 
Attack Doll 3: Protocol Black

by Douglas A. Taylor

Copyright 2014 by Douglas A. Taylor

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Chapter 1

I suppose if I had to pinpoint where the trouble all started, it would have been with Mike that time in Texas. Not that any of us blamed Mike for it at the time, as much fun as that would have been. He was just the right guy in the wrong place at the wrong time.

We were fighting the latest monster that Enclave had sent out, some sort of cat-like creature that I swear could jump twenty feet straight up into the air. Made it pretty dang hard for us to get hold of it so we could destroy it, which I imagine was the point.

Mike -- aka Prime Orange -- was in charge of our little expedition. Normally Prime Red would have taken the lead, but Shelley had been in and out over the past week and was currently unavailable. Her father had died recently, you see, his neck broken by the pretty Enclave minder we knew as Lily Lee.

Her mother had been devastated by the sudden loss, and her sister Francesca was only seventeen, which meant that Shelley had to be the one to see to the funeral arrangements and generally hold the family together. I don't know how she managed it, but somehow she got a doctor to sign a death certificate stating that he had died as a result of a fall while horseback riding out on their ranch. The body had been cremated, and the funeral was today, in a little over an hour. Which meant that none of us Primes was in any mood to take any guff from any monsters.

We started catching on to this guy's jump-up-twenty-feet-to-get-away tactic after only a couple of tries. The third time we charged the critter, Trina -- Prime Green \-- hung back from the rest of us. When Cat-monster did his super-leap (no doubt chuckling to himself the whole time over how stupid we all were) Trina coolly raised her triple-blaster, drew a bead, and shot him out of the sky.

It didn't kill him -- Enclave monsters are tougher than that, even the wimpy ones -- but it did send him back to earth in a smoking heap. Mike was the first one to reach him, and he didn't give him a chance to get away. He just started pounding away with his club. I joined him next, using my Escrima stick, then Toby with his hammer, and finally Nicolai and Padma with their axes.

It appeared that Cat-monster was a one-trick pony, if you'll pardon the awkward metaphor. That super-leaping ability was the only thing he had going for him -- no super strength, no pointy teeth, no razor-sharp claws, nothing but the ability to jump up high.

It was a little sad, really, but there was nothing for it. Enclave monsters have to be put down, without exception. We can't let them get a foothold, or else they'd be overrunning the Earth before we knew it. His Enclave hardware overloaded after just a few minutes of our assault, and he vaporized amid a shower of sparks.

None of us spoke the entire time we were attacking him. I don't think any of us felt like it. Being a Prime can be a lot of fun at times; there's often a crazy sort of goofiness involved in fighting humans who have been willingly transformed into monsters by an alien organization bent on taking over the world. But not today. Prime Commander's funeral had cast a pall over everything.

"I think we're done here," Mike said grimly once the sparks had stopped flying. He spoke Prime-to-Prime, which meant that the only ones who could hear him were the rest of us Primes and Wizzit, the alien who gives us the tech we use to fight Enclave. He straightened up and turned around to check the area . . . and found himself staring down the barrel of a rifle.

A man I took to be a sheriff's deputy was holding the rifle. He was also shouting at us in the manner of law enforcement officers all over the world: "Get down! Now! All of you, face down on the ground! Now! NOW! Move it!"

Mike slowly raised his hands. Prime-to-Prime, he said, "I'll handle this. The rest of you, camouflage mode and scatter. Nobody get behind me." Aloud, he said, "Now, officer, let's just relax, shall we? We wouldn't want that thing to go off accidentally."

The rest of us backed away from Mike. I muttered "Camouflage mode on" to my Prime belt. Nicolai, Trina, Toby, and Padma all faded from view as they activated camouflage mode as well. Soon, the only two figures that were visible were Mike and the uniformed guy with the gun, any civilian onlookers having run away some time ago.

Said uniformed guy looked fairly young and was obviously a bit freaked by our sudden disappearances. His eyes bugged out. "W-where'd they go?" he demanded, looking around wildly.

"Haven't the faintest," Mike replied in a friendly, relaxed-sounding voice. "But I can tell you this: No one is going to hurt you. You're not in any danger, either from me or any of my mates, so why don't you put that thing down and let's talk. What's your name? My name is Prime Orange, but my friends just call me Orange."

The sheriff's deputy must have suddenly remembered that he was holding a rifle, because he took a fresh grip on it, sighting along the barrel straight at Mike's chest. "Get down on the ground. Now! Face down, hands on the back of your head! Move it! Now! Now! NOW!"

Mike remained where he was, arms still raised. "Am I being arrested, officer?" he inquired mildly.

The deputy frowned. Guys like him are trained that they must, without exception, maintain complete control of every situation, and Mike wasn't letting him do that, despite the threat of being shot. "You are being detained for questioning by federal investigators. I have instructions that you are armed and very dangerous. Drop your weapon and get down on the ground NOW!"

Mike looked over at the club he still held in his hand. "Sorry, officer, but I'm afraid I can't do that. Highly advanced technology, y'know. I can't let it fall into the wrong hands. You do realize that I'm a Prime, right? Everyone knows we're on the side of the good guys."

I heard Padma speak up, Prime-to-Prime, "I could knock him down to give you time to escape."

"No. Absolutely not," Mike replied the same way. "Primes do not, under any circumstances, attack law enforcement officials." Yeah, he really was quoting from a rule book. I was surprised, too. Mike doesn't read that many books.

The deputy looked unsure of himself. He activated the walkie-talkie he wore. "I have one of the Primes at bay," he said. "He is being uncooperative. He refuses to drop his weapon and is resisting arrest."

The walkie-talkie squawked, and then I heard a voice say, "Take him out."

The deputy frowned. I could tell he didn't like what he was hearing. "Repeat that, please?"

"Repeat, take him out!" The speaker's voice was hard, flat, brittle. Sounded like the guy had no sense of humor whatsoever, and people like that scare me.

"Roger." The deputy looked grim. Taking a fresh grip on his rifle, he stepped forward until the barrel of his weapon was no more than six inches from the swirling orange mist that obscured Mike's face. "I am going to count to five," he said, his voice deadly serious, "and then if you are not lying face down on the ground with your hands on your head, I am going to fire. Don't make me kill you."

"You do whatever you think you need to do, officer," Mike said quietly, "but you know I'm no danger to you or anyone else."

The deputy swallowed, then set his face. "I'm counting. One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five!" He hesitated for a second, and then he squeezed the trigger.

Now, when I said earlier that Mike was the right guy in the wrong place, you might have thought that I was just making a joke. I wasn't. See, the interesting thing about Mike is that his reflexes are incredibly fast. He's the only guy I know who can beat every level of every shoot-em-up video game ever made the first time through. He says they bore him.

And those force shields that we wear? They do a whole lot more than just hide our faces from the world. They increase our strength, raise our endurance, and jazz up our reflexes to their theoretical limits. With his force shield at full power, Mike's reaction time becomes almost supernatural, and that allows him to do something that probably no one else on Earth can do. He can literally dodge a bullet.

He turned on camouflage mode as the sound from the rifle shot was dying away. I have never fired a real gun myself, just my blaster, so I don't know what the deputy saw, but with any luck, it appeared to him as though shooting the rifle caused Mike to vanish into thin air.

Wizzit teleported us back to HQ seconds later. Trina went over to Mike as soon as we materialized. "Are you all right?" she asked anxiously, taking his arm. "He didn't hit you, did he?"

"'Course not, love," he replied with his easy smile. "What's the matter, afraid that you won't get a chance to buy me dinner?"

She stared at him in disbelief, and for a moment I thought he was going to get his face slapped. "No, I was afraid you might have been shot in the head, you arrogant oaf! But now I see that scrambling your brains would have been an improvement!"

He grinned at me as Trina stalked off. "Women!" he said cheerfully. "Who can understand 'em?" Then his face grew more serious. "What was that all about out there, Wizzit?" he asked the air around him. "No one's ever tried to put the collar on us before."

"Unsure," Wizzit replied with uncharacteristic terseness. "Investigating . . ."

But I wasn't really listening to Wizzit. I was busy staring at Trina. No, it's not what you're thinking. I mean, with her figure, sure, it's always a pleasure to watch Trina walk away, but under normal circumstances I don't stare at her. On the other hand, under normal circumstances she doesn't blow up at Mike that way.

We Primes live a pretty isolated life, both socially and geographically. Each of us stays at HQ six weeks out of every seven with a week off for vacation, more or less. No one ever comes to HQ except us Primes (and Prime Commander when he was alive) so of necessity, we're a tight-knit group. Everyone is everyone else's best friend, and we work hard at that. We have to; otherwise we'd be constantly snapping at one another, or worse.

So when one of us does start snapping at the others, it's usually a sign that something's wrong, something that might have to be dealt with. Mike was oblivious to Trina's mood, and no one else seemed to have noticed anything, so it looked like it was up to me to play counselor. I had heard some pretty ugly rumors about the way Mike treated women back when I was Prime Violet, and I wondered whether he might have done something to set Trina off.

I started after her, but Wizzit spoke up: "Let's get ready, kids! No healing comas, but showers all around and then into your best duds. I promised Shelley I'd have you in place half an hour before the ceremony."

Well, so much for finding out what was bugging Trina. Reluctantly, I changed course and headed for my room. It was then that Mike took hold of my arm and drew me off to one side. "Listen, Trevor," he said confidentially, "I've been meaning to ask you -- how is Trina coming along with her knife-hand chops? Is there any chance she'll actually win that little bet of ours?"

I grinned. A couple of weeks ago, Mike had been on Trina's case (her phrase, not mine) about her fighting skills. She has never been our strongest fighter, and as the resident sharpshooter, she doesn't get much regular practice battling monsters close-up. He wound up goading her into a dinner bet that she couldn't break a board with her hand. She asked me to help her out, since I know a thing or two about board-breaking, and I had begun training her.

"She's got every chance in the world, mate," I told him. "She's been working plenty hard at it."

His face fell. "That's what I was afraid of. I suppose I don't mind buying her dinner, but has she said anything to you about . . . you know, the, er, the costume?"

"Not a word." That little condition was what had made the bet so interesting. Not only did the loser have to buy dinner for the winner, but the winner also got to pick out what the loser would wear to the dinner.

I have to admit, I sure wouldn't mind seeing Trina parade around in the little dental-floss bikini that Mike had selected for her, but fair was fair, and I couldn't in good conscience turn down her request for help. And besides, Padma might have done nearly as good a job training her. "The last thing I heard," I told him, "was that comment she made about a clown costume, a funny wig, and a big red nose."

Mike was looking decidedly worried when I left him and headed down to my room.

Chapter 2

We don't dress up much at HQ. Most of the time we just wear shorts and tee-shirts. It's sort of our unofficial uniform because it's easy to slip into and easy to fight in. The temperature at headquarters, which has no way to get in or out except by teleportation, is kept comfortable year round, and when we're shielded, the temperature of the outside air doesn't really matter.

So, in order to dress up nice for Prime Commander's funeral, I had to retrieve my old suit from home. Of course, I didn't want to just teleport into my room at my parents' house and possibly surprise someone who had come in to dust or something, so I enlisted the help of my younger sister Angela. She knows I'm a Prime, and as Junior Prime Pink, she has even taken part in a couple of our battles.

I told Angie about Prime Commander's death. She had never met him, but she had met Shelley, and when I got the coast-is-clear signal from her and teleported to my room to pick up my suit, she handed me a signed sympathy card and a single red rose for Shelley and family. Angie's thoughtful that way.

Wizzit teleported us Primes out to a pasture at the Windhams' ranch. It wasn't exactly a graveside ceremony because there was no grave -- the ashes would be scattered over the pasture -- but it was a nice service. I was surprised at the number of people who attended. Shelley was there, of course, along with her mother and Francesca, and I saw a large number of people whom I took to be ranch hands or folks from town who knew the Windhams. I guess Prime Commander was a popular guy.

Off to one side stood a group of four well-dressed people, all of whom looked fairly young and athletic, and who seemed decidedly out of place. I had never met any of them, but I knew who they were. I looked at each of them in turn and repeated their names to myself: Mayumi Chikamatsu, Alvaro Boada, Cathy Beals, and Bill Harding. The four living ex-Primes.

No one saw us standing out on the perimeter because we were all in camouflage mode. It wouldn't do, after all, for anyone to suspect that Commander Windham was anything more than just an area rancher who had had the misfortune to break his neck while out riding. Shelley knew we were there, though, acting as a silent, invisible honor guard for her father. And I'd swear that during one part of the ceremony, Mayumi turned her head and looked straight at me.

We teleported back to HQ after the service was over, all except for Mike. Shelley had planned an ox roast at the ranch for the guests, and there was no point in our hanging around for that. Mike, being the only one of us besides Shelley who knew all the ex-Primes personally, was to meet them and invite them back to HQ for our own wake.

They arrived bearing the portion of the feast that Shelley had set aside for us: platters of slow-roasted meat, barbecue sauce, buns, grilled vegetables, and pasta. I know it should have been a somber occasion, but the four newcomers seemed so genuinely happy to be there -- laughing, joking, and smiling -- that it lightened everyone's mood.

I had just filled my plate when I saw Bill beckoning me over to him. "You're Trevor, right? Prime Indigo?" he said, grinning. I nodded. Bill was a tall, good-looking guy with an honest, open face that made you want to get to know him better. "I hear your sister has that Junior Prime badge I made. What does she think of it?"

"Oh, that's right, Shelley told me you were the guy who made it," I said. "She, uh, she likes it just fine, I guess."

"Did Wizzit really modify it so she can use a blaster?" When I confirmed that he had, Bill shook his head in amazement. "I didn't believe it when Shelley told me. At the time I was just making, you know, a toy for her sister, and I copied a lot of the tech from our belts. I had no idea it could do anything useful."

"Well, it's been pretty useful for her," I said with a grin. "And for us, too." He listened raptly as I told him how Angela had helped us destroy the weird monster that I had privately dubbed Mr. Creepy-pants. "Of course, we have to be careful because she doesn't have a real force shield like the rest of us, but we're happy to have the extra help now and then, and Angie's just thrilled with the whole thing."

"Well, good! I'm glad to hear that someone's getting some use out of it." He started to say something else, but was interrupted by a squeal from someone behind me.

"Bill, you big Canuck!" I turned to see Trina practically running in our direction. You know, somehow I had never thought I'd hear Trina utter the word "Canuck". Oh well, live and learn.

She gave Bill a big hug. He beamed down at her. "Trina, my little Russka! How have you been?"

"I have been fine." Her eyes sparkled. "Tell me, is it really true about you and . . . you know?"

I took that as my cue to leave. Scanning the room, I spotted Mayumi sitting in a corner by herself. I walked over to her. "Mayumi Chikamatsu? Hi, I'm Trevor Chiao, the current Prime Indigo. Do you mind if I join you?"

She smiled graciously and motioned me into the chair beside her. "We Asians have to stick together, don't we?"

I laughed. "I suppose we do. That wasn't the reason I came over here, though. I have an ulterior motive."

She made her eyes go wide in mock surprise. "Don't tell me you're trying to chat me up? I have to warn you, I'm a married woman!"

"No, of course not." I thought I saw her frown slightly, so I grinned and winked and added, "Well, at least that's not the only reason. I . . . was sort of hoping you would let me practice my Japanese on you. I don't know any native speakers, and . . ."

She nodded in understanding. "And the only time you get to use it is when you're shouting, 'There's an Enclave monster here! Run away! Run away!'"

"Yeah, something like that," I said, laughing again.

The two of us talked for a while in Japanese. That is, she talked and I struggled. My Japanese was rustier than I had thought, and I eventually gave up. Still, in spite of my limited vocabulary, she told me I spoke the language reasonably well, although I had a decided Chinese accent.

Reverting to English, she told me a few stories about the monsters they had fought in the early days of Enclave's assault on Earth, and also some about Mike and Shelley when they were new Primes. These latter I filed away for future reference, especially the one about the time Mike had tried to smuggle a case of Scotch into HQ.

"Do you ever miss being a Prime?" I asked her.

"Sometimes. I miss the excitement, of course, but not as much as I would have thought. I have developed other interests, primarily in designing clothes, and I have been quite successful." She seemed to grow reflective. "We have all been financially successful, all four of us, since we left the Primes. I think Wizzit might have had something to do with that. And then there's . . ." For a moment she appeared lost in thought. "Trevor," she asked me suddenly, "how old would you say I am?"

I studied her face. She was wearing some makeup, but not much. She didn't need it; her skin was smooth, her complexion was flawless, and there were no signs of wrinkles around her mouth or eyes. She appeared to be in her mid-twenties, although to be polite, I shaved a couple years off of that. "You look like you're about twenty-three or twenty-four."

"Flatterer! I wasn't fishing for compliments." The sparkle in her eyes told me I'd scored a few brownie points with her anyway. "What would you say if I told you I was actually . . . thirty-six?"

I hesitated, then decided to gamble by telling her the truth. "With all due respect, Mayumi, I'd say you were lying," I told her with a grin. "I've seen the file we have on you. Prime Commander recruited you to be the first Prime Orange when you were twenty-three, and that was almost sixteen years ago. But I take your point. You haven't aged since you joined the Primes."

"I have aged some," she corrected me, "but not much. It's the same with the others. Well, except for Shelley; I'm sure you would agree she doesn't look thirteen any more. Tell me, did you wear glasses before you were recruited?"

"Contacts, yeah," I admitted. "I don't wear them any more."

"My glasses were a quarter-inch thick when I joined, and that's no exaggeration. Now, I find I don't need glasses at all, not even for reading. Nor have I been sick, not even a cold. There are some advantages, it appears, to being a Prime. Or a former Prime."

"What about . . .?" I hesitated, wondering how to phrase this delicately. I didn't know Mayumi all that well, but I was curious about one thing. According to Wizzit, using the force shields makes us sterile. The effect supposedly lasts for about thirty days, but that particular timer gets reset every time we power up. Theoretically, if I quit the Primes, then I could father a child just a month later. Theoretically.

"I have two children," she said with a smile. "Does that answer your question?"

"Yeah, it does. Thanks."

The party continued until Wizzit began dimming the lights to tell us that it was time for all good Primes to get ready for bed. He keeps us on a fairly regular schedule, except when Enclave decides to attack in the middle of the night. Mike, Trina, Toby, and I each teleported out with one of our guests while Padma and Nicolai cleaned up and put away the leftovers.

Mayumi's husband did not seemed surprised to see her emerge from an inner room of her house in Japan, nor did he raise his eyebrows when I walked out behind her, still holding her hand. She introduced me as a trusted friend, and I exchanged a few pleasantries with him in my halting Japanese. Ten minutes later, I was back at HQ fast asleep.

Chapter 3

The next morning started out bright and early with breakfast and then a debriefing in the office. I don't know exactly why it is that we have debriefings after every mission, but we do. It's something that Wizzit insists on, and I have to admit, it sometimes helps to sort out what actually went on while we were out there.

Shelley was behind the desk when the rest of us trooped in. That was a bit of a surprise, because Prime Commander had always sat in that particular chair, with Shelley in the team leader's spot. Still, with Commander Windham gone, there was nobody I would rather see sit there.

Mike narrated the vid of the mission. It didn't take long; heck, I'm lousy at narration, and even I could have done that one in my sleep. When he finished, Shelley nodded and asked whether there were any questions.

"Yeah, I've got a big one," Mike declared. "Why did I suddenly find myself looking down the barrel of a rifle -- held by a policeman, of all people? And what are we going to do about it?"

"That's two questions," Nicolai pointed out. Padma shushed him with a jab of her elbow.

Shelley shook her head. She looked tired; the past few days must have taken a lot out of her. "I'm afraid I can't answer that," she said. "Wizzit is investigating, and we're hoping to come up with a solution." She glanced around at the rest of us. "Anything else?"

No one had any more to say, so Shelley dismissed us. "All except you, Mike. I need to go over a few things with you."

With nothing else on today's agenda, I decided to grab my blaster and wander out to our shooting range for some target practice. After that, I sat down in my room to practice some Gershwin.

Yeah, you heard right -- Gershwin. In case I haven't mentioned it, my mom is a piano teacher -- she teaches at the local college -- and she has taught all us kids to play. She still gives me lessons whenever I'm home for a visit, so I figure that the least I can do is to practice whenever I get a chance. It's a good idea, I think, for a Prime to have some sort of hobby apart from just training all the time. I mean, I like my teammates, and we play a lot of cards and generally enjoy each other's company, but everybody needs time alone.

I practiced my scales and arpeggios for a while, then spent a solid hour on my current assignment, Gershwin's second prelude. It's a slow, sinuous number that's hard enough to get just right on a piano. It's dang near impossible to do well on an electronic keyboard like I have, but I manfully kept at it. And I unwound after that with some Bach stuff from The Liturgical Year and my current favorite piece, Joplin's "Gladiolus Rag".

Then I sat down on my bed and tried to figure out what to do with the rest of my day. It occurred to me that I had never spoken with Trina about why she blew up at Mike the way she did. So, two minutes later I found myself heading down the girls' hallway. "Hey, Trina," I called when I got to her room. "It's Trevor. Can I come in?"

"Door open." In response to her spoken command, the door to her room unlocked itself and allowed me to push it open.

Trina's hobby is art. She was sitting at her desk flipping through some of her old sketches when I entered. The mythical nudes she had once drawn of Shelley were not among them, I noticed. I have heard rumors of the existence of those sketches, but as far as I know, no one has ever seen them except Shelley and Trina. The one she was looking at now, though, caught my eye.

"Is that the one you drew of me and Padma?" I asked.

"Of you and Robin, you mean?" she said, smiling. She passed it over to me. "Padma mentioned that she had told you about it. I suppose there's no harm in showing it to you now."

I sat down and studied the sketch. It was quite a romantic-looking scene of two young lovers looking deeply into one another's eyes. It was very good, very life-like, especially when you considered that one of the figures in it had been drawn completely from memory. Trina had done it one morning in Padma's room. I had just broken Padma's arm (don't ask; long story) and the dear girl was experiencing her very first healing coma. I was sitting beside her bed, holding her hand, and Trina was hanging around, providing moral support . . . and drawing.

Trina hadn't originally wanted to show me the sketch, and looking at it now, I could understand why. She had drawn it while watching Padma and me, but the woman in the picture was not Padma; it was Robin South, who had been Prime Blue back when I was Prime Violet. I felt my throat close up. I hadn't seen Robin's face in quite some time -- not since her funeral, in fact -- but that was definitely her smiling up at me.

"You can have it if you want," Trina offered.

I closed my eyes and shook my head mutely. I coughed to clear the tightness from my throat. "Thanks, but . . . too many bad memories."

I felt her lay a hand on my arm. "I understand," she said sympathetically. "But you should really stop blaming yourself, you know. Having your weapon break could have happened to anyone."

"Yeah, well, explain that to Robin. She died because my weapon broke, and because I didn't get to her in time." Not couldn't, I reminded myself. Didn't. I was sure I could have if I had only tried harder.

She didn't reply; she merely squeezed my arm. With her other hand, she gently took the sketch from my grasp. "Do you want me to destroy it?"

"No, it's too good for that, and . . . I might want it some day." I looked up at her, swiped away a bit of moisture from my eyes, and smiled. "You don't happen to have any of Lily, do you?"

Trina's eyes widened. "I have several. She was a most cooperative subject. Are you sure you want to see them?"

"Yes, please."

"Very well. You're certainly a glutton for punishment." She pulled out a sketchbook and handed it to me, commenting, "I had never drawn a murderess before." I gave her a sharp look, and she added hastily, "I'm sorry, that was insensitive of me."

I shrugged and began flipping through the sketchbook. "You don't have to apologize; we all know what she is and what she did."

She smiled sympathetically at me. "Poor Trevor, unlucky in love. First Robin, then Padma, and now Lily."

"Now, hang on a second," I protested. "I was never in love with Padma. We were just . . . friendly, that's all."

"Very friendly, from what I saw."

I chuckled. "Well, okay -- very friendly. But it didn't mean anything then, and it doesn't mean anything now."

She shrugged. "If you say so."

"I do." And with that, I looked down and began studying her sketches in earnest.

In contrast to the first picture she had shown me, the pictures of Lily Lee -- drawn during the short time we had held her captive -- were not terribly life-like. I couldn't blame Trina for that, though; Lily herself had not been terribly life-like when Trina had drawn them. She had done a good job of capturing the serene beauty of her face, but it seemed like the face of a statue, not a living woman. Just like Lily herself.

But then I turned to the last page, and I inhaled sharply; this picture definitely stood out from the others. Lily was in the same seated, meditative pose, and her face held the same sense of immobile perfection, but now a tiny frown creased the space between her eyebrows and a single tear had crept out of one eye and slid down her cheek. It was a subtle difference, but one which somehow transformed her from a lifeless statue to a figure of great sadness. Trina had caught her mood perfectly.

I immediately knew when that particular picture had been drawn, because Shelley had shown me video footage of this same scene, filmed just after I had paid Lily a visit and spoken to her in Cantonese. "Um, Trina," I said, "could I \--?"

"I am afraid not," she said. She was standing at her mirror, fixing her pale blonde hair.

"But you don't even know what I'm going to ask!"

"There is only one picture in that book that would make you gasp so; it is the one of her crying, yes?" She patted one last lock of hair into place, then turned to face me, smiling. "I would love to give it to you, Trevor, but I am afraid I must use it for another purpose."

"Oh," I said. I got to my feet. "Okay."

"Aren't you curious?"

I shrugged. "If you want to tell me, sure, I'd like to hear about it, but I don't want to pry."

She stepped closer and took the sketchpad from my hands. "You know, don't you, that I have been telling my parents that I am working as an artist and model?"

"Yeah," I said. Figuring out how not to tell your folks you're a Prime had always been one of my biggest challenges, as well. Mine thought that I was bumming around the world with a Tae Kwon Do demonstration team. "But they've never really believed that, have they?"

"No, they haven't. And in our last conversation, they said what they really think." She looked down, and her mouth twisted. "They have told me frankly that they think I am prostitute."

Trina really speaks very good English. Her Russian accent comes out -- and she starts dropping her a's, an's, and the's -- only when she is excited or upset. I laid a hand on her shoulder and looked into her pale blue eyes. "Trina, I'm sorry."

She nodded. "Wizzit has arranged for me to enter art competition in Moscow. I send in my five best drawings and we see how it goes. That one of Lily is one of the best pieces I have done in years. I want to send it in as one of my five. And . . . I had been thinking of sending in the one of you and Robin as well, if that is all right with you."

I grinned. "Trina," I said, "I can't think of a better use for it."

She smiled her thanks. "I do not expect to win, of course," she went on, "but even entering will maybe help convince them that I am not a --" Here she used a Russian word that was short and ugly, probably something like "whore."

"I think you'll do fine," I told her. I left her room a few minutes later holding one of her other sketches of Lily rolled up in my hand, whistling and feeling strangely light-hearted. It wasn't until I got back to my room that I realized that I had never asked her about Mike.

Chapter 4

Shelley was in and out all that day and the next; she rejoined us full-time a couple of days after the funeral, and I think everyone was glad to have her back. I know I was. Being a Prime can be a chaotic business even in the best of times, and losing Prime Commander's steadying influence had been a major blow. I didn't see how we go for long without Shelley as well.

We didn't see much of her even when she did come back, though. She spent a good deal of time in her father's old office; I assume she was doing a lot of the work that Commander Windham used to do. I know she began running all our debriefings, and she spent a few long afternoons closeted in the office with Mike, doing who knew what.

One afternoon about a week after she came back, the monster alarm started ringing. "Lily's back, kids," Wizzit called out, "and she's taking New York by storm. She has a . . . let's see . . . some sort of ape monster with her, and loads of Zoinks. Better bring plenty big weapons, and that means you, Indigo!"

I was in my room at the time, so I quickly put on my battle vest and ran to the weapons room to give Padma a hand gathering up our gear. I grabbed Shelley's sword, Mike's club, and my Escrima stick, while Padma picked up her and Nicolai's axes and Toby's hammer. Trina, of course, would have her triple blaster with her already.

Wizzit teleported us into a deserted alleyway near the commotion. He always does that; it tends to cause less of a problem than if we suddenly appear in the middle of a monster attack. We ran out onto the main thoroughfare, which appeared to be somewhere in the theater district. Now, at HQ Wizzit keeps us on Greenwich Mean Time, so afternoon for us equals morning in New York, and the streets were full of both cars and pedestrians.

Lily had positioned herself in the middle of the intersection of West Forty-Second Street and Seventh Avenue, to judge by the street signs. True to form, she had sent her Zoinks out to harass the local population, which meant that we needed to join in the battle pronto.

What are Zoinks, I hear you ask? Mindless, vaguely human-shaped critters. I'm not sure they're even alive in any meaningful sense of the term. Enclave calls them drones, and they send them out with their monsters to attack civilians, get in our way, and generally make it more difficult for us Primes to do our jobs. Lily was getting to be more of an expert in commanding them every time she went out.

"I'll find the main monster," Shelley said grimly. "Green, come with me. Everyone else, get those Zoinks under control! And take out Lily if you get a chance."

"Check the Empire State Building, Red," Mike quipped. "It's be just like Enclave to send a King Kong lookalike." Shelley barked a short laugh.

I looked down the street at Lily. A little over six years ago, she had been a beautiful, sweet-natured, fifteen-year-old girl from eastern China named Li Lin-fa. Then she had been kidnapped by Enclave and turned into something sinister, something her handler JB Swift called "the attack doll", with more personalities than I had thumbs.

