Superhero Nation

by Mike Tanier

Conclusion

Tensions were high as we rode the moving walkway out to the Atoll, and the holographic advertisements don't calm you down. Music and lights and chaos: at least they attract attention, so it's easy to get lost in the throng. Not that we looked suspicious. Travis and Alicea, dressed like a prep-school couple, rode a few yards ahead of me, and we didn't acknowledge each other. We passed through security without a hitch: none of us were carrying any recording equipment or electronics, save for a portable phone.

"Nervous?" Alicea asked as we walked the main thoroughfare. We were in the safety of the crowd now, where we could talk.

"Nothing to be nervous about," I replied with a game smile. "You?"

"Frosty," Travis mumbled.

"Then scramble," I said. "We'll talk when we're jacked in."

Alicea and Travis headed for the atrium bar. They had they easy part . . . for now. I had to retrieve the video equipment JD planted on the island at dawn.

It was too cold for sightseers on fisherman's jetty. The rock outcropping, extending 400 feet from the atoll, was buffeted by waves and wind. The few couples who braved the jetty in search of romantic peace and quiet lasted only a few seconds in the early spring chill.

"Wicked winds today," I said to the security guard as he held the door open for me, allowing the brisk wind into the shopping plaza. I picked my way along the guide rail, pretending to enjoy the vista view of the ocean and the distant mainland. I hadn't attracted the guard's attention, so I moved quickly to the end of the jetty.

A thin cord hung from the base of the railing, descending into the rocks and the ocean below. I tugged at the line, fighting undertow for a few seconds, until the sack at the other end emerged from the ocean. Quickly, but carefully, I brought it ashore.

The thick sponge padding of the sack was waterlogged. The catch weighed a ton, but it had done its job, protecting the airtight plastic within from the forces of the rocks and tide. I unsealed the plastic container and verified that the cargo was bone dry. The floater and minicam were safe. My lapel-sized micro-camera was also in good working condition, as were the video electronics I smuggled away from a friend at a network affiliate. And the pistol Salome provided was fully charged.

I plunged my micro and the gun into my breast pockets. With a tap of a remote switch, I activated a program on the floater, and it fought the wind back toward the plaza entrance. The rest of the cargo was thrown back into the deep. When I entered the Atoll, the floater whizzed through ahead of me, it's presence concealed by the stinging winds and a few words to distract the guard.

Once inside, I tucked the floater into a shopping bag and passed the atrium bar.

On my signal, Travis left his seat and followed a few paces behind me into a department store. With all the bars and all the public restrooms on the Atoll, department store restrooms were usually deserted. That was our destination.

Travis joined me in the lavatory stall. "Two guys in one stall," Travis said. "You know what they would think."

I fitted the micro up his sleeve and into his collar. "If they're thinking that, they won't think we're here to bother the Armorlitia." I up-linked digital images from the micro-cam into my remote control, checking the hookup. "Besides, 'they' shouldn't think anything if this goes without a hitch."

Travis watched as I tested the video interface. "It doesn't seem like anything's going on around here," he said. "Do we have the right week?"

I nodded. "All the action is in the conference center, according to Valley Green's intelligence." I inserted a network receiver into my ear, then spoke via remote. "Let's make sure the artillery is in place," I said. "Come in, Dangerbird."

JD was crystal clear over the connection. "I'm fucking cold, Old Timer." Having deposited the video equipment, JD spent the morning hiding beneath the doc and pylon system on the edge of the atoll. His perch was just a few feet above the waves, and the metal of the Valley Green flight suit had to be freezing.

"S'OK, D-bird," Travis piped up. "Old Fart and I are getting cozy in a bathroom stall together."

"Fucking precious," JD said.

"Silence until my mark," I said, severing the connection with JD. I handed Travis the extra video equipment. "You know what you're doing with this?" I asked.

He took the equipment and stashed it in a pocket. "You showed me."

I smiled. "Good. Now get out of here before I start liking this."

****

Travis found a little Irish bar near the conference center entrance and cooled his heels. Alicea left they atrium and caught up to me as I feigned window-shopping. So far, everything was clockwork.

"Nice pants," she whispered as I admired the wares at an upscale haberdashery.

"Everyone's in position."

"Will wonders never cease."

"You ready to read and run?"

We strolled toward the conference center. "I already have some of the information I need," she said. "There are lots of militia types hanging around."

I frowned. "Have we attracted attention?"

She shook her head. "They're just shopping and having lunch," she said. "This is like any old conference to them. They brought they're families and everything."

I nodded. They probably told their wives it was some boring sales conference. Meetings all day, honey, take the kids out shopping. I have high-yield CFCs and pulse cannons to buy.

"You didn't wear yourself out reading, did you?"

She smiled. "Plenty of gas in the tank." She brushed my hand, careful not to be too affectionate and attract attention.

We approached the conference center entrance. Like everything else on the atoll, it was grand and gilded and a little ridiculous. Greek columns and fountains, the whole bit, hiding a state-of-the-art building with tight security. Guards wearing red blazers checked everyone who entered, and each guard was wired with earphones. One breach, and the response would be instantaneous.

"Play along now Randy," Alicea said as we approached. "You're a New York cosa nostra type, let's call it an olive oil company. That'll explain that accent of yours. I'm your personal secretary, wink-wink."

"Sounds kinky."

"Be nice."

Using our fake personas and the information she pulled from the guard's mind, Alicea talked us past security. It took some doing, even with all of our advantages. He wanted to check the bag with the floater, but we bullied him with our Mafia-scented story. I was glad we weren't trying to explain Travis past the guards; even in a polo shirt he looks too much like hired muscle to explain away.

We were in the building. The main ballroom showed no indications of illegal activity, which was not surprising. The Armorlitia was confining activities to the higher-security areas on the fifth and sixth floors. I slipped into a bank of pay phones, Alicea took a place in line at the information desk, and faze two begun.

"We're clear," I whispered. "Time for action boys."

****

JD had located a security sensor on the outside of the conference center. It was perimeter security, designed to keep boats and recreational flight craft away from the building. We wanted a diversion, and we wanted that security sensor off line. On my mark, JD took care of both. He flew into position just beyond the sensor's range, smoked it, then took off for the mainland.

"Target destroyed," he said. "I'll monitor you. Otherwise, one-way silence." That was the last we were supposed to hear of him.

JD's assault had the desired effect. Security mobilized, concentrating their efforts on the area JD attacked on the far side of the center. Around me, managers were briefing guards and barking directions into their portables. I slipped into an elevator for the fourth floor. When I was certain there was no surveillance, I linked in to Travis' camera with my floater. Sure enough, he had taken advantage of the distraction perfectly, slipping between guards as they were receiving reports and being repositioned. The last line of guards tried to stop him, but he disappeared into a crowd in the main ballroom.

I concealed the floater, left the elevator at the fourth floor and followed a row of corridors through the conference center. For all the luxury of the façade and the lobby area, the place was utilitarian: endless rows of office spaces and meeting centers, small apartments, and cleaning stations. When I found a cleaning station door ajar, I slipped into the tiny closet.

Salome had provided a few helpful building specs. There were electrician's crawl spaces hidden in small panels along the baseboards of the janitor's closets. A little prying, and the entrance door gave way. I wiggled into the crawl space. There was barely enough room to work, and my remote monitor provided the only light available, but I was able to watch Travis and Alicea's progress as I prepared my minicam and floater for the flight of their lives.

****

Having evaded security, Travis joined Alicea in the lobby. While I hunkered down in my fourth floor crawl space, they headed for the basement. All this sneaking around would amount to nothing if we couldn't broadcast what I found. We couldn't run the risk of recording the evidence, only to have Wasserman bury the story. As best we could, we had to make sure that the story broke live.

When I was certain they were alone in the basement, I made contact. "How're we doing down there?" I asked. Travis, who was wired for sound, jumped out of his skin.

"I was fine before the heart attack you just gave me."

"The underground concourse shouldn't be heavily guarded," I said.

"We haven't seen much yet," Travis replied. "And we got the situation covered. Anybody Alicea can't talk her was past, I'll beat senseless."

That's precisely what they did. There was a skittish guard at the entrance to the center studio; he was on his guard after our little diversion. Travis needed to cut the circulation off to his brain before he reported the incident. All I saw was the back of his neck as Travis cradled it against his chest and squeezed. The kid would sleep soundly. The engineers at the video booth, on the other hand, bought Alicea's story about recording promos. Apparently, lots of conventioneers had gotten permission to use the recording booths, the few allowed on the island, while they were in town.

"I'll tell you something, Old Faithful, all this sneaking around ain't exactly my style," Travis said once they were safely inside the video booth.

It was no time for chatter. I was waiting for the signal that Travis had installed the broadcast software so I could release my floater. "What would you suggest, kid? Hitting this mob head on?"

"Maybe," he said as he worked. I saw him carefully wiring a broadcast interface into the video equipment. "Go in with guns blazing. Take a bunch of them out before we get taken out ourselves."

I could hear Alicea in the background. "Sorry we didn't plan a suicide mission for you."

"Yeah, you did," Travis said. "We don't have a chance of living through this. Had we gone in with our spurs set, at least there would be lots of witnesses. When they nail us for this, our bodies will just disappear into the night."

"Travis," I said, wearying of this line of talk. "If you didn't think we had a chance, why did you come along?"

"Beats jail," he said, completing his work. "OK, Randy, this is your show. Flip a switch, and you have a direct line to the affiliates, one to the network . . . and a bonus. I rigged you up to the advertising array by mistake. I think it's a direct override."

That gave me a laugh. The thought of patrons treated to the sight of the Armorlitia with its pants down on 40-foot high holographic monitors was a killer.

