young man saw another strange box in the corner of his cave. It was a refrigerator filled with packages of food.

Although he’d never seen such things as plastic before, he could recognize a picture of ham slices on the side of a can and part of a wheel of cheese.  Mr. Jones didn’t know exactly when Josh would wake, but refilled the refrigerator every week or two.  It wasn’t all that long a trip from Washington, and he wanted Josh to stay until he arrived.  He only knew what Josh had told friends and relatives at the time, and that it would be fairly soon.

Once fed, the awakened man found the cave entrance double-sealed and another note saying he would be rescued soon.  Josh figured his best bet was to slow himself down and wait.

CTH looked at hell.  The gloom was everywhere, literally.  CTH grabbed the air, shook her hand, and the gloom dripped from her fingers.  She coughed and the gloom was mixed in with her spit.  The gloom covered a barren landscape beneath a cloudless, starless, moonless, sunless sky.  There was no source for what light there was.  It was as if they were seeing by the leftover light that hadn’t been quite used up, yet, when the stars gave out.  CTH thought this was how the universe would look when entropy had almost finished with it.

“I always thought hell would be more dramatic than this,” said CTH.  “Though it certainly is depressing enough.”

“This isn’t hell,” said the Creed, “we’re still just outside of it.”

“Then what are all those lost souls doing here?”

“They are the Futiles,” said Inversus.  “Some of them abandoned their role in destiny but most of them are just…bland.”

A young woman came up to CTH and raised her shirt.

“I’ve got tits,” said the woman.  “I’ve shown my tits in a magazine.  Doesn’t that make me a good actress?”

Despite herself, CTH took a step backward.

“The Futiles are the shades of people who were unoriginal and never thought about why they did things.  They just followed the crowd.  Having given control of themselves over to others they continue to exist only so long as someone living has direct memories of them.”

“Surely hoisting your shirt like that will get you noticed.”

“Can you pick that woman from among the crowd?”

CTH could not.  She looked at the crowd, and even narrowing it down to young Caucasoid blondes she could pick her out.

While CTH looked, one of the Futiles started saying very loudly – not shouting but almost – that he didn’t like what the actuaries were doing, that incorporation in the Caymans was just to dodge taxes, that they knew that Moore didn’t commit suicide and they should pay his widow.  Then he stopped and stood there with a pathetic look on his face, like a child who’d peed their pants.  He shivered and dissolved, bits of what passed for flesh and bone falling to the ground.  There it became less than dust and disappeared amongst what was already there.

“The last person who had memory of him has forgotten him.  As he felt his own coming dissolution, he called to mind things he should have said or done to make himself an individual.  But he was too late.  But becoming a Futile always involves and element of pretending to be someone you’re not.”

CTH touched her mask.

“Whatever,” said Ravenheart.  “C’mon people. Let’s move, this place is beginning to creep me out.”

“Those in danger of becoming a Futile are always upset to learn of their existence,” said Inversus.

“Is your host a Futile?” asked CTH.

Inversus didn’t answer.  She turned and followed Ravenheart, and soon they were all walking the path to hell.

“What’s that, sextuplets?”

“Same person from six parallel Earths.”

“Side path.”

The Creed held out his arm so his head faced the way he wanted them to go.  They followed until they came to a tree made of marble with eyes instead of leaves.  An emaciated old man sat naked with his back against the tree, he was short and bald, with a bulbous nose and a pile of gold coins he kept hidden under his scrotum.

“Creed,” he said by way of greeting.  “You’re still a jerk.”

“You’ve got to admire my consistency, Lucifer.”

With that the Creed kicked the old man in the rib cage.  The sharp ends of the broken ribs stabbed into the old man’s lungs.  He was soon coughing up a lot of blood, wiping away the blood that dripped on the coins under his scrotum, which seemed to be the old man’s only real concern.

“Send us all to where Satan is, each of us landing safely, or I will come back…” he stepped on the old man’s scrotum, “and truly make you suffer.”

“Send you to humiliate Satan more?  You only had to ask.”

The old man reached up despite the pain and tapped the tree.  The marble tree did not move but the eyes extended out and surrounded the group.  Beams came out of the eyes and in an instant the tree was gone.  In its place was an even gloomier vision.

“I knew that bastard would screw us over, why did I let him do that?” asked the Creed.  “I will have to break his bones and push them out of his skin so the cuts make him bleed out except for his brains which I will squeeze like toothpaste through his sockets…he hates that.”

Once again, CTH had reason to wonder about her boyfriend.  She really didn’t like how his more hellish form seemed to fit into hell so well.  What seemed worse was all those people the Creed knew and CTH didn’t.  She hoped they’d get to the riot back in New York City, soon, where she’d feel less like an outsider or a newcomer who had to have things explained to her uneducated self.

CTH looked at the place.  It was as if some group was trying to establish a world record for largest ever wrestling battle royal.  The floor was flat, void of anything to trip people up and nothing to use as a weapon.  It was reasonable, since there was no shortage of conflict.

People shouted at each other.  Sometimes they used words, but more commonly it was just unarticulated screams.  Many times there were fights between two members of this part of hell, not simply two opponents, sometimes dozens would form a cluster of battle.  What added an element of comedy to the carnage was they were all naked.

But the physical flaws and sheer stupidity of imperfect humanity attempting to impose itself on others could not overcome the pathos of the conflict itself.  There was no sense of restraint or fairness to these fights.  It was not simple punches or grips.  It was biting and clawing and no concern whatsoever with the damage being done by or to any of the combatants.  They took any damage to themselves just so they could inflict damage on others.  The same was the case for the larger fights.

Those dog piles of bodies bit and clawed and chewed: bits of ears, noses, and fingers were bitten off, chewed, and spat back at their one-time owners.  If a dozen fought, it might easily be one against eleven and that one would wind up with their flesh torn off.  Rape was common in these fights, too.

There was no restraint for reasons of gender, either.  Women could be the perpetrators or the victims of these attacks.

Amongst all these constantly angry people were demons.  The people seemed unable to see them.  The demons were of many shapes and forms, none of them attractive.  They would approach individuals and say something in the ear of a person who would then react as if whatever the demon said was a fact.

“What is this place?” asked CTH.

“This,” said the Creed, “is where they send the angry.  They are not actually punished, they are simply allowed to be themselves without restraint.  The demons just remind the souls here of how they reacted to things while they were alive.  For example, they get people to assume the worst.  Someone bumps you, the demon says they did it on purpose.”

Inversus came up.

“He means they feed their current prejudices.  There’s no stepping back, no social restriction, here.  If they think it, they do it.  Hell is what you make it.”

CTH looked at Inversus.

“Don’t they realize?”

Inversus shrugged.  “Do you ever see anyone recognize it in the world of the living?  Does Outreguerre recognize the effects of what he does?  How many people realize the effects of what I do?  Or do they just look at the short term and get angry?”

“You mean you’re an agent of hell?”

“I stand between.  There are many who do.”

CTH so wanted to get to New York and back to just catching the bad guys and putting them in Ironholme.

“What are they doing here?  Get them!”

Several of the group swore as a crowd of damned souls surged toward them with murder in their collective eye.  Behind them, demons cheered, encouraging the independent spirit, initiative, and determination of the murderous crowd.

“Let’s organize this, people…”

“Don’t sweat it, sweetheart.  Tablegrrrl, concentrate on that metal plate with the symbol that kind of looks like a dog on it.  Now, look at the group coming at us.”

CTH thought they were lucky the group had to run so far to get to them.  Tablegrrrl looked at the crowd, the top of the table glowed and then an arc of light went from table top to the crowd.  It was like mortar fire of solid light.  The group was pounded by the hammering first impact and again when the light exploded.

There was blood, and it splattered.  Other souls took exception to this because it splattered on them and attacked.  The original group forgot about the team and threw themselves into the attack on the second group.  Blood went everywhere.

“Do they get out of hell when they’re torn up like that?” asked Tablegrrl.

“No, they eventually reform and it starts all over again.  They’re in hell basically because they have an addiction.”  The Creed looked around, as if he could spot landmarks in the barren place.  “This way.”

“Are you sure you want to go that way?” asked the Rebel Lodestone.  “The demon…”

“I know.”

“He’s a Pagan, how come he knows all about hell?”

“Roman Pagans had Hades.  The evil were punished there, too.”

“Same geography?”

Inversus moved the group on, their coherent conversation angering some of the denizens, egged on as usual by the demons.

It was a long trip, made all the longer by the need to avoid resident souls or fight them.  Fortunately, Tablegrrrl was becoming more and more accurate and quick with her mortar skills.

“Mob at three o’clock.”  Outreguerre looked at Tablegrrrl and noticed her confusion.  “That’s your right, mon ami.”

A huge group of several hundred, for reasons no one in their right mind and not in hell could imagine, had decided to kill the team.

Inversus covered her hat with a handkerchief and pulled the kerchief  away.  Out of the hat came an explosion of confetti.  Inversus waved her wand and the confetti continued with its course unchanged, only now the tiny pieces were small pieces of glass.  The souls were cut as the glass sliced into them and sometimes through them.  It would have stopped a living group, but these were the dead.  They kept coming, offended by being seriously cut.

“It’s like some stupid zombie game.”

“Hey,” said Ivo, “I love those games.”

Outreguerre sprayed the group with bullets.  Again, they were slowed and some were stopped but the group as a whole continued to charge.

Ivo and Tablegrrrl teamed up and both of them hit the group.  Rebel Lodestone flew above, sending beams from his hands and eyes and forming blasts which hounded the mob until it formed a tight group.  That was when Tablegrrrl hit them with her mortar of light.  The group got squashed and torn up at the same time.

“Let’s get going,” said Creed.  “We need to get Satan and get to that riot.”

“Creed,” said Outreguerre, “are you sure Lucifer didn’t send you off track just to delay our arrival in New York?”

“Probably.”

They made their way, and how the Creed navigated, CTH had no idea.  In an absolutely bleak landscape – actually, it was just a floor – he knew the direction to go.

“Why are there no walls in this place?” asked Mia Ravenheart, echoing CTH’s thoughts.

“This is hell for the angry,” said Rebel Lodestone.

“So?”

“There’s a lot of them.  They need a big place to hold them.”

Ravenheart looked around.

“If you’re impressed, you should see where they keep the adulterous and the lecherous.”

“It’s another hole.”

Eventually a landmark formed in the distance, far from any of the crowds who still randomly tried to kill each other as if they had not already died.

CTH looked at the group.  Rebel Lodestone – Ivo – hovered near Mia Ravenheart.  Inversus flew on the other side, keeping close to Outreguerre.  In turn he watched her fly when she wasn’t looking at him.  It would seem lecherous, except in addition to the obvious lust, he clearly had a sense of pride when he looked at her.  CTH hoped she wasn’t as obvious when she looked at the Creed – usually, not now.  Right now he was taking point and was in a constantly angry mood.  It was like he fit in here.  That scared her.

On the other hand he had his head on Tablegrrl’s table, and the table on his shoulder.  Though Melanie was determined, she was unable to walk long distances.  CTH hoped teleportation or flight was the next thing Creed and Rebel Lodestone would teach her.

CTH was bringing up the rear, an in-case position she hadn’t really needed to take for some time.

The single landmark seemed to increase in size more than they approached it in the featureless place.  It resolved into a silver metal grave monument.  There was a column with a larger than life funeral urn on top.  On the bottom were two headstones, but no one  recognized the alphabet it was written in, let alone read it.

Sitting on a little silver bench was an old woman in a black dress and veil as if she were sitting there and mourning whomever was buried here.

“Excuse me?”

The woman turned to the sound of Melanie’s voice and her dress and veil fell apart.  The cockroaches they had been made out of spread everywhere and the old woman, now naked, stood and turned to face the group.

CTH and Outreguerre reacted together and doused the roaches with gas.  The bugs retreated, squealing their objections to the way they were being treated.

“Hello, Creed, you’re worthless.”

The Creed kicked the old woman in the face with the flat of his boot.  As she fell over he kept his boot on her face and when her head hit the ground he almost stood on her head.

“Hello, Mephistopheles, you were always the worst of all the Devils.  Spent the least time there and did the most damage to your own cause.  Send us to where Satan is, send us directly to where Satan is, do it now or I’ll do worse to you than I am going to do to Lucifer.”

“You were never the brightest.  Touch the silver anywhere and I give you my word I will send you to where Satan is stationed and you will land safely.”

They touched the silver gravestone together and it disappeared.  In its place was somehell even gloomier, with a stable on one side and a burning pit on the other.

The horses relieved themselves almost continuously and the dung was on fire.  It burned the horses.  To keep the horses from bolting away from the burning crap, one demon shovelled the stuff up and threw it over the edge of the cliff and onto the souls in the pit who were standing in a river of the stuff.

Like the rumps of the distressed horses, the souls in the lake were burned by the dung.  They were covered with third degree burns and pestilent sores.  The sores often burst and, once opened the burning dung caused even more damage.  The skin of these people was baked like bright red clay.

The dung seemed to be slippery.  Souls slipped and slid and sometimes fell into it.  Sometimes they slid along the lake floor, screaming as they went.

“Hey, sweetcheeks, move.  I gotta throw this dung on somebody special.”

It was Satan’s voice.  CTH looked him over as he took the shovel-full of burning dung to the edge of the pit, took aim, and threw it at a group of souls who were standing together in the pit.

“No talking,” he shouted.

Satan was humanoid but with large curved horns coming out the ridge of his skull.  His legs ended in cloven hooves which were shod with horse shoes.  His skin was gray-green and mottled with scars old and new.  His only clothing was some kind of brown kilt.  He was muscular, with the broad neck and chest of a weightlifter and defined muscles in arms and legs.  But CTH thought the horns would weigh down his head despite the muscles.  In a purely physical fight, she thought she could take him.

Satan went back to shovelling out the stalls.

“So that’s what Satan looks like when he’s not a horse,” said Tablegrrrl.