She was definitely in what I had learned to call "commander mode", scanning the crowds and ordering her Zoinks to go wherever they could do the most damage. Regardless of whatever this ape monster turned out to be, Lily was going to be a major thorn in our side. I decided that I was going to make my own chance to take her out.

She looked surprised when she saw me running straight for her. I don't think any of us had actually gone after her directly before. One of Wizzit's strictest rules is that we can't attack anyone from Enclave, not until they have proved they're dangerous, and by the time Lily physically attacked anyone, she usually wasn't in commander mode any more. After she killed Prime Commander, though, Wizzit had put her on a permanent takedown list. She had proven herself hostile and was fair game at any time.

Lily ducked behind the nearest Zoink as I rushed her. That slowed me down only a little; a single Zoink is no match for a fully-powered Prime. It did buy her enough time, though, to find a double-handful of Zoinks to act as her bodyguards. She fled with them through the crowds, eventually finding her way beneath the glittering marquee of a super-sized fast food place.

The flow of pedestrians up and down the street and in and out of the food place hindered her then as much as it did me. The difference, of course, was that she didn't care about the pedestrians and had no compunctions about having her Zoinks attack anyone nearby.

Being the nearest good guy, I did my best to see that no one got hurt. The most effective technique, I soon discovered, was to grab a Zoink, pound it a few times to take the starch out of it, and heave it out into the middle of the street, away from the crowds. I'm afraid I put a few dents into a few cars that way, but to my way of thinking, it's better to have dents in cars than in people.

After a few minutes and a lot of heaving, I had Lily isolated, the two of us in the center of a ring of onlookers. These New Yorkers seemed to have no fear of anything, didn't have the sense to run away from an Enclave battle. They seemed to be treating all this as some sort of street theater.

There wasn't anything I could do about it, though; I decided to concentrate on Lily. She was defiant, her fists balled in front of her as if she were ready to fight, but she also looked very young and very scared, the same way she had when Shelley and I first encountered her.

"I don't want to hurt you, Lily," I said, my voice low and steady, "but I can't let you hurt anyone else, either." On an impulse, I switched to Cantonese. As far as I knew, Lily didn't speak Cantonese; it was the language spoken by Li Lin-fa, whose personality Enclave had almost completely submerged. "I want to help you," I said. "I want to be your friend."

She looked as though I had just slapped her. She blinked and shook herself, and her hands slowly dropped to her sides. Before I could grab her wrists and slip a pair of my disposable handcuffs on her, though, I saw something I had hoped not to see. Lily's face suddenly lost all expression.

I said a very bad word, although in deference to my audience of onlookers, I said it in Korean. (Oddly enough, an Asian-looking man standing somewhere behind Lily looked startled for a moment, and then he grinned lopsidedly at me and gave me a thumbs-up. Go figure.) Somewhere, I knew, JB Swift had just pointed his remote-control at Lily and pressed a button. As a result, she had shifted from commander mode to attacker mode. Or, to use my own pet term, she had just turned into Crazy Kung Fu Zombie Chick.

I started to back away. "It's time to scatter, folks," I said to the crowd at large, my voice tense, "because she's about to get violent." I barely had time to get the words out before Lily threw herself at me.

I'll say this for the Zombie Chick, she never attacks civilians. Only Primes -- or Prime Commanders, I guess. She was on me almost before I was ready for her. I staggered backward under her assault and bumped into a car. Grabbing Lily, I heaved her up, and the two of us rolled onto the hood with me on top. (Yay!)

I aimed a punch straight to her jaw, but she managed to block it and then came back for an eye gouge. My force shield prevented her from blinding me, but it was a near thing. She had a lot of strength for someone who couldn't have weighed much over a hundred pounds. I brought my forearm down across her throat and leaned on it, not hard enough to kill her, but with enough pressure to cut off her air supply.

Lily struggled like a wildcat, thrashing about so hard that she knocked me off her. I tumbled off the front of the car and quickly righted myself, waiting for her next attack. It was not long in coming. Lily kipped up to her feet and did that "look right, look left, look up" thing that I've seen her do before to orient herself. Then she dove straight at me, her face still carrying that same lack of expression, her hands extended like claws.

I have fought CKFZC a time or two, and I have watched vids of her taking on the other Primes, primarily Shelly, and I have noticed that she tends to attack head-first like that. It's a strange technique for a trained fighter to use -- a little unsettling if you've never seen it before -- but if you know what you're doing, it's not that hard to defend against. I allowed myself to fall back onto my side. Lily sailed over top of me, and I aimed a sidekick straight upward, directly into her midriff.

She folded up with an "oof!", but managed to hit the ground rolling. By the time I got vertical again, she was facing me in a sort of crouching version of the standard riding-horse stance with her rear arm held tight against her stomach. That was when the real fight began.

Now, I'm a fourth Dan -- a fourth-degree black belt -- in Tae Kwon Do. I have studied martial arts for years and years, and I have been in literally hundreds of fights, everything from friendly sparring matches to real knock-down, drag-outs against Zoinks and Enclave monsters. I have gone up against other TKD-ers, kung fu experts, karate guys, someone who knew enough savate to be plenty dangerous (yes, Tobias Sykes, I'm looking at you here), and one really cute girl who was into judo, and let me tell you, Lily's style was unique. I don't know how or where she learned her stuff, but I have seen nothing like it before or since, and it was effective as hell.

The two of us fought up and down Forty-Second Street. She was all offense -- a real blur of kicks and hand attacks -- and I spent a lot of my time blocking and circling around her, biding my time. I figured she wouldn't be able to keep it up for long; I mean, even the most highly-conditioned runner can't sprint forever, right? Which was pretty much what she was doing.

Unfortunately for me, we ran into a gaggle of Zoinks before Lily began to slow down. She did not, as one might expect, order them to attack me. As far as I know, Crazy Kung Fu Zombie Chick cannot speak. She simply kept laying into me, while I had to dodge not only her attacks, but those of the swarming Zoinks as well.

I managed to get a Zoink between us, turning it around so that it faced her, and that seemed to confuse her for a time. She tried kicking around it, high roundhouse kicks aimed at the side of my head, but those were easy to avoid. I shoved it forward into her arms, then turned my attention to the other Zoinks surrounding me.

It was then that I heard the most gosh-awful roar I had ever heard in my life. In spite of myself, I turned to see where it was coming from. Down the street a ways, standing on top of a taxi, was what had to be the ape-monster. It was small for an Enclave beastie, probably only seven feet tall, but man, did that thing look scary! It had the appearance of a classic Hollywood killer ape -- super-long canines, beady little red eyes, muscles bulging everywhere. As I watched, it rose to its full height and began beating its chest, giving voice to that awful, full-throated roar again. The hairs on the back on my neck began to stand up.

I saw a red figure leap onto the hood of the cab, ready to do battle. Shelley was on the job; that lady has absolutely no fear. I didn't get to see her actually close with the monster, though. I was suddenly distracted by the application of Lily's foot to the back of my skull. In spite of my force shield, she had been able to roundhouse-kick me hard enough that I saw stars. Ain't too many unaltered, unshielded humans in the world that can do that, let me tell you.

I stumbled forward dizzily into the waiting arms of a Zoink. It snaked its arms around my neck in a headlock. And, you know, that was just fine with me, because I wasn't too worried about the Zoink. What worried me was what Lily would do next. I pushed my way forward, allowing the Zoink to haul me around in a half-circle. I felt a jolt, and then the Zoink's grip loosened. Uh huh, Lily had dived forward after me, just like I thought she would, and she had hit the Zoink instead.

I bent down, grabbed the Zoink around the legs, and picked it up so that it was hanging over my shoulder in sort of a fireman's carry. Right away it started clawing at my back, so I quick slammed it back down again as hard as I could. Lily's mis-timed leap had left her sprawled on the ground at my feet, and the Zoink struck her smack across the back.

Despite her Crazy Kung Fu Zombie Chick-ness, Lily was only human. The impact of a hundred fifty pound-plus Zoink driven down with all my Prime-enhanced strength would knock the wind out of anyone. Before she could recover, I whipped out a pair of my disposable handcuffs and grabbed her wrists. She started struggling, but I was having none of it. I cuffed her across one side of the head with an open palm, then backhanded her across the other side. By the time she recovered from that bit of abuse, I had bound her wrists securely behind her back.

It still didn't stop her from trying to get away. She kicked, she bit, she tore at the cuffs until her wrists were bleeding. I drove a hard elbow into the back of her head, bouncing her face against the asphalt. That didn't take all the fight out of her, so I did it again. Then, while she was still stunned, I snaked my arm around her neck and began pulling back hard against her windpipe. Her struggles grew fainter and eventually stopped altogether.

I cautiously slackened my pressure on her throat. Lily had gone completely limp. I rolled her over so that she was lying on her back with her head lolling to one side. Her eyes were closed, and her lower lip was bleeding from where one of my blows had split it. Parts of her face were starting to bruise, and her forehead looked a mess from where it had struck the surface of the street. I guess I had beaten her up pretty badly. For a moment I was afraid I had killed her. I hastily felt at her throat; her pulse was strong and steady. She might have been playing possum, but after the pounding I had just given her, I sincerely doubted it.

I looked down at her bruised, battered face, uncertain of what to do next. There was a time, shortly after Prime Commander's death, when I would have happily cut off her air supply until that black, black heart of hers stopped beating forever. Not very gentlemanly, I know, but after she killed one of the wisest, kindest, most trustworthy men I ever knew, I didn't feel much like a gentleman.

But Lily's heart wasn't really black; I knew that. It was all those damned things that Enclave had done to her -- that JB Swift had done to her -- that made her an emotionless killing machine. The real woman beneath it all, the woman whose hand I had once held, whom I had once gathered in my arms and kissed so tenderly, the woman I knew as Li Lin-fa, was as warm and sweet as Crazy Kung Fu Zombie Chick was cold and heartless.

Well, whatever I decided to do, it would have to be done soon; Lily would not stay unconscious for long. I thought of Li Lin-fa. What would she want me to do? After I had told her of her alternate Lily Lee personality, she had asked me whether Lily had ever killed anyone. I said no, she hadn't, and then Li Lin-fa had asked me to strangle her, right then and there. She told me she would rather die than be responsible for Lily causing anyone's death. I had refused to kill her then. Now, I decided, I would not.

Looking around, I saw that most of my fellow Primes were busy beating up Zoinks. Trina and Shelley were battling the ape-monster. Trina was shooting her triple-blaster left-handed for some reason, cradling her right arm against her chest. I winced as I saw Shelley take a blow that knocked her halfway across the street. There were sirens in the distance, but at the moment, no one was paying any attention to me. Almost tenderly, I placed my forearm across Lily's throat and began to press down.

Pain exploded in my head as some hard object struck it with incredible force. My force shield kept me from blacking out, but I slumped down on top of Lily. I felt thick, clumsy hands grabbing at me, pulling me off of her. Zoink hands. They hauled me upright and held me fast as I struggled futilely against them.

I looked up to see a two-foot, skeletally-thin scarlet hedgehog standing beside Lily. JB Swift, Lily's handler. In one paw he held a metal pipe, undoubtedly the thing that he had used to bash my head. "You were going to kill my attack doll," he snarled accusingly. "And in cold blood." He glared at me with cold fury in his eyes. "I should have you destroyed for that."

The world was spinning around me, but I managed to lock my eyes on his. "She killed Red's father, damn you," I told him through clenched teeth. "Broke his neck just to get her hands on his cellphone so she could escape, and the only thing he had ever done to her was to give her a bowl of food. Your attack doll deserves to die, you little red bastard!"

The fury in his eyes might have abated just a bit, and he might have looked a little taken aback by my accusation. Or maybe it was just my imagination; I don't always think too clearly after having been blasted in the head by an iron pipe. I do know that he took Lily's limp hand in his two little paws and murmured quietly, "I've got her. Take us out of here." The Zoinks holding me threw me to the ground, and within seconds, JB Swift, Lily, and every single Zoink in the area had teleported out.

"Red," I heard Mike's voice crack out, "the Zoinks have all gone. We're ready to help you with Kong over there!"

It was Trina who replied. "Better get here soonest, Orange." She sounded distressed. "He is giving us problems. He has Red, and I can't get clear shot at him."

I shook my head, which helped to clear away the dizziness. Shelley and Kong were battling it out just down the street from me, in the middle of the intersection of Seventh and Forty-Second. Kong had Shelley wrapped in a bearhug and was lifting her high; Shelley was beating her sword two-handed against his back, over and over. Sparks were flying everywhere, but he wasn't releasing his grip on her.

"Go for his eyes, Red," I heard Mike advise her.

Shelley's voice was faint. "Roger that, Orange." As I watched, she shifted to a one-handed grip and jammed a thumb into one of Kong's beady little eyes. The effect was immediate. Kong dropped Shelley and let out that horrible roar of his. As she fell to the ground, I saw Toby run forward, scoop her up in his arms, and run back behind the line of the other Primes.

"We'd like to request the pleasure of your company, Indigo," I heard Mike say. He ran forward to intercept Kong, who had started shambling in the direction Toby had gone. "Whenever you'd like to join us." He swung his club two-handed at Kong's chest. Sparks flew.

"On my way." I jogged toward the rest of my group. Movement helped; I could feel my adrenaline rising, clearing away the rest of the pounding in my head. "Sorry, Lily was giving me a hard time."

"Did you capture her?"

"No. JB Swift blasted me in the head with a pipe and teleported out with her and the Zoinks."

"Oh, so you're the one who got rid of them? Good work, but don't rest on your laurels. Looks like we've got plenty more work to do."

"Understood."

"Red has taken quite a beating," Toby announced from where he was kneeling beside Shelley. He's the one of us with the most medical training. "Broken ribs, possibly a concussion, I can't tell what all else. Wizzit, prepare to teleport Red back to HQ for a healing coma."

"No. Countermand that, Wizzit." Shelley sounded stronger than she had. "This monster is plenty tough. We're going to need all of us to take him down."

"You sure, Red?" Toby sounded doubtful.

I saw Shelley use her sword to push herself painfully to her feet. "Yeah. I'm sure. Let's go."

Nicolai and Padma were attacking Kong now with that you-go-high, I'll-go-low maneuver that they've been working on. They're starting to get pretty good at it, I have to admit. I drew my blaster, waited until they were clear, and snapped off a shot at it. My aim has definitely been improving since I took Trina's advice and began taking a hundred shots a day on our practice range.

Trina evidently had the same idea. Her triple-blaster shot struck the monster at pretty much the same time as the one from my regular blaster. Obviously, hers did more damage, but I like to think that every little bit helps.

Toby and Shelley went next. Toby's hammer smacked the thing square across his flat nose, causing him to roar once more, while Shelley's backhanded swing struck him behind the knees, knocking him flat on his back. The two of them decided to stick around for another shot. Shelley hacked at his legs; Toby raised his hammer high and swung it down hard onto his belly, looking for all the world as though he was trying to ring the bell at the county fair.

One of Kong's apishly-long arms swung out and swept Shelley's feet out from under her. I heard her involuntary cry of pain as she landed on her back, undoubtedly further punishing her broken ribs. Normally, she would kip up to her feet and continue fighting; this time, though, she simply rolled away.

I have to say, Kong was pretty fast and agile for an Enclave monster. He was up and attacking Shelley as she was struggling to her feet. Toby ran up and started pounding either side of the monster's head with his hammer, but Kong refused to let loose of her.

I saw Shelley reach down for her blaster. She fired a shot directly into his open mouth, which was maybe six inches away from her face, then followed that up with a blaster shot into each eye and one up his nose. Kong howled and swung his fists, bashing Shelley on either side of the head. She collapsed in a heap. Kong turned away, pawing wildly at his face, while Toby kept up his own barrage of hammer blows.

I had reached the scene now, and I decided to try a little trick that had worked well once before. Pulling my Escrima stick from my belt, I ran up to Kong's back and leaped up high. Planting my knees firmly against his massive, sloping shoulders, I drew my stick over his head and, with a convulsive jerk, I forced it into his open mouth like a bridle.

Have you ever had someone bet you that you can't fit a billiard ball in your mouth? If anyone ever does, don't take it. It's a sucker's bet. Toby explained it to me once. See, the problem is not so much getting the ball into your mouth; it's getting it back out again. Can't be done, not unless you get some special equipment that can saw the ball into pieces without damaging your tongue or teeth.

Kong was now having much the same problem. My Escrima stick was a little under an inch in diameter, which was slender enough that I could fit it in between his massive canines, but thick enough that he was going to have trouble getting it out again. And because my stick contained our anti-monster tech, it was causing mucho sparking, burning his lips and tongue.

The good news was that he immediately stopped attacking Shelley and went for me instead. The bad news was that he immediately stopped attacking Shelley and went for me instead. The last monster I had done this to had not been terribly mobile. He would probably have had a hard time reaching up to scratch his nose. Kong, though, had these super-long ape arms and had no trouble reaching back to swat at me.

I held on as best I could, leaning way back and pulling back on the stick with all my weight. Nicolai and Pamda had joined Toby now, and the three of them were whaling away on the monster just as hard as they could while he flailed away, buffeting me with those big hands of his.

"Coming up behind you, Indigo," I heard Orange say. "Watch out for me."

"Will do, Orange," I gasped. "How are we doing, Wizzit?"

"He is weakening," Wizzit replied. "Hang on there, li'l buckaroo!"

"Coming to join you," I heard Shelley say.

"Yellow and Violet, open up a little more in front," Trina said. "I can't get clear shot."

I dug my knees against Kong's back and held on for dear life. I ducked my head, trying to avoid the worst of Kong's slaps. Then I heard a sharp crack! and suddenly I was tumbling to the ground. "Wha-what just happened?" I cried.

Mike danced around, neatly avoiding me. It's nice to have friends with fast reflexes. "Damn!" he exclaimed. "I think Kong just bit through your stick, Indigo!"

He was right. In my hands, I held the two pieces of my Escrima stick, the ends now sparking uselessly. Suddenly I heard Trina scream, "Look out, Indigo!"

I looked up. Kong had swung around and now stood looming over me with murder in his little red eyes. I quick double-kicked him in the belly, pushing myself out of his reach just as his hands were reaching down to grab me. "Got a broken weapon here, Wizzit!" I called out. "I'm going to discard it. Switching to my sap gloves instead."

"Got it, Indigo," he replied. I tossed the broken pieces of the Escrima stick aside, and a moment later I heard two minor explosions as Wizzit destroyed them. Can't leave any of our tech lying around for non-Primes to pick up.

I reached into a pocket of my battle vest and dug out my sap gloves. They were mostly regular fighting gloves, with protective steel shot sewn into pouches across all the striking surfaces. The difference was that Padma had embedded our tech into the fabric so that they were nearly as effective against Enclave monsters as our regular weapons.

"Uh, you might want to move it, Indigo," Mike told me. I looked up from donning my gloves to see Kong bearing down on me. Mike bashed him across the face with his club while I scooted backwards on my butt. When I was a safe distance away, I rolled to my feet, hands up ready to start punching.

"Hold your fire, Green," Shelley commanded. "I'm going to take Indigo's spot."

"Red, don't!" Mike warned her. "You're injured."

Shelley barked a short, painful laugh. "That makes me the best one for the job, Orange. Right now, hanging on is about all I'm good for."

I saw her jump astride Kong and slip the blade of her sword into its mouth. His reaction was immediate and violent; he spun around, trying to see who was tormenting him this time, and then he began swatting at Shelley just as he had been swatting at me earlier.

"Everyone close in!" Wizzit suddenly told us. "Red, hang on for another minute or two, and then you should have him!"

Everyone rushed Kong then. Even Trina ran forward and jammed the muzzle of her triple-blaster against Kong's hairy hide, firing continuously. True to his word, Wizzit tuned our weapons as we fought, and sixty seconds later, Kong vaporized in a shower of sparks.

I caught Shelley as she staggered backward from the monster's explosion and eased her down to the ground. Everyone else clustered around us. I was fervently hoping that there were no news reporters around. If there were, then Shelley, as our spokesman, would feel it her duty to go out and give them at least a brief interview. Of course she would be her usual patient, quietly charming self, but she seemed in pretty bad shape right now and needed a healing coma as soon as possible. This had been the worst attack we had faced in quite a while.

Just as I was thinking this, I heard an amplified voice boom out, "You! In the center! Stand up and put your hands on your heads!"

I looked around and saw that we were surrounded by what appeared to be SWAT troops. "Dammit!" Mike exclaimed. "Why now?"

"Help me up," Shelley said quietly. Nicolai and I put our arms around her back and raised her to her feet. We looked around. There were probably fifty police officers in full riot gear surrounding the area we had been battling in, trying to push the crowds back. Lights were flashing everywhere; I could see a couple of black SWAT vans, each with a handful of snipers on top pointing rifles at us. A police helicopter hovered overhead, whipping dust into our faces.

A tall man wearing a long, black coat, black gloves, and dark sunglasses stood holding a bullhorn. He brought it up to his mouth. "Repeat, put your hands on your heads. Drop your weapons. You are being detained for interrogation by federal authorities."

Shelley took another slow look around and sighed, a world of weariness in the sound. "All right, Orange, this is we've been talking about." She carefully handed Mike her broadsword and blaster. "It's time to implement Protocol Black."

"Red, no," Mike protested as she shrugged out of her battle vest and gave that to Nicolai. "Look, we can talk our way out of this. We can --"

"We've already discussed this, Orange. Protocol Black. That's an order."

"What is Protocol Black?" Trina said. "I have never heard of it."

Orange shook his head. "All right, Red. I hate to do this, but I suppose it's your call." He laid a hand on her shoulder. "We'll wait for your signal."

"What is Protocol Black?" Trina demanded as Shelley began walking slowly and painfully toward the man with the bullhorn.

"Listen up," Mike said tensely. "Red is going to buy us some time to get away. As soon as Red begins talking, it's camouflage mode and scatter. Prepare for teleportation right away."

"What, are we just going to leave Red here?" Toby demanded.

"Not exactly," Mike said. "Wizzit, do you have locations pre-selected?"

"Got 'em," Wizzit replied.

"Good. Wherever Wizzit puts you, stay there. Don't move and don't make a sound. Your job is just to observe. Got it?"

"But what about --?"

"I don't know!" Mike snapped. "This is something that Red and Wizzit cooked up. I don't know what's going to happen with Red. They didn't tell me a whole lot about it."

There was silence for a moment. Most of the snipers, I noticed, appeared to have their rifles trained on Shelley. Only one or two were aiming in our direction. "All right," Trina finally said, reluctance obvious in her voice. The rest of us quickly agreed.

Shelley was now standing perhaps ten feet in front of the man with the bullhorn, her arms raised in the classic surrender position. She stopped, slowly looking left and then right. From somewhere in the crowd of spectators, someone started clapping. It spread quickly; in seconds, everyone was applauding, whistling, cheering, all for Shelley. I heard shouts of "All right, Red!", "You rock, Eric!", and "Eric the Red for President!" I smiled, hearing Shelley's unofficial nickname yelled out so enthusiastically.

When the applause had begun to die down, Shelley turned to the man with the bullhorn. "I am Prime Red," she announced. "Am I under arrest?"

That was our cue. I quickly turned on camouflage mode. A second later, I found myself on top of a marquee overlooking the intersection I had just been standing in, with a perfect view of the situation. "Don't move or say a word," I heard Wizzit whisper. "Just watch and listen." I wasn't about to move; it was a precarious perch.

I could see that some of the police officers were beginning to notice that, except for Shelley, all the Primes had just disappeared. The man with the bullhorn wasn't aware of it yet. He was saying, "You and the other Primes are being detained for interrogation by federal authorities." His voice was flat and brittle, I noticed, the same voice I had heard coming out of that walkie-talkie in Texas. "Put your --"

One of the uniformed men ran up to him and began talking into his ear. He jerked his head around, obviously looking for us. He raised the bullhorn to his mouth and said sharply, "Where are the rest of the Primes? Where have they gone?"

"I'm sure I don't know." Somehow, Shelley managed to sound completely unconcerned. "I repeat, am I under arrest?"

The man with the bullhorn made an impatient gesture, and suddenly Shelley was ringed about with police officers, every one of whom was pointing a gun or rifle straight at her. "Put your hands on your head slowly and remove that . . . that disguise you have on."

Shelley cautiously placed both of her hands on the top of her head, and then she did the absolute last thing I ever expected her to do. In a clear, firm, loud voice, she said, "Prime Red, deactivate!" And Shelley Windham, the longest-serving Prime in our history and the last of the seven original Primes, showed her face to the world for the first time.

I heard a collective gasp from the crowds present as the red mist dissolved. Someone cried out, "Eric the Red is a girl?" Over our Prime-to-Prime connection, Padma breathed, "No!", and somehow the sense of horror and dismay conveyed in that one word expressed my feelings perfectly.

"Don't move," Wizzit repeated quietly, "or say a word. Just watch and listen."

To be completely honest, Shelley looked terrible. Her ponytail was askew, and her dark blonde hair half-covered her face. There was blood on her tee-shirt in places, and her face, arms, and legs, what we could see of them, were already starting to show bruises. One of her eyes was starting to swell shut. She looked as though she could barely stand up.

At a signal, one of the uniformed officers surrounding her dragged her arms behind her back and applied handcuffs. Someone yelled, "Look out! She's got a weapon!" and then someone else raised a rifle butt and smashed it against the back of her head. She dropped like a stone. Another officer leaned down and began shouting into her ear, "Stay down! Stay down! Stay down! Stay down! Stay down!" But Shelley wasn't moving; my force shield automatically zoomed in on the image, and I could see blood welling up across the back of her head where she had been struck.

Watching this, I felt sick. Somewhere I could hear Trina softly crying. I could understand the feeling. I wanted to cry myself, or hit someone. The man with the bullhorn gave some sort of order that I couldn't hear, and the other police officers began moving through the crowd. I could see that a number of people had cellphones out and were recording what was going on. These were quickly confiscated or smashed on the ground, and the police began dispersing the crowd none too gently.

"All right, I'm bringing you home now, kids," Wizzit said somberly, once Shelley's inert body had been loaded into a police van.

Chapter 5

Back at HQ, we all just stared dumbly at each other. I think each of us wanted someone to explain what had just happened, to make it all make sense: Prime Commander, Prime Red -- anyone. But Commander Windham was dead, and Shelley had just been captured. Mike was now in charge, and it sounded as though he didn't know much more about it than we did.

"Right, I think the first order of business is healing comas all 'round," he said. His voice was strained; he was obviously making an effort to sound matter-of-fact. "After that, we'll meet in Prime -- in the office to debrief. There's a video that Shelley told me we had to watch if Protocol Black was ever implemented."

"Then let's watch it now!" Toby said angrily. "I bloody well want to know what's going on!"

"No!" Mike was equally forceful. "You know the rules, Toby. First priority after every mission is to heal up, then debrief. We have to defend the Earth against Enclave -- wherever and whenever -- and we can't do that if we're so injured we're about to fall over. Healing comas come first!"

I looked around at the group. Toby appeared reasonably healthy, but I could see that Nicolai and Padma looked much the worse for wear, and Trina's right hand was a bloody mess. That would explain why she had been shooting left-handed; had she been bitten by Kong's oversize canines? And now that my adrenaline was wearing off, my head was starting to pound again, and I was feeling sick and dizzy. Not to mention that I hurt all over.

Wizzit broke the tense silence. "I am tracking Shelley's location. She is currently en route to John F. Kennedy International Airport. There have been some attempts to remove her Prime belt, but so far, none have come close to success. Per her standing instructions, I have taken the liberty of initiating a healing coma. She was already unconscious, so I have set it to maximum depth. She should be completely healed up in . . . thirty-two minutes."

Somehow, knowing that Wizzit was keeping track of Shelley and was taking care of her, knowing that she hadn't been completely abandoned, made me feel a whole lot better. "Mike's right," I said. "We need to heal up. There's nothing we can do for Shelley right now."

Trina didn't speak -- I think she was still crying -- but she abruptly turned, headed for the lounge, and flopped down into one of the comfortable chairs. I did the same and said, "Whenever you're ready, Wizzit." As my own healing coma descended upon me, I saw the others follow suit.

Wizzit had set Shelley's healing coma to be as deep as possible, which meant that she was dead to the world. To the folks who had captured her, it really would seem as if she were in a coma. Usually, though, that's overkill; most of the time when you're in a healing coma, you just feel sort of drowsy and disconnected from everything. In a light healing coma, I could maybe even get up and walk around a bit, although I sure wouldn't want to. And the soft, comfy chairs in the lounge are the best place in the world to relax while you wait for the healing to finish up.

About twenty minutes after I had lain down, my eyes snapped open and I was completely alert. My headache was gone; all my bumps and bruises had been banished entirely. I could smell barbecued beef, and my stomach growled. It wasn't yet dinnertime, but healing comas always make me hungry. Sitting up, I saw that Trina and I were the only ones still here. Everyone else, I figured, must be in the kitchen. As I watched, Trina's eyes opened. Her healing coma must have just ended as well.

In the kitchen, Mike was eating his favorite snack, Marmite and cheese on toast, and Toby had pulled out the leftovers from the ox roast. Nicolai and Padma each had bowls of the leftover grilled veggies, although I could see Nicolai staring longingly at Toby's stacked sandwich. Padma won't eat beef, and it appeared that she had forbidden Nicolai from eating it as well. I felt sorry for the poor, henpecked guy, but that didn't stop me from making my own roast beef sandwich. Trina shuddered at Mike's Marmite, made herself a cup of tea, and put in some bread to toast.

