Attraction; it is the primary agent of natural selection among higher mammals. Hardier than their lesser cousins, these creatures cannot simply rely on those that are unfit to pass on their genes to simply die out. Instead, they rely on a complex system of biochemical responses to ensure that the most fit and most beneficial genes are selected on a personal level.

Humans tend to loathe comparing themselves to animals, even the stately primate, in all matters with the distinct exception of when it comes to attraction and passion. ‘Animal magnetism’, after all isn’t an incidental phrase. When it comes to procreation, humans will insist that they’re nothing but mammals and that they will pursue such in a manner best recorded in nature films.

This entire mentality is rooted in mammalian social interactions. Humans look to lions and wolves and other social animals where strength and aggression in males guarantees more mates and translate such into their own popular culture. The idea perpetuated by culture and by many embittered and introverted males is that it is a hard wired imperative in the female of the species to seek out the crude and aggressive.

But the truth is that when it comes to attraction and passion, we are an entirely different kind of animal.

“Where is he?!” Kay demanded of no one in particular. She was lying on her back, staring up at the rigging that hung over the auditorium stage. The other members of Snackrifice, sans Adel were also on stage with Cyn sitting in the empty auditorium seating. Her hair color for the day was a light blue usually reserved for carnival cotton candy.

“He’s never late like this.” Juniper said, letting her legs dangle off the stage whilst sitting in the heat of a spotlight. “Do you think he’s okay?”

“He won’t be if it turns out he blew off practice.” Kay intoned. “We’ve only got the place ‘til seven after all and we’re going to need to get a lot better if I’m going to convince AP Fairbanks to let us play prom.”

“About that…” Lisa said. “We’re playing the Dungeon pretty regularly now and we’ve been hired for that party at Big Run Lake – do we really have to play prom?”

Kay raised her head to give her friend an irritated look. “Do we have to—why wouldn’t we? We rock!”

“Well, it’s just that we played the Valentine’s dance and we missed the Sadie Hawkins dance because we were playing McMurray’s.” Lisa said, “I kind of hoped that I’d get to go to Junior prom with my boyfriend.”

Juniper nodded. “Don’t get me wrong, Kay, I love being in the band, but it would be nice to just go to a dance for a change instead of being the entertainment.”

Kay made a fake scoffing noise. “Oh look the girls with boyfriends are turning against me. No concept of sacrifice I tells ya.”

“Kay…” Lisa chided her friend.

Rolling over and getting to her feet, Kay dusted herself off. “Yeah, you guys are right; we are just a high school band after all.” She shrugged, “It’s all just for fun… you know until I get a band with talent.” With that, she stuck her tongue out at Lisa.

“Well, actually, Adel isn’t my boyfriend... yet.” Juniper said, completely missing the intervening parts of the conversation.

“That’s as close as Mr. Cardboard is going to get, Jun.” Cyn clucked sympathetically. “I mean we’ve done everything. JC and Warrick even took him to that sports bar Monday to try and get him out of his shell.”

Lisa nodded, “Yeah, sorry Juniper, but I don’t think there’s much of a future with him. He’s just not interested. And by that, I mean not interested in anything. Not you specifically. The only time he shows any emotion is when he’s drumming, really.”

“And he won’t be doing that anymore if he doesn’t get his butt in her right—“Kay was interrupted by the sound of the rears doors of the auditorium opening. “Speak of the devil.”

“You were talking about me?” Tink asked, pulling a dolly loaded down with boxes in the doors behind her. She had two coils of insulated wire draped over her shoulders and what looked like a tackle box in her free hand.

“No.” Kay said, “We’re waiting for Adel so we could practice.”

“I didn’t even know you guys were in here.” Tink shrugged, nearly unbalancing the coils around her neck. “Don’t mind me; I’m setting up the imaging machinery for the drama department.”

“I didn’t know you took drama.” Lisa said, picking up her bass to tune it.

Tink shook her head. “I don’t. But no one in drama this year wants to be the techie, so AP Fairbanks is paying me to do it. Pretty sweet gig, actually; twenty dollars an hour for two hours a day after school. Minimum wage, but I would have done it for free.”

“You know, this really isn’t like him.” Juniper said out of the blue.

“Like who?” Tink asked, hauling the dolly up the ramp off to the side of the stage.

“Adel.” Cyn offered. “She’s in mid-pine, don’t mind her.” She smirked seeing Juniper blush.

“Oh.” Tink said after a long pause, and then something sprang to mind. “Oh, speaking of pining, have you talked to Warrick about last night?”

“No.” Cyn shrugged. Normally, she’d make it a point to be unhelpful on that point, but the truth was unhelpful enough. “He came right home and went right to his room. I figured he was still sulking about Lisa railroading him into going with JC and Adel to the Shortstop.”

“He really doesn’t like sports.” Juniper added. “I thought he’d at least like baseball though. Who doesn’t like baseball? It’s America’s past time.”

“Like a hundred years ago.” Kay said. “Hockey’s the wave of the future. We should have gotten them hockey tickets; nothing makes men bond more than watching other men beat the crap out of each other.”

“It’s June, Kay.” Lisa said.

“Boxing, then. Or stunt course. Something involving personal injury. Guys like that stuff.”

“That’s probably why.” Tink said, thoughtfully.

“Er…what happened?” Cyn asked, curiosity overriding her common sense.

Tink shrugged the cables off and started rummaging through the top box on the dolly. “Well… last night, we went to the movies and he… kissed me.”

Lisa snorted, affecting a faux southern accent. “Well have mercy, yo’ reputation is sho’lee ruined.” Snapping back to her normal voice, she continued, “Seriously, this isn’t like the turn of the century when everyone was crazy repressed. What’s the big deal?”

Tink’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not a prude and… and well we have kissed before. But this… it wasn’t right. I mean there’s a kiss, there’s a kiss and there’s the kind of thing you don’t want any guy ever doing. This was option ‘c’.

“I know what you mean.” Juniper said, nodding sagely. The others paused to give her confused looks. “What? I’ve had other boyfriends before, you know. And just so you know, I didn’t like it either.”

“And now I’m going to nee to bleach my brain.” Cyn declared, wondering if she could simply self erase that part of her mind. She simply couldn’t picture Juniper as anything more than the annoyingly perky china doll that lived down the hall.

“Anyway,” Tink continued, finally locating the electrical tape in the box. “I told him off and he just stormed out of the theatre. He hasn’t talked to me all day.”

“That doesn’t sound like Warrick at all.” Juniper proclaimed the obvious.

“Unless JC’s been getting to him.” Lisa said ruefully. “Every once in a while, he decides to take the bad boy angle. It annoys the hell out of me and I’m sure he knows it.”