"It's finished then," I said. From then on, it was really my show. "Travis, sit tight and monitor things down there. Alicea, get the hell off the island."

She leaned over Travis' shoulder. "I'm staying."

I tried to argue. "Alicea . . ."

"I'm seeing this through to the end."

There wasn't much we could do to stop her. I shrugged my shoulders and released my floater.

I kept my floater as close to the ceiling as possible to avoid detection, but there was no one in the corridors to detect it. In fact, there was hardly any life at all on the fifth and sixth floors. There were some locked seminar rooms ("Proper care and maintenance of a battle suit?"), but no bustle in the hallway, no suspicious types at the exits. My camera climbed stairwells without incident.

"All's quiet down here, too," Travis whispered when I updated him. "We have our run of the control room."

I patiently controlled my floater from the safety and claustrophobia of the crawlspace, leading it down another unpromising hallway. "Maybe you can look up a directory or something, since you have so much free time."

Alicea cut in. "What do you need?"

"Tell me where there's a big exposition hall on these floors."

The radio went silent. I solemnly returned to my quest.

A few minutes later, Alicea's voice returned. "There are lots of lecture spaces, but only one hangar wide area. Try the mezzanine: they have 40,000 cubic feet under an atrium roof."

I did as she suggested, but the stairwell to the mezzanine was blocked by two red blazers. I almost lost my grip on the remote as I jerked the floater back down the stairwell. I parked the device in a far corner of the ceiling at the base of the stairs. My microphone detected life above: voices, footfalls, even piped-in music.

Now I just had to get the little camera through.

The corridor leading to the mezzanine stairs was relatively short: maybe 100 feet. I turned the camera to zoom in on the far end of the hallway. A ventilation duct sat high on the wall. It was a little wider than my floater. A tight fit, but workable.

I opened up the throttle on my little floating camera unit and let her rip, heading straight for the duct. The first strike only dented the grate, but it didn't knock me off line. A second assault and we were through. I switched the camera to limited-light setting, slowly picking my way through the ductworks.

This was ultimate claustrophobia: a guy in a crawlspace watching a camera crawl through ductwork. After a few dead ends, we floated up to mezzanine level, and the iris of my camera, concealed by the ventilation grates, opened up on the most unlikely trade show in the world.

There were overseas weapon manufacturers at booths, showing off deadly hardware to enthusiastic businessmen. Independent book publishers hawked their wares: "Beat the VPA: Twenty Airtight Defenses" and "Building Explosives Without Alerting the ATF." The patrons, nearly all of the male, looked like ordinary citizens, but they signed up for mailing lists updating servo-suit software and chatted up Third World snake-oil salesmen who promised rain forest herbs ten times stronger than Phinny Bar. Even individual armorlitias had their own booths, and all the grand dragons and Pooh-Bahs of different cells networked and mingled and enjoyed hot dogs and pretzels from the snack bar.

And I was getting all of it. I maneuvered the floater easily from grate to grate along the ceiling level. Everything was in clear view, from the weapons to the faces of the patrons. In my excitement, I almost forgot to flip the switch to begin broadcasting.

"Looks like paydirt," Travis said when I eventually went live.

I hooked a tiny headset into my ear, lowering the microphone to my mouth. Were the affiliates listening? There was a chance that some of them would. My floater automatically tagged submissions as mine, and the Jersey affiliates might simply go live out of habit. Even if they didn't, Travis' questionable wiring job gave me a captive audience in the Atoll entrance tunnel. It was show time.

"What you are witnessing," I said in the hushed, solemn tones of the outraged journalist, "is an affront to the American justice system, carried on in plain sight. Just two miles from a city virtually controlled by the McCoy Units, weapons manufacturers and distributors shamelessly buy and sell illegal weapons of mass destruction. Not in some seedy backwoods warehouse, mind you, but at a convention center with a festival atmosphere."

I continued in that vain for several minutes, zooming in on the hardware, explaining the significance of the event, and identifying some of the more famous figures in attendance. There were several New Jersey and New York state legislators on hand, a few high-profile CEOs, and the clincher:

"Also in the crowd along the far window is Donovan Baird, the former Atlantic City mayor currently running for the House seat vacated by Joe Bell. Congressman Bell, of course, left the House after a famous indiscretion that was videotaped here on the Atoll. Now, we see one of his political opponents in an even more compromising position. One can only speculate about the connection at this point, but it does appear that the Atoll has been used a stronghold for a united, national militia movement, and that by vacationing here, Bell put himself in a position where his enemies could easily strike him."

The broadcast continued, with me doing my best to blow the lid off the Armorlitia with every scrap of evidence at my disposal, but I could see by the activity on the floor that we had been spotted. A red blazer lit into the room waving his portable. They huddled with a few suits in the corner. I alerted the viewing audience that shutdown was immanent, then turned my attention to Travis and Alicea.

"Old Timer to Firck and Frack. Time to make like a tree."

"Gotcha," Travis said. "We're history. I'll break down."

"To hell with it," I said. "Just get Alicea out of there."

They would be going downstairs first, once they knew we were broadcasting. Travis and Alicea only had a few minutes. I watched the feed from Travis' collar-cam: they were out of the studio and negotiating the corridors. I turned my attention back to the floor, calmly narrating the scene, confident that the floater was out of sight.

On the floor, several management types flew into a panic. They knew someone was broadcasting a signal, but they couldn't determine its origin. It took a few seconds for some smart cookie to turn on a video screen and tune to the advertisement channel. Then they saw themselves, and could see what angle we were video taping from. One suit extended his arm, moving his finger until it pointed directly out of the video screen. The red blazer at his side calmly produced a CFC sidearm and blasted the air duct.

My floater was dead, and they were on to me.

****

I hoped to issue a quick warning to the troops, but I saw Travis duking it out with security on his micro-cam. A couple of red blazers had already hit the floor, but as he finished off a third I saw an armor-plated goon enter the hallway. It was hard to make out what was happening, with Travis and the camera spinning wildly, but I could hear energy pulses, so I assumed the worst. I cut off transmissions at the source, knowing that if they were thorough, they already had traced a line back to me. But I had to try to escape; I would be no help to anyone in the crawlspace.

I slowly pulled myself out of that coffin into the cleaning station, where it felt good just to stand up and stretch. But there was no time for yoga. I pulled my piece, listened carefully at the door, then sprung into the hallway when I felt confident that the coast was clear. The corridor was empty. I made for the corner, crouched, peered, then turned. Empty.

I broke into a sweat as I ran, breathing heavier than I should have from the exertion. C'mon Randy, I chastised myself, you're too old for a panic attack. But the guards were out there, the red blazers and the gray suits and the armor guys who attacked Travis, and they could be around any corner. There was no sense trying to play it cool: they knew who I was. If it came to a confrontation, it would be my pistol and my 35-year old body versus whatever tech and muscle they wanted to throw at me.

And yet, I was still on my feet.

A blazer turned a corner ahead of me, and I shot without thinking. He was blown off his feet by the shot before he could react. Immediately, I changed direction. All the guards were jacked in; shooting one took care of an immediate problem, but it only alerted others to my whereabouts.

I crashed through an emergency entrance, going upstairs instead of down. I figured that once they found me on the fourth floor, they might not look as hard on the fifth. Sure enough, I turned a corner to see goons rushing down the main stairs. There must have been 50 of them. I pressed myself against a wall and watched them descend. Maybe, I thought, I could slip out right behind them.

Then the door beside me opened. I whirled to fire, but the barrel of a rifle came down hard across my hands. I turned to run, but a security team raced down the emergency stairway I had just left. The rifle-bearer, an armor-plated kid about 25, pointed his weapon at me.

"Impressive, Mr. Stone. We were told we wouldn't need tech security with Black Street Herd out of business. For three amateurs, you really had us running."

Chapter 5: Serendipity

The thug who got the jump on me only wore a helmet and two forearm plates. Not much hardware; I might have tried to sweep him out at the legs, but I felt the cold steel of the microwave barrel of his wrist weapon against the back of my neck, and I knew he could make me a vegetable in seconds. So I endured his rough handling. I was led through the conference areas and tossed into one of the executive auditoriums. This was an observation deck for VIPs; the southern exposure opened directly out to the dome that kept the Atoll climate controlled. The spectacular view was tinted as I entered, the room going dark except for a few footlights.

The guard strapped me to a chair and left. I faced the primary viewing screen behind the auditorium stage. The straps were secure and tight; there was no way to free myself. The giant video screen flickered to life before me. I wasn't surprised at who I saw.

"Wasserman," I said.

There it was: a two-story high image of his smug visage, his lips pursed behind folded hands, staring down at me with condescending confidence. "Welcome to the executive ballroom, Randy," he said, his voice booming through the amphitheater. "Are you comfortable?"

I wished I could tug at the minicam sewn into my lapel to verify that it was still functioning. "You don't seem to be the type to incriminate himself like this," I said.

He smiled. "Self-incrimination?"

"I have hard evidence," I said. "Hard video evidence."

"Oh," he said, unfazed. "I don't see it that way. You have evidence of militia activity, certainly. That might be some small cause for concern. As for this conversation, I've ensured that it's just between you and me."

Two secondary screens flanking the main screen switched on. One showed Travis, unmasked and beaten, strapped to a chair and heavily guarded. Another showed Alicea slumped in more comfortable surroundings. She wasn't restrained, but she appeared unconscious.

My heart sank.

"We apprehended them at about the same time as you. We figured out your plan a few moments later. If you're curious, they did encounter some success. You broadcast about fourteen minutes of militia evidence to the entire atoll, and to some web stations that no one watches. A tiny, hollow victory, considering the risks."

