-ooo-

Recoil

Part 7-0: Queen of Escalation

[A/N 1: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

[A/N 2: When I started writing this fic, Ward had not yet begun, so I was unaware of the existence of Mama Mathers. However, she is a character who was around at the time so here's my take, nineteen years earlier.]

[A/N 3: Don't get too attached to her.]

Tuesday, August 9, 1994

A Motel Room in Chicago, Illinois

Christine Mathers

"Tell me; who is Taylor Snow, and what makes her tick?"

Christine perched on the edge of the bed, staring at the man in the armchair in front of her. She held one of his hands in hers, delicate fingertips probing and pushing at the tendons and bones beneath the skin. It wasn't really necessary—once they made tactile contact, that was it—but she wanted to make absolutely certain she could inflict hell and damnation on the guy if and when he needed it.

This was not the first time she'd asked this question, but hopefully it would be the last. It had been two months since she'd found out about the collapse of the Brotherhood of the Fallen and the death of her child's father (calling him her lover would be making too much of the relationship). Unable to trigger with powers herself but unwilling to merely be a brood mare for the Brotherhood, she'd made a deal with the devil—or rather, Cauldron—to get some anyway. The aftermath had been amusing; they'd thought they had her over a barrel, until they discovered that her powers would neatly circumvent any attempt to force her to adhere to the deal.

But that was less than nothing to her. With abilities of her own to complement those of four-year-old Elijah, who was sitting obediently on the bed beside her, she'd been ready to join the Brotherhood as a power in her own right. Only to find out that they'd been demolished, rendered inert, by an assault on their compound. The unfairness was staggering. All that, for nothing. Digging farther had given her a name; the one person who'd set all this in motion and provided the information that had brought down the Brotherhood.

Captain Taylor Snow, PRT Intelligence Division.

This was the person who had effectively destroyed her world. She was obviously very competent at what she did, which meant that Christine wanted to lay hands on her, to either co-opt her for her own ends or just make her die screaming. Either one was good. The rumour she'd heard—vague, but substantiated by people in the know—that Snow had been the one to predict the Behemoth's attack on New York only firmed her determination to get to Snow by one means or another.

Adding to her aggravation was the fact that by the time she got this information, Snow was out of the hospital once more. So Christine had gone to the PRT itself for information. While she herself could only find out things second-hand, Elijah's presence meant she could interrogate people directly and leave them unable to talk about the experience.

Or at least, so she'd thought. A couple of close calls had taught her one additional lesson: even normals could out-think Thinkers, if they had enough time and effort to work at it. Apparently the PRT had a thing called the Snow Protocols (that damned Captain Snow again!) which outlined ways and means to defeat attempted infiltration by Masters and Strangers, and they were really, irritatingly, effective.

Worse, even in those instances where the Snow Protocols weren't being followed to the letter, it seemed computer security was being tightened up right across the PRT, making it much harder for a Mastered minion to access information they weren't cleared for. The last straw came when she was informed that Captain Snow (again!) was behind this push for security as well. Did that damn woman keep her nose out of anything?

So she had to work very, very carefully. Each step she took had to be double and triple checked. Where normally she would've been able to catch up with Snow in a matter of days (having a superior officer simply order her to report to him would have been the easiest thing in the world, except that the goddamn fucking Snow Protocols actually had a section about that, too!) she needed to track the woman down step by step. It also didn't help that some of her previous sources of information, while still under Elijah's influence, had noticed the effects of her ability on them and voluntarily handed themselves in as per the Protocols. So from here on in she would have to order people to ignore that aspect as well. So. Very. Irritating.

Which was why she was now in Chicago, Snow's home base. Not in the PRT building itself; that would've been too risky. Fortunately for her aims, there was one person in the local Intelligence division who apparently considered himself too smart to need to follow the Snow Protocols exactly. A Lieutenant Robert Gordon, to be precise. This was apparently because he disliked Snow almost as much as she did, which was an interesting data point, though probably nothing she could make further use of. It was possible that she wouldn't even have needed Elijah to tell him to 'do what Mama says', but her way was much more secure. Luring Gordon to her motel room had been just the start; the information he could potentially give her was invaluable.

Well, once she winnowed out the chaff.

"She's a know-it-all bitch," Gordon said venomously. "She's got no respect for seniority, and in my personal experience, she's been promoted far beyond her capabilities. I can't prove it but in my expert opinion, there's been an unconscionable level of undue influence from above. She even got me reduced by a pay grade on a nothing charge. I was lucky not to be cashiered altogether." His tone and expression showed the level of unhappiness he felt about this.

"That's nice." Christine rolled her eyes. Gordon's prejudices were showing; if Captain Snow's efforts were merely the result of luck and sleeping with the boss, she was Alexandria in disguise. "What does she do that's different, and where can I find her?"

"Okay, then." He began to tick points off on his fingers. "Hamilton gave her a stand-alone computer that's set up to link in with the PRT intranet anywhere in the country. What she's using it for, I have no idea, except maybe to rub our noses in the fact that the boss likes her better than he likes the rest of us. Apparently it's some bullshit project that's so high-level that I wasn't cleared for it even when I was a captain and she was a shitty little lieutenant. Also, there's that fucking sergeant who follows her everywhere. She gets him as an orderly for no fucking reason I can understand. The man was Mastered by a member of the Slaughterhouse Nine, so he's clearly compromised. In my opinion, he should've been let go as soon as that little shit-show was over." He took a deep breath. "At the moment? She's travelling around the country on some kind of grand tour. Not under anyone's direct orders, just going where she wants, because Hamilton said so. What kind of a way is that to run the fucking PRT? If I was in charge, let me tell you …."

"Stop." Christine's voice was mild, but Gordon shut up. "Where. Is. She. Right. Now?"

He brightened. "I can actually tell you that. We got this memo awhile ago, which we're not supposed to share around, but all it really says is that until the entire PRT net is absolutely secure, we can't share top-secret sensitive data with some departments. The memo gets updated every time a department gets its secure rating improved. Snow's supposedly doing all this work on them, but I can't see it. She's probably just flicking a few switches and telling them it's magically become secure or something." He paused for thought.

Christine's opinion of Gordon was going down all the time. Some PRT departments had been laughably easy for her minions to gain access to, while others did a good impression of a stone wall. If the man couldn't see the effect that Captain Snow was having on the overall system, he wasn't nearly as smart as he thought he was. But then, it had been a snap to get him under Elijah's influence, so he definitely wasn't that smart.

"Got it." Gordon looked smug. "Yesterday, Department Twenty reported in that they'd been given the green light by Snow. Everywhere south of that is already secure, so she'll probably be heading east again."

"Where is Department Twenty, and what's east of that?" Christine reflected that dealing with nerds was always the same. They might think they'd answered questions fully, but sometimes crucial details were lacking.

"Oh, Twenty covers the Seattle-Tacoma area," Gordon replied easily. "The nearest one east of that is … hmm. That'll be Department Forty-One. Omaha, Nebraska."

"Omaha?" That didn't sound close to Seattle. "Are they driving all that way?" Geography wasn't her strong suit, but Nebraska had to be nearly halfway across the country from Washington.

Gordon made a rude noise with his lips. "Pfft, as if. If I know her—" He really didn't, she reflected. "—she'll be calling on her Daddy Warbucks to pay for a plane ticket. First class, hot and cold running stewardesses."

