Anywhere

(Two Legionnaires, plus a deepening mystery involving old foes and old friends alike. Cham/Vi. Begun for Green Earth's Crack Pairings Contest/Challenge. Chapter set about two years after S2's "Dark Victory." 'T' for violence, language, m/f sex [non-explicit], minor character death. If that bothers you, please don't read. Comments and/or constructive criticism are welcome. I don't own any DC characters and situations and blah blah blah. )

3011

…No one knows why they preserved the capital's old name, and no others. When Council revives the ceremony, I'll write whatever speech they want: for Yosvan Aalt, for science, medicine, and exploration. I know that it won't be long now, Legion Friend... -11/8/10 -Ambassador Zir Derbai, private com excerpt.

Spring was coming to Grystaad's most populous region. Their Representative's Council had invited Triplicate Girl, Star Boy, Saturn Girl, Chameleon Boy and me to honor the change with them at month's end. We'd been the first off-worlders to set foot there in a century, after their revolution ended.

Alexis Luthor would be there, too. She'd become Grystaad's most visible benefactor, since it had emerged from a century of isolation to join the U.P. She gave and asked nothing in return. She'd served her time, cleaned up her act, etc. At least, a lot of people believed that. We'd have to swallow our skepticism and be gracious for the newsfeeds.

For almost two years, I'd struggled with this puzzle: the last one remaining from Brainiac Five's time with the Legion. Whatever else happened, I meant to solve it. I'd given my word.

Chameleon had been there almost from the start; devoted to the same work. Still, he wasn't my only help. The whole team had drawn together, rewoven itself to patch what we'd lost with Brainy's departure. Almost everyone in the Legion had contributed in some way, over time.

So I did what Trip and the others all wanted. I shut the mystery away for a few hours. Like a good soldier, I let her march me out of the lab.

It was far easier than I'd expected. We laughed, joked, and drank toasts to Chuck and Luornu's engagement. For one night, everyone looked at stars and colored lights instead of the clock. We'd worked so hard, waited so long for something to celebrate.

It ended with Cham and I alone together: Something else long overdue. To see the blacks of his eyes expanding, shining. Until he closed them, drew me down: a smooth bright figure against my old gray blanket.

To hold and kiss my friend, to touch what lived at his very center…

We were both new to this. Some things went fast that should have gone slow. Or vice versa. But I didn't mind. Reep kissed me and stroked my hair at the finish, just like he had at the start. His arms were around me, and I fell asleep wrapped in summer sunlight.

His breathing became the rustle of green leaves. In my dreams, no friends or allies turned into monsters. No one went missing, or died before their time. All questions were answered. All puzzles were solved.

.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.

Daylight arrived much too soon. I'd meant to wake up before both the alarm and Cham. But I was only half successful.

"Computo, lights at eighty percent."

I threw on my old pink robe, and straightened up the bed. I caught traces of his scent, felt echoes of my dream-state euphoria.

"Computo, bring up room com."

I checked everyone's status. He was already on his way to the lab.

He'd picked up my clothes from last night, including Tinya's dress, and draped them neatly over the desk chair. Her gold comb sat next to the keyboard, with a paper note underneath: Talk to Nemesis Kid. Druiter was still asleep, but I left him a message.

The weather report displayed cloudless blue graphics and twinkling bright suns: Seven days worth. It was almost Spring here, too.

All questions have answers...

We'd solved the initial puzzle: the "landmines" that had kept killing Grystaadians even after their Junta's overthrow. Turned out that most of them weren't mines at all. The culprits were two non-native plants that had thrived over much of Grystaad's surface in the last century. Each produced an airborne toxin that had permeated the natives' bodies. Building eventually into the organic equivalent of two explosive charges.

But the picture was bigger than that. It was riddled with missing pieces. For example: what was Luthor's interest in Grystaad?

Then there was Sar Erzah. He'd been their ambassador's aide, after serving under her command during the war. Now he was her successor, and Luthor's right hand both on and off his homeworld. Or did he have some agenda of his own...?

There was still time. We would get the goods on her before the ceremony. There was nothing we couldn't accomplish. I was sure of it.

A SciPol press release appeared, blinking red on my screen. I clicked it open: "Search for missing U.P. diplomat ends today."

So much for euphoria. I shivered, and pulled the robe more tightly around me. "Computo, run primary supporting feed for this bulletin."