There wasn't a whole lot of talking, but somehow it didn't seem as tense as it had earlier. When Mike took the last bite of his Marmite-and-cheese toast and drained his glass of milk, he stood up without a word, put his dishes away, and left the room, presumably heading for the office. The rest of us picked up our respective snacks and followed.

Chapter 6

Prime Commander had always sat behind his desk to conduct our debriefings, and lately Shelley had begun doing that, too. Mike didn't, though; maybe he didn't feel it was his place. Instead, he took the team leader's chair, and the rest of us sat in our usual spots. The desk chair remained empty.

"I don't know much about this Protocol Black thing," Mike began. "Wizzit will have to explain it, I guess. And of course there's that video that Shelley made. We might as well start with that. Wizzit, if you please?"

"Negatory on that, good buddy," Wizzit said. "Debrief first, then video."

Mike took a long breath, then let it out again. I could tell he was trying to be patient. "All righty then, debrief it is. Who wants to go first? Trevor? I'd like to know what you were up to."

So we watched a vid of my fight with Lily, with me narrating. To tell you the truth, I've never really gotten the hang of doing voiceovers for my own battles; I always feel really self-conscious. Still, I could tell that going through the routine of debriefing a mission was settling me down, making it feel as if everything was normal instead of completely cockeyed. Maybe it was doing the same thing for the others. Regardless, I finished up at the point where JB Swift teleported out with the Zoinks. Mike asked for comments.

Trina spoke up first. "Were you really going to kill her, Trev?" she asked softly.

I looked over at Trina. She was regarding me apprehensively, as if she thought I might not be quite sane. "Yeah," I said heavily. "I'm pretty sure I was. I'm not especially proud of that, and if I were in that position right now, I'm not sure I would go through with it. At the time, though, it seemed like the right thing to do. I . . . think it's what Li Lin-fa would have wanted."

She nodded, her eyes still troubled. "I'll go next," she said, "since Shelley isn't here."

The fight she described with Kong had been brutal; unseen by the rest of us, Shelley had taken the beating of her life out there. I could hear the helplessness in Trina's voice as she related how the monster had somehow managed to keep Shelley between him and Trina, so that Trina's triple-blaster had been mostly ineffectual. Shelley had been left to take the brunt of his attacks herself, and when Trina closed in and tried to help, he had easily grabbed her hand and chomped down on it, rendering her even more useless.

I could see tears of frustration in Trina's eyes when she finished. Mike then sketched out a brief account of the Zoink fight, which had been the most routine part of that disastrous mission. When he was done, he said, "Wizzit, do you mind if we don't recap the rest of it? I don't think any of us has the stomach to watch . . . well, you know."

There was no answer. With Wizzit, silence means assent, so Mike cleared his throat and said, "All right, everyone, that's it. Comments? Questions? Suggestions?"

No one spoke at first. Then Padma said, "I think that having Trevor attack Lily right away was a good thing. It kept her from sending out the Zoinks to commit mischief and made them easier to fight."

Mike nodded, obviously glad to see anything positive come out of this. "I agree. Definitely something we should do more of in the future. Anything else?" After five seconds or so of silence, he said, "All right, Wizzit, can we see the video now?"

A vid started playing on the big screen, showing Shelley seated at Prime Commander's desk. "My name is Shelley Ann Windham," she said to the camera. "If you're watching this video, then I have just been captured in the course of my duties as Prime Red. Probably it was at the hands of some government agency; they might have called it an arrest or a detainment. Possibly I have even been killed, although I intend to do everything in my power to avoid that." She smiled. "First of all, my fellow Primes, let me encourage you not to lose heart. We have a mission; you all know that. The primary objective of our team is to protect Earth from attacks by Enclave; everything else is secondary to that. What happens to me is not important. Keep focused on our mission, above all else.

"Second, let me assure you that what has just happened to me has been foreseen and planned for." She chuckled self-deprecatingly. "I mean, obviously, right? Otherwise I wouldn't be making this video. Before he died, my father had become aware that some government organizations around the world -- US, Chinese, and Russian government organizations, among others -- have been nosing around, asking questions about the Primes and making some rather outlandish claims. Trevor, if he is present, can tell you something about it."

She paused, looking expectantly at the camera, and Wizzit froze the vid. All eyes turned to me. For a moment, I was flummoxed. How would I know about . . .?

Then I realized what Shelley must have been referring to. "Uh, yeah, I guess I can. You all remember my sister Angela, right?" I said. Nods all around. "You'll probably remember that one mission at the Cleveland Browns football game? She was there and ran out onto the field to fight off some Zoinks, and it all got televised and later she was interviewed about it on national TV?" More nods. Nicolai and Padma hadn't been there, but they had seen the vids of her fight and the interview.

"Well, I guess that after the interview, some US government types came by and told her they were from the Army. They said that we Primes had stolen all our special tech from them years ago and that they were trying to track us down so they could arrest us and get it back. They told her they considered us to be criminals or terrorists or something."

There were scowls and a few angry sounds at that pronouncement. I shrugged and said, "Hey, don't blame me. I'm just telling you what she said. I guess they tried to convince her that she was in some sort of danger from us and to call them if we ever tried to contact her. She didn't believe them, of course; she said they were plenty creepy and didn't pass the smell test." I spread my hands. "That's all I know."

Mike frowned. "We've known from the beginning that pretty much any government in the world would give its eyeteeth to get hold of our tech. That's nothing new."

"But why?" Padma asked. "Our weapons are useless against anyone except Zoinks or Enclave monsters. That's why they don't work against Lily."

"Our weapons, yes," Trina said, "but what about our other tech? Our force shields keep our identities secret, and we can instantly teleport anywhere in the world. Think what an intelligence service could do with that."

"Right, and that's just the things everybody knows about," Mike put in. "That's why we don't tell 'em about the rest of it. I mean, they can probably figure out that we're stronger and faster than most humans, but healing comas? There would be a stampede to our doors if those became public knowledge."

"Not to mention Wizzit's microsensors," Toby added. "That's surveillance heaven right there."

"And what about camouflage mode?" Nicolai put in. "That is something that should definitely be kept as secret as possible. We have been using it in public lately far more often than I would like."

"At any rate," Mike went on, "it sounds as if getting hold of our tech has suddenly become top priority with someone, and they're starting to fight dirty." He grimaced. "If they're going around accusing us of being terrorists, I guess that would explain the warm welcome we got in Texas."

"Yes, well, instead of sitting around making guesses," Toby said impatiently, "why don't we watch the rest of the bleedin' video that Shelley made for us!"

Mike rounded on him, and for a second I thought we were going to have a real argument on our hands. But then he stopped and a second later gave us all a smile. "Excellent suggestion, Toby. I agree completely. Wizzit, if you please?"

Wizzit unfroze the video, and a second later Shelley said, "Thank you, Trevor. There have been other, similar incidents as well, with the agents claiming to be from any number of government organizations. Somebody somewhere has suddenly made it a high priority to get their hands on our tech, and their story seems to be that it was theirs to begin with. Maybe they really believe that; I don't know.

"My father felt, and I agree, that we would soon find ourselves in direct confrontation with these people, whoever they are. In our battles, we like to get in and out as quickly as possible, but there are local police forces pretty much everywhere we go. We expect that local law enforcement personnel will be enlisted at some point soon to try to arrest some or all of us and turn us over to these people. And since we do not intend to align ourselves against the police, it will be nearly impossible for us to avoid capture for very long.

"So Wizzit, Prime Commander, and I together made a very difficult decision. If it became clear that there was an ongoing, deliberate effort to use law enforcement to capture the Primes, then at the earliest opportunity, I was to allow myself to be taken. We would then attempt to fight a war of public opinion. This is what I have decided to call Protocol Black, for reasons that I hope will become clear in a few minutes.

"If you're watching this, then Protocol Black has now been implemented. The first step will have been for Wizzit to make certain that we have video evidence of my arrest. As you may know, Wizzit regularly posts videos of our battles on the Internet, along with some commentary. It's a nice way to build ourselves a fan base and insulate ourselves to some extent from shifts in public opinion. As soon as possible after my capture, Wizzit will produce as high-quality a video of the event as he can manage and will post it alongside our other videos to ensure that it is made public. We don't want these people to be able to cover up the fact that they have just arrested Prime Red."

"That's why Wizzit had us do that," Trina breathed in amazement. "He told us just to watch and listen, so he could get the video."

Shelley's image continued, "Unfortunately, this means that my face will become publicly known, and my identity will become public knowledge soon after that. Again, if my captors do not publicize this, then Wizzit will. At that point, my usefulness as a Prime will be at an end, and you may assume that I have officially resigned. As of the moment Wizzit posts the video, I will no longer be a Prime." She smiled, a little sadly, I thought. "It's been a great ride, people. I wouldn't have missed it for anything."

"Video was posted to the Prime Channel seven minutes ago," Wizzit announced.

I heard Mike say, "Dammit!", and Toby slammed the desk with his palm. Nicolai was gripping Padma's hand so tightly, he must have been hurting her, but she didn't seem to notice.

"Mike will take over as team leader," Shelley went on, "assuming, of course, that he has not been captured or killed as well. I'll let Wizzit make the official announcement, naturally, but neither of us sees any reason why he should not become Prime Red immediately upon your seeing this. Wizzit will announce other changes in the lineup as he sees fit."

Shelley looked as though she were about to say something, but then she stopped herself. After a moment, she went on, "Our original intent was that my father would be the one explaining all this to you now. With his death, Wizzit and I have had to change our plans somewhat. For one thing, I made this video, and Wizzit will attempt to answer your questions as best he can. Be patient with him, okay?

"Another change will involve the team roster. Wizzit and I are agreed that we cannot function with only six members on the team, no Prime Commander, and a new Prime Red. We have to bring someone else on board as quickly as possible. It will have to be someone whom we know and who knows us, someone who has worked with us before. Now --"

"Wizzit, stop! Stop the vid right now!" The others stared at me, surprised by my outburst, and I guess I kind of surprised myself as well. I'm usually an easy-going kind of guy, but I could see where this was headed and I didn't like it one bit.

Wizzit obligingly paused Shelley in mid-word. I stood up and faced the others. "Wizzit," I said to the empty air, "I'm putting you on notice: I am not -- repeat, not \-- going to let you call up Junior Prime Pink to be a full-time Prime. No way, no how. Absolutely not."

I looked at my friends, appealing to them. "I mean, I know we're in a bind right now, guys, but . . . look, Angie is still a minor. She couldn't legally join us anyway. And she's a senior in high school, for cryin' out loud. She's super busy with music, athletics, studying, getting ready for college -- you know, actually having a life. Now, I'm sure she would do it if we asked, but I don't want to see her throw all that away." I glared up at the ceiling, where Wizzit's voice usually came from. "Wizzit, I swear, if you do try to recruit her, I'll . . . I'll turn in my resignation right this minute. I'll quit. I mean it!"

After a tense silence, Wizzit said quietly, "Are you done, Trevor?"

I looked around at the others and got a few encouraging nods. "Yeah," I said. "I'm done."

Without comment, Wizzit rewound the video for a second or two, then resumed playing it: "We have to bring someone else on board as quickly as possible. It will have to be someone whom we know and who knows us, someone who has worked with us before. Now Trevor, before you start to object, rest assured that I'm not talking about your sister Angela. I agree she would be a promising candidate, but she is still a minor, so we would have to get her parents' permission first. And from what you have told me, she's super busy with music, athletics, studying . . . and probably boys. I think she would do it if we asked, but I wouldn't want her to throw all that away. So I promise, she isn't the one we have in mind."

Wizzit had to pause the vid at this point because all of a sudden we were laughing too hard to listen, myself hardest of all. I guess you had to have been there, because reading it over now, it doesn't seem all that funny. Maybe it was the way Shelley almost perfectly echoed my words, or maybe it was the sudden release of tension after we had been so keyed up. Whatever the reason, we were all helpless with laughter, every single one of us.

Mike shook his head, chuckling. "Damn, Trevor, you have to admit she had you pegged all the way."

I wiped tears of laughter from my eyes. At least, I thought the tears were from laughter. "Yeah, well, I'm just glad she agrees with me about Angie."

"Except that you don't realize your sister likes boys!" Padma giggled. "You probably think she still plays with dolls!"

"Hey, I know Angie likes boys!" I protested. "And they really like her. I just . . . don't like to think about it, that's all!" I looked up at the ceiling. "Sorry I blew up at you, Wizzit."

When we had all quieted down again, Wizzit resumed the video. Shelley said, "We haven't had time to settle all the details, so I will let Wizzit announce the name of the person we will be bringing on. For the moment, I will call this person Prime Black. Prime Black will not be joining our team permanently, just in the interim while Protocol Black is in effect. Prime Black will operate outside the normal chain of command, and that will be signified by a black force shield, a color outside our normal rainbow spectrum. Wizzit will explain how the numbers will work with that. Make no mistake -- Mike is Prime Red; he is team lead. He will be the one giving your orders. This other person will be a . . . a tactical advisor, an extra set of hands to help with your missions, and, I hope, a good friend."

Shelley gave us all an ironic smile. "But enough about you. Let's talk about me. I don't know where I will be when you see this, and I don't know what my captors will be doing to me. I have given Wizzit instructions to induce a healing coma after I'm captured if he deems it advisable. I will continue to wear my Prime belt for as long as they'll let me, but I do not intend to activate my force shield. Eventually, I assume, they will figure out that the belt is important and will attempt to remove it by force. That will, of course, cause it to destroy itself and will render it useless for analysis of any kind.

"Once that happens, Wizzit will be unable to monitor the state of my health. Basically, you won't know what's going on with me. I will have a lifeline, though. I have a transponder implanted in my . . . well, in my left butt cheek. Wizzit does not believe it will be detectable by any technology we have here on Earth, but it should allow him to locate me anywhere on the planet.

"I can't begin to imagine what I'm going through right now, and to be honest, I don't want to think about it. It's not something I'm looking forward to. But whatever happens, I know I have one advantage over everyone else who has ever been in prison: I have you guys. You're the ones who are going to have to help me through this; I won't be able to do it without you. You'll know exactly where I am, and I trust you to find ways to help keep me sane. I'll just let you and Wizzit figure out exactly how you're going to do it.

"Let me say this right now, though: Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to mount a rescue mission. That would ruin everything we have planned thus far. Our strategy is to wage a public relations campaign highlighting the unfair and illegal nature of my capture and to force my very public release. If you simply break me out of jail, then I will be be seen as a fugitive from justice, it will give the Primes a major black eye, and we'll be back at square one with the folks who are trying to grab our tech. Believe me, I will be seriously pissed off if that happens."

She glanced down at the desk in front of her, as if she were checking a list she had made. Then she looked back at the camera and smiled. "I think that's everything. Good luck, Primes, and don't let me down."

Chapter 7

Mike stood up after Wizzit turned off the video. He faced us, perched on the edge of the desk. "Whew! I, erm, I don't know quite what to say after that."

"I do," Trina said. "Wizzit, how are we going to help Shelley?"

"Yes," Nicolai agreed. "She said we would have to keep her sane. What does that mean?"

We all looked blankly at one another. "Well, I hate to say it," Mike said after a moment, "but they're probably going to subject her to some pretty heavy interrogation to try to find out whatever they can. How our tech works, the names and addresses of the rest of us, stuff like that."

"They would torture her?" Padma asked, aghast.

Mike shrugged. "Maybe. I don't know. I'd be surprised if there weren't some . . . coercion of some sort. I doubt there's much we can do to help her through that, though."

"Except get her out of there!" Toby said grimly. "I know she said not to try a rescue, but \--"

"But nothing," Nicolai interrupted him. "She said she has a transponder. Wizzit can locate her wherever they take her. Don't you think he could teleport her right back here if he wanted to?"

"Ya damn betcha, ol' son!" Wizzit drawled. "With that there transponder, why, I could haul that li'l heifer back over here in two shakes, but that ain't the point."

Mike covered his face with his hand and shook his head. I could sympathize. I hate it when Wizzit does accents. "Then precisely what is the point?" he asked. "In plain, non-Texan English, please?"

"The point," Wizzit said, mercifully dropping the accent, "is to let these people, and any others with the same sort of ideas, know that Earth needs the Primes, but the Primes don't need Earth."

"What?" Trina exclaimed. "Of course we need Earth! It is our home, our --"

"Specifically," Wizzit went on as if Trina hadn't spoken, "the nations of the world will be put on notice that the Primes will not counter any Enclave attacks in countries where we are subject to arrest or detainment. No, amend that: The nations of the world have been put on notice, as of the moment I posted the vid of Shelley's arrest."

There was a stunned silence. Padma was the first to recover. "So, if Enclave sends a monster somewhere in the United States, we will not go there?"

"I will send you there, but only in camouflage mode, and only to monitor and record what happens when Primes are not allowed to counter Enclave attacks. Those vids will then be posted alongside vids of our missions for comparison."

Mike whistled. "Damn, that's cold-blooded!"

"No, it is sensible," Trina retorted. "We can't protect people who don't want us to protect them."

"Exactly," Wizzit said. "And I don't want you kids to have to dodge bullets while you're pounding Zoinks. I believe you Earthlings call this an object lesson."

"Well, I can understand not wanting to put us in anyone's crosshairs," Mike said, shaking his head, "but do you really think it will work?"

"Whether it works or not, it is our only reasonable course of action. I will not send you where you are not welcome. The others will simply have to accept the consequences of their actions."

"Well that's great. Just great. I'm glad we've got the problems of Earth all sorted," Toby said impatiently. "But where does that leave Shelley? What are we going to do about her? I for one am not about to leave her to rot in some jail cell somewhere."

Mike spread his hands. "Toby, old friend, I'm open to suggestions."

"We visit her," Trina said firmly, "as often as we can, just like you would do with any friend who is in prison. We . . . we bring her little presents. We talk to her. We hold her hand and let her cry if she needs to. We let her know that we are with her and that she is not alone. We keep her sane. That is what we do."

Mike looked around at the rest of us, then nodded judiciously. "Yes. Trina, love, that's spot on. You're right; that's exactly what we're going to do. Good on you for thinking of it."

"I will let you know when her position has stabilized," Wizzit promised. "We can plan visitations then."

Nicolai was looking troubled. "Wizzit, what will happen when an Enclave monster in the United States doesn't get put down?" he asked. "If it doesn't get destroyed soon enough, then that will allow Enclave to send down more monsters more quickly."

Wizzit hesitated. "We will have to deal with that problem as it comes up," he said at last. "I have a few contingency plans if things really go sour. It may be rough on you kids for a while; that's one reason we are bringing in Prime Black. And Trevor, we may need to make use of Junior Prime Pink occasionally as well."

"I understand," I said, nodding reluctantly. "And I agree. I just don't want our problems to take over her life."

Mike said, "So, when is this Prime Black person going to join us, anyway? And who is it?"

"I sent Prime Black an urgent message as soon as Protocol Black was implemented," Wizzit replied evasively. "I am expecting a reply soonest."

"The name, Wizzit," Toby said. "Tell us the name."

"Are you sure you want to spoil the surprise?"

"The name, Wizzit!" Trina snapped.

He sighed. "All right." Wizzit's only means of communication with us is verbal, and he puts a lot of effort into it. Right now, he sounded just like a little kid, and we were spoiling his fun. "If you reeeeeally need to know . . ."

"Wizzit," Mike said patiently, "I think we really need to know."

"Fine. Bill Harding."

"Bill?" I could tell that Mike was taken aback. "That's . . . damn, that's actually a good choice." He sounded surprised.

"Good?" Toby exclaimed. "It's bloody brilliant!"

"It's amazing!" Trina agreed.

"I am receiving a message from Prime Black now," Wizzit announced. "He says, 'Give me two days to get my affairs in order. Then I'm in for as long as you need me.'"

"That's great news!" Nicolai said enthusiastically.

I caught Padma's eye from across the room. She looked a little at sea, and I couldn't blame her. Neither she nor I had ever worked with Bill. In fact, I'm pretty sure I was the one who came in to replace him, which was about six months after he left. "Um, that's great, guys," I said, "but Padma and I don't know Bill all that well. Could you, you know, tell us a little bit about him? I've heard some of the history, and I met him at the party, but beyond that . . ."

"Bill was Prime Red before Shelley," Trina said, "and he was our tech guy before Nicolai."

"Yeah, I know that much. He was the one who made the Junior Prime Pink badge my sister carries."

Toby said, "He wasn't Prime Red all that long, was he?"

"Two years, seven months, six days," Wizzit said.

"Oh. Longer than I thought. Still, it would have been even longer if it hadn't been for . . ." His voice trailed off.

"Yeah, we all know the story," I said impatiently. "Bill attacked a monster before Wizzit gave the okay, they argued about it afterward, and Bill got canned. That's all part of the history that every new Prime learns, and according to Shelley, they have since patched things up and are all buddy-buddy now. But what kind of a guy was he? What was he good at? What was he bad at? Heck, what fighting style did he use?"

"I know he is a mathematician," Padma offered. "He would have to be, to have been our tech guy. I met him very briefly at the number theory conference in Cambridge. He was Nicolai's . . ." She turned to Nicolai beside her. "What is the word? Not minder . . ."

"Sponsor," Nicolai told her. "He was our sponsor." He turned to the rest of us. "He gives lectures at Cambridge. He was the one who invited me to speak at the conference."

"He was always a good man," Trina said meditatively. "Very thoughtful. No, that's the wrong word. Not thoughtful like he would buy you flowers on your birthday. He . . . he would think about things. Something would happen, and he would think about it, and then later on, after you had forgotten the entire matter, he would do or say something that told you that it had been on his mind. I spoke with him a few times after he left us, and I know he sincerely regretted the argument that caused Wizzit to fire him. He was . . . unhappy with how he had left things here at HQ, and I know he really wanted a chance to come back and somehow make things right."

"It sounds as though he is getting his chance now," Padma said.

"I'll tell you what, he was a lot of fun to train with," Toby said. "I remember one time when he \--"

Mike silenced him with an upraised finger. "Hold that thought, Toby," he said. "Wizzit, are we done here?"

"Unless you wish to badger me for more information, we are done."

"Fine. In that case, I would suggest we adjourn to the lounge to talk about Bill and make our plans. It's much more comfortable there."

Chapter 8

"Trevor? Trevor, wake up!"

I struggled up out of sleep and glanced at my clock. Two in the morning? I had been asleep for only about four hours. "Wizzit?" I said muzzily, wondering why he would wake me up this early if the monster alarm weren't going off. "What is it? What's going on?"

"Trevor, I have your sister Angela on the phone. She seems most eager to talk to you."

"Angie? What is she . . . I mean, how did she . . .?"

Wizzit didn't seem to be in the mood to answer any questions. There was a series of clicks from the overhead speakers, and then I heard Angela's voice saying, "Hello? Trevor, is that you?"

"Yeah, Angie, it's me." I yawned hugely. "What's up, little sis?"

"I was just surfing the web and . . . wait, were you asleep? It's only nine o'clock at night."

"Wizzit keeps us on Greenwich Mean Time," I explained. I squinted as Wizzit began brightening the lights. "Five hours' difference from Ohio. It's the wee hours of the morning here. So, what did you want? And how did you manage to track me down, anyway? I didn't know we even had a phone here."

"Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to wake you up. I tried calling you on your cell and --"

"My cellphone doesn't work when I'm at HQ."

"Oh. Well, I remembered that you had called me from a different number once -- it was that time you had me come out to help you guys fight that monster in . . . let's see, where was it . . .?"

"I think it was Frankfurt," I said. I sat up, feeling a little more awake now.

"That's right, it was. Anyway, when I couldn't get hold of you, I tried calling that number instead, and Wizzit answered. At least I think it was Wizzit. Trevor, he's awfully strange, isn't he? He was pretending to be an answering machine at first, but then he --"

"Angie, what did you want to talk to me about?"

"Hm? Oh, sorry. I was just surfing the web, and I decided to check out the Prime Channel to see if there's anything new and . . . is it true? Has Prime Red really been arrested?"

I closed my eyes and ran a hand over my face. "Yeah," I said. "She has. They had a SWAT team there and snipers and helicopters overhead -- the whole nine yards."

"And is she . . . I mean, she looked pretty beat up when she deactivated, and when I saw them smack her on the head with that rifle, I felt really bad for her, and . . ."

"She should be okay by now," I assured her. "You know we heal up fast. And we're keeping track of her; we'll know where she is no matter where they take her. Things aren't cool, but we're managing. This didn't catch us completely off-guard." Not all of us, anyway, I thought. "We've got a plan in place for dealing with the situation."

"Look, Trevor, I'm really worried. Are you all right? They aren't going to arrest you too, are they?"

"I doubt it. We're going to stay out of the US for a while, until things cool down," I told her. "We aren't taking any chances, okay?"

"Okay." She sounded doubtful. "Uh, Trev, you guys didn't do anything illegal, did you?"

"Nope, not a thing. We're solid, upstanding citizens, every one of us. As far as I know, the government is just trying to grab our tech for themselves."

"That's what I thought. Well, okay, I guess I'll let you get back to sleep now. I just wanted to check in. Let me know if there's anything I can do, all right?"

"Will do. Um, Wizzit says we may need Junior Prime Pink's help a little more often these days, until this whole thing is settled."

"That's fine with me. Tennis is over now, so I've got a little more free time. I'll keep those weapons you gave me close by, just in case. In my car, I guess, because the Escrima stick doesn't exactly fit into my purse."

Wizzit evidently decided to break into our conversation. "Angela," he said, "Wizzit here. I think that, given the present situation, it is not advisable to leave any of our weapons unsupervised within the borders of your country."

"Okay," she said cautiously. "Do you want me to give them back to you?"

"That would be best. Are you alone now?"

"Yeah, I'm in my room with the door closed."

"Good. Gather up your Escrima stick, your blaster, and your Junior Prime Pink badge."

"Hang on." There was a long pause. "Okay, I've got them. Now what? Wait, are you going to \--"

"-- teleport me to HQ?" Angie suddenly appeared at the foot of my bed in a flash of pink light. She looked around in amazement. "Wow, this is so cool! I love teleportation!"

"Hey there, Angie," I said weakly, looking up at my sister, acutely aware that I was wearing the gym shorts I used as pajama bottoms and nothing else.

"Hey, big brother! So, is this your room? It's kind of small, isn't it?"

I shrugged. "It's about the size of a college dorm room."

"Really? I didn't realize . . ."

"Angela, please give Trevor your Escrima stick and your blaster. We will make arrangements to provide you with weapons should we need to call you up."

"Here you go." Angie handed me the stick and, reluctantly, the blaster. She really liked that blaster. "I should probably give him the badge too, huh?" she said, the very picture of disappointment.

"No, the badge is yours to keep \--"

"Thank you, Wizzit!" she squealed.

"-- but you should make an effort to have it with you at all times," he went on. "If anyone asks, tell them that it was a present that Trevor picked up for you in . . ."

"Singapore," I interjected, saying the name of the first country that popped into my head.

"Fine, Singapore. A cheap little toy he got for you in Singapore."

Angela smirked. "That'll be easy enough to remember. Cheap is the only kind of present he ever gets me."

"Hey!" I protested. "Be nice!"

"Kidding!" she said. "So, I guess I'll wait for you guys to let me know if you need me. Is there anything else?"

Wizzit said, "Not unless you have any more questions." Huh! With us it was "unless you wish to badger me for more information." Yeah, I could tell that Wizzit really likes my sister.

"No, nothing," she replied, looking thoughtful. "Except that -- oh, Trevor, you have got to hear this! Grandmaster Park told me yesterday that I could take my belt test at the end of this month!"

"Your belt test? Wow, that means that you'll be a --"

"I know! A fourth Dan, just like you! Isn't that great?" She was practically bouncing up and down in excitement.

"Yeah, that's plenty cool!" I forced myself to sound cheerful. The last time I had talked with him, Grandmaster Park had told me he would never promote me to be a Fifth Dan, a Tae Kwon Do master, not until I settled down and started going to college. Can't blame him. He doesn't know I'm a Prime; he thinks I'm bumming around the world with a Tae Kwon Do demonstration team, just like my parents do. Still, that was my problem, not Angela's, and I was genuinely happy for her. "Let me know when it is; I'll see if I can pop in."

"You'd better!" She looked up at the ceiling. "All right, Wizzit, I'm ready to go home now. 'Bye, Trev!" She spun around in a pirouette, ending with a little flourish of her hands just as Wizzit made her vanish.

I chuckled and shook my head at her dramatic exit. What had I ever done to deserve a sister like Angie?

Chapter 9

The morning which followed was the longest I have ever experienced. There was just nothing to do.

Well, okay, I take that back. There were a few things to do, and I did them. I got up. I showered. I got dressed. I ate breakfast. I helped Toby and Nicolai open up and air out one of the spare rooms in the boys' wing to prepare for Bill's arrival. (Wizzit manages to keep our rooms clean somehow -- don't ask me how -- but even a clean room will start to smell stale if it's kept closed up for too long.) And then I went to the firing range and took my hundred shots with the blaster.

After that, I put Angela's weapons on a shelf in our weapons room and taped a sheet of paper around them saying, "For use by Junior Prime Pink". And while I was there, I scrounged around for a new weapon of my own. Generally speaking, I favor smaller weapons rather than something the size of, say, Toby's ridiculously large hammer. Not that I disapprove of Toby's choice -- it suits him well, and he's fairly effective with it -- but weapons with a shorter reach are more my style. I eventually found a pair of sais -- dagger-shaped weapons used in Okinawan martial arts -- that looked like they might be fun to play around with, and I set them to one side where I could easily find them in a hurry.

