 
Attack Doll 4: Primes Emeriti

by Douglas A. Taylor

Copyright 2014 by Douglas A. Taylor

Smashwords Edition

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Chapter 1

"Whew! This is one posh-looking place!" That was Mike, our team leader, and he was right. Six of us Primes were standing in the parking lot of the Naples National Golf Club in Naples, Florida. I don't play golf myself, but from what Wizzit had said before sending us out, Naples National was a very select, very prestigious private golf club. You know, the kind where the restaurant has a "chef" instead of a "fry cook" and doesn't bother to print the prices on the menus? I could believe it. The place fairly screamed money.

I suppose it shouldn't have made a difference to any of us just how expensive the place was. We weren't there for dinner and a round of golf, after all. We were there, as always, because the alien would-be invaders who ran Enclave had sent out another monster. This time, though, we weren't there to attack and destroy said beastie. We were there -- with our force shields set to camouflage mode, so no one could see us -- to watch the show.

You see, some weeks ago the United States government had decided that all Primes found on US soil were subject to arrest and detainment. I don't know who actually made that decision, and it didn't make a whole lot of sense to us. After all, we don't bother anyone or ask for help. We just fight the monsters Enclave sends out, and we go to great lengths to ensure that any collateral damage remains at a minimum. All that we have ever asked is to be left in peace to do our jobs.

Regardless, we found out about that decision when police weapons started getting pointed at us every time we battled a monster in the US. We evaded capture the first time this happened, but then they arrested our team leader at the time, Shelley Windham, after one particularly brutal battle on the streets of New York City. She has been held prisoner ever since in a secure underground location somewhere near Denver. No charges were filed; no access was granted to anyone on the outside. Even the writ of habeas corpus presented by the lawyer Shelley's mother had hired was flatly denied on national security grounds.

The official reason originally given for this bit of stupidity was that we Primes had supposedly stolen all our highly-advanced technology from the US Army years ago, and they wanted it back. The army have since backed off that claim; some people had begun asking the obvious question: If the army developed the tech in the first place, why didn't they just re-develop it? I mean, it's been almost sixteen years. So now, if you listen to the various blowhard policymakers on the Sunday morning talk shows, they're claiming instead that the US has the right to seize any and all advanced technology used on its soil in the name of combating terrorism or something.

(Incidentally, lest one think that the United States was uniquely bloody-minded in its attitude toward the Primes: I know for a fact that the Chinese and Russian governments had been planning much the same kind of chicanery, and possibly India as well. The US just beat everyone else to it; the others at this point had evidently decided just to sit back to see what happened.)

Of course, the exact reason given didn't really matter to Wizzit. He didn't argue the point. Come to think of it, I've never known him to argue with anyone about anything. Maybe the beings from his home planet don't argue; I don't know. What I do know is that after Shelley was arrested, he simply announced on our web site, "Primes do not operate where they are not welcome," and that was that.

So now we don't fight Enclave monsters in the United States any more. We simply monitor the situation discreetly, and Wizzit posts vids of the incident alongside our own (generally more successful and less messy) missions. Which is why we were here today.

This wasn't our first such outing. In the weeks since Shelley's detainment, Enclave had sent a couple of monsters to the United States -- one to the Mojave desert and another to the middle of Alaska. In each case, Wizzit had posted alerts and coordinates on our web site and sent us out to monitor the situation.

The army had shown up in the Mojave within the hour and in Alaska after ninety minutes -- which I have to admit was pretty fast when you consider that they can't teleport like we can -- and had promptly shown that they really do believe the maxim that when brute force fails, one should simply apply more brute force. There was, like, no finesse to their operation at all.

Bullets didn't work, so they tried armor-piercing rounds. Those fared only a little better, so they moved up to rocket-propelled grenades. The RPGs tore small chunks out of the monsters, but they didn't stop them or even slow them down much. Finally, the monsters had been taken out in each location with bombs dropped from airplanes. I won't pretend to know how powerful the bombs were; all I know is that each removed its respective monster and left a smoking crater in its place. I was curious to see how well such tactics would work today on the exquisitely-manicured lawns of the Naples National Golf Club.

We quickly spotted the monster in question, one of Enclave's tank-like models built for power rather than speed or smarts. It was over by an irregularly-shaped lake off to the left of the clubhouse, and it was currently tearing up the green on which it was standing. I could hear the screams and shouts of would-be golfers fleeing in panic.

"It looks like we have several vantage points to choose from," Mike said calmly. He was speaking Prime-to-Prime, which meant that only us Primes and Wizzit could hear him. "Roof of the clubhouse, island in the middle of the lake, stand of trees by the sand traps, . . ."

"I see them," Wizzit said. "Teleporting now . . ."

I felt the familiar everything-going-hazy sensation, and when my vision cleared, I was standing near a tree, up to my ankles in sand. Looking around, I saw that the side of the clubhouse was behind me and the lake was in front. Perfect view of the monster. I spotted another pair of invisible feet making impressions in the sand beside me. "Is that you, Indigo?" I asked softly.

"No, it is Orange. Blue?"

"Yeah, it's me."

"Indigo and I are on the roof," came Mike's voice. "Where is everyone else?"

"Green and I are on the island," Nicolai said, and Trina reported our position.

"All right," Mike said, "everyone keep your eyes open. I know it's going to be tough, but remember, we're not to get involved."

"Give me your hand, Blue," Trina said beside me. I reached out and felt her hand fumbling for mine. "We had better stay near the tree, out of the sand, so no one spots our footprints."

Being more-or-less invisible has its good points and its bad points. The major good point is that no one can see you -- duh! -- so you can go places you're not supposed to go and not get caught. The major bad point is, again, that no one can see you, not even your teammates. I mean, Trina was standing right beside me, and all I could make out was a slight distortion in the air, something like a heat shimmer.

If I worked at it, I could probably have kept visual track of where she was, but it would have taken a good deal of concentration. So when she suggested we hold hands, it wasn't because she wanted to get up to any hanky-panky. Sure, I like to think I'm nice to hold hands with, but she was being purely practical; it was the easiest way for each of us to know where the other was.

"This looks like a tough monster," she commented. "I wonder whether the army's bombs will be able to defeat it."

I shrugged. "Probably. I'm wondering how they're going to explain all the mayhem to the rich people who come here." I caught the sound of sirens in the distance. "Sounds like the police are on the way."

"I wish I could be in there helping. We could destroy this thing in thirty minutes."

"I know," I said. "It's hard to stand here just to watch."

"I hope they bring enough --" Suddenly she stopped. "Blue, look over there!"

"Where?" She was probably pointing, but I couldn't see it.

"Oh, sorry. Over to your right, coming out from behind the building."

"Hmm. Zoinks." No, that wasn't an exclamation on my part. Zoinks, what Enclave calls drones, are the mindless, vaguely human-shaped foot soldiers they send out with their monsters to make life more difficult for us Primes. At present, they seemed to be doing a good job of scaring the local populace.

"No, not the Zoinks. Lily Lee!"

"Lily?" I looked again. Sure enough, striding confidently along amongst the blob-like bodies of the Zoinks I could make out an Asian-looking woman. Short, lithe, and drop-dead gorgeous, she was directing the Zoinks to attack the few onlookers who had stayed behind to watch. "Great, just great! Why did they have to send Lily out here today?"

"I don't know, but it looks like you might have a problem keeping your word to JB Swift."

I looked sharply over to where the Trina-shimmer was. I wished I could see her face so I could tell whether she was serious.

Lily was an old enemy of ours. Her minder, whom we had nicknamed JB Swift, had somehow managed to take a sweet-natured, fifteen-year-old Chinese girl named Li Lin-fa and over the course of six years transform her into something both more and less than human, something he called the attack doll. What we were currently seeing was the attack doll's so-called "commander mode" -- basically acting as a Zoink general.

According to Wizzit, Lily was one hundred percent human female, without a single speck of Enclave hardware on her anywhere. That made her something of a problem for us to deal with. All of our weapons are designed to disrupt the enhancements that Enclave uses to power their monsters while leaving ordinary humans unaffected. (Hence my earlier remark about limited collateral damage.) That meant that none of our special tech would touch Lily at all.

Bullets would, though, and thus you might think that her presence today, with police cars en route, would be cause for rejoicing. You would be wrong.

See, the last time we met, I had come to an understanding with JB Swift. In return for him not telling his alien masters what he had learned about my real identity, I had said that I would sort of look after Lily, even though she was Enclave and therefore our enemy.

Okay, strictly speaking, what I had promised him was that I wouldn't intentionally kill her and that I'd even take reasonable precautions to see that she didn't die accidentally. In my mind, though, it went a little further than that. I didn't want to see that girl get herself into more trouble than she could handle.

Why, you might ask, would I show such consideration to one of our most troublesome foes? Well, if you asked Shelley, she would say that I had fallen pretty hard for Li Lin-fa, the girl whom Lily had once been. If you asked Wizzit, he would tell you of his observation that commander-mode Lily and I displayed "a certain amount of romantic interest" in one another. Either of those might be true, or even both; all I knew was that I could not with a clear conscience stand idly by today and watch her get cut down in a hail of gunfire.

The sirens had gotten closer, and I thought I heard tires squealing to a stop. "Guys," I said urgently, "Lily's out there. We have to get her away before she gets shot."

"It'd serve her right," Toby growled. I don't think he has ever forgiven her her role in Prime Commander's death. We knew now that she hadn't been the one who actually killed him -- in fact, she and JB Swift probably hadn't even known he was dead until much later -- but one could argue that she had been indirectly responsible. It was easy to see that Toby still held a grudge.

"Green, she doesn't deserve to be killed," I said hotly. "Not like this."

"That's a matter of opinion."

"Enough, Green," Trina said sharply. "How would you propose we get her out of there, Blue? Without getting mixed up in the monster fight, that is. Of course she won't cooperate with anything we try."

You know, I'm starting to like having Trina as second-in-command. Mike is doing a decent enough job as our new team leader, but he can be a bit hot-headed at times. Trina has the cooler personality, and I'm glad that she has that extra bit of 2-in-C authority to smooth over disagreements among the team. I think Mike recognizes it, too; at least, he doesn't jump into matters like this right away, which gives Trina a chance to have her say.

"I'm not quite sure," I said. Turning around to face the parking lot, I could see black-suited SWAT officers swarming out of a police van. "The only thing I can think of is something . . . like this!" With that, I let go of Trina's hand and sprinted out from my tree cover onto the green.

"Blue, wait!" Trina cried. But it was too late. Within seconds I was among the Zoinks, fighting to get to Lily. Now, Zoinks are stupid, unobservant critters, and it would have been easy to avoid running into them had there been, say, just a half-dozen. Since we had begun going after her directly in our missions, though, Lily had taken to surrounding herself with them as a (more-or-less) living wall.

Lily obviously figured out pretty quickly that something was up, seeing her Zoinks being tumbled about like ten-pins, and she began to run away from the commotion, alongside the lake. Unfortunately, this course brought her closer to the SWAT team. As I knocked aside the last of the Zoinks, I glanced over at the parking lot. One of the police officers had stopped and was sighting carefully along the barrel of his rifle, and somehow I knew he was taking aim directly at Lily. "Lily, stop!" I shouted and began racing towards her, even though I knew I couldn't reach her in time.

It was then that time seemed to slow down. Yeah, I know it's a cliche that supposedly happens during stressful moments, but honest to goodness, that's really what happened. I took in a breath, and it felt as if I had drawn in some of my force shield along with it. The energy from it spread quickly throughout my entire body. My lungs burned, my skin tingled all over, and the whole world just ground to a halt. The sky took on a deep reddish hue. The breeze died, the birds hung motionless in the sky, and even the ripples in the lake stopped moving.

I surged forward as fast as I could, even though it felt like I was running through a sea of molasses. I slogged doggedly towards Lily, nightmarishly slow. Ten minutes or so later, when I finally drew near to her, she was still standing where she had been. She hadn't moved a muscle, and more importantly, no shot had yet been fired.

The weird slowing-down effect faded away abruptly as I reached her. I grabbed her from behind and quickly spun her around to place myself between her and the shooter. My force shield won't stop a rifle bullet, but it does provide some protection against impacts of various sorts, and some protection is better than none, which is what Lily had.

"Wizzit, please take us out of here!" I shouted. It's funny, even in a tense moment like that, I still remembered to say please. I guess Shelley's policy of courtesy, everywhere and always, had been drummed into me pretty well.

I felt a pinch along my side as we teleported away. A hard pinch, as if someone had taken a giant pair of pliers, grabbed the flesh just under my ribcage, and squeezed hard. A bad sting, more than any real pain, but a sting that just didn't go away. If anything, it got worse as we materialized -- not in a plain white room of painted cinderblock as I expected, but in the middle of a grove of trees.

"Wizzit, where are we?" I demanded.

"Across the lake from where the action is," he said. "It was the nearest safe place. The location you were probably expecting is not available."

"Not available? But --"

Lily chose that moment to start struggling. "Let me go!" she yelled.

"Settle down!" I ordered, tightening my grip. "Look, I'm not going to hurt you, Lily. I'm trying to save your life!"

In commander mode, Lily isn't much of a fighter, and it normally wouldn't have been difficult at all for me to hold onto her until she calmed down. She started throwing elbows at me, though, and one of them happened to connect with the very spot that had felt the pinch. Pain exploded in my side. I gasped, and everything sort of faded from my view.

When my head cleared, I was lying on the ground and Lily was looking around confusedly. "Where are you?" she shouted. "Where did you go?"

I must have groaned, because she suddenly looked down, obviously struggling to make out my sort-of invisible form. Her face displayed the curious mixture of defiance and fear that seemed to characterize her personality in commander mode. As I watched, she drew back her foot and kicked experimentally at me. She didn't strike the exact spot that hurt the worst, but it was close enough that I yelled in pain and rolled away from her.

I came to a stop some yards away, lying on my good side, panting heavily, and wondering why the heck she was able to hurt me so badly. I mean, it was obvious that I had caught a bullet out there -- I could certainly figure out that much \-- but even so, my force shield should have protected me from the brunt of her weak, inexpert blows. Wounded or not, I should barely have felt them. So why did my left side feel as if it were on fire?

Lily's eyes were following some visual trail from the spot I had been lying to where I was now. She knelt down, touched something on the ground, and brought it up before her face. She swallowed and licked her lips uneasily. "You're . . . you're bleeding," she said softly.

"Yeah, I probably am," I replied tightly, taking quick, shallow breaths to help with the pain. "And it really hurts, so please don't kick me again, okay?"

"W-who are you?" she demanded. "And why can't I see you?"

"I'm Prime Blue," I told her. "We've met before. Say hi to your Uncle Oswald for me, would you?"

Her eyes grew wide. "You know Uncle Oswald?"

"Uh huh." JB Swift's real name, I had recently discovered, was Oswald Grumpf. Lily had mentioned an Uncle Oswald the last time I fought her, and I had drawn the obvious conclusion.

The sound of gunfire made her head jerk up. "What's that?" she demanded, skittish as a cat.

"I think somebody's shooting at your monster," I said. "That's why I dragged you away from there. Didn't want you to get hurt."

She glanced down at me, then cautiously stepped away towards the shots. I don't know what she saw when she peeked out from among the trees, but when she came back, her face had gone pale under her Chinese coloration and she was visibly shaking. "I-I have to talk to Uncle Oswald."

"When you do, let him know that Prime Blue keeps his promises, okay?" And then, just because it was becoming sort of a tradition with me, I spoke to her in Cantonese, the language that her alter ego Li Lin-fa understood. "It is good to see you again, pretty one. Come out and talk to me."

"No!" She hunkered down on the ground, hands pressed to her ears. I was surprised to see tears spring to her eyes. "Why do you do this to me?" she cried. "Please, no more magic words!"

She moved away. With shaking hands, she reached into a pocket of the standard-issue black Enclave jumpsuit she wore and pulled out, of all things, a cellphone. "I'm calling Uncle Oswald right now," she said, dialing a number, "and he'll come and get me. You had better not stick around, because he'll be mad when he gets here and he'll . . . he'll make you sorry!"

"Fine." I closed my eyes wearily. The pain from her kick was starting to subside, but only a little. "Tell him I said to keep you out of the United States. They're starting to play rough here, and I might not be able to save you next time." Then, Prime-to-Prime, I said, "Wizzit, can you get me out of here?"

He replied, much too cheerfully, "I was wondering when you'd ask."

Chapter 2

When my vision cleared, I wasn't surprised to discover that Wizzit had teleported me back to HQ. I mean, I was injured and not much use out in the field. Where else would he send me, right?

I was surprised, though, when he did not immediately induce a healing coma. When I asked why not, he replied, "Oh, don't be such a baby! That little speed-up stunt you pulled out there drained your force shield. I can't induce a healing coma until it has recharged. Eight minutes and counting."

Oh. That explained a lot. A whole lot, actually, such as why Lily was able to hurt me as much as she did. If my force shield were drained of power, it wouldn't have provided me with any protection at all, other than camouflage mode and voice alteration. "Can you show me a vid of my, er, speed-up stunt? I'd like to see exactly what it was I did."

I was currently in the lounge, reclining bare-chested in one of the comfortable chairs there. Despite the considerable pain in my side, I had managed to remove my battle vest and skin off my tee-shirt. The tee-shirt was currently wadded up behind me, soaking up the blood that was slowly leaking out of my bullet wound. (Hey, the chairs in the lounge are really nice, and we try not to get blood all over them if we can help it.)

Wizzit obligingly began playing a vid on the large screen in front of me. It was an overhead shot, probably from Mike's or Padma's point of view, since they were the ones on the roof. The monster was in the center of the screen, and I was able to spot Lily off to the right in amongst the Zoinks.

A few seconds into the vid, a glowing blue figure emerged from the lower right corner and merged with the group of Zoinks. Lily began running away, and the blue figure began fighting its way through the Zoinks after her.

"Um, Wizzit?" I asked. "Is that blue guy supposed to be me?"

"Affirmative."

"I thought I was in camouflage mode when this all happened. How come I can see me?"

"Because," he replied in his snippiest voice, "I am correlating your known positions via telemetry with the activity in the vid and colorizing you in real time. It's very hard to do, so stop bothering me with so many questions."

"Oh. Sorry." I settled back, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in my side, and watched the action.

The blue figure managed to fight its way through the Zoinks. It paused for a moment, and then it . . . disappeared. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, and then I spotted it, over by Lily. But how had it gotten there so fast? It had taken me, like, ten minutes to reach her.

"Could I see that again, Wizzit?" I asked. "If it's not too much trouble, that is."

"No trouble at all." It's often hard to tell when Wizzit is being sarcastic, so I really had no idea whether it was trouble or not. "Here it is again at half speed. Don't blink or you'll miss it."

I watched again as the blue figure emerged from the crowd of Zoinks, paused, and then disappeared. This time, though, I could see that it reappeared almost instantly just behind Lily, and I even imagined that I caught a glimpse of a blue streak connecting the two locations.

I whistled. "Did I really run that fast?"

"Got it in one, love," Wizzit replied in a startlingly good impression of Toby. "You really did run that fast."

"I don't think I've ever heard of a Prime being able to do that," I said cautiously. "Running at super-speed, I mean."

"It's not common, but it has happened before," he said, still keeping up the Toby impression, although now it was Toby doing his public school voice, so that Wizzit sounded like a news reader from the BBC. "Bheka Nkosi did it once, and Cathy Beals managed it a time or two. Bill could do it whenever he felt like it -- he probably still can -- and I recall Shelley doing it as well. Of course, that was when they were all Prime Red. No Blue has ever done it before."

I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes. My side was really hurting now. "So what does that mean?"

"It means that you shouldn't get cocky!" Wizzit had reverted to his own voice. "You will probably be quite powerful by the time you get to be Prime Red, if you last that long. Your sister Angela will undoubtedly be just as good, which is why I want her to be my new Prime Violet. But until you gain better control, we will treat this as just a freak occurrence, understood?"

I nodded. "Understood. I'm not feeling . . . especially cocky right now." What I was feeling, in fact, was cold. And shaky. I could tell that shock was starting to set in.

"Hang in there, Blue," Wizzit said, his voice becoming surprisingly gentle. "Just a few more minutes."

"Okay. What are the others up to?"

"Not much. Would you like to see the real-time vid?"

"Uh huh."

I opened my eyes, and he starting showing me what was going on back at Naples National. Basically a lot of shouting and shooting, none of it very effective. I watched, struggling to stay awake and alert, until Wizzit finally switched off the vid and said those most welcome of words, "Initiating healing coma now."

We Primes get hurt an awful lot in the course of our duties, and if Wizzit didn't provide some means for fixing us up afterwards, our careers would be pretty short. Healing comas are those means.

Despite the name, a healing coma isn't usually a coma in the medical sense. It's basically a special mode of our force shields that enables the body to heal itself rapidly. And it's not just a super-fast recovery, either; a healing coma can actually heal things that normally wouldn't heal on their own. For instance, Toby was blinded during one of our recent missions, his corneas destroyed, but after a healing coma he could see as well as he ever did. So when my healing coma descended on me and I felt the relaxed dopiness that came with it, I breathed a whole lot easier. I was going to be fine.

Your mind tends to drift while you're healing, and mine drifted toward one of its favorite subjects of late, Lily Lee. Now, I'm not the kind of guy who judges women based on looks alone. I like to look at pretty girls, sure, but I also like someone I can talk to. Lily, though, was in a class of her own. Eyes, face, hair, figure -- she kind of takes my breath away.

Add to that the strange air of both mystery and helplessness surrounding her, and man, she got me right where I lived. Shelley tells me that I have a serious thing for damsels in distress, and I think she must be right. At least, I was finding that the idea of holding Lily close in my arms, assuring her with soft words that I would not hurt her, and making her feel safe was very, very appealing.

I often wished there was someone I could talk to about her and help me sort out my feelings towards one of our most persistent enemies. Prime Commander would have been the obvious choice, except that he had been killed weeks ago when Lily had escaped the makeshift prison we had been holding her in.

I had once promised Shelley, back when she was still Prime Red, that I would tell her everything that was going on with me and Lily. Shelley had her own problems now, though. We snuck in to see her in her cell every chance we could -- at least once a day -- but even so, she was having a rough time of it. I hesitated to burden her with my problems.

But it wasn't as if I didn't have anyone else to turn to. There were my teammates -- Padma, Trina, Mike, Toby, Nicolai -- and my parents, my sister Angie, and Grandmaster Park, my Tae Kwon Do teacher. Heck, even Bill was starting to grow on me. I supposed I could talk with one of them. I'd just have look for an opening.

My eyes snapped open, and suddenly I was completely alert. That's the way it is with healing comas. One minute you're snoozing away, and the next you're wide awake and feeling fine.

"Hey!" I said when I sat up and glanced at the clock. "Why'd it take a whole hour, Wizzit? I didn't think I was hurt that badly."

"The bullet that penetrated your abdomen also pierced your large intestine," he replied. "Poop in the gut -- nasty stuff! Had to take the extra time to make sure it all got cleaned out; otherwise you might die of sepsis. Hope you don't mind."

"No, uh, that's fine, thanks," I chuckled. "So, do you want me to go join the others?"

"No need. They're on their way back here."

"Already? Wow, the military were really on the ball this time. Another bomb?"

"Yupperooni. I'd say the clubhouse and a good deal of the front nine will be unusable for quite some time." Somehow Wizzit managed to sound quite pleased with himself when he said that.

By the time I got myself out of the comfortable chair and down the hall, Mike and the others had arrived in the common room. "Hi, guys," I said. "How'd it go?"

"Trevor, what the hell did you think you were doing out there?" Mike said angrily. "You knew we weren't supposed to interfere, and yet you decided to run out there and jeopardize our whole mission in order to . . . do what exactly?"

"I was trying to get Lily out of harm's way," I explained mildly. "You know, to save her skin? I thought I made that clear at the time."

"Yes, well, noble though that cause may be -- and I'm not willing to admit that it is -- you could certainly have come up with a better way to go about it! Let's just hope that no one spotted you out there. If anyone got even a hint that a Prime helped one of Enclave's minders to escape, you know how the American press would play it up!"

Toby was glaring at me; he obviously agreed with Mike. Padma and Nicolai wouldn't meet my eyes. Even Trina, who I thought would back me up, said, "It was a foolish thing to do, Trevor. Really, you know better than that."

I spread my hands. "Sorry, guys, but I honestly couldn't think of any other way to get her out of there. What should I have done?"

"You should have let her get cut down, is what you should have done," Toby growled. "What is it with you and that girl anyway? I swear, Trevor, ever since you let Robin get killed, you've gone soft. If anyone ever deserved to die, that Lily bitch is the one."

I stared at Toby in shock, feeling as if I had just been sucker-punched. Robin had been Prime Blue back when I was the new Prime Violet. I knew that her death had been my fault -- I had always known it -- but none of my teammates had ever come right out and said so, not to my face. Not until now.

"That'll do, Toby," Mike said evenly. "Robin's been dead and buried for a year and a half. Let's leave her that way, shall we?" Toby snorted and turned away. To me, Mike said, "Look, Trevor, I'm not sure what the best move would have been under the circumstances, but I know this wasn't it." He sighed. "Well, at least we've got her under lock and key again. You took her to the stronghouse, right?"

"Um . . ." I began.

Mike closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Trevor," he said, his voice going dangerously quiet, "please tell me that you teleported Lily to the stronghouse and left her there."

I looked around uncomfortably. "Wizzit, can you help me out here?"

"The stronghouse is no longer available," Wizzit said.

"What?" Mike demanded. "Since when?"

"Since around noon today."

The video screen came to life. Wizzit had tuned it to one of the all-news channels. A perky young blonde newsreader was sitting behind a desk, staring at the teleprompter with utmost concentration.

"There was a new development today," she read, "in the case of Shelley Windham, the accused leader of the shadowy group calling themselves the Primes. Windham, a high school dropout, was arrested by federal authorities several weeks ago in connection with a firefight in New York's theater district."

The scene changed to a handheld camera's view of a large, ranch-style home surrounded by open fields. "This morning, federal authorities, acting in concert with local sheriff's deputies, staged a pre-dawn raid on the Windham family compound. They aren't saying just what they found there, but one source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that a number of firearms were confiscated."

Mike snorted in disgust. "It's a cattle ranch in Montana. Of course they've got guns!"

The newsreader continued, "But then, in a bizarre twist, authorities discovered this building --" Here, the scene changed to show a large, square structure. "-- in an isolated section of the property. Here's our reporter, Bob Garliano, on the scene."

"Thanks, Christina." A good-looking man with graying hair, his shirtsleeves rolled up nearly to the elbow, stepped out in front of the camera. "The first thing that authorities noticed as they approached the building was that it had no doors or windows. There was simply no way to get in or out. However, when agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives broke down a section of one of the walls to gain entrance, they discovered definite signs that someone had at one time been living there. The building was equipped with electricity and running water, and there were traces of food on the floor. In addition, the walls and parts of the floor were coated with some sort of powdery substance. Now, Christina, the deputies I spoke to couldn't confirm just what this substance was, but they strongly suspect that it's cocaine.

"In addition, they made another discovery that casts a more sinister light on the whole affair." The scene shifted again, this time to show a white surface with dark smears on it. "In one of the rooms, authorities discovered this series of bloody footprints on the floor and on one of the walls."

The scene switched back to the perky young blonde newsreader again, her brows furrowed in an artfully pretty frown. "Bob, do they know to whom the footprints belong?"

"Not at this time, Christina. They told me they have no idea who or what was held captive here. They have determined that the bloodstains are several weeks old, though. Some of the deputies I spoke to indicated that Windham's father, a local rancher by the name of Roy Windham, had died mysteriously some days before Windham was arrested, about the same time these footprints were made, and his body was hastily cremated at Windham's insistence. The authorities are now contacting local physicians in an attempt to find tissue samples of the elder Windham. If those tissue samples match the blood on the walls, I'm told that local prosecutors will soon be filing murder charges against Windham."

"Thanks, Bob. Scary stuff. In other news, . . ."

"What the hell!" Mike exploded as Wizzit turned off the screen. "Wizzit, does Shelley know about this?"

"Bill has been with her for the past two hours," Wizzit replied. "and I notified him as soon as the first news reports started coming out."

Mike shook his head. "You know they're going to use this to try to put more pressure on her. Can we talk to her?"

"Sure, I'll patch you in through Bill's belt." There was a pause. "Shelley, this is Wizzit. The others have just come back from a mission and would like to talk to you about those news reports we discussed."

"Oh. Um, okay. Hi, guys. Wizzit told us about the raid, and Black and I have been talking about what to do. Listen, Red, I'm really worried about my mom and Francesca. I bet they were scared stiff, having everybody come in in the middle of the night like that."

"We'll check on 'em for you," Mike promised.

"Thanks. That would be a load off my mind. If you could go yourself, Red, that would be best; my mother really likes you. If you can't go, then send Blue. He's a US citizen, so if he's caught without a passport, it won't be a big deal. And besides, I think Francesca has a little bit of a crush on him."

"One of us will go, Shelley," I said with a chuckle. Trina, catching my eye, gave me a wink.

"Now, we're sure that it was the stronghouse they found, right?" she asked. When Wizzit confirmed that it was, Shelley went on, "In that case, we know the blood is Lily's, so it won't match anything belonging to my father. We're safe there unless they try to manufacture evidence of some sort. It will just have to remain an unsolved puzzle for them."

"Wizzit," Nicolai asked, "what was the powder they found? Do you know?"

"It was the remains of the microsensor package that Shelley and Red installed there. I self-destructed it as soon as I became aware of their efforts to break in."

Nicolai nodded. "That's what I thought. They should find out pretty quickly that it is not cocaine, but they shouldn't be able to find out any more than that."

"Good." I heard Shelley heave a sigh of relief. "So, aside from frightening my mother and sister half to death, this was a non-event. We've got nothing additional to worry about."

"It bothered me, though, the way they were telling lies about you," Padma said. "I mean, they said you were a high school dropout. That's not true, is it?"

"No, it's not," Shelley said, "although I understand why they might say that. My dad pulled me out of junior high when I became a Prime, but there's a tradition in the States that says a child can be taught at home by his or her parents. That's what they did with me. I was homeschooled, and I attended a graduation ceremony and have a high school diploma and everything. But a lie that easy to disprove is nothing to worry about."

Toby said, "Yeah, well, they also called you the 'accused leader' of the Primes, as if being Prime Red were some sort of crime."

"That's a little more worrying," Shelley agreed soberly. "But unless we can think of some way to counteract that sort of propaganda, we'll just have to let it go, I guess."

"How are you doing, Shelley?" Trina suddenly asked, concerned. "How are you holding up?"

"I'm . . . I'm okay. Things are rough, but I'm basically okay."

"Tell them the truth," Bill said, his voice sounding angry. "Guys, they waterboarded her today."

"Oh, damn!" Pamda said softly.

"I'm sorry, Shelley," Trina murmured.

"Guys, I'm okay!" Shelley insisted. "Really. Look, we expected this to happen sooner or later; I was prepared for it. It was . . ." Her voice caught. I thought I heard something like a sob, and she was silent for a few seconds, but when she resumed, her voice was as strong as ever. "It was pretty bad while it was going on, but I survived, and I'm going to be all right."

"You gave them the names, right?" Mike asked anxiously.

"Yeah. I held out until I couldn't take it any more, and then I broke down and fed them every name on the list."

"Good." He sounded relieved. "Listen, Shelley, you don't have to be a hero about this. The names don't mean anything. You can give 'em up sooner."

"Red, these guys know that I used to be Prime Red. They know I'm plenty tough. If I don't hold out, they won't believe it when I do finally break down."

"I will start preparing the next list of names and addresses for you to memorize," Nicolai said. "The last list contained the names of sons and daughters of various United States senators. Next we will compile a list of . . ." He smiled. ". . . nursing home residents in Boise, Idaho."

Shelley laughed, a sound that warmed my heart considerably. "That's great. You're the best, Yellow."

Toby said softly, "Shelley, are you sure you don't want us to yank you? Wizzit could pull you out of there the second you asked for it."

This time, Shelley's laugh had a near-hysterical ring to it. "Don't tempt me like that, Green. You guys have no idea how much I wish I was there with you. But . . . no. We have to do this the right way. We have to force them to release me and drop any and all charges, and do it in a public manner. Otherwise I'd be a fugitive for the rest of my life, and you guys wouldn't be much better off."

"I hate to interrupt," Wizzit said, "but Black needs to leave immediately. Your guards are on their way, Shelley, probably so your interrogators can give you the latest news. Go to your neutral corner. I am switching their surveillance cam to live feed in ten seconds."

"All right," Bill said. "Remember your gum, Shelley. And . . ." He hesitated, perhaps because he knew we were listening in. ". . . I love you."

"I love you, too, Black," she whispered.

There was a soundless flash of light as Wizzit teleported Bill back to HQ.

Chapter 3

Mike insisted that Bill hold a debriefing of our mission in Florida, even though we hadn't been doing them for our other observer-only ones. I think he mostly wanted to get Bill's take on my actions, and he also wanted to see what had happened between me and Lily after we teleported out.

To my surprise, Bill agreed that I had acted the best I could under the circumstances. He and I don't always see eye to eye, and it isn't just because he's six inches or so taller than me. I find him stuffy and arrogant, and he thinks I'm an upstart young punk. Still, we're working on it, trying to find common interests and experiences that let people bridge those kinds of differences and still become friends. So far, we've come up with two: a shared affection for Shelley, and the fact that he's, well, almost as kickass a fighter as I am. Eh, it's a start.

"What I'd like to know," Bill said after the discussion had drifted away from my rash actions, "is what Lily meant when she told you 'no more magic words'."

I let out my breath. "Yeah, I've been thinking about that. You might remember that she said a similar thing during that mission in Iceland."

"You said something to her in Cantonese, right?" Trina asked.

I nodded. "Yeah. Both times, in fact. In Iceland, she said that the 'magic words' made her not want to fight me any more. My guess is that she reacts that way because it's Li Lin-fa's native tongue."

"Li Lin-fa is Lily's base personality, correct?" Nicolai said. "Her real self?"

"Uh huh. When we were holding her in the stronghouse, I tried speaking Cantonese to Lily a few times to try to bring the Li Lin-fa personality forward, and at the time it seemed to provoke a reaction. If my speaking Cantonese causes Li Lin-fa to struggle against Enclave's control of her, I could see how Lily would interpret that as my casting a spell."

"That sounds reasonable." Bill rubbed his chin in thought for a moment. Then he shrugged. "Anything else, anyone?"

"Not about the mission," Mike said, "but what was that comment you made to Shelley about the gum? 'Remember your gum'?"

Bill chuckled. "It's something she and I came up with. I think we all know she gets awfully bored sitting alone in that room all the time. One can practice kung fu by oneself only so many hours per day. And since our visits to her are secret, we obviously couldn't bring her books or anything like that that would be discovered. So I suggested that chewing gum might help to relieve the tedium.

"She agreed, but she worried that she might not always be able to dispose of the gum in time, or even if she did, that it still might be discovered. But then we thought, what if it were? What would they do? Why, try to find the source of the gum, of course."

Toby frowned. "And that would lead them to suspect that we're teleporting in to visit her on a regular basis and that we've taken control of their surveillance cam and microphone to prevent them from realizing it."

"It might," Bill agreed with a smile. "Or it might lead them to suspect that Shelley has a secret sympathizer in their ranks."