“Seems like it.  Why isn’t your wood burning?”

“I guess for the same reason your skin isn’t burning and Outreguerre’s explosives aren’t blowing up.  This must not be a physical flame.”

CTH looked at Ivo.  The Rebel Lodestone was floating in the air looking uncomfortable.

Outreguerre was standing by the edge of the pit.  He was cradling his rifle in his arms like he was planning to shoot someone with it.  Inversus seemed to be trying to talk him out of it.

The Creed was trying to talk to Satan.

They had all entered hell and fallen into their old habits.  They were old couples and stayed close together except for the Creed and CTH, who as usual had split up to cover more ground.  They were parents even to the legions of hell.

“Not my side of the family,” she muttered.

Satan rushed by with another shovel of dung.

“C’mon, Satan, time to take out the riot on our Earth.”

“Do you think it’s that easy?  And your Earth isn’t even a very important Earth in the scheme of them.”

The dung hit one of the souls, who screamed.

“There’s a nexus point and we have to deal with it,” said the Creed.

“I’d have thought you would want to stay away from those. For obvious reasons.”

“Can’t avoid them forever, and this one we both have to be at.  Both of us.  You know that.”

“Yeah, well, delay is the first step toward avoiding altogether.”

While Satan and the Creed talked a lot more than they ever did when they were working together, CTH and Tablegrrrl went over the stalls to look at the horses.  Their rumps were sore from fire and blisters, some of which had burst leaving flammable pus on the horse’s skin.  The dung burned as it came out, so that if Satan did not shovel it constantly, the dung would pile up and set fire to the pus of oozing sores which burned the horses’s legs.

The horses themselves didn’t seem to understand what was happening, or they understood it all too well.  They kicked, reared, and bit, causing Satan no end of grief as he tried to shovel away the cause of their distress.

One horse was calmer than the others.  Even CTH, who knew bikes not horses, saw the difference.  When she came around the stall and saw the horse clearly, she froze.

“Marigold?”

The horse whimpered and bowed her head, for all the world like she was embarrassed by the state she was in.

“Creed said I didn’t want to know where his horses came from.  Now I know what he meant.”

CTH put her hand to Marigold and the horse buried her head in CTH’s shoulder.  The horse whimpered and stamped her back hooves.  It seemed that showing the horse kindness was just making things worse.

Satan came and scooped up Marigold’s dung in his oversized coal shovel.

“Satan, what did they do to be punished like this?”

“They didn’t do anything,” said Satan.  “Their souls were sold by others, usually their parents, and most times the ones who sold their souls got into heaven.  The ones in the pit turned their ill fortune onto others.  The horses just suffered.”

Satan ran off to fling the dung onto a soul in the pit and then went to clean out the stall of another horse.

CTH hugged Marigold’s neck hard.  The horse whinnied piteously.  The whines became less horse-like, and when she stamped her hooves, CTH thought how much like a three year old Marigold was.  CTH guessed that was the age Marigold was when her soul had been sold out from under her.  In return for what, CTH was afraid to guess.  She wondered if even Marigold knew.

“Can’t we get her out of here?”

Satan looked up but continued to shovel.

“All these horses are an innocent as Marigold.  When one of the Creed’s horses at the farm foals, one of the horsed souls here goes to Earth.  When a horse there dies the soul comes back here.  It’ll be a long time before it’s Marigold’s turn again.”

He gathered a particularly large shovel of dung and flung it into the air.  A wind which could not exist caught the dung in mid-air and threw it at one particular soul in the pit.  The shovel-fling-wind…splat system continued for some time, cleaning out the stalls far better than they had been.  CTH took the opportunity to take a packet of lanolin out of her backpack and smear it on Marigold’s butt and back legs.  It was a moment’s relief at best because the dung just never seemed to stop.

“So why do you do this to these people?”

“I don’t set the rules, lady.”

“You’re Satan.  You’re the Devil.”

Satan muttered something and went to other stalls.  Inversus came up to continue the explanation.

“The word Devil is a title, like Leader of the Opposition.  In fact, the two jobs aren’t all that dissimilar.  The first Devil was Lucifer, who was replaced in that role by Beelzebub, and so on until Satan was overthrown.”

“So who’s the Devil now?”

“Al Gore,” said Satan.

“That’s not funny!”

“Al Gore is Arabic for The Ram.  Al Gore, The Ram, is the new Devil and he uses his slogan ‘The Ram versus the Lamb’ to imply he is the Antichrist.  With that he says he will lead the third and only successful rebellion against God.”

Inversus came over.  As she did, Outreguerre, unwatched, shouldered his rifle, aimed, and fired.

“Bonjour, Gallus, parlez-vous ‘high explosive shell’?”

There was the crump of explosives going off, the flop and splat of flesh falling on hot stones, the sizzle of that flesh cooking on those hot stones, and the earthquake-like thunder of the Devil appearing.

“Why has a soul in my realm been sundered?”

He had the head of a goat but his horns curved upwards and ended in sharp points.  When he spoke, the lips under the nose slits spread sideways.  When the tongue could be seen it was some kind of lamprey.  His body was human, podgy, and it looked like it had been through a lot of plastic surgery that hadn’t really worked.

“There’s a riot in New York City.  Satan has to be there…”

“I know what a nexus point is, and I did not want Satan at the earlier nexus point.  I do not see how I am obliged to compound a mistake that I didn’t make.  Satan is no longer the Devil, not only through his own mistakes but also through his addiction to chaos,” said the Devil.

“Hell has two main factions, chaos and evil,” said the Inversus.

“Excuse me,” said Al Gore, “let me just say that I represent neither chaos nor evil.  I represent an alternative good.  I am a student of the son and I bring a more effective form of his philosophy to the world just as David Blair declared he would bring a more effective form of Thatcherism to England, and that is just what he did.  I hope we can make use of our broad areas of agreement to forge an effective alliance to establish the alternative good that we seek.”

He smiled and held out his hand for CTH to shake.  CTH smiled and remembered her father was a lawyer and lawyers made this guy look like an amateur when it came to running hell.

“Thank you very much,” said CTH, “for releasing Satan to our team and releasing the souls in the pit and giving them shovels and cream so they can care for the horse souls by clearing away the dung and putting cream on their burns and sores.  Those who torture the horses will be cast back to the pit.  Oh, and Creed’s horses shall increase by two and one of them will be Marigold.”

There was a very long silence, if one discounts Satan’s ineffective attempts to not snigger.

“C’mon, Devil, where’s that old co-operation?”

“You have made a deal with the Devil, Kelly Banks, and in his deals the Devil always keeps his word while God does not.  He forced Jonah to go to Nineveh and prophesy the destruction of the city and then let it continue.”

CTH rankled over the use of her real name.

“Thank you for that deal in which I offered you nothing.”

“I already have what I need from you,” said the new Devil.

Lois woke around ten pm. Her night-vision was exceptional and made it unnecessary to light the lantern in her tent.  She dressed in loose dark clothing. Barefoot, she slipped out of the tent and over to a simple barbed-wire fence bordering the campgrounds and the DA compound.

Following the fence for a little distance, Lois found a place where the strands were separated enough for her to slide through without touching the wire. It was also near high bushes on the DA side, which could give her a little cover. The perimeter’s too large for them to have any electric gadgets this far out, she thought.  The cost and possibility of grounding would be prohibitive. When I get near the buildings, that might change.

Not knowing where any habitation would be located inside the fence, she had to proceed with caution, bare feet searching for wires or other defenses.  Lois scurried at a crouch, so as to get a better view. Keeping low to the ground would make it easier to see silhouettes of man-made objects. She proceeded in an easterly direction.

Lois kept her eyes straight ahead, trusting in her feet to notice lower obstacles. Her trained toes moved independently, each one feeling on its own as she slid silently through the shadows.

As she felt a trampled path, the girl stopped. Still crouched low, she looked in both directions. One path led to her left, at an angle that implied it would eventually near the edge of the compound, the other seemed to lead toward the interior. She took the right fork, staying to the left of the path itself and keeping an eye out for buildings or signs of habitation.

She must have been at least a half-mile inside the fence before sighting the top of a concrete building through the trees.

Knowing they would be cautious, and probably paranoiac, she was careful as she inched forward. A motion near one of the bushes alerted Lois. It might be a small animal, but she had to be certain — since it also might be a sentry.

The girl eased behind a tree. Seeing a shallow depression looking like a drainage ditch leading off to her left and past the bush, she dropped prone and picked her way along it until close to the shrub. Easing her head up slowly, centimeter by centimeter, until one eye was exposed, she waited, watching the bush.

Another movement. Lois picked up a small stone and tossed in up the incline and about halfway to the bush, looking for the glare of animal eyes in the moonlight. Any small critter would have heard it and looked back, while a person might not. She decided it had to be a human.

A further motion showed a flash of lighter-colored material which she took to be on the bottom of a shoe. She could tell because the moonlight reflected off a sort of tread pattern. What would a sentry be doing hiding in a bush and facing the building? she wondered.

Since whoever was lying there was facing away from her, she would have to find out. If she passed him, she might be seen, so the silent girl slid out of the depression and inched toward the green patch. Silently, sweeping any loose stones or branches out of her way, Lois crawled even with, first a man’s shoe, then a leg dressed in black.

Finally, willing herself to be unseen, her head was even with his chest. Flexing trained muscles, Lois appeared to hop upwards, gaining weight as she landed on his back with an arm around his neck. Her other hand slid over his mouth.

The man tried to jump up, but her increased weight held him down like a pile of bricks. He couldn’t move. Although his arms could reach backward and grab at her, she was too heavy to move or throw off. Meanwhile, her forearm threatened to cut off his breath and other hand clamped his mouth and nose shut. When he gave up and relaxed, she let him breathe.

“Don’t make any loud sounds, mister, or you’re dead,” Lois ordered him. “You don’t act like you belong here any more than I do. I need an explanation, and I mean right now.”

He lay gasping, for long seconds, apparently trying to get over the fear and shock. Closing off his nose again brought a response.

“I–-I’m a cop, FBI. You kill me and the others will overrun you.  If you have any sense, you’ll let me go and leave. Go back where you came from. You’re interfering with a Federal operation.”

“Ha, and why shouldn’t I?  If you kick their asses you’ll only be saving me the trouble,” Lois answered. “Lets see your identification?”  She warned him, “I’ll loosen up a little, but you make any wrong moves and I’ll kill you.  That’s a promise.”

The man contorted a moment, getting a hand into his pocket, and came out with a leather folder. She tilted the card inside up to the moonlight. “Clyde Burrows, Federal Bureau of Investigation,” it read. Lois handed it back and, rolling off him, decreased her weight to normal. Clyde looked at her face for the first time, and appeared confused.

“What do you mean, save you the trouble? Are you a policeman, I mean woman, too? Federal or local?”

“None of your business who I am. Just don’t get in my way and we’ll get along.”

“I can’t let you go in there, young lady. Not alone and not at all. This is my job. I think they have something they shouldn’t have in there, and I’m trying to find out for sure.”

“You mean the atomic bomb? They have it. If they didn’t, I wouldn’t be here.”

“How do you know they have it? All we have is a rumor.”

“Look, Mr, Burrows or whatever, I don’t have time to argue. I have my orders too, and they are to take this place out.  I’m going in whether you approve or not. You can come along or lie here.  It makes no difference to me.”

Lois ignored him and moved ahead.

“Wait a minute.  I might as well come along.”

He sounded like an artillery barrage to Lois, as he followed her, snapping twigs and rustling leaves as he crawled.  She felt inclined to go back and put him to sleep for a while, if only to to save his ass.

Lois saw someone moving on top of the building, which turned out to be a rather large two-story structure built of concrete blocks, and motioned her new companion to stop. Continuing to the base of the wall, she decreased her weight to a ghostlike degree. As transparent as a spook, Lois picked her way up the side of the building, holding on more to keep the slight breeze from blowing her away than as a climbing aid.

A guard stood on the other side of a flat roof, looking into the distance. Lois slid over the edge of the roof, increasing her weight enough to stand. Her hands and wrists were a conspicuous shade of gray as they alone increased in mass and density.

Coming up behind the guard, she snapped his neck in one sinuous motion, letting the body drop to the tar-paper surface of the roof. Looking around, the girl saw an open hatchway near one corner, a dim light outlining a square entrance into the building. Going back over to the edge, she motioned Clyde to come up.

Again, she wondered about the man. She’d read that FBI agents were well trained, but any four-year-old in her village could climb two stories without making that much noise. Maybe I should put him out of his misery? she thought.  When his hand appeared on the roof-edge, she reached down, jerking him up and to his feet.

“Damn it.  You damned near dislocated my arms,” he complained.

“Next time I use your neck to pull on,” she retorted, pointing. “There’s a way in.  Let’s go.”

The second floor had a barracks at one end.  It was empty, with folded mattresses on the bunks. The other end contained storerooms, also empty of people. There was nothing that looked, to Clyde, like a bomb.

Since I have only a dim idea of what to look for, maybe he will come in handy, she thought. He even had a battery-operated device that stuttered as he moved it. Aiming it at the floor brought on a fast clicking sound.

“It’s downstairs in this end of the building,” Clyde told her, showing Lois the difference in the sounds as he waved the device.

“We have to find anyone else around here too, so try to be a little quieter, will you?”  Lois asked him, heading for the stairwell.

The first floor offered a barracks room at the same end as on the second. That one had seven men sleeping inside when they entered.

“We’ll have to tie them up, lock them in, or something,” Clyde whispered.  “What do you think?”

“I think you should check out the other end of the building, Mr. Burrows. I can take care of these by myself.”

“If you’re certain?  Try not to shoot, unless you have a silencer. It would alert any others in the building.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t shoot,” Lois whispered back.

Once he’d left, she went from bed to bed, thrusting a steel-hard finger into each of their hearts. Wiping her bloody digit off on a sheet, she went to find the FBI man before he could get into trouble.

