Lucky woke up the next day with a head cold. Perfect, just a perfect conclusion to all the ridiculousness of the past week. She went back to bed for a couple hours, finally dragged herself into a semblance of mobility and took the boat over the mainland. There she retraced her steps from two days ago and actually found her motorcycle more or less where she had abandoned it—a little the worse for wear, but certainly worth salvaging. She brought it back over the island and went to work on it.
    Phoenix woke up, worked out, and gave Scott a new experience for the memory files: Mötley Crüe, with Talon's slightly off-key assistance, drowned out NPR's morning show. Scott plugged in the headset and brought the speakers inside his body. That was better, and eventually Phoenix took a hovercycle and went out looking for some street crime to prevent; everything was quiet again, aside from the faint curses coming from Lucky's direction as she worked.
    It was actually quite difficult for Phoenix to find any street crimes, given that everywhere he went people cheered and waved at him. He didn't mind. He called all the radio stations in the city and asked them to play AC/DC's "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" at the stroke of noon and they said "sure!" Phoenix Talon was in heaven.
    Scott headed out to his office and checked in with the hospital on the way. Somewhat to his surprise, Stephanie was at K. Robeson when he arrived, trying in a hopeless sort of way to straighten things up. The bits of a computer were neatly piled in a corner.
    "Oh, hi, Mr. Silver, how are you?" Aside from the bruise, she seemed okay.
    "Good morning."
    She looked around her at the disaster, whisk broom and dustpan in her hands. "The files are pretty much intact. Scattered, but intact."
    "That's good."
    "How are Mr. Cat and Mr. Oliver, have you talked to them?"
    "I talked to them when they were taken to the hospital, I was about to go by and see how they were today."
    "Can I come along?"
    "Certainly."
    "I've already called a locksmith to have the door repaired, and people are coming by to fix the windows."
    "Good."
    "The phone still works, it's indestructible, near as we can tell."
    They straightened up as much as possible, then headed to the hospital. Sphinx was healing rapidly, he was told, and would soon be back on his feet. Muse was not duplicating this performance, happy as he was with the fact that his wife refused to visit. His room was easy to find, it was the one with the clutch of giggling nurses outside.
    "Ah, Scott, how are you sir?"
    "Quite well, and how are you this morning?"
    "Achy, and somewhat bruised, and I fear that I'll have a much better time performing Richard III with the hunch back I now have. But other than that, I'm just trying to find something to listen to on this damn radio. How are things back at the office? Stephanie!" he greeted her with evident delight.
    "Hi."
    "You brought flowers, that's so nice of you, I believe there's a vase right over there. Could you get us some coffee, please?"
    "Sure."
    "How are things?" he asked again, more somberly, once she had clicked away.
    "Well enough," Scott replied. "The office is a shambles, but...."
    "I trust that we'll be able to get it operating again quickly."
    "I hope so. The other facility is not in nearly as bad a shape, surprisingly enough since there were people wandering around in there."
    "That is surprising. How did they find it?"
    "Apparently they were chasing Lucky through the sewers and got lost. I found a bunch of them wandering around, going, 'We don't know where we are and we don't know how to get out.'"
    "Bystanders. Always a problem. Wandering in from offstage, wandering off whenever they like. Have all the miscreants been tended to?"
    "Well, some of them killed most of them or blew them up, and then the rest of them got away by plane."
    "Amateurs," the Muse muttered with a disgusted expression. "There are rules to this game. Just so sloppy. Have you found anyone you could get to talk?"
    "We captured one of them."
    "What position?"
    "Their contact at the radio facility that was operating the mind control device."
    "They'll let her live," he declared. "She wouldn't have had any useful contacts or know anyone above her, if you tried to bring in the massive conspiracy theory all it would do is give her defense a field day. Having her die in police custody would simply be too suspicious. Content yourself with the fact that you've caught a small fish, and then arm yourself for shark."
    "Hm." He filed that tidbit away for future reference. "Do you know where Felix is?" Scott inquired. "He should be around here somewhere, I found you because of the... crowd."
    "Oh, are they still out there? Hello, ladies."