Travis and Alicea disappeared. Now it was Wasserman, simulcast on all three screens. "Against that shred of evidence, and the hearsay of our current conversation, look at the evidence I have against you." He held up a manila envelope. It was probably just theatre, but he made his point. "A CFC pistol with your DNA code in the trigger lock, considerable evidence linking you to a known escapee from justice, evidence linking you to the lighthouse explosion. The list goes on and on. Should you decide to go public with this little encounter, you can only scratch me. I can ruin you."

"It's like I suspected," I said. "You control the Armorlitia."

He laughed sarcastically, his cackles filling the room. "Now you're just guessing. If I did run the Armorlitia, it would have a certain appealing simplicity. I only wish my life were so simple."

The two sub-screens again focused on Travis and Alicea. "Perhaps you will understand matters more thoroughly after you watch our interaction with Miss Mann," he said. "The whole story turns on her, after all. And you still haven't a clue as to why."

****

Alicea was still slumped on the couch. The room she was in looked like a standard corporate suite: decent furniture, some crummy seascape paintings, a one-way window. I could guess that there were some goons on the other side of the door, but Alicea wasn't going anywhere. Had they knocked her out? Possibly, but the strain of reading may have also pushed her to the limit.

The image of Alicea suddenly flooded all three screens; Wasserman wanted me to see what happened next. A man entered the room: a tall, gaunt corporate type, around 50, in a tweedy jacket and glasses. He approached Alicea, taking her frail little chin in his hand and lifting her face, as if he hoped to peer into her unconscious eyes.

I feared the worst. "Wasserman, if he lays a hand on her . . ."

Wasserman wasn't visible, but I knew he was listening. "Randy, your suspicions betray you," he said, his disembodied voice booming over the loudspeakers. "All this effort for some sexual rendezvous? Ridiculous. Please don't interrupt."

The tweedy guy tenderly brushed Alicea's cheek, then stepped away from her and sat, hands folded like a schoolboy, in a chair beside her. The contact drew her out of her funk. She stirred, stretched for a moment, then opened her eyes.

When she saw the man next to her, she jerked to life, dragging herself over to the far end of the couch and instinctively covering up with fear. Her hand brushed her shoulder, and she felt at a bruise on her tricep. A puncture wound. Her eyes grew wild.

"What the hell did you give me?"

"Calm down, Alicea," he replied, his voice soothing.

"No. Tell me what you did to me. Tell me what you're doing here."

"I'll explain everything, but first you have to calm down."

"I won't," she said. She tried to stand, but wobbled a bit. The tweedy gut leapt from his chair to help her, but she straightened herself out extending the palm of her hand to keep him at a distance. "I'll scream bloody murder," she said, walking over to the door and banging on it in utter futility.

"I expected this reaction," he said.

She turned to him. "I guess you did. Sending goons to kidnap me. Assaulting me and Travis in the basement."

"You were trespassing here."

"Is that how you justify attacking us? What did you do with Randy? Where's Travis? Let me the hell out of here, or so help me, I'll kill you!"

He sat there calmly, taking Alicea's hostility without response. "Considering what you've been through, I understand your anger. But I won't sit here being threatened. You may think Travis and Randy are your friends, but they've been using you. You should know better. I raised you better than that. And nobody kidnapped you, Alicea. This is the only way I could get a chance to talk to you. I didn't kidnap my own daughter."

Alicea and her father were still talking, but the audio faded and they dropped to the secondary screens so Wasserman's face could fill the main screen. He looked extra smug.

"Her father," I said absently, hoping he would fill in some of the details. I was through speculating.

"Yes, Oliver J. Mann," Wasserman said. "The long-suffering father of an estranged daughter who disappeared into the slums of New Jersey a few days after her college graduation. A man who's been emotionally shattered since his daughter fell under the influence of a brutal, if idealistic, young street hoodlum, who through charm and intimidation transformed her from a promising young lady into a petty criminal. A man who has never given up his search."

". . . And a high ranking Armorlitia leader," I concluded.

Wasserman nodded, perhaps despite himself. "Call him that if you will. He's a patriot, an advocate of the well-ordered militia. An enemy both of overbearing government control and the kind of anarchy favored by Mr. Hood and the Black Street Herd and a million other glorified gangs."

Wassermann fiddled with a knob, and sound returned from Alicea's suite. I could see them in the corner viewscreen: Alicea still standing but calmer, her father sitting motionlessly, doing his best to appear non-threatening. He was speaking.

"I ran out of options for contacting you. Your credit card would be in New York one day, Trenton the next. I had suspicions that you were in Atlantic City, but I was never able to pin down an address."

Alicea gritted her teeth. "We moved around. It's a dangerous line of work, and we didn't have money to burn."

"I'd send out operatives to find you: private investigators, employees," Oliver Mann continued. "But they would come up empty. And the few times they did find something: a stable web account, a place of employment, I was left with the same problem: how could I contact you?"

"You could have tried knocking on the door."

"And you would have welcomed me?"

Alicea's eyes turned downward. She brushed the hair away from her eyes.

"I didn't think so. And Travis? He would have greeted me with a sock in the mouth."

She turned back to him. "It looks like you knew some people who could take care of Travis if you needed to."

Mann looked hurt by that one. "Sweetheart, you probably have me pegged as some kind of Godfather after what you've seen around here. You have to realize that I hate violence. Abhor it. Much more so than Travis or that reporter. He's some role model: jeopardizing your life the way he did by bringing you here."

"But you were counting on that, weren't you?"

Mann bit his lip. "We assumed that by following Randy Stone, we would get to you. It was my only way of contacting you under circumstances that I could control."

"Why?" Alicea demanded. "Why did you need to contact me?"

Mann stood and approached her; Alicea was nearly in tears, but she made no effort to move away. "To apologize for the way things were. To tell you things I never could, and to offer you a chance for a new life."

He tossed a book on the sofa, inviting her to sit with it. It was a photo album, a hand-crafted keepsake. "Memories for you, Alicea Marie, if you're interested," he said, pacing with his hands behind his back to the window and the ocean view beyond.

She studied the book from a distance, looking ready to leap at it, but she remembered the bruise on her arm, rubbing it instinctively. Her eyes narrowed. "What did you do to me?" she again demanded. "You shot me with something. An anesthetic."

He appeared genuinely hurt. "No. Oh no sweetheart. I know it did knock you out. That was an expected side effect. . ."

"A side effect to what?"

"A side effect to the cure," he answered. "The cure for your condition."

She trembled. "A cure for telepathy?"

"No," Mann said, smiling now. "Far better: the cure for your headaches, the nausea, the blackouts. Think of it Alicea: about an hour ago, you were trying to read everyone in sight. Shouldn't the light be burning your eyes right now? Shouldn't you need a towel over your head? How do you feel?"

She paused, taking awhile to admit it to herself. "I feel good. Very good."

Mann sat on the couch and began flipping through the photo album he had offered his daughter a moment before. "The drug was synthesized based on all the information we had on you, going back to the prenatal . . . operation. Given more recent information, our doctors could develop a more efficient neuro-chemical, one that alleviates your symptoms without even making you drowsy, once you're used to it. Think about it: you would be able to read minds without pain. What an advantage you would have over everyone else."

Alicea was still looking off into the distance, trying to absorb everything: her father's presence, his message, the peculiar absence of pain. "But what am I supposed to use that advantage for? Am I supposed to become part of your . . . hell, what do I call it? Organization? Armorlitia? Or am I family - in the Mafia sense?"

Mann snapped, and it was the first time he raised his voice at her. "Alicea . . ." he shouted in response to her accusations. All the old roles played out then: she fell into place at the harsh sound of her father's voice, and he collected himself and continued coolly. "Alicea Marie, like many men of power, I have been forced to make many tough decisions, many ethical compromises. When the government began taking away elemental freedoms - the right to bear arms, the right to protect one's own family and neighborhood - I made one of those compromises. I won't apologize for that."

Alicea shook her head, looking down at him as he sat and thumbed through the photo book. "You were always arrogant. You always made your own rules."

"I know," he said. "Twenty-two years ago I made the most arrogant decision of my life." He held up a page to her. "See this little girl?"

She stared at the picture and flashed a wan smile.

"I never thought I would. Your mother miscarried twice before you. When she became pregnant with you, I scoured the world searching for a doctor who would guarantee that my daughter would not only be healthy, but would be extraordinary: a genius. Pulling you from your mother's womb and into an incubator seemed rational enough, considering the history. The drug therapy, at the time, seemed like a good idea."

They had never had this conversation before; I could tell by the way she gaped at him, shocked that he would reveal such personal details. He kept explaining himself. "So I defied nature, and you're the result: a child with such a precious gift, but who has suffered so much pain."

He looked up at her, his eyes guileless and open, stretching his hand along the couch and offering it to her. "I never understood until after you left. I've devoted all the time since then to developing this chemical, finding you, and looking for a chance to make amends. All I want from you is some time. Maybe later we'll talk about returning home, being a family again. But for now, sit with me, please. Not everything was sorrow and pain and loss when you were little, was it?" He pointed to the book. "Just sit with me for a while."

He was still looking up at her, his hand out in a plea for her to join him. I couldn't imagine what she was going through, but she couldn't refuse his simple request. She took his hand, turned the corner and joined him, leaving plenty of space between them on the couch.

He flipped pages, holding up photos for her. I couldn't see the photos, of course, but I could imagine what the portrayed from her expressions. Eight-year old Alicea Marie: the lonely, sickly girl who could do things no one else could understand. The awkward pre-teen with braces. The pretty, lanky teenager in a prom picture, holding a corsage and standing next to some non-threatening nebbish in front of a backdrop of balloons and glitter. Long before there was a reported named Randy Stone, or a thug named Travis Hood with a misguided need to be a hero, before the street fights and the flop houses and the drunken nights in Shorty Rock's Down Under, she had something simple, something normal. No siren's call from Valley Green or come-on from the Armorlitia, no crusader's zeal from Travis or appeal from me, could be nearly as seductive as the simple pleasures Oliver Mann now offered his daughter.