A door was open in one of the offices, with a square of light illuminating the hall. It was easy to spot Clyde. He was the one with his arms raised. Three men and a women were also inside, two with guns aimed at Clyde. Seeing them, Lois ducked her head back outside.

“You better go back out and check, Jim. You and Larry,” the woman ordered two of the men. “Where there’s one of these bastards, there are probably others. Get the guys up while you’re at it, and have someone wake up George on the roof.” She appeared to be in charge. “I’ll call the lawyers. They’ll be here in ten minutes.”

As the two gunmen came out of the room, they saw a quick motion out of the corner of their eyes. It was the last thing they ever saw, as stiffened fingers entered their ears, puncturing both eardrums and brain-pans in the process.

Lois, a man hanging from one finger of each extended arm, silently lowered her victims to the floor and extracted her digits. She examined her hands. “Damn, he made me break a nail,” she muttered to herself.

Taking a minute to increase the mass in her entire body, Lois lunged rapidly into the room, positioning herself between Clyde and the other two. The man fired his weapon, but only resulted in shooting himself in the leg as his bullet bounced off Lois’s hardened body.

Before the woman could fire, Lois grabbed both weapons and, with bare hands, crushed them to formless lumps of metal and plastic.

The woman stood her ground while the man tried to run out the door, only to be tripped by Clyde. He was astute enough to put handcuffs on the captive while the guy lay on the floor.

“Where’s the bomb, lady?” Lois asked her prisoner.

“What bomb? And who are you?  Go ahead, arrest me and take me in. As soon as I get to a phone I’m going to sue you and whatever asshole fascist agency you work for,” the woman raved. “This is private property and you haven’t even shown me a warrant or identification. I’ll have your asses for trespassing.” She reached for a telephone.

Yawning, Lois grabbed the hand clutching the telephone and squeezed. After the first four bones cracked, the woman couldn’t wait to tell Lois her life history.

“Stop it, please. In the basement, a special lead-coated room,” the woman pleaded, trying to pry one of Lois’s fingers off her compacted knuckles, “I give up.  Stop it. . . .”

Clyde heard the woman.

“Watch them,” he ordered Lois, pressing a gun at her until she took it with her free hand. “I’ll take my detector and check it out. Wait here, I’ll be back.” He ran out of the room.

After Clyde left, Lois casually killed the two prisoners and returned to the campgrounds alone. Quickly packing, she left and returned to Dallas, mission accomplished. The DA was out of business.  The Feds had the bomb and could round up the other members. She was finished.

Clyde had considerably more trouble. He did get credit for finding the bomb, and also for wiping out the conspirators without firing his weapon. With all the bullet holes in the walls of the office, it was considered self defense.

The seven dead men in the barracks were another matter. In the end it was glossed over and he received full credit for the job. What wasn’t believed was his tale of an unnamed woman who helped him, changing back and forth from Asian to Negro and from a ghost to weighing twenty-tons.  One who could crush hands in her own and also float up the sides of buildings.

***

Mr. Jones couldn’t decide what to do with Sammy Lin. In his investigation of the man, he was convinced Sammy didn’t know anything of Lois’s work with him, hadn’t even seen her in action — directly, that is. In her hotel fight, he’d been upstairs, not down in the battle zone.

Sammy knew no more than the rest of the neighborhood, with the exception of the desk-clerk who was also a loose end. They all were, but he couldn’t kill the entire neighborhood to keep her secret.  Add on all their friends and relatives that had been told, and it was plainly impossible. Best to forget those thoughts.  What was done, was done. Her reputation had made one of the worse streets in Dallas one of the safest. Jones had heard about the Italian mafia being unwilling to work there.

But, what about this Sammy Lin guy? He couldn’t be locked up forever  . . .  could he?  And he’d found Jones’s headquarters.  How many others could? That was why Jones had decided to use another method of contacting Lois.  He also knew he had to find a better headquarters, one a lone man couldn’t trace — even one trained like Sammy.

With that thought, Jones had an idea. He knew what to do with the man, and a way to keep track of him. Sammy wouldn’t have to know about the secret operations.

Mr. Jones left his office to go to the locked basement.

Disdaining a guard — he knew enough about Sammy to know one wasn’t necessary — Jones unlocked and entered the cell.

Sammy was dozing on the bench, a litter of magazines around him. Jones had brought him anything he needed to be comfortable, even a refrigerator of food, a hot plate, and a television set. Everything but liquor.  A sober Sammy would be easier to handle. He reached over and shook the captive’s shoulder.

“Wake up, Sammy Lin.”

Sammy opened his eyes and sat up. “Have you thought over what I told you? Things are getting serious here,” Jones asked.

“Yeah, I see your point, mister. I wouldn’t know what to do with me either. I’ve seen enough spy movies to know what’s going on here. You’re some kind of government spy, using Lois to beat up and kill people for you. I’m a drunk, but not stupid.”

“Close, but no cigar.” Jones sat down beside him. “I work alone, not for any government. I have enough money to do it myself. To help my country, the same one as yours”

“Well, let me see her, then go ahead and kill me. I can’t stop you.” Sammy lowered his eyes.

“Can’t do that. What I can do is offer you a job. Nothing fancy, and you have to stay around headquarters. No secret stuff.  Only helping to run the communications setup. I have hundreds of what you call spies around the world, all reporting here,” he admitted to the man, seeing Sammy was interested, “and I need someone I can trust coordinating that reporting, also to send out payments for services. An office job is all it is, but better than dying. Who would be more loyal than a lovesick fool like you?  If I go down in flames, so does your precious Lois.”

“Can I see her, then?” Sammy perked up. “If I take the job?”

“I’ll call her. She’s between spying operations right now. Come on, lets get you set up before I call.”

Lois received a call directly from Mr. Jones, without any subterfuge, which surprised her.

“Hello, is this Miss Stone?”

“Uh  . . .  yeah. This is Miss Stone. What can I do for you?”

“Well, actually I’m calling for a Sammy Lin. You happen to know him?”

“Of course I do.  H–How is he, anyway?” How did Sammy get together with Jones?  she wondered.

“He’s fine. Even has a job here. He’s busy right now, but if you want to talk to him call the number in the usual way, tomorrow at five pm.” He didn’t give a number. But, in any case, it told Lois that Sammy was found and all right.

She checked the newspaper the next morning and found her ad. That evening she called the telephone number on it and Sammy answered.

“Lois, Is that you?” Sammy had picked it up on the first ring.

“It’s me.  I’ve missed you, honey. Where have you been all this time? Did I tell you I missed you? And what the hell you doing with Mr. Jones? How did you find him? I don’t even know where he is, and I work for him — as you no doubt know by now.”

It took a lot of explaining on both sides.

“And that’s why Mr. Jones wants you to come here. It’s too hard and dangerous to communicate all the way to Texas. Mr. Jones figured that if I could find him, others could. And the whole neighborhood there knows about you.  Another big security leak.”

“Well you can tell him to piss up a rope. I’m not moving there,” Lois told Sammy. “I have my reasons.”

She was living comfortably in a nice neighborhood. Besides, it was a place for her brother and the others to snap to when they wanted to visit the States. Also, she didn’t think she wanted a sourpuss like Jones in her life on a daily basis.

“But I have to stay here for my new job,” Sammy complained. “He said if I went back to Dallas he would kill me.  And I believe he would.”

Actually Jones had planned it that way. They would have less chance to argue and break up if separated, was his thinking.

“That’s up to you.  I’m staying here. You tell him that.”

She slammed the handset down and went back home. Screw it, she thought.  Jones needs me. I don’t need him.  She had the address from Sammy and would tell Jones herself.

***

“Sorry you feel that way Lois,” Mr. Jones told her.  She’d flown to Washington to see him. “I would prefer you staying here, but we’re going to have to move anyway. If your friend could find us, others might.”  He looked at her steadily, and continued, “You realize he has to stay with me, at least until I know if I can trust him?  And we do need another way to contact you.  I know a man with a secure line, and you can call him in an emergency.”  He gave her Ted’s number. “Only for emergencies. I’ll find a way to get hold of you otherwise.  It’ll be a while until we get moved and settled.  Those big computer things are hard to move, thousands of vacuum tubes that can break and wires that cross and fray.”

Lois spent the night with Sammy, in his apartment on the top floor of the office building. There weren’t any guards in evidence, but she did spot a couple of television cameras hidden both outside and inside the apartment.  None in the bedroom, though.

“I wish you would stay, Lois.” Sammy was still trying to talk her into it. “I have plenty of room.”

It was morning and she was preparing to leave. He was a nice guy, but she still didn’t want a long-term commitment.

“No, I better go on home, Sammy.  I’ve been gone long enough. If I moved out of there, the neighborhood would go bad again, and I feel responsible for it.”  She gave him a final kiss. “You know my number.”

July 1^st, 1994,

The Tower, Los Angeles

The Homeland Heroes, plus guests, were all safe and sound within the walls of the Tower. Medical attention was being delivered to those who needed it; and everyone was receiving a well deserved meal and drinking session.

Backstreet, who was battered but unharmed tucked into the roast beef like he hadn’t eaten in days. Sitting opposite him was Wolfram of the Freedom Five; and when he saw the young man’s appetite he laughed.

“Son, I’m thrice as big as you if I’m an inch, and I don’t think I’ve ever eaten like that before. Why don’t you slow down ‘fore you fill another hospital bed.”

“Can’t help it” muttered Backstreet through a mouthful of gravy and vegetables “Need fuel” without explaining he kept tucking into his food.

Only when he refilled his plate did he talk “My power works off my metabolism; I burn more energy to get more power, so I used up a week’s worth of food just today.”

At the bar, Ray was trading stories with Stratosphere and Michael De Bono.

“… and so there I was, starkers cause of the whole ‘fire’ situation. Now, you think that’d stop me from giving him a beat down? No sir, I flew right to his submarine and fried the engines before it could dive.”

“But  you’d have to fly over the whole city…” began Stratosphere, martini in hand

“And?” asked Ray, downing the last of his daiquiri. Silence followed his words, before the others burst out laughing.

“So where’d this food come from, anyway?” asked Stratosphere, gesturing to the incredible catered dinner “I was here when they put in the bar, but when did we get a chef?”

“This is all my man Mike here” said Meteor Man, as he sauntered up slightly tipsy and threw an arm around De Bono “He owns that Wagner Foundation thingy; and when he heard we was coming home he flew here and called the soup kitchens; told them to organise a feast.”

Ray O’ Sunshine, nodded, his own face turning red from alcohol “Well, a toast to ‘Mike’. For he knows how to throw a party, and he probably saved the world a dozen times or more” he raised a glass, and downed it in one.

“No, I did actually” admitted Michael “The year was 1984, and it was Professor Pandemonium’s latest death robot device…”

Earthman was sitting by the window in a work-out shirt and shorts; both emblazoned with the logos of the Homeland Heroes sponsors. He looked out over the city of LA, wondering what it would be like to live here.

“So, I suppose you did alright today” admitted Blue Lightning walking up to Earthman and pulling up a chair. Like Dante, he was wearing Homeland Heroes apparel.

“So what’s your story?” asked Earthman, turning to face the older man “You seem to know a lot about this place, but I haven’t heard of you before”

“That’s because in 1989 I was buried. Locked up in the Merciful Sister Mental Ward in Municipal City, and wiped from the record. That’s what happens when the suits running this place get some dirt on you.”

“You were a Homeland Hero” it wasn’t a question, but Earthman’s eyes were wide with anticipation.

“Yep; I’m Kevin Blue, known to the people of America as Blue Lightning. Able to generate electromagnetic energy and fly; and unfortunately suffering from a very rare bipolar disorder”

“Serious?”

“Sadly, yes. I thought I had it under control, but then Universal Man was killed, and our workload tripled… before I knew it, I was turning to drugs; illegal ones, that is. It got messy, and when the team found out they tried to support me. But when the suits found out, they saw me as a potential embarrassment. Now, they did put me in care, but they kept an eye on me. I didn’t like that…” he took a sip of his cola, and looked out the window with Earthman.

“And what’s your story? After the way you and that fancy outfit of yours handled things today, I expected to see your face all over this place. You new?”

“I’m a ‘reserve member’” said Earthman dryly, a lopsided grin on his face.

“Ouch. I remember when they did that to The Newtonian and Megabyte; what’s your damage?”

Dante didn’t answer straight away; he seemed to be sizing up Kevin Blue, trying to figure out this change of attitude. Then he took a deep breath, and dove right in.

“My suit is a piece of alien technology. It has its own artificial intelligence, and that alone is enough to turn people off. But then one day I’m fighting the Abomination Corps-”

Blue interrupted “Really? On your own?” he raised an eyebrow in surprise, and motioned for Dante to continue.

“-and afterwards, some weird guys in sharp suits showed up. They had weapons that Bart-my suit-said were alien tech. After nearly carving me to pieces, the Homeland Heroes show up and scare them off. But they’re still out there, and apparently every time I turn the armour on I show up on their scans like fireworks.”

“That’s not cool. So Justice has no idea who they are?”

“None; but I’m not finished yet. You know Meteor Man? Of course you do. Well, apparently his armour comes from another planet as well, and that planet and Bart’s planet are at war. So, when I first met Meteor Man, I nearly killed him. All because my suit thought he was an alien.”

It was Kevin Blue’s turn to be silent. He took a long drink, musing over the kid’s story.

“Y’know something? I think my story is pretty tame compared to yours.” He admitted, laughing to himself “But no matter; after today, I think things will change. I mean, we haven’t gathered together like this since ’86, and that was to destroy the Coalition’s stronghold. I think that the people running this show would be mad to keep people like you on the bench.”

“And people like you?” asked Dante, trying to hold back a grin

“Well, if you insist” silence fell for a while; but they talked all night long.

*****

The Infirmary, The Tower

Justice stood over Argonaut, still in powered form even though he was unconscious.