There was silence as we digested this. "Damn!" Mike said softly. "That's brilliant."

"Isn't it, though?" Yeah, see, it's remarks like that that make me want to slap a big ol' ARROGANT sticker on Bill's forehead. Still, I had to admit that it sounded like a pretty clever idea.

"You have brought Wizzit in on it as well, correct?" Nicolai said. "You can't just have the gum show up out of nowhere. You have to give their investigators something to work with, some surveillance videos showing Shelley receiving the gum, things like that."

"We've already taken care of that," Bill agreed. "Wizzit teleported me into the hallway outside her cell, and we took several vids, different angles and such, of her accepting sticks of gum as I slid them in through the tray slot. Wizzit will even try to digitally insert sticks of gum into the surveillance vids of her receiving her food tray."

"They think they have her completely locked down," Trina commented, her eyes sparkling. "This will drive them crazy!"

Bill said, "That's what we're hoping, anyway. And the beauty of it is that none of this should boomerang back onto Shelley. After all, how could she possibly know who is giving them to her? I'll leave some sticks of gum in the kitchen, and we'll have to remember to bring them out to her every day or so to be discovered whenever she gets brought in for interrogation."

Mike chuckled. "Good work, Bill. I hope it pans out."

"Me, too." Bill grinned at the rest of us. "Anything else, anyone?"

After a few seconds, Wizzit said, "I have an announcement."

I think he commanded everyone's attention instantly with that. Wizzit almost never makes announcements. "What is it?" Bill asked, looking up at the ceiling speakers.

"I have discovered the name of the person who has been masterminding the campaign against the Primes, the one behind Shelley's capture and everything," he said proudly. "And you'll never guess who it is!"

Wizzit paused, probably for dramatic effect, and Trina said impatiently, "Well, tell us who!"

"Emile Zwicky!"

For a moment, nobody said anything. I looked around at the others, feeling just a bit confused. Who was Emile Zwicky?

"Is that name supposed to mean anything to us?" Bill inquired.

"Of course it should! It's the name of the CIA agent who started the campaign against the Primes. Duh!"

"Aside from that, I mean," Bill said patiently. "Should we know that name from any other context?"

"Well, no, of course not. I told you you'd never guess, didn't I? What, did you think you would recognize it?"

Bill smiled in exasperation. "No, I suppose not." Yeah, every now and then we get a bit, fat ol' reminder that Wizzit really isn't human.

"What can you tell us about this 'Emile Zwicky' character?" Mike asked.

"For one thing, Mike, he is not involved with Enclave. As far as I have been able to tell from his personnel records, he is simply a twenty-year CIA man who one day had the bright idea to try to grab all the Primes' technology for his country. His bosses at Homeland Security gave him the green light and some lawyers to provide legal justification, and you know the result."

Trina asked, "Do you know what he looks like? Could you show us a picture?"

"I don't have one," Wizzit replied. "It's not in his personnel records. If it becomes important, I suppose I could scan through their surveillance footage and their videotapes of Shelley's interrogations to get a still for you."

"You can do all that?" Toby exclaimed, amazed.

"Of course. I have been making extensive use of that passthrough that Nicolai thoughtfully planted. It has given me nearly complete access to their computer network. I could give you the names and addresses of nearly everyone there, including Mr. Zwicky. I could get you the names of their spouses and children, their psychological profiles, their likes and dislikes, all kinds of stuff!"

"Thanks, Wizzit," Mike said, looking thoughtful. "That may become important."

"I should certainly hope so!"

Chapter 4

The next day was Saturday, the Saturday before Thanksgiving in fact, and I was looking forward to a long-overdue visit home to see my parents. Normally, we Primes are on duty at HQ for six weeks straight, with a week off for vacation. Since the problems with Shelley's arrest, though, the seven of us decided that we would start limiting our vacations to one or two days at a time. In addition, we had decided it would be best to go out in pairs as an added safety precaution.

My sister Angela would be taking her fourth Dan test -- the test for her fourth-degree black belt -- in Tae Kwon Do on Saturday, which is one reason I was coming home. Padma does Tae Kwon Do as well -- she's a second Dan -- but she had never seen any test higher than second degree, and she was curious to see how it worked. So that was why she and I found ourselves, overnight bags in hand, in a stand of trees beside a corn field in Ohio early on Saturday morning.

"I'm a little nervous to meet your family," Padma confessed to me as we began walking down a gravel road towards my parents' house. "My English is all right, isn't it? I always worry that people who don't know me will not be able to understand what I say."

"Your English is fine," I assured her. "And remember, my parents immigrated from China; if anyone understands the difficulties of trying to communicate in an unfamiliar language, they do. The only thing you have to worry about is that my mother will probably think we're involved."

"Involved?" She frowned for a moment, but then her face cleared. "Oh, you mean, as in dating?"

"Yeah, especially if you keep holding my hand like that."

She looked down to where she was squeezing my fingers so tightly they were turning white. "Sorry, it's a nervous habit. Are you sure I will be welcome? I do not want to impose myself on your family."

"Don't worry about it. It's a big old farmhouse; they've got lots of room. Besides, I told my mom I would be bringing someone with me, and she said it would be fine."

My mother answered the door when we arrived. "Trevor!" she said. "It's good to see you!" Her eyes widened as she caught sight of Padma. "Oh! I didn't realize that your guest would be so . . . presentable."

I grinned. For some reason, my mother thinks "presentable" is a more polite word than "pretty", and Padma certainly was that, with glossy black hair that fell past her shoulderblades, a slim athletic figure that nevertheless curved in all the right places, and a thousand-watt smile that the Indian-darkness of her skin made seem extra brilliant.

I made the introductions in English. Normally in our house, we spoke the mother tongue, namely Mandarin Chinese, as much as possible. We also spoke Cantonese when my Aunt Min was visiting, and whenever Grandmaster Park came over for dinner, we spoke Korean. It was a little weird growing up quadri-lingual like that, but it has served me in good stead in the years since.

"So, Trevor," my mother said, taking our arms and leading us inside, "allow me to exercise a mother's prerogative to be nosy. Is Padma your girlfriend?"

I looked over at Padma. As I said, she's a pretty gal, but beyond that, I genuinely liked her. I had been her mentor when she first joined the Primes, we still trained together quite a lot, and we had become good friends. In fact, I'd say she was probably my best friend at HQ. Under different circumstances, I would have been happy to introduce her as my girlfriend.

Such was not the case, however. She had something going on with Nicolai; I still hadn't figured out quite what it was, but I knew he would not appreciate a rival. And of course I had my own issues with Lily to work out. So I shook my head and said, "Not exactly, Mom. We're just close friends, that's all."

"Ah," my mother said, nodding slowly and looking wise. I had a feeling I didn't want to know what that "ah" meant.

My sister Angela was sitting at the kitchen table, munching a toasted bagel slathered with grape jelly. She jumped up when she saw me and managed to give me a big hug while not getting any of the jelly in my hair. Then she noticed Padma and stopped short. "Excuse me," she said, staring at her with frank curiosity, "but have we met before?"

Padma smiled. "Possibly. When was the last time you were in India?"

"Um, never. But you're a friend of my brother's, right? You . . . work with him?" she asked meaningfully.

Padma's smile broadened. "I do indeed."

Angie frowned in thought for a moment and then said, "My, uh, my favorite color is pink. What's yours?"

I chuckled to myself at Angie's subtle attempt to pump Padma for information. My baby sister knows that I'm a Prime, and she has even joined us on a couple of missions as Junior Prime Pink. Until recently, Wizzit had insisted that I be the only Prime she knew by sight. He decided to change that not too long ago, though, and asked Mike and me to invite Angie to HQ sometime to meet us all face to face.

Unfortunately for that plan, my parents don't know I'm a Prime. They think I'm bumming around the world with an international Tae Kwon Do demonstration team, and they disapprove. Understandably, every time I said, "My friends want to meet Angela for dinner," they replied, "Bring them over to the house, because we'd like to meet them, too." That was another reason I had come for a visit today, to straighten out that particular stalemate.

Regardless, Padma evidently decided to play along with Angie's little game. "If I had to choose a color that would define me," she said, "I suppose it would be indigo."

My mother had been following this whole exchange uncomprehendingly. Now she evidently decided it was time to jump back into the conversation. "Indigo!" she exclaimed. "What a lovely color! I'm very fond of indigo myself."

Angela frowned. "But I thought \--"

My mother cut her off. "Angela," she said, "hadn't you better go upstairs to get dressed? You don't want to be late for your test."

My sister looked down at herself. She was wearing her uniform pants -- white with a black stripe down the leg -- and a camisole. "I'm already dressed, Mom. I just have to put on my jacket, which is hanging by the door, and grab my belt, which is on the back of the couch."

"Your hair needs brushing, dear, and I'm sure your teeth do as well."

Angie turned toward me and rolled her eyes. "Yes, mother."

You want to know something funny? I have heard the two of them have that exact same conversation, complete with eye-rolling, in four different languages. Anyway, I ran upstairs as well to put my own uniform on. Angie cornered me as I came out of my room. "Trevor," she hissed, "I thought you were Prime Indigo!"

"I was," I replied, "but now I'm Prime Blue."

"Oh. So is Padma really Prime Indigo?"

"Uh huh. And if you say it just a little louder, I bet Mom and Dad would be able to hear."

She grimaced. "Sorry. So why is she here?"

I gave her my most serene, most infuriating smile. "We'll talk about it after testing."

Chapter 5

In spite of my mother's worry, the five of us -- my mom and dad, Angie, Padma, and me -- were the first ones to arrive at the studio. We unlocked the place, and Angie and I began setting up the exam table, getting out the American and Korean flags, and making sure we had enough boards and bricks.

The lower-ranked belts started arriving soon after we got there, and I, as the highest-ranking belt present, gave them permission to enter and set them to work putting out the visitor chairs, vacuuming the carpet, emptying the wastebaskets, and generally straightening things up. Thus, when Grandmaster Park and Master Wilson showed up and I called everyone to attention and went to the door to greet them, the studio was as spotless as we could make it. We even had a vase of flowers from my mom sitting on the examination table.

The black belts who weren't testing gathered behind the exam table to form a ceremonial honor guard for Grandmaster Park. I'm a fourth Dan, what they call a Junior Master, so I got to sit at the table beside our two masters and help them preside over the tests. Normally, Angie would have stood at attention beside the table to actually run the tests -- calling up the candidates, relaying orders from the masters, selecting boards to be broken, things like that. Since she was testing, though, Grandmaster Park told a second Dan, a big blond kid named Derrick, to run things for him.

I don't get the chance to preside over many belt tests, so it was kind of fun to do it today. I got to ask questions of some of the younger kids who were testing. ("Do you work hard in school? Do you do your chores at home? Do you mind your mom and dad?" and the answers to all of them had better be "Yes, sir.")

One kid was testing for his first Dan, so among other things, he had to count to ten in Korean. Master Wilson's Korean isn't all that strong, so when the kid got so nervous that he started off with "first, second, third" instead of "one, two, three" and Grandmaster Park pretended he couldn't hear him (because one ought not err before the grandmaster) I had to be the one who silently mouthed the numbers to get him started properly.

Angie had already turned in her three-hundred-word essay on the life of General Choi (to be graded by Master Wilson, who in his other life was a high school English teacher), so all that remained for her was the third-Dan form, Taebaek, and three breaks. A form is a preset series of techniques \-- kicks, punches, blocks, and so on. Taebaek is probably the most beautiful form in Tae Kwon Do, and it is named after the most beautiful mountain range in Korea. Angie did it perfectly, mainly because she had been practicing it a couple of times a week for the past three years.

Her first break, three boards using an elbow strike, was nothing; she got it on the first try. The second one, breaking a brick with a knife-hand, was harder. Because she was only seventeen, Grandmaster Park had made her get permission from Mom and Dad to try it. She was determined, though, and she finally managed to break it after four tries. Grandmaster Park told her to take a rest then, and she gratefully took her place along the wall with the others who were testing, nursing her hand.

Her final break was the hardest one of all. It was a triple break; she had to jump into the air and simultaneously kick a board with each foot and punch a third. I know I had an awful lot of trouble with it on my last test, and Angie was no different. She tried it and tried it, and even though she consistently broke the boards with her fist and her right foot, the left board just would not break. After her fifth failure, Grandmaster Park called for a water break and sent me over to talk to her.

She was crying, and I couldn't blame her. Her right hand was red and swollen, and I could see blood on her knuckles where she had scraped off the skin. First of all, I checked her hand to make sure she hadn't broken any bones -- she hadn't -- and then I took her in my arms and gave her a hug.

Over her shoulder, I could see Derrick giving us a bemused look; I got the impression that he wished he were the one comforting her right now. I couldn't see anyone else, but I'd have bet a penny that at least half the guys in the studio were giving me that same look. That's just the way Angie is.

"I can't do it, Trev," she was saying, blowing her nose on the tissue I handed her. "I'm kicking it as hard as I can, and it's just not breaking."

"I'll check the board," I promised her, "but I think the problem is with your jump. You're coming up a little slow off your left foot, and that's making you kick too low. Make sure your kick hits the board dead center."

"Okay," she said, sniffling and nodding. "I'll try that."

I took that mean ol' left-foot board and broke it with a hammerfist, then selected another one from the pile. We reconvened a few minutes later, and . . . well, what can I say? I'm a genius. This time, Angie didn't drag her foot, and all three boards broke with a single loud crack! She held herself in check until Grandmaster Park dismissed her with a bow, and then she practically ran to her spot along the wall, beside which my father had thoughtfully placed a bucket of ice, a glass of water, and a couple of ibuprofen.

We walked back home after the ceremony, Angie joyously clutching her fourth-Dan certificate to her chest the whole way. She and I changed out of our uniforms, and my mom whipped up a batch of pork and rice for lunch. "Have you had much authentic Chinese cooking?" she asked Padma as we sat down to eat.

"I don't know how authentic it is," Padma replied with a smile, "but Trevor's cooking is quite good. He says he learned from you."

My mom arched her eyebrows. "Trevor has cooked for you?" She turned and murmured something to my father in Mandarin. I didn't quite catch it, but it sounded something like, "It must be love."

Padma endured my parents' subtle and not-so-subtle prying into our relationship with good humor all throughout the meal. In fact, if I didn't know better, I would say she even enjoyed pretending to be the mysterious femme fatale who had snared their son's heart. Finally, though, after I had eaten all I could hold, I decided it was time for us to stop pretending. I wiped my mouth with a napkin and pushed my chair back.

"Mom, Dad," I said, "I know you're probably curious as to why I brought Padma home to meet you guys."

"Curious? Why, no, dear!" my mother said, simultaneously giving my father a triumphant, I-told-you-something-was-up look. "Your friends are always welcome to come for a visit."

I grinned. "Thanks, Mom. I'm glad to hear you say that." I looked over at Padma; she smiled at me and nodded encouragingly. "I asked her to come along for moral support. I have something important to say that you guys need to hear." My mother's eyes were sparkling as I got to my feet. I know she was probably expecting me to get down on one knee in front of Padma and whip out an engagement ring, and I hoped she would forgive me for not doing that. Instead, I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and said, "Prime Blue, activate!"

Chapter 6

I stood completely still, letting them get the full effect of the swirling blue mist that suddenly surrounded me. Then, when the startled exclamations had died down, I deactivated my force shield.

There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Finally, my father said, "You're . . . a Prime?"

"That's right, Dad," I said. "I'm Prime Blue."

My mother turned to him and said softly in Mandarin, "What is a Prime?"

He gave Padma and me an apologetic smile and replied in English, "Do you remember last month when Angela went with her marching band to play for the Cleveland Browns game and that awful monster attacked us just before halftime?"

Mom nodded dubiously at first, but suddenly her whole face lighted up. "Oh, I see! Trevor, were you there? You were one of those young people who saved us?"

"Uh huh; that's my job these days. I was the one who ran over to help the band kids, in fact."

"Why, that's marvelous! When did you quit your Tae Kwon Do demonstration team?"

I chuckled and shook my head ruefully. "There never was a Tae Kwon Do demonstration team, Mom. I'm afraid I had to lie to you guys about that. I joined the Primes right out of high school, but I wasn't allowed to tell you about it until now."

Angie, who is never comfortable unless she is the center of attention, said, "Um, I was there too, Mom. You know, at the football game?"

"Yes, dear, I know," my mother replied in that patronizing tone of voice that mothers have. "And you were very brave to run out in your band uniform and attack those -- whatever those things were -- before your brother came over to help you. But Trevor is a Prime! From what your father is saying, I take it he was one of the ones who actually destroyed the monster."

"Yeah, I know. Like I said, I was there," she insisted. "And I helped them destroy the monster. Mom, I'm a Prime, too!" When we all turned to stare at her, she shrank back into her seat a little bit. "Well, sort of. They, um, they made me a Junior Prime."

My mother regarded her skeptically, and Angela turned to appeal to me. I waved my hand carelessly. "Sure, Angie, go ahead. I know you're dying to."

She gave me a bright smile. "Thanks, Trev!" She reached into the back pocket of her jeans, pulled out the badge Wizzit had given her, and said, "Junior Prime Pink, activate!" A second later, she was surrounded by swirling pink mist. "See?"

Dad looked slowly from me to Angie, and then his gaze settled on Padma. "I assume you're a Prime as well?"

"Of course she is," my mother said. She turned to Padma. "You're Prime Indigo, aren't you, dear?"

Startled, Padma could only nod. My father looked at my mother in astonishment, as if he half-expected her to whip out her own badge and shout, "Prime Mom, activate!"

"How did you --?" he began.

"It was something she said in an earlier conversation," she said, laying a hand on his arm. "You were in the other room. It didn't make much sense at the time, but it seems obvious now."

Did I ever say my mom was dumb? No, of course I didn't, because she's not. In fact, she and my dad are two of the sharpest people I know. Sharp, but (in my mom's case, at least) a tad single-minded. She said to Padma, "I suppose this means that you and Trevor really aren't . . .?"

Padma smiled and shook her head. "No, ma'am. As Trevor said, we are close friends, but we are not romantically involved. Each of us has . . ." Here, she gave me a sly, sidelong glance. ". . . our own fish to fry."

Padma and I spent much of the afternoon telling my parents what we could about the history of the Primes: how Wizzit approached Montana rancher Roy Windham nearly sixteen years ago with a warning about a coming alien invasion, and how the two of them recruited seven young people from all over the world (including Roy's own thirteen-year-old daughter Shelley) to become the very first team of Primes.

My dad, who keeps up on the news more than my mom does, was aware that Shelley had been arrested and asked us about her. Padma and I told him what we knew, and he agreed that the entire detainment had always sounded fishy to him, especially because even now they hadn't actually charged her with any crime.

We told them that we were visiting Shelley regularly in her supposedly secure cell, which led to a discussion of teleportation, force shields, and healing comas. I mentioned that, as Junior Prime Pink, Angie could teleport with the rest of us, but she had neither the protection of a force shield nor the safety net of a healing coma.

"Why can't you give her this force shield?" my mother wanted to know. "Especially since all the rest of you have one? Wouldn't it be better for her to have one?"

"That," I said with a smile, "is a Padma question."

Padma flashed me a gee-Trevor-thanks-a-lot look, then turned to my parents. "It is simply a matter of power and numbers. There are seven of us Primes, and each of us is assigned our own prime number. You understand what prime numbers are, do you not?"

My parents both nodded, my mom a little dubiously, and Padma continued, "My prime number is thirteen, for example, and Trevor's is eleven. Each of our force shields and weapons resonate -- I believe that is the correct word -- they resonate to the vibrations identified with our own individual numbers. Using prime numbers makes our weapons and force shields strong; a shield resonating with the number eleven, for example, could be attacked only by another eleven, whereas a shield resonating with the number twelve could be easily destroyed by a two, a three, a four, or a six -- any of the numbers which divide it. It would be much more vulnerable to attack. Do you see?"

My mom shook her head. My dad frowned and said, "I . . . think so . . ."

Padma gave them one of her thousand-watt smiles. "I'm sorry," she said. "It is difficult to explain. It took me a few weeks to understand it all. The point is that, just as there are an infinite number of prime numbers, there could be an infinite number of us Primes. When you get beyond seven Primes, though, the power requirements rise very fast. We simply are unable to add another Prime to our power grid.

"Angela's badge, therefore, works off of its own power supply, which recharges itself by exposure to light or motion. Assigning a prime number to her badge would drain the power supply too fast and might burn out the unit, so we have given her a slightly weaker number -- three hundred sixty-one, or nineteen times nineteen. A prime number times itself is still pretty strong, but her badge is not strong enough to provide a force shield."

My father shook his head when she finished speaking. "I don't know, Trevor. This sounds like dangerous work."

"It can be," I agreed, "and I want you guys to know that we take very good care of Angie whenever she's out with us. We keep her out of harm's way as much as we possibly can."

"One of our Primes, Prime Orange, has agreed to be her minder when she is with us," Padma added. "Orange does a lot of shooting and not so much . . ." Here, she pantomimed punching someone. "We give Angie a blaster and weapons she can use to defend herself -- her badge is powerful enough for that -- and of course if she has trouble, Wizzit can immediately teleport her out of danger."

Dad nodded. "All right. It sounds like you have covered all the bases," he said. "I have just one further question: Why are you telling us this now, if you couldn't before?"

"A couple of reasons, Dad," I said. "The first one involves Angie. See, up to now, I've been the only Prime she knows by sight. Well, and now Padma too, I guess, but none of the others. But she's been a Junior Prime for a while now, and I guess Wizzit has decided that she's not going to go blabbing our secrets to everybody she knows, and so --"

"Hey, I wouldn't do that!" Angie interjected.

"Yeah, little sis, I know," I said, chuckling. "That's kind of what I just said."

"Oh. Right. Never mind."

"Anyway, Wizzit asked me to invite Angie to dinner at our headquarters for a meet-and-greet, but . . ."

"But we, being good parents, wanted to know what kind of people our wayward son was introducing our daughter to," my mother finished for me.

"Yeah." I grinned. "So now you're all invited to HQ to meet us."

My mother's eyes widened. "When?"

"Whenever you'd like to come over. Now, Wizzit keeps us on Greenwich Mean Time, and lights-out is from eleven at night to seven in the morning, but outside of that . . ."

"You're five hours ahead of us," my dad said, obviously doing some quick mental arithmetic. "It would be the middle of the evening there." He looked at my mother. "Could we go right now?" She nodded eagerly.

I said, "I guess so. Let me check. Wizzit?"

"Now would not be a particularly good time," came Wizzit's voice from my belt. My parents gasped in surprise. Wizzit said, "Good afternoon, Mr. Doctor Chiao and Mrs. Doctor Chiao. My name is Wizzit; I believe Trevor has told you something about me."

I suppressed a grin. I had mentioned to Wizzit once that each of my parents holds a doctoral degree. Dad is a PhD in Chinese Lit and Mom is a Doctor of Musical Arts, or DMA, in piano. My dad gets called Doctor Chiao all the time at the college where he lectures, but my mom's piano students almost never call her that. I have discovered that referring to them each as Doctor Chiao is a quick, easy way for relative strangers to butter her up.

"Hi, Wizzit," Angela said.

"Hello, Angie," he said warmly. "I heard you passed your belt test. Congratulations. How is your hand?"

"Better, thanks," she said. "The swelling has gone down and it doesn't hurt so much any more."

"That's good to hear." That's our Wizzit. He can be polite and charming when he wants to be. He can also be pretty darn annoying when he wants to be, too. "Trevor," he said, "at present Bill is visiting Shelley, Mike is at the Windhams' ranch, Nicolai and Toby are training in the gym and are too hot and sweaty for polite company, and Trina is in her room touching up a few sketches. She is perhaps interruptible, but none of the others is, I would say. Might I suggest lunch tomorrow? That would correspond to dinnertime here at HQ, and we could meet at either location, or possibly both."

My parents looked at each other. "That sounds fine, er, Wizzit," my father said.

"Very good. I am looking forward to having my team meet you."

There was a moment of silence, and then my mother asked softly, "Is he gone?"

"No," I said with a smile. "He's never really gone, but I think he's done talking for now."

They digested that for a moment, and then my father said, "You told us there were a couple of reasons you were letting us know you are a Prime, Trevor. So far, you've given us only one."

I nodded. "Right. The other reason has to do with you guys." I glanced at Padma, and she reached over and squeezed my hand encouragingly. I smiled at her, then turned back to my parents. "Prime HQ is where I live these days. It's where all of us Primes live. We train there, we do our planning there, we build our weapons there, and it's where we go back to heal up after our battles. It's home. Wizzit keeps its location a secret, though. I don't even know where it is. Do you, Padma?" She shook her head.

"If HQ were ever destroyed," I went on, "or even if its location were discovered, obviously that would be a serious setback for us. Wizzit wants to have . . . well, I guess you'd call it a safe house for the Primes. It would be somewhere we could go if something bad ever happens to HQ. Or if one of us is stuck outside and can't teleport back to HQ for some reason, Wizzit wants a safe place that they could run to. Up to now, we had been using Commander Windham's ranch as that place, but since Shelley was arrested, it's not so safe any more. It's too well known, both to the public and to the authorities."

"And Wizzit wants to use our home as this safe house?" my mother asked.

"That's right, if you agree," I said. "And it wouldn't necessarily be just for emergencies. The Windhams invited us out to their place for cookouts and parties a couple of times a year, and we, in return, took good care of them; we still watch out for Shelley's mom and sister, in fact. That's where Mike is right now." I shrugged. "You could be as involved with us as you wanted to be; it would be completely up to you."

They looked at each other. "I think this is something we will have to discuss privately," my father said gravely.

I tried not to let my disappointment show on my face. "I understand," I said. I got to my feet. "One thing we don't have at HQ is the ability to go outside. I feel like going on a walk. Padma, would you like to get some fresh air?"

"I would love to," she said.

The two of us looked at Angie, who nodded and said, "I'll get my coat."

It was one of those sunny November days you sometimes get in Ohio that starts off chilly, but quickly warms up to tolerable levels. Well, tolerable for someone like me who grew up there, anyway. It was probably a bit too cool for Padma, who was used to the heat of India. At least, she seemed grateful when I removed my jacket and slipped it around her shoulders. The three of us walked down to the park. No one else was around, so we sat down on the benches in the gazebo there.

"So, Angie," I said, "what do you want to know about the Primes?"

She seemed surprised by my question. "You mean, I can ask you about anything? And you'll answer?"

"Yup. Before I came, Wizzit said not to hold anything back, so ask away."

We talked for over an hour. Angela asked me a lot of questions, such as what a healing coma felt like, how strong we were when we were powered up, how we built our weapons -- pretty much anything that came into her head -- and I answered nearly every one of them.

I say "nearly" because I declined to answer one of her questions ("Who is your 'other fish to fry', Trevor?"), I deferred a second one to Padma ("Who is Padma's 'other fish to fry'?"), and I deferred to Wizzit on a third ("Are you guys looking for a new Prime Violet?"). Padma was coy about whom she was interested in, saying only that Angie would meet him tomorrow. Wizzit flat-out refused to give her an answer about Prime Violet.

My mom was fixing dinner when we got back, and Grandmaster Park was in the living room talking with my dad. It had slipped my mind earlier, but over the years my parents had made a practice of inviting him over for dinner after every belt test for me and my brothers and sisters. With Angela finally attaining the rank of Junior Master, this might well be the last Chiao test he would preside over.

He hadn't said much to me earlier at the studio, and he didn't say much to me now. The last time we had spoken, weeks ago, he had told me he would never promote me to fifth Dan, the master rank, until I quit my "Tae Kwon Do demonstration team" and went to college somewhere. Now I think he figured I was too resentful to want to have anything to do with him. I wasn't. I mean, it was really disappointing when he said that, but I could certainly understand his motivation. As far as he knew, he was doing the right thing.

He did seem quite taken with Padma, though. I think it was partly because she listened raptly to his well-worn stories of learning Tae Kwon Do back in Korea just after the war and how he started his studio years ago in Ohio. They were interesting stories, but Angie and I had heard them too many times over the years to be very attentive.

When he discovered Padma was a second Dan, he even invited her to come to practice at the studio any time she wanted, free of charge. And then he asked my mom whether the two of us had set a wedding date yet. Seriously, what is it with parents and old family friends? I bring home a pretty young lady to meet everybody, we hold hands a little bit, and they all immediately assume we're getting married. Sheesh!

The next morning, Mom evidently decided she was going to go all-out to make dinner for my friends; she pulled Angie into the kitchen early on to help her whip up a big batch of fried rice, along with some sesame this and some ginger that and some stir-fried something else. Angela had discovered that she could talk with Wizzit through her Junior Prime Pink badge; she had set it out on the kitchen counter, and she and my mom were carrying on a running conversation in Mandarin with him the entire time they were cooking.

By the time noon came, I was practically starving. I hadn't been able to snag much more than tea and toast for breakfast in between my mom's and Angie's bustling about, and the house had been full of these wonderful smells all morning long. I helped them carry everything to the dining-room table, wondering how we were going to get it all out to HQ.

I stopped wondering when, with five simultaneous flashes of light, the other Primes showed up. "Hi, guys," I said, "I, uh, thought we were going to HQ to eat."

Mike shrugged. "Wizzit said your mom invited us here. He also said to dress up nice to impress your folks." He looked me up and down, taking in my jeans and old sweatshirt, and he grinned. "I think we'll look pretty good by comparison."

I could tell my teammates were making an effort to be on their best behavior. Even Toby, who could be awfully sour at times, was smiling and cheerful, and Mike was at his glib, charming best. He had my Mom practically eating out of his hand. Bill, the elder statesman of our group at thirty-two, pulled my dad into a conversation about college politics -- Bill lectures occasionally at Cambridge -- and Trina, Junior Prime Pink's designated minder, made a point of introducing herself to Angie, probably so that my sister could put a face to the Prime who was giving her orders when she was out with us.

There wasn't enough room at the table for everyone to sit, so we ate buffet style, with people standing around holding plates and chatting. We had been doing that for about fifteen minutes when my mother took my arm and pulled me into the kitchen.

"Son, is something wrong with the food?" she asked me anxiously in Mandarin.

I shook my head. "No, everything is fine. Why?"

"Because no one is eating. Your friends have hardly touched anything."

I looked around. Padma was avoiding the beef, but that was nothing unusual; everything else seemed normal. "We are in constant training, Mother," I explained with a shrug. "We could get called out to fight a monster at any time, and most of us have learned the hard way that it is no fun to do that if you've just eaten huge quantities of great home-cooked food."

My mom nodded, but I don't think she was convinced. I saw her go over and whisper something to my dad. About half an hour later, Bill suggested that we take my parents and Angie on a tour of HQ. I took hold of my mom and dad's hands, and Wizzit teleported us all away.

Until then, I don't think my parents really believed that I was a Prime. Sure, they had seen me activate my force shield, and my friends had teleported in right in front of them, but I don't think the reality of it sank in until they teleported to HQ. My mom's eyes grew wide, and my dad murmured, "Oh my!"

I gave them the grand tour, consisting of my room, the gym, the lounge, the common room, the office, and the kitchen. Angie disappeared somewhere with Trina; I assume it was to show her the girl's wing and the weapons room. My mom was just peering into the refrigerator and examining a jar of Mike's Marmite when the monster alarm began to sound.

I probably don't always appreciate what an electric effect the monster alarm has on us here at HQ. It instantly commands everyone's immediate attention, no matter what else is going on. I must have been halfway to my room to get my battle vest before I realized that my parents probably had no idea what was happening. I slipped out of my clothes and into shorts and a tee-shirt, snagged my battle vest, and ran back to the kitchen.

"What is it, Trevor? What's going on?" my father asked.

"That's our monster alarm," I explained, shrugging into my vest. "Wizzit has spotted an Enclave monster somewhere -- I don't know just where yet -- and we've got to go out to fight it."

"What, right now?" my mother said, incredulous.

"Yup, right now. This is what I do. Um, Wizzit, Angie can help you teleport them home, can't she?"

"Ordinarily, yes," came Wizzit's voice from the overhead speakers, "but I believe she would be helpful on today's mission."

I cast a worried glance at my parents. "What do you mean? How would she be helpful?"

"The monster is located in China, in the city of Guangzhou. The residents there speak Cantonese and Mandarin, and your sister speaks both languages fluently. She would be of great help as a translator and spokesman."

"Wizzit, I speak Cantonese and Mandarin fluently!"

"Yes, but you might quickly find yourself preoccupied by your 'other fish'."

My 'other fish'? He must be referring to Lily. "She's there?"

"Affirmative."

I started to say a bad word, but I remembered that my folks were listening. Instead, I said mildly, "I see. Thanks for letting me know."

I turned to my parents. "You heard Wizzit. He wants Angie to come out with us. I'm really sorry about this. I'm afraid you guys will be stuck here until one of us gets back."

"She'll be all right out there, won't she?" my mother asked worriedly.

Trina stepped forward. "Mr. Doctor Chiao and Mrs. Doctor Chiao, I am Prime Orange," she said. "I will make it my personal responsibility to see that no harm comes to your daughter."

My parents looked at each other. "I guess we can't say no," my dad said. "Where can we wait for you?"

"The lounge is the most comfortable room," Wizzit said. "And if you like, I can even show you the fight as it progresses."

Everyone else had gathered in the common room. Angie handed me my sais; I saw that she was already holding her blaster and the Escrima stick that was her assigned weapon. Mike looked us over and nodded.

"Angie," he said, "we typically activate in sequence from Red down to, er, Bill over there. I think we'll have you activate last of all, and then Wizzit will send us out. Understood?" Angie nodded, practically bouncing up and down in excitement. Mike said, "Very good, then. Prime Red, activate!"

"Prime Orange, activate!"

"Prime Yellow, activate!"

"Prime Green, activate!"

"Prime Blue, activate!"

"Prime Indigo, activate!"

"Prime Black, activate!"

"Um, Junior Prime Pink, activate!"

Eight flashes of light later, we were on our way.

Chapter 7

As usual, Wizzit teleported us to a deserted location near where the Enclave monster was. In this case, we materialized beside a broad river lined with trees.

"Where's the monster, Wizzit?" Mike asked.

"Behind you. It is currently attacking the Guangzhou Opera House. Look for a large glass-and-steel structure surrounded by granite walkways and hundreds of screaming people."

"Is he always like that?" I heard Angie ask Trina as we began jogging through the trees.

"Is who always like what?"

"Wizzit. Is he always . . . weird?"

"I don't know how weird he is," Trina said with a shrug, "but he is always Wizzit. Do you know what you are supposed to do?"

"Uh huh. I am supposed to keep damn, pesky Zoinks away from you while you shoot monster."

I let out a chuckle at Angie's imitation of Trina's Russian accent, and I think everyone else did as well. "I like you, Pink," Trina said, laughing herself. "You learn fast. You are also supposed to warn the local citizens to stay away from us while we are working. I will tell you what to say, and you will translate into . . . which languages again?"

"Mandarin and Cantonese is what Wizzit said."

"Good girl. Now, here is what you say . . ."

With my sister safely under Trina's watchful eye, I signaled Toby, and the two of us sprinted forward together. "How many Zoinks are there, Wizzit?" he asked.

"A couple of dozen," Wizzit replied. "Angle a little more off to your right and you should see them."

"And where's Lily?" I asked.

"Same place, although . . . hmm . . . she doesn't seem to be directing them very much."