    Giggling from outside.
    "I should try being sick more often. Do you know how many sponge baths I've had? I must be the filthiest man alive. I believe he's two doors down, I can hear his rather peculiar breathing."
    Stephanie came back with coffee, and Muse started talking to her, allaying her evident guilt at being relatively unhurt while he was in the hospital. With the charm turned all the way up, she soon seemed happier. Scott slithered out of the room and found Felix's door. His breath was indeed oddly deep and rumbling.
    "I much mislike being in bed. Especially wounded," Sphinx growled as a greeting. "Bad for the ego. How are you?"
    "Well."
    "Did you get them?"
    Scott repeated the explanation he had given Muse.
    "Primitive assassination scheme. Dammit. We knew it was coming, but I hoped you'd be able to circumvent it."
    "Unfortunately we got there just in time to find the bomb when it said 'four.'"
    "Dramatically appropriate. So where are we going to puzzle together their location to be? They're undoubtedly in Poughkeepsie."
    "That's where I'm thinking."
    Sphinx flexed his claws against the bed. "Give me time to heal, I'll help you tear the building down, rend it to the sand, sow the ground with salt."
    "I'm sorry you got hurt," Scott said tentatively in response to the venom in his voice. Poughkeepsie again. He tried to call Needle. No answer still. That was odd. He called the police station.
    Lucky remembered that Reilly was due back and headed over to the station to say hello. He and Winters were both in his office, apparently going over some files. Greetings were exchanged all around.
    "How are you?" Reilly asked her.
    "Good, how are you?"
    "Three words: I hate vacations."
    "Good, don't go on one again or I'll kick the crap out you. We could have really used you these past couple weeks."
    He glanced at Winters with a lifted eyebrow. "She ever threaten you with that?"
    "Not in those words, no."
    "Do you want to come downstairs and say hi to Needle?" Lucky inquired, restraining a wicked grin. It didn't take enhanced senses to see the tension between those two, and reformed though she may be, it was hard to resist the urge to stir up some minor trouble for her prickly teammate.
    "She's downstairs?"
    "Yeah, she was watching the woman we—oh. We really should have relieved her," she realized guiltily. "That was really mean."
    "Oh, no," Winters interrupted, shaking her head, "she left last night. The woman downstairs got taken off, Needle was supposed to go meet with the senators. You haven't seen her yet this morning?"
    Lucky pulled out her phone and tried to call her. No answer. "When did she leave?" she asked Winters.
    "I don't know, about seven or so."
    "Do you have the senate office's number?"
    Reilly rattled it off for her.
    "Hello, Senator Wood's office," a pleasant voice answered.
    "This is Kyla McKay, I was wondering if you'd seen Needle."
    "No, she wasn't here last night. She was supposed to be at the meeting, but Scott Silver showed up instead."
    "Really."
    "Is next Saturday all right for you?" the senator went on.
    "For what?"
    "The parade."
    "What parade?"
    "The parade parade."
    "It's not Thanksgiving," she said blankly.
    "For you," Wood replied patiently.
    "What did I do?"
    "For the team, in gratitude. Mr. Silver didn't talk to you about this?"
    "We haven't talked at all."
    "Well, that would explain it. Next Saturday, we're hoping to have a parade through downtown, try to keep the day free."
    "Sure." Oh, God. Publicity. "I gotta go. Talk to you later." She hung up. "Nobody's seen Needle, she never went to the Senate office last night."
    "She wasn't at the office? Oh," Winters shrugged. "Maybe she went to get some sleep."
    Lucky called Scott. The phone on the desk rang as she did so; Reilly and Winters both reached for it, then Winters grinned and ceded the honor to him.
    "Yeah?"
    "Hello," Scott chirped. His other phone rang. "One second. Hello?"
    "It's Lucky."
    After a few moments of juggling, they all managed to be on the same line.
    "Have you seen Needle?" she asked again.
    "No, I was just trying to call, I thought she would either still be guarding the prisoner or had gone off to take a nap someplace."
    "No, she left, because they transferred the prisoner, and she supposed to go to the senate office but you went instead? Did she ask you to go to the senate office?"