“Even JC wouldn’t get all pissy about it though.” Kay said. “Kaine must have been watching too many movies.”

“I’d like to know what’s going on in any case.” Tink said, unrolling a length of cable. “I’ve had a lot of fun with him and I’d hate to think he’s really a prick underneath it all.”

“Now that’s crazy.” Cyn jumped to her friend’s defense. “He may get delusions of grandeur sometimes and not get the point a lot of the time, but he’s a good guy and he’s certainly not a perv.” She crossed her arms. “The day Warrick Kaine becomes a sex fiend is the day I join Lilly’s little conserve cult.”

“I know what happened.” Tink said, “I’m just hoping there’s a good explanation.”

“There is.” Juniper said, “I’m sure of it.”

The door at the back of the auditorium opened to admit the two primary topics of conversation; Warrick and Adel.

Adel was missing his usual baggy clothes, dressed in a close fitting shirt and jeans that showed off his impressive physique and made him look less like the slouching ape he normally seemed to be and more like a four color comic book hero. He even walked with his back straight and a spark of confidence in his eyes.

Warrick was also more cleaned up, but lacked the build to look like anything but the number one. His normally unruly hair was slicked back out of his eyes, which looked over the girls in an unsettlingly predatory manner.

“You’re late!” Kay roared.

“I had things to do.” Adel said offhand, “I’m here now though. Let’s jam.”

Everyone in the auditorium would have been stunned to have heard Adel’s voice from five paces; hearing it echoing in the room was enough to floor them.

“Y-yeah…” Kay said dumbly. “Just get up here.” Walking stiffly, she moved toward her keyboard.

Tink looked up from laying cable and waved to Warrick. He ignored her and took a seat next to Cyn, draping his arm around her. Tink’s eyes narrowed, Cyn’s bucked. “Wait, what?” she managed.

Dropping her tape, Tink crossed the stage and hopped down. It was a struggle to keep her voice steady, she approached her boyfriend. “Warrick, about last night…” she started.

“What’s there to talk about?” Warrick asked, “You’re not in the same place as me; that’s cool. Good luck with the next guy, you know?” The sentiment was dripping with venom.

Tink was dumbstruck for a moment. “Wait. You—look, last night, you were like a totally different guy!”

Warrick shrugged, “Look, a guy’s only going to attend so many university lectures and robot shows without expecting something.” He made a face that was halfway between a sly gaze and a smug frown, “I thought you were a smart girl… guess not in all aspects, huh?”

“The lecture on rare earth metals was your idea!” Tink exploded.

Unfazed, Warrick laughed, “Yeah, right. Something I knew you’d enjoy. Like I’d enjoy all that loser crap.”

Cyn slipped out from under his arm. “What the hell is up with you?” she demanded. “Loser crap? Warrick, you are the king of loser crap! We just hit level 75 on Death Gate together two days ago. You’re planning a trip to Oni-con this summer – You have a Whitecoat bobblehead keyring you bought out of the back of a comic book!”

Ignoring the unfolding drama, Adel came to stand by Juniper who was actually managing to ignore him as she watched the bizarre scene laid before her. He cleared his throat to get her attention.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, her usual warm smile coming out once more. “Hi, Adel.”

“Hey.” He returned, vaulting up onto the stage and taking a seat beside her. “So, you busy after practice?” She shook her head. “Good, we’ll go get something to eat. Golden Wok good with you?”

Juniper’s eyes widened. Adel Miller was asking her out! The boy she’d crushed on for months! But why didn’t it seem right? It probably had something to do with it being totally out of character for him… but who was she to argue?

“Y-yeah, that’s… good.” She nodded.

“The hell he is!” Warrick exploded. Standing up, he breezed past both incensed women to stomp up to Adel. “We’re going to McMurray’s tonight.” He declared.

“Oh, come on.” Adel complained.

Warrick put a hand on the other young man’s shoulder and applied a painful amount of pressure. “You. Have. A car.” Warrick explained. “We need the car to get to McMurray’s. Got me?” his voice became a growl at the end.

Wincing, Adel nodded. “Yeah, I got ya.” He wheezed.

“Good.” Warrick said. “I need to find JC. See you after practice.” He turned to walk away. “Don’t worry, tomorrow’s Friday night, date night. You can take Jun to the Golden Wok then. In fact,” he threw a lecherous wink in Cyn’s direct, “We can double.”

With that, he walked out of the auditorium.

“What in the flying hell was that?!” Cyn pointed at the door.

“That was you becoming Lilly’s new best friend.” Tink said bitterly.

“God damn it.” Adel cursed, pounding a fist onto the stage, “Now I need to go to my brother’s and get his car.”

“Maybe you should call first and make sure it’s okay to borrow it.” Juniper offered.

“Heh. Borrow.” Adel said, sliding off the stage and walking away.

“Whoa, there sparky.” Kay said, “You just got here. We need to practice.”

“No time.” Adel said, slamming the door behind him.

It took more muscles that a person typically has in their face to keep Kay’s jaw from dropping. Luckily, her neck and chest pitched in on the Herculean effort. “Okay, someone either point out the camera or start explaining and I’m not signing any disclaimer.”

“I’ve got work to do.” Tink huffed, heading back to the stage.

“Oh, no you aren’t.” Cyn said, stepping deftly in front of her. “That—“she pointed at the door, “was not Warrick Kaine and the man with the personality and the smoothness; that was certainly not slouchy, sullen, Adel Mills.”

“You’re saying they’re pod people?” Tink asked bitterly.

“Hey, he’s your boyfriend.” Cyn said with an accusatory note, “And I thought you cared about the guy.” She looked over to Juniper. “You too, Princess. Seriously, we’ve got psionics and robots and that crazy…” she didn’t want to call Mauler a demon and reveal how much she knew as an ‘average’ student, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to call it a psionic, “…green… body snatching thing running around and you’re going to just call those mood swings?!”

She struck a pose that wouldn’t be out of place on a comic cover. “Well sisters, I know mood swings and those are mood tilta-whirls and I don’t buy it.” She pointed to Lisa. “Right now, Warrick or as I’ll call him, Kcirraw the Pretender, is on his way to find JC. Are you going to let that happen?”

“Even if that’s the case,” Lisa said, well aware of the distinct possibility after the Mauler case, “What do you suppose we do about it?”

“Follow them.” Cyn said, “Kcirraw the Pretender said they were going to McMurray’s.”

“You’re really sticking your neck out for his benefit, aren’t you?” Tink didn’t let Cyn answer, “But I’m in. Not because I think he deserves a second chance after that, but because I’ve always wanted to play spy. Maybe it’ll make me feel better.”

Juniper hopped off the stage, “If something bad’s happened to Adel, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t do anything.”