"What's she doing?"

"Not a whole lot . . ."

Toby and I looked at each other and shrugged. We were coming in sight now of the opera house, and I have to say, it was an outlandish-looking structure. All glass and steel and granite, as Wizzit said, and the walls were tilted at wild, strange angles. I liked it. I knew my parents were planning a trip back home to China sometime in the next year or two, and I decided then and there that I wanted to go with them and actually see an opera in this place. Or maybe I could arrange to meet them here . . .

"Hey, listen, Blue," Toby said Prime-to-Prime, breaking into my thoughts, "er, about that crack I made the other day. You know, about Robin? Look, I was out of line. I'm sorry; I shouldn't have said anything."

I glanced over at him. He sounded completely sincere. One of Shelley's rules is that, when you're wrong, you admit it and everyone moves on. And you know, it really does work well. "It's all right, Green. We all say things we regret."

"Good. I know Robin's death hit you pretty hard, and . . ."

"It's okay. We're cool."

"Good."

The monster was easy enough to spot. He was about ten feet tall, about average height for something from Enclave. He had the face and neck of a bull, and the low, curving, widely-spaced horns of a water buffalo. Right now, the only thing standing between him and a bunch of soon-to-be-smashed glass was a line of men in police uniforms, all aiming handguns right at him. In other words, nothing that would slow him down, much less stop him.

"I reckon we had better take care of business here first," Toby said. "After Red and the others arrive, we can go Zoink-shopping."

"Sounds good to me, Green."

About half the handguns swiveled towards us as we skidded to a stop between the monster and the line of police officers. One of the men, wearing a little more braid than the others, stepped forward. "Are you . . . the Primes?" he asked in halting English.

"We are," I replied in Mandarin. "We are here to fight this monster and to help you preserve your cultural treasure." I nodded toward the building behind us. "We would like it very much if you would stop pointing your guns at us." He hesitated, and I went on, "If you try to shoot us or arrest us, my friends and I will leave and will not come back to China. You would be left to deal with this monster on your own. All we ask is that you let us help you unhindered." The police officer thought it over for a moment, then turned and ordered his men to fall back.

As I breathed a sigh of relief, Toby said, "Watch it, Blue. He's charging."

The monster had lowered his head and was thundering towards us. Toby stepped forward and to the side; he hefted his huge hammer and swung it in a forward arc with all his strength, smashing the monster right between the eyes.

Now, if Toby had hit you with his hammer that same way (you being a non-Enclave-altered human, I assume) then it wouldn't have hurt you a bit. Well, okay, it might have stung a little, as if he had hit you with a whiffle bat, but nothing more than that.

The effect it had on Buffy the Water Buffalo, though, was much more dramatic. It stopped him as if . . . well, as if he had just been whalloped between the eyes with a hammer. It didn't knock him out -- that would be too much to hope for -- but it did stop his charge cold. He shook his head and looked around in confusion, which gave me enough time to dash forward and stab him with my sais in a very delicate place. (I'm referring to his nostrils, of course. What did you think I meant?)

The monster bellowed with pain and rage, but he backed away. That was all to the good, as far as I was concerned; I didn't want him anywhere near that opera house, especially after what I had said to the police captain. Toby stepped up and delivered another hammer blow, and I was about to dash forward for another nostril-strike when I heard Trina's voice call out, "Stay back, Blue!"

I knew better than to ignore a shout like that from Trina. I stayed where I was, and sure enough, I heard the sizzle of Trina's triple-blaster and saw not one, but two beams of energy strike the monster. I guessed that Trina and Angie had shot him at the same time. Mike ran up to us not two seconds later. "Everything all right so far?" he asked. "I saw you talking to those policemen, Blue. What's the story with them?"

"I told them we were the Primes and were here to help. They backed off to give us some room to work after I said we would try to protect their opera house over there."

Mike glanced over at the glass-and-granite-and-steel building I indicated. "Right. Good on you. And Green? I liked the way you stopped him." He paused to draw his blaster and take a shot at Buffy, who was eying the opera house again. "I want you and that hammer here with us. Blue, take Zoink duty. Can you handle them on your own or d'you need help?"

I looked over at the Zoinks, who were milling uncertainly towards us. Zoinks don't do well without someone driving them, and it looked like Lily had both hands off the wheel. "Let me go to work on them by myself. I'll call for help if I need it. I assume that Pink will take care of any that get too near Orange?"

"That's the plan. Off you go, then!"

"Right."

I ran over to take the battle to the Zoinks. I had three primary objectives in mind: first, to keep any bystanders from being hurt; second, to keep the Zoinks away from my teammates; and third, to find out what the heck was going on with Lily. My sister had been yelling out our standard everybody-please-move-away message for a couple of minutes, alternating between Mandarin and Cantonese, and I was pleased to see that people were taking the warnings to heart. Not that they needed any encouragement to flee the scene, but when you're running away, it's always nice to know that that's the right thing to do.

I started pounding on the Zoinks, trying to herd them together. There's an art to managing a crowd of Zoinks, one that I have been gradually getting better at over the past few years. If there's a small group, I'll just jump into the middle of them and start whaling away. With a largish group like this one, though, I tend to run around the periphery like a sheepdog, nipping at their heels in order to keep them bunched up. Couldn't do it without the force shield, of course; I'd be sucking wind after the first five minutes or so.

They were a bit unruly and hard to keep together; it would have been a lot easier if there had been two of us. Still, I managed to get them moving (slowly) along toward the river, where there were fewer people.

"How's it going, Blue?" I heard Mike ask.

"Just peachy, Red. The crowds have mostly dispersed, which simplifies matters," I replied. I spotted a Zoink that was trying to separate from the others and sped over to slash at it with my sais. "Going to try to pin them against the river. Has anyone seen Lily? I haven't spotted her yet."

"Not a sign of her. Are you sure she's not with your Zoinks?"

"I'm not sure of anything at this point. I'll keep you appraised."

"Good enough. I think we'll try to herd Willy Water Buffalo here over to the river as well. He's not very smart; I think I can get him to chase me. Wizzit says we should be ready to dispose of him in five or ten minutes if we can use all eight of us to attack him."

Hmph. I preferred "Buffy the Water Buffalo", but Mike was team lead, and I suppose that gave him the right to create whatever nicknames he wanted for the monsters we fought. "I'll be around," I said. "Let me know when you're ready."

With my unruly Zoink sent sprawling back amidst his fellows, I took a step back to survey my handiwork. Hmm. A couple of them were starting to scatter over at that end of the group, and a few more at the other end. Time to get busy. I raced over to the larger of the two groups and began pounding the rebel Zoinks back into line.

As I fought, I heard the sound of voices behind me, two men conversing loudly in Cantonese. One of them said, "That Prime, he isn't so tough! I bet you could take him."

"Probably," the other replied confidently. "And look, he doesn't even know kung fu. He's doing that Korean crap with all the spinny kicks. What a load of garbage. Hey you! Your technique stinks!"

I suppose someone with a more competitive streak, like Padma, would have been upset hearing all this. Personally, I thought it was pretty funny, especially since they obviously didn't think I could understand them. And hey, I'm always willing to let somebody else put their money where their mouth is.

I finished off my current Zoink with one of the flashier "spinny" kicks in my repertoire, a jumping-spinning roundhouse. As it sank to the ground, I turned to look at my new-found friends. They were young guys, probably in their mid-twenties, and appeared to be in good fighting shape. "Greetings, honored sirs," I said with a bow. They jumped to their feet, startled that I was speaking their language back to them and probably afraid I was offended and wanted to fight. "I have heard your declarations of your skill," I said, "and I hope you would be willing to assist me."

"Wh-what do you want?" one of them asked.

I pointed to the far end of the crowd of Zoinks. "I have to take care of some of the drones over there," I said. "Would you be so kind as to watch the ones here to make certain they do not escape? I will be gone for only a minute or two."

They looked at each other and grinned. "Sure, we'd be happy to help!"

"That's great," I said. "If any of them give you any trouble, just use your kung fu and beat them up."

I ran off to deal with the mischief-makers. Something must have been in the air, because they gave me a lot more trouble than I expected. I was gone for probably five minutes; when I returned, my new friends were in the middle of a full-scale Zoink battle. A well-trained human ought to be more than a match for a single Zoink, but these two were being attacked by three apiece. I have to say, they were handling themselves pretty well, but they also looked pretty relieved when I waded in to help. It was tough going -- something had riled up these Zoinks but good -- but the three of us finally managed to beat them back.

"Thanks!" one of them said. "I thought we were in real trouble there for a minute."

"Nonsense!" I cried. "You were doing very well; your kung fu is quite good. But why did they suddenly start attacking you?"

"I don't know," the other one said. "We saw a beautiful girl standing among them, and we asked her to come out so we could protect her, but she yelled something in English and covered her ears with her hands, and then she started sending those things to attack us."

"A girl? A Chinese girl?" It sounded as though they had found Lily.

"Yes. She spoke English, but she looked Chinese and was very pretty." He grinned and made an hourglass movement with his hands.

"Quickly, where is she now?"

One of them pointed. "Over there. But watch out; she's tricky!"

I bowed. "Thank you, my friends. You have done me a great favor; I have been looking all over for that girl."

The two of them began jogging away, laughing and punching each other's shoulders. I shook my head and grinned. No doubt they would soon be telling all their friends how they had heroically rescued a hapless Prime from the clutches of the evil Zoinks, and maybe even getting free beers from the story. I wished them all the luck in the world with that.

I turned and began scanning the crowd of Zoinks for Lily. It was difficult, because she is only a little over five feet tall and therefore shorter that your average Zoink. I eventually spotted her mane of black hair, though, in almost the exact center of the sea of bodies. Whatever funk she had been in, she seemed to have snapped out of it; she was ordering her Zoinks forward with all her accustomed energy.

I zipped around to intercept the crowd, and almost right away I could tell the difference between this group and the mass of undirected Zoinks I had been fighting earlier. Much harder to control now, and if it continued, I was going to have to call for some backup. I hated to do that. I had been listening to Mike and the others trying to keep Buffy the Water Buffalo away from the opera house, and it sounded like they were having more trouble than he had anticipated.

I bashed a Zoink four or five times with my sais to take the fight out of it, then picked it up and began using it as a bludgeon to force my way through the crowd of Zoinks. If I could get to Lily, I reasoned, then I could eliminate the problem at the source and this gaggle of Zoinks would go back to being passive and easily controllable.

Lily is kind of a scaredy-cat, I have discovered. In her commander mode, she's awfully good at harassing us Primes (and any bystanders) with her Zoinks, but she is easily frightened, especially when confronted with a physical threat. Kind of the opposite of the way she is in attacker mode as Crazy Kung Fu Zombie Chick, in fact. So I naturally expected her to start cringing as soon as I approached her. Not exactly what you would want a pretty girl to do when she sees you, I'll admit. Still, I didn't expect quite the reaction I got.

I threw away my Zoink when I reached the little clearing that Lily had set up around herself. As soon as she caught sight of me, her tan face grew pale and her eyes went wide.

"Please, no more!" she cried out in an anguished tone before I had a chance to do or say anything to her. She slowly sank to her knees, her hands clasped before her as if she were begging me to help her. "Everyone has been shouting the magic words at me, and I can't think straight. Please, don't say any more magic words!"

I stopped short as the penny dropped. Before we arrived, Lily had been sending out Zoinks to attack anyone in the area. People had run away yelling and screaming, and I would have bet a whole nickel that a lot of that screaming had been in Cantonese. If my saying a few words to her in that language had caused her mental turmoil in Florida, I couldn't imagine what it was like here, being surrounded by dozens of people all screaming "Gau mehng a!" at her. She probably thought she was in a nightmare.

I took hold of Lily's joined hands and gently pulled her to her feet. She looked up at me, trembling, and I could see that her eyes were bright with unshed tears. Traces of old tears showed on her cheeks. "Call off your drones, Lily," I told her quietly. "Tell them to simply stand by without attacking anyone. If you do that, then I will take you far away from here, to a place where no one speaks the magic language."

For a moment, I thought she was going to do it. Then she shook her head and pulled her hands away from me. "No. I have to help Uncle Oswald. They'll . . . they'll kill him if I don't." She raised her voice. "Drones, move forward!"

I caught her shoulder and turned her back to face me. "Who's going to kill him?" I demanded.

She shied away from me, suddenly panic-stricken. Then, when she saw that I wasn't about to punch her, she said, "The . . . the people he works for. They're very angry with him because his monsters always get destroyed, and if I don't help him win the battle here, then --"

"Hey there, friend Prime!" came a loud voice from behind me. "Remember us? We thought we would come back to see whether you needed any more help."

I whirled about to see my two Cantonese-speaking kung fu friends grinning at me across a crowd of Zoinks. Their expressions quickly changed to alarm, however, as Lily screamed, clapped her hands over her ears, and ordered her Zoinks to attack them. I let go of her shoulder and dove into the pile of Zoinks that separated them from me.

I didn't pay any attention to Lily for the next several minutes. There were Zoinks -- active, driven Zoinks -- on my left, right, front, and back, and I have to admit that I kind of lost track of time. Prime objective now was to keep the Zoinks from hurting my new-found friends, and I concentrated on that. Anything else was secondary, including keeping an eye on my favorite lady minder. The next I saw of her was when one of the kung fu guys said, "H-hey, lady, get away from me!"

I looked up from bashing a Zoink's face into the ground to see one of the guys rapidly backing away from Lily. Only it wasn't really Lily any more; her face had lost all its expression, which told me that her body was currently being inhabited by Crazy Kung Fu Zombie Chick.

I quickly looked around, trying in vain to spot JB Swift. See, Lily never turns into CKFZC spontaneously; JB Swift must have used his remote control on her. That's a little box he carries, sort of like a TV remote, that sends infrared signals to Lily's earrings and controls her behavior.

Now, it's one thing to invite a couple of my new buds out to play patty-cake with some Zoinks; tangling with CKFZC is quite another. "Get out of here!" I shouted at them. "She's very dangerous when she is like this!" At my words, CKFZC's head snapped around to look at me; she immediately turned away from the guy she was currently attacking and launched herself at me, fingers outstretched like claws.

I took a step back and quickly found myself wrapped up by Zoink arms, suddenly unable to move. I managed to get a knee raised, which struck Lily's shoulder and blunted her attack a bit. She staggered back, recovered her balance, and aimed a roundhouse kick straight to my temple.

I saw the kick coming, and although the Zoinks gripping my arms prevented me from blocking it, I did manage to twist my head so as to take the brunt of the blow on my forehead, the hardest part of the skull. My force shield shielded me from most of it. With an ordinary, untrained human, I would have hardly felt a thing. Let me tell you, though, those roundhouse kicks of Lily's are something else. This one came close to knocking me silly.

"Hey you! Leave our friend alone!"

"Yeah, what did he do to you?"

Lily's head jerked around at the sound of my new friends' voices. She immediately left off her attack of me and started back toward them. I shook the stars from my vision and set to work freeing myself from the Zoinks. "Come over here!" I shouted at CKFZC in Cantonese when I had gotten one arm free. "I'm the one you want to fight!"

Lily spun about, did that "look right, look left, look up" thing she does to orient herself, and leaped at me, feet outstretched in a jumping sidekick. I twisted my body, sending the Zoink still holding my left arm directly into her path.

My two companions seemed to realize what was up with CKFZC, although I doubt they realized that it wasn't so much what they said; it was the language they said it in. They separated and began taking turns calling her to them. As soon as she came close to one, the other would start taunting her and she would immediately turn and start approaching him. They played this little game with her while I pounded any Zoinks I could reach into submission.

When I finally had a spare moment, I ran over to check on how they were doing. Something was definitely wrong with Lily. Their taunts were alternating more quickly now, first one and then the other. Lily's head moved jerkily back and forth from one to the other as they called to her, but otherwise she appeared frozen in a stiff, awkward parody of a fighting stance. I had never seen CKFZC look confused before, and it didn't look comfortable for her.

Then they started both yelling at her at the same time, telling her to come after them. Lily's head swiveled so that she was staring directly at me, probably because I was more-or-less between her two tormentors. I could practically see the smoke pouring out of her ears as her brain shut down. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she fell to the ground in a dead faint.

I quickly ran over to her and gathered her up in my arms. "Hey, is she all right?" one of my new friends asked. Great, I thought, now he was worried about her.

I looked down at her. A faint froth of spittle was on her lips, but she didn't appear to be convulsing or anything. "I hope so," I replied.

In my arms, Lily stirred feebly and murmured something that was almost too soft to hear. It sounded like she said, "Help me, friend Prime Indigo."

"I am trying, pretty one," I said softly. I had been Prime Indigo when I first met Li Lin-fa; that was the only name she knew me by. Prime-to-Prime, I said, "Wizzit, I've got Lily. Let's take her away from here."

"Roger-dodger, Blue." I felt the familiar tingling at the base of my skull that told me that I was about to be teleported. When the haze cleared from my vision, I was standing in a snow-covered valley; steep hills rose above me on all sides. There was no sign of human habitation anywhere. "Where are we?" I asked, even though I had a pretty good idea.

"Iceland, in the caldera of the Katla volcano," Wizzit replied. "This is the same spot where you saw JB Swift last time. Since you have promised not to kill her and we have nowhere safe to keep her, I presume you will teleport back to Guangzhou and tell him where he can pick her up?"

I thought for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah. I can't think of anything else to do with her." I laid Lily gently down on the snow, then stepped back. "Okay, send me back."

I reappeared in the same spot I had been; my two companions stared at me. "How did you do that?" one of the asked.

I grinned, although they couldn't see it beneath the swirling mist of my force shield. "Hi-tech."

"Blue, if you're quite ready to join us," I heard Mike say Prime-to-Prime, "Wizzit says we're getting close."

"On my way, Red," I replied the same way. To my companions, I said, "The show is about to get interesting. You two had better watch from a safe distance." I shook both their hands, and the pair of them began jogging away. I ran an eye over the Zoinks. With Lily gone and no obvious targets to attack, they seemed directionless once again. Satisfied, I started trotting back toward my teammates.

There was a sound like a rushing wind, and something suddenly blasted my left knee. I yelled with pain, and as I tumbled to the ground, I caught a glimpse of something red as it flashed by.

"Blue! What's going on?" Mike demanded.

"Not sure," I gasped. I reached down to grab my knee; it felt like an elephant had kicked it. "I think JB Swift is attacking me."

"Damn! Just what we needed."

"I think I can get him away from here if I can talk to him for a minute."

Trina said, "I see him." I heard the sizzle of her triple-blaster. "Damn, I can't hit him. He's moving too fast."

Yeah, that was JB Swift's main weapon \-- speed. He was only about a foot or two tall, but he could run the forty-yard dash in probably less than a second. Put an iron pipe in his hands, and he could pound your knees into pulp before you had time to say "Ouch!" Which was what he appeared to be trying to do to me.

I felt the rush of wind again, and I brought up my left arm to try to protect myself. Bad move. Given the momentum he had built up, JB Swift's blow would probably have torn my arm completely off had I not been protected by my force shield. As it was, I "merely" felt the bone shatter as he hit it.

"Damn it, Oswald!" I shouted when the pain let me speak again. "What do you want from me!"

Another rush of wind, and this time his pipe bounced off my skull. If I thought Lily's kick had hurt, this was ten times worse. I might have even blacked out for a few seconds, because when I could see straight again, he was standing in front of me, hefting his pipe as if he were ready for another go-round.

"What did you do to her?" he demanded savagely. "Where did you take her?"

I looked behind him. Trina and my sister were running towards me, but they wouldn't get here in time to stop him if he decided to attack; the rest of the team were still preoccupied with Buffy. "I didn't do anything to her!" I retorted, and pain made my voice as savage as his. "You were an idiot to bring her here! Don't you know better than to take her someplace where they speak Cantonese? She's probably in the middle of a nervous breakdown about now!"

The puzzled look on his face told me that he honestly didn't understand what I was talking about. I made a disgusted sound. "It looks like I know your precious attack doll better than you do!" I snarled. "She's waiting for you in the caldera of the Katla volcano, the same place you picked her up from before." Then I added, "You're welcome!" He stared at me for a moment more, then vanished at super-speed.

"Blue, are you all right?" Trina asked anxiously and she and Angie ran up to me.

"No," I said sulkily. I was mad at myself. Knowing how protective JB Swift was of Lily, I should have expected an attack. "I think my arm's broken, I've probably got a cracked skull, and I don't think my knee will support me. But let's try it. Here, help me up."

"No, lie still," Trina ordered me. "Wizzit, send him back to HQ to heal up."

"Any time you're ready, Blue," Mike said impatiently. "Orange and Pink, we could really use your help about now as well."

"Blue is badly hurt," Trina responded. "I am sending him back to HQ."

"We're having a hard time keeping Willy from smashing the big pile of glass over here," Mike said. "Wizzit, how long would it take to destroy him with only seven of us."

"Estimate another ten minutes. With eight weapons, you could do it right now."

I don't pretend to know just what it is Wizzit does with our weapons to destroy Enclave monsters. Nicolai does, I'm sure, and Padma has at least an inkling. All I know is that he performs some sort of complex calculations as we attack the monster, and that he tunes various frequencies of our weapons in response to those calculations. When the calculations are right, we get a final strike and the monster goes bye-bye.

Or maybe it's our force shields that he tunes, since we occasionally swap weapons and that doesn't seem to interfere with anything. But the more Primes we have, the easier his calculations become and the faster we can destroy the monster. Right now, I was the difference between an immediate final strike and one sometime in the next ten minutes.

I started struggling to my feet. "Help me up, Pink," I said. Angie reached down and took hold of my arm. I hissed with pain. "Not that one! That's the bad arm."

"S-sorry, big-- I mean, Blue!"

"It's okay. Just . . . use the other one, please!" Courtesy, everywhere and always, even if it is your sister and she just drove a thousand white-hot daggers into your poor, broken arm.

"Blue, no!" Trina insisted. "You can barely stand up. You have to go back for healing coma. That's an order!"

"Sorry, I'm going to countermand that, Orange," Mike said. "We need to take care of Willy here soonest. If Blue feels he can continue, then we need him."

Trina made a disgusted sound. "Fine," she said. "Pink, follow me!" With that, she scooped me up in her arms and began running toward the monster.

Now, I'm not exactly a heavyweight. After all, I have to keep myself in fighting trim at all times. Still, I seriously doubt that under normal circumstances Trina could have sprinted with me the hundred yards or so that separated us from Buffy the Water Buffalo. Chalk it up to adrenaline, I guess, and the enhanced strength and endurance that comes from a force shield.

She set me down with surprising gentleness about ten yards from the monster. Holding out her blaster, she said, "Give me those daggers of yours."

I hesitated. Trina doesn't usually use the close-up weapons. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen her use anything but her triple-blaster. "Orange, I don't --"

"Take my blaster and give me your daggers!" she ordered sharply. "One of us has to go in close for final attack, and it cannot be you. I won't break if I am hit, you know; I am not porcelain doll!"

I knew this was a sore point with Trina, that no one on the team thought she had any toughness to her. And I certainly couldn't argue with her logic; ain't no way I was going to be able to dash up to Buffy for another nostril strike or anything else. "You're absolutely right, Orange," I conceded, offering her my sais. "It's just that . . . you know I'm the worst shot on the team, and . . ."

Her voice softened. "Not any more, you aren't." She took my sais and I accepted the blaster from her. "You have improved a lot over the past several weeks. I told you, practice was all you needed. Just be careful. It has a tendency to kick the shot higher than a normal blaster, and you will not be able to brace it with your broken arm."

"Thanks, Orange. I'll try to compensate."

I could see that Buffy was gearing up for another run at the opera house. I don't know, maybe he liked the shininess of it or something. At any rate, Toby and Bill stepped up and began driving him back, Bill with his bo and Toby with his hammer. I got the impression that they and the others had been doing this same thing over and over again in different combinations all throughout the battle.

Trina glanced over at my sister. "Do you have your stick ready, Pink?"

My sister nodded. I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them again. It was probably an effect of getting my head pounded by JB Swift, but for some reason, their orange-pink color combination looked especially jarring to me. Trina looked over at me, and I said, "I'm ready, Orange."

"We are ready over here for final strike, Red." Her dropping of the "the" was the only sign Trina gave that she was keyed up.

"Right. On my mark, then. Three, two, one, go!"

I felt a cold sweat break out all over me, and I struggled to focus on the target. Shock was probably starting to set in, but my hand was shaking only a little as I raised Trina's triple blaster. I lined up my shot, then took a breath and held it as the others charged the monster. As they raised their weapons to strike, I squeezed the trigger. Trina was right, it did kick up higher than I was used to. Expecting that, I had aimed lower than I normally would have. My shot hit him square in the back of the head just as the other weapons struck home, and he disappeared in a shower of sparks.

Chapter 8

Wizzit teleported us back to HQ without any delay. I think he was maybe a little worried about what the Chinese police officers would do once the threat was removed, and he wanted to avoid any confrontation. He materialized us in the lounge, where my parents were waiting.

"Trevor, are you all right?" my mother asked anxiously. "I heard her say you were hurt."

"I'll be all right soon, Mom. Don't worry," I said, trying to keep the pain out of my voice. I waved Toby over. "I think my arm's broken," I explained quietly.

He nodded. Toby has the most medical training on the team. He is usually the one who sets the broken bones and dislocated joints that we sometimes experience, although he has trained us all to do that if necessary. He limped over to me and performed a cursory examination. "It's broken, all right," he grunted. "Don't think it needs setting, though." With that, he turned away and levered himself painfully into one of the comfortable chairs.

Trina glanced at Toby, then came over and offered me a hand up. "Thanks, Trina," I said with a smile as I stood up on my good leg. She laid my good arm across her shoulders and helped me hop over into a chair myself. I had no idea what kind of bruises I was sporting, and I didn't want to know how bad I looked. At the moment, all I wanted to do was to lie back and feel the soothing drowsiness of a healing coma.

While I waited for it to descend on me, I looked around the room. Except for Trina, it appeared as though everyone was hurt in one way or another. Even Angie was limping a little. Trina was talking quietly to my parents and Angie, probably explaining that everything was fine and that healing up was the first thing we always did after a mission. Angie was still surrounded by pink mist, I noticed. I grinned and wondered just how long Trina would let her go before reminding her to deactivate.

"Initiating healing comas now," Wizzit announced.

I closed my eyes with a sigh of relief and felt myself sink deeper into the cushion of the chair. There was a slight rustle as someone moved closer to me. "Trevor," I heard Angela say worriedly, "are you sure you're going to be all right?" She touched my shoulder, then immediately yanked her hand back with a little shriek.

"What's wrong?" Trina asked her.

"N-nothing," Angie said. "He gave me a little shock, that's all. It was just static electricity or something."

"Hmm," Wizzit said. "Very interesting. Scanning . . ." A few seconds later, he said, "Angie, could you deactivate, then reactivate again?"

"Sure," she said. "Why?"

"Just something I'd like to test. How's your foot, by the way? You're limping."

"It's fine. I just twisted my ankle a little. Junior-Prime-Pink-Deactivate-Junior-Prime-Pink-Activate!" Through half-closed eyelids, I saw the pink glow emanating from her flicker, then grow steady again. "Is that good?"

"That's fine. Now, please touch Trevor's shoulder again. Trina, stand ready to catch her in case she has trouble remaining upright."

"To catch me?" Angie repeated, sounding anxious. "What's going to happen?

"Nothing bad, I assure you," Wizzit said, honey simply oozing from his voice. "I would just like to try an experiment, that's all."

"Well . . . okay. Here goes." I felt her hand touch me again, and then she made a small sound like a sigh. I felt an odd lessening of the lethargy produced by my healing coma. A short time later, her hand moved away, and I went back to happy-drowsy-land.

"What happened?" Angela asked, sounding bewildered. "For a moment there, I felt so sleepy I could barely stand up, but now I'm fine again."

"How is your ankle?" Wizzit asked, practically purring now.

"It . . . it doesn't hurt any more." She sounded surprised. "Wizzit, what did you do?"

"Nothing special. I just let you piggy-back off your brother's healing coma, that's all," he said, sounding as smug as I have ever heard him. "That shock you experienced earlier suggested the possibility to me. You and Trevor have enough genes in common that his force shield very nearly recognizes you as part of him. All I did was to change the base number of your badge to Trevor's prime number squared, and your genes did the rest."

"Oh. Okay. I . . . see."

"Do you now?"

Angie burst out laughing. "No, not really. But the main thing is that you can heal me now, too, right?"

"From minor injuries, yes, with some preparation. I wouldn't want to have to heal you from anything serious."

"Trevor's number is . . . eleven, right? I think that's what Padma said. So now I'm one hundred twenty-one?"

"For the moment. I'm changing it back right now; it will take effect the next time you activate. I don't want too many elevenses floating around the grid for too long; it would skew the balance."

"Oh, right." She gave an uncertain laugh. "We, uh, we wouldn't want to skew the balance now, would we?"

"Most definitely not."

Chapter 9

Trina ushered Angie and my parents from the lounge, for which I was profoundly grateful. Healing comas are wonderful things, but they do have one potentially embarrassing side-effect: You talk. Not every time, but often enough, and about whatever comes into your drowsy mind. We call it babbling.

Among the team, we all understand the phenomenon, and everyone does his best to ignore everyone else's babblings. It's not anything I would want my younger sister to hear, though, or, heaven forbid, my parents. And yes, I do realize I will eventually have to deal with the situation if and when Angie joins the team as our new Prime Violet, but I will happily put off crossing that particular bridge until it comes pounding on my door demanding to be crossed.

Some time later, my eyes snapped open and I was instantly alert. I sat up and discovered I was the only one in the room; everyone else must have already finished healing. Following the sound of voices, I wandered into the kitchen.

Trina and Angie and my parents must have made good use of the time that the rest of us were zonked out, because all the dishes my mom and Angie had prepared at home were now spread out across our kitchen table and all the sideboards. Healing comas tend to make one hungry, and my teammates were now busily engaged in making as large a dent as possible in the food.

My mother waved me over excitedly. "I see what you meant, Trevor," she said. "They didn't want to eat too much before, but after your mission, they are eating as if they were starving."

I smiled and nodded. Then my father came over and asked me quietly in Mandarin if there were somewhere the three of us could talk undisturbed. Casting a longing eye at the rapidly-disappearing supply of home-cooked Chinese, I led them over to the office.

"Mother and I had some time to talk about Wizzit's proposal while we were watching your fight," my father began, still in Mandarin, once we had all found seats, "and we have come to a decision."

"Son, we had been planning to move to a smaller house once your sister left for college," my mother explained. "Or perhaps to a condominium. We love that old house, but with just the two of us, there seemed no point in keeping it."

"I understand," I said, hiding my disappointment as best I could.

"Don't understand us too fast, son," my father said with a smile. "As Mother said, we didn't especially want to move. It just seemed like the right thing to do. Now, if we had a good reason to stay, well, the two of us are in good health and we like the neighborhood, so . . ." He shrugged.

"What Father is saying is that we would be most happy to be the host family for you and your friends." My mother beamed at me. "They seem like very nice young people; it would be a joy to have them come by for visits."

Surprised, I sat back and grinned at them. "Wow! That's great to hear."

"Indeed it is," came Wizzit's voice from the speakers in the ceiling. "Mr. Doctor Chiao and Mrs. Doctor Chiao, I thank you for your most gracious offer." Man, oh man, Wizzit could really lay on the smarm when he wanted to.

A thought occurred to me. "Wizzit, do you think we ought to tell them about . . . you know, that other thing you and I were discussing . . ."

"What thing are you talking about, Trevor?"

"You know, the . . . thing." My parents were staring at me now, and I shook my head in frustration. What I wanted him to tell them was that he was going to ask Angela to be our new Prime Violet, probably sometime in January. "The thing you were going to do after the first of the year? You know, that wouldn't take effect until the summer?"

"Ah, I see what you mean. That would be inadvisable at present. Lovely young lotus flowers have big ears."

Hmm. If I understood him properly, he was saying that Angela was currently listening in on our conversation, probably from just outside the door. "Young lotus flowers can be plucked up from one place and put down again in another," I said. "I would be willing to perform such a transplant."

"Very good. If you would, please."

Ignoring my parents' puzzled looks, I got up from my chair and opened the door. Angie was standing there, looking as if she had just stepped up to the doorway. Or as if she had artfully arranged herself to appear that way. "Oh, hi," she said brightly. "I was just, um, coming by to ask Mom and Dad if, um . . ."

I took her arm. "They need to talk with Wizzit for a little while longer, little sis. Privately." She reluctantly let me steer her back to the kitchen.

Chapter 10

The next month or so was, if not quiet, then at least routine. Enclave sent monsters down to Earth every couple of days, and we went out and dispatched them.

I don't remember whether I have ever really explained what's going on between Enclave and us. See, Enclave is run by a race of beings from outside our solar system. I saw some of the bosses once; they're basically long tubes of what looks like grayish-green gas. (Wizzit, I should note, is a much different kind of alien. He is a long tube of bright pink gas. Hmm. I wonder if that's why he likes Junior Prime Pink so much.) At any rate, these bosses are trying to conquer the Earth, but there are evidently some rules that dictate just how they have to go about it.

First rule is, attacks can be carried out only by humans. Or, at least by those who were born human. As I understand it, the big bosses cannot even set foot (so to speak) on the planet until it is fully subdued. Which means that everyone we face out there -- Lily, of course, but also minders like JB Swift and monsters like Buffy the Water Buffalo -- were at one time human beings like you and me. Zoinks don't count, because they're not really alive anyway.

Second rule: Humans can be turned into monsters only if they ask to be. There is none of this "kidnap someone, turn them into a monster, send them out there" stuff. Nope, every bad guy we meet out there is a volunteer. I'm not exactly sure why someone would want to be turned into a two-foot-tall scarlet hedgehog like JB Swift, much less a behemoth like Buffy, but I suppose there's no accounting for taste.

We don't really understand where Lily falls in all of this, by the way. I have spoken with Li Lin-fa, the Chinese girl that Lily used to be, and I can't believe that she asked for what was done to her. It's true that she wasn't mutated into a monster, at least not physically, but JB Swift did all kinds of monstrous things to her mind, compartmentalizing it into a couple of dozen personalities, of which commander mode and attacker mode were only two. I intend to set her free from that some day and to see that JB Swift pays for everything that he did to her.

The third rule is not so much a rule as a limitation that Enclave tries to overcome. There seems to be some kind of natural resistance to the monsters they send down, a sort of planetary immune response. That's why they can't attack more often than every couple of days. I have been to an Enclave base, and I saw more monsters there than have ever been sent down to Earth. It is that immune response that keeps them from simply flooding us with those monsters.

That's why we always rush out to destroy the monster du jour as soon as it is sent out. The immune response is our primary defense against Enclave, but every monster that comes down weakens it. It recovers in time, naturally, but if a monster is let go for too long, then things can degenerate to the point where Enclave could send out, say, two or three monsters at once. If those aren't destroyed quickly enough, then things weaken even further, and the whole affair becomes a vicious circle.

That's the part that has us the most worried about our current standoff with the United States. If Enclave sends down a monster that the US military can't handle or puts it in a place they can't reach, then I don't know what's going to happen. Wizzit might have to rescind his ban on operations in the States and send us in anyway. I mean, we couldn't just stand by and do nothing, could we?

