"Stephanie's filing is excellent, her coffee is above average."
    "I have to agree with that."
    "And people aren't shooting at us for a change, which is always pleasant," he concluded.
    "Yes."
    "I saw the news reports of your battle downtown, I can only assume from the oblique mention of some sort of killing, that you were unable to beat Javelin to the—"
    "Next person on the chain?" Scott finished. "He got there first."
    "Have you had any luck in tracking down the next person on the chain?"
    "We got the same phone number."
    "Hm." He continued to work with that same unalterable level of intensity.
    "Is he going to go kill Mr. Gordon now?" I wondered aloud after a while.
    "Probably," Scott agreed. "Of course, the fact that I broke into Gordon's office last night in a way that was so blatantly 'not me' while removing his hard drive probably means that Mr. Gordon is going to be extremely unhappy with life and probably lie low for a while."
    "Which might keep Mr. Gordon alive," Sphinx observed.
    "I hope so. I'd rather have him in jail and not dead."
    "Works for me," I approved.
    "As a criminal, I agree with you," the catlike man agreed.
    "Former criminal," I corrected.
    "Yes, that. Let's try... that." Silence. "Hm." I glanced over his shoulder at the screen; he looked up at me. "It's your file."
    "Excuse me?" I think my voice was reasonably calm.
    "This is going to take a little while to decrypt, but this looks like a rather large store of information on something that is being referred to as the Tempest Scenario."
    "That would sound connected," I admitted. My heart rate went up a little.
    "Dates back to '81?"
    "That sounds about right, a little farther back than that, actually."
    "That's as far as his records go, anyway."
    "1981. That's when they got hold of her again." And when SysGen went into business.
    The papers arrived, proving a few moments' unpleasant distraction. Holly Shapiro had a good long space to rant in, about how we'd shown our true colors by not turning ourselves in, implicating us in the murder of Dan, assaults on the police, and so forth. About how the situation could only get worse now that that juvenile delinquent Phoenix Talon had returned. I prayed she was wrong on that count, at least.

[Perspective switch: Scott, then Lucky]

    Scott returned to base and collected the phone Lucky had brought home. I was glued to Sphinx's shoulder as the file continued to reassemble itself slowly. It was clear that this was going to take most of a day; they had changed their encryption codes frequently throughout. The pages we could already see contained information on how they had originally orchestrated Tempest's creation and early exploits. It was very sketchy, as if Gordon had not been involved at this point and this was background material he had been told by someone else. It looked as if he had been involved in the project for some time, though.
    There were notes on Shannon as well. They picked her—as Reilly suggested several months ago—for her natural ability to maximize her effectiveness in a chosen area, to do any one thing really well. Hers had been espionage, but there was no reason she could not have turned the quirk to some other end. The World Crime League had gotten a sample of her cells just before her death, manipulated the genes, and was responsible for Tempest's initial creation.
    Interestingly, it seems that Tempest was never a rogue agent. They used her as randomly as possible to create the appearance of an uncontrolled psychotic, sometimes striking completely inconsequential targets. I'm not quite sure what that means, other than that they didn't want her associated with them in any way. Something to do with their plans for after the project's conclusion, perhaps? Not that anyone even believes these bastards exist.

[Perspective switch: Lucky]

    "We found out where the guys who are sending those thugs are coming from," Scott announced after he hung up on his latest update from our teammates.
    "Where's that?" I asked.
    "Mr. Lynn Mitchell."
    "Gee, that's a big surprise. I wonder where Mr. Gordon might be hiding himself."
    "He might be in the office."
    "That's true. I wonder what he'd do if I walked in?" I speculated.
    "Hard to say. If you hear a phone being dialed, can you translate the sounds into numbers?"
    "It's not that hard."
    "I've got a phone with a redial."
    It took me a few tries and several minutes, but we got the number. This was a new one. Scott traced it. The name was listed as N. Hannen, with an address in South Boston, far enough south that it was a fairly nice area. Maybe a woman, most such listed names are. He called Lucky back to find out where she had gotten the number from. They agreed the house was probably another temporary base, and that Lucky would check it out later that night.
    My remark about walking into Gordon's office had been idle, but some spark of devilishness—or maybe it was the doughnuts—infected me, and in rather short order we had a plan to do just that. If nothing else, with any luck I'd scare the hell out of him. After all the myriad ways they've messed with my mind, I figured it was the least I could do. Scott would hide in the air conditioning system and see if anyone said or did anything interesting afterwards.
    Muse went to work on me with a will. I was already out of "costume." He offered to cut my hair, but we agree it looks nice with more length and settled on pulling it back. Then he borrowed Stephanie's makeup kit and made some subtle alterations. He's good; even working with an entirely incorrect palette—she's a summer, I'm autumn—I looked enough unlike myself to give myself pause. He also carries a set of disguise accessories with him in his briefcase, something I find rather interesting. Black wire-rimmed glasses and a scarf completed the new look. Anyone familiar with the project would be able to identify me as its product, but not until a second glance. And I didn't look much like "me." I gave Scott time to get into position through the service tunnels and took a taxi downtown.
    "Can you believe what's been goin' on this city lately?" the driver shook his head.

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