Chief Investigator Avrim Valenz had been working with Grystaad almost as long as we had, usually on the planet proper. Now he was back on Terra. He was thirty-five standard, with a pleasant, olive-skinned face. Close-cropped, graying dark hair and beard to match.

SciPol was calling off all official attempts to find Ambassador Zir Derbai, after months of fruitless searching. She'd disappeared soon after our discovery about the mines; the breakthrough I'd promised her long before.

"Audio only, Computo. Raise volume twenty-five percent."

I listened while I washed and dressed. Derbai had disappeared under a cloud of suspicion, claims that she was hiding something: Money or assets that her own family had stolen from its people, over a century of despotic rule. No. She was the first Grystaadian I'd ever met. She had turned against the Junta to fight for her homeworld's freedom. No matter what anyone says, it just doesn't fit.

Valenz fielded a lot of routine questions. As usual, he came across as honest and focused, but not exactly brilliant; same as most police. By the time he was wrapping things up, I was back at my desk, fastening my shoes.

"Resume visual, Computo."

A trivial thing caught my eye: an old-fashioned paper print behind him on the conference room wall. Dark blue, with rectangles scattered over it. Each rectangle was a white outline made of two squares stuck together. Each square had a varied number of white dots inside.

I knew it was a game, a toy, originating here on Terra. But I couldn't recall its name, or exactly how it worked.

I would, long before today was over.

.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.

It was just after breakfast. Cham and Invisible Kid were busy in the lab. I was with Lightning Lad and Dream Girl in the Leader's Office, updating them on the case.

About a week back, Star Boy and Cham had helped Dreamy nab a freelance courier: a Grystaadian who used the name Son Bhule. SciPol hadn't been able to hold her long, but Cham had copied the bank records she'd been hauling. He'd run them through a SciPol tracking program; one he'd retooled to be faster and more thorough.

"Interesting." Garth studied the results as they floated just above his desk com. "You started with… how many banks?"

"Over six thousand. All of them worked in some capacity with either LexCorp -or its subsidiaries- over the last century."

Dreamy looked thoughtful. "So out of those, only forty-five had documented dealings with Grystaad before the Junta took power."

I nodded. "It never did attract much outside investment." Too far from major trade routes. Too few natural resources of any market value. In addition, its terrain had been largely desert; a hotter climate than most U.P. citizens preferred.

She studied the page again. "Then the first Junta tampered with its own sun, terraformed its land... Now it's officially the U.P.'s poorest planet."

Garth was still reading the list. "So, only twelve of those forty-five are still in business today…" He scrolled further down, but an alert popped up on his screen before he could continue.

I shook my head. "Don't tell me…" The code flashing under SciPol's logo was one we saw all too often.

"Afraid so." More damn Scavengers. He closed my report and cued up SciPol's visuals. Asteroid T-36 was just beyond the orbit of Earth's moon. About as far out as Exchange Place: the site of Bhule's capture, but in a different direction.

"You didn't see this one coming?" He gave Dreamy a sly look across the desk as he got up. "Too much good cheer yesterday?"

"You ordered me to go, remember?" She rapped the knuckles of his mech hand with a pen, just once. "A good Deputy never disputes her leader's decisions."

"Uh-huh. Is that from one of those 'teamwork guides' that Cos keeps 'accidentally' leaving in the lounge?" His real hand flew across the keys, rounding up a team for the mission.

"I thought those were yours," I said, winking at Dreamy.

"Hell, no. I hate those things." He sent out the last call and moved towards the door.

"But you read them," Dreamy said. "Caught you last week. Or were you just looking for the crossword?"

"That's enough, Nal." But he was grinning. "Finish reviewing that report. Then make sure you see Lyle for your dream recording."

"Yes, Sir." She took his place behind the desk. "Anything else, Sir?" Her voice was hyper-cheerful, like she was taking his lunch order.

Garth sighed and motioned me towards him. "Let's go, Violet."

.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.

Most of the team was already off-planet, making up for time we'd lost yesterday. So it was the two of us, along with Cham, Phantom Girl, Timber Wolf, and Triplicate Girl.

Garth briefed us on the trip out. "Place was empty for years. SciPol doesn't know how long the Scavengers've been there. Just that they managed to switch life support back on surface-side, without any patrols picking up on it until today."

"Figures," Cham grumbled. "Ten minutes... ten days... No big deal, right?"

Garth threw a sly look his way. "Y'know, I figured you'd be in a better mood today, Cham. Since, uh..."