Wasserman's face was on all three screens again. "Now do you understand, Randy?"

I struggled vainly at my restraints. "Of course. You wanted Alicea the whole time. The whole documentary was just a set up to have me find her for her. I was just a pawn."

More of that damn arrogant laughter. "Again, Randy, the world would be a pleasantly simple place if it were organized the way you thought. That's the failure of today's media journalist. He sees only the story in front of him, breathing and vibrant in the frame of his camera. He can't look past it; it's too alive and breathtaking. He attributes causes to bogeymen and shadow conspiracies. There's only the reality in front of you and the darkness behind it. It's muddied, murky thinking.

"Randy, you weren't even a pawn. Pawns are played deliberately. You were more of a wildcard, a one-eyed jack who landed I my hands through serendipity."

He kept talking. "The documentary was just that: a story for television. One that would suit my organization's political ends. It was no more attached to anything more elaborate than was your breakfast this morning significant to the way your day turned out. It's foolish consistency, Randy: the need for a mind to create meaning where this is one, to formulate answers when there isn't even enough information to accurately speculate.

"By blessed coincidence, you found yourself in Atlantic City. This put you in position to further Mr. Mann's agenda, so I was immediately in touch with him. We discovered that you had made contact with Miss Mann, so we went out of our way to make sure that your band of merry men were apprehended."

I sat upright in my chair, straining at the straps. "You wanted Alicea busted, so her father could rescue her from jail."

"It would have been convenient. She would have been beholdant to her family, and possibly more agreeable to her father's proposal He was quite concerned that he would never be able to plead his case to her while she was under Travis' influence."

"You staged the bar fire and arranged for the team to be set up."

He nodded. "The bar fire served several agendas. Some of my associates wanted all vigilantes out of the way, preventing resistance to our trade activities. Increasing the volatility of the region had been on our secondary agenda for some time; the discovery of Miss Mann made it the time right to act. As for the set up, once actions were set in motion, there was no further motivation to coerce street criminals into selling each other out.

"Randy, none of this was supposed to involve you. I'm sorry it turned out the way it did."

"So what do you do now? Kill me?"

He smiled warmly and shook his head. "No. We've come too far for it to end like that."

****

The primary screen switched to Alicea. Wasserman's face now occupied the secondary screens. He must have been fond of all that theatrical switching. "She really is a beautiful young woman, Randy," he said. Alicea thumbed through a photo album, her legs folded beneath her on an overstuffed sofa. "It's hard not to be taken with her."

I heard a click from the transmitter in my minicam. "Not now," I said. "What are you going to do with me?"

He was looking at a monitor at his station. I watched him watch Alicea on the screen. He glanced up at me. "Use you," he said. "Use you to deploy the truth you see before you."

"I see you detaining three innocent people."

"No, you see me detaining yourself and a fellow fugitive from justice. As for Miss Mann, does she look visibly detained? Are there any guards? Do you notice that she hasn't tried the door, or looked for any other means of escape?"

Alicea did look calm, turning pages in that photo album. It wasn't right; whatever they shot into her system must have taken the fight out of her.

"I know you fancy yourself close to her, Randy, but you have no idea what pain she lived with daily. He father confided in me that as a child, she screamed through the night. She hallucinated. Years of therapy and considerable fortitude on her part allowed her to develop coping strategies. She compartmentalized the pain. Channeled it. Perhaps, sometimes she drowned it in liquor. But it never left her.

"The drug we administered is not some brainwashing sedative. It's the only thing that treats her condition at its source. That peaceful young woman is the person Alicea should be, the person she deserves to be. She's experiencing life without pain for perhaps the first time ever."

She stopped looking at the album and gazed out an unseen window. She had confided in me about the constant pain a few times. It wasn't something I could comprehend; she was so used to hiding it, it was easy to forget that it was there. But it was a din which kept her at the verge of tears, a threatening companion which tinged every aspect of her life. The part of me that loved her was happy to see the look of contentment on her face as she gazed out that window.

"What do I plan to do with you?" Wasserman said. "I plan to show you the proper end of this story. Travis is brought to justice. Alicea is reunited with her family. And you, the dutiful reporter, deliver the good news to America without any mention of the ugly episode we've had to endure. When you consider the circumstances, really, it's the only story you can tell."

The straps that secured me to my chair were stretching slightly. "One thing I couldn't figure out," I said, "was why the Armorlitia and FamVal would collude with each other. Then I realized how similar your agendas were."

"Indeed," Wasserman said, smiling. "There is nothing contradictory in trying to preserve the moral integrity of the American family while at the same time protecting the rights of citizens to arm and defend themselves. The key is to allow the right people to have access to the weapons. Overanxious kids and hoodlums need not apply."

"So you support the McCoy Units and let them do the dirty work of ridding the streets of superheroes."

He finished the thought. ". . . And into the power vacuum we slip: an organized, responsible militia. A powerful citizen army . . ."

"A racist, elitist faction."

He frowned. "A value judgement, Randy. FamVal doesn't meddle in the gory details of the Armorlitia's operation. We cooperate when it's mutually agreeable: my organization as the political muscle, the Armorlitia as a more . . . traditional power base. And, let's not forget, the McCoy Units as our convenient puppets. They base their strategies largely on popular opinion, and FamVal controls popular opinion."

"The McCoys arrest who you want arrested while ignoring the militia," I said.

"Yes, on the large scale. But that's a reality you will never be able to substantiate, and as I have already said, this conversation will go to the grave with you."

Alicea was still on the main screen. The door opened in her hotel room, and her father reappeared, carrying a platter with some sandwiches. He sat with her on the sofa, and they ate. They didn't seem comfortable together, but they were talking. I couldn't hear, though: Wasserman still commanded the audio.

He watched the video. "You were afraid I was going to kill you Randy. You would already be dead. I'm not a matinee villain who brags of his power then sets the stage for the hero's death-defying escape. Your death would raise too many questions, Randy, and despite your Moriarty-like impression of me, I don't command the resources to cover up a high profile murder.

"If all goes well in there," he said, pointing to his video monitor of Alicea and her father. "Alicea will accept her father's proposal that she return to live with the family. Not as an Armorlitia puppet, of course: she's too headstrong to accept that. Oliver Mann will be satisfied to have his daughter returned to him, at least for now. In return, Alicea gets the medication she always needed and an opportunity to abandon this gypsy lifestyle, which we both know has brought her nothing but grief.

"This is what you have been 'protecting' her from, Randy: the promise of home and good health. Don't you see how foolish you'll look if you set out to vilify us?"

I could slip may hand free if I wanted too, but I watched Alicea and her father talk quietly on the couch. There was no denying that Wasserman was the most devious kind of political insider. He played both sides against the middle, profiting both from the war on superhero weapons and the illicit trade in them. He manipulated public opinion in support of an elaborate agenda, restructuring power to suit the desires of his co-conspirators. The man had to be exposed.

But he had the drop on me. My network was in his pocket, as was evidence that could ruin my career and probably land me in jail. And my only real concern was for Alicea's safety. I could live with the likes of Wasserman spinning their webs on Capital Hill and Madison Avenue, especially if I could walk out of there a free man and get another chance to nail him in the future. But I came for Alicea. We risked our hides to get them off our backs and get the truth. But I had no idea we were fighting her family.

"What if she says no?" I asked.

"She goes free to live her marginal existence," Wasserman replied. "Mr. Hood goes to jail in any scenario. And if she does say no, that doesn't change your story: you still endangered her and encouraged her to break the law, all in the name of preventing her parents from contacting her and making a reasonable request that she live with them and seek treatment."

He leveled at me, squinting down at two screens at once. "But do you flatter yourself so much that you think she'll say no? What does her current life hold for her, besides you?"

I shook my head. Not much. Maybe some time with her family, taking the medication that could improve her life, was what she needed. Oh, they would try to coerce her in to joining the militia, but they weren't able to influence her when she was seventeen, and they would have no chance now.

"Let's listen in," Wasserman said, flicking a switch with returned the audio to Alicea's room

****

We cut into the middle of the conversation, with her father speaking. "We have a friend who's a full professor at Princeton," he said. "She would like to run a few studies: double blind tests, CAT-scans while your telepathy is in use, things like that. I know you probably think we want to use you as a lab rat. . ."

"No," she said, smiling slightly and tossing her hair back. "I know it's not that."

"Understanding your powers will help you control them better, which could help you feel better."

"I know. Frankly, I wouldn't mind having someone pay attention to me and my well being for a change."

He put his hand on her knee. "I know. You've had some tough relationships. I've seen it."

"Oh, yeah, the damn documentary," she said, pulling her leg away. She still wasn't comfortable with him.

"I was told that you weren't happy about it."

"Not at first," she said. She stood up, turning away. "When Randy first suggested it, I was terrified. Scared to death that the McCoys would come barreling into the apartment to take us away in the middle of the night."

Oliver nodded. "Yet you still did it."

She turned back to him. "In the state we were in, with Travis risking my life every day, I reached the point where I decided I would be better off in custody than where I was. So I swallowed my fear and signed on."

Oliver stood and faced his daughter. "You won't have to make decisions like that again. I know we've had our differences as a family, and I'm not promising much, but come live with your mother and I and I will promise that the nightmare is over."

He held out his arms, looking for a hug, but she turned away again. They kept talking, but my mind was stuck on what she said. She was terrified. Scared of the McCoy Units.

"Dad, I can't get past this lifestyle. I can't get past what you did to me."