"I see. And what's the next closest PRT department? After that, I mean? And which ones of these aren't on the secure list?" Would Snow be visiting them, she meant.

"The next closest would be Department Forty-Six. Minneapolis. Either way, it's a four-hour flight or a two-day drive. And no, nothing between here and Seattle is on the secure list."

"And after Minneapolis, Chicago?" She thought she had things right.

He frowned. "No, actually. Milwaukee has Department Thirty-One. Then it's Chicago."

"Is it likely that she'll skip Chicago if she's in the area?" she asked. At last, she was nearing the endgame. And the best thing was, she didn't even have to lure her prey into her clutches. Snow would come to her instead of yanking her all over the map!

He actually thought about that instead of coming up with a knee-jerk response. "Probably not." Then of course he had to ruin it. "She needs to flatter Hamilton's ego before she moves on. I bet she'll be on her knees under his desk before—"

"Stop." She didn't need to listen to his juvenile imaginings. "So, you figure she'll be coming here, to the PRT building, in the next two to four days?"

Again, he paused for thought. "Assume two to three days for a car driving from Seattle to Omaha. Then another two to four days to get here via Omaha, Minneapolis and Milwaukee. So a minimum of two days if she's flying from Seattle, to a week at the outside if she's driving."

"Hmm." He seemed to be able to work that sort of thing out well enough. "I can stand to stay here for a week. You won't tell anyone about me, of course." It was tempting to try to get her hooks into Hamilton himself; from Gordon's words, the man knew more about Snow than anyone except perhaps her orderly. But as lax as Gordon had been about the Snow Protocols, his boss was apparently a stickler for them. The building itself, if it was anything like the other PRT departments that the Protocols had been enacted on, would be locked up tighter than a bull's ass in fly season, with multiple layers of both human and mechanical security. It was technically possible for her to get in, but she would almost certainly leave traces. She decided to not risk burning her bridges until she had her prize in sight. Gordon would deliver Snow to her, and then all bets would be off.

Gordon nodded, as eager as a terrier going walkies. "Sure thing."

Eppley Airfield

Omaha, Nebraska

Captain Taylor Snow

1730 Central Daylight Time

"Fine," I grumbled, but not loudly enough for anyone around us to hear over the rumbling and clanking of the baggage carousel. "You were right. That was a lot easier than driving halfway across the country." Business class was better than economy by a long shot, especially since neither Kinsey nor I was on the short side. As Andrea had joked once upon a time, if he flexed they had to sell him a second seat. "I'm just glad Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton okayed a seat upgrade."

"Director Dyson would no doubt have passed on details of your injuries, ma'am," Kinsey pointed out. "Also, that a dangerous parahuman was taken off the streets of Seattle, mainly due to your efforts."

"And of course, she'll be officially backdating the paperwork to make it into a sanctioned PRT operation," I agreed. It was no skin off my nose; they could take all the glory they wanted from that. I didn't need yet another medal for my collection. Every one so far had been earned with blood and sweat and tears; some more than others.

"Which lets you off the hook for acting outside PRT purview." Kinsey picked up his baggage, which completed the set. The last of mine had already trundled through a minute or so earlier.

Leaning on the walking stick—Kinsey had acquired it for the aftermath of the Battle of the Compound, but it was showing its utility once more—I watched as he stacked the cases on the luggage trolley. There were more than a few of them, but he managed it. I would have offered to carry something, but he would have pulled rank on me; specifically, the unwritten regulation stating that a healthy sergeant outranked an injured captain when it came to carrying heavy loads.

He was right, of course. Director Dyson could've made trouble for me for going off the reservation with Kinsey and Ruth, but she'd chosen to let the PRT look good instead. I didn't blame her; I would've made the same choice. After ripping a strip off my subordinate in private, which she'd also done. After all, one could not allow the lower ranks to think they could get away with everything.

I straightened my jacket as I followed Kinsey through the crowd, the luggage-trolley doing a reasonable impression of an icebreaker in the Arctic. He'd chosen to store his hand-cannon in the checked luggage, mainly for comfort's sake, while I'd kept mine on me. While we were travelling in civvies, we were still both serving members of the PRT, which counted as a law-enforcement agency. I'd spoken privately to the airline security staff and handed over my federal concealed-carry pass for official examination; I suspected some of them had never even seen one before. At some point, I had no doubt, someone had placed a call to Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton or even Director Rankine. Whichever one it was had clearly agreed that I was responsible enough to go armed on board.

Nothing had eventuated over the course of the flight, which was as to be expected. That didn't bother me; it was better to have a firearm and not need it than vice versa. In my line of work, I'd been through far too many close calls to be entirely comfortable when I was unable to get my hands on an effective means of making the other guy dead. The average Joe Public was a different story; without my level of training and discipline, ready access to firearms was often a tragedy waiting to happen.

We got to the row of rental-car desks without incident, and I went up to the Avis counter. I found them a little pretentious and self-important, but the PRT went with them more often than not. As I'd expected, the arrangements had already been made, and I walked away with a map and a set of keys. The keys went to Kinsey and I kept the map; they'd tried to give me a packet of informational pamphlets about hiring cars as well, but I dropped them back on the desk. I'd read them all before, anyway.

We located the car with little effort, and Kinsey went through his usual routine of checking it for unauthorised explosive devices before we got in. I wasn't the only one for whom paranoia had become a way of life; or rather, a way of staying alive. The longer we kept at our job of making the inner workings of the PRT inaccessible to those with no business being there, the more likely somebody was to attempt to put an end to it, and us.

Before we went anywhere, Kinsey opened his case and extracted the locked box containing his pistol. The seals we'd both attached to it were still intact, and he broke them and unlocked the case. We both felt a little easier when he had the weapon on him; the more firepower we could throw downrange at an unexpected attacker, the better. And he was getting back up to scratch on the firing range, as was I. Practise, after all, made perfect.

The essentials dealt with, we drove out of Eppley Field and headed southwest into the city proper. I propped my walking stick against my knee, and made myself useful with the map. Neither of us had been to Omaha before, but it wasn't hard to locate the PRT building and then direct Kinsey toward it. Kinsey took his time, as the traffic was a little on the heavy side. In between giving directions, I fiddled with the radio (turned low) to find a local station we both liked.

Our arrival at the regional PRT building for Omaha was anticlimactic. I was pleased to note that they were taking the Snow Protocols seriously (though I wished they could have chosen any other name for it) even as they passed us through into the building. We were met by Director Janssen; a shortish man, running to weight with a noticeable comb-over. From his manner, I gathered that he was another political appointee. An administrator, not a soldier.

Also from his manner, it seemed that he either wasn't in the loop concerning everything I'd done or he hadn't done his homework. "Good afternoon, Captain Snow," he said, his attitude slightly puzzled. "I was told to expect you, but not this soon." His eyes took in my walking stick. "Are you injured?"

"Nothing to speak of," I said, my right hand drifting slightly closer to my open jacket. Had he not been informed about how I got hurt, or was this really him? "I've been injured worse playing hockey."

Alongside me, Kinsey went to full alert. The phrase 'nothing to speak of' indicated a potential Master/Stranger situation, and 'hockey' said that it was the person I was talking to who was under suspicion. If anyone around us made a hostile move, we could have our guns out and ready in under a second.

