"I supose that should be sufficient."
    "We're not necessarily going to be here long, Albert," I pointed out.
    "Thank you," Scott told Stevie.
    "Not a problem," the man assured him. "I gotta get back, running out of comp time at the shop."
    "Thanks a lot,"
    "No big deal. You need anything fixed, just let me know." He strolled off down the tunnel.
    "Right, then. Hans? I've given up asking questions of him," I gave Scott a pointed glance. "You, on the other hand...."
    He seemed far subdued, only nodded and glanced around at each of us before beginning. "Ich heise... my real name," he restarted in English, "is Ute Ethzeit. I was born in Villa Mercedes, Argentina. My family—my mother and father—immigrated there in late 1945, with many other people. As you can probably imagine, the reasons they left Europe were rather sudden. But they brought a little piece of home with them, just like it had been." Bitterness leaked through his otherwise emotionless tone. "My grandfather was... I do not want to say a superhero, supervillain doesn't quite suffice... he was a warrior. He fought on the Russian front. His name was Altar Flame. I've found that you Americans don't really know anything about what happened on the Eastern Front, so I'm not surprised you never connected me with him. His powers were quite similar to mine. My father apparently did not really inherit them, and so it was thought that there was an end to it. Then I was born, and demonstrated a talent almost as great as my grandfather's.
    "Our colony was organized along the lines you would expect it to be, very military, National Socialist. I was taken aside and made an example, I would be the second Altar Flame, the great hope of the Fourth Reich. My father, because of his high position, had the job—very few people were allowed to leave the colony, but occasionally contact was needed, to acquire weapons and so forth. He had the opportunity to travel, and in doing so he managed to learn things about what our predecessor reich had done that were not generally known. What those old men had done." He glanced at Scott. "If you were wondering why I was so offended at the... villains, it is because I have spent much of my life listening to old men reminisce and recount the 'glories' of the past.
    "After learning about these thing, Father wrestled with his conscience, and decided that the society he was supporting was not morally conscionable. He managed to convince my mother, who was a good and dutiful German wife, and they took me and brother, and we dashed for Buenos Aires, and then to Mexico. My father knew he would need money, because he had made enemies, and so he took a rather great proportion of the Fourth Reich's gold supply. It's all gone now, I needed it to become Hans Schmidt. There was a gunrunner in Mexico who set us up. From Tijuana we were smuggled across the border, then to Denver. We tried to make new lives, but it was very difficult. All the more so because we were all now reading about what had really gone on during the war. We had not known it was that bad," he said solemnly. "We didn't know... when my father suggested this, I had thought, naively, that it wasn't a perfect society, but the Americans wouldn't just shoot us at first sight. It wasn't until reading more about what had happened in the war that I realized his fears were justified. We could not say where we were from. In Denver, eventually, we were starving, and I had to do something, and I felt... guilty about what my powers were almost used for. I became a super-hero, joined the Black Watch.
    "They were hunting us, and they found us. Almost killed Mother. We had to move. We came here. It was recently that my brother...." He paused, a strange, grim expression on his face. "My brother. He never understood any of it. He was.... He has betrayed us all, they have my mother and father. This is not any of your concern—"
    "I beg to differ," I retorted.
    "I think it would be best for me to leave before yet another scandal breaks out. No matter what happened during the Daemonwar, the knowledge that there is a Nazi on your team would...."
    "You are not a Nazi," Lucky stated intensely. "Any more than I am still a Mafia enforcer." He shook his head. "Will you please allow us to help you?"
    "From what I saw yesterday you might need it," I opined gently. "That was your brother?"
    "Yes. He said—this is all my fault, I shouldn't mention it. I tracked him, he wasn't going to school, I suspected that. You remember the fight in Government Center, with Kymrik and the golem? Kymrik is one of us, he disappeared yesterday before you arrived, but I fought both of them."
    "What are his powers?" Lucky asked.
    "He is a shapechanger, he likes to grow blades and tails. The golem was apparently made by a local rabbi for the defense of the Jewish community. This is what I am surmising. Just a few days ago that rabbi was found dead. He had been slashed to bits. The golem was destroyed by plasma. It was then I started following my brother. He took me to a man who claimed to be part of an American secret agency called MEDUSA, which he said wanted to recruit him. I made some phone calls, this turned out to not be true, I realized that they were on to us, and I was about to try to get my parents back to Denver."
    "Where would they take your parents? Would they be out of the country by now?" Lucky asked.
    "Possibly. I thought they would just kill them. They might take them back to Villa Mercedes for trial. Except," he took out the note, "the Mind Lazer is the leader of the League of Nations. He fought the Black Watch. He should not be part of this."
    "We have Mind Lazer from the League of Nations, Chimera from the Fourth Reich," I tried to fathom a connection.
    "Chimera is not the name he used," Albert pointed out.
    "Kymrik," Ute clarified his pronunciation. "He is another descendant, he may be Chimera's son. He is older than I am."
    "My initial guess is that Mind Lazer is just in there to screw with our heads," Scott suggested.
    "Would they have used his name, knowing it would mean something to you?" I asked.
    "This," he tapped the "playactor" reference, shaking his head. "This is a reference to the Shrouded Hope, the leader of the Black Watch. I don't see how they would discover that unless they actually had ties to the League of Nations."
    "Would there be any clues back at your house, do you think?" I suggested doubtfully.
    "I was assuming my brother would have taken them."
    "I don't think he had time."
    "Where would they have taken your parents from?" Lucky asked.
    "Probably my father was kidnapped from work, my mother from the house. I called them and couldn't get in touch with them. So stupid... I should have known there was something wrong."
    "No sense blaming yourself now," I advised with a sigh, muttered to myself, "and this is only one of our problems."
    "I doubt that I could track them this long after," Lucky said with a shake of her head.
    "The strangest thing, in the middle of it a van pulled up and a heavy weapons squad jumped out and started shooting at Marcus." Marcus being his brother's real name, one assumes.
    "Were they wearing uniforms? Any idenfication, insignia?" Scott inquired.
    "Not that I saw."
    "Anyone get a license number on the van?"
    "Slag," I informed him succinctly.

[Perspective switch: Scott]

    "My first reaction was that they must also be some of ours, but then that doesn't make any sense."
     "Did you notice whether or not you were being followed?"
    "Not that I know of. But my home is not secret."
    "Could have been WCL," Lucky suggested.
    "Why would they try and attack me?"
    "They're following us, surrounding us. They must have some plan where our existence is concerned. Taking us out as a team probably isn't enough, they need to weaken us before they kill us."

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