Lisa gave Kay an apologetic look. “Practice looks like a bust today.” She nodded to Cyn, “You’ll need a car. I’m in.”

“Actually,” Cyn said with a devilish grin, “I’ve got a better car…”

-- • --

Ten minutes later, the five young women found themselves three blocks from the high school, walking along the sidewalk past a coffee house/bookstore that was known to be a popular hang out for seniors.

Cyn was proudly in the lead as they turned into the store’s parking lot. “I got it Monday and I thought it’d be much cooler to show everyone this weekend when we had time to ride around.” She stopped before a boxy behemoth with a gold paintjob. It wasn’t so much parked as it was crouched, waiting for the other cars to let their guard down so it could kill and devour them.

“The American Auto-cars Ares Humvee: Platinum Edition.” Cyn said proudly gesturing to her new vehicle. “It is to cars what the lion is to cats in general and what the mighty great white shark is to fish.”

Kay’s eyes grew to three times normal. “Whoa…” she murmured. She was in love. It only lasted a moment before she rounded on Juniper. “You knew about this and didn’t tell me?!”

“She said I’d have to take the bus instead of riding with her if I told.” Juniper admitted, hanging her head. “I-it has heated seats. I’m only human.”

“It’s June!” Kay exclaimed, “How can you even think of heated seats this time of year.

“I like being warm.” Juniper defended.

Lisa smirked. “How did you afford this? I mean these things cost almost as much as a flier. My aunt is… was… loaded and even she couldn’t afford one.”

“Laurel knows someone in the industry.” Cyn lied, “This is one of the prototypes with a custom paint job. Still pretty sweet though, right?”

Tink nodded, running an expert eye over the machine. “That it is.” She said, “But why did Ms. Brant pull so many strings for you? She’s just the manager at Freeland after all.”

“You may be going with Warrick,” Cyn said haughtily, “but you don’t know how it is at Freeland House. We’re really close—we look out for one another. Laurel’s more of a parent to me than mine ever were.” She added the last part almost inaudibly.

“She offered to do the same for Warrick and I.” Juniper chimed in. “But we both thought it’d be better to work for our first cars.” She finished with a sage nod.

“I need to have a talk with him about gift horses and their mouths…” Tink said, “I mean it’s really nice that he wants to earn it, but seriously, it’d take a Midas touch to get the money to get a car this nice.”

Cyn snorted for reasons Tink couldn’t comprehend. She covered, by laughing. “Hey, we agree on something, copper-top. He’s a good guy, but there’s such a thing as too good.”

A mischievous smile spread of Kay’s face. “I thought both of you were mad at him for being a pervy bastard.”

Waving a dismissive hand, Cyn unlocked the giant truck’s doors. “That wasn’t him and that’s why we’re following his handsey doppelganger. Come on, ladies, mount up. We need to be in the school parking lot before evil Adel gets back.”

“Okay, they’re not going anywhere near McMurray’s.” Kay watched Warrick, JC and Adel weaving through traffic ahead of them. She was riding shotgun and splitting her attention between following the pursuit and fiddling with all the built in gadgetry in Cyn’s new ride.

“So they’re acting sleazy and heading into a sleazy part of town.” Tink said flatly.

“That they’ve never been to before.” Lisa added.

“The evil twin theory is starting to have merit.” Tink admitted, “There’s an amateur robot battle arena in the back lot of a hardware store here. Warrick freaked out at the idea of me going—said he was worried something might happen. I doubt he’d come here voluntarily.”

Cyn smiled inwardly. This neighborhood was on several patrol routes due to it’s gang activity. Alloy especially prowled it often hoping to break up some of the more violent offenders. “Right.” She said aloud. “And while JC talks him into some dumb stuff, wandering around gangland isn’t something he’d be into.”

“M-maybe we should call someone…” Juniper said. It was as close as she could get to suggesting bringing the other Descendants in on the situation.

“We have no idea what’s going on.” Lisa objected. “There’s nothing illegal about driving through a bad neighborhood, so right now it’s pretty much Tina and I stalking our boyfriends and you stalking your crush.”

“What about us?” Kay grinned, pointing between Cyn and herself.

“You’re just being weird and creepy, dear.” Lisa laughed.

“Awesome.” Kay grinned back at her.

Cyn nodded. “Nothing serious is happening yet, you’re right. And really, if they really are evil pods bent on assimilating and hitting on the human race, who wants to share the glory of defeating them?” She looked up to see Adel pulling into the parking lot of a strip mall containing a Jiffy-Mart, dry cleaners, karate dojo, check cashing center, and a sensory deprivation ‘clinic’.

“What do you think, girls?” Tink asked, looking at the place while Cyn discreetly drove by. “Are they here to pay money to sit in a dark box, to make their kung fu stronger, or to deal with stubborn grass stains on delicate fabric?”

A man and a woman sat in the office of the dojo, watching the main room through a two-way mirror. Warrick, JC and Adel had just entered, bringing the number of arrivals to seven.

“One hundred percent success rate.” The man said, with a smug smile. He was of Anglo descent, in his late teens or early twenties with a head full of long, brown hair tied back in a bushy pony tail. His eyes were hidden by a pair of red tinted sunglasses.

“If you’re so good, why did you have to call them here? Couldn’t you have told them what to do when you first came in contact with them?” She was dark skinned with a mane of black hair cascading over her shoulders. The loose blouse and skirt she was wearing hung off her perfectly, never gathering or bunching.

“Don’t tell me how to do my job.” He said sharply. “It doesn’t work that way. Yes, I could have and then we’d only have a thirty-five to forty percent chance they’d obey. I had to condition them first.” He glared at her. “If your boss—“

“Partner.” The woman corrected.

“Partner. If he’d given me better time tables instead of having me shunt between Mayfield, New York and Atlanta, I’d have had time after first contact to do more direct alterations. Emotion balancing and suggestion was the best I could do since I wasn’t able to be in town yesterday. You’re lucky we managed.”

“I’ll pass that along, Thunderhead.” The woman said, drolly.

“You do that.” He said, “And while I’m in Mayfield, I’m Eduardo Vorran, if you please.”

“Funny, you don’t look like an Eduardo.” The woman mused. “All these names; You’d think you were having a crisis or something.”

“I didn’t before meeting you two.” Vorran snapped. “And if I could figure out how you’re blocking me, I’d make you forget all about me.”

She laughed, which made him glare even harder. “Once everything is up and running, Someone else can become Vorran, Sims and Qin. But right now, we need your talents to build up those men’s criminal enterprises.”

“I thought you said these were going to be cannon fodder.” He waved a hand to indicate the restless young men in the dojo. “To draw out whatever countermeasures Liedecker’s been putting together in response to the Tongs.”