Of course, our rushing in to help would seriously detract from our efforts to get Shelley released. Right now, Wizzit's ban is our main bargaining chip. Still, as much as we all love Shelley, what happens to her is far less important in the grand scheme of things than preventing the planet from being overrun by aliens -- and she would be the first person to remind you of that.

Regardless, the world spun on its merry way towards Christmas and the new year, and for a while, at least, it appeared as though Enclave had forgotten that the United States ever existed. We engaged monsters in Europe, Africa, Asia, South America, even one in Antarctica, believe it or not, but nothing on the North American continent at all. That was just fine, as far as we were concerned. No one on the team likes to stand around and just watch things happen.

Unfortunately, it was also just fine with the American public and press. There was a bit of a kerfluffle over the destruction of the Naples National clubhouse, but that blew over when it became clear that no more domestic attacks were immediately forthcoming. In fact, after a couple of weeks we started to see editorials with headlines like "Are the Monster Attacks Gone For Good?" and "Does America Need the Primes?"

There were even a couple of idiots on the Sunday morning political talk shows crowing that the army had clearly dealt Enclave "a decisive blow in the name of freedom" and how with the former Prime Red in custody, it was only a matter of time before the rest of the Primes, and all of our Prime technology, would be in US military hands as well and all would be right with the world.

News like that did nothing to raise my spirits, even though I knew it wasn't true. The government folks holding Shelley were no closer to getting our names from her, or any information about our tech, than they were on her first day there. They had been giving her a rough time of it, but she was holding out like a champ.

How did I know this? It's simple. See, when we went in to take control of the surveillance cam in Shelley's cell, Nicolai had also managed to install a little device that let us tap into their secure network. Wizzit called it a passthrough, and he had been using it to keep close tabs on their internal communications, so we had a pretty good idea of what was going on there.

For one thing, Bill and Shelley's little game with the chewing gum was having more success than anyone had expected. Emile Zwicky was a bit of a control freak, it appeared, and the thought that one of his staff might be surreptitiously supplying her with contraband was causing him to have conniptions, to judge by the increasingly shrill memos he had been sending out.

We also knew just what it was that her interrogators wanted from her. The names and addresses of the rest of team were top priority for them, and we had prepared list after list of fake names for Shelley to feed them. Second priority was to get their hands on our teleportation technology; apparently, the thought of being able to instantly send elite US troops in and out of "sensitive areas" all across the globe was giving someone the warm fuzzies.

Unfortunately for those folks, and perhaps fortunately for us, none of us Primes has any idea how teleportation actually works, not even Shelley. Sure, Nicolai can create transponders that let Wizzit locate someone anywhere on the globe, but beyond that, the only thing any of us can do to initiate teleportation is to say, "Hey, Wizzit, can you teleport me, please?"

Nevertheless, after we discovered this was what they wanted, Wizzit, Nicolai, Padma, and Bill put their heads together and came up with a plausible-sounding pile of bafflegab (they called it a "technology framework") for Shelley to give her captors should they ever start questioning her seriously about our tech. Wizzit assured them that it was nothing like the method he actually used, although it might actually lead to something after, oh, about a hundred years of research.

The four of them -- Wizzit, Nicolai, Padma, and Bill -- seemed to be putting their heads together a lot these days. I wasn't sure what they were working on, and none of them was talking, but Nicolai and Padma in particular were spending an awful lot of time together in the weapons room. And no, it wasn't all smooching, although I suspect some of that was going on. I saw them emerge at least once looking -- what is the phrase? -- "rumpled, but happy."

Which was all well and good for them. At least they had something to keep them busy and not moping about the upcoming holiday. Christmas can be a difficult time at HQ. I suppose it would be the same with anyone who is required to be away from family during a major holiday; it's all too easy to let oneself get depressed and homesick.

Our collective solution, as always, was to make our own Christmas celebration. We decorated the lounge and the common room, some of us baked Christmas treats, and we talked about the various Christmas customs we each observed.

Padma is Hindu, not Christian like the rest of us, but she told us a little about the holiday of Pancha Ganapati, which was also celebrated around this time of year. Nicolai tried to explain to her why we observe Christmas, but I don't think he was satisfied with the result; after listening for a couple of minutes, Padma nodded and said, "Ah, I see. You are celebrating the birthday of an avatar of a god," and no one could persuade her of anything different. And really, I don't think she was that far off the mark.

Christmas Eve was quiet. We had fought a monster the day before and did not expect to see another one until Christmas Day or the day after. Toby drew the lucky straw and got to pop out to Manchester to see his family, and he chose to take Bill with him. Nicolai and Trina together made a more-or-less traditional Polish-Russian twelve-dish Christmas Eve supper, although, as Trina explained, Christmas in Russia was generally not celebrated until January.

Things were pretty dead after that. I went back to my room and watched some of the traditional Christmas TV specials and re-read some e-mails from Angie and my folks. I was sorely tempted to ask Wizzit to 'port me home for an hour or so to spend some time with them. He probably would have done it, too, if it had been just my parents and Angie, but Nick and Jerome were home on winter break from Ohio State and Joy was going to be there with her husband as well. I would have liked to see my other three siblings, since I hadn't talked with either of my brothers for nearly six months and Joy was pregnant and supposedly getting as big as a house, but it would be just too hard to explain my sudden appearance and equally sudden disappearance.

Nicolai and Padma were sharing one of the comfortable chairs in the lounge as I wandered past. Her eyes were closed and her head was resting against his shoulder; she was listening to him read "A Visit from St. Nicholas" aloud. Mike and Trina were in the office with the door closed, having some sort of earnest conversation. Neither pair seemed as though they wanted any company, so I walked over to the kitchen, sipped some orange juice, and nibbled on Trina's ginger cookies until lights-out, trying not to feel sorry for myself.

Chapter 11

I discovered a happy commotion in the kitchen when I went in for breakfast the next morning. Someone had left a paper plate piled high with decorated sugar cookies in the center of the table, and beside it was a slightly larger pile of wrapped presents, one for each of us, all signed "Merry Christmas from Santa". Nothing very big or expensive -- Trina got a scarf that matched her eyes, I got a magazine of word puzzles, Mike got some sort of deluxe yo-yo -- but for a bunch of folks who weren't expecting anything at all, it was pretty special.

Wizzit wouldn't say who had left the cookies and presents there, but it wasn't much of a mystery. After all, other than Santa Claus himself, the only people who could possibly have teleported into HQ while we were sleeping were Toby, Bill, or Angela. (And I know for a fact that Bill, Toby, and Santa don't dot their i's with little hearts.)

Spirits considerably raised, we went about our daily duties. Wizzit found a soccer game somewhere and put it up on the video screen in the common room. It wasn't until sometime around three in the afternoon that the monster alarm began to ring.

"There's a Christmas party in Philadelphia, kids," Wizzit told us, "but we're not invited. Camouflage mode on; we're just going to observe. Preparing to teleport now."

When the teleportation haze faded from my vision, I found myself perched alongside Nicolai at the top of a cement building of some sort near a wide intersection. Tall, rectangular skyscrapers rose up on either side of me; a building entrance near me read "Centre Square", and across the intersection was an ornate, old-fashioned-looking building that I recognized as Philadelphia's city hall.

The Enclave monster was standing smack in the center of the intersection, and it was one of the weirdest-looking creatures I think I have ever seen. Its legs took up easily two-thirds of its height. No neck or shoulders; the body and head sort of flowed into one another without widening or narrowing. There was just a single, large eye in the center of its face, blinking constantly. The thing's two arms were raised up high over its head, as if it were forever signaling "Touchdown!", and its mouth looked to be permanently fixed in an idiotic grin.

The thing's main weapons appeared to be its feet; it kicked at everything within reach -- cars, trucks, buildings, lampposts. There weren't very many pedestrians, this still being Christmas morning in Philadelphia, but it ran after the few that were there as well. I saw it try to chase down one little boy and his mother; just as it was about to stomp them into jelly, they suddenly vanished and reappeared about a block away, completely unharmed. None of us said anything about it, but I'm pretty sure Trina had something to do with their rescue.

In all, that particular mission was probably the most discouraging four hours I have spent since I joined the Primes. The police and other emergency responders showed up not too long after we did, but there wasn't much they could do other than block off the street and keep people away. The army came in a little later with machine guns and some explosives, but none of it really affected the monster.

So, they dithered and waited and "managed the situation" and then dithered some more while we all watched the monster run amok. Of course, we all knew why they were dithering. Destroying the monster the way they had been doing -- with a large bomb -- would also have meant destroying most of the buildings in the immediate area, including a couple of large banks. The fact that the monster was doing a good job of that all on its own didn't seem to make any difference; no one, it appeared, wanted to give the order to drop a bomb in the middle of downtown Philadelphia, so nothing was done.

I guess even Wizzit got bored eventually; he teleported us back to HQ. Bill and Toby had come back from Manchester and made dinner, but no one ate much; I think everyone knew what was coming.

Mike eventually expressed what we were all feeling. "D'you reckon they understand what they're going to do to the rest of the world by letting this monster run free?" he asked gloomily.

"The warning has been on the front page of our website since day one," Wizzit said. "I repeat it every time I report on a monster sighting."

"People don't want to believe it, though," Bill said, shaking his head. "Wishful thinking. They're probably hoping that nothing bad is going to happen, that it's all hyperbole on our part."

Trina asked softly, "How long do we have until more monsters start appearing?"

"Unknown," Wizzit replied. "Could be a minute, an hour, or a day. I have no way to assess the planetary health."

"What are we going to do when they start showing up?" I asked. "Are we going to separate ourselves into groups and go after each monster individually?"

Mike exhaled loudly. "That's the plan," he said. "Trina and I have divided the team up between us. She's got Bill, Toby, and Angela, if she's available. I have Trevor, Padma, and Nicolai."

"That's spreading us kind of thin, isn't it?" I shook my head. "And . . . look, I understand the need, but I'm still worried about bringing Angie along on our missions. I know she's been lucky so far, but . . ."

"I understand your concern," Bill said, "and I agree." He looked at each of us in turn. "Wizzit," he said at last, "are you ready for me to tell everyone about our contingency plans?"

"This would be as good a time as any," Wizzit's voice said from the overhead speakers. "They will find out about them soon enough."

We all looked at Bill expectantly. I suppose a less-well-disciplined group -- or a group less well acquainted with each other -- would have bombarded him with questions at this point, but seriously, hadn't Wizzit just told him to tell us?

"We are going to call in some extra help," Bill began, "and it won't just be Trevor's sister. As you all know, there are three living individuals besides myself who were Primes at one time, but are no longer. We --"

"Four!" Trina interjected firmly.

Bill stared at her for a moment, frowning. His expression cleared almost at once, though, and he smiled. "You're right, Trina," he said. "How could I forget? There are four living ex-Primes: Mayumi Chikamatsu, Alvaro Boada, Cathy Beals . . . and Shelley Windham. Unfortunately, Shelley is all tied up at the moment." He grinned wryly, and we all chuckled at the grim joke. "I have been in contact the other three, though, and each of them has indicated a willingness to help us out whenever we need them."

Toby frowned. "Um, excuse my saying so, but how the hell can they do that? We were able to bring you out of retirement because we were already down one Prime, but we all know that Wizzit can't just create three more Prime spots."

"He's not going to," I said with a sudden flash of intuition. I was just guessing, of course, but it made perfect sense all of a sudden, especially when you considered all the activity in the weapons room over the past month. I looked up at the ceiling. "You're going to make them Junior Primes, aren't you, Wizzit? Just like Angie?"

"Trevor gets the gold star for the day," Bill nodded approvingly. "Except that we have decided to give them the title 'Prime Emeritus', just as a university would give a retired faculty member the title 'Professor Emeritus'." He gave us all his wry grin again. "Calling them Junior Primes would just be insulting."

"The idea is the same, though," Nicolai explained. "Bill and I have been able to duplicate his work on Angie's Junior Prime badge; we have built the same functionality into a wide metal bracelet. They will be assigned the numbers twenty-three squared, twenty-nine squared, and thirty-one squared. Like Junior Prime Pink's badge, the bracelets will each have their own power supply which recharges itself from light and motion and they will enable their owners to use our weapons. They will look and sound like Primes, and Wizzit will be able to teleport them and communicate with them, but of course they will have no force shields or healing comas."

"We debated for a while how to designate our new Primes Emeriti," Bill said. "That's the plural, by the way -- Primes Emeriti. We quickly decided that giving them colors outside the rainbow spectrum, as we did with me, would prove unwieldy. I mean, after you get past black, white, and pink, what do you have to choose from? Brown and gray, I suppose, or some off-brand colors like taupe or teal. 'Prime Taupe' just didn't sound right." He chuckled. "So we decided instead to name them after metals, just like their bracelets. Mayumi chose to be Prime Copper, Cathy is Prime Silver, and Alvaro is Prime Steel. And everyone agreed that gold would be reserved for Shelley, once she is released."

I found myself nodding and swallowing a lump that unexpectedly appeared in my throat. Shelley had devoted more than half her life to the Primes. If anyone deserved to be known as Prime Gold, it was she.

"The other thing we have done," Bill went on, "is to have Padma build three new triple-blasters like Trina's. That ought to let the Primes Emeriti be nearly as effective as us regular Primes while minimizing the likelihood that any of them will get seriously hurt."

I thought it over. "That sounds all well and good," I said, "but how does it help Angie? She'll be just as much at risk as before."

"Well, for one thing," Bill replied, "we're hoping we won't have to call her in as often as we thought."

"And she is going to start using my triple-blaster," Trina put in. When we all turned to look at her in surprise, she said, "I had decided that days ago, before I ever heard Bill's idea about the Primes Emeriti. When she is with us, I will use a hand weapon like the rest of you."

"Um, Trina, love," Mike said carefully, "do you even know how to use a hand weapon?"

"Of course I do," she replied dismissively. "I have worked with the wooden sword, the short staff, and the knife as part of my aikido training."

"She and I have been practicing with her sword," Padma volunteered, "and I have built her a weapon of similar size and shape she can use to fight monsters." She shrugged. "She is not bad."

"I see." Mike bowed to Trina. "Forgive me for doubting you."

"You are forgiven," she said loftily. Then her ice-maiden's demeanor melted abruptly as she gave him a warm smile. "I understand your concern, Mike. I know I am perhaps a bit rusty, but since we will soon have so many shooters, I think it is time I should . . . I believe the phrase is 'branch out'."

Bill chuckled. "Don't branch out too far, my little Russka," he said, putting a friendly arm around her shoulders. "You're still the best marksman we've ever had on the team."

Trina flushed with pleasure. "Thanks, you big Canuck," she murmured.

Chapter 12

The second wave of monsters appeared not too long after lights-out. "Looks like we're going to have to split up the team after all, kids," Wizzit told us all as we gathered in the common room. "Got monsters near Paris and in Mike's home town of Auckland, New Zealand. I have contacted Alvaro and Cathy. Mayumi has not responded yet; it's early morning in Tokyo, and she may still be asleep."

"I can go knock on her door," Bill offered.

"You could," Mike replied, "but Trevor would attract less attention than a six-foot-three Westerner, and he speaks Japanese."

Bill frowned. "Watashi wa nihongo ga hanesemasu."

"Yes, well, maybe you can," Mike said without batting an eye, "but you'd still attract more attention than I would like. Trevor, off you go. Bring Mayumi back here to get her blaster and then meet us in . . . Paris, I think."

"Wait a sec," I objected. "I'm on your team, right? Don't you want to send Trina to Paris, since she actually speaks French, and since you already know your way around Auckland?"

He grinned. "Auckland's nothing special, mate, and I've never been to Paris. Padma also speaks French, don't you, love?" Padma nodded. "Good. Then she can translate for us."

Trina gave a resigned shrug of her shoulders. "Auckland for me, then."

Wizzit gave me Mayumi's apartment number and whisked me off to Japan while the others were activating. A bit nervously, I rehearsed how I was going to ask to see her; despite Mike's confidence in me, my Japanese is fairly rusty. Her husband opened the door; I had met him once, briefly, although I had no idea whether he would remember me.

Before I could launch into my prepared speech, he exclaimed, "Ah, you are Mayumi's friend! Are you here to see her?"

"I am," I said, giving him a slight bow.

He glanced back into the apartment. "She will be available in perhaps five minutes. Please come in. Would you like some tea?"

I accepted, figuring that to refuse would be impolite. Mr. Chikamatsu (I had never learned his first name) placed me in a chair and gave me a cup of tea and then vanished into their bedroom. He emerged about ten minutes and one cup of tea later, with Mayumi following.

She looked pretty incredible, I have to say. She is the oldest of all our former Primes; I knew that she was pushing forty pretty hard, but standing before me in the Prime's quasi-uniform of shorts and a tee-shirt, she didn't appear a day over, say, twenty-four. Seems to be a side benefit of having been a Prime, because Cathy and Alvaro are the same way.

"Why, hello, Trevor!" she said excitedly in English. "I assume you are here to notify me of a monster attack. Where are we going?" I glanced at her husband, but she dismissed my concerns with a wave of her hand. "Oh, he knows all about my former life. And besides, he doesn't speak much English."

"Well, in that case, we'll stop off at HQ to pick up a weapon for you and then we're going to Paris."

"That sounds wonderful. It has been ages since I was in Paris. Let's go!"

After a quick stop to pick up her triple blaster, we materialized outside of what looked like an immense castle built of white stone. A tall wall, rectangular in shape, surrounded the main keep, with an inner tower looming high above. It was nighttime, but the tower was all lit up, probably for tourists. "Welcome to the Chateau de Vincennes!" Wizzit said happily. "The others are by the north gate, which is ahead of you and to your right, just off the Avenue de Paris."

I turned to look at Mayumi. She and I were very different in appearance. With my force shield activated, I appeared to be vaguely human-shaped and surrounded by a glowing, swirling blue mist that prevented anyone from discerning my features. She, on the other hand, looked as though she had been poured out in a foundry, a copper-colored android made of pure, living metal. An interesting look, I thought.

She and I dashed forward to join the rest of the group. Well, okay, maybe "dashed" isn't quite the correct word here. I was well aware that, despite her appearance, Mayumi was just a thirty-nine-year-old woman with a gun. A very fit, very experienced woman with a very effective gun, to be sure, but she didn't have the speed, strength, and endurance benefits of a real force shield as I did. Let's say we jogged forward.

When we reached the north gate, we saw what appeared to be a large horse prancing about in the middle of a lighted street, presumably the Avenue de Paris. And when I say large, I mean really large -- like, twice the size of any Clydesdale you have ever seen. And man, did it look mean! I had never seen a horse with fangs before.

The beastie was attacking any car that came near it. As I watched, it lowered its head as if it were a bull and charged a small van of some sort. I winced at the head-on impact, but it didn't seem to bother the horse at all. In fact, it raised its head and somehow managed to lift the van off its front wheels. It couldn't quite seem to pick it completely off the ground, so after a minute or two it did the next best thing: it set its hooves and wrenched its head to one side. The van rolled over on its side, and the horse, satisfied, pulled away and went in search of other prey.

It was then that I noticed the long, sharp, glittering horn protruding from its forehead. O-kay, not a horse, then -- a unicorn. I guess that would explain the way it had attacked the van.

"Glad you could make it, Copper," I heard Mike's voice say. "You can start shooting any time you feel like it. Watch out for this one, Blue. It's nearly skewered Yellow already."

"I'll be careful, Red," I replied. "Copper, let me know if you need anything."

She held up the blaster two-handed, sighted along the barrel, and snapped off a shot. "Will do, Blue."

I ran up to the Avenue and circled around the unicorn. It was eying me suspiciously; behind it, I could see Padma and Nicolai approaching cautiously, their axes raised. Before they could strike, the unicorn spun about, slashing at them with its horn. They danced back, and I ran forward. The thing must have had eyes in the back of its head, though, because it kicked out with its hind legs as I drew near, and I had to throw myself to one side to avoid having a pair of hoofprints embedded in my chest.

Mike ran in from somewhere, broadsword swinging. Somehow the unicorn pivoted on its two front hooves to meet his charge with a thrust of its horn. They dueled for a few strokes, sparks flying everywhere, and then with a twist of its head, the animal sent Mike flying backwards.

"Down, Blue!" I heard Mayumi shout. I somersaulted backward; a second later, a beam of energy sizzled through the air just above where my head had been. It struck the unicorn on its flank, but for all the effect it had, Mayumi might just as well have shined a flashlight at it.

"This thing is too strong!" Mike exclaimed. He whipped out his own blaster, aiming for its eyes, but it had already spun about to confront Padma. "Wizzit, we may have to bring in Junior Prime Pink."

"Help is already on the way," Wizzit chirped in reply. "Team Orange has completed their mission in Auckland and are teleporting in now."

There were five simultaneous flashes of light, and suddenly there were ten of us fighting the monster instead of five. Alvaro and Cathy had the same metallic look to them as Mayumi did; Cathy was a bright silver, and Alvaro, a darker gray. The two of them plus Trina aimed their triple-blasters at the unicorn and fired, driving it back from Padma.

"Thanks for stopping by," Mike commented. "Everything went well in New Zealand, I take it?"

"Monster was barely worth our time," Trina replied disdainfully. "Three shots and he went poof!"

"This one is giving us a lot of trouble," Padma said. "We cannot sneak up on him, and he is so fast that it is difficult to hit him."

"Let's try all our blasters on him at once," Trina suggested. "On my mark. Everybody ready? Three, two, one, fire!"

The creature was bathed in light as all ten of our blaster beams hit him at the same time, and he let out a loud, horsey roar, but if the blasters hurt him, it didn't show when we stopped firing. His head went left, then right, as if he were searching for the source of the attack, and his gaze locked on Trina. She was standing in the middle of the Avenue de Paris, gun hand outstretched. She snapped off another shot as he charged toward her, horn lowered for the attack.

"Orange, get out of there!" Mike cried out, but Trina stood her ground, still firing.

Then, to my amazement, the unicorn stopped with his horn about a foot away from goring her. He stared at her for a moment, then lowered his horn until it touched the ground at her feet. He blew, but other than that, he didn't make a sound. Slowly, he walked forward until his head butted up against her shoulder. He was doing it gently, but he was so big that it knocked Trina to the ground.

Before she had a chance to scramble to her feet, the big unicorn knelt before her and tried to lay his head in her lap. It was too big to be entirely successful, but soon most of his horsey face lay across her legs, and he stared up at her with evident devotion.

"Wh-what do I do now?" Trina asked nervously.

"Pet him," Bill suggested. "Stroke his nose and scratch him between the ears. Tell him what a good boy he is."

Trina began crooning softly to the horse-shaped monster and stroking its nose. Slowly, its eyes closed, and it seemed to sink into a deep slumber. "So now what?" Trina asked. "Do we attack it while it is asleep?"

"Take hold of its horn," Wizzit suggested. "My scans indicated that it is the source of its power. If you can separate it from its horn, it should disintegrate."

"All right," Trina said with a shrug. "Here goes nothing." She took hold of the horn with both hands and pulled. At first, nothing happened. Then, as she strained one way and then another, I heard a sharp crack! and the horn suddenly came free in her hand. She scrambled away as the unicorn's body began sparking; within two minutes, nothing was left of it but a pile of dust.

Chapter 13

Wizzit teleported us back to the common room. "Indigo and Yellow, do not deactivate your force shields," Wizzit said. "I am receiving information indicating that the problem in Philadelphia is about to be resolved. I will teleport you there to observe as soon as you turn on camouflage mode."

The two of them looked at each other. "Camouflage mode on," they murmured in unison. They disappeared from view, and then there were two flashes of light, one yellow and one indigo, as Wizzit teleported them away.

"Let's get together in the office," Bill said to the rest of us. He led the way. Our office setup was designed partly for Prime Commander to do whatever administrative work he needed to do, but also for us to hold debriefings in. There were seven chairs besides the one at the desk. I gallantly offered Mayumi the seat I usually had, the other Primes took their accustomed spots, and Alvaro and Cathy sat in Nicolai's and Padma's places.

It occurs to me that I haven't really introduced you to Cathy and Alvaro beyond mentioning their names. The reason is that I simply don't know them all that well myself. I know that Alvaro is from Ecuador. He's not very big -- shorter than me -- and I suppose one would use the word "wiry" to describe him rather than "muscular".

I also know that he is a musician and that he's getting to be a big name in the music scene in Ecuador. I bought an album of his off the internet once, just for kicks. It was called "Musica Costena (Music of the Coast)", and it was pretty good stuff. I couldn't understand any of the words, but it was very energetic, with a nice danceable beat. I still listen to it occasionally.

Cathy is a slender, lissome African-American woman, about my height, which makes her a little taller than your average female. She looks to be in her early twenties, about fifteen years or so younger than she really is, but there is a certain air of dignity about her that you don't often see in twenty-year-olds. Just by looking at her, you can tell that Cathy is a dancer; I guess she has been working on Broadway more-or-less continuously ever since she retired from being the fourth Prime Red.

Bill took the seat behind the desk; he has been running our debriefings ever since he joined us as Prime Black. He steepled his fingers in front of him. "Why don't we start with the New Zealand mission?" he said. "It was a fairly simple one. Trina, if you would care to narrate . . .?"

Wizzit started playing a vid of what had happened in Auckland from Trina's point of view. The monster was some sort of giant rat thing. Bill and Toby went in for some close strikes, and Trina coordinated a few triple-blaster shots with Cathy and Alvaro, and the monster vaporized within just a couple of minutes. All in all, a satisfactory outcome, especially considering that it was the first mission Trina had ever led. Her narration left a little to be desired, but I could empathize; I'm never comfortable when I'm narrating one of my adventures, and I'm a native English speaker. English is Trina's second or third language.

There were no questions, so we moved immediately to Paris. It appeared that Mayumi and I hadn't missed much. Padma yelled out what I assumed was our standard everybody-move-away speech in French, and the bystanders dutifully scattered (those that hadn't already scattered, that is). Nicolai lunged at the monster and nearly got a horn in the gut. Everything else that happened, I've already told you.

"But I don't understand why the creature acted the way it did," Trina said once Mike finished his narration. "Why did it calm down when it came near to me, but not with anyone else?"

The rest of us looked at each other; no one, it appeared, wanted to venture an opinion. I mean, I had a pretty good idea, having read a few medieval unicorn legends in high school English class, but I sure wasn't going to say anything. Finally, Bill cleared his throat. "I, er, I expect that whoever made that thing was trying to copy the, uh, the classical ideal of the unicorn as closely as possible, for whatever reason."

Trina frowned. "I am afraid I am not following you, Bill."

Bill looked up at the ceiling, obviously wondering how best to proceed without causing her any embarrassment. After a second or two, he beckoned her over behind the desk, where he whispered something in her ear. Her eyes widened as he spoke, and her mouth made an "Oh!"

A slow blush crept up her cheeks, which is always a pretty thing to see. "But that doesn't make sense," she protested. "Why did he not behave that way when Padma --?" She stopped herself then, and her mouth made that "Oh!" shape again. She blushed even harder and said softly, "Um, never mind. I think I understand."

"I didn't think Nicolai had it in him," Toby chuckled. "That sly dog!"

"I'm not so sure it was Nicolai, mate," Mike said. "He told me --"

"Yes, well, let's not speculate, shall we?" Bill interrupted him. "This is not high school; gossip about who has done what with whom is not appropriate."

Cathy smiled. "That's a very good impression of Prime Commander, Bill," she said. "And you're quite right." She turned in her chair to take in everyone in the room. "When I was a Prime, I remember that we never functioned at our best when there was a lot of . . . this kind of tension in the air. I would recommend that we keep such talk to a minimum."

I privately agreed. Of course, a goodly part of that was because I wanted to steer the discussion away from who had done what with Padma. Already, Trina was giving me a speculative look, and my face felt as if it were turning a bright red.

"But of course, we are here as your guests," Alvaro added with a significant look at Cathy. "Even though Cathy, Mayumi, Bill, and I have all been Prime Red at one time or another, we would not dream of telling you how to do your job, Mike." He flashed a brilliant set of white teeth. "Not unless you asked."

The door to the office opened, and Nicolai and Padma walked in. "They finally dropped a bomb in Philadelphia," Nicolai announced. "They had to drop two, actually, because the first one either missed or wasn't powerful enough. What a mess! They are going to be cleaning up that square for years to come." He stopped and frowned. "Why is everyone staring at us?"

"No reason, mate," Mike said, quickly shedding his grin. "We're just happy you're home safe, that's all."

Bill indicated the unicorn horn that Trina had placed on the desk. "We were debriefing the mission in Paris. Wizzit, what do you make of this?"

"Uncertain. I scanned it before I brought you kids back. It's not typical Enclave hardware, that's for sure. It appears to be exactly what it appears to be -- a very sharp, very hard horn . . . from a unicorn."

"Is it useful at all? Is there any way we could, say, turn it into a weapon?"

"Mmm . . . possibly. As I said, it is very sharp and very hard, and it has some intriguing properties that could make it fairly effective against Enclave enhancements. However, it would be next to impossible to imbue it with any of our tech. For my money, Trina has simply picked herself up a unique souvenir."

"Right. Well, I guess we're done here." Bill stood up and bowed to the three Primes Emeriti. "Mayumi, Cathy, and Alvaro, thank you folks for coming. It's always a pleasure to see you. We are looking forward to working with you in the future." He then shooed us out of the office, obviously eager to end the debriefing before Padma or Nicolai starting asking uncomfortable questions about the unicorn.

Chapter 14

We took down most of our Christmas stuff soon after the twenty-fifth, but we left the lounge decorated in deference to Trina, who wouldn't observe the holiday until January seventh. But then, on the morning of New Year's Day, I had just gotten dressed and was wandering over to the kitchen to have breakfast when I heard some suspicious noises. Curious, I turned right instead of left and followed my ears. Trina was in the lounge taking everything down.

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

She looked over at me. "Christmas is over," she said glumly. "It is time to move on."

I frowned. "I thought it wouldn't be over for you for nearly another week."

She shrugged. "I will not celebrate Christmas this year."

"Why not? I thought you were looking forward to going home to see your parents."

"I was. My parents, it appears, were not," she said. "I had sent them a message asking whether I could bring a friend home for the Christmas holiday. I received their reply today. They said not to bother coming home at all."

I winced. "Ouch! That hurts. Did they say why?"

"Why do you think?" she said bitterly. "They said they did not want prostitute disgracing their home."

I nodded somberly. Figuring out how not to tell one's folks that one is a Prime is always a challenge. Trina's parents had never put much stock in her cover story that she was scratching out a living as an artist and model in an obscure Russian city. Obviously, they had drawn their own conclusions as to how she was making ends meet. Pretty ironic, actually, when you consider the unicorn's opinion of her. "I thought you had entered that art competition in Moscow to show them you were keeping up with your sketching."

"Yes, and I sent in my five pieces. But they do not believe I really entered, and results will not be available for another month."

I came over and put an arm around her shoulders. "Sorry, Trina. I wish I knew what to tell you."

"It is all right." She sighed and shrugged off my hand. "It is my problem, not yours. I will just have to wait until awards banquet in the middle of February. My parents will get an official invitation; they will have to believe me then."

I gave her an encouraging smile. "Well, let me know if there's anything I can do." I gave her a wink. "If you need an escort to the banquet, I'm told I clean up quite nicely."

She smiled faintly. "Thank you, Trevor. I'm sure you do, but I have already asked Mike to go with me."

"Mike? Oh! Um, okay, that's great."

Trina looked at me sharply. "It does not sound great. What's wrong with Mike? Don't tell me you are jealous!"

"Jealous? Me?" I chuckled -- convincingly, I hoped. "No, of course not." There were reasons that I wasn't wild about Trina going out to dinner with Mike -- reasons going back years, to some things Robin had told me before she died \-- but they certainly didn't involve jealousy. Trina was a pretty enough gal and I liked her a lot, but she and I had never clicked in that way.

"I should think not!" Trina sniffed. "Pining after both Lily and Padma should keep you busy enough; you don't need to be trying to go out with me as well!"

"Pining after . . . now hang on a minute, Trina. I'll admit that Lily kind of gets my motor running, but I am not pining after Padma!"

She looked skeptical. "If you say so. I noticed that you were looking awfully guilty, though, after I asked why the unicorn would not lie down for her."

"Uh, right." I could feel my face start to turn red. "Yeah, about that . . ."

"Yes?" she prompted me archly.

"Umm . . ." I began. Then I shook my head. "Never mind. Frankly, it's none of your business. So, why did you pick Mike to go to the banquet with you?"

She looked at me closely for a moment or two. Then she evidently decided to allow me to change the subject, for she smiled and said, "Why not? He is nice-looking, so he will make good 'arm candy'. That is the correct usage, isn't it? 'Arm candy'?" When I nodded, grinning, to indicate that it was, she went on, "He will charm the pants off my parents -- that is, he will if he knows what's good for him -- and besides, he owes me dinner anyway."

Ah, that explained it. See, a couple of months ago, Mike had goaded Trina into a dinner bet over whether she could break a board with a knife-hand, what most folks think of as a karate chop. With my coaching, Trina had won the bet, er, easily. (Heh. I was about to say that she won it "handily", but everyone knows that puns are the lowest form of humor!)

But there had been another stipulation to the bet, I recalled -- that the winner got to choose what the loser would wear to the dinner. I knew that Mike had entertained visions of Trina in some sort of micro-bikini, had she lost the bet, and considering Trina's face and figure, that was something I might have paid good money to see for myself. I didn't know what sort of costume Trina had decided to force Mike to put on, though.

"What are you going to make him wear?" I asked her.

"Why, a tuxedo, of course!" she replied, her smile growing broader. "Black tie. What else would one wear to a formal dinner?"

I laughed. "Knowing Mike, I think he'd rather wear the clown costume you were thinking about earlier."

"No doubt."

I helped her take down the rest of the Christmas decorations, and then the two of us strolled into the kitchen together. Nicolai was absentmindedly eating a slice of toast and frowning at some mathematical scribblings on a piece of paper on the table in front of him. Padma was glancing at the math occasionally as well, but mostly she was talking roundhouse kicks with Toby -- savate versus Tae Kwon Do and shoes versus barefoot.

Mike was putting away his breakfast dishes; as he headed out the door, he touched my arm. "Trevor, stop by the office when you're done, would you? Got something I'd like you to do."

"Sure thing, Mike."

A little while later, I opened the office door to find Mike sitting behind the desk. He shook his head as I walked in. "I tell you, Trev, I will be so glad when we find someone to replace Prime Commander. I hate administrative work! I don't know how Shelley managed to get everything done, and I have Bill helping me."

"Is Wizzit looking for someone? I didn't know."

"He has to be, but he hasn't said anything to me about it." He pushed himself away from the desk, stood up, and walked around to my side of it. Perching himself on its edge, he smiled at me. "Trev, old buddy, I've a job for you."

"Uh oh! Nothing too nasty, I hope."

"Nope, not nasty at all. In fact, I think you'll enjoy it," he said. "You see, every Prime Red does things a bit differently, and I have spent the past few weeks looking around to see what changes I'd like to make. You know, to put my fingerprints on the job. There's not too much; I think everyone would agree that Shelley was one of the best Prime Reds we've ever had. Still, I'd like to make a few tweaks in the way we do our training."

I frowned. "What training?"