"Hockey—?" Janssen blinked, then the penny dropped. "Oh, shit. No, we're good. I've been busy, and I haven't been fully keeping up with what's going on in Dyson's neck of the woods."

'Neck of the woods' was an all-clear code. I relaxed, fractionally. "Oh. Good. Yes, I've got minor lacerations to my legs. They've been treated. All I've got to do is change the dressings regularly. A run-in with a nasty piece of work in Seattle, in between my other duties." I hadn't relaxed totally yet—that could've been a legitimate slip, but it may not have.

He winced. "I think I heard something about that. Night Terror, right? You were involved in that operation? I didn't know you were combat ops."

Kinsey and I both breathed a little easier. He knows, but not all the details. It's probably him. "I'm not," I confirmed. "But I've got combat experience, especially with small-unit tactics. More importantly, I'm a woman. Night Terror was targeting nurses."

"Ah." Janssen nodded. "Got it." He grimaced. "Going out as a decoy, with no armour, has to be unpleasant. You have my profound admiration. I don't know that I could ever do it."

I shrugged with one shoulder. "I've been in worse situations. It was over pretty quickly, and I had good backup. The bad guy died, and the good guys lived. Trust me, it could've gone a lot worse."

"And thus, the PRT motto in a nutshell. 'It could've gone a lot worse.'" He gave me a lopsided grin. "I'll get someone to show you to the quarters you'll be staying in. When will you want to have a look at our systems?"

"First thing tomorrow," I decided. The twentieth was still over a week and a half away, and the itinerary I'd roughed out had about a day of wiggle room built in. I could still get to Brockton Bay on time. "It's going to take me a few hours, and I'd prefer to be fresh when I start."

"Certainly," he said with a nod. "I'll be happy once we're back in the green. It was unpleasant to find out that all sorts of lowlives could've been rifling through our systems without us being any the wiser."

"They may well still be," I said as Kinsey took up the bulk of our cases once more. Another guard carried the remainder. "But as of tomorrow, that's done with."

Wednesday, August 10

PRT Department 41

Omaha, Nebraska

1505 Hours

"Well, that's that," I decided, entering the command to clear the cache in my computer. "Your system is as secure as it's going to get, at least until the next upgrade. I've left instructions on how to keep it that way. Have you got a dedicated systems admin yet?"

"Not yet, but we'll be getting one," admitted Janssen. He shook his head admiringly. "I'm not bad with computers, but I can't fathom half what you were doing there. How did you get so good?"

"I started young," I told him truthfully but unhelpfully. "It's a talent. Maybe it goes hand in hand with intel work in general." Which it really did, but not in the way he probably thought I meant.

He nodded wisely. "I suppose that makes sense. I'm not good at that side of matters, either. I prefer to just send out directives and let the experts figure out how to make it happen."

Leaning on my cane, I got to my feet, then hit the button to power down my computer altogether. "If you have any problems, leave a message with Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton in Chicago. I touch base with him regularly. In fact, I'll be passing through there in the next couple of days."

"Ah, yes, Brian." Janssen smiled. "We've chatted from time to time. He was the one who told me in no uncertain terms to stand back and let you work your magic."

"I wouldn't call it magic, sir." Leaning the cane against the desk, in easy range if I needed to grab it and steady myself, I started to pull the various cords preparatory for packing the computer up for travel. "I have my skillsets and you have yours. They say magic just consists of knowing that one extra fact."

"Well, Captain Snow, if it makes my life easier, I'm willing to call it whatever you want." He tilted his head. "Is it true you once knocked out that formidable sergeant of yours?"

I snorted. It seemed Director Janssen had been reading up on my jacket. "That's a little bit of an exaggeration. He was under a Master effect, but it was weakened because the Master was in another room and distracted. I engaged him and he fought back, but I was able to get the drop on him. Mainly because he was pushing back against the Master influence. I stunned Kinsey long enough to get cuffs on him, but I wouldn't say I knocked him out. And ever since then, I've been training regularly with him. I don't win our spars all that often. When I do, I know I've earned it. And I've never taken him down as easily as that first time."

"I see." Leaning close, he lowered his voice. "My security chief went ballistic at me when he reviewed the footage of you coming in last night. Tell me; how close did I come to being shot?"

I looked him in the eye. "You weren't armed, so not close at all. If you'd ordered the guards to do something stupid, I would've gone for non-lethal wounds. But you gave me the all-clear signal, so Kinsey and I stood down." I didn't mention what we both knew; specifically, 'non-lethal' was a dubious concept when dealing with firearms. Even a leg or arm shot could turn bad.

He shook his head. "Captain Snow, you give me hope for the future of the PRT. And, I say this with the greatest of respect, you also scare the living bejeezus out of me. I think I'll be giving the Protocols another brush-up tonight." He headed for the door, then paused and turned. "Safe travels, Captain Snow."

"Thank you, sir." I continued to pack up my equipment. One more day; one more computer system.

The trip from Omaha to Des Moines via I-80 East took two hours; we stopped over to stretch our legs and get something to eat. The sun was nearly down to the horizon when we left again, heading north on I-35. As the tyres rumbled over the asphalt, it finally set and dusk spread over the vast Iowa sky. Kinsey flicked the lights on and we drove on through the gathering darkness.

We rolled into Minneapolis at about half past seven. Part of the reason for the stop in Des Moines had been to get a map for Minneapolis; we'd gotten adept at this on our extended road trip around the country. Interesting fact: it's almost always possible to buy maps for the next city over. I personally would've found smartphones easier to use, but they were still years away, and the map option years more.

Director McKinley was pleased to see us; there were no almost-alarms as in Omaha. We got our gear squared away, utilised the gym for a light spar to work out the kinks, then had a shower and a meal before falling into bed. I rose early the next morning, and spent half an hour in the shooting range while Kinsey got my computer set up. He knew what went where, and how to check for tampering, but he freely confessed that he had no idea how to use the thing. That was fine; I wasn't keeping him around for his leet hacking skillz. Having someone at my back, willing and able to perform extreme mayhem at need, was good enough for me.

Following the shooting practice (I was still improving, thank you very much) I showered and breakfasted, then sat down at my terminal. Hitting the power button, I booted it up and connected to the local system … and, very quietly, began to swear. The more I looked around, the more the computer system looked as though it had been hit with a bomb. Electronically, of course, which was perhaps worse. This wasn't the work of a casual vandal. Someone had come back repeatedly to screw this system up as hard as they could. At least three viruses had been through here, maybe more.

No wonder McKinley had seemed pleased to see me. I didn't know whether he knew how bad it was, or just thought it was some random glitch. Metaphorically rolling up my sleeves, I set to work. This was going to take some time.

First, I prepared to close off the system from all outside access. If it wasn't in the building, it wasn't getting in. Before I did, though, I sent off a quick message to the general intranet, telling the PRT as a whole that Department 46 was going offline. It wasn't a request; it was just a general courtesy call. But then, as I was about to enter the correct command, a message popped up on my screen, ordering me to cease and desist.

My eyebrows tracked upward. Really? I sent back a terse message to the effect that 46 was going offline. No ifs or buts.

DO NOT TAKE DEPT 46 OFFLINE. BY ORDER OF CHIEF DIRECTOR.

I snorted at that, and reached across to turn the printer on. Then I typed in a command to send the dialogue so far, and any farther dialogue, to come out as hardcopy. Then I picked up the phone beside the computer and entered the number for Rebecca Costa-Brown's office phone.