“They are.” The woman said, “but with luck, they’ll also be the seeds of Eduardo Vorran’s organization. You can make it permanent in normals, yes?”

Vorran nodded. “It takes a week or two, but yeah. Longer for psionics. I’m guessing you knew that though; seeing as how you only asked me to push the Tongs into this arms race?”

The woman nodded. “You’re bright.”

“That’s why they call me Thunderhead.” Vorran said, “My synapses fire one hundred times more often than a normal human being’s. I’m not hypercognitive, but it does make me smarter than most.”

“Good.” She gestured at the young men outside. “Show me what you can do.”

Vorran/Thunderhead stood up and moved toward the door. “If Liedecker does have countermeasures, will I have any back up?”

“Only if you need it.”

“Man, why are we here?” JC demanded, leaning against the wall. “And who are these guys supposed to be?” He jerked a thumb at the other four young men.

“Don’t look at me.” Warrick shrugged, “Mills was driving.” His eyes narrowed. “I thought I told you we were going to McMurray’s.”

“You’re the one that led us in here.” JC alleged.

“Wait a minute.” The voice came from a tall, dark man in his twenties with shoulders enough for two men. “You three don’t know why you’re here?” He gestured to the man beside him, a man with a nest of dreadlocks on his head and a flannel shirt. “Neither do we. Just what the hell is going on here?”

“Someone better explain something.” Adel said, teeth on edge, “Because some son of a bitch made me break off time from something real nice for this bullshit.”

“Like you would have done anything.” Warrick scoffed. “She’s been after you since the beginning of the year and all you’ve done is mumble like you’re touched in the brain.”

“You’re one to talk.” Adel shot back, “Hanging around that geek girl so long and just now pulling something? And what happened? She shot you down.”

“Wait, whoa, hold on.” JC said, throwing up his hands. He looked at Warrick like he’d never seen him before. “You tried something on Tina? Holy shit, did hell freeze over? When did you get balls.” He rounded on Adel, “And come to think of it, when did you get the ability to talk?! That shit’s a lot freakier than wandering into this place.”

Outside, Kay made a face. “There goes the pod people explanation, Cyn.” She whispered, “pod people would have… you know, some basic idea of what’s going on.” All five were crouched outside the large windows at the front of the dojo, trying to watch and listen without being seen.

“This is getting really weird.” Tink shook her head. “There’s four other guys that had this happen to them?”

“At least.” Cyn said. “Keep on the lookout for more coming.”

“That still doesn’t explain how any of us got here.” The man that had interrupted them said.

“I believe I can explain that.” All heads in the room turned to see a man with long hair, dressed in a crisp, white button down shirt and suit pants coming out of the door to the back office. He wore red tinted sunglasses that hid his eyes. “Not that you’ll remember any of this later.”

“What the hell are you talking about?!” a teen in jeans and a Blinded by Radiance T-shirt snarled, stepping toward the newcomer with menacing intent.

“Sit.” The man said. Stumbling in mid charge, the teen crumpled to his knees until he landed hard on his rump. “Actually, all of you sit.” Everyone else complied in a similar manner. “Good. Judging by your faces, none of you remember me, which is exactly the way I like it. I am your new employer, Eduardo Vorran. We all met at the Shortstop sports bar, where I implanted the suggestion that summoned you all here.”

If anyone had any questions, Vorran didn’t let them ask them.

He chuckled at their blank stares. “I was never good at sports, never really cared for them. But I’ll be damned if they aren’t useful. The perfect place to find young males who fit the demographic for common criminals. Oh, I know you aren’t common criminals. Not yet at least. After tonight, not so much though. Welcome to the all new Vorran crime syndicate.

“I’m starting to think forcing the boys to try bonding with Adel was a bad plan.” Lisa said in a small voice.

“I don’t.” Cyn said, “I mean, what are the chances that the one night they give in and do it, the very same sports bar would become the hunting ground for a brain blowing megalomaniac.” She sighed, “Probably better than I’d think. Ah well, we’d better bust in and make him fix them.”

She started to get up, but Tink caught her arm. “Wait a minute.” She hissed, “This guy’s a telepath, right? Mind controlling, psychic blasts, that kind of thing?”

“Pretty much, yes.” Cyn nodded, and started to move again.

Tink pulled her back. “Oh, then what makes you think he won’t just take us over too?” Cyn’s jaw worked, but no words came out. Tink nodded. “Right. So we need a plan.”

“We should really call for help, Cyn.” Juniper whispered, hoping the white haired girl would get the hint.

“Who? The cops?” Kay asked.

“Then he’d have pawns with badges and guns.” Tink dismissed the idea. “No, we need to get this guy by surprise—before he can try to take us over.”

Irony being what it is, it was about that time that Lisa started sneezing. Not a single, large sneeze, but a series of small but explosive ones that went on for about half a minute.

Inside the dojo, Vorran paused in his speech to look to the window.

“Hey, JC said, “that sounds like…”

Vorran closed his eyes and focused. He found five minds just outside the window, full of panic and turmoil. “Spies.” He spat, amping up the suggestions he’d be laying into his captive audience during his speech. “Kill them.”

-- • --

When a mentalist in the movies, TV or comic books told people under his sway ‘kill them’, they generally lumbered forward like mindless zombies to do his bidding until something (usually the sight of a loved one or a good, solid blow to the head—which are essentially the same thing.) allowed them to overcome his or her control.

It didn’t work that way for Thunderhead, alias Eduardo Vorran. He suspected there existed minds in the world so utterly subservient on every level of consciousness that one really would respond to direct commands like that instantly, but he’d never met one.

The average human brain fought back. It always sought rationality and equilibrium, ignoring or even suppressing ideas and concepts that seemed to deviate too far from its established norms. Unless it was used to killing people simply because it was told to it wouldn’t. Then it would start noticing the other flaws in the mentalist’s control and start correcting them and then it would all be over.

For Vorran, mind control was like a swan; graceful to the eye, but there was still a lot of work going on under the water. At the speed of thought, he rode the pathways between synapses, searching for what already existed.

The average person changed personas like they would change clothes and rarely noticed it. The loving partner, the angry driver, the fearful child; many hundreds of emotions and mannerisms boiled beneath the surface of every human being even if they never admitted it, even if they never knew it, even if they never exhibited it.

Vorran exerted his control by stimulating the id, then finding the persona deep within a person that thought what he wanted them to do was a desirable option; fudging details and replacing emotional connections as needed to achieve the desired effects. As elegant as his speeches were in his mind, he was still performing the mental equivalent of hotwiring the brain.

Anger flashed across the faces of the seven young men as they caught sight of the spies. Even in those that recognized the faces now had new emotions attached to that recognition. As a mass, they charged for the door.

