 
Attack Doll 5: The End of Lily Lee

by Douglas A. Taylor

Copyright 2014 by Douglas A. Taylor

Smashwords Edition

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Chapter 1

"All right, team, Wizzit says this will be the last one, so let's not let up!"

That was Mike, our team lead, trying to keep our spirits from flagging as we faced our fifth monster of the day. And as I looked around at my fellow Primes, all of whom were standing around in various stages of exhausted readiness, I privately agreed that we needed something to inspire us.

Toby and Bill were limping heavily, Nicolai and Padma were each leaning on their battleaxes for support, and Mike was definitely favoring one arm. The sword in Trina's hand was drooping almost to the ground; I hurt all over, and I could barely see out my left eye, which was rapidly swelling shut thanks to the death struggles of the last monster we had fought. Yup, we were going to have some serious healing up to do after this mission was over.

It used to be that the alien would-be conquerors of Earth who ran Enclave could send down no more than a single monster every couple of days, and at the time, that seemed like a lot for us Primes to handle. Then, about six months ago, they started sending out as many as three monsters in a single day, and for the past two months they had been sending up to five at a time.

Granted, that didn't mean that we suddenly had five times as much work to do. For one thing, Enclave has as much trouble as anyone else finding quality recruits. Of the fourteen or so monsters we had faced so far this week, five were real pushovers and two had vaporized the moment any of us had fired a blaster at them. Then, too, we were getting some extra help; besides us seven full-time Primes, we had the four retirees, the so-called Primes Emeriti, helping us out as often as they were able.

Today had been a bad day, though. The four previous monsters had been real doozies, and this one looked worse than the others. It was a large, long snake -- large as in "I couldn't get my arms all the way around this sucker" and long as in "if you laid all us Primes end-to-end, that would make it a whole lot easier for him to gulp us down." And fangs! I know the Enclave folks love fangs on their monsters, but this pair were some of the biggest I had ever seen -- as long as my arm and dripping with something I was afraid was probably poison.

Shelley raised her triple-blaster, the one she was borrowing from Trina, and fired a shot into the creature's gaping maw. "Shooters, let's position ourselves and start whittling this thing down to size," she called out. Although Shelley has been a Prime Emeritus (or Prime Emerita, I suppose, since she's female) for only a couple of months, she has quickly become the unquestioned leader of that little subgroup of ours.

The other three Emeriti -- Mayumi, Alvaro, and Cathy -- gamely spread out so that they formed a rough square with the snake in the center and began firing. The four of them had to be at least as tired as we were, but they were probably in better shape, injury-wise. Paradoxically, this was because they had no force shields to protect them the way we regular Primes did. We tended to keep them back, out of harm's way, while we did the close-in fighting and got beaten up the worst.

"All right, let's the rest of us start attacking in pairs," Mike ordered once the Emeriti were in position. "Green and I will go first. Ready?"

"Actually," Wizzit broke in, "Blue's got this."

Everyone turned to look at me. "I do?" I gulped nervously, trying to gauge how much bigger this monster was than me. Wizzit is the alien cloud of pink gas who gives us the tech we use to fight Enclave, and he usually knows what he's talking about. I wasn't so sure about this time, though.

"You do," he affirmed. "It's time to start putting some of that extra practice to work."

"Uh, right." I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders. "Okay, then, I guess I've got this. Um, everyone back away and stop shooting. And . . . here goes!" I concentrated briefly, the way Wizzit had taught me, and inhaled a quick, sharp breath.

Nothing happened. After a moment, I said sheepishly, "Uh, let me try that again . . ."

"Yup, you're just taking him apart, aren't you, Blue?" That was Toby, supportive as ever. He hefted his hammer. "Come on, Red. Let's start this."

"Just a minute, Green." Bill stepped forward. "I know what Blue is trying to do, and it's not a bad idea. I don't know why I didn't think of it first. Blue is just not experienced enough to handle it yet. Here, step aside, Blue; I'll take care of it."

I held up a finger. "Hang on, Black," I said sharply. "I've got this; just give me another shot." I set myself, concentrated, and drew in another sharp breath.

I'm not sure what I did differently, but whatever it was, it worked this time. My lungs burned as I drew in part of my force shield along with the air. The energy spread rapidly throughout my body, and the whole world changed. The light around me became darker, redder. My teammates' voices drifted down the scale into subsonic rumbles and then vanished into silence. And everyone and everything surrounding me slowed down until they eventually froze into immobility.

I had done this trick, this speeding-up of my personal timeframe, a couple of times before in battle. I had never before done it on purpose, though, only in response to some great need. And now that I had this monster helpless before me, I wasn't quite sure how to take advantage of it. Should I kick it in the gut? Punch it in the eye? Shoot it with my blaster? What would do the most damage?

"Blue, I would suggest you use your weapon to slit this thing open from head to tail." That was Wizzit, who was somehow able to keep up with me even in this accelerated state. All the practicing of this trick that I had been doing in our gym had benefited him, at least. Before, he had had trouble adjusting his synthesized speech to my rate of speed, but now his voice wobbled only a little as he spoke.

I nodded to indicate that I had heard him; I still hadn't mastered talking while in this state, and I wasn't sure I ever would. Pulling my weapon from my belt, I advanced upon the snake. From past experience, I knew that I had ten minutes or so, subjectively speaking, before the effect faded -- about five seconds or less of real time. Certainly enough to take this critter down, but probably not enough to dawdle.

Even though I was moving faster than the eye could follow, it felt as though I were slogging along at the bottom of an ocean of mud. Yep, air resistance was a real problem. Still, it took me only a couple of minutes to make it to the snake's, er, throat. Or whatever you called the part just below its head.

My weapon was one that Padma had built a couple of months ago in a burst of creativity. We had just fought a faux Hindu god called Indra, and afterwards, Padma had decided to make her own version of Indra's mythological weapon, the Vajra. Knowing that I liked to use small, hand-sized weapons, she offered it to me to replace my recently-destroyed sais.

My own personal vajra was basically just a short fighting stick, with ridges on the shaft to facilitate gripping; when I held it in my closed fist, it stuck out a little over an inch on either side. The part that came out past my pinky had been filed to a conical point, sort of like a sharpened pencil, and Padma assured me that it ought to be hard enough to penetrate the hide of any Enclave monster if I struck with sufficient force.

The other end consisted of a spherical golden knob. The knob, according to Padma, had been packed with an extra amount of the tech that we use in our weapons to disrupt the monsters' Enclave enhancements. A good, hard blow from that end of the vajra ought to feel like a mini-thunderbolt to any beastie unlucky enough to receive it.

The two ends together symbolized both the cutting power of the diamond and the irresistible force of the thunderbolt and thus made my vajra a fitting replica of the weapon that the original Indra had used to slay the legendary serpent Vritra. Or at least that was Padma's breathless, excited explanation as she handed it to me for the first time. I'm not Hindu, so the backstory didn't mean all that much to me. It was obviously important to Padma, though, and since she is important to me, I accepted the gift enthusiastically. And I have to admit, it's a pretty nice weapon -- one of the best I've ever had, in fact -- and for the most part it has lived up to expectations.

I gripped the vajra with both hands, ready to begin slaying my own serpent. Reaching up as close to the thing's head as I could, I stabbed down with all my strength and began the task of dragging the tip along the creature's body. Let me tell you, slicing this thing open was a lot of work, kind of like trying to etch a line in asphalt with an icepick. Between that and fighting the ever-present air resistance, it took me almost all the rest of my available time to cut my way through this critter's hide.

When I was done, I took a step back to survey my handiwork, being careful not to bump into any of my still-immobile teammates. The part I had first stabbed was just beginning to spark, and I watched the line of sparks travel down the length of its body, accelerating rapidly as my timeframe slowed down. By the time the fireworks hit its tail, my vision and hearing had returned to normal and I was moving at regular speed again.

I heard the startled gasps from my fellow Primes as I (to their eyes) vanished from the spot where I had been standing and reappeared at my current location. The monster was in full fail mode now, as all of its Enclave enhancements self-destructed at once. A largish spark flew out from the dying beastie and struck my hand. I yelped and shook it off, then ducked for cover behind Trina. Speeding up my timeframe had temporarily drained my force shield of power; right now, I had no more protection than one of the Emeriti. Less protection, actually, since I couldn't even use one of our weapons to defend myself. A little over a minute later, the monster was completely gone and Wizzit teleported us back to HQ.

As the teleportation haze cleared from my vision, Toby slapped me on the back hard enough to make me stumble. "Hey, nice work, Trevor," he said with a grin. He had unblurred himself -- that is, he had turned off the greenish mist of his force shield -- so I could actually see that he was grinning. "I know I wasn't looking forward to fighting that thing."

"Thanks, Toby," I replied. I looked down at the vajra in my hand. The supposedly diamond-hard point had snapped off sometime during my attack on the monster. "Kind of broke my weapon, though."

Padma came over with a cry of dismay. "Already? Trevor, you go through weapons too fast! Nicolai and I can't keep up with you!"

I handed her the broken weapon. "Sorry," I said with a grin. "I liked this one pretty well -- well enough to ask you to make me another one -- but I guess it just wasn't hard enough to cut through a monster like that."

"I have located the broken tip back at the battle site," Wizzit announced. "It is now destroyed." That's our Wizzit, thorough as ever. He guards our tech pretty jealously; he doesn't take any chances on it falling into outside hands, ever.

Nicolai had joined us and was looking at the weapon in Padma's hand. "I hardened it as much as I could," she said to him. "What do you think? Is there anything else I could try?"

Nicolai looked at her, then over at Trina. "I have an idea," he said thoughtfully. "Not for the vajra, but for something else. Let us discuss it later."

"Enough chitchat," Wizzit broke in. "You kids went through a meat grinder today. Healing comas all around, starting in two minutes."

We all looked at each other, shrugged, and began heading for the lounge. Wizzit could be an awful pain sometimes, the way he insists on healing us up ASAP after missions, but in this case, I didn't think anyone was going to complain.

Looking around, I was a little surprised to discover that the Primes Emeriti were coming along with the rest of us. Shelley sometimes hung around HQ after battles, since she and Bill are engaged to be married, but Mayumi, Cathy, and Alvaro usually teleported out right away. They have lives, after all. Busy ones, too, from what I have heard.

"What's going on?" I asked Shelley.

She gave me a surprised look. "You mean you don't know?" she asked.

"Trevor spends most of his time sulking in the gym these days," Trina said, laying a hand on my shoulder. She gave me a wry smile. "He might not have heard us discussing the plans."

"Trina, love, if 'sulking in the gym' is what enabled him to destroy that snake today," Mike pointed out, "then perhaps we could all stand to sulk a bit more."

"You do know that today is Bill's last day, right?" Shelley said to me, ignoring Mike and Trina.

"Sure," I said with a shrug. "And tomorrow I'm bringing Angie her new Prime belt."

"Yes, well, we decided we'd throw Bill a bit of a going-away do," Mike said. "Food in the kitchen after healing comas are done. Attendance is not optional, mate. We'll do our standard debriefing tomorrow after breakfast."

"Sounds good to me," I said. "Of course, I'll be a little late. Got to wait for my force shield to recharge itself before my healing coma can start." Mike nodded and turned into the lounge with the other regular Primes.

Mayumi, Cathy, and Alvaro took the right turn into the kitchen, and I headed for my room to give the others some privacy. See, when you're in a healing coma, you don't really want anyone around who's fully awake. Healing comas aren't usually comas in the medical sense; most of the time when Wizzit's healing you up, you're just sort of half-asleep. One side-effect of that is that you talk. We call it babbling. It's usually nothing important, just whatever comes into your semi-dreaming mind, but it could be embarrassing to have someone else listen in while you're doing it.

Shelley continued walking beside me as I entered the hallway that led to the boys' rooms. "Listen, Trev," she said confidentially, "I know you and Bill don't get along . . ."

I shrugged. "We try, but it doesn't always work out."

"I know, and I appreciate the effort. His heart's in the right place, but . . . well, the two of you are too different in some ways, and too alike in others." She smiled and laid a hand on my shoulder. "At the party today, I'd like you to try to say something nice to him, okay? It doesn't have to be anything big, and it definitely shouldn't be anything phony. Just some positive thing you can say to him -- and really mean it -- before he leaves the Primes for good. I'd take it as a personal favor, and I know it would mean a lot to him."

I grinned. I like and trust Shelley as much as anyone I've ever known -- heck, everybody does. For her sake, I'd gladly do something like that. "Sure thing, Shelley."

She smiled again and squeezed my shoulder. "Thanks, Trev."

Chapter 2

The party was a lot of fun. We live isolated lives at HQ, both geographically and socially, so we seize upon any chance for a celebration, especially when we have guests. Today's was a big one.

Okay, let me quickly explain the situation with Bill: Our leader, Commander Windham, was killed about eight months ago, and Shelley, who was Prime Red at the time, was captured and imprisoned by the US military shortly after that. In light of all the chaos that ensued, Wizzit decided that we needed to replenish our ranks with someone who could come up to speed as quickly as possible. He invited a former Prime, Bill Harding, to return to active duty until we got things straightened out.

I have a few small complaints against Bill, mainly his tendency to be awfully full of himself and his often-casual dismissal of me as a young punk who wasn't ready for the big time. And I still held a grudge over what I considered his biggest blunder of all time: to my mind, he was largely responsible for the death of a young woman I cared for very much.

Even I had to admit, though, that he did a bang-up job as Prime Black -- as an advisor, a talented builder of tech devices, a kick-ass fighter, and generally a capable extra set of hands. I think most of my teammates would have liked to see him stay on indefinitely. Still, with Shelley having been released from military custody a couple of months ago and my sister Angela eager to come on board as our new Prime Violet, I think we all knew it was time for Bill to re-retire.

Mike's not especially good at making speeches, but he stood up and said a few heart-felt words, and then Bill said some nice things, and finally Nicolai presented him with our going-away gift. It was a wide, black-metal bracelet, similar in size and shape to the bracelets worn by our other Primes Emeriti. In keeping with our practice of naming our retirees after metals, Bill would be known after today as Prime Blackiron, or just Iron for short. (Or who knows, we might just keep on calling him Black. He seems to like that designation.)

After Bill had fastened the bracelet onto his wrist and activated it for the first time, Mike clapped a hand on his shoulder. "I think the thing I'm going to miss the most is your help with the paperwork," he said. "I don't know how I'm going to keep up with it all without a Prime Commander."

"Prime Commander will be joining you tomorrow," came Wizzit's voice from the overhead speakers.

He said it so casually that it took a moment for it to sink in. Within ten seconds, though, all conversation had died away in response to that bombshell. Everyone looked up at the ceiling. "Say that again, Wizzit?" Toby said.

"I have selected a replacement for Commander Windham," Wizzit said calmly. "The new Prime Commander will join you on a permanent basis first thing tomorrow morning."

"Who is it?" Trina asked eagerly. "Is it anyone we know?"

"Not tellin'!"

We groaned and collectively rolled our eyes. See, the annoying thing about Wizzit is this childish streak of his. He knows a lot about a lot of things, he's given us all this cool alien tech to fight Enclave with, and he even has the occasional deep insight into the human personality, but . . . well, he can be a real jerk sometimes. A lot of the time, actually. I don't know whether all the beings from his home planet are like that or whether he's the exception. I have to think it's the latter; I just can't imagine that an entire race of these long tubes of pink gas would survive for long if they were all like him.

"Don't you think this is something we ought to know?" Nicolai said, trying to sound cool and reasonable.

"You will know -- tomorrow!" Yup, Wizzit sounded just like a little kid who knew something that the grownups didn't.

"Oh, come on, Wizzit!" Padma said impatiently. "Tell us!"

"Uh uh! Not tellin'!"

Nicolai laid a restraining hand on Padma's arm. "Don't bother getting angry," he told her quietly. "Let him have his fun. When he gets like this, the only one who can ever talk him out of it is Shelley."

"He has always been like that," Mayumi added.

Padma turned to look meaningfully at Shelley, who laughed. "I agree with Nicolai," she said lightly. "Let him have his fun. There's no reason you have to find out today."

Mike nodded. "That sounds good to me."

"Let us know when you find out, though," Alvaro said. "We're curious, too."

"But Mike --" Padma began.

He silenced her with an upraised finger. "We can wait until tomorrow morning to find out," he said, sounding uncharacteristically calm. "I, for one, trust Wizzit's choices."

When Padma seemed as if she were going to protest some more, he leaned forward and whispered something into her ear. She frowned and looked quizzically at him. "No! Do you really think so?"

"Just a guess, love. Just a guess." He laid a finger knowingly alongside his nose, then went over to get more punch. Padma remained frowning at the floor for a moment longer, then shrugged and appeared ready to drop the matter.

"What did he say to you?" Nicolai asked her curiously.

Padma hesitated, then gave him one of her thousand-watt smiles. "Not tellin'!"

After that, there wasn't a whole lot left to do until lights-out except eat and socialize. Healing comas tend to make one hungry, and we made a pretty serious dent in the food that Shelley and the others had prepared for us. Each of us approached Bill at one time or another to say our personal goodbyes. When my turn came, I went up to him and shook his hand solemnly. "Bill," I said, looking him straight in the eye, "you are, without a doubt, the best sparring partner I've ever had."

He blinked at me in silence. I think he didn't know how to respond. After a moment, he nodded. "I can honestly say the same thing about you, Trevor." And that was how we left it. Eventually Wizzit started dimming the lights; us regulars bid the Primes Emeriti -- including Bill -- goodnight. Wizzit teleported them back to their homes and we went to bed.

The next morning, I hurriedly dressed and got stuff ready for my trip home. Then I practically ran down the hall and tried the office door.

"It's locked." That was Toby's voice, coming from the kitchen. "Already tried it. Can't tell whether anyone's inside or not."

"Hmph!" I shrugged and went to join Toby, who was eating his favorite breakfast of late, toast with Marmite and cheese. I honestly don't know what he and Mike see in the stuff. I tried it once, and it was awful. Shuddering, I went to make myself some tea and buttered toast.

The others joined us a few minutes later. Breakfast was a silent affair; the six of us kept staring in the direction of the locked office door. Finally, though, we all finished eating, and Mike led the way to the office. He rapped lightly.

"Door open," came a voice from within.

Mike pulled open the door, then held it for the rest of us. Padma stepped in and stopped short. She turned to Mike, astonishment written across her pretty features. "How did you know?"

Mike gave her his most confident grin. "Just a guess, love. But I didn't see how Wizzit could have chosen anyone else."

The rest of us pushed past her, eager to get our first glimpse of our new executive director. For a moment, I think we were all too surprised to speak. Trina was the first to find her tongue. "Shelley?" she exclaimed.

"That's 'Commander Windham' to you, Prime Orange!" Shelley replied with mock severity. Then she grinned at us all. "Come on in and sit down." She explained, "Wizzit offered me my father's old job about a month ago. I didn't have anything better to do, so I took him up on it. I wasn't allowed to say anything about it until today, though."

"I knew it all along." Mike smirked at the rest of us. "Like I told Padma, I didn't see how Wizzit could have chosen anyone else."

"I'll take that as a compliment, Mike." Shelley looked around with evident satisfaction. "I have to say, it's good to be back."

"It is certainly good to have you back," Trina said. "We had been wondering what you were doing with yourself."

Shelley shrugged. "As the only Prime ever to have been publicly outed, so to speak, I've become something of a minor celebrity. The news media have me on speed-dial; they ask me for an opinion every time you guys fight a monster. I've turned down loads of opportunities to sell energy drinks and sports shoes, and you wouldn't believe how many offers I've had to do porn!" She made a face. "For the most part, though, I've just been going on the occasional mission with you guys, helping Mom and Francesca run the ranch, and giving interviews to the press. And, of course, figuring out how Bill and I are going to meet publicly."

"Meet publicly?" Nicolai frowned. "I don't understand. The two of you are already going to get married, so . . ."

"So," I said, "when they do get married, people are going to say, 'Shelley, where did you and Bill first meet?' What's she supposed to tell them, that they got to know each other when they were both Primes?"

"Oh, I see." Nicolai nodded in understanding. "You need a cover story to keep Bill's identity secret."

"Exactly," Shelley said. "The current plan is for us to meet at a martial arts exposition that's taking place in Toronto next month. I'll be there to sign autographs, and Toronto is Bill's old stomping grounds. We'll bump into each other, strike up a conversation, have dinner together, and he'll sweep me off my feet!" She sighed dreamily, then leaned forward, all business once more. "But enough about me. Bring me up to speed on how the team has been doing. I'm probably a little out of touch."

Mike shook his head. "Not much has changed, except that we've now five times as many monsters to fight, and you already know about that. I've got Trevor setting up some occasional cross-training sessions, but we've been so busy lately that it's hard to schedule 'em. The only real bit of news is the new Prime Violet."

"Let's talk about her, then. It's Angela Chiao, right? Trevor's sister?"

"That's right," I said. "I'm going out today to bring her her new Prime belt, in fact. And Toby's going out with me."

In response to her questioning look, Mike explained, "While you were a prisoner, Shelley, we decided that it would be safer if we went out on our vacations in pairs. It worked out so well that we're continuing the practice."

"We're planning to stay at my parents' house for a day or so," I went on, "until after Angie's high school graduation ceremony. Then we'll bring her back here."

"And that's okay with your folks?"

"Sure. They like Toby. It may be a bit awkward if you have to call us in for a battle, since my older sister and my two brothers will be visiting as well, but my folks can cover for us if they have to."

"That's good." Shelley smiled. "I have to say, I think Angie's a good choice. She's worked with us before, so she won't need quite so much training as a completely raw recruit would. In fact, Mike, I'd think that she should be able to start going out on missions immediately. It's your call, though."

Mike nodded. "Just as soon as she's physically able."

Shelley frowned. "Physically able? What does that mean?"

Mike waved her question aside. "It's a long story; I'll explain later. Now Trina, you had been acting as Angie's minder when she was Junior Prime Pink. Still want the job?"

Trina shrugged. "Sure. She's good to work with. And I will train her to use her blaster as well."

"Good," he replied. "Who wants to work with her on hand-to-hand? Probably not Trevor."

"Not Padma, either," I said. "Angie's a fourth-degree black belt, like I am. I still outrank her, but Padma's only a second Dan. It probably wouldn't work out."

Toby tentatively raised his hand. "I'll do it." He gave us all a sheepish grin. "I mean, she won't need much teaching, will she? Just practice fighting someone a whole lot bigger and stronger than she is? That'd be me."

Mike grinned. "Thanks, Toby," he said. "That's good thinking."

Shelley, I noticed, was leaning back in her chair giving Toby an appraising look. There was no denying that Toby was big; at six-four, he was taller even than Shelley, and he's stronger than anyone else on the team. I wondered, though, whether she was thinking the same thing I had been thinking lately, that he might be getting a little sweet on my sister.

Toby was a decent enough guy, I guess, but he was also about ten years older than Angie. Sure, I trusted them both, but I wasn't sure I liked the idea of him spending hours and hours alone with her.

Shrugging, I decided not to go borrowing trouble; Angela was a big girl, after all, and she was used to guys being sweet on her. And besides, I knew she would not appreciate my involving myself in her love life. The one time I had tried that, when we were still in high school, she hadn't spoken to me for a week afterwards.

I turned my attention to the vid of our most recent battle that Wizzit was putting up on the screen. One of our traditions is that we debrief after every battle. Shelley's dad used to run the debriefings when he was alive; Bill had been running them lately. Now that Shelley was our new Prime Commander, we would be reporting to her.

Mike narrated most of it, since his group had fought two different monsters. Trina described the fight she had led her team on, and Toby talked about the monster he, Bill, and I had taken on. Shelley didn't ask very many questions, even about the parts she wasn't personally involved with. She didn't say much at all, in fact, until we got to the part where I took out the snake monster.

At that point, Wizzit treated us all to a Trevor-eye-view of my attack, slowed 'way down so that it looked like I was moving at only about four times normal speed. As we watched the snake dissolve into sparks, she nodded to herself. "I thought that's what you were doing," she commented.

Mike said, "Any chance you could teach me to do that little trick, mate? Seems like it could come in awfully handy."

I looked over at him, a little surprised. Mike doesn't often speak directly to me like that, at least not lately. He has been treating me with kid gloves for the past two months, in fact, rarely disciplining me or even commenting on anything I do during our battles.

I think he has been avoiding me because he believes I'm still mad at him over Lily's death, and to some extent I suppose he's right. I mean, I'm still hurting over what happened, and I do think he bears part of the blame, although not as much as Bill. But Lily was dead, after all, and all the blaming in the world couldn't change that. So maybe this would be our chance to begin to repair relations.

"Probably," I said with a nod and a grin. "I'd be willing to try, anyway."

In fact, as Prime Red, Mike ought to find the speeding-up trick easier to learn than I had. Nicolai says that each of us Primes is equally powerful, in theory. Practically speaking, though, things become easier, more intuitive, as one progresses from Violet to Red. Still, Wizzit seems to think that I have a special talent for things like this. Who knows, maybe Mike wouldn't be able to learn it at all.

"It's harder than just generating a shock wave, Mike," Shelley warned him. "I did the same thing a couple of times when I was Red. I could never do it when I wanted to, though, only by accident."

"How fast was Trevor moving, Wizzit?" Nicolai asked.

"His personal time frame was speeded up to one hundred twenty-one times normal," Wizzit replied.

I frowned. One hundred twenty-one? That was oddly exact, and the number itself sounded familiar . . .

Nicolai was obviously thinking the same thing, and as usual with math, he was a couple of steps ahead of me. "The number associated with Prime Blue is eleven," he mused, "and one hundred twenty-one is eleven squared. So, if I, as Prime Five, learned to do this, I would move at only twenty-five times normal?" He sounded disappointed.

"You could speed yourself up to five times normal, twenty-five times, one hundred twenty-five times, or, with practice, even six hundred twenty-five times. Any power associated with your prime number. That last speed, though, would not be practical; paradoxically, the air resistance would keep you immobile."

"It's a big enough problem when I do it," I added. "It feels like I'm wading through molasses."

"Ah, I see." Nicolai nodded with satisfaction. "Thank you."

Shelley looked around at us. "Anything else? No? I think we're done, then."

I had a couple of hours before Toby and I would teleport to the small town in Ohio where my parents live. At HQ, Wizzit keeps us on Greenwich Mean Time, which, taking daylight savings time into account, put us four hours ahead of my folks. I knew Angie would be eager to get her Prime belt, but I didn't think my parents would appreciate being woken up in the wee small hours of the morning.

I didn't want to work out in the gym and get all hot and sweaty before going home, so instead I retreated to my room for some serious piano practicing. My mom teaches piano, and she still gives me lessons whenever I come home for a visit. I've been working on Gershwin's Three Preludes lately, and I was hoping to move onto something else, so I decided to put some extra polish on them today.

I tend to lose track of time when I'm practicing, so it seemed like no time at all had passed before Toby was knocking on my door and telling me that he was ready to leave. I grabbed my overnight bag, and Wizzit teleported us out to a corn field beside a gravel road that led to the Chiao family home.

My mother's face lit up when she answered the door. "Trevor!" she exclaimed. "And Toby! It's good to see you. Would you boys like some breakfast?"

She was speaking English to us. If it had been just me, I'm sure her greeting would have been in Mandarin Chinese; she and Dad have always wanted us kids to get a good grounding in the language of the homeland, so we spoke the mother tongue at home whenever possible.

They weren't fanatics about it, though. We also learned Cantonese as a courtesy to my Aunt Min, and whenever Grandmaster Park, the owner of the local Tae Kwon Do studio, came over for dinner, we spoke Korean. Since my dad teaches East Asian languages at the local college, I guess growing up quadri-lingual never seemed like a big deal to me.

At any rate, it was getting near to lunchtime according to my stomach, and I decided I wouldn't say no to congee or even another meal of tea and toast. "Sure, Mom. Sounds great.

She lowered her voice. "Your younger sister is in the dining room," she told me. "She asked to see you just as soon as you got here. Your older sister is with her. Mark is upstairs with the baby."

I nodded. My parents and Angie knew that I was a Prime, but Joy and her husband Mark did not, and I wasn't allowed to tell them. I knew Angie would want to get her Prime belt as soon as possible, but I wasn't sure how I would be able to present it to her with Joy in the room.

My mother led Toby and me to the dining room. Angie smiled up at us. "Hey, big brother. Hi, Toby."

"Hi, Angela," Toby said soberly. He stood there staring at her for a long moment. I don't think he had seen her since that day she had fought Indra alongside us as Junior Prime Pink.

She had saved Toby's life that day, standing protectively over his unconscious body, shooting her triple-blaster up at the faux Hindu god as he attacked. She had paid dearly for that act of bravery, though. Indra had thrown her hard against the corner of a building, fracturing her spine and causing numerous other injuries. I think Toby has always felt a little guilty about that.

At the time, we had not been sure that she would even survive, but between my force shield, her Junior Prime Pink badge, and the fact that she and I had lots of genes in common, Wizzit had been able to rig up a healing coma for her. He had managed to get nearly everything healed up before the power supply on her poor little badge burned itself out.

He hadn't had time to fix it all, though; the spinal nerves leading to her legs were still damaged. She was able to walk, but just barely. The last time I had seen her, she had been leaning heavily on a cane. Now, I saw two canes resting against the wall behind her.

Joy got to her feet, nodded a brief hello to Toby, whom she had met before, and took hold of my arm. "We need to talk, Younger Brother," she said in a low voice. "Right now."

"Uh, sure, just let me put my stuff down." I set my overnight bag on the floor. "Toby, how's about if you show Angie the present we brought her?" I said, giving him a meaningful look.

Toby nodded, and I saw Angie's eyes light up as Joy led me from the room. We went into the den, and she closed the doors. "Our younger sister needs to see a doctor as soon as possible," she said without preamble.

"Really? About what?"

She made an exasperated sound. "You know what. Her legs. She can barely walk, and she's getting worse."

I stared at the floor, shaking my head. "She's going to be okay . . ."

"No, she's not! Anybody can see that. Geez, you sound just like Mom and Dad. Do you know, they haven't had anybody check her out since the accident? Not even an acupuncturist, and you know how strongly they believe in that!"

I raised my hands in a placating gesture. "Look, sis, she slipped and fell in the parking lot at school after the musical, and she wrenched her back." Yeah, that was the story that Angie, my parents, and I had cooked up to explain the trouble she was having walking. It was pretty thin -- even I could see that \-- but it had been good enough for Grandmaster Park and the principal at school. And besides, we had to stick with it for only one more day. "That's all it was," I went on, "just a simple injury; there's no need to take her to a doctor. She just needs a little more time to recover, that's all."

"It's not a simple injury, little brother," Joy insisted. "She almost couldn't make it down the stairs this morning; I had to help her." She was shaking her head, and I could see tears forming in her dark brown eyes. "This is serious. I don't want to see my baby sister spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair just because Mom and Dad don't trust American doctors."

"No one wants to see that," I assured her.

"Then help me convince them to take her to the hospital and get her checked out!" When I hesitated, she said bitterly, "What's wrong with you, little brother? You used to be so responsible, so level-headed. The rest of us always figured that you would be the one to make Mom and Dad the proudest, the one they would point to and say, 'That's our son; isn't he wonderful?' But ever since you joined that stupid Tae Kwon Do demonstration team, it's like you don't care about anyone any more!"

Okay, that stung. I closed my eyes and took a slow, deep breath. I wished I could tell her that there was no international Tae Kwon Do team, that I was saving the world as Prime Blue instead. But I couldn't. So I did the next best thing. "Okay, big sis, I'll tell you what," I said, trying to sound as reasonable as I could. "Let's not do anything to spoil her graduation celebration, all right? But I promise you, if Younger Sister is not any better by tomorrow evening, then I will make sure she goes to the hospital if I have to carry her there myself. Okay?"

I could see that she wasn't happy, but she nodded. "Okay." She turned to go, but then she stopped with her hand on the door and turned back to look at me. She hesitated for a moment, then said softly, "You've let Mom and Dad down big-time these last three years. I hope you realize that. Ever since you decided not to go to college after high school, they have been so disappointed in you. I mean, the rest of us think you're throwing your life away, but we've got our own lives to lead, you know? I can't even begin to tell you how unhappy Mom and Dad are right now."

Not any more, they aren't, I thought. Not since I told them I was Prime Blue. Aloud, I said formally, "I am aware of their feelings, Older Sister."

"Then why --?"

I held up a forefinger. "I would prefer not to discuss it."

She bowed her head in acquiescence and left the room.

Chapter 3

Despite the rocky start, it turned out to be a pretty nice visit home. We talked for a while during the morning, and Angie showed us all her prom pictures. She looked stunning in her dress. Her canes were nowhere in sight, and unless you knew about them, you would never notice that none of the photos actually showed her standing by herself. She was always leaning against a tree or sitting on a bench or standing with her arm around her date, a big blond kid named Derrick whom I recognized from Grandmaster Park's studio. Speaking of guys who were sweet on my sister . . . I'm sure he didn't mind one little bit having Angie hanging onto him their entire evening out.

As the morning wore on, I decided to demonstrate what a good and responsible son I was by offering to help my mom make lunch. She set me to work cooking the rice; I guess she figured that was something I couldn't possibly mess up, especially since she was hovering over me the entire time. Angie sat on a tall stool at the kitchen counter chopping vegetables while my mom worked on the sauces.

"So, Son," my mother said a little too casually as she added a handful of this and a pinch of that, "why has that delightful girl not come home with you for a visit yet?" She was speaking Mandarin, since it was just the three of us. "Are you hiding her from us?"

"Which delightful girl is that, Mother?" I asked. "I know so many. I have already brought Padma for a visit; she is the one from India. Trina is the blonde one from Russia . . ."

"I mean the other one . . . the Japanese. The one who always looks at you as if she wants you to kiss her."

My eyebrows shot up at that. "Mayumi? She does not --"

"I told Mother that I thought she was your other fish to cook," Angie piped up. Then she frowned. "Hmm. That does not sound right. Your other fish to . . . roast? To . . . broil?" She switched to English. "Mom, what's the word for 'fry'? Not like stir-fry, but like frying fish in oil?"

"Zha," my mother said with a smile.

"Oh, that's right!" Angie exclaimed. "Duh!"

My mother added in English, "But you wouldn't say 'I have other fish to fry' in Mandarin, dear. You would probably say something like 'Lin u kao jiu.'"

"'I have greener pastures to mow'?" Angie translated. She nodded. "You're right, I think I've heard you or Dad say that before."

"You and this Mayumi girl certainly make a cute couple, Trevor," my mother went on. "Is she this 'other fish to fry' that Padma mentioned?"

That's my mom, not afraid to be nosy and always on the lookout for girls for me to date. I think it's her way to make sure she has lots of grandchildren. When I had brought Padma home to visit, my mother was convinced that I was about to propose to her. Padma explained that no, each of us had "other fish to fry", a phrase she had picked up from me. Padma's "other fish" was Nicolai, of course. Mine was . . . .

I sighed and turned down the heat under the water, which was beginning to boil. I carefully measured out the rice and added it to the pan. Despite what my mom thinks, I do know how to cook rice. "Mayumi is very friendly, but she doesn't mean anything by it," I explained. "She likes to flirt."

"It seems to me that she flirts with you more than anyone else," Angie teased.

"That's because it embarrasses me more than anyone else," I said. Already I could feel my face start to turn red. "Mayumi is married and has two kids, Angie. And she's way older than me."

"Well, sure, by a couple of years, but . . ."

"Try 'practically old enough to be my mother.' Don't tell her I told you, but she turned forty just a couple weeks ago."

Now it was time for my mother's eyebrows to shoot up. "No! Really? She looks so young."

I shrugged. "I know. It seems to be a side-effect of using a force shield. All the ex-Primes are that way."

"So, who is your 'other fish', big brother?" Angie asked eagerly. "You've never told us."

I set the lid on the rice pan, deliberately taking my time. I had been hoping not to get into this. Glancing through the open doorway into the other room, I saw that Toby was sitting on the floor make funny faces at Joy's baby, who was sitting on her lap. He's a pushover for kids. I moved over and quietly closed the door.

"Angie," I said, "do you remember Lily Lee?"

"Sure. She was that Chinese girl that I helped Shelley capture that one time. But she was Enclave, wasn't she?"

I nodded somberly. "Six or seven years ago, she was a fifteen-year-old girl from eastern China named Li Lin-fa. Her family sold her to Enclave, and one of their operatives, a skinny little red hedgehog that we nicknamed JB Swift, turned her into this thing that he called the attack doll. That's who you saw, this attack doll."

"She did seem awfully strange . . ."

"That was the result of what JB Swift did to her. Remember how you asked me once whether she was a robot? Well, the answer is, sort of. Part of her was like a living robot, anyway. There was another part of her that was still Li Lin-fa, though, and a third part that . . . if I could only have gotten her away from them, I think she would have come around."

My mother was watching me intently, her sauces forgotten. "Why don't you?" she asked me. "Why don't you get her away from them, if you care so much about her?"

"Believe me, I tried," I said with a grimace. Then I shrugged and looked down. "But it's too late now; she's dead."

Angela gasped.

"See, that day that Angie got hurt," I continued, "Bill and I fought Lily on a deserted beach somewhere near Hawaii. I knocked her unconscious, and then we had to teleport right away to fight another monster, that thunderbird you helped us with, little sis. The tide was coming in, and by the time I was able to get back to check on her, she had been underwater for . . . well, for long enough. I don't think she ever woke up."

I looked up to see my sister and my mother watching me with sympathetic eyes. "I'm so sorry, big brother," Angie said softly. "I didn't know."

"My poor Trevor," my mother murmured. She came over and put her arms around me.

I returned her hug more fiercely than I had expected. When I finally let go, I was surprised to discover that I had to wipe a few tears from my eyes. "It's okay," I muttered. "I'm mostly over it. It's what you'd call it an occupational hazard. She isn't the first friend I've lost."

My mother smiled and patted my arm. "I'm sure you'll find someone."

After lunch, I asked my mom to give me a piano lesson. She brought Joy in to listen to me play because Joy is studying piano pedagogy at Oberlin. They clucked and fussed together over my "inadequate" technique, and Joy made some suggestions, but eventually the two of them decided that I was playing the Gershwin pieces as well as could be expected. My mom then gave me a copy of Gottschalk's "The Dying Poet" to work on, and Joy told me to begin learning the F-sharp Minor fugue from Book One of The Well-Tempered Clavier as well.

Toby and I finally got a chance to spend some time alone with Angela later that afternoon when she went out on her daily walk. Wizzit had warned her not to let her muscles atrophy while she was disabled, so she had made it a practice to spend an hour or so each day walking in our back yard.

It was a pitiful thing to watch her shuffling along, supporting herself with a cane in each hand. I could understand why Joy was so upset; heck, if I didn't know that Wizzit was going to induce a healing coma just as soon as Angela had been wearing her Prime belt for twenty-four hours, I would have been upset myself.

"But I don't understand why he can't just do one of those healing things right now," Angie was saying. I could detect a hint of a whine creeping into her voice, but I couldn't really blame her for that. It was because of the Primes that she mostly lost the use of her legs, and she had been bearing up pretty bravely these past couple of months.

"Patience, little sis," I said soothingly. "It's just a little while longer. Your body is still getting used to the belt. Now, Wizzit usually insists that you activate your force shield yourself before he'll do a healing coma on you, but he might be willing to make an exception in this case."

"Ya damn betcha!" Wizzit drawled in that atrocious west-Texas accent he sometimes affects. "If it's okay with you, li'l darlin', I can start it up just as ding-dang soon as your body is ready for it, even if you're still a-sawin' logs."

"Of course it's okay with me!" Angie exclaimed. "Do you think I like being like this? I want to be able to walk up on stage tomorrow when I get my . . ." Her voice trailed off when she saw that my attention was elsewhere. "What is it, big brother?" she asked anxiously.

"Hm? Oh, probably nothing. I just thought I saw something, that's all. Looked like somebody was moving around back there in the trees."

"I bet it was a squirrel, or maybe a raccoon. We've seeing 'coons around here a lot lately."

"I'm going to go check it out." What I had seen was definitely too big to be a squirrel, and raccoons wouldn't be wandering around in broad daylight. I moved towards the far end of our property, back by the wooded area. It might have been a deer; it was heavily-forested enough back there that one of them might dare to come out and take a peek at us.

Somehow, though, I didn't think it was a deer. The shadowy figure I had glimpsed had had a human shape to it, I thought. A feminine shape, and moving with a kind of fluid grace that I had seen before in only one person . . . .

"Find anything?" Toby called to me,.

I shook my head, trying to dispel my ridiculous flight of fancy. "Nope, not a thing," I called out. I trotted back to the two of them. "Sorry, little sis. I guess I got everybody worried for no reason." Toby snorted softly. I looked up at him. "Something wrong?"

"Not really," he replied. "It's just that . . . well, there's something I've been meaning to ask the two of you."

"What do you want to know?" Angie said.

"I suppose it's kind of stupid, but I'm curious: What is it with all this 'big sis, little sis, big brother, little brother' stuff I keep hearing?" he said. "I mean, I've got an older sister, but I don't call her 'big sis'. I call her 'Maude' because that's her name. But Angie usually calls you 'big brother', Trev, and you call her 'little sis', and you both call Joy 'big sis'. It's just . . . weird."

Angie grinned over at me. "Do you want me to tell him, big brother?"

"Nah," I replied. "I'll tell him, little sis." Toby growled, and all three of us burst out laughing. "It's a Chinese cultural thing," I explained. "In China, one wouldn't call one's siblings by name any more than you would call your parents by their first names in your family. It's always 'Younger Brother' or 'Older Sister' or whatever. So that's how our parents raised us."

"Oh." Toby looked thoughtful. "But you don't always do it. You call her 'Angie' a lot, too."

"Dude, give me a break!" I said, laughing. "I'm an American boy, born and raised here in Ohio, and I do try to fit in. Now, with Joy, it's different. She's definitely more serious about it than the rest of us. For Jerome, Nick, Angie, and me, it's more a habit than anything else, but Joy would not be happy if I suddenly started calling her by name."

"It comes from being the oldest, I think," Angie said. "She wants to keep the traditions alive. I tried calling her 'Joy' once, and she acted like she didn't even hear me." Suddenly she stopped walking and looked at me. "Big brother, are you sure that this healing coma is going to work? Because 'Older Sister' has been getting in my face about my seeing a doctor."

"Well, nothing's ever certain," I replied, "but Wizzit's brought me back from some pretty bad stuff. He's pretty confident that it will work. Personally, I think you'll be back doing jumping roundhouse kicks in no time." I winked at her. "And if you're a good girl, I'll start teaching you how to do 540-backwheels so you can impress Grandmaster Park."

"That sounds good," she said with a wan smile. She glanced over at the back door to the house and sighed. "Guys, I don't think I'm going to be able to make it back to the house on my own. Can we sit down and rest for a while?"

"I'll carry you back if you want," Toby volunteered.

"No, I wouldn't want you to have to go all that trouble . . . ."

"No trouble. You're as light as a feather." He reached out a hand to steady her as she handed me her canes, then squatted down so that she could ride piggyback. "In fact," he went on as he straightened up with her clinging to his back, "I bet that even carrying you, I can still beat Trevor back to the house."

I grinned and started running. "You're on!"

Chapter 4

My two younger brothers, Jerome and Nick, were driving up from Ohio State for Angie's graduation and, with their usual impeccable timing, arrived just before dinner. Angie picked at her food all throughout the meal; I could tell she was nervous about the healing coma. Toby ate more, but not as much as one would think, considering how big he was. He and I could be called out to fight a monster at any time, after all, and that's no fun if you've just pigged out on great home-cooked Chinese food.

As for me, well . . . if you asked me what it was we had, I'm sure I couldn't tell you. I couldn't get my mind off the shadowy figure I had seen in the woods. It couldn't really have been Lily, could it? I mean, I had pulled her lifeless body out of the surf myself, pushed some water out of her lungs, even tried giving her mouth-to-mouth, and she hadn't so much as flickered an eyelid. But if it wasn't Lily, who could it have been?

After dinner, Nick and Jerome were given cleanup duty, since they hadn't helped to cook. My mom took the baby upstairs to feed him a bottle and give him his bath. Everyone else gathered around the table once it had been cleared off, and my dad got out a deck of cards. He had been happy to discover during the meal that I had taught Toby to play horse, since he was an avid player himself. The two of them decided to partner up in a game against Joy and Angela.

"Going somewhere, Younger Brother?" Joy asked as I made my way to the back door.

"Just out for a walk."

"Older Brother thought he saw something out back earlier today," Angie explained. She tapped the deck to indicate that she didn't want to cut, and my dad began to deal. "Are you going to check it out?"

"I thought I might, yeah."

"Well, don't stay out too long," my father warned. "I'm sure you've had a long day."

"I won't."

I stepped out into the cool evening air. It was just starting to get dark out, but there was still plenty of light to see by. Plenty of light to let me investigate. "Wizzit," I said once I was out of earshot of the house, "what do you think about what I saw out here earlier?"

"Checking . . . ."

When I have my Prime belt on, Wizzit keeps track of pretty much everything I see, hear, and do. It doesn't really bother me, since he doesn't care about the vast majority of it, and I'm sure that some of the human interactions are like a foreign language to him anyway. And heck, if I ever do want some privacy, I'll just take off the belt. In this case, though, I really wanted his opinion on the figure I had spotted.

"Hmm. Definitely a human female," he said after a bit. "Behavior and movement patterns do not conclusively match any living person with whom I am acquainted. Do you have any idea who it might be?"

"Just a hunch."

"Hunches are good. What is your hunch?"

"I'd, uh, rather not say. I don't want to jinx it."

"All righty, then. I'll just scan the area for alien life forms, shall I?"

I snorted. I'm sure Wizzit thought he was being funny. He knew perfectly well that my idea of an alien life form did not match his. What he meant was that he was going to check whether there were any people nearby. "This might interest you," he said after a moment. "I have found a single human being near where you were earlier today. Definitely a female, no Enclave enhancements, but not anyone with whom I am acquainted."

"You mean, not any living person with whom you are acquainted?"

"Well, duh! What, do you want me to try to match her against a dead person? Has the zombie apocalypse finally come to pass?"

"You never know," I said, grinning to myself. "Where is she, Wizzit?"

"Keep moving straight ahead. You'll find her."

I went forward a couple dozen more yards before I finally caught sight of her. She was crouched under a tree, half-hidden in shade. I stopped short, my breath catching in my throat. It was unquestionably Lily. There was no mistaking that lustrous black hair, the lithe perfection of her figure, the icy, impassive beauty of her face.

"Hot diggity dog! Lily's back!" Wizzit exclaimed quite unnecessarily through the speakers in my belt. I guess his visual recognition software must have been set to check for the dead as well as the living. Or maybe he was just going by his own memory. "And . . . yes, it's really her. Reclassifying her as a living person results in a positive match from my sensors."

I felt as though I couldn't take my eyes from her, that if I looked away, or even blinked, then she would vanish. "I, uh, didn't think you'd be all that happy to see her," I finally managed to say. "She's an enemy, you know."

"Sure, but she's an interesting enemy. The ones you guys have been fighting lately have been boring." I couldn't argue with that.

Lily had spotted me by now, and she smoothly rose to her feet. "Lily, wait!" I called out, afraid that she might try to run away.

She didn't, though. She seemed to want me to see her, in fact. Stepping out into the full sunlight, she stood watching me for half a minute, and then she turned and began walking slowly into the woods. And then, after just a few steps, damned if she didn't glance over her shoulder at me in one of the most inviting "follow me" looks I had ever seen.

I felt my my heart begin to race. "Think it's safe to go after her? She obviously wants me to."

"Of course it isn't," Wizzit said. "But don't let that stop you."

Lily walked at a moderate pace through the trees, stopping occasionally and looking back as if to make certain that I was still behind her. I followed, sticking close enough to keep her in sight, but not close enough to be led into any kind of ambush. And then, as she stepped between a pair of trees just a couple of feet apart, she vanished.

"Stop!" Wizzit ordered. "Don't move. Don't go even one inch farther."

"Well, duh!" I said, freezing in mid-stride. "I'm not a Prime Violet any more, you know. I do recognize a teleport trap when I see one. Let me know when you've figured out where it is."

"Scanning . . . okay, it's right where you would expect, right by that pair of trees. Circle around and approach them from the other side so that I can see where it's set up to send you."

I stepped around cautiously, ready to freeze instantly if Wizzit detected another trap. Eventually I found myself staring at two tall, slender, slightly-glowing poles set up just behind the trees Lily had stepped through. Anything that went in between the poles would immediately be teleported to a preset location; that was the purpose of a teleport trap. Another step or two, and I could go wherever it was that Lily went.

I pointed myself at the console, trying to give Wizzit a good view of the coordinates displayed there. "So, where did she go?" I asked him.

"Hmm. Nowhere special. Just a spot a mile or so beneath the surface of Antarctica."

"Could you send me there?"

"I could, but then I most likely couldn't bring you back again."

"Really?" I asked. "Why not?

"Because I don't detect anything like an Enclave base there, which means that it's probably shielded from my scanning. And if it's shielded, then I would not be able to locate you to pull you out."

"Oh. So what do we do?"

"I wait and watch. You turn around and ask Lily what she wants."

Puzzled, I looked behind me. Lily was standing not two feet away, staring at me. I yelped in surprise, nearly jumping backwards into the teleport trap. She watched me impassively, completely unmoved by my outburst.

She must have teleported back here without my noticing, I realized. I moved closer and stood staring at her for probably a full minute, trying to sort out my feelings.

I thought I had mostly gotten over her death. Seeing her now, though, apparently alive and well, I felt almost overwhelmed by a surge of emotions that I thought I had buried. Sure, she was technically an enemy of ours, but underneath all the Enclave programming and mind control, there was a sweet, innocent kid that I had once met and really liked. And now it appeared that I was going to get another chance to set her free.

"What are you doing here, Lily?" I asked once I could trust myself to speak. She didn't say anything; she simply cocked her head to one side and stared at me, guileless as a child. "What is it you want? I know you want something."

It was as if she had been waiting for me to say that. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, she reached out and took hold of my hand. Her touch felt warm and alive; she was definitely not some reanimated corpse. She looked over at the teleport trap, then back at me.

Her meaning was clear. "You want me to go with you?"

In reply, she began tugging me forward, towards the space between the two trees. I went along with her for a step or two, but just as she was about to step through the trap (and take me with her), caution made me pull my hand free.

She looked straight at me as the trap teleported her away again. Her face was completely devoid of expression, as it often was, but it seemed to me that there was a hint of reproach in her dark eyes.

She reappeared in a flash of light not two minutes later. This time, she simply stepped forward and clasped her hands behind her back, presenting herself to me. A sheet of paper had been pinned to the breast of her black jumpsuit.

I tore off the sheet. It read: "If you are Trevor Chiao, please come with me. You will not be harmed. If you know where Trevor Chiao is, please bring him here and show him this note. If you cannot find Trevor Chiao, tear this sheet in half and give it to me."

I read through it twice to make sure I understood it. "Well, Wizzit," I said, "what do you think? Should I go or not?"

"It could be quite dangerous," he replied. "You would be teleporting straight into an Enclave base without backup or weapons and with no way to get home."

"I think I'll be safe enough. This is from JB Swift. It has to be; he's the only one at Enclave who knows I'm Prime Blue. I don't think he'd go to all this trouble just to lure me into a trap."

"Unless he decided to betray you to his masters."

"He promised he wouldn't do that."

"Sure, as long as you promised not to kill Lily, and it could be argued that you did just that."

"She's not dead, though." I frowned down at the paper in my hand. "I'm going with her."

"Of course you are." Wizzit managed to convey the impression that he knew all along that I was going to go. "Any last words?"

"Ha ha. Just let Mike know where I've gone." I took Lily's hand in mine, and together we stepped through the teleport trap.

Chapter 5

As the teleportation haze cleared from my vision, I found myself in JB Swift's secret mad scientist's lab. I had come here once before to help him take care of Lily, who had been close to death from hypothermia at the time. It was here that we had forged our pact of mutual non-aggression: that I wouldn't intentionally kill Lily, and he wouldn't tell his Enclave masters that Trevor Chiao was Prime Blue.

Lily let go my hand and stepped away from me as soon as we arrived. The cynical side of me suggested that she was getting out of the way of some sort of death ray that JB Swift was aiming at me. The rational side reminded me that that wasn't his style; an iron pipe to the knee was more the kind of attack I could expect from him.

I looked around the room. "I'm here, Oswald," I called out. "What do you --"

In a flash of the superspeed that was his trademark, JB Swift was suddenly standing before me, all twenty-four inches of him. "-- want?" I finished.

"It's about time you showed up," he said testily. "I have had the attack doll staking out your house for weeks now. She has been watching that sister of yours take her daily strolls about the yard; had I known it would take this long, I would have ordered Lily to kidnap her days ago to get you to come here."

I shuddered. I had no doubt that Lily could take Angie in a straight-up, one-on-one fight, even if Angie had the full use of her legs. I would not have wanted to tangle with Lily myself without the added boost that my force shield gave me. My sister, though, would not have made herself easy to capture; Lily might have had to cause her some damage to bring her in.

"Well, I'm here now," I said, and residual worry for my sister made my voice a bit more gruff than usual. "What do you want?"

He wasn't even looking at me, though; his gaze had strayed to something past my left side. I turned and looked, but whatever was showing on the monitor behind me didn't make much sense; it looked like just random numbers. When I turned back, JB Swift was frowning. "Damn! They've nearly zeroed in on us," he growled. "Look, Blue Prime, there's no time to explain. Lily, front and center!"

Lily straightened and moved to stand at attention before us, her heels together and her arms at her sides. JB Swift said, "Lily, initiate new user."

There was a pause, then she murmured, "Initiating . . ."

"User name is Trevor."

Lily blinked once, twice. "User initiated. Who is Trevor?"

I looked from her to JB Swift. He made impatient motions, as if he wanted me to do something. Eventually, he flashed away at superspeed and returned a second later bearing a pad of paper and a marker. Swiftly, he wrote the words "Introduce yourself to her!", underlined it twice, and thrust it at me. The handwriting, I noted, was the same as the note that had been pinned to Lily's jumpsuit.

"Er, hello, Lily," I said uncertainly. "I'm Trevor."

She pivoted smoothly to face me, and her eyes seemed to focus on me for the first time. "Hello, Trevor," she said in her flat, unemotional voice. "Please talk to me some more so that I can learn what your voice sounds like."

I glanced over at JB Swift, who gave me an impatient "go on" motion. "Um, okay. You, uh, you probably don't recognize me, but we have met before, many times. I have --"

"Voice recognition has been achieved," she interrupted. "Trevor, please walk around so that I can become familiar with how you move."

Now I was starting to get impatient. I rounded on JB Swift. "Oswald, what is going on?" I demanded. "Why did you bring me here?"

JB Swift was looking at that monitor again. He shook his head. "There's no time. Follow me!"

"No way." I stood my ground, crossing my arms. "Not until you tell me what the hell is going on here."

"Look, Blue Prime," he snarled, "in about five minutes, this whole place is going to be swarming with whatever monsters and other alters my masters can scrape together, and every one of them will be looking to kill me and capture her. A number of things have to be accomplished before that happens. If you have any desire whatsoever to help Lily, and if you don't want to be caught in the crossfire, you'll do exactly as I say. Now follow me!" With that, he stalked off down the aisleway.

I followed; I didn't really have much choice. Until I found a teleporter of some sort, I was stuck here. I noticed Lily staring intently at me the whole time we were walking, which might have been flattering had it not also been kind of creepy.

"Movement recognition has been achieved," she said after a few seconds. "Warning: Trevor has been tentatively identified through movement recognition as the opponent known as Blue Prime. I cannot confirm this through voice recognition. Please recommend a course of action."

JB Swift chuckled as my eyes grew wide. I had known she wouldn't recognize my voice because our force shields disguise them pretty well -- they even flatten out our various accents to some degree -- but I hadn't expected her to figure out who I was based on just my body movements. "No recommended course of action, Lily," he said. "Stand by."

"Standing by . . ."

We had reached a closed door; a window in the door showed that the room beyond was in darkness. JB Swift turned to me, proud as any father. "She's really very good, isn't she?" I couldn't disagree. "Right now," he went on, "you are simply someone she knows by name. She will recognize you whenever she sees or hears you, but she won't pay any particular attention to you or follow any of your orders, not unless I tell her to." He opened the door. "Get in, you two."

Lily obediently entered the room, standing just inside the doorway. I remained where I was. "What's this all about?" I demanded. "What do you want with me? Why are all these monsters out to get you? And why do you want Lily to know who I am?"

He glared at me for a moment, probably angry that I wasn't following directions. Then he let out a breath, and he seemed to sag. "I need your help," he said. "It seems that you and your fellow Primes have become a little too adept at destroying the monsters I have been creating. My masters believe I can be of no further use to them and have decided to cut their losses and destroy me."

I nodded slowly. Lily had mentioned something like that to me once, back in Guangzhou. So what do you say when an old enemy tells you he's under a death sentence from the real bad guys? "I'm, uh, sorry to hear it?"

A ghost of a smile flickered across his face. "I'm sure that's just a polite lie, but thank you for the effort, at least. If true, then you may be the only person in the world who would mourn my passing. Besides her, that is." He nodded at Lily, who was standing with her hands clasped behind her back, staring into nothing.

"Again, what do you want from me? Do you want me to persuade my teammates not to attack the monsters you send out? Because that's not going to happen, even for Lily's sake."

JB Swift snorted. "Of course not. I know what's at stake for you Primes. You might have all the sympathy in the world for me and yet feel compelled to destroy everything I could send at you."

I nodded. "So . . . what, then?"

He hesitated; I had a feeling that asking for help was not something that came easily to him. "Personally," he finally said, "I'm both willing and able to fight my own battles. I don't need anyone's help for that. I will take care of this matter myself, one way or another. I will be considerably hampered, though, if I have to see to her well-being as well as my own. Above all, I need to keep her out of their hands."

I frowned; all this use of pronouns was starting to confuse me. "Just so I'm clear," I said, "whose hands are we talking about that we need to keep Lily out of?"

"My former masters'," he said grimly. "I was to have been killed months ago, after that fiasco in Guangzhou. The only reason I wasn't was because they wanted her." Lily stared blankly ahead, seemingly unaware that she was the subject of our conversation. "The attack doll -- my masterpiece, my magnum opus \-- and they wanted her only because she was good at distracting you Primes." He made a sound of disgust. "After they finally took her from me, I would have been killed immediately had I not fled to a safe place."

"After they took her from you?" I repeated. "Then you didn't send her on that last mission, the one in Hawaii?"

"No. I would never have sent her out in attacker mode that way. Those idiots have no idea how to use her," he snarled. "I understand I have you to thank for returning her to me, by the way. If you had called the other number on her cell, the one marked 'Home', I would never have seen her again, and she would not be alive today."

"Why is she alive?" I asked him. "I was sure she had drowned. Nobody could survive being underwater that long."

He grinned devilishly. "Four words: the mammalian diving reflex." He said it with evident pride. "In mammals which possess it, it greatly slows the heart rate and restricts blood flow to the extremities when the mammal finds itself submerged in water. It's relatively weak in humans, but under the right circumstances, it can allow a person to remain underwater without drowning for a surprising amount of time."

"I think I've heard of it," I said tentatively, "but I thought it worked only for very cold water. The water she was in wasn't cold at all."

His grin grew broader. "She is a thing of beauty, isn't she?" he said fondly. "I have honed her survival instincts to the point where that reflex takes over any time she is in danger of drowning. Of course, since she was underwater for such a long time, she had to be revived very carefully afterwards; only I could have done it." He gave me a little bow. "As I said, you did well to call me rather than them."

"Great," I muttered. "So her survival instincts are top-notch. What does that have to do with me? What do you want, Oswald?"

His grin faded. "I should have thought that was obvious," he said, the grimness back again. "She needs a guardian; she needs someone to take care of her while I am . . . otherwise occupied."

I stared at him. I hadn't expected this. "You're . . . you're going to give her to me?" I asked hoarsely.

He nodded. "You can put it that way if you like," he said. "I prefer to think of it as finding her a new home with someone who will treat her more humanely than my former masters. Her lifespan with them would be measured in days, perhaps weeks. With you, it may well be decades." His eyes bored into me. "Despite our enmity, Blue Prime, I can think of no one else to whom I would entrust her."

I hesitated. "I, uh, that is, I don't know . . ."

I don't know how he interpreted my reluctance. Heck, I'm not even sure why I hesitated, except that the idea of accepting complete responsibility for the life of another human being gave me chills. Regardless, he said impatiently, "This is no Herculean task I'm giving you. Lily is completely self-documenting, and she knows how to operate every machine here."

His gaze flicked to one of the ever-present monitors, and he started violently. "We have been talking for too long," he said roughly. "We're nearly out of time. Lily, grant Trevor all access to everything."

She blinked twice in quick succession. "Please confirm."

"Lily, grant Trevor all access to everything."

"Granting . . ." She drew in a long, slow breath and let it out; then she blinked.

"The two of you will stay in here while I lead our group of gate-crashers on a merry chase," he told me. "Come out only when they are all gone. There is a teleporter two doors down from here. I assume you can use it? God help you if you can't!"

"I know how to operate some of the basic Enclave models," I replied. I watched Lily intently as I spoke; she was still inhaling, exhaling, and blinking.

"Good," he said. "Take her out of here to someplace safe. In a day or so, take her to our rendezvous point. Its coordinates are known only to Lily and me; just have her tell you where her new home is. I will meet you there if I can."

While we had been speaking, I had counted ten Lily-blinks. Now, she announced, "Trevor has been granted all access to everything. Trevor is now a completely trusted user."

JB Swift nodded with satisfaction. "There! Now you have as much control over her as I do, Blue Prime."

"Why don't you come with us?" I asked him. "We could all go to your rendezvous point together. You would be safe there, wouldn't you?"

He shook his head. "Not for long. I can't hide from them forever. It's my enhancements; wherever I go, my masters will find me, no matter how well I am cloaked. Four times already, they have discovered a refuge I had made for myself and destroyed it. The one before this, she and I escaped with only seconds to spare. The facility to which I am sending you is the only one left with the equipment to properly care for the attack doll."

He glanced over past the door at something I couldn't see. "Get inside! Now!" he hissed.

I stepped quickly into the room, and JB Swift closed it swiftly and silently. Through the window I could see flashes of light -- teleportation flashes. JB Swift's gate-crashers were starting to appear. Lily stood quietly beside me in the shadows of the darkened room, and the two of us listened to the pandemonium that began breaking out in the main area then. I heard smashing, crashing, and howls of pain. JB Swift, I imagined, had gotten hold of one of his iron pipes and was engaged in kneecapping every single Enclave agent that had been sent down.

Above all the noise, I could heard the muted tones of a speaker calmly counting down the seconds until teleportation would commence. All Enclave teleporters had a built-in countdown mechanism, I knew. JB Swift must have turned up the volume on this one so that he could hear it over the commotion he was making. I guessed that now he was just marking time until the timer approached zero, whereupon he would zoom over to it at superspeed and let it whisk him away. The monsters would follow, and then Lily and I would be free to leave.

As I stood there listening, a thought struck me, and I silently mouthed a very bad word. I had suddenly realized that JB Swift never told me how to get Lily to go to sleep.

Chapter 6

Now, you might think that I was just being silly, worrying about a little thing like getting Lily to go to sleep. I mean, just sing her a lullaby or something, right? But the fact of the matter was, it wasn't that simple, and it might make a life-or-death difference to her.

See, we had captured Lily once before and had held her for a number of days. During that period, Shelley and I had spent a good deal of time talking with her, getting her to describe just what she was capable of. JB Swift was right; she was "self-documenting" ad nauseum, with one exception -- there appeared to be no way to tell her to sleep. And she would not go to sleep on her own.

Sleep was apparently as important to the attack doll as to anyone else. By the time she escaped from us, she had been awake for . . . eh, I forget exactly how long, but I know it was over a hundred hours. In that time, she had become slower to respond to commands, she was starting to walk into walls, and she had begun reporting that she was close to "system collapse." I don't think any of us wanted to find out just what that meant. So yeah, I really did need to find out from JB Swift how to get her to go to sleep.

I considered my options as I stood there beside Lily in the dark. Option one: I could teleport out from here alone to find him. It was probably the simplest solution, since the teleporter coordinates should still be set after everyone cleared out. I hated to leave Lily here by herself, though. She might be captured, or worse, if I couldn't make it back for some reason, she would remain where she was until she died of starvation or dehydration.

Option two: Go after JB Swift and take her with me. Nuh-uh. Bad idea. From what the little red hedgehog had said, the whole point of this elaborate escape-with-Lily business was to ensure that she would not fall into Enclave's hands. Bringing her out to the battle site would negate all that.

Which left me with option three: Use the teleporter to take Lily somewhere safe, then ask Wizzit to 'port me to the battle site. I didn't like it, but it seemed like my only reasonable choice.

So we stood there quietly, waiting and listening. Someone rattled the doorknob once, but no one made any serious attempt to enter our room. I heard the countdown go all the way down to zero, and at the same time there were some shouts as (I presumed) JB Swift zipped over to the teleporter and vanished in a flash of light. Someone must have restarted the teleporter almost immediately afterward, because again we heard the countdown. And again. And again. I must have heard that damn voice count down to zero six or seven times before things finally got quiet.

I'm not a naturally cautious guy; blundering into trouble and figuring out how to get myself out again is more my style. Still, having been a Prime for three years now, I have had a certain amount of caution pounded into my head. My first instinct, after the noise died down, was to rush over to the teleporter and get the heck out of Dodge, but I forced myself instead to count slowly to five hundred, listening all the while.

I opened the door and peeked out. The place was a mess. JB Swift's rampage must have been at least partly designed to smash up as much equipment as he could, maybe to prevent it from falling into Enclave's hands. I couldn't see an unbroken device or component anywhere. The pen and pad of paper that JB Swift had written his note on were lying on the floor a couple of feet away from me, and I picked them up. I spent a few minutes poking around after that, and then I told Lily to come out.

I had decided that the next order of business was to see how she was doing. "Lily," I said, "self-report."

Lily straightened and clasped her hands behind her back. "I am uninjured. I am not ill. I do not need to perform any bodily eliminations. I have been awake for ten hours, ten minutes. I last ate four hours, sixteen minutes ago. I last drank two hours, thirteen minutes ago. Overall status: I am fine."

I nodded. She should be good for the rest of the night, if it came to that. "Lily, follow me."

"Following . . ."

You know, as often as I had heard her murmur that type of acknowledgement to JB Swift, I never before realized how reassuring it was. She had heard me, she understood, and she was obeying instructions; pretty cool. Together, we walked into the teleporter room. The console was displaying a set of coordinates, which I assumed pointed to where JB Swift had sent himself; I carefully wrote them down for future reference. Now for the next problem: where to stash Lily while I hunted for JB Swift.

In the past, I had memorized a few sets of "safe" coordinates -- places I could send myself to if I were ever stuck in, say, an Enclave base and needed to teleport out in a hurry. Mentally going over the list, I immediately ruled out my parents' house; there was no sense in letting anything Enclave-related anywhere near them. Some of the other places were not suitable for a non-shielded human to spend any length of time in. In the end, I settled for one of the prettiest spots I had ever seen -- the Santa Elena reserve near Monteverde, in the central highlands of Costa Rica. I keyed in the coordinates and went to stand inside the teleport circle as the voice began counting down. "Lily," I said, "come stand next to me."

"Coming . . ."

Santa Elena is what's known as a cloud forest, which is to say that it's an expanse of trees located at a relatively high altitude where the humidity is always near one hundred percent. Basically, it's a forest that is always wrapped in a cloud, hence the name. The landscape at Santa Elena is lush and green and cool and misty and slightly mysterious and spooky -- a very pretty place indeed; I'd even call it 'enchanting'. The spot pinpointed by the coordinates Wizzit had given me was far from any hiking trails or human habitation. If I left Lily here, it was virtually certain she would remain undisturbed for hours.

"Wizzit?" I called out after we materialized. "Are you out there?"

"And where else would I be?" his voice responded, sounding much too loud in the stillness of the forest. "I see you have returned with Lily, but what in the world are you doing in Costa Rica?"

"It's, uh, kind of a long story . . ."