"Exactly. Everyone around here is assumed to be an expert in something-or-other and to pick up whatever else they need as a matter of course. You have your fighting skills, Trina has her marksmanship, Nicolai and Padma have their tech abilities, and Toby has his medical training. I've, ah, always felt at a disadvantage because I don't have any special knowledge." He grinned. "At least, none that would be of use to us here."

I nodded. I had always assumed that the main reason Mike was recruited to be a Prime is because his reflexes are incredibly fast, as fast as anyone's on the planet. Have you ever seen that dollar bill trick, the one where someone bets you that you can't catch a dollar bill between your fingers when they drop it? Mike is the only guy I know who can actually catch it, time after time after time. He would have been invaluable against the super-fast monsters like JB Swift.

"So, what do you want me to do?" I asked.

"Isn't it obvious? I want you to start up a training program. Find out what people know, what they don't know, and what they want to know. Set up some classes, maybe once a week. Teach 'em yourself or get someone else to."

I considered the idea; it sounded like a good one. "Okay, I'll see what I can do. I know there are a few things I'd like to learn, myself."

Mike stood up and clapped me on the shoulder. "Good man!" he said.

I turned to leave, then hesitated. "Uh, Mike, can I ask you something?"

"I suppose so. What's on your mind?"

I paused for a moment or two, trying to get my thoughts in order. Then I said, "Um, about this dinner date you've got with Trina . . ."

"Sorry, mate, no can do."

"Huh? No can do what? What are you talking about?"

"I will not step aside and let you escort Trina to that awards banquet in Moscow in February in my place." He grinned at me. "That's what you were going to ask, isn't it?"

"Er, no, it wasn't. I don't have a problem with you taking her. It's just that . . ." I hesitated, wanting to make sure I phrased this the best possible way. "I just want to make sure you treat her right."

His grin dimmed slightly. "And what makes you think I wouldn't?"

"Past experience. Those stories you've told of when you're out on leave, all the conquests you've made, that kind of thing."

"Ah." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Well, Trevor, not that it's any of your business, but you should know that some of those stories may have been, um, exaggerated somewhat for dramatic effect."

"I figured as much, but there's also . . . Robin."

He frowned at me. "Robin? What's she got to do with anything?"

I took a deep breath. "She told me all about the two of you," I said, making my voice carefully neutral and trying to keep out any hint of accusation. After all, Mike was Prime Red, and I was only Prime Blue. "How you pursued her from her very first day as Prime Violet; how you intimidated her into sleeping with you; how she tried to break it off, but you forced her to --"

"Now stop right there, mate," he interrupted me sharply, "before you say something that both of us might regret." He stabbed a finger at me. "I'll have you know that Michael Bushby has never forced a girl to do anything she didn't want to do. I've never had to. Now, I'll admit that Robin and I had a bit of a fling at one time, but that was over a long time ago, before you ever joined up with us. She was the one who came on to me, and I was the one who broke it off. I never touched her after that, and that's God's own truth."

I frowned, not quite so sure of myself as I had been a minute ago. "That's not what she told me," I said slowly.

"Then she was having you on, because it never happened that way."

"But why would she . . .?"

He threw up his hands. "How should I know? This is Robin we're talking about! She always did have an indifferent relationship with the truth."

I turned away, not sure what to think. "I, uh," I began. "I guess I might owe you an apology, then."

"Yeah, I guess you just might," he agreed roughly. "But what bothers me is that all this time you thought that I had somehow forced Robin to sleep with me, and yet you never said a word to me about it until now. I mean, you and Robin and I could have sat down and sorted it all out together and maybe had a good laugh about it, but instead you let it sit and fester inside you for years. Why is that?"

I shrugged heavily. "I was going to say something at the time, but she only told me about it the night before that mission in Houston, and then . . ."

Mike finished, "Then after she died in Houston, you figured you'd let sleeping dogs lie, is that it?"

I grimaced. "Yeah, something like that."

"I see." His expression suddenly grew more grim. "You didn't by any chance form the opinion that I had something to do with her death, did you?" he asked me suspiciously.

I stared at him in shock. "What? No, of course not!"

"Good," he said, sounding relieved. "At least you're showing some sense. With all the other accusations you've been flinging about, I thought maybe you had come up with the idea that . . ."

I gave a bitter laugh. "No, that was me, not you, remember? All me, no outside help required. Robin's death was totally the fault of Mr. Trevor M. Chiao, Esquire, and everybody knows it." Mike made an impatient sound. "What?" I demanded angrily.

He stared at me as if he were trying to decide whether to say anything. "Look, Trevor," he said after a moment, "I know you were all broken up about Robin's death, and I know that Shelley has been molly-coddling you about it ever since. But now she's gone and I don't have the patience for it, so I'm going to say this once, and then I never want to hear about it again."

He leaned forward until our faces were maybe an inch apart. "Your weapon broke and you were swarmed by Zoinks. That could have happened to anyone. Robin ran over to help you. Her weapon broke, and she got tossed off the roof of the parking garage and hit the ground before Wizzit could teleport her to safety. She died before he could initiate a healing coma. Now, suppose you tell me -- how was any of that your fault?"

I wanted to tell him how. I wanted to explain that I shouldn't have let myself get in over my head with the Zoinks. Or that I should have fought my way through to Robin in time. That I should have been just a bit stronger, or faster, or more skilled, or more determined, or more . . . something.

But I couldn't. No one had ever stated matters quite that baldly to me before, and put that way, it seemed obvious there was nothing I could have done. Mike was right, and I knew it. And maybe it was time to stop beating myself up over it. So I dropped my gaze and shrugged and mumbled, "All right. I guess maybe it wasn't really my fault after all."

"Damn straight it wasn't!"

I drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Thanks, Mike. You've given me a lot to think about."

He stopped me before I could leave. "Yeah, well, while we're being frank with each other, here's two more things for you to chew on." He held up an index finger. "Number one, stay the hell away from Padma. Everyone knows that Nicolai is head-over-heels for her, and after that little adventure with the unicorn, everyone who is not blind now knows you've been banging her. That's a dangerous mixture for the team, and I want it to stop. Now."

"One time!" I protested. "Padma and I made love one time! Neither of us planned it; it just . . . happened. That was months ago, and we promised each other we'd never do it again -- because of Nicolai."

"See that you don't. If I catch a whiff that the two of you are up to something you shouldn't be -- hell, if I even catch the two of you alone in the same room together -- there will be consequences for both of you, and they won't be pleasant."

"Fine," I said sullenly. "What's the other thing?"

"Just this: Get your head on straight about Lily."

I snorted. "My head is on straight."

"I don't think so. You've been making some dangerous choices lately, putting yourself and your team at risk, and it's all because you think you can fight Enclave and protect Lily all at the same time. Look, she is not your girlfriend. She is not your friend. She is not even an ally. She is our enemy, and the sooner you come to terms with that, the better off we all will be."

I glared at him. "Is that all?"

"I think that's enough. Don't you?"

Chapter 15

Well, I fumed about that little conversation for the rest of the day, and I spent a few hours in the gym taking out my frustrations on the large bag. I continued fuming about it for the remainder of the week. By the end of two weeks, I was fuming a bit less, and by the time February rolled around, I had pretty much stopped fuming altogether, although I still wasn't happy.

But I did stay away from Padma. Let me tell you, it wasn't easy to do, given the close conditions under which we live. I mean, it was impossible to avoid her completely, but I didn't train with her, I didn't eat with her, I didn't even play cards with her. And I did my best not to talk to her. And the whole time, I felt Mike's watchful eye upon me.

She noticed, of course. Everyone noticed. It's hard to hide that kind of thing when there's only seven of you. Even Toby, who doesn't normally pay much attention to such matters, asked me why I wasn't palling around with her like I used to and whether we had had a fight. I just grunted and changed the subject.

At first, Padma was puzzled, and then she was angry. Then I think she just settled into a kind of confused hurt. It bothered me every time I saw that look in her eyes, but I didn't know what else I could do. Prime Red is the team leader, after all, and we didn't have a Prime Commander I could appeal to.

Things in general weren't going well at HQ. Enclave continued to send out two or three monsters at a time every couple of days, keeping us really busy. Thankfully, a goodly number of these were what one might call B-list or even C-list monsters -- not their top-of-the-line models. I guess even Enclave has trouble getting enough quality recruits.

There was considerable bad press over the government's handling of what was coming to be called the "Philadelphia failure", with the immediate result being that Shelley's jailers stepped up their interrogations of her big-time in January. They had already waterboarded her once or twice, covering her face with a cloth and pouring water over it to make her feel as though she were drowning.

Now, they had evidently decided to try some new techniques: stress positions, blaring rock music twenty-four hours a day, interrupting her sleep for interrogation at random times, and once, confiscating her prison garb and forcing her to walk from her cell to the interrogation room and back in the nude, and all of it just to get the "teleportation technology framework" and the various lists of names she would have given them anyway.

We helped her through it all as best we could. We were already feeding her dietary supplements to counteract the low-iron, low-protein regimen they had her on. We gave her massages to ease strained muscles; we did our best to warn her in advance of her "surprise" interrogations. Heck, even Angie pitched in; she spent one long afternoon sitting guard in the cell (and studying for a physics test) while Shelley got a few hours of blessedly uninterrupted sleep, illicit earplugs in her ears to block out the blasting music. And Wizzit dutifully kept track of everything they did to her, "for future reference" as he put it.

Regardless, things weren't all grim and joyless. Emile Zwicky, the CIA agent in charge of Shelley's incarceration, was still tearing his hair out (and alienating all his subordinates) trying to figure out just who it was that was supplying Shelley with chewing gum. And the lists of names Shelley fed her captors had produced any number of red faces, especially the day that a couple of children of certain powerful Senators were snatched off the street by the FBI and interrogated fairly intensely about their supposed connections with the Primes.

In fact, that, combined with the bad press about Philadelphia, seemed to be making some people in Washington think that the kidnapping of Prime Red had been a very bad idea indeed. Or so said some of the confidential memos that we intercepted.

The Primes Emeriti, bless 'em, gave us all we could ask for. They didn't come to live at HQ, so we only ever saw them on missions, but Primes Silver, Copper, and Steel teleported out whenever we called for them, shot up the monsters du jour, and then went back home afterward with never a word of complaint. I got to know Mayumi a little better and even got to brush up on my Japanese.

On a personal level, my older sister Joy had her baby, a boy, on Groundhog Day and I went out to Oberlin, Ohio, for a day with Toby to meet my new nephew. Turns out that Toby is a sucker for babies -- who knew? And it was on that same trip that I presented Angela with Wizzit's formal invitation to join the Primes once she graduated from high school. She read through the letter, squealed, and gave me and Toby a pair of death-grip hugs, which I took to be a "yes".

Angie tried out for her school's spring musical, "South Pacific", and got a part. She was happy enough to get it -- she had only ever been in the chorus before -- but I got the impression that she was less than thrilled with the part she was given, the role of Liat.

In case you're not familiar with the musical, I'll just say that Liat doesn't sing or speak or even do much in the way of acting. She dances a little bit. Mostly she just stands around and looks beautiful in an exotic Asian/Pacific Islander way. And in that particular high school, when you think "beautiful in an exotic Asian/Pacific Islander way", you think "Angela Chiao, the only ethnic Asian girl in the entire school," so it wasn't like my sister got the role based on talent, just looks. But she took it all with good humor; after all, Joy had played the very same role as a freshman nine years earlier at that same high school for the exact same reason, so I guess you could say it was kind of a family tradition.

The results from Trina's art competition came in the second week of February. She hadn't expected to win it, and she didn't even come close. She did, however, receive an Honorable Mention, which, for an unknown part-time artist in her first national competition of this sort, was pretty damn impressive. Trina was satisfied, to put it mildly. Her voice actually broke, and there were tears in her eyes, as she read us the e-mail she had received.

I was genuinely glad for her. I've said before that I consider the Trina I see while she's sketching to be the real Trina -- completely un-self-conscious, completely absorbed in her work, and, I think, completely happy. I was pleased to see that some art committee in Moscow shared my view of her talents.

Naturally, we were going to hold a celebration to send her and Mike off to the banquet. Life at HQ can be a bit humdrum at times, so we seize upon any excuse for a party, and this was a big one. It was to be a fashion show, and Bill was elected emcee, since he has a talent for that sort of thing. Trina would show off the pretty new dress that she and Padma had gone out to buy for the occasion, and then Bill would bring out Mike, who would be forced to pose for everyone in his tuxedo.

It sounded like it would be kind of fun, but I decided it would be better if I didn't attend. Given the situation with Padma these days, I felt like I was a big ol' raincloud just waiting to precipitate on any parade that happened to be passing by, and it occurred to me that the rest of the team would have more fun if I weren't there. Yeah, I know; I was feeling mighty sorry for myself.

Trina came upon me as I was in the kitchen rummaging around in one of the cabinets. "Trevor!" she exclaimed, "aren't you going to join us?"

"No, I thought I would go see Shelley instead," I said, pulling a package of protein supplement mix from the shelf. "I haven't been out there for a week or so, and no one has gone to visit her yet today, so . . ."

My voice trailed off as I turned around and got a good look at her. "Wow!" I exclaimed. "Just . . . wow!"

She smiled and pirouetted gracefully, showing off her dress. "You like it, then?"

I grinned lopsidedly and nodded. "Yeah. It looks good on you." Actually, it looked more than good; it looked great. She and Padma had found this clingy little gown for her in a blue-and-white pattern that brought out the color of her eyes and emphasized those famous Trina curves quite nicely. With her face made up and the pale gold of her hair framing her face just so, she looked like a dream.

The dream reached forward and began pulling on my hand. "Well, don't just stand there staring at me. Come and join us! Shelley can wait a few more minutes."

I let her lead me out into the common room where everyone else was, and really, we all had a good time. The guys all ooh-ed and aah-ed over Trina and Padma, who had also bought herself a new dress, and Trina flirted outrageously with us all.

Then Bill stepped forward and made a big deal about dragging Mike out in his tuxedo. Now, I'm sure that Mike really wasn't as bashful as he made out to be, but if he had just strutted out there and started showing off, it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun. So we all hooted at him and pretended like it was this horrible sacrifice to have to wear a tux, when any of us guys would have traded places with him in a heartbeat.

The hubbub died down after a while, and Mike and Trina bundled themselves into heavy winter coats (the banquet being in Moscow in February, after all) and teleported out. I went into the kitchen to get things ready for my visit to Shelley. I had just finished mixing up the protein supplement when I heard a sound behind me. I turned to see Padma standing in the doorway still wearing her new dress, arms crossed and mouth set in a firm line.

"All right, Trevor," she said severely, "you can't avoid me now. Let's talk."

Actually, I could have avoided her simply by having Wizzit teleport me out to Shelley's cell. This probably wasn't the time to point that out, though. In fact, with Mike away from HQ and likely to be busy for the next couple of hours, it seemed like the perfect chance to straighten things out. So I looked her straight in the eye and told her, "Mike says I have to stay away from you."

Her face changed from determination to puzzlement. "But . . . why?"

"Because of what happened in the stronghouse."

Puzzlement to dismay. "You mean, he knows?"

"Uh huh." And I outlined what we had talked about during the unicorn debriefing.

The look on her face changed again, from dismay to something I couldn't quite identify. Resignation, perhaps? "So now everyone knows that you and I were lovers?"

"Well, I wouldn't go quite that far. The Emeriti probably don't care much, and Toby seemed pretty clueless. Mike knows, though, and Trina at least suspects. Bill, too, maybe."

"This is so stupid!" she said, softly and vehemently. "Why can't we just -- yes, that's what we will do. Come with me!"

She grabbed my hand and began dragging me out the door. "Hey, wait, Padma!" I said. "Where are we going? I was planning to go out to see Shelley!"

"Shelley can wait. We are going to talk to Nicolai."

"Nicolai? Are you sure that's a good idea?"

Whether it was a good idea or not, it was apparently what we were going to do; Padma would not be dissuaded. In less than a minute, we were standing outside his room and she was rapping on the door. "Nicolai?" she called. "It is Padma. May I come in?"

"Door open," came the response from within.

Padma led me inside, gripping my hand so tightly that my fingers were turning white. Nicolai was sitting in a comfortable chair reading a book. As Padma moved to stand in front of him, all her earlier determination seemed to melt away. Suddenly, she seemed unsure of herself. "Nicolai," she finally said, "Trevor and I have something to confess to you."

He laid a bookmark in place, closed his book, and looked up at us expectantly. Padma went on nervously, "He and I . . . made love. Once, months ago. I-I thought you ought to know."

He blinked once, twice, and his face seemed to sag. "Are you telling me this," he said, his gaze drifting down to where our hands were joined, "because the two of you have decided that you are in love and . . . ?"

"No!" Alarmed, she flung my hand away. "Trevor and I have only ever been good friends. In fact, we have a joke that whenever someone suggests that we are a couple, we say no, we have other fish to fry. He has Lily, of course." She smiled fondly at him. "And I have you."

He chuckled at that. "I am flattered, I suppose, at being called a fish."

"Mike found out about what happened," I said, "and he decided that he had to separate the two of us for the good of the team. He told me in no uncertain terms to stay away from Padma. I guess he feels that otherwise we won't be able to keep our hands off each other."

"Ah, that explains it!" he exclaimed, nodding. "Everyone has been wondering why the two of you had stopped talking." He raised his eyebrows. "And will you be able to keep your hands off each other?"

"Of course!" Padma told him. "That one time was under extraordinary circumstances, and we have promised each other that it will never happen again."

"Then what is the problem?"

Padma stared at him, seeming surprised by his question. "You're . . . not angry?"

Nicolai sighed and got to his feet. "Honestly, I am not thrilled," he said, placing his hands on her shoulders, "but I know that things happen, especially with a group so tightly-knit as ours. How could they not? People become curious, or they want to try new things, or they suddenly feel very close to someone . . . and the natural course is taken. The stories I could tell you of who has made love with whom would surprise you, I think." He shrugged. "And trying to prevent that kind of thing always does more harm than good. I will have a talk with Mike."

He suddenly smiled at her. "But the other thing I know is that you, Padma, are the most beautiful, the most intelligent, and the most formidable woman I have ever known, and if you tell me that I am the fish you want to fry, that makes me very happy."

"Aww!" Padma looked as if she wanted to melt right then and there, like someone had just shown her a picture of a bunny hugging a kitten or something. "Nicolai, you are so sweet!"

She suddenly took his face between her hands and kissed him hard. He looked surprised at first, but recovered quickly, returning the kiss in earnest. Knowing how Padma could be moved by declarations of love or loyalty (and having a bit of first-hand knowledge of how good a kisser she was), I decided to beat a hasty retreat before I could feel any more of a fifth wheel than I already did.

Chapter 16

Back in the kitchen, I quickly gathered together the things I was going to bring to Shelley. "Wizzit," I called out, "you'd better send me out there fast before somebody else comes along and tells me that Shelley can wait."

"I'd advise you to hold off for a couple of minutes," Wizzit replied. "She is just being brought back from interrogation. Let's give her some time to get settled in her cell, use the bathroom, things like that."

So I waited for a while, passing the time by picturing Nicolai telling Mike to lay off Padma and me. I was just trying to decide whether Mike's face would be turning red or purple when I heard Wizzit say, "Uh oh!"

"What is it, Wizzit? What's wrong?"

"Trevor, I'm calling Bill down to the kitchen to go out there with you. Shelley is lying facedown on the floor of her cell. She has not moved to either of the neutral corners, per our standard procedure. She is not moving at all, in fact."

I could hear Bill's footsteps in the hallway as he ran to the kitchen. "She's not dead, is she?" I asked as he burst through the door.

"Negative. I can hear her breathing and her heartbeat. I believe she is merely unconscious."

"Can we teleport out now?" Bill asked anxiously.

"Give it another few minutes," Wizzit said. "Her guards have not yet left the vicinity, and in addition, she is lying in an unusual position. Let me get some additional footage of her. I can digitally remove you from the security camera's image if necessary, but if you're going to be moving her, I'll want some extra shots I can feed in."

"Can you at least show us what's going on in her cell?" he demanded.

Wizzit didn't reply, but the vid screen on the wall flared to life. This wasn't the image from the fairly low-resolution surveillance cam; what we were seeing was generated by the microsensor package that Nicolai and I had installed shortly after Shelley was incarcerated there. The large amount of input data it provided allowed Wizzit to show her to us from pretty much any angle he wanted and from whatever distance he chose.

Bill made an angry sound as we zoomed in on Shelley's face. I could understand why. She had obviously been struck repeatedly -- with a fist, if the bruises we were seeing were any indication. Her nose had been bloodied, and the one eye that we could see had swollen shut.

"Are you storing this footage?" Bill asked, his voice tight with fury.

"Already stored and ready for public release, whenever we decide to play this particular card," Wizzit replied. "I am also currently downloading their own video footage of the interrogation that led to this, cross-referencing with available staff photos to identify as many actors in the footage as possible. I am reviewing the video as it comes in . . . hmm . . . it appears as though an unidentified man took great exception to the last list of names that Shelley provided. He shouts 'Do you think this is funny?' at her . . . one . . . two . . . three . . . four times . . . and then, to use the most precise term available to me, he went all apeshit on her, hitting and kicking her repeatedly in the face and torso."

I frowned. "That last list was . . ."

"Names and addresses of acrobats and clowns currently employed by the Ringling Bros., Barnum & Baily Circus."

I nodded. I remembered now, and at the time, it actually had seemed pretty funny. Not so much now.

"Can you determine who it was that attacked her, Wizzit?" Bill asked.

"Based on the deference the others are showing him," Wizzit replied, "I would guess that the unidentified man is our friend, Mr. Emile Zwicky, the agent in charge of Shelley's case. And . . . yes! I have confirmation. Several other interrogators pulled him away from her; one of them shouted, 'For God's sake, Emile, she's out cold! Let her alone!'"

"And how injured is she?"

"Scanning . . . she does not appear to have suffered any life-threatening injuries. Extensive bruising, split lip, bloody nose – not broken, though -- two loose teeth, possible mild concussion, possible fracture of the cheekbone. No fracturing of the skull, however, and only a remote possibility of brain damage."

"That's good, at least," I said, relieved.

"When can I go out to see her?" Bill demanded.

"You can go out now," Wizzit said, "although I would recommend turning on camouflage mode. They have apparently summoned a physician to see to her. He will be there in approximately two minutes. Of course, you must not draw attention to yourself while anyone else is in the room."

"Send me out there now."

I felt the tingling at the base of my skull; evidently Wizzit decided to send me out as well. I barely had time to activate my force shield and turn on camouflage mode before everything went hazy. When my vision cleared, Bill, in camouflage mode himself, was already at Shelley's side. I couldn't see him, obviously, but I could hear him speaking softly to her and I could see the way he swept back Shelley's dark blonde hair from her face.

Shelley uttered a groan and half-opened her eyes. She grimaced groggily, revealing bloodstained teeth. He spoke to her for a short time, then Wizzit said, Prime-to-Prime, "Time to back away, Black. They will be entering within ten seconds."

Bill whispered something further to Shelley, then drew her hair back over her face as it had been. "Over here, Black," I murmured, guiding him to me. "In the corner to your right."

He stepped back and took hold of my outstretched hand. (See, it's not just boys holding hands with girls when we're in camouflage mode. Per our standard procedure, boys hold hands with boys as well, so we can keep track of each other.)

Seconds later, the door to the cell opened. The doctor who entered (at least, I assumed he was a doctor) wore captain's bars on his shirt collar. He knelt beside her, speaking quietly. His hands moved over her -- poking, prodding, testing. As we watched him work on her, I said, Prime-to-Prime, "Hey, Black, can I ask you something? In confidence?"

"Sure," he said absently, as if he had heard me but didn't want to take his eyes off of Shelley.

"How well did you know Robin South?"

"Robin?" I felt him shrug. "Reasonably well. We recruited her and Toby at about the same time, when I became Prime Red after Rama died and Cathy resigned. She had been with us a little over two years, I think, by the time I . . . retired."

I winced at the hesitation in his voice. His retirement from the Primes had not been voluntary, I knew; Wizzit had fired him. Supposedly that had all been smoothed over by the time Wizzit invited him to rejoin us on an interim basis as Prime Black, but I didn't know whether it was still a sore point with him and I had no wish to re-open old wounds. "Let me pose a hypothetical question," I said. "If Robin had come to you and told you that one of the other Primes had been . . . well, sexually abusing her, what would you have done?"

"Did she tell you that?"

"Yeah, the night before she died."

Bill sighed deeply. "Robin . . . had some character flaws. Don't get me wrong, she was good at her job \-- she was a good fighter, she generally worked well with the team, and she spoke enough Mandarin to be our translator whenever we were in China -- but . . . well, I know she latched onto Mike for a while, and after he broke it off with her, she came to him one day and told some wild story about how I had forced myself on her the night before. I don't know what she was trying to do, maybe win his sympathy or something."

I felt my heart sink. "Yeah, the story she told me was something like that. What did Mike do?"

"He found me in the gym and tried to punch my lights out." He chuckled softly. "Luckily for both of us, Shelley was there. She explained to Mike that I had been with her in her room when the assault allegedly took place."

I looked over at Shelley, who was still lying on the floor. At the doctor's request, she was curling up her legs, then stretching them out again. "You and she go back a long ways, don't you?" I said.

"We were Primes together for ten or twelve years, so yeah. We didn't start dating until after I became Prime Red, though. I lost track of her after I left the Primes, but then we re-connected about a year ago."

"I'm glad you did." I squeezed his hand. "You're good for her. You make her happy."

"Thanks."

Shelley was sitting up now; the doctor was checking her face, head, and teeth. Then he shone a pencil flashlight in first one eye, then the other. Eventually he seemed to come to pretty much the same conclusions that Wizzit had. He sent someone out for a wheelchair so they could take Shelley to their infirmary for some x-rays.

He seemed angry, and so did a number of the guards who had followed him into the cell. That surprised me, although maybe it shouldn't have. I guess I had been assuming all along that Shelley's jailers were just a bunch of sadistic buffoons. The ones seeing to her now, though, seemed genuinely concerned about her and mighty ticked off at Zwicky.

Part of it, I was sure, was due to Shelley's personal charisma. She's like her old man, Commander Windham, in that way. You couldn't talk to either one of them for more than five minutes without developing an immense liking and respect for them. And I guess that part of it, too, was that you can find nice, caring people pretty much everywhere you go, even in what to my mind amounted to an illegal prison camp.

Regardless, the doctor declared that he would file yet another complaint over the conditions of her imprisonment. When the wheelchair arrived, she was helped into it as carefully as if Bill or I had been doing it. I even saw one of the guards slip what looked like a stick of chewing gum into the pocket of her orange jumpsuit, out of sight of the security cam. That made me smile. I couldn't help noticing, though, that their concern did not prevent them from shackling her firmly in place like a common criminal before they wheeled her out.

Back at HQ, Bill quickly deactivated and made a beeline for the office. I followed in his wake. "Wizzit," he said grimly, "I think it's time to start putting together that final list of names for Shelley."

"Agreed, but it will have to be approved by the ranking Prime on duty."

Bill whirled and pinned his gaze expectantly on me. See, when Wizzit brought him back in, it was with the understanding that he would be merely an advisor, outside our normal chain of command; he would give no orders, nor would he be obliged to follow any. That was to ensure there would be little awkwardness about whether he or Mike was in charge.

He and I had clashed over that very point once, in fact, and I had won out because I was the ranking Prime on the scene. Now, I think he was half-expecting me to countermand whatever he had in mind. I raised my hands in a show of capitulation. "Hey, I don't know anything about this final list you're talking about, but if it means getting back at the bastard who just beat up Shelley, then I'm all for it. I'm not the ranking Prime, though; Nicolai is. And Toby after him. The last time I saw Nicolai, he was --"

"He and Padma are engaged in some rather intense research at present," Wizzit interrupted. "I would hesitate to break in on them. And I didn't mean that we couldn't begin work on the list. We will simply have to obtain Prime Red's approval before passing the list on to Shelley."

"Intense research"? Was that what Wizzit decided to call it? I tried not to smirk. Although, come to think of it, he covered for us pretty well when Padma and I had had our twenty minutes of passion. Eh, maybe he's a bit more discreet than I sometimes give him credit for.

Regardless, I followed Bill to the office and we set to work compiling the next list, and let me tell you, it was a doozy! I'll refrain from the standard fiction-writer's trick and simply tell you what it was now, rather than wait for a dramatic moment. We were pulling together a list, from the personnel files Wizzit had retrieved and other sources, of Emile Zwicky's closest associates. His wife, kids, siblings, parents, golf partners, drinking buddies -- anybody who was close to him at all. Then we pared down the list to the top ten plus Zwicky himself. After all, there were eleven of us on the team now: seven Primes, three Primes Emeriti, and one Junior Prime, although I don't think we had ever all been in the same place at the same time before.

These were the names we were going to give to Shelley, along with addresses and phone numbers. I didn't know how she was going to memorize it all, but Bill assured me that she had a system and that this would be well within her abilities. The idea was to let Zwicky know that we knew who he was and that he would be held accountable for whatever happened to Shelley. I couldn't think of a better, more direct way to send him a message short of beating him up in person, and we weren't prepared to be quite that threatening just yet.

Chapter 17

They kept Shelley in the infirmary for a week to recover from her beating. I'm pretty sure that, medically speaking, she didn't really need to stay in that long. In fact, Wizzit scanned a few of her medical reports which seemed to indicate that she was healing up pretty fast -- much faster than anyone expected.

I wasn't surprised. After all, Shelley had been doing the healing coma thing a couple of times a week for most of the past fifteen years; I imagine that in all that time, her body had learned a thing or two about how to rapidly heal itself. And she probably didn't have a whole lot else to do while she was there except lie still and pretend she was in a healing coma.

Doctor Schmidt, the physician who had brought her in, was surprised, though, and interested. Too interested for our comfort, in fact, because he began trying to make a case for moving Shelley to his facilities permanently for study. According to his reports, he spent a couple of hours questioning her, trying to find out just what her secret was for rapid healing, and he seemed to think that he was making significant progress.

I wasn't sure how Shelley felt about the whole matter. On the one hand, although we were able to keep fairly good track of her while she was there, we couldn't visit her. We were unable to communicate with her in any way, in fact, because she was under twenty-four-hour guard. On the other hand, I expect she was pretty happy to be eating real food and sleeping in a real bed for the first time in months. (No, her cell did not have a bed, or even a cot or bunk; she had been sleeping on the bare floor. Yeah, I know. Zwicky was a real bastard.)

Regardless, Doctor Schmidt's request was denied, and Shelley was soon returned to her cell. Bill teleported out to see her within probably twenty minutes of her arrival. He returned about ten minutes after that, his face like a thundercloud. "She, uh, didn't particularly feel like having visitors," he said in reply to everyone's questioning looks. "She memorized the list, but then she asked us to leave her alone for a day or so. I told her someone would be out to see her tomorrow."

"I'm sorry, mate," Mike told him. I echoed the feeling. Bill looked as though he had been kicked in the stomach.

Toby asked quietly, "D'you reckon we're starting to lose her?"

Bill shook his head. "No. Not her. Never. She was just upset; it'll pass."

"I hope you're right," Nicolai said.

Padma shivered. "I know I wouldn't want to trade places with her."

"If it's any consolation," Wizzit spoke up, "you would have to be leaving now anyway. Her guards have been sent over to bring her in for another interrogation."

"So soon?" Trina asked, looking worried. "She has been in her cell for only a little while."

"It's probably all part of a plan," Bill said grimly. "You or I might see her feeling upset and think we've got to help her through it. They see it as another opportunity to break her, to get inside her head."

"Yes, well, it can't be helped." Mike said. "I don't mean to sound callous, but we know we can't be there to hold her hand. What we can do is continue to do our jobs and follow the plan. Wizzit?"

"I have already contacted the others," Wizzit replied. "Prime Steel, Prime Silver, and Junior Prime Pink will be here shortly. Prime Copper has not yet responded."

"As usual," Mike muttered.

I grinned. Mayumi was always eager to help out, but she sometimes seemed to live in a world and time apart from the rest of us. "Want me to go get her?"

Mike sighed and nodded. "Yeah, I suppose you'd --"

"Prime Copper has just reported," Wizzit interrupted. "She will be available for teleport in two minutes. The others are coming in now."

There were three flashes of light, and suddenly Angie, Cathy, and Alvaro were standing before us. I introduced my sister to the two Primes Emeriti while we were waiting for Mayumi to get ready, and Mike handed out surgical gloves and the envelopes that he, Trina, Toby, and Nicolai had just finished sealing.

"All right, everyone understand what they're supposed to do?" Mike asked after Mayumi showed up five minutes later. We all nodded. "Good. Remember, the name is on the envelope, and the address, too, if applicable. Delivery doesn't have to be perfect, just close enough, and if you can't deliver it without getting caught, don't even try. We don't have to get every single one of these exactly on target to send a message. Got it?" We all nodded again. "Good. Then let's get going."

"Wow, this is so cool!" I heard Angie exclaim after we had all activated and then turned on camouflage mode. "I can't believe you never told me I could turn myself invisible, Tre--, I mean, Blue!"

"What would you have done if I had?" I replied, chuckling. "Tried to sneak in the boys' locker room at school?"

"Hmm. I hadn't thought of that. Good idea. Thanks!" There was a flash of pink light, and she teleported away before I could think of a retort. Then I felt the tingling at the base of my skull as I 'ported out to my own mission.

Angela had probably the easiest assignment of us all, I reflected. Wizzit was sending her to a tree-lined street in a quiet suburb in Virginia. All she had to do was to go to the house number printed on the envelope, stick the envelope in the door, ring the doorbell, and run away. After that, she was to watch from a safe distance to make sure that the addressee, Mrs. Joanna Zwicky, Emile's wife, actually retrieved the envelope. Then Wizzit would teleport her back to HQ and she would be done.

My own delivery was looking to be a bit more difficult than Angela's. Zwicky's son Jordan was my target. He was in junior high school, and somehow I was supposed to locate his classroom and drop the envelope onto his desk without anyone being the wiser. I debated for a while how to go about it.

I mean, I could have chickened out and simply laid the letter on the desk at the main office, but that would just have been admitting defeat. No fun at all. Or I could have pulled a fire alarm and delivered it while everyone was out of the building, but there was no subtlety in that, no panache. Eventually I asked Wizzit to go into the school computer to find out where he was, hoping for an idea. When he told me, I almost laughed out loud. Suddenly it was going to be a whole lot easier that I had thought.

He was in gym class. That meant that all I had to do was to sneak into the boys' locker room (like sister, like brother, I guess), have Wizzit call Jordan's cellphone number, and slide the envelope into the locker that was ringing. Piece of cake, and when I delivered the letter and 'ported back to HQ, it turned out that I was the third one done.

The writing and delivery of these letters had been Mike's idea, by the way. After Bill had told him of Shelley's beating, he had decided that it wouldn't be good enough just to feed Emile Zwicky a list of names that he already knew. He wanted us to make it clear that we not only knew who Zwicky's friends and family were, but that we could get to them at any time.

So, once we got word that Shelley was moving to interrogation again, he had had Wizzit print up a series of letters, each one addressed to someone on the list. The letters carried no overt threat, and we had taken pains to ensure that they were phrased as neutrally as possible. The gist of the wording was that, according to our sources, their friend/husband/father, Emile Zwicky, was overseeing the continued incarceration of our friend, Shelley Windham, formerly known as Prime Red, and that we believed she was being mistreated.