NICE TO CHAT WITH YOU AGAIN, CHIEF DIRECTOR, I typed. IS THAT OFFER STILL OPEN? One corner of my mouth quirked in a grin. I wondered what they'd think of that.

The phone rang, then it was picked up. "Who is this?" It was definitely Director Costa-Brown's voice. Unless she had a body double who could do her voice as well. To be honest, I would not have put it past her.

"Sorry to disturb you, ma'am. This is Captain Snow."

"Captain Snow, good morning. You're in Minneapolis, I see. What can I do for you?"

"I have someone within this system claiming to be you. I presume it isn't?"

There was a brief pause, which I interpreted as her taking time out to bang her head on the desk. "No, it certainly is not. Hunt the rodent down. Email me with the details. Carry on." She hung up, and I put the phone down as well.

I hadn't thought it was her, but it was always good to check. Another notation popped up on my screen.

OFFER WILL BE RESCINDED IF YOU DISOBEY ORDERS. CEASE AND DESIST IMMEDIATELY.

At the same time, a window opened, and I saw the virus they were trying to infect my computer with. I clicked on one of the options that came up in response, and one of the several antivirus programs Lisa had helped me write went to work. It savaged the virus, tore it to shreds, then went through the remains for any useful information. Such as where the attacker was coming from.

NAUGHTY, NAUGHTY, I typed. MY TURN. The location information was coded into a virus of my own, which I cheerfully launched in return. Once that was away, I swiftly closed off every outside port. This took three tries, as someone had coded in a backdoor that forced two ports to remain open even while pretending to be closed. I killed the code and shut the ports. Neither was I worried about infecting Minneapolis with an unstoppable virus; for one thing, 1994 Minneapolis was far less computerised than the same city in 2011. Secondly, the virus had a 'bee-sting' limiter built in; if it tried to jump to a second system, it would gut itself and crash.

Methodically, I began to go through the system, repairing file structures where I could and deleting trash and junk data where it got in the way. Another virus tried to go active as I disturbed it, but my system identified it and squashed it before I even needed to react. I hummed to myself as I worked; the humming gradually settled into the rhythms of the music I'd once used for my self-hypnosis.

"Okay, that was hilarious." Lisa smirked as she strapped on the hang-glider. "The look on that guy's face when his system went down in flames? Classic as fuck." She pulled one of her ever-present tablets from a pocket and showed me the footage. He was in his mid-twenties, unshaven with his hair pulled back in a ponytail. I could tell the exact moment when he realised things were going badly wrong, as his eyes widened and his jaw dropped. Just as he leaped toward the wall to bodily pull the power plug, Lisa's voice blared from the speakers: "So long, sucker!" That was when smoke started coiling up from the computer case. The footage ended with the guy standing there, plug in hand, staring at his trashed computer.

I rolled my eyes even while I checked my own straps. They were all secure, as was the heavy shotgun dangling from my shoulder. You just had to put that in, didn't you?

She slid the tablet back into the thigh pocket. "Well, wouldn't you?"

I couldn't deny it. You could've at least put in a quote from a movie, like Stallone in The Terminator. 'Hasta la vista, baby.'

Carefully, she checked on each of her straps, as I had done. "Nah. I'd have him say something like 'Hasta la virus'. Just to fuck with the guy."

I burst out laughing. Okay, yeah. That would suit so much better. Then I looked around. We stood on a familiar cliff-top, with stone towers reaching up through the jungle here and there. In the sky before us, angular-winged shapes wheeled and dived. Back to the extreme hang-gliding, I see.

"Well, you haven't been yet," she pointed out logically. "You can't knock it 'til you've tried it."

There are many things I don't need to try to know they'll probably turn out badly for me, I countered. Smoking. Alcoholism. Hard drugs. Skydiving without a parachute. Kayaking across the Atlantic. Arm-wrestling Lung. The list goes on.

"Well, you more or less tried that last one, as I recall," she said, her eyes twinkling with amusement. "You survived, didn't you?"

Only because you guys turned up, and Rachel's dogs wrecked his shit. I glanced over my shoulder, then grabbed for my shotgun. We have company.

Lisa looked around as well, to see the half-dozen raptors, brightly-coloured feathers flared widely, running toward us in a staggered formation. Their jaws were open wide and their claws were extended. "Oh, hey. Don't worry about them. I'm ready to go."

Okay, then. Releasing my shotgun, I grabbed the frame of my hang-glider. Side by side, we ran for the cliff edge, then leaped over the side.

Behind us, I heard screeching and turned my head to look as my gliding surfaces caught the air. Two of the raptors had managed to stop in time; the other four had run right off the edge in their eagerness to catch us, and were now plummeting toward the jungle canopy far below. They were frantically flapping their feathered arms. It wasn't doing any good.

I straightened out into level flight, then caught an updraft. Alongside me, not thirty feet away, Lisa was laughing her head off. Lifting my legs, I slotted them into the sling that was waiting there for them.

"Did you see that?" she called out, her tone still mirthful. "That was amazing!"

I notice they still haven't evolved flight, I pointed out, though it had been kind of funny, in a slapstick way.

"They'll probably get to it sooner or later," she agreed, then jerked her head up to indicate something in front of us. "Now this is something we do have to deal with."

I looked as well, to see a pair of pteranodons dropping out of the sky toward us. One was heading for me and the other for Lisa. Even at this distance, I could see the razor-sharp claws and the long, wicked beak. Again, I reached for the shotgun, and worked the slide. The meaty k-chakas a round fed into the chamber was comforting to hear. Beanbag rounds?

"Nope!" Lisa began to bank away slightly. "Double-ought buck!"

Well, that was definitely playing with the big boys. I dived a little to get some speed, then pulled the nose up just as my attacker came within reasonable shotgun range. Taking both hands off the frame for a moment, I snuggled the shotgun into my cheek, lined up the firearm, and waited for him to enter my sight picture. He did; I squeezed the trigger. The shotgun boomed, kicking at my shoulder, and the prehistoric reptile's head exploded into gore. Half a second later, Lisa also fired. I worked the slide on my weapon, then released it to straighten my line of flight. Looking over, I saw her target going down in a tangle of wings. Nice shot.

"You too!" Her eyes were bright, her lips parted with excitement. Raising her hand, she pointed. Four more were incoming. "Now it gets interesting!"

You and I are going to have a chat on the exact meaning of that word. I measured angles by eye, then banked slightly toward Lisa. Drop down a bit. I want to get behind and above you.

"Sure thing." She lost a little altitude, allowing me to slot in just above her. This made us a smaller target, forcing the pteranodons to come in closer to one another if they all wanted to attack us at the same time.

The tactic seemed to be working. Two of them came in line astern; one was probably going for Lisa and the other one for me, but the point of the maneuver was that they were both in range of Lisa's weapon. In the meantime, the other two were sheering off and banking around. I had no doubt that they were going to come in from behind.

Lisa's shotgun blasted the first one out of the sky, but when she fired again, the second one jinked aside and she only ripped a chunk out of its wing. Staggering in the air, it screeched and lunged at her with its long beak, right up until I blew its head off. But the danger wasn't over; not by a long shot. Break right now now now! At the same time, I hauled my glider around to the left, banking as hard as I dared.