“Damn, I really thought he… damn.”

His attending physician, Doctor Ouija himself, looked up from the young hero. “And what are you worried about, son?” he asked, incredulous.

“He’s twelve, Doc. Too damn young for stuff like this. And he’s been unconscious since we found him, which as far as I’m aware means he should have reverted and-” he was silenced by the look coming from Doctor Ouija.

“You know Sebastian, you did call me. At least give me the courtesy of examining the patient in peace, hm?”

Laughing sheepishly, Justice shook his head “Fifty-five years old, Doc. Vietnam vet and world’s greatest soldier, with more battles under my belt than any other; and yet you manage to make me feel like a school boy again.”

“My pleasure.” He turned back to Argonaut. “The Golden Fleece? Interesting” he steepled his fingers and silently stared at the mightiest man on earth for several moments before turning back to Justice.

“I think I can handle it from here. How about you check on your other soldiers, alright Sebastian?”

Justice got the hint and left, running right into Rescue O.N.E.

“Sebastian? You’d kick a kid in a wheelchair if he called you that; this Doctor guy must be good.”

“Doctor Ouija is the greatest authority on magical matters in the world. He’s the Doc Fission of the arcane.”

“What about Eldritch? Let me guess, urban myth?”

Shrugging, Justice held his hands out “If I see him, I’ll believe him. But I don’t see how someone can be the greatest authority on Earth without being available for consulting” he started walking down the hallway “I assume there was a reason you wanted to see me.”

“Yep. Saint’s all patched up; Fire-Trick is keeping her company. The Praetorian kids are all fine, though the eldest wants to know when he can move in. It’s just Sean left, and I figured you’d want to hear this.”

*****

Esperanza was sitting in the hospital bed, stitched up and resting. The girl with the fire-twirling tricks was sitting and talking to her, which was nice. No-one had stopped and talked to her for months. When she said as much, Charlie blanched.

“What? You’re serious?”

“Pretty much. Wearing this cape has reduced my social life to beyond a joke, and it’s not like I have a superhero partner or something. I guess you got the same thing; being the youngest of all these guys and all.”

Charlie shook her head, “This isn’t a prison, Esperanza. No, I hang out with my girl Shannon all the time; and I still go to birthdays and stuff. If things got really bad, I could call Juliet in Seattle, y’know, Empress?”

“See, I never had that. I just put the suit on and started doing. I just couldn’t juggle the two, and kept losing hold of the people in my life. Can’t even remember the last time I went on a date” she admitted bitterly.

“Well, I think that Backstreet  guy is crushing on you. But seriously; Las Vegas is just over the hill. If you ever want a girls night out, just call. And hey, the same should work for your friends back home. Just call them whenever you want to see them.”

“But what about-”

“-the criminals?” asked Fire-Trick, finishing her thought for her. “Let me handle that. If I’m reading this right, a few things will be changing around this Tower. You want a night off? Just say the word. One of us can patrol Vegas; in fact Black T would give an arm to do so.”

Esperanza laughed in relief “Thanks, Charlie”

Waving aside the thanks, Charlie smiled “You know, I haven’t been doing this for much longer than you have; I’m willing to bet that someday I’ll use your shoulder to cry on.” They embraced, and the talk moved back to the mundane.

*****

“… ‘and while many legacies have been created, they will ultimately be true to themselves, not the name they wear.’ Then she said something about the key to saving the world was the child of the hero who ‘sacrificed himself.’ And… well, that was it.” Sean Thomas had more bandages on him then a dead Egyptian, and he was in almost as much plaster. That was not to mention the pain medication; a special blend to work against his superhuman adrenal glands. Through all this however, he felt he had to deliver this message.

Justice sat and listened, then turned to Rescue O.N.E “Anna, you’ve done amazing work tonight. Go and get some food before you fall down, or before Wolfram eats it all.”  She took the dismissal with a nod, and left.

Turning his attention back to the patient, Justice leant forward and asked quietly “Was the messenger a woman; probably early thirties, wearing a crimson outfit with a hood?”

Sean’s eye’s widened in shock “Yes! How’d you…?” he was caught by a coughing fit, which stabbed at his ribs.

“At 9:00pm April 26^th, I had a similar experience. It was a man; same outfit, hood and all. He appeared on the rooftop, through a doorway much like the one you described. The message was simple; ‘Tomorrow, you will receive word of a great villain’s escape. I tell you this for one reason: You must do nothing to prevent his escape; and do not hasten to join the search for him. For he will be crucial in forging the future, as will you.’

“Now, you probably realise that this ‘great villain’ is the Sovereign, right Sean?” asked Justice, a look of worry on his face. “When I heard about his escape I was floored. I had been thinking of Doctor Decibel, or Nightfall, or even Seaserpent, forging some sort of political thing with Atlantis. Never did I think this guy wanted me to let Sovereign loose.”

“So why’d you listen to him?” asked Sean, enthralled “Why not stop the Sovereign?”

“Because after he delivered the message, he gave me a keepsake. But it was one that I saw destroyed thirty-three years ago, or it was a damn good copy. He also told me something personal, that I can’t share with you.

“But that’s not the weirdest thing. Today, I heard his voice again; over the comlink. Sean, this man in red, he was Kid Praetorian. But he was thirty if he was a day.”

Sean thought back to the woman he’d seen that afternoon, and thought more about the people he’d met today.

“Justice, there’s a good chance that this woman was that fire-twirler on your team. What the hell is going on here?”

*****

25^th September, 2013

The Basement of Mickey’s Bar, New Jersey

Charlotte Ash stepped back through the vortex, the link to 20^th Century Washington DC disappearing behind her.

She put the hooded, crimson costume on a rack, wearing instead a more familiar one. She then walked over to a man in a wheelchair, who was staring at a timeline drawn on the wall. “Well?” she asked of him, no small talk to be had.

“Listen, Charlotte” he responded, not turning to look at her “This is delicate work. If my temporal anchor is even a little bit faulty, we’ll be sucked right into an event horizon. Of a black hole. So shut up and let me work.”

She slapped him around the head “I said the speech perfectly. Don’t tell me you screwed up”

He struggled to inject some patience into his voice “We’re trying to create a ripple effect here, and unless you want to be skimmed like a stone into the aforementioned black hole, don’t touch anything” suddenly the room shifted in a kaleidoscope of colours; most of which couldn’t be seen by the human eye. After the effect passed, the two were unharmed, but looking at a different timeline drawn on the wall.

“It worked!” exclaimed the genius “by shifting our consciousnesses fourth dimensionally, we can feel it shift around us. Look!” he pointed at the timeline “See? There isn’t the entry marked internment camps. When we wrote this, we came from a past with no Californian riot, and look–” he pointed to a date on the early twenty first century; a date that had a cataclysm no matter what universe they shifted into “-no. Damn.”

“It’s all right, we can try again. We can-” she never got to finish, before an explosion rocked the bar, then another. Smoke filled the room, and her vision started to blur.

“Charlotte!” cried the man in the wheelchair, before everything went dark.

July 1^st, 1994
Washington D.C.

The Homeland Heroes and their allies closed in on the airship.

“Look at that” said Justice, wonder in his voice “The destruction…”

After it defeated the New Patriots, Earthman, Argonaut and Meteor Man, it had continued launching concussion missiles to the Army forces and civilian buildings on the ground.

“Okay, Mainframe? Where is Ray?”

“Locking onto his solar radiation is easy. Trying to tell him that he’s heading too far north is hard. You never gave him directions, did you?”

Justice ground his teeth “Okay, let’s start this.  Mainframe, your priority is to get him back on track. Everyone else; get to it”

Stratosphere and Rescue O.N.E had never worked together before, but they flew in tandem straight toward the airship. It opened fire at the pair, and they twisted and turned.

“This thing is good” said Rescue, her scanners nearly overloaded. Designed for diagnosing people, they were struggling with the amount of high-velocity rounds trying to hit her. The exo-suit was bulletproof, but the missiles were getting close. Until a zephyr appeared out of nowhere and caused them to hit each other. Stratosphere was then struck by an ion charge.

“Damnation” she said, world spinning around her. As she fell, she noticed the Praetorian Family flying at top speed toward the airship.

Kid Praetorian spoke into his comlink “Hey, bro? There’s a hole in the top of that ship. That must be Argonaut’s entry point”

“Okay, three way split. I’ll take that hole, you the centre and Empress the engine side.”

They split, and with Rescue O.N.E and the dizzy Stratosphere, they managed to split the attention between enough targets to create a clear path for the Homeland Heroes’ jet.

“Okay, Austin and Sean. Off you go!” they leapt from the plane, Black Titan growing as large as he could. Landing on the deck, they began tearing into it when they saw the cannon move.

Controlling the cannon was a Pact member in a red-and-yellow outfit. He was covered in purple fire, and when he spoke the heroes were surprised at the heavy European accent he used. “You vill die now, okay?” and he pressed the trigger.

Aggressor moved as fast as he could, slapping aside the first shell and charging forward. The Haze, as the villain was known, saw him coming and disappeared. Not stopping, the strongman grabbed hold of the cannon’s barrel and forced the metal to bend.

Black Titan, meanwhile, was looking for a door that would lead down to the lower levels. Unfortunately, anything on the deck had been razed, and any entrances covered in nanostructures. He then drove one massive fist into the deck, tearing at the metal. He felt metal bending on his ribcage and lashed out, his fist hitting something invisible. The Haze reappeared, and he was thrown off the side.

Inside the control room, Red Hand picked up the radio and spoke over the intercom “Lock and load, everyone. They’ve dropped their strongmen on the roof, so let’s take them out.” He also activated the abduction spheres, sending all of them out to the flying heroes.

*****

Blue Lightning finished charging Earthman’s armour, just as the announcement came over the intercom.

“Told you there were people on board” said Earthman, watching as his armour started regrowing at double speed.

“Shut up. If they’re all going up to fight, we can seize the control room. Let’s go.” He lead them through the doorway, and up the stairs to the crew hallway.

“Front of the ship is that way” gestured Earthman, feeling the need to talk now that Bart was busy monitoring the regrowth.

“Quiet. After charging your suit I’m running low, so it’s going to be hard to keep up my static” they crept through the hallway, oblivious to the new arrivals on the ship.

*****

Two minutes prior…

Praetorian shot blasts of energy at the sphere closing in on him, but none of them punctured. When it got too close, he pulled away. Right into another one.

“Kid-” he began, right as the gas knocked him out.

The abduction sphere that had been chasing him turned to start chasing Stratosphere, and she created a gale-force wind to deter it. It slowed a lot, and she heard a voice cry “Watch out!”

Kid Praetorian, who for some reason was holding onto a runaway missile, used all his strength to redirect it toward the abduction sphere. It swallowed the missile, and exploded from within.

“Phew” he said, wiping his face “That was fun.”

Justice spoke over their radios, the jet’s computer letting him piggyback systems not usually used “Alright people, if these things are intelligent this should work. Pull away, pull away now” they did so, and the jet swung back toward them. The abduction spheres slammed into it, and soon came away with a payload of Justice, Backstreet, Fire-Trick and the Saint was captured. Thunderette was in a sphere, but just before it entered the ship she blew it up with a thunderbolt, directing the blast so as to enter the ship one level higher than the others.

*****

Sean Tomas tore off a panel from the deck, and was struck by a bolt of crimson energy. The heat washed over him, singing his hair, but he was mostly unharmed. Red Hand and a newer member with large raven wings emerged from the ship, and swarmed on him while The Haze and Antihuman attacked Black Titan.

Black Titan backhanded Haze. His vision went dark as a wisp of purple fire danced over his eyes, but it was Antihuman that brought him down by grabbing his face. She’d burnt through the energy stolen from Argonaut, and now she had a new feast.

She tripled in size, costume ripping and strength increasing to superhuman levels. As a result, Black Titan shrank down to normal size.

“Oh, hell no” spat the Aggressor, breaking Red Hand’s jaw and grabbing Winged Wonder by the ankle. Slamming the bird-man onto the ship, he charged at Antihuman.

“Little man,” she laughed, punching him. Some of his energy was drained, and with Black Titan’s strength behind the punch he was knocked off the airship.

*****

Piloting the airship and monitoring the combat computer was Switchblade. Apart from Antihuman, he was the only original member of the Pact still on the time. And since he couldn’t drain people’s life force to extend his aging like she could, he opted to be the pilot rather than engage in battle with heroes half his age.

And that meant that Blue Lightning and Earthman only had to defeat a 54 year old man to gain control of the airship. Bursting into the cockpit, they proceeded to do just that.

Earthman tore the door off its hinges, while Blue Lightning generated a considerable amount of electrical energy. Making eye contact with the old man, he threw the lightning.

It reflected of the collapsible blade that had shot out of his wristguard, setting the chair alight.

“Now you listen up son, I’m only gonna tell you once. Get off my ship, or I’ll cut you.”

*****

The Saint was the first one deposited in an omni-prison. It detected the increased muscle mass and placed her in a cage like Meteor Man’s one, while Fire-Trick was suspended in the breathable liquid. Both Justice and Backstreet were placed in cages like Victorious’, due to Backstreet slowing his metabolism down.

“And… now!”ordered  Justice. Backstreet powered up, muscle mass increasing to incredible amounts. He tore the bars of his cage clean off, and bolted across to Fire-Trick. Smashing the container, the liquid spilled across the floor. By now the beam emitter had risen from the floor, and was locking onto Backstreet. He spied one of Victorious’ swords lying on the ground near to his cage, and grabbed it as he ran. The emitter opened fire on him, and he deflected the beam with the sword. It carved a depression into the blade, but the beam did reflect to strike the roof above the emitter. Changing direction, Backstreet ran straight to the weapon and ran the sword through it.

By then Fire-Trick had freed Justice and The Saint, and the four of them were ready to take control of the vessel. Placing a hand to his ear, Justice tried calling to the team on the roof. “Titan, come in” static answered him, and he tried again.