Everyone else looked at him, then at me. We both folded our arms and stared straight ahead. Mom had warned me once that I'd probably have as much privacy in the Legion as she'd had in the Imskian Army.

On my right, Wolf tactfully cleared his throat. "You sure we can handle this alone, Lightning Lad? Class 36ers are pretty big."

"All we've gotta' do is hold 'em as best we can, while the cops come in behind us and string up a net."

Wolf muttered something to Phantom. All I could hear over the motion of flight was, "…could've won that last round if not for…"

"You wish," she replied.

Trip spoke from Cham's left. "So basically it's a junkyard?"

"Reclamation Complex," Garth corrected her.

"But it's closed, right? Anything of value got hauled off years ago." Trip looked perplexed, understandably. "What could the Scavengers want with it?"

"We're about to find out."

The stars raced by. T-36 came in sight: asymmetric, gray-brown and ugly. It resembled a Vron B engine drive that someone had just fished from a puddle of watery clay.

"Who owns it?" I said.

We were close enough now to see dark spots that hovered like migrating birds in a V-shape at one end of the asteroid: Scavenger freight runners. Not as big as the legit variety, but still armed and dangerous.

Garth's mech arm was at the ready. We flanked him as close as was practical. "Would you believe a bank called Ridj, now—"

"Ridj-Wald Intergalactic Finance," Cham finished. He shared a look with Phantom, Garth, and me.

Trip and Wolf both looked confused now, but there was no time to explain. The runners were a variety of shapes and sizes, but they all faced away from T-36. We were square in the enemy's field of vision.

"Got what they came for, looks like!" Garth dodged a concussion beam from the craft nearest us. It was the biggest of six, and it took off at a good clip, its shields easily shrugging off Garth's cannon blast.

I shrunk down to doll size fast, and moved back and up, out of his way. Trip divided, and Phantom went intangible.

Garth pointed his real hand at the craft as he fired mech-blasts at its followers. "Wolf! Cham! Move in!"

Wolf got into combat form, using his claws to clamber up the ship's curved back. Showers of sparks flew as he looked for a seam in the hull to pull loose.

Cham morphed into an Ozur System Dragon. He fixed huge, raptor-like talons to a ledge on the craft's front and lashed its side with a long, prehensile tail.

Too late. The ship began to hum and glow, crackling with a blue-green aura: a jerry-rigged teleporter. My teammates barely let go in time. The ship's outline flickered several times before it disappeared completely.

Hope your guts feel that for a month, I thought.

Wolf snarled as the remaining five opened fire. Cham's leathery wings beat as he wove back and forth among them. He knocked his tail against the front windows and roared with a mouthful of giant teeth, distracting the pilots.

"Looks like they only had one ticket out of here." All three Trips circled fast between and around the crafts, moving opposite Cham's direction.

A portal opened up top of each ship, each revealing an armored gunman or two. Shots flew around White. She ducked, moved in, kicked the nearest weapon loose, and tossed it to Orange.

The big gun stuck once or twice. "Talk about junk!" She fired once or twice over the enemy's head. "Luthor cut off your allowance again?" He retreated back inside the ship. She tossed the weapon away.

"Don't bait them!" Purple shouted above the din as the weapon landed in her hands. "It's dangerous!" She fired over the head of another gunman.

"Killjoy," said Orange and White.

"Should I try and break in?" I asked Garth.

"Not yet!" He flew back and forth a short distance, facing towards the asteroid surface; trying to stay between the ships and their path to freedom as he met their fire. I kept an eye peeled in that direction, but there was no sign of SciPol just yet.

Phantom got in a few kicks, but mostly she let the blasts go harmlessly through her: positioning herself so the Scavengers hit one another—when they managed to hit anything at all. She pointed at the other ships as their gunmen retreated back inside. "What now?" She yelled at Garth.

He continued firing lasers from his mech arm in a quick scything motion. "You and Violet scout down there!" he yelled. His shots forced the smaller ships closer together. "For anything or anyone they left behind! Then wait for us at the central tower! The one with the big lift!"

Phantom nodded once. She took off and I followed. Out the corner of my eye, I saw Cham, now in the form of a Giff's Nebula Spotted Slug. He was coiled perpendicular around a ship. More sparks, more noise as the radulae in his mouth wore at the hull. Wolf used his claws on the roof.

Phantom made a face. "I am so not helping clean that up." She couldn't see me smile, because I had my head turned as we descended.