She did as I said, instants before the last two came plummeting through our airspace, claws reaching out to rend and tear. I had one hand on the glider and the other on the shotgun; the instant my guy was no longer in front of Lisa, I fired one-handed. The recoil jolted all the way up my arm, but I blew a fist-sized chunk out of his torso, and he lost all further interest in the proceedings.

Then I looked over at how Lisa was doing, and swore. The last pteranodon had anticipated the move and managed to hit her glider, tearing part of one wing. She was spiralling down, fighting to maintain control while still trying to keep an eye out for the massive predator, which was swooping around for a second attempt at her. Pulling hard into the opposite bank, I angled toward them, and dived.

The pteranodon was going to get there first, coming on on Lisa's six. I cupped my hands and yelled against the wind-rush, Behind you! Then I grabbed the frame again and pushed myself into a steeper dive.

For a long moment, it seemed that she hadn't heard me, then at the last second she rolled sideways. As the pteranodon went past with a frustrated screech, she blew it out of the sky. The trouble was, that maneuver destroyed the last of her equilibrium and she started to go as well.

As her death-dive began, I caught up with her. Angling my wing over, I came down next to her. She was already slashing her straps with a wicked-looking survival knife. The last strap came free, and she swung loose, hanging on to her glider's control frame. Dropping the knife, she held her arm out. Her wrist slapped into my hand, and I locked my grip on to it. We let her stricken glider go; our main concern now was getting down to the ground safely. For a given definition of 'safely'.

I pulled the nose up, converting every bit of the speed I'd built up back into lift. The jungle canopy loomed up at us, and the airframe creaked under the unexpected weight, but we turned the dive into a long swoop. Treetop leaves brushed Lisa's boots, and then we were flying over a river. It was wide, and there were large crocodilians swimming back and forth, but on the far side there was some clear ground to land on.

With Lisa acting as both weight and drag on my glider, and me unable to make proper course corrections due to holding her, we were very wobbly crossing the river. Our speed dropped away, getting perilously close to the stall point. A huge toothy maw burst out of the water and snapped shut inches below Lisa's dangling feet; she eeped and pulled her knees up to her chest.

And then we were over dry land once more. Lisa touched down first, and I let her go. I landed next, running to a stop. Turning, I unstrapped myself from the glider and walked back to where Lisa was lying on her back in the soft grass, laughing her head off.

"That was amazing!" she cackled. "We've got to do that again, sometime!"

Leaning down, I helped her to her feet. I really think you're becoming an adrenaline junkie.

Still giggling, she brushed herself off. "Well, duh. Wouldn't you be?"

She had a point. Well, I should probably be getting back.

"True." She smiled up at me. "Oh, and just by the way? He lives in his parents' basement, and they won't be back 'til eight thirty."

"Really." That opened all sorts of options for me.

"Uh huh. Kiss before you go?"

Her lips tasted of dust and blood. A tiny insect brushed my eyelashes and I blinked.

Leaning back in my chair, I took a deep breath and stretched. Vertebrae in my back cracked and popped, and I frowned. Glancing at the clock, I did a double-take. "Holy crap, seven in the evening?" No wonder I felt cramped. Getting up out of the chair, I steadied myself on the desk as I worked my spine one way and then the other.

"Yes, ma'am." Kinsey's voice came from behind me. I turned to look at him, and he indicated an MRE and a bottle of water beside me. "From the way you were swearing, I suspected this one was worse than most."

"You can definitely say that again," I grumbled. "There was a guy in the system while I was there. He wasn't even a black-hat hacker. Just a vandal who wanted to cause damage and stick it to the Man." There was a folded piece of paper on the desk. Picking it up, I read it. It was my handwriting, giving a name—Troy—as well as an address, and quite a bit more. As I recalled what Lisa had told me, I smiled slowly.

"Sergeant, how do you feel about helping me go put the put the fear of God into someone?"

His return look was utterly deadpan. "Ma'am, it would be my genuine pleasure."

My watch showed three minutes before eight as Kinsey pulled the car to a halt. We were parked on a suburban street, between two street-lights. The house we wanted was down the block and around the corner. I turned to Kinsey. "Last chance to step back," I said. "I'm about to do something not entirely legal, but if you stay here, you don't have to be a part of it."

By way of reply, Kinsey opened his car door and got out. He rounded the car and opened my door for me while I was still getting my walking stick sorted. "Ma'am," he said firmly, "if you say this person needs to be roughed up, then I will accept your judgement on the matter."

I nodded. "Understood." With his assistance, I climbed out of the car. The long period of sitting hadn't done my legs any favours, but I was getting better. Though I was feeling much more energetic from the food and water that Kinsey had insisted I have before we came out.

We started off down the sidewalk, moving at a casual pace. Both of us were in casual clothes with light jackets; it was a little breezy, but without any of the chill that winter would bring. We were also wearing gloves, for obvious reasons. Walking helped me firm my stride, even without the stick. I just had to make sure I didn't move too fast and pull my stitches. That would probably get me yelled at by the sickbay attendant.

The house was a typical suburban model; two floors, with (as Lisa had intimated) a basement, where our target lived. We moved up to the front door, and I pointed at the peep-hole. I knocked and stood waiting, holding my head so my face was partially shaded from the porch light. Kinsey stood off to the side.

It took a few minutes for Troy to reach the door; the almost imperceptible dot of light coming through from inside was blocked as he presumably looked out at me. I could imagine his confusion. What was a woman doing on his doorstep at eight in the evening? But he was a nerd, and a guy, so curiosity overcame his natural caution and I heard the door lock disengage. Slowly, it creaked open, and I saw him peeking out at me. He looked exactly as I'd seen in Lisa's video, only slightly more frazzled.

"Uh, hello?" he asked more than said. "Look, whoever you are, I'm kinda busy right now—"

For all that he was a big guy, Kinsey could move very fast when he had to. He came around from the side, shoving the door open and latching his hand around Troy's neck. Moving with unstoppable force, he advanced into the house. I left the walking stick propped against the door frame and followed them in, pushing the door shut behind me.

When I caught up with them, Troy was in an armchair, kept there by Kinsey's grip on his neck. "Hi," I said, almost casually. "Troy, yes?" When he nodded almost involuntarily, I smiled. "Oh, good. We've got the right person. So, I want you to listen very carefully."

"Who are you?" rasped Troy. "What are you doing in my home?"

"Delivering a message," I replied. "Message is as follows: don't mess with the PRT. Because we know your name, we know your face, and we know where you live. I also know that you have a totally trashed computer in the basement right next to your collection of Star Wars action figures—still missing Boba Fett, by the way—and that you'll be getting a replacement from your friend Peter, who also goes by the hacker name Total Anarchy One Zero One. Also, that you keep your weed stash in the cargo bay of your scale model of the Millennium Falcon. When you smoke up, you call it 'using the Force'."

His had eyes widened farther and farther as I spoke, until white was showing all the way around the irises. "How—how do you know all that?" he croaked.

I showed my teeth. "I'm PRT Intelligence. We know more about you than you know about yourself. If you ever try this stunt again, I will know, and I will come back. And I'll know exactly where to find you, just like this time." I pulled my pistol and placed the muzzle to the middle of his forehead. His eyes tracked up toward it, and he stopped breathing. "And next time, it won't be just your computer that ends up non-functional. One more time: don't mess with the PRT." Leaning very close, I whispered, "Do you understand me?"