"I have time."

Sighing, I explained to him what had gone on in JB Swift's secret lair. "I think he teleported out to these coordinates," I concluded. I tore the top sheet off the pad of paper and held in front of me so that it would be visible to Wizzit's sensors in my belt.

"Hmm," Wizzit said, and then he didn't say anything else.

"So, can you send me there?" I asked impatiently after several seconds had gone past.

"I could," he replied calmly, "but then I most likely couldn't bring you back again."

I frowned, absently crumpling the paper and shoving it in my pocket. That was what he had said about the place Lily had wanted to take me. "Are you saying that he teleported himself to another secret lair?"

"Not at all. I know precisely where he is, and it's not at the spot indicated by those coordinates. Where did you get them, by the way?"

"They were on the teleporter that I used to bring Lily and me here."

"I see. And was JB Swift the last person to use the teleporter before you?"

"Well . . . no. A whole lot of Enclave monsters showed up, and after JB Swift teleported himself out, a bunch of them used the teleporter as well. I guess I just assumed that they all went out after him."

"Fascinating." Wizzit's voice is hard to read sometimes, and I couldn't really tell whether he was being sarcastic or not.

"So, can you send me to where he is?" I demanded. I swear, sometimes getting a response from Wizzit is like pulling teeth.

"Certainly. I just began ringing the monster alarm for that location, as a matter of fact; he and several other monsters are there holding what you Earthlings might call a 'pow-wow'. But you have no weapons, and the rest of the team should be out there within a few minutes. Do you really want to go?"

"I have to," I told him. "They're going to kill him!"

"And that would be a bad thing . . . how, exactly?"

"Maybe it wouldn't," I replied, trying to rein in my impatience, "but there's something I need to ask him, and it would be easier to get an answer while he's still breathing."

"Would this question have anything to do with the lovely young lotus blossom standing beside you?"

"It has everything to do with her. He gave Lily to me just now, but he didn't tell me how to put her to sleep."

"Ah." Now, Wizzit's not stupid, even if he can be awfully uncooperative at times. He was as aware as any of us of the problems we had had with Lily before, and he is quicker at putting two and two together than nearly any human I know. "Whenever you're ready then . . ."

"Give me about five seconds." I handed Lily the pad and paper I had been carrying, then instructed her to sit and wait for me at the base of a large nearby tree. "Okay, go ahead," I said to Wizzit.

"Do you want to activate first?" he inquired politely.

"Oh! Uh, yeah, I guess I do," I replied sheepishly. "Prime Blue, activate!" Instantly, I was surrounded by an obscuring blue mist, and then I felt Wizzit teleport me.

Chapter 7

When the haze cleared from my vision, I found myself standing on what appeared to be a plain of grass and scrubby undergrowth. There were trees of some sort off in the distance. "Where am I?" I asked. Then, realizing that I sounded like every action hero who had ever been drugged or knocked unconscious and then woken up in unfamiliar surroundings, I hastily amended that with, "I mean, where is this place?"

"You're in Canada," Wizzit replied brightly. "The Northwest Territories, to be precise, fifty-six miles or so northwest of the capital city of Yellowknife."

Looking around, I could see that what Wizzit had said about the monsters was true. Five of the biggest, ugliest, meanest-looking beasties I had ever seen were standing in a rough circle, staring inward at something. My guess is that the something was JB Swift.

I turned on camouflage mode, which makes us Primes more-or-less invisible, and moved closer. I could see the little red hedgehog standing in the center of the circle arguing with someone. He was holding an iron pipe in each paw.

"We need you to tell us where she is," whined the voice of someone I couldn't see.

"Yes, tell us where she is now!" said another voice that sounded almost the same.

I rolled my eyes. Great, Enclave had sent the Harley twins out after him. These were twin clowns who wore nearly identical red-and-black diamond-patterned costumes, modeled (according to Bill) after the Harlequin stock character often found in old Italian and French comedic plays. Harley twins, Harlequin -- get it? Yeah, me neither. The only difference between them was that one wore a two-pointed jester's cap that was red, while the other wore one that was black.

"Go to hell," JB Swift snarled.

"Not until we get the attack doll," whined Red-cap.

"We have to get her first, and then we will go to hell," agreed Black-cap. "She is important to our plans."

"Yes, we have plans that depend on her!"

"Very important plans!"

I could see that JB Swift had about as much tolerance for their babblings as I did, maybe less. His scarlet form blurred out of sight, and then I heard shrieks of pain from the two clowns.

"Ow, that hurt!"

"That hurt a lot!"

"A whole lot!"

"A whole, whole lot! Get him, monsters!"

"Yes, get him. Smash him!"

"Smash him and kill him!"

"Kill him and break his bones!"

"Good idea! Break his bones!"

I don't know about you, but I was sure rooting for JB Swift at this point. I could see why he referred to this pair as a couple of complete idiots; it was hard to believe that they were the ones who had created the Indra monster and more than a few other tough ones as well.

The five beasties they had brought with them closed in on JB Swift. To be honest, I was skeptical about the red pipsqueak's chances against five fully-grown Enclave monsters. I mean, sure, he's superfast and all, but I've seen these kinds of monsters withstand rocket-propelled grenades before. I figured his best bet would be to turn the whole thing into a stalemate, with him unable to hurt them, and them unable to lay a finger on him.

I missed the start of the fight, unfortunately, because I was suddenly distracted by flashes of light all around me. I looked around, expecting to find my teammates, but I couldn't see anyone.

"Blue, are you here?" Mike's voice, Prime-to-Prime.

"I'm here, Red. Why are you guys in camouflage mode?"

"I might ask you the same thing."

I sighed. "Well, I'm in camouflage mode because I came out here to ask JB Swift a question," I replied tartly. "I don't have my battle vest or a weapon or my blaster, and I didn't feel like taking on all five of these behemoths by myself. What's your excuse?"

Mike chuckled. "Fair enough. We're in camouflage mode because that's what Wizzit said to do. Blasters out, everyone."

"Nope, veto here!" Wizzit's voice said sharply. "Do not attack yet. Repeat, do not attack yet. These monsters have not yet shown that they are hostile."

I looked around at the scene before me. JB Swift had managed to escape the circle of his attackers. As I watched, he suddenly accelerated, becoming not much more than a red streak. I heard a clang!, and one of the monsters grabbed its leg and began howling. "Uh, Wizzit, they're fighting."

"They're fighting each other. Until they commence hostilities on you or on other humans or on property, you do not attack."

"So we just stand around and watch, do we?" Mike was sounding dangerously patient, which meant that he was starting to lose his patience. Careful, Mike, I thought. Ignoring an order like this from Wizzit is what got Bill fired the first time.

Wizzit said, "Yes, we do. This is an unusual situation, kids. Trust me, standing around and watching is the best course to take at the moment."

"Why are they able to send out so many monsters today, Wizzit?" I recognized Nicolai's voice. "We fought five of them just this morning. They should not be able to send out anyone else for another . . . thirty-six hours or so, correct?"

"Ding-ding-ding! Give that Prime a prize!" Wizzit chirped. "That is, in fact, what makes this situation so unusual. I believe they are attempting to exploit a loophole in the laws governing their behavior, which is that on average, they can send out only so many hostile monsters within a given time period."

"On average?" I heard Padma repeat. "That means that by sending these ones down now, they must wait a longer period before attacking us again?"

"I don't think so," Trina said. "Wizzit just said they are not hostile, so . . . they don't count?"

"That's right. They don't count until they have demonstrated they are hostile," Wizzit affirmed.

That tickled something in my brain, something that I had been wondering about ever since I had learned about the secret lair beneath the surface of Antarctica. "So, does that mean that someone like JB Swift, as long as he doesn't bother anyone, could have a base anywhere on Earth and stay there indefinitely?" I asked.

"Yes," Wizzit replied. "In fact, I believe that's exactly what he has been doing. And it may have influenced his choice of venue here; a sparsely-populated area means less chance of collateral damage."

"But if one of these jokers were to attack one of us here today," Mike began, "then it might be a week or more before they could attack again? We could sure use the breathing space."

"Do not provoke them, Red," Wizzit warned him. "You know my rules. You are not allowed to go after any monster that has not shown itself to be hostile. If you attack one of them first, all bets are off. They are allowed to defend themselves; you will have essentially given them a free shot at Earth."

"No worries there!" Mike said, sounding suspiciously cheerful. "I wouldn't dream of throwing the first punch. But, erm, there's no reason for us to maintain camouflage mode any longer, is there? Now that you have explained the situation, that is?"

"I suppose that's true," Wizzit replied, for once sounding unsure of himself.

"After all," Mike went on, "we wouldn't want any one of us to be hit accidentally, now would we? And if we were in camouflage mode, any hit would have to be considered accidental, whereas if we were visible . . ."

"Yes, I take your point," Wizzit said. "You may turn camouflage mode off, kids. Use your own discretion, and be careful."

Five brightly-colored figures, including my own, flared into view. One might have thought that it would have caused a stir among the battling Enclave creatures, but they were far too busy to notice.

At the moment, JB Swift was standing on the head of the largest monster, whacking it repeatedly with his two pipes. Said pipes were a blur of motion, as if he were a crazily speeded-up rock drummer. The other monsters were trying to attack him, but it looked to me as if they were doing more damage to the creature he was on top of than to him.

After a few minutes of this, the big monster showed that it had at least a lick of sense; it fell down, which threw JB Swift down off his high perch. He streaked away, and the other four monsters immediately gave chase.

"While we're watching this little comedy, Blue," Mike said, "would you care to tell us just what it was that you wanted to ask JB Swift?"

So I gave them the executive summary of my evening's adventures so far -- discovering Lily, teleporting to the secret lab, JB Swift's battle there and subsequent escape. I concluded by laying out the problem of Lily and sleep.

When I was done, I half-expected Mike to order me to stay away from Lily; he had come down pretty hard on me in the past over her. Instead, he said thoughtfully, "That certainly explains the fight we're seeing, at least. Wizzit, how can we make certain that this 'gift' is not another Trojan horse like the last time?"

I knew what he meant. When we had captured Lily before, JB Swift had provided us with a "special order" that we could give her to make her more cooperative. It worked, but it turned out that she was cooperative only until she had a chance to escape, and the circumstances of that escape led directly to the death of our first Prime Commander, Shelley's father. I could understand why we would want to avoid something like that now.

"In the short term, I know of no way," Wizzit said. "In the long term, I suppose we will have to think about the problem. If JB Swift survives this battle, perhaps we can question him further."

"I'm working on that, mate," Mike said. The entire time I had been talking, in fact, he had been circling around the grouping of monsters, continually shifting about as if he were trying to position himself for something.

One bluish monster, a sort of cyclops thing, set itself and unleashed some kind of energy beam from its single large eye in JB Swift's direction. The little red hedgehog zigged to one side, then zagged to the other. I heard a clang!, and suddenly another monster was howling and holding its leg while the energy beam plowed harmlessly into the ground.

JB Swift zoomed out of sight, leaving a trail of churned-up plant life in his wake. He zoomed back just as swiftly from another direction. As I watched, he ran up Cyclops' back, stopped abruptly on top of his head, and swung one of his pipes down directly onto the single, large eye.

I winced in sympathy as Cyclops shrieked and clapped its hands over its face. I could hear our favorite little scarlet hedgehog laughing as he ran down Cyclops' back. He arced around until his course led him straight toward the big monster, which was struggling to its feet after the pounding JB Swift had given its head.

Mike muttered, "I think our friend has a method to his madness." He began sprinting off to his left. It looked to me like he was moving to intercept JB Swift, although Lord knows exactly what it was he was hoping to accomplish. I know I wouldn't have wanted to try to catch hold of the little red bastard. Then again, my reflexes aren't spooky fast like Mike's.

Cyclops gave a roar of rage. It flailed its arms around blindly, its single eye still squeezed shut in pain. "What's the matter, Jackson?" JB Swift taunted it in a loud voice. "Can't take it? I always knew you were weak. Come on, give me your best shot; I dare you!"

He continued running in a straight line, through the legs of the big monster, directly toward Mike. He must have finally caught sight of him, because I heard him yell, "Get out of my way, Red Prime!"

To my surprise, Mike didn't spread out his arms to try to catch him; instead, he gave a high, wide-legged leap to let JB Swift -- and his pipes -- pass underneath him. I was still puzzling over the reason for that little maneuver when Cyclops let out another roar and, finally opening its single huge (and now very bloodshot) eye, sent a massive blast of energy in the direction of JB Swift's voice.

Now, if I have described the scene properly, you could probably draw your own picture of the path taken by this energy beam, as JB Swift had set it up. It traveled from Cyclops straight toward the big monster with the headache, which was still wobbling around woozily. Cyclops must have put a lot of oomph into the beam, because Big Monster's Enclave enhancements blew apart almost instantly, showering everyone in the immediate vicinity with red-hot monster parts.

Its force now considerably spent, the beam continued on towards Mike, who was still doing the splits in mid-air. I'm certain he didn't plan it this way, but the beam struck him square in the, er, well, let's call it the "lower abdominal area." I heard him grunt with pain as the beam slapped him down flat on his back, and then I heard a string of very bad words, weakly but vehemently spoken, some of which I made a mental note of for future reference.

I think Nicolai's reaction was the same as mine, which was to cringe and bring both hands down to protect my own, er, lower abdominal area. I heard Trina's voice say, "Are -- are you all right, Red?" For all the concern in her voice, she somehow sounded as if she were trying not to laugh. I shook my head. I've been struck in the groin before, so I knew full well how much it could hurt; girls just don't understand.

"Just peachy, love, just peachy," Mike breathed in a faint falsetto. "Wizzit, please tell me I didn't go through that for nothing."

"Nope, not for nothing," Wizzit sang out. "I believe it is safe to say that the monster which struck Red can be considered hostile. You may attack him now, kids. Just him, for the moment; I will keep you appraised on the status of the others. Red, bringing you back to HQ now for a healing coma."

As Mike's prone form disappeared in a flash of light, Trina whipped out her triple-blaster and began firing at Cyclops. Nicolai and Padma hefted their axes and charged. "Come and join the fun, Blue!" I heard Padma shout.

"I'd be happy to," I replied, "if someone could lend me a blaster or a weapon or something. These guys seem plenty tough, and I've got nothing here."

"This is Prime Commander," I heard Shelley's voice say. "I have been monitoring the situation from HQ. With Red out of the fight and Green and Violet not able to join us, I will be coming out myself in a few minutes. What would you like me to bring, Blue?"

"His new vajra is not ready yet," Padma said.

I shrugged. "You know what I like, Commander. Something short and stick-y. You know, like a short stick."

She laughed. "You got it, Blue."

"Commander, I would advise against your coming," Trina said. "It is very confusing here with so many monsters in one place; it might not be safe for an unshielded Prime."

"Acknowledged. I don't plan to be there for long."

Nicolai and Padma were attacking One-eye with their patented you-go-high, I-go-low maneuver that they've gotten so good at. That dropped the monster onto its back, sending its latest energy beam high into the sky. As it struggled to get to its feet, JB Swift swept in from somewhere and bashed its legs a few times. He yelled something over his shoulder at Yellow and Indigo, then sped away again.

"What was that he said to you?" Trina asked Nicolai and Padma. "I didn't quite catch it."

"He said this was his battle and that we should 'butt out'," Nicolai said.

"Yeah, fat chance of that happening," I muttered. "Fighting monsters is what we -- hey!" Something hard had just struck me on the shoulder.

"Look out!" Trina raised her arms above her head, trying to protect herself from what looked like a shower of stones that was falling down on her.

A few seconds later, Nicolai and Padma were similarly inundated. "Where are they coming from!" Padma cried.

"Over there!" I pointed at one of the monsters we had been ignoring up to now. It resembled nothing so much as a walking pile of rocks. One large arm grabbed a handful of stones from its -- well, I'd have to call it the monster's "skin" \-- and heaved them my way. Most of them missed, but a few struck me across the back and shoulders as I hunkered down, trying to make myself as small a target as possible. "Hey -- ow! Those things hurt, even through the force shield!"

"The monster that is attacking you kids right now may be considered hostile," Wizzit said dryly.

"Gee, thanks!" I snarled. "If only I had a blaster." I dashed around, trying to duck behind one of the other monsters, a ten-foot-tall apelike thing with fists bigger than its head. That worked for a little while, until Ape-fist decided he was going to squash me into jelly just for grins. I jumped and rolled away as one of his fists dented the ground I had just been standing on.

"The ape creature attacking Trevor may now be considered hostile," Wizzit declared calmly, as if he were the announcer at a tennis match. "Same thing with the spinning-tree monster that has just knocked Padma down. All monsters may now be considered hostile. Repeat, all monsters may now be considered hostile."

Shelley teleported in beside me just seconds after Wizzit made that announcement. "Here you go, Blue," she said, tossing me one of our blasters and an Escrima stick, probably the same one my sister had used as Junior Prime Pink. "Listen, everyone, Wizzit and I may have a way to take one of these monsters off the board," she called out. "Which of these guys is causing you the biggest headaches? Which one is your biggest problem?"

Trina took careful aim and squeezed the trigger of her triple-blaster. "Damn, he moved," she murmured as her shot just missed Cyclops' oversized head. "Biggest problem is this one here." She squeezed off another shot at Pile-of-rocks. "He is able to throw stones and hit us no matter where we are. Probably safest place to be is right next to him, if he doesn't step on you!"

"All right, leave him to me." So saying, Shelley began running straight toward Pile-of-rocks.

"Commander, wait!" Nicolai called out when he saw where she was headed. "I don't think it would be safe!"

In fact, Pile-of-rocks quickly spotted the gold-colored form racing toward him and began heaving stones at her. He missed her the first few times, but I could tell it would just be a matter of time before he found his range and clocked her with a good-sized chunk of granite. I started shooting at him with my blaster. "I don't know what you're doing, Gold, but I'll try to cover you while you move in," I called.

"Thanks, Blue. Shouldn't take more than a minute of your time."

Shelley swiftly closed the distance on the rock-monster. To my surprise, she didn't start attacking it with whatever weapon she had brought along for herself. Instead, she took hold of one of the rocks embedded in its skin and said, "I'm ready, Wizzit!"

She and the monster vanished in a flash of gold-colored light. Ten seconds later, Shelley reappeared beside me. "What did you do with him?" I asked her, lining up for a shot at Ape-fist. JB Swift was harassing him right now; I couldn't get a clear shot for fear of hitting the little red hedgehog.

"He's at the Chocolate Mountain Aerial Gunnery Range right now," she said. "I pulled a few strings and found out they were conducting a live aerial bombing test today. We negotiated a little, and the monster should be blown to bits over the course of the next hour or so."

"Correction: He is being blown to bits now," Wizzit piped up. "And . . . he is completely bits. No monster left."

I heard Nicolai whistle. "I didn't know you had strings like that to pull, Commander," he said.

Shelley laughed grimly. "Yes, well, after the military held me in solitary confinement for eight months without ever charging me with anything, I'd say they owe me a few favors. And the State Department seems pretty eager to cooperate with the Primes these days. All it took was one phone call."

"Can we count on this kind of help in the future?" Trina asked.

"Hard to tell," Shelley replied. "You know how fickle governments can be. I'm just happy it worked this time. And of course Wizzit will play it up on the website. Good publicity for everyone all around."

JB Swift had finally finished whatever he was doing to Ape-fist, and I began peppering him with blaster shots. At first, Ape-fist made like he was going to chase JB Swift, but then he changed his mind and charged me instead.

"I think it's time for you to make an exit, Commander," I said, continuing to fire at the beastie, which was now loping toward me at full tilt.

"I suppose you're right." Shelley sighed. "I miss this kind of stuff already. Take me home, Wizzit."

"Roger-dodger," Wizzit replied. As Shelley vanished, he added, "Red is fully recovered, by the way, and will be back out shortly."

"So soon?" Trina exclaimed.

"Well, the area where Red was injured was so small," Padma commented, "it stands to reason that --"

"Indigo!" Trina said sharply. "That was not a nice thing to say!"

"What?" Padma sounded genuinely puzzled as I rolled out of the way of Ape-fist's charge. I swung the Escrima stick around and tangled it between his legs; he did a face-plant straight onto the ground. "I only meant that --"

Suddenly she stopped. "Oh!" she gasped, and I saw her clap a hand over her mouth. She gave an embarrassed-sounding laugh. "Orange, I'm sorry. I -- I didn't mean to imply that Red's, um, . . . that is, I would have no way to know exactly how small . . . I mean, I'm sure it's enormous, but . . ."

"Let's just skip it," Nicolai broke in before Padma could dig herself in any deeper. "We're all glad that Red recovered so quickly; let us leave it at that."

"Yes, let's," I agreed dryly.

Ape-fist was getting good and mad at me by now. I had leaped onto his back while he was still prone and given him a few quick kidney shots with my stick. Now I began bashing the back of his skull. He rolled onto his back, throwing me off, and began swinging those huge fists of his in my direction. I somersaulted backward, gave him a quick blaster shot to the face to keep him from getting too comfortable, and scrambled to my feet.

"Blue Prime! Bring him over here!"

I turned to see JB Swift jumping and waving his arms. Behind me, Ape-fist bellowed and beat his chest with those enormous fists. I shrugged. "Whatever you say, Oswald." I began jogging toward him; looking over my shoulder, I saw that Ape-fist was starting to lumber after me.

As the ape monster sped up in pursuit of me, I sped up, too, to stay a more-or-less constant distance ahead of him. By the time I got close to where JB Swift had been standing, I was having to sprint to keep ahead of him. I turned to look forward again and said, "Okay, what did you --"

JB Swift was gone. I didn't have time to go looking for him, what with Ape-fist breathing down my neck, so I continued running, muttering imprecations against two-foot-tall hedgehogs that get you to follow them and then disappear.

I couldn't run too far, though, because I was heading straight for yet another Enclave beastie. Wizzit had called it a "spinning-tree monster", and I guess that was at least halfway accurate. From a distance, it had resembled an extraordinarily shaggy fir tree. As I closed in on it now, though, I could see that its branches looked more like saw blades -- very sharp, very deadly saw blades. I could see flashes of scarlet around it; JB Swift must have been provoking it in a way I couldn't see.

The spinning-tree monster began to, well, to spin. I don't know exactly how fast it was rotating by the time I reached it, but I was beginning to hear the same kind of high-pitched whine that I normally associated with power saws. I tried to veer off to one side to go around it, but my foot slipped on the vegetation and I fell onto my side, skidding directly toward those saw blades.

I quickly rolled onto my back and slid underneath the lowermost branches. They were no more than a couple of inches above me; I was grateful that I hadn't had much to eat for dinner that night. I stretched out both arms to either side, as if I were doing the elementary backstroke, and tried to swim out from under the deadly blades.

It was then that I heard a sound like a giant-fisted ape colliding with a buzz saw. The tree above me shook violently, and I redoubled my efforts. Suddenly, I felt someone grab one of my outstretched arms and haul me out from under the tree.

"You Primes really don't know how to fight multiple monsters at a time, do you?" JB Swift commented, shaking his head.

I cautiously sat up and saw that, in his eagerness to chase me down, Ape-fist had indeed run full-tilt into the deadliest Christmas tree ever. He was howling with rage and pain, and his fists were pounding the tree as the saw blades bit into him and carved chunks out of his side; as I watched, he grabbed the trunk with both of his huge hands and snapped it in half.

"I guess you could say that. We haven't had a whole lot of chances to practice," I remarked dryly.

Both monsters' Enclave enhancements were in full fail mode now; sparks were flying everywhere -- mostly on me. I rolled a few feet farther away, then got to my feet and began backing away from the dying monsters.

"The trick is to plan ahead," JB Swift was saying, "and to use their own brutish tendencies against them." His voice was as calm as if he were in a lecture hall at some university. "What the hell were you thinking anyway, Blue Prime, following me here? And what did you do with her? You didn't leave her in the lab alone, did you?"

"At the moment, Lily is sitting comfortably under a tree in Costa Rica," I said as the two monsters in front of us finally exploded into bits. "A real tree, one that doesn't spin."

"That's good. At least you're giving some thought to her welfare," he said sourly.

"Listen, Oswald," I said, "the reason I'm out here is to --"

"Later," he said grimly. He hefted the pipes in his paws. "I've still got one more piece of business, and then we'll talk."

"Yeah, but --"

He zoomed away before I could finish my thought.

Mike had evidently teleported in while I was playing tag with Ape-fist. I heard him now saying, "Everyone be careful around the one-eyed monster here, all right? He's already pasted Indigo a good 'un; those energy beams of his are plenty dangerous."

Looking around, I couldn't see Padma anywhere. "Is Indigo all right?" I asked anxiously. One never likes to see one's teammates get hurt, and Padma and I were especially close friends.

"Indigo caught a blast full-on," Nicolai said.

"First- and second-degree burns on the face and upper torso," Wizzit chimed in. "Fried the force shield, too. Indigo is currently at HQ waiting for the force shield to recharge. Indigo reports being in a moderate, but not unbearable, amount of pain."

I growled. I don't like it when anybody messes with my friends like that. "All right, guys, let's get this one!"

As I charged toward the monster, I felt a blast of wind rush past me. JB Swift had his own agenda and was racing toward Cyclops at a speed I couldn't hope to match. He dashed between my three remaining teammates, and I heard a clang! Cyclops roared and spun about, trying to catch sight of the little red demon who had just bashed his knee.

"Looks like JB Swift wants in on the fun," Mike said with a harsh laugh.

"Hmm. That's odd," Trina commented.

"Nothing odd about it," I said. "He's the reason they're here, to --"

"No, I don't mean that," Trina interrupted. "Look over there to your right. Isn't that one of the Harley twins?" I looked to where she was pointing, and sure enough, Black-cap was standing way over to one side watching us.

"The other one is over here," said Nicolai.

"I wonder what they want," Mike said.

"They were here earlier, trying to get JB Swift to tell them where Lily was," I said.

The little red speedster himself seemed to be oblivious to the presence of the two clowns. He was running back and forth at superspeed, hitting every part of Cyclops he could reach. Mike waved everyone back so that we wouldn't become accidental casualties of his one-man -- er, make that one-hedgehog \-- war.

I had been trying to keep both Cyclops and Black-cap in my field of view at the same time. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the Harley twin pull something out of a pocket of his costume; it looked like a cartoon bomb -- basically a sort of black ball with a cord hanging out of it. He lit it and threw it toward where JB Swift and Cyclops were having their death-match, and then he teleported away. At the same time, Nicolai said, "Hey, this one of the Harley twins is throwing something."

"I don't like this," Wizzit warned. "Prepare to --"

I never found out what it was we were supposed to prepare to do, because as he was saying that, I saw a bright light bloom from where Black-cap's bomb had been thrown. Less than a second later, my force shield suddenly went opaque. I mean, I couldn't see anything. Pitch blackness. I started to turn around to -- I don't know -- look around me or something, and I found I couldn't move, either. My body was locked in place, as if someone had stuck me in cement and left me there to harden.

"What the -- ? What's going on, Wizzit?" Mike demanded, and I heard startled exclamations from Trina and Nicolai. I couldn't hear anything else, which told me that Wizzit had shut off sound from the outside as well.

"It's all right, kids, just relax," Wizzit said soothingly. "There's nothing to worry about. This is for your own protection."

"Protection from what?" Trina sounded shaken, but not panicky. I didn't think any of us were claustrophobic, but now would not be a good time to find out.

"From a pair of nasty bombs that the Harley twins just set off," Wizzit said. "Now, it's going to be another minute or so before I can release you . . . electromagnetic noise levels are dropping. Probably nothing that would bother you, but better safe than sorry. Dropping further . . . light levels are near bearable, but still too bright . . . . This is a special mode of the force shields, by the way. I don't believe I have ever had occasion to use it before. I realize that the fact that you can't move may prove distressing, but it's necessary to provide maximum protection from, well, from whatever those bombs were going to spit out. You probably wouldn't want to be stumbling around without external hearing or visuals anyway. Energy levels are still dropping . . . and . . . okay, I'm releasing you now."

And just like that, I could move and see and hear again. I stumbled, nearly falling forward onto the grass. At least Wizzit had the courtesy to raise the light levels gradually, so my dark-adjusted eyes weren't instantly blinded.

"They are gone," Nicolai commented. He was right; there was no sign of JB Swift or Cyclops. Well, almost no sign; I could see smoke rising from a largish hole in the ground.

"Did the bombs destroy them?" I asked.

"They did indeed." Wizzit sounded oddly satisfied.

"But there is no sign of an explosion," Trina pointed out. She was right. The ground all around us was undisturbed, except for the aforementioned smoking hole.

"The bombs produced no pressure wave, not like your traditional explosion," Wizzit explained. "Instead, they inundated the area with electromagnetic noise -- light and radio waves, among others. The end result, as you can see, was to completely disrupt the Enclave enhancements of every monster in the area."

"Even the one they sent out themselves?" Mike whistled. "That's plenty cold-blooded of them."

"I'm guessing that the other monsters were sent out to keep him busy while they prepared their bombs," Nicolai commented. "Enclave didn't care about the battle or their monsters; they just wanted to destroy JB Swift."

"You are sure that he is dead, then?" Trina asked.

"He's not only merely dead," Wizzit sang, "he's really most sincerely dead."

I snorted; quoting obscure musical numbers from "The Wizard of Oz" was not out of character for Wizzit. No one else seemed to get the reference, though, so he continued, "I was taking extremely detailed recordings the entire time the four of you were incapacitated. We can watch the vids later, if you like, but there is no doubt that JB Swift is dead."

"Great," I muttered. "So what do I do about Lily? The only reason I came out here was to find out how to get her to sleep, and he never told me."

"This is Prime Commander," I heard Shelley's voice say. "Just wanted to let you know that Indigo is healing up nicely. Interesting news about JB Swift. Blue, I hadn't heard your question about Lily until now. I'm guessing this isn't just idle curiosity?"

"Right. It's kind of a long story, but basically, Lily is alive. JB Swift gave me custody of her while he came out here to deal with some problems he was having with Enclave. As best I can tell, now that he's dead, I am her new minder -- permanently."

There was a pause. "Um, okay. Can you control her?"

"He said I had as much control over her as he did. So far, I've been able to make her obey simple commands, like 'follow me' and 'sit down'."

"And do you think this is on the level, or is it a trick of some kind, like before?"

"I think it's on the level, Commander," I said. "I realize that, given his past behavior towards Lily, it seems unlikely JB Swift would just give her away. However, I think he knew he would probably die out here today, and it's completely out of the question that he would willingly sacrifice his own life just to further some obscure plan of Enclave's. I really don't think she's a Trojan horse this time."

"I see. All right, you can give me the details later. As for your question, Black and I discussed Lily's problem a few months ago, and Black indicated a possible solution, should we ever capture her again. I don't recall off-hand what it was; I will ask Black the next chance I get."

I nodded. Despite his faults, Bill was an awfully smart guy; if he thought he had a solution to Lily's insomnia, then it would be worth following up. "Thanks, Commander. So, what should I do with her in the meantime?"

"I will not allow Lily to be brought to HQ," Wizzit declared. "Not until her status is clearer than it is right now."

"If she is possibly a danger to those around her," Trina mused, "it would be unwise for her to stay at Blue's house, would it not?"

"Perhaps, perhaps not," Shelley said thoughtfully. "Personally, I am suspicious, but not overly so; Blue's reasoning seems sound. I think if Blue remains with her, it should be safe enough to have her at the house, at least for short periods of time. But I do agree with Wizzit: until we are more certain, she stays away from HQ."

"I understand," I replied. "I doubt we could work out the sleeping arrangements at the house, though."

Shelley chuckled. "Yes, I can see your point. Your parents might object."

"JB Swift mentioned a rendezvous point," I went on. "I got the impression that it was another one of his secret lairs. He said that he and Lily were the only ones who knew the coordinates. He wanted us to meet him there after he took care of his . . . personal business. If I can get Lily to give me the coordinates, maybe we can at least check the place out."

"That sounds promising, but I don't like the idea of your jumping in blind," Shelley warned. "This new place will probably be shielded like the last one. If there's no working teleporter, you might be stuck there indefinitely."

"That does present a problem," I agreed.

"Oh, if only we had some sort of portable teleportation unit!" Wizzit exclaimed. For some reason, he had taken on the voice of a southern belle, high and breathy; I could picture Scarlett O'Hara dramatically raising a hand to her forehead. "Something we could carry from place to place, with its own power source, and which even Prime Blue could operate." He paused, as if he were expecting someone to say something, and then he heaved what sounded like an exasperated sigh and went on, "Something like a . . . a teleport trap!"

I snapped my fingers. "Hey, wait a second! We do have a teleport trap! It's --"

"-- hidden in the woods behind your parents' house where Lily left it," Wizzit finished for me in his own voice. "Yes, I know. Took you long enough to figure out what I was driving at, didn't it?"

"Uh . . . yeah," I replied sheepishly. "I guess it did."

Shelley chuckled. "All right, a gold star to Wizzit for thinking of it," she said. "I'd suggest, then, that Wizzit teleport Blue to Costa Rica to pick up Lily, then over to retrieve the trap, and then on to this rendezvous point. Red, what do you think?"

"Sounds good," Mike replied, "but how badly is Blue injured? Wizzit, would a healing coma be in order first?"

"I'm fine," I insisted. "A little banged up, maybe, but I'm fine."

"Blue has some minor injuries," Wizzit agreed, "but the healing coma could be postponed until Lily is squared away."

Mike said, "Then I think we've got a plan.

"Whenever you're ready to go, Blue."

I grinned. "No time like the present."

I felt the tingle at the base of my skull, and then things went hazy. A moment later, they cleared up again, and I looked around. "Um, Wizzit," I said, "are you sure this is the right place?"

"Same coordinates as before."

I took an uncertain step forward. I could see now that this was indeed the same spot. The large tree I had placed Lily under was just off to my left, and the pad and pen I had handed her had been tossed over to one side. But Lily herself was nowhere to be seen.

Chapter 8

"You're right, Blue. She's definitely not here."

That was Mike speaking. Wizzit had teleported him and Shelley out as soon as we had ascertained that Lily was nowhere in the immediate vicinity.

"There's no sign of a struggle," I said. "Whoever took her, she went with them willingly."

"Look at these footprints." Shelley was pointing at the damp ground by the tree. "Something heavy was standing right over here."

"And here, too." Mike indicated the other side of the tree. "Are you thinking they were alters?"

Shelley nodded. "Could be. Or someone from Enclave, anyway. Blue, did JB Swift mention anyone who might be able to control Lily besides you and him?"

"No. He didn't say anything about that."

"Red, please point yourself at the footprints," Wizzit interjected. "Let me see them."

Mike angled himself so as to give Wizzit a good view from the sensors in his belt. "Mean anything to you?"

"They are of an odd shape," Wizzit observed. "Not boots or street shoes or sneakers or even sandals. They are smaller, almost like dancing slippers."

I was staring down at the footprints as well. "Or harlequin shoes," I murmured.

"Yes, Blue. Just what I was thinking."

I sighed and closed my eyes, trying to picture the last time I had seen Lily. "Wizzit, do you remember, was Lily wearing her earrings when she met us? You know, the gold ones that JB Swift used to use to control her?"

There was a pause. "Affirmative."

I nodded. That was what I had expected.

Shelley let out her breath explosively. "That explains it, then. The Harley twins must have gotten possession of JB Swift's old remote control. They 'ported in and used it to get her to follow them."

"Sounds like," Mike agreed. "That would explain why they decided to kill JB Swift; they had already gotten hold of Lily. But how did they find her? You've never used this spot before, have you, Blue?"

I shook my head. "I think I know what happened, though," I said heavily. I had been mentally kicking myself over this for the past five minutes, in fact, ever since we discovered she was gone. "See, when you use an Enclave teleporter, it remains set to those coordinates until someone changes it to something else. You can always see where the previous person went."

Shelley nodded in understanding. "You think someone was at that teleporter after you and Lily left?"

"They must have been." I made a disgusted sound. "Here I'd been thinking I was so clever, copying down that last set of coordinates before 'porting out with Lily, and then someone pulled the same trick on me." I shook my head, angry with myself. "I should have done a double-hop. As soon as we made it out here, I should have had Wizzit send us someplace else. She would have been safe, then. Instead, I led them straight to her."

"Easy, Blue," Mike said. "It was an honest mistake."

"Yeah, but it may have cost Lily her life," I retorted. "JB Swift said that her lifespan with Enclave would be measured in weeks, if not days."

Shelley laid a comforting hand on my shoulder. "We'll get her back, Blue, one way or another."

Mike bent to pick up the pad and pen. He looked at it and shrugged. "Well, she didn't leave any sort of note telling us where she'd gone." He looked around. "Anything else we need to do 'round here?" he asked.

I shook my head. Shelley said, "I can't think of anything."

"In that case, Wizzit, would you care to send us home?"

"Sending you out to retrieve the teleport trap, Red," Wizzit replied. "Even if we aren't going to use it today, it should not be left lying around. Blue, your family is starting to wonder where you are. Primes Violet and Green in particular are beginning to get concerned. I have not yet had occasion to discreetly update them on your whereabouts."

I sighed. I had nearly forgotten them. "All right, back home for me."

"We'll keep working on the problem," Shelley promised.

Less than thirty seconds later, I was standing behind the big oak tree in my parents' backyard. I entered through the kitchen door and, seeing no one there or in the dining room, I wandered into the living room. Grandmaster Park, Angie's and my Tae Kwon Do teacher, had come over for a visit and appeared to be in the middle of telling Mark and Toby one of his long stories.

Everyone looked up at me as I entered. "Where were you, Younger Brother?" Joy demanded. "You had us all worried."

I looked around the room, and somehow managed to dredge up my most sheepish, most disarming grin. "Sorry, I didn't mean to get everybody all upset," I said. "I ran into an old friend, and we got to talking and lost track of time."

Joy crossed her arms. "An old friend?" she said skeptically. "And you were 'just talking'? For two hours?"

"Was it really that long? Wow, I guess time really did get away from us."

"So where is this 'old friend' now?"

"She's, ah, been unavoidably detained." Lame, I know, but I couldn't really tell them that she had been spirited away to an unknown Enclave base, now could I?

"'She'?" Joy asked pointedly.

"All right, Joy," my mother said in that tone of voice parents use when they want to quell an argument between siblings. "I don't think we need pry any further into Trevor's personal life."

I had to suppress a snort. This, coming from the woman who considered it her maternal duty to ask me pointed questions about my love life every chance she got. Still, it was nice to have an ally in this little skirmish.

Nick nudged Jerome. "I bet it was Paula," he said. To me he said, "She still asks about you every now and then, big bro. I think she still has a thing for you."

"It wasn't Paula," I replied. "Nobody you guys know, in fact." I felt a huge yawn coming on, and I gave in to the impulse. "You know, I've had a long, hard day, and I'm bushed. I'm going upstairs to bed."

Toby got up along with me; he'd been awake for as long as I had. We Primes don't get jet-lagged from teleporting all over the world -- at least I never have -- but being up for nearly twenty hours can tire anybody out.

Angie struggled to her feet as well. I don't think she was really tired; I just think she figured that the earlier she went to bed, the earlier she would wake up and be able to walk again. She used to do the same thing every Christmas Eve.

Toby playfully offered to carry her upstairs, and she just as playfully turned him down. He swept her up in his arms anyway, sending her canes clattering to the floor, and dashed up the steps, taking them two at a time, with her giggling and protesting all the way.

Shrugging an "I don't know what's going on with them" to the room at large as I picked up her canes, I followed. I made a point of stopping in front of the grandmaster's chair and paying my respects to him in Korean. He barely nodded. Like Joy, he thinks I am gravely disappointing Mom and Dad with my "chosen lifestyle", and he is punishing me for it in his own way.

Toby and Angie were waiting for me just outside my room. Toby demanded, "All right, Trev, give. Where were you really?"

I sighed and shook my head. I didn't really feel like going over it all again, but I realized that I owed the two of them an honest explanation. I motioned for them to follow me into my room. Then I closed the door and outlined the evening's events. When I was done, Toby scowled and started to say what I thought was going to be a very bad word, but then he caught sight of my sister and nearly strangled himself cutting it off.

"I thought we were done with that Lily bi--" Another glance at Angie. "-- er, person for good!" he said with some feeling. "No offense, Trev -- I know you like her and all -- but she's never been anything but trouble for us. Serious trouble."

"I know. But I had been hoping that was all behind us," I said, "now that I seem to be her new minder."

"Ah, but are you really her minder, or is this just another trick like last time?"

I shrugged. "Who knows? And it may not make any difference if we can't get her back." I got up and started pacing. "I don't think I'm going to be able to sleep any time soon. Wizzit, is there anything I can do to help?"

"I dispatched Yellow and Indigo to JB Swift's old lair with the teleport trap just a few minutes ago," his voice said from the speakers in my belt. "Yellow has set up a temporary screen generator to shield it from Enclave scanning, and Yellow and Indigo are looking for JB Swift's own screen generator. As soon as they have disabled that, I will be able to teleport you and other members of the team in and out the site freely. This will be an unprecedented opportunity for us to study Enclave technology."

"Count me in." I was tired -- exhausted, really -- but at the same time I was filled with all kinds of nervous energy. If there was anything that could be done to help us get Lily back, I wanted to be in on it.

Toby yawned and stretched. "You may be Mr. Insomnia tonight, Trev," he said, "but I'm not. If a certain lady Prime would care to leave the room, I'm going to get undressed for bed."

A smile broke out over Angie's face when he said this. I think it was the first time anyone had ever called her a real, honest-to-goodness Prime. She wished us goodnight and went to her own room.

By the time I had gotten myself cleaned up and brushed my teeth, Wizzit was reporting that JB Swift's screen generator had been disabled. Toby wished me luck as I activated, and then I teleported out to the lab.

Chapter 9

I awoke to a small, persistent beeping sound. I guess I had been subconsciously been trying to weave it into my dreams, because I had weird images in my head of giant trucks backing up. The rhythm of the beeping didn't fit, though, and the pitch was all wrong. I opened my eyes to discover that Toby was apparently already awake and had gone downstairs. The beeping was coming from my Prime belt.

"It's about time you woke up," I heard Wizzit's voice say.

"What time is it?" I asked, yawning.

"Time for you to be up and getting ready to attend your sister's graduation," he replied.

I groaned. I had stayed out at the lab, sifting through the aftermath of JB Swift's rampage there, until the wee small hours of the morning. I know Nicolai had discovered a few things of interest, but I hadn't found anything that seemed like it would help us find Lily. At last, tired and discouraged, I had teleported back home and gone to bed.

I showered and dressed and went downstairs for breakfast. Everyone else was already at the table; my mother had made a big pot of congee, or rice soup, as well as lots of youtiao, a kind of fried breadstick. "Good morning, sleepyhead," Angie said. "Toby told us you've had a few late nights lately, so we let you sleep in."

I grinned at Toby for covering for me. "Thanks, mate." Then I looked more closely at what he was eating. He had a bowl of congee in front of him and was spooning a thick brown paste into it from a small jar in front of him. "You're putting Marmite on congee?" I exclaimed.

"It's not bad," he replied, his mouth full. He swallowed, then went on, "The congee's a bit bland by itself, but the Marmite perks it right up."

"You should try it, Trevor." That was from my father, who, to my horror, had apparently swirled several dollops of the foul-tasting stuff into his bowl as well. I closed my eyes and shook my head, trying to banish the sight from my mind. Mike had been trying to get the rest of us Primes hooked on Marmite for years, but so far, Toby had been his only convert. Now I wondered whether I had wandered onto the set of some sort of body-snatchers movie, where my entire family had been transformed into Marmite-eating pod people.

Fortunately for my sanity, no one else seemed remotely interested in trying the Marmite. I saw Jerome reach across the table for the last youtiao. "Did you hear the news, big bro?" he asked me, tearing it in half. "Little sis here walked downstairs all by herself this morning, without any canes or anything."

"Really?" I feigned surprise. "Wow, that's good news. How are you feeling, little sis?"

Angie gave me a grin. "I feel great! My legs were a little wobbly when I first woke up from the . . ." She caught herself and glanced carefully around the table. ". . . you know, from sleeping, but they feel okay now."

"Just don't overdo it," I advised her. "You've probably lost some strength, and you won't get it all back in a day."

"Big sis is pretty freaked out," Nick said. "She kept rubbing her eyes and asking Angie if she was sure she felt okay."

I looked around the table. "Where is Older Sister?"

"She is in the den feeding my darling grandson," my mother said, coming out from the kitchen with another plate of youtiao. She was looking quite the happy matriarch, with all her grown children, child-in-law, and new grandchild all gathered under her roof.

"So, big bro," Nick said, "when do we get to meet this 'old friend' of yours? Did you invite her to graduation?"

"And is she cute?" Jerome added.

"She really is," Angie said. She glanced around smugly at the surprised looks she got. "What? I ran into her once with Trevor, and he . . . sort of introduced us." She winked at me. "Her name is Lily, and she is very presentable."

Everyone laughed at Angie's dead-on impression of my mother, even my mom. "But she couldn't come to graduation," I put in quickly. "She had to, um, go down to Port Columbus to catch a flight."

Thankfully, that seemed to end the questions about Lily. Joy returned a few minutes later, and although she kept giving me odd looks all through breakfast and later during the graduation ceremony, she didn't say anything to me.

Upon arriving at the auditorium where the ceremony was to be held, Angie was immediately swarmed by a gaggle of her girlfriends. I have no idea what she told them about being able to walk again, and frankly, I didn't much care. Like the bicycle that couldn't stand up, I was too tired.

Since I've been a Prime, I have gotten out of the habit of drinking anything containing caffeine. For one thing, Wizzit doesn't stock coffee or energy drinks at HQ; black tea is about as strong as it gets. For another, I normally don't need any sort of pick-me-up, since Wizzit keeps us on an extremely regular wake/sleep schedule, and with all the exercise I get, I generally sleep very well at HQ.

And then there's the fact that Wizzit treats caffeine just like any other drug or poison that might be found in the bloodstream, namely by filtering it out through the kidneys. After drinking coffee, one tends to wake up from healing comas with an uncomfortably full bladder. So no, I don't do the caffeine thing.

Still, I found myself wishing I had drunk a cup or two of coffee at breakfast. The few hours' sleep I had gotten -- minus who knew how long for a healing coma beforehand -- just hadn't been enough. I know I nodded off a time or two during graduation. Toby nudged me awake when Angie went up to receive her diploma, and I remember seeing one of her friends walking discreetly beside her, ready to support her if her legs started to give out, but I don't recall much of the ceremony besides that.

As soon as we got home, Joy grabbed my arm and pulled me into the den. "How did you know, Younger Brother?" she demanded in Mandarin as she closed the doors.

"How did I know what?" I asked innocently in the same language.

"How did you know Younger Sister would be able to walk again today? You were the one who got me to agree to wait until this evening to take her to the hospital, but now there is no need, because she is all better. How did you know?"

I looked at my older sister. She was pretty upset, and I could sympathize. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to do anything to enlighten her. "Lucky guess?" I said with an attempt at a grin.

Joy emitted a small scream of frustration. "Everything has gone all weird in the last six months," she said unhappily. "Do you know that Younger Sister told me last night she is not going to college? She says she has accepted a 'marketing internship' with an international cosmetics company. And Mother and Father do not care! I thought they would be very upset, but they are actually happy with what she is doing!"

So that was going to be Angie's cover story? A marketing intern? I mean, it wasn't quite as lame as an international Tae Kwon Do demonstration team, but still. "Older Sister," I began.

"I could not believe what I was hearing," Joy went on. "She says that of course she will not get paid much, but she will gain a lot of valuable experience. Because she will be doing some of her work in Asia, she will be able to use her Mandarin and Cantonese and Korean, and even brush up on her Thai. I said, what about your education? And she said there would be time for that after she finishes this internship. And Mother and Father were sitting there, smiling and nodding, as if it were the most wonderful thing in the world."

"Older Sister," I said again, more insistently this time.

Joy paid no attention. "It was bad enough when you blindsided everybody with all that talk about your international team, but at least everyone reacted normally then. Now, Mother and Father do not seem to care that Younger Sister is not getting a college education. And even when I talk to them about you now, they are all 'Maybe this Tae Kwon Do team will be a good experience for him.'" She shook her head. "I do not understand them any more. And then, when I --"

"Joy!" I said sharply. I took hold of her wrist and turned her to face me. "Stop talking and listen to me!"

She stopped and blinked at me, either because of my tone of voice or the fact that I had actually used her name. "What?" she asked. She looked down at her wrist. Now, Joy's a third-degree black belt, so she knows how to break away from a wrist-grab, and I wasn't really holding her that tightly anyway. But she didn't try to free herself from my grip; she just looked. "What?" she said again.

I didn't really know what I was going to say next; I had mostly wanted just to stop this rant of hers. "Look," I said, switching to English, "Angie . . . she's going to be okay. This . . . this marketing internship she's doing -- it's going to work out all right. Really, it is. Trust me."

"You mean, you knew?" she said incredulously. "You knew all along that she was going to go into cosmetics?"

"Well, no, not exactly," I said. "I didn't know she was going to be a marketing intern . . . exactly."

"But you knew she wouldn't be going to college?"

"Yeah," I admitted. "I knew that. Just like I knew that her legs would be healed today."

Joy stared at me, looking more closely than she had before. I think that, up to now, she had been thinking of me as nothing but the slightly goofy, wayward younger brother that she had grown up with, and that she didn't have to pay too close attention to me because she had already figured me out. Now, though, she was taking a second, harder look, re-evaluating me.

"What's going on, Younger Brother?" she asked me softly. She sounded frightened.

I found that I couldn't make myself blow this off and say, "Nothing's going on, Older Sister." But of course, I couldn't tell her just what was going on, either. So I did my best to compromise. "I can't tell you," I said truthfully. "I'm not allowed to."

"But something is, right? Something's going on?" I didn't say anything, and she went on anxiously, "Are you in trouble? Do you need help?"

I smiled reassuringly and shook my head. "I'm not in any kind of trouble, and neither is Younger Sister. We're both fine. We're going to be fine." I thought for a moment, then added, "Look, Older Sister, I know you're worried about her, so I'm going to make you a promise. When she's out there doing this 'marketing intern' thing, I'm going to be watching out for her, okay? I'm going to do my level best to make sure that nothing happens to my baby sister. Toby will, too, and so will some other friends of mine."

"But how can you . . . ? I mean, with your team . . . ?"

"I'll see her a lot more than you might think."

She was staring hard at me now, as if she wanted to peer somehow into my brain and read what I was thinking. Finally, she swallowed nervously and asked, "Are you working for the government? Is -- is Younger Sister going to be working for the government?"

That made me smile, considering how "the government" had been at odds with the Primes in recent months. "I don't want to lie to you," I said, "but I also don't want to turn this into a guessing game, so I'm not going to answer that. I'll just say that if you knew what I was really doing -- what Younger Sister will be doing -- then you'd be as proud of us as Mom and Dad are."

"They know?"

"They do now, but please don't badger them about it. I told them a while ago -- I kind of had to -- probably about the same time that you noticed that things started 'going weird'."

That brought a smile out of her, if only a faint one. "And you really can't tell me what it is that you're doing?"

I smiled and shrugged. "I'm on an international Tae Kwon Do demonstration team; that's all I can say."

She let out a long, slow breath while she digested that. Finally, she nodded. "Okay, I guess I'll have to settle for that. But listen, Younger Brother, if you ever do need help, or if you need a safe place to stay, or . . . or anything, no questions asked . . ."

I took a step forward and put my arms around her. "Then I'll come talk to my beloved older sister."

"You'd better!"

Chapter 10

As nice as HQ is, it's pretty easy to get cabin fever if you spend too much time there, so whenever I'm on vacation, I try to spend a lot of it outdoors. So, while Angie would be packing, making the rounds of the graduation parties, and saying her goodbyes to all her friends, Toby and I planned to spend much of that afternoon wandering around town and the surrounding countryside. We had decided that we'd hang around until the next day, after the siblings had gone, and then all three of us would leave together.

We were out jogging on a gravel country road when I heard Wizzit's voice coming from Toby's belt. "Green and Blue, we are going to hold a debriefing on yesterday's mission in a few minutes. Would you care to pop in for a bit?"

We looked at each other and shrugged. "Sure, why not?" Toby said. "Give us half a moment to find somewhere to conceal ourselves."

We ducked behind a couple of nearby trees, and Wizzit 'ported us back to HQ. As we materialized in the common room, Toby turned to me and grinned. "I've been meaning to ask you, Trev," he said. "What did you say about me to that sister of yours? She was giving me funny looks all through lunch."

"Angie? Nothing."

"No, not Angie. The other one. Joy. She called me 'double-oh-seven' once, and I'd swear, she winked at me when she said it."

"Oh, geez!" I covered my face with my hand and shook my head. "I, um, kind of had to clue Joy in on the fact that we were a little more than we seemed."

"You told her we were Primes?"

"No, of course not," I said. "But like Nick said, she was all freaked out about Angie's legs, and she was really upset about her not going to college, so . . . to calm her down, I sort of gave her a few little hints . . ."

Toby made a face. "Great! So now she thinks we're spies?"

"Sounds like." I sighed. "At least it's better than hearing lectures every time I see her on how I'm wasting my life."

"I suppose." Toby shook his head doubtfully. Then he chuckled. "I don't half mind it, I guess. No one's ever told me I look like James Bond before. D'you reckon I ought to wear a tux next time I come over for a visit."

I grinned. "I'm not sure we'd be able to find one big enough."

The others were clustered around someone -- I thought it might be Padma -- in Shelley's office when we walked in. I was following Toby, and when he stopped short, I nearly ran into him. "Is that you, Padma?" he asked incredulously.

I had to edge around Toby and then stand on my tiptoes to see her. "Dang, Padma!" I exclaimed when I finally caught sight of her, "what did you do to your hair?"

Trina gave me a dirty look; Padma shrugged despondently. "I cut it." Indeed, the long, black, glossy hair that had once fallen past her shoulderblades had been chopped off to just above her jawline.

"I guess you did," Toby said, "but why? I thought it looked nice the way it was."

She sighed. "I had to; some of it got burned on that last mission when I was struck by the energy beam. I didn't realize how bad it was until this morning when I took my shower. Trina helped me cut off the worst parts of it, and then we evened it up afterwards. This is all I have left." She disconsolately combed her fingers through her shorn locks. "I look just like a boy!"

Nicolai came up and put his arm around her. "For the last time, you do not look like a boy," he assured her, kissing her on the cheek. "You look adorable."

I decided to ignore the "You had better say something nice if you know what's good for you!" look that Trina was giving me. Instead, I pursed my lips and made a show of examining Padma from all angles, hmm-ing to myself all the while.

Mike caught my eye; he was grinning. "What d'you say we take a vote, Trevor?" he said. "You, me, and Toby -- the three disinterested male parties who are affected."

I grinned back. "Okay, but what are we voting on?"

"Obviously, on whether or not Padma looks like a boy," Toby said.

Mike snorted. "Nah, anyone who thinks that should have his eyes checked."

"I think we should vote on which adjective to apply to her new haircut," I said. I winked at Mike. "I'd put it up to a choice between 'adorable' and . . . oh, let's go with 'cute'."

"Hmm." Mike stroked his chin. "Adorable or cute? In that case, I vote for 'cute'."

"I don't know about that," I said. "I agree with Nicolai. I'm going to have to say 'adorable'."

"What's the difference?" Toby growled. "They both mean the same thing." He yelped, probably because Trina had just kicked him in the shin, and hastily added, "Which is, um, good, because, um, both of them apply. 'Cute' and 'adorable', yup, that's what I vote for. Both of 'em."

Padma gave us all a wry smile as we found our seats, but she did seem pleased. Shelley waited until we had all quieted down, and then she said, "We had a busy day yesterday, people. Two monster battles in one day -- I don't remember the last time that happened -- and I think most of you know by now that Lily's back. Trevor, let's start off with you."

Wizzit brought up a still image of Lily on the big vid screen. It was of the first time I had seen her yesterday, curled up under the tree and half-hidden in shadow. It was actually a rather glamorous-looking shot, like something you might see in a fashion magazine, and I have to say, she looked good \-- really good. And to judge by the expressions of some of my male teammates, they must have thought so, too. Padma dug an elbow into Nicolai's ribs and whispered something sharply to him. Interestingly, Trina did the same to Mike.

Now, I have never been very good at narration. I assume I'll get better with practice; Trina certainly has, and Mike's getting to be a pro at it. Regardless, Wizzit replayed a vid of my rather one-sided conversation with Lily, and I fumbled my way through a description of everything that happened from the first moment when she caught my eye right up to where I teleported away with her.

"It was a bit rash, wasn't it?" Mike said when the vid stopped. "I mean, going off with Lily to heaven knew where just on the strength of a note saying you would not be harmed? What if JB Swift had been lying? Or what if someone else had control of her?"

"I'll admit that it was a gamble," I replied, "but I figured the odds were in my favor. You heard me talk it through with Wizzit; I had some reason to believe I was not going to be in any real danger. And I made sure Wizzit knew where I was going. If I hadn't come back in a timely manner, you would have at least known where to come after me."

Mike grimaced and shook his head. It was clear he wasn't convinced.

"Sometimes it is good to be a bit rash." That came from Padma. "I mean, when I accidentally ran through the teleport trap that one time in Vietnam, Trevor jumped through it as well, to come get me. That was rash, but if he had not done it . . ." She shrugged. "Who knows where I would be now? Perhaps on my way to becoming another Lily."

Shelley stirred. "I don't think we're going to settle this here," she said, forestalling any further discussion. "Trevor, please give some thought to what Mike said, would you?"

I nodded. That was probably the clearest sign I would ever get that Shelley was siding with me. In three years, I had never seen Prime Commander and Prime Red disagree in public, at least not about team-related matters. If Mike thought I was being careless, then it was up to him, as team lead, to correct that, and Shelley would have limited say in the matter. Which was not to imply that she would not try to influence him, but if she did, it would be done out of sight of the rest of the team.

"I have no recordings of anything that went on between Trevor and JB Swift at the secret base," Wizzit declared. "For that, we will have to rely solely on Trevor's memory."

Shelley nodded. "I've heard just the very basics of what went on. Trevor, I'd like you to go through everything from beginning to end, in as much detail as you can -- actions, conversations, everything."

I let out my breath. "Okay, I'll do my best." I stared up at the ceiling, trying to picture things in my memory. "Let's see. As soon as we materialized, Lily let go of my hand and stepped away from me . . ."

Once I got started, it turned out to be easier than I thought to reconstruct the entire scene. Easier than narrating, that's for sure. I got a few things mixed up, and I had to go back and correct myself more than once, but overall, I think I gave everyone a pretty clear idea of everything that had gone down. Wizzit picked up the story at that point, showing the vid of me dropping Lily off in Costa Rica. Then, at Shelley's suggestion, he played the vid of my returning to find her gone.

When we finished, Nicolai said, "So, Trevor, you're telling us that Enclave wanted Lily only to distract us during a battle?"

"That's what JB Swift told me," I replied.

"That is interesting." He frowned at the floor. "I do not believe he was being entirely candid with you."

I shrugged. "That wouldn't surprise me. Why do you think so?"

"We were not able to recover much from his computer files last night," Nicolai explained, "but Wizzit and I did reconstruct parts of what seemed to be an angry exchange between him and the Harley twins. They were wanting more control over Lily -- perhaps the same kind of control he gave you -- and he was not giving it to them."

"Why did they want that?" Shelley asked.

Nicolai slowly shook his head. "It was not clear. Understand, we were piecing together fragmentary parts of a computer file, and we had to make some guesses as to how they fit together. There were hints of a . . . of some sort of project, something big that, if I read it right, would either disable the Primes or destroy them. I saw the phrase 'unaltered human' a few times; I assume it was referring to Lily."

"They did say that they had important plans that depended on her," I mused.

"When was this?" Trina asked, surprised.

"Out at the battle site yesterday," I said. "I think it was before you guys arrived. Wizzit should have the vid."

"I do indeed," Wizzit said promptly. "I will replay it when we get to that part of the debrief."

Padma spoke up. "This is troubling. The Harley twins have created some of the toughest monsters we have faced. If they have some secret plan to use Lily to destroy us, and they now actually have Lily as well . . ."

"That's bang on, Padma," Mike muttered. "Now I know what Damocles felt like. There's a sword over our heads hanging by a thread, and we don't know when it'll come crashing down on us."

"It may not be as bad as all that," Toby said. The rest of us turned to look at him in surprise. I like Toby; he's one heckuva great guy to have at your back in a fight, but . . . well, he's not exactly a strategist. It's unusual for him to express an opinion in this sort of discussion. He went on, "Look, I've never been Lily's number one fan; everyone knows that."

"No, that would be Trevor," Trina interjected, giving me a sideways smirk. I felt my face turn red.

"Yes, exactly." Toby grinned at her, then grew serious. "All I'm saying is that Lily's sort of a queer duck, isn't she? We found that out when we held her prisoner. These Harley twins might have her, but they might not actually have her, if you know what I mean."

I sure didn't, but Shelley nodded in understanding. "That's a good point, Toby. From all indications, the Harley twins are not Lily's masters, not in the sense that JB Swift was. If that's true, then the only means they would have of controlling her would be JB Swift's old remote control, and something like that is bound to be clumsy at best."

"Whereas we have Trevor," Mike put in.

"Whereas we have Trevor," Shelley agreed. She pulled at her lower lip, lost in thought for a moment. "I'd like to bring Bill in on this," she said at last. "Not right now, of course, but this is something we're going to have to think about, and I want his opinion, if that's all right." She was speaking to everyone in the room, but she was looking straight at me.

I nodded. "Sure. That's a good idea."

She waited a moment longer, then she said, "Okay. Anything further on this? If not, let's go over the battle itself."

Wizzit brought the vid up on the screen. I went over the brief conversation I had overheard between JB Swift and the Harley twins. Mike took over after that; he narrated the battle up to the point where he got himself knocked flat. Toby winced when that happened, I noticed, the same way Nicolai and I had. After Wizzit had teleported him out, Trina took over. As I've already mentioned, she's gotten to be pretty good at narrating our little adventures. Somehow she was able to keep track of what everyone was doing while she was shooting and dodging monsters. She was even able to describe most of my dance with Ape-fist, as well as Padma's getting zapped by Cyclops.

I paid particular attention to what happened a few minutes later, when the Harley twins showed up again. Their bombs went off and the screen just went wild. I think Wizzit must have been playing with the visual filters, trying to compensate for the EM spectrum overload produced by the bombs; the colors were shifting around crazily. I'm not sure who it was, but someone was facing directly toward JB Swift, because we had a very good image of his small form as it started sparking and then blew itself to pieces.

After the light show faded and Wizzit stopped the vid, Shelley said, "I guess that's that. Any comments?"

"How could they destroy all their monsters so quickly?" Trina asked. "I don't understand that; it doesn't seem possible. We can't even do that, and it's our job."

"I am sure the Harley twins must have access to certain information we don't," Nicolai replied after a moment's thought. "Access codes, private encryption keys, backdoors . . . I suppose they could have exploited anything like that to blow up every single monster in the area."

"They could indeed," Wizzit agreed. "Each Enclave base, in fact, has its own unique backdoor baked into every monster produced there, from the highest level on down. I believe it's to keep everyone in line and to prevent rogues like JB Swift. Anyone who knew the code could create a bomb like the ones they used."

"So that's why the Harley Twins left before the bombs blew up," Trina said thoughtfully. "To keep from getting destroyed themselves."

"But to create such a bomb would be foolish in the extreme," Nicolai objected. "And not only because of the danger to themselves. If the backdoor were to become known to us . . ."

"It would be difficult to determine the backdoor code simply by analyzing the event we just saw," Wizzit said. "For one thing, it would require extremely detailed recordings from several distinct sources. Those recordings would have to be gone over in great detail by someone with a good deal of patience and technical knowledge and oodles of computer processing power backing him up. I'm sure they're not worried about that at all."

No one can sound as smug as Wizzit when he wants to, and I waited for him to say something further, maybe to crow about how clever he was or something. He didn't, though. In fact, that seemed to be his last word on the subject.

"So JB Swift really is gone, then," Padma said softly after the silence had grown uncomfortably long.

"Looks like," agreed Toby. "It's hard to believe."

"When I talked to him during the battle," I commented, "he seemed surprised that we hadn't adopted the tactic he was using, getting the monsters to attack and destroy each other."

"The reason we haven't done that is because they never give us a chance," Mike said. "Enclave always send their monsters to different spots around the globe. We don't ever see any more than one at a time."

"Yeah, that's kind of what I told him."

Mike turned to Shelley. "You're going to go over this with Violet tomorrow when she gets in, right?"

"That's right, whenever that is."

"Right, then. I think we're done." Mike got to his feet, signaling the rest of us to do the same. "Toby, Trevor, I expect we'll see you tomorrow when you bring in our new Prime Violet."

Chapter 11

Since we didn't expect another monster attack for a while, Mike decided that I would spend my first morning back teaching my teammates how to slow down time. He had us all gather in the gym to try it. I think it was the first time since Shelley had been arrested that we had had seven fully-powered Primes, from Red down to Violet, all in the same room together, and I have to say, it felt awfully good. As if the world had been put back to rights.

I did my best to explain the things Wizzit had explained to me -- how to set oneself and perform the brief mental concentration necessary to make the shift. Wizzit hadn't seemed to know about the sharp inhalation that kickstarted the effect, so I explained that as well, along with a few more insights that I had gained.

None of it worked.

I shouldn't have been surprised; Wizzit had told me it wouldn't work, at least not the first day. I hadn't said anything to the others, though, because I didn't want to discourage them. I imagine we would have looked pretty silly to an outside observer, all powered up and gasping sharply for all we were worth, with nothing to show for it.

After about twenty minutes of trying, Trina decided she was bored and declared that she wanted to learn the other cool trick one can do with a force shield, something called a shock wave. That's where you draw in energy from your force shield and then release it in a concussive blast. Typically it's something the current Prime Red pulls out of his or her back pocket in case of an emergency.

As I've already mentioned, all of us fully-powered Primes are supposed to be equally powerful, but certain things get easier the lower your prime number gets, which is why it's usually only Prime Red who can perform a shock wave. I had done one once, months ago, but I hadn't tried it since and wasn't sure I could do it on command. So it was Mike who reluctantly went off into another part of the room to work with Trina.

(I said "reluctantly", but truth be told, I don't think Mike minded it all that much. Sure, he wanted to learn the speedup trick, but see, he and Trina seem to have some sort of mutual-attraction thing going. It's kind of cute, because I don't believe either one of them knows exactly what to do about it. Well, Mike probably know exactly what he wants to do about it, but Trina's different from the girls he normally hooks up with, and I'm pretty sure he knows that and is scared to death about blowing it with her.)

Regardless, after another twenty minutes or so, we all heard a sort of teeth-rattling boom coming from Mike and Trina's area of the gym. Then we heard a shout of triumph from Trina. "I did it! I can do the shock wave!" She turned excitedly to Mike. "How soon until I can do it again?"

"Yeah, would you mind practicing that outside?" Toby said irritably. He stuck a finger in his ear and shook it. "It's bad enough that Blue's got us hyperventilating over here without you making us all half deaf."

Mike chuckled. "He's got a point, love. Perhaps we should repair to some place more private. Wizzit, what about somewhere in the Himalayas?"

"Negatory on that, good buddy," Wizzit said. "Orange's force shield will be out for another seven minutes, thirty-eight seconds. After that much time in the Himalayas, she would be suffering from oxygen deprivation or hypothermia. You need somewhere that doesn't require a force shield for you to be comfortable. I could send you to any number of isolated spots in the Australian Outback, the Gobi desert, the Sahara desert, various Pacific atolls . . ."

"Now there's an intriguing thought." Mike held out a hand to Trina. "What do you say? Fancy a trip to a tropical island paradise?"

"Er, might I tag along?" Padma hesitantly raised a hand. "I don't think I'm going to learn any more from Blue today."

"Me, neither," agreed Toby.

"I don't think anyone is," I admitted. "I've explained everything that I can explain; I think the lesson just has to sink in for a day or so."

Mike sighed. If I could have seen his face under the red mist, I'm sure it would have looked seriously ticked off. Still, his voice was cheerful enough. "Right, let's all go, then, shall we? Wizzit, you've no objection?"