The note went on to say that at the present moment -- and then it gave the current day and time -- he was supervising yet another interrogation of her. The last interrogation he had supervised, it read, had resulted in his punching and kicking her -- while she was handcuffed to a chair and unable to fight back -- to the point where she had lost consciousness, and we were concerned that something like that might happen again.

The letter closed by urging the recipient to contact Zwicky about the matter, and it listed his personal cellphone number as well as his office phone number, both of which we understood to be fairly close-held secrets, if not actually classified. And lastly, just to give it a personal touch, Wizzit had included a realistic-looking signature from one of us at the bottom of each letter.

The others began reappearing at HQ one by one as they finished their respective assignments. Nearly everyone had found their individual assignments fairly easy to carry out. We did have one failure -- the father was out on a hunting trip and not expected back for days -- but we also had one resounding success -- Toby had managed to slip the letter assigned to one of Zwicky's golfing buddies in amongst his clubs while he was out on the links.

While we were out, Wizzit had begun capturing the feed from Shelley's latest interrogation, so once we were all back, we settled down to watch the Shelley Show -- the seven of us who didn't have anywhere else to be, that is. Primes Pink, Steel, Silver, and Copper all popped back home.

Several things surprised me about the interrogation vid. The first was how good a quality it was. I had gotten used to seeing the output from the cheap, low-resolution camera installed in Shelley's cell; the cameras used here were obviously more expensive. And I do mean "cameras", as in two of them, each controlled by an actual human who would pan, zoom in, zoom out, and generally make it more interesting. Wizzit put both video streams up on our screen side by side and let us choose which one we wanted to view.

Lighting was better as well, at least for Shelley's face and body. We knew they shipped these vids out to various smart people who would analyze the heck out of her vocabulary, body language, voice modulation, breathing rate, and anything else they could think of, and they obviously wanted her every reaction to be as visible as possible.

(Funny story: About a month previous to this, Shelley called her interviewer "mate" during an interrogation, the way Mike does a lot. Two days later, Wizzit intercepted a flurry of reports speculating wildly about the number of Australians on our team. Evidently they weren't aware that New Zealanders used the term as well.)

I think the thing that surprised me the most, though, was Shelley herself. Under ordinary circumstances, she is one of the coolest, most composed, most even-tempered people I know. (And bear in mind that for me, "ordinary circumstances" includes life-and-death struggles against Enclave monsters.) Not today, though. Today, she was royally ticked off.

She stalked into the room, flanked by her guards, and sat glaring at the young man opposite her as she was handcuffed in place. The young man sat behind a desk, shuffling a stack of papers in front of him. When Shelley's guards moved away from her and took up stations along the walls, his was the only other face that was illuminated. Several other figures sat in chairs around the room, but the careful lighting made them indistinct, mere shadows. And one of those shadows, I was sure, was Emile Zwicky.

The young man smiled blandly. "Good afternoon, Shelley."

Shelley scowled. "It's morning, and you damn well know it," she snapped.

The young man carefully raised a pen and made a tick mark on one of the sheets of paper. "I trust you are now fully recovered from your little accident?" he inquired unctuously. When she didn't reply, he said with great patience, as if speaking to a dull-witted child, "Shelley, you know I require an answer for every question."

Shelley drew in a breath and seemed to gain a measure of control over her temper. "I didn't answer," she said sharply, "because I have no idea what you're talking about. I suffered no accident, so your question made no sense. Now, if you were asking me whether I have fully recovered from the injuries I suffered at the hands of one of your superiors behind you, then yes, I have."

Her questioner made no reply; he simply wrote something on the sheet of paper in front of him. "You seem agitated this afternoon," he observed. "I think I understand why. You are upset at being returned to your cell earlier today, aren't you? You enjoyed relative comfort while you were in our infirmary, and now you resent the fact that that comfort has been taken away from you, isn't that right?" Again, she didn't reply. "Shelley, that was a question, and you are required to answer it."

She shrugged. "It was nice, and yeah, I'd like to continue sleeping in a bed instead of on the floor."

The young man smiled at her. "You see, it's not hard to cooperate. And I think you'll find it rewarding as well. It's all up to you." He shrugged elaborately. "You could sleep in a warm, comfortable bed tonight and every night from here on out. It's completely your choice. All you have to do is cooperate with us."

"I have been cooperating with you. I told you how we handle our teleportation, and what did that get me? Nothing!"

"You did give us some information, yes, and rest assured that our experts are looking at it very closely. But you have not been completely forthcoming with us." He leaned forward. "Tell us the names of the other members of your team."

"So you can lock them in a cell as you have me? No thanks! I know the meaning of loyalty."

Her interrogator shook his head sadly, as if dismayed by her willfulness. "Shelley, I have explained this to you time and time again, and yet you still don't seem to want to understand. We don't wish to punish the other Primes. They have performed a magnificent service to the world, despite their obvious limitations."

He smiled at her again, and this time I felt a nearly overwhelming urge to reach out through the video screen and smack him upside the head. "It's simply time for a better-trained, better-equipped, more experienced force to take over. We, the United States military, are that force. But we can't do it if your former teammates are left free to interfere. We are professionals, Shelley; we know what we're doing. They are amateurs \-- you know it and I know it -- and they are a danger to themselves as well as to others. If you were truly loyal to them, you would agree that they need to be taken off the playing field as soon as possible for their own protection."

They sat staring at each other for several long seconds. Finally, the young man signed to someone outside the view of the cameras. "I think we will be needing the water, the table, and the washcloth." He turned back to Shelley. "I'm sorry you're choosing this course, Shelley. Truly, I am. Your fate is completely under your control, and you are forcing us to 'board you yet again."

"If my fate is under my control," Shelley said tightly, "then why can't I walk out of here?"

"You know it doesn't work that way, Shelley. If you give us what we want, then we'll give you what you want."

"You'll let me go free? You'll let me see my mother and sister again?"

He smiled again. "I don't think you really want to go free, do you? Remember, you're facing some pretty serious charges on the outside." He drew out one sheet of paper from his pile and began skimming through it. "It says here that you were running cocaine to finance your operation; we found the remains of one of your drug shipments in that building out on your family's ranch, if you recall. And we know you killed your father in a disagreement over splitting the profits. Your own father." He shook his head and tsked. "Those are the facts, I'm afraid."

He laid the paper down and looked at her with marvelously-faked sympathy. "Now, I realize you probably thought you were serving the greater good, and I agree that perhaps you were, but not everyone would see it in the same light that you or I do. I know you don't really want to go to prison, Shelley. I don't want you to go to prison, either, but I can't help you unless you help us. Your only hope is cooperation."

There was a clatter as the doors opened and several men wheeled in some sort of table. The young man signaled a couple of the guards, and they moved forward to unfasten Shelley's handcuffs.

"Wait!" she said quickly.

The young man raised his eyebrows. "Yes?"

Shelley licked her lips nervously. If she was acting, she was doing one heckuva job at it. "If I give you their names, you'll -- you'll make sure I get a bed tonight? And some decent food?"

"Give us the names," he replied, "and we'll see. Their real names, Shelley," he added, a warning in his voice. "Not those pathetic fake ones you have been inventing."

She glanced over at the wheeled table, and her shoulders slumped. "All right," she said. "Take these down." Then she began giving them the first of the eleven names, addresses, and telephone numbers that Bill had had her memorize.

I felt myself relax as I heard her start her recitation. I didn't really think she would betray us, but as I said before, she was doing a pretty good job of acting like it. I watched carefully and marveled at her powers of recollection as she rattled off name after name without any sign of hesitation.

At first, neither her questioner nor any of the shadowy figures in the background showed any sign that they recognized any of the names. When she got to the first of the six Zwickys on the list, though, the young man behind the desk looked up sharply at her and I saw a stirring of motion behind him. She got through Zwicky's father, and then his mother, but then, when she said "Jordan Zwicky", one of the observers in the back gave sort of a strangled cry. Her interrogator glanced back anxiously -- the first time he had shown any emotion other than complete composure -- and raised a hand. "Just a minute, Shelley," he said.

But Shelley didn't "just a minute." She continued in a strong, firm voice with Jordan's address and cellphone number, then went on to Erin Zwicky, his teenage daughter. By the time she got to his wife Joanna, the shadowy figure was on his feet, and several of the security guards were having to hold him back to prevent him from rushing Shelley's chair. She had to raise her voice nearly to a shout to make herself heard as she delivered the final name on the list, Mister Emile Zwicky himself. The vid cut out just a couple of seconds later, and a few minutes after that, Wizzit reported that Shelley was back in her cell, apparently none the worse for wear.

We never saw Emile Zwicky again after that day. Of course, one could argue that we had never really seen him in the first place, but you know what I mean. According to Wizzit, after Shelley's interrogation he went straight back to his office, where I imagine he nearly had a coronary at the sight of the neatly-sealed envelope addressed to him that Bill had laid on his desk.

He then made several telephone calls, probably to assure himself that we had indeed not kidnapped, tortured, and killed his wife or kids. (Hmph! As if! Why would we want to do something dumb like that?) Then he hurriedly packed his things and left the Denver base, and I don't think he ever came back.

Chapter 18

The next day, I drew the lucky straw and teleported out to see Shelley. She was, to put it politely, a wreck. She looked like she had been crying off and on since the interrogation and hadn't slept a wink all night. I gotta say, that's never a good look for anyone. She was happy enough to see me, though. She flung her arms around me and just wouldn't let go, sobbing the entire time.

To be honest, I was a little worried. I had seen Shelley discouraged before, or angry, or in tears -- even drunk once, I think -- but never so out-of-control hysterical as she seemed right then. Not knowing what else to do, I just stood there and let her cling to me and cry it out while I stroked her hair and said brilliant things like "It's okay, hon. It's all right."

Her emotional storm blew itself out after about five minutes. She pulled away from me and tried to wipe away the damp spots on my tee-shirt. "I'm sorry, Blue," she managed to say. "I -- I hate for anyone to see me like this."

"Don't worry about it," I told her, meaning it. I took hold of her hands and pulled them away from my shirt. "You have absolutely nothing to apologize for."

"Thanks." She began swiping at her eyes and cheeks, brushing away the tears. "I was so worried that no one would come out today."

"Why wouldn't we?" I exclaimed, shocked. "Shelley, we're never going to abandon you! Never!"

She looked down. "I . . . I guess I knew that, but after the way I blew up at Black yesterday, I was afraid that . . ."

"Again, don't worry about it."

"Was Black upset?"

I considered my answer, remembering the stricken look on Bill's face. "He . . . didn't know quite what to make of it," I said diplomatically. "So what happened?"

She ran a hand down her face. At first I didn't think she was going to answer, but then she said in a quiet voice, "Have you ever heard of Stockholm syndrome?"

"Stockholm syndrome?" I repeated. "Uh, yeah, I think so. Isn't that the idea that kidnapping victims sometimes fall in love with their kidnappers?" I stared at her. "That didn't happen to you, did it? I mean, you don't seem the type."

"I may have had a touch of it," she admitted. She suddenly looked up. "Wizzit, is anyone listening in right now?"

"Negative." His voice came, not from the ceiling, but from my belt.

"Good. Can you please put a lock on this visit so that no one can view it unless I give the okay?"

"Certainly." Wizzit, I had noticed, seemed always to be on his best behavior with Shelley these days. "Not even Black?"

"Especially not Black."

"Will do."

Shelley breathed a sigh of relief, then she looked over at me. "I have to talk to someone about this, Blue," she said. "You know the doctor who took me out of here . . .?"

"Doctor Schmidt?" I prompted her.

She nodded. "Evan. He insisted I call him that. He was very nice to me. Very warm, very caring, very friendly. It was quite a surprise, and I guess I wasn't prepared for it. We spent a lot of time talking, and . . ." Her voice trailed off.

"Did the two of you do anything else besides just talk?"

She shook her head. "Not really. He kissed me once, and I kissed him back. It was pretty intense; at least it felt that way to me. It might have gone further, and I kind of wanted it to go further, but there was a security guard in the room with us, so nothing happened." She gave me a crooked smile. "His was the first friendly face I had seen in months."

I looked down with dismay at my blue-glowing self. "Shelley, you know why we have to stay shielded while we're here, right? If the security cam somehow caught one of us despite Wizzit's precautions, or if someone walked in before we could get away . . ."

"I know." She sat straight up, as if she had suddenly thought of something. "You don't think they set the whole thing up just to get to me, do you? The beating, having Evan come and bring me back to his infirmary, having him \--"

"No," I interrupted firmly. "Definitely not, not as far as we were able to tell. Doctor Schmidt just seems to be a fairly decent guy. We don't think he was part of any kind of setup."

"He had already filed four complaints with his superiors about the conditions of your incarceration," Wizzit said, "beginning about a month after you got here."

"Not someone they would be likely to recruit for something like that," I added, and Shelley nodded without looking at me.

Wizzit went on, "His personnel records indicate that he is married, Shelley. One kid, another on the way."

"Yeah, I knew that, and that he and his wife are pretty happy together. It didn't make any difference to the way I felt, though. And then when they took me away from him, and Black showed up almost right away . . ." She lowered her face until it was buried in her hands. I thought I might have heard a sob. "I'm pretty confused right now, Blue. I don't know what I should feel or think or do."

"Do you want me to give you some advice?"

She laughed, and I tried to ignore the hysterical tinge around the edges of it. "Sure, go ahead; it couldn't hurt. I can't promise I'll follow it, but -- okay, what advice do you have for me?"

I put my arm around her shoulders and drew her close to me. "First of all, don't take this the wrong way, Shelley," I said, "but you're kind of nuts right now."

"Tell me something I don't know! I haven't felt normal since I've been here."

"Uh huh. And one thing I've learned is, if you make a decision while you're nuts, then the decision is probably going to be a bad one."

She was silent for several seconds. "So you're telling me not to make any decisions? Just to take things as they come?"

"Something like that. At least until we can get you out of here."

"But what if I . . . what if Evan comes in here and he turns off the security cam and we . . ."

I leaned over and kissed her on the temple. "Shelley, listen to me. Black is a big boy, and he understands what you're going through as well as any of us. Trust me, no one is going to blame you for anything that happens while you're in here, least of all Black."

"But . . . what if I get out and I still feel the way I do now?"

"Then that's the way it goes and we'll deal with it. But I don't think that's going to happen. Shelley, you're one of the smartest and wisest people I know. When you're not nuts, that is," I added, and we both laughed. "The sane Shelley thought that Black was just perfect for her, isn't that right?" She nodded. "Okay. Then who are you going to trust, the sane Shelley or the crazy one I'm sitting with right now?"

She didn't say anything for a while, and then she started to laugh. "That's a good way to put it. Thanks, Blue. You give pretty good advice after all."

We sat for a while in silence together, our arms around each other. I think Shelley was just enjoying the human contact. After a while, she said, "What were those names I gave them yesterday? It sounded like they got someone pretty upset." Then, before I could reply, she said quickly, "No, don't tell me. The less I know, the less I can let slip."

I nodded. That was the principle we had been working under the whole time she was here. "I'll just tell you that we scored a pretty big hit with that one, Shelley. Or rather, you did. The biggest." I squeezed her shoulder. "You came through like a champ for us, hon. We're all proud of you."

We talked for a while longer. I told her in vague terms about Mike and Trina's dinner date and how, ever since then, the two of them had been doing some sort of slow-motion dance of mutual attraction about each other. I assured her that her mom and sister were doing okay and that, as far as Wizzit was able to determine, there were no outstanding charges against either them or Shelley; the whole thing with the stronghouse had died a quiet death once the tests had confirmed that the powder they had found was not cocaine and that the blood on the walls could not have been her father's.

"How are things going with Lily?" she suddenly asked me. "You haven't mentioned her in a long time."

"I haven't seen her for a long time," I replied. "Not since that mission in Guangzhou. Um, let's see . . . Black and Wizzit have been playing around with that earring I took off of her in Iceland, trying to make a remote control like JB Swift's. Of course, without a test subject, even if they're able to generate a command that it recognizes, they won't know what it does. And Red still thinks I'm obsessed with her."

"Are you obsessed with her?"

I grinned under my force shield. Now that was the Shelley I remembered. "Maybe a little," I admitted. "But not as much as he thinks. To hear him talk, I would -- I don't know -- betray the rest of the team if she offered to give me a kiss or something. It's not like that. Underneath all the Enclave programming, she's really a sweet kid, and I just don't want to see her get hurt."

Shelley nodded. "I hope that \--"

"Sorry to interrupt," came Wizzit's voice from my belt, "but Shelley's supper will be delivered in about five minutes. You two had better say your goodbyes now. And don't forget her protein supplement."

I handed Shelley the protein shake I had brought along, and she chugged it down. "You know, I'm getting really tired of these," she commented, grimacing, as she handed me back the empty bottle. "Evan had them give me real meat when I was staying in the infirmary. It was only salisbury steak, but oh, it tasted so good!"

She frowned at the floor. "You know," she said thoughtfully, "between the food and sleeping in an actual bed for a change, I was feeling pretty good when I was in that infirmary. Do you think it's possible I might have transferred some of those good feelings to Evan?"

"Could be," I said with a shrug. "Tell you what, after we get you free, I'll tell Black to take you out and buy you the biggest steak he can find, and you can eat it in a king-sized bed. Most romantic dinner date ever. How's that sound?"

She burst out laughing. "That sounds wonderful! Thanks so much for coming out, Blue. Tell Black I'm sorry and that I want to see him tomorrow."

"Will do."

She gave me another long hug, and I teleported back home.

Chapter 19

That was the last time anyone ever tried to question Shelley. With Zwicky taken out of the picture in such a dramatic fashion, I guess no one else was eager to step up to see what other things she could be provoked into saying. To be honest, I think some of the higher-ups were a little afraid of her.

With Zwicky gone, Doctor Evan Schmidt was able to get Shelley on a more normal, more balanced diet, so we didn't have to bring her those protein shakes every day, and they rolled a cot into her cell about two days later. But that was it. She still was allowed no visitors, and was still left in her cell by herself for upwards of twenty hours a day. It would have been intolerable for her, I'm sure, if we hadn't come out to keep her company -- sometimes in twos and threes -- every chance we got. Further, there was no talk of sending her to any sort of less-secure facility, much less of setting her free. I think they just didn't know what to do with her.

She might have been left to rot in that cell forever if it hadn't been for two things. First, Wizzit began kicking our public-relations campaign into high gear. Remember when I said he was collecting all the reports and vids and stuff about Shelley "for later"? Well, suddenly it was later. Wizzit began selecting, editing, and sending out piles of the data he had accumulated -- reports and vids, yeah, but also policy statements, complaints, orders, directives, analyses, transcripts -- the whole nine yards. I don't know where on the Internet he put it, but he found someplace, and then he clued in a whole bunch of news organizations as to where it was.

He didn't send it all out at once, either. It might have made a bigger splash that way, but it might also have been quickly forgotten. Instead, he released it piecemeal \-- a couple of reports one day, an "enhanced interrogation" vid a few days later -- so that Shelley was constantly in the public consciousness, and each release was just a bit more outrageous than the last. To the folks stationed at the Denver base and their superiors, the steady drip, drip, drip of information leaking out must have felt like the Chinese water torture.

I guess his releasing all those files made a lot of people pretty angry. I mean, there was some pretty damning stuff in there, even if Wizzit did redact any personally identifiable information. The video of Zwicky beating up Shelley, just by itself, provoked indignant headlines and editorials all across the country.

Various human rights organizations began screaming about all the abuses Shelley was being subjected to; elected officials inside and outside the United States made speeches both for and against her continued detainment; the CIA were furious that the "teleportation technology framework" had been leaked to the public; and the military were breathing fire and brimstone and vowing to catch the malefactor responsible for the leak. They never did, of course.

The other event which helped secure Shelley's release took place a little over a month later, in late March. I remember the day because I had gone out for a few hours the night before to see Angie in "South Pacific"; today was their Sunday matinee and final performance. At HQ, we had just finished dinner and were playing horse (the card game, not the game involving basketballs) when the monster alarm sounded. It shut off again almost right away, which was a little odd, and then Wizzit said, "Bad news, kids. Enclave sent out three monsters this time, and they all look pretty tough. One is in Chicago, a second one is in Las Vegas, and the third is in Washington, DC."

A collective groan came up from the group. I gathered up the cards and put them away, since this sounded like it was going to be a long and probably fruitless outing. We glumly got ourselves ready and teleported out in groups of two and three to bear witness to the disaster that this was probably going to turn into. I was kind of hoping to go either to DC or Las Vegas. Lucky me, I went with Bill to Chicago. Not that I have anything against Chicago, but DC is my nation's capital and Las Vegas is, well, Las Vegas. Chicago, while I'm sure it's a fine city, is neither of those.

Unbeknownst to us at the time, although I suppose it was probably beknownst to Wizzit, Shelley was hauled out of her cell while I was hanging out with Bill on the mean streets of Chicago. They took her, not to the interrogation room, but to a small, private office for a one-on-one interview. I didn't see the vid of it until much later, but I'll include it here just so my narrative follows some sort of chronological order.

A man in his early forties, wearing a dark blue business suit, was sitting behind the desk when Shelley's guards brought her in. They sat her down in a chair facing the desk and were starting to shackle her wrists behind the chair's back when the man told them to put their handcuffs away and to wait for her outside the room.

Once the two of them were alone, the man half-rose from his seat and extended a hand. "Good afternoon, Ms. Windham. I am Harold Wadsworth, State Department. It's a pleasure to finally meet you."

Shelley didn't say anything, nor did she move to shake his hand. She merely sat looking at him expectantly, her hands folded in her lap. After an awkward moment, he withdrew his hand and sat back down again. "Ms. Windham," he said, "I represent the government of the United States of America. I have had you brought here to talk about the terms of your incarceration. I think that after some discussion, there is every possibility that you and I might come to an agreement which could prove mutually beneficial."

There was a silence which lasted for several seconds, and then Shelley asked quietly, "Are you going to release me unconditionally, with no restrictions on my behavior or movements whatsoever?"

If he were surprised by the question, he didn't show it. "No, of course not. I am not authorized to offer you anything like that."

"Then we have nothing to talk about."

"What I am authorized to offer you," he went on as if she had not spoken, "is a kind of parole. In return for certain concessions on your part, we would be willing to allow you to return to your home in Montana. Once there, you would be free to live as you saw fit, with certain restrictions."

"This offer is non-negotiable," he added when she did not reply right away. "I will tell you what our terms are, and you will accept them. If you do not, you will be returned to your cell, and I can assure you that it will be a long time before you see the outside of it again."

Shelley nodded to herself and leaned back casually in her chair. "Sorry, not interested."

There was another long silence, broken this time when Wadsworth said, "Aren't you even curious to know the details of what I am proposing?"

"Not particularly," she replied coolly. "I assume, based on the hard-sell you're giving me, that you urgently want my cooperation for some reason. So far, you people have been in no particular hurry to get whatever information you want from me, which leads me to suspect that a crisis of some sort must have arisen which requires my help to resolve. The only such crisis I can think of is an Enclave attack somewhere within the borders of the United States which the Primes are refusing to deal with." She raised an eyebrow at him. "Am I correct so far?"

Wadsworth remained impassive. "Go on," he said.

Shelley watched him for a moment more. "Mr. Wadsworth," she said, "if you think that you can persuade me to intercede for you with my former teammates and get them to solve your monster problem for you, then you are mistaken. Not that I am unwilling to help, but I don't think they would listen to me."

Wadsworth smiled confidently. "I think you underestimate yourself, Ms. Windham. You were a member of the Primes for --" He glanced down at a sheet of paper on his desk. "-- fifteen years, and you were their leader for, well, for a number of years, at least. I think you might still have some influence."

"Of course I have influence," Shelley said impatiently, "but that by itself won't be enough to bring them back." She looked closely at him. "Do you understand just why it is that the Primes will not enter the United States just now?"

The man shrugged. "Certainly. It is a bargaining position. They have certain technologies, and we want them. We have you, and they want you back. The only leverage they have over us is their skill at neatly dispatching these monsters, so they withhold that to force us to come to the bargaining table. Once there, we will make a proposal, they will make a counter-proposal, we will negotiate, and eventually each of us will walk away with more-or-less what we want."

Shelley was shaking her head. "You don't understand it at all," she murmured as if to herself.

"Then perhaps you can enlighten me," he said, smiling indulgently at her.

"Very well, I'll try." She looked at the ceiling for a moment or two to gather her thoughts, then said, "Let me explain two things to you. First, the technology the Primes use to fight Enclave doesn't belong to us."

"It was stolen?" Wadsworth asked, showing surprise for the first time.

"No," Shelley said firmly. "It was given us by . . . let's just say, by someone who doesn't want to see the Earth overrun by an alien invader. It's not a bargaining chip, nor is it a tool to be used by one group to gain or maintain ascendancy over another. It's a gift to be used responsibly to defend our planet from Enclave, and we Primes take that responsibility very seriously. Prime tech is not ours to give away."

"Please give your mysterious benefactor my personal assurances that the United States would use this technology only in its own defense, never as an aggressor," Wadsworth interjected smoothly.

Shelley must have thought that remark to be unworthy of reply, for she went on, "Even we Primes are constrained in our use of the technology. We have some degree of latitude, but we also have certain strict rules we must abide by or risk loss of our powers. One of those rules, by the way, is anonymity; we must keep our identities secret. For instance, because my identity is now publicly known, I can no longer be a Prime."

Wadsworth frowned. "Your father is a cold-blooded man indeed," he said, "to dismiss his own daughter from an organization she helped found and was a member of for fifteen years."

"My father?" Shelley repeated, surprised. "What does he have to do with this?"

"Oh, don't be coy, Ms. Windham," Wadsworth replied testily. "Surely you don't expect us to believe that your father is really dead, do you? The mysterious horse-riding accident, the rather suspect death certificate, the hasty cremation and burial, and all conveniently coming at a time of heightened government interest in the Primes?" He smiled thinly at her. "Come, it will do you no harm to admit it. Your father is this mysterious benefactor, isn't he? Or at least he knows who it is, and he faked his own death -- rather crudely, I might add -- to avoid any possibility of capture and interrogation."

Shelley stared at him in shock for several seconds before she spoke. "Mr. Wadsworth," she said stiffly, "I realize that you are probably paid to be suspicious, and I admit that the circumstances surrounding my father's death were somewhat unusual, so I will not take offense at your remarks. You should know, though, that when I tell you that my father is really, truly dead, that is the truth. I discovered his body myself. There can be no doubt."

Wadsworth regarded her appraisingly. "You give me your word that he is dead?"

"I do."

"You didn't kill him yourself?"

"I did not."

"Do you know who did?"

Shelley's answering smile seemed painfully forced. "The other thing you have to understand about the Primes," she said, ignoring his last question, "is that the only way you're ever going to get them operating in the United States again is to let me go. No deals, no negotiation, no bargaining, no 'certain concessions', and no parole. Just let me go, with no conditions whatsoever, and I can guarantee you that they will be back fighting your monsters for you within the hour. There is no other way."

"I see." Wadsworth leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers across his middle. "It's curious. I suggested earlier you might be underestimating yourself. Now I wonder whether you are overestimating. Are you really that valuable to them?"

"Not at all," Shelley replied. "Personally, I am of very little importance to their ongoing mission. What's important is what I represent, or rather, what my arrest and continued incarceration represent. As long as I am in this prison, my former teammates understand that the United States government considers itself free to capture and imprison any Prime operating within its borders, and if that's the case, why should any Prime ever come here?"

"Sort of a 'fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me' situation, then?"

"Exactly."

"That's rather a simplistic position, wouldn't you say?" Wadsworth observed. "After all, governmental policies are complex things, and are not always in accord with one another. Why should an entire nation be held accountable for what might be the misguided actions of a select few?"

"Our position is a simple one, but what else can we do?" she said. "We are well aware that we have access to technology that could be used to great military advantage. If we let even one country think it can bully us into sharing that technology, then no Prime would be safe anywhere in the world."

"Then we're to be made an example of, is that it?"

"If you like," she said with a shrug. "You are the ones who picked this fight, after all."

"And you're the ones who are going to finish it?"

Shelley smiled more naturally this time. "Let's just say that we're not interested in fighting, but neither will we allow ourselves to be beaten up." Then she held up a warning finger. "Also let me say this: If you do release me, and then at some point in the future you make attempts to capture another one of our number, then the Primes will leave the United States for good, and nothing you say or do will ever bring them back. Do I make myself clear?"

"You're threatening us?"

"I am stating the Primes' policy, nothing more. As you said, it's a 'fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me' situation."

Wadsworth appeared lost in thought for quite some time. Eventually, he stirred and said, "Ms. Windham, in light of some of the, er, unusual occurrences that have happened here of late, can I assume that you have some means to communicate with your former teammates?"

"You can assume whatever you like," Shelley answered carelessly.

Wadsworth frowned. Obviously that wasn't the answer he was hoping for. "If we were to grant you an unconditional release," he said cautiously, "how would we let them know we were doing so?"

"I'd imagine that a press release given out to various national news outlets would suffice," Shelley told him with a grin. "There should be a statement to the effect that my arrest and imprisonment were a mistake and that Primes operating within the United States are not subject to detainment, providing they do not egregiously break any laws. If you then brought me out to some public place with the appropriate officials and told me I was officially free to go, then I expect that one of my former teammates would show up to escort me home."

"I see." Wadsworth stood, holding out his hand again. This time, she shook it. "Ms. Windham," he said, "you are a highly intelligent and exceptionally articulate young woman, and it has been a pleasure to meet you. I shall let my superiors know what you have told me."

Chapter 20

As I said, none of us knew that any of this was taking place, except maybe Wizzit. The first any of us Primes heard about it was when, after Bill and I had been watching the monster farce in Chicago for a couple of hours, Wizzit announced, "Heads up, kids. It looks like they've finally decided to release Shelley."

I let out a whoop of excitement, and I could hear my teammates doing the same. "Do we know how soon, Wizzit?" I heard Mike ask.

"Negatory on that, good buddy," Wizzit replied. "News reports just state that her release is 'imminent'. They have moved her from her cell, but I don't know what her final destination will be. In the meantime, though, prepare to teleport back to HQ. There's no point to your staying out there."

Wizzit had put a news channel up on the large vid screen in the common room by the time we got back. The pretty blonde newscaster was concentrating on the teleprompter in front of her with the utmost seriousness. "In other news," she read, "it appears that Shelley Windham, the one-time leader of the monster-fighting group calling itself the Primes, is scheduled to be released from military custody today.

"Administration officials declined to elaborate on the reason for the sudden decision, although speculation is running high that her release is somehow connected to the running battles that police and army forces are currently waging against monsters in Chicago, Las Vegas, and the nation's capital. Windham is reportedly en route to Washington, DC, where she will meet briefly with the Vice President before being released. There has been as yet no comment from the Primes."

"Idiots!" Mike muttered as Wizzit switched off the newscast. "They're wasting time flying her out to DC. We would've been just as happy if they had dropped her off on the streets of Denver with a hearty ''Bye now!'"

"They probably still think we don't know where they've been keeping her," Bill said. "Wizzit, any thoughts on how we should pick her up?"

"I am open to suggestions."

"I'm thinking we should send two of us. Obviously Mike goes, as Prime Red, and then either Toby or me, dressed up as Prime Gold, since we're both about Shelley's height. That way, when Prime Gold starts showing up at battle scenes, folks won't immediately assume it's her."

"Good thinking," Mike said. "I nominate you to go as Prime Gold, Bill; you've earned the right if anyone has."

Bill nodded his thanks. Trina said, "While we are waiting, we should talk about the monsters we were just watching. Perhaps we can spot weaknesses of some sort."

"I was about to suggest the same thing myself," Mike agreed. "First, though . . . Wizzit, have you contacted the Primes Emeriti and Junior Prime Pink? We might need everyone's help today."

"Affirmative," Wizzit replied. "Primes Copper and Silver have cleared their calendars and are standing by. Prime Steel and Junior Prime Pink are currently unavailable. Oddly enough, each of them is due onstage sometime soon."

"I know that Alvaro was supposed to be performing in a benefit concert today," Toby said. "It's been in the works for months."

I shrugged at the puzzled looks that came my way. "My sister is in a musical at her high school," I explained. "Today is the last performance."

Mike grunted noncommittally. "Let's go over the monsters, then. Trina, you go first, since you brought it up."

Wizzit brought up a still image of a tall, four-armed, golden-skinned man wearing a tall headdress that looked vaguely Indian. I heard Padma gasp. "Do you recognize the image?" Trina asked her.

"It is Indra," Padma replied, wide-eyed. She explained, "He is the chief of the gods. He controls the thunder and the rain and is supposed to be a very great warrior."

"That would make sense," Trina agreed. "He is carrying a weapon, which you can see here." She tapped the vid screen, indicating the golden-skinned man's fist. It appeared to be holding a short, heavy stick with fancy-looking knobs at either end. "When he strikes something with the weapon, it makes a loud sound like a thunderclap."

"That is the Vajra," Padma said. "It is supposed to be hard like a diamond and irresistible like thunder."

"Of course, this is just Enclave's re-creation of their idea of Indra," Bill remarked. "My guess is the Harley twins put this monster together, since they're the ones who did the Ganesha monster earlier. They seem to put a good deal of thought and detail into their monsters. Padma, does the god Indra have any traditional weaknesses? If he does, then perhaps we could exploit those in this particular monster."

"I cannot think of any," Padma said thoughtfully. "He is a typical man: he is proud, he likes to fight, and he likes to seduce beautiful women. Oh, and he is very fond of Soma. It is a kind of intoxicating drink," she added.

"Not much help there," Bill mused, "unless we can find a keg or two of this Soma and get him drunk." He shrugged. "I'll go next, I guess. Wizzit, if you please?"

Wizzit obligingly put up an image of a beefy red-haired, red-bearded man wearing a Viking-style horned helmet and holding a short-hafted hammer in one hand. "This," Bill said, "is most likely Enclave's impression of Thor, the Norse god of thunder."

"I thought Thor was supposed to be blond," Toby interjected.

Bill chuckled. "He is in the comic books," he said, "but in the Eddas, he is described pretty much as you see him here. The hammer you see him holding is called Mjolnir, and like in the comics, it supposedly never misses its target, and if he throws it, it always finds its way back to his hand. Here," he said, tapping the screen, "are the metal gauntlets he uses to wield Mjolnir, and he also wears a magical belt, which you can see here, that is supposed to double his strength."

"So we might get somewhere if we attack the hammer, gloves, or belt?" Mike asked.

"They're probably our best targets," Bill agreed. "And lastly, we have . . ."

Wizzit brought up a third still, the image of a regal-looking man wearing a toga. "If the other two are Indra and Thor," Mike said, "then this one is probably supposed to be Zeus, I'd say. No weapons, but every now and then he makes a throwing motion, there's a flash of light, and then something explodes as if it has been struck by a thunderbolt. Appears to throw with his right hand, if it makes any difference."

"Well, the pattern is clear, if nothing else," Bill said with a shrug. "Three cities, three storm gods."

"Bill and I saw some Zoinks in Chicago," I put in. "They were running interference for Thor, but no one appeared to be directing them."

"Same thing in Washington," Padma said.

Toby said, "Didn't see any Zoinks in Las Vegas."

"So how do you want to split things up, Mike?" Bill asked.