“Okay, back to the car.” Cyn said.

“But JC knew my sneeze.” Lisa said, staring blankly. Kay and Tink both took an arm and started pulling her back to the car. “That means he’s in there somewhere, right? Maybe we can reach them.”

“Yes, while the other six beat you and the ringleader plays around in your brain.” Cyn said, throwing open the driver’s side door. The engine roared to life and the headlights came on with blinding brilliance.

More than a physical match for the other two girls, Lisa shrugged out of their grasps. For a brief moment, she considered force globing Vorran’s unwilling minions. She wasn’t sure how it worked, but it was possible that it could block his control. She always kept a single marble and a piece of glass handy to conjure up her signature spells on the fly.

But Cyn was right. What was worse, if Vorran saw her casting spells, he’d know what she could do and try to take hr over. Then everyone would have a much bigger problem on their hands. Reluctantly, she turned and ran for the Ares.

She closed the door not a second too soon as the mob of mind controlled men got out the door and dashed at them across the parking lot. Removed form their normal sense of limitation and safety, they were astoundingly fast.

Cyn saw Warrick bringing up the rear and unconsciously noted the other cars in the parking lot around her. Way too much metal to be safe. Even if they were in a big aluminum cage anyway, there was not reason to stack the deck further against them. She threw the car into reverse and stomped the accelerator.

The big Ares rolled over the curb, across the sidewalk and into traffic in a surge of speed that belied its bulk. Cyn didn’t bother looking at her pursuers before throwing it into gear and gunning it down the street.

With their quarry swiftly outpacing them, the mind controlled young men all turned their eyes to their leader who stood in the doorway frowning. “Need I remind you that you drove here?” He asked. There was no need to apply more of his power for that one. He simply needed to overcome the problem solving deficiencies inherent to letting the id run free.

Nodding grimly, all seven headed to the cars they’d arrived in. Vorran caught Warrick and another man by the shoulders. “Except you two. Come with me.”

Tink looked out the rear window as three cars roared onto the street in pursuit. “Okay, what do we do now?” She asked warily. She turned around and flopped down in her seat. “Oh my god, we’re being chased by people under honest to god mind control. What the hell? Who does this happen to?”

“Welcome to Mayfield, copper-top.” Cyn said dryly.

“We are fifth in paranormal activity per capita.” Juniper offered, “And have the third largest population of psionics in the world. Oh, not to mention the booming robotics and software industry that makes new breakthroughs yearly while drawing a fringe crowd.” She shrugged, “It makes us pretty ripe for things like this.”

Tink looked at Juniper as if she was from another planet. “That is definitely not helping.”

“I was just explaining.” Juniper said, a bit sadly. “Look, I’m worried about the boys too. And it’s weird, I know, but knowing its weird isn’t going to help, is it?” Tink grimaced and shook her head. “And you’re really smart, Warrick says so. So we need you to help us figure out what to do now.”

Tink took a long, deep breath and nodded. She looked back at the cars. “Okay, we need a way to undo this, right? Fix this before Warrick and the others kill us, or someone has to hurt them to save us. The easiest way is to do that is take out the psychic guy, right? But he’ll try to take us over too, so… what? We block his signal? Tin foil hats, maybe?”

A vision of a rapidly contracting piece of foil slicing open a head like a cantaloupe flashed before Cyn’s eyes. “No!” she said, and then caught her self. “Tin foil… that’s… that’s stupid! It’s an urban legend. You can’t stop a mentalist with tin foil!”

“Lead?” Tink asked, folding her arms across her chest.

Was lead a metal? Cyn wondered. She conjured up a mental periodic table and checked. Yes, yes it was. “Nope, won’t work.”

“Are you shooting down all my ideas because of Warrick?” Tink demanded.

Cyn nearly lost control of the car. “What?! No!”

“Are you sure, because you didn’t seem to be protesting too much when he put his arm around you.”

An angelic chorus couldn’t have properly put into song the relief that Cyn felt. “Oh, is that all? I mean, no. No, of course not.”

“Uh, can we catfight after we get a plan?” Lisa asked, looking at the little monitor across the top of the windshield that showed a panoramic view of everything behind the vehicle, “They’re gaining on us.”

Juniper closed her eyes. It wasn’t fair. Adel had finally asked her out only to have it turn out to be mind control. And now he and Warrick (among others) were trying to kill her. They couldn’t use their powers without giving away who they were to Lisa, Kay and Tina and they couldn’t run for long; the Ares was an ungodly electricity hog that would need a recharge soon after a week of Cyn ‘breaking it in’ followed by a car chase.

She tried to imagine how a normal person without powers (or at least without helpful powers) would handle the situation, but discarded it on the grounds that screaming and praying probably wouldn’t help. So what would a person quirky enough to don a costume and fight villains and save lives do if they found themselves without powers?

“What do we have?” she suddenly asked, interrupting the current argument between Tink and Cyn.

“Huh?” Kay asked.

“To work with.” Juniper said. “I think we’re going to have to fight back. Do we have anything we can use? I mean we don’t want to hurt them, but we may have to knock them out or scare them off. Cyn and I have taken self defense classes, what about the rest of you?” ‘Self defense classes’ meant Jeet Kune Do lessons from Laurel, but to the untrained eye, martial arts were pretty much interchangeable.

“I’ve got my little taser.” Tink said, producing her pink and blue kitten keychain, which did duty as a laser pointer, penlight and incredibly powerful assailant deterrent all in one. “And my multitool – It’s got knives in it, but stabbing them is decidedly not non-lethal. If we had some other electronics or something, I may be able to put something together.”

Kay rummaged in her bag and came up with a can of hairspray. “We could do the old ‘hairspray flame thrower’ bit. That’ll scare ‘em. Aaannnd…” she produced a thumb sized device made of white plastic. “A police band scanner. Can you do something with this, Tink?”

Tink nodded, “I can try. At the very least, I can use the battery to get another shot with my taser.” She frowned. “I wish my pen light’s bulb was brighter, I could blind them.”

Kay’s eyes lit up and she pulled a credit card sized device out of her bag. “Will a digi-cam flash do?”

“Perfectly.” Tink nodded.

“I left my bag at school.” Lisa said with a frown. “But I’m not bad in a fight.”

“I’d say.” Kay snorted, “Remember middle school? When you would have to beat up Randy Macon every week so he’d stop sneaking into the girl’s locker room?”

“Towards the end there, I think he was getting to like it.” Lisa sniffed, “Until I got the sock full of marbles at least.”

“Get this woman something heavy to swing at people.” Cyn declared. The car shook as one of the pursuing cars slammed sideways into them. It was no match in size for Cyn’s gargantuan machine, but nonetheless she had to fight to stay on the road. “Oh, you sons of bitches.” She hissed, “You better not be screwing up my paint job.”