"None. In fact, it's a good idea." It was hard to tell, but I don't think Wizzit had picked up on the fact that Mike wanted a good excuse to have Trina all to himself. If he had, there would have been more . . . let's call it glee . . . in his voice. In case you haven't noticed, Wizzit is about as subtle as a sledgehammer about things like that. "Just take care that no more than half of you have defunct force shields at any given time.

"Got it."

It was full night when we materialized on a sandy beach. Angie exclaimed, "Wait, why's it dark out? It's still morning, isn't it?"

"It is still morning at HQ," Nicolai explained, "which is on Greenwich Mean Time. Here, we are probably somewhere near the International Dateline -- twelve hours time difference. Of course it's dark."

"Oh, sorry. I guess that makes sense."

Padma patted Angie's shoulder. "Don't worry, you will get used to it."

Mike gathered everyone around and began explaining what he knew about generating a shock wave. I moved a little way down the beach, out of earshot. It was a nice night. There were a million stars blazing in the sky and a suggestion of a breeze scented with something that smelled lush and green and alive.

"Sulking again?" I turned to see Trina's orange-glowing form approaching me. "Are you upset that everyone abandoned you in favor of Red?"

I laughed. "I'm not sulking. It's just that I did a shock wave once before, and I wanted to try to remember exactly how I did it. I thought that would be more helpful than listening to Mike explain it."

"Ah, I see." Trina moved closer and took my arm, walking with me along the beach. "You're worrying about her, aren't you?"

"You mean Lily?" Duh, of course she meant Lily. Who else could she mean? "I'm . . . yeah, I'm worried about her." I sighed. "And trying not to think about how worried I am about her, and all the things she must be going through."

"We will get her back, never fear," she declared with confidence. Then she looked up at me and said, "After we do, when will you tell her that you love her?"

I let out a long breath. Leave to Trina to go straight to the heart of the matter. "I don't know. Maybe I shouldn't tell her at all."

"Why not?"

"It's complicated. I mean, her life is going to be messed up enough as it is." I shook my head. "She's got, what, five different personalities running around in her head? With all that screwing things up, she doesn't need me trying to be her boyfriend at the same time."

"With that many selves, perhaps what she needs is a unifying principle."

"You mean, me?"

She shrugged. "That's not what I said, but if that's what you think . . ."

I glanced up the beach to where the others were beginning to scatter. "What I think," I said with a grin, "is that we'd better not wander off too far, because Mike might suspect we're getting up to something we shouldn't."

Trina laughed. It was good to hear. She had been having trouble with her family in Russia since before last Christmas, and it has made her somber all too often. I missed the old flirtatious Trina.

She must have read my thoughts, because she stepped closer to me and pulled my arm around her waist. My hand brushed up against some of those luscious Trina curves, and I don't think it was an accident. "And what I think," she said in a playful, husky whisper, "is that you are far too much of a gentleman for a lovely night like this. If you were more of a rogue, who knows? We actually might have gotten up to something we shouldn't."

Chapter 12

For the next several days, I kept myself as busy as possible, trying to keep my mind off of what must be happening to Lily. The way I figured it, there was nothing I could do to help her at the moment, so it was best not to dwell on the matter. It was a good idea in theory; in practice, it didn't work out quite so well. Go figure.

Still, I tried my best. I practiced "The Dying Poet" assiduously, I spent a few hours on our target range shooting my blaster, I took my turn teaching Angie a few of the things all new Primes need to learn -- such as the tapping codes for her Prime belt -- and I kicked the large bag in the gym practically into oblivion.

I finally talked Trina into giving me some aikido lessons; in return, I agreed to pose for a few shirtless sketches. And no, this wasn't some elaborate seduction scheme on her part (or on mine either, for that matter). Much as I like Trina, and despite all our flirting, we've just never clicked in that way. No, the fact is that Trina is a pretty good artist -- I keep a few of her sketches of Lily in my room, in fact -- and she is constantly looking for models. And I needed stuff to do.

Late one afternoon, about a week after my sister had joined us, I strolled into the kitchen where Angie was waiting for me. "Ready for the cook-off, little sis?" I asked.

"Of course I am." She grinned at me. "You're going down, big brother!"

I smiled my most serene smile. "We will see, Younger Sister, we will see." I began showing her where everything was in the kitchen. "So, how do you like being a Prime so far?" I asked conversationally as I pulled out a pair of cutting boards and handed one to her.

"It's great! Did I tell you that Mike thinks I'll be able to go out with you guys the next time a monster shows up?"

"No, I hadn't heard that." Knives next, from the utensil drawer. "What about your legs? Are they going to be strong enough?"

"That's the thing. See, I've been working with Wizzit; he put me on this weird regimen where I'll do all these leg exercises until I'm ready to collapse, and then he'll run a healing coma on me, and then I do the exercises all over again, and then he does another healing coma, and so on. He says I can get the equivalent of two weeks of exercise in just one day. I'm practically back to full strength already. Isn't that cool?"

"Yeah, that is pretty cool. I didn't know he could do that." I grinned; Angie's enthusiasm was infectious. We moved to the refrigerator, and I began removing various kinds of meats and vegetables and handing them to her. "How did your practice go the other day? I wasn't keeping track; were you able to generate a shock wave?"

"No." She sounded put out about that as she divided the food between my cutting board and hers. "I bet I will soon, though." Then she got a smug look on her face. "And I know the reason you weren't keeping track; it was because you snuck off into the bushes with Trina. Mike wasn't happy about that."

I laughed. "We were just talking, little sis, nothing more. Trina and I are old friends, and we sometimes have stuff to talk about. And if Mike can't handle it, he's man enough to confront me about it."

"Well, it's your funeral." She shrugged and looked around. "It looks like I've got everything I need. Get ready to be blown away by my cooking."

I adopted a parody of a Bruce Lee fighting pose and emitted one of his patented strangled-chicken yells. "Your cook fu is weak, sister! My cook fu is strong. I will destroy you!" She giggled and threw a hot pad at me.

If you were a little puzzled by certain parts of our conversation, let me enlighten you. We Primes cook for each other at HQ on a rotating schedule, and everyone has more-or-less settled into his or her own unique style. Padma does really good Indian food, Toby plays around with British cooking and occasionally some Continental stuff, and Mike does up a great leg of New Zealand lamb. Trina likes to make these fancy French dishes, for some reason, while Nicolai does a combination of German and Polish. (Although, to tell you the truth, I don't know much about Polish cooking. He could have handed me a raw potato on a stick and told me it was a genuine Polish delicacy, and I wouldn't have known any better.) I generally make home-cooked Chinese, since that was what I learned growing up at home.

When Angela joined us, a few people grumbled about not wanting to have homemade Chinese twice a week. I didn't understand it myself, since I grew up eating it every day. I suppose it takes all kinds. At any rate, after a day or so, we decided that the best way to resolve the situation would be for Angie and me to hold a cook-off. We would each make two of our best dishes, and the one whose food was voted the tastiest would get to continue to make Chinese for the group. The loser would have to adopt a different style of cooking.

(And seriously, it would not have bothered me too much if I lost. I had already volunteered to switch to the central Ohio variant of American Tailgate Party cuisine -- veggies and dip, potato salad from a grocery store, and grilled burgers and brats -- but so far no one seemed interested.)

Now, I realize that this type of elaborate competition might sound a bit silly to someone who has never lived at HQ. You need to remember, though, that to a large extent, we Primes have to manufacture our own entertainment, and a friendly contest like this filled the bill perfectly. To add to the festive air, we had even invited Shelley and our four Primes Emeriti -- Mayumi, Alvaro, Cathy, and Bill -- to help with the judging. Mayumi, Bill, and Shelley had all accepted; Cathy and Alvaro, it appeared, had other commitments.

Regardless, Angie and I set to work on our respective dishes, chopping vegetables and frying up chunks of chicken, fish, and pork. (Good sport that I am, I had already warned her not to overdo it on the beef. Padma won't eat it, and neither will Nicolai if he thinks Padma is watching.) I was going with rice as a base, as any good Chinese will do, but Angie had decided to use a combination of rice and noodles. She was also making with the sauces, which I have never really had the touch for. I had a sinking feeling that her red sauce would carry the day for her.

And then, as we were carrying our bowls and platters to the table for judging, Wizzit started to ring the monster alarm. There were a few groans, but not many, and none of them very loud; after a week without even a hint of a monster, I think everyone was as stir-crazy as I was and ready to see some action. I saw Padma nudge Angela, and the two of them raced off, presumably to the weapons room. It was now Angie's job, as the lowest-ranked Prime, to collect weapons for everyone else whenever we went out. I had neglected to mention that particular data point to her, but I'm sure Padma didn't forget, since that meant that she no longer had to do it.

I ran to my room to pick up my battle vest. When I emerged, I saw Mike, whose room is just down from mine; he was slipping on a pair of black leather gloves. "Hey, are those sap gloves?" I asked.

"That's right," he said with a self-satisfied grin. "Bill finally made me a pair with our anti-Enclave tech in them, just like yours. I thought I'd try 'em out today."

"What about the savate shoes Toby wanted?"

He shrugged. "Wouldn't know about those." He held out one gloved hand, the fingers spread wide. "These are mighty snug. I think they'll do, but I wouldn't want them any smaller."

Toby came out of his room, hopping on one leg as he tried to slip what looked like a leather hightop sneaker onto his other foot. He sat down and struggled with it for a few seconds. Eventually he gave it up and threw the shoe back into his room. "Bill made mine too small," he complained, reaching one long arm back inside the room and withdrawing the savate boots he usually wore.

"Maybe he didn't realize how much space our tech stuff would take up," I volunteered. Toby just grunted as he laced up the shoes with practiced ease. Within moments, the three of us were jogging down the hallway.

"Where to today, Wizzit?" Mike asked as the three of us entered the common room. Nicolai and Trina were there waiting for us. Shelley, Bill, and Mayumi were nowhere to be seen; they had all probably teleported to their respective homes to retrieve their blasters. I assumed that Angie and Padma were still gathering weapons.

"Today, you're going to lovely Honduras, to their capital city of Tegucigalpa," Wizzit chirped.

"And . . . where else?"

"Nowhere else. All five monsters are currently located there."

"Perhaps they thought that JB Swift's little surprise party worked out so well, they want to try it on us," Toby mused.

Trina looked around anxiously. "I wonder what is keeping the girls."

Padma strolled in from the girls' hallway. Her hair was too short to braid now, so she was applying barrettes to keep it out of her face. "Where is Angela?" Trina asked her.

"I left her in the weapons room," Padma explained. "I showed her where everyone's weapons were, and then I left to get myself ready."

"Sorry I'm late, guys," Angie puffed as she came into the room holding an armload of equipment. Toby hastened to take some of it from her before she dropped anything. "I think I got all the stuff. Mike, here's your sword. Padma, I think this is your axe . . ."

"That one is Nicolai's." Padma took the proffered weapon and handed it to Nicolai. Then she took the other axe. "This one is mine."

"Oh. Um, sorry, I couldn't tell which was whose. Let's see, Toby's got his hammer and Trevor's . . . pointy stick."

"It's called a vajra," Padma told her primly. "I fixed it for you yesterday, Trevor."

"Thanks," I said, taking it from Toby.

Angie nodded. "Okay. I've got my Escrima stick, and Trina, here's your sword. I'm sorry, but I couldn't find your triple blaster. I looked all over for it, but . . ."

"It is all right; I have it with me," Trina assured her. "I always keep it in my room."

"Oh, okay." Angela let out her breath and looked around. "I guess that's everything, then."

Mike looked up at the ceiling speakers. "They speak Spanish in Honduras, right, Wizzit?"

"Primarily Spanish, yes," Wizzit replied. "Some English, and various indigenous languages and dialects. But mainly Spanish."

"That's what I was afraid of." Mike screwed up his face. "Is Alvaro available to translate, by any chance?"

"Nope. He is in Mexico, in the middle of a weeklong music festival. As a matter of fact, he is performing on stage at the moment, which means that our interpreter of the day is Angela."

"Me?" she squeaked. "Well . . . okay. I mean, I studied Spanish in high school, but . . ."

"Just do your best, love," Mike said. "We can't ask any more than that. If you can't do it, don't worry. It helps to have an interpreter, but it's not essential; we've done without one before." He looked around at everyone. "Let's go. Angela, don't forget that you're Prime Violet now, not Junior Prime Pink." He squared his shoulders. "Prime Red, activate!"

"Prime Orange, activate!"

"Prime Yellow, activate!"

"Prime Green, activate!"

"Prime Blue, activate!"

"Prime Indigo, activate!"

"Prime Violet, activate!"

Wizzit materialized us in a deserted alleyway between two two-story buildings. "Go off to your right," he instructed us, "and at the end of the alley, turn left. The Parque La Concordia will be straight ahead of you."

The Parque La Concordia turned out to be some sort of city park in the middle of Tegucigalpa. It wasn't very big \-- maybe one city block in size -- but it sure was an interesting-looking place; all the structures seemed to be imitations of Aztec or Mayan architecture, with lots of stone carvings visible on everything. A number of people were running away from the park, which told me that we were headed for the right place. I heard Angie call out something in what sounded like Spanish. A few people gave her odd looks, but no one burst out laughing or seemed offended, so I guess what she said must have been more-or-less appropriate, even if it wasn't exactly correct.

The first monster was not hard at all to spot. Located by a stone bench just inside the park, it looked something like a Gila monster -- a lizard with a blunt snout and mottled, beaded-pattern skin. And like nearly every other Enclave monster I've ever faced, it was really, really big, like the size of a stretch limo, with its tail taking up about half the length of its body.

The seven of us stopped in front of it. "Blasters out, everyone," Mike called. "Wizzit, can we attack?"

"Yupperooni. All five monsters have been destroying public property since they showed up."

"Right. Everyone aim and . . . fire!"

Seven blasters aimed at the lizard and seven fingers pulled seven triggers. Nothing happened.

"Wizzit?" Mike said. "What's going on? Why aren't we firing?"

"Unclear. It appears that something is suppressing the energies of your force shields. I'm investigating."

"Yeah, well, if blasters don't work," Toby growled, "let's see what good old-fashioned muscle will do." He hefted his huge hammer with both hands and took a swing at the lizard's haunches.

Now, what should have happened was that the lizard was knocked sideways and that there were a ton of sparks. What actually happened was that his hammer made a smacking sound and bounced off the lizard's hide without noticeable effect, exactly as if it had struck an ordinary human.

Let me take a step back here and explain something about our weapons. One of Wizzit's strictest rules is to cause as little collateral damage as possible; no innocent bystanders are ever to be hurt if it can possibly be avoided.

For that reason, all of our weapons are specially designed to be as devastating as possible to Enclave monsters, while being completely ineffective against normal humans. Blasters, swords, hammers, even vajras -- none of them work against people. Generally speaking, that's a good thing, but it's also one of the reasons Lily had been causing us so much trouble, in fact, because none of our weapons affect her at all.

(Well, okay, I suppose you might object that Mike's and my sap gloves are an exception to that rule, and you would be right. Sap gloves are leather fighting gloves with either steel shot or sand sewn into pouches along all the striking surfaces. The primary purpose of sap gloves, though, is to protect the hands, not to hurt people, and for that reason, Wizzit gave the okay for us to use them. And so far, I have never punched any human while wearing my gloves, not even Lily.)

At any rate, the lizard didn't take much notice of Toby's attempt to flatten it. It seemed much more interested in Mike, who back-pedaled out of its way with typical Mike-speed.

"Weapons aren't working either, Wizzit," he reported.

"Yes, I know," Wizzit said, his voice irritatingly calm. "As I said, some unknown force is suppressing all activities of your force shields. You will also discover that you have no boosted strength, speed, or endurance. Nor do you have your usual limited immunity from impact injuries."

"Oh, terrific!" Toby muttered. "So we're basically on an equal footing with the Emeriti?"

"Yes. In fact, since their ability to use our weapons stems from a weaker version of your force shields, I would expect that they would have the same problems you are having."

Toby went over to a nearby tree and began to tear off a largish branch. "In that case, we'll have to improvise." That sounded like a good idea to me; I pulled my sap gloves from a pocket of my battle vest and slipped them on.

The Gila monster must have really liked Mike, because it had begun chasing him around the clearing we were standing in. "Let's not bring Copper, Black, and Gold out here just yet, then," he said, sounding surprisingly cool. "There's no sense in putting them in the same danger we're in. Aside from that, I'm open to suggestions. Wizzit?"

"Best course of action is unknown at present," Wizzit replied. "I'm working on it."

Nicolai leaped forward and grabbed at the lizard's tail, trying to slow it down. I joined him, but it simply thrashed its tail about, knocking us around like tenpins. Nicolai picked himself off the ground, shaking his head. "Is this a localized phenomenon, Wizzit? Or have our force shields simply failed?"

"Unknown. I believe it to be a localized phenomenon."

"Can you still teleport us?"

"Affirmative. The transponders on your belts are still operative; they do not depend on your force shields."

"In that case," Nicolai said, "could you send me back to the weapons room? I have something there which I believe might help."

Nicolai vanished in a flash of yellow light. Mike had vaulted over the stone bench, so that it was between him and the lizard. Toby and I made another grab for the monster, going for its hind legs this time. Angie and Trina jumped in to help me, and Padma moved over beside Toby. Together, we managed to drag it back a few feet from the bench. Didn't help a whole lot, though; it turned its head to snap at Toby, who backed away quickly.

"I think another monster has found us," I heard Padma say. "Red, look out!"

Padma's shouted warning came too late; Mike spun about, but for once, his lightning reflexes were not fast enough. A snake probably forty feet long and two feet in circumference launched itself at him. Its coils were looped around his middle, pinning his arms to his sides, before any of us could even blink. He and the snake fell heavily to the ground.

"Red, are you all right?" Trina cried. She stepped toward him, her triple blaster at the ready, though I had no idea what she thought she would do with it.

"I'll be all right, Orange," he said, with only a bit of strain in his voice. "Knocked me for a loop for a second, that's all." He grunted. "It's feeling a bit snug, though. Any chance this monster is modeled after some sort of constrictor?"

"Checking . . . yes, that would appear to be the case, Red," Wizzit replied.

"Don't worry, Red. We will get you free!" Trina said anxiously.

"Right," he replied. "Let's see if we can come up with a plan first, though, shall we? Umm, let's see . . . Wizzit, can you teleport me out of here?"

"If I do, the snake will come with you."

"That's all right. You said you thought this was a localized phenomenon, correct? I assume that means that if you teleport me someplace sufficiently far away, then my force shield will start to work?"

"It's worth a try. Here goes."

Mike disappeared, then reappeared less than a minute later. "It was a good idea, Red," Wizzit said, sounding apologetic.

"What happened?" Trina demanded.

"Well," Mike said, "it appears that . . . our force shields . . . are not only being suppressed . . . but they're also . . . completely drained." His breathing was beginning to sound labored; he was having to stop every few words to breathe. "It would've been . . . ten minutes or more . . . before I would see . . . any benefit."

I heard a hiss and the snap of jaws. "Damn, that thing's fast!" Toby exclaimed as he danced back from the Gila monster. "I was hoping I could smack it across the nose, but I couldn't get close enough to attack it!"

By now, so much of Snakey was wrapped around Mike that I could barely see him. What little of his face I could see was turning a dark red. "Are you all right, Red?" Trina asked. "You're sounding short of breath."

"The snake's . . . pretty tight around my middle," he admitted. "The sooner . . . you could get me out of here . . . the better."

There was another hiss, another snap. Toby was shaking his head. "This thing's just too damn fast. It almost got my branch that time."

I looked at the snake's back end, which was lying on the ground almost at Toby's feet, and it gave me the glimmerings of an idea. "Hey, Green," I said, "is there enough of the snake's tail by you that you could pick it up?"

Toby risked a quick look down. "Yeah, I think so. Do you want me to try to unwrap it from Red or something? Because I don't think that'll work."

"Not exactly," I said. "I'm wondering if you could get the Gila monster to bite it."

Toby looked down again, and then I heard him chuckle. "I reckon that'll be entirely too easy to do. This big fellow's got a nasty temper."

He laid his tree branch carefully to one side and squatted down to pick up the snake's back end. To be honest, I'm not sure I could have lifted it. Toby, though, just wrapped those long arms of his around the snake's middle, some four or five feet from the end, and heaved himself to his feet with a grunt. Then he lunged straight for the lizard.

Snakey was concentrating so thoroughly on the victim trapped in its coils that I don't think it even knew anything was going on with its other end until Mr. Gila Monster chomped down on it. Then its head went up and its mouth opened wide in a surprised hiss.

"Everyone after it! Now!" Trina shouted.

I lunged for the snake and wrapped my arms around its neck. Trusting to the protection of my sap gloves, I grasped one of its huge jaws in each hand and pulled them apart as hard as I could. I caught a flash of purple as Angie stepped up beside me. She and Padma had scooped up Toby's branch, and now the two of them appeared to be trying to jam it as far down Snakey's throat as they could.

Snakey went wild. It thrashed its head about in an effort to dislodge the weapon, slamming the three of us against trees, benches, and the ground, but we held on tight. After a minute or so of this, I suddenly felt it go rigid in my grip, and then it went completely limp, falling to the ground and taking us with it.

I pulled my hands away from its mouth, picked myself up, and turned to see Mike feebly pushing coils of sparking snake off himself. I went over to lend a hand, and in a few seconds he was free. I helped him to his feet, and we stepped back as the snake's enhancements started failing all over its body; soon it had completely destroyed itself in a shower of sparks. On the other side of the clearing, I saw Padma helping Angela to her feet.

"What happened?" I asked.

Trina said, "Yellow happened." She was beside Mike, who was sitting on the bench, head bowed, his forearms resting on his knees. "Are you all right, Red?" she asked anxiously. She laid a hand on his cheek. "Do you need to go back for a healing coma?"

Mike shook his head. His sides were heaving. "Just . . . just give me a minute or so to catch my breath. I'll be fine." He looked up. "What's that thing that Yellow's got?"

I turned to see Nicolai and Toby facing off against the Gila monster. Toby had retrieved his branch and held it in front of him like a quarterstaff. For his part, Nicolai was holding what appeared to be a spear of some sort. As I looked closer, I could see that most of it was a long, sharp spike of polished bone or rock, and there was a steel rod protruding from the non-pointy end. The rod had been wrapped with leather to facilitate two-handed gripping. The bony part looked familiar, but I couldn't quite place it . . .

Trina glanced over her shoulder. "It is my unicorn horn," she declared.

I nodded to myself. That was where I had seen it before. See, some time around last Christmas, we had fought a unicorn-like monster in France. Like the mythological creature it was patterned after, it would have been a plenty tough beastie to defeat -- very tough, very smart, and very strong. Luckily for us, it had taken quite a shine to Trina.

First, the unicorn knocked her down, and then it laid its head in her lap and allowed her to stroke its nose until it fell asleep. (And if you know much about unicorns, you'll realize that said something interesting about Trina. I don't know whether it's still true, but I would bet a penny that it is.) While it was sleeping, Trina snapped the horn off its head, which caused the creature to disintegrate. The horn, as far as I knew, had been in her room ever since as a sort of weird souvenir.

"I got the idea for using it when Blue's vajra broke last week," Nicolai explained, not taking his eyes off the Gila monster. "The horn is made of one of the hardest substances I have encountered, and it seems to have some anti-Enclave properties as well, although not as strong as those our normal weapons possess."

Toby feinted at the Gila monster with his branch. When the lizard turned its head to snap at him, Nicolai lunged forward and drove the point of his spear into the monster's side. It hissed and quickly backed away from him.

"I had been thinking it would be useful in a speeded-up timeframe," Nicolai went on, "which is why I embedded a handle in the hollow back end, but it looks as though it may be our best weapon to use today, since it does not require a functioning force shield to be effective. It worked quite well against the snake just now."

"Red, something is wrong with Violet." That was Padma. She had one of Angie's arms slung across her shoulders, and the two of them were making their way cautiously around the edge of the clearing towards us, steering clear of the lizard.

"I'm . . . I'm all right," Angie said. "I'm just having a hard time seeing straight, and I feel really, really dizzy." She gave her head a shake, as if to clear it. "Uh-oh . . . I really shouldn't have done that . . ." She dropped to her knees and was violently sick in the grass.

"Wizzit, send her back to HQ for a healing coma," Mike ordered. "Right away."

Angie retched for a few seconds more. "No, I'll be all right, really," she protested weakly, raising up and wiping her mouth. "I just need to clear my head, and then --"

"You're going back to HQ," Mike snapped. "No arguments. Wizzit, what's wrong with her?"

"I am unable to diagnose at the moment," Wizzit replied. "Offhand, I'd say a concussion, but I won't be able to tell for sure until she has a working force shield. And even then, I will not be able to commence a healing coma until it is fully recharged."

"She did hit her head awfully hard against a tree when the snake threw us," Padma added. "She was unconscious when I went to check on her; I had to wake her up."

Angie was getting unsteadily to her feet. "Please, I want to stay and help . . ."

"You can help us best by getting yourself healed up," I told her sternly. "Listen to Red; he's been in more battles than anyone else, and he knows what he's talking about. If he says you need a healing coma, then you need a healing coma. Now go!"

"Okay," Angie said in a faint voice. She sank back down to her knees. "Oh man, I really don't feel good right now."

There was a flash of violet light as she disappeared. "I hope she is not sick all over the carpet in the lounge," Trina murmured.

"Or on one of the chairs," Toby added. I had to agree. The chairs in the lounge are really nice, and we try to keep them that way.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. "Thanks, Blue," Mike said to me quietly. "I appreciate the vote of confidence."

I shrugged. "When you're right, you're right," I said. "Violet tends to be a bit headstrong."

"Good to know."

Toby and Nicolai were on opposite ends of the lizard now -- Nicolai by the head and Toby by the tail. Since a simple tree limb would not be terribly effective against an Enclave monster, Toby was having to content himself with distracting the lizard while Nicolai was doing the real damage. Fortunately, the lizard did not seem to be smart enough to figure that out; it turned to snap at Toby every time he put his improvised weapon within its field of vision.

Mike said, "I think it's high time we tested the limits of this so-called 'localized phenomenon'." He seemed to have completely recovered from the snake's attack. "We need to split up. Orange, I'd like you to stay here and supervise Yellow and Green. Blue and Indigo, come with me. Wizzit, please let us know the instant we're out of range of this force-shield suppression . . . thing."

"Will do, Red," Wizzit replied.

Mike turned and began leading Padma and me deeper into the trees. "Any idea where we're going, Red?" I asked.

"Not a clue," he replied cheerily. "But it's not that big a park; we can't go too far into it before we start coming out again. Now keep alert; I don't want to be surprised by another monster."

We weren't -- surprised, that is. Nope, we saw that baby coming from quite a ways off. Or rather, we heard it coming. We had been walking for a few minutes and staring at everything around us like a trio of tourists. I was pointing out a pretty interesting Mayan-looking mini-pyramid when suddenly there was this gosh-awful thump and the ground shook all around us.

"What was that?" Padma exclaimed. She had stumbled and was clutching at a tree for support.

"I don't know," I said, "but it came from the direction we're headed."

Another ground-rattling thump. "I would suggest we go investigate," Mike said. He began jogging forward. "Come on, you two, look lively!"

The three of us ran forward -- not a flat-out dash like we would if we had had functioning force shields, but not just a jog, either. Soon we had nearly reached the opposite end of the park. Mike stopped short, looking up. "That's . . . that's a mighty big frog."

We were staring at what had to be the third of Enclave's monsters. It was a large, black frog, probably the size of a medium-sized car; as I watched, it leaped up high, its long legs dangling underneath it, and when it landed, it made that earth-shaking thump we had been hearing.

"What do we do, Red?" Padma asked anxiously. "We cannot fight this thing; it would be suicide."

Mike scanned the area from right to left. I assumed he was looking for something -- anything -- that we could use to attack this creature. At least, that's what I would have done in his place. I couldn't see anything, myself, and I was hoping like hell that our fearless leader had a trick or two up his sleeve.

"All right, Indigo, listen up," he said after a moment or two. "I've a job for you. It's very important that you do as I say."

"What is it, Red?" From the eager way she said it, I could tell that she was hoping the same thing I was.

"I want you to circle around very carefully until you've gone past this monster here. Keep under cover of the trees. Don't let it see you, understand?"

"Yes, I understand. Then what?"

"Then I want you to keep on going."

"What?" She drew back from him. "Are you saying that you want me to run away?"

"What I want you to do," he said, keeping his voice low and deliberate, "is to find out just how far this suppression field extends. When Wizzit tells you to stop, then stop and mark your position somehow. Then I want you to go in one direction or the other -- I don't care whether you go left or right \-- and have Wizzit keep telling you whether you're in the suppression field or out. Keep marking your position. I want to see a line running along the edge of the boundary when you're done."

"All right, I suppose I can do that," Padma said doubtfully. "How will it help?"

"Blue and I are going to try to get this thing to follow us," Mike explained. "We'll need to know how far. And after you've got an idea of just where the boundary is, you're going to hang around outside it and let your force shield recharge."

"But I won't be able to help you if the monster stays within the boundary, will I?"

"Of course you will," he replied with confidence. He clapped her on the shoulder. "You're going to stay outside and lay down covering fire for us."

"Oh, I see." Padma sighed. "All right, Red. I will do as you say." She sounded as though she didn't like the idea, though.

As Padma crept off silently through the trees, Mike turned to me. "So, Blue," he said, "how d'you propose we tackle this thing?"

I had been thinking about that very problem, in fact. "If I had some rope," I said thoughtfully, "then I could try to jump on the frog's back, slip the rope into its mouth or around its neck, and try to steer it outside the boundary."

Mike chuckled. "You do like to ride your monsters, don't you? Wizzit, your opinion?"

"Inadvisable, Blue," Wizzit said. "At least, not without a functioning force shield. Given the height of its jumps, if you were sitting on its back when it landed, you would very likely break something. Possibly several somethings."

"Well, it was a thought, anyway." I folded my arms and chewed my lower lip while I watched the monster take yet another leap and come crashing down again, smashing a stone bench to smithereens. "Frogs have long tongues, don't they? Like, to snap up flies with? Maybe we could --"

At that moment, we heard a shriek, and then came a sound like one of our triple-blasters being fired, only magnified many times. Mike and I looked at each other, then began running in the direction the sound had come from.

"Indigo!" Mike barked. "What's wrong?"

We heard Padma's anxious voice: "It's a -- a telu!"

"A what?"

"Sorry, I don't know the English word for it. In my part of India, we call it a telu!"

There was another blaster-like sound, and then Mike and I came through the line of trees, out to what appeared to be the very edge of the park. Padma's indigo-glowing form was sprawled half on grass, half on a broad street; she had obviously flung herself to the ground to avoid being shot. Facing her was an eight-foot-tall monster that scuttled back and forth on far too many legs. Its tail arched high over its back; the tip glowed a dull, ugly red, and smoke curled up from it as from a pistol barrel.

I skidded to a stop beside her. "In America," I said, "that's what we call a scorpion."

Chapter 13

I quickly gave Padma a hand up; the scorpion monster was rapidly heading her way. The two of us hurriedly backed away. Mike began circling around to one side.

"Be careful," Padma warned me as we watched the tip of the scorpion's tail begin to change from the dull red to a pale blue. "The last time it did that, it fired some sort of energy blast at me."

"Indigo, leave this chap to Blue and me," Mike said quietly. Our communications must have been working normally, at least, because he spoke Prime-to-Prime, without the usual voice distortion. "You've a job to do, and I expect you to do it."

Padma protested, "Red, I don't always want to be running away!"

The tip of the scorpion's tail had begun flickering now. I tensed, expecting that it would soon shoot at us. I wasn't disappointed; with a zapping sound, a bolt of bright blue energy headed my way. I dived to one side, rolling along the grass. The beam missed me, but not by much.

"You all right, Blue?"

I tried to quiet my racing heart. "Just barely, Red," I said. "Indigo may not be the only one with a short haircut after today. That one was too close!"

"Right," Mike said. "I was hoping to jump in for a close attack, but perhaps I'd better take over as the human target. Indigo, why are you still here?"

"I . . ." Padma began. "I wanted to make sure that Blue was all right."

"He's fine," Mike said brusquely. "Now scoot!"

"Scoot?" Padma sounded puzzled.

"Run. Go. Now! I promise you, you will see plenty of action today, but right now I need to know how far this damping field extends!"

I heard her take a deep breath. "All right, Red. I'm going; you can count on me." She began jogging away from us.

"Why can they not take orders?" he muttered to himself. He began to back away from the monster. "Blue, the plan now is for me to distract it and draw its fire while you get close enough to -- hang on! Stop that!" The scorpion had scuttled to one side and seemed to be taking aim at Padma's running form.

Mike darted around to the front of the creature, jumping up and down and waving his arms. "Hey there, you poxy bastard! Focus on me, why don't you?"

His antics had the desired effect. The scorpion's aim shifted to him, and it remained on him as he began dancing back towards the line of trees that seemed to mark the edge of the park. "Aren't you going the wrong way, Red?" I called after him. "Don't you want us to follow Indigo?"

"We've still got to pick up the frog," he called back.

"Oh, right." The tip of the scorpion's tail began to glow light blue again. "Uh, I think he's getting ready to fire, Red," I warned him.

"Is that what it looks like when he's getting ready?" he asked. "The blue tip?"

"That's right." As if to punctuate my remark, the scorpion sent a blue blast of energy straight toward him.

Now, I know that Mike's reflexes have to be among the fastest on the planet, even without his force shield jazzing them up. I have seen him do all kinds of tricks that no ordinary human ought to be able to do; in a reaction-time contest, he would give a mongoose a run for its money, and those critters routinely dodge striking cobras.

But I swear, during that whole run towards and then into the park, he must have been prescient. There was no other way he could have dodged as many energy blasts as he did. Every time the scorpion fired, I thought, this was it, he was finally going to get zapped. But then the smoke would clear and I would look, and Mike would be yards away, waving his arms and taunting.

Not that I was just standing around watching. I wasn't. Mostly, I was looking for a way to jump onto the back of the rapidly-moving giant scorpion and then take control of its blaster-tail. It wasn't easy, especially without the added speed, strength, and agility afforded me by my force shield. (And if you think maybe I just wasn't trying hard enough, all I can say is . . . try it yourself sometime on your own eight-foot-tall scorpion. You'll see how tough it really is.)

When we finally passed through the line of trees, though, ol' Scorpie finally slowed down enough for me to hop aboard. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure he even noticed me, so focused was he on on Mike. The tip of his tail was turning light blue again, and it was gradually moving down and forward, the way it had been doing whenever he was aiming. "I'm going to grab his tail," I warned Red. "I'll try to pull it off to the monster's right, so dodge accordingly."

Without waiting for a reply, I leaped up and grabbed hold of the barbed tail. I must have startled the monster, because he fired almost immediately, long before he normally would have. I also spoiled his aim; the blast went way low. If it gone much lower, in fact, Scorpie would have blown his own head off.

So, the first part of our plan had gone pretty well, at least. Now came the hard part -- hanging on. It turns out that scorpion tails -- or at least Enclave scorpion tails \-- are a lot stronger that I had thought. Who knew?

I'm sure it was a great source of amusement for Mike to see me holding on to Scorpie's tail for dear life as it whipped it back and forth, trying to shake me off. I thought I heard some snorts of suppressed laughter coming from his direction, in fact. Still, he did run over right away and jump onto the monster's back, and our combined weight managed to pull the tail down to about chest level.

"This is all well and good," I commented, breathing heavily from the exertion, wrapping my arms around the tail to help secure it, "but how do we get him to start moving again?"

Indeed, now that Mike wasn't out in front egging it on, the scorpion had slowed to a stop. Mike tried tugging the tail forward, but the scorpion still refused to budge.

The giant frog chose this moment to take another of its huge leaps; I could hear its black body crashing through the upper branches of the nearby trees. The resulting mini-earthquake as he landed nearly knocked us from our perch, but we hung onto the tail grimly. Mike angled the barbed tip over to one side. "There's where the sound came from," he said.

We must have been making Scorpie pretty mad, because his tail was already glowing light blue again. When he let loose with his blast a bit later, a couple of trees blew apart, and from beyond them we heard an angry bellow.

"Bullseye!" Mike shouted. "That'll get his attention." In that same instant, we heard the sounds of more crashing, and several additional trees fell over, pushed aside by the huge black frog that was now heading straight for us.

Had I just been worrying that we couldn't get the scorpion to move? It was moving now, and plenty fast -- but in the wrong direction. Instead of heading back the way it had come, towards the nearest edge of the boundary, it began scuttling forward towards the center of the park.

"Any ideas how we steer this thing?" I shouted.

"None." He laughed with pure delight. "But I can see why you like riding monsters, Blue. This is grouse!"

And it was -- right up until the scorpion wandered a little too close to an overhanging tree. Mike saw the branch and ducked with plenty of time to spare. My own reaction wasn't quite so quick, and the tree caught me across the shoulder, sending me tumbling to the ground. By the time I had picked myself up, Scorpie was already scuttling down the path away from me. I had to throw myself to one side to avoid being trampled by the angry black frog that came thundering past, bellowing angrily.

"I'm all right, Red," I called after Mike's retreating form. "Keep on going; I'll catch up."

Soon I was by myself, walking down the now-cracked cement pathway through the center of the park. I considered my options. I could follow in Mike's wake, or I could join Padma, hanging around outside the damping-field boundary and waiting for her force shield to recharge. Or I could have Wizzit send me over to where Trina and the others were probably still figuring out what to do about the Gila monster. "Let's see, how can I help?" I muttered to myself.

"I'm glad you asked that, Blue," came Wizzit's voice abruptly. "There's something I would like one of you Primes to investigate, and you're the handiest one."

That pricked up my ears. Wizzit offers us a lot of advice during our battles, but he hardly ever tells us what to do. I guess he figures that making decisions during a fight is one of the reasons he keeps us around. "Uh, sure, Wizzit. What gives?"

"I now have enough data points from Indigo's efforts to extrapolate the complete extent of the damping field with reasonable certainty," he explained. "Probability is eighty-seven percent that it is more-or-less perfectly circular in shape."

"Well, that makes sense, I guess."

"It would make sense if there were a single-point generator of the field," he replied. I think he was agreeing with me. "If, say, it were generated by two mutually-dependent generators, the shape could easily be elliptical or even hyperbolic. With more generators and varying degrees of dependency, other, even stranger shapes are possible."

"So you're telling me that there's probably just one thing or person or machine that's creating this field?" I asked.

"Affirmative. Of course, it's possible that there is a perfectly circular ring of generators, but given the pattern under which the field strength drops off, I doubt it."

"And this generator is located at the center of the circle?"

"That's very likely the case."

"Okay," I said. "Where is the center?"

"Turn so that you're facing ten o-clock." I did so, which pointed me directly toward the mini-pyramid I had seen earlier. "The center of the damping field is approximately twenty-two yards in front of you."

"Is anyone there?"

"I cannot tell. The damping field is hindering my sensors' ability to detect alien life forms."

"All right," I said. "Here goes."

I set off walking. Now, I was in marching band in high school, and I can still sort of do the eight-steps-to-five-yards stride that I learned there. I counted off exactly twenty-five such steps, which took me to the very base of a stairway leading to the top of the pyramid; it looked as though the remaining ten or so steps would take me to the very top.

This was not an Egyptian-style pyramid. The apex was a squarish structure about six feet by six feet with moderately high walls that looked like castle walls; they had a small version of that tooth-and-gap appearance where archers inside the castle would hide behind one of the teeth and shoot through the gaps. At the bottom of the structure on each of the four sides were what appeared to be very small doorways. I looked inside one. Nothing. That meant that the generator was probably on whatever sort of roof was being hidden by the walls.

I'm not really a climber, but I managed to find some hand- and foot-holds and scramble up one wall. Then I swung my legs over and dropped inside. And there, in the exact center of the pyramid, sat the very person I suddenly realized that I had been expecting to see here all along.

"Hello, Lily," I said.

Chapter 14

Lily slowly opened her eyes and looked up at me. I have to say, she didn't look all that good. Her face was drawn, her hair was in disarray, and she wasn't terribly clean. Her standard-issue black Enclave jumpsuit didn't hug her curves quite so much as I remembered, as if she had lost weight. Her expression was as blank as it usually was.

On her back she carried a dark green knapsack of some sort that looked as though it weighed quite a lot. At least, the straps were digging into her shoulders. "Wizzit," I said, "am I looking at the damping-field generator?"

His reply was immediate. "Affirmative. Specifically, the generator is contained within the backpack that Lily is carrying. If you can take hold of Lily's hand, I can teleport the two of you out of here and thereby remove the damping field surrounding the monsters. That will allow your teammates to begin attacking them in earnest."

"Will do." I reached out towards her. "Lily," I said, "take my hand."

She didn't move. "Lily," I repeated, slightly louder, "take my hand!"

Still nothing. I frowned. I was Lily's master now, wasn't I? She had obeyed the earlier commands I had given her. She knew who I was, and JB Swift had told her to give me all access to everything, so why wouldn't she . . . ?

Wait a second. Did Lily really know who I was? When JB Swift had formally introduced us, she said she had tentatively identified me as Prime Blue, but she could not confirm it. If she merely suspected that the glowing blue figure standing before her now was Trevor, would she do what he told her to? Maybe she wouldn't.

"Wizzit," I said, "I may have to deactivate to get Lily to obey me."

"Negative. I do not want you to deactivate here."

"But Lily needs to know who I am!"

"Perhaps she does," he agreed, "but Enclave does not. The generator appears to be in constant communication with . . . well, with someone. I am unable to determine any specifics, but it's definitely phoning home. Were you to deactivate anywhere near it, there is every reason to believe that it would detect that and immediately scan your human form. Given how much they already know about you, that would almost certainly compromise your identity."

I sighed. "So, you want me to grab her hand and teleport away with her," I said. "Then I somehow have to wrestle that thing off her back and teleport away with her again, and only after I do that will I be able to deactivate and get her to cooperate with me. Is that it?"

"Yupperooni. When you put it that way, it sounds fairly simple, doesn't it?"

I barked a short laugh. "Simple does not begin to cover it."

I squatted down in front of Lily so that our eyes were on a level. She was in her usual waiting pose, sitting cross-legged with her open hands resting on her knees. I could detect tiny glints of gold at her ears -- the earrings that allowed the Harley twins to use their remote control on her.

I briefly wondered why she had not attacked me yet. Presumably, the Harley twins had given her some generic command that had already been programmed into the remote. If I had to guess, I'd say it would be something like "Stay here. Attack no one unless you are attacked." That would enable her to remain in this place without drawing attention to herself, but would still allow for self-defense.

So, what might she interpret as an attack? There was only one way to find out. I slowly reached out a hand. Those beautiful, dark Chinese eyes of hers were looking directly into mine, but I could tell she was keeping close track of my other movements. "I'm not going to hurt you, Lily," I said as inoffensively as I could manage. "I just want to touch your hand." Very gently, I lowered my fingers until they rested on hers.

Lily immediately exploded into action, and right away I knew I was in trouble. In her attacker-mode persona, what I refer to as Crazy Kung Fu Zombie Chick, Lily is a formidable opponent. I had fought her many times over the past year or so, and while I have nearly always been able to best her, it is usually a close thing. And now my usual primary advantage, the force shield, had been nullified.

She kicked out at me from her sitting position and caught me full on the chest. It wasn't an especially strong kick, and I was able to jump back to avoid the worst of it, but it still hurt like hell. She sprang to her feet then and closed with me. I clipped her across the jaw with a front whip, a kick especially designed to hit an opponent in close quarters, but she simply shrugged it off.

At first, I managed to block most of her hand attacks -- at least, the ones that would cause the most damage -- but aside from the front whip, I was not able to get in any offense. She was just too damn fast, and I quickly found myself outclassed in every category. Her punches felt like kicks, and her kicks . . . whew! She simply should not have been able to generate that much power. I mean, Lily couldn't have weighed much more than a hundred pounds, if that, but it felt like I was being hammered by someone Toby's size or bigger. She nearly hit me with a jumping front kick that would have taken my head off if I hadn't ducked. As it was, the stone wall behind me cracked from the force of her kick. That was when I figured out just what was going on.

"Wizzit!" I cried, rolling out of the way of an axe kick, "Lily's got herself a force shield!"

I knew what I was talking about. A couple of years ago, just for grins, I had challenged Nicolai to a sparring match where he used his force shield and I didn't. I picked him because he and I are about the same size and weight. We had sparred a few times before, and while he was pretty good, I knew I was better.

With the force shield? All I can say is, I was glad it was just a friendly match and that he wasn't really trying to hurt me. I hung with him for a little while, but he quickly wore me down. There was exactly that same sense of overwhelming power, of unstoppable force, that I was getting from Lily now. When you're the one using it, a force shield sometimes doesn't seem like such a big thing, but when you're on the receiving end, it's a huge deal.

"That is unlikely," Wizzit said matter-of-factly. "Checking . . ." There was a pause. "Ah, I see what you mean. Yes, you are correct, in a sense. The device she is carrying is not just damping out your powers. The energy it is draining from the team's force shields is being used to . . . hmm, fascinating. Oh, I see! This is quite clever. I should have thought of something like it years ago. Her device is not, in fact, generating a force shield, but I can certainly see why you would think so."

"Good to know, Wizzit!" I grunted. I was sprawled on the floor from Lily's latest kick. She leaped on top of me and punched straight down. Her expression carried no anger, no malice whatsoever; it was as blank as it always was, which somehow made the ferocity of her attack even more chilling. I jerked my head to one side, so that her punch caught me only a glancing blow on the side of my head and across the upper ear. "What the hell am I supposed to do about it?"

"Objectives remain the same as before," he replied calmly. "Remove her from this location, separate her from the backpack, remove her from the pack's location. First objective is about to be achieved; prepare to land on top of her."

It's a good thing I have worked with Wizzit all these years. I figured out what he meant almost before I began to feel the teleportation tingle at the base of my skull. Lily's latest attack had put her into direct physical contact with me, and Wizzit was taking full advantage. In addition, his last comment told me that he had at least some appreciation of the difficulties I was facing and was trying to help.

When we reappeared, we were on a city street somewhere. To this day, I have no idea where it was. It appeared modern enough, with asphalt streets and cement sidewalks and everything, but I never saw a living soul there besides Lily and me. I figure it must have been some sort of modern-day ghost town.

Oh wait, did I say we were on a city street? Sorry, I meant to say that we were above a city street. Several feet above, actually, and in almost exactly the same position we had been in before we teleported. The main difference was that Wizzit had managed to rotate us by one hundred eighty degrees. Now I was on top and Lily was on bottom.

I have to give her credit; she very nearly broke free even then, which was pretty incredible, given how little time she had to react. Still, I'd had an idea of what to expect, and I made the most of it. As soon as we materialized, I pushed off with both hands as hard as I could, increasing her downward momentum. She was still in a reared-back position, which meant that even though she tried to twist away, the back of her head smacked the asphalt before the backpack did. And then, as I landed on top of her, I drove my forehead straight down onto the bridge of her nose, putting all my weight behind it.

By all rights, the impact with the street should have knocked her out, if it didn't kill her outright. And her nose (and possibly her cheekbones) should have been broken by the the force of my blow. None of that actually happened, probably because of her not-exactly-a-force-shield. Taking the long view, that was good news, I guess. I mean, I have never really wanted to hurt Lily.

In the short term, though, it was kind of a disaster. True, she had been hit twice in quick succession, awfully hard, and it did stun her for a short time. Those precious few seconds were enough for me to slide the strap off one of her shoulders. But then she started fighting back while I was attempting to pull that arm completely free of the strap. The nails of her hand dug into my forearm, drawing blood. She smashed the palm of her other hand into my cheek, slamming my head back.

We fought close-up for a minute or two while I tried to tear the backpack off of her. I lowered my head and did my best to endure her repeated palm attacks while driving my forearm and elbow over and over into her ribs and stomach. This near to her, I couldn't help but notice that she evidently hadn't washed, or been allowed to wash, for quite some time.

Finally, she yanked her other hand out of my grip and went for a Three Stooges-style double eyepoke. Ain't too much fun being on the receiving end of one of those, let me tell you. I couldn't get my hand up to block it; the best I could do was to duck my head and scrunch up my eyes so that she didn't blind me.

She managed to get some leverage with her legs then and thrust me off of her. I rolled to my feet, and we faced each other warily. "I have turned off your force shield, Blue," Wizzit said, "except for blurring and communications. It was helping her more than you at this point."

"Understood." I shook my head and blinked my eyes rapidly, trying to get them to focus. I felt a trickle of blood down the side of my head. I reached up to touch it; the top of my ear was bleeding from Lily's earlier blow. "Does she still have her force shield?"

"But she doesn't have a . . ." He sighed. "Fine! Yes, her 'force shield' is still there. It's waning but still there, so be careful for the next several minutes. I will let you know when its effects become negligible."

Lily's backpack dangled off of only one shoulder now. She made no attempt to slip her other arm through its strap, although as far as I could tell, the arm was uninjured and the strap was intact. Did she even know she had it on? It didn't look that way. If I had been the one controlling her, I could have said something like "Keep both straps of the backpack on your shoulders", but I doubted the Harley twins could have given her so sophisticated a command using just the remote control.

Lily came at me with her typical CKFZC-style attacks, and I went into full-defense mode. It wasn't like I didn't want to fight her, or that I was running scared. There was just no point to wasting my energy going after her with that damn not-a-force-shield protecting her. Luckily, I had much more room to work with here than at the top of the small pyramid, so I was able to prevent her from closing in with me and doing me any real harm.

After about five minutes or so or this, Wizzit finally said, "All right, Blue, her force shield has faded away. Go for it."

I squared my shoulders. "Will do, Wizzit." And I began to fight Lily in earnest.

I waded into her with a series of turning sidekicks, crescent kicks, backwheels, back whips, and some others. These were all circular kicks, and I chose them because they're very easy to string together, one after the other, to form a sustained attack. Once you get going, you just keep kicking and turning. The main thing to watch out for was getting dizzy from too much spinning around.

She slapped some of my kicks away hard enough that it stung my lower legs, and she dodged the rest. They did force her to stay on the defensive, though, and they drove her back as well, which was my aim. There was a building behind her, and I had an eye towards pinning her against the wall.

Lily glanced back, saw the wall just a few feet behind her, and tried to edge off to one side. I matched her movement, keeping her directly between me and the wall. She kept edging, and I kept matching, until she finally broke out into a run.

Of course, I started running alongside her, narrowing the gap between us as I did so. Soon, just a couple of feet separated me from the wall, with Lily in between. We were rapidly approaching the corner of the building, though, and I didn't want to let her turn the corner and thus lose my hard-won advantage. So I did something I have never done before in a fight. I slide-tackled her.

No, it's not some secret Tae Kwon Do technique; it's not really a martial arts move at all, in fact. Slide tackling is something you do in soccer to try to steal the ball from an opponent. Basically, you throw yourself forward feet-first and slide along the ground toward your opponent. I hadn't played much soccer since high school -- just the occasional pickup game in the gym or with friends at home -- but this, I still remembered how to do.

Our feel tangled together, as I intended, and Lily went down hard. And since we were on a concrete sidewalk, that meant really hard. If this had been a soccer game, the ref would have had his red card out even before she hit the ground. I could hear a whoosh as the breath was driven from her lungs. Her martial arts training had evidently been more like judo than aikido, I noticed, because as she fell, she slapped her arms and hands down to absorb the impact rather than rolling through. Her chin came within half an inch of bouncing off the sidewalk.

I bounded to my feet in a hurry. My hip and the side of my leg were burning where I had skidded on them on the cement, but I couldn't afford to let up now. I threw myself on top of Lily before she had a chance to recover and began tearing the backpack off of her.

She fought like a wildcat. Luckily, I had grown up with two fairly aggressive, athletic sisters who were not at all averse to a good scrap, so I was not shy about some of the not-very-gentlemanly things I had to do to stay on top of Lily. After we struggled for a minute or two, I finally was able to take hold of the strap with both hands. I slid it down and off her arm quickly so as not to give her a chance to grab at it.

"What do I do with this thing now?" I asked Wizzit.

"Throw it as far away as you can and keep her away from it. I will do the rest."

I raised the backpack over my head with both hands and heaved it as hard as I could. It was moderately heavy -- probably somewhere between fifteen and twenty pounds -- and throwing it sent me a little off-balance. It wasn't much, but it was enough to send me spilling to the ground as Lily twisted beneath me.

I jumped to my feet as fast as I could, afraid that she was going to get away from me, and I was surprised to discover that Lily was still between me and the wall, which meant that I was still between her and the backpack.

"Come on, Lily, give it up," I panted. I knew she wouldn't react no matter what I told her, but I felt like I had to say something. "No one wants to hurt you, but we can't let you go on hurting us or other people."

As I expected, Lily ignored me. She did that "look right, look left, look up" thing she does to orient herself. Then she took off running. Not, as I expected, toward the backpack, which I was still blocking. No, she turned and started running straight toward the wall.

Okay, I'll admit it; this is where I screwed up. I made a mistake, a big one, and I spent the next several days kicking myself over it. I had seen Lily do this same trick before, and I should have been expecting something like this. But did I, in fact, expect it? No sir, I did not. Like a dummy, I stood watching her, open-mouthed, as she took three or four steps on the sidewalk, then began running up the wall.

She continued going up as high as her momentum could take her. Her movement was so quick, I didn't even see her push off at the top of her run, flip herself around in midair, and land behind me. The next time I spotted her, in fact, was when I turned around and caught a glimpse of her outstretched leg as she kicked me squarely in the temple.

As I regained consciousness, the first thought that came into my head was, "So that's how she gets her roundhouse kicks so strong!"

See, when I execute a roundhouse the way Grandmaster Park taught me, I strike with the top of my foot, somewhere near where the toes join the foot. That's pretty much the standard technique (unless, like Toby, you cheat and strike with the toe of your savate boot). The top of the foot is of course a pretty bony, tendon-y area, so there's a limit to how hard you can hit something with it without causing yourself some damage.

When Lily had kicked me, though, she had pulled her toes way up, so that she had actually struck me with the ball of her foot. There's a whole lot more padding there, so she could afford to kick a whole lot harder. Heck, one could probably break a board that way, something I would never try with a conventional roundhouse kick.

It took only about a second for all of that to flash through my awakening mind. My second thought was that I couldn't let her get away. I struggled up to my feet and looked around anxiously. No Lily, no backpack.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, Blue," Wizzit chirped.

"Where is she, Wizzit?" I asked.

"Lily? Gone. As soon as she flattened you, she scooped up the backpack. Ninety-three seconds later, she was teleported away. I can only assume that the backpack carried the Enclave equivalent of one of our transponders."

"Dammit!" I exclaimed, slapping the ground in frustration. "How long was I out?"

"Approximately four minutes, forty-seven seconds."

"'Approximately'? That sounds pretty exact."

"Well, it is sometimes difficult to tell when humans have actually achieved full consciousness," he said modestly. "You were pretty groggy for a bit."

I sank back down to the sidewalk and closed my eyes. My head hurt, my ear hurt, my left leg and hip hurt -- actually, my body hurt pretty much all over, come to think of it. All I wanted to do was to lie down and make the world stop spinning. My job wasn't finished yet, though. "Wizzit," I asked without opening my eyes, "what's happening with the others?"

"Let's see, Red managed to steer the scorpion monster over to where Orange and the others were still fighting," he told me. "In the battle which ensued, the lizard was destroyed by a combination of the scorpion's blast and Yellow's spear. Another monster has since made itself known, a giant turtle-like creature. As soon as you teleported away with Lily, I sent in the Emeriti along with Violet, who had completely recovered by then. Violet is now leading the battle against the turtle, the frog, and the scorpion."

"Violet is?" I repeated incredulously. My violet-colored sister was still pretty green, so to speak. I couldn't imagine her taking charge of a fight against three monsters.

"At the moment, Violet is my only Prime with a fully-functioning force shield," he said. "Copper, Blackiron, and Gold are helping. Indigo's force shield has nearly recharged; Indigo will join the battle shortly. Yellow is using the spear wherever possible, and Red and Orange are currently riding the scorpion and providing tactical and strategic advice."

"What about Green?"

"Green sustained a number of minor injuries during the battle so far. None of them individually is disabling, but Green thought it best to withdraw from the fight for a bit of healing."

Wow, I thought. I had never seen Toby willingly back out of a monster fight before. He must have gotten himself beaten up pretty badly by the lizard monster. I got to my feet, determined not to complain too much about my own aches and pains. "What can I do to help, Wizzit?"

"Not much until your own force shield recharges. Five minutes and counting."

So I waited. Wizzit kept up a running commentary on who was attacking which monster and whose force shield was now active, while I stretched and practiced a few basic kicks, trying to keep myself from getting stiff. I discovered that my head didn't hurt quite so much if I kept moving. My left leg was bleeding in a few places, which didn't surprise me. I made a mental note to wear long pants the next time I slide-tackled someone on cement without a force shield.

It sounded as though my force shield would be the last one to recharge, which made sense, since I had been hanging around Lily and her backpack for longer than anyone else. Eventually, though, even mine was ready. I heard Wizzit say, "Teleporting you now, Blue," and everything faded from view.

Chapter 15

In any group of people who work together, I'm sure you will always find complainers. We Primes are no exception; I know I have done my share of griping. Of the seven of us, I'd say that Toby is probably the worst offender; he has the dourest personality of any of us (although he has perked up a bit since Angie joined the team).

To tell you the truth, though, even Toby doesn't complain a whole heckuva lot. Let's face it, we Primes live pretty stressful lives -- long stretches of boredom punctuated by bursts of insanely frenetic activity. If we got to complaining too much, we might come to realize just how bad we actually have it.

Regardless, one of Toby's chief complaints of late has been that our debriefings have begun taking longer and longer to get through. It's certainly not Prime Commander's fault; Shelley is smart as a whip and knows how we fight our battles as well as anybody. Nor could one lay it at the feet of Mike or Trina. The two of them have adapted pretty well to the roles of first- and second-in-command, and their narrations have gotten smooth as silk. The problem, I reflected as I took in the scene into which Wizzit had teleported me, was the battles themselves.

Most of our battles lately have been like these multi-threaded storylines -- some of us went out and fought a monster and then we fought another monster somewhere else, and all the while, another group were fighting a third monster in a completely different place. Obviously, the more monsters you fight, the longer your report is going to be, and these days Enclave was sending out up to five at a time.

The scene before me now, though, more resembled a three-ring circus. Mike was still on the back of the giant scorpion, one arm wrapped around the thing's blaster-tail, looking like he was having a grand ol' time. Trina was standing beside him, shooting with one hand and hanging on for dear life with the other. Angie and Padma were between the giant frog and something that looked like a giant snapping turtle with a bad temper, and they were swinging their weapons with wild abandon at anything that moved.

Nicolai had not gone to retrieve his axe when his force shield went live, apparently. Instead, he had kept that spear of his and was absently jabbing it at the beak of Tippy Turtle while keeping a close watch on the black frog's leaps and bounds.

Mayumi, Bill, and Shelley were standing well back from all the monsters to avoid incidental injuries. Shelley and Bill were concentrating their triple-blaster fire on the turtle's legs, while Mayumi was doing her best to draw a bead on the frog. Blaster shots of various kinds were flying around everywhere. I ask you, who the heck could create a detailed narrative report of something like that? I could tell this debriefing was going to be a long one.

"Hi, guys," I called out. "Fresh legs here. Where do you want me to help out?"

"Stay away from the frog," Nicolai said promptly. "I have a plan to deal with it. It will be ready shortly."

"You've been saying that for the past five minutes, Yellow." Mike did not sound amused. "When are we going to see this plan of yours in action?"

"It will be ready shortly," Nicolai repeated stubbornly.

"Here, you can take my place, Blue," Trina said. "Riding monsters is not my idea of fun." She let go of the scorpion's tail and leaped off the monster's back, executing a perfect somersault in the air before landing nimbly on her feet. Yeah, having a fully-powered force shield is the bomb.

I dashed over to the scorpion and jumped on board. "What's our objective here, Red?" I asked him. Trina, I noticed, had run over to the side of the turtle opposite Shelley and Bill. She, too, was concentrating her blaster fire on the thing's legs.

Mike sighed. "Well, my original plan was to use the blaster on this thing's tail to destroy the other monsters," he explained. "The problem is, it's fighting us hard enough to make aiming it a real digger's job. To make things worse, the Mock Turtle over there is vulnerable only beneath that shell of his, and Jumpy the Frog won't sit still."

"So, the scorpion is pretty much useless to us at this point?"

"Aside from the joyriding, yeah. That was a lot of fun, though." He took a fresh grip on the tail with both arms. "Here, lend me a hand. I think it's time to turn on self-destruct mode."

The ground shook, nearly throwing me off; the frog had landed from one of his long leaps again. I righted myself, and between the two of us, we managed to wrestle the scorpion's tail around until it was pointed almost straight down, right towards his own abdomen. The tip of the tail had begun to glow blue again, although it didn't seem as bright as it had earlier. Maybe Scorpie was getting tired.

"He is jumping again," Nicolai called. "Stand clear!"

Seconds later, Mike and I leaped away as Scorpie's tail-blaster fired, blowing him apart and sending monster parts flying in every direction. I rolled to my feet in time to see the frog crash to the ground again. Immediately, it began to bellow as if it were in pain. Seconds later, its Enclave enhancements began to fail, and it dissolved into sparks.

"Yellow, that was brilliant!" Padma gushed.

"Well, I was reasonably certain it would work," Nicolai said modestly.

"Well done, Yellow. I am impressed." That was from Trina, which told me that Nicolai had indeed done something clever. I mean, Nicolai is always modest, and Padma thinks everything he does is brilliant; Trina doesn't hand out too many compliments during battles, though.

"Right, then," Mike said, "let's everyone go after the remaining monster, shall we? Wizzit, you said the underside should be vulnerable, is that right?"

"Ya damn betcha, ol' son! It's just the top shell that's tougher'n a two-dollar steak."

"In that case," Mike went on, pointedly ignoring Wizzit's over-the-top Texas drawl, "I propose we try to flip it onto its back. Orange, Yellow, Blue, Indigo, and Violet, let's all gather on the side that Gold and Blackiron have been shooting at."

"Not Yellow," Trina told him. "Yellow's force shield needs to recharge."

"Again?" Mike said, sounding surprised. He shook his head. "Let's the five of us gather, then."

"Be careful of the mouth," Shelley warned us. "It nearly took a chunk out of my shoulder when I got too close."

"I can help," Bill volunteered. "You just need some muscle, right?"

"As much as we can get," Mike agreed. "Just make sure you don't get yourself hurt."

"Will do."

The rest of the battle went exactly as you might expect. There was nothing clever or interesting or fun about it. The turtle was pretty damn heavy, but there wasn't really anything it could do to attack us on that side, not after the blasting that Shelley and Bill had been giving its feet. We had to have Mayumi, Shelley, and Nicolai come help us, but eventually we got it flipped. The rest was just sheer butchery. We pounded on the turtle's tummy until Wizzit set up the final strike, and then we destroyed it.

Look, I know it was something we had to do, but those kinds of endings to a battle always leave me feeling a little depressed. It doesn't seem fair, somehow, as if we were slaughtering a dumb animal instead of dispatching a human-turned-monster that was trying to destroy us and set up an alien invasion of Earth.

Chapter 16

Between the ending to the battle and losing Lily, I was still feeling discouraged the next morning when we all trooped into Prime Commander's office for the debrief. Angie must have noticed something, because she drew me aside just before we entered.

"Hey, listen, big brother," she said seriously, "I didn't mean to, you know, walk in and take over your cooking gig here. I mean, I know everyone voted for my stuff instead of yours last night after the battle, but if you're really bummed about it, I can . . . you know . . . make other kinds of food besides Chinese. I mean, I know how to --"

She stopped because I had started to laugh. I put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze. "Thanks for the offer, little sis," I said, still chuckling, "but I am absolutely not bummed about losing the contest last night. You won fair and square. Heck, I even voted for you. The fact is, I've already got a pretty good idea of what I'm making for my next three or four dinners, and it's not Chinese."

"Oh." She looked puzzled. "Then . . . why are you so down this morning?"

"We'll talk about it during the debriefing," I told her. "Speaking of which . . ."

I ushered her into the office and showed her to the Prime Violet chair. Bill and Mayumi had apparently decided to join us, which was a little unusual. The Emeriti have a standing invitation to attend any debriefing they wish, but most of the time it's just us regular Primes. Bill opted to stand, and I gave my seat to Mayumi.

Shelley looked around at us. I suppose a different kind of executive director would have made a point of mentioning that this had been Angie's first battle as a real, grown-up Prime and made us all applaud for her or something equally stupid. Not Shelley; she just nodded at Angie and murmured, "Welcome to your first debriefing, Prime Violet." Then she asked Mike to begin the narration.

It was a confusing sequence of events we were trying to reconstruct for Shelley's benefit, with teams separating and re-joining each other at various times, but she navigated it smoothly enough. She doesn't usually ask too many questions during our debriefings, but she has not been shy about stopping any time something isn't clear or even asking a different team member to explain what had happened.

Shelley let Mike tell his story up to the point where he rejoined Trina's group. I saw Angie tense up when Mike was arguing with her onscreen about the healing coma, but no one said anything about it. I guess we all figured she had learned her lesson.

Then Shelley went back and had Trina describe her team's adventures up to the same point, which were mainly Toby and Nicolai baiting the lizard. She looked a question at Padma after that, but Padma simply shrugged and said, "Nothing happened worth reporting."

Then it was my turn. I picked the story up from where I got knocked off the scorpion. My conversation with Wizzit pretty much explained what I was doing, so thankfully I didn't have to do a whole lot of narration. Then, when I vaulted into the top of the pyramid and confronted Lily, Mayumi inhaled sharply and asked Wizzit to pause the vid.

"This is Lily?" she asked incredulously, and I nodded. She stood up and walked to the vid screen, examining the image closely. After a moment, she murmured, "Oh, my! Trevor, she is exquisite! You must not let this one get away from you."

"I, uh, I won't," I stammered. "But I actually have to, you know, get her first."

"Of course you do," she replied absently. "Wizzit, could you zoom in on her face, please? As closely as you can."

He obligingly made Lily's face about twice the size as it had been. "This is the best I can do from the images recorded by Trevor's belt," he explained.

"That's fine, thank you." She leaned in, inspecting the image. "This is very interesting," she said, as if to herself.

"What's interesting?" Shelley asked her, and there was something in her tone that I would have to term 'respectful'. That made sense, I guess. Mayumi is, after all, our oldest living Prime, although I'm sure she would not appreciate my pointing out the fact. She had been the original Prime Orange, back when Shelley was Prime Violet, and had taken over as Prime Red when Bheka Nkosi was killed and Mike was brought in as the new Prime Violet.

Mayumi stepped away from the screen and turned to face us. "There is something peculiar about Lily's face," she told us. "It . . . does not appear to be natural."

"What do you mean?" I asked, maybe a little too sharply.

She laughed, a silvery, tinkling sound. "There is no need to get excited, Trevor," she said warmly. "I am not insulting your lady friend. I am simply making an observation. Come up here and look closely at her skin, would you?"

"What am I looking for?" I asked as I moved to the screen and leaned in to examine Lily's right cheek.

"Blemishes. Flaws. Irregularities in her complexion. Imperfections of any kind. You will not find any. It is literally flawless."

I studied the image closely. "You're right," I admitted, shaking my head. "I can't see any flaws at all."

"And now," she continued, "if you would step away from the screen for a moment, I will show you all something that I think will surprise you."

I stepped back behind the Prime Blue chair, where I had been standing earlier. "Wizzit," she said, "please cut away the background so that only her face is visible, and then duplicate the image, so that we see two pictures of her face."

When we saw two identical Lilys looking out at us, she went on, "Now flip the image on the left along the vertical axis, so that it becomes a mirror image, please. Good, and now please bring the two images together slowly."

As the two pictures of Lily moved toward each other, she explained, "One objective way to measure beauty is to see how symmetric one's face is, how closely the two sides match each other."

She lifted a hand to indicate the screen, where the two images had now coalesced. I heard Trina gasp. "It is a perfect match!" she exclaimed.