"Honey, we will never forgive ourselves for making you go through with that operation. We were duped into it. This . . . organization has some real bastards in it, but it has good people, too."

That's what she told Travis: I would attract the McCoy Units, and she was scared.

"Good people, Alicea, like you and your friends, who try to make a difference. But we aren't reckless like that Travis. We proceed quietly and safely. That makes us look suspicious to some, but our cause is just."

But then I spoke to her, and she said that she didn't want to do the documentary because she was embarrassed by her lifestyle. She wasn't afraid of the McCoys; she just said that to try to persuade Travis.

"Look, this isn't about convincing you join or trying to get you to help us, honey. It's about getting you to come home."

She said she was scared on camera. She said she was embarrassed off camera. If you watched the footage I shot, it would appear that Alicea didn't want to do the story because she was scared.

I scanned the room that I saw on the giant screen. A bland hotel room: a sofa, some bad seashore artwork, a lamp, a ceiling fan circulating air.

"Right now, dad, I don't have many other options. I've tried to be independent, but I really don't have a life here anymore."

A ceiling fan was spinning away above them, but their hair didn't move. Alicea's long bangs, ready to flop over her eyes at the slightest breeze, didn't move with a fan almost directly above her.

"I can't pretend anymore," Alicea said. "I can't pretend that I'm satisfied. I don't really believe it myself anymore."

"A Turing machine," I whispered.

Wasserman's face shot up.

That's what I was watching: a simulation for my benefit. They had hours of footage of Alicea from which to construct the model, thanks to my efforts. They had the network's state-of-the-artificial intelligence at their disposal, the same AI that allowed us to construct a crude Turing model of Travis to spring him from rehab. But they made mistakes. They were sloppy with the rendering of the room. No one would notice that, but they also didn't count on the fact that Alicea told me things that I didn't share with the network, information which contradicted what they used to design the model.

Wasserman was showing me just what he wanted me to see: Alicea going peacefully into the night, removing my motivation to pursue him. He hoped I would slink away like a whipped dog. It was a great simulation: Alicea didn't cozy up to her father that quickly, and everything progressed naturally. But since it was a lie, it only meant one thing: Alicea wasn't willingly joining her family. They had her somewhere, and I had to find her.

Wasserman punched buttons on the console before him. I slipped my hand free and reached for my video transmitter. They had severed my link with Travis and the Atoll's communication network, but a click I heard earlier told me that they hadn't disconnect my link to JD's power suit. He must have seen me enter the auditorium; a quick glance of the view before they darkened the windows would reveal my location.

Guards streamed into the room. I tore away my restraints with my free hand. "Now!" I shouted.

JD had been listening for a signal. The guards drew a bead on me, but I ignored them and dove for a steel podium, the only real cover in the room.

Percussion missiles collided with the dome, buckling and shattering the normally unbreakable glass. Never one for subtlety, JD fired a second round. The podium collapsed on top of me, but I was only bruised. The video screens were toasted; splinters flew from chairs reduced to kindling by the blast. The guards were protected somewhat by their armor, but a few pulse blasts from JD took care of them.

He hovered over the carnage like a conquering hero in that Valley Green flight suit. I emerged from cover. "We have to find the others," I said.

His voice was amplified by his helmet. "I'm low on power. "I've been circling outside for 20 minutes, waiting for you to quit bullshitting with that guy."

"I had to wait for the right moment," I said. I didn't need him to know that until I realized the whole episode with Alicea and her father was a McCoy simulation, I was ready to put a stop to the whole affair.

"This suit says I'm running critically low. I can juice up somewhere on the island."

"No. Go back to the city and do it safely. They have too much control out here."

"Great. I'll keep in touch." He swiveled in mid air, then turned back. "Oh, Travis was able to give me a location before they nailed him. Do you wanna know where he was?"

I rolled my eyes. "Well, hell yeah!"

Chapter 6: A Little Epiphany

I needed a weapon. The guard JD took down was little help; all his firepower was integrated into his armor. I searched him and found a little CFC pistol in a hip compartment. The goon probably kept it there in case of power failure in the suit. It was a cap gun, but concealable and better than nothing.

JD and his concussion bombs had gotten everyone's attention. My floor was sealed off, but when I took the fire stairs down a level, I saw a none-too-orderly evacuation. All the Armorlitia big wigs, in suits and sweatshirts, armor and tourist gear, were bailing quickly, cutting each other off at the exits. Atoll security sirens kicked in; they were going to evacuate the island.

The chaos was perfect for me, gliding between militia thugs who were probably ignoring orders to hunt me down in the name of getting out of the line of fire. My hand never left that little pistol, but I never needed to draw it from beneath my sport coat. Everyone ignored me in their rush to escape. I had to use this time wisely; in a few moments, they would realize that the attack had ended, and Wasserman would be able to reorganize his forces.

According to JD, Travis was jumped while he and Alicea were on the 2nd floor. Most of the rooms on that floor were small conference rooms. That gibed with the image Wasserman showed me of Travis, assuming anything about that image was real. The background looked like a conference room. Unfortunately, there were about 25 of them on that floor, and all of their doors locked automatically after the last inhabitant left during a fire emergency. I was ready to blast every door looking for them.

Then I caught a lucky break. They were moving him. It must have taken them a few minutes to untie him, and there they were, a three-man escort surrounding Travis entering the corridor. It took about three shots for me to knock the first guy down. These guards were well armored, and the insulation absorbed much of the force from my little peashooter.

The other two powered up, but Travis was now ready for action. He took advantage of the confusion, dropping his shoulder and driving one of the guards onto the ground, where I could get a clean shot at him. This guy had a wrist-mounted pulse weapon. He fired at me, off-balance, as he hit the ground. I backed into a door frame for the slightest amount of cover, then ducked, turned, and gave him everything that little cricket had.

Travis was handcuffed directly to the third guard. I felt a little sorry for him. Travis used the cuffs to keep the guy close, so he couldn't aim his weapons. He grabbed the guard by the wrist, flipping him over his back. He twisted the goon's arm, digging a foot into the guy's neck. I could hear his arm cracking. "Power down," Travis ordered.

The guard capitulated, opening his power supply coupling and tearing the connections from his CFCs.

Travis closed his eyes, gathered his strength, clenched his fist. Adjusting his grip on the guard, he tugged the handcuffs taught, eased back, then jerked his arm suddenly. The guard screamed, but he wasn't seriously hurt. The chain in the cuffs snapped, and Travis examined his free hand with satisfaction.

"Still got it," he said.

"You know, one of these guys has to have the key," I said. He smiled. I knew he had a lot to prove to himself.

It was only then that I noticed how beaten up he was. His cheeks and forehead were bruised, his eyes were blackened. These weren't battle injuries; he had been roughed up while he was captive.

"I must look like shit," he said.

"Black and blue are your colors. We need to find Alicea."

"That's why went easy on this guy," Travis said, releasing his grip on the third guard. "He was calling the shots when we got attacked."

Travis hoisted the helpless guard to his feet, backing him against the wall. He leaned over the armored thug, resting a meaty arm on the wall. I kept my pistol trained on him. Travis played it cool.

"Wanna take your helmet off?" he asked

There was along pause. The guard's voice was muffled without an amplifier. "No," he said.

"Well, it's not your decision. I could crack your shell like a walnut right now, then maybe take my frustration out on what I find inside. Do you want that?"

The guard shook his head.

"Then you can tell me where Alicea is. So help me, if you did to her what you did to me . . ."

"No," the guard said. "I would never do that."

"What the hell does that mean? Who are you?"

It dawned on me just as it dawned on Travis. He ripped off the guard's helmet. It was a man in his mid-forties, professional looking, balding. A nebbish, one I had seen just a few moments ago.

"Oliver Mann," I said. "A little old to be running around in battle suits."

He turned to me, as if looking for forgiveness. "This situation was too important to trust to the younger guys. They're sloppy, and I don't trust them with her."

"Alicea's father," Travis said. "You're the bastard who played games with her brain when she should have been inside her mom's belly."

"And you're the bastard who convinced her to leave home and live on the streets," he snapped back.

Travis pounded his own chest with anger. "I was doing it for a just cause."

"So was I. We're both vigilantes. We both live outside the law. Don't get self-righteous with me."

I kept my gun trained at him. "The difference, Mann, is that you captured your own daughter and held her against her will. You even had Wasserman cook up a Turing simulation to convince me that she was leaving with you. What really happened?"

Mann was sweating. Fear and guilt brought the truth to the surface. "I took her to the room down the hall. I told the boys they could take cheap shots at Travis. I wanted you to suffer for taking my daughter away from me.

"I tried to talk to Alicea. I had a drug that would relieve the pain she lives with, but she read my mind and smashed the vial before I could even show it to her. She was so hostile . . . so unreasonable."

"Mann," I said, drawing closer and holding the gun a little higher. "Oliver, tell us where she is."

He pulled back at the sight of the gun. "I had to get her away from here. She was too close to you: both of you. I sent her to be taken off the island. I figured that after a few days away from everything, she might be more reasonable."

"So you dragged her away in chains?" Travis said. He was ready to pop.

"How?" I said. "Even in this chaos, you can't sneak somebody past Atoll security in handcuffs."

Mann slumped, lowering his eyes. "I had her chloroformed, and taken out to the cargo docks discreetly."

"You knocked her out." Travis was seething. "Do you know. . ." he punctuated his words with fists to Mann's skull, " . . . what it feels like . . . to be knocked out?"

Travis tossed the unconscious man to the floor. "He does now," I said.

Travis was cursing and panting. He crouched over Mann to inflict further punishment. "That won't help us find Alicea," I said. "We have to get to the rear docks. They're probably slipping her in to a weapon transfer."

He collected himself. "Then we have ground to cover. JD could provide some aerial recon."