“Damn. Earthman was right; they’re scrambling the communicators. Okay, let’s scout the place.”

As a matter of fact, they didn’t need to scout. A thunderclap sounded just outside, and Blue Lightning backed into the room. Following him was Earthman, the air around his hands rippling like a heat wave. Both their attacks failed to even scorch the blades of Switchblade.

Blue Lightning threw another bolt of lightning, before turning to face the newcomers. “Hey, Justice! Good to see you. Figure you can lend us a hand? He’s faster than he should be, and those blades are bloody indestructible”

“Saint, Fire-Trick. Take him down, then start releasing everyone. Backstreet, you’re with me.” They split up, and the two ladies engaged the blade wielding maniac.

“How fireproof are you?” Fire-Trick asked her new teammate, extending her fire-twirling baton.

“Quite a lot, I guess,” she answered, slightly confused.

“Good. Knock him out.” Both ends of the baton burst into flames, and she started spinning it above her head. The oxygen burnt hot, and a large fireball began to appear.

“What is it with you capes?” asked Switchblade as he carved a line through Earthman’s armour and kicked him aside “Always calling out your plans, always the same old tricks.” He pointed at the fire-twirler, and his left switchblade launched from a spring-loaded mechanism.

Saint threw herself at Switchblade, delivering a blow that would shatter bone. He parried with his left hand and ran the blade through her side. She gasped, and something dark tingled at the edge of her vision as she collapsed.

Fire-Trick parried the other blade with her baton, before unleashing a stream of fire at the villain. He sidestepped, launching his other blade at her. Meanwhile, Earthman was crouching over Saint, examining the gash.

“Bart?” he said, confusing the hell out of all present. Tilting his head as though listening to a reply, he put pressure on the wound.

“It’s worse than it looks. I think,” assured Earthman, blood pooling around his hands.

Switchblade flicked his wrists, and two more blades appeared to replace the others. Fire-Trick and Blue Lightning let him have it, but he parried the lightning and sidestepped the fire again.

“Earthman!” called Blue Lightning, trying to engage Switchblade in hand to hand combat. He received a cut across the chest for trying; shallow but painful. “Get Tin Soldier out here!”

“Will do!” he yelled back, turning to look for the metal skinned individual. Pointing his palm toward an omni-prison, he fired a neutrino bolt. The container was filled to the brim with a semi-transparent liquid, and out of it came a man with metal skin. Only, it wasn’t Tin Soldier.

“Thanks mate” said Wolfram, stretching.

“Who the hell is this?” spat Blue Lightning, ducking under another blow, only to get hit in the back with a fireball “And watch it!”

“I’m Wolfram, of the Freedom Five. If you didn’t want me, then-”

A blade glanced off Blue Lightning’s face “I don’t care! Get your indestructible ass in here, and take care of this!”

Wolfram closed the distance in a few footsteps, throwing up one arm to block the blade. Sparks flew, but the blade did break his skin slightly. Like mercury, his blood began to trickle out.

“Nice blades” admired Wolfram, grabbing the villain by the wrist “What are they made from? I’m a tungsten alloy, virtually indestructible, but that’s something else.” The other hand drew a line across the hero’s chest, and he let go of Switchblade to grab his chest.

“Geez! Fine then” he punched Switchblade across the jaw, and sank his other fist into his stomach. Switchblade stabbed him in the shoulder, and the hero did the strangest thing;  he closed his eyes and concentrated. The blade changed into tin, and he snapped it easily. Grabbing the other one, he did the same.

“Move!” shouted Blue Lightning, and Wolfram acquiesced. A stream of lightning leapt from his hands, dancing over Switchblade and knocking him out. Wolfram turned to the others.

“And that kids, is why we don’t play with electricity.”

*****

Meanwhile Justice and Backstreet were busy trying to find Thunderette and see if she had figured out how to fly the airship.

Thunderette slammed her hands on the pilot’s chair “There’s no joysticks, no steering wheel. Nothing! Instead, we’ve got something that looks like a crystalline AI matrix. This thing is automated.”

Backstreet nodded “Perhaps, or maybe-” he was cut off by a hand the size of a ham grabbing him by the collar and hurling him down the hallway. Antihuman was burning through Black Titan’s energy, but she was still about twice as strong as Backstreet.

In a single move Justice stood, turned around and loosed two bullets from a Desert Eagle handgun at the powerhouse. The bullets sank into her flesh, but bounced off before reaching the muscles.

Turning to face him, she grinned “Nawwww… what’s the matter? Your little tricks not working on me? How about I see exactly what makes you so special, hmm?” she reached out to grab him, but he ducked and rolled, appearing on her other side, throwing a disk at her. It exploded, and she was thrown into the waiting arms of Thunderette.

“Kinda cold in here” she said, creating tropical air around her hands to cause a thunderbolt and send Antihuman through the nearest wall.

“Backstreet?” he saw St. Theodore’s crimefighter punching through a shield of ice, his metabolism working at full speed to stop from freezing.

“Kid, duck” he threw a pair of disks, and they shattered the ice completely. Before the human icicle known as Coldsnap could recover, Backstreet took him down. A well placed blow shattered him, but they all knew that his mind could survive in liquid form.

“Don’t forget me!” called Antihuman, now almost regular sized due to the blasting disk. She climbed through the wall and threw a punch, but Justice parried her blow, tripping her over his foot. A well-placed blow to the back of the head knocked her out.

“Uh, Justice?” Thunderette was examining the control circuit, and she sounded nervous. Jogging to his side, Justice swore. A blasting disk had landed square on the cover, and the chip had a large piece of Perspex sticking out of it.

“I need silence for exactly ninety seconds” warned Justice, sitting in the chair. The time passed with nothing but the sparking of the instruments to interrupt him. Images and ideas spun around his head like a cyclone, and blood flow around his brain increased.

“Intercom” he looked around until he saw the intercom, and pressed the button.

“Everyone be warned; the ships’ controls are very damaged. Be prepared for a sudden nose dive.” He then reached up to his earpiece “Fire-Trick? Rescue O.N.E?”

“I hear you Justice, and I heard your announcement. What’s up?”

“Hey! I’ve been calling for ages? What’s going on?”

“Excellent,” he sighed, relieved. The radio jammer was inactive, so he could communicate with anyone outside the ship.

“Fire-Trick, get everyone out of those cells. We’ll need all the help we can get to make sure this thing doesn’t land on someone. In particular, send Paradigm up to me. Rescue, I’ll need you to take the jet and pick up anyone in the prisons who cannot fly.”

They responded positively, but then Fire-Trick spoke just to him “Saint is wounded pretty bad. Earthman is going to take her to safety.”

“No, keep Earthman here. We may need his scanners. Put her on the jet and Rescue O.N.E can tend to her.”

There was a pause “Alright. Paradigm is on his way up now, by the way.”

The synthenoid known as Paradigm walked into the room. A member of the Freedom Five and world’s only purely synthetic superhero, Paradigm was the perfect choice for diagnosing the systems of the airship.

“Justice. It is good to see you again. How can I help?” asked the golden skinned hero.

“Well, we think that this circuit is the thing piloting the airship, so if you could tell us if it’s broken or find the manual override controls, we can prevent the ship from landing on people.”

“Understood” Paradigm pulled the clear shielding off of the chip, and his hand collapsed into a series of mechanical parts. He began extracting the pieces of Perspex out of the circuit, and plugged a cable into it.

“Unfortunately, I have bad news. This is the main control circuit, but it is stuck in an integer loop. As soon as it hits zero, it’s going to shut down and the auxiliary will take over.”

Justice frowned “I thought that’d be good news; it means the ship don’t crash.”

“The auxiliary control is destroyed” Paradigm indicated a part of the control panel that had been smashed in Earthman and Blue Lightning’s battle with Switchblade.

“And without the auxiliary control, we can’t fly the ship?”

“Unfortunately, that is correct” as if agreeing with him, the entire console went dark

Justice reached for the intercom.

“Abandon ship!”

*****

The heroes in the holding section were almost all free when the power cut out.

“What about him?” asked Fire-Trick, pointing at Jason Butler, who was still asleep. She was trying to burn through the apollium cables holding down Minuteman, but it was hard work.

“Bart? I need a neutrino bolt, but it needs to be carefully measured. Just enough energy to shock the kid awake, not enough to hurt him.”

Touch two fingers to his neck. I want to measure his pulse to ensure I do this correctly.

Earthman did so, and Bart picked up the pulse.

Fire when ready

Pulling his hand back, a wave of pale blue sub-atomic particles leapt from pads on his fingers and palm, dancing all over Jason’s skin and sending a charge through him.

“Wha?”

“Power up kid, we got to get out of here”

Jason held the Golden Fleece tightly, closing his eyes. He could feel a pulse coming from the fleece, much like a heartbeat. Subconsciously, his slowed to match it, and he changed.

A golden light surrounded him, and when it disappeared, the mightiest man on Earth exited the omni-prison.

Minuteman was freed, and he grabbed Fire-Trick and flew outside. Earthman and Argonaut followed, just as it began to tip.

“Bart, give me telemetry.”

The airship is entering a nosedive. If it follows its current vector, the point of impact will be in an area with 432 human life forms.

“Justice!” he said over the comlink “The ship’s crashing, and apparently on a crowded area.”

“I am aware of this. Paradigm is flying Backstreet and Thunderette out of the ship; and then everyone who can fly are going to push it into the ocean.”

“What about you?”

“I’m going to find the reactor core.”

***

The superheroes without the gift of flight all looked out of the window of the Homeland Heroes’ jet as it circled the airship on autopilot, and shook his head slowly. In his business he’d seen a lot of things; but seeing half a dozen superheroes trying to carry a hundred ton vehicle out to sea was definitely right up with the weirdest.

Argonaut, arguably the strongest of the lot, was trying to lift the nose of the ship up, to level it off. Meteor Man and Earthman, almost equal in strength, were in the middle of the ship to ensure it didn’t tear in half. The three Praetorians were at the back and in charge of turning the ship; so that when Argonaut got the nose up, it would be pointing out to sea.

It looked like it was working; the ship was slowly moving into the right position, when suddenly something went wrong. It seemed to grow ten times heavier, and wanted to fall twenty times faster. They didn’t know it at the time, but the anti-gravity pillars had been working off an auxiliary system, making the vector of descent much less dangerous than it could’ve been. But it was failing at the very worst time, turning the hundred ton vehicle into a thousand ton vehicle. And it began to fall at 9.8 metres per second, per second.

A cacophony of swear words filled the cockpit of the jet through the radio system; the heroes were suddenly under much more pressure, and they weren’t shy about announcing it.

Inside, Justice ran down the hallway as he tried to get a handle on the situation “Give me a sit-rep”

The oldest Praetorian child responded first “The ship got damn heavy, sir. If what we saw was any indication, we’re gonna need a shitload more people just to keep this in the air.”

“Argonaut?” asked Justice, knowing he was bearing the brunt of the ship on his own.

“Arrrrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhhhhh!” was the response he received followed by “This is ridiculous! I can’t hold it!”

“Rescue? Stratosphere? Update on the evac”

Rescue O.N.E responded in a defeated voice “Still working here. So many stubborn people down here; it’s like they need the airship to land on them before they leave”

“Damn” Justice leant back, his strategic mind unable to come up with anything to solve something this big. That had only happened once before; and it resulted in the deaths of Stormfront and several United States Marines.

“Justice?” said a voice not heard from for a while “It may be too little, too late, but I think Ray found the party”

Nearly crashing into a wall, Justice pressed the ‘talk’ button “Repeat that please, Mainframe”

“Ray O’ Sunshine is closing in on your position. It seems he got directions.”

His mind started racing again, and he turned on the comlink while he spoke “Mainframe, get me the Freedom Five’s signal”

“On it. 5432…1. Talk.”

“Minuteman? Justice. We need to get this thing into the ocean, and we’ve got a slim chance. I need your team’s help”

“Count on it Justice. Though we don’t have anyone strong enough to lift something like this”

“Don’t need to. Listen…”

***

Over the course of the next fifty-five seconds, every flying superhero, and some grounded ones as well, worked to ensure that this ship didn’t fall. The super-strong ones could hold it, but only for so long.

Keying the intercom, Justice called out to Paradigm “Now!”

Turning to face the two men in the jet behind him, the android simply said “We’re up”

Red Mage nodded, and activated the teleport spell he’d prepared earlier. Along with Wolfram, he disappeared and reappeared in the ship, right next to Justice.

The magician began chanting, creating a levitation spell big enough to hold the ship in the air. Meanwhile, Wolfram followed Justice to the engine room.

Paradigm flew into the ship; burning fuel like there was no tomorrow. Landing within, the rocket boosters folded into his back. Walking up to the antigravity generator, his hands disassembled and reformed into next-generation Swiss army knives. An optic cable extended from his left ‘thumb’, and plugged into a port on the anti-gravity generator. After eight seconds, he responded.

“Justice? The generator appears to be losing power at a rate of 1.1 kilovolts per three seconds. At this rate-”

“A number, Paradigm. How many minutes?” asked Justice as he pointed Wolfram off to the left.

“If you are extremely lucky? One minute, thirty three seconds.”

Silence greeted him for one second “Can you divert power to it from somewhere?”

“The nuclear core has gone into lockdown; I detect no other power source here” Paradigm stopped. He did detect one “Apart from myself”

“And how long can you sustain this?”

“Eighteen seconds”

“Not worth it. Get out, now.”

Deciding not to respond, Paradigm instead opened a port on his chest.

“I said get out”

“My primary programming is the protection of human life. If I deactivate my main functions, I will be able to provide enough power to sustain it for eighteen seconds, during which you can commandeer one of three detected escape vehicles, and the ship will remain weightless for longer, increasing the number of lives saved. Beginning deactivation-” the signal cut out, and he connected a cable to the anti-gravity generator.