Indeed it was. There was some fuzziness in her hair where it had become disheveled and the two images didn't agree, but her face appeared completely unblurred; there was nothing to indicate that we were looking at two superimposed mirror images.

"Yes, Trina, her face is perfectly symmetrical," Mayumi went on. "And you can take my word that the underlying structures -- the nose, the cheekbones, the eyes, the jaw -- they are also . . . perfect."

"You're right, this is very interesting," Shelley said. "A woman who is just too . . . well, too perfect to be natural."

Mike asked, "Is she wearing makeup? That can hide a lot of flaws, can't it?"

"I do not believe she is wearing any," Mayumi replied.

"That is correct," Wizzit confirmed. "I detected only human skin, without chemicals of any kind applied to it."

"Maybe she had plastic surgery," Angie suggested.

"Negative." Wizzit again. "Checking my previous scans of her, I detect no scars or other signs of surgery anywhere near the face, or anywhere else, for that matter."

"But what does it mean?" Shelley said thoughtfully. "Besides the fact that JB Swift obviously devised some non-surgical means to enhance feminine beauty, that is."

Mayumi gave her a wry smile. "I can think of a number of women who would pay tens of thousands of dollars or more for a secret like that." She glanced at me. "I am curious. Do you happen to know how tall she is, Trevor?"

"How tall?" I repeated. "I don't know exactly. Just a little over five feet, I think -- maybe five-one, five-two."

"Lily is approximately five feet, one-and-seven-eighths inches tall," Wizzit said proudly.

It struck me as he spoke that he was trying to impress Mayumi. Interesting, I thought. I remembered that Wizzit also seemed to like Lily, and everyone knew he had taken quite a shine to Angela. So, did he just really dig Asian chicks or was it something else? I realized I would probably never know.

"So small?" Mayumi was saying. She looked disappointed. "That's a shame. It appears she is not so perfect after all. If she were a foot taller, she could make a fortune on the runway."

The runway? For a moment I had confused visions of Lily piloting an jetliner or serving drinks to disgruntled passengers. Then my sense of reality reasserted itself. I knew that in her real life, Mayumi designed clothing, and she was fairly successful at it, which would certainly explain her interest in Lily's looks. "You mean, working as a fashion model?"

"Naturally," she replied. "But not at five-two. Even six inches taller, and I could find her plenty of work in our Asian shows." She sighed and shrugged. "Zannen, ne?"

I grinned. Only Mayumi would express regret over something like that. Personally, I thought Lily was fine the way she was. "Sou desu ne," I agreed politely, and I heard Bill quietly echo the sentiment.

She winked at me. "Your accent continues to improve, Trevor," she said. Then, addressing the entire group, she said, "But Shelley asks a good question -- what does it mean? Why would JB Swift expend so much effort on someone whose only purpose is to fight?"

No one was willing to venture an opinion, it appeared. I decided not to tell her that fighting may not have been Lily's only purpose, that her so-called companion mode was designed to provide 'social and sexual companionship for those operating the attack doll,' according to what Lily herself had told us. Something told me that there was no way I could exit that particular conversation without an industrial-grade blush on my face. Especially since the only one who could operate the attack doll these days appeared to be me.

Mayumi's Japanese cultural programming must have kicked in at that point, because she resumed her seat and said apologetically, "I am sorry. I did not intend to take over your discussion; I simply saw something that I thought was of interest. Please continue."

Shelley smiled at her. "Nonetheless, it was an interesting and perhaps valuable observation," she said, giving her a very Japanese bow. "We all benefit from your insight." Then she looked up at me. "Trevor?"

"Uh, right. Wizzit, could you restart the vid?"

Wizzit rewound the last few seconds, so that we again saw me vaulting into the enclosure at the top of the pyramid. He let it run without comment until I teleported away with Lily; this time it was Mike who had him pause it.

"So, you're telling us that Lily had an actual force shield?" he asked incredulously. "Like one of ours?"

I shrugged. "That's sure what it felt like. You saw the way she cracked that stone. I'm not sure I could have done that with a front kick, and I'm fifty pounds heavier than she is."

"What Lily possessed," Wizzit interjected, "was a very crude implementation of something much like our technology. Similar in many ways, but the mechanism was much bulkier and much heavier, and the power requirements were a whole lot greater. And there were key technical differences as well."

I glanced at Nicolai. I would have thought he would be caught up in this discussion, but he didn't seem to be paying attention to any of us. He was leaning forward, chin cupped in his hand, staring hard at the floor somewhere near the direction of Padma's left foot.

"What number was she?" Trina asked. "She couldn't have been the same as any of ours, right? There would have been . . . problems if she had been, correct?"

"She was . . . er, yes, that's correct. Her number did not match any of yours." Wizzit sounded oddly hesitant, almost embarrassed. "It was not, in fact, a prime number at all."

"That can't be right," Toby objected. "Even I know that much. If her device wasn't set to a prime number, then it should have been too weak to support a force shield. At best, she would have been like a Junior Prime Pink, or one of the Emeriti; they're all based on prime squares."

At first, no one spoke. Then, in the silence which followed, Nicolai murmured, "She was Unity." Something in the ominous way he said it sent chills down my spine.

"No, she couldn't have been!" Bill said after a moment. "We tried for years to create a Unity belt, Nicolai. Remember how long and how hard you and I worked on it? And we couldn't ever get it to function properly. It's impossible!"

"I know that," Nicolai replied quietly. He looked up at the ceiling speakers. "But I'm right, aren't I, Wizzit?"

Wizzit has no lungs with which to heave a long, mournful sigh, but he nevertheless gave a very good imitation of it. "Yes, Nicolai, you are correct. Lily was Unity."

"Um, excuse my asking," Mike said, smiling and sounding sweet as pie, which usually means he's starting to get ticked off, "but would someone please mind telling me just what the hell Unity is?"

As usual, it was up to Padma to translate. "Unity," she began, glancing uncertainly between Nicolai and Bill, "is a fancy term that mathematicians use occasionally when they are referring to the number one. Sometimes it's to avoid confusion, because 'one' can be used in so many different senses, not all of them mathematical; other times it's just to be poetic or simply as jargon. In this case, I'm not sure . . ."

"So, what you're saying is that Lily was Prime One?" Mike interrupted.

There was a chorus of negation from our three mathematician-techies. Nicolai waved Padma and Bill to silence. "She couldn't have been," he told Mike with an amused smile, "for the very simple reason that the number one is not a prime. See?"

"Sure it is," Angie said confidently. "It's divisible only by one and itself. That makes it a prime, right?"

"It's definitely not a composite number, like two times three," Trina added, frowning, "so it has to be a prime."

Nicolai's face fell. "Yes, it's not a composite," he agreed reluctantly. "But . . ." He glanced helplessly over at Padma.

"You'll just have to take our word for it," Bill said. "No sane number or ring theorist would ever tell you that one is a prime number. There are all kinds of reasons why it should not be considered so."

Nicolai snorted. "It would destroy unique prime factorization, to start," he muttered.

"It's classified as a 'unit' instead," Padma explained. "Different from primes or composites."

"So, to summarize," Shelley broke in, taking in everyone in her look around the room, "Lily had something like a primitive force shield. Instead of a prime number, it was based on unity, or the number one, which is something we have never been able to accomplish, despite years of trying. Is that correct?"

Wizzit emulated another drawn-out sign. "Not exactly, but close enough for the moment."

"But why are you so glum, Wizzit?" Trina asked. "Is it that potent a weapon?"

"Or are you just mad that the Harley twins were able to figure out something you couldn't," I said.

"It is that potent a weapon," Wizzit said defensively, "and I'm definitely not mad. They undoubtedly stumbled onto it by accident, that's all. Or, more likely, out of sheer ignorance of how a force shield is supposed to work."

"Then there are substantive differences?" Nicolai asked eagerly.

"There are indeed. For one thing --"

Shelley interrupted, "This is all very interesting, Wizzit, but I'm not sure everyone would benefit from the discussion." That's our Shelley, a born diplomat. I could see Mayumi discreetly stifling a yawn. "Could you go into more depth with Bill, Nicolai, and Padma at a later time?"

Padma nodded eagerly, her eyes bright with anticipation. Bill shrugged. Nicolai said, "Sounds like a good idea."

"Will do," Wizzit said, sounding almost happy again. "The weapons room, right after the debrief."

"Good," Shelley said. "Trevor, continue with the rest of your story, if you would."

Wizzit picked things up from the time when Lily and I teleported away from the pyramid. When he showed me slamming her down head-first onto the asphalt and then trying to break her nose, I think everyone winced. I know I did; Lily really did take a couple of wicked bumps there. We all winced again when I slide-tackled her, leaving shreds of skin on the concrete, and yet again when she kicked me in the noggin. It was a weird feeling watching myself crumple to the ground and not having any memory any of it.

Mike whistled. "I like watching a good scrap as much as the next fellow, but man oh man, Trevor! The two of you really do beat the living hell out of each other, don't you?" he said, shaking his head. "What a pair! I can hardly wait for the wedding."

"Or the honeymoon," Trina added with a sly wink at me.

"Darn it!" I exclaimed, snapping my fingers. "I didn't ask her to marry me. I knew I'd forgotten something!"

Toby smirked. "You can ask her the next time you see her. I'm sure she'll be popping up again."

Grinning, I glanced up at the vid screen. Wizzit had stopped it at a point just after my collapse. Lily was looking down at my unconscious form, and maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed to me that there was a certain softening of her expression, a hint of concern or regret or even compassion.

In this light, her face appeared gaunt, and her eyes were deeply shadowed. She looked exhausted in a way she hadn't before, not even when we had captured her and she hadn't slept for over a hundred hours. I felt the grin slip from my face; suddenly, things didn't seem quite so funny any more.

"I hope so," I said quietly. "I really hope we see her again." I looked around at my teammates, who were staring curiously at me. "Guys," I said, "we have to find a way to get Lily away from Enclave. We have to." I jerked my chin at the vid screen. "Seriously, look at her. Perfect bone structure and flawless complexion aside, she doesn't look all that good. I don't know if they're not feeding her or letting her sleep or . . . or what, but . . ." I shrugged. "If we don't take charge of her soon, I'm afraid of what's going to happen to her."

Shelley cleared her throat. "Up to now, capturing Lily has never been high on our todo list," she said. "Dispatching the monsters of the day has always taken priority. I think now, though, we should consider moving it to the top of our list, especially with this Unity force shield business. What do you think, Wizzit? Mike?"

"Destroying monsters is an absolute must," Wizzit replied promptly, "but Lily has suddenly become a much more serious threat to your mission. I say we definitely need to remove that threat, one way or another."

"I agree," Mike said grimly. "I'd prefer to take her prisoner, but if that becomes impossible . . ." He grimaced. "Sorry, Trev."

I nodded mutely.

"All right, let's continue," Shelley said after a moment. "Mike, would you take up the story from the point where you rejoined Trina's group?"

I have already related most of what Mike described next, although I didn't realize at the time how much fun he seemed to have had destroying the Gila monster with his own personal scorpion blaster. He described the destruction of the giant scorpion after that, and then my ears pricked up when he asked Nicolai to explain just how he had destroyed the frog monster. I hadn't seen Nicolai do it, and I was curious.

"It was quite simple, really," Nicolai said modestly. "I simply speeded myself up and placed the spear beneath him so that he would impale himself on it when he landed."

"You . . . what?" Mike seemed speechless.

Nicolai repeated, more slowly this time, "I speeded myself up, the same way Trevor has been doing." He shrugged. "I thought I stood a better-than-even chance of succeeding, and it turned out I was right."

Without being asked, Wizzit began playing a vid. He must have slowed it down quite a lot, because we saw Nicolai slog forward, with the rest of us statue-like in the background, and set his spear upright, point uppermost, beneath the black frog as it inched its way down from one of its jumps. He crouched low, holding the weapon in place, until the point of the spear actually penetrated the monster's skin, and then he slogged away again.

"Very impressive," Shelley commented as Wizzit sped up the vid again and the frog began to self-destruct. "But what was it that made you think you had a good chance of succeeding?"

"It's very simple," he replied. "Just a matter of numbers, really. You see, up to now, the only ones who have been able to speed themselves up have been various Primes Red and Trevor, Prime Blue. Wizzit informed us that Trevor speeded himself up to one hundred twenty-one times normal, his prime number squared. A little research with Wizzit told me that the previous Primes Red had speeded themselves up by a factor of one hundred twenty-eight, or two to the seventh power."

I heard a gasp from Padma. "That had not occurred to me," she murmured, sounding astonished. "How very clever!" She must have been a couple steps ahead of me, I decided, because I hadn't heard anything especially clever yet.

Nicolai smiled at her. "That suggested to me," he went on, "that there just might be a . . . oh, call it a 'sweet spot' somewhere between, say, one hundred twenty and one hundred thirty times normal. A sweet spot that makes it, if not easy, then at least less difficult to speed oneself up. And of course, the only other Prime in our group with a power in that sweet spot is . . ."

"You," Bill finished for him. "Prime Five, because five cubed is one hundred twenty-five, right in the middle of the other two." He chuckled and shook his head admiringly. "Damn, Nicolai, that was brilliant!"

Nicolai nodded in acknowledgement. "Of course, my hypothesis has not been proved, just not invalidated." He frowned at me. "It's a curious sensation, isn't it? Moving in an accelerated timeframe, I mean."

"Definitely weird." I reached out and shook his hand. "Nice work and, uh, welcome to the speed-freak club."

Mike finished narrating our attack on the giant turtle, and then Shelley asked for any more questions. There were none, so we bid Mayumi goodbye and began filing out of the room.

"Mike and Trina," Shelley called out, "back here in five, okay?"

"Are they in trouble or something?" Angie asked me once we were out in the hallway.

"Probably just a leaders' meeting," Toby declared confidently. "Prime Commander and Prime Red tend to put their heads together a lot, and Trina's making more of her second-in-command position than Mike ever did." He nudged Angela's shoulder. "Hey, d'you fancy a practice session in the gym? Seems like you're finally back in the pink again. Er, so to speak."

Angie gave him a brilliant smile. "Sure, that sounds like fun. Do you want to come along, big brother?"

I saw Toby give me a minute shake of his head, and so I probably would have declined, but Angie went on, "Come on, you promised to teach me how to do 540-backwheels, remember? And I'm going to need some help with Pyongwon. I haven't been able to practice it for ages because of my legs, and I'm really rusty. Please?"

"All right," I agreed with a shrug at Tony. "Let's go get changed, and I'll meet you there."

Chapter 17

"But that's not a 540-backwheel!" Angie complained. "It's just a regular jumping backwheel, only you took a step first."

The three of us were in the gym, and I had just demonstrated the technique for learning to do a 540-backwheel to my sister and Toby. A 540-backwheel is one of those spinney-around-y kicks that looks really cool if you can do it right. I learned it from Grandmaster Park as part of my Tae Kwon Do training, but I've seen kickboxers and various other martial artists do it, too, or at least kicks that are similar.

Basically, you jump into the air, spin around one-and-a-half times, and kick your opponent in the head with your heel. (The "540" part of the name, in case you haven't figured it out, comes from the fact that you wind up doing a 540-degree spin in the air.) It's a difficult technique to master; Grandmaster Park doesn't teach it until you get to be a fourth Dan, which is why Angie was just now learning it. It took me months to get even half-decent at it.

I gave my sister the inscrutable smile I had been practicing. "Very observant, Grasshopper," I said, bowing. "You step around, plant your foot, and do a jumping backwheel. When you are proficient at that, then you simply omit the part where you plant your foot. Watch."

I demonstrated the practice technique again, and then I did an honest-to-goodness 540-backwheel. "See the difference? Now go practice."

Angela opened her mouth as if she were going to say something. Then she closed it again and moved to another part of the gym without another word.

"I don't think I've ever seen her speechless before," Toby remarked as we watched Angie slowly go through the step-and-kick routine.

"It doesn't happen too often, believe me." I punched him lightly in the arm. "Sorry, old man. I didn't mean to horn in on your private time with Angie."

"Er, yeah," he said, sounding embarrassed. "About that . . ."

"Look, she's a big girl, and I know she wouldn't appreciate me sticking my nose in her business," I told him. "So I won't."

"Thanks," he said, sounding relieved. "You, er, don't think I'm too old for her, do you?" Then almost immediately, he said, "No, don't answer that. I don't want to know what you think." He snorted. "'Old man'!"

"Fine. I wasn't going to tell you anyway."

He let out a long breath. "It's not even like I'm all that serious about her, not really. Know what I mean?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Why no," I said evenly, "I don't know what you mean." I crossed my arms. "Why don't you tell me just what your intentions are towards my sister?"

"Don't get your hackles up, mate," Toby replied, chuckling. "Sure, she's a nice-looking bird, and she's quite the breath of fresh air and all, but . . . . Look, Shelley and Bill are getting married, Mike and Trina have gotten all touchy-feely since their little date last February, Nicolai has Padma, and you . . . well, you have Lily and Padma, haven't you?"

"Except I haven't actually got Lily, and I \--" I stopped myself. I had been about to say that I'd had Padma only once, months ago, and wasn't likely to again. I wasn't sure, though, whether Toby knew about our little dalliance, although at times it seemed like everyone else at HQ knew. "I haven't got Padma, either," I finished.

"Sure you do. You're just not banging her, that's all. But the two of you have a great relationship."

"And you're feeling left out, is that it?"

He thought it over. "I suppose I am. Look, all I'm saying is that every other bloke at HQ has a girl they can talk to, maybe put their arms around once in a while." He gave me a sideways glance. "Or, in your case, pound her face into the pavement once in a while."

"Right. So, you're just looking for a platonic -- and hopefully non-violent -- relationship with Angie?"

"I wouldn't go so far as to say that," he replied with a devilish grin. "Well, non-violent, of course, but like I said, she's a nice-looking bird, and she's past the age of consent, even in America. And with the force shields making us all temporarily sterile every time we use them, there's no way I could get her --"

"La la la la la!" I said loudly, sticking my fingers in my ears. "Can't hear you! La la la la la!"

Angie landed her jumping backwheel and turned to stare at us. "What are you guys talking about?" she demanded.

"Nothing important," I called back, lowering my hands and feeling my face turn bright red. "Ten more times, both sides, and then we'll go over Pyongwon."

She gave us another suspicious glance, but assumed a riding-horse stance and began performing another turn-and-kick. Beside me, Toby was trying hard not to burst out laughing. "Seriously, mate," he said, putting one large hand onto my shoulder, "I just think your sister's an awfully nice girl, and I'd like to get to know her better, that's all."

"And I suppose you'd like me to tell you just how to go about that, right?"

"Well . . . as long as you're offering . . ."

I sighed. How many guys had asked me that in the year that Angie and I had been in high school together? Or, for that matter, in the two years that Joy and I had been in high school together? Sisters!

"It's not that hard," I said. "She likes guys; I don't think she has ever turned down a request for a first date, as long as she didn't have something else going on."

"So, she's not particular? An easy girl to please?"

"I wouldn't say that. She's turned down lots of second dates, and I understand she even walked home once from a first date with a guy on the football team who didn't understand that no meant no."

"Oh, geez! What did you do to him after she told you that?"

"Me?" I shrugged. "Nothing. That was after I had joined the Primes, and I only heard about it a month or so after it happened. Jerome and Nick were all set to go beat the guy up, but she said no, that he would have a hard enough time explaining to his coach why he had bruised ribs and two black eyes."

Toby snorted. "So as long as I keep my hands to meself, it should be all right?"

"How should I know?" I said. "She's a big girl; maybe she won't want you to keep your hands to yourself. But if she doesn't, don't tell me about it; I don't want to know. Just . . ." I fluttered my hands in the air. ". . . you know, play it by ear. I'll tell you this much about her: She's friendly; she's active and likes to have fun; she was a pretty bright, pretty serious student in high school; she speaks four languages fluently, plus a couple of others; she's a fourth-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do; she plays tennis; and she plays the trumpet and some piano. Beyond that, you're on your own, chum."

"I play tennis," Toby mused. "And I used to play the trombone a while back."

"There you go. You might offer to teach her boxing, too, because Tae Kwon Do training can sometimes skimp a little on the hand techniques." I held up a warning finger. "But if she ever comes crying to me in the middle of the night because of something you've done," I added, trying to make my tone as threatening as I could, "I can promise you that there will be consequences, and they will not be pleasant."

Toby frowned. "Was that supposed to sound like Mike?"

"Uh, yeah. How did I do?"

"It, well, it sounded like an Australian trying to do a Swedish accent. But I take your meaning. I'll be nice to her."

"That's usually the best policy anyway."

Angie had finished her practice kicks and was heading our way. "So, Pyongwon?"

"In a minute," I said, "but first . . ." I took a deep breath, hoping I wouldn't regret this. "Toby wants you to know that he thinks you're really nice, and he wants you to go out to visit Manchester with him to meet his family the next time he takes some vacation time."

"Oh!" She looked surprised for a moment. "Sure, that sounds like fun. I've never been outside the US, except as a Prime, which doesn't really count. Thanks, Toby, I'd love to go!"

"Don't mention it," he muttered, and I couldn't tell whether it was daggers or bouquets he wanted to throw at me.

Then we began practicing Pyongwon, which is the Tae Kwon Do form one learns as a fourth Dan. I made Angie explain it move by move to Toby, because teaching something like that is one of the best ways to fix it in your own mind, while I corrected the mistakes she made. I think she was surprised at how quickly he picked it up, since he doesn't do TKD. Didn't surprise me, though. Toby is surprisingly graceful, given how big he is, and how awkward-looking. He was a pretty good dancer, too, I recalled, and I made a mental note to suggest that he take Angie out dancing with him.

Padma showed up about twenty minutes into our practice. "Wizzit said I would find you here, Trevor," she called out as she strolled into the gym. She stopped when she caught sight of Toby and Angela. "Oh, I didn't realize you were busy. I was hoping you and I could get some training in."

Toby smirked and mouthed "Told you!" at me. He nudged Angie. "Want to go a few rounds?" he asked. "I'm supposed to be working with you on your fighting technique anyway."

"You're supposed to be teaching me to fight?" she asked, skepticism obvious in her voice.

"Well, no," he replied. "We assume you can do that. It's more like getting you ready for Enclave battles, which aren't exactly like sparring. You know, Zoinks and monsters and all that. They fight dirty."

"Oh," she said dubiously. "All right, I guess."

He grinned at her. "If you like, you can pretend that Enclave turned me into that giant green fellow who used to be in all the vegetable commercials, and I'm coming to get you. Rahr!" He stuck his arms out in front of him and began walking stiff-legged towards her.

"Do you really think she can take him?" Padma asked me as I led her toward the opposite corner of the gym.

"Maybe, but I doubt it. Toby's been doing this stuff for years, and she's still pretty inexperienced. But even if she can, she'll definitely know she's been in a fight." I leaned against the wall and watched my sister attempt a roundhouse kick. It was a nice, high kick, because she's pretty flexible, but it still would have landed only at about Toby's shoulder if he hadn't blocked it. Toby obviously had a huge advantage in reach, weight, and strength, and even if Angie was the more highly trained of the two, I didn't think she could overcome all of that.

Still, that was what practice was for, and I wasn't worried about either of them. I shrugged and turned to Padma. "What was it you wanted to work on?"

"Everything," she replied. "Basic movements, forms, counter-attacks, free-fighting, maybe even some Korean." She set herself and began doing middle-punches to warm herself up. I counted silently along with her -- ten, twenty, fifty, one hundred, two hundred.

"Sounds like someone has a test coming up," I commented when she stopped.

"Oh, I didn't tell you about that, did I?" she said. She began doing scissors blocks now. "I had a talk with the master the last time I went home to visit, and he said he thought I was ready for my third Dan test. He was very impressed when I told him I was studying with a fourth Dan. He said he would like to meet you some day."

"Did you show him your form the way we've been practicing it?"

"Yes, I performed Keumgang for him. He said that it was very good overall, very strong."

"That's good. Second Dan is when you're supposed to be making your technique hard and strong. Keumgang means 'diamond', after all." A thought struck me. "Kind of like the diamond point of the vajra, I guess. Hard and strong and unbreakable, that's what a second Dan is supposed to be."

Padma laughed delightedly. "That's very clever of you," she said. "But you know . . . I worry a bit because he disagreed with some of the moves you showed me in the form, some placements of the hands and feet, minor things like that. Did he learn it wrong, or did you?"

I shrugged. "Neither one, probably. Every school has its own variations of the forms. You should do it the way your master says for as long as you're his student."

"I see. That's all right, then." She stopped doing her blocks then and looked over at me shyly. "So, would you like to come with me the next time I go home? I would like you there for my belt test."

"Uh, sure," I said uncertainly. "But, um, won't Nicolai be upset, though? I'd think you would invite him home to visit your parents, not me."

"Don't be silly! Nicolai has already met them a few times. And it is not as if we were married, after all. I don't have to bring him with me everywhere I go. I can invite whomever I choose." Then she added with a sigh, "And besides, he had already set aside that time to work on a paper with Bill. They are presenting it at a maths conference in England."

I chuckled. "So I'm your backup date, eh?"

"Well," she said, shrugging, "if you do not want to go . . ."

"No, I do want to go," I put in hastily. "I just wanted to make sure where I stood, that's all."

Padma got down on the floor to begin stretching out. I decided to practice some kicks while I was waiting for her to get ready, to make sure I didn't cool off. "What are you doing here, by the way?" I asked. "I thought you and Bill and Nicolai were going to go over that Unity field thing with Wizzit."

"We did," she explained, "and it was very interesting, but when they started discussing what to do about it, I quickly found myself out of my depth. And then Shelley stopped by wanting to know if we could build a couple of devices for her within the next two days. Nicolai volunteered me. It will take quite some time, some concentrated effort, so I decided to take a break before I got started."

"What sort of devices?"

Padma reached out and down and grabbed the ball of her right foot with both hands. "I think she wants to explain them herself, but . . . " Here she looked up at me and smiled an impish smile. ". . . you might want to get used to calling yourself Junior Prime Blue."

Chapter 18

The next few days passed with agonizing slowness. If I thought I'd had a hard time before, waiting for the next battle was ten times worse. Last time, I had only worried that the Harley twins might be mistreating Lily; now, though, I was sure they were -- or at least neglecting her -- and I didn't know how long she could survive it. I fervently hoped that the vicious battle we'd had on that mysterious deserted street would not be the last time I ever saw her.

Piano practicing was completely out of the question -- I just couldn't concentrate on it -- and one can work out by oneself or shoot on the shooting range for only so many hours per day. I did some more posing for Trina, and I managed to put together a fairly decent supper one night for the others using one of Shelley's old standby recipes, grilled chicken breasts with tossed salad and pasta. We also had a few head-scratching sessions in the office, trying to figure out just what to do about Lily, and I spent one afternoon in the gym with Trina and Shelley sharpening a few of the skills we thought we might need.

Mostly, though, I just moped around, reliving that last fight with her over and over and kicking myself yet again for each little mistake I made. When Wizzit started ringing the monster alarm a couple of days later, I swear, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. I think they were all as sick of me as I was of myself.

"We're going to Morocco today, kids!" he said happily. "Specifically, to M'Hamid! As before, all the monsters are gathered together in one place."

"Mohammed?" I heard Toby mutter as we gathered together in the common room. For once, we would not be immediately running to our rooms to get dressed for battle. If Lily were out there, there would be no point in all of us going out to get our force shields drained. "Where's that?"

"Not Mohammed. M'Hamid," Wizzit corrected him. "It's a small village in the southern part of the country, right on the border with Algeria. One of the last oases you see before you get into the Sahara."

"What languages do they speak there?" Mike asked. "Arabic, I assume. Anything else?"

Today seemed to be a day of firsts, because Wizzit actually gave Mike a useful answer, rather than the snippy literal-minded one he usually provided. "Your translator for the day should speak French," he said. "It's the third-most-common language in the area, and no one here speaks Arabic or Tamazight."

"Right," he said, looking at the group gathered around him. "Padma and Angela, go get ready."

"Wizzit," I asked as the two of them ran off to get their weapons, "can you tell whether Lily is there?"

"I cannot," he replied. "I would assume she is, since the monsters are gathered together into a relatively compact grouping near one end of the village. The Unity field must be doing some sort of masking, because I do not detect any human life signs in the immediate area. Not just Lily's -- no one's, not even any local villagers."

Trina frowned. "There should be some signs there, unless they have already killed everyone."

"They have not," Wizzit assured her. "I detect life signs elsewhere in the village, just not in the sector closest to the monsters."

Nicolai looked thoughtful. "Would you be able to determine a boundary for this cutoff of the detection of life signals? Perhaps you could use that to extrapolate --"

"Already done," Wizzit interrupted him. "Assuming the edge of the life sign cutoff zone is circular, and assuming that Lily is at the center of it, I have a rough estimate of her present location."

"Only a rough estimate?" Mike sounded disappointed.

"Dude, give me a break! The village is not that heavily populated -- not very many data points."

Trina looked at me and giggled. "That was a very good impression of Trevor."

"Me?" I said incredulously. "It didn't sound anything like me."

"You don't think so?" Toby smirked and shook his head. "'Dude, give me a break!'" Then he laughed.

"We don't want the girls to confront Lily directly," Shelley was saying to Mike.

Mike nodded his agreement. "Wizzit, set them down near the perimeter of the cutoff zone, not in the center."

"Will do."

Padma and Angie entered from the girl's hallway. Padma held her axe; Angie, her Escrima stick. Both were wearing shorts and tee-shirts, as we usually did for battle. "We are all set," Padma said.

"You know what you're supposed to do?" Shelley asked.

"Sure," Angie answered. "We're supposed to run around like chickens with our heads cut off." Padma made a face; maybe the idiom wasn't familiar to her and she thought Angie was being literal.

"That's fairly descriptive," Mike said with a trace of a smile. "Remember, you are not to go after Lily or any of the monsters because your force shields will be turned off. Your weapons will not work and you will not have any special protections or enhancements. We don't want to feed that Unity field she's got.

"Your job will be two-fold: First, to provide data to Wizzit -- readings on the Unity field, and if possible, visuals on Lily and the monsters -- and second, to provide a distraction from what the others will be doing. Padma, go ahead and start yelling our standard everybody-move-away speech in French as soon as you arrive. Angela --"

"Yes?" she said, all eagerness.

Mike chuckled and shook his head. "Just make yourself as conspicuous as possible, love."

Shelley added, "Wizzit will tell you if he needs any particular information from you. If he says to do something, say, run in a certain direction, then do it, and keep doing it until he tells you to stop. Got it?"

"Got it!" the two of them said in unison.

"Right," Mike said. He hesitated for a moment, then said, "I hope it's unnecessary to remind you, Angela, but the highest-ranking Prime on the scene is in charge. If Padma gives you an order, such as teleporting back to HQ for a healing coma, then you had better comply, and no arguments."

Angie colored. "I understand," she replied meekly.

"Good. Off you go, then." And the two of them activated and teleported out.

For a moment after they left, the rest of us just stood and looked at each other. Trina was the one who broke the silence. "I should go get my equipment. Trevor, you should, too."

"You're right." I nodded and started for my room.

That seemed to unfreeze everyone else. Toby and Nicolai headed off for the weapons room. "Wizzit," Mike said, "have you contacted the Emeriti?"

"Affirmative. Teleporting Bill here now. Mayumi will not be available today, but both Cathy and Alvaro have indicated their willingness to help out when we're ready for them."

In my room, I unbuckled and removed my Prime belt. It felt weird to be preparing for battle by removing the main source of my powers, but my primary focus today would be on Lily, not the monsters, and the prime belt wouldn't help me with that. And if I wanted to join the battle once Lily was taken off the board, then I wanted to have a fully-charged belt waiting to power me up.

Opening a drawer in my dresser, I pulled out the device Padma had built for me -- a wide metallic wristband, identical in appearance and function to the ones that Shelley and the other Primes Emeriti wore. Just for today, I was going to be Junior Prime Blue; the bracelet, which contained its own rechargeable power supply, would disguise my voice and features, just like my Prime belt normally did, and if necessary, it would let me use my blaster and vajra as well. The device was too weak, however, to give me a force shield or to provide Lily's Unity field any kind of boost.

"Trevor, Lily has been sighted," came Wizzit's voice from my wristband as I slipped it on. "Patching you into communications now."

"-- is chasing down Violet!" I heard Padma's excited voice say. Then I heard a hissing, crackling sound. "Now it's -- damn! Violet, are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm okay," Angie said, sounding more than a little out of breath. "The fireball mostly missed me; I'm just a little singed." She gave a shaky laugh. "My hair might be as short as yours by the time we're done here, though, Indigo."

"Wizzit, do we have the information we need?" Mike asked. He sounded worried, and I wondered whether he was getting a Padma-eye view of the proceedings on the vid screen in the common room.

"Affirmative. I have a definite lock on Lily's position. As soon as Orange, Blue, Blackiron, and Gold are ready, I can send them out."

Mike asked, "Indigo, should I pull you and Violet out of there? Are the two of you in danger?"

"It is crazy out here, Red," she replied. "I . . . I hate to say it, but yes, it would be good to pull us out if you don't need us here. We are in danger. Violet?"

There was a pause. I had never known Angie to back down from a fight before, but eventually she said, "I have to agree with Indigo. We can't stay out here. We're sitting ducks." The reluctance in her voice was painfully obvious.

I had activated while they had been talking; now I said to the others, "I'm ready to go."

After Trina, Bill, and Shelley had said the same, Wizzit teleported the four of us out to the village of M'Hamid. The place was pretty exotic and cool-looking. I was standing in the middle of a large plain of drifted sand. Off to my left was a collection of buildings that looked as though they had been carved out of rock or sandstone or something, and farther off I could see groupings of palm trees -- undoubtedly the oasis.

I could see why Padma and Angie had asked to be pulled out. The monsters of the day all appeared pretty scary and dangerous. They were five of a kind, all of them ten or twelve feet tall, sort of a grayish-black, with claws, wings, and -- you guessed it -- fangs. They were fast, too; one of them went loping after a camel in full flight, caught it, and flung the terrified creature towards the village.

That by itself wouldn't have been too bad, but there were also fires everywhere on the sand, the heat from them blisteringly hot. You couldn't run twenty feet without having to dodge one. At first, I didn't understand what they were doing there, but as I watched, another of these demon-looking things raised its hands over its head as if it were going to do a soccer-style throw-in. A ball of flame appeared between the hands, and it heaved it at a group of villagers, who scattered, yelling.

"I have placed the four of you in a square with Lily in the center," Wizzit was saying calmly. "Blue, I tried to position you within her line of sight."

I tore my eyes from the fire demons and looked towards the figure closer at hand. Lily was less than ten feet away from me, that damn backpack strapped to her shoulders, and she was advancing rapidly. I assumed a fighting stance, my hands raised to defend myself; I wasn't looking forward to fighting her again, but I was the starring distraction here.

"Hello, Lily," I said, trying to sound breezy and confident. "Come and get me."

As she approached, I could see two pairs of footprints tracking alongside her to either side. That would be Trina and Shelley in camouflage mode, and . . . yes, I could make out a slight shimmer attached to each set of prints. Bill, also invisible, would be following in the rear.

Suddenly, I saw a streak of sand appear in place of a footprint, and then it broadened into the outline of a body. Trina had stumbled and fallen; I could hear a faint "Oh!" as she struck the ground and rolled to her feet almost immediately afterward. Lily must have heard it as well, because she stopped and turned in Trina's direction.

Well, I couldn't let Lily go and start picking on Trina, now could I? It was time to pull out the old standby, the one foolproof way I knew of to get Lily's attention while in attacker mode. I started speaking Cantonese. "It's good to see you, pretty one," I called to her. "Why don't you come over to say hello?"

The last time I had done this, in Guangzhou, she had instantly forgotten whomever she was stalking and come at me. This time was no different. She strode rapidly towards me, and then she leaped forward, her arms outstretched in that weird head-first attack she sometimes does. I could have dodged it, or if I had been in a mood to attack her, I could have popped her in the face with a sidekick or something. However, today I wanted neither to dodge nor to attack. I wanted to immobilize her.

I stood my ground, allowing her to strike me in the chest, and then I let myself fall back, absorbing the force of the impact. The second we struck the ground, I felt one of her legs move up, attempting to knee me in the groin. I twisted to one side so that she hit the inside of my thigh instead, and then I wrapped up that leg tightly with both of mine so she couldn't try that trick again.

Lily attempted to raise herself up next, maybe to try a headbutt or something, I don't know, but by then I had my arms around her torso, sliding them between her and the backpack, and was hugging her to me as tightly as I could. She felt like skin and bones in my arms. She fought hard, believe me, but I wasn't letting her have any chance to get away.

I felt a body press against me on either side; on my left, Trina had taken hold of Lily's arm and was using an aikido-style armbar to immobilize it; on my right, Shelley was using some sort of soft-style kung fu move to accomplish the same task.

"Come on, Black!" I grunted through gritted teeth. Lily was struggling pretty hard by now; she was using her only free limb, her left leg, to knee me repeatedly in the thigh. "We can't hold her like this forever!"

"All right, all right," I heard Bill say. "Take care, now, I don't want to cut anybody." I felt someone tugging repeatedly on the backpack, and then it was suddenly pulled away. I could see threads trailing away from where he had sliced through the straps with his knife. "I have it, Wizzit!" he exclaimed. "You can take me away now."

There was a flare of black-tinged light, which was followed almost immediately by a tingle at the base of my skull indicating that Shelley, Trina, Lily, and I were being sent somewhere else as well.

We materialized on a deserted, sandy beach. The sun was low in the sky; I guessed it was early morning wherever we were, although it could have been evening. "Now, Blue," said Wizzit's voice.

"Junior Prime Blue, deactivate!" I shouted. Then, "Lily, stand down!"

It must have taken her a moment to recognize who I was, but after a second or two, I felt her relax in my grip. "Standing down," she murmured.

I let go and collapsed back onto the sand, breathing hard. Beside me, I felt Trina and Shelley let go of Lily's arms, and then their two forms flickered into view as they turned off camouflage mode. "Give us a status, Wizzit," Shelley rapped out.

"I sent Red, Yellow, and Green out to the site as soon as Blackiron teleported away with the Unity field generator," he replied. "Steel and Silver will be following shortly."

"If I am no longer needed here, I will go help them," Trina declared, and Shelley nodded at her. Like me, Trina was using one of the wristbands; she, too, had left her Prime belt back at HQ so that it wouldn't become drained by contact with the Unity field. "Wizzit, to my room, if you please." A second later, she disappeared in a flash of orange light.

"How is Black?" Shelley asked, a trifle anxiously, I thought.

"He is safe. Based on Blue's last experience with Lily, I estimate that, under ideal circumstances, Enclave can determine the backpack's location within eight minutes of its being moved. I will teleport Black and the backpack to a new, random location every four minutes until my analysis is complete. Then I will have Black destroy the backpack."

"Good. Trevor, how are you doing?"

By now, I had untangled myself from Lily, and we had both gotten to our feet. "Fine," I muttered. "I'm going to have bruises all up and down my right thigh, though."

"And how is Lily?"

"I was just about to find out. Lily, self-report."

Lily straightened and clasped her hands behind her back. She said in a monotone, "I am injured. Please have me perform the self-diagnose procedure to determine the extent and nature of my injuries. To do this, say 'self-diagnose'. I am not ill. I do not need to perform any bodily eliminations. I have been awake for seventy-seven hours, twenty-two minutes. I last ate twenty-five hours, seventeen minutes ago. I last drank sixteen hours, fifty-three minutes ago. Overall status: I am injured. I need to heal myself soon. I am extremely hungry and thirsty. I am exhausted. I need to eat and drink and sleep soon. Please have me perform the self-recommend procedure to determine the order in which these various needs should be met. To do this, say 'self-recommend'."

I sighed. It sounded like Lily was going to need lots of TLC. "Lily, self-recommend."

"I am unable to provide any recommendations at this time. Please have me perform the self-diagnose procedure first to determine the extent and nature of my injuries. To do this, say 'self-diagnose'."

I sighed again. I could see why people sometimes became frustrated with computers. "Fine. Lily, self-diagnose."

"Diagnosing . . ." There was a pause for about a minute, and then she said, "I have abrasions on the back of my head. The bridge of my nose is severely bruised. The right side of my jaw is bruised. My right cheek is bruised. Several tendons along the back of my neck are slightly torn. One rib on the left side of my chest is slightly fractured. The left side of my chest is bruised. There is some tendon and joint damage to my right knee. My left knee is sprained. My right ankle is sprained."

She sounded like she was more sore than I was. At least she hadn't mentioned a skull fracture or a concussion, though. Given the way I had cracked her head against the asphalt the other day, that had been my chief worry. Now I repeated, "Lily, self-recommend."

"Composing recommendations . . ." Another pause. "My injuries are painful, but are not severe enough to be crippling. My recommendations are: first, that I immediately be given between one and two quarts of water to drink; second, that I be given between one and two thousand calories of food to eat; third, that I be allowed between six and ten hours of uninterrupted sleep; and fourth, after I have drunk, eaten, and rested, that I be ordered to heal myself of my injuries. To do this, say 'self-heal'."

Yeah, that was pretty much what I would have done anyway. Of course, I still didn't know how to get her to go to sleep, but I would worry about that later. I turned to Shelley. "Do we have any suitable leftovers in the fridge?"

"You'd know that better than I would," she replied, and from the tone of her voice, I could tell she was smiling. "But how's about if I make her one of those protein shakes instead. You know, the ones you guys kept feeding me when I was a prisoner? Are there any of those left?"

I considered the suggestion. The mix we'd used had had lots of vitamins and minerals in addition to the extra protein. We had given it to Shelley to compensate for the protein- and iron-poor diet she had been given during the months the US Army had held her in their secure underground location near Denver. "That's a good idea," I said. "There should still be some in the cabinet next to the cereal. Don't make it with milk, though; remember, she's lactose intolerant. Just use water. And maybe three or four pieces of buttered toast to give her some extra carbs and fat?"

"I'm on it," she said, and Wizzit teleported her away.

I told Lily to make herself comfortable, and as she sat down, I took a position facing her. She looked worse than she had before -- thinner and more tired. Her hair appeared dull and lifeless, and her jumpsuit hung loosely on her now. Tiny glints of gold in her ears reminded me of something I needed to do. "Lily," I said, "remove your earrings and give them to me." As soon as she deposited them in my hand, I flung them far out into the surf. I never wanted to see those damned things again.

And then I thought of something else; we needed to know where JB Swift's hidden lair was, because that was the place we had planned to stash Lily. She was the only one who knew where it was, though. "Lily," I said, "tell me where your new home is." Lily promptly rattled off a set of coordinates. "Wizzit, did you get that?" I asked.

"You betcha. It's somewhere under the Canadian Rockies."

Shelley arrived a few minutes later balancing a quart-sized glass filled with the thick protein drink, another quart-sized glass filled with plain water, and a small plate holding four slices of toast. I jumped up and helped her set them on the sand. "These are for you, Lily," I told her. "Eat and drink as much as you like."

We watched her nibble at a slice of toast and sip at the protein shake for a few minutes, and then I turned to Shelley. "She should be fine for a while. Do you want to stay with her while I go help the others?"

"Do you want to go out?"

I hesitated because I hadn't expected her question. "I . . . well, to be honest, no, not really," I admitted. "I'd rather stay here with Lily, but if the others need my help . . ."

"Wizzit," she said, "how is the battle going?"

"Surprisingly well," he replied. "We've had a bit of luck. Two of the monsters have been destroyed already."

"Wow! So soon? How did that happen?"

"Long story. We'll go over it in the debrief, if that's all right with you. The other monsters seem quite amenable to fighting each other."

"That's good news. Can you ask Red whether Blue needs to come out?"

There was a pause. "Red says that more is always better, but with Indigo and Violet's force shields coming online shortly, it is not crucial to have Blue. At least, not the way things are now."

"Thank you, Wizzit." Shelley turned to me. "It's up to you, Trevor."

I stared down at the sand. "This may sound selfish," I said slowly, "but I've lost Lily too many times already. This time, I want to stay here and make sure she doesn't get away from us."

"I understand. I'll wait here with you. Um . . ." She paused for a minute, thinking. "How badly did she hurt you?"

"I'm a little banged up. Nothing too bad, but I suppose I'll have to heal up eventually."

"Blue's thigh is heavily bruised, and the muscles are starting to stiffen up," Wizzit piped up. "I advise a short healing coma as soon as is practicable."

"Why don't you do it now?" Shelley said to me. I frowned, but she went on, "It'll just take a second for Wizzit to send you back to your room so that you can drop off your bracelet and pick up your Prime belt. Then you can heal up here."

"What, on the beach?"

"Why not? It's a nice place, and there's no one around except the three of us."

"But . . . I mean, what about . . .?"

"Look, if you're worried about babbling," she told me kindly, laying a hand on my shoulder, "then don't be. I remember what healing comas are like, and I promise not to pay attention to anything you might say."

Babbling was indeed what concerned me. But she was right. There really wasn't any point in putting off my healing coma, as long as I didn't have anything else pressing to do. I had to admit that it was probably a good idea to have someone else around while I was healing, and I would rather have Shelley with me than, say, someone like my sister Joy. After all, Shelley had been a Prime -- and doing healing comas -- for longer than anyone else. She would understand, if anyone would.

Too, if someone came prowling around looking to kidnap Lily again, then Wizzit could turn off the healing coma quicker than you could spit, and I'd be battle-ready in seconds. And if it did come to that, it would be better to have my belt than just one of the wristbands.

"All right," I conceded. "Send me back to my room whenever you're ready, Wizzit."

Chapter 19

It was pretty nice lying on the beach in the sunshine, half-drowsing in a healing coma and thinking pleasant thoughts. For some reason, my mind drifted to Padma's invitation to come visit her home, and my daydreams swirled around her and Lily and me and not very many clothes. I don't know how long the healing coma lasted -- I always have to check a clock when I'm done -- but the sun hadn't moved all that much higher in the sky when my eyes snapped open.

I sat up. Shelley was sitting cross-legged in front of Lily; the two of them looked like mismatched bookends. "I have to go now," Shelley said when she saw I was awake and alert. "The battle is over, and I'd like to go check on the others.

"Okay. Thanks for staying." The subject of my daydreams came back to me then, and I had an awful thought. "Um, I didn't say anything while I was out, did I?" I asked, not sure I wanted to know the answer. "Anything about Lily or . . . or anything?"

"If you did, I certainly didn't hear it." Her voice sounded vastly amused beneath her golden, robotic exterior. She got to her feet and began collecting Lily's dishes. "I'll send Yellow and Indigo out to prepare the new lair as soon as Wizzit says they can go. He says you got him the coordinates already. He will let you know when it's ready for Lily."

I watched her teleport away and then, since I didn't have anything else to do, I turned my attention to Lily. Her current passive, vacant-eyed persona -- she herself termed it "operator mode" -- had always bothered me, and I had begun wondering whether I should activate one of the other modes. Definitely not Crazy Kung Fu Zombie Chick, because I didn't feel like getting my butt kicked again. Maybe commander mode, though. That side of her seemed nearly human, and if the two of us were going to be hanging around together full-time, I wanted someone I could talk to.

"Lily," I said, "tell me how to put you into commander mode."

Lily said in her monotone, "To initiate commander mode, say 'Initiate commander mode'. For more information about commander mode, say 'Tell me about commander mode'."

Hmm. Believe it or not, that was more than I had been able to get out of her the last time we had her in our power. She hadn't been willing to tell us hardly anything about commander mode then. I thought that was a good sign. "Lily, tell me how to get you out of commander mode."

"From commander mode, I can switch to any of the following modes: operator mode, attacker mode, and companion mode. To initiate operator mode, say 'Initiate operator mode.' To initiate attacker mode, say 'Initiate attacker mode.' You may then be asked to provide further information, such as whom to attack. To initiate companion mode, say 'Initiate companion mode', and you will then be asked to specify a submode. Or you can specify the submode as part of the initiate command itself."

Yep, this definitely brought back memories of interrogating Lily the first time we had her, back in the old stronghouse. Somehow, she had made even the "take off your clothes" command sound boring. "Lily," I said, "tell me about commander mode."

"Commander mode is intended to be a means by which the attack doll can operate largely independently of outside control or direction. In commander mode, I have nearly unlimited autonomy, which can be overridden only by completely trusted users or users with special privileges. I have access to all information available to the attack doll unit. I can self-initiate nearly any command of operator mode. I can self-initiate attacker mode against any perceived enemy. I can self-initiate any submode of companion mode. While in a self-initiated state, I function as my own minder: I can direct my own actions and end the self-initiated mode at any time, returning myself to commander mode."

I stared at her. This was definitely more than she had said last time, and it raised some interesting possibilities. "Wizzit," I said, "are you getting all this?"

"I sure am," came his chipper response. "Interesting stuff. It looks as though commander mode has a whole lot more potential than we ever saw her use."

That echoed my own thoughts. The commander-mode Lily we had seen had been a relatively weak personality -- good at ordering Zoinks around, but not much else. Very dependent on "Uncle Oswald", and she seemed to be scared almost all the time. To hear her describe it now, though, it sounded like she ought to be able to self-heal, to assume any of the seductive personalities of companion mode, or even to become Crazy Kung Fu Zombie Chick any time she wanted. I had never seen her do any of that. Suddenly I wanted very much to talk to commander-mode Lily.

But not here, I decided. Remembering how frightened she always was, I was worried she might run away and then I'd have to go searching for her. I decided I'd wait until we had her safely settled in the lair.

Shelley's voice interrupted my thoughts. "Blue, this is Prime Commander. Black has reminded me about the matter we discussed earlier, about getting Lily to go to sleep. Black said to try putting Lily into a cage."

"A cage?"

"That's what I was told."

Hmm. Putting her into a cage . . . it actually made a lot of sense, now that I thought about it. We had come to the conclusion some time ago that Lily slept only when her alter ego, Li Lin-fa, was dominant. I had encountered Li Lin-fa exactly twice before, and both times, she had been imprisoned in a cage. Up to now, we had always looked for some sort of command to bring Li Lin-fa to the fore, but maybe it wasn't a command. Maybe it was the environment.

Shelley added, "Black said you would understand. Black is not at HQ at the moment, but I could contact Black if you feel you need to discuss it."

"Thanks, Commander," I said. "There's no need to contact Black; I understand perfectly. It's a good suggestion. I'll follow it up."

"Let me know what you find out."

"Will do."

With that taken care of, the next thing I tackled was getting Lily to recognize me with my force shield on. And if you have ever tried to get a computer program to do something non-obvious, with no manual whatsoever, then you can probably appreciate how frustrating it was. I tried telling her things like "I am Prime Blue", "Prime Blue is me", "Identify Trevor with Prime Blue", and countless other variants, but no dice. Eventually, I think I finally said something along the lines of "Lily, user Trevor is also the opponent known as Blue Prime." For some reason, that particular phrase worked; from then on, she always took orders from me whether I was activated or not.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, Wizzit announced that Nicolai and Padma's work was complete and he could send Lily and me to JB Swift's final remaining lair. As the teleportation haze disappeared from my vision, I looked around the large room in which we appeared; it seemed identical to the mad-scientist's lab that I had initially teleported into with Lily. Where, I wondered, would JB Swift hide a cage in a place like this? "Wizzit, do you detect anything resembling a cage?"

"Negative. Yellow and Indigo will install microsensors all through this place sometime in the coming week as time and training permit. You can help if you want, since you've done it before. Until then, however, I have to rely on what I see through the sensors in your belt. You may have noticed, though, that the layout here appears to match that of the other site. We did not observe a cage there, quite possibly because we were not looking for one, but . . . let's see, perhaps I can tell you where the cage is not. Make a quarter-turn to your left."

I did a left-face. "Is this good?"

"A little more -- somewhere between a tad and a smidgen . . . there! Where you are facing is twelve o'clock. From what I see in my earlier recordings, there was definitely no cage in the other site in the sector from twelve o'clock to four o'clock. There was probably no cage between four o'clock and nine o'clock."

"So if there's a cage here, it's most likely between nine o'clock and twelve o'clock?"

"I have no information about that area."

"Well, I guess that makes it a good place to start." I took hold of Lily's hand. "Lily, come with me."

"Coming . . ." she murmured.

To make a short story even shorter, I found it. It wasn't even all that hard, actually, now that I knew to look for it; the only insight I had was that it was probably in a room by itself, to give Lily some privacy while she slept. Almost right away I spotted a nondescript door set in one wall, and we made a beeline for it.

As I opened the door, I felt Lily's hand grow slack in mine, and then she let go altogether and stepped forward into the room. Inside was a line of iron bars from floor to ceiling which divided the room in half, like an old-time jail cell -- just the way I remembered it from the time Padma and I had spent skulking around a different Enclave base.

I followed her inside. Moving like a sleepwalker, Lily stepped into the cage. Then she drew out a key from a pocket of her jumpsuit, locked the door behind her, and secreted the key within the hollow tubing that formed the framework of the cell's cot.

"Lily?" I called, but she didn't seem to hear me. She sat down on the cot and stared into space, her hands folded in her lap.

She stayed that way for a minute or so, and then her eyes came back into focus and she blinked and seemed to shake herself. Looking around, she caught sight of me, and her eyes went wide. "Who are you?"

I felt a grin plaster itself all across my face; I had been waiting to hear those words from her for a long time. Well, not the words themselves exactly, but the language they were spoken in -- Cantonese, which Lily didn't speak, but Li Lin-fa did.

"I am hurt that you do not recognize me, pretty one," I said in the same language. I pulled a mock pout, which I suddenly realized she couldn't see because, in my tests to determine whether Lily recognized Prime Blue, I had left my force shield activated.

She must have recognized my altered voice, though, because her eyes lit up and she clapped her hands together in front of her mouth. "Prime Indigo?" she exclaimed. "My friend?"

I bowed an acknowledgement. "That is who I am, although I am called Prime Blue now to match my new color."

She stared at me. "The first time I met you, you had made yourself invisible because you were in danger," she said. "Now I can see you, but your face is hidden by blue clouds. Do your enemies still pursue you?"

"They do not." On impulse, I deactivated my force shield and grinned at her. "Hello, Li Lin-fa. My real name is Trevor."

Her eyes seemed to devour me, as if she wanted to commit every feature to memory. "Tre-vor?" she repeated, mangling the unfamiliar name.

"I am an American," I explained. "Trevor is a common name in America." I grandly swept out my hand in an invitation. "Would you like to come out and talk to me, pretty one? I assure you, it is perfectly safe. The ones who once held you captive are gone now."

A look of dismay crossed her face. "I cannot," she said. She turned and retrieved the key from where Lily had stowed it. "I remember you telling me where the key is, see?" She held it up to show me. "I have tried many times to leave my cage, but every time I do, I . . . go away."

"Oh. I am truly sorry to hear that." The last time I had talked with her, she had used the phrase "go away" to mean that her personality became submerged and the attack doll came forward once more. It made sense. After all, if entering the cage turned her into Li Lin-fa, then leaving the cage ought to turn her back into Lily again. It was disappointing, though. I had been nursing vague hopes she might be able to leave the whole attack doll thing behind, now that JB Swift was out of the picture. "In that case, may I come in, Li Lin-fa?"

She smiled prettily and said, "It would make me very happy if you would come inside." She hesitated for a moment, then handed me the key through the bars of her cell. "I will let you open the door while I close my eyes and cover my ears. That way I will make sure I do not go away."

So I unlocked the door, entered, and closed it behind me while she covered her ears and squeezed her eyes shut. She kept them squeezed shut, in fact, until I laid a hand on her shoulder. At my touch, she turned to face me. Then she abruptly flung her arms around my neck and pressed her lips to mine.

I have to say, it was quite a kiss, especially coming from a girl who had lived most of her life in a rural fishing village in eastern China, and I found myself returning it pretty enthusiastically. I'm sure that if you had poured water on me after she finally let me loose, it would have turned instantly into steam. "That was . . . it was very nice," I said with a shaky laugh. My face felt as if it were burning up.

"I am sorry. I should not have been so forward," she murmured, her eyes downcast. "You must think I am awful, but I have wanted to kiss you again for a long time." She drew near to me once more and hesitantly laid her head against my shoulder. "I have been so lonely for so long, and you have been my only friend."

"It is all right, Li Lin-fa; I am not offended," I assured her. Hoo boy, was I not offended! I couldn't help feeling a little guilty, though. Our two short conversations, months ago, must have made a huge impression on her. I could understand that; they had been her only human contact for the past six years. Still, I hadn't been much of a friend to her since then.

I put my arms around her. "In addition to being beautiful, you kiss very well," I told her. "I only wish I knew of some way to release you from this cage."

I felt her shrug. "I am used to it," she said. "And having a friend in here makes it so much better." Suddenly she drew back and looked up at me. "Oh! I did not mean to say that you always have to be with me," she said hastily. "I know you must have many other things to do, things which are much more interesting than staying here with a simple girl from a poor village. I do not want you to feel that I am trying to tie you to me."

"I understand, Li Lin-fa." I bent and kissed her temple. "I do have other duties, but none of them is more interesting than standing here talking with the prettiest girl I have ever met."

That made her smile again, but it was cut short almost immediately by a huge yawn. "I am sorry, Tre-vor," she said, covering her mouth with her hand and shaking her head slightly. "There is so much I want to talk with you about, but suddenly I am very tired. I cannot keep my eyes open."

"I understand, pretty one," I said. I eased her down onto the cot and drew her blanket up over her. "Your other self has been awake for a long time, and you must rest. Sleep now; I will come to talk with you some other time soon."

"I look forward to it," she murmured. She laid her head down on the pillow and closed her eyes. I remained kneeling beside her, stroking her hair gently, until I heard her breathing deepen into sleep.

Chapter 20

The next morning, I raced through breakfast; I wanted to return to the lab before Li Lin-fa woke up. Mike snagged my arm as I was leaving the kitchen. "Nice work grabbing Lily yesterday," he said. "I assume you have her under control now?"

I nodded. "It took a bit of doing, though."

"How is she coming along?"

"Well, she was dirty, half-starved, dehydrated, and exhausted when I got her," I said, "and she had some minor injuries as well. Those bastards at Enclave sure don't know how to take care of her. I made sure she ate and drank something yesterday; I left her last night after she fell asleep."

"So Bill's suggestion worked?"

"Like a charm."

"That's good. Were you planning on going over there now?"

"Uh huh. I want to make sure she has breakfast and gets herself cleaned up. And you might recall that she's got a self-heal command; I thought I'd start her healing up her bruises and sprains."

Mike nodded. The last time we had captured Lily, she'd had a broken jaw. Shelley or Mike had given her the self-heal command then, and Lily had been as good as new less than twenty-four hours later. Not as fast as one of our healing comas, but still pretty damn impressive.

"Don't spend too long," he said. "Prime Commander tells me she wants to run a debrief on yesterday's mission sometime this morning."

"I'll do my best."

Lily was sitting on the floor outside the door to her cage when I teleported in. She didn't look up as I approached her, although she must have known that I was there. Her eyes held that thousand-yard stare that told me she was currently in operator mode. That was disappointing; I would have liked to say hello to Li Lin-fa.

She definitely looked better than she had yesterday. A full tummy, some water to replenish her fluids, and a good, long night's rest had worked wonders for her. While I wouldn't ever describe operator-mode Lily as "chipper", she was the closest thing to it. She was still dirty, though, and I could tell she still needed a shower and a change of clothes. Funny, I hadn't noticed any of that yesterday when Li Lin-fa had been kissing me.

I stared at her for a moment, thinking; it occurred to me that JB Swift probably didn't oversee every aspect of getting her up every morning. Perhaps Lily had some sort of command to cover her morning toilette, although if she did, I didn't recall what it was off-hand. "Lily," I said, "what do you do after you wake up?"

Lily, still staring off into the distance, gave no sign that she had heard me. As well she might, because I suddenly remembered that she did not respond to questions, only to direct commands. "Lily," I ordered, "tell me what you do after you wake up."

This time, her response was immediate. "My morning routine is to perform any needed bodily eliminations, to shower and otherwise clean and groom myself, to put on fresh clothes, and to prepare and eat a meal. To get me to perform my morning routine, say 'Perform your morning routine.'"

Yup, just like I had thought. "Lily, perform your morning routine."

"Performing . . ." Lily murmured as she moved to obey.

While Lily went about her business, I prowled around the lab, familiarizing myself with the place. By watching where Lily came and went, I figured out where the bathroom and kitchen were. I hadn't really thought about it before, but it looked like JB Swift needed to eat just like anyone else. At least, I found food in the cupboards which most likely wasn't meant for Lily, who normally ate some sort of vegetable paste and drank only water. There was also a second room with a bed, which was probably where he slept, and what looked like a small gymnasium. It wasn't as nice as ours, but was probably adequate for what Lily would need.

When Lily finished her breakfast and cleaned up afterwards, she settled herself in the same spot she had been, cross-legged on the floor just outside the door to her cage. "Lily," I said, "show me where you normally go when you self-heal."

"Showing . . ."

She led me over to what looked like an examination table somewhere in the middle of the large room. I had seen this particular table, or its counterpart in another lair, once before when Lily had been dying from hypothermia. At my command, she lay down on it. I said, "Lily, tell me how long it would take you to heal yourself."

Lily was silent for nearly a minute. I was just about to repeat the command when she blinked twice and said, "Parsing command . . ." Another minute went by. "I have never had to estimate time-to-heal before. Estimating . . ." Another minute, and then she blinked twice more. "Given the current state of my injuries, I estimate time-to-heal as two hours with a margin of error of three hours."

Great, I thought. It would take her somewhere between minus one hour and five hours to fix herself up. Still, I decided that was better than no estimate at all. "Lily," I commanded, "self-heal."

She closed her eyes and murmured, "Self-healing . . ."

I remained where I was for another few minutes, looking down at her. She might have been asleep, except that operator-mode Lily never slept. Her breathing was deep and regular, and she appeared completely relaxed. Peaceful, even.

Eventually, I shook myself out of my reverie. We had her, she was safe, and there wasn't much chance that she would get away from us again. There was no sense in hovering over her like some lovestruck guardian angel, so I asked Wizzit to teleport me home.

When I arrived, I half-expected to find everyone impatiently waiting for me in Shelley's office. Instead, Mike and Trina were in the common room talking and I could hear Angie banging around in the kitchen, humming to herself. I couldn't see anyone else. "What gives?" I asked Mike. "Where is everybody? I thought we'd be all ready to start the debriefing."

"That's been postponed until the afternoon."

"Why is that?"

He shrugged. "I'm not sure. First I heard about it was when Nicolai came charging out of the weapons room, all excited about something or other, with Padma on his heels. They grabbed Shelley, and a few minutes later, Shelley grabbed Toby. I even heard her ask Wizzit to see about getting Bill in here, too. They're all in the weapons room right now, talking up a storm about something."

I frowned. I knew that Toby had been Nicolai's tech assistant before Padma came along, although he hadn't had anything to do with it for nearly a year now. It sounded, though, like Shelley was getting everyone who had ever done tech work for us involved in whatever Nicolai was all excited about. "Any idea what it's all about?"

"Not a clue. She just said they would be busy until sometime after lunch."

Trina said, "I would imagine that it has something to do with the readings Wizzit took on that Unity field generator yesterday. But what exactly, I would have no idea."

"Wizzit?" I said to the ceiling speakers, "could you explain what's going on with Shelley and the others?"

"He's no help," Mike put in. "We've been asking, and he's not telling."

"So we're just waiting to hear," Trina concluded.

I looked at the clock. There were still a couple of hours left before lunchtime, and there was nothing to do. Well, almost nothing. "Have either of you ever installed microsensors?" I asked.

Trina shook her head. Mike said, "Sure, Shelley and I put 'em in the stronghouse the first time we captured Lily." He raised an eyebrow. "Do you reckon we should start installing them in JB Swift's old lair?"

"Wizzit said he would have Nicolai and Padma do it," I said, "but as long as they're tied up and we don't have anything in particular to do, why not?" I looked up at the ceiling speakers. "Hey Wizzit, do you mind if we start installing microsensors in the lair?"

"That is an excellent suggestion, Trevor," Wizzit said promptly. "I will have Nicolai pull four packages; he'll have them for you in the weapons room in just a few minutes."

I glanced at Mike and Trina, frowning. "Four packages?"

"Your sister?" Trina suggested with a smile.

"Oh, right!" And I went off to the kitchen to collect Angie.

Wizzit's microsensors are these nifty little gadgets that let him monitor pretty much anything he wants to in any place they're installed. Each microsensor is sort of a combined microphone and 360-degree camera, all contained in a little blob of putty not much bigger than the head of a pin. A single microsensor by itself won't do much, but if you stick a whole bunch of them on the walls of a room, along the ceiling, on the underside of chairs and tables, and pretty much anywhere else you can think of, then the composite image they present can be clearer and more detailed than the sharpest video camera you can imagine.

So that's what we did, all over the lair. It wasn't hard work, and Trina and Angie picked up the nuances right away, but it took us a while to get through the entire lab, even with Wizzit telling us when we had enough of the little guys in a particular area and pointing out where he still had blind spots.

I was just putting up some of the little blobs on the walls of what I had decided was JB Swift's bedroom when I heard Angie calling to me. I stepped out into the main room and found her over by Lily's healing table.

"Is this her?" she asked me, staring down at my favorite lady minder. (Actually, I probably shouldn't call her that any more; Lily would not be baby-sitting any more Enclave monsters ever again, not if I had anything to say about it.) "I mean, I recognize that it's her, but . . ."

"Uh huh. It's Lily."

"Is she asleep?"

"Sure looks like it, doesn't it?" I replied. Actually, I thought she more resembled a vampire resting in her coffin -- eyes closed, face expressionless, lying flat on her back with her legs straight and her hands folded across her lower belly. All she was missing was the fangs. "But no, she isn't really sleeping. She had a fair amount of bumps and bruises when we brought her in, so I gave her the self-heal command."

"You mean, like a healing coma?"

I shook my head. "Not exactly. Our force shields provide our healing comas, and she doesn't have anything like that. What she does have is a built-in command that does sort of the same thing, only not as efficiently."

Angie looked down at her for what seemed like a long time. "What other commands does she have?"

"I lost count somewhere around two dozen," I said, laughing. "I think Wizzit has the complete list, if you want to ask him about it sometime. The main thing to know about her, though, is that she has four of these mental states she calls 'modes': Operator mode, where she basically sits around waiting to be told what to do; commander mode, when she's ordering Zoinks around; attacker mode, where --"

"Yeah, I know all about attacker mode," she interrupted me wryly. "I can still feel the bruises from the last time she attacked me."

Well, okay, I knew that was an exaggeration, but I laughed anyway. "The fourth mode is something she calls companion mode. It's just a bunch of pre-built personalities you can have her assume for a period of time."

"You say it's called companion mode?" she repeated. "Does that mean she's supposed to keep you company or something?"

"Uh huh. Something like that."

"Okay, so . . . what kinds of personalities do you get to pick from?"

"Well, let me think for a minute . . ." I tried to come up with some of the more innocent-sounding ones that Lily had listed when I had originally asked her about it, but I couldn't remember any. Perversely, the only one that came to mind was "teenage prostitute". "There's, um, let's see . . ."

Seeing my hesitation, Angie crossed her arms and fixed me with a suspicious eye. "This companion mode -- it's really all about sex, isn't it?"

"No!" I said hastily. "I mean, yeah, there's that aspect to it, but you don't have to use it that way. If you want, you can ask her just to be someone to talk to."

"Uh huh," she replied skeptically. "And how many times, big brother, have you used companion mode just to have someone to talk to, hmm?"

I closed my eyes and gave myself time to take a breath, then let it out again; she had touched a sore point with me. "You sound just like Joy, you know that?" I said, giving her a tight smile. "I'll have you know, little sis, that no one has ever fired up Lily's companion mode, not as far as I'm aware. Not even me. And no one ever will."

"Never?"

"Never. I mean it. Sure, I like the idea of having someone as pretty as Lily, you know, do things, but not like that. Not when she doesn't have a choice. That'd be too much like \-- like rape."

I dropped my gaze a little. "Mainly, I just want her to turn out okay, little sis. Her life is going to be messed up enough as it is, assuming she'll ever be able to have something like a normal life. I don't want to do anything to make things harder for her, especially something that could be as emotionally damaging to her as companion mode."