“Okay, we can fight, and Tina is making something to help us.” Juniper said, watching the teenaged mechanist working on removing the flash from Kay’s camera. “That should protect us from the brainwashed guys, right?”

“Yeah, but only as long as we don’t get brain blown ourselves.” Cyn said. “The Vorran guy is the big problem we need to find a way to deal with him.” Juniper nodded dutifully and sank into thought.

“Wow, I didn’t know she had this in her.” Kay whispered to Lisa, watching Juniper turn the situation over in her head.

“Well, she’s so quiet.” Lisa added, “Who knew?”

Once more, the Ares shook as a car was hurled into it. But this time, it kept pressing, pushing the rear wheels into a spin that sent the whole thing careening into and then through a wooden wall into a construction site.

For a horrifying moment, the humvee hung, spinning in air, its passengers screaming and screwing their eyes shut to avoid seeing the ground rushing up to meet them. At some point, they thought they heard Lisa praying in Spanish.

That moment stretched on far longer than it should have for the heavy vehicle to fall five stories into the deep pit in which a new apartment complex was being built in. But three of the five women inside didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth when the tires hit gravel and skidded down a slope of it to the bottom of the pit where it stopped.

Lisa let out a long breath. She’d never levitated something so heavy and moving so fast. But she’d succeeded and they were alive. And engine roared and there was a cracking sound as the barricade blocking the ramp down into the pit was broken by a car driving down it at full speed. Well, for the time being, they were alive.

Cyn looked and saw the car that had crashed the barrier and the two that followed. “Out of the car.” She said quietly, then repeated it louder. “Out of the car!”

The five stumbled out, finding themselves on uneven footing in the gravel at the foot of the still skeletal building.

“Is there any way out?” Juniper asked.

“None that the cars wouldn’t beat us to.” Kay groaned, keeping an eye on the oncoming headlights.

“Then we go where they can’t.” Lisa said, pointing to a nearby construction elevator, then up to the top of the building. “We can get to the street using that crane.”

Cyn looked up at the unfinished building. The tower of steel and rebar. “Bu—“

“No buts.” Tink said, “I don’t get why you’re suddenly arguing with me over everything, but I’m not going to stand here and die, okay?” She took Cyn roughly by the arm and pulled her after the others who were already boarding the elevator. Juniper gave Cyn a worried look indicating she understood as they began to rise.

Unrestrained panic warred with Cyn’s natural baselines, spite and pride. The last thing she wanted to do was to make Tink think she was jealous of her and she couldn’t very well explain to her why climbing into a matrix of steel was a bad plan. But at the same time, she felt like the redhead was pulling her and the others into a burning building.

She rummaged through her conflicting emotions, she didn’t notice that they’d stopped rising until she heard Kay exclaim. “Oh shit.”

“Why are you saying that?” Tink asked, stepping past the short Native American toward the target of Kay’s comment. “We’re freaking saved?!”

Cyn looked up and went cold, even as some part of her hindbrain wondered why Kay would be responding to the situation the way she was.

In front of Tink stood a figure in all too familiar armor. It was a configuration she remembered from a time when Warrick had though she’d been killed when he’d called his armor. The armor’s form mimicked Alloy’s state of mind and at the moment, he looked positively demonic.

“Oh thank god, Alloy!” Tink exclaimed, “Erm, Mr. Alloy.” Tink started with a relieved air, but her speech increased in tempo as she went. “We’re being chased by people—actually they’re brainwashed lackeys for this guy Vorran and he’s turned my boyfriend and her,” she pointed to Lisa, “boyfriend, and her” she pointed to Juniper, “crush against us and we’re trying to stop them without hurting them. But now we’ve got a genuine prelate on our side!” She turned and smiled broadly at her friends, who all wore various expressions of horror and shock on their faces. “Come on, girls! Uh, girls?”

With her back turned, she didn’t see Alloy raise his arm. Nor did she see a flow of metal snake up his arm and form a single, razor sharp talon extending for a two feet from his wrist over his middle knuckle. “Unfortunately for you.” Alloy intoned his voice cold and strangely devoid of the Brooklyn accent Juniper and Cyn had been expecting, “I know all about it.”

-- • --

“Unfortunate?” Tink asked, half turning to direct her question at Alloy. The blade descended.

There was a blur of white hair as Cyn slammed into Tink, causing both to fall sideways under the striking blade. The two women rolled for several yards until they came to a stop against a portable generator.

Tink was the first one up, having landed on top of Cyn. “H-he just attacked us!” She gaped.

“That’s what I was trying to tell you.” Cyn groaned. “I mean look at the armor? Does that look like ‘knight in shining’ type armor to you?” She got to her feet as the armored prelate drew back the blade and readied for a charge.

“Get to the crane!” Juniper said in a surprisingly polite tone to Kay and Juniper as she darted forward. Bending one knee to drop herself low, she lashed out with other leg and kicked Alloy in the back of the knee.

True, he was heavily armored and that armor was made even more impenetrable by his powers. But it also meant that Alloy was wearing incredibly heavy metal armor that tended to keep moving once it got going. Like she had done more than once in sparring practice, Juniper planted the kick perfectly, causing Alloy’s knee to buckle. He came down face first with a clang. The wooden plank floor complained loudly at the sudden impact.

Wasting no time, Lisa and Kay made a break for the crane. They didn’t get far before they were caught in the glares of numerous headlights. A great bulk rose before them.

It was vaguely human in shape, lacking a head and with wide, round feet to keep itself upright. During normal working hours, it would be occupied by a construction worker sitting in the central cavity of the eight foot tall, yellow painted frame. Now, the heavy construction frame was unmanned and seemingly operating on its own. The grasping pinchers on its left arm snapped open and closed menacingly as it ponderously stomped toward them.

Tink took several deep breaths as she and Cyn ducked behind the generator. “We can’t let Juniper go up against a prelate.” She said in a whisper, which was all she could manage, “I don’t care what martial arts she knows.”

“We could probably outrun him.” Cyn said, peeking over the generator and noting that Isp and Osp weren’t out. “But him and that construction frame? We’ve got to figure something else out.”

Tink nodded. She’d followed all the news stories about the Descendants. Alloy’s metal control meant that the entire construction site was a deathtrap while he was presumably under Vorran’s control. Could her taser even tickle him through all that armor?

Probably not. The best she’d end up doing by running current through his armor would be… She looked at the generator and the generous coil of insulated wire turned over the spool attached to it. “I know this sounds nuts, Cyn, but you need to distract him.”