A whimper escaped his throat, and I caught the scent of urine in the air. Glancing down, I saw a spreading dark stain on his crotch. "Oh, good," I said. "It looks like you do understand me." Turning to Kinsey, I nodded, then stepped back as I put my pistol away. "We're done here."

Returning the nod, Kinsey released Troy's throat, then hooked his foot under the front edge of the armchair and heaved upward. The entire chair went over backward, spilling the unfortunate Troy on the floor beyond. We turned and left the house; considerately, I closed the door behind us. Taking up my walking stick, I led the way back to the car at a rather more rapid pace than we'd approached the house. Wasting no time, we got in the car and drove away; Kinsey kept to the speed limit all the way.

"Well, that was interesting," he observed in a noncommittal way. "Masterfully done, if I do say so myself, ma'am. I'm not even going to ask how you learned those details about him."

"It's like I said," I replied lightly. "I'm PRT Intelligence. We work in mysterious ways." I paused for a moment. Lisa hadn't been able to give me a definitive reading on how Troy would react to the intimidation, but she'd posited a high probability that he'd do everything to distance himself from any PRT hacking events from then on. However, it was always good to get a second opinion. "Think he'll call the cops or the local PRT on us?"

Kinsey snorted. "You already know the answer to that one, ma'am. We didn't leave any traces in the house, and he knows you're aware of his hacker contacts and his drug use. He's already not inclined to speak to the authorities and if the cops do get involved, you have more on him than he does on you. And he probably thinks this was a sanctioned op by the PRT, which means he's going to do everything he can to avoid attracting our attention from now on."

"Which works for me, and no doubt works for Director McKinley," I agreed. "Is the car packed? Despite the fact that you're probably right about him, it's almost certainly a good idea to leave town tonight."

He smiled. "Way ahead of you, ma'am. I took care of that while you were briefing Director McKinley on what needed to be done to get the computer system up to scratch again."

I nodded. It was good to know that Kinsey and I were still on the same wavelength. "He was pleased to know he could use it again. Another satisfied customer, I guess. Next stop Milwaukee?"

"Next stop Milwaukee," agreed the burly sergeant.

Thursday, August 11

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

PRT Department 31

0903 Hours Central Daylight Time

"You'd be Captain Snow, am I correct?"

Looking around from the computer terminal, I pushed myself carefully to my feet. "Yes, ma'am. Director Leland?"

"Correct." Connie Leland was ethnically Asian and about as stocky as Emily Piggot, but her accent was pure Wisconsin. She held out her hand to shake. "I'm pleased to meet you. Director McKinley messaged me this morning to tell me how much better his computer system's been working since you dealt with it."

I shook her hand. "I'm not altogether surprised. There were signs that a semi-professional hacker had been making regular forays into the system. Every time they tried to fix it, he broke it again. I locked the doors and put all the furniture back in place." Fortunately, a fair number of files had been 'lost' when the system lost the ability to refer to them, but not actually overwritten. Lisa, working through me, had been able to locate them and integrate them back into the overall file structure. Some were still missing, but nothing essential to the operation of the system.

"Oh, my." She grimaced. "I hope our system isn't so badly damaged?"

"Hardly." I sat down again and waved at the screen. "It looks like one or two people may have snooped, but they were locked out in the last upgrade and they haven't been able to sneak back in. I'm just going to do my usual top-to-bottom, to make sure everything's working as normal. It's amazing what gets left switched to the wrong setting if people aren't paying attention."

She nodded. "I've seen that myself. Well, I just wanted to check in and see how you were doing. How do you like Milwaukee so far?"

I had to chuckle at that. "I'm not laughing at you, ma'am. Nearly everyone asks me that, and I barely get to see their cities. I'm always either just leaving or just arriving. I don't even know Chicago that well, and I'm based there."

"Oh?" She tilted her head. "Where are you from, then?"

"Brockton Bay." I leaned back in my chair. "It doesn't have a PRT department assigned to it—" Yet. "—or I would've opted for there instead."

"I've heard of that place." She raised her eyebrows. "Is it as strange as they say?"

"We have a few gangs, yes," I admitted. "But it's all small-time crime; everyone keeps their heads down, even the Teeth. Local heroes plus a few visiting Protectorate capes from Boston keep everyone honest. Nobody wants to get the attention of the big dogs, after all." In my time, this had changed once Lung and Kaiser hit the scene; they'd been powerful enough to push back against multiple heroes and win. But for now, the gangs weren't quite troublesome enough to root out.

I didn't intend to let it get that far out of control, this time around. Not on my watch.

We left Milwaukee while it was still daylight, the mid-afternoon sun flooding in through my window instead of Kinsey's for a change. Chicago was less than a hundred miles down the coast of Lake Michigan, and I figured we'd make it in under two hours. Before sundown, even.

"I'm presuming there were no problems like they were having in Minneapolis, ma'am?" Kinsey spoke casually, his hands relaxed on the wheel.

"Nothing that I could see, no." I leaned back in my seat and sighed. "I am going to be so glad by the time we get the last system up and running properly. And no, I'm not looking forward to flying out to Honolulu to see what sort of mess they've made of it out there."

Kinsey made a noise of mild amusement. "That's the price of being the resident expert, ma'am. I'm guessing you've tried training others to do what you can do?"

My sigh was all aggravation, this time. "Yes. It's all there, in black and white. But finding PRT personnel who are cleared to look through those systems, who have the background just to be able to learn what I've got to teach them, and to do it inside of two months, seems to be virtually impossible. It'll actually be easier and quicker for me to do all the checkups myself. Maintaining the systems after I get them into working order, that's the easy part." I glanced over at him. "You've been training recruits in CQC for years now. How long would it take you to teach someone to be as good as you, not just adequate?"

He was silent for a time. "Years," he admitted. "Getting someone to be good, that's not hard. Training someone to be as good as you are, that's not easy. Though you're a very apt pupil, ma'am," he hastened to say. "But training someone to be able to do everything I can do, as well as I can do it? Years."

"Mmm-hmm," I agreed. "And that's the problem."

Silence fell; I turned up the radio. We rolled south down I-94.

Chicago, Illinois

PRT Department 4

Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton's Office

1705 Hours

I rapped on the door and waited. For this occasion, I'd changed into regular undress blues, which Kinsey had somehow kept ironed with a razor crease, despite all our travels. The man, I decided, was capable of minor miracles.

"Enter!" I heard from within.

Opening the door, I stepped inside. Coming to attention, I saluted. "Captain Snow reporting, sir."

Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton looked up at me with a broadening smile, and lazily returned the salute. "Good to see you, Snow. Close the door and come in."

"Sir." I pushed the door all the way shut and moved over to the desk, where I assumed parade rest. "It's good to see you too, sir." And it was. If his hairline was a little more receding (in his case, it was in full retreat, down the back of his scalp) and his moustache a little bushier, that was to be understood. Behind his glasses, his gaze was as sharp as ever. "How have things been here?"

"Controlled chaos, as per normal." He made a back and forth movement with his hand. "There's been a rash of hits with your Protocols; personnel noticing odd things influencing their behaviour and handing themselves in to custody voluntarily. Your improved computer systems have also caught a few would-be hackers, and we've passed their details on to the FBI. I understand you had an incident of that sort in Minneapolis?"