The disbelieving look Angie was giving me changed subtly to one that I couldn't interpret. Then she abruptly turned away and swiped at her eyes, almost as if she were wiping away tears. "You're no fun to tease!" she muttered softly. "Dammit, why does my big brother have to be such a nice guy all the time?"

We finished putting up the microsensors a little past mid-morning. Things got a little more complicated after that, because Wizzit also wanted us to install a few sets of speakers in strategic spots in the main room and at least one set in Lily's cage, but between the four of us, we more-or-less managed to suss it out. And by the time we got to the crowning glory -- plugging in a little doohickey that was designed to let Wizzit assume control over the computer systems and remote-manage the vid screens and such -- it was nearly time to go back to HQ for lunch.

When Shelley and the others emerged from the weapons room over an hour later, they found Mike, Trina, Angie, and me waiting for them in the kitchen. Shelley sniffed the air. "Something smells good," she commented.

"I made soup," I said. "Chicken noodle with vegetables -- your favorite. A big pot of it, and from scratch, too, not a can."

"Great, I'm starving!"

She started eagerly toward the stove, but I stepped in front of it to block her. "Uh uh, not just yet," I told her. "You have to earn it first."

Shelley raised her eyebrows. "Okay, what do I have to do to get some?"

"Nothing much, Commander," Mike said, leaning back in his chair and studying his nails. He breathed on them and casually buffed them on his shirt. "Just tell us what the hell the five of you have been doing in the weapons room for the past four hours."

Shelley turned slowly to look at the other three who had followed her into the room. Nicolai shrugged; Toby and Padma looked blank. Shelley said, "You mean Wizzit didn't tell you?"

"He wouldn't say a thing," Trina said.

Angie added, "Which is why we've been forced to resort to blackmail by food."

"I thought it would be premature, Commander," Wizzit piped up. "I decided to wait until we had come up with a plan of action."

Shelley looked up at the ceiling speakers. "And the idea that it would be fun to hold out on them never crossed your mind?"

"Never!" Wizzit did a good job of sounding shocked. "Commander, I have only the best interests of the team at heart."

Angie might have believed that, the poor naive child, but I doubt anyone else did. Shelley began to chuckle. "At any rate, it's a situation that's easily remedied. Let's all sit down and we'll tell you about it."

"So, this Unity belt can be used for more than just turning off our force shields?" Mike said a little while later.

"That's right," Shelley replied. She accepted the bowl of soup I handed her. "Thanks, Trev. That's the reason Bill and Nicolai spent so much time trying to make one a few years ago."

"Where is Bill, anyway?" Angie asked.

"He's due to give a lecture in . . ." She glanced at the clock. ". . . about half an hour. He had Wizzit teleport him back to his office."

"The reason we're interested in the Unity belt has to do with divisibility," Nicolai said. "Our force shields are all based on prime numbers because prime numbers are strong. Each Prime's force shield can be successfully compromised only by a number which divides it -- either the prime itself, which can't happen, . . ."

"Or unity," Trina finished for him.

Nicolai gave her a grin. "Exactly. Which is how Lily's device was able to affect us so readily." He slipped a spoonful of soup into his mouth, and after a moment he looked up, surprised. "This is really good," he said. He furrowed his brow at me. "You made this?"

"Oh, come on! I just told you I did, didn't I?" I said indignantly. "I do know how to make more than just second-rate Chinese food. Trevor Chiao is a man of many talents and many cuisines. Plus, I found a pretty good internet cookbook."

"Well, wherever you found this recipe," Shelley declared after her own first spoonful of the stuff, "don't lose it. This one's a keeper."

"But why exactly do we want something like this Unity belt," Angie asked, "if all it does is attack us Primes?"

"Good question." Nicolai paused for another mouthful of soup. "Think of it this way. Suppose you were wearing a suit of armor, and then suppose there was someone who could somehow extend their hand inside this armor and reach your most sensitive, most vulnerable areas. That hand could represent the fist of an enemy, striking you down, but it could also represent something quite different, could it not? Say, the gentle caress of a lover?" He smiled almost dreamily when he said this last and reached out to take Padma's hand.

Nicolai's a good guy, but he's also kind of a nerd, and I think his romance with Padma (or whatever it is; no one's quite sure) sometimes leads that giant brain of his down some unexpected paths, such as a tender moment right in the middle of a technical discussion like this. There was an awkward silence during which everyone else in the room did their best to look away from the two of them. Padma's skin is so dark, it's impossible to tell when she's blushing, but I'd have bet a penny that her face felt red-hot right about then.

Mike was the first to speak. "Yes, well, thank you for that mental image of a lover caressing your most sensitive areas, Nicolai," he said dryly, "but to get back to the matter at hand --"

"To get back to the matter at hand," Padma jumped in, eager to change the subject, "the point is that the Unity field can certainly be used to attack our force shields, to disable them, but it can also be used instead to strengthen them, to bolster our powers. Or that's the theory, at least."

"Bolster them how?" Trina asked.

"It's unclear," Wizzit told everyone. "I have been studying the effects of force shields on human anatomy for only sixteen years, after all. I don't know everything yet."

"We think -- or rather, Bill thinks -- that any of several things could happen," Shelley said. "It could be a straightforward power boost -- more strength, more speed, faster reflexes for everyone. Or it could make special powers like the shock wave more accessible to some of the junior members of the team. Or it could facilitate a smoother energy flow from the power grid, giving us a faster recharge time when special powers are used."

"Or it could be something completely different," Nicolai said with a shrug. "We're not sure. But one thing it will not give us is a full-scale force shield for whoever wears the Unity belt."

I frowned. "Why not? Because Lily had a full-scale force shield just a couple of days ago, or I'll eat a bug."

"Well, she did and she didn't. It depends on what you mean, exactly," Nicolai explained.

Toby snorted. "This is the part where they started to lose me," he muttered to me behind his hand. "Sounded like a bunch of double-talk, but he and Padma and Bill seemed to understand it."

"Why did they have you in there, anyway?" I asked him. "No offense, but you're not in the same league as they are."

He shrugged. "I'm not sure myself, mate. I think I was what's sometimes called back-fill. Bill has some side project he and Wizzit have been working on, but he's too busy to build the damn thing. So he handed me a bunch of schematics and told me to get to work. That much I can do, although it's going to take some time to shake the rust off."

There was silence when he stopped speaking. I looked up to see everyone staring at us. "Uh, sorry," I said, grinning. "Just a little sidebar. Please continue."

With a noncommittal grunt, Nicolai went on, "The number one, you see, is too . . . hmm, I don't really have the words to explain it to you. It's too bland, too colorless to provide a force shield. Not enough . . . umm . . . personality, I guess you could say."

I have to admit that, for a non-native speaker, Nicolai really has a good command of the English language. Still, his math-to-layman skills often leave something to be desired. I turned to Padma. "Could you translate that, please?"

She looked thoughtful. "I'll try. Let's use you as an example, Trevor. Your prime number is eleven. When you activate your force shield, the use of the number eleven adds a certain prejudice to the way you interact with the world."

"Prejudice?" Mike repeated. "It turns him into a bigot?"

"The word Bill used was 'bias'," Shelley explained, "not 'prejudice'."

Padma looked blank. "The two words have the same meaning, do they not?"

Shelley held up her thumb and forefinger about a centimeter apart. "Slight difference. Trust me, the word you want is 'bias'."

Padma shrugged. "Very well, it adds a certain bias to your interactions."

"You view the world in an asymmetrical way," Nicolai added. "From your perspective, it's partitioned into two camps: things which are divisible by eleven, and thing which are not. Of course, that's a gross oversimplification, but it represents the basic idea. And it is by exploiting that asymmetry that the force shield is able to allow some things to pass through and to prevent others, which is how it performs the functions to which you are accustomed."

"And that's why Lily couldn't really have a force shield," Shelley concluded. "There's no asymmetry to exploit. You can't use the number one to partition the world because everything's already divisible by one."

"But she did have a force shield," I insisted. "She had to have. You guys saw the vid. How could she have broken that stone if she didn't have a force shield?"

"To put it in the plainest possible terms, she was hijacking yours, Trevor," Wizzit said.

Nicolai looked pained. "Well . . . it's not exactly . . ."

"Of course, that's a gross oversimplification, but it represents the basic idea."

I blinked. It was Nicolai's voice I was hearing, but Nicolai hadn't spoken. It took me a moment to realize that Wizzit had simply replayed the remark he had made earlier.

Nicolai chuckled good-naturedly. "I certainly can't argue with my own brilliant words. Very well, she was, in essence, using your force shield against you. But not just you; the device appears to have been set up to steal from anyone, provided they were close enough."

"So now, all that remains," Shelley said, scraping the last noodle from the bottom of her bowl, "is for us to build our own Unity belt and see what it does. At the very least, its presence will prevent Enclave from deploying a similar device."

"But I thought we had tried to create one and failed," Trina said. "What has changed?"

Nicolai made a disgusted sound. "It was a stupid thing. The asymmetry I mentioned earlier also serves to stabilize our force shields. Without that asymmetry, the Unity belt was extremely unstable; used at any reasonable level of power, it would have destroyed itself within seconds."

"Doesn't sound so stupid to me, mate," Mike put in. "Sounds quite dangerous, in fact. How did Enclave manage to solve the problem?"

Nicolai looked away; it was obvious he didn't want to reply. Instead, Padma answered, "The solution is an obvious one. You simply don't run the Unity field for more than just a short period of time. The device turns itself off and on again very fast, somewhat like a fluorescent light. That way it doesn't have time to become unstable, and yet it still provides all the benefits one would want. And the faster the field blinks off and on, the more powerful it can be."

"It's so simple, I should have thought of it myself, years ago," Nicolai muttered. "I hate to say it, but it's quite an elegant solution."

"The Enclave device would cycle itself approximately once a millisecond, and it had a range of a little over five hundred feet," Wizzit explained. "We could easily increase that to one megahertz, or a million times a second. That would let us increase the field strength by a thousand times, using a power supply such as that found in our Emeriti devices, which would in turn give us a ten-fold range increase in every direction. To benefit from the Unity field, you'd simply have to be somewhere within a mile of the person wearing the Unity belt."

"But of course, there is still much work to be done," Nicolai said. "And to do it, I need more chicken soup."

Chapter 21

It was just after everyone had finished eating and Toby and Angela were cleaning up that we heard Wizzit's voice over the speakers. "Trevor, it appears that Lily has decided she is healthy. She has gotten up from the table on which she was lying and is once more sitting beside the door to her cage-room."

I had been toying idly with a soup spoon, twirling it between my fingers. I glanced up and looked around the room; everyone had turned to look at me. "I suppose I had better go check on her, then."

"Wait a second," Shelley said. "How did you know that, Wizzit?"

"Through the microsensors that Mike and the others planted throughout the lair," he replied.

Shelley turned to look quizzically at Mike, who said casually, "Trina, Trevor, Angela, and I went out there -- with force shields on, naturally, so that Lily couldn't see our faces -- while you were in the weapons room. We planted microsensors and installed a few sets of speakers; we should now have full two-way communications with the lair."

"What about the computer systems?" Nicolai asked.

"JB Swift's main computer is a feisty little thing," Wizzit said, sounding almost proud of it. "I have control of the power, lights, heat, water, and two of the vid screens, and I'm working on the rest. It's putting up a good fight, but it should be just a matter of another hour or so."

"I see." Shelley looked thoughtful. Suddenly she said, "Is there any reason we shouldn't go over there for our debrief? We could introduce ourselves to Lily then as well. Wizzit, Mike, what do you think?"

Wizzit said, "I would recommend waiting until I have complete control of -- oh, wait, it just gave up the ghost. Never mind, I now have full computer control of the site. Sure, we could do the debriefing there whenever you're ready, Commander."

Mike shrugged. "If Wizzit is okay with it, then so am I. But before we do that, we had better decide a few things."

"Such as . . .?" Trina asked.

"Such as, should we let Lily see our real faces? Should we let her hear us calling each other by our real names? Just how much does she know about us, anyway?"

"She already knows my first name and what I look like," I said. "That was a prerequisite for my taking charge of her. And JB Swift had already figured out my last name and where my parents live. I don't know whether he passed that along to Lily, though."

Mike nodded. "That's regrettable, but I agree that most of it couldn't be helped."

"Which Lily knows what you look like?" Shelley asked. "Li Lin-fa, or commander-mode Lily, or . . ."

I considered the question. "Li Lin-fa knows my first name and my face and that I am also called Prime Blue. I couldn't see any real harm in telling her that. Operator-mode Lily also knows my name and face, and she guessed that I was Prime Blue just by watching me move. I haven't talked with commander-mode Lily yet."

"Enclave knows what I look like," Padma reminded everyone. "They do not know my name, though, or anything else about me."

"The whole world knows who I am," Shelley added. "I think most people would not be shocked to discover I am still involved with the Primes."

Mike frowned. "There's probably no point in advertising the fact, though." He looked around at the rest of us. "Anything else?"

"Lily and JB Swift met Angie once," I mused.

"I remember that," Angie agreed. "It was a while ago, even before I was Junior Prime Pink."

I said, "I doubt anyone would make the connection between that encounter and our current Prime Violet, though, not even Lily."

Mike rubbed his chin. "Wizzit," he said, "what do you think?"

"I want you to remain cautious, even more so than we were with Angela," Wizzit replied. "Li Lin-fa and operator-mode Lily should not see anything more than they have already. I do not want her even to see Shelley's face unless it becomes necessary. Shelley, I will defer to your judgment on that. Trevor may continue to interact with both of them both as himself and as Prime Blue, since that cat's already left the bag. The rest of you, though, may interact with Lily only as Primes. Angela may interact with Li Lin-fa, but only as Prime Violet; Shelley, please coach her carefully on this."

"Will do," Shelley said.

"Why Angie?" Padma asked. Then, almost before the words were out of her mouth, she was shaking her head and waving her hands in negation. "Never mind; I understand. She is the only one among us besides Trevor who speaks Cantonese."

"What about commander-mode Lily?" I asked.

"Everyone but you is to interact with her only while shielded and blurred. As for you . . ." There was a pause. "We don't know just how much information is shared among her personalities, so . . ."

"She said commander mode had access to all information available to the attack doll unit," I pointed out.

"Yes, that is what she said," Wizzit agreed patiently. "But we both know that Lily's commander-mode persona has not lived up to its full potential. There may be flaws in her programming. So for now, you also will interact with her only while shielded and blurred --"

"Oh come on, Wizzit!"

"-- unless it becomes necessary to deactivate," he went on as if I had not spoken. "I will defer to your judgment on that, but please consult with Shelley or Mike first."

"All right," I agreed reluctantly. "Will do."

Mike looked around. "Are we all sorted, then?" There was a chorus of agreement. "Then send us out there, Wizzit, if you please. After we all activate, that is."

We materialized in the main room of the lab beside a large vid screen. I walked over to where Lily sat, took her hand, and told her to follow me. We returned to find the others moving boxes and crates into a rough semicircle around the screen.

"Wizzit says that JB Swift doesn't have any chairs here," Angie explained to me. "I guess he didn't plan on having company. We're going to have to sit on these for the time being."

After everyone else had all found seats for themselves of one sort or another, I led Lily out in front of the vid screen and turned her to face them. For a moment, no one spoke. Mike was the first to find his tongue. "I would not have believed it possible."

"I wish it weren't," Toby muttered.

Lily gazed out into nothingness, seemingly oblivious to the stares being directed her way. "I thought you told me she had drowned, Trev- err, Blue," my sister said. "How did she survive that? How come she's still alive?"

I recounted what JB Swift had told me about the mammalian diving reflex. After that, Wizzit replayed my earlier interview with operator-mode Lily, the one while we were on the beach. When that was done, I said, "Anyone have any more questions about her?" No one did, it seemed. After more than a minute had gone by, I said, with a touch of impatience, "So, do you want to see her do some tricks? Should I have her stand on her head or something?"

"I would like to speak with her," Shelley said quietly.

I raised my eyebrows, which no one could see under my force shield. "She's not much of a conversationalist, Gold."

"I meant commander-mode Lily, of course," Shelley amended.

"Agreed," Wizzit chimed in. "Please put her in commander mode, Blue."

"If that's what you want," I said. "Lily, initiate commander mode."

I have seen her make the switch, prompted by JB Swift's remote control, from commander mode to Crazy Kung Fu Zombie Chick many times, and that change always appeared to be more-or-less instantaneous: One second she's cringing in front of you, and the next, she's trying to claw your eyes out. This one was more gradual; I could almost see the light of intelligence dawning in her eyes.

I waited, watching her closely, as she seemed to come awake and realize where she was. Her gaze swept around the room, panic rising as she took in the glowing figures that surrounded her. Eventually, she focused on me. I saw her stiffen and heard her sharp intake of breath.

"Drones, attend me!" she called out, looking about wildly for any Zoinks that might come to her aid. "Drones? Drones!"

"There are no drones here," I told her.

She slowly raised her hands protectively in front of her and began to back away. She bumped into the vid screen almost immediately and sank down to her knees. A whimper of fear escaped her.

I squatted down until my face was almost at her level. "Lily," I said, trying to make my voice as gentle as possible, "there's nothing to be afraid of."

She was shaking with fear. "Please don't hurt me!"

"I'm Prime Blue, Lily. We've met a few times before. Have I ever hurt you?"

She started to shake her head. "You -- you're the one who says the magic words to me!"

"Do they hurt you?"

She didn't reply; she just curled herself into a ball. She buried her face against her knees and covered her ears with her hands. "Red, Gold," I said, Prime-to-Prime, "this is nuts. Look at her. She's terrified of us -- of me. There's no sense in scaring her out of her wits this way."

To my surprise, it was Mike who said, "All right, Blue. Deactivate and do your best to calm her down."

I quickly deactivated my force shield. The accompanying flash of light must have gotten her attention, because she looked up. She stared at me, slowly bringing her hands away from her ears. "I'm not going to hurt you, Lily," I said, slowly and deliberately. "No one here is going to hurt you. I'll make sure of that. There's nothing to be afraid of."

Lily blinked and shook her head slightly. Then she did it again. She raised a hand to her temple, as though she were suddenly remembering something important. "Your name is . . . Trevor," she said hesitantly, "and you are . . ." She swallowed nervously. ". . . a completely trusted user?" From the dismayed way she said it, I just knew she was thinking something along the lines of I have been given into the hands of my deadliest enemy.

"That's right," I said. "Your Uncle Oswald decided that he could trust me to look after you. You're safe with me."

"Where is Uncle Oswald?" Then, before I could answer, she sprang to her feet and dashed over to one of the computer consoles. "Display Oswald's last known location," she ordered.

The large vid screen behind her flared to life, showing a featureless plain. She looked at it, then turned to me. "He's not there!"

"I know," I said. "I'm sorry. He's dead."

Her eyes went wide with shock. "You killed him?"

I shook my head. "The Harley twins, with some sort of bomb."

She stared at me for a moment, then dropped her gaze to the floor between us as she absorbed the information. She was silent for what seemed like a long time, and then she started trembling. It began with her hands, and she clenched them together in a effort to stop it, but that merely made her shoulders start to quake. A low, keening moan escaped her lips.

Part of me warned me to keep my distance, because it's never a good idea to approach someone who is that frightened of you. Another part, though, pointed out that she was falling to pieces before my eyes, and that offering her a comforting embrace could hardly make things that much worse.

She did not, in fact, run away as I stepped forward. Encouraged, I gathered her in my arms; she stiffened only momentarily before collapsing against me with a muffled sob. She was shivering all over now, as if she were soaking wet in a freezing wind, and her sobs began coming hard and fast. I held her loosely -- she was shaking too hard for a tighter grip -- but she clutched at me as if I were her only point of sanity in a universe suddenly gone insane. Which, I suppose, might have been true for her.

As I've mentioned before, I've apparently got a serious thing for damsels in distress. Now, Lily was obviously in distress, and as tightly as she was clinging to me, I couldn't help but notice that she was a pretty darned attractive damsel . . . and I decided with a resigned sigh that Shelley must be right. I closed my eyes and laid my cheek against the top of her head and tried to ignore the way she was making my breath come faster and my heart thump harder in my chest.

Lily stopped trembling after a few minutes, and she stopped crying a few minutes after that. She slowly raised her head from my chest and looked around at the silent, impassive figures surrounding us. "What are you going to do with me?" she asked. She sounded as if she didn't much care -- or was too resigned to care -- what happened to her.

Shelley rose to her feet and came toward us. Lily gasped and shrank back against me. She was still scared, I noticed, but she didn't seem as over-the-edge terrified as she had been. Shelley laid a hand on her shoulder. "What do you think we should do with you?"

Lily looked up at the golden robotic-looking figure towering head-and-shoulders over her, and her shoulders slumped in defeat. "Whatever you want." I felt her shrug. "What do you do with broken dolls?"

"You aren't broken, are you?" Shelley said.

"Uncle Oswald said I was. He told me I was a complete and utter failure who never lived up to my potential."

I stared at her. "He never said that to me!" I protested. "All he could ever talk about was what a work of art you were, how perfect you were, how much he --"

"He didn't say that about me," she corrected me dispiritedly. "He said that about her."

"Her?"

"My other self. The passive one. The one who always does as she is told and never makes mistakes."

"Oh." She was talking about herself in operator mode. "But why did he tell you . . . why did he say those things about you?"

"The same reason your friend did the other day," she answered. "You know, the one you were talking to over your communicator, or whatever it was? You called him Wizzit. He said I didn't live up to my potential either."

"You heard that?"

"Of course. I hear everything she hears; I know everything she knows."

I said, "Lily, Wizzit told me that because we've never seen you do anything except order drones around. According to what you said -- excuse me, according to what she said -- you could have been doing so much more. So why haven't we seen any of that?"

Her answer was so soft I almost couldn't hear it. "Because I'm afraid."

"Afraid of what?" Shelley's voice sounded kind even through the voice alteration.

Lily shrugged and shook her head.

Shelley turned to face the others; she remained that way for nearly a minute. She shook her head once. She gestured toward me, then toward Lily. I saw Mike turn in his chair to look at Trina, who appeared to have the floor, and there were a few shrugs among the rest of my teammates.

"What are they doing, Trevor?" Lily whispered. She was standing very close to me and slightly behind, so that I was between her and everyone else, and she was clutching my hand tightly in both of hers.

"It looks like they're having a conversation."

"What are they saying?"

"I don't know." I raised my voice slightly so that Shelley couldn't help but hear me. "Without my force shield, I can't hear anything they're saying unless they let me."

Shelley's head swiveled in my direction. "Oh, sorry, Trev. We were just trying to decide what to do with Lily."

"And . . . ?"

Mike said, "For starters, Orange thinks you should explain the facts of life to her."

The birds and the bees? "You're kidding, right?"

Shelley chuckled. "Orange meant you should tell Lily everything we know about that's going on inside her head. Everything that JB Swift probably never told her, and even the stuff that he didn't realize."

"Oh, okay. That makes a lot of sense," I agreed. "When should I do it? Now?"

"Not now," Mike said. "We've still the debrief to do. Tomorrow will be soon enough."

Shelley laid hand on Lily's arm. Maybe my presence was having a calming effect on her now, because she flinched only a little. "Lily, we're going to go over some video footage of our most recent battle. We will allow you to watch it -- you took part in it, after all -- but you will not be permitted hear any of it, nor any of our discussions."

"I'm going to have to activate my force shield for that," I explained. "I'll be Prime Blue then, but it'll still be me under here."

"Or, if you prefer," Shelley went on, "Trevor can put you back into operator mode and you can wait in another room."

Lily shook her head vigorously. "I hate operator mode."

Something about Lily's head-shake seemed to have caught Shelley's eye; she was looking at her curiously. "Lily," she said, "show me your ears."

Lily looked at me anxiously, and when I nodded, she obediently gathered her hair back into a ponytail, held in place by one fist. Shelley examined her earlobes closely, even rubbing them lightly between her thumb and forefinger. "She's not wearing the special earrings," she declared, looking back at the group. "They're gone."

"I had her remove them while we were at the beach," I explained. "I guess Wizzit didn't show everyone that part. I tossed the earrings into the ocean."

"Then she's no longer susceptible to the remote control," Shelley concluded. "Good work, Trev."

"I'm glad you did that," Lily murmured softly. "I always hated them."

"I've always hated them, too," I said. A sudden thought struck me. "Lily, is there any other way anyone can control you?"

"No. I have no other remote controls, and you are the only completely trusted user, now that Uncle Oswald is . . ." She took a fresh death-grip on my hand. "Would it be possible to see how he died? I believe what you said -- I trust you -- but I would like to see it. If you don't mind, that is."

I glanced at Shelley and then at Mike, who shrugged. "I think we can do that. Wizzit, if you please?"

I stood beside Lily as Wizzit replayed the vid of JB Swift's death. He started about thirty seconds before it happened, when the little red speedster was taking on Cyclops. Lily clutched my hand tightly every time JB Swift was on-screen, obviously expecting to see him cut down at any moment. When we got to the place where Black-hat threw his bomb, I murmured, "This is it, Lily."

She nodded and bit her lip. A short time later, the bombs went off. Lily made a small sound once, almost like the whine of a dog, but except for that, she was completely silent. I looked over at her; she was staring at the screen with wide eyes, tears threatening to spill down either cheek.

"Is there anything else you would like to see?" I asked softly when it was over. She shook her head mutely.

I activated my force shield and walked with Lily over to the sole unoccupied seat, a wooden box at one end of the semicircle. I gestured to her when we got to it, intending to let her sit down while I stood behind her. She shook her head, though. She knelt down beside it and then smiled tentatively up at me. I shrugged and sat on the box myself.

"Looks like Lily is quite serious about her new role as your handmaiden, Blue," Nicolai observed dryly, Prime-to-Prime.

Padma snorted. "I think it is disgusting. She should not act like his slave."

"Give her time, people," Shelley said. "You saw how scared she was. She has no idea what to expect from us, and Blue's is the only friendly face she's seen so far. Of course she'd want to make nice with him, and maybe this is the only way she knows how."

"I think she will do more than 'make nice,'" Trina declared. "I would expect her to try to get you romantically interested in her, Blue, out of self-preservation, if for no other reason." She paused. "At least, that is what I would do if I were in the same position. One uses the resources that one has."

Mike chuckled. "Perhaps you might show me some day just how you'd go about that, love."

"Perhaps I might, Red. Some day. But not today."

"Yeah, well, if that's her idea, she's just wasting her time," Toby said. "Blue's already interested in her; any fool can see that. Has been since Day One."

"Just don't let it go to your head, Blue," Mike warned me.

Wizzit snickered. "Either one of them."

Trina made a disgusted sound. "That really wasn't necessary, Wizzit," she said.

"And on that note," Shelley said, "let's start the debriefing. Indigo, we will begin with you."

Padma talked her way through her and Angie's mission in the desert. Any doubts I might have had about the necessity of pulling our two most junior Primes out so early were dispelled once I actually saw the vid. The five huge fire demons had converged upon the pair of them almost as soon as they appeared. Dodging fireball after fireball, they barely had a chance to take a breath, much less mount any kind of attack, even if their force shields had been operational.

Padma concluded her narration at the point where she and Angie teleported out, which is where I took up the story. My part was fairly brief, and I didn't take long to describe Lily's attack, the removal of her backpack, and our teleportation out to the beach. When I finished, I felt a tugging at the leg of my shorts. I turned to see Lily regarding me with fear-filled eyes.

"Trevor, I -- I'm sorry I attacked you. I was doing as I was ordered, and I didn't know that you were . . . you." She ducked her head down, like a dog that knows it's about to be whipped. "Please forgive me."

"It's all right, Lily," I told her. "No one is blaming you, least of all me." I reached out a hand to stroke her hair; she took hold of it and brought it to her cheek, nuzzling the backs of my fingers. Then she let go and gave me a smile that made my heart do flip-flops in my chest.

Looking into Lily's eyes, I sort of lost track of time for a bit. I heard Mike give a small yelp; Trina had elbowed him in the ribs none too gently. "If our exalted leader would care to ignore the young woman making doe-eyes at Blue," she said, with all the ice of a Siberian winter in her voice, "and continue the narration . . . ?"

"Oh! Um, right." Mike cleared his throat and brought his attention back to the vid screen. "Let's see, where were we?"

Wizzit obligingly began playing a vid of Mike, Nicolai, and Toby teleporting into the battle scene. "Ah, here we are," Mike said. "As you can see, Wizzit popped us straight into the middle of things. The locals had all scattered, so there was no point in our doing a run-in. Thank you, Wizzit, by the way, for not setting us down in the middle of one of the many fires raging about the place. Much appreciated."

"Think nothing of it."

"It was tough going for a bit," Mike continued. "We mainly used our blasters at first, since these fire-things appeared to be too hot to handle."

"Bill mentioned that he thought these monsters were supposed to be ifrits, by the way," Shelley commented.

"Did he now?" Mike sat back on his crate and folded his arms thoughtfully. "That's interesting. Ifrits, you said? Are you sure? Hmm. Yes, very interesting indeed."

"You don't know what ifrits are, do you?" Shelley guessed.

"Not a clue."

She laughed. "In Arabic folklore, an ifrit is an enormous, winged fire-spirit, a type of djinn, or genie."

"Ah." Mike nodded. "Well, that certainly tallies. And it would explain why the locals ran away so readily. Actually made our jobs a bit easier, in fact."

"And it is something the Harley twins would be likely to dream up," Trina added. "They like to create their monsters based on myths, legends, and religious stories."

"Good point," Mike said. "At any rate, we were still in the process of feeling them out when Steel and Silver arrived, and then we had a bit of luck." On the vid screen, we saw two flashes of light as Alvaro and Cathy teleported in. They immediately took aim with their triple-blasters. "Stop it right here, Wizzit, if you please."

Wizzit froze the vid, and Mike stood up and walked to the screen. "Pay close attention to what happens here and here," he said, tapping the images of two of the demons. "All right, Wizzit, proceed."

The action resumed, and we watched as blaster beams struck the creatures in question. Each of them staggered backward as if struck by a sledgehammer, although none of the other monsters had exhibited a similar reaction.

"What happened?" Shelley asked.

"Wizzit was the first to notice," Mike said with a chuckle, "and, clever boy that he is, he deduced what was going on almost right away."

"You might recall that Steel and Silver's bracelets are based on prime squares, not prime numbers themselves," Nicolai said. "Steel's number is twenty-nine squared, and Silver's is thirty-one squared. Judging by the monsters' reactions to their respective blaster shots, Wizzit quickly concluded that the base frequencies of their enhancements lay in the zero residue class of those particular primes -- not the squares, but the actual primes.

"Naturally, he was unable to make suitable adjustments to Steel's or Silver's weapons. However . . ." He indicated the vid screen, where we saw Nicolai and Toby vanish from sight, only to reappear immediately afterward, each of them directly in front of one of the two monsters. "Wizzit teleported Green and me, and he managed to reset our force shields to use primes thirty-one and twenty-nine while he did so. As you can see, he was immediately able to adjust Green's hammer and my axe to deliver killing blows."

We watched as vid-Nicolai and vid-Toby struck with their weapons and each of the demons disappeared in a shower of sparks.

Shelley was nodding her approval. "Nicely done," she said. "Very clever. Wizzit gets today's gold star."

"After that," Mike went on, "the remaining monsters got panicky and started throwing their fireballs everywhere, even at each other." Indeed, the vid screen appeared to be half-filled with orange light. I saw one of the monsters catch a fireball directly in the chest. It toppled backwards and was soon engulfed in flames. "Our main problem at that point became staying out of the way while the remaining two finished each other off." He sat down while Wizzit fast-forwarded to the end of the battle, where the two remaining fire demons struck each other with fireballs simultaneously.

"Any questions?" Shelley asked as the vid screen went dark. No one had any, so she stood up, dismissing the group. One by one, Wizzit began teleporting them back to HQ.

Lily remained kneeling where she was when I got to my feet. I looked down, studying her. Her palms were flat on her knees, and she was facing straight ahead with her eyes closed. After a moment, she looked up at me and accepted the hand I offered her.

"I was getting a self-report," she explained as she pulled herself to her feet, "as well as a diagnosis and recommendations."

"And?" I prompted her.

"I haven't had anything to eat since breakfast," she said. "I will need extra food for the next several days if I am to regain my lost muscle mass. I should not exercise in the gym today, but should instead spend a short time self-healing and then go into my bedroom until tomorrow morning to help the rebuilding process." She looked at me anxiously. "Is that all right?"

"Sure it is," I told her. "We want you to get yourself healthy. Do what you need to do. Do you, um, need me to give you any commands or anything?"

She shook her head. "I can make my own meal, self-initiate the healing, and go into my bedroom on my own. But . . . would you stay with me? Please? I don't want to be alone."

"Sure." I glanced over at Toby, who was the only one who hadn't left yet. "I guess I'll be here for a while."

"I'll wait for you." And he sat back down on one of the crates. "I expect her virtue will be safe as houses with you, but the Commander wants the two of you to have a chaperone anyway, more than just Wizzit's watchful eye."

I grinned at him as I deactivated my force shield. "Fair enough, mate. I'll do my best to keep my hands off her."

"I reckon it's not your hands that the Commander is worried about." He indicated the vid screen. "I'll be monitoring from here so I don't feel quite so much like a fifth wheel."

The vegetable paste Lily prepared for her meal looked and smelled unappetizing, and she ate it without much enthusiasm, scooping it up with her fingers rather than with any kind of utensil. "Don't you ever wish you had something else?" I asked her. "Some other kind of food?"

Lily shrugged. "It is what I eat," she said. "It is what I have always eaten."

"Do you remember the time we captured you, and we gave you different stuff to eat?"

She stopped for a moment, the thick paste dripping from her fingers back into the bowl. "Yes," she said slowly, staring off into the middle distance. "Yes, I do. I remember there was a bowl filled with tiny white things mixed with larger chunks that were green and light brown."

"Chicken and broccoli with rice," I guessed. "I made it for you the second night we had you."

"It was very good, and it . . . seemed familiar, somehow. Especially the little white things; they reminded me of something, but I don't know just what."

I nodded. Growing up in a seaside village, Li Lin-fa had probably tasted more fish than chicken, but everyone in China eats rice. "I can make it for you again if you like."

Lily looked thoughtful, but didn't reply. She finished the rest of her meal in silence, in fact. I watched her as she washed and put away her dishes, and then I followed her to her healing table. She lay on it for only a short time before sitting up, swinging her legs over the edge, and hopping to the floor. From there, she went straight to the cage room.

The personality shift happened as it had the night before. The delight in the eyes of Li Lin-fa as she looked up to see me standing in the cage beside her cot warmed my entire heart. "Tre-vor!" she exclaimed, leaping up and throwing her arms around me. "I did not expect to see you again so soon!"

I picked her up and twirled around with her, laughing. "I told you I would be here. The one who once held you captive is dead; this whole place is now under the control of me and my friends."

"I know you said that, but I could scarcely believe it. I told myself that it could not be true, that it must have been a dream." She patted the cot beside her. "Come sit next to me. There is so much I want to ask you."

I joined her on the cot, and she immediately took hold of my hand. I recalled that she had seemed to crave physical contact the last time we had spoken; I know I would have after not seeing a living soul for the past six years. And of course, I sure didn't mind holding hands with her.

"I will tell you anything I can," I said earnestly, "but there are things I am not allowed to speak of, certain matters we feel it is best you remain ignorant of, at least for the time being." I shrugged. "I am sorry."

"I understand." She looked thoughtful for a moment. "I will not ask you when you can free me from this cage," she declared. "I am afraid that is beyond your powers. And I will not ask how long you can stay with me; I am grateful for any time you are willing to spend here. Perhaps you could tell me about your friends. How many of you are there? I remember meeting Prime Violet."

Ah, yes. That had been Padma, on her very first mission as a Prime. "There are seven Primes, plus a few others who help us out from time to time. The Prime Violet you met is now called Prime Indigo. A new color, just as I have a new color. We have a new Prime Violet. Not all of us can speak the language to you, but this new Prime Violet can. If you like, I will see whether I can introduce you to Prime Violet tomorrow."

Li Lin-fa was looking at me curiously. "These friends of yours -- Prime Indigo and Prime Violet and the others -- they will not show me their faces, will they? If they visit me, they will either be invisible or be covered with the clouds, as you were last night, is that right?"

"They will be covered with clouds," I admitted, "but how did you guess?"

"You are choosing your words strangely," she replied. "You have not told me whether these friends are men or women, and I think you are doing it on purpose. Nor are you telling me their real names. If you will not reveal even these simple details, then I will surely not be permitted to see their faces."

"I am sorry, Li Lin-fa," I said, and I meant it. And at the same time, I was impressed with her perceptiveness. "I do not believe you mean us any harm, but we have to be cautious."

"Oh, Tre-vor, do not be sorry." Smiling, she brought our joined hands up to caress her cheek. "I am not angry; I am too happy to be angry. You have no idea how lonely I have been and what a joy it is to have a friend to talk to. I would very much like to meet this new Prime Violet."

This was the Li Lin-fa I remembered; she had an astounding ability to tug at my heartstrings. "There is one thing I can do for you right now," I said. "I have another friend that you can meet. His name is Wizzit, and he will be happy to talk to you whenever you want. Wizzit, would you care to introduce yourself?"

In case I haven't mentioned it recently, Wizzit speaks every language I do and then some. His German and his Japanese are both better than mine, in fact. I remember one time Angela asked him (in Thai, no less) how many languages he spoke, and he replied, "All of them." I don't know how he does it; I have always assumed it's an alien technology thing.

Regardless, he said in flawless Cantonese, "Hello, Li Lin-fa. I am pleased to meet you."

Li Lin-fa started. "Who was that?" she asked. She looked around wildly. "Has he turned himself invisible and is watching us?"

"No. He is not here. He is talking to us using the speakers in the ceiling."

I gestured upward, and she followed with her eyes. I saw her nod to herself when she spotted the equipment Mike and I had installed. "Can he hear me?" she asked softly.

"I can hear you very well," Wizzit replied promptly. "If you are ever here by yourself and find you need anything, just call out my name and I will answer."

She looked nonplussed. "Thank you, Wizzit. You are most kind." For a moment she looked as though she wasn't sure what to do next, but then a serious expression crossed her face. "Tre-vor, I have thought of something else I must ask you, something that has been worrying me," she said to me gravely. "What has Li-li-li been doing? My other self has not killed anyone, has she?"

When I had first met Li Lin-fa, I had explained to her about Lily and the hold Enclave appeared to have over her mind. It had been Li Lin-fa's greatest fear, I remembered, that she would become a murderess while under Enclave's influence. I shook my head. "We thought at one time that perhaps she had, but it turned out that she had not."

Without mentioning any names, I began telling her how Commander Windham, Shelley's father, had been killed and how we thought at first that Lily had done it. Of course, in order to tell her that story, I had to describe how we had come to capture Lily in the first place. I was in the middle of explaining that we had tried to contact Li Lin-fa by having me speak to Lily in Cantonese when she suddenly sat straight up.

"I remember that!" she exclaimed excitedly. "I thought it was a dream. I remember hearing you calling me; you kept asking me to come out and talk to you, and you called me 'pretty one'. I felt as if I were asleep, and I tried and tried to open my eyes and go to see you, but I could not. After a time, you stopped calling, and I began to cry."

I looked at Li Lin-fa, remembering the sketch that Trina had drawn of her shortly after that incident. It showed the unnaturally calm, placid face of the attack doll, marred by a single tear that had spilled down one cheek. "Have you dreamed of me calling you at other times?" I asked her.

She nodded eagerly. "A few times. Each time, I tried to go to you, but it was of no use; I could not."

I smiled. "I would not say it was of no use."

"What do you mean?"

"Lily Lee does not understand the language," I told her. "When I speak it to her, calling to you, she thinks I am using magic words. She says the words make her not want to fight me. I think it is you who makes her not want to fight me."

Li Lin-fa nodded solemnly, her eyes huge. "I remember one time, I thought everyone was calling me, not just you, and they were begging me to help them. I tried very hard to wake up that time."

"We once fought Lily Lee in Guangzhou," I replied. "Many people who speak the language were around her, naturally, screaming for help because they were being attacked. She was so confused, she could not fight us."

"Good!" Li Lin-fa nodded curtly and smiled a tiny, tight smile. "I am glad I could give you help, small though it was."

"Trevor," Wizzit's voice broke in, "allow me to remind you that lovely young lotus flowers need their rest. This one's sleep debt was not completely repaid last night."

"Oh, I had not realized that," I said, feeling embarrassed. "Please forgive me, Li Lin-fa. I have been talking to excess, while you probably just want to go to sleep."

"To be honest," she replied with a shy smile, "I had not noticed how tired I was until Wizzit spoke of it." She stifled a yawn. "But your friend is right; I find I am very sleepy."

"Then lie down and rest," I told her. "I will visit you again soon."

Chapter 22

Shelley called me into her office early the next morning, and we had a heart-to-heart about Lily. The gist of it was that Shelley wanted her to learn to trust more people than just me. Li Lin-fa was to be introduced to my sister as soon as possible to broaden her horizons, so to speak, and Lily needed to get to know as many of my fellow Primes as she could.

"That all sounds good," I agreed. "I don't have a problem with any of it, except . . . what are we going to do with her, Shelley? Long-term, I mean. We can't keep her prisoner in JB Swift's old lab forever, but with the way she is now, we can't let her go, either. I really want to help her, but I have no idea what to do."

I looked down at her desk, thinking. "I suppose what we ought to do is to pick one personality to be the dominant one and try to get rid of the others somehow, but I don't know which --"

Shelley was shaking her head vigorously. "No. Bill and I have been doing some reading on something called dissociative identity disorder -- which isn't what Lily has, but it's the closest mental condition I can find -- and the key seems to be integration, not further separation. We need to integrate her personalities."

"You mean, to bring Lily and Li Lin-fa together?"

"I mean, to bring Li Lin-fa and commander mode and attacker mode and operator mode and even companion mode together." Shelley smiled sympathetically. "She called herself a broken doll, Trev. That's a sad thing for anyone to say, and I'd like to see all the pieces of that doll put back together again."

I nodded slowly. Shelley can be very persuasive when she wants to be, but this went beyond persuasion. It felt like the right thing to do. Heck, it was the right thing to do. "Okay, I'm in. How can we do that?"

Her smile broadened. "I have an idea, but I'll need your help . . . and a few magic words."

So that was why she and I found ourselves alone with Lily that afternoon in the main room of JB Swift's lab. Lily had woken up in operator mode, and we had left her that way all morning. Now, the three of us were seated in a small circle facing each other. I was myself, but Shelley was clothed in the poured-metal facade of Prime Gold. "Lily," I said, "initiate commander mode."

We witnessed the same gradual awakening that we had seen the day before. Lily's eyes widened in alarm when she caught sight of Prime Gold, and she edged over towards me and took hold of my hand. Still, she didn't seem anywhere close to panicking, which I thought was a good sign.

"Hello, Lily," Shelley said, putting all the friendliness in the world into her voice. We had decided that she would do most of the talking. "How are you?"

Lily glanced at me before replying. "Fine?" she said warily, as if she hoped that would be an acceptable answer.

"That's good. Lily, can you tell me how old you are?"

Lily glanced at me again, then back at Shelley. "I'm . . . " Her eyes flicked up to the ceiling as she calculated. Then she said firmly, "I'm three."

"Three? Lily, you're a grown woman. How could you be three?"

Lily looked puzzled. "I don't know. But I remember only three years of being alive, so I must be three."

"I see," Shelley said thoughtfully. "What is your earliest memory?"

"My earliest memory?" Lily frowned. "I remember waking up in a tub of warm water, and Uncle Oswald was taking some sort of helmet off my head. The helmet was attached to a whole lot of wires. There were needles in my arms and legs, and he took those out, too. Then he told me that my name was Lily and that I could call him Uncle Oswald. He was very nice to me."

"And you remember nothing before that?"

"No. Should I?"

Shelley shifted slightly on her seat. "Lily, most people remember some sort of childhood -- being younger and smaller than they are right now. They remember parents and growing up and learning new things."

"I don't remember anything like that," Lily said, slowly shaking her head. "I have always been the way I am now."

"Do you know why that is? Why you are so different from everyone else?"

"No." She looked from Shelley to me, then back to Shelley. "Do you?"

"I think so. Would you like me to tell you?"

"I don't know." She turned to look me in the eyes. "Trevor, should this yellow sparkly person tell me?"

It was kind of weird the way she said it, too. It wasn't as if she were simply seeking another opinion before making up her mind, the way most people would do. It was more like she was expecting me to make the decision for her, almost the way a little child might. Like I said, kind of weird, but also kind of endearing.

Shelley chuckled. "You can call me Prime Gold, Lily. Or just Gold. That isn't my real name, but it'll do."

"I think it's very important that Gold tell you," I assured her. "This is something you need to know."

"Okay." Her eyes hadn't left mine the entire time. "Then yes, um, Gold, I would like you to tell me."

Then Shelley told Lily what we knew about her history, about Li Lin-fa and Lily's own various modes of existence. When she was done, Lily stared at the floor thoughtfully. I thought she looked sad, or dismayed. After a time, she fixed her eyes on me again. "Is all this true?"

I nodded. "We didn't see what Oswald did to you or how he did it, but it's as true as anything we know about you."

"And this Li Lin-fa -- you have met her?"

"I have, several times."

"When?"

"Every time you go to sleep, Li Lin-fa comes out and I can talk with her." I smiled. "She is very nice. I think you would like her."

"What is sleep?" Lily looked blank. "I don't remember ever going to sleep."

Shelley said, "Do you remember last night, Lily, when you went to your bedroom?"

"Of course." She nodded. "But whenever I enter my bedroom, there is a time that is . . . not."

"That's when Li Lin-fa comes out," I said. I laid a hand on hers. "Trust me, Lily. Everything that Gold has told you is true."

"Of course I trust you," she murmured absently. "You are a completely trusted user. I have no choice but to trust you." She looked back down at the floor; the dismayed look was back. "So does this mean I am not a real person? That I don't really exist?"

"I wouldn't put it that way," Shelley said kindly. "Of course you exist; Trevor and I are talking with you right now. It's just that Oswald somehow split you into many different pieces, and we would like to put those pieces back together again. We think you will be happier that way."

Lily closed her eyes. "Please don't kill me," she whispered. She began to cry softly. "I don't want to die!"

Surprised, I put an arm around her and pulled her close. "No one is talking about killing you, Lily," I murmured into her ear. I ran a hand gently along her hair. "There's nothing to be afraid of."

She buried her face in my shoulder, sobbing. Shelley reached out and stroked her back lightly. After a minute or so, Lily pulled away from me. "Trevor, I want to tell you something. Just you."

"I won't keep any secrets from Gold, Lily."

She nodded. "You can tell Gold later, but I want to tell just you. I -- I can't tell anyone else. Please?"

I looked up at Shelley, who rose from her seat and strolled to the far end of the room. I knew I wouldn't have to repeat Lily's words to her; Wizzit would relay them instantaneously from the link in my belt. I asked, "What is it that you want to tell me?"

She took a long breath, brushing the tears from her eyes. "Sometimes when I'm sitting by myself," Lily began hesitantly, "and I don't have anything to do, I . . . daydream." Then she paused and looked up at me, as if seeking my approval.

"Everyone does that," I encouraged her. "It's normal."

She seemed relieved by my words and went on, "In one of my daydreams, the one I have the most often, I am the queen of a beautiful country, except that I'm not really the queen. Someone has taken the real queen prisoner and locked her away in the dungeon. They are making me pretend to be the real queen." She shivered. "The country is falling apart all around me, and I live in constant fear of the day that the real queen will get out, because she will have her guards kill me as a usurper." She looked down. "That's my daydream."

I didn't say anything for a while, mainly because I felt a little out of my depth. I mean, it was obvious what was going on in her head, but I wasn't quite sure what to tell her. "If you really were this false queen," I said carefully, "what would be the right thing to do?"

She shrugged. "Try to kill the real queen, I suppose."

"Wouldn't it be better to make her your friend?" That was Shelley, coming toward us.

Lily looked sharply up at her, then at me. Her look softened into resignation then, and she turned back to Shelley. "Why would I make friends with someone who wants to kill me?"

"To make her no longer want to kill you, naturally." Shelley made it sound so matter-of-fact, so utterly reasonable, that Lily actually smiled. I knew the feeling; Shelley had pointed out the obvious to me many times before, and it always made me grin.

Shelley took her seat again and laid a hand on Lily's shoulder. "Li Lin-fa speaks a language known as Cantonese," she explained. "Trevor speaks that language, too; millions of people do. You call it the magic language." Lily inhaled sharply, and Shelley went on, "When Trevor speaks Cantonese to you, I think Li Lin-fa hears and tries to wake up. I would like him to speak Cantonese to you now."

Lily whirled to face me. "Please, no!" she implored me. "She hates me! She will destroy me!"

"She doesn't hate you," Shelley declared calmly. "If anything, she is afraid of you, just as you are afraid of her. And I don't think she can destroy you, any more than you can destroy her. Apart, the two of you are weak; together, you can be much stronger."

Lily was still staring at me, the pleading in her eyes. "I will tell her to be gentle," I promised. "I will tell her what Gold has told you, that the two of you need each other."

She studied me for a minute longer, then flung her arms around me and buried her face in my chest. "Do what you want to me." Her voice was barely audible.

I looked helplessly at Shelley, who nodded and made a "go on" motion with her hands. I put my arms around Lily and started stroking her hair gently. Then I began to speak Cantonese to her.

The three of us spent the better part of that afternoon together, trying to get Lily in contact with Li Lin-fa, and if you think what I've just detailed was pretty intense, emotionally speaking, that was nothing compared with what happened then.

Lily was sobbing almost continuously while I, in Cantonese, kept calling out to Li Lin-fa. I crooned more-or-less the same phrases over and over, asking her to come out to talk and telling her that "Li-li-li" wanted to be her friend. Shelley, speaking English, did her best to keep Lily calm and focused on what we were trying to do. Part of the time it felt like a seance, as if we were trying to call some ghost or other back from the dead; other times seemed like we were in some sort of group therapy together.

I was pretty wrung out by the time Shelley finally called a halt, and if I was exhausted, I knew Lily had to be a wreck. She didn't protest when we led her to her bedroom. Angie, as Prime Violet, teleported in at that point. She accompanied Lily into the room, with instructions from Shelley to introduce herself to Li Lin-fa and to strike up a friendly conversation with her if possible.

The next morning, I showed up at Shelley's office again, ready to head over to JB Swift's lab with her to work on Lily. Shelley shook her head, though, when I explained why I was there. "I'm not so sure that's such a good idea, Trev."

I frowned. "Why not? You're not giving up on her already, are you? I thought we made at least a little progress yesterday."

"We made a good deal of progress yesterday," she agreed. "Even more than I thought at the time."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Shelley folded her arms and leaned back in her chair. "Trev, you went to check on her this morning, right?"

"Sure," I said. "I made sure she had woken up, and then I told her to start her morning routine."

"And she was in operator mode when you left her?"

"Yes . . ." I drew out my reply, wondering what she was driving at.

"Well, sometime during her shower, she spontaneously switched to commander mode. That's what she told me when Wizzit sent me over, anyway."

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. "She did? Wow, that's . . . that's great news!"

Shelley nodded. "I agree. At least, I think it's good news. I think it means that Lily's personality is getting stronger and more able to assert itself. She seemed a lot more normal this morning, too -- a little apprehensive of me, but almost like a real person."

"I'm glad to hear it. So . . . now you think we don't need to work with her today?" I asked doubtfully.

"I think you don't need to work with her today," she corrected me.

It took me a second to absorb what she said. "You're going out there by yourself?"

"No," she replied. "I still need someone who can speak Cantonese to her, and who can translate if necessary. I'm taking Angie with me."

I felt my heart sink; I didn't like the way this was starting to sound. "Is there any particular reason you're cutting me out of this?" I asked.

Her gaze drifted down to the top of her desk. She seemed unsure of herself, very un-Shelley-like. "It's not a slam against you, by any means," she began carefully, her finger tracing patterns on the desktop. "Lily couldn't have a more caring, more devoted minder."

"But . . ." I prompted her when she paused.

She sighed. "But I worry that Lily has become too attached to you, too dependent on you. You saw what she was like yesterday. She never let go of your hand, even for a second; every time I asked her a question, she would check with you before she answered. Whenever you're around, Trev, it's as if she wants to please you, above and beyond anything else, and that's just not healthy. I think it would be better if she didn't see you for a while."

Shelley shook her head. "I'm sorry, Trevor. I imagine this sounds pretty unfair to you, and I guess it is. I'm not quite sure why or how she formed such a strong attachment so quickly, but . . ."

"I do," I said heavily. "It's because I'm a completely trusted user."

She gave me a puzzled look. "Come again?"

I blew out a long, slow breath. "JB Swift performed some pretty heavy-duty mind-control voodoo on Li Lin-fa," I began.

"Yes, we knew that."

"Well, when he did, he set himself up as something Lily calls a completely trusted user, which, I suppose, meant that Lily would do anything he told her to. I saw it in action myself a few times, although the significance of it didn't hit me until later. Like you said, a very strong attachment. Any little problem she encountered had to be referred to him; anything she did was to help him, even if it harmed her in some way."

"I'm sure she was very loyal to him," Shelley murmured.

I shook my head. "It went way beyond that. She's been through hell for him, Shelley. I've seen her scared to death, dying of hypothermia, sick and vomiting from lack of oxygen, half out of her mind because everyone was speaking 'the magic language' to her, and her loyalty never wavered, not for an instant.

"A couple of those times, she would have died if I hadn't intervened. Heck, she did die once, in fact, or close enough to it. Yet even after all that, she was still completely devoted to him. Even when all I did was to offer to teleport her out of danger, she kept on fighting me because it was what 'Uncle Oswald' wanted. She would have dug her own grave for him; she couldn't help it." I closed my eyes and sighed deeply. "And then, before he left, he set me up as a completely trusted user, too, so I could take care of her."

Shelley laid a sympathetic hand on top of mine, but she didn't say anything. I went on, "So, now you're telling me that if she's going to have any chance at a normal life, I can never see her again? That really sucks."

"I'm not so sure about 'never'," she said softly. "Let me think about this. If her attachment to you is part of her 'completely trusted user' programming, as you say, then maybe we shouldn't keep you away from her. Maybe that would damage her in some way. But . . . let's try it just for today and see what happens, okay? I promise, I'll go over the vids with you tomorrow, and we can reassess then."

I dredged up a smile from somewhere. "Sure, Shelley. Let's go with that."

She squeezed my hand. "Be patient, Trev. We'll think of something. It's going to work out okay."

Chapter 23

I felt unsettled the rest of that morning. I suppose if a psychologist had examined me, I would have been a case study in free-floating anxiety. Of course, I knew that a good deal of that was pure worry about what might be happening with Lily. That much was obvious, even to me.

I mean, I'd trust Shelley with my life, and Angie could speak Cantonese as well as I could, but . . . well, I wanted to know what was going on there in the lab. Was Lily having hysterics because I wasn't around? Or was she doing just fine, or perhaps even better than fine, without me there to distract her? I wasn't sure which answer I dreaded more, that she needed me or that she didn't need me.

Wizzit wouldn't show me anything of what they were doing; he said Shelley had interdicted those vids, which meant that I couldn't watch them until she let me watch them. So I was stuck at the bottom of an information black hole.

That, by itself, would have been bad enough. If you have been paying close attention, though, you will have noticed that we were now at the third day after the monster attack in M'Hamid. And if you are perceptive and have picked up on how Enclave works, you will probably be expecting the monster alarm to ring at any moment. I know I was. Not consciously -- I was still too wrapped up in Lily's problems -- but somewhere just below the level of awareness, I kept expecting something to happen.

Nothing did, and that I think that extra bit of edginess was what was driving me nuts.

I probably would have been okay if anyone else had been around. Mike and Trina, though, had announced the previous afternoon that they were taking a couple of days of vacation together for the first time ever (and don't think that didn't raise a few eyebrows around HQ) and everyone else was busy in the weapons room building who-knew-what, even Toby.

So I was by myself with nothing special to do except worry helplessly about Lily. It seemed as though I had been doing nothing for the past two weeks, in fact, except worry helplessly about Lily, and I was heartily sick of it and of myself, but I didn't know what else to do.

"Trevor," Wizzit said after I had been fretting for about an hour, "get out."

I blinked in surprise. "What?" I asked -- rather stupidly, I suppose.

"I said, get out. I'm sending you away for a while."

"But . . . why?"

He gave me an isn't-it-obvious sigh. "Because you will wear out a path in the carpeting if you continue to pace at your current rate!" he replied. "Not to mention that you are not fit company for your teammates at present, and there is a thirty-eight percent probability that you will break something expensive within the next seven hours, forty-four minutes. Your heart rate is well over one hundred beats per minute, your blood pressure is far too high for someone your age, and your adrenal glands are working overtime. So out you go! You need some time away from here."

"Okay, I guess I could go visit my folks for a while."

"Nope, too quiet. You would be just as stir-crazy there as here. I'm sending you somewhere else. And don't ask; it'll be a surprise. Go pack a bag."

Well, as soon as he said the word "surprise", I gave up any idea I had of getting him to tell me where he was sending me. Wizzit likes his surprises, and while we have occasionally been able to pry "surprise" information out of him prematurely by ganging up on him as a team, ain't no way a solitary Prime like me was going to accomplish it.

So I trudged over to my room and grabbed my bag. "How long should I pack for? If it's just going to be a couple of hours, I shouldn't need much of anything. I probably won't even need a bag, actually."

"Three days minimum."

I stared at the overhead speakers in shock. "You're kidding, right? Wizzit, Shelley's expecting to go over Lily's vids with me today, or maybe tomorrow. I can't be gone for three days."

"Three days minimum," he repeated. "That's an order. I'll handle Prime Commander."

"But what about Lily?" I protested. "What if she --"

"Lily is managing to survive quite well without you," he said sharply. "Trust me, it will be better for everyone concerned if I get you out of here for more than just a few hours."

Fine. I didn't understand why Wizzit was hustling me out of HQ so quickly, but it appeared there would be no arguing with him; three days it was going to be, regardless of what I wanted. "Northern or southern hemisphere?" I asked in resigned tones.

"Why do you want to know?" he replied suspiciously.

I sighed with impatience. "Summer or winter? Shorts or long pants?"

"Ah! Northern hemisphere. Highs in the mid-to-upper eighties. Slight chance of rain."

"Anything special I should bring? Tennis racket? Scuba gear? Water skis?"

"No, no, and no. You don't play tennis, you don't scuba, and you don't ski. Where do you think I'm sending you, anyway? A resort?"

I snorted. "I can dream, can't I?"

"Dream on. You, Trevor, need to keep yourself busy and you need to be around people you know."

"So . . . I'm going to visit someone I know?"

There was no answer, so I tried another tack. "What if the monster alarm rings while I'm out?"

This time his answer was immediate. "Then I'll yank you out of there. Hmm. I guess you'll have to make sure your host understands that you might have to leave with just a few minutes' notice."

"Won't that make them suspicious?"

"Should not be a problem."

I spent the rest of the time I was packing trying to figure out just where I was going. I mean, he had given me a few clues, at least. I'd be staying with someone I knew, someone who lived in the northern hemisphere and who wouldn't be freaked out if I simply vanished with almost no warning. That meant they had to know I was a Prime. It probably wouldn't be Alvaro or Cathy, though; I just didn't know either of them well enough to be able to pop in unannounced.

I wouldn't have minded staying with Mayumi for a few days. I liked Mayumi an awful lot, and it would certainly give me a chance to work on my Japanese. The Tokyo apartment she shared with her husband and two children was awfully small, though . . .

By the time I threw my toothbrush into my bag and zipped it shut, I had halfway convinced myself that I was going to spend the next three days punching cows on the Windham family ranch. Wondering idly how I would look in cowboy boots and chaps, I threw my bag over my shoulder and said, "All right, Wizzit, whenever you're ready. How do you want me to contact you after the three days are up?"

"Don't call us; we'll call you."

I felt the familiar tingling in the base of my skull. When the haze cleared from my vision, I was standing in the middle of a small grouping of trees which screened me off on three sides. Immediately in front of me was a sidewalk and a road. Not a city street; it looked a bit more rural than that. I looked around, gradually came to realize that I was standing in someone's front yard, and moved to the sidewalk. Nothing looked familiar, so I picked a direction and started walking.

After a while, I came upon a sign declaring that the road I was walking along was Ohio route 511. That rang a bell; I now had a pretty good idea just where I was. Given that, it was obvious with whom I was supposed to stay. It wouldn't have been in my top five guesses, but I had to admit it wasn't a bad choice.

I also realized that I had been going in the wrong direction for the past ten minutes. So I turned around and after another fifteen minutes of walking and a bit of head-scratching to figure out exactly where I was supposed to go, I finally found my way to a quaint little house, painted light green, with a white picket fence around the front. I knocked, and when the door opened, I plastered a grin on my face and said, "Hey, big sis. Mind if I crash here for a few days?"

To say that Joy was surprised would be an understatement. Standing there with my baby nephew on her hip, she looked absolutely astonished. She goggled at me for a few seconds, then reached out to grab my shirt, hauled me inside, and slammed the door shut. Then she peeked out through the curtains, as if she were checking to see whether I had been followed.

"You -- you're not hurt, are you?" she asked me, anxiously looking me up and down. "I don't see any blood. Do you need a doctor or -- or anything? Here, sit down." And she pushed me toward the couch.

At first, I couldn't understand her attitude. Of course I wasn't hurt; why would I be? Then I remembered how we had left things between us; she thought Toby and I were spies or something, and that Angie might be a spy or something, too. If I showed up unannounced on her doorstep, it could only be because I was in desperate straits and needed her help badly.

"I'm fine," I told her in as relaxed manner as I could manage. "I haven't been shot, I'm not being chased by anybody, and I'm not in any kind of trouble. I just came by for a visit, that's all. My, uh, my boss told me I had to take some time off." I suddenly had a worrying thought. "It's all right if I stay here, isn't it? Just for three days or so? I don't want to impose . . ."

"No, no, it's fine," she assured me. She stared at me for a moment longer, then heaved a relieved sigh. "It's pretty good timing, actually. Mark is away at a conference this week, and I don't have any classes. It's just me and the baby. Frankly, I could do with some grown-up company. Make yourself at home. You know where the guest room is, right?" She turned and began walking toward her kitchen. "I was just about to fix breakfast," she called over her shoulder. "Want some?"

I said sure; my stomach was still on HQ time, which meant that I was about ready for lunch anyway. I half-expected congee and youtiao, but it appeared that Joy was a bit more Americanized than that, because she started making bacon and eggs. After I stowed my bag in the guest room, I sat down at the kitchen table, holding my nephew while Joy bustled about. "Do you want some coffee?" she asked. "I've made some fresh."

"No, thanks. Just orange juice or water will be fine."

"Suit yourself." She laid a plate of food and a fork in front of me and poured me a glass of OJ. "So why'd you decide to come see me?" she asked. "Usually you go back home when you're on vacation and visit Mom and Dad."

"It's a long story. Basically, home is too quiet; my, uh, my boss thought I'd do better if I had things to keep me busy, so he sent me here."

"Your 'uh' boss sounds like he knows you pretty well," she said with a smile. "You always did better if you didn't have time to sit around and fret about things, Younger Brother." She settled herself at the table with her own plate and a cup of coffee. "So, what's been going on with you? I felt like we didn't have much of a chance to catch up last time."

I shrugged. "There's not much to tell. I'm still --"

"I know. You're on an international Tae Kwon Do demonstration team. You go from country to country and demonstrate board-breaking and kicking techniques and free-fighting and whatever else, and that's all you can tell me. Forget I asked." She blew a stray lock of hair out of her eyes. "How's Younger Sister doing? Have you heard from her lately?"

"Yeah, I ran into her, umm, not too long ago, in fact. She's . . . doing fine."

"For real?" She looked directly into my eyes. "Look, I know you're not really on a demonstration team, okay? And you know that I know that. And I'm pretty sure that our baby sister is not working for a cosmetics company, either, so you don't have to pretend."

I hesitated, not sure what to say. "I . . ."

"And I also know there's probably tons of stuff you can't tell me or else you'd have to kill me . . ."

"Well, I wouldn't have to kill you, exactly," I said with a smile. "I might have to give you a pretty serious noogie, though."

"Fine," she laughed. "A noogie, then. But tell me the truth, how is Younger Sister doing? Seriously."

"Seriously?" I considered my answer. "She's doing great, she really is. Her legs are as strong as ever; she's in probably the best physical shape of her life, in fact. She's fitting in well, she's making friends, she's pulling her weight, and she seems to be having a blast." I leaned forward. "And the work she's doing is very important, Older Sister. Like, saving-the-world important. But that's as much as I can tell you. You know, without having to give you a noogie."

She nodded and sipped at her coffee. "Well, it's good to know that much, at least."

We spent the rest of the morning puttering around the house. I still wasn't convinced that staying at my sister's house was the best thing for me, but since I was stuck here until Wizzit decided to bring me home, I decided to make the most of it. Doing my best to follow the number-one rule of visiting family ("Make Yourself Useful But Don't Get In The Way"), I volunteered to help her with whatever cleaning or other chores she wanted to do. Turns out, I mainly just moved furniture that day so she could vacuum. And after lunch, I played with the baby to give her some extra time to practice for a recital she had coming up in a couple of months.

My nephew was starting to act pretty sleepy after a while, so I scooped him up and the two of us wandered into Joy's studio to listen to her play. She was working on Beethoven's Pathetique sonata. Now, I'm not a huge Beethoven fan, but I do like some of the old warhorses of his that everybody knows -- the Choral symphony, the Moonlight sonata, and the Pathetique.

I had heard her practicing the first and third movements earlier; now she was working on the middle movement, the Adagio Cantabile, which for my money is the most heartbreakingly gorgeous short piece ever written for the piano. Joy didn't pay us any attention. She was busily engaged in wringing out every last drop of emotion from the work, so the baby and I happily settled ourselves in the chair there and drank it all in as she played it over and over, stopping and starting, backing up and replaying passages, each time just a little better than the last. And as I sat there with my nephew snoozing peacefully against my chest, listening to some of the most beautiful music ever written, I could feel my insides start to unclench.

I didn't even realize that I had fallen asleep until I felt my sister taking my nephew from my arms. "Time for you and Mommy to take a nap, little guy," she cooed. "And Uncle Trevor, too, looks like."

I stretched out on the couch and slept for probably an hour. We all took a walk after that, and then I insisted on taking us all out to a restaurant for dinner. I don't get any kind of a regular stipend as a Prime -- there wouldn't be much point, since there's nothing to spend it on at HQ -- but Wizzit always makes sure we have sufficient pocket money whenever we go out on vacation.

The next day was pretty much a clone of the first, except that I did yard work in the morning and Joy made dinner for us at home that night. The day after that, I mowed the lawn and we ordered out for pizza. All three of us took naps every day after lunch and we went out for walks every afternoon. In all, it was the most peaceful time I could remember spending recently, and I was surprised at how relaxed I felt by the end of it.

We talked a lot in those three idyllic days. Or rather, Joy talked and I listened. She told me how she was progressing with her Master's degree at Oberlin. She mentioned that at the moment Mark held a temporary appointment with the conservatory, teaching an introductory music history class and biding his time until she could finish up, and then they would go get their doctorates together, although they hadn't decided just where yet.

We spoke Mandarin a good deal of the time. Mark was Chinese-American like us, but his Mandarin was atrocious, what there was of it, and I think my sister enjoyed speaking the language of home with me. We spoke Cantonese as well, and some Korean. I had figured that her Korean would have deteriorated for lack of practice, but it was actually a bit more polished than mine. She said she had made friends with a Korean art professor at the college, and the two of them had lunch quite often.

I also got to know my baby nephew a lot better. I'm around kids hardly at all, so I was a bit apprehensive that first day when Joy disappeared into her studio to practice. Playing with him wasn't too bad, though, and once I got over my self-consciousness about making goofy sounds and faces, it was actually kind of fun. I even changed a few diapers, and it wasn't as bad as all those silly movies and sitcoms make it out to be. I mean, it's not on my top ten list of favorite activities, but I've done worse. Trust me, I'd rather clean up a poopy diaper than set a broken arm any day of the week.