"Primes Silver and Copper should not go to Chicago," Wizzit put in quickly. "Currently there's a cold snap there; the temperature is just above freezing. Low temperatures would prevent them from functioning optimally, as they do not have force shields."

"In that case," Mike said, "Trina should lead the team in Chicago, so that every group has a shooter. Take, um, Trevor and Nicolai with you when you go, love, all right? Trevor, you're the only native English-speaker on Trina's team, so you will be their spokesman. I'll take Mayumi and Toby with me to Washington, which leaves Cathy and Padma for you, Bill. Everyone understand their assignments?"

"If it is all the same to you," Padma said, hesitantly raising her hand, "I would prefer not to fight Indra. I know it is not the real Indra, but still . . ."

After a moment, Mike nodded. "All right, then, my team will go to Las Vegas and Bill's will go to Washington instead. Everybody happy?"

We all nodded, while Padma murmured an apology. Everyone gathered up their battle gear, and after that, the only thing left was to wait until Shelley reached Washington. Let me tell you, it was a long wait. I could probably have run from Denver to Washington faster than that plane flew.

Finally, though, she landed at Dulles International Airport, and Wizzit changed the display on the vid screen from a map of the continental U.S. to one of the DC metro area. They must have loaded her into a van, because the little Shelley-dot began moving rapidly from Dulles eastward towards Washington. When she finally stopped, Wizzit zoomed in as close as he could and overlaid the map with satellite imagery.

"The White House?" I said. "Well, I guess that's about as public a place as you could find in DC. What part are they taking her to, the Rose Garden?"

"Correctamundo!" chirped Wizzit. "Let me see what kinds of video feeds I can find. Hmm. No one is going to air this live, but I should be able to . . . yup, here we are!"

The vid screen came to life with camera footage of the Rose Garden. A news reporter was checking her hair and makeup while various men in suits and sunglasses prowled around in the background. Suddenly, a white-haired man in a dark blue suit and red tie stepped toward a bank of microphones and started speaking. I recognized him as the Vice President. I couldn't make out what sort of speech he was giving, though, because everyone started to talk all at once as Shelley suddenly moved into the picture from somewhere off to the left, flanked by armed soldiers.

They must have found some clothes for her somewhere, because she was wearing a nondescript blouse and skirt -- not the torn, bloody tee-shirt and shorts she had been wearing when she had been captured, and definitely not the orange prison jumpsuit she had been wearing while a prisoner. She had evidently been allowed to clean herself up, brush her hair, and even apply some makeup, because overall she looked pretty good. While she had been kept in that cell, she had frankly begun looking more than a little rough around the edges.

I hadn't seen her in anything except that orange jumpsuit since she had been captured. (Wizzit steadfastly refused to show us the nude interrogation, despite repeated requests from Mike and Toby.) Seeing her in street clothes now, I could tell that her time in Denver had definitely put a few pounds on her. Not that she was fat by any stretch of the imagination, but as Prime Red she had always worked hard to keep herself in tip-top shape -- extremely lean and muscular. I could tell now that her face was rounder, softer, than it had been and that she had gained a bit of weight around the hips and bust. Her hair was longer, too. Definitely a more feminine look for her. And if I were Bill, I wouldn't have minded that one little bit.

"Not too many unobserved spots close by to teleport the two of you into," Wizzit said to Mike and Bill. "Looks like I'll have to send you out in plain view of everybody. I'll try to make it far enough away from the action that their Secret Service won't tackle you."

"How much time do we have before Enclave will be able to send down more monsters in addition to the three already out there?" Trina asked anxiously.

"Unknown," Wizzit replied. "This would not be a time to dawdle, however."

Mike nodded grimly. "Ready to go?" he asked Bill.

"I've been ready for this for months," Bill replied with a grin.

"Then let's do it. Prime Red, activate!"

"Prime Gold, activate!"

Wizzit teleported the two of them out right away. About five seconds later, the Vice President abruptly stopped his speech and the camera swiveled around to focus on the two Primes who had suddenly materialized.

I hadn't gotten a good look at Bill before he teleported out, but now that I saw him on camera, I have to say that Wizzit did a mighty good job with the Prime Gold getup. Bill looked positively majestic as he strode purposefully forward, shoulder-to-shoulder with Mike. The two of them stopped a short distance in front of the bank of microphones, instantly commanding everyone's attention.

There was silence for a moment as all eyes turned to look at the newcomers. The Vice President faltered, then gave up any pretense of continuing his speech. A gaggle of reporters with microphones rushed toward the two of them shouting questions.

Mike's amplified voice easily carried over them: "I hate to seem abrupt, but the sooner we can escort Ms. Windham home, the sooner we can be about our business." He extended a hand. "Shelley?"

Shelley looked around uncertainly. The Vice President swept his arm out in an expansive gesture. "You are free to go, Ms. Windham," he said with a toothy grin.

She stepped forward. The crowd of reporters surrounding Mike and Bill parted almost magically. She took hold of Mike's hand, and a second later, the three of them vanished in a flash of light.

About a minute later, Mike and Bill materialized back at HQ. "She's at home right now with her mother and Francesca," Mike told us all. "I said we'd look in on her after the battle. Everyone ready?" We were. The rest of us activated, from Trina down to Padma, and Wizzit teleported us out.

Chapter 21

Thor must have moved his base of operations while we had been waiting for Shelley to be freed, because Wizzit set us down in what looked like a large public park, with plenty of broad walkways and lots of trees. The monster himself was standing in front of one of the weirdest-looking sculptures I have ever seen, if a sculpture was what it was. It looked like a silver-colored coffee bean had been plunked down in the middle of the plaza, but huge, like three stories high. With a hammer-sized hole smashed right through the center of it.

As I watched, Thor raised both hands and gave voice to a full-throated roar. I would have launched into our standard everybody-move-away speech right about then, except that pretty much everybody had moved away. Only a few gawkers were hanging around on the periphery of the action, and I figured they wouldn't go away no matter what I said. I saw only a few Zoinks in the area, but with no real onlookers to menace, they were wandering aimlessly about like little lost souls.

Trina, Nicolai, and I dashed toward the monster. Trina stopped when we were about thirty yards away. Nicolai and I separated; he went right and I went left. I think both of us figured that Trina was going to start shooting any second, and neither of us wanted to be in her line of fire.

Sure enough, I heard the sizzle of her triple-blaster and saw the energy beam strike Thor right between the eyes. He staggered back, roaring; then, quickly regaining his balance, he threw his hammer.

"Look out, Orange!" Nicolai and I shouted at the same time as the weapon made its way straight toward Trina. I still don't know how she did it, but she took aim and managed to zap the hammer with her blaster beam as it spun its way toward her. Showers of sparks erupted, hiding the hammer from my view, but Trina's aim never wavered. She coolly kept the beam centered on target as it spun closer and closer. By the time it reached her, its energy was nearly spent. She dove to one side then to try to avoid it, but it followed her movement and struck her a glancing blow across the back, sending her sprawling along a walkway, before rebounding back to the hand of Thor.

"Are you all right, Orange?" I heard Nicolai ask anxiously, Prime-to-Prime. He had reached the monster by now and took a low swing with his axe. Thor jumped over Nicolai's knee-high attack, which easily put him in the top ten percent of all the monsters I had ever faced, agility-wise.

"I will be," she replied with a groan. "What happened? How did it hit me? I jumped out of the way!"

"The hammer followed you," I said simply. I had reached the monster myself by now, and I waded into him, slashing at him with my sais while his attention was focused on Nicolai. Maybe attacking him from behind wasn't terribly sporting, but I believe one should never give an Enclave monster an even break.

"Looks like Black was right," Nicolai commented.

"Black?" Trina said, a hint of playfulness making its way into her voice as she rolled to her feet. "Surely you mean Gold!"

"Black or Gold, the point is that Thor's hammer always strikes its target, then returns to its owner."

"How can we fight him, then?" Trina asked. "If he can hit us whenever he wants to and we cannot avoid it?"

"There's getting hit and then there's getting hit," I said. Thor had figured out by now that something was attacking from behind; he turned and swung a gauntleted fist at me. I avoided his attack, somersaulting backward. "Hang on, I want to try something."

I thrust my sais into my belt and dug my sap gloves out from a pocket of my battle vest as I continued to back away. These were fighting gloves with protective steel shot sewn into pockets across all the striking surfaces. The anti-Enclave tech that Padma had embedded in the leather made them pretty decent weapons against monsters.

Gloves on, I pulled out my blaster. It wasn't as powerful as Trina's triple-blaster, but I figured it ought to be good enough to get ol' Hammer-head good and mad at me. "Clear the target, Yellow," I called out to Nicolai as I drew a bead. Nicolai feinted once with his axe, then danced back, leaving me with a clear shot. I took it.

My blaster beam struck the monster on the side of his horned helmet, knocking it askew so that it half-covered his eyes. He looked pretty silly, staggering around with his arms waving wildly in front of him, before he reached up and reset the helmet on his head. He spun about, looking for whoever had blasted him. His beady little eyes fixed themselves on me, and with another roar, he threw his hammer straight at me. Which is sort of what I was hoping he would do.

Now, I'm not in Mike's class as far as reflexes are concerned, but I've got pretty fast hands, especially when I have my force shield powered up and am psyched for battle. I watched that hammer spinning toward me, and when it got within arm's length, I reached out and grabbed hold of the haft with both hands. And as I had hoped, my sap gloves protected my hands from the jolt of the impact.

The way I had figured it, the hammer wouldn't have to split my skull open before starting its return journey. Pretty much any contact ought to count as a hit -- at least that's what I was hoping.

Turns out I was right. When I grabbed the handle, I did my best to lock my elbows and hold it away from me at arms' length. Even so, it continued spinning forward despite my best efforts until the head thumped against my chest -- not with enough force to break my sternum or anything, but I was going to have some bruises to show for my cleverness by the end of the battle.

Once it hit me, though, it evidently decided it was time to head back for home, and it seemed perfectly willing to take me with it. The hammer was no longer spinning, for which I was profoundly grateful, but it did manage to drag me along without slowing down noticeably. In fact, by the time the two of us reached Thor, we were traveling along at a pretty good clip.

The monster wasn't paying much mind to his hammer at the moment -- Nicolai and Trina were doing their best to hold his attention -- so he didn't notice that I was tagging along for the ride. He simply reached out his hand, obviously expecting the handle just to land there. He just as obviously wasn't expecting me to swing my feet up at the last second and double-kick him in the jaw with all my weight plus the momentum provided by the hammer.

A kick like that, as fast as I was traveling, could easily have broken the neck of an average human, assuming it didn't tear his head completely off. This was an Enclave beastie, though, and so while my kick did knock him off his feet, it unfortunately didn't appear to do him any lasting damage. Still, we like to take advantage of any opportunities that come our way, so by the time I had regained my feet, Trina and Nicolai were already whaling away on the prone monster for all they were worth \-- Nicolai with his axe and Trina with the new sword that Padma had made for her.

I joined in enthusiastically, and for a while there, I really thought we had him. We might have, too, if there had been more of us. Unfortunately, the fewer Primes there are at a scene, the harder it is for Wizzit to tune our weapons for that all-important final strike. Thor managed to get one fist free, and he clocked Trina upside the head, sending her sprawling back. Then he began laying about him with that damn hammer of his, so that Nicolai and I had to back away or risk having our heads caved in.

We kept at it, though, Nicolai and I. Nicolai's axe gives him a longer reach than my sais, so he was the one who stood toe-to-toe against the red-haired thunder god while I harried him from the sides. Thor didn't seem to be tiring, and I was just starting to wonder how long it would be before he started getting the better of Nicolai, when I heard Trina shout, "Clear the target!"

I jumped up and slashed at Thor's eyes with my sais to give Nicolai cover to get away, and then I skedaddled myself. Trina was standing forty, maybe fifty yards away aiming her triple-blaster straight at our adversary. "Careful, Orange," Nicolai warned her. "You know what happened last time."

"I remember," Trina said, "but this time Wizzit and I have plan. It was Blue who gave me the idea. After monster throws hammer, start attacking him, but do not get between him and where I am right now, understand?"

Between him and where I am right now? Her syntax was sort of a head-scratcher, but I guess her meaning was clear enough. "You got it, Orange!" I said. Nicolai shrugged and agreed as well.

"Good. Wizzit, get ready!" Trina snapped off a shot that knocked Thor's helmet clean off his head. I grinned. My aim has been getting better lately, now that I have begun practicing regularly, but Trina is hands-down the best shot we've ever had. She followed that up with several others, including one to his face and another that I swear struck that strength-enhancing belt of his square on the buckle.

Thor, of course, wasn't going to take any of this lying down. After Trina finished taking her shots, he roared, reared back like a major-league pitcher, and heaved that hammer of his straight at her as hard as he could. It flew almost faster that I could follow it, and it went through the spot where her head had been a split second after her form had vanished in a flash of orange light.

Clever, I thought. She had dodged the hammer by having Wizzit teleport her out. The question was, where did he send her?

My question was answered quickly enough. Trina reappeared almost immediately between me and Nicolai \-- directly opposite the spot she had vanished from. She holstered her triple-blaster and drew her sword, shouting, "Come on, this is no time to stand around gaping! We have to distract him!"

She began slashing at the monster, and Nicolai and I looked at each other and began doing likewise. Enclave monsters are nothing if not distractable. Nope, not too many mental giants there, although I suppose JB Swift would be an exception. I had my blaster in one hand and a sai in the other, and my shots to the face and slashes to the side were making him good and mad.

Nicolai tried to get Trina to do that you-go-high-I-go-low move that he and Padma have been getting good at, but she wasn't interested. She kept ducking around Thor, trying to look behind him. "Orange, you need to keep your eye on the target!" I shouted at her as her inattention nearly got her swatted again.

The words were scarcely out of my mouth when she suddenly yelled, "Drop! Flat! Now!"

Now, I have been fighting alongside Trina for a number of years, and I have never known her to screw around during a battle, so when she said drop, Nicolai and I threw ourselves prone on the ground.

It was a good thing, too. I hadn't been keeping track of what his hammer was doing, but Trina had. That had been the whole plan she had cooked up with Wizzit, in fact. Given where she was now, if that hammer wanted to hit her, it would have to go through Thor to do it. And you know what? That's just what it did, at the full speed that ol' Helmet-head had thrown it.

We weren't showered with monster guts as the hammer plowed its way through his torso. Rather, his Enclave enhancements failed in rather spectacular fashion, and we got showered with sparks and bits of flaming debris instead. I suppose it was cleaner that way -- at least I didn't feel like I had to take a shower afterwards -- but monster guts wouldn't have stung as much.

"You okay, Yellow?" I asked after a few seconds of silence.

"I am fine, Blue."

"How about you, Orange?" I called. When she didn't reply immediately, I said more sharply, "Orange, are you okay? Please respond!"

I jumped to my feet. Nicolai was kneeling beside Trina's shimmering orange form as I joined them. "Did the hammer get through to Orange?" I asked gravely. She was lying flat on her back, unmoving, and I was fearing the worst.

Nicolai shook his head. "Almost. It went all the way through the monster, and then it exploded when he did. Orange caught the blast full in the face."

"Ouch!" I said, wincing in sympathy.

"There is considerable damage to the soft tissue, mostly burns," Wizzit said, "but scarcely any to the underlying skeletal structure. Orange should make a rapid recovery, with no scarring. Orange is unconscious now, and I am preventing any kind of pain from getting through."

"Send me back to HQ with Orange, Wizzit," Nicolai said. "I will make sure Orange is made comfortable for the healing coma."

"Be sure to fix Orange up right, Wizzit," I murmured as the two of them disappeared in a flash of light. I had always liked the way Trina's face was arranged, and I would have hated to see it permanently disfigured because of a stupid Enclave monster.

I stood up and looked around. The few Zoinks who had been wandering around ineffectually had disappeared with Thor's destruction. "I guess you can teleport me out as well, Wizzit," I said. "Washington or Las Vegas, whoever needs help the most."

"Washington it is, then," Wizzit replied. "Those thunderbolts are giving them fits."

Everything went hazy, then cleared again. Wizzit had set me down in the National Mall. I could see my teammates over by the Washington Monument.

"Hi, guys!" I called out. "How can I help?"

I saw Bill's head turn towards me. "Blue?" he said sharply. "What are you doing here? What's the situation in Chicago?"

"All tidied up," I replied. "Orange had a bright idea, and that let us dispose of the monster quite handily."

"We could use a few bright ideas about now," I heard someone mutter. I didn't recognize the voice right away. It wasn't Bill, though, and it wasn't Padma, so it must have been Cathy.

"Yeah, well, Orange got injured, unfortunately, so you're stuck with whatever I can come up with," I said. "Yellow took Orange back to HQ. Yellow should rejoin the fight momentarily, either here or in Las Vegas."

"Yellow has just been teleported to Las Vegas," Wizzit reported.

"So, what can I do?" I asked again.

"Well, for starters, you can figure out how to get around those lightning bolts old Zeus-boy is throwing around," Cathy said acerbically. "A couple of them have almost hit me. I don't dare step out of cover to take a shot because he's got deadly aim, and those things can fry anyone who doesn't have a real force shield."

"The monster appears to be capable of generating clusters of static electricity at extremely high voltages and reasonably high amperages," Wizzit explained. "He is then able to hurl these clusters at nearby targets at velocities approaching two hundred meters per second. I am able to use the force shield to harmlessly ground any Prime he strikes, effectively neutralizing the cluster, but doing so drains the force shield for a short time. For those without force shields, well, you heard what Silver said."

Padma said, "I myself was struck only a minute ago. I must remain under cover so I do not get hit again until my force shield recharges itself."

"You can probably see the problems we're facing," Bill said dryly. "He can throw these things fast enough that we can't dodge them, so Indigo and I can get in only a few shots before we have to go into hiding. And Silver can't help at all. He can't throw them terribly far, but if we're close enough to take an accurate shot, he's close enough to throw. I was kind of hoping we could make use of Orange's sharpshooting skills."

I looked around. There wasn't a whole lot of cover in the land surrounding the Washington Monument. There were some trees a ways back, but not much closer in, where we were. The Zeus monster currently tearing down a stone building off to one side, what I made out to be the eastern side of the monument. "Have you tried camouflage mode?"

"Yup," Bill replied tersely. "It works well when you're standing still, but not so well when you're trying to get into position close by. And this fellow's got sharp eyes; nothing much gets past him, especially when you get close enough to shoot."

"What about using the flagpoles somehow?" I asked. The Washington monument is surrounded by fifty US flags, I recalled from one of my high school classes, and I could see that the poles supporting them appeared to be made of aluminum. "If you could force Zeus to throw one of his lightning bolts between the flagpoles, they might act as lightning rods and attract the charge."

"That's . . . not a bad idea," Bill said slowly. "Silver, do you think you could get inside the ring of flagpoles and shoot out at him from there?"

"Can do. That's the best idea I've heard so far. Camouflage mode on!"

Cathy's molten-silver form shimmered into near-invisibility, and then I lost sight of her as she began racing toward the circle of flagpoles. Then I began running at right angles to her path. "What do you have in mind, Blue?" I heard Padma ask.

"When it doubt, use a Zoink as a shield," I called back. Zeus had a few Zoinks providing him with support, but as in Chicago, they were wandering about aimlessly, not having any humans nearby to intimidate.

"Blue, wait --" I heard Bill yell, but I wasn't listening to him. I ran over to the Zoink farthest from Zeus and began smacking it around. I'm sure it was wondering what it had ever done to offend me, but I didn't particularly care. When I had it nicely softened up, I picked it up bodily and began racing toward the building that Zeus was demolishing. He appeared to be quite happily engaged in his work and didn't see me approach. When I was just a few yards away, I drew my blaster and one of my sais and, with the feebly-struggling Zoink sort of draped across my front and shoulders, took aim and fired.

If this were a cowboy movie, I probably would not have been the guy wearing the white hat, because I had no qualms about shooting this particular monster in the back. I snapped off maybe half a dozen shots rapid-fire, and then I started circling to one side.

Zeus looked up from the masonry he was crushing, roared at me, and made some sort of throwing motion with his right hand. A ball of light flashed through the air toward me faster than I could blink. I made no attempt to dodge it; I simply shifted as much as I could to let the Zoink take the hit.

My left hand, the hand holding the sai, was somewhere in the middle of the Zoink's back, helping to hold it in place. By some coincidence, the ball of lightning struck the blade of my sai, nearly knocking it from my hand. The ball of electricity rebounded back towards the monster, missing him by inches. He snarled and flung another thunderbolt in my direction. This one struck the Zoink across the upper back . . . and . . . bzzzzt!

Have you ever received a strong electrical shock? I don't mean just a little zap, like when your little sister scuffs her feet across the carpet and touches you on the back of the neck while you're in the middle of studying for a big test in American History, and then runs away shrieking with laughter. (Why, yes, that has happened to me, thanks for asking.)

No, I mean the kind of shock that instantly grabs your attention and clamps your muscles down so tight that you couldn't unclench them if you tried. That's what this thunderbolt felt like. I felt myself being flung backwards with the force of it, and the arm that was pinioning the Zoink to me contracted, clamping it against me so hard I was sure I was leaving hand prints in its back.

I fell to the ground with a thump, and the Zoink landed on top of me, driving the air from my lungs. I heard the sizzle of blaster fire. "Your force shield's gone, Blue! Get out of there. Now!" I heard Cathy shout.

Somehow I rolled over onto my side and managed to push the limp and slightly-smoking Zoink off of me. I could hear Zeus roaring, and mental images of him throwing another one of those lightning bolts at me spurred me to action. I got my feet under me and began running as fast as I could away from the monster. Behind me, I heard a boom and a crackle.

"Good idea, Blue!" I heard Cathy call out. "Not attacking with a Zoink -- that was dumb -- but hiding behind the flagpoles. He can't get me here!"

I judged that I was far enough away by now to be safe, and I collapsed onto the grass. "Why didn't somebody warn me?" I groaned.

"I tried to," Bill said with a chuckle. "It appears that Zoinks are good conductors of electricity. I found that out the hard way, same as you did."

"Fortunately for you, the charge passed harmlessly through your force shield straight to the ground," Wizzit said. "Thanks to me." You know, self-effacing is not a word I would ever use to describe Wizzit.

"That was harmless?" I rolled onto my back and kipped up to my feet. It was harder to do than it should have been, which told me that my force shield really wasn't much use to me at the moment, voice alteration and disguising blue haze aside. "Well, at least we learned something," I said. "One of those thunderbolt thingies hit my weapon and bounced off. I bet if we were fast enough, we could take advantage of that and attack him with his own lightning."

"Yeah, good luck with that!" Bill said grimly. "You heard what Wizzit said. Those thunderbolts of his travel a couple hundred meters per second. That's faster than an arrow flies. Are your reflexes quick enough to deflect something traveling that fast? Because mine sure aren't."

We listened to the boom-crackle of another thunderbolt hitting the aluminum flagpoles. An idea occurred to me. It must have occurred to Padma at the same time, because just as I was saying, "Red's are," she said, "Red could do it."

There was a moment's silence, and then Cathy said quietly, "They're right, Black. Red would be perfect for this."

"Can't argue with that," Bill agreed. "Wizzit, please contact Red and see whether we can negotiate a trade. I'd be willing to send any of us out to Las Vegas to get Red over here."

There was a pause. "Bringing Red out shortly," Wizzit said. "Red wants Blue and Indigo to go to Las Vegas in return."

"Does Red know we have non-functioning force shields?" Padma asked.

"The subject did not come up. At any rate, yours should be at full strength now. Blue's force shield will be back within five minutes."

I felt the familiar tingling at the back of my neck, and when my vision cleared, Padma and I were standing in the middle of a wide intersection -- South Las Vegas Boulevard and Flamingo Road, to judge by the street signs. I could see a place called Bally's on one corner, and directly across the road from Bally's, someone was advertising "the best steak on the strip".

Indra was in the center of the intersection, going toe-to-toe with both Toby and Nicolai, while Mayumi was a short distance away, doing her best to set up triple-blaster shots between her teammates. "Glad to get some fresh legs out our way," Toby commented gruffly, blocking an overhead blow with the haft of his cartoonishly-large hammer. "This lad's a tough one. Watch out for that weapon of his -- Indigo, I think you called it the Vajra? I've seen him knock chunks out of buildings with that thing. And Wizzit said not to let it touch any of our weapons; he said he wouldn't be responsible for the consequences."

I glanced at Toby's weapon, and sure enough, he was blocking Indra's forearm, not the actual Vajra itself. Padma dashed forward to join Nicolai. They held a brief consultation, then the two of them began attacking Indra together. I grinned when I saw how eager Padma was to join the fray; having seen how angry she had been the last time we fought a fake Hindu god, I had no doubt that she would take the fight straight to Indra, her earlier reluctance notwithstanding.

"Don't be shy, Blue!" I heard Mayumi call. Nicolai and Padma had just finished a double-strike on the faux god and were backing away. Mayumi took careful aim and zapped him with a body shot. "Come and join the fun!"

"Can't right now, Copper," I replied. "My force shield needs to recharge. Right now, I couldn't even shoot my blaster."

"Oh, you poor thing!" Mayumi clucked sympathetically. "Come over here; I'll protect you from the mean, nasty monster."

I chuckled. "And who will protect me from you?" Mayumi, I have noticed, flirted more outrageously than Trina ever did.

"You both will need protecting from me if you don't keep your minds on business!" Toby growled. He swiveled his body around two hundred seventy degrees, slamming his hammer into Indra's belly. Then he had to dance backward to avoid being sideswiped by the Vajra. "How long before you're back to full strength, Blue?"

"Two minutes, thirteen seconds," Wizzit replied. "You may have some additional help coming soon," he added. "Red's attacks on the monster in Washington, DC, are proving highly effective."

"Well, that's something at least. Keep us appraised of that and of Blue's status if you please, Wizzit." Toby seemed to have assumed command of this particular branch of our fight, irrespective of the fact that, technically, Nicolai outranked him. Knowing Nicolai, though, I didn't think he would have a problem with that.

Feeling about as useful as a kickstand on a semi, I surveyed the battle, trying to spot anything we could use to our advantage. There wasn't a whole lot. Indra was a plenty tough opponent, with not a lot of weaknesses that I could spot. Mayumi was peppering him with triple-strength blaster shots, which he was shrugging off, and when Nicolai, Toby, or Padma were able to actually hit him with a blow from their weapons -- which was not often -- he appeared to shrug those off as well. In sum, this had all the earmarks of a long, tough fight.

Which, it appeared, I wasn't going to be part of. By my calculations, my force shield was just about fully charged when Wizzit suddenly announced, "Kids, another monster has shown up. It's on an isolated island in the Hawaiian chain."

I heard Mike rap out from somewhere in Washington, "Send out Blue and Gold, Wizzit. They're the two most available at this point."

"I'm all over, Red."

I felt the tingling at the base of my skull, and everything went hazy. When my vision cleared, I was standing on a beautiful white, sandy beach. The blue waters of the Pacific lapped at my feet, and from high in an equally blue sky, a brilliant sun smiled down on me.

In all, it was a gorgeous scene, marred only by the two figures standing before me. One was a huge, Samoan- or Hawaiian-looking man. He was bare-chested, with a cape of colorful feathers around his shoulders, and he was wearing some sort of loincloth around his hips. Except for being around ten feet tall, he looked so normal (costume aside, that is) that I said, "Uh, Wizzit, this guy is the monster, right?"

"Affirmative," came Wizzit's reply. "Stand by. Currently waiting for evidence that he is hostile."

I sighed. "Understood. What should I do about Lily?" She was the second of the two figures. It was a little odd, because normally she came out in commander mode with a crowd of Zoinks, and then she'd switch to attacker mode after I had begun harassing her. Today, though, there were no Zoinks for her to command, and to judge by the lack of expression on her face, she was already in CKFZC mode. She wasn't attacking, though, just standing there in a ready stance, watching me.

"Stand by, I suppose," he replied. "I'm not really sure what's going on here . . ."

"Can you tell me anything about this monster?" I asked, hoping for some sort of clue as to what to do.

"This is just a guess, but he's probably some sort of Polynesian storm god or demigod, if today's previous monsters are any indication. Haikili, Tawhaki, Kaha'i, Te Uira, or some other deity unknown to me -- take your pick."

Hmm. Well, since it was up to me, I decided to call the guy Haikili, just because I could pronounce it. While Wizzit had been telling me all this, Haikili had raised his hands up to the sky and his eyes had begun to glow a deep red. The sky behind him, which had been a cloudless blue, began to darken with clouds, and the wind began whipping all around us.

Suddenly Haikili brought his two massive hands together in front of him in a thunderous clap. Lightning sprang from his joined fists, and I jumped and said a very bad word as it struck the sand not two feet from where I was standing.

"Wizzit!" I yelped. "Is he hostile yet?" But by then it didn't make much difference, because Lily launched herself at me as I was in mid-yelp, and suddenly my dance card was very full.

Now, you have to understand that I hadn't fought Lily in months, and that last time had been in Guangzhou, when she had been distracted by everyone speaking Cantonese. I don't think I had had a real knock-down, drag-out with her since that awful battle in New York, the time Shelley had been arrested.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I underestimated her. Seriously underestimated her. I mean, come on \-- she's not very big, and with that sweet face of hers, she doesn't look all that dangerous, and in commander mode, she's not much of a physical threat to anyone, and besides . . . eh, enough excuses. I screwed up, and she very quickly began handing my butt to me. Almost before I knew what was happening, I was reeling from probably half a dozen kicks to the head and face, and then she was on my back snaking an arm around my neck.

With my force shield at full strength, I didn't seriously think that she could do much damage with a choke hold -- couldn't break my neck, couldn't cut off my air, couldn't shut off the blood flow to my brain -- but I decided not to take any chances. We were just on the edge of the ocean, with water swirling around our ankles. I half-turned and jumped straight into the surf, somersaulting as I did so, so that Lily was underneath me as I hit.

I don't think it would surprise to anyone to learn that, given the choice between maintaining a choke hold and breathing, most folks will choose breathing. Crazy Kung Fu Zombie Chick was no exception. She let go of me and wriggled away almost as soon as her head went underwater. I got my feet under me as quickly as I could and charged after her.

As I was closing in, I heard the sound of someone laughing. "Aw, is the little girl picking on you, Blue?" came Bill's voice.

Yeah, there were definitely people I would rather have as a partner besides Bill. If that same remark had come from someone I enjoyed working with, say, Padma or Toby, I would have laughed. Coming from Bill, though, it just sounded like he was making fun of me. Still, one has to make do with what one has, so instead of a snippy retort, I merely said, "I think it's because she secretly has a crush on me, Gold. Where have you been, anyway? I thought Wizzit was going to teleport us both out here."

"I'm Black now, not Gold; I decided to change back. And Wizzit sent me to pick up something first."

I glanced over at where Bill was standing. He was indeed no longer sheathed in molten gold; he was back in his usual black-misted form. Lily aimed a jumping sidekick at me, but I had her scouted by now and was easily able to bat it aside. "I hope it was takeout," I said as I prepared to counterattack, "because I'm starving."

"Nope, no food. Just a little black box. Let's see what this button does."

He said that just as I was jumping up to deliver a backwheel kick to the side of Lily's head. As I spun around, I saw her face had abruptly changed expression. Or rather, it had gained expression, since CKFZC normally has none. In one brief glance, I saw that her eyes were lit up and her lips parted in a delighted smile. She looked as though she were about to step forward and give me an enthusiastic hug. She definitely wasn't trying to defend herself. That was when my heel connected with her temple.

She never even had the chance to look surprised. I heard a sick-sounding crack, and she went sprawling face-down onto the wave-washed sand. She didn't move after that. I stood there, staring stupidly down at her. "What did you do?" I asked Bill.

He chuckled. "Remember that earring of hers that you brought back to HQ, the one that reacts to the remote control that JB Swift carries? Wizzit and I finally found an infrared signal that it responded to. We weren't sure what effect it would have on her, but he figured it couldn't be worse than \--"

He was interrupted by the sound of a nearby thunderclap. Haikili, it appeared, was tired of being ignored. The lightning struck the ground near Bill's feet. He jumped backward in alarm. At the same time, I suddenly became aware of the danger of standing in saltwater in the vicinity of a being that could throw electricity around, and I quickly ran up to stand beside Bill.

I think he and I got the same idea at the same time, to keep Haikili off-balance while we got ready to attack. I drew my blaster and spat an energy beam at him. Bill did the same, and Haikili . . . vaporized.

"Huh! That was almost too easy," Bill commented as he holstered his blaster.

I rubbed the back of my aching head. Easy? Well, maybe for him. "He's really gone, right, Wizzit?" I asked anxiously. "He didn't just teleport somewhere, did he?"

"Nope, he's really gone. Good work, kids," Wizzit said. "Another monster has shown up in a remote part of eastern New Mexico, some kind of bird. Pink has contacted me and will be joining you after picking up Orange's blaster at HQ. Prepare to teleport . . ."

I glanced back to where my favorite lady minder still lay unmoving on the beach. I didn't like the way those waves were lapping at her upper chest and shoulders. "Hang on a sec, Wizzit," I said. "Let me go check on Lily."

"Countermand that, Wizzit," Bill said. "Blue, we're going to leave. Now."

"I'll just be a second," I said, turning back towards the water.

"I said no, Blue," Bill told me firmly, grabbing my forearm in an iron grip. "Red's orders. You are not, under any circumstances, to attempt to make contact with Lily. We're leaving. Now."

I turned to stare at the black mistiness that concealed his face. "You're kidding, right?" I exclaimed.

"Nope, afraid not." His hand tightened on my arm. "Let's go."

Now, Bill is stronger than I am, and I didn't think I could easily break his grip. Not, at least, without starting something I didn't want to have to finish. I was pretty sure I could take him in a fair fight if it came to that, but this close up, his superiority in size, weight, and strength put me at a pretty severe disadvantage. So I did the only thing I could think of to do. I said a very bad word.

Chapter 22

When my vision cleared, we were standing in the midst of a vast prairie -- nothing but grass and scrubby undergrowth as far as I could see. Bill released his grip on my arm and stepped away from me. "Where's the monster, Wizzit?" he asked.

"Soaring high above you," was the reply. "Up near the sun, from your viewpoint. Let's see if I can adjust your optics to pick it up . . ."

There was a flash of pink light off to my left. "Hi, guys!" my sister said brightly. "How can I help?"

"Not sure yet," Bill said tersely. He was looking up, shading his eyes. "I don't see it, Wizzit."

"What's he looking for?" she asked me in a whisper.

"The monster," I replied. "We haven't actually spotted it yet."

"My guess is that it's going to be a thunderbird," Bill commented, "based on how the rest of today has gone."

"Whoa! You guys are being attacked by flying cars?" Angie asked incredulously.

Bill laughed. "By storm gods," he said. "The thunderbird is a mythical creature venerated by native Americans in the Great Plains. It's supposed to be able to shoot lightning from either its eyes or its talons, depending on who's telling the story, and the beating of its wings creates thunder."

We stared up into the sky for the longest time, trying to spot it. To pass the time, I asked Angie how the play had gone. "Fine," she said. "I saw Wizzit's message on my phone just as we came in after curtain calls. Everyone must have thought I was a lunatic, the way I grabbed my Junior Prime Pink badge and ran out so I could activate in private."

"You mean, you're still in costume?" I asked her.