Unfortunately, doing all that merely took me up to mid-morning. To keep myself from going stir-crazy, I set about trying to find some way to keep myself busy. It wasn't easy; all I could think about was what was happening with Shelley.

Playing the piano was out; there was no way I was going to be able to concentrate on the Gershwin prelude I was supposed to be working on. I asked Trina whether she wanted to practice her knife-hand technique, but she shook her head. No one else wanted a round in the gym either, and while some days I'll happily spend a couple of hours training on my own, today was not one of those days. So I spent the rest of the morning doing what everyone else was doing: watching the map and listening to Shelley converse with her captors.

The map? Yeah, Wizzit had put up a map on all the large vid screens at HQ, and he was showing us the zigzag path Shelley was taking back and forth across the United States, as well as her real-time location. I'm not sure what this group of people thought they were doing, but so far, Shelley had crossed the country at least twice, both north-south and east-west, and was starting on round three. Maybe they thought they were throwing us off her trail; I don't know.

They had apparently not yet made a serious attempt to divest her of her belt, so we were able to listen in on everything that was going on. According to Wizzit, they had injected Shelley with some drug or other to keep her quiet almost as soon as they had loaded her into the police van. The healing coma took care of that, though, sending it out through the kidneys straight to her bladder, and I think she startled everyone by waking up after about forty minutes asking to use the bathroom.

They jabbed her again, and when she woke up ten minutes later, they jabbed her a third time. When she woke up from that, they held a radio consultation with some doctor (at least, the clip Wizzit played for us sounded like a doctor) who advised them not to continue administering increasingly large doses of sedatives to her every ten minutes unless they wanted a dead Prime on their hands. So she got to stay awake for the remainder of her trip, although I expect she slept for a while during the night.

Now, I've said before that Shelley's pretty damn good at everything that we Primes do. She's a good battle commander, she has absolutely no fear about confronting Enclave monsters, she can tear Zoinks apart one-handed, and I don't know of anyone (including me) who would want to take her on in a real one-on-one fight. Heck, rumor has it that she even built her broadsword herself years ago.

But if she has one outstanding quality, it's this: Anyone who has ever spoken to Shelley for more than five minutes has come away really liking her and really respecting her. She must get it from her dad, because he was the same way.

It's not that she's charming, exactly; I know charming. My sister Angela? She's charming. She could charm the scales off a cobra, but you don't walk away from a conversation with Angie feeling as though you would follow her to the ends of the earth. (Well, unless it was to ask her out on a date, I guess.) What Shelley has is . . . I suppose you'd have to call it charisma.

She was using that ability to its utmost right now. I don't know who was on the plane with her -- probably just some grunts and low-level officers, maybe a medic or two -- but whoever it was, Shelley was at her sympathetic-big-sister best. No histrionics, no begging them to let her go, nothing like that. She was simply talking quietly with them and, knowing her, doing a lot more listening than talking. I heard some laughter, a couple of sincere-sounding apologies (which Shelley verbally waved aside), and a whole lot of just friendly conversation. By the time she reached her final destination, she would have them eating out of her hand.

As interesting as all this was to listen to, though, we eventually had to eat, and then after lunch Wizzit called us into the office. He doesn't normally lead meetings; it would probably drive everyone crazy, including him, if he tried. This, though, was a meeting that only he could run, and we all had known it was coming. With Shelley no longer a Prime, the rest of us were going to get new colors and new numbers.

About the numbers: We call ourselves Primes for a reason, and it isn't because we consider ourselves to be 'prime' specimens of humanity or anything like that. It has to do with numbers -- prime numbers, to be specific. You know, the numbers that are not divisible by anything except themselves and one? Those prime numbers. It's what all our tech is based off of. I don't understand how it works, myself. For a good explanation, you would have to talk to Nicolai, our tech guy; or Padma, our assistant tech, uh, gal. Toby could maybe tell you something about it, because he used to help out Nicolai before Padma came along, and I'm sure Bill understands it as well as anybody. And, of course, Shelley's pretty damn good at everything, in case I haven't mentioned that.

All I know is, each of us is given our own number, and it has to be a prime. Prime numbers make our weapons and force shields strong; composites (that is, non-primes) would make them weak. That's the way it works. Prime Red is always assigned the number two, Prime Orange is three, Prime Yellow is five, and so on. As Prime Indigo, I'm lucky thirteen. According to Nicolai, in theory every prime is equally strong, and each of us Primes is equally powerful. Practically speaking, though, as your number goes down, it gets easier to use your powers. It gets more intuitive, I guess.

(As an aside, you have heard me refer to my sister Angela as Junior Prime Pink. She's not a full-fledged Prime like the rest of us. She doesn't have a belt like the rest of us, either. What she has is . . . okay, there's no good way to say this except to say it -- it's a toy. An "Official Junior Prime Pink" toy badge that Bill made for Shelley's sister Francesca years ago, when she was about six. Wizzit decided to give it to Angie as a bribe to keep her mouth shut after she figured out I was a Prime, which happened . . . eh, it's a long story. Also, Wizzit really likes Angie, so maybe that's another reason he gave it to her.

The Junior Prime Pink badge, when activated, makes Angie look and sound like a Prime, and it lets Wizzit locate her for teleportation purposes, and that was initially about it. But then Wizzit made a slight modification that lets her use our weapons and blasters. It's not a very strong little gadget, though, definitely not strong enough to give her a force shield or provide a healing coma, so we're always very careful to keep Angie out of harm's way whenever she joins us on a mission. That's my rule. She's not a whole lot of help -- more than an unpowered human, sure, but not as much as Prime Black was going to be -- but she does give us an edge, and sometimes we need that edge.

Oh, and the modification that Wizzit made? He changed her number. It was originally four hundred thirty-seven, which is nineteen times twenty-three -- a weak composite number. He didn't change it to a prime number; that would have overloaded the poor little badge's power supply. But he did the next best thing. He gave her the number three sixty-one, which is nineteen times nineteen. A prime squared. Weak enough that the badge could handle it, but still powerful enough to use our tech. A neat little compromise.)

So, you can probably tell that our numbers are important to us, more important than our colors. The purpose of those is just to identify us and visually delineate the chain of command. Red is team lead, Orange is second-in-command, Yellow is third, and so on. And as we all trooped into the office, I'd have bet a penny that each of us was looking forward to moving up one step in the pecking order. As it turned out, I was wrong.

"All right, I can see that everyone's here, so let's begin," Wizzit said, speaking rapidly. "Mike is Red, Trina is Orange, Nicolai is Yellow, Toby is Green, Trevor is Blue, and Padma is Indigo. Any questions? No? Good; meeting is adjourned. Trevor and Mike stay behind, please."

We all looked at each other. Everyone must have noticed the anomaly, but Padma was the first one to speak up. "Wait a minute," she said indignantly. "Nicolai should be Orange, not Trina! Why did you promote her over him?"

Nicolai laid a hand on her arm. "It's all right," he told her mildly. "I don't mind. Really."

"But you have been a Prime for longer than she has. You should be second-in-command."

"But I don't want to be!" Nicolai looked around at us. "I don't like being in command, and I'm no good at it. Everyone knows that. Trina would make a much better Prime Orange. I just want to be the tech guy. So, I . . . I asked Wizzit not to promote me. I want to remain Prime Yellow."

No one said anything at first. I mean, what was there to say? He was right, and we all knew it; Nicolai would have made a lousy second-in-command. I had never heard of anyone asking not to be promoted, but I couldn't argue with his logic. And to judge by the look on her face, neither could Padma. As I've said before, a man's got to know his limitations.

Beside him, Trina leaned over impulsively and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "That was very sweet of you to say about me, Nicolai. I will try to live up to your confidence in me."

"Um, Wizzit?" Mike said cautiously. "About the numbers . . . will they be assigned as usual?"

"Correctamundo!" Wizzit chirped. "As of now, you are two, Trina is three, Nicolai is five, Toby is seven, Trevor is eleven, and Padma is thirteen."

"Then where exactly does that leave Bill?"

"Bill will be seventeen."

There were some surprised looks. "Does that mean he will be like a Prime Violet?" Trina asked. "That doesn't seem fair to him."

"Seventeen is the smallest prime not yet assigned," Wizzit said simply.

"He should be fine," Nicolai put in. "He and I talked about this at the party. He thinks, and I concur, that because he was once prime two, he should be able to handle any prime number with equal ease. The reflexes, the . . . the understanding should still be there."

Everyone stared at Nicolai. "Why were you talking to him about that?" Toby demanded. "Did he tell you he might be coming in as Prime Black some day? Did you know all about this Protocol Black stuff beforehand?"

"No, he just brought the subject up out of the blue sky," Nicolai replied calmly. "It was certainly an odd question, I'll admit, but I just thought he still hoped that Wizzit would call him back in some day. To be truthful, I felt a little sorry for him for asking it."

"He must have known," Trina said. "Even then, he must have known about Protocol Black."

"Of course he knew!" Mike declared. "I mean, think about it. If someone contacts you asking you to drop everything in your life for an indefinite period of time, do you say, 'Sure, just give me a couple days to pack'? He's been waiting for Wizzit to call."

"And why not?" I said. "Shelley said they've been planning this since before Prime Commander was killed. Why wouldn't they let Bill in on it as soon as they decided they'd want him?"

No one had an answer to that, it seemed. After a moment, Trina said hesitantly, "There . . . is another reason as well that they would have brought him in on their plans. Shelley didn't want me to tell anyone just yet, but under the circumstances, I suppose you all should know -- she and Bill have been seeing each other the past few months. Dating, and pretty seriously."

Mike threw up hands in disgust. "Of course they've been dating!" he exclaimed. "And of course she didn't tell anyone! Why would she bother to tell us something like that? After all, we're only the people she's closest to in the whole world! Why the hell should she tell us anything?"

Trina said mildly, "Maybe, because she has been a Prime more than half her life, she wanted to have something apart from the Primes."

"Right," Toby said with a smirk. "Like a fling with a former Prime."

"It certainly does explain a few things," Padma mused. "She never used to take vacations, but then she suddenly took a long one."

"Yeah, and she came back two weeks later with a song in her heart and a twinkle in her eye," I said. "Any idea where they went, Trina? Hawaii? The Bahamas? The Riviera?"

Trina smiled demurely, but didn't say a word.

"Yes, well . . . thank you for letting us know about it now, anyway," Mike told her diplomatically. "Anyone have any more bombshells they want to drop? Any other little secrets that Shelley didn't get around to telling us about?" He looked around at the group; no one said a word. "In that case, as the new Prime Red, I've got a few things I'd like to say. Let's start with the obvious: I'm not Shelley."

"Better make sure Bill knows that," Trina said, giving him a sly wink. "Things might get a bit awkward otherwise."

"Duly noted," he said with a faint laugh. "Look, I know I'm not the most beloved member of our little group. Black sheep, that's me; lots of faults. I'm sometimes surprised I've lasted this long, and if you're expecting me to suddenly become the perfect Prime Red, then you're going to be sorely disappointed. But I want you all to know that nothing is more important to me than being a Prime, absolutely nothing, and I'm going to do my very level best to be a good team leader. Fair enough?"

He received several nods and a chorus of "Sure, Mike"'s. With the meeting obviously over, Trina, Nicolai, Toby, and Padma filed out of the office, leaving me alone with Mike and Wizzit.

"What was it you wanted to talk to us about, Wizzit?" Mike asked the ceiling.

"Wanted to talk to Trevor," Wizzit replied. "You are here because you're team leader and should hear this."

"Okay, what did you want to talk to me about, Wizzit?" I said, trying not to sound impatient.

"Trevor, I need Angela. She is going to be my new Prime Violet."

There was a silence as I slowly drew in a breath, then let it out again. "I believe I have already let you know how I feel about that," I said evenly.

"I will not recruit her until sometime after the new year," Wizzit went on, "and she will not join us here until after she graduates from high school, just like we did with you."

I nodded. Much better. "Okay, I can live with that," I said. "Thank you for letting me know. Um, can I suggest that you find a better cover story for her? My parents are already not happy that I'm supposedly putting off college to be on an international Tae Kwon Do demonstration team. If Angie suddenly told them the same thing, they would go ballistic."

"I will search for a better story. I have also decided that she should be allowed to meet the others face to face as soon as possible. Please invite her to your next party."

Mike and I looked at each other in surprise. Up to now, on Wizzit's orders, I had been the only Prime she knew by sight. Now he seemed to really want to draw her into our family. "I . . . suppose we could have her over to dinner some night?" Mike said.

"Excellent suggestion, Prime Red," Wizzit declared happily. "Please make it so."

Chapter 10

Wizzit evidently decided that we had spent enough time listening in on Shelley's conversations, because he stopped playing those, although he told us he was recording them in case they were needed in the future. He did keep the map going, though, so we were able to follow her progress all the way to somewhere in or near Denver. The little Shelley-dot stopped moving at that point, and Wizzit explained that she was being taken to some sort of underground facility. About half an hour after that, he announced that her belt had been breached and had destroyed itself.

We had been starting to feel pretty good about matters up to that point, but the news that Shelley's belt was gone cast a cloud over the rest of the day. It really brought home the fact that she was no longer one of us, that she was never going to be a Prime again. Dinner was a gloomy affair. It was Padma's turn to cook. She made something with curry and chicken, and I think there was a chutney involved also, but I couldn't have told you how it tasted.

The monster alarm rang bright and early the next morning, and for once I was happy to hear it. It would be nice to have something -- anything -- to keep us from sitting around worrying about Shelley. "Padma will have to be the spokesman today, kids," Wizzit said from the overhead speakers. "Monster is attacking a village in southwestern India. You might have to do some theological tap-dancing on this one, Padma."

"Theological tap-dancing?" Padma asked me when I met her in the weapons room. "What does that mean?" Even though she was Prime Indigo now, she was still the lowest-ranked Prime, which meant that she was tasked with gathering up everyone else's weapons before a mission. I was there to pick up the sais I had laid aside the day before.

"I think he means there might be some religious problems with this monster," I said with a shrug. "I've got Toby's hammer and my stuff. Do you have everything else?"

She nodded, and the two of us raced back to the common room where the others were waiting. Mike looked around as we passed out the weapons. "Everybody ready? Good. Remember your new colors, everyone." He squared his shoulders. "Prime Red, activate!"

"Prime Orange, activate!"

"Prime Yellow, activate!"

"Prime Green, activate!"

"Prime Blue, activate!"

"Prime Indigo, activate!"

I felt everything go hazy around me, and then we were standing in a narrow alley between two rows of low-roofed houses. A steady rain was falling, although with our force shields on, there was little chance we would get uncomfortably wet. "Indigo, take point," Mike said.

"Will do," Padma responded before I could say a word. I frowned, but then I remembered: I was Prime Blue now; Padma was the new Indigo. She squeezed past me and led us out into a slightly wider street.

"Monster is off to your right," Wizzit said helpfully.

"I see it!" Padma called out. She began running forward, and the rest of us followed. "It is right over . . . oh, this is too much!"

Ahead of us, the street broadened out into what was probably the village square, an open area containing some food stalls and a few vendors selling clothes and pottery. In the center was the monster, or at least what I assumed was the monster. The figure was mostly man-shaped, except that it was probably nine feet tall and had an elephant's head. Oh yeah, and arms. Too many arms. More than three, anyway, but fewer than five.

Padma was ahead of us, running straight at the thing and shouting something angrily in one of the Indian dialects she speaks. No one seemed to be paying her any attention; everyone was staring dumbstruck at the giant creature. As I watched, it grabbed someone's cart, raised it high over its head, and threw it down on the ground again, smashing it to flinders.

"It's definitely hostile," Wizzit informed us. "You can go ahead and attack it any time."

Padma stopped in front of a dark-skinned man wearing a pair of dirty white pants and nothing else. They exchanged a few words, and then Padma nodded and began running forward again, yelling at the top of her lungs. She got a better response this time; people began running away from the elephant-headed monster. I couldn't make out anything she was saying, except that I heard the word "Ganesha" a lot.

"Indigo, what's going on?" Mike demanded. "What are you telling them?"

"Feh! This monster is made up to look like Sri Ganesha, the Lord of Obstacles," Padma said, sounding pretty darned ticked off. "It took a moment for me to figure out which dialect they speak here, but now I am telling everyone that it is not Ganesha, but a demon who is trying to trick them. I am pretty sure they believe me, because he is not acting like Ganesha would. Ganesha does not attack people or destroy their things; it is not . . . er . . . not his style, I guess you would say."

I recognized the monster now from the little figurine I had seen on Padma's desk in her bedroom. (Not that I have spent a lot of time hanging out in Padma's bedroom, mind you, but I've visited her there a time or two.) I had heard the name Ganesha before, something about him being the god of luck, but I didn't know much about him besides that. This "Lord of Obstacles" bit was a new one on me.

"They aren't going to get mad at us for attacking this monster are they?" Mike asked. "We don't want this to turn into a religious battle."

"No, I don't believe so," Padma replied. "Perhaps I had better attack first, though. And . . . I will say part of the Ganesha Sahasranama out loud as I do so. It is a -- a song praising Ganesha."

"I think this is what Wizzit meant by theological tap-dancing, Indigo," I told her.

"Yes, Blue, I believe you are right." She began chanting something in a loud, sing-song voice, and then she raised her axe and swung it at the monster. About a foot away from him, it stopped dead in a shower of sparks. "What is this?" she exclaimed in surprise.

"Let me help you!" Nicolai ran forward, and the two of them aimed a double-strike at faux-Ganesha's head and legs. Same result; both of their axes were stopped about a foot away from the creature by some sort of invisible force field. The fake Ganesha-beastie made a sound that might have been laughter. He did some sort of whirly motion with two of his arms, and suddenly I heard Padma and Nicolai cry out as they both were sent spinning away from him.

I expected to see them spill to the ground, but they didn't. Padma was slumped to one side, leaning in mid-air as if supported by some unseen wall. Nicolai caught himself and yelled, "Hey, what is going on? I can't move!" I turned to look at him; at the moment, he resembled nothing so much as a mime performing "The Box". His hands were spread out, pushing against something that none of us could see. As I watched, he turned in a complete circle, feeling around himself the entire way. He appeared to be encased in an invisible cylinder about four or five feet in diameter.

"Indigo!" Mike shouted. "Indigo, respond! Are you all right?"

Padma was shaking some cobwebs out of her head; she pushed herself upright. "I'm a little shaken up, but otherwise I am fine." She, too, pressed outward at invisible walls that seemed to be holding her prisoner. "This . . . this is not good!" She sounded worried.

"Steady on, Indigo!" Mike told her. "This is not the time to get claustrophobic."

"No, it is not that," she assured him. "It's just that this is more like what the real Ganesha would do. He is called the Lord of Obstacles for a reason. People pray to him to remove barriers between them and their goals, but he can just as easily put barriers in their way."

"Barriers, huh? Great. That's just great," Mike said. "What a perfect time for Enclave to start getting savvy to local culture in order to make us look bad."

Padma shook her head. "It may not be such a disaster. Look." She pointed to where fake-Ganesha was tearing apart a small cookshop. "People are not stupid; they can see and think and reason, and even here they have heard of the Primes. But it might be best if we can defeat this monster sooner rather than later."

"Right. Then let's the rest of us have a go at him, shall we? Orange? Green? Blue? Are you ready?"

"Wizzit, are there any Zoinks around that we need to worry about?" I asked suddenly.

"Nope, not a one. I detect another alter nearby, but no Zoinks."

"An alter?" Mike repeated. "So it's not Lily?"

"Nuh-uh. New guy, never encountered him before. Having a hard time zeroing in on him."

"Should we let someone stay back to handle this other one?" Trina asked.

"It's your call, Red," Toby said.

"Um . . ." Mike took a quick look around. "No. We need to deal with this monster first and decisively. We'll deal with that other alter if and when he pokes his nose out."

"You got it, Red!" I said with more enthusiasm than I felt. If it were me, I would probably have left someone back, but it wouldn't be cool to start questioning Mike's judgment on his first outing as Prime Red. I circled around in back of faux-Ganesha, who was lumbering toward his next target, and Trina and Toby spread out as well. "Say the word."

Mike set himself. "Now!" he shouted, and then he charged.

They say that forewarned is forearmed, and this Ganesha guy was definitely four-armed, so that must mean that . . . nah, skip it; I won't go there. That joke is too lame even for me.

Regardless, something must have tipped off ol' Elephant-boy that something was up. We Primes can move plenty fast when we want to, and we were running full-tilt toward him, but somehow he had us all scouted. He swirly-waved one of his arms at each one of us, and the next thing I know, I'm crashing into some sort of invisible barrier at top speed. Didn't feel too swift, let me tell you. I heard Trina cry out and Mike grunt in pain.

By the time the stars had cleared from my vision, I was encased in the same sort of see-through cylinder that had been holding Padma and Nicolai. I could see Toby trying to push his walls apart. He's probably the strongest of us all, and his arms are definitely the longest, so I just watched him struggle for a while, reasoning that if he couldn't get out by sheer strength, then I surely couldn't.

"I can't bring my axe into play," Nicolai was saying. There was a dull thud as he rammed the haft of his weapon against his wall. "There's not enough room in here to get a good swing going."

"I don't need to swing," Trina said grimly. She leveled her blaster, aiming point-blank at the invisible wall in front of her.

"Inadvisable, Orange --" Wizzit started to say, but for once he was too late. Trina pulled the trigger.

I don't think I've seen such a dazzling light show since last Fourth of July. Unfortunately, it was all at Trina's expense. Rather than destroying the barrier which held her, her blaster shot bounced straight back, ricocheting back and forth across the tube faster than the eye could follow and striking Trina with every pass, until it spent all its energy and died away.

"Orange, are you all right?" Mike demanded.

"Orange seems to be mostly unharmed," Wizzit informed us. "Just stunned."

Stunned would be the word for it, all right. Trina was lying in a crumpled heap at the bottom of her tube; I heard her groan once. I saw Padma look down at the blaster she held in her hand. "I was about to try the same thing," she said, carefully putting it back in its holster, "but now I don't think I will."

"I've got something I've been itching to try," Mike declared.

I looked at the sais in my hand. They were shorter than Nicolai's axe, and might be more effective against the invisible wall around me, but there was something else I wanted to try first. Tucking the sais into my belt, I pulled out my sap gloves and slid them onto my hands. I set myself in a riding-horse stance a foot or two in front of the barrier and began punching one-two, one-two as quickly as I could.

"Indigo!" I yelled out. "Do you have your boots with you?"

"I think so. Why?"

"Maybe you can kick your way out."

"I'll give it a try." Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Padma rummaging around in the pockets of her battle vest for the pair of slip-on boots she had made for herself. Like my sap gloves, they have our anti-Enclave tech built into them.

I could see Mike set himself and mutter, "Here goes nothing!" I grinned, because I thought I knew what he was about to do and why he was doing it.

I have mentioned before that as one's associated prime number goes down, certain things become easier. And when you get to be Prime Red and your number is two, the only even prime, they become almost intuitive. What Mike was going to try, I figured, was to blow his wall apart using something we call a shock wave. It's a cool-looking trick that Prime Reds (or is that Primes Red?) like to pull out of their back pocket every now and then. I had managed to generate one once, under extreme duress, but as far as I knew, Mike never had. This was going to be his chance to prove to himself that he really was Prime Red.

Sure enough, his red force shield seemed to pulse, and then it shrank in on itself for about two seconds. Finally, it exploded outward with a small boom. When things settled down, Mike was moving about unencumbered; his shock wave appeared to have destroyed the barrier around him. Unfortunately, there would be a price for that. Mike's force shield, except for the blurring and the voice modification, would be essentially useless for the next ten minutes or so while it recharged itself. I wondered whether he remembered that.

My own technique -- punching -- appeared to be doing me some good. I was seeing occasional sparks, and the area immediately in front of me -- the spot my fists kept hitting -- was starting to turn an opaque white. Ten punches, twenty, thirty, and then on the thirty-seventh punch I felt something give. Another ten, and my fist actually went through the barrier. There was a blizzard of sparks all around me, and the wall sort of crumbled to pieces after that.

I looked over at Padma. She had donned her boots and was trying an experimental sidekick. The shower of sparks that resulted was stronger than from my punches; the force from it knocked her up and back, slamming her against the other side of the cylinder.

"Looks like it's doing some good, Indigo," I encouraged her. "You should be able to kick yourself out of there in record time."

Padma shook her head to clear it and climbed to her feet. "Not if I knock myself silly in the process. But perhaps if I try . . . this!" She sprang at one side of the cylinder surrounding her, her leg outstretched. I saw the explosion of sparks from the kick, and then she was thrown backward again.

But get this: Instead of letting herself get bashed against the opposite wall for a second time, she kicked at it with her other foot. There was another shower of sparks, and again she was thrown up and back. She kicked out again, and then again, going back and forth through the air across the invisible cylinder, each time getting a little bit higher. By the time she got about ten or twelve feet into the air, suddenly there was no more cylinder, and she spilled out over the top. She managed to catch herself, turn a somersault in midair, and land neatly almost at my feet.

I clapped my hands. "Nice work, Indigo. Just like in a video game," I said warmly. "Now let's see about freeing the others."

"Thanks, but that won't actually be necessary," came Toby's amused voice from directly behind me.

Startled, I whirled about. "G-Green! How did you get free?"

Toby shrugged. "I had Wizzit teleport me out. It was Yellow's idea. I'm surprised you didn't think of it yourself."

I heard Mike laugh. "Leave it to Yellow come up with a clever strategy," he said. He nodded at Padma. "Nice bit of footwork, Indigo."

Padma mock-curtseyed. "Thank you very much, Red."

I chuckled. Now that he mentioned it, teleporting out did seem sort of obvious. "Good thinking, guys." I looked around. "So, where's Orange?"

"Taking a breather at HQ. The blaster shot knocked Orange for a loop."

I pulled my sais from my belt. I could see Toby and Nicolai moving toward the other side of the monster, weapons at the ready. As I watched, Toby took a swing with that giant hammer of his; it rebounded from fake-Ganesha's invisible shield with a crash. Nicolai followed that up with a blow from his axe. "Now what?" I said to Mike. "Another full-on assault?"

"Got a better idea?"

"Umm . . . no."

"I might." Padma had drawn her blaster and was looking at it speculatively. "The walls of my barrier were between three and four meters tall. I bet Blue could throw me that high."

"Green could toss you higher. Hang on a sec," Mike said, discerning what she had in mind. Raising his voice, he called out, "Green, get over here and help Indigo! Blue, you and I will go help Yellow keep that monster busy while they get ready!"

"Will do, Red, only you'd better sit out for a while after that shock wave."

"What? Oh, damn, you're right. I'll, uh, go along to supervise, then."

I ran over to attack the monster with my sais. The good news was that he seemed to realize now that we could easily escape any prison he could put us in, because he didn't bother encasing me in one of his invisible cylinders. The bad news was that he quickly found a way to be much, much more annoying. I hadn't gone more than five steps when I ran smack into an invisible wall that was only waist-high. I flipped over it and landed on my butt, damn near breaking my neck in the process. Behind me, I heard Mike start to laugh. I turned my head to deliver a stinging retort, only to see his top half run into a similar invisible barrier while his legs kept moving forward. He fell flat on his back, the impact sending up little splashes of water from the rain-soaked earth.

I cautiously rolled over to where Mike lay, trying to avoid any other hidden barriers. "You okay, Red?"

He groaned. "Never better." He rolled to his feet, and after a moment, I did the same. "Maybe we'd, uh, better go a little more slowly, though."

I grinned. "Caution is my middle name."

We carefully picked our way over to the monster. It took what seemed like forever before I got close enough to start using my sais. I probably looked silly the way I took slow, cautious steps, holding my hands in front of me like a blind man. I know Mike did. It's what I had to do, though; I managed to locate and avoid four or five of Elephant-boy's barriers that way.

Fake-Ganesha simply stood in place, laughing at our attempts to attack him. I didn't go for the giant, two-handed blows the way Nicolai was; my sais weren't built for that. They're mainly effective for short, stabbing attacks, so that's what I did. Lots and lots of short, stabbing attacks in between Nicolai's heavier blows, generating lots of sparks and hopefully keeping faux-Ganesha's eyes off of what Toby and Padma were doing.

I had seen Trina and Shelley pull off this same kind of maneuver countless times, but Toby and Padma had never tried it before, so I was curious to see how well it would work. I managed to circle around so that I was opposite to where they were, and I had drawn the monster's attention with me. Toby bent down and formed a stirrup with his hands; Padma stepped into it, and he flung her up high. As she flew over top of the Enclave beastie, Padma aimed her blaster carefully and sent a single shot down almost directly on top of faux-Ganesha's head. He let out a trumpet blast of anger as the shot struck his long, elephantine trunk.

"Good shooting, Indigo," Nicolai said as Padma landed near me.

"Toss me up again, Blue," she said excitedly. "I want to shoot him some more."

"Not a good idea, Indigo," Mike declared. He was momentarily obscured by sparks as he slammed his club home against the monster's shield-wall. Looked like his shield was back up to full strength. "Our little friend here is getting cute with his barriers. I'd hate to see Blue toss you head-first up into one of his little walls and break your neck."

"But . . . there is no other way to get to him. What can we do?"

A peal of thunder sounded as if in answer to Padma's anguished question, and it suddenly began to rain much harder. There was a flash of light behind Toby, and suddenly a tangerine-glowing figure was standing there. "Good to see you back, Orange!" I called out. "Ready to join the fight?"