“Say what?” Cyn raised an eyebrow. She could if she could become Facsimile. Hell, she could probably beat him, armor be damned, but keeping up the illusion of normalcy wouldn’t last long if her friends saw her take a blade through the chest. Wryly, she considered that she could easily become someone else in the event that Cyn ‘died’.

“I need some time.” Tink said, pulling out her multitool and opening one of the knife blades. “Please, this’ll work, I just need time.”

Cyn nodded and vaulted over the generator.

Lisa stepped in front of Kay, placing herself between her friend and the machine. Faintly, she heard the elevator come to life on its own behind her and start its trip back to ground level. How was this thing standing on its own? She’s seen construction frames before and none of them worked by remote. Unbidden, her magical senses became active and confirmed that its wasn’t magic that made the thing run on its own.

“I don’t have much choice…” she said quietly and with a bit of sadness. Her hands went to the small of her back where one of the glowing spheres that controlled the glammer that made her into occult was hidden.

“I’ve got a choice though.” Kay replied, ducking her head She ran past Lisa, toward the rogue device.

The snapping pincher missed her, unable to reach down far enough to reach its diminutive attacker. In a whirlwind of light blue hair, Kay was inside the thing’s reach and had a foot on the bottom step supplied to allow an operator to enter the armor’s cabin.

Unable to reach her, the machine began to rock violently, trying to dislodge her, but she held on with bulldog tenacity. Kicking up, she found herself in the cabin, amid gently glowing controls that surrounded the pilot’s harness. With a wicked grin, she found the ignition dial and snapped it to the off position.

The head lights died first, then the frame sank to it’s knees, totally shut down.

Kay maintained her wicked grin as she looked to a completely dumbstruck Lisa. “Nameless robot mooks are the sidekick’s job.” She declared.

The metal blade protruding from Alloy’s wrist melted back into his armor so he could use that arm to help lever himself off the floor. It took a lot of concentration to manipulate the armor’s joints to allow him to force himself back to standing with his powers as his own muscles weren’t strong enough to get the job done.

Juniper was standing there, maintaining a loose fighting stance as if she was seriously going to try and take him on hand to hand. He sneered under his helmet. It was going to be almost too easy to… what? Why was he doing this again? The brain was beginning to notice the cracks and correct.

Anymore thoughts were cut short by the giant gong that had suddenly rang out all around his head. In his metal sense, he felt the minor stress of impact on the back of his head and turned to investigate.

Cyn stood by the elevator, hefting a heavy-duty riveter, which she used immediately to fire another bolt that pinged off his armored temple, making another cacophony of terrible noise. That’s why he was going to kill him, the subliminal suggestions left by Vorran reasserted themselves, these girls pissed him off.

“That’s enough!” his voice was a hoarse and feral snarl. The floor around Cyn exploded as a piece of animated rebar lash upward and looped her neck, jerking her painfully into the air. She hung there, choking; the riveter fell from her hands.

“Let. Her.” Tink stood from behind the generator, the sweat from combined terror and exertion matting her hair to her forehead. “Go!” She threw the switch that engaged the hydrogen fuel cell inside the generator.

There was a loud hum and Alloy’s metal sense was vaguely aware of the sharp sense of electricity coursing through metal. He normally only sensed it in high voltage lines; now it was coursing through—his gaze finally found a pair of wires coiled around a vertical steel girder.

Too late, he remembered the physics project he, Tink, JC and Juniper had done in February: electromagnetism. By the time he realized it; he was already flying headlong into the girder. Then everything went black for a while.

Tink blinked as she watched Alloy slam into the girder and slump unconscious. “I just beat a prelate.” She said quietly. “I just beat one of the city’s biggest badasses by jury-rigging! Holy hell, I feel like the most powerful woman in the universe! I could totally fight crime now!”

“Still in mid-peril here, copper-top.” Cyn choked.

“You most certainly are.” The elevator rose to reveal Vorran who was flanked by JC, Adel and the dreadlock headed man from earlier. He regarded Alloy with an air of disappointment. “I’m impressed that you managed that, but as luck would have it—that being my good luck and your bad luck—he’s not the only psionic I managed to ensnare.”

With a grand gesture, he directed their attention to the crane, where lights came on, revealing the broad shouldered black man they’d seen in the dojo earlier. “Allow me to introduce Martin Hill, technopath.”

The ignition dial twisted in Kay’s hand and the machine came to life, standing with the would be sidekick inside.

“And as for you ladies.” He said to Juniper and Tink, completely ignoring Cyn. “I’ll make you a deal – if you beat these guys before they kill you; you can join my organization instead of them.” His brainwashed minions stepped forward, ready to kill on command.

Behind them, Alloy growled, groggily. His head was ringing and embarrassment at his situation flamed up into hatred. “They’re still going to have to deal with me first!” he roared. Blue sparks danced over his armor, causing black, ashy material to fall from it like snow. Steel armor smoothed and became nearly white. With a clang, he dropped off the girder that had been pinning him.

A similar phenomenon danced over the girder itself, which then melted and flowed into the form of an impossibly long sword in his hand. “Thanks for the physics lesson, Red.” He said to Tink. “Let me replay you with some chemistry: silver is diamagnetic.”

Tink rolled to the side as the generator was bisected by the silver sword. The sundered hydrogen cell flared a brilliant white as it died, giving her time to run.

“I really don’t like this.” Juniper said, avoiding a clumsy punch from Adel. Her training made it almost impossible for any of the untrained mental zombies to touch her, but there were so many and she didn’t dare hit them back.

“Neither do I” Lisa said, backing away from the rampaging machine that still had Kay in the pilot’s harness. “But think of it this way; if they kill you and then wake up, how do you think that’ll make them feel? It’d make them nuts, right?” She ducked to avoid a jabbing pincher, but assumed Juniper had nodded, “So you’ve got to protect them from that, right?”

Juniper flowed under another swing, this time from JC. Lisa was right. She had to do this. She had to live. Equally as important to her; she wouldn’t let Vorran force her friends to do something they’d regret. Pivoting, she caught JC’s arm and threw him over her shoulder. He landed in a heap.

“That was easy.” She commented innocently as she swept the man with dreadlocks off his feet.

Lisa dodged a kick from Adel and was forced to throw herself on the ground to avoid a simultaneous swipe from the construction frame. “Um, Jun? Could you get Adel off me, please?”

Juniper blinked. “Oh…” She only hesitated a second before putting him in an arm lock. “Sorry.”

Don’t worry about it—“ Lisa cut off as she saw the machine lift its foot to stomp her.

Kay watched in horror as the frame prepared to crush her friend while she was riding inside. What kind of sidekick was she to just sit back and let that happen to her best friend and hero? Desperately, she grabbed to motivator controls and put her full weight into pulling back.