I explained JD's situation: refueling back at the city. "We just have to split up and keep searching till we find her. Hopefully, she's come to by now."

A service elevator flew open, and two goons stepped out. These guys weren't escaping, they were after us. Wasserman had regained control of the situation, and we were his prime targets. I got a few shots off, then let Travis move in and do the heavy lifting. These guys weren't prepared for us, but the next bunch would be. We would have to fight for everything from here out.

****

The labyrinth of wooden crates took up one of the vast cargo decks behind the Atoll almost entirely: almost three acres of boxes, stacked ten feet high. The helicopter had a clean shot at me but didn't fire; I heard the distinctive clunk of boots on the wooden dock as militia forces fanned out in search of Travis and I, but no weapons fire. I kept my pistol raised, slipping quietly through the maze, wondering why they hadn't already taken me down.

I heard a voice echoing in my mind. "Randy?" it said.

I almost spoke aloud, but realized that Alicea could hear my thoughts. "I hear you," I said.

"Good," she said. Her voice was ghost-like when it was heard by the mind and not the ears. "I thought I knew you well enough to project my thoughts to you."

She had to be close by. "Where are you?" I asked.

"I am in a crate. The rest are filled with weapons, going to Armorlitia cells around the country."

"What about you?"

"My father is involved. He tried to talk me into joining. It didn't work. Now, I'm just another weapon to be snuck out of here. My guess is that they plan to do some research on duplicating my condition."

"We met your father. He and Travis reached a little epiphany, which ended when your father hit the ground."

"Yes, I know he loves me in some warped selfish way." I assumed she meant her father, not Travis, but it wasn't clear, even though she spoke directly into my mind.

There was movement at the far end of the corridor of crates. I dove for cover, peeking around to see an enforcer in servo-armor pass out of sight.

Alicea was monitoring my progress. "There are eight of them," she said. "Mostly wearing servo-armor or cutting weapons."

"Of course. Blasters only run the risk of turning this place into an inferno."

I looked down at my little peashooter pistol. I wasn't sure it could damage top-shelf armor in the first place; with no margin for error, it was essentially useless.

"You better let Travis concentrate on the bad guys," Alicea said, although we both knew that eight-on-one weren't good odds. "You can get me out of here."

"With pleasure. But how can I find you? It's not like I can follow the sound of your voice."

"You can, in a way," she said. "The projection of thoughts becomes clearer as you get closer. You start moving, and I'll tell you whether you're getting warm."

The corridor was free of traffic. Swiftly and silently, I walked forward. "Colder," she said, and I reversed direction.

She navigated my travel through several rows of crates like we were playing a deadly game of Marco Polo, with me scouting each new route for hostiles before moving. I was careful, but conditions were tight. The servo-armor junkie was on top of me before either of us could react.

"Shit," we both said, and he took a clumsy swing with an armored fist. I leapt backward to avoid it. I didn't dare shoot; if he caught my arm in the act of shooting, I could ignite whatever dangerous goodies were in the nearest crate.

He swung again and again, wild, roundhouse punches: the kid was not a pro with the equipment. I just danced backwards like a boxer avoiding punishment, knowing that a direct hit from one of those metal fists could put me out of commission for good.

Finally, the passageway through the crates widened a foot or two; the bolts that anchored the planks to the mooring were visible at our feet. My attacker followed me into the open space. Two quick pistol shots at his feet shattered the wooden planks below him. He tried to move away but was too slow. He fell through the dock into the icy water below. I looked down to see him clinging to the anchorage. The armor was too heavy for him to climb out or swim away, but he was in little danger of drowning.

"Randy," Alicea said in my mind, "that guy set off a proximity alarm. They know where you are."

Like I didn't have enough trouble. "How close am I to you?"

"Warmer but not red hot."

I ran now, leaping over the hole I had just created, following her directions. I could hear thugs closing in on me from all sides.

Another servo-warrior turned the corner. I instinctively backtracked, almost into the arms of another goon. This other one was equipped with a hodge-podge of battle tech, most of it of the slice-and-dice variety. Razor-tipped claws with servo-grips. Propeller blades on his forearms. Not a practical setup, but deadly: the kind of gear only the most vicious punks assemble.

He hacked and slashed his way toward me, his partner sealing off my means of escape. Like my last attacker, this kid was no pro: his whirling blades struck wildly at the crates to either side of us. One errant thrust tore the front from a crate above my head. With the thug bearing down on me, I hoisted myself up to get a look inside.

"Whoa," I said, "hot potatoes." I tossed two of the low yield CFCs in the crate to each of my attackers. They did what they had to do to stay alive: they grabbed the fragile capacitors, Mr. Slice-n-Dice shutting down his weapons rather than risk puncturing them. Still hanging from the open crate, I kicked at one of the propeller blades, breaking it from its motor. With one motion, I dropped to the ground, grabbed the sharp implement, and thrust it into my other attacker's servo armor. The armor shorted out; I pulled my hand away before it got fried. The shock did a number on the kid, who went and fell to the dock limp as bolts of current ravaged his suit.

I turned to the slasher, brandishing my pistol wildly. "Don't fuck with me," I said. "I'll blast you and those CFCs, blow this whole dock away."

The thug lunged forward, head-first, falling to the ground at my feet. Travis crouched behind him, having just executed a flying drop kick to the back of his neck. "You wouldn't really have done that, would you, Randy?" he asked.

"You gotta scare these guys," I said, trying to sound cool. Actually, with the adrenaline pumping, I might have gotten us all killed.

"I think that's all for the goons," Travis said, "although they must have sent for reinforcements. How far away is Alicea?"

"Close enough to hear you talking," she said. It was her own voice, muffled inside a crate. She banged on the box. Travis lifted the crate from its stack to the floor, prying it open with his bare hands. Alicea stood up, looked at both of us, and passed out.

"Still woozy from the gas. And she had to do a lot of reading," I said.

"Yeah," Travis agreed, gathering her into his arms. "Now how do we get out of here?"

I hadn't thought that far ahead. Floating to shore in a crate seemed reasonable, although we would be sitting ducks in the water. As I thought, the sound of a helicopter grew in the distance.

"There's a chopper," Travis said. "I thought they broke off loading operations when you and JD . . ."

"Oh, no," I said. "they wouldn't . . ."

"What?"

I looked Travis in the eye. "All this equipment: there's enough here to blow the lid off the Armorlitia, off Wasserman's schemes, everything. It's all evidence."

Fear crept into his expression. "We have lots of incriminating video, but it's not the same as hard evidence," he said.

"They can't keep the McCoy's off the Atoll forever, now that the explosion attracted their attention."

"This stuff has to disappear fast. They don't have time to load it onto ships."

"They're going to blow it all up," I said.

Behind us, an iron wall rose from the mooring at the base of the dock. It was designed to seal off the Atoll from fires or minor explosions on the dock.

"That won't help much," I said, pointing to the wall.

"They started evacuating the Atoll when JD cut loose," Travis said. "I don't think many civilians are still there."

The helicopter drew closer.

"It's just us then," I said. "I lost my video gear in the explosion."

"Our portables were confiscated. How do we contact JD?"

I looked down at Alicea, lying prone in Travis' arms.

"Won't work," he said. "She was never able to transmit thoughts to him."

We could see the chopper in the sky above us now, looming ever closer.

I slapped my forehead. "I'm stupid," I said. "Travis, tear open some crates. Battle helmets have radios."

He slapped himself in disgust as well, then began tearing into boxes. It only took a few seconds to find one containing a full battle suit. I adjusted the frequency in the helmet to the one JD monitored, and alerted him to our situation.

"How far can you fly with three people?" I asked when he was already en route from the mainland.

"Never tried with this new gear," he said. "I guess we'll know in a minute."

We hurried to the outer edge of the dock, Travis carrying Alicea. JD was a tiny glint of silver approaching from the mainland; the helicopter loomed high in the sky above the sea. They must have been waiting for some leftover Armorlitia members to clear the dock; it bought us precious seconds. JD swung over the Atoll itself, achieving a proper approach angle, then dove to pick us up.

"They're gonna fire any second now," Travis said as he watched the helicopter hover.

JD dropped a cable from his flight pack. It slid along the tops of crates as he flew toward us. Travis reached out one hand, clutching Alicea with the other. I reached out with both hands. "Here we go," I said.

We took hold of the table as the terrifying sound of missile launching erupted from the helicopter. JD tugged, achieving lift for a few precious seconds, but he was carrying almost six hundred extra pounds. We began to drop, the clearance between the dock and the water allowing us a few extra yards as we plummeted. I turned to see missiles rocketing toward the docks, then turned away. We felt the blast at our backs. JD lost control, and we crashed into the water as the heat from the explosion overtook us. Impact with the water was hard; it knocked me senseless for a few moments.

We were disoriented, but clear of the blast. JD had flown us just out of reach of danger. A black cloud billowed from the docks. A hunk had been blown out of the Atoll's tourist area, but the buildings were mostly in tact.

"That woke me up," Alicea said as she treaded water.

We were all accounted for. JD's flight pack was removed with the push of a button; it sunk into the Atlantic as he swam.

"The McCoy Units will clean that up," I said.

Travis smiled proudly. "I guess we can say that we exposed the Armorlitia," he said.

The side of a crate drifted by; I grabbed it to help float. "With that explosion and what video we got, they won't be able to slip out of this one," I said. "Although Wasserman might. They won't be able to pin anything on him."

Alicea pulled the hair back from her eyes. "As long as he and my father are around, I'll have to watch my back," she said.

Travis squared his jaw. "We can't have that."

We all looked at each other. We had come too far to quit now.

"We know where he is now," Travis said. "Let's get him."