"I thought Wizzit was going to put you in a healing coma!" Mike exclaimed.

"There was no need," Trina said. "My blaster shot hurt quite a lot, but mostly it just drained the power from my force shield. I was watching the battle while it recharged. It is back to full strength now, and so am I."

"Are you sure, Orange?"

"Yes, Red," she replied stiffly. "I'm sure."

"All right," he said doubtfully. "Then get busy and help us break down the wall this thing has built around itself!"

Trina drew her triple-blaster and took careful aim, but then she stopped. "Maybe is not necessary. We just need to be patient."

We all looked down at where Trina was pointing. About an inch of water was standing inside fake-Ganesha's protective tube. "If we can keep him bottled up here long enough," she said, "the rainwater will fill up his chamber and drown him. And if he seals it up tight, then eventually he will suffocate."

Oddly, she said all this out loud, rather than Prime-to-Prime. Fake-Ganesha looked down at his feet and drew back, as if he suddenly felt panicked, but then he started waving his arms in that swirly motion, and the rain abruptly stopped. Looking up, I could see that he had formed an invisible roof over us. The drumming of the rain was almost deafening. I could even make out the domed shape of the roof by tracing the path of the water sluicing down it.

"Great idea letting him know that, Orange," Toby said sarcastically. "Now he's just put up an umbrella over us all."

"Good," Trina muttered to herself. To the rest of us, she ordered, Prime-to-Prime, "Keep attacking him! Keep him distracted from what I am doing!"

I went to work with a will, slashing and jabbing with my sais and generating one heck of a spark show. Beside me, Padma was swinging her axe as if she were trying to chop down a tree. I tried to keep an eye on Trina without actually looking at her, if you know what I mean, but she seemed to be just looking up at the sky. After a minute or two, I heard her murmur, "Yes, that's it," and she gave that little satisfied nod, the way she does when she has just perfected one of her sketches. She raised her blaster so that it pointed almost straight up and let loose a series of rapid-fire shots.

It was the fanciest bit of trick-shooting I ever saw. Her blasts rebounded twice off the interior of the roof that fake-Ganesha had erected and then went down at an angle into his protective tube. And just like when Trina had accidentally shot herself, these shots zinged back and forth across the tube, striking faux-Ganesha with every pass. She kept at it, sending bursts of energy ricocheting down onto the monster. He must have eventually realized where they were coming from, because he soon dissolved the roof over our heads. Rain began pouring down onto us once more, and Trina's triple-blaster shots started shooting straight off into the sky.

Padma clutched my arm. "Indig-- I mean, Blue, pick me up! I want to try something."

I shook my head. "Nuh-uh. You heard what Red said. No more throwing with this guy."

"I don't want you to throw me; just pick me up on your shoulders. Quickly, before Ganesha realizes what I am doing!" Puzzled, I made a stirrup with my hands and let her climb up until she was standing atop my shoulders. With our Prime-enhanced strength and balance, it wasn't all that hard to do. "Now move over to stand beside his wall!"

She flattened herself against Elephant-boy's invisible cylinder and reached up as high as she could. "Oh, I am not tall enough! Blue, let me stand on your hands and push me up as high as you can!"

I complied. Wobbling a little, Padma stretched up again, and this time she was able to catch hold of something. As I watched, she scrambled up and perched herself on what was probably the lip of the invisible cylinder. Then, after taking a moment to make sure of her balance, she swung her legs over and dropped down inside, right on top of faux-Ganesha's head. Sparks flew as her anti-Enclave boots made contact with the monster's cranium. She jumped up, then came down again with all her weight, making more sparks.

Mike shook his head, muttering, "Nutters! I'm team lead for a bunch of nutters!"

Toby said with wry amusement, "Is this that theological tap-dancing that Wizzit mentioned?"

Padma laughed delightedly and began dancing a jig on fake-Ganesha's head. "Yes, exactly! I -- oops!" She had been reaching out to steady herself on the walls of an invisible cylinder that suddenly was no longer there; Elephant-head had dissolved his protective shielding. Off-balance, Padma tumbled to the ground. In a flash, Nicolai was at her side, pulling her away from the monster.

Trina and Toby reacted immediately. Trina knelt and began shooting rapid-fire at the monster's face, while Toby struck him in the belly with a giant roundhouse swing of his oversized hammer. Mike ran up to attack, and I was about to join him when I heard a peal of crazy-sounding laughter that seemed to echo all around us.

"What's that?" Mike exclaimed as all our heads jerked up simultaneously.

On a sudden intuition, I asked, "Wizzit, have you located that other alter?"

"It is nearby," Wizzit replied, "but hard to nail down. It seems to be bilocating."

"Bilocating?" Padma repeated. "I don't know what that word means."

"He means that it's in two places at the same time," I explained.

"Very clever --"

"-- Professor Smarty-pants!"

Two odd-looking figures suddenly came into view. They were wearing identical sets of clothes, a tunic and trousers decorated with a red-and-black diamond pattern. Their faces were pure white, as if they were wearing makeup, with black spikes painted above and below the eyes. Garish red lipstick created huge, grotesque smiles on their faces. They were nearly indistinguishable; the only difference was in the two-pointed, court jester-type hats they wore. One was red; the other was black.

"Clowns," Toby muttered in disgust. "I suppose it had to happen sooner or later. Have we ever had to fight clowns before?"

"Not that I recall," Trina replied.

"Not twin clowns, at any rate," Mike said. He laid into the Ganesha monster with his club. "Blue, keep an eye on 'em. Yellow and Indigo, over here, if you please."

"Will do, Red." Nicolai and Padma rushed to attack faux-Ganesha. I drew my sais and stepped warily between the newcomers and my teammates. Enclave does some goofy stuff at times, and these two (literal) jokers appeared to be among the leading citizens of Goofy-ville, but that didn't mean they were harmless. Sometimes the goofier-looking the critter is, the more dangerous it turns out to be.

"We are the Harley twins --"

"-- and you are destroying our monster!"

"We don't like it!"

"We don't like it very much!"

Red-hat seemed to be the one who spoke first, I noted. That might mean that he would attack first as well, or it might mean the opposite. Having no way of knowing, I eyed both of them carefully, waiting for either one to make a move. "I'm sorry you're unhappy," I said cautiously, "but we're the Primes. Destroying monsters is our job."

"But not our monsters!"

"Our monsters are cleverly made, not stupid like the other ones!"

"Yes, definitely not stupid. Go fight some stupid monsters and leave ours alone!"

"Yes, leave him alone!"

Wizzit said, Prime-to-Prime, "Blue, if you can bear to tear yourself away from their witty banter, we're ready for the final strike."

"On my way." Not taking my eyes off the two clowns in front of me, I backed quickly toward the Ganesha-monster. "Say when."

"When!"

I turned, and all six of us attacked fake-Ganesha simultaneously. Our weapons, tuned by Wizzit, disrupted his Enclave enhancements, and he disappeared in an explosion of sparks.

"Pooey!" said Red-hat. "He's dead!"

"Double-pooey!" said Black-hat. "He's deader than dead." And with that, the pair of them vanished.

Mike straightened and looked around. The people in the village seemed to understand that the danger was over now and were coming out from wherever they had hidden themselves. "Indigo, do you think you need to say anything before we go? We want to leave everybody happy if we can."

"I suppose I could say a quick prayer of thanks to the real Ganesha. Would that be okay?"

"Whatever you think is best," Mike replied.

Padma stepped forward and said a brief something. When she finished, Wizzit teleported us home.

Chapter 11

"You all have minor injuries," Wizzit said upon our arrival at HQ. "Initiating healing comas for everybody in ninety seconds. Prime Black is due to arrive in twenty-three minutes, and I want everyone awake and healthy to greet him when he comes. If you have anything personal to take care of, better do it quick."

I didn't have to use the bathroom or anything, so I wandered into the lounge and flopped down into one of the comfortable chairs there. Wizzit can be something of a pain about healing comas, but I can understand why. And if you don't have a good excuse to put it off -- and I mean a really good excuse -- then there's no reason not to get yourself healed up as soon as possible. Personally, I don't like limping around all covered with bruises.

Ten minutes later we were all sitting in the kitchen staring at the map. The Shelley-dot still hadn't moved. "When can we go see her?" Toby growled.

"Currently waiting for her to be taken to an interrogation room," Wizzit replied. "We will install microsensor packages at that time; it's less likely anyone will be monitoring the cell then. Visits can begin once the microsensor packages are in place."

"How do you know she's not in interrogation right now?" I asked.

"Protocol," was Wizzit's one-word answer. "When she found herself in a room which she believed was to be her cell, she was to make three complete clockwise circuits of the area. Purpose of that was both to signal that she was in a cell and also to give me its dimensions."

Mike said, "And she's done that?"

"Yupperooni. Did that sometime during the night. She is still in that location, which tells me that she has not been moved to an interrogation room."

Trina frowned. "Are you assuming that she's in a cell by herself? What happens if we teleport in and it turns out she has a cellmate?"

"Protocol," Wizzit said again. "If she found herself in a cell where she is likely to be directly observed, then she would make the three circuits, but she would also cross the area diagonally both ways, effectively making an X across the cell."

Nicolai frowned. "But that would be impossible. She would have to --"

Padma nudged him into silence. "I don't think Wizzit cares if it's not an Eulerian path. She would be allowed to go over the same line more than once."

"Oh. Yes, you're right, of course," Nicolai said with a chuckle. He looked sheepishly at the rest of us. "Sorry, I have just been immersed in graph theory, and . . ." He shrugged. "Never mind."

We all watched the Shelley-dot until Bill arrived a few minutes later. He didn't have any luggage with him, so I assumed he and Wizzit had just finished 'porting all of that stuff directly to his room. Mike, Trina, Nicolai, and Toby all greeted him enthusiastically, and even Padma gave him a warm smile. Me? I shook his hand and nodded politely.

I have to confess that it sometimes takes me a while to warm up to people. I can't help it; it's just the way I am. Didn't have anything against the guy -- he seemed friendly enough, and I was perfectly willing to accept everyone else's endorsement of him at face value -- but I just didn't know him. As I said, that's just the way I am.

The seven of us wandered into the office for the debriefing. Bill looked around as the rest of us took our usual seats; he then rather self-consciously took the chair behind the desk. "I understand that my role here is something like a player/coach," he said with a grin. "I'm not Prime Red, and I'm definitely not Prime Commander, but for now I'll be running the debriefings. Fair enough?" After we had all nodded, he went on, "Things have changed a bit since I was here last, and I know I'm not up to speed on everything that's going on. We'll talk about all that later, but for now, is there any background I need in order to understand this particular mission?"

Mike, being the team leader, was the one who answered. "Not a thing, Bill. It went down in India; Padma was our spokesman. Wizzit, start the vid from my POV, if you please?"

It turned out to be a fairly routine debriefing for a fairly routine mission. Bill asked to see the vid of me pounding my way through fake-Ganesha's barrier, but other than that, he didn't ask very many questions. I got the impression that he was feeling his way along as much as we were. I liked that; it made him seem more like a real person to me. And it felt good to perform a debriefing for someone who hadn't been involved in the fight. It made it seem more like a normal session with Prime Commander than the ones we had been having recently with Shelley.

When Mike finished, Bill asked, "Have you ever seen these Harley twins before?"

Mike shook his head. "Not that I recall."

"With a name like that," Toby put in with a snort, "I'd expect them to be bikers."

Bill grinned, but I could tell he was thinking of something else. "It's more likely that 'Harley twin' is a pun on 'harlequin', a stock clown-character in old Italian and French comedic plays," he said absently. "I wonder if their comments towards the end mean that Enclave have found themselves a new monster-maker."

He looked around, and he must have noticed my look of confusion, because he explained, "Enclave monsters don't just appear fully-formed out of nothing. The enhancements that turn ordinary humans into these monsters have to be developed by someone, probably several someones; we know that much. Over the years, I've noticed that their monsters follow certain trends. We had a run of wolf-types a few years back, and then there were the super-speedsters before that . . ."

"That makes sense," Padma interrupted excitedly. "When Trevor and I were in the Enclave base, they thought they had to distract the rest of the Primes with a monster, so they told JB Swift to send one out. It sounded as though they thought he would have one all ready for them."

Bill's eyebrows shot up. "That's very interesting, Padma. And it raises all sorts of questions, such as, what were you and Trevor doing in an Enclave base?"

"Oh. I, um, . . " Padma's excitement faded to embarrassment, and she dropped her gaze to the floor. Her skin was so dark it was hard to tell, but she was probably blushing.

I decided to come to her rescue. "It happened during her first mission as Prime Violet," I explained. "She was new and dumb and didn't know anything about teleport traps. She ran into one, and I went in to get her back."

"Yeah, against orders," Toby put in. "You should have heard Shelley after you said you were going in, Trev. She doesn't swear often, but when she does . . . whew!"

Bill chuckled. "That sounds like a good story; you two will have to tell it to me sometime." He leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. "So JB Swift is back, eh? And he's making monsters for them? I'd heard about Lily, of course, but monsters too? Interesting . . ." He appeared lost in thought for a moment, then he shook himself. "At any rate, we might be seeing these Harley twins again sometime soon. So, does anyone have any further comments about the mission?"

"I, for one, want a pair of sap gloves like Trevor's," Mike announced. "They seem to have worked out well for him, and I quite like the idea of having an extra weapon stashed away in my battle vest."

"Boots for me," Toby said tersely. "Or savate shoes, if you can make 'em."

Nicolai frowned. "I don't know whether we will have the time. We have a number of other projects that Wizzit asked us to work on."

"I'll pitch in," Bill assured him. "I'm a bit rusty, Nicolai, but if you show me what to do, I should be able to whip up some gloves and boots."

"Padma will show you," Nicolai said, nodding.

"Sounds good," Bill said. "Any other comments?"

Padma timidly raised her hand. "Trina," she said, "when you said that the rain would fill up the monster's tube and drown him, you knew that was incorrect, right? I mean, the monster was nearly three meters tall, and even during monsoon season we don't get three meters of rain in a single day."

Trina shrugged. "Of course. And if the monster had stopped to think, he would have realized that as well. What I wanted, though, was to make him fashion a roof over our heads so that I could bounce my blaster shot off of it. If I had to exaggerate to trick him into doing that, so what?"

"I see." Padma giggled. "That was very clever. Very devious."

Bill asked again for comments, but no one had anything else to add, so we adjourned. Bill touched my arm as we filed out, indicating that I should stay behind. When we were alone, he said, "Trevor, I'm afraid I'm a bit rusty in more than just making weapons. I haven't fought in an Enclave battle in at least four years, and I don't want to be a liability to the team out there. Shelley said you would be a good choice to help me tune up, to sharpen my skills a bit?"

I shrugged. "Sure. Do you just want some practice free-fighting or training or . . .?"

"Just free-fighting, I think. I hold black belts in judo and karate, and I have tried to keep up with those as time allows."

"All right, let's get together tomorrow morning, unless you want to have a go-round this afternoon."

He laughed. "Tomorrow will be fine. I haven't even unpacked yet."

Chapter 12

Bill and I entered the common room together to discover everyone excitedly staring at the map on the vid screen. "Trevor, grab your things!" Nicolai told me. "Shelley has been moved to another room. This is our chance!"

When we had hatched our plans regarding Shelley, it had been decided that Nicolai and I would be the ones to install the microsensor package in Shelley's cell -- Nicolai, because he knew how the damned things worked; and me, in case we got caught and had to fight our way out. I dashed to my room and grabbed my battle vest, along with the little bag of microsensor dots that Nicolai had given me. I decided against bringing a weapon. We weren't expecting trouble, and even if trouble found us, it wasn't likely to be of the Enclave variety, so our weapons wouldn't do us much good anyway. Back in the common room, Nicolai and I had to endure the envious stares of our teammates as we activated, turned on camouflage mode, and 'ported out.

By now, you probably have the idea that camouflage mode is some sort of invisibility cloak for us Primes, and you wouldn't be that far off. Normally when I'm shielded, my force shield projects the image of a swirling indigo mist -- sorry, make that a swirling blue mist -- around me which disguises who I am. In camouflage mode, the swirling mist is replaced by an image of whatever is on the other side of me, so that I become more-or-less see-through. It works reasonably well, especially if you're standing perfectly still against a single-colored background.

We had no idea what to expect from Shelley's captors, naturally. They could have decided to keep her in a cage, a jail cell with bars, a dungeon -- we didn't know what Nicolai and I were headed into. As it turned out, luck was with us. When the teleportation haze cleared from my vision, Nicolai and I were standing in a white, rectangular, windowless room with a single, steel-reinforced door. There was a toilet in one corner, but nothing else, not even a washstand or anything to sleep on.

"Remain absolutely still," Wizzit told us, Prime-to-Prime. "Scanning the area for cameras . . ." About ninety seconds later, he said, "I detect one low-resolution camera in the room, with an attached microphone. Blue, it's pointed right at you, so stay where you are. Yellow, it is directly behind you, just above your left shoulder. Take two steps back and look up."

I performed the monumentally-difficult task of not moving a muscle while I waited for Nicolai to perform his magic. Of course, since the camera was low-res and I was using camouflage mode, it would probably have been okay if I had moved a little bit, but there was no sense in taking chances, especially so soon after we had teleported in with the accompanying flash of light. After a couple of minutes, I heard Nicolai say, "Film is in place."

"Got it," Wizzit answered. "Making a quick recording . . ."

I knew what they were doing, but that didn't make it easier to stand still. Nicolai had just slipped a piece of clear plastic film -- something like the plastic wrap you'd find in your kitchen -- over the camera lens. The specially-made plastic film was transparent at the moment, but once Wizzit activated it, it would serve two purposes. First, it would act as a video monitor for us, sending Wizzit a constant feed of what was going on in Shelley's cell. Second, it would become a projector, feeding the camera only what Wizzit wanted it to see. At the moment, Wizzit was making a vid of a completely empty room, which he would loop continuously into the camera display the entire time we were working.

"Recording is done," Wizzit announced presently. "Feeding it into the camera now. Blue, you can move, but you both still need to remain quiet."

I turned around with a (silent) sigh of relief. Nicolai was still working on the camera, cutting down the plastic film and pressing it onto the camera's lens; when he was done, Wizzit's little addition would be well-nigh undetectable. I, in the meantime, would be fitting a similar bit of plastic film over the camera's microphone for a similar purpose. It would be more obvious than the film over the lens, but really, who ever looks at a surveillance camera's microphone anyway?

Two minutes later, we completely owned the video and audio links going out of Shelley's cell and could begin our work in earnest. I pulled out my bag of microsensor dots and began planting them about the room.

The dots were a marvel of electronic engineering. Each one was about as big as the head of a pin, and they were malleable like putty. A single one was capable of transmitting a usable, if somewhat fuzzy, view of the area immediately surrounding it. The real genius, though, lay in the way they worked together. If you scattered a bunch of these gizmos around, then they would quickly find each other, elect one of their number to be the master, and automatically begin channeling their output to that master, which would then build a composite 3-D sound and video image of the area that was startlingly detailed and accurate. The more dots you scattered, the better the image would be.

Since the walls were just painted cinderblock, Nicolai and I were able to plant about a hundred of the little guys all around the room, which would be enough to let Wizzit monitor the heartbeat of every person within a ten foot radius. Once Nicolai placed a somewhat larger ball of the putty behind the toilet tank to act as a relay, Wizzit could keep track of Shelley in this cell nearly as well as if she had been wearing her Prime belt.

Next came the tricky part -- or, to be accurate, the other tricky part. If we were going to visit Shelley in her cell, then we didn't want to be surprised by someone coming along and opening her door from the outside. We needed to monitor the area immediately outside her cell.

Simple, right? We just had to plant some dots out in the hallway. The question was, how? The door was closed and probably locked. Even if it weren't, we didn't want to draw attention to ourselves by opening it.

It was an interesting little problem. Luckily for us, there was a slot an inch or two high and maybe twelve inches wide in the center of the door at floor level, probably for sliding meal trays in and out. Nicolai simply slid the slot cover up and pushed out half a dozen dots. That gave Wizzit a clear enough image of the hallway that he could teleport Nicolai to the other side of the door without fear of discovery.

Nicolai was gone for something like ten minutes. I waited nervously in the cell, trying not to think of all the horrible things that must be happening to him. When he finally 'ported back in, I nearly jumped out of my force shield.

"That was a close call!" he said breathlessly. "I planted dots all up and down the hallway. Someone came out from one of the other rooms as I was finishing, but they went in the opposite direction from me. I was able to get inside their room, and I just had time to install a passthrough on their computer before they returned. That was when Wizzit teleported me back here."

I nodded. Planting a passthrough was something we had discussed as a nice-to-have, but it wasn't vital. Simply put, Nicolai had unplugged the person's mouse, plugged it into the passthrough, and then plugged the passthrough into the computer. The device was small enough to pass a casual inspection (again, who really examines the back of a computer?), but it contained a fiendish array of electronics that, with luck, would give us an undetectable backdoor into their computer network.

We spent another few minutes double-checking our handiwork, and then Wizzit said, "Someone is coming. Yellow, prepare to teleport out. Blue, I am switching to live camera feed, so move into a corner out of the way. No, not that one, the next one over. Yes, there. Switching . . . now!"

I held my breath. Seconds later, I heard footsteps approaching. The door opened, and two guards thrust Shelley inside. They didn't say anything, and neither did she. They quickly closed the door again.

Shelley looked a lot better than she had the last time I saw her -- a lot healthier. Disoriented, but her cuts and bruises were gone, and she appeared able to move about without pain. She was clad in a baggy orange jumpsuit that didn't flatter her at all, I must say.

She spent a moment looking around the room. It might have been my imagination, but I could have sworn that her gaze lingered for just a second on the corner where I was standing. Then she sat down cross-legged with her back against one wall. After a couple of minutes, she said, "How long do you need me to sit here like this, Wizzit?"

"A few minutes more," he replied from my belt buckle. "Don't talk; it disrupts the recording. I will tell you when you can stop posing."

We stayed that way for what seemed like an eternity. I did my best to remain absolutely still and quiet; Shelley was apparently under no such restriction. She sighed, stretched, scratched her nose, ran her hands through her hair -- in short, she performed all manner of idle motions someone might go through if they were alone and bored.

We were about halfway to the heat-death of the universe when Wizzit said, "Recording is finished. Randomizing and looping your sounds and movements into the camera now. Blue, you can turn off camouflage mode."

She got to her feet as I, visible now, stepped out from my corner. Now, Shelley and I had known each other for nearly four years, and while there had never been anything romantic between us -- she was way out of my league -- I considered her to be one of my closest friends. Nevertheless, I don't think she had ever given me as enthusiastic a greeting as she did then. She grabbed onto me, held me so tight that I could scarcely breathe, and just didn't let go.

"It's good to see you, Blue," she murmured into my ear. "Really, really good to see you!"

I could feel her trembling, and when she finally released me, tears were welling up in her eyes. She was all smiles, though. "That was the longest day of my life," she said with some feeling. "I had no idea where I was or what time it was or whether you guys had gotten away or if you'd be able to contact me here or . . . or anything! Tell me, how is everyone? Okay, I hope? Everyone got healed up okay? You haven't had any more missions yet, have you? Did you see the vid I left? Have you made contact with Prime Black? You know who Prime Black is, right?"

I laughingly held up a hand to stem her flow of questions. "Everyone is fine," I told her. "In fact, they're probably all watching you right now, including Prime Black. Yellow and I just finished installing a microsensor package."

"Yellow?" she repeated with a puzzled frown. "You mean Orange, don't you?"

I shook my head. "Yellow asked to remain Yellow. Green moved up to Orange, and everyone else progressed normally."

"Oh, I see. That's . . . that's pretty unusual, but if that's what Yellow wanted to do, then I guess it's probably for the best." She waved uncertainly at a wall. "Um, hi, everyone. I'm okay. Feeling a bit frazzled -- or a lot frazzled -- but basically okay. I'm pretty tired. No heavy interrogation yet; I think they mainly wanted to intimidate me and then leave me here alone to stew for a while."

"Well, they goofed, because you're not alone, Shelley." I reached up and squeezed her shoulder the way she always did with me. Toby had told us that physical contact -- actually touching her -- would be important, and I was starting to see that for myself. I could feel her muscles, which had been bunched up, start to relax under my hand. "Trust me, we're not going to let you go. We're in this with you, all the way. Someone's going to come visit you every day. Twice a day, if we can. Anything you want, you've got it. Just let us know."

She closed her eyes, and a tear spilled out of each eye. "Thanks, Blue. That means a lot. Tell me, when did Black show up?"

"Earlier today. Black debriefed us on our most recent mission, in fact."

"So you did have another mission? That's odd, another one so soon. How did it go?"

I started to sketch out what had happened to us in India, but Wizzit interrupted. "Sorry to break this up, kids, but the video I'm looping is starting to become repetitive. We're going to have to cut this visit short. I will take more stock footage, and tomorrow's visit can be longer, 'kay?"

Shelley took a deep breath and nodded. She hugged me one last time, then went back to the spot where she had been sitting against the wall as I 'ported out.

"She didn't look good," Padma commented as I teleported back to HQ. She and the others were clustered around the vid screen in the common room watching Shelley, who was curled up on the floor now, her head pillowed on her arms.

"She'll be fine," Mike averred, sounding as if he really wanted to believe that. "Shelley's plenty tough."

"She didn't know where she was, that's for sure," I said, "or what time it was. I got the impression she thought she had been gone just a single day. I don't know a whole lot about interrogation techniques, but I'd bet a penny they're going to try to keep her as disoriented and confused as possible."

"Then we need to help her fight against that," Trina said. "Whenever we visit her, the first thing we should do is to tell her what day it is, and what time, and how long she has been held."

Bill stepped forward. "I'm going to pull rank," he said, "and claim the next visit. Wizzit, how soon can I go, and how long can I stay?"

"Eight hours from now is the earliest I can recommend," Wizzit replied. "She needs to sleep, for one thing. Initial visit should be half an hour or less at that time. They can be longer as I gather more footage of her to feed into the camera and as we become more acquainted with their routines. Remember, you may have to teleport out with no more than a minute's notice, so don't get too involved." Then he added with a snicker, "Or engage in any activities which might get . . . messy."

There were sounds of disgust from all around the room. "Oh, come on, Wizzit!" Toby objected. "It's not like he's going to be banging Shelley right under their noses." Then, with a careful look at Bill, he added, "Well, at least not on the first visit, anyway."

Bill exhaled noisily. "I can see it's no longer a secret that Shelley and I have been seeing each other," he said, giving Trina a hard look.

"Of course it's not." Trina was unrepentant. "Don't you think it was something we all needed to know? I did, which is why I decided to tell them."

Bill thought for a moment, then shrugged. "You're right, maybe it was. At any rate, whatever Shelley and I may or may not decide to do during my visits is not going to be a matter for public debate. In fact, Wizzit, I'm going to ask that the time I'm with her not be broadcast back here at HQ. I'd, uh, like us to be able to spend some time together privately."

"I will mark those vids for viewing by no eyes but yours," Wizzit promised snarkily. "You know, just in case you wish to review your performance."

Chapter 13

I'll say this for Wizzit: He may act snotty and immature at times, but he knows how to keep a promise. To this day, I have never seen a single clip of any of Bill's many visits to Shelley.

Regardless, when I got back to my room, I found an e-mail from Angie waiting for me, telling me to check out the news. It had been a few days since Wizzit posted the vid of Shelley's arrest, and I guess it was starting to garner some attention. A lot of attention, in fact; it had gotten tons of views, and people all over the internet were debating the subject of Prime Red's arrest.

The mainstream media was picking up on it by now as well. Wizzit had posted a rather glamorous-looking photo of Shelley to the website, and thankfully, a lot of the online papers and news websites that I skimmed through had chosen to run that alongside their articles, rather than the awful-looking images of her from the video. The articles themselves had fairly predictable headlines like "Prime Red Unmasked!" and "Eric Really An Erica?"

The first stories had simply repeated the bare facts laid out by Wizzit's announcement of her capture, along with the brief bio of her that he had posted. Now, though, some of the New York-based news outlets had begun asking questions of NYPD officials, since they were the ones who made the arrest. The NYPD folks claimed ignorance, saying that they were merely acting on a strongly-worded request from the FBI. The FBI, of course, was neither admitting nor denying anything.

"My guess," Mike said when I shared all of this at dinner that night, "is that you'll find there's an Agent Evalcne at the back all of this."

"An Agent who?" Toby asked, handing Padma her plate.

Padma stared down at her food and wrinkled her nose. "What is this?"

"Bangers and mash, with a side of roasted carrots," Toby announced proudly. "Since it's my turn to cook, I've decided to treat you lot to some of the wonders of English cuisine."

"There's an oxymoron if I ever heard one," Mike muttered to me.

Padma poked her fork suspiciously at the sausages on her plate. "The meat is . . . what?"

"For you, Padma, I've got turkey sausages -- trust me, no cow ever came anywhere near them. Cooked in a separate pan and everything. For the rest of you, you've got your choice -- turkey or a mixture of beef and pork."

Nicolai glanced across the table at Padma and said glumly, "Turkey for me as well, please."

Toby filled a plate and handed it to him with a knowing grin. "So, who is this Agent Whatever-his-name-is?" he asked Mike.

"Agent Evalcne," Mike repeated, "and it's not so much a 'who' as a 'what'." He looked around at each of us in turn. "Oh, come on!" he said impatiently. "Don't tell me you can't figure it out!"

"'Evalcne' would be 'Enclave' spelled backwards?" Trina guessed.