    "No, the senate called the base up last night looking for somebody and asked me to come by."
    "She didn't come back to base at all?" That was more than a little strange.
    "No."
    "Hold on," Reilly told them both. "Guys, catch me up on this in a second." He put the phone down. "Jessica, thanks a lot, I appreciate everything you've done."
    "No, I have to thank you," she smiled. "I have to get outta here."
    "Who was the last person to see her?" Lucky interrupted, beginning to be concerned.
    Winters shrugged. "I saw her around seven, seven thirty, she said she was going downstairs until the prisoner transfer."
    "Who was the person who transferred the prisoner?"
    She rummaged through piles of paperwork. "Miraguelo."
    "Is she, he...?"
    "He, Joseph Miraguelo, he was on duty last night, he's off now."
    "What's his home phone number?"
    "Hold on. Could you get Miraguelo on the line?" she yelled to someone outside the office.
    "He'll be pissed!" someone suggested in response. "He was on until five."
    "Just call him!"
    "What did she say to you when she went downstairs? What were you talking about?" Lucky asked Winters.
    "She was supposed to go talk to the senate, explain everything that's happened over the last month."
    "And she knew she was supposed to go? Did she say anything about not going?"
    Winters sighed. "I told her about it, she said she'd try to make it but she was feeling pretty beat and she didn't want to leave the prisoner until the transfer. I presume that if the prisoner was transferred she ended up going home. The senate wasn't breathing down her neck, this was a courtesy thing."
    "Yeah, but she never goes anywhere without telling us, I mean she's our team leader." Someone that anal about tending to her responsibilities wouldn't just take off without telling anyone, would she? "Reilly, could you put out an APB?"
    "Let's check the base first, find out if she's sleeping? I mean let's not overreact here," he suggested. "It hasn't even been twenty-four hours."
    "All right, Scott, could you check at base?"
    "Sure."
    No one picked up the phone at base. Well, she'd looked like hell after yesterday, maybe she was asleep and no one had noticed her come in.
    Winters handed Reilly a thick folder. "That's everything, the breakdown of the last month." She shook his hand. "I appreciate you coming in. I have a plane at three thirty."
    "Can you give us a number where we can reach you?" Lucky asked. She could pick up Needle's scent, but it was hard to tell when she'd last been here what with all the traffic.
    "Sure." She scribbled it on the back of a business card. "See you in ten days." Winters was halfway to the door, her big purse over her shoulder, when she turned around and went over the dartboard. She slammed a dart into one corner of the photo of Holly Shapiro, pulled her knife out of the board, slid it back into its sheath. "Almost forgot this." She left.
    Reilly watched this performance with raised eyebrows. "Shapiro got to be a pain, did she?" He sat down in his chair with a happy smile and sigh.
    "For a man who doesn't like vacations, you're certainly giddy," Lucky observed.
    "I'm back in the office," he reminded her. "Chicago—it rained the whole freaking time."
    "Nobody's at base," Scott broke in over the phone. "Or at least they're not answering the phone."
    Lucky repeated this for Reilly. "She's not answering her phone, she never showed up at the senate last night, she hasn't called any of us—has Migella or whoever answered his phone?"
    "Hold on," Reilly interrupted her, his expression already suggesting I came back for this? "Would you tell Scott to come down here?"
    She passed on the request, and he agreed to come over. Then she called Phoenix Talon.
    "Yo!" he answered happily.
    "Have you seen Needle?"
    "At some point in the past," he answered literally.
    "Last night?"
    "Last night... no, can't say as I did."
    "Did you see her this morning?"
    "No, figured she was asleep."
    "Did you hear her come in last night? Has her bed been slept in?"
    "No, and I can go back to base and check." The concern in her voice obviated the need for any questions; there was evidently something wrong. Ninja training suggested that no one had been in the tiny room for several days. He checked the base scanner, pinpointing everyone's phone location. One at police headquarters, one approaching headquarters, and his own. No fourth blip.
    He called Lucky and let her know this. Of course, the phones could be completely shut down, in which case it wouldn't show up, but that seemed unlikely.