"Yes, sir. The system had been pretty well trashed, and I was preparing to secure it, and there was a hacker in there at the time. He attempted to pass himself off as the Chief Director. I ascertained that he wasn't, booted him from the system, and locked the door behind him."

Hamilton's eyes twinkled from behind his glasses. "I received word that you'd called the Chief Director on her office line and asked her that very question. Do I need to know how you got that number?"

"She gave it to me, the last time she attempted to recruit me for her Washington group." I shrugged. "It didn't seem important at the time."

He waved a hand genially. "Perfectly understandable. Was there anything else?"

I hesitated for a moment, then forged ahead. "Sir, this isn't just a social call. I have a favour to ask. A really big one."

"And now we come to the crux of this meeting." He sat up in his chair. "How big a favour are you speaking of?"

This was going to be the fun bit. "I need to chair a meeting of the core Protectorate heroes by late October. Alexandria, Legend, Eidolon, Hero. Just those four. It's about the matter we've been keeping under the table. About where it comes from and how it might possibly be sent back there, for good."

Absolute silence fell over the office. A fly buzzed briefly, then shut up and slunk away silently. Hamilton's eyes bored into me like diamond drills. I stood there and bore his scrutiny, trying not to feel so shitty. Hamilton was a good man, and he'd gone to bat for me more often than I could count. He didn't deserve to be lied to like this.

The trouble was, as dedicated as I knew him to be toward the cause of good and right, I worried that he might consider some prices too high to pay. More pragmatically, with him all unknowing about what I had planned, it would be much easier to keep the secret. I just hoped his career would survive the way I eventually intended to leave the PRT. When all my lies were exposed, I hoped he wouldn't hate me.

But even if I knew that was going to be the case, I'd still have to go ahead with it. I had sacrificed many other things for my goals, and I would sacrifice many more things. The benevolent regard of Lieutenant-Colonel Brian Hamilton was just one more regret along the way.

"I'm not going to ask if you are serious, Snow." His voice was low and controlled. "You don't joke about things like that. I will ask, however, why late October? Chief Director Costa-Brown already holds you in somewhat exasperated high esteem. If I presented that request to her, the Protectorate would be assembled for your meeting so fast there would be sonic booms involved."

And now for the lie. "I have the framework for what I want to say, sir. I can see the outline. I want to spend the intervening time solidifying my data so that at the time I don't look like a total crackpot."

He snorted. "After New York, nobody at that level is going to consider you a crackpot. But I see your point. The more information, the better." A concerned expression crossed his face. "You don't think it will strike again before then?"

I shook my head. "No, sir. All my data so far tells me that it'll be in the first week of November. Possibly the thirty-first of October, but no earlier than that. Southern hemisphere, eastern hemisphere. Nowhere near the continental United States, this time."

He looked relieved, then vaguely guilty; possibly at feeling relieved. "That's good for us … but bad of course, for whoever does get hit."

"Yes, sir." I grimaced. "I wish I had more to give you. But anything more would be real guesswork, rather than educated guesswork. What I've got so far covers half of Africa, most of India, Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, half of Antarctica, and about a thousand islands of various sizes. I need to narrow that down."

"At least we don't have to worry about Antarctica," he noted with wry humour. "There's not enough people there for it to bother with."

"I'm not ruling it out, sir." My voice was serious; I had to make him think I was considering the idea. "What if it decided to melt part of the ice-cap? How much conflict would a six-foot rise in the overall sea level cause in the world at large?"

His look of sudden realisation would have been funny, if we hadn't been talking about the potential deaths of millions of people. "God damn it, Snow," he growled. "Surely it's not that powerful?"

I looked him straight in the eye. "I don't know for a fact that it's not. For all we know, it might just be flexing. Playing. Sandbagging." Which was basically the truth.

He shook his head. "I don't know what would be worse; having you tell me about this sort of thing, or living in blissful ignorance and finding out too late."

"Well, with luck it won't be too late to do something about it," I reminded him. "If I can get the information I need, we might just have the key for ending it once and for all."

Standing up from behind the desk, he came around and placed his hands on my shoulders. "And if you can pull that off, Snow, I'm going to damn well nominate you for a Medal of Honor. And you will stand there, and smile for the cameras, and accept it."

I ducked my head away. "Sir, you know I prefer to do my work from the background."

He nodded with an aggravated sigh. Letting me go, he folded his arms and leaned back against his desk. "I know, and you're my best analyst by far because of it. Nobody else could have pulled off what you've done."

"I do what I can, sir." I raised my eyebrows. "So you can arrange that meeting?"

He snorted and went back around his desk. "I believe there's a saying about bears and woods that you might be familiar with. Get me the date that you're most comfortable with, and I'll make sure it gets arranged." He nodded to me with an avuncular smile. "If there's nothing more, Snow?"

"No, sir, nothing that I can think of."

"Very well. Dismissed."

"Sir, yes, sir."

I came to attention and saluted, then turned and left his office. Kinsey had been waiting in the ready room down the corridor; I gathered him in by eye and we kept going. The plan was to collect the car from the parking lot and move it to on-base housing, where we would stay for the night. In the morning, of course, we would head south to Louisville, in Kentucky. With any luck, I would be able to avoid running into anyone I knew, if only so I didn't have to answer awkward questions as to why I was using a walking stick.

So of course, who else would we meet in the lobby but the one man I wanted to avoid most of all. Robbie Gordon himself. As we stepped out of the elevator, the person he was talking to at the desk actually pointed in our direction, and he turned and smiled. A little to my surprise, he'd grown a beard in the meantime; it filled out his face and added a few years to his apparent age, but I was willing to bet he was still the same asshole underneath.

"Captain Snow!" he greeted me, all full of good humour and cheer. "It's so nice to see you again!"

"Hello …" I paused, checking his rank insignia, just in case he'd somehow managed to hit Major in the time I'd been away. My eyebrows rose as I saw what was actually there. " … Lieutenant Gordon?" Well, shit. Looks like that anonymous call did the trick.

"Sadly, yes," he sighed. "But these things happen. Easy come, easy go." He paused, and I fully expected him to continue with a barb at my expense. "So, how have you been?" His eyes travelled down the length of my body, then flicked to the walking stick. "What happened there?"

I was immediately on guard. Robbie Gordon had been nothing but nice almost the whole time I'd known him; at least, on the surface. But I'd found out afterward that the friendliness had all been a sham intended to lure me into his bed, which made sense of a few things that had been puzzling me, and almost caused me to go back and beat the crap out of him. Now that I was back, the faux bonhomie and good cheer made me wonder if he thought he could start where he'd left off and succeed this time. If so, you're out of luck in a big way.

"I assisted the PRT in Seattle with a stakeout," I said, giving the cover story. "The parahuman we were after got a hit in on me before we took it down. He'd already killed several women."

"Well, damn." He whistled softly. "Listen, I was just on the way out. I have a friend waiting for me. Did you want to come and say hello? I'm sure she'd be absolutely thrilled to meet you." He leaned closer and lowered his voice conspiratorially. "She's a big fan."

I glanced at Kinsey, and got a blank stare back. He had no more idea of what Robbie had planned than I did. Could it be that he'd actually learned from his experiences and moved on? After all, the bullshit story about me being involved with Hamilton had been handed to the ATF two months ago. "You've … met someone?" I asked hesitantly.