Chapter 7: The Impressive Chasm

We swam with the waves at our backs, reaching an undamaged section of the Atoll and climbing to safety. We needed warm, dry clothes. Several shops near the rim of the manmade island had collapsed or were on fire. We scavenged merchandise, mostly cheap tourist gear. The kids, with their healthy young bodies, looked fine in the gear; I must have looked like an idiot in an "I Love Atlantic City" tee-shirt and bicycle shorts.

"Wouldn't Wasserman have evacuated the island?" Alicea asked as we dried ourselves.

"It's possible," I said. "But if he's where I think he is, he's in the safest place on the island, and the best place to control what's happening. He still needs to coordinate with that chopper and those boats, so he needs to be in reach of some good telecommunications equipment."

The equipment Wasserman needed was in the network studios located in the basement control center for the island. All video feeds into and out of the island were channeled into one location, where everything from Atoll security to network programming was managed. It was the only place where Wasserman would be able to develop Turing simulations like the one he used to try to dupe me, the only place where he could monitor me and the activities of the Armorlitia cells on the island and off shore. His stature as a major advertiser gave him access to the network feeds; no one would even ask him questions if they spotted him using the equipment. He had definitely been there an hour before, when he had me trapped. Was he still there? It was the place to start looking.

We snuck around the evacuated island, not knowing whether the armed patrolmen in the thoroughfares were Armorlitia or ordinary security. Elevators had been shut down; we found a service entrance which led to the sub-basement. Beneath the island was a network of kitchens and laundries, the guts of the Atoll, where employees put in long shifts to maintain the illusion of paradise above. Signs led us to the network studio, but a locked metal door met us at the entrance.

"Great," JD said. "We lost all our hardware in the ocean."

"Stand back," Travis said. He vainly attempted to batter the door with his shoulder.

I reached into the pouch of my sporty new shorts. "Hey, Blackheart," I said, drawing my key chain.

He pulled back, rubbing his shoulder. "Oh yeah. You work for the network."

I turned the key. We took places on either side of the doorway. I pulled the door open and stepped away. Inside we could hear static and the high squeal of video monitors, as well as faint whispering.

Travis held up his fingers, counting out three. On three, he and JD dove into the room, with Alicea and I bringing up the rear. I shotgun- an old fashioned, gunpowder shotgun- was trained on us. I grabbed Alicea and dropped behind an editing console as Wasserman fired.

He racked the clip; he had a shot left. I peered around the console. He had a headset on. My hunch was correct; he remained in the studio to make sure that the cargo ships left the area without arousing suspicion. "Alpha-Three," he said into the headset. "I must go. Something has come up."

We all had cover; there were plenty of consoles and cameras and workstations to hide in and behind. Travis and JD ducked from one concealment to the next, hoping to swing around behind Wasserman. "Come now, kiddies, do the math," Wasserman said. "Except for Randy, you may all be too young to remember double barrel shotguns, but they only fire two shots. I fired once. I have one shot left, and there are four of you. Unless you all line up conveniently for me, there isn't much I can do."

Alicea looked at me, puzzled. He was right, but what was he getting at?

He raised the rifle into the air and fired at the ceiling. Some plaster crumbled above us. "There. Now I'm unarmed. Let's abandon the pretense that this is some Wild West standoff."

I stood up. Wasserman turned to me and smiled. From behind a light bank Travis and JD emerged, taking their places behind him. "What, no bodyguards?" I asked.

"Their presence would only be one more thing I would have to explain, should the authorities arrive." Wasserman replied, his voice calm. "Besides, you neutralized several of them already."

"So you know we mean business," Travis said. "Your game is up!"

Wasserman burst out laughing. "Did he just say, 'Your game is up!'?" he asked, pointing to Travis. "Randy, where did you find these wonderful kids with their B-movie dialogue?

None of the rest of us joined in the joke.

"No, Blackheart, or Travis, or whoever you are. My game is not 'up'. I doubt any of you have the stomach or the inclination to actually kill me, and short of that, what can you do? Rough me up? It may be satisfying to you, but it wouldn't change anything. Bring me in? Go right ahead. You have no evidence linking me to anything. Best of all, you'd be implicating yourselves as vigilantes. I'd go free. You get to go to jail."

He was right. I had plenty of video evidence of the Armorlitia, but nothing linking it to Wasserman and FamVal. That was burnt to a crisp when JD rescued me. We essentially had him red handed here in the studio- transmission records could be checked to prove that Wasserman was in contact with the helicopter which blew up the dock- but we were powerless to bring the information to the McCoy Units without implicating ourselves.

"That's the beauty of the system I've helped put into place," Wasserman said, smiling at the look of defeat on our faces. "The efforts of a crusading reporter and some ambitious kids are useless against a tightly controlled organization like ours. In the past, yes, a leak here and there could bring down empires, as happened at Watergate. But private citizens abdicated the authority to take action on their own, all in the name of public safety. We've built an impressive chasm between those with power and money and political clout, and such unpredictable elements as yourselves."

"You really think you'll squirm out of this, after all that has happened here?" I asked.

"Oh, it will be awkward," he said, still gloating. "Some of my allies have been left hanging. A loyal subordinate or two may have to fall on his sword to keep appearances up. Certainly, our efforts to keep the McCoys out of the Armorlitia's business will become far more difficult, but you have no idea how resilient the political machine is. As for me . . . I suspect you'll let me walk out that door."

"So you can turn us in as soon as you leave the Atoll?" Travis said.

"Most likely. Unless you would like to try to stop me, which would only give me more physical evidence against you. You put up a good fight, young man, but you made far too many mistakes."

I shook my head. "No, Wasserman. You're the one who made the mistake."

"And what mistake is that?" he asked, patronizingly.

"You let us bring a telepath in here."

A look of concern spread across his face as Alicea stood, glaring into his eyes. "Can you feel me in your head?" She whispered coolly.

His eyes twitched. "Stop it," he demanded.

She stepped forward, keeping her eyes fixed on him "Don't fight me now. It might hurt you. Just sit back and let all those little secrets come out."

He turned away, putting his hands over his eyes. "Nothing you find will hold up in court," he cried.

"Covering your eyes won't help. I'm already in," she said, standing over him. "And what I want doesn't need to stand up in court."

He cowered before her; Travis and JD closed ranks to make sure he didn't try anything, but Wasserman was terrified. He slumped to his knees as she walked away. "What did you find?" he demanded.

She smiled at him "Everything," she said. "All your little skeletons. And not just that, but the places to find the evidence. All the little loose ends you couldn't quite tie up, the ones you hoped no one would be able to connect with you, are all mine now."

She closed her eyes and concentrated for a second. I felt a message flash into my mind. "I've just transferred the data to everyone else in the room," she said. "If Randy wants to, he can do some research, do a little digging, and find enough iron clad evidence on you to put you out of business for a long, long time. And no one will know that superheroes were involved in getting the evidence, so you would be able to lean back on the VPA."

"So I guess you have me," Wasserman said, but I could tell by the sound of his voice that he wasn't ready to give up.

"I know how you think now, Wasserman," she said, stepping toward him and taking his chin in her palm. "Do you think you can hide secrets from me? You think that it shouldn't be any problem to knock out the four of us once your troops regroup. Four minor accidents, and your secret is safe forever, right?

"Forget it," she continued. "When I send information telepathically, it's complete and unforgettable. The moment I set foot off this island, I'll plant the information in the first hundred people I see, with instructions: if Randy Stone, or any of us, turns up dead, then find this information and post in on the web. Unless you're willing to blow up Atlantic City, you won't be able to keep your secret safe."

He looked around. "If I do go down, I take all of you with me," he said.

"That's why I give the information to the first McCoy officer I see," Alicea explained.

"You see the position you're in now?" I asked. "Maybe we should cut a deal, like civilized people."

"What do you want?"

Alicea spoke first. "Call off your goons, and tell my father that I never want to see him again. The first time I see an Armorlitia punk I even suspect of being one of his associates, you take the fall."

Wasserman thought for a second. "Fair enough."

"Nobody finds out about our presence here," I added. "None of us were here: not you, not me, not the kids."

Wasserman indicated that this was satisfactory.

"Last of all, you step down as head of FamVal," I said.

He shook his head. "No way."

"Be reasonable, Wasserman. You step down or we'll take you down. Resign: say you want to spend more time with the family. I doubt that everyone in your organization will approve of 'instigation initiatives' or secret ties to the Armorlitia. Let that sort itself out. Just draw a nice severance check for yourself and walk away."

He lowered his head in disgust. He must have been hoping for some other way out, one that let him keep his precious power base. But if stayed in command of FamVal, we would be back to status quo in no time, and all our work would have been for nothing.

"I guess I don't have a choice," he said.

"You don't," I replied.

****

We left Wasserman there. He would clean up his own mess, one way or the other. He had his explanations to make when the real cops arrived, and we had ours, and the best place for us was as far from the scene of the action as we could get on a man-made island.

"So what the fuck happened there?" JD asked as we charted a route through the underground service area, listening as the sirens of Coast Guard vessels became louder. He asked Alicea, "What did you get on that clown?"

She smiled coyly. "What, didn't you hear my thoughts?"

He shook his head. "Hell, I never heard your thoughts. Only Travis can do that."

"Yeah, but Wasserman didn't know that," I said.

Travis threw his arms around JD and Alicea. "Alicea sent Randy and I a message," he said. "It said: play along."

"You bastards bluffed him! Didn't you find anything on him?"

Alicea shook her head. "I'm too tired to read any minds, JD. It's all I could do to send messages to the guys when they were looking for me. I would have passed out if I tried to read his mind."

"Lucky for us he was paranoid," I said. "A guy like that acts as though he's in total control, but he's always looking over his shoulder. Probably the only thing he fears in this world is his own past."