Landing and departure decks made up either end of the asteroid. Seven concrete storage units formed an elongated "C" between them. They were graduated cylinders. All but the very tallest were open-topped.

We kept quiet, in case any Scavengers were still here. We stayed airborne, braking a couple of meters above the concrete ground. It was scarred and dirty, with dead grass showing through a multitude of cracks.

We did a quick recon around the complex in a figure eight. The silence was eerie after the commotion space-side. We landed in front of the lift Garth had mentioned. It was set between the two mid-sized towers.

Somebody had once tried to prettify the place. There were fragments of bright paint and decorative stone here and there, but time had taken its toll. I saw bolt marks where benches and trees had fallen to looters, or to some long-gone creditor.

"I'll take the lowest level," I whispered, "If you handle things up here."

She nodded. "First to finish takes mid-level. Second buys First a drink later on."

"Okay." I managed to cover up my smile a second time. She took off, moving inside the towers and out again to see who, or what, might still be lingering there.

It was pointless to mess with the lift's controls. They were likely disabled years back. I just shrank down, slipped between the two doors, and grew again for my descent to Level Two.

The lift car itself was long gone, so I saved some time by emerging directly into the shaft. Whatever the Scavengers had taken hadn't come up this way.

The passage walls were lined with illuminators and guides that could bruise or tear skin. Even though they hadn't been powered up in years. I stayed a little smaller than average for the trip. My ring gave enough light so I could speed in relative safety.

In barely half a minute, I found a "Two" on the shaft wall in flaking luminous paint. Another momentary shrink-down, another slip through a pair of doors, and I was on the level itself.

The air here was stuffy and cold at the same time. It smelled of dust and old oil. My ring illuminated neat rows of circular pallets covered in dirty plastic domes. Each had fresh glove-prints that had erased some of the grime. I peered through them one by one without landing. The pallets were empty, at least to a full-sized eye.

There were no warning symbols affixed to the domes. In theory, whatever was inside would be safe for me to handle.

They were heavy and tightly fitted. I was half the size of a Martian Dwarf Ant before I could negotiate the space between the dome's base and the pallet's outer edges. Once inside, I grew a few millimeters and traveled down between the slats. They held bits of paint and metal that gave off a faint gleam against dark, plasti-sealed wood. I saw scoring crosswise to the grain, where full-sized pieces of machinery or alloy had sat undisturbed for years. Almost no dirt had entered the score marks. So the domes' removal and replacement had been both brief and very recent.

This was what the Scavengers had come for. Hopefully, SciPol would stop them before they could take it far. Without anyone getting hurt.

I worked fast, opening a micro-compartment in my belt and pouring in several dozen varicolored fragments. When I resumed full size, the plastic liner in the compartment would be about as big as a barley grain. I gave silent thanks for Imskian tech. When I returned to the lab, I'd find out what in blazes I'd just picked up.

As I emerged and reached normal size, my ring sent up a digitized map. Phantom was calling for help from the heart of Level One.

Light was scarce and there was debris everywhere: unwanted items the Scavengers had thrown aside in their haste. It was slow going until I reached the shaft again.

Level One looked as dark and deserted as its neighbor below. But there was a maze of old plex-cube dividers instead of pallets. An overturned chair lay just outside the lift's doorway. I barely managed to fly over without barking my shins on it. The dust smell was stronger here, but the oil smell was gone altogether. Desk jockeys had worked here.

I'd barely made it past the first few cubes when I heard a muffled blast above ground, then a low groan. Everything around me got the tremors, but I managed to stay airborne. Great. I was in no mood to spend the afternoon digging myself out of a collapse. Phantom probably wasn't, either. Especially now that I owed her a drink.

I raced toward an upended divider, rounded and bigger than the rest, at room's center. A motion-activated light flickered. Flashes of white cloth, black hair, big white fasteners. She was upright, unhurt.

"Phantom?" This close, I could see dark spatters on both carpet and divider, along with the unmoving forms of four Scavengers at her feet. "Did they—?" I hadn't heard any scuffle.

She shook her head. "Found 'em like this." We crouched down by a litter of discarded tech. "One's still breathing." She'd wrapped her cape around the Scavenger. I supported what might have been feet as she lifted the other end and turned all three of us immaterial.

"This one's tall," I said. We were moving straight up, through the ceiling and then through crossed beams, pipes, and long-unused wiring that comprised the underside of the surface level. I always wondered if shrinking would feel as odd to her as being immaterial felt to me.