Back on the jet, Justice slammed a fist on the console “Damn it. Okay Mainframe, what’s Ray’s ETA?”

“Forty-five seconds.”

“Thanks. Shooting Star, Blue Lightning, Minuteman. Go to it”

The four of them flew along the side of the ship, and all opened fire on the same spot. Stellar energy, lightning bolts and heat vision all carved into the nanometal.

“Earthman, Meteor Man. Switch.”

They flew in two directions; Meteor Man going to assist Argonaut, Earthman to assist the Praetorians. The Praetorians were now doing a job much like Argonaut, but on the opposite end.

“I’ve found it!” said Wolfram, of the incredibly large pipes that served no use “Justice, you were right; it’s an unnecessarily heavy bastard” the former science teacher touched it and it rippled. The ripple spread from his hands, changing the super-dense metal to a much lighter alloy.

“There may be some sort of support beam too; if you make it copper or tin then it will be easier to cut” said Justice, looking at the beam that ran from the engine room to elsewhere.

“Roger that,” Wolfram went off in search of other metal to alchemically alter.

Ray O’ Sunshine streaked through the air, and as soon as he saw the floating heroes carving the airship in half, he decided ‘what the hell’ and joined in.

A literal wave of solar energy leapt from his hands, carving a hole in the steel, eight metres wide without effort.

“So, why are we cutting this in half?” he shouted to the closest person, Blue Lightning.

“The halves will be easier to lift, and we want to move this out to sea”

“Well, why didn’t you say so?” Ray exclaimed jauntily. He flew back away from the others, and started rising higher into the air. Blue Lightning broke off from the attack, and followed him.

“What are you doing?” he shouted, watching as the brightly dressed individual started waving his arms around wildly

“You ever hear of a solar flare?”

“Uh…”

“You’re about to. Move back”

Blue Lightning did so, but kept watch. Ray reached out with both arms, and suddenly the temperature increased exponentially. The solar radiation from the late afternoon sun seemed to brighten, and ionised particles appeared around the hero’s hands.

“And…. go.”  At his mental command, the collected energy was released all at once; a malignant flare leaping from the sky to strike the airship. It split in thirds, and each piece was thrown to the east.

“Now, all we have to do is keep pushing them out to sea.”

*****

For what seemed like the millionth time that afternoon, Justice thought he was going to have a heart attack. A hole ripped open in the cargo hold, and he ran through it, getting a terrible sunburn while doing so. A compact parachute tucked into a pouch on the back of his belt burst into action, and he slowed dramatically.

“Mage? Wolfram? Talk to me?”

A flash of ruby light winked at him from the Homeland Heroe’s jet. He waited for a reply, but nothing came.

“I hope that means the solar flare knocked out our communications.” Just then a glyph appeared in his field of vision, and no amount of blinking could remove it.

“Justice!” he heard Red Mage’s voice in his head “I think the solar flare knocked out the comlinks.”

“I figured” he continued blinking, but it still burnt right into his eyes “And where’s Wolfram?”

*****

“Well, I can honestly say I’ve had better days” admitted Wolfram, as he fell from the sky. When the entire airship fell apart around him, he had the good sense to turn the surrounding metals into tinfoil so he could just fall. But unfortunately the explosion, whatever it was, also screwed his communications.

“Uh, help?” he asked of no-one in particular.

And yet someone answered him “Sure thing; but can you turn back to normal? You’d be easier to lift an all.”

Spinning to look, he found himself face-to-face with Rescue O.N.E. Complying, he changed back into flesh and blood, and she caught him.

“That would have been messy” he said with obvious relief.

“It already was” replied Rescue O.N.E, sounding much more sombre.

*****

Fifteen minutes earlier…

Sean Thomas lay on the ground, groaning. Falling from the airship during the battle with Antihuman, he had landed square on a basketball court. If it weren’t for his powers he would be dead; as things stood, he was lucky to be alive.

His entire ribcage had shattered; his spine had broken in three places and two of his internal organs were punctured. With his left eye swollen with blood, kneecap sticking 90 degrees in the wrong direction and a fracture pelvis, The Aggressor had no doubts that he was going to die on the ground right here.

Emergency vehicles had been called off a block to the east; one of the dropped bombs had started a fire, and one superhero falling from the sky didn’t attract enough attention when a meteor shower composed of explosives had struck.

As he felt his life bleed out, he started to hallucinate. A doorway composed of white light appeared; a single rectangle of glowing-ness, just hovering a few metres away from him. Out of it stepped a woman dressed in an action suit and a large hood to hide her face; she ducked to the ground and looked around nervously, walking slowly as if avoiding detection.

“Okay, ten minutes” she muttered, as if to remind herself.

If I am hallucinating, it can’t hurt to ask for help decided Sean, and he croaked out the single plea.

“Oh! It’s you? I thought… Black Titan… that’s weird” she rambled on, and Sean had the funny feeling he’d heard her voice before.

Shaking her head to clear it, the stranger spoke more with more authority.

“So, you must be Sean Thomas, the Aggressor, yes?” without waiting for a response, she pressed on “You don’t need to know my name, just listen. This message was specially composed for delivery to the Homeland Heroes, so I expect you to pass it on” she slapped a patch of some sort on his forehead “This should tide you over for the next ten minutes. Alright, ready?

“Tell Justice that this first move was made by a mighty opponent, but he is not the one to fear. The one to fear still hides in the shadows, and if you have a hope of defeating him, you will need to keep strong the alliances you forged today.

“Be on guard for familiar faces; some are real, and some are not. And while many legacies have been created, they will ultimately be true to themselves, not the name they wear.

“But most of all, warn Justice that the best hope for winning this fight is to keep watch over the child of the hero who sacrificed himself.”

She stole a glance at the portal behind her; shades of grey had crept in while she spoke.

“I’ve said enough. Be well, and pass on this message. You are remembered, Sean Thomas.” She ran into the portal and it collapsed; seconds before Rescue O.N.E found him.

“Code Blue! I need an ambulance here!”

The first snows in Buffalo are wet and perfect for snowballs, forts, and men.  By January the snow turns dry in the deepest cold of winter.  The flakes make nothing.  Ice still forms, but the snow is heaped by the side of the road.  There it collects the exhaust of passing cars and turns black and solid.  It’s good only to be avoided and to form an unrecognized recruitment device for green groups.

Behind that black snow were the homes of suburbia.  Respected families.  People who knew each other by sight and name.  They knew each others history.

But that knowledge was shattered one moonless night when over-wide black trucks under military escort made their way up the street and stopped outside the house of the Creeds.  Mrs Johnson came out to look, wearing only her nightclothes, gown, and slippers.  Helen Creed defied the soldiers to get her back into her house.

The neighborhood came out to watch, better dressed than Mrs Johnson.  The press followed the convoy and set up lights and cameras beyond the perimeter the military had set.  They scanned the scene, their reporters gave pieces to camera mostly admitting they knew nothing.

But the presence of the trucks made the story big.  They were oversized, black, heavily armored, and armed.  Searchlights from the trucks bathed and hence isolated the house.  Soldiers carried  machine guns or 40mm cannon, they wore body armor with exoskeleton boost, and identity-stealing masked helmets.  Something important was happening, the press was going to watch.

And the press watched as prisoners were led out of the ordinary house of a respected family.  CTH came first, her hands covering her face because they’d taken her mask off.  One soldier grabbed CTH’s wrist chains and tried to pull her hands away, CTH just turned and headbutted him.  They hit her with nightsticks several times, then grabbed her by the hair and dragged to the first truck.

When she was secure, they brought out the Creed.  His head was in a cage, and the Creed had to carry the cage.  They put him in the second truck.

Outreguerre still had his mask on, but his shoulder and side arms had been taken off him.  He was put in the third truck.  Inversus walked, clearly freezing in just a suit, her black shoes slipping in the snow.  She was put into the first truck with CTH, where she simply closed her eyes as if resting.  Mia Ravenheart was put in the second truck, Rebel Lodestone was put in the third.

What confused the reporters was when they dragged a horse out of the house.  He bucked and kicked and was tasered into submission.  His unconscious body was manhandled into the fourth truck.  Finally, they pulled out a table with the head of a dead girl on it.  The dead girl’s head was shouting.

“We are innocent!”

They slapped the head hard, then hit it with a nightstick.  The force of the blows pulled the head from the table.  It fell into the snow.  They pulled the blonde head up by the hair.  It had ceased all animation.  The table was put in the fourth truck and the head was just thrown in.

The horse charged out.  He kicked and bit any soldier close enough and those who weren’t close enough he tried to burn with flaming breath.  Soldiers opened fire, unleashing machine fire and high explosive cannon shells.  The horse was torn to bits.  The soldiers took gunner positions, closed and locked the doors, then took their places in the convoy and moved out, ignoring the red on the black snow where blood and flesh stained what was already stained.

CTH checked her watch so she’d have a total time of trip.  From what The Dark had taught her, CTH guessed they were going to Thunderholme prison.  From there they would be taken to the Federal District Court of Extraordinary Affairs for hearings.

The truck finally lurched to a stop.  CTH looked at Inversus.  Her eyes were still shut.  Now she opened them, winked at CTH, was hit by the guard for communicating, and calmly closed her eyes again.  CTH liked her better as a bad guy, she was less creepy.  Eventually the truck door opened.

CTH was dragged out of the truck, her mug shot and finger prints were taken.  An all-male group stood around her and ordered her to take off her clothes for a body search and to put on prison clothes.

“No, and not in front of you,” she said.

“It’s standard procedure.”

“I don’t think much of your standards.”

“Please comply with standard procedure.  Do not make us use force,” said a guard in a mask.

“Get male gays or female straights as guards,” said CTH.

“You must comply with standard procedure.”

“And you must comply with standards of practice,” she said.

A senior officer with more bars on his armor came in.

“Stand down.  We got an id on her, she’s a minor.  And she has a lawyer.  He wants to see her now.”

She was dragged down the hall.  Like everywhere in this place the walls were several feet of concrete and, if memory served, reinforced with steel.  They put her in a room with a large window of bullet proof glass.  One chair in the middle of the room faced the glass.  No table.  She kept her hands in front of her face.  They’d seen it, they’d photographed it, but she was not going to give in.

In a room on the other side of the screen was not her father.  It was far worse.  It was Wilbur Aries, lawyer, spokesperson for New York City’s homosexual community and, when wearing a black mask and costume, The Dark.

“One of the rights they’ve taken away from you,” said Aries quickly, “is privacy.  They are recording this conversation and lawyer-client privilege does not apply.  They will also record you, 24/7.  There are no screens in the cells for when you have a shower or use the toilet.”

CTH thought for a moment.  Everything depended on each of them getting oblique references and signals.  The Dark was good at memorising dialogue.  CTH hoped she was going to be good enough.

“I don’t like that suit.  It doesn’t do a thing for you,” said CTH.

Allan Aries brushed his sleeve.

“You’ve always worried my homosexuality enthusiastically expressed would put me in danger.  Believe me, I’m in no danger.  It’s you I’m worried about.”

The subtext was they didn’t know he was The Dark.  It was only her identity that was compromised, and since their civilian identities had no link, he was safe.

“What are the charges against us?”

“That’s a little tricky.  Supposedly, Melanie Foster is dead and therefore cannot be a witness against her parents.  However, she is alive enough to be issued a warrant and they want her to bear witness against the rest of the team.  Everyone else has their own individual issues.”

Subtext, he is handling everyone’s case.

“They’ve issued warrants against Inversus and Outreguerre?” asked CTH.

“Yes.  There’s a reason to question that?” asked Aries.

“Outreguerre isn’t an American, Inversus is not a physical being.  There’s a host whose personality is suppressed by the entity.”

He scratched his chin, a signal to take the next statement without subtext.

“What are the charges against us?”

Second ask.  She rubbed her chin with the thumb of her left hand.

“There are various charges: armed robbery, assault and battery, going armed in public, threatening the public, armed conflict, escaping custody, leaving the dimension without permission, and further charges are pending your testimony about your actions in those dimensions.”

“The Governor let us go,” said CTH.

“Well, his story seems to have changed,” said Aries.

Aries pursed his lips and wiped them with his hand: keep silent about this, there is a hidden factor.  She almost gave the signal for ‘no fooling,’ then reminded herself to be professional.  Keep to the essentials.  Keep focussed.

“When is the arraignment?”

“I’ll have to speak to each of the people being charged, first.  You will probably be in court tomorrow night, arraignment is another of those rights you’ve lost.  I have managed one thing, though.”

Aries rubbed his lapel.

A door opened and closed quickly.  Somebody had tossed her mask in.  CTH went over, knelt down, and with her face hidden by the floor and her arms, she put on her mask and tied it back into place.  She went back to the chair, wondering if they weren’t intimidating her into behaving.

“I will return unless I can get them to move up the court date for the preliminary hearing.  I’ll leave you  my card.”

Aries put the card next to the window.  The image backing the name-and-number stuff wasn’t the astrological symbol for Aries, it was a ram’s skull set against a triangle.  How was he going to break them all out of this place?  And what did he think he was going to accomplish with that?

Wilbur Aries left the room.  Several minutes later, CTH was led down a blank dark cement corridor to a solid metal door under guard.  She was pushed into the cell.  The light came on.  The place was large by prison cell standards, but then it included a gym because these prisoners weren’t let outside for exercise.  The ceiling was forty feet high, so those who could fly or climb walls could exercise their abilities.

Two toilets.  Obviously they didn’t do repairs until the second one broke down to minimize contact.  Two sinks and a shower.  A king-sized bed with plenty of blankets and a thicker mattress than she would have thought for a prison.  CTH wondered about the blankets until she realized this place probably wasn’t heated.  If you sat covered in blankets with your back to the wall you could watch a large screen TV in the other side of the cell.  Cold would keep a lot of prisoners in line.

CTH had already counted the cameras in the place.