Mike grinned at her. "Got it in one, love," he said. "I'm thinking they're behind Shelley's arrest."

"I remember there was an Evalcne Corporation that caused us problems a number of years ago," Nicolai mused, "but we were never able to prove a connection with Enclave."

"You only need proof if you're going to take 'em to court," Mike declared. "We all knew that Evalcne Corp was Enclave."

"But we don't know it in this case," Nicolai pointed out. He cut off a piece of sausage, swirled it in the mashed potatoes, and popped it into his mouth. "And even if they were behind this, what difference would that make? How would we approach the problem differently if we knew that it was Enclave that prompted the United States government to detain Shelley?"

"First off, we'd . . . ah, that is, we would . . ." Mike frowned thoughtfully. "Hm. I see your point, Nicolai. The problem is still the same. We've still got to get her free in an open, above-board way."

"Exactly," Trina said. "And if the newspapers and television stations are only now becoming aware that she has been arrested, then getting her free might take months."

"If it ever happens," Toby muttered sourly as he handed me my plate.

"Of course it will happen," Padma said confidently. "We just need to, er, 'hang on there.' Not give up."

"We're in this for the long haul," I agreed, ignoring Padma's fracturing of the American idiom. As a general rule, I don't comment on the linguistic foibles of our non-native English speakers, not unless I'm asked. Besides which, Padma is the only Prime who speaks more languages than I do (although most of them are various Indian dialects), so I figure she gets a free pass on that sort of thing. And anyway, apart from a few idiosyncrasies (such as saying "today morning" instead of "this morning"), her English is usually spot-on. "One of the things we're --"

I was interrupted by a flash of black-tinged light as Bill teleported in. All eyes immediately went to him. Mike asked the question we were all thinking: "How's Shelley doing?"

Bill shook his head gravely. "Not so good. She's weak and complaining of feeling lightheaded, and she still seems disoriented. I think that . . ." His voice trailed off as he frowned down at our plates. "Wait here a minute," he said tersely. Then he grabbed a finger-sized sausage from my plate and one each from Nicolai's and Padma's. "Wizzit?" he said.

"Sending you back out now."

Bill disappeared as Wizzit teleported him out, presumably to see Shelley again. When he reappeared a few minutes later, he had an apologetic grin on his face. "Sorry about that. I was going to say, I think that they have been messing around with her diet. I asked her what she'd had to eat, and she said they had given her just fruits and vegetables, some bread with jam -- even candy, believe it or not -- but no meat, no nuts, no beans, and no dairy. Nothing with any protein to speak of."

Toby whistled. "That'd be rough, especially coming off a healing coma."

"I've heard of cults doing that," I commented. "Feeding their members ultra-low-protein diets to screw up their body chemistry. It's supposed to keep them weak and pliable."

"Yup, 'weak and pliable' is just how they'd want her," Mike added grimly.

"So, d'you want me to cook up a fresh batch of sausages for her every morning?" Toby offered. "Or kippers? I could do kippers."

Bill chuckled. "I'm hoping that the sausages I gave her will help put her back on an even keel, but long-term? I'd want something a bit more nutritious. Less fat, especially since her new, er, lifestyle won't be quite so active as ours."

"No, Mike," Trina said firmly as our beloved leader started to speak. "No Marmite." Mike closed his mouth and shrugged.

"Wizzit," said Bill, "what are the odds of our getting her some sort of low-fat protein supplements? Something with lots of vitamins, I'd guess."

"And iron," Trina added. "She'll need iron if it is not in her food."

"Odds are very good," Wizzit said. "Making the arrangements now for high-protein shakes fortified with vitamins and minerals. We should have them by tomorrow morning."

"Excellent." Bill sniffed the air and rubbed his hands together. "Now, is that bangers and mash I'm smelling?"

Chapter 14

Wizzit was as good as his word. He always is. I have no idea how he keeps our kitchen as well stocked as it is, but when Trina went out for a visit the following morning, she brought with her the first of many dietary supplements and other items we provided Shelley during the period she was incarcerated.

"How did she look?" I asked Trina a little later. We were in the gym, going over her knife-hand technique one last time before the real test that was to occur the next day.

"A lot better," Trina said. "More like her old self." She took careful aim and struck at the pad I was holding for her.

"Nice," I commented. "Your technique has gotten really good. You shouldn't have any trouble breaking the board tomorrow."

"Thanks, but . . . Trevor, I have been thinking. Perhaps I shouldn't go through with the bet."

"Why not?" I asked her, surprised. "You're a shoo-in to win it."

"Maybe, but I'm not sure what to do if I do win. Of course I know where I would want Mike to take me for dinner, but I don't really want to make him parade around in a skimpy bathing suit, and having him dress up like a clown would just be spiteful."

"It'd be funny, though." When she didn't return my smile, I went on with a shrug, "Well, I guess that forfeiting is one option, but if you do that, you can be sure that Mike has a pretty little outfit all picked out for you."

"And you wouldn't mind at all seeing me in it, would you?"

I grinned and winked at her. "Sure. It's a win-win for me. But seriously, Trina, if you don't want to humiliate him, then don't. That doesn't mean you have to purposely lose the bet."

She looked thoughtfully down at the ground. "I just want to be taken seriously, that's all. It drives me crazy, the way Mike treats me like a silly, bubble-headed girl some of the time and a fragile porcelain doll other times."

"Well, even if Mike doesn't take you seriously, plenty of the rest of us do. I mean, Nicolai gave up his spot as Orange because he thought you'd be better at it, right?"

"He didn't do it for me," she replied with a smile. "He did it because he wants to spend his time tinkering in the weapons room."

"Fine, then. I take you seriously. Didn't I start taking a hundred shots a day at the practice range just because you told me to? My aim has really been improving, by the way." I crossed my arms and looked at her sternly. "And it seems to me, young lady, that you promised me some aikido lessons if I helped you with this board-breaking business."

She regarded me skeptically. "Do you really want to learn? It won't help you beat up on Zoinks."

"Maybe not, but I'd sure like to be able to deal with Lily without pounding her face into the pavement like I did in New York."

She winced at the memory. "That's a good point," she admitted. "All right, we will start training you tomorrow afternoon -- if I win the bet in the morning!"

"That's the spirit! I'll be here."

Bill arrived a few minutes after Trina left, ready for his sparring session with me. Like me, he was wearing shorts and a loose-fitting tee-shirt. "Let's just start slow," he said. "I'm not trying to prove anything; I just want to get back into practice for this sort of thing."

"Fair enough," I nodded.

We warmed up for a while, then started fighting in earnest. At first, I didn't do much offensively or defensively; I mainly blocked and circled around him. It didn't take long, though, before I had to start offering more than just token resistance. I quickly found myself having to retreat in a hurry to avoid flurries of punches that I wouldn't have been able to block. That made me a little suspicious, and when he started throwing multiple jumping backwheel kicks at me, I called a time out.

"What's the matter?" he asked, barely even breathing hard. "Too much for you?"

I slowly shook my head. "I'm just trying to figure out what the heck's going on. Why you lied to me."

His eyebrows raised up. "Did I lie to you? I said I was looking for a tune-up session."

"True," I admitted, "but you also gave me the impression that you were out of practice and maybe a bit out of condition as well. That's not what I just saw. You've obviously been training pretty hard recently, and I'm pretty sure you were trying to show off just now, even though you said you weren't trying to prove anything."

He considered this, then nodded. "All right, you got me. Maybe I was." He sighed. "Look, I'm a thirty-two-year-old guy, a Prime has-been who has been brought back for one last hurrah. Shelley tells me that the kid Wizzit brought in to replace me is ten years younger than I am, and he's quite the hotshot. So I decided to see for myself just how good you are. Frankly, I'm not impressed."

I shrugged. "I wasn't trying to impress you. I was trying to help you get yourself back in shape so you can fight Enclave with the rest of us. But it doesn't look like you need my help, so if you'll excuse me . . ."

He held up a hand as I started to walk away. "Trevor, wait." He looked at the floor for a moment, then said, "I guess we might have gotten off on the wrong foot. Sorry about that. I really want to prove that I'm good enough, that I belong back on the team, and . . . well, maybe this wasn't the best way to go about it."

I crossed my arms. "Look, Bill, I don't know you. I don't know what kind of guy you are or anything about you. What I do know is that Wizzit pulled you back in. That says a lot. Add that to the fact that everyone here who does know you is absolutely thrilled that you're back, and I'm perfectly happy to accept you as one of the team. Let's leave it at that for right now, okay?"

He nodded. "Fair enough." He adopted a fighting stance. "So, hotshot, do you feel like going a few rounds with an old man who's not quite as out of shape as you thought? I promise I'm going to push you as hard as I can."

I grinned. "Sure. That sounds like fun."

And you know what? It was. Bill was a plenty tough opponent, and he did push me pretty hard. Like most big guys, he tended to rely on power and weight rather than speed or leverage, but that didn't mean he was sloppy. And it had been a while since I had a really skilled partner to practice with. Shelley and I didn't train together a whole lot, Padma wasn't quite advanced enough, and I've never felt like I could go all-out against Angie. Bill, though, had me busting out some moves I hadn't practiced for ages -- 540-backwheels, jumping-turning roundhouses, stuff like that -- and it felt really good. After an hour or so of hard sparring, the two of us collapsed to the floor, dripping with sweat.

"So," he said after we had both caught our breath, "what can you tell me about Lily?"

"Lily?" I raised my eyebrows, surprised at abrupt change in topic. "What do you want to know about her?"

"Everything, I guess. Shelley wanted me to ask you specifically, because you know the most about her. She told me that she's one of your biggest pains in the neck right now."

"Yeah, that's a fair statement." I told him everything we knew about her -- her origins as the Cantonese-speaking girl Li Lin-fa, her various personalities as the English-speaking "attack doll" called Lily Lee, and what we knew of the commands that JB Swift used to control her. I also went over the time I had spent talking with her while Padma and I had been trapped at the Enclave base.

Bill seemed especially interested in the fact that it was apparently only as Li Lin-fa that she was able to sleep. Indeed, that had been our main worry during the short time we had held her captive, that prolonged lack of sleep might cause Lily serious harm, since we had been unable to find any way to bring the Li Lin-fa personality to the surface.

"And you're sure that this Li Lin-fa isn't just one of the personas available in Lily's, er, 'companion mode'?"

I smiled wryly. Companion mode -- a euphemism if there ever was one. It was a section in Lily's programming that let her assume any one of a myriad of different personalities in order to provide . . . what had her phrase been? . . . "social and sexual companionship for those operating the attack doll." Something like that. Basically, a living, breathing love doll who could be just about anyone you wanted her to be and do whatever you wanted her to do.

The thing was, according to what Lily herself told us, every single one of those personalities spoke only English, and in the three conversations I had held with Li Lin-fa, the only English I ever heard her speak was when she told Padma, "Hello, Prime Violet. Happy birthday."

I told Bill as much, and he nodded thoughtfully. He asked me a few more questions, mainly about the exact circumstances of my last visit with Li Lin-fa. The poor girl had been so tired then that she kept drifting off to sleep whenever I wasn't speaking directly to her.

I half-expected him to ask me about my feelings toward her. I was sure that Shelley had given him her best guess, which was that I had fallen pretty hard for Li Lin-fa. He didn't ask, though, and I was glad of that. I really like and trust Shelley, and I'd have willingly shared my deepest, darkest secrets with her, but I still didn't know Bill well enough to have that kind of conversation with him.

And to be honest, I wasn't sure how I felt. At the time, Li Lin-fa had seemed like a wonderfully sweet, warm, innocent, and lovely young woman, and she had desperately needed my help. Like Shelley told me once, I'm a sucker for damsels in distress. But in the months since, I had seen almost no sign of Li Lin-fa, only the cold, robotic Lily Lee, and I had begun wondering whether that other side of her had been just an illusion, or maybe wishful thinking on my part. And then, when Lily had killed Prime Commander in order to escape the prison we had put her in . . . let's just say that my feelings for her were somewhat confused.

Regardless, he thanked me for the information and for the sparring practice, and he said he would give the matter of Lily some thought.

Chapter 15

We all gathered in the gym the next morning after breakfast to watch Trina try to break a board with her hand. Now, I wouldn't say that life as a Prime is boring, exactly -- more like periods of frenetic, even life-threatening, activity interspersed with long stretches of preparing for the next burst of activity -- but even minor social events like this one provide a refreshing break in the routine.

Bill had been unanimously chosen as the judge for the event, although privately I didn't see the need for a judge. An emcee, sure, but I mean, if the board breaks, then it breaks; it was unlikely that something that would require an actual adjudication -- something dumb like the board half-breaking -- would happen. But everyone else seemed to want one, so I wasn't about to disagree. And it did lend the whole thing sort of an air of pageantry.

Bill stood up in front of everybody and went over the terms of Mike's bet with Trina, namely that Trina was to attempt to use a knife-hand -- what most people think of as a "karate chop" -- to break a three-quarter-inch pine board. If she couldn't break the board after five attempts, then she would lose the bet. I held up half a dozen of the boards I had brought from home, which Mike inspected, and then he selected one of them.

Bill then went over the rest of the terms, which was the stuff I have already mentioned about dinner and clothes, although he did add some legalistic-sounding verbiage (which I suspect he made up on the spot) about the cost of the dinner (which "was by no means to exceed two hundred dollars American, not excluding tips, considerations, gifts, or any other honoraria not specifically mentioned herein") and the "costume" (which "shall not violate any public-decency laws established by, nor exceed the commonly-held bounds of propriety of, the community or communities wherein the dinner is to be prepared, ordered, delivered, eaten, or consumed; and neither shall it cause the wearer to suffer excessively from any extremes of heat or cold or undue difficulty of donning or subsequent removing of said outfit").

He said all this with a countenance as stiff and grave as that of any hanging judge, although how he kept such a straight face with the rest of us, even Mike, all but howling with laughter, I'll never know. When he finished, Bill called up Trina and Padma.

Padma, being a Tae Kwon Do black belt herself, had done this type of thing a few times before. Without a word, she took the board from me and held it straight out at arms' length, dangling between her thumb and fingers with the grain parallel to the floor. Her face was turned away to protect her eyes from any fallout from the strike; she was going to be the only one of us who wouldn't watch Trina try to break the board. As Trina's coach, I placed myself where I could see what she was doing, but out of range of any flying splinters or pieces of wood. Trina gave me a nervous smile, then set herself. I could see everyone except Padma lean forward eagerly as she drew back her hand to strike . . .

That was when the monster alarm began ringing.

A disappointed "Awww!" spread through the room, and Mike, Toby, and Nicolai started getting to their feet. "Hold it right there!" Bill thundered, surprising everyone into freezing where they were. He gestured to Trina. "We have a minute or two. Go ahead and break the board."

Trina looked uncertainly around the room. He had a point. Normally when Wizzit sounds the monster alarm, we hop right to it, because there's no reason to dawdle. Strictly speaking, though, it's not really a situation where every second matters. We did indeed have a minute or two. "Go on," I urged Trina. "Take a shot at it, anyway."

Trina nodded, took a deep breath, and set herself again. If she was anything like me, her adrenalin would be pumping by now -- a conditioned reaction to the monster alarm -- and that would make it that much easier to break the board. She drew back her hand and then swung it in a hard, tight arc. There was a crack! and suddenly two pieces of board were flying through the air to land on the gym floor.

"That . . . that was easy!" Trina exclaimed, looking at her hand in disbelief. "I barely even felt it!"

"That means you did it right," I assured her warmly.

I have to give Mike credit; he was the first in line to shake Trina's hand and congratulate her. Of course, he then shooed Padma out to the weapons room to collect our gear and began sending everyone else off to don their battle vests. Still, anyone who expected him to slink off into the shadows twirling his mustache and muttering "Curses! Foiled again!" would have been disappointed.

Chapter 16

I have traveled all over the world in the course of my duties as a Prime. Of course, nearly all of those trips have lasted an hour or less -- just long enough to destroy the Enclave beastie du jour -- and most of them have kind of blurred together in my memory.

A few of them do stand out, though. The mission in Zimbabwe still bothers me sometimes, as does the one in Somalia. I wish I could have done more to help in both of those countries than simply to destroy a monster. Hawaii was beautiful, of course, both times I've been there, and the Italian Riviera was a blast. But I don't think I have ever been to a place where the landscape was at the same time so austerely beautiful and so darned annoying as where we went today.

"Where is this place?" Mike asked as we materialized into what appeared to be a snow-covered valley. The light was dim; we couldn't see the sun, although the sky was not completely dark -- more like twilight.

"Iceland," came Wizzit's reply. "Specifically, you're standing in the caldera of the Katla volcano, which is part of the Myrdalsjokull glacier." (Yeah, he whipped out the name of that glacier as if he had been practicing it all his life. I had to look up the spelling to make sure I got it right.)

"A volcano?" Padma exclaimed, sounding alarmed. "It's not going to erupt, is it?"

"Depends on how fast you can stop their monsters," Wizzit replied.

"Monsters?" Bill repeated. "As in more than one?"

"Two -- a fire monster and some sort of ice thing. Iceland is the land of fire and ice, after all. The fire monster is toward the center of the caldera, apparently trying to melt its way down through the ice. Ice monster is coming up on your left. Lily and about forty Zoinks approaching from behind. Better look lively!"

I could see the bulk of some sort of Enclave critter, covered all over with yellowish-white fur, shambling toward us. Off to the right, a cloud of steam was starting to rise. Mike said, "Right. Umm, Blue, go take on Lily when she gets here."

"Indigo and I can attack the fire monster," Nicolai volunteered.

"No, I want you two on Mister Yeti over there. I'm guessing this fire guy will need a long-range attack so that no one gets burned."

"I will go, then," Trina said, and started jogging toward the cloud of steam.

"I'll go with you," Mike said. "Green, I guess that leaves the Zoinks for you, and Black . . . I'll let you decide where you can be the most help."

I could see Lily directing a whole bunch of Zoinks towards us, about a hundred yards away. Toby and I decided we would just keep an eye on the ice monster while we waited for her to get closer. I mean, why should we have to bring the battle to her, right?

Nicolai and Padma were approaching the ice creature warily now, their axes held at the ready. Bill stood behind them; his weapon of choice was apparently a bo, the standard six-foot-long karate fighting staff, and he was holding it in a vertical ready stance. The monster was glaring at the three of them through reddish, albino eyes and hefting a long stick made of what appeared to be pure ice, coming to a point at one end.

"Do we know that it is dangerous yet, Wizzit?" Nicolai asked.

"Not yet. Will let you know momentarily."

Mister Yeti had been drawing his arm back ever so slowly, and suddenly he let fly with his ice spear. So swift was his motion that he caught Nicolai completely by surprise. One second our favorite Pole was in a half-crouch, ready to attack; the next, he was staring in shock at an inch-thick shaft of ice that was protruding from his belly. Poor guy, he never even had a chance to hit the ground, Wizzit teleported him out so fast.

"Yellow!" Padma shrieked. "Wizzit, is he . . .?"

"Bleeding his guts out all over my nice, clean kitchen floor? Why, yes! Yes, he is, thanks for asking." Padma let out a moan of despair, and Wizzit went on soothingly, "Relax, Indigo! I have already initiated a maximum-depth healing coma. The ice will melt slowly enough that the healing will be accomplished before Yellow has a chance to bleed to death. Everything is under control. Yellow is not in any pain."

Bill stepped forward and laid a hand on Padma's shoulder. "Yellow will be okay," he assured her. "I've seen people come back from worse. Come on, let's you and me take on this guy."

Padma set herself and nodded once. "Yes," she said fiercely. "Let us destroy him!"

"Go ahead," Wizzit put in airily. "I believe we have established that he's hostile."

I had been watching Mister Yeti scoop up handfuls of snow while Padma, Bill, and Wizzit had been talking. Now he was pressing them together between his paws, as if he were molding them into a snowball. I wasn't sure what kind of damage he could do throwing snowballs at Bill or Padma, but I was sure that I didn't want to find out. Quick as I could, I whipped out my blaster and shot him. Toby must have had the same idea, because our two blaster beams struck him in the chest almost simultaneously.

He staggered backward, almost falling on his furry butt. As he windmilled his arms, the ball he had been molding flew from his grasp. Even in the dim light, I could see that it was hard and shiny -- a glittering lump of pure ice.

"Be careful with this guy," I warned Padma and Bill as I put my blaster away. "Looks like he can turn this snow into ice plenty fast, and he can probably form it into whatever shape he wants."

"Duly noted, Blue," Bill replied tersely.

"Uh, Blue, you might want to turn around now," Toby said from somewhere behind me, "unless you feel like getting your butt kicked."

I whirled. A Zoink was approaching me, coming on fast. Well, as fast as Zoinks ever get, anyway. I whipped out one of the moves I had been practicing with Bill, the jumping 540-backwheel, and blasted it in the head. "Where's Lily?" I asked, looking around as it slowly collapsed in front of me. "I don't see her."

"She's, umm, in the back, off to the left," replied Toby, who is six or eight inches taller than me and could therefore see over the heads of the Zoinks. He swung his hammer with a grunt, taking out two of the drones. "Looks like she thinks she needs bodyguards after that adventure in New York. Got herself surrounded with a bunch of Zoinks."

"Thanks, Green. I'll just have to see about those so-called -- aagh!" I broke off as a shower of what felt like red-hot needles drove themselves into my back. "Damn, that hurt! What was it?"

Toby was making a similar exclamation. We both turned around in time to catch a second blast directly in the face. "Damn!" he yelled, pawing at his eyes.

I was a little luckier than he was, or maybe my reflexes were just a hair faster. I had caught a glimpse of Mister Yeti making some sort of flinging motion towards us, as if he were scattering seed in our direction, and I brought an arm up in front of my face a split second before we got hit. Still hurt like hell, though.

"Blue, where are you?" Toby shouted. He was staggering in my direction, waving one hand in front of him like a blind man, the other rubbing at his face. "Blasted thing's done something to my eyes; I can't see!"

I sidekicked a Zoink out of my way and took Toby's arm. "Easy, mate," I said gently, dodging as he sent a wild punch my way. "I'm right here. Wizzit?"

Wizzit sighed. "Another one down; you've got some pretty severe damage to the eyes, Green. Prepare for teleportation and a big, fat healing coma immediately afterward. Better let go of him, Blue, unless you're coming along for the ride."

"No, I reckon I'll stay here. Things to do, people to see," I quipped. I squeezed Toby's shoulder. "Take it easy, Green, and heal up fast. We're going to need you here as soon as you can get back."

He groaned. "Will do." There was a flash of green light, and he vanished.

"I thought our force shields were supposed to protect us from stuff like that," Bill said acerbically.

"They do," Wizzit replied. "Ice monster is apparently capable of throwing out very hard, very sharp ice crystals at very high rates of speed. Green and Blue would have been hamburger twice over by now without the force shields."

"Thanks, Wizzit," I said. "That's good to know." I whipped out my blaster and popped off a shot at the monster, who looked like he might be thinking about throwing something else at us. "I vote that we keep Mister Yeti off-balance so he doesn't give us any more nasty surprises."

"Indigo and I will handle that, Blue," Bill said coolly. "You're going to have your hands full with the Zoinks. Better start taking care of them."

I slammed my blaster back into its holder, trying not to take offense at having been dismissed so casually. Personalities aren't really important, I reminded myself. It's the mission that counts. "I'm on it, Black," I said. He was right, and I knew that he was. And if it had come from Shelley, I wouldn't have minded so much.

Forty Zoinks is a lot for a single Prime to handle by himself, so I got busy. With a sai in one hand and a blaster in the other, I wouldn't exactly say that I kept them under control -- that would have meant Zoinks sprawled on the ground and me just going after the ones struggling to get up -- but I did keep them away from Bill and Padma, and that was the important thing. Even better, I managed to take the fight to Lily once in a while -- often enough, at least, to prevent her from organizing much of an offensive against Indigo and Black.

Funny thing, I had never seen Lily get mad before. Sure, Crazy Kung Fu Zombie Chick was quite the spitfire, but there was no real anger to her attacks, just cold, impersonal, deadly force. I could see, though, that my antics were frustrating Lily to no end, and she just kept getting madder and madder. Finally, she ordered her Zoinks into an all-out swarming attack on me personally.

That was fine with yours truly. In fact, I had been hoping she would do something like that. Two reasons: one, it kept their attention on me and away from the folks who were fighting the real battle, namely Padma and Bill; and two, I didn't want to wind up like Nicolai or Toby. Twice now since I had been fighting Lily, I had felt that shower of red-hot needles hit me; twice, I had been lucky enough to be facing away from Mister Yeti when it happened. I figured that my luck wouldn't hold out forever, and if there were a three-deep crowd of Zoinks between me and the ice monster, then that would greatly lessen my chances of getting a blast of razor-sharp ice crystals in the face.

"How are you folks doing?" I asked Padma and Bill as I picked up a Zoink bodily and threw it into a knot of four or five others. "Any luck with the ice guy?"

"Not so far," Padma panted.

"He's got too many offensive weapons," Bill added. "Every time we get close enough to do some damage, we risk getting blinded or disemboweled."

"And having one of you snipe at him with a blaster doesn't help with that?" I asked.

If he replied to my question, I must have missed it, because I was suddenly distracted by something else: an unexpected break in the crowd of Zoinks right in front of me that gave me a direct route to Lily. I dashed forward and wrapped her up in my arms.

"Let me go!" she demanded, struggling like crazy and trying to kick her heels back into my shins. Now, if it had been CKFZC doing the kicking, then it might possibly have worked, but Lily Lee was no fighter.

"Not a chance," I hissed into her ear. I tried to ignore how good her hair smelled and how nice she felt in my arms. "Call off your drones. Now!"

"No!" She sounded frightened. "You'll . . . you'll kill me if I do!"

That took me by surprise. "Uh, no, I won't," I replied. "I could kill you right now if I wanted to, but you'll notice that you're still breathing. Now call off your drones!"

"N-no! They said I have to fight you if I want to help Uncle Oswald!"

Uncle Oswald? That was . . . random.

I heard her gasp with alarm, and I looked up to see Mister Yeti flinging a shower of ice crystals our way. With speed that surprised even me, I threw Lily over my hip, still keeping my arms around her. We landed side by side on the ground with a thump, my body (and force shield) between her and the deadly shards. I grunted with pain as the red-hot needles stung my back again.

I don't really know why I bothered to save Lily's life. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time, I guess. I figured that gratitude was too much to hope for, and it turned out I was right. She began yelling for her Zoinks just as soon as she recovered the breath I had knocked out of her. I was able to kick the first drone or two away, but with her lying on my left arm and me struggling to hold onto her with my right, it just wasn't working out. Finally, I gave it up. I thrust Lily away from me, kipped up to my feet, and started pounding me some Zoinks.

"This isn't going to work!" I heard Bill exclaim in disgust. "We can't get close enough."

I decided to repeat my earlier advice. "Have you tried sniping at him with blasters?"

"Yes, I already told you that. He just goes after the Prime doing the sniping."

I caught a glimpse of Mister Yeti going into his ice-crystal routine again, so I quick grabbed a pair of the Zoinks I had just been pounding and slammed them together in front of me to form a makeshift shield. The ol' "red-hot needles on the back" trick was starting to get old. The shards hit, and the Zoinks collapsed forward into my arms. I gulped as I saw the way their backs had been shredded and said a silent word of thanks to Wizzit for the protection of my force shield.

"But what if both of you shoot at him from different angles?" I suggested to Bill. "He can't attack in two directions at the same time, can he?"

"That would work if I had a blaster. The only spare one we had was reserved for use by Junior Prime Pink."

"Then take mine!" I grabbed a Zoink off the ground and used it as a battering ram to bull my way past its fellows. Bill was just ahead of me, and I tossed my blaster to him.

"Thanks, Blue," he said, catching it in the air. "You sure you don't need it?"

"For pounding Zoinks? No way! It makes it a little more fun, that's all. Besides, if I do need one, I'll just go get Pink's. This is one mission where we don't want a Junior Prime around who doesn't have a force shield."

Tossing away the limp Zoink in my hands, I took a quick look around, trying to spot Lily. None of the Zoinks appeared ready to go after Bill and Padma at the moment, so I figured I had a chance to harass my favorite lady minder some more. I couldn't find her at first, but then I spotted her a little ways off, apart from the Zoinks. She was kneeling in the snow, her hands resting on her knees and her chest heaving as if she had just sprinted a marathon. As I watched, she suddenly bent forward as if she were throwing up.

"What's wrong with her?" I muttered to myself.

"Oxygen deprivation is catching up with her, I would expect," Wizzit replied indifferently. "We're nearly a mile above sea level, after all, and I doubt she is acclimated to this altitude. The air is sufficient for normal activities, but she has been exerting herself rather heavily."

"Huh! Then why don't I feel it?"

"You would, except that I have been making adjustments to your metabolic processes to handle it."

Hmm. I couldn't think of a suitable reply to that, so I just ran over to where Lily was on her hands and knees. Her hands, half-buried in the snow, were red and raw; as I approached, she wiped her mouth and forced herself to her feet, thrusting her hands underneath her armpits to warm them. She was hunched over slightly, and I could see that she was shivering a little.

"Wizzit, how cold is it here?" I asked.

"Not too. Just a little below freezing, with a bit of wind. Well within the range of your force shield's ability to compensate."

I looked Lily up and down. She seemed miserable. Defiant, but miserable. The thin material of the black Enclave jumpsuit she was wearing didn't look like it would provide much protection from the cold, and she was still struggling to catch her breath.