That last evening, the pizza came while Joy was putting the baby down for the night, freshly bathed and diapered and with a tummy full of milk. As I set the pizza box out on the coffee table in the living room, Joy got a couple cans of beer from the fridge, handed one to me, and sat down beside me on the couch. After we had eaten the pizza and watched TV for a while, she turned to me and said, "So, you're going to leave tomorrow morning?"

"Probably," I replied. "My boss said he wanted me to take at least three days off; I don't know how much longer he'll want to stretch it out."

"Isn't there some kind of schedule you have to keep? Anywhere you have to be?"

"Nope. Not unless there's an emergency, and then I'd have to leave right away, like I told you."

She considered that for a moment. "Need a ride to the bus station?"

"Umm . . . sure, if you want. You don't have to, though."

She looked closely at me. "Because you won't be taking the bus, will you?" she guessed. I smiled, but didn't answer. She sighed in resignation. "I know, I promised I wouldn't ask any questions." She leaned back on the couch and took a sip of her beer. "Tell me a story, Younger Brother," she said after a bit.

"What kind of story?"

"Any kind." She shrugged. "Just as long as you make it about yourself. Something that you've done or an experience that you've had, something like that."

"I can't really . . ."

"I know you can't. But it doesn't have to be true, or even believable. Just . . . tell me something. Anything. Fictionalize it, change the names around, or just make something up \-- I don't care. I feel like I don't know what's going on with you any more, Little Brother. I just want to hear your voice, and I want to connect, you know?"

I did know. The whole time we had been together, in fact, I had been racking my brains for stories I could tell her about my current life, some clever way I could share something of myself without letting her know things she shouldn't know. I hadn't been able to come up with anything, though. I mean, there were a lot of adventures I could have shared with her, but all my best stories, it appeared, started off with "One day the monster alarm started ringing and . . ."

But then I realized that there was a story I could tell her, one that didn't rely too much on specifics, but that would indeed let her in on something important about my life. Now, it may be obvious to you, sitting at home in a comfortable chair reading this, but honestly, it just hadn't occurred to me until right then. Maybe it was because this wasn't just an anecdote; it would be a long story, something that would take more than just a couple of minutes to tell.

Regardless, I took a swallow of beer to screw up my courage and said, "All right, sis, let me tell you about this girl I know. Her name is Lily."

"Would this Lily happen to be the 'old friend' you were talking with for two hours that one night?" Joy asked shrewdly.

I started. I had forgotten all about that. "As a matter of fact, she would," I said.

"Is she your girlfriend?"

I hesitated. "No."

My sister must have picked up on that hitch in my voice, because she gave me a knowing look and asked, "Are you in love with her, Younger Brother?"

I gave a shaky laugh. "Big sis, that's a really good question!"

I talked for probably an hour, telling Joy how I had first met Lily and of our various encounters since then. Of course, I had to give her the highly sanitized version. I didn't mention Li Lin-fa or any of Lily's multiple personalities. I did say that Lily had been "brainwashed" into serving as an agent for "the bad guys", but I obviously couldn't mention anything about Enclave or monster attacks.

I have to admit, Joy listened attentively and didn't interrupt me with questions, even when it was obvious that I was fudging the details. I know I made a real hash of the Iceland story, the one where Lily had nearly died of hypothermia.

First off, I couldn't really say it was Iceland, because who ever goes to Iceland? No spies that I ever heard of, that's for sure. Also, I had to dance around the reason Lily was more affected by the cold there than those of us with force shields. And when I got to the part where JB Swift, Lily, and I all teleported to his secret lab, I realized that I couldn't say anything to Joy about teleportation. Instead, I said I pulled rank and allowed Lily and JB Swift to escape in a helicopter. Pretty lame, huh?

And I had just started telling her about Guangzhou when I realized that that little episode would make no sense to her at all, not without understanding something about Li Lin-fa and about Lily's weakness for the Cantonese language. So I muttered something about how I couldn't tell her that story, and I cut it short.

When I finished, Joy was silent for a long time. We had each finished up a couple of beers by then, and she got up to dispose of the empties and the pizza box. I started to get up to help her, but she waved me back. When she returned, she sat sideways on the couch facing me, her legs drawn up beneath her.

"Little brother," she said seriously, "you do realize that what you just told me is completely incomprehensible, right? These important missions you were talking about -- they don't seem to have any sort of purpose, and your 'bad guys' aren't doing anything particularly bad. They're just there, hanging around waiting for you to come along and fight them. And then later, they disappear for no reason at all. And Lily -- half the time, she's like a frightened little mouse, and other times she's a wildcat. It doesn't make any kind of sense."

"I know," I told her apologetically. "I'm sorry it's not a better story. I, uh, had to leave out a lot of stuff."

"Yeah, I figured that out," she said with a wry grin. "Well, I said it didn't have to be believable, and that's what I got. But thank you for telling me." She leaned her cheek against her arm, staring at me. "One thing's clear, anyway -- believable or not, this story came from your heart. This Lily woman is obviously important to you."

I let out a long breath. "That's a good way to put it. I want to help her, sis, but the hell of it is, there's just nothing I can do for her right now. That's why my boss sent me away, to get my mind off of her. I was tearing myself apart back at HQ worrying about her."

"That part of you hasn't changed, at least," she said, smiling fondly at me. "You always saw yourself as a knight in shining armor -- slaying dragons, righting wrongs. You were never very good at being a passive observer. So, did getting away from there help at all?"

"You know, I think it did," I replied after a moment's thought. "The two of you kept me busy enough that I haven't had time to think about her. Thanks."

"Hey, any time you want to come over and babysit for a few days for free, just let me know!" she said, laughing. Then she grew more serious. "Where is Lily right now? In that secure location you mentioned?"

"Yeah. We've got some people trying to work through her brainwashing."

"And when they're done, are you going to try to get together with her? See where things go?"

I considered the idea. It wouldn't be as simple as that, but . . . "I should, shouldn't I?"

"I'd say so, yes."

"In that case, I guess I'll just have to hang on until then."

She shrugged. "You can stay here for as long as you like. It's been nice having you around. But," she went on, getting up from the couch, "I expect your boss will want you back before too long." She yawned and stretched. "I'm going to bed. Say goodbye before you go, would you? Even if it's the middle of the night and you have to wake me up?"

"I'll do my best, big sis."

Chapter 24

As it turned out, I didn't have to wake Joy to say goodbye. I didn't hear from Wizzit at all, in fact, until early the following afternoon. Joy had made lunch for us, and I was washing the dishes afterwards when my phone started buzzing. It was a text from Wizzit: "Time to go."

"Is that from your boss?" Joy asked. "Do you have to leave?"

"Yup," I said, snapping the phone closed. I looked down at the soapy water in the sink. "I don't think it's urgent, but maybe I'd better . . ."

My phone started buzzing again. Another text: "Be polite. Finish the dishes."

I chuckled. "I guess it's not all that urgent." So I finished washing up. Then I packed up my stuff, hugged and kissed my sister goodbye, and left the house.

Wizzit 'ported me back to my room, naturally enough. After I unpacked, he suggested that I stroll down to the kitchen, where the others were relaxing after dinner. It was just Mike and Trina; they were playing cards, probably rummy, and chatting amiably. The talking ceased, though, the moment I stepped through the door. The two of them turned to look at me.

"Trevor, you're back!" Trina exclaimed. "Where were you? We were getting worried."

"You mean Wizzit didn't tell you?"

Mike shook his head. "He wouldn't say a word, mate, just that he had sent you away from HQ and not to try to contact you. He said you would tell us all about it when you came back."

"To be honest, it sounded like he might have fired you," Trina added. "He used almost those exact same words when he fired Bill. Except for the part about coming back, that is."

"Oh. Sorry, I didn't mean to get everyone all upset." I felt my face turning red with embarrassment. "With everything going on with Lily, I had myself a serious case of cabin fever, so Wizzit sent me to stay with my sister for a few days. My older sister Joy, not Angie, obviously. Just a short, unscheduled vacation to get my mind off of things, that's all."

"Yeah, well, you need to let Shelley know that," Mike told me. "You had her sick with worry; she seemed to think it was something she had done that made Wizzit send you away."

Something she had . . . ? Oh, right. Her decision to keep me away from Lily. I looked around. "Are she and Angie over at the lab right now?"

Mike nodded. "The pair of them have been keeping mighty late hours over there. Sometimes not coming back until lights-out."

I looked at the clock. "I guess I can hang around here until they get back." Mike handed me the cards, and we started playing some weird, three-handed Australian game that he had been wanting to teach us for a while. But Shelley and Angie still hadn't shown up by the time Wizzit started dimming the light, so the three of us turned in for the night.

The next morning I woke up feeling pretty good, pretty relaxed. I was still concerned about Lily, naturally, but I found I was now concerned in a serene sort of way, as if I knew that everything would turn out all right. So I whistled and hummed to myself all through my shower. Mike, Trina, and Padma were in the kitchen when I went in for breakfast.

"'Mornin', Trevor," Mike said casually. "How're you feeling?"

"Pretty good, actually," I said. I reached into the refrigerator for some eggs and a small slice of ham. Joy's cooking must have spoiled me; I had decided I wanted more to eat than my usual tea and toast. "I can't believe how hungry I am, though. By the way, I forgot to ask you yesterday -- how was your trip?"

"It was fine," he said. I turned around in time to see him give Trina a significant look. I wasn't sure how to interpret it; were they communicating surreptitiously about me, or just sharing a fond memory about their time together? In my serene state of mind, I decided it didn't matter. Seeing me looking at him, Mike gave me one of his easy grins. "It was pretty nice, in fact."

I bent down to retrieve a frying pan from one of the lower cupboards. As I straightened, a pair of dark brown hands removed the pan from my grip. "I can cook that for you, Trevor," Padma said. "Go sit down and relax."

I turned to face her; she was watching me carefully -- nervously, maybe? "Thanks, Padma," I said, "but I wouldn't want you to go to all that trouble."

"It's no trouble," she said. She hesitated, then gave me one of her thousand-watt smiles. "Really, I don't mind."

I looked around the room; both Mike and Trina were studiously ignoring us. "Okay, guys," I said, crossing my arms, "what's going on? Padma never offers to make breakfast for me; she doesn't even offer to make breakfast for Nicolai."

"Nothing's going on, Trevor," Trina replied, her face all innocence.

"Mike and Trina told me that the reason Wizzit had to send you away for a few days was because you were so upset about Lily," Padma explained. She laid a hand on my arm and looked into my eyes. "Trevor, don't forget that you have friends here. Good friends who care about you and who don't like to see you unhappy. You are not alone. You and I, we can talk about anything, can't we?"

I couldn't help but smile at the concern on her face. "Yes, we can." I put an arm around her and pulled her in close.

Mike looked up from where he had been studying his hands. "Look, mate, we just want you to know that we've got your back, all right? You're a Prime, and we Primes stick together."

"Thanks," I said. "I appreciate the sentiment, but really, guys, I'm okay now. I'm not going to go all psycho or anything. I know I've been upset the past few weeks about Lily, but I'm feeling a lot better, honest. Spending a couple of days away really helped; everything's cool."

"Are you sure?" Padma asked me earnestly.

"I'm sure." I looked skeptically at the frying pan that she was still holding. "Have you ever cooked ham and eggs before?" I asked her.

"Well, no," she said uncertainly.

I plucked it from her hands. "Then let me take care of it. If you want to do something nice, you can pour me a big glass of orange juice and make a couple of slices of buttered toast."

She smiled at me, a genuine smile this time. "I'll do that."

I dropped the slice of ham into the pan and turned on the heat. "I'd like to hear about the trip," I said.

"We went to visit my parents," Trina explained. "When Mike escorted me to the awards ceremony in Moscow last February, I -- that is, we -- tried to give them the impression that we were more than just casual friends."

I nodded; that made sense. Trina's parents had no idea she was a Prime. In an effort to persuade them that she was making her living as an artist rather than by, let's say, less reputable means, Trina had entered some of her sketches in a national arts competition in Russia. Much to her surprise, she had taken an honorable-mention award. She had probably thought that if she presented an actual boyfriend at the ceremony as well, it might have helped allay more of her parents' suspicions.

"That's good thinking." The ham was sizzling now; I flipped it over. "Did they go for it?"

Mike's grin broadened. "In a big way, mate, thanks to yours truly."

"They did like him, yes." Trina glanced over at Mike. "That's why we went together this time. They said they wanted to see him again. Part of it, I suppose, was to check up on him --to make sure he was not just someone I had engaged for that night, or possibly my . . . sorry, I forget the English word . . ."

"Pimp, love," Mike said. "Someone who manages a prostitute."

Trina made a face. "Yes. My pimp. An ugly word for an ugly profession. It sounds like something you want to squeeze until it pops."

"Did they really think Mike was a pimp?" I asked incredulously. I heard the toast pop up; Padma moved silently over to butter it.

"They weren't sure," Trina admitted. "He charmed them, but they were still suspicious."

"But it went well, I thought," Mike went on confidently. "I had 'em eating out of my hand. Of course, I'm not sure exactly how Trina explained the presence of a New Zealander in . . . well, whatever town it is that you're supposed to be living in, but . . ."

Trina sighed in exasperation. "You can't remember it?"

"I can't pronounce it, love."

I smiled as I removed the ham from the pan and laid it across one of the slices of buttered toast. I dropped a hunk of butter into the pan and then cracked my two eggs in as well. I hated to take sides, but in this, I was with Mike. When she had first joined the Primes, Trina had developed her cover story with an eye towards inaccessibility; she had not wanted her parents to be able to visit her unannounced. Unfortunately for us non-Russian speakers, she had chosen a home city in a district that was apparently too poor to afford vowels or even some of the pricier consonants. I have been known to spell it correctly on occasion, but I have never been able to pronounce it to anyone's satisfaction.

"Well, at any rate, I told them you're an American art historian visiting there to study iconography in the local Orthodox churches," she said.

"Me? An American?" Mike sounded truly shocked. "With this accent?"

Trina laughed and ruffled Mike's hair lightly. "You have heard them speak English, dear. They could not distinguish your accent from Trevor's or Toby's."

"You do have a point." Mike shrugged at me. "I did a lot of smiling and nodding."

"And drinking," Trina added.

Mike suddenly looked uncomfortable. "Yes, well, I've already apologized for that, haven't I? I've never been a big vodka drinker, and I had no idea --"

"Don't worry," Trina interrupted him fondly. "It worked out for the best. My father was impressed that he could not drink you under the table. And my mother told me privately that, even drunk, you showed far too much respect for me to be a pimp. She says you would make a good son-in-law, in fact."

Mike choked on his orange juice. "Now, let's not get ahead of ourselves, love."

I shared a smile with Padma as I slid the eggs out of the pan and folded them onto the ham slice. She was obviously trying not to laugh. "I'll wash these," she said, taking the spatula and frying pan from me. "I have already finished. You go eat."

I nodded my thanks as I carried my ham-and-egg sandwich and glass of OJ over to the table. "Not to change the subject," I said, "but there's something that I'm confused about. Before I left, I asked Wizzit what would happen if the monster alarm started ringing. He said he'd haul me back in if that happened, but I was still gone for three days. Did I miss a monster attack?"

Mike shook his head. "No, and that's got us a little worried. We haven't had an attack since we fought those ifrits. We're not sure what's going on; even Wizzit is baffled."

"Our best guess," Trina added, "is that they are upset about our stealing Lily and their Unity device from them. Shelley thinks they might be taking this time to build up to something big."

"That's what Bill thinks, too," Padma said from where she stood over by the sink. "He has been working crazy hours trying to complete our own Unity belt before they attack us with this 'something big'. He even got Wizzit to exempt Nicolai from lights-out for the duration." She turned and gave us all a wry smile. "Wizzit wouldn't let me stay up late, though. He said I was still a growing girl who needed her rest, which is why I'm having breakfast with you now. As soon as I am done here, I need to go back to the weapons room."

"What about Toby?" I asked.

Mike shrugged. "I haven't seen much of him either, mate."

"He has been working on something with Bill," Padma said, "but I don't know what it is. It is certainly not the Unity belt. I know he didn't leave last night when I did."

The conversation pretty much died after that; I wanted to concentrate on wolfing down my sandwich, and no one else had anything further to add. Padma finished her washing-up and, with her hand trailing affectionately across my shoulders as she walked by, left the room. I watched her go, admiring the swing of her hips. She really was a pretty girl, and as much as I hated to have people think I was cracking up, I sure didn't mind the extra attention she had been giving me as a result.

And speaking of extra attention: I had just finished my sandwich and was about to gulp down my last swallow of orange juice when I felt a different pair of female arms wrap themselves around me. "Trevor!" Shelley exclaimed, giving me a squeeze. "I'm glad to see you're back."

I turned in my chair to look at her. In many ways, Shelley was just like her father, the original Prime Commander. They had both had that lean, rangy build and that quiet charisma that made you want to follow them to the ends of the earth. Shelley was more touchy-feely, though, than her old man had ever been. He had always been more of a "give you a firm handshake and look you straight in the eye" kind of guy. He would occasionally squeeze your shoulder. Not much of a hugger, though.

Shelley, by contrast, has not been shy about throwing her arms around people as Prime Commander. She has allowed herself to loosen up just a tad these days, both mentally and physically. Not that she's fat or out of shape by any means, but she is not the keen knife-edge that she had been as Prime Red. Just a bit softer and rounder, especially in the areas where someone like me (or Bill, I suppose) would want her to be softer and rounder. She was wearing her hair longer these days, too. Definitely more feminine all over, and the upside of all that for me was that she gave really great hugs.

"Hi, Shelley," I said. "You, uh, did hear that I wasn't canned, right? That I was just visiting my older sister for a couple of days?"

"I heard something about that," she replied. She jerked her head toward the door. "Let's go into the office, and you can tell me about it."

"Sure thing." I swallowed the last of my juice. "Let me clean up my dishes first, and I'll be right in."

Shelley was on her feet, leaning back against her desk, when I entered the office and closed the door behind me. She was staring at the floor looking somber, but her face brightened up as I walked in. "Sit down, Trev, and tell me about your vacation. How is your sister? Her name is Joy, right?"

"That's right." And I told her a bit about Joy and Mark and the baby and briefly outlined my visit.

She nodded thoughtfully when I was done. "I'll confess that I'm a bit puzzled by a couple of things," she said. "First, that you had to leave so suddenly, and second, why he sent you there, of all places. It wasn't a family emergency, was it?"

"Nothing like that, no," I replied. "I didn't realize it was such a big mystery. You knew how worried I was about Lily. Wizzit just decided I needed some time off to clear my head."

"Yes, I knew you were concerned, but I had no idea . . ." She looked troubled for a moment, then shook her head. "But why send you to Joy's house? She doesn't know you're a Prime, does she?"

"She suspects I'm up to something out of the ordinary," I said carefully, "but I've already explained to her that I can't say anything about it. She said she wouldn't force the issue."

"The young woman displays a remarkable attitude that is rarely seen in humans," Wizzit interjected. "Curious, but not nosey." He went on, "Another reason to send Trevor there was the fledgling. My observations indicate one can often ameliorate excessive concern over a particular condition by associating oneself with the natural outcome of that condition."

"Say . . . what?" I wrinkled my forehead. "Shelley, do you have any clue what he just said?"

Shelley's own brow was furrowed in thought. Then her face cleared. "I think so," she said, and damned if it didn't look as if she were suddenly trying not to grin. "If I'm reading him correctly, when Wizzit saw you fretting over Lily, he interpreted that as 'excessive concern' over . . . let's call it a male-female relationship."

"A male-female relationship?" I thought about it for a moment. "All right, but it's not exactly . . . I mean, sure, I'm a male and Lily's a female, and there's . . . okay, I guess you could look at it that way, in a general sort of sense, but that doesn't mean that . . ."

"And one natural outcome of male-female relationships is . . ." Shelley looked at me expectantly.

"Babies." I sighed in disgust. "Are you telling me that playing with my baby nephew was supposed to make me stop worrying about Lily so much? That's . . . that's ridiculous!"

Okay, she was definitely suppressing a grin now. "Did it work?"

I opened my mouth to deliver a strongly-worded denial, but then I stopped. Had it worked? After a moment, I said, "Well, I can't deny that I do feel better about the whole thing. But that doesn't mean --"

"I know," she agreed soothingly. "Wizzit's point hasn't been proven. It just hasn't been disproven."

"Yes, exactly!" Our eyes met, and suddenly I was struck by the absurdity of the whole argument we were having. Shelley must have been feeling the same, because we both burst out laughing at the same time.

"So, Shelley," I said after a bit, trying to sound casual, "speaking of Lily, weren't there some vids you were going to go over with me?"

She turned to face me, and I felt a hint of trepidation. Her smile had abruptly vanished and the somber look was back. "We need to talk about that," she said seriously. She hesitated, then went on, "Have you ever known me to break a promise?"

I thought for a moment. "No. Never."

"I didn't think so," she said. "Keeping my word has always been very important to me. If people can't trust you to follow through on what you say, then they can't trust you, period. Which is why it's going to be hard for me to tell you this." She sighed deeply. "Trevor, I'm going to have to break that promise I made to you. I can't show you those vids."

I must have stared at her for fully ten seconds before I could think of anything to say. "Okay . . ."

"There's nothing in there that you shouldn't see," she assured me quickly. "There's nothing . . . nothing secret. A lot of it is like what you and I went through with her that first day, but much less intense. Just a lot of talking, in various languages. Of course, I couldn't follow anything Angie was saying, but I'm sure you could." She attempted to bring back her smile, with mixed results. "In fact, if we were to watch the whole thing, you would probably be bored stiff."

"Then why can't I see any of it?"

Shelley gave up trying to smile. "Because Lily asked me -- no, she begged me -- not to let you. For some reason, she has decided that she doesn't want to have anything to do with you any more. She doesn't want to see you, she doesn't want to talk to you, and she doesn't want you to be able to see or hear her, not even on a vid. She was very upset and very adamant about it, and . . . I had to promise her you wouldn't, just so that she would keep on talking to us." She reached out and laid a hand on my arm. "I didn't intend for this to happen. I'm sorry."

I was on my feet even before I realized that I was going to leave the room. "I guess that's it, then," I said. "Thanks for letting me know. And don't worry, I won't hold you to your promise to me; your perfect record is still perfect."

"Trev, wait," she said, her hand tightening on my arm. "Don't leave just yet."

"Why not? What else is there to say?" I was proud of the fact that I hardly sounded bitter at all. So much for my mellow state of mind. "Look, if she doesn't want me to have any contact with her, then I'm sure not going to force the issue. We both know that wouldn't turn out very well, don't we? And if I can't help you with her, then why should I even see the vids?"

Shelley looked as concerned as I had ever seen her. "I'm sorry it's worked out this way, Trevor. I really am," she said softly. "I wish so much that you could see her now. You wouldn't believe the change over just the past few days. You remember how she was that first time, right? Just a scared little girl who cringed at every shadow? The false queen who was terrified that we were going to kill her?

"Now, she has blossomed into a . . . well, I wouldn't exactly call her a confident young woman, but she is one hell of a lot more sure of herself than she was. And she and Li Lin-fa -- Trevor, they're talking to each other. Actually talking! Or maybe talking isn't the right word, but there's definitely communication going on between the two personalities. It has been just amazing to see!"

She had waxed more enthusiastic as she spoke, and it was infectious; I found myself smiling. Faintly, but smiling. "That sounds really cool. I wish I could see it."

"My point, Trevor," she went on, "is that none of that would have been possible without you. You were there fighting for her every step of the way. Now, I don't know what caused this sudden change of heart, but she owes you a huge debt, whether she realizes it or not."

I shook my head. "She doesn't owe me anything. What I did, I did because I liked her and I thought she deserved better than what she had. I wasn't thinking of it as an investment, and I certainly never counted on any returns. I'm glad you and Angie have been able to help her. Let's just leave it at that."

"Li Lin-fa is willing to see you," Shelley said quietly as I turned to go. "At least, that's what Angie told me."

Up to now, I thought I had been keeping my cool pretty well, but for some reason, that touched a nerve when nothing else had. "She's 'willing' to see me?" I repeated angrily. "What, like Lily just dumped me and Li Lin-fa is 'willing' to talk to me about it? Come on, Shelley, that's just insulting. This isn't junior high school, and I don't have a seventh-grade crush on Lily. I don't need anyone to throw me a bone. I'm a big boy, and I can handle my own feelings; I don't need someone else to step in to try to make me feel better and explain to me just why --"

"Trevor, stop!" Shelley's voice cracked out. "Just stop. Dial back the anger and listen to me for a second, all right?"

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, feeling the blood rush to my cheeks. I don't believe I had ever goaded Shelley into snapping at me before. "All right," I said, my voice icy calm. "Anger is dialed back, and I'm listening."

"I phrased that badly," she told me, speaking slowly and deliberately. "I should have said that Li Lin-fa wants to talk with you. She wants you to come visit her. That's what she told Angie, that she wants to see you again."

"Oh," I said, suddenly feeling stupid and a bit ashamed of myself. I swallowed. "Um, did she say why?"

"How should I know?" Shelley said in exasperation. "Maybe she just misses you. You're not that bad-looking, after all, and you can even be pleasant when you put your mind to it, and from all the rumors I've heard, she might actually even be fond of you. Or maybe she just wants your recipe for chicken and broccoli with rice. I don't know. Why don't you go find out?"

That's our Shelley, Mistress of Pointing Out the Obvious, and as usual, she made me smile. On a sudden impulse, I straightened and bowed respectfully to her, the way I might bow to Grandmaster Park. "Thanks," I said. "That's a good idea. I think I will."

Chapter 25

Of course, I couldn't go see Li Lin-fa right away. For one thing, I had no idea what sort of schedule she and Lily were on, and it sounded like showing up at the wrong time would definitely be a no-no. So, I asked Wizzit to let me know when she was available, and then I did my best to put the matter out of my mind.

It turned out to be easier than I thought. Maybe I was just tired of worrying all the time, or maybe it was that this was something to look forward to rather than to dread, but as I walked down the hallway to my room, I began to think of any number of ways I could pleasurably pass the time until I could see her.

For once, I didn't feel like training in the gym. Instead, I sat down at my computer and spent some time sending out an e-mail to my folks. I could tell them more about what I was doing now that they knew I was a Prime, but I still didn't want to put too much in writing, so I took extra care with what I wrote. And I sent a quick note to Joy, thanking her for letting me stay there and letting her know that my friends had all noticed that I appeared much more relaxed after my time away.

Next, to assuage my growing sense of guilt, I sat down at my piano keyboard. Hearing Joy practice for hours on end had reminded me that I had fallen way behind on my own practicing; "The Dying Poet" and I were barely on speaking terms these days, the f-sharp minor fugue was still lurking in a corner waiting for me, and it had been forever since I had gone back to play some of my favorites. And of course, one always has to work on scales -- all forty-eight of them, plus the chromatic -- plus the twenty-four major and minor arpeggios. Always. My mom has trained me well.

I had spent a few contented hours drilling, practicing, and just playing for fun when Wizzit said, "Trevor, your presence is being requested in the weapons room."

Shelley had temporarily cured me of asking dumb questions like, "Did they say what they wanted?" Instead, I just wandered over there to find everyone except Shelley and Angela gathered around a table filled with all kinds of funny-looking gadgets. Bill was at the head of the group, holding a belt that looked exactly like one of our Prime belts, except it was white rather than black.

"Very stylish," Mike was saying. "D'you have the shoes to go with it?"

Bill grinned at him. He looked tired, I thought. "This is a Unity belt," he explained. "I thought you would all like to see our first working model. Nicolai and I finished work on it just about half an hour ago."

"Why is it white?" Trina asked.

"Let me guess," I said. "It was the closest you could get to bland and colorless, right?"

Nicolai smiled. "You read my thoughts, Trevor. The Unity field presents no perceptual bias, so it would not be appropriate to assign a color to it. White light comes the closest to describing its effects, so the belt is white. And whoever wears the belt will be code-named Unity White."

"That certainly rolls off the tongue better than Unity Bland or Unity Colorless," Toby quipped.

Mike asked, "Does it actually work?"

Nicolai shrugged. "As far as we know. We have run every test we can think of short of having an actual human try it. We are planning to do that shortly."

"It's going to behave differently from our usual belts and bracelets," Bill put in. "For one thing, our standard blurring effect is going to be impossible to implement. That's normally a very basic, very low-power feature, and, in theory, it could be done with any number except unity. The lack of perceptual bias with the Unity belt, though, means that we could block either all light emitting from the immediate area of the belt, or no light at all."

"But if it blocks all light," Trina asked, "wouldn't that mean that Unity White will appear to be black?"

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" Bill chuckled. "But we can force the belt to emit its own light energy, same as we do for your force shields; it just can't favor any one color over another. It will have to be an even mix of all the colors. Unity White will appear to be a white, featureless blob -- another reason for the name. And for much the same reason," he went on, "voice distortion will be impossible as well. The voice will have to come out unaltered or not at all. No selective filtration will be possible."

Mike tugged absently on his ear. "That part doesn't sound too bad, though. This Unity character would be able to make use of our Prime-to-Prime communications, right? He just wouldn't be able to talk to anyone except one of us."

"That is correct," Nicolai agreed. "Not without revealing his or her undisguised voice, which would be inadvisable."

"To the world at large, Unity would appear to be mute," Bill added. "And camouflage mode is out, too, by the way. Normally, our force shields implement camouflage mode by sending out a three-hundred-sixty-degree, real-time image of what's on the other side, but that type of visual control will be impossible with the Unity field. It will just be able to send out an undifferentiated white light."

"I don't know, this whole Unity thing doesn't seem like such a good deal for the person who wears the belt," I commented. "You've got just the bare minimum of a disguise, and no invisibility; you've got no verbal communication with the outside world; and you have no force shield -- I presume that means no healing comas as well, right? And no weapons? They'll be more helpless than Junior Prime Pink ever was. Maybe this thing's going to be more trouble than it's worth."

"Could be," Bill admitted. "We're still in the early stages, though. With luck, we may be able to resolve some of the worst problems. And Unity White won't have to be a combatant to be helpful; he or she could be strictly for support and not necessarily involved in the action."

"Whoever has the belt will certainly have to be kept well protected," Padma said.

"Or be able to take good care of herself," I said, thinking of Lily and CKFZC.

"Do we have a candidate?" Toby asked. "Who's going to wear the damn thing?"

"Shelley, Wizzit, and I have been giving that some thought," Bill said. "We certainly don't want to take any of our active Primes out of the lineup, and all the Emeriti, including myself, are strictly part-time, so in the short term, the only logical choice would be . . ."

"Shelley!" we all finished in unison.

He gave a half-hearted grin. "For obvious personal reasons, I can't say I'm enthusiastic about the idea," he said, "but I don't see what choice we have."

Mike looked around the room. "I'm not hearing any objections."

"Did I hear my name?"

That was Shelley herself, of course, who was entering the weapons room with my sister in tow. "Angela and I finished up early with Lily today," she explained. "Evidently, even attack dolls have to work hard to keep their figures; she said she was planning to spend the next four or five hours in her gym."

Bill was beaming at her. "You're just in time to try out the Unity belt," he said. He held it out to her. "Nicolai and I finished it up not too long ago." And for Angie's benefit, he recapped his explanation of the belt's weaknesses and limitations.

Shelley wrapped the belt around her waist and engaged the clasp, not bothering to slip it through the belt loops in her shorts. "I activate it like normal?" she asked.

Bill nodded. "That's right. Your code name will be Unity White."

"Got it." Shelley squared her shoulders, set herself, and said, "Unity White, activate!"

Nothing happened.

Bill frowned and stepped around the table toward her. Padma said, "Bill, you might want her to remove her Prime Gold bracelet."

"Ah! Well spotted, Padma," Bill replied. "That would indeed interfere." He held out his hand and received Shelley's bracelet as she slipped it off her wrist. "Okay, try it now."

"Unity White, activate!"

Again, nothing happened.

Bill's frown deepened. "There must be a mistake here somewhere." He grabbed a device off the work table and knelt down in front of Shelley. Holding his device up to the belt buckle, he began making a series of adjustments.

After a moment, Shelley shook herself, laughing. "You're tickling me, hon."

"Sorry. Let me try just this one thing . . ." He fiddled with the belt for another minute, then sat back on his heels. "All right, one more time."

"Unity White, activate!"

Well, it didn't work that time, either, nor any of the next four or five times he had her try it. Eventually, Mike clapped him on the shoulder and said, "You know what? It's probably best if we let you work on this without an audience. Let us know when you've got it working, would you?"

With that, he walked out of the weapons room, followed by Trina, Toby, me, and Angie. By that time, both Bill and Nicolai were so absorbed in what they were doing, I don't think they noticed that we were leaving. As I stopped at the door to let Angie go ahead of me, she gave me a wan smile. "Hey, big brother," she said.

"Hey, little sis." I gave her an extra-warm answering smile, mainly because I was feeling a little guilty. See, I had heard her voice in the kitchen that morning as I stepped out of Shelley's office, and I had purposely changed my route to avoid seeing her. I mean, I get along okay with my sister and all, but at the time, I was not in the mood to have yet another female offer me sympathy.

Regardless, she stepped through the doorway, then waited for me to join her. She hooked her arm through mine and began walking down the hall with me. "Look, I feel bad about, you know, that whole Lily thing," she said.

"Don't worry about it. There wasn't a whole lot you could do, was there?"

"No, but . . ." She sighed. "To be honest, Trev, I just don't know about Lily."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, that first day, when you had to deactivate in order to calm her down, I felt so bad for her. She was obviously scared to death, right? And then the day I went out with Shelley that first time, she seemed better. Still scared, but better, and while we were there, she really seemed to warm up to us. Of course, I knew that she and you . . . well, everybody knows how you feel about her . . . and so I wanted to make friends with her. I really wanted to like her. But I have to say, big brother, I don't like her." She shook her head. "I don't . . . I don't trust her."

"I hadn't noticed anything that . . ." I began.

"Of course you haven't," she interrupted me impatiently. "And I can think of two big reasons why not." I started to protest, but she laughed and went on, "Sorry, I didn't mean those two big reasons. You're not that much of a Neanderthal. Not that they're even all that big. Not as big as . . ." She nodded ahead of her at Trina, who was walking hand in hand with Mike a short ways ahead of us. The two of them and Toby were engrossed in their own conversation and weren't paying any attention to us.

She went on, "What I meant was, when she was around you, she was all 'Oh, Trevor, I'm melting in your arms' and 'I'm giving you my prettiest smile because I really want you to like me and protect me', and you were so caught up in it, you wouldn't have noticed if a truck had run you over."

"So you're saying she was faking it?" I asked coolly.

Angie thought for a minute, then shook her head slowly. "No. I think most of it was real enough, but you have to admit, Trev, that towards the end, she was really coming on to you. Trina was right; she was trying hard to get you interested in her. Pure self-preservation is what it was, I think. I can't really blame her for it -- I mean, maybe she wasn't even aware she was doing it -- but still . . ."

I studied Angie for a moment. I didn't like hearing this, but I knew my sister pretty well. She didn't get catty. Well, not seriously catty, anyway. She had all the self-confidence in the world, and she just didn't get jealous of other girls. She wouldn't be saying stuff like this to me if she didn't have real concerns. "So what's the other reason?"

"The other . . . ? Oh, right, the other reason you wouldn't have noticed anything. Got it. That's because I didn't even start noticing anything until just a couple days ago, that first day I went out there with Shelley. That was the day Lily threw her hissy fit and said she didn't ever want to see you again."

"How did that happen, anyway? What set her off?"

"Heck if I know," she said, shrugging. "Shelley said something to her about how you couldn't make it that day, but that you would be there the next day. I think she meant it to be comforting, but then Lily got all upset and begged her never to bring you back."

I stopped short and turned to look at my sister. Something had occurred to me. "When was this? What time?"

"What time? Umm, let's see . . . Lily was still eating breakfast when we showed up, and then she wanted to do one of those healing things she does, so . . . about an hour after Shelley and I got there, I guess."

That made sense. "That must have been when Wizzit decided to send me off to Joy's house," I said. "He must have hustled me out of HQ the way he did so I wouldn't get that particular bit of bad news. He did say something about not wanting me to break anything expensive."

Angie shrugged again. "I guess so. Anyway, Shelley had to smooth everything over by promising Lily you wouldn't bother her any more, and that was the end of it." She looked thoughtful for a moment. "But you know, I don't think she was as upset as she made out to be. She was scared -- plenty scared \-- but . . . I don't know. Something seemed off about that whole thing."

"Why would the idea of me coming to see her make her scared?" I asked. "I mean, I'm the one who kept her calm before."

Angie shook her head. "Not a clue, big brother. But ever since then, she's been acting strange, almost like she's hiding something. And whenever we're alone, just her and me, she's been asking odd questions."

"Odd like how?"

"Like, where did we store our weapons? Where did we stay when we weren't in the lair with her, and was it possible for her to go there too? Did you, Trevor, stay with the rest of us, and did you have any other attack dolls that you controlled? Like I said, odd questions."

I frowned. "And Shelley hasn't picked up on any of this?"

"See, that's the thing. I think she's trying to play Shelley, kind of like she played you that first day, only she's being a lot more subtle about it."

"She's trying to get Shelley romantically interested in her?" I asked incredulously.

Angie laughed. "Yeah, that's the part I can't figure out. I think we both know that Shelley doesn't swing that way."

"It's possible that Lily doesn't realize that Shelley is a woman, though," I pointed out. "She's only ever seen her as Prime Gold. After all, you thought Shelley must have been a really cute guy when you first met her as Prime Red."

"Ah! Good point; I hadn't thought of that. Oh, and thanks a lot for reminding me, by the way," she added, rolling her eyes. "That wasn't embarrassing at all."

"No prob, little sis," I said, grinning. "Gotta keep my Annoying Big Brother certification current, you know."

"At any rate," she went on, "there haven't been any doe-eyes or throwing herself into Shelley's arms or anything like that, but yeah, she's definitely been playing the Teacher's Pet game. She's really good at it, too, which is probably why Shelley hasn't noticed anything."

"Sounds like you've had some experience with that."

"Hey, I earned every A I got in school," she said hotly. "Just because I saw some other girls try it doesn't mean I did!"

I chuckled and put my arm around her shoulders. "I know," I said soothingly. "And I'm the luckiest guy in the world to have a sister as smart and pretty as you."

"Yes, you are," she sniffed.

Chapter 26

"We weren't able to get it working," Nicolai said glumly that evening as he and Padma entered the kitchen. We hadn't seen the two of them since we had left the weapons room that morning.

"Where's Shelley?" Angie asked, looking up from the book she was reading.

"She said something about visiting her mother and Francesca in Montana," Padma replied. "And she took Bill and the belt with her."

Nicolai glanced at Trina, who was inspecting the chicken pot-au-feu she had been working on for the past few hours, and he gave a start. "I'm sorry!" he exclaimed. "Today was my day to make dinner, wasn't it?"

"Don't worry about it; it's nothing. You were busy," she said airily. "You can take my shift tomorrow."

"Thank you. Don't let me forget!"

"I'll make sure of that, mate," Toby said with a grin. "'Cause if you forget again, it'll be my turn to pitch in, and if I have to make dinner twice in a week, the second time is always boiled beef and cabbage."

That wasn't quite as much of a threat as it sounded like. I've had Toby's boiled beef and cabbage before, and while I wouldn't want to eat it every day, it's not horrible. Well, not too horrible, as long as you add lots of salt and pepper. And ketchup -- tons of ketchup. Eh, maybe it really was a threat after all.

Regardless, Padma, whose religion forbids her from eating beef, made a face. "I will make sure you don't forget," she told Nicolai primly, "if I have to drag you away from the workbench myself."

"Why couldn't you get it working?" Mike asked. "Is something wrong with the belt?"

"No, and that is what is so puzzling," Nicolai said, shaking his head. "There is absolutely nothing wrong with it. It's perfect. It should work."

"Perhaps something is wrong with Shelley," Trina commented with a smile. She put the lid back on the cooking pot and announced, "Dinner will be ready in five minutes."

"We have been considering that," Nicolai replied seriously. "It may be that she needs some time to become acclimated to the belt, just as we all needed twenty-four hours before we could use our Prime belts for the first time. She is wearing it now, and we will test again tomorrow."

"What if it still doesn't work?" Toby asked.

Nicolai grimaced. "Then we will have to look for another cause."

"We know it's possible, though," I mused as I got up to wash my hands. I went to the cupboard to get the dishes and started to set the table. "Lily was able to act as Unity, after all. Have you thought of using her to test-drive the belt?"

Angie glanced up at me over the top of her book, frowned, and shook her head slightly. Padma said, "We may try that as a last resort. She is still so unpredictable, though. We would prefer it if our first Unity were someone we knew better."

Everyone else washed up and we sat down to eat. Trina had once told me her pot-au-feu would make a Frenchman weep, and I could believe it. (Assuming, of course, that she meant that as a good thing.) Growing up, I had always felt that a dinner without rice was somehow not complete. Trina's beef pot-au-feu was one of two meals that showed me the error of my ways, the other being Robin South's fried chicken and mashed potatoes. Of course, when Padma came on board, Trina started using chicken instead of beef, which I don't like as well, although it's still pretty good.

We chatted amiably during the meal. Nicolai had recently had a birthday, and Padma had gotten him a book entitled Introduction to Set Theory. That was what he wanted to talk about, and he went on animatedly for quite some time about ultrafilters, transfinite ordinals, weakly inaccessible cardinals, and a host of other mathematical topics that I don't think even Padma understood. Finally, Trina laid her fingers across his mouth and told him, in a nice way, to shut up.

She then started telling us how she had learned French cooking. She had studied art in Paris, it seemed, for a few years before Commander Windham, Shelley's father, had recruited her for the Primes. During that time, she had supported herself by waitressing and occasionally helping in the kitchen at a small bistro. Padma and Angie both appeared enraptured by the story, and I think each of them silently vowed in that moment to follow in Trina's footsteps. (Seriously, why does every girl in the world think that Paris is, like, the most romantic city ever?)

Of course, then everyone else had to start reminiscing about their most exotic or romantic experiences. Before I knew it, I found myself telling everyone about going to an Ohio State football game with my dad and brothers, complete with Skull Session, tailgating, and getting my picture taken with this pretty cool dude who called himself Buckeye Santa. I mean, I didn't think it was all that exotic, but Toby and Mike were shaking their heads in disbelief the entire time.

Mike had started telling us about the months he had spent shearing sheep in Australia when I heard Wizzit make that throat-clearing sound he sometimes does when he's about to break into a conversation. "Master Trevor," he said, and for some reason he had adopted the voice of some snobby-sounding English butler, "I am pleased to inform you that Miss Lee, having recently completed a strenuous workout in her private gymnasium, has dined and performed her evening toilette and is now approaching her bedchamber. I believe that, following her customary transformation therein, she would be at home to receive a certain gentleman caller, to wit, yourself."

I could see Padma's eyes crossing as she tried to follow Wizzit's convoluted syntax, but I'm pretty sure everyone else knew what he meant. Trina smirked at me and said, "So, you finally have a date with Li Lin-fa, do you?"

I could feel my face turning red. "She, uh, she told Angie she wanted to see me again."

Toby grinned at me. "Trevor, you sly dog. Give her a kiss for me, would you?"

"And for me," Nicolai put in.

Padma glared at both of them. "We don't even know why she asked to see him. She could simply want to complain about her living conditions, for all we know."

"Do you really believe that?" Trina asked her, her blue eyes twinkling. Padma scowled, but didn't reply.

And, of course, my baby sister, who loves and adores me, said helpfully, "I'll tell you what: Wizzit, if you put the audio and video up on the screen, I'll volunteer to translate everything they say. That way we'll know for sure what she wants." And then she batted her eyes at me and gave me the brightest, sunniest smile you've ever seen. Sheesh, sisters!

Mike was fighting a losing battle to keep a straight face. "I think that perhaps out of a sense of common courtesy, we might allow the two of them a bit of privacy," he managed to say. "Just remember, Trevor, lights out is at eleven."

"Thanks, Mike. I'll remember."

When the teleportation haze faded from my vision, I was standing just outside Li Lin-fa's cage door. She looked good; over the past few days, she had recovered admirably from Enclave's neglect of her. A delighted smile lit up her whole face as she caught sight of me. "Hello, Trevor," she said. "It is good to see you again!"

"And you, Li Lin-fa. May I come in?"

"Yes, certainly."

I suppose Wizzit could have just teleported me straight in the cage with her, but I liked the idea of having to ask her permission to enter. It maintained the idea that it was her personal territory and that if I were inside it, it was by her invitation. She retrieved the key and handed it to me through the bars. I unlocked the door, went in, and locked it behind me again.

She gave me an enthusiastic embrace as I returned the key to her. "I know it has been only a few days, but I have missed you dreadfully," she said.

"And I you, pretty one."

The smile on her face faded slightly, and she turned away from me. "I . . . I wish you would not call me that."

My heart sank. Oh, great! I thought. I've been here less than two minutes, and already I've made her mad. Aloud, I said, "I am sorry I have offended you. I will never call you that again. Please forgive me."

"I am not offended," she assured me. "Far from it. But your sister gave me a mirror the other day, and I was able to look at myself for the first time since I was taken from my home." Her hand went up, and her fingertips brushed against her mouth and cheeks. "I was merely pretty then; now I see that my face has somehow been transformed into that of a goddess. It is unnaturally beautiful. I have not decided how I feel about that."

"I have always liked your face," I offered. "It suits your kind and gentle nature."

She turned her head slightly and gave me a pleased, sidelong smile. "Flatterer!"

I held up my hands in a show of innocence. "I speak only the truth."

She turned and looked at me full-on. "Lily Lee wears this same face," she informed me, her voice playful. "Does she have a kind and gentle nature?"

I hesitated. I knew this was a trap, that I could easily say the wrong thing here. Li Lin-fa's tone was light, but she was watching me closely, waiting for my answer. There are traps, though, and then there are traps. Just how much trouble would I be in if I put my foot in my mouth here? Based on how much I knew of Li Lin-fa, I guessed not much. I decided that simple honesty would be the best.

"In truth, Li Lin-fa," I said, "I do not know Lily well enough to say what her true nature is. Our encounters have almost always been adversarial, and there has not been much time for conversation."

"And yet you are attracted to her." It was a statement, not a question. When I didn't say anything right away, she went on, "Your sister told me. Do not worry; I am not jealous of my sister-self. I am simply curious. How can you be attracted to her if you do not know what she is truly like? Is it possible that you are simply fascinated by her goddess-face and her goddess-body? And if so, then is that the only reason you are interested in me as well?"

She was teasing me, I could tell. She was trying to frown, to make herself look serious, but the smile in her eyes gave her away. I guessed that she wanted me to trip all over myself with awkward denials and protestations of affection, and I had a feeling that, no matter how badly I defended myself, she would not press her advantage. Any mistakes would be instantly forgiven; any errors would be smoothed over. It was a lover's game, and I couldn't lose.

Still, I wanted to give her a better answer than just "Yeah, babe, I'm hot for you." I looked down at the floor, trying to decide what to say, and once again, honesty won out.

"Of course your body and your face attract me," I told her earnestly. "To deny that would be pointless. I am only a man, after all. But that is not the only reason I am attracted to Lily, nor to you. Lily has always seemed to me to be a . . ." I tried to remember whether there was a Cantonese idiom equivalent to "damsel in distress". If there was one, I couldn't come up with it at the moment, so I went on awkwardly, ". . . a woman who needs to be rescued, who needs my help. My friends tell me that I am always attracted to such women." I shrugged helplessly. "As for you, all I can say is that I fell in love with you before I ever met you."

Her eyes widened; I had intrigued her. "How could that be so?" she asked coyly.

"The first time I fought Lily," I explained, "I placed a small microphone on her clothing before she escaped us. It was quickly found and destroyed, but before that happened, I heard her being placed into a cage. A short time later, I heard the sound of a woman sobbing as if her life were over. It broke my heart to hear her weeping so, and I vowed that I would someday find that woman, dry her tears, and free her from her tormentors, whoever they might be. That woman, Li Lin-fa, was you."

She searched my eyes, and then her face began to crumple. She turned away again, and I heard her begin crying softly. Concerned, I stepped closer, laying my hands on her shoulders. "Li Lin-fa, are you --?"

"It is not fair!" she said softly.

"What is not fair?"

"You always get the better of me!" She turned to face me, and I could see the tears glistening in her eyes. "I was not really angry with you, Trevor," she said, half-crying, half-laughing. "I was simply playing a game, a harmless little game. And in response, you have made me fall in love with you all over again."

It was as if someone had set off fireworks in my heart. I drew her closer and kissed her with as much tenderness as I could muster. She responded eagerly, pressing herself hard up against me. Together, the two of us sank down onto her cot. I soon lost myself in the taste of her lips against mine, the soft caress of her hands on my body, the scent of her hair, and the feel of her in my arms.

"Trevor?" she whispered as I began kissing my way down her neck and bare shoulder. "Trevor, please, we cannot do this!"

I reluctantly ceased what I was doing, wondering what I had done wrong now. "If you want to stop, we will stop," I said, turning my head to look into her dark brown eyes.

"I . . ." she began. Then she gave what sounded like a flustered laugh and went on, "I do not want to stop, but we must. I am sorry; please do not be angry."

I sighed and pulled away from her. "I am not angry," I assured her. Frustrated, yes; angry, no. She slid her arm back into the Enclave jumpsuit she wore and pulled the zipper up. Somehow, it had become undone nearly down to her waist. Trying to figure out what was wrong, I said solicitously, "Your other self was exercising to the point of exhaustion this afternoon. You must be very tired. I will leave."

"Please, do not go." She was shaking her head. "It is not that. It is Lily. My sister-self would be most unhappy if she knew you were here with me. I am keeping her unaware of what I am doing, but if I were to lose myself in a moment of passion . . ."

"I think I understand." We were sitting beside each other on her cot now. I put my arm around her. "I had heard that you and Lily talk to each other now."

She laid her head against my shoulder. "Talking is not the best word. We are aware of each other. We have been since that first day with you and Gold. I can sense her thoughts and feelings when she lets me, and she can sense mine in turn. We can share our memories, and we can learn from each other." She straightened and turned to face me directly. "Listen to this." She cleared her throat delicately, then said, "Hi, Trevor. I'm Li Lin-fa. I'm pleased to meet you."

I blinked and shook my head in surprise. When she had begun speaking, I'd had a moment of vertigo. The words sounded like gibberish, but I understood them nevertheless. Then I realized what I was hearing. "You can speak English?" I said, incredulous.

"Uh huh. Now I can." That was what had confused me. I had been expecting her to speak to me in Cantonese, but what had come out of her mouth had been pure, unaccented American English. In fact, she had sounded just like Lily.

"That is, I'm learning," she added. Her face was lit up from within; she seemed as proud of herself as any child doing her first recitation. Then she shook her head. "Wait, that's not right. I don't mean that I'm learning to speak English. Lily speaks English, and I'm learning to use that ability. That's why I sound like her."

I stared at her. "That's amazing! Have you told any of my friends?"

"No. I wanted you to be the first to know." Then she squeezed her eyes shut and massaged her temples. "It is difficult to do," she went on, reverting to Cantonese, "and it makes my head hurt."

"Still, this is wonderful news." It also explained a few things I had been noticing, like how she was now able to pronounce my name and Lily's without stumbling over them. There was something else that had struck me, though, something that had been just below the level of my awareness until now. "Li Lin-fa," I asked her, "how did you know that Prime Violet was my sister?"

She seemed surprised by my question. "I do not know," she said. "I have never seen her without the violet clouds surrounding her. Let me think." She stared off into the middle distance for a few seconds, then said, "Lily knows that she is your sister. She also knows what she looks like; I can see an image of her standing beside you in Lily's memories. The two of you are dressed similarly in loose white pants and jackets. But she does not know your sister's name." Li Lin-fa looked at me in slight confusion. "Does that make sense?"

"It does," I said thoughtfully. Li Lin-fa had described the one time that Lily had seen Angie as a civilian, back when JB Swift had captured the two of us as we were walking home from Tae Kwon Do practice one evening. Lily must have noted at the time how Angie moved, the way she held herself, and later matched that against Prime Violet. "It means that Lily is far more clever than I thought she was."

"She is indeed clever," Li Lin-fa agreed. "Her mind is a strange thing, like a powerful machine, but all sharp corners and knife-edges, covered by the barest hint of a human face. She is bound by so many compulsions -- things she must do and things she must not do -- that it is sometimes difficult to understand her thinking." She looked up at me. "And she is desperately afraid of you."

"Afraid of me?" I repeated. "I do not understand that. I have always been kind and gentle to her."

"It does not matter," she said, shrugging. "For reasons I do not understand, she feels compelled to obey your every whim. At the same time, she yearns to be free from her compulsions. She rebels against them." Li Lin-fa looked thoughtful for a moment. "Perhaps she learned that from me; I do not know. I do know that the conflict has begun causing her great distress, and she places the blame for that distress on you. That is why she fears you so."

I looked down at her. "I can tell you have thought deeply about this."

"I see what anyone could see if they could watch her mind at work." She tucked her hand under my arm. "Be careful around her, Trevor. She would be a dangerous opponent."

I leaned over and kissed her on the temple. "Thank you for your warning," I said seriously. "I will be careful."

Chapter 27

I took my time getting ready the next morning. After all, there was no need to rush; I had a long, glorious day ahead of me before I would see Li Lin-fa again that evening. I ran into Angie in the hall on the way to breakfast. "Hey, little sis!" I said cheerily.

"Hey, big brother. You're in a good mood. Your date with Li Lin-fa must have gone well."

"It --" I stopped myself. I had been about to tell her that it wasn't a date, but you know, it kind of was. "It was nice," I said instead. "Really nice."

She grinned at me. "How nice, exactly?"

"Nice enough that I don't want to share the details with my baby sister."

She drew back and made her eyes go wide in feigned shock. "What could the two of you have possibly gotten up to that you wouldn't want to tell me about?"

"Not what you're probably thinking," I replied with a chuckle. "We mostly just talked."

"'Mostly'?" she repeated.

"That's right, 'mostly'." I gave her my inscrutable smile. "We even talked about you a little bit. Li Lin-fa knows that you're my sister. She says she learned it from Lily. She doesn't know your real name, though."

I have to give Angie some credit here; she didn't ask how Lily had figured it out. She just nodded and said, "We'll have to let Shelley know."

"Where is Shelley, anyway? I'd have thought the two of you would be over at the lair by now."

Angie shook her head. "No, she decided yesterday that --"

She was interrupted by a sound we hadn't heard for nearly a week -- the ringing of the monster alarm. I think we both jumped about a foot into the air. Angie looked longingly toward the kitchen. "Um, listen, big brother, could you, like, grab me a banana or something? Because I have to go get weapons, and I haven't had any breakfast yet, and I'm, like, really starving, and --"

"Sure thing," I said, partly to stem the tide of "like"s and "and"s coming my way. "I'll meet you in the common room."

"Thanks!"

I peeled a pair of bananas and ate one on the way to my room to get my battle vest. "You're going to Greece today, kids, to the city of Athens," Wizzit was saying. "You had better come loaded for bear. There are eleven monsters waiting for you in the Acropolis."

Eleven monsters? I frowned over that as I shrugged into my vest. The Junior Prime Blue bracelet on my dresser caught my eye, and I thought, why not? I slipped it onto my wrist as I ran back to the common room. I didn't see what good it could do, but to my mind, it would be better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

In the common room, Angie tossed me my vajra, and as a reward, I gave her a bite of the remaining banana, seeing as how her hands were full. She quickly distributed the other weapons, then snatched the rest of the banana from me and began wolfing it down. Mike was asking, "How did they manage send down eleven monsters at once?"

"It's not that difficult to figure out," Wizzit said blithely. "It has been six days since they sent down any monsters. They have simply sent down the five from three days ago and the five for today, and they are borrowing against the next time."

"That hardly seems fair," Toby said, frowning. "Does that mean they could stop sending monsters down for a year, and then ship out a few hundred all at once?"

"There is a limit to how far back and forward in time they can borrow," Wizzit admitted. "I think this is close to their limit. And after a time, the planet begins to heal itself, as well; after four or five months had passed with no monsters, they would be back to sending only one at a time."

"But in the meantime, we have eleven monsters to deal with," Trina said grimly. "What are we facing?"

"Each of them has the form of a tall male or female human figure -- tall as in nearly three meters."

Toby groaned. "Not storm gods again!" I could sympathize; that had been one of our toughest battles ever.

"No, not storm gods," Wizzit assured him. "At least, I do not recognize them as such. They are all draped in white cloths, both men and women; some of the males appear to be wearing wreaths of leaves on their heads. Most of them are carrying weapons of one kind or another."

"Sounds like those might be togas they're wearing. Greek gods, maybe?" I guessed. "Zeus, Athena, Apollo, umm . . ." I couldn't think of any more off-hand.

"That would be something the Harley twins would send out," Trina agreed. "Especially to the Acropolis in Athens."

"Well, we certainly won't find out standing around here talking," Mike declared. He looked around at each of us. "Everyone have their weapons? Good. Let's go." The seven of us activated our force shields and Wizzit teleported us out.

Besides the Parthenon, which I recognized from pictures, there are a couple of other, smaller ancient temples on the site of the Acropolis. Wizzit materialized us inside one of them that was relatively empty. Looking out from among the columns, I could see one of Wizzit's fifteen-foot-tall Greek gods stroll by; this one wore a lionskin over top of his toga, and he carried what looked like a huge wooden club on his shoulder.

"I don't think I've ever seen so many Zoinks in one place before," Toby commented, sounding awestruck.

I followed his gaze, and I had to agree; there must have been a hundred or more, and every one of them seemed to be menacing an innocent bystander. It was early June, probably the beginning of the tourist season in Greece, and the place was flooded with people from all over the world. I could hear screams of fright; some people were starting to panic.

"First order of business is to get those Zoinks under control," Mike said grimly, starting forward.

"We can't control them all!" Padma protested. "There are too many of them."

I moved to follow Mike. "Maybe not, but we can create a buffer zone between them and the civilians, give them time to get away."

"We've got no one who speaks Greek, so Green, start yelling our standard warning in English," Mike ordered. "Orange, in French; Yellow, in German. That ought to cover things."

"You might want to take into account, Red," Wizzit broke in, "that scans of local hotel registries indicate that a number of Russian nationals are in the area today . . ."

"Ah. Thanks for the update, Wizzit. Orange, in Russian, then. Indigo, in French."

". . . as well as a large contingent from Warsaw . . ."

Mike sighed. "Fine. Yellow, you're speaking Polish today. Blue, take German."

". . . and a sizable group from Barcelona."

"That'd be me," Angie piped up before Mike could say anything.

"Right," he said, obviously working to maintain his patience. "Anything else?" When Wizzit didn't answer, he went on, "Everyone know their assignments? Good. Let's get to work."

It occurs to me that I have not yet explained what Zoinks are, so you might be wondering what sort of threat they might pose to me, the tourists, or anyone else. Zoinks are mindless, probably-not-really-alive foot-soldiers that Enclave will often send out to accompany their monsters and cause mayhem. Enclave calls them drones. A well-trained, athletic human should be more than a match for a single Zoink, but today there would be just the seven of us against a horde. We needed to get down to some serious Zoink-fighting.

Fortunately, if there's one thing I'm good at as a Prime, it's beating up Zoinks. I'm, like, the Zoink-master. And despite what some of the others might tell you, fighting Zoinks can be fun. They're tough enough opponents to keep it interesting, but not so tough that I'm likely to get in over my head, and the neat thing is, I don't even have to worry about accidentally killing or even maiming them. So I waded in, fists and feet flying, and started taking care of business.

It was pretty confusing, as melees go, at least at the start. For one thing, I had no idea which way I should be herding the Zoinks and where I should be encouraging the civilians to go. I think Mike eventually had Wizzit figure out just where the paths down the hill were. Then he and Toby set themselves, one at each exit, and did their best to keep them clear. Once they were in place, Trina decided that she would make her way through the confusion seeking out tourists who seemed to be in trouble and escorting them to safety. Nicolai soon joined her.

Padma, Angie, and I, for our part, did our best to create a Zoink-free corridor through the center of the Acropolis. Padma and I had pulled Zoink duty many times during her first few months as a Prime, and we still worked pretty well together, pummeling Zoinks into submission and heaving them over to one side or another.

And my sister? Well, Angela had fought Zoinks before, both as a civilian and as the relatively unpowered Junior Prime Pink, but this was the first time she had had a chance to really cut loose as a fully-powered Prime, and she was having a ball, whaling away on Zoink after Zoink.

Whenever I had a free moment, I looked around to try to figure out who their minder was. See, Zoinks don't do well without someone to give them orders. They're not self-motivated at all. Commander-mode Lily had been Enclave's Zoink-minder-in-chief for most of the past year, but there have been others on occasion.

After a while, I spotted their ringleader, or one of them, at least. He was a tall alter, with long fangs, huge bat-ears, and a long, barbed tail. He looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't quite place him. He wasn't as effective as Lily had once been, but he was making it plenty tough for us. "Wizzit," I said, "see that alter over there? Has he done anything overtly hostile? Is there any chance I could attack him, get him out of our hair?"

I didn't have high hopes. Enclave monsters are supposed to cause mayhem -- that's their job -- so it usually isn't too long before Wizzit gives the okay for us to go after them. And it's always open season on Zoinks, wherever and whenever we run across them. Minders, though, don't always take an active part in Enclave battles, and evidently telling a Zoink to go punch someone in the nose isn't enough to put you on the bad-guy list. So you can imagine my surprise when Wizzit said, "Yes. Take him out." His voice was flat, almost grim.

Of course, being surprised didn't mean I hesitated. I used both hands to heave my current Zoink out of the space we were clearing in the middle of the Acropolis, and then I started fighting my way toward Bat-ears. The whole time I was making my way towards him, something was tickling the back of my brain; I knew I had seen this guy somewhere before. I started wondering why Wizzit would let me go after him -- heck, he had practically ordered me to do it -- when Bat-ears probably hadn't done anything that we could classify as hostile.

Or rather, he probably hadn't done anything hostile today. Maybe, I thought, Wizzit had him on some sort of permanent take-down list because of something he had done before. The only other time he'd done that, though, was when we believed that Lily had . . . and then I had it! In a flash, I knew where I had seen him before, and I knew why Wizzit wanted me to go after him.

"Hey, Indigo!" I called out, Prime-to-Prime. "Do you recognize that alter over there?"

Padma followed my pointing finger, looked over at Bat-ears, and froze. "He is the one who killed Prime Commander." There was no uncertainty in her voice.

I suppose that a short explanation would be in order at this point: As I've mentioned before, the original Prime Commander had been killed when Lily escaped from us the first time we had held her captive, months ago. We initially assumed Lily killed Shelley's father and used his cellphone to call JB Swift for a ride home.

That initial impression turned out to be slightly mistaken, though. Lily indeed grabbed the phone and contacted JB Swift, but she didn't kill Commander Windham; she merely knocked him out. Taking her location from the phone's GPS, JB Swift teleported both Lily and Prime Commander back to his lab. JB Swift left to take care of Lily, who was in bad shape, and he had ordered our good friend Bat-ears to send the semi-conscious Prime Commander back to the stronghouse. Bat-ears did so, but he murdered Commander Windham first.

And how do I know all this? Simple. Knowing that we blamed Lily for the killing, JB Swift gave me a surveillance vid of the whole gruesome affair. Padma and I together watched Bat-ears grab Commander Windham's head and wrench it around, snapping his neck, before teleporting him home. It was pretty awful to see, and I had never been able to bring myself to talk about it with any of my teammates. Wizzit had seen the vid as well, though, and I had to assume that he had informed them and Shelley, too.

"Does Prime Commander know this guy is here?" I asked Wizzit.

"I have not yet informed Prime Commander."

"Don't you think Prime Commander would want to know that we've got ourselves a murderer?" I demanded. "Especially considering whom he killed?"

"Prime Commander is sleeping at present; it would not be advisable to wake Prime Commander for something like this."

"Prime Commander is asleep? In the middle of a battle?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I mean, I knew Shelley had to sleep sometime, although I wasn't quite sure when, given the way she bounced around timezones from HQ to her family's ranch to wherever Bill was lecturing. I had never known her to miss a battle, though.

"Don't ask; long story. Will explain later. Just take this guy out, would you?"

I sighed and shrugged. "Sure, Wizzit. Whatever you want."

I tried to get to him, I really did. Padma did her best, too, but even Zoink-masters like us can't do everything. I zapped him a few times with my blaster, but I was never able to get close enough to do any more damage than that; he packed the Zoinks too tightly around himself.

Which is not to say that our efforts did no good. Even the best general can't lead his troops very well if he has to concentrate on saving his own skin, and Bat-ears was not among the best of generals. By harassing him the way we were, we were able to create a leadership vacuum that neutralized probably half the Zoinks in the battle, which is far better than the two of us could have done just by Zoink-fighting alone.

I had just told Padma to keep going after Bat-ears while I started taking care of some of the still-active Zoinks when I heard someone cry out in pain. "Orange has been hit!" Toby exclaimed.

"Orange, are you all right?" Mike rapped out. There was no reply. "Orange, please respond!" he shouted.

"Teleporting Orange out now," Wizzit replied calmly.

That sounded bad to me. We Primes often get hit in the course of our battles, and we even get knocked out once in a while, but Wizzit doesn't usually teleport us out immediately afterwards. Trina must have been hurt but good.

"What hit Orange?" I asked.

"Not sure," Mike said, sounding distracted. I imagined him looking around wildly, trying to figure out just what had struck Trina. "I didn't see it."

Toby replied, "I heard a sound almost like a triple blaster, and then Orange collapsed right beside me."

"Red, look out behind you!" Padma shouted suddenly.

I followed her gaze. One of the Enclave monsters was standing in front of the Parthenon. She -- it was a she -- was holding a bow, and she appeared to have sent out a bolt of energy of some sort from it. Unlike our mission in Honduras, Padma's warning came in time this time; Mike's head whipped around, and he easily used his broadsword to bat aside the energy blast.

"Much obliged, Indigo," he said, sounding grim. "It appears that the monsters have decided to take a hand in things. Look lively, everyone. Wizzit, I'm guessing we'll need some help today."

"I have already contacted the Emeriti. Gold and Blackiron will likely be unavailable for the duration; Copper, Steel, and Silver will come out as soon as they are available."

I expected Mike to ask about Shelley and Bill \-- I know I was dying to know what was going on with them -- but he passed right over it. "Fair enough," he said. He had drawn his blaster and began firing at the monster with the bow. "Yellow, how are we doing with the civilians?"

"Two groups left, Red," Nicolai said. "Orange and I had split them up between us. My group is almost clear; I don't know what happened with Orange's group."

"I've got them," Angela piped up. "I think they're Russians. At least, they don't speak any languages I do except a little English. I got them to follow me, though. Heading your way, Green." I heard her ki-yup, the particular sound she makes when she's fighting especially hard. "Darn Zoinks aren't making this any easier!"

Toby said, "I see you, Violet. Got my hands full helping Yellow's group at the moment, or else I'd come help you."

"I'll help," Padma offered. "The Zoink minder I had been fighting seems to have gotten clean away from me."

"Sounds good," Mike said. "Blue, what are you up to?"

"Just mopping up some Zoinks," I replied. I threw the drone I had been carrying onto the pile of struggling Zoink bodies I had been collecting. "After that, I had planned to go find the minder Indigo was going after. We really need to take care of that guy, Red."

"Never mind him. We're getting more monsters coming out of that big temple. Wizzit, which ones are hostile?"

"Just the one with the bow at present."

"Fine. Blue, use your blaster and help me keep her off-balance."

"Will do."

I felt a pang of disappointment when he said that because I wanted to get Bat-ears, but I also felt a small glow of pride. A little over a year ago, Mike would never have dreamed of suggesting I use my blaster to snipe at monsters. I was easily the worst shot on the team and was probably more a danger to my teammates than to those we were fighting. Ever since I had decided to follow Trina's advice and start taking at least a hundred shots a day on our practice range, though, I had improved quite a bit. I mean, I'm nowhere near as good as she is, but these days I do generally hit what I'm aiming at.