"Uh huh. And makeup. I told one of my friends to tell Mom and Dad that I'd gotten a call from you, so hopefully they'll know what I'm doing and will bring my clothes home for me."

"The monster is starting to lose altitude," Wizzit suddenly announced.

"Yup, it is," Bill agreed. "I can see it now. Looks like it's trying to dive-bomb us. Blasters out, everyone!"

"Better get behind me, Pink," I told my sister. "If this guy really can shoot lightning bolts, I don't want any of them to hit you." I went down on one knee. "Here, brace your weapon on my shoulder."

I could see it now myself, diving toward us. The thing looked like some sort of gigantic hawk, with a golden beak and glowing red eyes. There was something weird about its talons, too, although from this distance I couldn't tell just what, exactly.

I whipped out my blaster and started firing as fast as I could. Angie did the same; I could feel the repeated kick of the triple-blaster against my shoulder. Beside us, Bill stood with his blaster gripped in a standard two-fisted grip, taking deliberate aim before snapping off a shot.

Despite Bill's measured shooting, I think I was the first to hit it. Of course, the regular-strength blasters are not as powerful as our hand weapons, but even so, I sent more than a few feathers flying. The thing screamed, and I saw little flashes of light shoot out from its eyes. These streamed towards us even faster than the thunderbird was diving; they felt like grape-sized pieces of hail that burned as they struck me.

"Stay under cover, Pink," Wizzit warned her. "Those are clusters of static electricity, much like the thunderbolts that the Zeus creature was throwing out, but far weaker. Blue and Black, your force shields should protect you without any special grounding, but Pink would get some nasty burns if hit."

"Better get behind me, Pink," Bill ordered. "I make a bigger shield than Blue."

See, now, Bill does that kind of casual dismissal of me a lot, and normally it gets my goat. Not today, though. In fact, I had been about to suggest Angie do that very thing. Not because I thought he made a better shield than me, but because I had just had an idea. Something dangerous and crazy and hopefully unexpected. Something that I couldn't do if Angie were hiding behind me. Something fun.

"Do what he says, Pink," I said when Angie hesitated; she darted across the narrow gap that separated us. "Black, if that thing swoops down low, do you think you're strong enough to throw me up to intercept it?"

"Yeah, of course I could." Bill sounded doubtful, but I had purposely phrased my question so that he couldn't say no without sounding like a weakling. Which he would never do.

"Good. Let's get ready, then, because here it comes!"

The monster was streaking in for the attack; it was close enough that I could see its fanged beak open in an angry scream. (Yeah, you heard me right. It was a bird's beak. With fangs. Enclave always makes with the fangs, for some reason. Go figure.) The lightning pulses from its eyes had stopped, thankfully, but its talons were glowing. And . . . wriggling around somehow. Weird.

I wasn't sure exactly how it was planning to attack us -- I thought maybe a talon strike or something -- but whatever the monster's plans were, they got derailed when Angie scored a triple-blaster shot straight to its chest. The impact visibly shook the creature, and it tumbled straight down for maybe a dozen feet before finally catching the air under its wings again.

I realized that this was my chance. "Throw me up there, Black!" I yelled, holstering my blaster as I rose up from my crouch. Bill formed a stirrup with his hands. I stepped into it, and he heaved me high up into the air.

Trina used to do this maneuver a lot with Shelley, and she had always made it look easy. Padma, too, had once had Toby throw her into the air like that, with pretty good results. I don't know whether Bill was a bad thrower or I was just a bad human projectile, but regardless, it didn't work so well for us. I'd had visions of myself soaring smoothly aloft, maybe even landing on the thing's back and riding it like a horse. As it happened, I felt as if I were just a tangle of arms and legs spinning out of control through the air. Yeah, I was nowhere near as graceful as Trina or Padma had been.

Bill must have gotten me on target, though, because the next thing I knew, I was bumping against something large and hard and feathery. I flailed around, trying to grab anything I could get hold of. I eventually found myself dangling beneath the stupid monster, gripping a huge thunderbird drumstick in each hand. Not quite the Trevor Eagle-Rider I had pictured myself as, but hey, I had grabbed hold of it, and could feel my anti-Enclave sap gloves sparking against its leathery skin, causing it all kinds of discomfort, I'm sure.

"Good work, Blue," Bill called from below. Far, far below, I realized as I looked down. The monster was rising again -- slowly, to be sure, with labored beats of its huge wings, but rising nevertheless. "Just be careful of the snakes."

"Snakes?"

"Yeah, sorry, I was a little mixed up earlier. In some versions of the legend, the thunderbird carries a snake in each talon, and it's the snakes that shoot out lightning, not the talons."

Muttering under my breath, I looked up, and it was then that I realized why its talons had looked so strange. Each of them was gripping a golden, glowing, wriggling, sparking snake.

I'm no ophidiophobe; I don't have an irrational fear of snakes. Still, if you were suddenly face to face with two of these weird-looking things -- each as long as my arm and as thick as my wrist -- you probably would have done the same thing I did, which was to yell (to this day, Angie insists that I "shrieked", but really, it was just a manly yell) and try to slap them away.

I did have enough presence of mind to try to slap them away one-handed, while retaining my grip on the thunderbird's leg with the other hand. Slapping didn't work very well, though, so after a second or two, I snatched out my blaster and began shooting. I got one of them point-blank, right in its snaky mouth. Its yellow glow died almost instantly, and it dissolved into powder before my eyes. Heartened, I turned to shoot at the other one.

Unfortunately, fate conspired against me. My first shot went wide and struck the thunderbird across his side. He jerked, I fired again, the snake struck . . . and somehow my blaster was knocked from my grip and fell spinning to the ground maybe a hundred feet below.

We were none of us very happy at that moment -- the bird, the snake, and I. The snake's eyes began to glow more brightly, and I had a sudden hunch that I had better do something fast. My free hand shot out, and I grabbed Mr. Glowing-eyes just behind his head. I forced the head to one side just as a blast of lightning -- not those little beads of electricity, but real, honest-to-goodness lightning -- shot out from his eyes.

"Blue!" I heard Angie cry out. "Blue, are you all right?"

"I'm fine," I assured her. "Not even singed."

"We can't shoot with you so high," Bill said. "Try to force it closer to the ground."

"Good idea," I replied, doing my best not to roll my eyes. "I'll see what I can do."

The snake's glow had dimmed a little, which told me that maybe it wouldn't be able to shoot any more lightning for a while. Hoping that was the case, I let go his head and began trying to pry him loose from the thunderbird's talons. He had a strong grip, but I had my sparking sap glove, and with a bit of effort, I was able to persuade him to let go.

The snake almost fell from my grasp then, but I managed to snag it by the tail. It tried to wriggle free, but I was good and mad now, and I wasn't about to let go. I began swinging it around in a circle. When centrifugal force had finally made it stretch out, I swung it up, trying to smack the thunderbird with it.

My aim here was to distract the bird so that he wouldn't keep climbing higher, and it worked for a little while. I slapped him with the snake one, two, three times, and then my improvised whip got stuck. Puzzled, I looked up to see what had happened. I couldn't really tell from my vantage, but it looked like Mr. Glowing-eyes had impaled his fangs into the thunderbird's feathery chest and was stuck there. He looked seriously ticked off, and worse, his eyes had once again begun to glow more brightly.

"Better let go, Blue," Wizzit advised me, adding, "Don't worry, I'll catch you."

"Thanks, Wizzit," I said, releasing my grip. I began falling, the thunderbird shot up into the sky, and a few seconds later, he was destroyed by a blast of snake-lightning just as Wizzit teleported me to safety.

Chapter 23

When the haziness cleared from my vision, I was surprised to see that Wizzit had sent me back to the deserted Hawaiian beach that Bill and I had left not too long ago. "Make it quick, Blue," he said. "I can give you two minutes, no more."

I didn't have to ask what he meant. I ran out into the surf, higher now than it had been, searching for signs of Lily. Twice I jogged up and down the beach. Nothing. I was just about to conclude that she had woken up and found a way to teleport home when I saw it. At first I thought it might have been a dark strand of seaweed being tossed about beneath the waves, but it was too finely textured for that. It was hair, I realized. Long, black hair.

My heart racing, I ran over to get a closer look. Lily was lying pretty much as I had left her, facedown on the sand, but now she was covered by about six inches of water. I quickly grabbed her wrists and dragged her up onto higher ground. Rolling her onto her back, I wasn't surprised to discover that she wasn't breathing. I pushed on her stomach and forced her to vomit up some water, but that didn't revive her. Her lips were cold and slack as I bent to give her artificial respiration.

"I don't think that will help, Blue." Wizzit's voice was as kind as I had ever heard it.

"I have to try." I pinched her nostrils, blew a breath into her mouth and then did CPR compressions on her chest while it came out again. Sometimes, I knew, a person will start breathing on their own once you've done a little mouth-to-mouth on them. But not this time, not even after I had cycled through fifteen or twenty breaths.

"I detect no heartbeat and no brain activity," Wizzit said. "Metabolic activity is nil as well; her body is cold. I'm just relying on what I can pull from the sensors in your belt, Blue, but I don't think there's anything you can do for her. I'm sorry."

I straightened with a heavy sigh. "I know," I said quietly. I had known she was dead as soon as I saw her lying there underwater. I had needed to try to revive her, but I had also known it wouldn't work. Lily was gone.

I closed my eyes; they burned with unshed tears. I decided that I wouldn't cry, though. I wouldn't collapse into a sobbing heap; I wouldn't cradle her lifeless body and call out her name in despair. I felt like doing all of those things, but I couldn't afford the luxury. For one thing, I had no time to mourn; I was urgently needed elsewhere. For another, I realized that everything I did here, every action I took, would be subject to video review, and who knew what Mike would do if he saw me getting hysterical over Lily's death.

"I have to teleport you out soon, Blue. The others need you."

"Yeah, I know," I said, marveling at how calm and steady my voice was. "Give me about thirty seconds."

I reached into the zippered front pocket of Lily's black Enclave jumpsuit. Her cellphone had miraculously survived being submerged; given the things Lily normally did for him, JB Swift had probably made sure she had one of the models that was extra rugged and waterproof. I flipped it open. Her contacts list had just two entries -- "Home" and "Uncle Oswald". I punched the one for Oswald; I figured that JB Swift deserved to know what had happened to his attack doll. As the phone began to ring, I carefully laid it on Lily's stomach and stepped back.

"Okay, Wizzit," I said. "I'm ready to go."

Chapter 24

The scene which greeted me in Las Vegas was pure pandemonium. Indra had left a trail of destruction in his wake. The place advertising the best steak on the strip had had its facade reduced to rubble, and the battle had apparently been making its way south from there; the huge sign advertising Bally's lay in shattered pieces, as did half of the pedestrian walkway over Las Vegas Boulevard. I could see my teammates clustered still farther south, over near a replica of the Eiffel Tower.

Trina, it appeared, had recovered from her injuries, and Alvaro's concert must have finished, because I could see all ten Primes attacking the Indra monster from every direction. And they were getting their tails kicked. Our four shooters were spaced out in a large square surrounding the monster and blazing away, but Indra was ignoring their shots as if they were raindrops.

As I ran forward, I saw Padma and Nicolai dash up for a double axe-strike. Indra batted Padma's knee-high swing aside with ease. Nicolai's blow sent him staggering, but he recovered quickly and kicked out, sending Nicolai sprawling backward.

"I'm here, guys," I announced. "How can I help?"

"Glad you decided to show up, Blue," I heard Mike say acerbically as he zapped Indra with his blaster to give Nicolai a chance to roll away. "Have a nice long chat with Lily, did you?"

"Not in the mood to discuss it, Red," I replied evenly. "I'm here to help; what can I do?"

"Partner up with me," Toby said. "We're attacking him in pairs. In and out, as fast as you can. He's pretty deadly with that Vajra of his, so don't let it hit you if you can avoid it. And it absolutely must not touch your weapon. Wizzit's orders."

"Got it, Green." I stripped off my sap gloves and tucked them into a pocket of my battle vest. If I had to block a Vajra-strike from Indra, I didn't want to have to worry about it touching my gloves. Pulling out my sais, I said, "Let me know when you're ready."

"We are also shooting at him in between strikes," Trina piped up. "Everyone, all at once, on my signal. I am using Pink's blaster and Pink is using mine. And don't worry if you accidentally hit Pink or one of the metal Primes. Our blaster shots don't affect them, the same way they don't affect Lily."

Hmm. I guess that made sense, since they had no real force shields. "I, uh, sort of lost my blaster in New Mexico," I explained.

"Wizzit told me where it fell, and I grabbed it for you," Bill said. "It's a little banged up, but it should still work. Coming your way."

"Thanks, Black." I snagged it out of the air as Bill tossed it over to me.

I'll spare you most of the tedious back-and-forth we went through with Indra; I'll just note that he was one of the toughest customers we had ever had to face. Ain't too many Enclave monsters that could shrug off eleven simultaneous blaster shots, four of them triple-strength. And every time we started getting the upper hand, he'd come back with that damned Vajra and start whaling away on everyone. I could see that Toby, who had been fighting this monster from the beginning, was getting more and more frustrated with our inability to put this guy away.

Eventually, during one of his runs at the monster, he lost his temper. Trina and I were with him, but when we backed away, he stayed in there, pounding away at the monster. "Damn . . . thing . . . just . . . won't . . . fall . . . down!" he snarled, punctuating each word with a blow from his hammer.

Now, Toby's pretty strong, especially when he gets riled, which isn't too often. Indra staggered back from the force of his attacks. "Better back off now, Green," Mike warned him. "You don't want him to start coming back at you."

"Like . . . hell . . . I . . . will!" Toby drove the monster back farther, pushing him close to the fake Eiffel tower and the building it stood on top of. To my eyes, it looked as if Toby had Indra on the ropes, but I have learned never to count one of these beasties out until I see it explode before my eyes.

"What can we do to help him, Blue?" Trina asked me anxiously. Normally, she would have just whipped out her triple-blaster and started blazing away; I think going without it had her at a loss. Before I could reply, though, Padma yelled and sprinted in for an attack. She seemed to have a special enmity for this particular beastie. Her axe blow caught him right behind the knees. Already off-balance because of Toby's attack, the Indra monster windmilled all four of his arms and slowly toppled over backwards.

Everyone rushed forward at that point, me included. Once you've got an Enclave monster off its feet, you never want it to get back up again. Even the Primes Emeriti moved in, shooting in between the rest of us. "Back away, Pink," I ordered as Angie hesitantly trotted over to join us.

"But --"

"I said back away! I don't want to have to worry about you getting hurt!"

"He's right, Pink," Trina said. "Stay back."

"All right . . ." she said reluctantly.

I thought we had him then; I really did. Everyone with a force shield was pounding on the guy by now, and every one of the Emeriti was blasting him continuously. He was thrashing about, but it was obvious he was getting steadily weaker. I half-expected Wizzit to call for a final strike at any moment. At some point, though, Indra managed to raise the hand holding the Vajra and strike it down hard onto the earth.

The impact created what felt like a major earthquake, throwing us all violently to the ground. As I struggled to pick myself up, shaking my head to clear it, I saw Indra rise up unsteadily to his full height. Toby was lying on the ground practically at his feet, apparently out cold. Indra raised his hand, preparing to deliver a crushing blow from the Vajra straight onto Toby's prone form.

Angie, being the farthest away, was the first one of us to recover. I didn't see where she came from, but all of a sudden she was standing in front of Toby before any of the rest of us could react. "Not today you don't, bub!" she yelled, firing straight up at the monster.

Indra took a step back and clawed at his face, which surprised me. I knew we had weakened him. I guess maybe at this point he couldn't just shrug off a point-blank triple-blaster shot directly into the eyes. He uttered a high, piercing shriek and flailed out blindly with a pair of arms; it was by pure dumb luck that he caught Angie across the midriff and sent her flying against the Eiffel Tower building.

"Pink!" I cried out. I winced as she bounced off a corner of the wall and fell to the ground, limp as a rag doll. Indra swept out the hand holding the Vajra; it struck the wall, crumbling it inward and sending chunks of masonry down onto my sister. "Pink!" I screamed again and started forward.

Indra's vision must have cleared by then, because he suddenly seemed to focus on my sister. His face twisted into a snarl. I whipped out my blaster and started shooting at him. A couple of others did the same, but he seemed to be recovering his strength rapidly and ignored us. Looming over Angie, he brought the Vajra down for a death-blow.

That was when it happened again. I drew in a sharp breath to yell, and for the second time in my life, I seemed to inhale part of my force shield with it, and time ground to a halt. I could the monster's fist descending more and more slowly until it stopped just a foot or two over Angie's pink-glowing form. I struggled forward, fighting my way through the transparent, sucking mud that seemed to have enveloped my entire body.

As I slogged toward the monster, I began to hear a weird sound. It started off in the subsonic range, gradually rising in pitch. As it entered my range of hearing it began to resolve itself into . . . Wizzit's voice?

"--ith him. Lock weapons with him. Lock weapons with him. Lock weapo--" it said over and over, beginning as a slow growl and going faster and faster toward an ultra-fast mosquito range. It occurred to me that this might be the only way Wizzit could communicate with me in my speeded-up timeframe.

Lock weapons with him? Toby had said earlier that Wizzit warned us not let our weapons touch the Vajra. Still, Wizzit knew more about this kind of stuff than I did, and if he said to lock weapons, that was probably for the best.

I dropped my blaster, not sure whether I could jam it into its holster without breaking something, and pulled my sais from my belt. Nearing the monster, I stepped over Angie, her bright pink form seeming a dull black to my altered senses. I crossed the blades of my weapons and brought them up in a low, awkward X-block against the knob of the Vajra that was protruding from Indra's fist.

A spark blossomed almost immediately at the spot where the weapons met. It was bright -- unnaturally bright in the darkened world of my speeded-up senses -- and grew rapidly. It reminded me a bit of the sparklers we used to light on the fourth of July. I began to hear the strange, rising sound of Wizzit's voice again. This time the words were, "--ontact. You must make physical contact. You must make physical contact. You mu--"

Physical contact? Was he going to teleport us someplace? I risked letting go of one of my sais -- it remained suspended in midair as if it were stuck to the Vajra -- and grabbed hold of Indra's massive wrist. Right away, I began to feel a strange sensation at the back of my neck, like the normal tingle I got from a teleportation, but slowed way, way down. The spark kept getting brighter and brighter as my vision got hazier and hazier.

I had never before felt the exact moment when I teleported. Normally there was just the tingle and when my vision cleared, I was someplace else. This time, though, I felt for the briefest of instants as if I were in two places at once, and then I was in just one place again -- a new place.

This was a strange place. There was an odd sort of light, made odder by my altered vision. Things were sharper, clearer -- the shadows had knife-sharp edges -- and yet there was no color at all in my surroundings. Nothing but gray dust and rock everywhere. I scarcely had time to take everything in, though, when I heard Wizzit's voice yet again. "--lue! Back away, Blue! Back away, Blue! Ba--"

Well, that was clear enough. I had no quarrel with backing away from the Indra monster. The spark from the joined weapons was getting uncomfortably bright by now, and I was starting to feel some heat from it as well. I released Indra's wrist and stepped back. There was some resistance as I pulled my other hand from the sai, but then I yanked hard and it came free; my crossed sais remained stuck fast to the Vajra. And the constant mud-like drag that I had been feeling from what I assumed was air resistance was completely gone. I felt almost as if I were moving normally.

The teleportation sensations made themselves felt as soon as I pulled free, and I soon found myself back in the lounge at HQ, moving at normal speed once again. As soon as I realized where I was, I demanded, "Where is everybody? Wizzit, where's Angie?"

"They are still in Las Vegas," Wizzit said calmly. "Be patient, Blue. It has been less than five seconds since I teleported you to the moon and back. They have scarcely had time to realize what has happened. I am bringing Angie back now."

Angie appeared at my feet in a flash of pink light. I heard her breathe in sharply, as if she were relieved not to have those pieces of broken building lying on top of her. In a flash I was kneeling at her side. "Angie!" I exclaimed. "Angie, are you all right?"

"I don't think so," came her trembling reply. She drew in a shuddering breath. "I hurt all over . . . except . . . my legs! Big brother, I -- I can't feel my legs! What's wrong with my legs?"

I don't think I had ever heard Angie sound scared before, not since we were little kids. I took her hand in mine. "It's all right, little sis," I assured her. "We'll take care of you. We'll make everything all right. Wizzit will make everything all right." I looked up at the ceiling. "Wizzit? We can heal her, can't we? She can piggy-back off my healing coma like before?"

"Not at the moment, but once your force shield recharges itself, then yes, we can." He switched to my belt speaker, Prime-to-Prime, so that he was speaking just to me. "She has a severe concussion. Her back is broken and her spinal cord has been severed. A number of her internal organs have been bruised. There is a reasonable probability that I can save her life, but beyond that, I can't say."

"Dammit, Wizzit, I can't --" I stopped to brush the tears from my eyes. "I can't lose her and Lily both in the same day!"

"I understand, Blue. I will do my best."

My teammates flashed in just a few minutes later. Toby was still out cold; Wizzit said just to leave him where he was and started his healing coma right where he was lying. The others clustered around me and Angie, murmuring sympathetically while I explained about her injuries.

We quickly established that, aside from a few scratches and bruises, the Primes Emeriti were all reasonably healthy. Padma had a badly wrenched knee and could barely stand, but she waved off all offers of help and limped over to one of the comfortable chairs. Then, one by one, Mike, Trina, Nicolai, and Bill all settled down for their healing comas as well.

The Primes Emeriti stayed with me while my force shield recharged itself, for which I was profoundly grateful. I don't know how much Angie knew of what was going on, because she seemed to be passing in and out of consciousness. All I was aware of was a sick sense of dread that I had gotten my baby sister killed or crippled for life, and I didn't want to be left alone with that feeling.

To help us pass the time, Wizzit showed us a vid of the moon he had pulled from some major observatory within the past few minutes. "Pay careful attention, Trevor," he said. "This is why I didn't want any of your weapons to touch the Vajra."

I saw a blossom of light that grew rapidly larger until, within seconds, it obscured nearly a fourth of the moon's disk. It then faded away almost as quickly. I whistled. "Was that Indra?" I asked.

"Yupperooni! It was only because you were moving so quickly that I was able to get you out to the moon and back again fast enough," he explained. I shuddered as I imagined that same kind of explosion taking place in downtown Las Vegas.

At last, Wizzit announced that my force shield was back to full strength. "But," he said, "there's a problem. Angie's number doesn't correspond to yours. I need to change it."

"Then change it!"

"I will, but I need her to deactivate and then reactivate to make the change effective. I can't do that for her."

I gripped Angie's shoulder. "Angie?" I said urgently. "Angie, Wizzit needs you to reactivate." There was no response; I shook her shoulder slightly. "Angie?"

"She's unconscious, Trevor."

"Then change me!" I snapped. "Change my number to match hers; make me Prime Nineteen! That would work, wouldn't it?"

"It . . . would indeed," Wizzit said, sounding surprised. "I have no idea why I didn't think of that myself." My force shield flickered. "Done. Prepare for a healing coma." He hesitated. "Trevor, I understand that your species has some fairly strong taboos against certain types of touching between siblings. Nevertheless, the more skin-to-skin contact you can manage, the better this will work."

"Fine." I skinned off my tee-shirt and lay down on my side next to Angie, close enough that my chin was resting against her bare shoulder. She had said she was still in her Liat costume, which, as I recalled, consisted of some sort of modest bikini, a few leis, and a grass skirt. Plenty of exposed skin, so I shouldn't have to remove any of her clothing. I twined one of my arms around hers and laid my other hand across her bare stomach. I also crossed ankles with her, so that one of her legs was touching one of mine from heel to thigh. A little more intimate than I would normally have been with my sister, but hopefully not too creepy.

"Is this good?" I asked.

"It's fine."

I kind of lost track of time after that. It wasn't like a real healing coma, but not like I was just lying there, either. I was vaguely aware that Cathy and Alvaro teleported home, while Mayumi stayed with me. Mostly, though, I just felt Angie lying beside me -- her breath fluttering against my nose, her stomach rising and falling beneath my hand.

The others woke up from their healing comas, one after another. Mayumi forestalled any questions about the way Angie and I were lying together and shooed everyone into the kitchen. I thought I saw a couple flashes of light at one point, as if someone had teleported in or out, but I didn't pay them much mind.

I expected the healing coma to end the way they normally did, with my eyes flicking open and instant full awareness. Didn't happen. Instead, I heard Angie make some sort of uncomfortable noise, and then she yelled and was suddenly struggling to sit up, grabbing at something on her leg.

There was a ripping sound, and I smelled something hot. I sat up; Angie was in a half-sitting position, the pink glow around her gone. "What happened?" I asked her as she sank back down.

"My Junior Prime Pink badge! I had strapped it to my leg because there was no other place to put it, and it started burning me!"

Her badge was lying on the floor beside me where she had evidently tossed it. I picked it up, then immediately dropped it again with a yell and stuck my fingers in my mouth. The darned thing was scalding hot. "Wizzit, what's going on?"

"The unit overheated," Wizzit explained. "It's quite useless now, I'm afraid; the internal components have fused beyond repair."

"You mean, she's as healed up as she can get?"

"Affirmative."

I looked down at Angie. "So . . . how do you feel?"

She looked thoughtful for a moment, as if she were considering the question. Then I heard a commotion from the direction of the kitchen. Wizzit must have passed the word that Angie was awake, because my teammates were entering the room, along with two figures I hadn't expected to see.

"Mom? Dad?" I said, feeling inexplicably guilty over being caught half-naked next to my sister. "What are you guys doing here?"

"Wizzit sent us a text explaining where Angie had gone," my mother said. "We were so worried when we couldn't find her backstage after the play."

"I told Julie to tell you guys that I got a call from Trevor!" Angie protested.

"We didn't see Julie," my father replied. "Anyway, after we got home, Mike teleported in. He told us that you had been seriously hurt and that we needed to come right away." He raised his eyebrows in a silent question.

My mother was more direct. She knelt beside Angie and laid a hand against her forehead, the way mothers do. "How are you, dear?" she asked anxiously. Then she recoiled at the sight of a smear of red along her stomach. "You're bleeding!" she exclaimed.

"That's Trevor's blood," Wizzit interjected, as if that should make my mother feel better. "He tore off most of the skin on his palm getting away from the monster."

I looked at my bloody hand, now mostly scabbed over, and shrugged. It hurt, but I had felt worse pain. "So how are you, little sis?" I prompted her.

"I feel okay, I guess," Angie said slowly. "Nothing hurts. I had a vague memory that I couldn't feel my legs, but . . ." She slapped one thigh experimentally. "I felt that just now." She gathered her legs under her and rose to her feet.

Well, she tried to rise to her feet. It wasn't very successful. She got about halfway up, faltered, and sat back down. "My, um," she said uncertainly, "my legs aren't working very well."

"There was a certain amount of injury to your back and spinal cord," Wizzit said. I noticed that he omitted the rest of the problems, presumably because they were all taken care of. "I fixed as much as I could before your Junior Prime Pink badge burned itself out. It is mostly healed."

"Mostly?" Angie, Mom, Dad, and I said at the same time.

"There appears to be some lingering damage to the nerves, as evidenced by the weakness you are experiencing," he explained. "It's difficult to say how severely you will be affected. There is a chance that the weakness may go away, or it could get worse; you may possibly experience some numbness in your lower limbs. Worst case, you might lose the ability to walk."

Angie's face went pale under her stage makeup. Without a word, she scooted herself over to the nearest chair and, using it for support, started to push herself up. I held out a hand to her, but she grimly shook her head. It took her over a minute, but eventually she was on her feet. Taking a deep breath, she stepped cautiously forward. Two steps, then three, and then her legs refused to support her any further and she fell forward into my arms.

"Little sis, I am so sorry this happened to you," I said. I held her tight against me and closed my eyes, feeling the hot sting of tears. "I should never have let you come out to help us. I'm sorry I ever told you I was a Prime!"

"Don't be," she whispered back. "It's not your fault. I was out there because I wanted to be, not because you made me. Being Junior Prime Pink was the coolest thing I have ever done."

I eased her down into one of the comfortable chairs. She sat there for a long moment staring down at her hands, obviously fighting back tears. "This isn't going to get any better, is it?" she asked, her voice trembling. "Realistically, I'm going to be like this for the rest of my life, aren't I?"

"Ordinarily, I would say yes," Wizzit replied. "However, once you join us as Prime Violet, assuming of course that you're still interested, then --"

"Wait a minute!" Angie interrupted. She looked up at the ceiling speakers. "You mean, I can still be a Prime?"

"Of course," Wizzit said matter-of-factly. "After today's brave performance, I could hardly rescind my offer, could I? But as I was saying, once you join us and have had a day or so to become acclimated to the Prime belt, then a healing coma should fix you up in no time."

I don't think Angela heard much beyond "of course," because all of a sudden she was crying and laughing and trying to talk, all at once. I couldn't make out much of what she was saying, except that she used the phrase "two months" an awful lot, which I knew was how much time she had left before she graduated. I swept her up in my arms and gave her a big hug, happy to know that my baby sister was going to be all right. Eventually.

After that, there wasn't much to do except send our visitors home. I kissed Mayumi's cheek and thanked her for staying with me the whole time. When I introduced her to my parents as a former Prime, my mother gave me what she probably thought was a sly wink and commented that the two of us made a cute couple. That made Mayumi beam and my face turn red. I decided not to mention to my parents that she was already married and, despite her looks, was closer to their age than to mine.

To my surprise, Toby insisted on carrying Angela home in his arms. It was the least he could do, he said, to show his appreciation for her having saved him from Indra. Toby can be a bit tongue-tied around girls, especially pretty girls, but his thanks were eloquent enough. And I have to say, Angie did look awfully adorable being carried around like that.

Chapter 25

We came back a few minutes later. I had never really had a chance to heal up after the battles, so I headed back to my room to get that taken care of. Mike met me in the hallway outside my room. "I'd like a word with you, Trevor, if you don't mind."

I stopped with my hand on the door. "Can't it wait, Mike?" I said. "I'm feeling pretty crappy right now."

"I know you're overdue for a healing coma," he said, "but I've just been talking with Bill, and he's not happy about the way things went down in Hawaii. I'd like to hear your version of what happened."

I ran a hand over my face. "Let's go over it later in the debriefing, okay?"

"I'd rather hear it right now, straight from you. I don't want any unpleasant surprises in the debriefing, especially since Bill will be the one running it."

"Fine," I said with a sigh. "What does Bill say happened?"

"He says that when he arrived, you were fighting Lily and she was kicking your arse."

I nodded wearily. "That's a pretty fair statement."

"He said he had brought along some sort of secret weapon, something that enabled you to subdue Lily. He didn't say what it was, but I assume it was that remote control he had been working on with Wizzit."

"Yeah, that's what it was. I don't know exactly what it did to her, but I'd guess that it activated one of her 'companion mode' personalities."

"Companion mode?" Mike repeated. "That's the, er --?"

I nodded. "Right. 'Social and sexual companionship for those operating the attack doll' or something like that. She was definitely not looking to fight anyone after he pressed the button; her threat was essentially neutralized at that point. I didn't realize that, so I kicked her in the head pretty hard. She went down and didn't get up again."

"That tallies with what Bill says," Mike agreed. "Then he told me that after you two destroyed the monster, you tried to go back to take care of Lily, to give her first aid or something. He tried to stop you, per my orders, and the two of you nearly came to blows. Is that true?"

I shook my head. "I wanted to go check on Lily. He took hold of my arm and wouldn't let go. It was either teleport to New Mexico or start hitting him. I chose New Mexico, per your orders. I never threatened him, either verbally or physically. He was the one who grabbed me, not the other way around."

"Right. Well, that's sorted, then," he said, although he didn't sound convinced. "What about later?"

"Later?"

"You know what I mean," he said impatiently. "After you left New Mexico, you were gone for nearly ten minutes. Where were you?"

"I went back to the beach and I checked on Lily," I replied calmly.

His face grew grim. "I have to say, Trevor, I'm not very happy about that. In fact, I'm pretty damn unhappy about it. You deliberately --"

"Hey, I didn't ask to go there," I retorted hotly. "Wizzit sent me there on his own. If you've got a problem with that, I'd suggest you take it up with him."

He stared at me for a moment. "I may just do that," he grated. He turned to go, saying curtly over his shoulder, "That'll be all. Get yourself healed up."

"She's dead, Mike."

I don't often catch Mike off-guard. It's those damn reflexes of his. I did this time, though. He stopped in mid-stride and slowly turned around to look at me. "Say that again?"

"Lily is dead," I repeated. "When I knocked her out, she fell so that she was lying half in, half out of the water. I was going to pull her up onto the beach a little more, out of the surf. That's all I was going to do, but Bill wouldn't let me, per your orders. So then, while I was in New Mexico destroying the thunderbird, the tide came in and she drowned. She probably never even woke up."

Mike looked at me for probably a good ten seconds before he said, "Wizzit, is that true?"

"Affirmative."

"You've got no reason to be unhappy with me, Mike," I told him. "In fact, you should be pretty damn happy. I did everything you wanted me to do. You wanted me to treat Lily like an enemy, so I treated her like an enemy. I kicked her skull in, and then I left her there to die all alone. I killed Lily. Hell, you should give me a damn medal for that."

He didn't say a word as I pushed open the door to my room and went inside to begin my healing coma.

###

The Attack Doll Series

by

Douglas A. Taylor

Twenty-one-year-old Trevor Chiao is Prime Blue; he is a member of the fabulous Primes, a group of seven men and women whose mission is to protect the Earth from Enclave, an alien organization bent on taking over the world.

Protected by a blue force shield that enhances his strength and speed and keeps his identity secret, he travels all over the world with his fellow Primes, battling monsters, Zoinks, and the mysterious Lily Lee, a beautiful Asian woman who refers to herself as . . . the Attack Doll.

Attack Doll 1: Violet Lost

Trevor becomes the mentor of Padma Reddy, a young woman from India who has joined the team as their new Prime Violet. When Padma is kidnapped by Enclave during her first mission as a Prime, Trevor must risk his own life to infiltrate the Enclave base and rescue . . . Violet Lost.

Attack Doll 2: Junior Prime

Trevor usually gets along pretty well with his younger sister Angela, but when the two of them are taken prisoner by Enclave and Angie discovers Trevor's secret identity, he doesn't quite know how to handle it. What's a guy to do when his kid sister wants to tag along as a . . . Junior Prime?

Attack Doll 3: Protocol Black

The death of Prime Commander has dealt a heavy blow to Trevor and his fellow Primes. And when the team is threatened by government forces intent on discovering their secrets, things go from bad to worse. To hold the team together, the Primes must enlist the aid of an old friend and implement . . . Protocol Black.

Attack Doll 4: Primes Emeriti

There are times when seven Primes just aren't enough. When the Earth's problems with Enclave suddenly triple, it's looking like this is one of those times. Fortunately, a new class of heroes stands ready to help Trevor and his friends shoulder their burden. They are the . . . Primes Emeriti.

Don't miss the final exciting book in the Attack Doll series:

Attack Doll 5: The End of Lily Lee

Nothing lasts forever. Even attack dolls eventually outlive their usefulness, but what happens to them then? When Trevor and his friends are menaced by a new threat, one which strikes to the very heart of their powers, they face a difficult choice. Is it finally time for the Primes to say goodbye to the attack doll? Is this . . . The End of Lily Lee?