    "Do you think she just took the day off?" Lucky asked doubtfully. "Tried to get some sleep, figured things had calmed down?"
    "Could she be at Chandler's?" he suggested.
    She's not here. "No, she's not at Chandler's," she reported.
    "Not at Chandler's, she's not there, she's not here.... This isn't good," Phoenix observed.
    "I've got Miraguelo on the line," a cop said, poking his head into Reilly's office. Lucky switched phones.
    "What?" a sleepy, irritated voice said.
    "This is Lucky, sorry to bother you. Did you happen to see Needle when you came to transfer the prisoner last night?"
    "No, the Providence guys were there, they said she'd left and they were watching her until the transfer."
    "Do you know what time she left?"
    "No. The PITS guys said she went upstairs to go talk to someone, they stayed there until I came to pick her up and take her down to the main holding cell."
    "Did she have to talk to Winters?"
    "I dunno, they didn't say. It just came up in conversation. They'd been there about an hour. And one of them said she was really hot, so we got into a conversation about that."
    Lucky grinned despite her worry. "You know, she's been looking for a date."
    "Yeah, ha ha. I'm going back to bed." He chuckled and hung up.
    Scott made his usual unique entrance. Lucky paced while she summed up the situation.
    "She's not at base, she doesn't have her apartment anymore, Winters says that she left to go see the Senate. The Senate says they never talked to her, they just talked to you. She never came home last night as far as Phoenix can tell, the PITS guys said that she went upstairs to talk to somebody and never came back and they were watching the prisoner until the transfer, according to the transferring officer. Her phone's not on, either that or its—"
    "It's ringing," Scott offered. "Just that nobody's picking up."
    Lucky's phone interrupted. It was Phoenix, on his way over. "Weren't there those guys that were after her?" he asked.
    "What guys?"
    "With the special gun that was just for her?"
    Oh no. "The missing special gun that was just for her?"
    "Well, I don't know about that, but I seem to remember it was the Blood Boards."
    "I don't think the Blood Boards could have gotten inside police headquarters without being noticed."
    "Weren't they working for somebody else?"
    "Doesn't matter if—" Somebody knocked on the doorframe and she looked up. "Yeah?" It was another cop.
    "I been hearing, you guys looking for Needle? I saw her leave last night," he told her.
    "Where'd she go?"
    "She took off like seven thirty, seven forty-five, said she was heading home to get some sleep."
    "Home as in base?"
    "She said 'home.'" He shrugged. "I said what about the prisoner, she said I'm heading home, the Providence guys are down there."
    "You hear that Phoenix?" Lucky checked.
    "Yeah."
    "Why, what's wrong?" the cop inquired.
    "She never showed up back at base. It's not like her."
    "Maybe she got lucky," he grinned.
    She doubted it. Not that it wouldn't be good for her, but it still didn't seem likely. "Phoenix, could you get down to police headquarters?"
    "I'm on my way."
    "How was your vacation?" Scott asked Reilly.
    "Terrible. Rained the entire time."
    "That's depressing."
    "Things are looking up for Beth, though. She got a partnership in the company, she's handling the Boston branch."
    "So you're not moving? And you're still married," Lucky observed.
    He didn't bite. "Yeah, both things worked out nicely, thank you. They moved her out there to talk with her for a while, make sure she'd fit in and they're having her head their Boston division since she knows the city."
    "What company is this? In Chicago?" Wait a minute....
    "Yeah, they're a law firm, they have branches."
    "No, but you went to Chicago."
    "I went to Chicago on my leave time. What?" he asked at her stunned expression.
    "The thugs that were chemically enhanced, that beat me and Phoenix Talon up, were out of Chicago."
    "Chicago's a big city," he pointed out.
    "I know, but it's really awfully convenient that you disappeared at the exact time when we would need you the most."
    He gave her a forbearing look. "I'm all for paranoia, and if you're seriously thinking that someone's hunting after her you might be right to be worried, but this guy that they had with this whole arranging the chemicals for this guy came from Florida. What if I had gone to Florida? Would that have made a difference? It's a big country. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying that I had every reason to go."