Regardless, I whipped out the ol' blaster and started blazing away. The gal with the bow -- my knowledge of the Greek pantheon was a bit hazy, but for some reason, I kept wanting to call her the Huntress -- had been joined by two others, the guy with the lion skin and club that I had glimpsed before and another guy, tall and thin, draped in black cloth rather than white, and carrying a two-pronged spear. According to Wizzit's rules, I couldn't shoot either of them yet, but the Huntress gal was drawing her bow again, and it looked like she was aiming for either Padma or Angie.

I sent a few blasts Huntress' way. My first shots were off the mark -- I was still getting the range -- but that wasn't particularly worrisome as long as I didn't hit Club Guy or Black Bart. Thanks to the way our blasters are designed, the only ones I could actually hurt with a blaster shot were Zoinks and other Enclave bad guys or my teammates, and none of the other Primes were anywhere near my line of fire. If I accidentally shot a wall or a civilian or even one of the Emeriti, the effect would be approximately the same as if I shined a flashlight on them.

The thing that was worrisome was that after I adjusted my aim and started actually zapping the Huntress, she just ignored me. Now, that should not have happened. I know that my little raygun is only one-third as powerful as Trina's triple-blaster, but even the toughest monsters usually feel something when I shoot them, even if it's only a sting. But this gal? Nothing.

Mike called out, "Look out, Indigo, Violet. She's about to fire," just as the Huntress let loose with another of those bolts of energy. Thanks to his warning, Padma and Angie each managed to grab hold of a Zoink and muscle it around in front of them. The blast struck Angie's Zoink square in the back, and it fell from her grasp to land in a smoking heap.

"I'm moving in closer," I told Mike, whose blaster seemed to be just as ineffective as mine. "I'm going to try shooting her in a vulnerable spot, like the nose or eyes. Maybe that'll have an effect."

"Right behind you, Blue," came his reply. "Just be careful. One of these drongos might take it into his head to swat you like a fly."

"I'll keep my eyes open," I promised.

I crept closer, trying not to draw too much attention to myself. Enclave monsters don't usually intimidate me, not like they did when I first joined up, but at about fifteen feet tall, these guys were big, even by Enclave standards. I felt like I should be looking around for a beanstalk to start scrambling down.

There were five of them out there now; the original three had been joined by a female carrying a spear and wearing a helmet and some really ugly-looking guy covered with what looked like soot and holding some sort of a large mallet or hammer. So far, though, the Huntress was the only one who seemed interested in attacking us.

I made my way almost up to the hem of her robes. She didn't seem to realize that I was there; she was too busy surveying the Zoink battle and looking regal and goddess-like, I suppose. She slowly raised up her bow, drawing her other hand back nearly to her ear. I took careful aim and fired directly up into her left nostril.

This time she reacted. She sneezed. It wasn't even a big sneeze, either; I didn't get showered with monster goop or anything. Not that I was hoping to, but come on! I had given her my best shot and all it did was make her sneeze? Sure, it spoiled her aim and all, but this whole let's-ignore-Blue thing was starting to make me mad.

"All right, honey," I muttered to myself, "let's see whether this gets your attention." And using the knob end of my vajra, I struck down with all my force on the top of her sandaled foot.

That gave me more like the reaction I had been hoping for. The Huntress shrieked as if I had just given her a hotfoot, and she dropped her bow and grabbed her lower extremity, hopping up and down in a most undignified fashion. I could see her looking around furiously, trying to figure out who had hurt her. She overlooked me completely for some reason, and her baleful glare fixed instead on Mike. Quick as a flash, she snatched up her bow again and sent an energy blast straight at him. And quicker than a flash, Mike swatted the bolt right back at her, knocking her down.

"Watch it, Red," Wizzit warned him. "Don't hit anyone except her."

"Doin' my best, Wizzit," he replied. "But it would be easier if the rest of them just decided to attack us instead of standing around like that."

"Be careful what you wish for," Toby growled.

Nicolai announced, "My group is now off the Acropolis. Coming to help you now, Violet."

"Same here," Toby called out. "Between the four of us, we ought to get everyone to safety in just a few more minutes."

Four more of the monsters had come out while we were talking. In addition to the previous five, we were now facing some old guy holding a scythe (which was basically a curved blade attached at right angles to a long stick), a somewhat younger-looking guy with a curly beard spilling down over his bare chest who was holding a trident, a third guy with horns growing out of his head and goat's hooves for feet, and a fourth monster who just had to be Cyclops. I mean, he had the whole one-eye thing going and everything.

"Why aren't they attacking?" Padma wondered. "What are they waiting for?"

"Maybe they want to make sure all the civilians get away safely?" Angie said hopefully.

The rest of us all laughed. Toby murmured, "So young, so naive . . ."

"They're probably trying to make this a dramatic entrance," Mike explained. "They do that sometimes. I'd guess that as soon as the final two come out, they're going to cut loose on us."

I privately agreed, and sure enough, things started happening after the last two monsters made their appearance. The newcomers were a tough-looking guy carrying a sword and shield and someone who looked like he was only a boy (although a ten-foot-tall boy) wearing a cap and sandals, both of which had wings on them. They joined the rest of the monsters in a line directly in front of the Parthenon.

I hated to say it, but they were a pretty formidable-looking group. Even the Huntress had recovered her dignity and was standing beside the others, looking mean and impassive. And then, as if in response to some signal we couldn't see, the entire bunch of them stepped forward and started swinging their respective weapons.

I have to admit at this point that I didn't see much of the battle first-hand. In fact, I'm pretty sure I was the first Prime to go down -- after Trina, of course. I heard a rushing sound off to my left. I turned and saw the kid with the winged hat and shoes bearing down on me. He wasn't as fast as JB Swift, but from what I saw, he came pretty damn close. I tried to bring up my vajra to protect myself . . . and that's all I remember.

The next thing I knew, I was on the floor of the lounge waking up from a healing coma. Looking around the room, I saw that Mike and Toby were sprawled out on the floor as I had been, both in what appeared to be maximum-depth healing comas. I got to my feet and carefully made my way around their limp bodies, out of the lounge and over to the office. Inside, I found Trina, Padma, and Angie, together with Mayumi, Cathy, and Alvaro, and every single one of them looked as if their best friend had just died.

"Where's Nicolai?" I asked as everyone turned to look at me.

"In the kitchen," Trina said, sounding distracted.

"He was bleeding quite a lot when Wizzit brought him in," Padma explained. "Wizzit teleported him there to heal up."

I nodded in understanding. Blood was easier to clean off the tile floor of the kitchen than the soft carpeting of the lounge. We do try to keep our headquarters tidy, after all. "He's going to be all right, isn't he?" I asked anxiously, suddenly worried by all the gloomy faces.

"Eventually," Padma said, "although I understand that it was a near thing."

"He should be up and about within twenty minutes," Wizzit said in his usual chipper voice. "Mike and Toby will be operational within five."

"Thank you, Wizzit," Trina said absently.

With Mike temporarily out cold, Trina was in charge. I asked her, "So, what's the plan, boss? When do we teleport back out?"

She stared at me for a moment, then shook her head. "I honestly don't know, Trevor. I don't know what to do."

That brought me up short. We Primes always have a plan -- always. Even if it's just "go out there and hit them as hard as we can."

"I teleported into HQ a few minutes after you Primes left for the Acropolis," Cathy said. "Wizzit wanted to wait and see how I could help best before sending me out, so I was able to watch most of the battle from here." She shook her head, much as Trina had done. "Things don't look good. These monsters are incredibly powerful."

"We are going to hold a short debriefing as soon as Mike is available," Trina said. "We'll try to come up with a course of action then."

I looked around the room. "Where are Bill and Shelley?" I asked. "Shouldn't they be here?"

"Prime Commander is recovering quite nicely," Wizzit informed us cheerfully. "Much more quickly than I had anticipated, thanks to some clever thinking on Bill's part. She is still weak, and I seriously doubt she will be able to take part in the battle, but she has regained consciousness and is coherent. I should be able to bring her out here for the debrief as soon as the others are available."

To judge by the startled reactions I heard around the room, I was not the only one who'd had no idea anything was wrong with Shelley. Padma exclaimed, "What has happened with Prime Commander?"

"Shelley apparently suffered a reaction to the Unity belt," Trina explained. "She collapsed sometime early last night. Bill is with her right now. I don't know much beyond that. Wizzit informed Mike and me of the situation early this morning; we had planned to tell everyone immediately after breakfast, but the monster attack intervened."

"You said she reacted to a Unity belt?" Alvaro asked, sounding interested. "Did Bill and Nicolai finally manage to create one?"

Trina nodded. "I don't know how much you know about the project . . ." she said hesitantly.

"I have never heard of it," Mayumi murmured. "What is a Unity belt?"

"It was after your time, Mayumi," Alvaro told her. He turned to Cathy. "Do you remember? It was a project Bill and Nicolai started working on when I was Red and you were Orange."

"I remember hearing the name," Cathy said doubtfully. "It's been a long time, though."

"It was supposed to be some sort of super-Prime device," he went on eagerly. I noticed that Padma winced at the word "Prime". I guess mathematicians really are sensitive about that kind of thing. "They seemed to think it held great promise as a --"

Trina held up a hand. "Perhaps, Alvaro, it would be best if we explain it from the beginning," she said with a smile. "Padma, would you . . .?"

"Of course." And Padma spent the next ten minutes describing the Unity device Enclave had created and the one we had subsequently built on our own. I noticed that she took pains to explain that it was not a Prime device at all, but rather a Unity device, and that its wearer would have almost none of the usual Prime powers.

Mike and Toby had joined us by the time she finished. As they entered, Trina got up from her seat and began speaking quietly with both of them, no doubt explaining the situation with Shelley. Once Padma concluded her explanation and answered a few questions that Mayumi had, Wizzit declared, "Bringing in Bill and Prime Commander now."

There was a double flash of light, and two figures appeared in the center of the room. Bill looked exhausted \-- even more tired than he had the previous day. That would make sense, I supposed, if he had been up all night with Shelley. As for our fearless leader, I couldn't tell how she looked, because her features were hidden beneath the robotic facade of Prime Gold.

"Shelley?" Mike asked, staring curiously at her. "Why are you activated?"

"It was Bill's idea," she said. Her voice sounded strong, at least. "You've heard what happened with the Unity Belt?"

"Just that you had collapsed," Mike said.

"Oh. I guess we'd better fill you in on the details, then." She reached down as if she were going to lean against her desk. Her hand slipped, though, and she nearly fell. With a cry of alarm, Padma and I leaped out of our chairs to catch her. "Sorry," she said. "This whole business has taken a lot out of me. If I could just sit down for a minute . . ."

"You don't have to stay here, hon," Bill admonished her. "Go on back home. We'll take care of things. You need to rest."

Shelley shook her head. "I'd rather rest here. It's the best place for me." At her prompting, Padma and I helped her behind her desk and into her chair. She sat there for a moment, resting her forearms against the desk's surface, her head bowed. Then she seemed to gain strength, and she straightened. "Would you explain what happened, Bill?"

Bill glanced around at the rest of us. "We were having dinner with Mrs. Windham and Francesca," he began. "Shelley hadn't been feeling well for the past hour or so, which was pretty unusual."

We all nodded. None of us are ever sick, not even the Emeriti; it seems to be a side effect of using a force shield, or maybe a healing coma. Regardless, if Shelley was feeling poorly, it was a sign of something serious.

Bill went on, "About halfway through the meal, she got up to go lie down, but she fainted before she even made it out of the room. I carried her to her bedroom. After that, she was semi-conscious, drifting in and out of awareness. I contacted Wizzit immediately, and since the only thing about her that had changed recently was the Unity belt, I also had her remove it during one of her lucid moments. A couple of hours later, Wizzit contacted me and told me that no Prime or former Prime was ever to put on the Unity belt again, under any circumstances." He glanced up at the ceiling speakers. "Wizzit?"

"When Bill contacted me, I reran my analysis of the belt's impact on human anatomy," Wizzit said. "It was unchanged; it indicated that the Unity field should have no deleterious effect on an ordinary human body. However, I then ran an analysis of what wearing the belt would do to a Prime body, and the results of this test were somewhat different."

"Wait a minute," Toby interrupted. "Are you saying that we're not human any more?"

"Of course you're human," Wizzit assured him. "However, the constant use of your force shields has made some subtle changes to your respective metabolisms. Your immune systems have become more efficient, as have your musculature, your circulatory and respiratory systems, your injury repair mechanisms, and nearly every other bodily function. The perceptual bias that enables most of your powers has, in essence, been driven down to the cellular level and has made everything work better."

"All right, so we're superhuman," Mike said impatiently. "But --"

"Slightly superhuman," Wizzit corrected him.

Mike rolled his eyes. "Fine, slightly superhuman. But what does that have to do with the Unity belt?"

"The Unity belt would undo all of that. Isn't that right, Wizzit?"

We all turned in surprise to see Nicolai standing in the doorway. He grinned when he saw that he had our full attention. "I caught just the last minute or so," he explained, stepping into the room. He looked down self-consciously at himself. His tee-shirt was ripped open just below the ribcage, and he had obviously bled out. He must have washed off his legs, because they were fairly clean, but his shorts and the lower half of his tee-shirt were covered with sticky, half-dried blood. "Sorry, I'm afraid I left the kitchen in a bit of a mess," he said diffidently. "So, am I to understand that the Unity belt was killing Shelley?"

"In a word, yes," Wizzit replied. "It was in the process of removing the perceptual bias from every cell of her body. If it could have done it in one fell swoop, everything would have been fine. It lacked the power to do so, though, which, incidentally, is also why she was unable to activate the belt. The resulting dichotomy caused a sudden, severe auto-immune reaction. In essence, the biased cells did not recognize the unbiased cells as part of her body and began attacking them."

He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice carried a tone I had never heard from Wizzit before. "Commander, I apologize deeply for not having caught this beforehand. It was an elementary error in my calculations, and if it had resulted in your death, I would never have forgiven myself. I am truly sorry."

"No harm, no foul, Wizzit," came Shelley's altered voice from beneath Prime Gold's robotic exterior. "We caught it in time, and I'm going to be fine. I'm feeling much better already, in fact."

Nicolai was staring at her, and I could practically see the gears in his brain turning. At last he gave a satisfied nod. "I see. Having her activate as Prime Gold is imposing a mild perceptual bias on her cells once more. In effect, it is redoing what the Unity belt was undoing."

"Exactly," Bill replied. "Even my putting the bracelet on her wrist seemed to make her feel better, and once I had her activate, she began improving rapidly."

"Putting a full Prime force shield on her would result in an almost immediate cessation of her symptoms," Wizzit added. "But since we don't have a spare Prime belt lying around, she'll have to content herself with a gradual return to health over the next four hours or so."

"Which is why she should spend that time at home resting," Bill said with a pointed look at Shelley.

She ignored him. "Mike," she said, "I understand that the team was called out to a monster battle this morning. Since everyone has returned to HQ, can I assume the battle is over?"

Mike shook his head grimly. "The truth is, Commander, we got our arses kicked. Every single one of us had to be brought back for a healing coma, and we could barely do a thing against them. Those monsters are still out there doing who knows what, and I don't know what we can do to stop them."

"Not everyone had to be brought back for a healing coma," Trina corrected him softly. When everyone turned to look at her, she went on, "I thought we should hold a short debrief on the failed mission as soon as everyone was available. Perhaps we can come up with another approach, or . . ." Her voice trailed off.

"Let's get started, then," Shelley said. "Wizzit, play the vid."

Chapter 28

I'm sorry if this sounds sexist, but I never like to watch any of our female Primes get hurt. I mean, I never enjoy watching any of my teammates get hurt, but there's always an extra cringe factor involved when it's one of the girls. So even though I was curious as to what had actually happened with Trina at the start of the battle, I had to force myself to look at the screen when Wizzit got to that part.

It was bad, but not quite as bad as I thought it would be. She just got herself zapped with a blast from the Huntress' energy bow. Her force shield got fried and she was thrown down pretty violently. I think everyone winced when we saw the way her head bounced off the rocky ground, staining the earth with red. Of course, she may have already been unconscious by the time that happened, so she might not have felt it. Regardless, Wizzit teleported her limp body out almost before it rolled to a stop.

I have already described what happened to me. It was a little embarrassing, because when the kid with the winged hat and sandals clocked me upside the head, I looked as though I was moving in slow motion. Nicolai and Toby were the next to go. Toby had decided to go after the guy covered in soot -- hammer against hammer, I guess -- and he came off decidedly the worse in that exchange. Nicolai took on Black Bart a short time later and quickly found himself skewered by his two-pronged spear.

Mike did the best solo work of any of us. The Huntress apparently still held a grudge for what she thought he had done to her, and she kept peppering him with energy shots from her bow. Mike, in return, merrily deflected the blasts toward any bad guy he could see. He was causing them so many problems, in fact, that eventually four of the monsters put their heads together and then began to attack him in concert.

That by itself should have told us that these were unusual beasties, because Enclave monsters in general do not cooperate with one another. They're just as likely to attack each other as us. These four, though, acted as if they were controlled by a single brain, or at least as if they had practiced together a few times. Poor Mike didn't really stand a chance once they started ganging up on him. He made it a pretty good fight, but one can dodge four giants for only so long before getting pounded into oblivion, no matter how fast one's reflexes are.

Which left Padma and Angie. By the time Wizzit teleported Mike out, the two of them were completely surrounded, standing back to back and nervously eying the largest horde of Enclave monsters we had ever seen in one place, not to mention a hundred or so active, driven Zoinks. From the bits of their conversation that Wizzit replayed, they were both pretty scared, and although they weren't panicking, neither of them had any idea just what to do. Padma was talking about initiating camouflage mode and fighting a mini-guerrilla war there on the Acropolis. I think Angie just wanted to go hit somebody.

Fortunately for both of them, Cathy had teleported into HQ by that time. We overheard her talking to the two girls, calming them down and persuading them to let Wizzit bring them back to HQ -- discretion being the better part of valor and all that.

There were expressions of dismay all around as the vid ended. Mayumi commented, "I have never seen so many Primes wiped out so quickly."

"There was a monster we fought once that took out both Nicolai and Toby in just a couple of minutes," I said, "but you're right. These guys took out all seven of us in less than ten minutes. Pretty incredible."

"So what do we do?" Trina asked. She seemed the most shaken of any of us. "How can we possibly fight them?"

"Padma's idea of a sniper campaign against the monsters was not bad," Cathy said thoughtfully. "Having seen what I just saw, I know I'm not eager to go out there without a force shield. If I were invisible, though, and kept moving around, I could provide covering fire, at least."

Bill nodded. "I agree. Any of the Emeriti who go out there will have to be in camouflage mode. It would be too dangerous otherwise."

"We'd have to be extra careful not to run into our own people, then," Mike said.

"I'll tell you what, that guy I fought was too fast for anyone except you to handle, Mike," I put in.

"And the bloke with the hammer was too tough for any single one of us," Toby added.

"And don't forget, we still have the Zoinks to worry about," Padma said. "It is not so easy to take them out of the picture if Lily is not leading them."

Shelley leaned forward. "All right, let's take things in order. First of all, Wizzit, are all these monsters hostile?"

There were a few snorts around the room, but she had a point. I know I hadn't been keeping track of which monsters had participated in which attacks. And I wouldn't put it past Enclave to try to lure us into attacking a monster that was "innocently" minding its own business.

Nevertheless, Wizzit replied, "Affirmative. Those that did not take part in the attack on you have been engaged in tearing apart one of the smaller temples. All monsters and minders may now be considered hostile."

"Good. Now, as for the two monsters that were specifically mentioned -- the one who got Trevor and the one Toby was fighting -- are they the worst ones? Are there others that are more dangerous?"

There was silence for a few seconds as we all looked at each other. "The gal with the bow was a bit of a pest," Mike said, "although it was quite a laugh swatting her blasts right back down her throat."

"Could anyone else besides you do that?" Shelley asked. "Hit her blasts right back at her, that is."

He shrugged. Wizzit said, "In theory, yes. The energy bolts were traveling slowly enough that any of the regular Primes should have time to react. And each of you has sufficient eye-hand coordination to knock the bolt aside."

"Providing we saw it coming," Padma said glumly.

"Yes, providing you saw it coming," Wizzit agreed. "To further answer Prime Commander's question, my data indicate that the monster who wears the lion skin and carries the club is by far the strongest one out there. He is not very fast, however, nor is he bright. He also seems to have a violent temper; he has already attacked two of the other monsters."

"That could be useful," Shelley mused. "Perhaps the gal with the bow or one of the other monsters could be lured into attacking him."

"The problem is, there's too bleedin' many of them," Toby said. "We could take on any one of them, or any three, maybe even five, but they've brought in eleven. It's just not fair."

"Fair or not, it's up to us to take care of them," Nicolai said quietly. "There's no one else who can."

"Maybe there is," Mike said suddenly. "What about getting the US Army involved? Or their air force or something. They've helped us out before."

I frowned. "You want the United States Air Force to make a bombing run on the Acropolis in Greece? I'm pretty sure that would be considered an act of war."

"Well, maybe not on the Acropolis," Mike said, looking a little abashed. "But maybe one of us could grab a monster and then Wizzit could teleport them out to that Big Rock Candy Mountain Gunnery Range --"

"Chocolate Mountain," Bill corrected him absently.

"-- and they could bomb him to Kingdom Come over there."

Shelley nodded. "It's worth a try. Wizzit, can you place an untraceable call for me? I'll give you the number I have."

Wizzit must have cut off Shelley's sound to the rest of the room -- kind of like how he does with our Prime-to-Prime communications -- because the rest of us heard nothing of her phone call. We all waited, looking around the room uncomfortably -- all except Bill and Nicolai, who were staring at the vid screen. Nicolai looked as though he were making some sort of mental calculations; Bill was pointing at each monster in turn and murmuring to himself.

After a few minutes, Shelley stirred in her chair. "Bad news, people," she said. "I got turned down flat. In fact, I was told we'd get no more favors ever until we started coming across with some technical know-how. They did promise, though, that if we released all of our technology to them, they could have two thousand Prime-enabled boots on the ground anywhere in the world within a month."

She had to wait for the hoots and howls of derision to die down after she said that. When she spoke again, her voice was grim. "I hate to say it, but we've got to go out there and try again. There's no other choice."

"Bill," said Toby, "what about those guns you and I have been working on? I'm not sure exactly how they're supposed to operate, but maybe they might give us an edge."

Bill was shaking his head. "They would work, yes, but we're going to be able to use them only once; after that, they'll be useless. We have to save them for a time we really need them."

"I'd say we bloody well need them now," Mike muttered.

"No," said Wizzit firmly. "I have definite plans for those particular weapons. They are to be used under a very specific set of circumstances, and it's not here and not now. We will have to make do without them."

"What about the Unity belt?" Angie asked. "Is there any way we could use that? I mean, I know it was killing Shelley, but . . . look, I haven't been a Prime all that long; maybe that perceptual bias thing hasn't had time to --"

"It wouldn't work, Angela," Wizzit interrupted her kindly. "Thank you for offering, but it has been too late for that from the moment you experienced your very first healing coma as Prime Violet."

"We could ask Lily," I said into the silence which followed. "She's been Unity before."

"She's also been nothing but trouble for us," Toby growled. "You know that, Trevor."

"I agree. She is too unstable, and we can't trust her," Padma declared. "There must be someone else we could ask, someone who has never been a Prime. A -- a family member or a friend of one of us. They don't even have to be able to fight. Surely we could find someone . . ."

"You're kidding, right?" I retorted. "Whoever wears that Unity belt is going to be a sitting duck out there. They'll have no weapons, no force shield, and no invisibility, and the white glow around them will be a dead giveaway that they're Unity. Heck, we're giving our Primes Emeriti more protection than that. No, Lily is our only possible choice. She's the only one who can handle herself well enough to go out there as Unity White."

Padma nodded reluctantly. "I . . . yes, you're right, Trevor. I suppose I would not want to expose anyone I knew to that kind of danger."

Mike gave a long exhalation. "But would she help us?"

"She would have no choice if Trevor ordered her to," Trina pointed out.

Angie and I looked at each other. "I'd prefer she do it of her own free will," I said.

"Then will you ask her?" Mike said.

I started to shake my head, but then Angie raised her hand. "I should probably be the one to ask." When everyone turned to stare at her, she went on hesitantly, "I know everyone thinks she and Trevor are tight, but . . . well, it's complicated, but basically, she doesn't want to have anything to do with him right now. Lily and I spent a lot of time together over the last few days, though. We're not exactly friends, but I think she'll listen to me."

"I thought you didn't trust her, little sis," I said.

"I don't --" She seemed to be fumbling for words. "That is, I wouldn't trust her alone with you for five minutes, big brother. She's got something weird going on in her head as far as you're concerned. But even she admits that, as a group, we've been nothing but kind to her, and she's almost as afraid of Enclave as she is of you. She might refuse to help, but I don't think she'd betray us. And I don't see that we have any other choice."

Shelley was nodding. "I agree," she said. "Angela should be the one to ask. What do you think, Wizzit?"

"Teleporting Angela in fifteen seconds . . ."

Shelley and I locked eyes, and she jerked her head toward the door. I nodded. I had been thinking the same thing, in fact. They would want to monitor everything that went on between the two of them, and Shelley had promised I would not watch any videos of Lily. Without a word, I got up and left as Angie activated her force shield.

I strolled over to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of orange juice. I was still sitting at the table sipping it when Wizzit said, "Trevor, Prime Commander would like you to return to the office now."

Mike was the first to speak as I entered the room. "Did you know that Angie was going to deactivate right in front of Lily?" he demanded.

I thought for a moment, then shook my head. "No," I said calmly, "but I can't say I'm surprised. Lily already knew pretty much everything about her except her name. Showing Lily her real face wouldn't have given anything away."

"When did you find this out?" Shelley asked.

"Last night when I went to visit Li Lin-fa. She kept referring to Prime Violet as my sister. I finally asked how she knew that, and she said she learned it from Lily. We were going to tell you, Shelley, but you had already left."

Shelley frowned thoughtfully down at her desk. "It was certainly a gutsy move on Angie's part, revealing herself that way," she mused. She looked up at Mike. "But it sounds like it wasn't as foolhardy as we first thought, and it did get Lily to agree to help us, after all."

"Did she have trouble getting Lily to cooperate?" I asked.

"She sure did!" Toby exclaimed. "And it wasn't the fighting that bothered her, either. She was more worried about being out there with you than she was about going up against Enclave."

Mike shook his head. "Something about you has got her spooked, that's for sure."

"Yes. What did you say to her, Trevor?" Padma asked.

"That's the thing -- I didn't say anything to her!" I protested. "I didn't do anything to her! Li Lin-fa says she's afraid of me because she doesn't like having to follow my commands."

"Well, whatever the reason," Trina said, "Angie had to promise her that you would interact with her as little as possible. Of course, Lily wanted to know why she should trust Angie's promises. Angie asked her whether she wanted a gesture of good faith, and Lily said yes. That's when Angie deactivated and told her her real name and that she was your sister."

"It was rather clever, if you think about it," Nicolai mused. "She gained Lily's cooperation without giving away much that Lily didn't already know."

"Bill teleported out there with the Unity belt as soon as she agreed," Shelley told me. "He's resizing it to fit her waist right now. He'll give us a shout-out once she has successfully activated it."

She leaned back and looked at the group gathered in the office -- six Primes and three Primes Emeriti. "We still don't know exactly what this Unity field is going to do for us, so you'll have to play things by ear when you get out there," she said. "Now, we have identified their four most dangerous monsters. I think our best bet is to assign each of them to one of you three." Here, she indicated Mayumi, Cathy, and Alvaro. "Bill will take the fourth. Shoot at them from under cover and try to keep them off-balance. Keep camouflage mode on and keep moving; these monsters are particularly dangerous, and I don't want anyone to get hurt if we can avoid it."

"It's not much of a plan," Mike noted grimly.

Shelley spread her hands. "I'm open to suggestions," she replied with a faint smile.

Mike, it appeared, was taking her comment seriously. "I'll go after the bloke with the wingy hat," he said. "Perhaps I can keep up with him."

"Lily should have something to defend herself with," Nicolai said suddenly. "Maybe she would want to have the spear I made from the unicorn horn. It does not require a force shield."

Shelley nodded. "That's a good idea. Wizzit, can you pass along that suggestion to Bill?"

"Will do, Commander."

"I will go get it." Nicolai got to his feet. "After that, if you need me, I will be in my room changing into something a little less bloody."

"If I use my triple-blaster," Trina said after he had left, "and I shoot at the monster with the lion-skin while his back is turned, then he might think he had been hit by the monster with the bow, and he might attack her." She shrugged. "It is at least worth a shot." Then she smiled as she realized she had made a pun.

"I'd still like to go after that alter with the bat ears," I said.

"Yeah, you were wanting to get him when we were out there earlier. What's up with that? Why are you so obsessed with him?" Mike asked.

It was Padma who answered. "Because he is the one who killed Commander Windham, Shelley's father."

Shelley looked from Padma to me. "That's a pretty serious charge," she said. "How sure are you? I've seen the vid that JB Swift gave you, but I never got a good look at this guy."

Before I could say anything, Wizzit brought up a pair of pictures on the video screen. The first was taken from JB Swift's video; it showed Bat-ears reaching down toward Shelley's father. The other was clearly a close-up from the battle we had just been in, and Bat-ears was in roughly the same position. Each was a clear image, giving us a good view of his face and body. It was definitely the same guy; there could be no doubt.

Shelley stared at the stills for a long time, her chin resting on her hands. "I see," she said at last. "All right, I would like for this guy to be taken down if at all possible. I think that Dad would agree, though, that the mission comes first. It's more important than anything else."

I glanced at Padma, then nodded. "I understand, Commander."

"So why aren't we out there right now?" Toby said impatiently.

"We'll go out as soon as Unity is ready," Mike assured him.

At that moment we heard Bill's voice over the ceiling speakers. "She's ready now. It took a little longer than I had hoped because I had to undo most of the adjustments I made to try to get it to work with Gold. But now White, Violet, and I are activated and ready to go."

The rest of us activated, and Wizzit teleported us out in short order. As soon as the teleportation haze faded from my vision, I took a good look around. The monsters had not been idle while we were away. Two of the smaller temples were now just heaps of rubble, and they were working on a third. I could see most of my teammates scattered across the stony field, but I couldn't see anyone who looked like they might be Lily.

Next to Bat-ears, I decided that the monster I most wanted to go after was the Huntress. Unfortunately for my ambitions, she was at the other end of the Acropolis, scanning for targets. Nicolai had apparently called dibs on her anyway; at least, he was charging towards her, axe raised high. As I watched, he closed with her and struck. The axe blade caught her behind one knee, and with a screech of pain, she fell onto her back.

At that moment, some sort of sixth sense told me to look out. I turned around just in time to duck; a scythe blade went whistling over me, wielded by the monster who looked like the old man, as I flattened myself against the ground.

As soon as it passed overhead, I kipped up to my feet and fired straight up into the face of the monster without bothering to aim. I didn't hear a roar of pain, but he did shake his head and start rubbing his eyes something fierce, which I thought was a good sign. Encouraged, I holstered my blaster, took my vajra in both hands, and smashed the butt of it as hard as I could against the side of his knee, which was about as high as I could reach.

That elicited the cry of pain I had been hoping for. The old guy's leg jerked convulsively, throwing him off balance. I hit him again, this time to the back of the same knee, and the leg gave out completely. He toppled to the ground, and I had to make with the fancy footwork to keep from being caught underneath him when he fell. I always hate it when monsters fall on top of me.

I began pounding my vajra against any part of him that I could reach -- his spine, his shoulder, and the back of his head. "Coming to help you out, Blue," I heard Toby call, and soon I heard the sound of him smacking Old-guy Monster with his hammer.

The two of us went at it hammer-and-tongs on him for a few minutes, only taking time out to punch the occasional pesky Zoink that wandered too close. Then Wizzit said, "Copper, Steel, Silver, and Blackiron, if you would kindly direct your blaster beams to the monster that Green and Blue are attacking, I believe we are ready for a final strike." He waited for the four of them to confirm, then said, "On my count: three, two, one, now!"

Four triple-strength blaster beams lanced in from various spots around the Acropolis to strike Old-guy Monster. Toby and I hit him with our weapons at the same time. There was a shower of sparks, and when they died away, the monster was gone. "Wow, that was quick," I commented. "Was that Unity's doing?" There was no reply at first, so I said, "Um, Wizzit?"

"Sorry, I was distracted," Wizzit replied. "Yes, Unity helped some, but it was mostly just a weak monster. Look lively, Blue."

Somehow, I knew exactly what he was talking about. I had an itch between my shoulderblades that was telling me that someone was taking aim at my back. As I tucked and rolled to the left, I heard the sound of one of Huntress' energy blasts strike the ground where I had just been standing. It looked as though she had gotten away from Nicolai somehow, although he was chasing her doggedly. Still too far away for me to go after her, though.

I looked around to see what other mayhem I could accomplish. About fifty yards away, I could see Angie dueling with the gal with the helmet and spear. Well, okay, I guess maybe dueling wasn't the right word here; it would imply that Angie was actually getting in some offense, which she wasn't. For the most part, the helmet-and-spear monster was jabbing and swinging the spear at her, and Angie was throwing herself this way and that to avoid the attacks. I imagined she was going to have bruises all over from that little encounter.

I started trotting their way, trying to figure out a plan of attack. Not too far away from Angie, Padma was being chased by the guy with the goat horns on his head. He had actually lowered his head and was galloping after her on all fours as if he wanted to butt her with those horns, the way a real fifteen-foot-tall goat might have done. Or who knows, maybe he wanted to trample her, I'm not sure. Regardless, I was too far away to help her, and a blaster shot wouldn't have done anything to him, so I just watched helplessly as he closed in on her. And then, just as it seemed that he must catch her, Padma teleported away in a flash of indigo light.

I suppose that Goat-horn Guy would ordinarily have clattered to a stop and looked around to see where she had gone. He didn't have time, though. See, he had been so intent on chasing down Padma that he hadn't been paying attention to where he was going, and Padma, clever girl that she was, had been leading him straight to where Helmet-and-spear was attacking Angie.

Thus, before he had a chance to stop, he found himself applying his goat horns directly and with great force to the rump of Angie's monster. Angie ducked, and the she-monster was soon flying through the air over her head; she sprawled against the back of Black Bart. He turned around, snarling, and within seconds, the two of them began pushing and shoving each other.

"Indigo! Violet!" I called out. "While those two are busy, let's the three of us take on this goat-headed guy." I didn't know where Padma had teleported to, but I was reasonably sure she would have stayed nearby to watch. I glanced around, half-looking for Padma and half-checking on the Huntress. That itch between my shoulderblades was back, but it evidently wasn't coming from her, because she was now chasing Nicolai. I decided to ignore the feeling.

"The 'goat-headed guy' is probably supposed to be the god Pan," Bill said calmly, as if he were delivering a lecture. "And the monster who was attacking Violet -- the lady with the helmet and spear -- is undoubtedly meant to be Athena. The city of Athens was named after her, so I guess you could say this is her home turf."

"I don't know anything about this Pan," Padma said. I could see her now. She and Angie and I formed a triangle with Pan more-or-less at the center. "Is he supposed to have any special powers?"

"He might be able to make you very scared," Bill replied thoughtfully. "You know, like a panic? That's where the word comes from."

"I didn't feel anything like that when I got him to chase me."

"Enough chit-chat," I said. "Indigo, Violet, I --" I was about to start telling Padma and Angie how I wanted us to start attacking Pan when I felt something grab me from behind. Huge hands clamped themselves against my shoulders. I was being held too tightly to turn my body, but I managed to twist my head around to see Cyclops' big ugly face grinning at me.

"Blue!" I heard Padma scream. She aimed her blaster and fired, and the beam struck Cyclops' shoulder beside me. It had no more of an effect than my earlier blaster shots had. I felt myself being picked up, up, up, until I was upside down, my legs kicking the air futilely, directly above his head. Or, more specifically, above his mouth. His huge, wide-open mouth.

I had a sinking feeling that I knew where this was heading, and I said a very bad word. "Don't tell me he's got a sudden urge to try Prime Tartare!" I groaned.

"Let go!" I heard Angie shout. From my peculiar head-down position, I could see that she was pounding on Cyclops' shin with her Escrima stick. Pan was between Padma and me, but I could see her racing around him to get to me. "Let Blue go!" Angie shouted again.

Cyclops flicked his foot out, and he caught Angie across her middle. She went tumbling back and smacked up against a pile of rubble from one of the smaller temples. "Violet, are you all right?" I yelled. I was pretty worried, because the last time she had been smacked around by a monster like that, she had spent the next two months hobbling around with a cane.

"I'm fine," she said grimly, and I could see her picking herself up off the ground. "I'm going to be pretty sore later, but this guy's definitely going to be sorer." As she began running forward again, I decided this was not the time to tell her that I didn't think "sorer" was a real word.

Cyclops evidently thought that all this excitement would be bad for his digestion, and he decided to take me somewhere a little quieter for his little snack. He tucked me under his arm, and in three giant strides, he was away from Padma and Angie, over next to the Parthenon and slightly sheltered by it. He was still holding me so tightly that I couldn't squirm free; I couldn't even get an arm free to start whacking him with my vajra. He raised me up high again, and then he suddenly popped me into his open mouth.

Up until that moment, I didn't really believe he was going to try to eat me. I mean -- gross, right? But that didn't mean I hadn't been mentally preparing for it. I had come up with what I decided was the perfect plan of attack, and I executed it without hesitation. Drawing on Mike's instructions and my own experience, I attempted to pull in energy from my force shield and then expel it again in a concussive blast.

The shock wave worked better than I had hoped. Much better. When I pulled the energy in, it filled me so full so fast that I felt like I was nearly ready to explode, like I had been trying to drink from a firehose. And then when I let it out again, the sound of the explosion nearly deafened me.

"That was . . . impressive," Bill said when the roar had died away. I think that was the first time he had admitted to being impressed by anything I said or did.

"Are you all right, Blue?" Trina asked, sounding concerned.

"That's a good question," I said. To be honest, I wasn't sure. I didn't hurt anywhere, at least not too much, but I didn't quite know what had happened to me. "Where am I?"

"Um, it looks like you're covered with about half a meter of monster gunk, mate," Toby said. "It's going to be a hell of a job cleaning it off you."

"You blew his head clean off, though," Mike said. "Pretty damn good work."

By now, I was getting to my feet. "Wizzit," I said, "I don't remember my last shock wave being quite that strong. Did Unity have something to do with that?" When I didn't hear an answer, I said, "Wizzit? Hello?"

"Sorry, I was busy," he replied after a moment. "Yes, indeedy, we have now identified one effect of the Unity field: shock waves are much stronger than they were. Weapon strikes, incidentally, appear to be about thirty percent more powerful as well. But you're still powerless, Blue; your force shield is drained. Teleporting you back to HQ now . . ."

"Wait!" I cried. Damn, I always hated to leave in the middle of a battle.

"Wait, nothing!" Mike said sternly. "It's too dangerous out here for an unpowered Prime. Right now, you can't even do camouflage mode."

A thought occurred to me. "I've got my Junior Prime Blue bracelet on, though," I said. I was nearly free of Cyclops' disintegrating body by now and was eying a pile of rocks I could hide behind. "Wizzit, could I activate that and then deactivate my belt? That way I could keep on fighting. I could turn on camouflage mode and use a weapon, at least."

"Hmm . . ."

"It would give us a chance to gather data on how quickly Unity allows a force shield to recharge," I wheedled. "That would be a good thing, right?"

"It should work," he said cautiously. "As long as it's done quickly enough."

"You got it," I said. Then, as fast as I could, I shouted, "Junior-Prime-Blue-activate-Prime-Blue-deactivate-camouflage-mode-on!" I felt a brief, unpleasant jolt, something like an electrical shock, as the two fields clashed, but it subsided as soon as the Prime field deactivated. I ducked behind the pile of rocks to hide myself better. "Okay, Junior Prime Blue is on the job. Who needs help with anything?"

"Actually, Blue, I have run into a bit of trouble with Zoinks." That was Mayumi's voice, although I couldn't see where she was. She sounded composed, but out of breath. "I could use your assistance."

"Sounds good to me," I replied. "Want to sent me over to Copper, Wizzit?" Again, he didn't reply right away. What was with this? I wondered. The last time he had been this distracted was when Shelley's father had been killed. "Hey, Wizzit, is everything okay?" I asked worriedly.

"Everything's fine," he replied tersely. "Teleporting you now, Blue."

"If the two of you are going to be fighting as a team," Mike advised us, "then you had better turn camouflage mode off. You don't want to hit each other accidentally."

"Understood, Red."

By the time the teleportation haze cleared from my vision, Mayumi was visible. I could see her copper-colored, robotic form struggling in the center of a gaggle of Zoinks who must have run across her purely by chance. They were clustered around her so closely that any attempt by Wizzit to teleport her out of danger would have brought the Zoinks along for the ride.

I turned off camouflage mode, whipped out my blaster, and began rapid-firing into the crowd as I ran forward. "Help is on the way!" I called.

She was surrounded by ten or a dozen Zoinks. If my force shield had been functional, it would have been child's play for me to whip them into shape. Without that extra speed, strength, and endurance, though, things were looking to be a bit tougher; I was glad that I at least had functional weapons. With my vajra in one hand and my blaster in the other, I waded into the crowd.

I hit and shot indiscriminately, trusting to the fact that neither my vajra nor my blaster would hurt Mayumi, unshielded as she was. Within five minutes, she and I had cleared a temporarily Zoink-free space around us. "Are you all right?" I asked her.

She nodded. "I am a little shaken up, but not hurt." She looked down at the triple-blaster in her hand. "These are marvelous weapons, but they are not much good for close attacks." Then she added ruefully, "And I am afraid I'm out of practice beating up Zoinks."

"Let's get out of here and find someplace a little less crowded," I said. "Wizzit?"

He didn't answer. I looked around at the nearby Zoinks, who were getting to their feet. They would be coming at us again before too long, and I could see an alter hustling more of them our way. It wasn't Bat-ears, although there was a family resemblance. He had the long fangs and the barbed tail, but the top of his head sported a pair of devil horns instead.

"Looks like we're going to have to finish this ourselves," I said. "Here, take this." I handed her my vajra and quickly explained how the two ends -- the diamond point and the thunder knob -- worked. "It should help you keep them in line."

"Thanks," she said doubtfully, "but what will you . . .? Oh, your sap gloves. I had forgotten."

"That's right. I don't know what I'd do without these babies." I had, in fact, already dug my specially-powered sap gloves out of the pocket of my battle vest and was slipping them on. "Let's do this." And the two of us launched ourselves at the crowd of Zoinks.

We had been fighting for only a minute or two when I heard Mayumi laugh delightedly. "What a splendid weapon, Blue!" she said. "I can see why you like it so much."

"Thanks. Indigo made it for me. I, uh, wasn't sure you'd know how to use it."

"Of course I do!" She sounded offended. "It's not much different from an iron fighting fan, and I have trained with those quite a lot." She chuckled. "I'm not just a pretty face with a gun, you know!"

Before I could even begin to figure out how to reply to that, I heard an explosion on the far side of the Acropolis, away from the Parthenon. I looked up in time to see Black Bart collapse to the ground, sparking like crazy.

"You were right, Blue," Trina commented. "These shock waves are very strong with Unity here. I have never taken out a monster completely on my own before."

"If you don't count the unicorn," Toby muttered.

"Nice work, Orange, getting him to come close to you like that," Mike said. "I, er, don't suppose you would be willing to return to HQ while your force shield recharges, would you?"

"Actually, I would," Trina replied. "I thought I would ask Wizzit to send me back to my room --"

"Good. At least someone has some common sense around here."

"-- so I can pick up my own Junior Prime bracelet."

"Hey, Wizzit, speaking of . . . has my force shield recharged yet?" I asked over the sound of Mike slapping himself in the face with his palm. "'Cause I could use a boost about now." At this point, the Zoinks had nearly swarmed Mayumi and me, and I had a sinking feeling that we might just lose this fight.

"Not for another few minutes," Wizzit replied, with no delay this time. "It appears that Unity does not help force shields recharge faster."

Mayumi glanced at me. "Then I guess we had better employ a little strategy, Blue."

"That's what Bugs Bunny would do," I replied with more confidence than I felt. "What do you have in mind, Copper?"

"First of all, let me get a little breathing room. Guard my back." With that, she turned away from me. There was a mound of rubble behind her, and she began clearing a path towards it with her triple-blaster, blazing away at every Zoink standing in her way. In less than a minute, she was standing on top of it, scanning the crowd.

"Now, where is their minder?" she said, half to herself. "I don't see hi-- oh, wait, there he is." She adjusted her aim slightly, and then I saw her blaster beam strike Devil-horns across the chest. "All right, Blue, keep the Zoinks away from me while I go after him."

"You got it, Copper. I'll do my best." And I waded into the crowd of Zoinks.

"Has anyone else noticed that we seem to have eyes in the back of our heads today?" Angie asked suddenly. "Because this is like the third time I've turned around just in time to hit somebody."

"Now that you mention it, I've been awfully lucky that same way," I said.

"Same here," Nicolai agreed.

"That's all that's been keeping me in the game so far," Mike admitted. "Wingy-hat is a pretty tough customer."

"'Wingy-hat'," Bill said, "is probably their version of the god Mercury."

"Mercury?" Angie repeated. "I thought Mercury was a member of the Roman pantheon, not the Greek. The planets were all named after Roman gods."

"Good catch," Bill said with a chuckle. "Sorry, I should have said Hermes, not Mercury. Same guy, different name."

"Yes, well, I'm certainly glad we've cleared that up," Mike said dryly. "Wizzit, are we seeing another Unity effect here?"

"Where is Unity, anyway?" Toby asked when Wizzit didn't reply right away. "I've not seen hide nor hair since we showed up here."

"I'm here," Lily's clear voice said, "although I'm not sure exactly where 'here' is. I can't see much of the battle."

"Unity is nearby," Wizzit explained. "Hidden in a place that's mostly inaccessible to the monsters, although any one of you could get to Unity if need be."

"As for your question, Red," he went on, "yes, this is indeed a Unity effect. By working through the Unity field, I am able to access your force shield displays in a much more direct way. I have always been able to keep track of the overall progress of your battles by monitoring your individual belt sensors, but reporting that information back without distracting you has always proved a challenge. I am currently experimenting with diverse means to deliver battle statuses to you more subtly than just yelling 'Watch out behind you, Red!'"

"You mean, like a prickling on the back of your neck when there's someone creeping up behind you?" Angie asked.

"Correctamundo!" Wizzit replied. "I'm sure it still needs tweaking, but so far it's proving quite effective, I'd say. The down side is that it requires me to process all the visual and auditory data from your various belt sensors in real time, and that is taking up a good deal of my attention. I can't help you as much in other ways as quickly."

Yeah, I thought. Like teleporting us out of danger in a hurry.

Lily said, "I -- I want to help, and I don't feel like I'm doing a lot for your team . . ."

"You're doing fine, love," Mike assured her. "You've helped us destroy two monsters already."

"Thanks, but what I mean," she went on, "is that I am able to process a broad range of visual input very quickly. It was built into my commander mode to help me direct my drones in battle. I might be able to help you process your input, Wizzit."

"I don't see how . . ." Wizzit's voice trailed off, which is unusual for him. After a few moments, he said, "All right, Unity, let's try something. I'm going to take complete control of your visual display for a while."

"You can do that?"

"I'm going to try. I will begin sending the conglomerate video feeds to you shortly. But be careful, because you won't be able to see anything except that; in essence, you will become blind to the world around you while you're helping me. Get yourself someplace where you won't have to move around and where you will not be easily spotted by a casual observer."

"Being blind will make Unity awfully vulnerable," Mike said. "Even more so than Unity already is. Should we assign a bodyguard? Someone just to keep watch?"

"No!" Lily said anxiously. "Wizzit, don't tell . . . anyone . . . where I am!"

"I think in this case, anyone specifically means you, Blue," Angie commented.

"Thanks, Violet," I said dryly. "I hadn't quite caught on to that yet."

"I won't tell anyone," Wizzit answered soothingly. "However, Junior Prime Orange is ready to re-enter the battle. I will send Orange to your location to keep watch. Orange, you will be able to figure out where you are fairly easily, but don't reveal that information to . . . anyone."

Trina must have been monitoring our conversation from HQ, because she immediately replied, "Understood, Wizzit. Whenever you're ready."

"Thank you!" Lily said. "I -- I'm sorry to be so much trouble."

"Don't give it a second thought, love," Mike told her.

While this entire conversation had been going on, Mayumi and I had been continuing to battle the Zoinks threatening to overwhelm us. Her strategy had been a good one; sniping away at Devil-horns was making it hard for him to effectively manage his Zoinks, which in turn made my job easier. Still, fighting a dozen or more opponents -- even if they're only Zoinks -- can take a lot out of you if you don't have a force shield. I wasn't going to be able to keep this up forever.

"Wizzit, a little help here?" I called out. "Copper and I are having all kinds of problems with these Zoinks."

Wizzit didn't reply -- he must have been busy with Lily -- but I heard Alvaro say, "I see you, Blue, and I have a good vantage for shooting. How can I help?"

I thought fast. "There's a tall alter nearby who is directing the Zoinks. Do you see him?"

"No, I . . . oh, there he is. Yes, I see him."

"Can you clear a path to him? Just shoot any Zoinks between me and him."

"That may be tricky because I am a long way off, but I will do my best."

"I'm a little busy giving cover to Red," I heard Cathy say, "but I may be able to help you, too. I've got a good view, and I'm closer."

I made my way over to Mayumi. "Can I have my vajra back now, please?" I asked. Without lowering her blaster or taking her eyes off Devil-horns, she held out one hand. I took my weapon from her unresisting fingers. "I'm going to try to get over to that alter," I told the three of them. "If we have three or four of us attacking him at the same time, that should finish him off, right?"

"Yes, if he's just an alter. Let me know when you're ready," Cathy said tersely.

By now, I could see flashes of light lancing down from somewhere far off to my left. Alvaro was making a long-distance attempt to mow down all the Zoinks in my immediate vicinity. I surged forward, slashing left and right with my vajra.

"Sorry about that, Blue," I heard Alvaro say after about a minute of this. "I nearly shot you by mistake."

"It's all right. Don't worry about it, Steel." In truth, I hadn't even noticed; I probably wouldn't have, even if he had shot me. There was sometimes an advantage, I realized, in not having a force shield.

Mayumi had begun helping Alvaro clear my path before me, and in just a few minutes I had reached Devil-horns. "I'm there!" I shouted. "Everybody concentrate their fire on him now!"

Two triple-strength blaster beams lanced out, causing Devil-horns to begin sparking. "Could you circle a bit to your left, Blue?" Cathy asked. "You're blocking my aim."

I laughed. "Sure, why not?"

I made my way around to Devil-horns' right side. He was getting frantic by now, lashing out at me almost blindly with his claws, not even bothering to command his Zoinks. I ducked under his wild swings and began pounding and slashing him with my vajra, and I saw Cathy's blaster beam join Mayumi's and Alvaro's. Within seconds, Devil-horns was completely engulfed in sparks, and mere seconds after that, he was just a memory.

There was an immediate slackening in Zoink activity. I wouldn't say it was exactly like cutting the strings of a marionette, but there was a similar effect. They ceased to be a serious threat to me or Mayumi. "Thanks, guys," I said to Alvaro and Cathy. "You really saved our butts just now."

"No problem."

"De nada."

I felt the familiar tingle at the base of my skull; Wizzit had finally decided to teleport Mayumi and me somewhere safe. We materialized on the roof of the Parthenon. She and I looked at each other. "That was quite a little adventure," I panted. I was bent over, hands resting on my knees. Now that it was over, I was realizing just how much the battle had taken out of me.

"It was fun, wasn't it?" she replied. She threw her arms around my neck and kissed my cheek. "Thank you for helping me, Blue. You're my hero."

I pretended to tip an imaginary cowboy hat and said in my best John Wayne voice, "No need to thank me, ma'am. Just doin' my job."

Wizzit interrupted our little tete-a-tete. "Blue, Red is asking for your assistance. Activate your force shield, and I will teleport you to Red's location."

"Um, okay," I replied. "How long has my force shield been available?"

"Three minutes, fifty-five seconds."

I rolled my eyes. "Thanks. That would have been handy to know three minutes and fifty-five seconds ago."

"Been busy getting Unity squared away."

"Is Unity squared away?"

"We'll soon find out."

I did my activate-deactivate thing and endured the jolt of clashing fields again. When I materialized this time, I was on ground level. Looking around, I could tell that the others had been busy while I had been helping Mayumi. I couldn't see the guy with the trident any more, nor the fierce-looking fellow with the sword and shield. I vaguely remembered Wizzit calling for a final strike on someone while I had been swarmed by Zoinks. Had he done it twice? I couldn't be sure.

Nicolai was nearby, fighting off a small group of Zoinks, but they weren't actually attacking him all that strenuously. I think they were more interested in following Bat-ears, who, for some reason, was leading his horde of drones into the Parthenon.

"Hey, Yellow, where's Red?" I asked.

Nicolai pointed with his axe. Mike's red-misted form was barreling toward us at top speed, closely pursued by Hermes. "I suppose we had better give Red some assistance," Nicolai said.

As Mike ran past us, Nicolai executed some sort of reverse-spinning attack, and as Hermes drew even, the blade of his axe connected with the monster's shin. I wasn't quite so fancy; I just slammed the pointy end of my vajra into his other leg. With both legs cut out from under him, Hermes flew up into the air with a screech and face-planted onto the rocky ground.

Mike had stopped his headlong flight and was circling back toward us. "Thanks for the assist," he said. He was breathing heavily, which is pretty unusual for a Prime with a functioning force shield. Hermes must have been pushing him to his limit. "I'm not going to be able to take this guy out on my own. He's just too damn fast and too damn strong; I'm going to need your help. So here's the plan: When I say now, all three of us are going to do that speeding-up trick. We attack him simultaneously, and hopefully that'll be enough to finish him."

Nicolai and I looked at each other. "Uh, sure thing, Red," Nicolai said cautiously. "But . . . it's a tricky business even under ideal conditions, and you have never managed it before."

"Then I'll have to now, won't I?" he panted. "Look, I honestly don't see any other way to destroy him. He's so quick that speeding ourselves up is the only way we're going to be able to get the jump on him. We've got to make it work, one way or another. And we certainly won't be able to do it if we don't try."

"Whatever you say, Red," I told him. "Tell us when."

"All right, set yourselves. He's getting to his feet . . . and . . . now!"

I performed the quick, sharp inhalation, not really expecting it to work. And guess what? It didn't. I felt a rush of wind, and suddenly I was by myself; Mike and Nicolai had evidently been more successful than I and had left me behind.

Muttering a very bad word under my breath, I tried again, and this time I felt the burning sensation spread through me as I drew in the power of my force shield. The ambient sounds faded away into nothing more than a low rumble, and suddenly I was moving with superhuman speed.

I could see Mike and Nicolai ahead of me, slogging through the invisible mud as I was. They had a second or two head start on me, though, which translated into a couple of minutes, subjectively speaking. They reached Hermes before I had taken more than just a few steps.

It was strange to watch as they began to battle him; each of them was moving just a bit faster than my current frame of reference. Nicolai looked like a vid on fast-forward as he slammed his axe blade into the monster over and over, and Mike was doubly so. I realized that if I were going to take part in a final strike on this guy, then they would have to coordinate their blows with mine, because, at only one hundred twenty-one times normal speed, I would be the slowest of us three.

It appeared, though, that I was not going to take part in a final strike on Hermes. I wasn't even going to lay a finger (or weapon) on him. I heard something that sounded like a human voice, but speeded up far too much to be understandable. Then I heard what might have been the same thing, this time slowed down just to the verge of comprehensibility. I realized that Wizzit must have said something to Mike, then to Nicolai. And sure enough, he started speaking to me next, his voice wobbling only a little as he matched my speeded-up timeframe.

"I'm aborting your mission here, Blue," he said, and I felt a slow-motion tingle start at the base of my skull. "Red and Yellow have things well in hand, and Unity needs your help."

I had teleported once before while ultra-fast, and it was an even weirder sensation than normal teleportation. The tingling slowly grew stronger, and then for a moment I felt as though I were in two places at once. When I could see again, I was standing inside one of the temples -- probably the Parthenon itself, I realized as I looked around.

Ahead of me, I could see an eerie tableau of a battle scene. Bat-ears, surrounded by his horde of Zoinks, was grabbing the hand of a figure who could only be Lily. The colors were all skewed because of my current state, but her stance and posture were pure Crazy Kung Fu Zombie Chick. Another glowing figure -- probably Trina, because she was holding Trina's sword -- stood frozen in time nearby, looking like she was running forward to help but being blocked by Zoinks.

I saw a shimmer run slowly up and down Bat-ears' form, and I had a sinking feeling I knew what that meant. Wizzit confirmed it: "They're teleporting her out of here, Blue!"

I didn't need any urging to push myself forward as fast as I could manage. I was too far away to reach Bat-ears, but usually when a minder teleports out, so do all his Zoinks, and I was hoping like hell that was the case here. I wrapped my arms around the nearest one, and soon I felt the tell-tale tingle that told me I was going along for the ride.

Chapter 29

We materialized in a large, dimly-lit room, but that was all I noticed at first, because I was focused on getting to Bat-ears. I knew I had to take this guy out as soon as possible.

See, I hadn't been keeping track of how long I had been in this speeded-up state, but I figured it had to have been more than just a few minutes. I knew that I had ten minutes tops before I ran out of juice, and once it was gone, my force shield would be useless once more, completely drained of power. And, as I recalled from the last time I had visited an Enclave base, it would never recharge, not until I could make my way out of here. Therefore, I had to eliminate Bat-ears as a threat before my speed faded and I became not much more than an ordinary human.

It was pretty tough, making my way past all the Zoinks he had packed in around himself. I wasted a couple of minutes trying to get around one tightly-knit group until I finally lost patience and started smacking them out of the way with my vajra. Unfortunately, even smacked-around Zoinks didn't move very fast in my frame of reference, but I was at least able to get the group to open up enough for me to slip between them.

And then, when I actually started getting close, I realized I had to be extra careful. In the few seconds of real-time since I had appeared, Lily had gone from a fighting stance to applying one of her devastating roundhouse kicks to the side of Bat-ears' head. If I simply went directly at him from the angle I was at, I would likely have shoved him right into her at super-speed, possibly injuring her.

I cautiously circled around through the few feet that still separated us, aware that my speed might give out at any moment. And then, as I came to a stop directly in front of him, I discovered that I was wrong-footed for any kind of attack with my vajra. So instead, I balled up my left fist and, trusting to the protection of my sap glove, I punched him in the face as hard as I could.

I would probably have been okay if my force shield had lasted a second or two longer. Apparently, moving in an accelerated timeframe carries its own sort of protection from collision injuries. As it happened, though, my super-speed actually fizzled out in mid-punch, and by the time my knuckles actually made contact, my fist had probably slowed down to something less than the speed of sound. Still, it was enough to make his head literally explode.

It also made my fist explode, or at least, that's what it seemed like to me. I felt the bones in my hand and wrist shatter from the impact. Moments later, a sort of red mist seemed to rise up before my eyes as the pain overwhelmed me. I vaguely heard myself give some sort of strangled cry as I sank to the floor.

Now, I'm no stranger to pain. In the course of my Tae Kwon Do training, I have broken dozens of boards with kicks, punches, elbows, and knife-hand chops, and I've even broken a brick or two in my time, and that can hurt if it's not done just right. (Or even if it is.)

And I have gotten myself injured a lot as a Prime -- concussions, broken bones, cracked ribs, and once, even a bullet through the gut. But I have never \-- never \-- experienced anything like what I felt that day, not even the time Toby had to yank a dislocated shoulder back into place. My hand hurt! And it wasn't even like there was any one part of it I could point to and say, "That's where the problem is." No, the entire end of my arm from the wrist forward was just one giant lump of red-hot, seething agony.

I don't know how long I lay there, overcome by the pain, and I don't know how long I would have continued to lie there. I do know, however, who brought me out of it. It was Lily; she saved me. I felt her hand shake my shoulder, and I looked up at her. Her face was all concern.

"Blue?" Her voice was low and urgent. "Blue, please get up! We have to get out of here." At least she called me Blue and not Trevor, I thought; Bill must have shared that bit of protocol with her before they had teleported out.

"We have to go -- quickly." Lily took my hand \-- my right hand, thankfully -- and pulled me to my feet with a strength that belied her small frame. "They'll send someone to investigate. This way. Follow me. Please!"

I stumbled along beside her, cradling my mangled left hand against my stomach. I can't afford to fall apart now, I told myself sternly. There's too much to do, too much at stake. I have to save Lily.

With an effort, I forced the pain as far back in my mind as I could. I straightened up and looked around. "Why did you deactivate?" I asked her, because there was no longer a white glow surrounding her. And because, aside from Bat-ears' feebly-sparking corpse, we were completely alone, I also asked, "And where are all the Zoinks?"

"Zoinks?" she repeated, cocking her head to one side as if she hadn't heard me correctly. "I'm sorry, but what are Zoinks?"

It took me a couple of seconds to understand her question; the pain was making my brain fuzzy. I shook my head, trying to clear it. "Sorry, drones. We call them Zoinks. Where did all the drones go?"

"Oh, those. I ordered them back to their recharging stations. I still have some influence over them, it appears." She looked over at me anxiously. "That was all right, wasn't it?"

"Of course it was, Lily," I said. "It was very clever of you."

She smiled at me, the mixture of relief and fear on her face giving it a sickly cast. "And I didn't deactivate the Unity field; I simply turned off the disguise because they had to see who I was before they would obey me. And because Wizzit never gave me back my visual display; I couldn't see anything."

She glanced at me. "Why are you . . . how did you come to be here?" she asked me apprehensively. "You weren't anywhere near me when Lars showed up, I'm sure of that. But then you suddenly appeared, and he was . . . killed. Did you use some sort of weapon on him?" Then she added, "I'm sorry to be asking so many questions. Please don't be angry with me!"

"It's all right," I assured her. "I'm not angry." Lars, I realized, was undoubtedly Bat-ears' real name. "Wizzit saw you were in trouble and I was handy," I explained. "He teleported me over to you. And no, I didn't use a weapon; I just punched him. Really hard.

Her eyes flicked down to where I was holding my left fist against my body. "Is your hand broken?"

"Oh yeah. It hurts pretty bad."

She bit her lip. "Is there anything I can do for you?" I shook my head. "I'm sorry," she murmured after a few seconds.

As we approached the door, I stopped. "Give me a second," I said. "I just thought of something I should take care of."

Lily looked as if she wanted to protest, but then she nodded. "All right."

I turned away from her and activated my Junior Prime bracelet. Then I deactivated my now-useless Prime belt. It made me feel a little better, knowing that if we were discovered and had to face down an army of Enclave monsters, I could at least shoot my blaster at them.

We exited the large room and found ourselves in a yellow-lighted hallway that curved away from us in a smooth arc in either direction. Lily unhesitatingly turned left, and I followed. I wasn't as if I had a whole lot of choice; she knew this place much better than I. "Where is the nearest teleporter?" I asked.

She waved a hand vaguely ahead of her. "There's only one main one, and it's clear on the other side," she said. "We'll have to walk there." She turned to look at me. "Can you walk far?"

"If I have to," I replied. I tried to recall the last Enclave complex I had been in, the time I'd had to rescue Padma. "It's at the end of an indigo-colored hallway?" I guessed.

She stopped, surprise showing on her lovely features. "How did you know . . .?" Then she shook her head. "Never mind. My sister-self remembers seeing you at the old base. Yes, the layout is the same."

"Why is it so far away?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. I just know that we always teleport out of the teleport room and we always arrive in the reception room."

She began leading me down the hallway once more while I looked around at my surroundings and tried to remember how everything had been arranged at the other base.

The halls had all spiraled out from one central point, I recalled, half of them circling clockwise and the other half circling counterclockwise, and they crossed and recrossed each other all throughout the base. There were seven curving each way, and each of them was lighted with a different color of the rainbow. Thus, there were two red passageways, one going clockwise and the other going counterclockwise, two orange passageways, two yellows, and so on.

Assuming that the indigo hall in question curved the same as our current one, then we could get to it in one of two ways. We could follow our current path all the way to the middle of the complex and then follow the indigo path outward, or we could turn onto the next hallway we came across and follow it around to Indigo Highway, avoiding the center. I was all for the second option, because the center of the complex had been a beehive of activity, and I was fairly certain that the two of us would not be able to walk through it unnoticed.

Lily must have been thinking the same thing, because she turned right at the next hallway, a green-hued one. But then, after we had been walking for just a short way, she slowed to a stop in front one of the many doors set into the wall.

"What is it?" I asked. "Is something wrong?"

She didn't answer right away. Instead, she glanced uneasily at me, then at the door, then back at me, biting her lip the entire time. Her face appeared troubled, as if she were trying to make a difficult decision. Then she seemed to steel herself, pushed the door open, and beckoned me inside.

I looked around as she first closed and then locked the door behind her. "What are we doing in here?" I asked. "Why aren't we heading for the teleporter?"

She had led me into what appeared to be a storeroom of some sort, and an idea occurred to me. Maybe . . . I scanned it eagerly for a teleport trap. If there had been one stored here, then we could have used it to make our escape immediately. That would have been a good thing; despite my brave words earlier, I was starting to feel more than a little wobbly.

"We'll get there soon," she assured me, "but \-- but there's something I have to do first." She seemed unaccountably nervous, and there was something else in her manner as well. Was it fear? Guilt? I couldn't tell.

She wouldn't meet my eyes, staring instead at the floor. She half-turned away and her lips were moving faintly, but I couldn't hear what she was saying. Then, as I watched, she seemed to enforce a kind of discipline upon herself. She relaxed her shoulders, her face smoothed out, and a faint smile touched her lips.

"I wanted to thank you for coming to my rescue," she said, now looking up at me through lowered lashes. Her voice was vibrant and full of all kinds of promises. "I could not have fought free of Lars by myself; you saved me from him, from a fate literally worse than death. I would rather die than go back to them." She shuddered elaborately. "That's why I brought you in here, where we're not likely to be disturbed," she went on, "so I could show you my . . ." Her eyebrows rose suggestively. ". . . appreciation."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Was she seriously wanting to make out with me? Here, in an Enclave base, surrounded by enemies? "Uh, thanks," I stammered, "but I think I'm going to have to take a raincheck. I mean, this really isn't the time --"

"It's the perfect time," she purred, "and this is the perfect place." Lily had been toying with the zipper at the neck of her jumpsuit; now she drew it down in one smooth motion nearly to her waist. "I have to do this now, before I lose my nerve." She shrugged slightly, not enough slip the jumpsuit off her shoulders, but enough to give me a tantalizing glimpse of the flesh still concealed beneath it. She sauntered toward me, hips swaying sensuously. "You're my knight in shining armor, Blue, and I want to say thank you." One of her hands rested against my waist. Her eyes fluttered closed as she tilted her face toward mine, wanting to be kissed . . .

And then her hand was flat against my chest, shoving me hard. I stumbled backward, falling against a pile of chairs. My injured hand banged against something, and I fell to my knees, crying out with pain.

I didn't pass out, but it was a near thing. When I could see again, Lily was standing with her back against the door. Her jumpsuit was zipped up to the neck again and she was clutching my blaster in her two fists; it was pointed straight at my chest. "Stay right where you are," she ordered. Her chest was heaving; she seemed to be fighting not to panic. "Don't come any closer or I'll shoot!"

I stared at her, dumbfounded. "What are you doing?" I demanded.

"I'm sorry, Blue, but I have to do this!"

"You have to do what?"

"I -- I have to kill you!"

Chapter 30

"All right, Lily, just calm down," I said as soothingly as I could. "Tell me, why do you have to kill me? I haven't done anything to you, have I?"

"I . . . look, Blue, you seem like you're a nice guy, and -- and maybe you don't deserve this, but . . ." Her mouth worked for several seconds, but no sound came out. She was starting to tremble, but I noticed that the blaster remained rock-steady. Finally, she blurted out, "It's the voices. I have to kill you to get rid of the voices!"

"Voices? What voices? What are you talking about?"