"Lily, give it up. Don't do this," I pleaded. "None of us wants to hurt you." I switched to Cantonese. "I want to help you, Li Lin-fa. Help me help you."

"Stop it!" Lily shouted. She sank to her knees and pressed her hands to her ears. "Stop it! Stop saying those words!"

Dumbfounded by her reaction, I knelt in front of her and gently pulled her hands down. "What words?"

"Those words I don't understand!" she cried. "There's magic in them; you're putting a spell on me just like before. Those words -- they make me weak! They make me not want to fight you any more! Stop saying them!"

So speaking directly to Li Lin-fa was having an effect after all? Interesting. I brought her hands together between us and covered them with my own. They felt like ice. "Those words, Lily," I told her earnestly, "hold the key to who you truly are." I brought our four hands to my mouth and blew on them, warming them with my breath. "I have missed you, pretty one," I said in Cantonese. "Come out and talk with me."

"Stop it!" Lily tore her hands from my grasp and jumped to her feet. I could probably have caught her before she got away, but my heart wasn't in it. I even felt sorry for her, in a way. Sure, she was acting like some sort of refugee from the loony bin, but I could certainly understand why. I guess that's the reason I just knelt in the snow and stared at her retreating figure.

"Getting some interference over here, Blue," I heard Bill say sharply. "I thought you were supposed to be the Zoink-basher extraordinaire."

I sighed. "On my way, Black."

Chapter 17

"Some interference" turned out to be an understatement. Bill and Padma were being swarmed. The situation wasn't anywhere near hopeless -- Zoinks don't do well without a leader, and Lily didn't seem too interested in leading them at the moment -- but forty Zoinks is forty Zoinks. I waded it to help them out.

I had been pounding and slashing away with my sais for several minutes, leaving a trail of Zoink bodies in my wake, when out of the corner of my eye I saw Mister Yeti make some sort of sudden motion. I couldn't tell exactly what it was, but I figured he wouldn't be up to anything good. Now, Zoinks had served me well as shields so far, so I grabbed the nearest limp one, held it up in front of me, and charged the ice monster.

I had to push aside a number of other drones to make my way forward. Then, as I got close to Mister Yeti, I began feeling some sort of resistance. Not that anybody was standing in my way, as far as I could see, but there was something preventing me from pushing the Zoink any farther forward, and the Zoink itself began thrashing and jerking about in a most un-Zoink-like fashion. To add to the puzzle, I felt something poking me in the stomach.

I looked down and discovered some very interesting things. Mister Yeti must have created himself a new ice spear while I wasn't looking, and somehow I had managed to impale my shield-Zoink on it. The tip of the spear had been pushed all the way through the Zoink; that was what had been poking me.

It wasn't as gross as you might expect. Zoinks, it appeared, don't bleed. Nor do they die from something as minor as an ice-spear through the stomach, although they do get a bit more agitated than normal. I threw my flailing Zoink to one side, effectively disarming Mister Yeti and spinning him around in the process so that his back was to me. Then I set to work with my sais.

"Hey, nice work, Blue!" I heard Bill's voice say. "I had forgotten you could use Zoinks that way."

I heard the sizzle of a blaster beam, and Mister Yeti's head jerked back as Padma's shot caught him full in the face. Sparks flew as I redoubled my efforts with my sais; once you've got a monster off-balance, you never want to let up if you can help it. I hate to say this about something that used to be a human being, but you just can't give it the chance to recover. Bad things always happen when you do.

"Zoink incoming!" Bill called out. He had picked up a drone by the ankles and was swinging it around, fully extended, in a giant circle. It was an impressive display of strength and balance. To be honest, I'm not sure I could have duplicated it; maybe Toby could have. Regardless, after swinging it around a couple of times to clear the area, he let the thing go. It sailed through the air and crashed smack-dab into Mister Yeti's chest.

I guess it was lucky for Mister Yeti that I was behind him to break his fall. Not so lucky for me, though. Still, as I struggled to recover from having the wind knocked out of me, I had the presence of mind to wrap my legs around his torso. Then I reversed my grip on my sais, thrust out my arms, crossed the blades at the hilts to form an X, and pulled them back under his chin, effectively pinning Mister Yeti against me by the throat.

He started struggling like a . . . well, like an Enclave monster fighting for its life. It wasn't as if I was about to scissor his head off or anything -- the blades of my sais weren't sharp enough for anything like that -- but they were sparking continuously against his throat and, I'm sure, causing him considerable pain. It was plenty tough having him roll around on top of me like that, but I had him pretty well helpless for as long as I could hold on.

There was a flash of light, and I felt a searing pain along my leg. "Yeow!" I yelled. "Hey, watch it with that blaster, Indigo! You got me that time!"

"S-sorry, Blue. I will be more careful." I saw Padma holster her blaster and take a two-handed grip on her axe. I pulled back extra hard with my sais and my legs, trying to stretch out the ice monster to make him a better target. I felt a wham! as her axe struck home against his belly.

Right about then was when the earthquake started.

You probably think I'm kidding, don't you? Well, I'm not. Iceland, as I found out later, is one of the most seismologically-active countries in the world. Lots of volcanos and lots of little earthquakes caused by those volcanos. And, considering that we were actually inside the caldera of one of the largest volcanos in Iceland, I guess we should have expected some temblors.

The ground started shaking something fierce, causing me to lose my grip on Mister Yeti. "What's going on, Wizzit?" I heard Bill yell. "This isn't Enclave's doing, is it?"

"I don't . . . think so," Wizzit replied with uncharacteristic hesitation. "The ice here goes down for hundreds of meters, and the fire monster has not had time to penetrate that deeply yet, but this is too strong to be just a normal Iceland earthquake. I will continue to investigate."

Well, natural or not, the earthquake wasn't doing us any good. It didn't last all that long, but by the time things stopped shaking, we had all fallen to the ground and Mister Yeti had gotten free from my grip. I would have thought that he'd want to get as far away from me as possible, but instead, he grabbed hold of my wrist like I was a long-lost friend who owed him money or something.

My arm became numb almost instantly, all the way up to my shoulder. Surprised, I slashed at him a few time with the sai in my free hand, but I couldn't get him to let go. The numbness spread quickly, and soon I didn't really care about the ice monster's claws digging into my arm. I didn't really care much about anything at all; I felt relaxed and sleepy and pleasantly warm. The sai dropped from my fingers.

"Blue! You've got to get free!" Wizzit's voice shouted at me, Prime-to-Prime. "He's freezing you to death where you stand. Trevor!"

The shock of hearing Wizzit break our number-one rule -- no names during a battle -- roused me a little. I mumbled something that might have been, "Yeah, sure." My free hand was weaponless, but I could see that I was still holding a sai with the other, even if I couldn't feel it. I reached down; my hands felt as clumsy as Zoink hands. I managed to transfer the weapon to my free hand, but all the time, part of me was wondering why I was going to all this trouble when all I wanted to do was to lie down and sleep.

I felt a searing pain along my leg, the same spot that Padma had hit with her blaster shot a couple of minutes ago. "Sorry, Blue!" I heard her cry. "I think I hit you again!"

"'S okay, Indigo!" In fact, the pain jarred me almost completely back to full awareness, if only temporarily. I could feel the fog start to descend on me again, so I quickly stabbed out with an arm that didn't seem to want to obey me. I was rewarded by a howl from Mister Yeti.

He still didn't let go, but my hit must have disrupted his concentration, because I was suddenly able to move my arm a little more. I decided to take a page from Shelley's book and stab at his eyes, in his mouth, up his nose -- anything sensitive I could reach.

Mister Yeti howled some more, and suddenly I was falling back into the snow. There was a flash of black in front of my eyes; Bill had stepped in and was driving the ice critter back with savage hits from his bo. "Blue looks pretty out of it," he yelled at Wizzit. "Better bring him back for a healing coma!"

"Negatory on that," Wizzit replied. "You're already down two Primes; Yellow and Green aren't ready to re-deploy just yet. Blue is plenty tough and will be fine."

"Blue will not be fine!" Bill said with a flare of temper. "Blue can't even stand up!"

With the ice monster's grip gone, I was starting to feel better now. Not necessarily warmer -- in fact, I found myself starting to shiver -- but better. More alert. I rolled unsteadily to my feet. "It's all right, Black," I said, trying not let the shakiness invade my voice. "I'm okay."

"Estimate complete recovery within five minutes," Wizzit told us, and I have to say, he can sure sound smug when he wants to.

"I'm not sure I'd go quite that far," I said as a series of tremendous shudders passed through me, threatening to send me down to the ground again. "Any ch-chance you could t-turn up the heat in here, Wizzit?" I said through teeth that had begun chattering. "I'm feeling pretty ch-chilled all of a sudden, like I've got the f-flu or something."

"Ice monster lowered your body's core temperature several degrees very quickly," Wizzit replied. "Shivering is your body's natural mechanism for raising it back to normal levels. You could best aid it by exerting yourself, getting your blood flowing again. Might I suggest beating up a Zoink?"

I couldn't help laughing. That's our Wizzit, all business all the time. "W-will do, Wizzit!" I scooped up the sai I had dropped and looked around for a drone that was off by itself. Before I could find one, though, I heard a cry from Padma.

Bill was still attacking Mister Yeti, so I began trotting through the area, looking for Padma. I finally spotted her lying on the snow underneath a familiar black-jumpsuit-clad figure, only it wasn't Lily who was busy trying to bash Padma's brains in. It was Crazy Kung Fu Zombie Chick.

I said some bad words under my breath. I was warming up rapidly, now that I was moving again, but I didn't yet feel up to taking on CKFZC all by my lonesome. Too, Lily never changed from one to the other unless JB Swift was around somewhere, and I really didn't want to have to deal with the both of them until I was feeling more chipper.

There wasn't anything for it, though; I had to save Padma's bacon. I charged forward, my idea being that I would catch CKFZC unawares, maybe grabbing her around the waist and yanking her off of Padma before she was any the wiser. It was a good plan; the only problem with it was that CKFZC saw me before I wanted her to.

Still sitting on Padma's stomach, CKFZC turned to intercept my charge. She had my attack all scoped out, but what she didn't expect was that Padma would reach up, grab her hair, and yank her down to the ground.

"Nice work, Indigo!" I called. "Now let's you and me --"

"Blue, Black needs your help," Wizzit interrupted. "I would suggest you leave Lily to Indigo, and you and Black work on the ice monster."

"It will be all right, Blue," Padma assured me. She had rolled over on top of Lily now. "She caught me by surprise before. That will not happen again."

I hesitated. "All right, if you're sure . . ."

"Blue!" Wizzit said sharply. "Soonest, please!"

"Fine. On my way, Wizzit."

Mister Yeti had hold of Bill's wrist with both paws, and Bill had sagged to his knees, looking like he was fading fast. I dashed forward, and for a second I was afraid I wouldn't get there in time, because I saw Bill slump all the way to the ground. My foot struck something hard; I looked down to see the ice-ball that Mister Yeti had created and then dropped when Toby and I shot him. Scooping it up, I threw it with all my Prime-enhanced strength at Mister Yeti's head.

It struck him behind the ear hard enough that I could hear the thud. He staggered sideways a step or two, losing his grip on Bill's wrist. He gave his head one massive shake, trying to clear it, and then I was hitting him with a jumping sidekick. I followed that up with several more powerful kicks to drive him back, and then I turned to see to Bill. He was on one knee, struggling to get to his feet, but he waved away my offer to help him up.

"I'm fine, Blue," he said, sounding angry at someone -- maybe me, maybe the ice monster, maybe himself. "If you can recover from being flash-frozen, then so can I."

"It's not a competition, Black," I muttered. "Let's just get the job done."

Unfortunately for us, the job suddenly became a lot harder. The ground started shaking again, and this time there was a definite downward lurch to it, as if something hollow underneath us had suddenly caved in.

"Got it!" Wizzit announced happily. "Fire monster's immediate objective has not been to burn all the way down to the base rock as I first thought, although that may be its ultimate aim. It has been tunneling through the ice in all directions, undermining the surface on which you're standing. The tunnels have begun collapsing, which has caused the tremors you are experiencing."

There was another downward lurch. I lost my footing and fell down onto the snow, only it wasn't exactly snow any more. In fact, it felt . . . soggy, and when I hit, there was definitely a splash. "Thanks for the explanation, Wizzit," I said, "but why is everything all wet all of a sudden?"

"Didn't you hear what I said?" Wizzit replied snippily. "He's been melting the ice underneath you. Things are collapsing. This whole area will be a mixture of snow, ice, and water in about two minutes' time."

"Just s-so you're aware, Wizzit," Bill said as dryly as he could through chattering teeth, "humans g-generally don't do well when s-submerged in ice-water. Even P-Primes."

He was sounding stronger, but I could see that he was shaking. I could sympathize. "Get yourself moving, Black," I suggested. "It'll help you warm up."

"Already doing that, Blue." And indeed, he had started jogging in place, pumping his arms and raising his knees high. "So, Wizzit, is there any ch-chance you could teleport us someplace drier?"

"Not if you're going to continue to attack these monsters," Wizzit said. "However . . . let me see . . . all right, I may have a solution for you. Prepare for an alteration to your force shields . . ."

I saw Bill's force shield flicker and felt a pulse in my own. I heard an exclamation from Padma. "It feels like . . . like rubber!"

It did indeed. I reached down to touch the layer of water that surrounded my feet; I could feel the water pressing against my skin, but my fingers didn't get wet.

"I have implemented a one-way filter," Wizzit said proudly. "Water can pass out of your force shields, but it can't make its way back in again."

"Wizzit, that's brilliant!" Padma said.

"Yeah, Wizzit," I added. "Pretty clever." I have found that flattering Wizzit never hurts. And hey, it was pretty clever.

"Indigo, how are you doing with Lily Lee?" Bill asked. He had picked up his bo and was watching the ice monster, who was lying on the snow a short distance away; said monster seemed to be having trouble getting up. His fur appeared to be frozen into the ice.

"She is -- whoops!" The ground was collapsing beneath us again. When the shaking finally stopped, the ground level had dropped once more and the water was now up to my waist.

"Indigo, are you all right?" I rapped out.

"Yes, I am fine. Wizzit's alteration to my force shield is working marvelously. Lily took a ducking, though. She is . . . she doesn't look good."

"Black, are you okay if I go help Indigo with Lily?"

"Yes. Go." He was still standing where he had been, holding his bo at the ready. I don't think this latest earthquake even made him stumble.

"Indigo, I'm on my way."

The sky had lightened enough now that I could make out Padma's glowing force shield. I splashed over to her. She had one arm around CKFZC's waist and was supporting her. As I watched, CKFZC balled up one hand into a fist and punched feebly at Padma's midriff.

"Here, let me take her," I said as I approached the pair of them. I bent down and grabbed Lily's legs, then heaved her up in a fireman's carry. Her fists beat faintly against my back; her legs thrashed uselessly. "Confound it, Lily, stop it!" I snapped as one of her knees made contact with my cheekbone. "Can't you see we're trying to help you?"

But she couldn't, and I knew that. All that CKFZC knew how to do was to fight and fight and fight. Even if we somehow got her somewhere warm where she could recover, she would resume attacking us as soon as she got her strength back. Kind of like the fable of the scorpion and the frog, it was simply in her nature, and I couldn't really fault her for that.

We sloshed our way back to Bill, with Lily fighting me every step of the way. "You can lay her down over here," Bill told me. He was indicating a layer of ice that had formed since I had left him. It was now nearly an inch thick and was centered around Mister Yeti. "The ice monster appears to be refreezing some of this water. It doesn't seem to be doing him much good, but maybe we can use it to our advantage."

Mister Yeti was standing upright now, glaring at us. The layer of ice had formed at the level of the water, which meant that his legs were trapped in ice up past the knees. I moved to the edge of the ice sheet and tested it. When I pushed down, the ice went down as well.

"It's not going to support her weight," I said. My comment was punctuated by Lily herself, who, with a burst of energy, managed to wrench herself out of my grasp. She rolled off my shoulder, crashing down on her back onto the ice shelf. The ice broke apart beneath her and Lily sank underwater.

I reached down blindly, and for one heart-stopping moment I thought I had lost her. Then I felt something that might have been her hair. I took hold, pulled as hard as I could, and hauled her up. Water that was literally ice-cold streamed off her; her eyes were wide with shock and she was gasping for breath. As soon as she was upright, she stepped in close to me for a palm strike. She was slow and uncoordinated, though, and I easily evaded her attack. I wrapped her up in a bear hug. Holding her close, I could feel her trembling uncontrollably against me; her skin was freezing cold. One of her legs flexed; she was trying without success to knee me in the groin.

"Lily, stand down!" ordered a familiar voice.

I heard Lily murmur faintly into my ear, "Standing down," and she immediately stopped fighting. Her eyes closed and she collapsed against me with a sigh of what might have been relief. I caught her as she slid down and scooped her up in my arms.

"JB Swift!" Padma exclaimed.

I looked up to see the familiar scarlet hedgehog standing atop the ice sheet that had formed near Mister Yeti. As usual, he was wearing no clothes; the only concession he had made to the cold was a white knitted scarf that he had tied around his neck.

"JB Swift?" he repeated in surprise. "Who's that?" He looked around cautiously as if he suspected we had an ally lurking behind him.

"JB Swift is our code name for you," Bill explained. He raised his bo menacingly. "What do you want with us?"

"JB Swift?" the little red hedgehog repeated again, this time to himself. Then he shrugged. "What I want is for you to give me the attack doll." He hesitated, and then he added, "Please. She is dying, freezing to death. If you give her to me, I can save her life."

Bill shook his head. "Nothing doing," he said grimly. "She has been a thorn in our side for months. It would be to our advantage if she should die."

"Heads up!" I shouted suddenly. Mister Yeti had evidently decided he was going to attack us again, even though he was still stuck in the ice sheet he had created. He was flinging a shower of ice crystals our way. With Lily in my arms, I spun about so that my back was toward the ice monster. Padma and Bill closed ranks to either side of me, helping me shield her from the deadly ice.

"I can see that you haven't completely made up your minds to let her die," JB Swift commented.

I turned to face him. "Maybe not, but we don't want her to fight us any more, either." Then I said, Prime-to-Prime, "Wizzit, can you teleport Lily and me to the stronghouse?"

"I could," Wizzit replied, "but Lily is currently experiencing what appears to be moderate to severe hypothermia. She needs immediate medical attention, or at least some way to rapidly raise her core body temperature. Such facilities are not available in the stronghouse. Nor will I teleport her to HQ so you can put her into a tub of warm water," he added before I could ask.

"I give you my word that neither she nor I will attack you again today," JB Swift said. "I cannot promise you more than that. But I might as well tell you that it will take weeks to repair the damage those idiots have done to her."

"It seems to me that you have been more than a little careless with your toys," Padma said tartly. "Perhaps losing one of them will teach you to be more careful."

"The attack doll is not a toy!" JB Swift snarled. He clenched his tiny paws, and then, with a visible effort, he unclenched them again. "This was not my idea," he said more calmly. "It was those twin idiots' fault."

"The Harley twins?" Bill asked incredulously.

"Yes, the very same. They went over my head behind my back and got possession of her remote control. I had nothing to do with her being out here today. I didn't even know she was here until a few minutes ago. Now please, before she is so far gone that even I cannot save her, give her to me." A note of pleading had crept into his voice. "Please. I . . . I can give you information that will help you defeat the two creatures you're facing."

I took a deep breath. "All right."

"No, Blue," Bill said flatly, Prime-to-Prime. "This is a bad idea. We're going to have to let her die."

I took a step toward JB Swift. "I disagree."

"I said no." Bill stepped in front of me. "I don't like this any more than you do, but we can't afford to let her go. I hate to pull rank on you, Blue, but I will if I have to. She stays here."

"You can't pull rank on me," I replied, very deliberately. It was a bit intimidating, seeing him loom over me like that, but I had thought this through and was sure of my ground. "According to what we were told, you are here as an advisor, operating outside the chain of command. I have listened to your advice, and I choose to ignore it. I will give Lily to JB Swift. Please step aside."

"Blast it, Blue, you know why we set that up the way we did. It was so that there wouldn't be any awkwardness about whether Red or I was in charge. We had to do it that way!"

"Understood, but I am still the ranking Prime here, and I say we give her back."

Bill looked up. "Wizzit," he said tightly, "what do you say?"

There was a pause, and then Wizzit said slowly, "Blue is the ranking Prime in the immediate vicinity, Black."

"Then please contact Red, Orange, Yellow, or Green and ask one of them to countermand his decision."

Another pause. "Sorry, Black," Wizzit said. "Yellow and Green are still in healing comas and cannot respond. Red and Orange are currently engaging the fire monster and decline to interfere. To paraphrase Red's rather colorful reply, the two of you are to work it out on your own."

Bill took a long breath, then blew it out again. "All right," he said quietly, stepping to one side. "I hope we don't regret this some day, Blue."

"Yeah, me too," I muttered.

I stepped forward, holding Lily, and stretched out my hand toward JB Swift. He took it in his paw. "Home," he said. There was the familiar tingling, and we teleported away.

Chapter 18

The place that I saw when the teleportation haze cleared from my vision looked more like the lab of some mad scientist than anything I would call home. A two-foot-tall, extremely agile mad scientist. Low tables, stacked two and three high, were everywhere and were littered with all kinds of equipment. Electrical-looking gadgets were in one corner, vials of chemicals in another. The place was jam-packed with all kinds of stuff, although it gave the impression of being very tidily jam-packed.

JB Swift lost no time. He sped over to a single-story table in a corner dominated by medical-looking equipment, indicating that I should follow him. "Put her down here. Quickly! There's no time to lose!"

I reached the table in two strides and lay Lily down. She had lost consciousness somewhere along the way, I noticed; her head lolled limply to one side. Beneath her tan Chinese coloration, her beautiful face was deathly pale and her lips had a definite blueish tinge. I reached down and touched her cheek. There was no warmth to it at all.

JB Swift had begun unzipping the front of her jumpsuit. "Come, come, we don't have time for you to stand here mooning!" he snapped impatiently. "Help me take these clothes off her!"

I shook myself and set to work. Now, I'll admit that I had occasionally daydreamed about taking Lily's clothes off, but in my imagination the circumstances were always quite a bit more, um, romantic, shall we say? There was nothing sexy about undressing this near-corpse.

"Those idiots have no idea what they're doing!" JB Swift muttered to himself as we sat Lily up and pulled the jumpsuit down to her waist. "She hadn't even finished recovering from that beating your friend Indigo gave her in New York when they sent her out!"

I eased Lily's shoulders back down to the table as JB Swift began tugging on her pant legs. "Actually, I was the one who gave her the beating," I admitted. "I was Indigo at the time. I have changed colors since then."

JB Swift glanced up at me. "Promotion or demotion?" he inquired. When I didn't reply, he said, "Well, it probably doesn't make any difference anyway. Warm, moist air, blowing directly on her," he added to the empty air. Immediately, I felt a warm breeze spring up from somewhere, blowing over top of Lily.

I looked down at her nude body, more pitiful than erotic at the moment. In the bright light of the lab, I could see half-healed scar tissue across her forehead, probably from my slamming her face onto the pavement. Gently, I raised her head. Drawing out her long, sopping-wet hair from beneath her, I fanned it out across the edge of the table so that it would dry more quickly.

Something caught the tip of my finger as I eased her head back down. It was the pin of one of her earrings, the little gold posts she wore that received the signals from her remote control and translated them into sensations on her ear that she understood as commands. Acting on a sudden impulse, I pulled the back off and slipped the earring from her ear.

"So, you people call me JB Swift, eh?" the little red hedgehog said. He was inserting a pair of surgical needles attached to slender tubes into an area along Lily's upper thigh. "I can understand the Swift part, but where did you get 'JB'?"

"It stands for Just Because," I said distractedly. I tucked the earring into a pocket of my battle vest. With any luck, they would think she lost it on the glacier in Iceland. "What are you doing to her?"

"Warming her blood," he said tersely. As I watched, a stream of dark red fluid flowed through one of the tubes, into a nearby machine and, seconds later, down the other tube. JB Swift chuckled. "Just Because Swift. I like that. It shows that you people have a sense of humor. That's good. My real name is Oswald Grumpf, by the way." He stepped back to admire his work. "Lily, self-heal," he commanded.

Lily's eyes remained closed, but her lips twitched faintly. I guessed she was giving him her standard response: "Self-healing."

JB Swift stood looking at her for a moment more, then he turned away. "There's nothing more we can do for her at the moment," he said. He began tugging off the scarf he had been wearing.

I glanced at the scarf. There were enough irregularities in it that it couldn't be something machine-made that he had gotten from a store. "Did someone make that for you?" I asked. Somehow I found it hard to believe that Enclave monsters gave each other presents.

"She did," he said, jerking his chin at Lily. "Surprised me with it on my birthday. That girl has all kinds of hidden talents." He gave me an appraising look. "So you used to be Indigo? You aren't by any chance the same Indigo who caused us so much trouble at the old base a couple of months back, are you? Back when we captured the purple Prime?"

"That was me," I admitted.

He nodded thoughtfully. "You were very clever then, very resourceful. I admire that. They never did figure out how you escaped, you know."

I shrugged. If he expected me to tell him, then he was going to be disappointed. Who knows, I might have to pull the same trick again some day. "I guess you'll have to remain in the dark forever, then."

"Oh, I didn't say that I never figured it out," he said with a chuckle. "The door to a storeroom torn open, a teleport trap set up and running, with the coordinates set to a certain small town in Ohio? It was obvious what had happened. I just made sure my masters never found out."

"Was that where the coordinates were pointing?" I said as casually as I could. I had set the teleport trap to send me to my parents' house, in fact, but I couldn't let him know that. "I just typed something in at random."

"You know, I might almost believe that," he said, "except that we had good reason to think at the time that the indigo Prime was a fourth-degree black belt registered with the World Tae Kwon Do headquarters at Kukkiwon, and that his first name was Trevor."

I felt a cold wave travel down my spine. I had hoped that that particular matter had been forgotten. Padma had let my name slip shortly before she was captured, and when I finally found her in the Enclave base, I had proved to her who I was by saying something like "fourth Dan, Kukkiwon." The room she was in, I found out later, had been bugged.

I tried to think of a clever reply, but the best I could come up with was "So?"

"So the place those coordinates were pointing to was at one time the home of a young man named Trevor Chiao, who just happens to be a fourth-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, registered with Kukkiwon. Such a coincidence would beggar the imagination, no?" He folded his arms across his narrow chest. "Do I make myself clear, Mr. Chiao?"

It was a good thing I had my force shield on, because I was having a hard time maintaining a poker face. "Let's assume for the moment that what you say is true and that I am this Trevor Chiao person," I said cautiously, trying to keep my voice from cracking with nervousness. "You said you have kept this information from your superiors. Should I assume you wish to strike some sort of bargain with me?"

He regarded me thoughtfully for several seconds. "It appears that I have a bit of leverage over you," he said at last, "but I recognize that it is a brittle lever, likely to snap in half the moment I put a hair too much pressure on it. The way your Prime Red publicly outed herself tells me that you people are willing to sacrifice yourselves and your secret identities for the greater good. That's an admirable quality, but it means that I couldn't force you to, say, become a traitor to your team."

"That is certainly true," I said. And it was. Already, I was trying to figure out the best way to tell Wizzit about this conversation. JB Swift knowing my true identity might mean the end of my career as a Prime, but I was not going to lie to my teammates.

"And of course I wouldn't stoop so low as to threaten the lives of your parents or your sister Angela," he went on.

"You threatened to kill her once," I pointed out.

"Ah, so you were there, were you?" He beamed at me. "Thank you for confirming my suspicions." Oops! I had been present as Trevor Chiao, not as Prime Indigo, when he had made that particular threat. Dumb, dumb, dumb. "But you happen to be in luck," he continued. "I know exactly how I wish to apply this particular bit of leverage, and I think it is something you would be willing to agree to."

"I doubt it," I said flatly. "I won't make any sort of secret agreement with you. Everything we say here will go straight to my boss's ears. We hold a complete debriefing after every mission, and this conversation will definitely be part of it. I will hide nothing."

There was an odd light in his eyes as he looked at me. "I envy you the trust you have in your comrades. Here, no one trusts anyone if he can help it. I suppose that's one reason I treasure the attack doll so. We have complete trust between us."

I didn't say anything, although privately I was thinking that Lily had little choice but to trust JB Swift; she was his slave, not his partner. After a moment he went on, "What I would ask of you is this: Don't kill her. Don't kill my attack doll. Nothing more than that. I watched you carefully in New York. You had her helpless, unconscious, and yet you still moved in to take her life. Today, you took unnecessary risks to preserve that same life. I can see that you are of two minds regarding her fate. In return for my silence, I would ask that you simply let your better, more merciful mind prevail."

I stood there, unmoving, thinking about what he said. I also thought about the way Trina had looked at me when I told her that, yes, I had intended to kill Lily in New York. I didn't like that look.

"I can't make any promises regarding what happens in the heat of battle," I said. "You know what she's like when she's in attacker mode. She might force my hand; I might not have a choice."

"Understood."

I sighed and looked over at Lily. The attack doll no longer looked like some dead thing, but she was still deathly pale and unmoving. "Honestly," I said, "I don't want to kill her. Hell, I don't even like beating her up." I took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then let it out. "All right, you've got your bargain." I reached out my hand. "I promise that I will not intentionally kill Lily. I'll even take reasonable precautions to see that she doesn't die accidentally. Fair enough?"