She nodded, frowning. "Armor's heavy, too." We emerged some distance from the lift, to more company and dirtier air than we'd had on arrival. I blinked at the sudden re-exposure to daylight as she solidified us again.

"C'mon!" Lightning Lad waved to us from the equivalent of a half-block's distance. There was also a SciPol short-hopper, with one officer standing by.

The two storage units furthest away from us had collapsed. I could see the breaks where one had blown up at the base and knocked its neighbor sideways. Unit 3 was now bearing that weight and looked none too stable, either.

We moved fast as we could with the Scavenger in tow. "There's three more down there, dead!" Phantom said.

The officer's tag said Jang. "This way!" He motioned us towards the hopper. "Bodies'll have to wait!"

The space inside Jang's ship was cramped, so we put the wounded Scavenger down on the floor. We were barely off the ground before another explosion hit. He punched in coordinates, his hands shaking from the impact, like everything else here. Debris pelted the hopper's roof.

"I didn't see any explosive set-ups in the towers!" Phantom said.

"They probably used Nano-remotes!" Jang said. "Can't see those with the naked eye!"

"Nice parting gift," said Garth.

Jang grumbled something, then: "Everyone hold on!" He didn't turn around.

But I was already on my stomach, with Phantom on the other side of our bundle. There was nothing to see when I looked up but two dark chair backs and a wedge of blinking console lights.

"Lightning Lad, was anyone else—?" I raised my head. The hopper's floor was scuffed, hard and cold.

"No. The Sergeant's people showed right after you left."

"Grabbed four out of six ships," Jang said. "Not bad, overall." The ride was smoothing out, so Phantom and I could both sit upright. By now, we were back in space. I watched the cop punch a course for Medicus One.

"Fine. Don't say 'Thank You.'" Phantom muttered.

I almost laughed, despite everything. Or because of it. She was three for three and it wasn't even noon yet.

Garth spun around to look at us. "I sent the others back with Jang's people to help process our friends. How's—?"

Phantom pulled back some of the cape. "She." The skin where the Scavenger's mask ended was pale blue. "And, not so good."

A chill ran through me, as Phantom slipped it clear off. The face was bruised and swollen all over. I saw the feelers move feebly back and forth, in time with shallow breath. Two of the three eyes were swollen shut.

"Is that—?" Garth leaned forward.

Oh, God. To find her so close, after all these months… Derbai. How in hell—

But then I noticed the row of cropped feelers in front. I pulled back more of the cape, and saw tentacles, six emerging from each shoulder. More bruises showed through tears in the stained Scavenger uniform.

Jang stole a look at us, one hand on his weapon. But there was no need. Her one good eye blinked slowly. Once. Twice.

"The courier?" Garth said.

I nodded.

"Were the other three beaten as badly as this?"

"I'm not sure," Phantom said. "It was dark. But they weren't cold yet, and I think she was the only Grystaadian."

One of Bhule's "limbs" touched my lower arm. A few of her feelers shifted, in time with the motion of her bruised mouth. The teeth were still intact, but just then I didn't think about how strange that was.

"Tracks in…" The rest was gibberish, or broken slurs in her own tongue. The engine's noise swallowed up several more sentences altogether.

I felt like screaming at the Sergeant's armored back: Doesn't SciPol ever service these damn things?

We needed a telepath, but Saturn Girl was clear on the other side of the galaxy. I could feel Jang skillfully dropping us through Terra's atmosphere, but I knew we'd never reach Medicus One in time. I touched the audio module on my belt, hoping to record whatever else she might say. I felt like I was the vulture, the scavenger here.

Phantom used the corner of her cape to wipe a dark streak away from Bhule's mouth. She held the messenger's shoulder gently, just in case Bhule could still feel anything.

"Son Bhule, why did Luthor send you to T-36?" Phantom said.

The messenger made a choking noise, and lost her hold on my arm. She was the age I'd been when I'd joined the Legion. She'd helped win a war, only to wind up Sar Erzah's pawn; and by extension: Luthor's.

And for what? Damn it all! I wanted very badly to break something just then. I wanted to hit rewind. Do the whole puzzle over. Be smarter, stronger, faster, and save everyone.

"Too much… Tracks in… C-couldn't…" Another indecipherable sentence, then, "Zir Cenbai…"

"Bhule!" But she was long past hearing anything. Zir Cenbai was one of the missing Ambassador's elders. He was Junta, a prisoner on Takron-Galtos. "Why—?"