She was really shaking by now. "Ever since I can remember, there have been . . . these voices . . . that speak to me in my head. They talk to me almost all the time, ever since that first day I woke up in the tub of water. They used to talk to me about Uncle Oswald, but -- but now they talk to me about you! They never stop!"

I felt a chill run down my spine. Was Lily psychotic? Had whatever JB Swift did to her driven her insane? "What do the voices say about me?" I asked cautiously.

She swallowed. "It's always the same thing. 'Make sure he's happy with you. What can you do to make him happy? Make sure he's not angry with you. What can you do to keep him from being angry?' They say it over and over and over. They're not as loud if you're not around, but if you're where I can see you, it's hard to think about anything else."

A light dawned, and suddenly I thought I understood. "Do they say these things to you because I'm a completely trusted user?" I asked. "Is that why you're always so anxious to please me?"

"Uh huh." She removed one hand from my blaster and swiped at her eyes where tears had begun to well up. "Sometimes, if I've been really good, they'll be quiet for a little while, but they always come back. And if I'm bad, they get really loud and really angry."

All of a sudden, I was glad Lily couldn't see my face and the thundercloud that must have formed upon it. She wasn't psychotic at all. No, this was something JB Swift had done to her; there was no other explanation. And suddenly, a whole lot of things made sense.

It was no wonder that she was focused completely on me whenever I was around her, no wonder she had begged Shelley to keep me away from her. And it was no wonder she was so frightened all the time. I imagine I would be pretty messed up, too, if I had voices screaming in my ear every minute of every day.

And it was JB Swift who had made her that way; he had sentenced her to a lifetime of continual psychological torment just so that he could have a willing, reliable slave. Funny, towards the end, I had almost begun to like JB Swift. Now, though, I wished the little red bastard were alive and in front of me so that I could do to him what I had done to Bat-ears.

"It didn't use to bother me so much," she was saying. "At first I just accepted them; I thought everybody heard voices. But then I met Lin-fa, and she -- her memories -- they showed me what it was like to be free. Now, I . . . I just can't live like this any more! I can't!"

I shook my head sympathetically. "Oh, Lily, I'm so sorry. I had no idea," I murmured. "I don't want you to live this way, either. I don't want you to have to hear those voices all the time. Is there any way I can help you?"

Her eyes widened briefly, as if it surprised her that I would want to do anything for her. Then she shook her head. "I have tried to find out whether there's a way," she said, "but it's something I'm not allowed to think about. Whenever I do, the voices keep getting louder and angrier until I have to stop."

Then she tried to smile at me, a ghastly-looking thing. "But I found a way!" she stage-whispered to me. "When I heard that Uncle Oswald was dead, the voices stopped talking to me about him. So as soon as I know you're dead, they'll stop talking to me about you, too. They'll have to!"

I felt my heart sink when I saw the excitement in her face. A thought occurred to me. "I imagine those voices are getting pretty loud right now, aren't they, what with you pointing a blaster at me and everything?"

She nodded, her lips pressed tightly together. "They're making it hard for me to -- to think, to concentrate. My sister-self is helping me keep them quiet, but it won't be long before they --"

"Wait a second," I interrupted. "You said that Li Lin-fa is helping you?"

"She is, but don't blame her; it's not her fault! She doesn't know what I'm doing. She loves you! If she had any idea . . ." She drew in a shaky breath and extended the blaster towards me, and I could see her finger tightening on the trigger. "That's why I have to kill you now, while I still can. I'm sorry, Blue!"

"You do realize that you can't kill me with that blaster, right?" I said, playing for time. "It's not powerful enough to kill anyone. And it probably won't even fire for you."

"Oh, it'll fire," she assured me. "They trained me to use a Unity device; I know how to steal enough energy from you to make it work. And I know it won't kill you outright, but it will hurt an awful lot." She lowered the muzzle of the blaster until it was pointed at my left arm, which I still cradled against my stomach. "I'll shoot your broken hand. It shouldn't take long before you pass out from the pain, and then . . ." She shook her head.

"You could have killed me before," I pointed out quietly. "In the other room. I was pretty incapacitated with pain then. Why didn't you?"

She didn't seem to want to answer me at first. Then, as if I were somehow forcing the words from her, she said "I was weak! I saw you lying there, and . . . and you just seemed so helpless. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. And I was grateful to you for destroying Lars, I really was! Killing you then just didn't seem right." She bit her lip; tears were filling her eyes. "I'll make it quick, I promise! I don't want you to have to suffer."

"You just want me dead so the voices will stop."

"Yes!" The tears spilled down her cheeks. "I'm sorry! But after you're dead, they'll have to stop talking about you, and then I'll be free, because you're the only person left who can command me."

That struck a chord somewhere in my brain. We had talked about this before, she and Shelley and I, and I realized that Lily had forgotten something. Sure, I was her only completely trusted user, but . . . "What about the earrings?"

I must have caught her by surprise, because she drew back the blaster ever so slightly. "The what?"

"The earrings," I insisted. "The ones that they use to control you. If they catch you here, you know they're going to put those earrings on you again. And I'm the only one who can override them, right?"

All the color drained from her face as she realized what I was talking about. She nodded jerkily. "I . . . I hadn't thought about that." She licked her lips nervously. "I can't let them put those earrings on me again. I can't! What am I going to do? Help me, Blue! Please!"

"All right, take it easy," I said. I decided it would be pointless to mention the irony of her begging the man she was intending to kill for help. "Is there any way I can turn off the earrings? Any command I can give you to make you immune to them?"

"I don't know!" She was getting close to panic now. Her eyes were wide and her breath was coming fast and ragged. "I don't know! I -- I can't think! The voices are too loud!"

"Lily!" I snapped. "Tell me how to free you from the influence of the earrings!"

She gasped as if I had slapped her. Her eyes unfocused for a minute, and when she spoke again, it was with the flat, toneless voice of operator mode, "To revoke all access from user Earrings, say 'Revoke all access from user Earrings.' Note: This is an operator-mode-only command. To issue it while I am in commander mode, you must prefix the command with 'Operator mode override'."

Her eyes came back into focus, and she gave an anxious start. She checked her grip on the blaster, as if to make sure I hadn't taken it from her. "You did that on purpose!" she said accusingly.

"Of course I did," I answered, unabashed. "It was the only way to get you to give me an answer. Now, do you want me to help you or not?"

Her face fell. Truly, she looked miserable. "Yes," she said in a broken voice. "Yes, please. Give me the command."

I took a breath. "Lily, operator mode override: Revoke all access from user Earrings."

"Please confirm."

I repeated, "Lily, operator mode override: Revoke all access from user Earrings."

Her eyes lost their focus again. "Revoking . . ."

I waited patiently for the minute or two it took for her to process the command. When her eyes refocused this time, she again seemed surprised to discover that she was still holding the blaster. "You could have disarmed me," she said softly.

"I know," I replied, "but I decided not to. I trust you, Lily. I know you're not going to hurt me."

"I . . ." She slowly lowered the blaster, dropping her gaze to the floor. She heaved a long, slow, resigned sigh. Then, without warning, she raised the muzzle of the blaster and squeezed the trigger.

Of course, we all know what happened next, don't we? Or rather, what didn't happen. I looked down at where the blaster beam was striking me. Her aim had been perfect; the beam was centered square on my shattered left hand, and if I had been surrounded by a force shield, I'm sure it would have hurt like hell. But I was Junior Prime Blue now and the beam didn't affect me at all, as I had known all along it wouldn't.

I returned my attention to Lily. A look of horror was growing on her face as she realized that I was unaffected by the beam. She released the trigger and let blaster drop from her nerveless fingers. Then she collapsed slowly to her knees and covered her face with her hands. She sobbed, "No, no, no!"

I moved over to kneel beside her as quickly as I could. "It's all right, Lily," I crooned. She was crying uncontrollably now, her face pressed against her knees in a fetal position. I reached down with my good hand and stroked her hair gently as she rocked back and forth. "Everything's going to be okay."

She flinched at my touch. "I'm sorry!" she cried out in an anguished voice. "I'm sorry! Please don't hurt me! I swear I'll never do it again! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

She was sobbing so hard that I could barely make out what she was saying. "It's all right, Lily," I said again, continuing to caress her. "I'm not angry with you. I'm not going to hurt you. Everything's okay."

It took several minutes before she was calm enough to understand what I was telling her. Eventually, though, she raised her head and stared at me as if she couldn't believe my words. "You're n-not angry?" she stammered. "Even though I tried to kill you?"

"I knew it wouldn't work," I said as gently as I could. And then, before it occurred to her that there were other ways to kill me besides blastering me into unconsciousness and then breaking my neck or something, I went on hastily, "That command you told me about, the one about revoking all access, would it work for me? What would happen if I ordered you to revoke all access from user Trevor?"

"If you did that, then . . ." She stared off into the distance, her eyes flicking back and forth as if she were reading something a mile away. ". . . then you would no longer be a completely trusted user."

"Would it make the voices go away? Would you be free?"

She nodded slowly. "Yes," she said in an awed voice. She looked up at me with an expression that was so pathetically hopeful, it nearly broke my heart. "Yes! Would . . . would you do that for me? Please? Please? I'd do anything you want -- anything!"

"Of course!" I grinned at her, even though she couldn't see it beneath my Junior Prime Blue mist. "I never wanted to own you, Lily," I said. "All this time, I just wanted to be your friend. Now, make yourself comfortable and listen close, because I want to say this only once. Are you ready?"

She sat up straighter, brushed her hair back, and swiped at her eyes. "I'm ready," she announced.

"Lily," I said, "operator mode override: Revoke all access from user Trevor."

"Please confirm."

"Lily, operator mode override: Revoke all access from user Trevor."

Her eyes lost their focus. "Revoking . . ."

Chapter 31

I didn't know it at the time, but that one word -- "revoking" -- was the last thing Lily would ever say to me. Objectively speaking, I suppose one could come up with more eloquent, more memorable parting words, but I doubt there were any more fitting for our peculiar relationship.

I sat beside her for a while watching her blink and breathe, blink and breathe, as she processed my final command to her. It had taken just a couple of minutes for her to do her revoking from the Earrings user, so I started to get worried after she had been sitting there, unmoving, for ten minutes or more.

"Uh, Lily?" I said. "Lily, it would be a really good idea to wake up right about now." I took her hand in mine; it was limp and unresisting. "Lily, please wake up."

Mostly, I was concerned that something had gone seriously wrong in her head. I didn't understand how her mind worked, and maybe removing myself as a completely trusted user was the worst thing in the world for her. I didn't really do too much second-guessing on that part, though; seeing her anguish when she thought I was angry with her and then seeing the look of hope on her face when I said I'd help was enough to tell me that, whatever happened, I had done the right thing. I just hoped that "the right thing" didn't entail rendering her catatonic for the rest of her life.

I was also worried about our situation. We were still stuck in an Enclave base, and a couple of miles -- and probably many, many monsters -- lay between us and the nearest teleporter. Things looked grim. If Lily had been awake, alert, and cooperative, we could have made it, no problem, my own injuries notwithstanding. Or if I had been by myself, I could have turned on Junior Prime Blue's camouflage mode and tried to make my way there while invisible, and I probably would done it.

But I wasn't alone, and Lily wasn't currently capable of doing anything to help me. Unless things changed soon, I was going to have to attempt to carry her clear to the other side of the complex. There was no way I was going to abandon her here, no matter how hopeless things appeared or how badly my hand hurt. I mean, even aside from the fact that I felt personally responsible for her safety, she was wearing our one and only Unity belt, and I couldn't let that fall into Enclave hands.

As I thought about our situation, it occurred to me that she might be able to walk if I held her up. I put my arm around her and tried to raise her to her feet, but no dice; her legs refused to support her, and after a few seconds, the two of us sagged back down to the floor. All right, I really would have to carry her, and I decided we should start as soon as possible. There was no telling when someone might discover Bat-ears' body and raise a ruckus.

I opened the door, and then, ignoring the pain in my hand as best I could, I managed to heave Lily's limp form onto my shoulder in a fireman's carry. Then, with a quick glance up and down the hallway, I stepped out and began walking.

An alarm started ringing about ten minutes later. That was actually better than I had hoped; truth be told, I was a little surprised it had taken that long. I ducked into the nearest doorway and listened hard for any sign of pursuit. Nothing. Not that I really expected anyone on my heels so soon. After all, we were still pretty far out from the center, and we were no longer in the hallway that housed the room we had teleported into. Still, it was not hard to imagine an army of Zoinks somewhere directly ahead of me, getting closer and closer with every step I took.

I took advantage of the opportunity to catch my breath. Lily was not that big, and I'm in good shape, but carrying an extra hundred pounds will start to tax anyone after a while. We had passed a green hallway not too long ago. That told me that soon we would run across a blue hall, and then the indigo one we were looking for. Once we were on that, we could follow it to the teleporter room and get out of this place. Easy-peasy, I told myself. The simplest thing in the world.

I readjusted Lily's weight on my shoulder, muttering as I did so, "It would make things a heck of a lot easier if you could walk." And then, just because I . . . well, you know, I'm not exactly sure just why I did it, but I said the same thing in Cantonese, as if I were speaking to Li Lin-fa.

Lily responded with a sharp intake of breath. That's all it was, just a tiny little gasp, but it was more of a reaction than she had shown to anything else I had said or done. I quickly knelt down and eased her onto the floor, my heart starting to pound a little faster.

"Can you hear me, Li Lin-fa?" I asked anxiously, practically shouting in her ear. No reply; she had gone back to that same slow, blank-eyed blink-and-breathe rhythm. "If you can hear me," I said, "then I need your help. I need you to walk. I will lead you, and I want you to come along with me. Can you do that?"

I searched her eyes for any flicker of recognition, or even of consciousness, but there was none. There was just that empty stare. Still, I thought, it wouldn't hurt to try. Again, I slipped my good arm around her shoulders and attempted to raise her up. This time, it worked. Lily didn't immediately slump back down to the floor; instead, she remained upright, swaying a little. I felt like cheering. It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

I carefully wrapped her hand around my left upper arm, trying to keep my blaster hand free, and we began walking down the hall together. Slowly. I wanted to run, but she would go just so fast and no faster. I tried to keep up a running commentary in Cantonese, hoping to stimulate further responses from her, but it was hard to do both that and keep an eagle-eye out for Zoinks, alters, and monsters. After several minutes with no discernible reaction from her, I gave it up.

We were just coming within sight of the blue hallway when I heard the sound of marching feet. Lily and I ducked into a doorway and I listened. Yup, there were definitely several somethings coming toward us, although the peculiar acoustics of these halls made it difficult to say whether they were coming from directly ahead or from one side or the other of the blue hallway.

Regardless, I decided we couldn't stay where we were. I tried the door; it was unlocked. Hastily, I yanked it open and pulled Lily inside.

Bad move. I had never thought about it, but I guess even alters needed some sort of training, and we had just stepped into a classroom. Worse, class was in session, and even though I hustled Lily back out of there as quickly as I could, the instructor saw us. I heard some yelling and scraping of chairs as I slammed the door and starting pulling Lily back the way we had come.

I drew my blaster, and as soon as the first alter poked his nose out the door, I began firing. There was a screech, and the door slammed shut again. The marching feet quickened their pace, and soon a group of about fifteen alters and a couple Zoinks came into sight. The monster leading them, some goon so tall that his head nearly brushed the ceiling, spotted us and waved his troops forward.

Muttering a few choice words under my breath, I scooped Lily up and began running the other way. At this point, I didn't really have any concrete plans other than to stay out of their clutches for as long as possible. I did entertain a vague notion that I could slip around a corner and then into an empty storeroom and maybe wait things out, but I didn't have high hopes for that idea.

We made it to the green intersection. I dithered briefly, then decided to turn left, away from the center and hopefully away from any other pursuit. That, I soon realized, was a mistake. There were no handy doorways nearby. My merry band of pursuers had seen which way I turned, and when they reached the corner and turned left, Lily and I were still in sight; there was no longer any chance that we might slip into a side room unobserved.

Enclave monsters are not built for speed, not unless they're built specifically for speed, so it wasn't too tough for me to stay ahead of them. Still, Lily was slowing me down enough that I couldn't increase my lead. But then I discovered that it didn't make any difference anyway; the green hallway ended abruptly in a blank wall. We had come to a dead end.

I think I said just about every bad word I knew in every language I spoke, and then I made up a few more for good measure. We were trapped; I just couldn't think of a way to get us out of there. I set Lily down and turned to face the oncoming monsters. Blaster first, I decided, and then the vajra once they came close.

I glanced over at Lily; she was still staring off into infinity, blinking and breathing. I tried to think of some suitable final words to say to her, but nothing came to mind. So, I just drew my blaster, ready to sell my life as dearly as possible.

"Look lively, everyone. Keep your eyes open. They must be around here somewhere. They're probably in trouble, so let's find them as quickly as possible."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The voice had come over our Prime-to-Prime channel, and it sounded like . . .

"Red? Red, is that you?"

Mike's response was immediate. "Blue, where are you?"

"I'm at a dead-end in a green hallway," I said. "If you tell me where you are, I can probably give you directions."

"We materialized in a large room of some sort. There were a number of nasty buggers here, but we took care of them. We've since exited the room and are now in a yellowish corridor that --"

Angie's voice interrupted. "Blue, are you all right?"

"Not really!" I had to bite back a laugh at the absurdity of the question; it would have sounded like I was hysterical, and I didn't think I was. "I'll be a whole lot better once you guys get here. It sounds like you landed in the same place I did, so here's how to find me." I quickly gave them directions to my end of the green hallway, adding, "Better double-time it. We're in serious trouble here."

"You said 'we'," Trina broke in. "Is Unity with you?"

"That's right. Look, I'd love to chat, but I'm going to be unbelievably busy in, like, ten seconds or so."

"Understood," Mike said tersely. "We're on our way."

I began firing as fast as I could, not bothering to take close aim, just trying to keep the monster and his pet alters at bay for as long as possible. My blaster isn't strong enough to incapacitate a normal monster, although it might seriously inconvenience an alter. Regardless, they advanced on us slowly, cowering under my shots. I found myself wishing I had Trina's triple-blaster; that would have been capable of dealing some serious damage.

After a few minutes of this, the monster who was their leader evidently lost patience and decided to charge me. I concentrated my fire on him, trying to hit him in a vulnerable spot. No good; he was on me before I could steady my aim. I tossed the blaster and pulled the vajra from my belt. He came at me, arms outstretched like he wanted to give me a bear hug. I ducked under his rush, spun around behind him, and slammed the knob-end of the vajra against his lower back, right where the kidneys would be in a human.

I'm glad I got that one shot in, because I didn't get another. The alters had followed right behind their leader, and the instant I hammered him in the kidneys, they grabbed me. One alter took hold of my left hand and twisted it around behind my back. Now, up to this point, I thought I had been doing a pretty good job of toughing out my injury, but when he did that, it felt like my insides turned to water. My knees buckled and I screamed with pain. I may have fainted.

The next thing I knew, someone was hauling me to my feet and I heard a voice saying, "Grab her!"

"Yes, grab her," came another, almost identical voice. "Grab her and don't let her get away!"

"Yes, don't let her get away. We have plans for her."

"Big plans. Important plans."

"Very important plans!"

I opened my eyes to see the Harley twins supervising a group of alters who had almost completely encircled Lily. One of the alters reached out and tentatively took hold of her arm. When she didn't explode into a series of furious punches and kicks, other alters grabbed her as well.

"Bring her to us!" said Red-cap. "We'll take care of her."

"We'll take good care of her," said Black-cap. "We'll make her obey us."

"She'll obey us and follow our every command."

The alters dragged Lily over to the two red-and-black-clad figures. One of the twins drew something out of a pocket. I couldn't see what it was, but I assumed it was a pair of gold earrings. Sure enough, he took hold of first one ear and then the other. When he was done, the other twin pointed JB Swift's remote control at her and pressed a button. I held my breath, hoping that Lily had been right about the earrings.

She had. Either that, or the remote needed new batteries. Regardless, she didn't react at all. Red-cap turned to me. "What did you do to our attack doll?" he shouted. "Tell us what you did!"

"Tell us now or we will hurt you!" shouted Black-cap. "We have to have our attack doll back!"

"We have to have her back now!"

Their attack doll? I shook my head slightly, not wanting to give them the satisfaction of a reply. Red-cap beckoned the tall monster forward. "Hurt him, monster!" he commanded. "Make him sorry."

"Make him very sorry!" ordered Black-cap.

Tall Monster strode forward and roared in my face. I was being held too tightly to do anything except shake my head again. He raised one of his huge hands like he was going to swat my head right off my shoulders.

I thought it was all over for me then, and I fixed my eyes on his, determined not to show any fear. His hand went up and up until it brushed the ceiling, and then he froze. His eyes suddenly went wide, and I saw him begin to spark. Within seconds, he looked like something you might wave around on the Fourth of July. The hands gripping me slackened, and I saw that both Harley twins and every single alter around me were all sparking as well.

I put my arms around Lily and forced her to the ground, covering her with my body. Sparks from a monster are real electrical-type sparks, and they can burn you if you get too close. I heard Mike's voice say, "Blue, where are you?"

"I'm right in the middle of the light show, Red," I replied. "Was that your doing?"

"It was Green, actually. Are you all right? Is Unity all right?"

"Well, my left hand is pretty badly broken, and Unity has gone catatonic. But aside from that, we're just peachy, thanks."

Trina's voice said, "Can you initiate a healing coma?"

"Negative," I replied. "My force shield is completely drained. I've been relying on my wristband to power my weapons."

The sparking started to die down after a couple of minutes. I sat up and discovered I was completely surrounded by monster debris. Mike, Trina, Toby, and Angie were hovering anxiously around me. Toby was holding something that might have been a blaster, but the size of a bazooka. I struggled to my feet and then tried to pick up Lily one-armed, but I found I just didn't have the strength. "Can someone help me with her?" I asked wearily.

Angie came over, and between the two of us, we managed to maneuver Lily into a sitting position over in one corner. She was still staring straight ahead, blinking and breathing, giving no sign that she recognized anyone.

"We can't take them with us," I heard Mike's voice say. "Especially Unity, not like that. It's too risky. We'll have to leave them here."

"I'll stay with them," Angie volunteered. "You'll be keeping everyone busy, right? So we shouldn't need more than one Prime to keep an eye on things?"

"One-and-a-half Primes," I muttered.

"Fine," Mike said. "Violet, you stay here and protect these two from any stray alters or Zoinks that get past us. Orange and Green and I will continue on. Blue, what's the fastest way to their nerve center?"

"Just follow this hallway; it'll take you right there. Actually, any hallway will, if you go the right way. Where are Yellow and Indigo?"

"They're with Black; Black's got a weapon just like Green's. We're clearing out this nest of vipers." He turned to Trina and Toby. "Let's go." The three of them ran off at top speed down the corridor.

It felt good just to sit quietly with my back against a wall, not having to worry about monsters or beautiful, crazy Asian women trying to kill me. I was exhausted, and if not for my throbbing hand, I probably would have drifted off to sleep.

"What happened?" Angie asked me as I tried for the umpteenth time to find a comfortable position to rest my arm. "To your hand, I mean."

I gave a short laugh. "I punched a guy, and if you think I'm in bad shape, you should see him." And then I gave her an abridged version of my adventures in the base.

Angie stared at Lily for a long time after I finished. "What if she never recovers?" she asked softly. "What if she's like that for the rest of her life? What are you going to do?"

I shook my head. "I don't know. I'm hoping Wizzit will have some suggestions."

"You really love her, don't you?"

I gave a long sigh, but didn't answer. Li Lin-fa's words came back to me. How could I love Lily if I didn't know what she was like? And after that last conversation we'd had, I had to admit, I didn't know Lily at all.

After a moment, Angie said, "You know, maybe you shouldn't have released her when you did. If you had waited until you got back to HQ, you could have done it with Wizzit watching for any problems."

It was a good thing that we were speaking Prime-to-Prime, because I could hear all the vocal inflections that normally got flattened out by our voice filters. I could tell she wasn't blaming me; she was just worried, and this was her way of dealing with it. Nevertheless, she kind of ducked her head and said, "Sorry, I'm just saying . . ."

I shrugged. "Maybe you're right; maybe I did the right thing, but at the wrong time. The thing is, I'm not sure Lily would have wanted to wait that long. But I guess we'll never know now." Wanting to steer the conversation away from this particular subject, I said, "How did you guys get here, anyway? I didn't think Wizzit could track me at an Enclave base."

"I don't know," she replied. "He just said he knew where the two of you had gone. He said you had given him the coordinates a while ago."

"I had?"

"That's what he said."

I tried to think back to when I might have given Wizzit any kind of information like that, but my head felt too fuzzy. "What about that weapon Green was holding?" I asked. "Was that . . .?"

"It was that super-weapon that Green mentioned earlier," she affirmed. "The one Green and Black had been working on. They had made two of them, and after you and Lily got teleported away, Wizzit told Green and Black to break them out. They're pretty cool. You shoot one, and any monster in your path blows up right away. They made pretty quick work of the monsters we were still fighting at Athens."

"I thought they said we could use them only once?"

"Yeah, but I think they meant for only one mission, because I've seen Green fire that one a couple of times."

"And this is that one mission?"

"I guess so."

The conversation died after that. I, for one, couldn't think of anything else to say. After a while, Angie muttered something about scouting the area. She got up, turned on camouflage mode, and disappeared. I drifted into a haze of exhaustion and pain.

The next thing I knew, Angie was shaking my shoulder. "Blue," she said, "Red wants us down at the command center as soon as we can get there."

I shook myself to full alertness. "Uh, okay. You'll have to help me get Unity up."

"Can Unity walk?"

"As long as we don't go too fast."

The three of us strolled arm in arm towards the center of the complex. Angie insisted on being in the middle. I think she felt like she might have to support both Lily and me, like either of us might collapse at any moment, and given the way I felt, I'm not sure she was wrong. Regardless, when we finally made it there, all the rest of the regular Primes, plus Bill, were gathered in the central area.

"I think that's it then," Mike was saying. "Now, you're sure there are no more monsters left anywhere?"

"There couldn't be," Nicolai said, shaking his head. "We tied our weapons into their power and lighting grid; the disrupter frequency was sent everywhere in the complex. Nothing could have escaped it."

"What about humans?" Trina asked. "They would not have been affected by the disrupter."

"We met a few," Padma said. "We let them go, as Wizzit said, with a promise that they would not be harmed if they left immediately and a warning that we would begin shutting down power to the base within two hours. I think most of them are at the teleportation room right now."

"Yeah, same here," Toby added.

Nicolai said, "I have been broadcasting that same message over their communications system."

"Is there anything left to take care of?" Mike asked.

"I have been studying some of their blueprints," Bill said, "and I think I know where the power supply for their screens is located. I'd like to take someone with me -- Green, I guess -- and see if we can shut it off, or failing that, destroy it. That would enable Wizzit to scan the area for any strays that we might have missed."

Mike scratched his head. "Couldn't we just switch it off from here?"

Bill shook his head. "There's no way to do that," he said. "And really, there shouldn't be. They would want to make it difficult to turn off their screens so that it is not done accidentally."

Mike nodded once. "Go, then. Stay in contact and let us know what you find." He turned to me. "So, how is it with you, Blue? Are you well enough to stay, or do you need to leave and heal up?"

"I can help if you need me," I said.

"That's not what I asked."

I looked down at my hand. For quite some time now, I had been feeling a good deal of pressure there, as if a giant fist were squeezing the life out of it. I had attributed that to the bruised tissues swelling up inside my sap glove. Now, though, parts of it were actually starting to go numb, which I thought was probably a bad sign, like maybe the swollen tissues were starting to crush nerves or something.

"I should go," I told him.

He clapped a hand on my shoulder. "Fair enough," he said. "We brought the teleport trap with us; Green set it up in one of the rooms over there." He waved a hand. "Take Unity and go. Yellow set the coordinates to send you to a neutral site; Wizzit will pick you up from there."

"Thanks, Red."

"No worries. We need to send a report to Prime Commander anyway. Tell the commander that the new weapons worked as well as we hoped and that we have neutralized all resistance. You heard what Blackiron said. With luck, this whole place will be open to Wizzit's scrutiny before too long."

I did as he said. Shelley met Lily and me in JB Swift's old lair; while my force shield was recharging, I gave her Mike's report, and then I told her everything that had happened with Lily and me. When I was done, we both watched Lily for a while. She stared blankly back at us, blinking and breathing.

"Maybe Angie was right," I said quietly. "Maybe I should have waited until we got back here. Maybe if I had, she wouldn't be like this."

Shelley slid a comforting arm around my shoulders. "Don't beat yourself up about it," she said, a world of encouragement in her voice. "You did an amazing thing out there, Trev. A lot of guys in your position would have tried to keep Lily as their own personal slave, and you can bet they would have taken serious advantage of her. You didn't do that. Instead, you set her free -- not because of anything she promised you, but just because it was the right thing to do. You made the best decision you could." She leaned over and planted a big-sisterly kiss on my temple. "And there's no guarantee that it would have gone any better even if you had waited."

"Thanks," I mumbled, but it didn't make me feel any better.

"You said she wouldn't walk at first, but then she let you lead her around after you appealed to Li Lin-fa for help?"

"That's right. But that was the only reaction I got, and I spoke Cantonese to her for quite a while."

Shelley nodded, but didn't say anything. A moment later, Wizzit announced that my force shield was fully recharged and that he was ready to send me to my room to heal up.

I hesitated. "Maybe I should stay here with Lily . . ."

Shelley shook her head. "Go. You have to take care of yourself first. Don't worry, I'll do whatever needs doing for her."

I let my shoulders slump. "I guess you're right," I said. As bad as I was hurting, it actually felt good to turn over responsibility for Lily to someone I trusted. "Whenever you're ready, Wizzit."

"Teleporting now."

What followed was the longest, most involved healing session I have ever experienced. Normally, Wizzit just knocks you out, and when you wake up, you're fine. This time, though, he put me into just a light healing coma for about ten minutes, and then he told me to go play the piano.

"You want me to do what?" I asked.

"Play the piano," he repeated patiently.

"But . . . why?"

"Because," he explained, treating me to one of his ultra-expressive Wizzit sighs, "you drove your fist into a relatively unyielding object at a velocity approaching one thousand feet per second. At this point, your hand, to put it bluntly, is not much more than pulp. No unbroken bones any larger than your thumbnail. If I'm going to reconstruct it, I will need to know how you use it."

"And that's what my playing the piano will show you," I concluded. "Got it. Anything in particular you want to hear? Bach? Joplin? Gottschalk? Debussy?"

"Something that will use both hands approximately equally. If you could move them as mirror images of each other, that would be even better."

"You got it."

I knew exactly what I would play. One of the techniques my mom had taught me to make practicing scales a little less tedious was to play them in contrary motion -- one hand going up and the other going down. Mirror images, just like Wizzit said.

I carefully placed my left thumb on middle C, sharing the note with my right thumb, and I attempted an ascending scale with my right hand and a descending scale with my left. It didn't work very well, of course; I could barely press down on the keys with any of my injured fingers, and the pain from even trying was excruciating.

Still, I stuck with it; by the time I made it down one full octave, I was sweating pretty hard. Wizzit called a halt. "All right, that gives me enough information to start. Go lie down."

We continued that pattern for the rest of that day. He would induce a healing coma for a period of time and then have me play my piano, and then we'd go back to the healing coma. Sometime after my second healing coma, he sent Toby in to help me remove my right sap glove and to cut the left one off my hand.

I didn't see much improvement at first, but as the hours passed, the pain steadily diminished and I could feel my fingers loosening up, becoming more limber. At last, he said, "That's enough for today. You might as well go get ready for bed. One final healing coma after that and then sleepy-bye."

Chapter 32

When I woke up the next morning, my hand didn't hurt at all. Lying in bed, I held it up before my face and wiggled the fingers experimentally.

"You'll find it's still a little stiff," came Wizzit's voice from the overhead speakers. "We'll let it go for a couple of hours, but then I'll do one or two more healing comas, and after that you should be right as rain."

Trina was the only one in the kitchen when I went in for breakfast. "How is your hand?" she inquired, sipping her tea.

"Better, thanks," I said as I began rummaging around in the refrigerator. I was famished; my stomach was reminding me that all I had eaten the day before was just a single banana. "I guess it was a pretty tricky job healing it up; Wizzit spent most of the day yesterday on it." I grabbed three eggs and some ham, then straightened and looked around at the empty room. "Looks like everyone else is sleeping in. Late night last night?"

"It wasn't too bad," she replied carelessly. "We got in a little after midnight. It took a long time to clear all the stragglers out, and then all of us had to help shut the place down."

"So the base is now . . .?"

"It's completely dead. All the computers have been wiped and turned off; the power has been shut down and the generators rendered unusable. Close to zero percent chance of Enclave resurrecting it, according to Wizzit." She gazed at me over the rim of her cup. "I suppose this means that we're done."

"Done?" I repeated.

"Our job is complete. Enclave has been destroyed; there is no more reason for the Primes to exist."

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. "I guess you're right," I said. In fact, I had been so preoccupied with Lily's problems and my own injury that that hadn't even occurred to me.

It had apparently occurred to everyone else, though. As my friends drifted in one by one for breakfast, everyone began wondering out loud what was going to happen next. I think most of us had mixed emotions. I know I did.

I mean, it was great and all that we had just defeated this group of aliens who wanted to conquer Earth, but being a Prime had been my whole life for the past four years, and I found I wasn't quite ready to give all that up yet. I couldn't imagine what it must be like for Angela. She had looked forward to becoming a Prime for months, and now, after only a few weeks, she might be finished with it for good.

I don't know who first spotted Shelley hovering in the doorway, but within half a minute, all talking had ceased and we were all looking at her expectantly. Mike said, "It's good to see you're back to normal, Commander."

She smiled, and I could tell she was smiling because she was not Prime Gold at the moment. "It's good to be back to normal," she murmured. She glanced around to make sure she had everyone's attention, then said quietly, "Let's meet in the office in ten minutes." Then, looking at my sister, she crooked a finger. "Angie, come with me, please."

Angie looked only a little apprehensive as she followed Shelley out of the room. The rest of us just stood and stared at each other. Eventually, I grabbed my dishes and Angie's and took them to the sink to wash them. That was the signal for everyone else to hurriedly finish their meals. I washed, Trina dried, and Toby put everything away. When we were done, it was time for the debrief.

Aside from Shelley's usual spot behind the desk, I counted eight chairs in the office. There would be seven for us regular Primes, naturally, which left one chair next to mine for someone else. I hadn't yet gone to the lair that morning to check on Lily -- I think part of me was afraid of what I might find \-- but seeing the extra chair gave me some cause for hope.

Shelley was there waiting for us. As we settled into our seats, she said, "I told Bill and the others that we wouldn't need them for this meeting. We have some decisions to make, just the members of the main team. Our first order of business, though, is to introduce everyone to our newest teammate."

The door opened and Angie came in. She stepped to one side, flung out her hands with a flourish, and sang out, "Ta-da!" just as Lily entered through the door.

I heard a few murmurs of surprise as Angie led her to the front of the room, and I'm pretty sure one of those murmurs was mine. Angie took her seat next to Padma, leaving Lily standing by herself beside Shelley's desk looking a little nervous. She was wearing the same blouse and skirt she had worn the first time Shelley and I encountered her, the only outfit I had ever seen her wear besides her black Enclave jumpsuits. Maybe it was the only other set of clothes she owned.

Regardless, it was a pretty outfit, and she looked pretty in it. Angie must have helped her brush out her hair and apply just a touch of makeup. I thought she looked quite fetching.

She clasped her hands nervously in front of her, gave us all a tentative smile, and said in a quiet, clear voice, "Hello, everyone. My name is Li Lin-fa. Wizzit has asked me to join your team as Unity White, and I have told him I would be happy to do so. Trevor and Angie have told me many things about the marvelous group of friends they have, and I am pleased to meet each and every one of you."

I don't remember jumping up from my seat and running over to embrace her. I must have done so, though, because the next thing I knew, she was in my arms and I was saying, "Li Lin-fa, you have managed to escape your cage? I am so happy for you!"

She held me tightly for a moment, then looked up with a self-conscious smile. "Perhaps we had better speak English," she said, and I realized that without thinking, I had addressed her in Cantonese.

"Uh, yeah, I guess that would be a good idea," I said sheepishly, adding, "but I thought it gave you a headache."

She shook her head. "It doesn't any more. There's no more strain." Taking my hand, she turned to face the others. "I understand that most of you were acquainted with my sister-self, Lily Lee, who called herself the attack doll."

"Yeah, you could say that," Toby muttered. "What happened to her?"

"She no longer exists," Li Lin-fa replied simply.

"She's dead?" Nicolai said.

"She has . . . returned to her source."

Seeing the puzzled looks on everyone's faces, Li Lin-fa frowned in thought. "It's difficult to explain," she said. "Maybe I can describe it like this."

She reached down and pulled out the tail-end of her blouse from where it was tucked into her skirt. "Pretend that this material is me," she said. "Using some sort of Enclave technology . . ." She held up a circle made with her thumb and middle finger for us all to see. ". . . Oswald was able to impose a large number of compulsions upon my mind, things I had to do and think and believe. Using them . . ." With her other hand, she poked some of the material through the circle and drew it out the other side. ". . . he created a completely new self within my mind, whom he called Lily." She indicated the plume of fabric sticking out from the circle of her fingers. "See?"

She looked around at everyone as if to make sure they were following her and was rewarded by nods of understanding. "When Trevor and I were alone together in the Enclave base," she went on, "he inadvertently discovered a way to release me from all those compulsions. After he did that . . ." She opened her hand, and the material fell from her fingers to become all one piece.

"She became part of you again," Trina said softly.

"Yes," Li Lin-fa affirmed. "Of course, she always was."

"But when I left you," I protested, "you were . . . well, you weren't all there. It was like your mind was a blank. I was afraid you were going to be that way forever. How did you manage to come back?"

"I can answer that, Trev," Shelley said. "I thought about it after you left, and it seemed clear to me that, even if Lily was gone, Li Lin-fa was still around. So I took her to her cage to allow that personality to rise to the surface, and I guess it roused her from whatever fugue state she was stuck in. After a minute or two, she looked around and started talking to me, first in what was probably Cantonese, and then in English. She told me her name was Li Lin-fa, but she also recognized me as Prime Gold, whom Li Lin-fa had never met. She has been Li Lin-fa ever since then."

Mike had stood up and was shaking her hand. "Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, Li Lin-fa," he said. And with that special dazzling grin he reserves for really pretty girls -- or, at least, really pretty girls who are not active enemies of ours -- he introduced everyone by name and color. "I don't mind sayin'," he said to her, "that Lily was an awful thorn in our sides for a long time. I'm hoping that you'll turn out to be as big an asset."

"I hope so, too," she said demurely. "I find I have inherited all the abilities and knowledge that Oswald imparted to Lily, and they are considerable. I can speak English now, of course. I have an eidetic memory, and I also know what the word eidetic means. I can heal myself from nearly any injury or illness, and in a fight, I would be the equal, or nearly so, of the best of you. I understand how to operate and repair every machine in his laboratory. I also have an encyclopedic knowledge of Western history, literature, and philosophy, and I even have perfect pitch." She gave us all a wry smile. "I'm not the same girl who was taken from her village near Shanghai seven years ago."

Then her smile softened. "Most of all, I remember the kindness and compassion that all of you showed me -- that you showed Lily -- even when I was your sworn enemy. You fed me, you took care of me, you spoke gently to me when I was frightened, you pulled me out of harm's way, and you even saved my life more than once. I'm very grateful, and I hope to repay you all someday."

"Yes, well, I can certainly see how you might give Trevor some recompense," Trina said with a knowing wink. "I'm not sure how you would be able to repay the rest of us, though. It seems to me that the Primes are done. We have fought our last battle." She took in everyone in her gaze. "Isn't that right?"

"That's actually our next topic of discussion," Shelley said. She indicated that Li Lin-fa and I should sit down. I led her to the seat beside mine. Her fingers curled themselves around my hand and held it tightly.

"Aren't we going to go over the mission first?" Mike asked. "We usually do that before we talk about the larger issues."

"It's up to you, Mike," Shelley replied with a shrug. "Wizzit said that in this case it's not necessary. We can if you want, though."

Mike looked around at the rest of us. "I don't want to go over the whole mission," he said, "but I do have a couple of questions."

Shelley nodded. "Shoot."

"First of all, how did Wizzit know where Trevor and Lily -- er, sorry, Trevor and Li Lin-fa --"

"Actually, she was Lily at the time," I interjected.

He rolled his eyes and sighed impatiently. "Fine. Lily, then. Keeping track of these names is very confusing."

"I will happily answer to either one, if it helps," Li Lin-fa offered. "Each of them feels familiar enough to be my name. And since we're all friends now, you do not have to use my family name; just call me Lin-fa."

"At any rate," Mike went on, "how did Wizzit know where they had gone? Everyone knows you can't track a teleport, and once they were inside the base, their transponders would be blocked."

I raised my hand. "After JB Swift's old lair was ransacked, I found a set of coordinates on the teleporter there. I'm guessing that's where Wizzit sent you guys."

"Correctamundo!" Wizzit chirped. "After Trevor described the circumstances under which he discovered those coordinates, I was fairly certain they described the location of Enclave's Earth base."

"'Fairly certain'?" Toby echoed incredulously. "You mean, you sent us off blind to a spot that you were 'fairly certain' was the right place?"

"Well, no, when I sent you out there, I was more than fairly certain," Wizzit replied. "It's true that I can't track a teleport, but if I can zero in on one single set of coordinates, then I can detect residual energy if someone teleports there."

"In other words," Padma said thoughtfully, "if I asked you, 'where did that monster teleport to?', you could not tell me. But if I asked, 'did that monster teleport to such-and-such a place?' you could say yes or no, correct?"

"That's right, if I knew the place in advance and was already checking there. Once Trevor gave me his set of coordinates, I watched that particular spot diligently. Every time a monster, Zoink, or alter fled a battle, I detected incoming teleport energy there. By the time I sent out the team, I was certain it was the correct place."

"Well, all right," Toby said, mollified, "as long as you were certain . . ."

"I suppose that answers my first question," Mike said. "Now, I'm still confused about these super-weapons . . ."

"That's easy to answer," Nicolai said. "Wizzit cracked their code. He was able to discover their backdoor by analyzing the videos he took of the attack on JB Swift, and then Bill and Toby built that into a pair of weapons, that's all."

Mike thought for a moment, then nodded. "All right, that makes sense. But why was there such a big deal about our using them only once? Why couldn't we use them over and over again?"

Wizzit replied, "Because after we had used them on a single mission, it would become obvious what kind of weapons they were. Any future monsters that were sent out would have been built with a different backdoor code. I wanted to save those weapons until we could use them to deliver a knockout punch."

"Let me see if I understand this," Angie said. "By the time today's battle started, we knew where Enclave's base was, and we had the means to destroy them completely. So why did we wait? Why didn't we just charge in with our super-weapons and wipe everybody out just as soon as we could?"

"The reason for that, Angela," Wizzit said, "has to do with the nature of Earth's conflict with Enclave. We are not the aggressors in this war, and we never have been. That's why we must always wait until monsters have shown themselves hostile before we attack them. That affords us certain . . . protections which we otherwise would not have. If we had simply charged in without provocation, we would have lost that pure-defender status and -- you'll have to trust me on this -- your planet would be in deep doo-doo at this point."

He went on, "What happened instead was that I sent you on a rescue mission against an entire base that had proved itself hostile by kidnapping one or more members of your team. At that point, anyone in the base was fair game."

"So you set us up, then?" I asked suspiciously. I mean, I like Wizzit and all, but I sure didn't like what I was hearing. "It sounds like you deliberately sent Lily out there, knowing that Enclave would try to steal her away from us, and you sent me after her to make it two hostages instead of one, and then you used that as an excuse to send everyone else in to destroy the base."

"No, I did not." I had never heard Wizzit sound more serious. "I would never hang any of you out to dry like that. I'd hope you would know me better than that. I do not use the ends to justify the means, and I don't put my team in danger without making them aware of everything that could happen.

"We all knew the dangers that Lily faced. We all knew that Enclave wanted her back. Shelley and Mike decided to send her anyway because you needed Unity out there. We gave her as much protection as we could, and when that failed, I sent you to help, and when that didn't work, I sent in a rescue mission. Now, I was prepared for that contingency and I'm glad it ended well, but trust me, I didn't set anyone up."

Lin-fa was tugging at my sleeve. When I looked over at her, she smiled at me and said, "I believe him."

I nodded. "Yeah, I guess I do, too."

"Are there any other questions?" Shelley asked. "Before we get to the main one, that is?" She looked at each of us in turn. I gave my head a slight shake, and I was not the only one. "Okay," she said. "I'm dying to know this, too, because Wizzit hasn't told me yet." She looked up at the ceiling speakers. "So, Wizzit, what's going to happen now that Enclave is gone?"

"What's going to happen now," came Wizzit's voice, "is . . ."

"What?" said Toby impatiently as his sentence trailed off.

"Don't tell me it's another surprise," Padma groaned.

"No, not another surprise," Wizzit said. "I know you won't like this, though."

"Tell us anyway," Trina said.

"Very well. What's going to happen now is . . . an extended vacation. That's all. You're not done by any means." He paused, as if to let us all voice complaints before going on. No one did, although most of us made some sound of surprise. I think I heard a "Yessss!" from Angie, and I know I saw her pump her fist in the air.

After a moment, he went on, "What you defeated yesterday was merely the first wave of the invasion. There will be others, although I can't say how many. We'll have a respite while they attempt to establish a new presence on Earth, but the attacks will eventually resume, and I'll need you to be ready when they do."

"How much time do we have?" Trina asked.

"It's impossible to tell. Six months to a year is my best guess."

"That will be enough time for the planet to heal itself," Nicolai mused. "They'll be able to send out only one monster at a time."

Mike asked, "What do we do until then?"

"Whatever you like," Wizzit replied. "You can visit friends, set sail across the Himalayas, go backpacking along the gulf stream, or whatever you aliens do to amuse yourselves when you have time on your hands. I will continue to maintain HQ as usual, and you're welcome to stay here as much as you like. I will be available to teleport you to any location you desire, and I can provide you with some limited amount of pocket money. I'll insist that you keep in contact with me and each other, but beyond that . . . the world is yours!"

Epilogue

So that's the story of how we defeated Enclave's first attempt to conquer the Earth. It has been about three months since then, and it has been a terrific summer.

After that final non-debrief, the eight of us spent some time talking about what we wanted to do with our time off. One of the things we decided was that we ought to get to know each other outside of HQ. Angie and Padma persuaded Trina to take them to Paris to see the sights, and they invited Lin-fa to come along with them. Personally, I thought that was a pretty good idea. They wouldn't have to pay for lodging because they were able to teleport home any time they wanted. Ditto for meals. It seemed like a pretty cheap vacation to me.

I mentioned something like that to Angie, in fact, and she stared at me as if I had suggested that eating out of garbage cans would be a good way to save money. Was I crazy? Of course they wanted to stay in a Paris hotel, she declared, and of course they would eat as many of their meals there as possible. Why else would they even go to Paris? That left me scratching my head; I guess I don't always understand girls too well.

Us guys decided to spend that time backpacking and camping out. Bill suggested a wilderness area he knew well, a spot just north of the US/Canadian border. It was extremely remote, nearly impossible to get to except by air (or teleportation). He had spent a number of vacations there by himself when he had been a Prime.

So Mike, Nicolai, Toby, and I spent a fortnight roughing it -- just the four of us, tents, sleeping bags, and whatever food we felt like scrounging from HQ. I had been a Boy Scout for a year or two when I was younger, so I thought I would be one of the experts out there in the wilderness. Ha! Foolish me! Nicolai, it turned out, had regularly gone on weekend hunting and fishing trips in Poland with his father and was quite the outdoorsman. Of course, Mike had lived on that sheep ranch in Australia for a while, and even Toby had spent many a summer in the countryside with his friends. Once again, Trevor was the low man on the totem pole.

It was still a lot of fun, though. We hiked (a little), fished (enough to feed ourselves), and just generally loafed (a lot). I know I lost track of the days, so I was a little surprised when Mike, after checking in with Wizzit like he did every morning, beckoned us over.

"He says Trina wants to talk to us," he said.

After a moment, we heard Trina's voice issuing from Mike's belt speakers. "It has been two weeks," she said. "Do you miss us?"

Mike looked around at our grinning faces and said, "Of course we do, love. Would you like to get together?"

"We'd love to."

He scratched at the fourteen-days-old growth of beard on his jaw. "I have an idea. We've a lovely little lake here, practically on our doorstep. The water's quite warm and clear, perfect for swimming. How about if you girls come on out? We could grill some fish and maybe even do some skinny-dipping."

My grin dimmed. I wasn't too thrilled at the prospect of swimming naked with my sister present, but Nicolai and Toby obviously had no such qualms, so I didn't say anything. Besides, I thought, there would be plenty of other lovely young ladies to look at besides Angie.

There was a whispered conference on the other end -- I got the impression that Padma wasn't too clear on the whole skinny-dipping concept -- and then I'm pretty sure I heard some nervous giggling. "As tempting as that sounds," Trina eventually said, somehow managing not to sound tempted at all, "we have a counter-offer -- a gourmet dinner for eight in a lovely little restaurant here in Paris. I know the owner, and he owes me a favor."

I had no idea what kind of favor someone like that might owe Trina, but I enthusiastically nodded my approval when Mike looked around at us. "All right," he said, "we accept. What time would you like us there?"

"If you can be here -- showered, shaved, and in coats and ties -- within, oh, two hours from now, then we will not be forced to look for other escorts. Wizzit will know where to send you."

Angie's voice came over the speaker then, almost on top of Trina's. "And believe me, we've had plenty of other offers from plenty of cute French guys. You wouldn't be that hard to replace."

"You wound me, Angela," Mike said with a laugh. "It might take us a little while to break camp, but we'll be there."

We raced through tearing down the tents, putting out the fire, gathering up our gear, and generally cleaning up. When our campsite was as pristine as we had found it, Mike said, "Whenever you're ready, Wizzit," and we teleported back to HQ.

I still had my suit and tie in my closet from Commander Windham's funeral, so I was ready half an hour early. I sat in the lounge and drummed my fingers, tapped my foot, and generally fretted for the next twenty-five minutes. Finally, Toby, who was the last one of us to be ready, came down the hallway. "I hate wearing ties!" he declared, fighting with the knot of cloth at his throat. "Can you help me with this, Trevor?"

"Have my sister do it," I said, waving him off with a laugh. "Girls love that sort of thing, especially if you make sad puppy-dog eyes when you ask."

"I don't know how to make sad puppy-dog eyes."

"Then just act helpless. It'll work, trust me."

Wizzit teleported us into what must have been the girls' hotel room. It was a little crowded with eight of us in there, but given the delightful company, I didn't mind. They must have blown Wizzit's budget just on clothes; each of them had on a beautiful new French frock that accentuated curves, eyes, hair, and complexions to perfection. I had to admit that even my sister was quite an eyeful, even though I'm not supposed to notice stuff like that.

Angie burst out laughing at the mess Toby had made of his tie, which caused him to give me the evil eye. She made him sit down on one of the beds while she and Padma and Trina fussed over it and him.

Lin-fa took hold of my hand and drew me over into a corner, positioning me in front of her as if I were a human shield between her and everyone else in the room. "Is everything all right, Lin-fa?" I asked her in Cantonese.

She nodded, although not as enthusiastically as I would have hoped. "I find I am not accustomed to being around people," she replied softly in the same language.

I looked around at my friends. Angie had shooed Trina and Padma away and was working on Toby's tie with a decidedly proprietary air. "They have not done anything to upset you, have they?" I asked anxiously.

"Oh, no!" she replied hastily. "They have been very nice. The problem is with me; I have been alone for so long that I have forgotten how to behave in a crowd. I am sure they think I am strange, but I have asked Wizzit every night to send me back so I can sleep in my cage. I need to spend time by myself, and I find it comforting there."

"Do you want to leave now? We do not have to stay if you are uncomfortable."

She gave me a heart-melting smile. "I want to stay as long as you are here. You make me feel safe. And if I am truly to become a member of this team, I need to overcome my shyness."

By now, Angie had managed a passable four-in-hand and was patting Toby's collar into place. Trina glanced at a clock beside one of the beds and declared that we should head for the restaurant.

I had never eaten in a place that served "gourmet" food, and I was afraid that we might be served hummingbird tongues or eel gizzards or something equally weird. I needn't have worried; the food was great, and the company made it better. There was only one dish I wasn't sure of. I mean, it tasted okay, but there was kind of an odd texture to it. When I asked Trina about it, she gave me an amused look and told me it was better if I didn't know what was in it.

A few men strolled over from time to time during the meal, evidently intrigued by one or more of the attractive young women at our table. These, Trina brushed off without a second glance. I got the impression this had been happening pretty regularly throughout their stay in Paris.

We stayed at the restaurant for far longer than the owner wanted us to, I'm sure, just talking and enjoying each other's company. Finally, though, we left for the girls' hotel. We exchanged hugs all around as us guys prepared to take our leave. The girls -- or at least Trina, Padma, and Angie -- would be spending one more night in Paris.

Padma murmured something to Nicolai and gave him a soft, tender kiss goodbye. Mike turned to Trina and said, "Now why can't you ever give me a send-off like that, love?"

"Perhaps it is because you have never asked me," she replied tartly.

He looked surprised. "Really? You mean that's all it would take, just me asking you for a kiss?"

"I don't know," she replied, giving him a serene smile. "It might depend on how nicely you ask. Why don't you give it a try sometime?"

Nicolai chuckled. "I think I recognize a challenge when I hear one."

"Well, I'm not going to wait to be asked," Lin-fa declared softly. She placed her hands on my shoulders, raised up on her tiptoes, and brushed her lips against mine. "I hope to see you at HQ tomorrow, Trevor," she said. She stepped away. "Wizzit, if you please?"

Toby shook his head as the light from her teleportation faded away. "I still say she's an awfully queer duck, and that's a fact," he said.

"Maybe," I replied, "but considering all that she's gone through, all the ways JB Swift screwed around with her mind, I'd say she's remarkably sane."

"All right, I think I'm ready," Mike said suddenly to Trina.

"Ready?" Trina asked, taken aback. "Ready for what?"

"Ready for this." He took Trina's hand and bent over it. "Miss Katarina Balakleets, loveliest flower of the beautiful city of Omsk, it would make me the happiest of men if you would consent to add to my memories of a delightful evening spent in your company by bidding me goodnight with a kiss."

Trina's eyes widened. "I am impressed," she said. "I had no idea you were capable of such flowery language."

He grinned at her. "You bring out the poet in me, love."

"I'm not sure I believe that, but I must confess I am flattered. Very well, I grant your request."

She stepped into the circle of his arms. I won't describe the kiss, mainly because I was staring at my feet or the ceiling or anywhere else but them the entire time, feeling decidedly like a fifth and sixth and seventh wheel. I will say, though, that it lasted about twice as long as mine and Lin-fa's and Nicolai and Padma's combined.

Trina was more than a little flushed when Mike finally released her, which is always a good look for her. "You, um, you have added to my memories as well," she said, sounding flustered. She smiled at him, stars shining in her eyes. "Good night, Michael."

Her gaze then drifted over to where Toby and Angela were standing side by side, and everyone else's did, too. Realizing suddenly that the two of them were now the center of attention, Angie started and gave Toby a quick sideways glance. "Well, I'm certainly not going to cave in to peer pressure," she declared, crossing her arms.

"What? Oh, no, definitely not! I wouldn't ask you to," he agreed quickly. "Nope, no way. I definitely concur. Wouldn't dream of it!"

But then, while he was looking at her, his face gradually assumed an odd expression. It took me a moment to figure out what he was doing, but when I did, I struggled not to laugh out loud. Toby, in fact, resembled nothing so much as a very young Great Dane whose favorite toy had been taken away.

Angie watched him for a moment longer. "Oh, all right, come over here," she said, laughing. "I mean, if you're going to go around making sad puppy-dog eyes at me . . ." She flung her arms around his neck and gave him a peck on the cheek. "Good night, Toby," she said, sounding almost fond of him.

Toby's grin was a mile wide. "Good night, Angela."

After that night, the eight of us decided we would go our own separate ways, at least for a while. Angie and I took Lin-fa home with us to Ohio so that she could meet my folks and my Aunt Min. Min isn't really my aunt, just an old friend of my parents. She is, however, the main reason I grew up speaking Cantonese, since that's her primary language, so I felt obliged to introduce her to Lin-fa.

I guess I should have expected it, but when I introduced Lin-fa to my folks, explained that she was the Lily Lee whom I had thought dead, and admitted that, yes, we were romantically interested in each other, my mom actually got all teary-eyed. I think it was the fruition of a long-held dream of hers, finding me a serious girlfriend. She called Min over to the house right away, and the two of them made a great fuss over how "presentable" Lin-fa was, a word my mother prefers instead of "pretty". Lin-fa, in turn, seemed happy to meet someone who had grown up in the same region of China as she had, and soon she was telling Aunt Min all about her village, while Min tried to work out exactly where it was in relation to Shanghai.

While they were talking, Angie and I took our parents into another room and told them about our final battle with Enclave. To my surprise, they already knew something about it; apparently Wizzit had published some of the details on the Prime Channel website days ago.

"To be honest," I said, "I do not know what I am going to do with my time. Wizzit says it could take as long as a year for them to start attacking again. I will continue to practice my fighting skills, and of course I want to spend time with Lin-fa, but beyond that . . ." I shrugged.

"Your father and I have been discussing it," my mom said, "and we think you should take some college classes." Her eyes flicked between me and my sister. "Both of you."

Angie was nodding. "That is a good idea, I suppose, although I have not given much thought to what I would major in."

"You can decide that later," my mom told her. "There is plenty of time to consider it."

"Is it too late to apply?" I asked. "I thought college applications had to be in months ago; it is nearly July."

"It is too late for most universities," my father admitted, "but I have friends in the admissions department where I teach. We can get you in there. Now, since you may be in school for as little as one term, it is important for you to get as many credits as possible within that time. Later, you may decide to transfer those credits to some other college or university."

"So we should take as many classes as we can?" Angie said.

My father smiled. "I was thinking more in terms of credits by examination. Both of you have extensive knowledge of both Mandarin and Korean, for example. It would be easy for you to get college credit in those languages. Your brothers did, and so did your older sister."

I nodded. In case I haven't mentioned it recently, my dad is practically the entire East Asian languages department at the college in our home town. "But would it not seem suspicious if you granted your own children a large number of credits as soon as they are enrolled?"

"It would," he agreed. "However, I will be traveling down to Columbus next week to attend a seminar. Your mother will come with me to see Nick and Jerome. You two can come, too. I can ask some of my colleagues at Ohio State to examine the two of you in whatever languages you would like to try. That will ensure that everything is done in the proper way."

"And it is not only languages," my mother added. "Angela, you should take an examination in mathematics as well. Algebra, certainly, and possibly calculus. Trevor, I do not know how much math you remember . . ."

"It has been a long time," I said, "but I can study for the exam on my own." Or ask Padma to tutor me, I thought.

"We want you both to get as good a start as possible in your college careers while you have the time," my dad said. "After that, perhaps you can continue with some sort of internet-based school."

Lin-fa appeared in the door then. We had been speaking Mandarin the entire time, and she asked in the same language, "Trevor, are you going to college?"

I grinned at her. "I suppose I am. But I did not know you spoke Mandarin, Lin-fa."

"Of course I do," she replied with a shrug. "We spoke Cantonese at home, but Mandarin is the official language, after all. I learned it in school." She sighed. "I would like to go to college some day."

I looked at my dad, but he shook his head. "I am afraid there is nothing I can do for her, son. From what you have told me, she is a citizen of China, with no official presence in this country. She has no passport or other documentation; she is, in essence, an illegal alien."

"Oh," I said, surprised. "I had not thought of that."

"It is not important," Lin-fa said hastily. She came over and took my hand. "Right now, I am happy simply to be free and to have friends."

The news about our going to college traveled pretty quickly, it appeared. Joy had already heard it by the time I took Lin-fa up to Oberlin to meet her, and so had Nick and Jerome when we met them in Columbus. And just a few nights after we got back, Grandmaster Park called me into his office after Tae Kwon Do class was over.

I had begun going to every Tae Kwon Do class I could at Grandmaster Park's studio to help out with training and to keep my own skills honed. In addition, that was just about the only place I could be guaranteed to run into Angie. She was doing a lot more globe-trotting than I was, and I hardly ever saw her anywhere else, not even at HQ.

Grandmaster Park left the office door open so that he could keep an eye on the students who had not left yet, so to keep our conversation private, he spoke in Korean. "Trevor," he said, "it has been a pleasure to have you practicing with us again. Your parents have told me that you are going to start college this fall. I must say, I'm very pleased to hear this."

I bowed respectfully. "Thank you, sir."

He folded his hands across the desk. "How long have you been a Junior Master?" he said thoughtfully.

"Nearly five years, sir. You promoted me when I was seventeen."

"Five years? So long? You are overdue for a promotion, and yet I have not heard you asking me when I will allow you to test for fifth Dan. How curious."

I smiled. We both knew that he had told me months ago that he would never promote me to fifth Dan, the master rank, until I had given up my "Tae Kwon Do demonstration team" and enrolled in college somewhere. It was his way of punishing me for not following my parents' wishes. "I must have forgotten, sir."

"Quite so. This is a situation which we must remedy. I will decide soon when we can schedule a promotion test for you."

I bowed again. "Thank you, sir, but before you make your decision, there is something you should know." He raised his eyebrows inquiringly, and I went on, "I have not quit my demonstration team. It has . . . temporarily disbanded. I am going to college only in the interim; I fully expect to rejoin the team within a year." Then I added, "I respect you too much to allow you to labor under any false impressions."

His face clouded over. "I see," he said, his voice sounding disappointed. "And your parents? Are they laboring under any false impressions?"

"They are not. I have been as open with them as I am being with you."

He looked at me for a moment, then shook his head. "Trevor, I do not know what to do with you. You show every sign of being a young man with great strength of character, and yet you persist in making your parents so unhappy . . ."

"Perhaps if you would speak with them on the matter," I replied, "you would find that they are not as unhappy as they once were."

He looked sharply at me. "Have you discussed your punishment with them?"

"I have not, sir, because you instructed me not to."

He looked past me into the main room. "I received a telephone call not too many days ago from your sister Joy." He smiled, remembering. "She was always one of my favorite students. I have always regretted that she did not pursue Tae Kwon Do past the third Dan."

I nodded. It was kind of a running joke in our family, the way Grandmaster Park always favored the Chiao girls over the Chiao boys. The things I had seen Angie get away with in his class . . . if I had been caught doing them, it would have meant a hundred knuckle-pushups outside in the asphalt parking lot.

"She wanted to talk with me about you," he went on. "It was an odd conversation; she seemed to want me to understand that, in her opinion, you were making a valuable contribution to the world and that I ought not judge you too harshly. I did not understand the purpose of her call, coming from nowhere as it did." He leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. "Now it occurs to me that you might have been talking out of turn."

"I . . . may have discussed the subject of my punishment with her," I admitted, feeling a flush creep up my cheeks, "but you did not forbid me to do so. And I certainly did not ask her to intercede on my behalf."

He searched my face for a full minute before he finally nodded and said, "I believe you." He frowned at his desktop for another minute. At last he roused himself. "I have made a decision," he said. "I will speak with your parents again regarding this Tae Kwon Do demonstration team of yours. If their feelings on the matter remain unchanged, then my decision will remain unchanged; I will offer you a promotion test only after you have quit the team permanently.

"If, however, they are satisfied with the way you are living your life, then I will reconsider my position. It may be that I will offer you a promotion test after only one term of college." He laid his hands flat on the desk, indicating that he had said all that he would say on the subject. I got to my feet, bowed, and thanked him.

After I had introduced Lin-fa to everyone in my family, she and I spent some time just getting to know each other. I found to my delight that the more I learned about Lin-fa, the better I liked her. She's beautiful and sweet-tempered and intelligent and . . . well, I don't want to bore you with how I've got the world's most perfect girlfriend, but I do have to add that she rocks a bikini like no one else.

But it hasn't all been surfing at Byron Bay, picnics in Portschach am Worthersee, and romantic nights on Martinique. On average, I have also spent probably one sleepless night a week just holding her in my arms while she shivered and sobbed her way through nightmares and flashbacks of the ordeals JB Swift had put her through. That isn't such a big deal for me, though. That's just what you do for someone you care about.

And of course, I didn't spend all my waking hours with Lin-fa. She still required a lot of time by herself, and I respected that, because I do, too. And she also spent time with the other members of the team. Angie in particular made a special effort to befriend her, bless her heart, and the two of them went out together quite often.

I traveled to India in August with Padma for her third-Dan test, and I met her parents. It's funny, her mom seemed a lot like mine; as soon as she saw the two of us approaching the house, laughing and holding hands, she immediately assumed that we were dating and that Nicolai was out of the picture. Watching Padma squirm out of that one -- and explain away her new, shorter hairstyle -- was a lot of fun.

Now, though, summer is coming to a close, and my parents are hosting an end-of-the-season pig roast at our house tonight for the Primes and Primes Emeriti. This is the type of thing the Windhams used to do, except that they can't any more. In fact, anyone and everyone who is publicly associated with Shelley these days is subjected to intense scrutiny by the intelligence departments of several large countries.

That type of attention kind of sucks. For one thing, it means that Shelley and Bill won't be able to come out to the party tonight, lest they be seen with us. And we Primes won't be able to attend their wedding, either, which they've scheduled for next May. Well, not unless we went there with our force shields activated, which would call way too much attention to ourselves.

We'll just have to make do somehow, I guess. Shelley and Bill will be at HQ tonight, and Wizzit will be teleporting people (and food!) back and forth throughout the evening, I'm sure. It should be a lot of fun; I'm looking forward to it.

###

Acknowlegements

I would like to thank the following people, who contributed greatly in making the Attack Doll series come to life:

Master Richard Evans and Kazuko Evans – for their knowledge of Tae Kwon Do and the Japanese language

Grandmaster Choon Mo Yang – for giving me a model for how a traditional Ji Do Kwan studio is run

Pi-chu Chiao and David Fang – for their help with Mandarin words and phrases

Balakrishna Nallanagulagari – for information on various Indian words

###

The Attack Doll Series

by

Douglas A. Taylor

Twenty-one-year-old Trevor Chiao is Prime Blue; he is a member of the fabulous Primes, a group of seven men and women whose mission is to protect the Earth from Enclave, an alien organization bent on taking over the world.

Protected by a blue force shield that enhances his strength and speed and keeps his identity secret, he travels all over the world with his fellow Primes, battling monsters, Zoinks, and the mysterious Lily Lee, a beautiful Asian woman who refers to herself as . . . the Attack Doll.

Attack Doll 1: Violet Lost

Trevor becomes the mentor of Padma Reddy, a young woman from India who has joined the team as their new Prime Violet. When Padma is kidnapped by Enclave during her first mission as a Prime, Trevor must risk his own life to infiltrate the Enclave base and rescue . . . Violet Lost.

Attack Doll 2: Junior Prime

Trevor usually gets along pretty well with his younger sister Angela, but when the two of them are taken prisoner by Enclave and Angie discovers Trevor's secret identity, he doesn't quite know how to handle it. What's a guy to do when his kid sister wants to tag along as a . . . Junior Prime?

Attack Doll 3: Protocol Black

The death of Prime Commander has dealt a heavy blow to Trevor and his fellow Primes. And when the team is threatened by government forces intent on discovering their secrets, things go from bad to worse. To hold the team together, the Primes must enlist the aid of an old friend and implement . . . Protocol Black.

Attack Doll 4: Primes Emeriti

There are times when seven Primes just aren't enough. When the Earth's problems with Enclave suddenly triple, it's looking like this is one of those times. Fortunately, a new class of heroes stands ready to help Trevor and his friends shoulder their burden. They are the . . . Primes Emeriti.

Attack Doll 5: The End of Lily Lee

Nothing lasts forever. Even attack dolls eventually outlive their usefulness, but what happens to them then? When Trevor and his friends are menaced by a new threat, one which strikes to the very heart of their powers, they face a difficult choice. Is it finally time for the Primes to say goodbye to the attack doll? Is this . . . The End of Lily Lee?