"Fair enough. And I will do my best to keep my knowledge of your real identity to myself." He took my hand and shook it, sealing the deal.

There was a flicker of red, and JB Swift disappeared. Seconds later, there was another flicker, and he was back. He held something out to me, evidently having retrieved it from somewhere at superspeed.

"What's this?" I asked, bending down to look at the device. It appeared to be some sort of computer thumb drive.

"Evidence."

"Evidence of what?"

"You'll know when you see it," he said. "Oh, don't be stupid!" he added irritably when I hesitated to take it. "Do you honestly think I would try to plant a bomb on you at this point?"

"A bomb, no. A tracking device . . . maybe." I chuckled as I took the thing and slipped it into a pocket of my battle vest. "We'll take precautions."

"Very wise of you," he said, giving me a devilish smile. "But now it is time for me to send you back."

"Uh, didn't you promise us some advice on how to fight those monsters out there?"

"Did I? I don't remember." I growled, which made him laugh. "I'm just kidding, blue Prime. I always pay my debts. What you need to do is to bring the two monsters together. You can't beat them separately."

"Bring them together?" I echoed. "How the hell are we supposed to do that?"

"I haven't the faintest idea," he said, unconcerned, "but that will give you your best chance to defeat them. Understand, these are not my monsters; they're the products of those idiot twins. I have seen the data sheets on them, though. Their power grows in proportion to the distance between them. Apart, they are fairly strong, but if you bring them together, the fire and the ice will neutralize each other."

"Like vinegar and baking soda?" I asked him skeptically. "Or more like matter and anti-matter? How violent will the reaction be?"

"How should I know? That's your problem, not mine." He stepped forward and took my hand in his paw. "Katla volcano, caldera," he said firmly, and we vanished in a flash of light.

Chapter 19

"He said we have to do what?"

"He said," I repeated patiently to Bill, "that we have to bring the two monsters together."

"How the hell are we supposed to do that?" he demanded.

I chuckled. "My words exactly, Black. He didn't know and didn't care. All he said was that the farther apart they were, the stronger they got. He said if we could bring them together, then they would neutralize each other, but how we did that was our problem."

Padma snorted softly. "It sounds as if JB Swift was not trying too hard to be helpful."

"Of course he wasn't," Bill said. "He had no incentive to. He had already gotten what he wanted. Still . . . I doubt he's lying." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Wizzit, where are Red and Orange right now? What's their status?"

"They are approximately ten meters below the level of the ice, a little less than one kilometer due south of you. Red's club became damaged; I was forced to destroy it twenty-one minutes ago. They are currently engaging the fire monster using blasters only, and having a tough time of it."

"I see." Bill mused. "You said they're below the level of the ice?"

"Yupperooni. Fire monster has been carving out tunnels, if you recall. Don't yet know what his purpose is. He had been trying to move to the center of the caldera, but Red and Orange drove him back. Now he is moving outward toward the rim of the crater."

"How are they able to breathe down there?" Padma asked. "Aren't the tunnels all filled with water from the melted ice?"

"I said they were having a tough time of it, didn't I? They have been keeping me quite busy locating the pockets of air that exist down there and adjusting their force shields to trap the air and hold it. I have occasionally had to teleport them to the surface to breathe. Then, too, the water surrounding them is alternately freezing and scalding, so \--"

"Yes, I get the idea," Bill said with a small laugh. "Is there any chance they could get close enough to 'port the bad guy up here?"

"Physical contact with the fire monster would be inadvisable," Wizzit said. "Red and Orange have both suffered second-degree burns from such attempts, and I believe I have already mentioned that Red's club was damaged."

Bill looked around us. The Zoinks appeared to have vanished along with Lily; the only villain nearby was Mister Yeti, who was trying to break himself free from the ice he had frozen about himself. "Then I guess we'll have to bring our guy to them," he said. "That is, unless the ranking Prime here disagrees."

I grinned and shook my head. "No argument from me. How would you suggest we go about it?"

"Grab him and teleport, I suppose. The thing is, if we go at him from the front, he's likely to get hold of one of us and hey, presto! Instant human popsicle. But you were able to hold him from behind, though, right, Blue? You didn't get a chill from that, did you?"

"Nope, not a bit."

Bill nodded. "Good. I'll go after him first, if you agree. If I fail, then you and Indigo can take turns trying."

"Sounds good."

"Before we do that," Padma interrupted, "would it be all right, Blue, if I go get another weapon for Red? It would take me only a minute to teleport to the weapons room and back."

I smirked, although Padma couldn't see it. "And it also would give you a chance to check on Yellow, right?"

"Well . . . yes. And Green, too, of course."

I nodded. "All right, Indigo. Wizzit, if you please?"

Padma vanished in a flash of indigo light. "While we have a moment," Wizzit said after she had gone, "may I ask a question out of ignorance?"

That got my attention. Wizzit is an alien life form -- basically, a long tube of pink gas -- and he doesn't always understand us humans too well. (Although sometimes I think he understands us all too well!) As I have heard it, he used to ask a lot of questions "out of ignorance", as he puts it, but they have become fewer and fewer over the years. Still, one will sometimes pop up. It's usually some observation he has made that is either so incredibly obvious that you wouldn't think anyone would even ask about it or so off-the-wall that only an alien could have dreamed it up. Either way, it's usually pretty interesting.

"Go ahead," I said when Bill didn't reply.

"To your knowledge, have Red and Orange recently become lovers?"

Mike and Trina? I blinked in surprise. "I don't think so," I said slowly. "Why do you ask?"

"I have been observing them during this battle," he said. "They have been doing a good deal of quarreling; it is mainly Red trying to keep Orange out of danger, and Orange not wanting to be held back."

Yeah, that sounded about right to me. "I've heard Orange complain about that recently," I said.

"It's not uncommon for human males to be protective of females," Bill observed thoughtfully. "Especially when you're talking about a young, aggressive male such as Red and a young, attractive female such as Orange."

"Yes, I have observed that in Blue's behavior towards Junior Prime Pink," Wizzit replied. "However \--"

"Wizzit!" I cried. "I hope you don't think Pink and I are . . . eww! She's my sister, for cryin' out loud! I'm supposed to take care of her if I can."

Bill chuckled. "Good point. Protective behavior does not necessarily imply attraction, Wizzit. Nor does quarreling, although the two sometimes go hand in hand."

Padma had reappeared as Bill was talking. "What do you mean by protective behavior?" she asked suspiciously. "I have not been all that protective toward Yellow. And we never quarrel!"

"We weren't talking about you and Yellow," I said, trying to suppress a laugh. "Although . . ."

"Wizzit was telling us that he thinks that Red and Orange have hooked up," Bill put in. "Quarreling by itself is pretty thin evidence, though."

"Granted, but that brings me to my second point," Wizzit said, assuming a dry, academic tone, "which is that, despite their arguing, Red and Orange have been performing extraordinarily well as a team. That teamwork, I have surmised, is at least partly due to the fact that each is maintaining an exceptional awareness, albeit subconsciously, of the other's position and actions. I have observed this phenomenon a few times before, Black -- with yourself and Shelley, back when you were Red and Orange; with Blue and Indigo, back when they were Indigo and Violet; with Yellow and Indigo now; and, interestingly, with Blue and Lily Lee, when she is in her so-called commander mode. In each case, that heightened awareness appeared to coincide with a certain amount of romantic interest, hence my question about the current Red and Orange."

"Blue and me?" Padma sputtered. "But -- but we were never really . . . I mean, I had thought about . . . but we didn't . . . and . . . me and Yellow?" She sighed. "I thought we had been keeping it a secret. Is it that obvious?"

"Well, maybe not to Black or Pink," I said, "because they haven't been around you all that much, but to everyone else, yeah. The two of you have been pretty much screaming it from the rooftops."

"I . . . will talk about this with Yellow later."

"Yes, well, as interesting as this grade-school gossip about who likes whom is," Bill interrupted, "we do have a monster to fight. Okay with you if we continue this discussion later, Wizzit?"

"Can do! I'm looking forward to it."

"Fine. I'm going to start circling around that thing. Get ready to teleport me."

"Go get 'em, big guy!"

I watched Bill move cautiously around to the back of the ice monster, which was watching him warily. Padma moved closer to me, and I felt her hand on my arm. "Blue," she said, leaning close and speaking in a confidential tone, "I had been meaning to tell you about . . . well, about Yellow and me. Really, I'm sorry. It wasn't as if I intended to --"

"It's all right, Indigo," I said, cutting off what had all the earmarks of a painfully awkward, not to mention unnecessary, apology. "Yellow's a good guy, and I can tell that he really likes you."

"So . . . you're 'cool' with it?"

"Yeah," I said with a chuckle. Nobody can put invisible quotation marks around an untested slang term like Padma can. "I'm cool with it. Besides, didn't you hear what Wizzit said? I've got my own fish to fry."

"Your own . . . fish?" she repeated, obviously puzzled by my idiom. "I don't . . . oh, I see! You and Lily." She snorted softly. "I didn't need him to tell me that. I knew you were in love with her back at the Enclave base."

"Well, maybe, but that was Li Lin-fa, whom Wizzit has never met."

"That's true." Padma sounded thoughtful. "You and Li Lin-fa, and also you and Lily Lee? It is an interesting love triangle you have there. I hope they do not become jealous of one another."

"Kids, focus! Please!" Wizzit had adopted a voice that was startlingly similar to Mr. Philips, the ultra-fussy drama teacher who directed our spring musicals back when I was in high school. "Big scene coming up, gotta have your full attention!"

Padma giggled. "He sounds like one of my teachers from school."

"Same here. But he's right. We do need to pay attention."

Bill had crept up behind the ice monster and was poised to spring. Mister Yeti, still immobilized in the ice, was turning his head first one way and then the other to try to see what he was up to. As I watched, Bill leaped forward and slipped his bo over Mister Yeti's head. "Now, Wizzit!" he shouted.

The two of them disappeared in a flash of black. A few moments later, Wizzit said, "Okay, Black is in place. Are you kids ready?"

"We're all set, Wizzit."

"Then here we go!"

Chapter 20

If the place where Padma and I materialized was hell, then I sure hope I go to heaven when I die, because this was not at all pleasant. It was dark, with a sort of ruddy glow ahead of us. Dark shapes were moving nearby, but I couldn't make out anyone or anything clearly. There was so little light that even my force shield was having trouble compensating.

We were completely submerged in water that was probably close to freezing. I didn't feel wet, thanks to Wizzit's one-way filter, but I could feel the water pressing in on me on all sides. This was probably something like what scuba-diving felt like, although scuba-diving is supposed to be a fun thing. I'm not exactly sure how I was able to breathe, but I'm happy to leave those kinds of problems to Wizzit.

I had taken hold of Padma's hand before we teleported, not out of any romantic notion, but so that I could maintain contact with her even if I didn't know where anyone else was. I squeezed her hand just to check, and she squeezed back.

"Blue and Indigo, reporting for duty!" I said, in case no one knew we were there yet.

"Yeah, we all felt you come in, Blue," Mike said dryly, although I had no idea what he meant by that. "How's it going, Black?"

"Not well. Mister Yeti is freezing all the water around him. He was doing that up on the surface as well, but there he affected only himself. Down here, he's affecting me, too. My hands are presently encased in the ice surrounding him; I can't get free."

"Teleport out to the surface, then. This was a bad idea; I don't want you permanently affixed to this guy."

"I don't think so, Red. I'd have to take him with me, and I'd still be frozen to him even up there."

"That's an order, Black."

I heard Bill chuckle. "I was recently reminded that I'm operating outside the chain of command, so I don't have to follow orders. I'm staying right here."

I heard Mike sigh. "Fine. What's your position, then? I can't see where you are."

"Well, I'm sort of stuck looking at the back of Mister Yeti's head, so I can't see a whole lot \--"

"There isn't a whole lot to see," I put in, just to be helpful.

"-- but I can make out sort of a reddish glow up ahead. I assume that's the fire monster. My legs are free, so I'm kicking to try to steer him thataway."

"Sounds like the best plan we've got, Black," Mike said resignedly.

"What's he doing up there?" I asked. "The fire monster, I mean."

"We are not sure," Trina answered. "Red and I have been keeping close to him, but not too close. He heats the water around him beyond the ability of our force shields to compensate."

"I think I have an idea what he's up to," Wizzit put in. "He may want to drain this water out of the crater so he can have better access to the rock underneath. If that's true, he may be trying to punch a hole in the side of the caldera."

"Oh, great!" I muttered. "And who is going to be the happy recipient of all the water that comes gushing out of here?"

"The town of Vik i Myrdal," Wizzit said cheerfully. "The whole place would probably be wiped out."

"Getting a little stuffy in here, Wizzit," came Mike's voice. "Any fresh air pockets up ahead?"

"I can't locate any," Wizzit replied. "Prepare for teleportation topside to replenish your air."

"Red, take Indigo with you," I suggested. "We brought you a replacement weapon."

"Sounds good. Whenever you're ready, Wizzit."

I let go of Padma's hand. There was flash of indigo light and a muffled thwoom! that shook me to my bones and made my head ache. "Ow! What was that?"

"Decompression wave caused by water rushing in to fill the void where Red and Indigo just were," Wizzit explained. "Same thing that happens in the air when you folks teleport in and out, except that the effect is magnified here because the medium is so much denser."

"Oh. Thanks, I think. Does that happen every time someone 'ports in or out?"

"Correctamundo!" Yeesh! No wonder Mike acted so sour when we popped in.

I could see something up ahead now, something that was blotting out the glow from the fire monster. "Black, I think I've spotted you in front of me," I told him. "Coming up to help push you forward."

"Bad idea, Blue. I'm still not sure how I'm going to get myself free from this guy; I don't want to have to worry about you getting stuck, too."

I pulled my sais from my belt. "I'll push using my weapons. If the ice moves up past the hilts, I'll abandon them." I kicked forward; it was nice to see that all those swimming lessons at the local YMCA were good for something.

I could make out the ball of ice containing Mister Yeti up ahead now. Soon I made contact and started trying to help Bill steer our mini-iceberg toward the only light we could see. "I see it now, too," Trina said. "I do not have a weapon that I can push with, though. What can I do to help?"

"Stand by for now," Bill told her. "We seem to be running into some interference. What can you tell me about it?"

"You're getting close to the fire monster. He is boiling the water in front of him, which is pushing you away."

"Wait a minute," I broke in. "You said in front of him? What about behind?"

"No, only in front. The water behind him is not boiling."

"Hmm. I think I see what you're getting at, Blue," Bill said. "Red, can you hear us?"

"Loud and clear, Black." Mike sounded mad, for some reason. "Just whose bright idea was it to have Indigo bring me Shelley's sword?"

"I-it was mine," Padma said nervously. "I thought it would be a good idea. It was the first weapon I saw, and it works much like your club, so . . ."

"Shelley used this thing for over ten years, Indigo," Mike snapped. "It was her own personal weapon. What made you think you could just pick it up and bring it out here? Did you even think at all?"

"Red, I -- I'm sorry!" Padma sounded close to tears. "It seemed like the best choice."

"Don't be an idiot, Red!" Bill said sharply. "Shelley can't use it any more, and I know for a fact that she wouldn't want it gathering dust in a trophy room somewhere if we could be using it to fight Enclave. Now tell me something, Red and Orange: When you were attacking this fire monster earlier, did either of you try to get to it from behind?"

"No," Trina said firmly. "It was impossible to sneak around behind it. And Red, I agree with Black about the sword. If I had to quit, I would want someone using my blaster if it would help."

"Orange is right," Mike said. "About the monster, I mean. We couldn't get behind it, and I don't think we even tried. Is that important?"

"It may be."

"We discovered that Mister Yeti is pretty dangerous from the front," I explained. "Black and I were each able to get at him from behind, though. And Orange mentioned just now that the fire guy was boiling only the water in front of him."

"I take your point," Mike said.

"If Orange lays down some covering fire," I said, "I think I can swim around in back of him."

"No good, Blue," Mike objected. "He'd spot you first and you'd be parboiled. I'll take him on myself. Wizzit, can you 'port me directly in back of this fire guy?"

"Can do! Just give me a moment to calculate the coordinates based on what Orange is seeing . . ."

"Fine. Get me as close as you can, and I'll try to get him in a stranglehold."

"Using what?" Trina demanded. "Your bare hands?"

"No, Shelley's sword." He sighed. "Look, I know I can be an idiot at times, but I do recognize sense when I hear it. Sorry, Indigo. You did make a good choice; it's a good weapon."

"Ready for teleportation," Wizzit announced.

"Then let's go!"

I felt the thwoom! again, and there was a flash of red over near the fire monster. "Be careful, Red," Trina said worriedly.

I held my breath, waiting, and then I heard a whoop of excitement. "Got 'im!" Mike shouted.

"All right, kids, this is no place to fight," Wizzit announced. "Prepare for a change in venue!"

I felt the familiar teleportation tingle. I had to squint when the haze faded from my vision. The sun was bright overhead in a clear blue sky. Looking around, I saw nothing below the sky but sand and a few scrubby bushes.

"The Sahara Desert!" Wizzit announced happily. "Hot and dry instead of cold and wet. Perfect antithesis to the Katla volcano!"

My eyes (and force shield) adjusted quickly. I could see that the fire monster and Mister Yeti were positioned in approximately the same positions relative to each other that they had been. Mike was dangling from the fire monster's neck; great gouts of flame were shooting out from the beastie's paws.

"I hate to complain, Wizzit," Bill said, "but it's getting a little hard to breathe in here."

"Sorry, Black, can't separate you from the ice monster yet. You're still sealed in ice, and that means you're still stuck to him."

Bill sighed. "Understood. Stand by; I'm going to try something to get myself free."

"In the meantime," Mike said, "how's about the rest of you just stand around and watch? Assuming, of course, that you don't want to help us or anything."

"Coming by to help, Red," Trina said. The five of us separated, with three running over to help Mike and two going over to Bill.

Five? Yes, you heard right. Wizzit had sent Padma along with us, and I guess he decided that Nicolai and Toby were fit for duty as well, because Prime Yellow was running along beside Padma, and a tall, green-glowing figure was right next to me.

"Yellow and Green, glad to see you're back," Mike noted -- rather calmly, I thought, seeing as how he was currently clinging to the back of a fire-breathing monster.

"I'm glad to be seeing anything!" Toby quipped.

"Let's take these guys down!" Nicolai added.

I heard a muffled boom from the ice encasing Mister Yeti. I looked and saw cracks spread all along the ice that covered the monster's back, right where Bill's legs were protruding.

Bill must have created a shock wave, I decided. That was good, because it had nearly broken him free. Unfortunately, it also meant that his force shield was now almost completely out of power and not currently protecting him from the cold of the ice or the loss of air.

"Come on, Blue!" I heard Toby shout. "We've got to get Black out of there!"

"I'm on it." I hurriedly tucked my sais into my belt and drew on my sap gloves. My fists started slamming into the cracked ice. It was a lot easier to break through than I anticipated; I actually had to stop myself after a few punches so I didn't accidentally hit Bill. Then Toby and I each grabbed a leg and pulled him the rest of the way out.

Bill collapsed onto the sand, breathing hard. "My bo is still in there," he gasped.

"We'll get it, one way or another," I assured him. I called out to the group at large, "Black is free now, but Black is pretty well spent."

"Right," Mike said. "Wizzit, send Black back to HQ if you please. The rest of us, let's, umm, just shove these bad boys together and see what happens?"

"You got it, Red!" Toby said, with what sounded to me like undue enthusiasm. I think he was feeling bad about having missed so much of the battle and wanted to get his hands dirty. "Let's start pushing, Blue."

Mister Yeti, now that he wasn't just a big block of ice, was starting to become more restless. Nevertheless, Toby and I put our shoulders into it, and we forced him forward. The ice around him melted rapidly as we approached the fire monster. I heard a small thump, and then Toby reached down one long arm. "Snagged Black's bo," he commented.

A few seconds later, Wizzit called out, "All right, kids, just one more push and they'll be giving each other lotsa hugs and kisses. One, two, three, heave!"

I gave a mighty push, and I felt Toby straining beside me. Suddenly, Mister Yeti lurched forward, and the ice that still clung to his head and shoulders sluiced down over us, completely melted now.

"Back up now, kids!" Wizzit said. "In fact, a little running would be in order if you want to stay to watch the fireworks!"

I could see now that Mister Yeti and the fire monster seemed to have melded into one another. As I jogged backward, watching the shifting blue and red flickers as their various energies mingled and fought, I suddenly remembered the computer thumb drive in my pocket. "Wizzit," I said, "when this is all over, could you send me to the stronghouse instead of HQ? I'll explain when I'm there."

"Roger-dodger, Blue. In fact, I'm sending you there now. Playtime's over, kids. This is going to be too big of a mess for you to stick around for." And, as I felt the tingle of an impending teleportation at the back of my neck, I saw the two joined monsters erupt into an enormous flash of light.

Chapter 21

I materialized into a bare, white room. On one wall I could see a dried smear of blood that was the only sign that we had once kept Lily Lee captive here. "So why did I send you to the stronghouse?" said Wizzit's voice from my belt buckle as I deactivated my force shield.

I dipped a hand into a pocket of my battle vest. "I picked up two things in JB Swift's lab that may be of interest, but which should be examined before we bring them into HQ. First . . ." I held up a tiny bit of gold. "This is one of Lily's earrings. I, uh, well, I'm not really sure what we can do with it. Try sending random infrared signals to it, I guess, and see which ones cause it to vibrate."

"Scanning . . . okay, it looks harmless. You can bring it back to HQ with you. Good catch. Next?"

I held up the thumb drive. "Next up we have this. JB Swift gave it to me before he sent me back; he says it's evidence. He didn't say any more than that."

"Evidence? Hmm. Padma, would you run to your room and get your laptop? I'm going to send you to the stronghouse with Trevor. And the rest of you -- healing comas all around. Especially you, Nicolai. You have some pretty nasty burns all up and down your arms and legs from that last push."

I heard the usual chorus of groans, and Padma's clear voice said, "Will do, Wizzit."

A couple of minutes later, she 'ported in, holding her laptop. She had undone her braid, I noticed; her long, black hair spilled out very prettily across her shoulders. We booted up her laptop, and after Wizzit assured us the drive was safe, we plugged it in. It contained a single video file.

The vid looked like it had been taken by an Enclave security camera of some sort. There was a date and current time down in one corner, from a couple of weeks ago. I could see JB Swift moving back and forth, attending to some sort of machinery and giving directions to a number of alters -- creatures something between normal humans and full-blown monsters. Suddenly one of the alters looked up from his screen. "Sir! We've received a message from one of the telephone sites we set up for the attack doll! We have identified the phone and have her coordinates."

"Then what are you waiting for? Bring her in!"

"Sir, the readings we are getting are ambiguous. There appear to be two humans in the vicinity, and the GPS information we're reading from the phone isn't precise enough for us to distinguish them."

"Let me see."

JB Swift went over to confer. A couple of minutes later, there was a flash of light and Lily Lee appeared. She was holding a cellphone in one hand -- Commander Windham's cellphone -- and her other hand was gripping Commander Windham himself. The side of his face was bruised, but he was obviously still alive and at least semiconscious.

"Lily," JB Swift ordered, "Special Order three-six-alpha-oh-five is no longer in force."

"Acknowledged." Lily didn't move; she simply stood where she was, swaying a little and holding Prime Commander's wrist as if she were a little girl and he were a teddy bear she was dragging around with her.

"Lily, drop the phone and let go the man's wrist." We heard a clatter as the cellphone fell. Commander Windham groaned once as she let go of his arm and he slumped to the floor. "Lily," said JB Swift, "self-report."

Lily clasped her hands behind her back and said in a monotone, "I am uninjured. I am not ill. I do not need to perform any bodily eliminations." Her voice was slurred and sometimes difficult to understand. "I have been awake for one hundred two hours, twenty-four minutes. I last ate six hours, fourteen minutes ago. I last drank six hours, sixteen minutes ago. Overall status: I am exhausted and nearing system collapse due to lack of sleep. I must sleep soon if I am to continue to function."

JB Swift nodded. "Lily, follow me. Let's put you to bed."

"Following."

As the two of them headed for the door, one of the alters said, "Sir! What should we do with the other human?"

"Send him back," JB Swift said. "He's no good to us."

"Yes, sir!"

After Lily and JB Swift left, one of the alters -- a tall fellow with long fangs, huge bat-ears, and a long, barbed tail -- dragged Commander Windham over to where a circle was inlaid into the floor. He stepped away, stopped, and went back to the commander, who seemed to be trying to get up. Then, with a casualness that made me cringe, he took hold of Prime Commander's head, twisted it around until we could hear a snap, then let go. Commander Windham dropped lifeless to the floor.

Padma hid her face in my shoulder with a cry of horror. I put a comforting arm around her, unable to take my eyes off the screen. Commander Windham's body was vanishing now, being teleported back to the stronghouse where we would soon discover it, and then the video ended.

"Wizzit," I said, "did you get all that?"

"I did. Looks like Lily didn't kill Prime Commander, did she?"

I closed my eyes and shook my head. "No, she didn't."

Those were the last words I was able to utter for several minutes, and I barely managed to choke those out. My throat closed up, my eyes suddenly began burning with tears, and \-- yeah, I'll admit it -- I started to cry. Pretty funny, huh? Tough, strong Trevor, badass Prime Blue, bawling like a baby.

To be honest, I'm not even sure why I was crying. It probably had something to do with the fact that I had just watched one of the best men I ever knew be murdered -- senselessly murdered, for there had been no reason for Bat-ears to kill him. And then there was the knowledge that his death had been at least partly my fault, because I had been the one who asked him to see to Lily that day. I had, in effect, sent him to his death. Justified or not, the guilt from that still haunted me, and watching him die here had stirred it all up again.

And at the same time, I had just seen proof positive that Lily hadn't been the one to kill him. She was innocent. I had been holding that crime against her for so long, letting go of it lifted an intolerable weight from my heart.

I drew a long, shuddering breath and put my other arm around Padma's slim figure. I wanted to hold Lily or Li Lin-fa, but they weren't present and Padma was. Burying my face in her wealth of hair, I gave myself up to the sobs that suddenly wracked my body. She drew me close to her and stroked my hair and murmured soft, comforting words -- some in English, some in French, some in languages I didn't even recognize.

A few minutes later, I raised my head to see her smiling softly at me. She kissed me on each cheek, then drew back. She looked deep into my eyes as if searching for something. She must have found it, because she smiled again, placed her hands on my shoulders, and pushed me back onto the floor.

"Padma, what --?" I asked.

"Shh," she whispered as she reached down and began tugging at the waistband of my shorts. "Don't talk." Her mouth was soft and warm and inviting against mine, and a little later, after she pulled back one final time to slip out of her bra and that silly Hello Kitty tee-shirt she was wearing and to skin off her shorts and underwear, I discovered that the rest of her was soft and warm and inviting as well.

Afterwards, as she lay contentedly on top of me, with her cheek resting against my chest and her hair spilling across my shoulders, I heard Wizzit make a noise as if he were clearing his non-existent throat.

"Uh, kids, just wanted to let you know that I turned off the audio and video feeds back to HQ right after the vid ended. And, while I appreciate this impromptu demonstration of human mating practices, and not to rush a tender moment or anything, the others are starting to wake up from their healing comas. They will soon be wondering what's taking the two of you so long here."

His words abruptly brought me back to reality, and reality was that I was lying naked on a cement floor in an unheated building in Montana in early November. Padma must have had the same realization, because she suddenly shivered and pushed herself off of me.

"Uh, not sure what to have you tell them, Wizzit," I said uncertainly as I pushed myself up to a sitting position.

"What I will tell them is that the two of you are in your own rooms, not having had sex just now, recovering from your injuries. Which I will not be able to do convincingly if you two don't get a move on!"

"Right. Got it!"

I hurriedly pulled on my clothes. Padma snatched up hers and headed for the bathroom. She emerged a few minutes later, fully clothed and with a troubled look on her face. "Trevor," she told me earnestly, "this must never happen again."

I grinned. "Hey, I didn't expect it to happen the first time."

"I know." She looked down. "I didn't expect it either. I . . . wanted it, and I think you needed it, and it was very nice. But never again."

Her deadly seriousness awoke my puckish sense of humor. "Understood," I said. "Here, I'll even make a note of it." I pretended to write on my hand. "No . . . more . . . sex . . . with . . . Padma." I glanced up at her, then resumed writing. "In . . . the . . . stronghouse."

"Or anywhere else!" She stamped her foot. "Please, Trevor, be serious. You know why we can't do this again!"

"Yeah, I know," I said, dropping the comedy routine. I took hold of her hands. "Seriously, Padma, it was wonderful for me, too; I was pretty upset, and you made me feel a whole lot better. Thank you. But I promise, it won't happen again, and I won't say a word about it to anyone. Hey, I like both you and Nicolai; I don't want to break you guys up."

"And you have your own fish to cook," she reminded me.

"Fry," I corrected her. "The phrase is 'my own fish to fry.'"

"Time, kids!" Wizzit said impatiently. "Gotta send you out now. And remember, you have both had healing comas, so no limping around." He treated us to a dramatic sigh. "I suppose I'll have to take care of you for real tonight at bedtime."

"Thanks, Wizzit," we chorused. Then I felt the familiar tingle at the base of my skull as Wizzit prepared to teleport me back to my room.

###

The Attack Doll Series

by

Douglas A. Taylor

Twenty-one-year-old Trevor Chiao is Prime Indigo; 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 an indigo-colored 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.

Don't miss the next exciting book in the Attack Doll series:

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.