Her one good eye widened, looking up at the square yellow light on the ship's ceiling. "Ilharla, ket mira ohm..." Her whispers sounded loud now, because Jang had brought his ship to a stop.

We were on the ground again. I shut off my recorder. There was nothing else to hear now.

Phantom gave me a hand up, so we could clear out fast and let medics take the girl's body away.

"Dreamy didn't foresee this part," she said.

"It wasn't her fault," I said, as we watched Jang speak with the medics. "Everyone did the best they could."

Phantom nodded, like we both almost believed that.

Jang escorted us up the walkway and called the hospital's SciPol liaison, so we could file our report without trailing him back to the central precinct. Then he said a polite goodbye. I'd never even seen his face under the helmet. The pre-noon sky above his ship as he hurried back to it was blue, and almost cloudless.

I would always remember Bhule's face, even if I didn't want to.

.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.

The liaison found us a quiet corner in one of the waiting rooms. She had a 'bot fetch us paperwork and something to drink. Another Sergeant, but without armor or a heavy weapon visibly in tow. Trice Tanaka was her full name. I managed to remember that even before reading her nametag. Lightning Lad and Phantom Girl did most of the talking, which suited me fine. I held the cylinder of warm tea against my cheek, as I signed whatever she held out to me. It didn't help. I felt cold with anger and disgust, but I made myself tear off the seal and drink anyway. It tasted like nothing at all.

"…made the final cut," Garth was explaining after we finished; talking to her about Grystaad. "Extant banks that Zir Derbai spoke to, before she disappeared."

"There were only five in the courier's records," added Phantom. She must have visited the lab earlier: seen Cham's final report. "One headquartered on Mars, one on Eris, two on Earth…"

…And one on Imsk: Ridj-Wald.

"Your teammate's quite the creative thinker." Tanaka wrote some note to herself on the pad. "Did any of you remember to notify Chief Zendak that he was doing outside modification of a pre-existing program?"

"I'm sure we did," said Garth. "Maybe the Chief's just been too busy to, uh, provide any input."

Phantom raised an eyebrow in my direction as I finished my drink. "Sgt. Tanaka, I'm sure we have the authorization back at HQ. I'd be happy to find it for you sometime today." She'd left her cape behind for the hospital's incinerator. I didn't blame her.

"Please see that you do." Tanaka stood up. "Meanwhile, let me walk you to the lift." The 'bot swooped in behind her and took away the empty drink cylinders. She tucked her pad with our signed statements under one arm.

I thought about how Derbai had made the rounds after the war, begging for financial help. Something to augment what scant funds U.P. Gov could spare; so those who stayed on her homeworld might have some comfort and safety to go with the freedom they'd fought so hard to obtain. She'd found no takers of consequence anywhere. Until Luthor.

I listened to my teammates and Tanaka playing diplomat in their own right, and didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I promised Tanaka an audio transcript and info on the sample of metal I'd found, once I got back to HQ. Jang and Valenz would want that, too, of course.

After she'd gone and we were flying home, Garth turned to me. "I could've told you and Cham last night, I guess. Except it wouldn't have made any difference."

Phantom's gaze moved back and forth between us. Once. Twice. "I'll... just fly on ahead. You know, go look for those forms Tanaka wanted." She rubbed one of her eyes absently, then put on a burst of speed and was gone.

"Told us what?" I finally asked Garth. The blast of spring wind was so cold that my face stung. A row of flags snapped back and forth as we soared past the square in front of the U.P Tower.

"That Valenz was gonna' call off the search today. He figured we'd all reached a stalemate with this thing; that maybe the announcement would knock something loose, somewhere."

I nodded, thinking of the the grain's worth of evidence I had with me. Then backwards, to the falling towers, the dead Scavengers, and the print behind Valenz when he'd made the announcement. "SciPol does tend to drag its feet. A lot."

"Yeah." Garth glanced at me a couple of times, as if he was trying to decide whether or not he should apologize.

I wasn't sure, either. I felt grateful and guilty, more or less at the same time. "But it looks like maybe he's right," I finally said as we neared HQ.

Knock down one thing and it knocks down others: a chain reaction.

Dominoes.

End Ch. 14

("Anywhere" is from Beth Orton's CD The Other Side of Daybreak. Lyrics posted to my LJ. Sorry for the long delay in updating. Thanks for waiting, and for reading.)