    "You're the detective. So I'm paranoid," she shrugged. "Why don't we just wait the twenty-four hours, and if she doesn't show up...."
    "Then we can get into some serious worry time," he agreed. "You said the phone isn't working?"
    "The number's ringing," Scott told him.
    "But it's not showing up on the city scanner. That is weird." He frowned.
    "What would the possibility be for that?" Lucky asked. "Would it have to be out of range?"
    "Could be." He searched through a rolodex and dialed. "Hi, this is Detective Reilly out in Boston.... No, I just took over for Winters.... Yeah, I'm the one that was in control before.... Yeah, I know it's a loose term. I'm wondering, you had a couple guys guarding the one of the prisoners last night before you took off?... Uh-huh. What happened with Needle?... She went upstairs to talk to someone?.... Winters? Did she come back down, talk to you or anything?... No. I don't suppose she ended up out there, any reason she would have gone to Providence with you guys?... No. You did invite, okay.... Yes, she is. She hates it when you mention that.... Don't ask me. Low self-esteem, I don't know."
    "Scott, do think she could have to Poughkeepsie by herself, without telling us?" Lucky wondered out loud. Scott somehow conveyed a horrified look with a pseudopod.
    "Good heavens, I hope not!"
    Reilly hung up. "She didn't go out with the Providence team, either." He, too, looked worried now. Phoenix arrived silently.
    "I've never had any behavioral science training, but this is out of character," Lucky pronounced, looking around the group.
    "Yes, it is."
    "Something stinks," Phoenix agreed.
    "What do we know?" Reilly asked. "Sometime between the period of time when she left here, and this morning—"
    "Who was the last person to see her?" Lucky asked.
    "That officer out there said he saw her last night."
    "He said she left."
    "Yeah. She was probably—You guys had an exhausting day, correct me if I'm wrong?" he asked suddenly. "She might have been afraid the senate was going to drill her about the background thing."
    "She wouldn't lie, she wouldn't run away from something like that."
    "No, but she might have put it off," he pointed out. "I mean, if she had an excuse to go home and get sleep first? That is a behavioral characteristic. But she never made it home, right?"
    "She never came back," Scott confirmed.
    "We know she doesn't stay drunk for long," Lucky observed.
    "Is there anyone else she could have gone to?" Reilly asked.
    "Chandler, but she didn't go there." When you came right down to it, the woman didn't have much of a life, and she didn't really know all that many people as far as Lucky could tell. Although there was that one guy she had mentioned—the ex-boyfriend? Travis, that was it. She called information and got his number.
    "Travis, talk to me," he picked up cheerfully.
    "Hi, Travis. This is Lucky Charm of the Revolution."
    "Hi!"
    "Have you seen Needle in the last twenty-four hours?"
    "Sasha? No, I haven't."
    "She didn't spend the night with you and you're trying to cover up for it?"
    Pause. "Excuse me?" He sounded like he didn't quite believe what he had just heard.
    "Just had to ask."
    "What—no!"
    "Has she told you of anyplace else that she might be staying?"
    "Staying the night, staying?"
    "Yes."
    "No. There's a club that we've gone to, I know she likes, you might try there." He gave her the address.
    "If you hear from her, this is my number," she gave him her personal line.
    "Is something wrong? You guys were all over the news yesterday, I thought everything was going great."
    She was curious. "You didn't hate us? Didn't want to smash our faces in before yesterday?"
    He hesitated and hedged. "I was in a weird space."
    "So was everybody else. Anyway, thank you. Sorry if I insulted you, just had to ask. Just in case." She hung up. "She wasn't there, he says there's a jazz club she likes to go to, but we all know the bars in Boston close at one. She wouldn't have been drunk for six hours, she would have come home."
    "This is very much out of character, I think we have to assume that something has gone wrong," Reilly said somberly. "Here is a not a good place for a council of war, you want to go back to your headquarters?"
    "Yeah. You coming?"
    "Hell, yeah." He opened a desk drawer and pulled out his gun, checked it before sliding into the holster.

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