"Okay. Were you able to get there in time, or...?"
    "No."
    "Dammit. Make sure everyone gets out of there, and don't shoot at the cops!"
    "I didn't shoot at anybody. She managed to make a phone call," I added. Just to make things better. Javelin knew whatever Dan had known, and we didn't.
    "Have you picked up the phone?" Winters asked.
    "No. Just trace the call," I snapped. "I'm being shot at!" A slight exaggeration, but that chopper was making me nervous.
    The gunfire stopped. I risked a glance. The phone rang.
    "I traced the call. Pay phone in Harvard Square."
    "Where?"
    "You know where that subway comes out? With the traffic circle?"
    "Yeah."
    "One of the ones there."
    "On my way." I left the bound woman on the roof and poured on the speed—more, I should confess, to give myself something to do that would stave off the hovering sense of defeat than because I hoped to find anything. He had had roughly thirty seconds already, and it would be a full minute before I could reach the square.
    People milled around as I passed overhead. No sign of him; he could easily have just sauntered down into the station and bought a token. The bystanders below went into the usual shouting-and-throwing-things overreaction as they spotted me.
    Much as I hate to admit it, I'm starting to feel some amount of stress from that. I've made the decision to see this though no matter what, but I don't like being hated. I headed out to sea, toward the remote cave entrance we had used when we went out to the island. With any luck, no one would see me.

[Perspective switch: Phoenix Talon, then Lucky]

    I was sitting with my feet on the table, staring up at the once-raven-covered brick ceiling, when the others wandered back. "Would someone please just shoot me?" I queried no one in particular.
    "We made the news," Scott said hopefully.
    "At the risk of being overconfident, I would like to call this day a drastic disaster."
    "I still haven't gone out and gotten followed," Lucky reminded us. In the other excitement, that priority had somehow been mislaid. On the other hand, it was almost dark now, so it would be easier to put her plan into motion.
    "Did you see that fall? That was so sweet! Even the guys shooting at us were amazed!" Phoenix announced, swaggering in, stopping short when he saw Scott and Albert. "Hello?"
    Introductions were made. Phoenix doesn't seem impressed by Albert, though the rest of us tried to convince him of the francophile's effectiveness. Said francophile ignored the discussion with his usual dignity and continued working on his mysterious project.
    "Albert, do you think you could give me the illusion that I'm actually on a beach with a beautiful woman?" Lucky inquired wistfully.
    He glanced over at her and frowned slightly. Her expression glazed over for the next ten minutes or so.
    "In case you hadn't guessed, Scott, we were a little late," I told him.
    "Damn, he's fast."
    "Yeah. He was called from a pay phone in Harvard Square, no sign of him there. Oh, but I do have all this paper." I fished the folded sheets out of my jeans pocket.
    "Got a pencil?"
    "What does the paper mean?" Phoenix wanted to know.
    "I don't know, but she had something written on it, and maybe I've seen too many old spy movies, but it can't make me feel any worse than this day already has."
    "Why are you so depressed?" Scott inquired.
    "The general fact of getting there much too late is starting to get on my nerves." He hadn't had to see Dan spread all over the room like that. Not that I suppose robots can experience nausea anyway.
    We went over the papers carefully. And found notes, in a very jerky and inconsistent hand, gouged deep into the paper.
    Met at Logan. Charlie Free. Package of information. Told to stay on. Package destroyed when job finished.
    And a phone number, which Scott went to work on. There were several Charlie Frees in the Boston area, but none of them looked likely; probably an alias. Outside, full dark had fallen. Phoenix, bless his heart, went out on patrol as Lucky and I headed out on her mission.
    "Maybe I'll see some Blood Boards," he hoped. I laughed.
    "We've gone from the ninja clans of Japan to the Blood Boards?"
    "You'd be amazed how little difference there is," he replied earnestly. "I was disillusioned. They're not bad guys, I'm just not that much into plastics, okay? 'High quality plastics for automotives and toys,' I was getting so sick of it," he muttered while the rest of us stared at him. "I don't care about the damn polystyrenes!" Still ranting quietly, he left the cave.

[Perspective switch: Phoenix Talon]

    I went with Lucky back to the scene of the day's earlier debacle, where she reclaimed her bike, then rode behind her to K. Robeson, where she went in and came out as if she'd been picking something up, and then we headed out, away from the city. After a while our tail appeared, or so I presumed; I felt her stiffen slightly after she glanced back once. I couldn't pick them out even in the relatively light traffic, but I trusted her senses.
    "The one I don't have, just hold him down," was all she said during the ride.
    "Okay."
    After a while Lucky glanced back again and changed lanes. "Hold on." She skidded the bike to a halt, flattening the front tire. The car behind us looked like it was ready to keep on going on past; her staff drove straight through the engine block. Even I could hear the voice on the radio, "We have a situation. We have a situation!"
    She dragged the driver out through the window. The other one opened the door and tried to make a run for it. I plucked him from the ground and let him wear himself out struggling. You'd think news would get around eventually.
    Lucky pushed the car off the road, as if it had suffered engine trouble, and then disappeared with the other thug into the darkened strip of woodland which separated the highway from the developed outskirts of Boston.
    I kept an eye on the road, ready to give a yell if any reinforcements should appear, but it stayed quiet. After a couple minutes I heard a strangled cry from the direction of the copse and winced a little; it wasn't repeated and this was supposed to be her show, so I held my peace and hoped that I wasn't gambling too rashly on Lucky's recent reformation. I get the impression sometimes that she thinks I'm overly squeamish. Her voice from the darkness requested that I bring the other one over to join them, which I did.

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