She sat on the edge of the bed, suddenly feeling the cold.  She was not going to cry.  The Creed wasn’t going to cry and if that bastard could get through this, so could she.  And she missed Jackson so much.  It wasn’t that they were apart, they usually were, it was that they couldn’t be together.  She needed the strength she got from being with him.

“Don’t make a sound and don’t indicate you can see and hear me.”  The Rebel Lodestone smiled as he floated in the air, blocking the television.  “They have no wards against telepathy.  They don’t monitor it, either.  We’ll be in court tomorrow night.  We should get out then.  We have a secret over them.”

And with that he disappeared.  CTH watched some more of the relentlessly, mind numbingly optimistic censored television.  Most of it came from the early sixties.  It must have been dawn, because the lights were turned out and CTH fell asleep in her costume.

The next evening she couldn’t be bothered eating breakfast.  A voice came over the intercom telling her she was being taken to court.  She waited for a while until she was taken to one of the trucks.  This time Rebel Lodestone was her partner.

“No talking.”

CTH wondered why Inversus was allowed to keep her mask on while hers had been  taken off.  Did they know she was an immaterial entity with a human host?

They got to the courthouse and were taken out separately.  Here they were allowed to clean up and to see their lawyer one at a time.  There was no privacy but at least the watching guards were female, hopefully they were straight.  From there, everyone was taken into the courtroom.  Everything to keep them apart for security and then, at the last moment, it was all thrown away.  They were together in the courtroom.

CTH picked up the Creed’s head and kissed him on the lips.  His eyes were still segmented.  She felt his hand pat her ribs.

“All rise.”

The judge came.  The hearing opened.

“Your honor, the prosecution moves that the head on a table have her warrant withdrawn and be declared not a witness due to the fact the head has become inanimate.  This would be most consistent with our initial application.”

“Bring the witness here.”

“Unnecessary, your honor…”

“When I ask for it, it’s necessary.”

After much argument an inactive, decapitated corpse’s head and a table were brought into the room.  The head was put on the table of the defence and the table itself put before the judge’s bench.  The prosecutor stared at the defence attorney, as if this was all the fault of Wilbur Aries.  Possibly it was.

“I understood the head could speak,” said the judge.

“She could speak, quite a blue streak it seems.  She ceased and we cannot determine why,” said the prosecutor.

Dry and procedural arguments began over who could say what to whom and when, what was acceptable to do, whether something had precedent in a court set up for the unprecedented.  And all the while the head lay there, a young woman utterly abandoned by every security and guarantee she should have had.

“Your honor, this is just a piece of a corpse on a ouija board, a cheap fortune teller’s device…your honor, I object to the noise…”

“Order.”

“I object.”

They looked at Ivo, the Rebel Lodestone.

“You’re not allowed to object,” said the prosecutor.

“Then if it please the court, I can revive the head.”

After more discussion of what suited the court rather than what might save Melanie, the Rebel Lodestone was allowed to revive the head if he used no tools, made no invocations, and used no beams of energy.

The Rebel Lodestone examined the head and the table.

“There have been core samples taken from the table.  The head has had biopsies taken and it has been injected with toxins so that, if it were living, it would have been killed.  But as the entire banking system could collapse and no one was prosecuted, I doubt anyone will be prosecuted for this attempted murder.  Fortunately, she is not alive.”

The prosecutor objected and the comment was stricken from the record, so there was no evidence of the attempted murder.

Ivo put Melanie’s head on the table, neck side down.  There was a glow which broke the rules they’d just made up but he stepped between the table and the soldiers.  Against all orders, they paused before they fired.  The glow died down, the table repaired, the head coughed and spat out mercury and other poisons.  The poisons were absorbed by the table, Melanie opened her eyes and looked around the courtroom.

“What happened.  Oh, yes, you smacked me off the table.  That hurt…”

“Objection, the dead do not feel pain…”

“Yes, they do,” said Ivo.

“Objection!”

“Order.”

Argument.  Again, they were arguing about procedure rather than justice.  They argued if Melanie revived was still Melanie, and even if she was, whether she would be allowed to speak.  The prosecutor said she could not give testimony but the warrants should remain in force.  The defence argued that now was not the time for a decision, that Melanie should be cross examined and make her case for her capacity and that cross examination should precede any charges.

CTH began to feel tired.  Despite herself, her head drooped.  She was grateful when the judge called for an hour recess.  She hadn’t realized it was midnight and on this inverted schedule, time for lunch.

They were broken up into pairs like they had been in the trucks.  Only this time Melanie was the odd one out.  She was allowed to eat with CTH and the Creed.  Clearly they were coming to the conclusion the Creed was monstrous but he wasn’t magical.  Well, not that magical at any rate.

They were silent as plates of food were put in front them.  Melanie looked unhappy.  The waiter might have been embarrassed behind the mask and armor but it was impossible to tell.  They did not take the food from her, though.

“Can I eat?”

“Not advisable,” said the Creed.

“Can you bring me up to date?”

He did.  Melanie looked down, CTH put a hand to her head in encouragement.  The Creed continued to wolf down the lunch put in front of him.

“More,” he said and a guard swore at him.  “You don’t need yours, Melanie.  I’ll finish it.”  And he did.

CTH thought how she wanted to kill him, then remembered in this state he used up more energy than when he was Jackson.  That reminded her she loved him and that she was amazed his head could eat like that without chewed food just spilling out the bottom his neck.

“Do you want my lunch?” asked CTH.

“No,” said the Creed.  “Eat up.  You’ll need the energy.”

She suddenly wondered if he had gone through all this before.  Then she remembered some of their late night conversations and realized he was just being reasonable.  She tucked into the beef lasagne, wondering when they were going to make a break for it and what the breakout was meant to accomplish.

An armored guard came in and clapped his hands.

“Everyone up and return to court,” he said.

“I haven’t eaten, yet.”

“Take it with you, you bitch, or I’ll smack you,” said the guard, and he charged his shoulder arm.

The court was  more packed than before.  There were people in suits, sunglasses, and earwigs.  Something about them screamed homeland security.  The judge came in.

“It seems a riot has started in New York City.  We have been unable to contact any of New York’s super powered community.  If you stop the riot and return to face charges, it will be taken into account.”

“No,” said Wilbur Aries.  “We will not do you a favor just so you can go status quo ante on us.”

“Your honor, this just goes to show they are unconcerned about this country and hence a danger to it…”

“That was never the prosecution’s stance, at least not its public stance, at least…not up until this moment,” said Aries.  “But the matter is unchanged: none of these people will do your bidding for no reason at all.”

“There is a reason, keeping the people safe,” said the prosecutor.

“You do it.  If you can put these people away and violate their rights, you can put the rioters away, yourselves.”

“This shows how guilty these people are…”

“Excuse me, am I being asked to fight?”  They looked at Melanie.  “I don’t see how you can ask me to fight if I’m not capable of bearing witness.”

“Being drafted does not make one a citizen,” said the prosecutor.  “But refusing the draft does make one a traitor.”

And then the argument once again got bogged down in detail, in minutia, in procedure instead of justice.

“They are arguing because they are trying to avoid or at least delay facing this super powered riot because they are cowards,” said the prosecutor.

“Maybe the prosecutor can accompany us to deal with the riot?  Perhaps he would like to deal with the matter, himself?  If he doesn’t want to do that, then by his own argument, he is a traitor and a coward,” said CTH.

“Why would we believe the offer when they blew up Satan?”  Everyone looked at the Creed, shocked looks on the visible faces.

“He attacked.”

“Because you knocked Tablegrrrl’s head off the table.  That sort of stuff drives him berserk.  You were so unjust even Satan couldn’t stand it,” said CTH.

The prosecutor looked to one of the uniforms.  Clearly he hadn’t expected the Creed to know that.

“Your honor, I am Takahashi of Homeland Security.  We have made our offer: if they put away the rioters we will take it into account in their court case.”

“Are you saying Homeland Security can interfere in court cases?” asked the judge.

“We can make recommendations to the judge, your honor,” said Takahashi.

“Or the judge can make his own decision, your offer is nothing in return for something,” said Aries.

The judge was quiet as he looked over the courtroom and his desk.  He pinched his lower lip and looked at CTH, who suddenly realized she knew what that particular signal meant.  But The Dark hadn’t been active long enough to have had a partner prior to the first CTH.  It seemed the rumors of an underground superpowered group were true.

“This court was established to deal with extraordinary affairs.  Though there are parallels to prior case law we largely deal with unprecedented events.  The revival of the dead, travel through time, travel to other planets and dimensions, beings who are functions of higher principles like destiny, and super powers themselves are all unprecedented in case law.  As such this court has far wider latitude than is granted to any other court in this country, in some ways exceeding the Supreme Court itself.

“If these were ordinary people, this would seem a strong case.  However, getting involved in a fracas is something that superpowers make more likely.  We accept this in case law because we say a person with a black belt in martial arts is more likely and in some respects more obligated than someone without fighting skills to defend someone being attacked.

“The wrestler called the Masked Marvel believed so.  He left the arena to phone the Bishop without the sounds of wrestlers in the background.  He saw a girl being dragged into an alley.  He took off his hat and trench-coat and, in the words of the reports of the time, enter the freight train from hell.  He expected more from himself because he was a 250 pound athelete with wrestling and boxing skills.   Had he been bullet proof, expectations would have been higher.  In the same way, our expectations for you are higher.

“Get out there, stop that riot, and if you do we will get rid of these charges.  Even for Outreguerre and Inversus, for whom I will not dismiss any charges other than the most recent ones from Gadsden state.

“Is that clear?”

CTH wondered if this was the breakout.  If so it seemed rather pathetic and pedantic.  It was a disappointment because she really wanted to see somebody punch the walls out.  CTH put aside the thoughts and spoke up.

“You release us, we get out of here and make our own ways to New York City.  We put down the riot, then we break up.  Any agreements we made while in the parallel worlds still hold.  Any questions?”

Everyone agreed.  They put their fists together and raised them high.  CTH bent over and kissed Tablegrrrl on the forehead.  They collected their weapons under the watchful eye of Ms Takahashi.  The Rebel Lodestone charged the table with beams of energy.  Then they put their hands on the table and disappeared from the courtroom.

And reappeared in the basement of the Creeds.

“Zis is a very poor secret hideout, mes amis.  Really, there are people who do good work and are the soul of discretion.  Zey are quite reasonable, too.”

The Creed set the co-ordinates for the door.  The magical images misted over and shone, the doorway shimmered.

“We’re going to New York?” asked Tablegrrrl.

“Actually, they blew Satan to pieces so we have to go get him.  You don’t have to go if you don’t want, I wouldn’t ask anyone to follow me into hell, but I owe the guy.”

“Where are you going?”

“Hell.”

There was a long pause.

“Seriously?”

“Absolutely.”

Then the Creed started talking about the burned down district, and CTH thought the line suddenly made a lot more sense.  And when he got to something wicked this way comes, he went back to the beginning.  By CTH’s count, the Creed had packed on four of the spells, like he was addicted to it.

“If he’s going, so am I,” said CTH.

“Me, too,” said Tablegirl.

Then they were all going.  So following the most monstrous version of the Creed they’d ever seen, they stepped into hell.

Lois Takes on a White Power Group in Ohio

The next morning, when she went to her front door for the morning paper, she found a manila envelope had been slipped inside. Forgetting the newspaper, she grabbed the package and tore the seal open. The packet contained papers written in Mandarin Chinese and a small pack of photos, paper-clipped together. It was from Mr. Jones, her boss.

The girl saw that her new assignment was to stop a militant group in Ohio. A small army, calling itself the “Democratic Alternative” was wealthy and had another army, of lawyers, at their beck and call. So far, they had been careful to keep inside the law. Any attempt by the government to enter their grounds was met by squads of lawyers brandishing desist orders.

Now, word was, they had acquired a nuclear bomb and were planning to blow up the Soviet Embassy in New York City. Even the FBI couldn’t infiltrate them. To be recruited, you had to be both a relative of a member and vouched for by three other members. And that was before even being considered. It wasn’t a large organization but, with its wealth, could still be dangerous. Mr. Jones wanted them out of business.

Lois called Mr. Peterson at his home to tell him she was leaving for awhile and to ask about the search for Sammy.  He hadn’t been found. She then booked a flight for Toledo. Bored with inactivity, she wanted to leave that same day.

*****

Mr. Jones was at a loss as to what to do about the congressman Ted had rooted out.  Senator Cranski was in the President’s party. He, himself, was on a mission directed by that same personage.  Should he report it to his boss or follow his mandate and take care of it himself?

By the young New England-born President’s direct order, he was on his own. One fear the President had was that the new, to remain unnamed, organization might be subverted to political uses. To that end, Jones reported to no one. Each President could only order him to disband or cut off his finances. Nothing else.

Jones was afraid the President would find out the order to kill Cranski came from him if the congressman were killed, think it was political, and then order him out of business. What could he do?

For days, Jones agonized over a decision before calling Ted Majostic from a phone booth.

Ted answered on the first ring. It was supposedly secure on Ted’s end and, with his money and influence, probably was.

“Thomp  . . .  I mean Jones?” came from Majostic’s end of the line.

“Yes. You did a good job on Number One. I want the same on Number Two. It should be an example for any others with the same idea in ruining our business dealings.”

“Right.  I was waiting for verbal confirmation.” Ted hung up.

Jones knew he didn’t have to go over particulars. Ted would have read his mind, might be doing it all day long for all he knew.

With one thing left to do before he went home for the day, Jones left his office to go down three flights of stairs to the basement of his office buiding, the effort a burden on his weak heart.

At the bottom, an iron door blocked his way.  Jones had to search his keyring for the seldom-used key. With a loud squeaking sound from the un-greased door, the portal opened. It revealed a dimly-lit and damp basement, extending the length and width of the building, only supporting pillars breaking the vastness.