"So we put the Armorlitia out of commission, put the whammy on the asshole in the suit, and I got to kick Alicea's dad's ass," Travis said. "Pinch me, Randy. Just pinch me."

JD laughed. "Not bad for a bunch of fucked up street punks, huh Randy?"

"You guys are more than that now," I said, and I meant it. As I watched the three of them walk arm in arm, I realized how much they had changed in five months. "It looks like the Goths finally came out on top."

We came to a stairwell that climbed into the sunlight. Travis held out a hand to stop us. He crept up the stairs to see what was going on at the surface. I crawled beside him to peek over the lip of the stairs. The Atoll was crawling with uniforms. Emergency Units. Fire Units. Bomb disposal experts. Coast Guard patrols. And cops of every size and shape, from McCoy officers in full tech to Atlantic City beatwalkers.

"You spoke too soon, Randy," Travis said.

The others joined us. There was no chance of slipping through the scene unnoticed, and no chance of us explaining our way out of there without asking a thousand questions, the answers to which would have landed all of us in jail.

"Listen," I told them. "Everyone knows who I am, and after the broadcast, everyone knows that I'm here. I'll go up there and try to explain the situation. You three lay low."

"I'm going with you," Alicea said. "I'll do some reading and figure out what they think happened."

"I thought you just said you were too tired to read," JD said.

"She is," I answered. "She just doesn't want me to go alone, but it's the only way."

"The hell with that," Travis said. "We can't just sit here and wait for you. They'll be searching down here in a few minutes. I'm going out there." He started to stand up.

Alicea grabbed his arm. "Travis, you asshole, you'll be in handcuffs in five seconds."

"Like I don't know that," he replied, taking her hand.

JD scratched his head. "I hope you all don't expect me to get involved in this race to see who can go out there and take the fall for everybody else. I've done my good deeds for the year."

Time was wasting. I looked at JD and Alicea, dressed in the tourist gear we lifted when we climbed back onto the Atoll. There was video of me, and Travis was a wanted man, but no one knew them. "You two can pass off as tourists who hid under a trash bin when the explosions started. That's two less we have to worry about. Get some distance between yourselves and us."

Alicea got stubborn. "No way."

I rested a hand on her shoulder. "You know I'm right and this is the best way."

Travis clutched her hand tightly. "We all know it."

Alicea looked to Travis, then back to me, then over to Travis again, both of us telling her the same thing. She kissed me on the cheek, then threw her arms around Travis and hugged him tightly. They hugged forever. Then she whispered "goodbye" to both of us and followed JD through the tunnels to get lost somewhere.

"She'll be OK," Travis said.

I nodded.

"Randy, you have no idea how the hell I got out of jail or what I was doing here."

I patted him on the back. "Screw that, kid. I'll vouch for you, say you're an intern or something. Or we can fight our way out."

He rolled his eyes. "You know it won't fly. But if I went out there and said I was part of the Armorlitia, and said that I was sprung from rehab by them . . ."

". . . It wraps up in a neat package," I finished. "But I can't ask you to take the fall."

He clenched his teeth. "You don't have to, Randy. It's all been leading to this."

He looked me in the eyes.

"All the jammin', all the fights, all the prescriptions and the wars and arguments with Alicea that lasted all night were about one thing: a chance to do some real good. I had no fucking idea where I was going, and I was hurting people, I was hurting Alicea . . ." I saw the strangest sight: tears welling in the big man's eyes. "I was hurting Julianna."

He lost it. I put my arms around his shoulders.

"I was just so far off the fucking mark," he said, sniffling with tears. "I wanted to be a hero. I just had no clue what it meant."

He caught his breath. "I know what it's about now, Randy. Sacrifice. I used to use the word all the time, but I think I've got it figured out. If I go out there and take that fall, so you and Alicea and JD can go free and spread the word about what we did, then I finally make some kind of mark on the world."

His mind was made up. I might have tried to talk him out of it, but he was right: his was the one head that had to roll. I told him I would make sure his story was told. I promised him the best lawyer I could afford. I assured him that the way things shook, down, he wouldn't serve hard time. I offered him everything I had, but I wasn't going to talk him out of taking that fall, not after he finally realized what it meant to be noble.

"Just promise me," he said. "Take care of her."

I said I would do my best.

He stood up, dusted himself off, and stepped out into the daylight. I watched from our hiding place. He held out his hands for the cuffs the moment he was asked his name. "Travis Michael Hood," he shouted with pride, "a.k.a. Blackheart."

Chapter 8

Epilogue: Crusaders by Day

The backstage area at the Mercer Junior College auditorium wasn't exactly mobbed with press types. It was just little old me, twenty minutes late despite myself. But nothing ever happens on time at a college, especially a junior college.

"Wish me luck, Randy," Julianna said, and I kissed her on the cheek. She was a sight for sore eyes, her hair short now and her cheeks rosy and fleshed out. She hugged me tightly. I could feel her shaking. She ran to the edge of the curtain.

"She said this is the scariest thing she ever had to do," her boyfriend Dylan said. "She said this makes charging into a warehouse with ray guns strapped to her arm seem like going out for pizza."

I smiled up at the lanky kid. "Public speaking has that effect on people."

The auditorium was half full. The polite audience quieted when Julianna stepped to the podium. She read her notes from index cards.

"Good afternoon, everyone. As part of the Student Life Committee Lecture Series, Students Against Violence is proud to present Chances and Choices: Avoiding the Temptation of Violence."

She stumbled over the introduction. Her microphone hissed once or twice. Dylan gave her an encouraging thumbs-up from behind the curtain.

"My name is Julianna Hood, and I'm president of Students Against Violence. Our organization is dedicated to reaching out to the community and educating young people about the cycle of failure which can start by joining street gangs, using muscle drugs, or becoming part of the gun culture.

"Many feel that this is an inner city problem, but we feel it's important to recognize the problem in high schools and colleges, cities and suburbs and the country. A wealthy background doesn't immunize us from the dangerous of youth violence. I should know. I was raised in a good home by a loving family, yet I spent two years in a street gang, living in the slums of Atlantic City."

This brought whispers and murmurs from the crowd. The controversy emboldened Julianna; she spoke more forcefully. "This was over a year ago, before the Vigilante Prevention Acts were repealed. We fought because we thought the laws were unjust, and they were. We fought because we thought we could make a difference, and in a way we did. Sadly, though, the main reason we fought was because it was all that we knew how to do. Violence begot violence, and it became the main part of our lives."

Dylan put his head down. He didn't like hearing about this part of her life. I remembered the wild runs through the streets of Atlantic City, and the damp miserable nights in that flophouse.

"The Vigilante Prevention Acts are gone now. The government realized that taking all the power away from private citizens made the problem worse. A dialogue has opened about the superhero culture and the dangers of drugs like Rae-Tae, dialogue that wasn't possible under the iron hand of the McCoy police.

"But while relaxing the laws was good and healthy for society, it's up to us to work harder than ever. Young people need to be taught how to resolve differences without drugs or weapons. We have choices now, the government has given us some of that back. We have to make the right choices."

"You know who would be proud of her? Her mom."

Julianna kept speaking. "We had to pay for our choices. My brother is in prison now, despite the fact that he helped expose the Armorlitia. Another of our friends had to join a secret organization until the VPA was repealed. She's training to become a private investigator. That's a choice we didn't really have a year ago, but the road she took getting there nearly killed her."

"Her mom always told her and Travis to speak their minds, to stand up for themselves. I never thought it really stuck with her, but it sure as hell stuck with him."

"As for me, I was lucky to get into a good foster home, to meet good friends," she said. "The world of power gauntlets, street fights, booze and drugs nearly swallowed me up."

"Listen to her now, though: she can really take care of herself. And those big-ass words: I hope they don't expect me to sound like that."

"The person who will be speaking today was one of my gang friends back in those days. He spent more time on the streets than any of us. Except for my brother, he also gave up the most. He nearly died of a drug overdose on a New York subway grate. At 25, he's still struggling to make ends meet and lead a normal life."

"Shit, she makes me sound like such a loser. Guess it's the truth, though."

"Ladies and gentlemen, SAV proudly presents Jeremy David Orczykowski."

JD stepped past me and onto stage, looking uncomfortable in a shirt and tie. The crowd applauded politely. Julianna and JD hugged, and he began to tell the students about life on the streets.

****

Alicea sat on the hood of my car. "Did everything go well?" she asked.

I kissed her on the cheek. "This college will never be the same, now that JD has been allowed to speak as part of a lecture series."

She smiled.

"You would have been a better choice," I said.

"So would you," she replied.

"Nah. My speeches cost too much now. If I gave one away for free here, every college would want one."

She swung her legs around and hopped off my car. "That's the Randy I know and love: crusader by night, mercenary by day."

"Even if you didn't speak," I said, "I think Julianna would have liked to have seen you. JD too."

She bit her lip. "I'm sure they would. I would like to see them. But it doesn't work that way. What we went through: it wasn't some coming of age ritual. I don't want to be like war veterans, who meet every few years to talk about what hell they went through. This doesn't deserve commemoration."

I leaned against the hood of my car. "So that's why you don't return my calls."

She rested her head on my shoulder. "You were right when we first separated: I need to be myself for a while. Travis never got the point. My dad didn't have a clue. You understood that. Unfortunately, it cost us the chance to even pretend for a while."

I put my arm around her. "I understand. So why are you here now?"

She turned and threw her arms around my neck. "Valley Green gave me the week off. I heard about this event, and figured I'd find you here. I don't want to have a relationship, Randy, not right now. But you can't expect a girl to quit cold turkey."

She smiled up at me.

"I know what you're thinking," she said.

"What else is new?" I asked as I kissed her.

The End