"Oh, yes." He nodded enthusiastically. "Christine's wonderful. And she's got a baby son, Elijah. He's a real bossy-boots." His face broke into a fond smile. "I'm sure you'll get along great with both of them. I've told Christine all about you … well, the unclassified bits, anyway. Like I said, she's a real fan."

I had no idea how to handle this. He wasn't making a play for me at all. This was too weird. He actually had a girlfriend? I supposed it was possible; he was good looking, after all. Maybe getting hammered for the contraband had caused him to re-evaluate his life choices. And with enough of a run-up and a strong tailwind, pigs might fly too. In my personal experience, people only changed for the better when they had absolutely no choice otherwise.

On the other hand, Kinsey and I were going out to the parking lot to get our car anyway. I figured we could say hello to this Christine, admire her child, then go on our way. It wasn't as though Robbie could follow us to on-base housing. And even if it turned into a shit-show, such as if Robbie's new girlfriend actually wanted to abuse us for being so mean to him, we could always just walk away.

"Sure," I said. "Let's go."

As we started from the lobby, Kinsey interrogated me by eye, with a flick toward the hire car. I shook my head. I preferred to keep him with me for the moment, just in case I needed a witness for whatever transpired between myself, Robbie, and Christine. With a very brief nod, he moved up alongside me, matching my pace. We followed Robbie toward a sedan; the late afternoon sun showed a person sitting in it. No … two people. A woman and a child. Well, at least he was telling the truth about that part.

As we approached, Christine got out. She looked maybe eighteen or nineteen, but on the skinny side. Not naturally skinny, like me, but as though she'd missed more than a few meals. Her hair bore that out; cut long, it had the pale wispy look common to people who had undergone severe illness or malnutrition when young. Her son looked about three or four, but he already appeared to be more robust than her.

Letting go his mother's hand, the kid headed straight for Kinsey, which surprised me a little. The bulk and size of the man tended to put people off him. Even grown men kept their distance. But the child, and now his mother, seemed to have no fear of him. Probably because he's wearing the same uniform as Robbie.

When the kid got close, Kinsey crouched down to get closer to his eye level. Half a pace behind him, I was keeping an eye on Robbie, just in case he wanted to pull some bullshit play after all. "Hello, Elijah," Kinsey said, in as close to a gentle tone as he could manage. Trust him to remember the kid's name. "I'm James."

"Hello," piped Elijah. "You gotta do what Mama says."

I snorted with amusement. Robbie had said he was a bossy-boots.

"Hello, James," Christine said. "You take care of my boy for a moment. I need to speak to Taylor."

That was taking things a step too far. "Ma'am," I said to the woman, "no. With all due respect—"

"Yes, ma'am," Kinsey replied, straightening up with Elijah in his arms.

What in the living fuck? Kinsey had never gone directly against my wishes, ever. Not in a situation like this. "Kinsey!" I shouted, my hand diving into my jacket for my pistol. The shoulder holster wasn't regulation wear for undress blues, but I liked having a firearm on hand, so to speak. "Put that—"

For the second time in a row, I was interrupted as Robbie cannoned into my side, grabbing my gun arm. "Not this time, Snow," he grunted. "You're—"

Turning on the spot, I rammed the head of my walking stick up under his jaw, then twirled it in midair and drove the hardened tip into his throat. He gagged and let go, stumbling backward. I caught my balance, then brought the pistol up and around. The woman was a Master; it was the only explanation. She was clear of Kinsey, and I had a round in the chamber.

The world dissolved into chaos. There were a dozen Kinseys, two dozen Christines, and a howling in my ears that drowned out everything. Then all I could see was her face, the pale skin and eyes, the wispy hair, as she sneered at me. "You're mine," she said, and her voice shook my world. "You killed my people. I'm going to kill you. One scream at a time."

I fell to my knees on the rough asphalt, then recalled the pistol still in my hand. I couldn't shoot, because I didn't know where Kinsey was, but I could raise the alarm. Pointing the Glock straight up, I only got one shot away before a smashing blow struck me in the solar plexus. Gagging, I fell back, trying not to vomit. I tried to sweep the stick around, to find my assaillant, but a slim hand caught me by the wrist. That was a good start; if I could find out where the rest of her body was, I could put bullets into her.

Releasing the stick, I twisted my wrist to grab hers, then swung my legs around to try for a sweep. Blind and deaf I might be, but I'd been in worse situations. This bitch was going to learn—

Fire consumed my hand, flaring up my arm. My fingers could no longer grasp anything; I didn't even know if I was still holding the Glock. Pain, more intense than almost anything I'd ever felt, blasted through my consciousness. Almost. Bakuda's pain bomb had been worse. I gambled on her wrist still being in my hand, and for her being right-handed, and I threw all my effort into a lunge forward. At best, I would head-butt her; at worst, I might slow her down a little.

I must have done something, because the worst of the pain dropped away, and I heard more than a solid roar in my ears. "—fucking cow. You will fucking regret that. When I order this oaf of yours to dislocate your arms, then rip them clean off, you're going to feel every last—"

BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM

My ears were ringing now, but at least I could see and hear again. The pain receded from my nerve endings, and I saw the woman lying next to me like a broken doll. Several large exit wounds, including one in the side of her head, explained why she was no longer in control of my sensorium. Kinsey, still holding the child, had his pistol held straight-armed toward where Christine had been standing; spent brass littered the asphalt nearby, and smoke curled from the muzzle.

I took a deep shuddering breath. "Kinsey," I began. "Put—"

The kid stared at his mother's corpse, then at Kinsey. "You killed Mama!" he shrieked. "I hate you! You should die!"

And Kinsey's gun muzzle began to move up to his own head. That was when I realised one more fact.

The kid's a Master, too.

Through sheer fluke, my own pistol was still in my hand. I was in a bad shooting position, and my nerves were still shaking from the agony that Christine had just put me through. But my training had drilled into me over and over: it didn't matter. A good soldier got up and kept going. Soldier, shut up and soldier. So I flung out my arm and fired, three shots as fast as I could squeeze the trigger.

The first one missed. The second one clipped the kid's ear. The third one … dead centre. In every sense of the word.

Kinsey hesitated, the heavy pistol now jammed up under his chin. I fired twice more. By the time the last shot died away, there wasn't a target there to be serviced any more.

Slowly, Kinsey's arms fell to his sides. The pistol clattered to the asphalt, as the child fell bonelessly to his other side. He dropped to his knees.

Over the ringing in my ears, I gradually became aware of the sounds of sirens and running boots. Looking around, I saw armoured vans and armed men pouring out on to the parking lot. There were a whole lot of rifles, and they were all pointed in our direction. Mainly my direction, as it happened, as I was the only one still holding a weapon.

Carefully, I laid the Glock down on the asphalt and shuffled away from it on my knees. My recent wounds protested, but I told them to suck it up. A little pain later on was totally worth not being shot right now. Lacing my fingers behind my head, I waited for them to come take me into custody. A side-glance told me that Robbie still wasn't moving. Was he even breathing? I couldn't tell.

As the PRT troopers surrounded me, all I could think was that I should've listened more closely to my instincts. I was right. It did turn into a shit-show.

End of Part 7-0

[A/N: There is a reason why Kinsey pulled that off. It will be explained next chapter. Mwahaha.]