Jones walked slowly to a door, one of a long row of them along one side. He looked into a small barred window. Inside the cell, a man sat dejectedly on a bare wooden bench. It was Sammy Lin.

*****

Lois flew to the Toledo airport and, using false ID, rented a car. She drove southeast for a small town named Fermont, a farming community on the Sandusky river. Her ultimate destination was to be a large fenced-in compound south of town.

She didn’t want to be obtrusive, so the woman had bought used camping equipment at a secondhand store outside Toledo, thus avoiding hotels. She didn’t think it would take more than one night but her map, provided by Jones, showed several camping grounds in the area. One even abutted the compound itself. Camping seemed a good excuse to get close.

“Ten dollars a night, in advance,” an old man told her, “and no hanky panky, either. I know you girls. You rent some space and the next thing I know thirty young people are living it up. You do, and I call the police.”

“Don’t worry. I’m alone and expect to stay that way.”

Lois paid him for several nights. She unpacked and tried to set up the unfamiliar tent. The first thing she found was that she didn’t have any tent-pegs.  None had come with it.

Since Lois did have plenty of cords that didn’t seem to be for anything, she was busily tying them to nearby trees and bushes when she noticed a helpful little boy of about ten or twelve watching her.

“What you doin’ lady?” he asked. “Why don’t you use the pump over there, and blow it up like you’re supposed to?”

The boy helped her with her tent, a fancy blowup model, and to set up the other equipment. Finding she hadn’t thought to get any propane cylinders either, he even supplied one from his father’s stash.

She also had to be shown how the use the propane stove and gasoline lantern. She’d never used any of those things in China.

Finally set up, she grilled several cheese sandwiches and made a pot of tea, inviting the boy, named Billy, to join her.

“You shoulda’ bought some potato chips too, Janet,” Billy gravely informed her. “Cheese sandwiches ain’t no good without chips.”

“Sorry, Billy. Next time. What do you know about those people next door? The ones with all the guns.”

“You mean the ‘DA-nuts’, that’s what we call ‘um?” He took a bite of sandwich and looked at her closely, seeing her slanted eyes. “For one thing, they wouldn’t like you much.”

“Why not? Most people like me. You like me, don’t you?” She grinned. “Or just my food?”

“You ain’t much of a cook, lady,” Billy told her. “I ain’t never had this kinda tea before though, and why don’t you use sugar? You ain’t got none?”

“You’re not supposed to use sugar in it. Nobody does where I come from.”

“You must come from the land of stupes, then. Everybody uses sugar. Oh, those guys only like white people. Don’t like any other kind, and even then you gotta go to a certain church. They come to my dad’s store sometimes, he sells clothes, and they always have guns,” Billy told her. “They don’t say much, just come in and get those army clothes and stuff.” Finished, he wandered around her area, checking things out.

“We go to the Temple ‘stead of their church so they don’t like us, only our cheap army clothes is all. Pa don’t care, as long as they pay.” Curiosity satisfied, Billy told her, “Nice to meet you, lady, but I gotta get back home for supper.” The boy left.

Lois lay down in her tent, waiting for sundown.

*****

Ted Finishes his Assignment

Ted didn’t even have to leave his office. He had kept a loose mental contact with Congressman Cranski. It had taken him longer to type up the information he’d gotten from the minds of both Cranski and the spy, Nicoli, than it did to fish for it. He could hardly ask his secretary to do the typing.

Nicoli Belkin’s mind had held the names and codes on most of the Soviet projects on the East Coast of the US. It had taken Ted two hours of searching through the man’s mind to find and scratch them down in a tablet. Even then, he wasn’t sure he had them all.

The only reason he had killed him then, rather than later, was to avoid unwanted attention.  There were a lot of windows in that restaurant and customers coming and going. It would have been only a matter of time before someone saw the spy wasn’t moving. When that happened, they might have also noticed Ted or his vehicle. Ted was an easy man to recognize.

He did have all the time in the world to dredge the congressman’s mind.  Senator Cranski knew few secrets to tell the Russians. His value was in his Appropriations Committee. He could steer funds away from some projects and toward other, more harmless, ones.

For example, there was a particularly bad jet fighter being produced. The congressman influenced the Air Force to buy hundreds of them, rather than a much better and cheaper model from another company.

“Janice. Please hold all my calls until I tell you,” Ted told his secretary, over the intercom. “I’ll be busy for awhile.” He leaned back, closed his eyes, and took over the Congressman’s mind.

An hour later, the District of Columbia police received an odd report from an FBI agent. The agent happened to be on a routine assignment, watching the front entrance to the Soviet Embassy in Washington. It seemed a US government limousine pulled up in front of it ad parked.

The an, as yet unidentified, passenger stepped out, walked up near the entrance, pulled a pistol out of his coat pocket and shot himself in the head.  Was it some sort of message to the Russians? the agent wondered, watching excitement develop across the street.

Before his final act, Cranski had sent a suicide note directly to his party leader, the President, explaining his role and actions.  That left it up to the President whether he leveled with the press or not.

*****

Gustaf Bjorkman sat at his desk at home in Karlstad, Sweden. A weak and demure-looking Meili sat in a wooden chair in front of him, a Chinese translator next to her.

“We find we must terminate your services,” he told the translator, who relayed the words to Meili. “You’re simply too ‘hot’ in this country, indeed, in all of Scandinavia.”

“You have  . . .  had many enemies,” she replied, perplexed. She’d done several jobs for the man and his friends, helping to put him into a high political position in his country. “I only did as you asked?”

“Except that we only asked you to resolve problems. You could have found means to convince my non-friends. Means besides killing them, along with their families and friends. Your bloodthirstiness has made you a poor choice.”

“You realize, Mr. Bjorkman, that I might find employment with others—others you might not be friendly with?”

He laughed. “I doubt if they want to be investigated like I hear I am. Right now, my remaining enemies are trying their best to tie me in with those deaths. They would love to catch you to implicate me, and I don’t think you’d like a Swedish jail.  Here is a final pay, and a Canadian passport.  I’d suggest you use it when you leave here.” He passed her an envelope.

Angry, Meili counted the money, finding it was a large amount, and in Canadian dollars. Another hint, she thought. Of course, with her ability to snap to safety, prison wasn’t an option. But being a fugitive would cramp her style in that country. And her home village in China might hear, find her, and make her return. Although the girl didn’t fear the Swedes, she couldn’t fight her entire village.

Smiling at her ex-boss, Meili stood, walked behind the interpreter’s chair, grabbed both his ears, and broke his neck.  Before he’d hit the floor, she was gone, snapping back to her Swedish home.

Meili closed out her account in a Stockholm bank. She’d already given up her rented apartment and had that airplane ticket to Canada. Meili had heard it was easy to cross between Canada and the United States, where the big profits would be.

Following Lois’s lead, she’d abandoned the village.  Although she expected to send some money back, Meili intended to lie and keep most of it for herself.  Let Lois be a fool and send all of hers, Meili thought. She wasn’t that stupid.

*****

“Sammy Lin.” Mr. Jones sat beside him in the cell.

“Sammy Lin. We have spent a lot of time and money on investigating you.”

“What have you don—”

“Quiet! As I was saying, we know more about you than you yourself know. While you’ve been sitting here in comfort. . . .” Jones looked around the bare room, sink and toilet in one corner, then continued, “better men and women than you have been working their tails off, just to try to keep you alive.  Now I have to make a tough decision, whether it was worth the expense and whether you should stay that way—alive, that is.

“I could leave it up to Lois. But, in this case, she would no doubt be biased. I can’t simply let you go, since it would lead to further problems. And there’s no room in my organization for a heartsick fool. You can see my problem, can’t you, Sammy Lin?”

“Just let me talk to Lois for a few minutes  . . .  then you can do anything you want with me.” Sammy shook nervously as he pleaded with Jones. “Can’t you see I love her?”

“Can’t you see you’re digging your own grave, man? Can’t you see that?” Mr. Jones was angry. The man was a bigger problem than he realized—the drunken lovesick idiot. The first time he and Lois had an argument he might get drunk and go to the police, or even the press. But Jones, although not sentimental, hesitated to kill an innocent man. His purpose was to protect idiots like Sammy.

“I’ll leave you for now, Sammy Lin,” he told the man. “Do us both a favor and get your mind off her and onto your own problems, for once. Think over what I’ve been saying to you.”

“I’m certain we have a great future together, sir,” Congressman Cabot Cranski, from the Boston Cranskis, beamed at his companion.  The congressman was on his sixth term at the nation’s capital and gathering funds to run for a seventh. He was one of the most powerful men in Congress.

“I look forward to it, congressman.” The man clasped Cabot’s hand fondly, sealing their agreement.

He spoke with a thick Slavic accent.  No wonder, since he’d been born in Soviet Slobovia. He’d just given the congressman the secret code to a Swiss bank account, one with enough money to clinch yet another term for Cabot.

They had been working together for a good many years. It felt good to own a United States congressman.  Everyone should have one, the spy figured. The deal consummated, they would leave the small restaurant separately and through different entrances. Per orders, Cabot stayed to finish his hamburgers and fries, giving his friend and employer time to leave the area.

The politician dawdled with his meal, not caring to face the long drive back to Capital Hill. Wanting to keep the meeting secret, Cabot had driven himself rather than using his government chauffeur. The great man idly rearranged cold french-fries into different patterns on the plate, as he intended doing to funds in his Committee on Military Appropriations when he returned home.

In the rear parking lot, the Soviet spy smiled as he slid into an anonymous Ford, borrowed for the occasion. He started the car and reached for a gearshift lever. Before he could get it into “drive,” he abruptly froze in place.

The man sat without moving, one hand on the lever and the other on the steering wheel, for slightly over two hours — until fuel ran out and the car stopped on its own. It being a busy two hours for the restaurant, nobody noticed him sitting there. Only one teenager that came out twice to have a smoke during brief breaks could have noticed, and he wasn’t all that curious.

Two hours and ten minutes after he’d started the engine, the man slumped over the wheel, an apparent heart attack. At least that was what the coroner wrote in his report. Nobody noticed a gray van that left the lot after the man died, or the fat Negro with an afro hairdo driving it.

*****

A lovelorn Sammy Lin slumped in a rear booth of a dim barroom. Four glasses of mixed drinks sat in front of him, two empty and two full. He missed Lois, which was why he spent so much of his time in cheap bars. An interesting, though not very sensible, solution to a ruined love affair.

Sammy had been drunk more often than sober lately.  Thinking Lois had left him and moved out of her apartment after their fight, he’d knocked on her door for the first few days she was gone. Bertha, downstairs, said she knew nothing, that the rent was paid until the end of the next month — and none of her business as long it was paid in advance. All anyone knew was that Lois had not been seen anywhere around the area.

Sammy thought it was because of him, his fault she was gone. After a week, he hit the bottle even harder. He was so brokenhearted he couldn’t face work, so he simply stopped going in, finally moving to another apartment.  His thought was to get out of her life and her out of his.

Now here he was, in Washington DC, most of his savings gone — not that he had much to start with. As a drunken decision, he’d decided to find her. Using his skills and contacts in finding missing persons, Sammy had traced her new employer there to Washington.

At one point, Lois had told him about looking for a specific type of ad in the newspaper, like in a spy movie.  It was to find someone selling a specific old car for around $10,000.  He’d found three of those types in a the newspaper printed on the day before she’d left.  A contact at the newspaper office had told him the origin of those ads.

Two were local, from longtime residents selling vehicles. The third stood out because it was an odd price for the car specified and also being requested by a firm all the way from Washington DC. It was a place called “XYZ Industries.”

The name had been fictitious, but he bribed a clerk at the newspaper office to get the phone number of the person paying for the ad. When Sammy arrived, that location had been closed and locked up for the day.  He had gone there, to find it was a large modern building.  Some sort of new computerized business.

First thing tomorrow, Sammy thought, he would get answers. His drunken mind imagined himself fighting his way inside to save his girl.

*****

Life went on.  As Lois waited for word of Sammy, she chased down lawbreakers and spent time at home. She also made several visits to the village in China to see her mother, friends, and Jose — who was still a long way from the teleporting stage of his training.

“Hey, Lois. I can break eight bricks at a time now. wham, and they shatter,” Jose told her, enthusiastically. “And I ran around that dirt track for ten hours straight the other day, full out, without getting too tired.  Right now I could win any race in Mexico. This is some serious stuff, you know that?”

What he didn’t mention was that any ten-year-old girl in the village could still kick his butt, with one hand tied behind her.

“Keep it up, Jose,” she replied, glad for him, “and you can become a great warrior. You find a girlfriend yet?  I hear Tan likes you. She was asking questions a couple of weeks ago. At least that’s what Peter told me.”

The question made Jose blush.  Lois herself was the only girl for him.

“You know Peter, and the way he talks,” Jose muttered, embarrassed.

“How are Peter and his girl getting along?” she asked.

“Meili moved out. In fact she seems to disappear somewhere a lot, a whole lot.  She doesn’t have an assignment and nobody seems to know where she goes. Some day, when I get good at this stuff, I’m gonna kick Peter’s fat Nordic ass.”

“I’m afraid you have a long way to go for that,” Lois told him. “You know where I can find Chu Li? I have some money for him.”

When she returned to Dallas, Lois went out for a newspaper. It was already three-thirty and she wanted to check it for ads. Mr. Jones had said it wasn’t necessary, but she was in the habit. She didn’t do more than glance at the front page, which had a story about some Soviet diplomat in Washington dying. She did find her ad, and another assignment.  Lois didn’t know what to do about it though, since she’d been told not to call back anymore. Well, she would just have to stay around home for awhile, she figured.  If Jones wanted to contact her, he’d find a way.

Lois spent the evening in watching television, waiting for a knock on her door or a telephone call, and thinking of poor Sammy.

“Damn it. Why can’t I get him out of my head?” she muttered to herself, watching a crime show on television. It was already after midnight, so she snapped the set off, angrily, and went to bed.