Servos screamed as the hulking device snapped its raised leg back and took a shuttering step backward. Kay looked at the controls in wide eyed surprise. She looked up to the crane to see that Martin was just as surprised.

“Ha!” she exclaimed. “You just move the parts, you don’t override the controls!” She shoved an arm into one of the pincher control cuffs and used the mechanism to gently lift JC off the ground before he could sneak up on Juniper. “Advantage: Greycloud.”

“Hold still!” Alloy roared, swinging his sword after Tink. The redhead stayed just ahead of the blade as it slashed through the elevator and the surrounding wall, causing its floor to fall back down the shaft to the ground below.

She threw herself to ground and rolled under the tail end of the blow, causing her to land at Vorran’s feet. The mentalist put a foot on the small of her back to hold her in place. “Finish it.” He ordered Alloy.

With no one paying attention to her, Cyn increased her strength and bent the rebar from around her neck, dropping lightly to the ground. “Is that the only way you can actually hit someone?” She called out to Alloy. It was a long shot, but she figured it was a good bet. Alloy turned at her and glared daggers from under his helmet.

“I mean you’re just so slow.” Cyn continued. “I’m talking snail going uphill slow. Molasses in winter slow. That guy in my third period Sociology class slow.” She punctuated it but sticking out her tongue.

Alloy’s pride, pushed to the surface by Vorran to better control him, wouldn’t let that go unanswered. “Maybe I am.” He said gruffly, “But I know who is fast enough to catch you.” Isp and Osp suddenly unfurled into being from under the silver armor, their orihalcite lengths contrasting darkly with the bright silver. “Kill her.” Alloy ordered.

Isp looked at Osp. Osp looked at Isp. Then both turned in upon themselves and wrapped Alloy, pinning his arms to his sides and then effectively chaining him to the floor with their bodies.

Alloy raged uselessly against his allies. “What do you mean I’m not myself? He screamed, trying futilely to break free.

“Schoolyard taunts;” Cyn managed to laugh despite the dire situation, “Is there anything they can’t do?”

Vorran’s mouth worked uselessly, trying to find words for the bizarre turn of events. What had just happened? He had superior numbers. He had home field advantage by forcing the girls into the construction site where both Alloy and Martin Hill were more effective.

He set his jaw. Obviously he’d depended too much on the natural inclinations of his targets when it came to fighting. They were too delicate, too unwilling to get hurt. The answer was to take that away – to make them believe so much in the case of killing those girls that they would fight zealously, even suicidal. A pulse of his power connected him to all of his controlled pawns.

At his feet, Tink felt his weight shift away from her. He was doing something else. Possibly something worse. He’d made her think her boyfriend was a pervert and a jerk. He’d made her friends attack her. Moments ago, he’d even had a prelate try to behead her. More than anyone else, she hated Vorran and now he was about to do something she was sure was even more vile.

Her hand went to her purse. It was a miracle she’d kept it with her while trying to avoid being skewered, but there it was. Inside, lay the half finished device. It was a rush job, a hack job, really, but it was all she had at the moment.

Briefly, she wondered if she could get her taser out of that tangle of wires and give Vorran a good shock. But there wasn’t time. Besides, she thought; in all the sci-fi movies Warrick insisted on watching with her, breaking a mentalist’s concentration had big consequences for the mentalist.

At the very least, maybe she’d do some permanent retinal damage.

Holding the device aloft, she hit the flash button. Electricity from the combined batteries of her taser, and Kay’s camera and scanner was instantly shunted and focused into the fragile filament of the flash bulb. The filament didn’t have a chance as it was burned to nothing by the energy released – neither did the glass or the plastic lens cover for that matter. The mirror from Tink’s compact made sure all the light was moving in one direction: into Vorran’s face.

The result was the kind of light and agony one would expect from looking at the sun—if it were and inch from your face. For Eduardo Vorran, everything faded to white. His attempts at suggestion were cut off by a mental scream. The brain saw flaws. The brain repaired the damage.

Clutching his poor, useless eyes, Vorran staggered away from Tink—and stepped right into the open shaft of the elevator. Not knowing whether to scream because of the pain in his eyes, or the sudden disappearance of the floor, Vorran just screamed. The scream fell away, followed by the rather unusual sound of metal squealing against metal.

And uneasy silence followed, only to be shattered by JC’s terrified shout. “Oh, shit! How di—oh my god, someone get me down!” He struggled futilely in the pincher of the construction frame before Kay finally put him down.

Tink looked at the elevator shaft for a second. She had just killed a man, hadn’t she? Yes, she’d hated him, especially for what he’d done to Warrick but… Another thought intruded, possibly to keep her from freaking out. “Where’s Warrick?” She asked. A couple of others were missing too, presumably, they had stayed behind with the cars, but they weren’t he primary concern.

Nearby, Alloy almost said ‘right here’ but he suddenly realized he was in his armor… for reasons he couldn’t explain. The tentacles silently filled him in on the basics, graciously omitting the part where he’d ordered them to kill Cyn or the whole business with trying to behead Tink.

“Uh, the lanky Italian kid?” He asked, trying to put on his best hero voice. “The… Vorran? – er, Vorran guy locked him up at the dojo. Apparently, his mind was too strong for the mind control. I’ll go free him.” He didn’t know what was worse; lying to his girlfriend, or doing it badly. Luckily, she was too preoccupied to think differently.

Juniper blushed slightly at Adel, who had needed a bit of a sit down after coming to, especially in the face of her short explanation of what had gone on. He hadn’t said any more than ‘whoa’ and she wondered what he’d say if she told him what he’d said and done under Vorran’s control.

Instead, she sat down beside him and put her hand in his, smiling sweetly at him.

Slowly, after what looked like a mental filing of paperwork, he smiled back.

As Kay launched into a tale of heroism and ninjustu skills, the pair just sat and smiled. Some girls, Juniper thought to herself, really do just like the quiet boys.

Meanwhile, Cyn had taken the safety ladder to the ground, with Tink right behind her. They were looking for Vorran’s body. It wasn’t there. Instead, they found four long furrows gouged into the support beams that ran almost three vertical stories. The faint heat emanating from them told of incredible friction.

“Something saved him?” Tink asked. As she examined the claw marks, she was conflicted about whether to be happy that she wasn’t a killer, or to be terrified that Vorran had something with huge, steel gouging claws on his side.

Cyn frowned at them and kept her face blank. “Looks like.” She said out loud. Inwardly, she glared. Claws that could cut through steel that easily weren’t a normal, every day occurrence, nor was someone badass enough to catch a man on the fly and use those claws to slow their decent on a whim. But she’d met someone like that.

She suddenly felt great need to call Laurel. Because Shine was back in play.

End Issue #19