"Mr. Lu, do you have any defensive abilities?" I asked.
    "The suits we wear are made from the most advanced body armor known to man."
    "How about your head?"
    He pulled a hood over it. "It's made of arachne fiber, we're cool," he assured me.
    "Thank you." I dropped the shield over him and put one on Phoenix—I do have my limits, and I was pushing them hard as it was. Scott hovered over us at his most diffuse, covering us somewhat.
    "Needle, there's another one!" Phoenix warned, looking ahead at the black copter.
    "Those are the good guys."
    "Oh."
    I hope.
    "Do your helicopters have heat-seekers on them?" Scott asked Winters.
    "No, we don't have missiles, just guys on them with guns. Good god, what the hell is going on here? How do you know everyone is mind-controlled? Aside from the fact that they're all acting mind-controlled. What do you know that you're not telling me?" she asked Phoenix.
    "Listen, when it's weird shit like this, there's always mind control involved," he assured her. "I've seen it, trust me."
    "Phoenix is resident expert on weird shit," I agreed. "And on being mind controlled."
    "One time I got mind-controlled, I kicked both their asses, it was tragic."

[Perspective switch: K. Robeson Enterprises; Lucky and Albert]

    "Wait, that's not right," Lu said suddenly, and my imagined haven disappeared in a flare of exhaust as the chopper fired a rocket at us. It passed through Scott's cloud and came back around. "Williams, did you have time to lock onto her?"
    "Yeah, we've got her aura on file," the other man replied in an oddly resigned voice.
    "We don't have any choice. Miss, drop us," Lu ordered.
    "No." We were well above lethal height. I arced toward the ground, moving as fast as I could, lost control for a sickening few seconds at just the wrong time. Behind me, Scott went to liquid around the missile, then solid as it kept gaining on us. The sudden extra weight skewed it off to one side of its course before it exploded. The resonance field it was loaded with was keyed to me; it screwed me up even more and I lost the shield over Gordon. I felt him die, shredded by shrapnel. The rest of us were in free-fall as the police choppers closed in.
    Phoenix swung a grapple around one chopper's runners and climbed up. They were taking evasive maneuvers, trying to shake him off. No chance. He landed on the runner and disappeared inside.
    Another missile coming our way. I regained control, brought everyone except Phoenix back under protection—he was on his own now—and we skimmed at roof level for a second.

[Perspective switch: Albert and Lucky; Phoenix Talon]

    The PITS chopper was closing in on Scott's position as the second missile gained on me. Winters fired her revolver at it, futilely. I dropped them all off on the nearest rooftop and kept going at full speed, gaining altitude, unwilling to look back, hoping to gain some distance on their position before this ended.
    It went off right behind me. I fended off the shrapnel and caught myself about a hundred feet off the ground after another few moments of disoriented falling; it took a minute for me to realize that I actually wasn't hurt.

[Perspective switch: Everyone Else]

    A few words of a radio broadcast wafted up towards me from a boom box on the ground. It sounded like Albert's voice. "The Revolution are your friends." I was still staring at the Chinese restaurant which had almost been my final resting place when my phone rang. Lucky, with a prisoner she wanted to know what to do with. The people on the street below were cheering rather than throwing things at me. I headed back to where I had dropped off the others and rendezvoused with everyone else at the police helipad.
    Albert looked haggard from the effort of mass hypnotizing the entire city of Boston, but brushed off all expressions of concern. One of the policemen brought him a chair. Phoenix high-fived the cheering crowd, parading around the edge of the building and blowing kisses.
    "Nice timing, Albert," I congratulated him.
    "I trust that I came to the solution in time. As I said, I was just missing something."
    "So were the rest of us."
    Scott made a sudden, alarmed motion. "I'll be back," he said, slithered onto a bike and was gone.
    "Who is this woman?" I asked.
    "Miss Spanner," Lucky told me.
    "Mass mind control?"
    "Utilizing the biokinesis technology that you're based on," Albert confirmed.
    "Great."
    "The company that she works for recently changed in corporation and name, did everything that it could to hide the fact that it used to be Afterimages, Inc., the people that employed Susan Bates."
    Oh god, was all I could think for a moment. Poor Susan. She died without ever knowing what was going on, and now this. Is there anything these people won't stoop to?
    Phoenix glanced at Lucky. "Want to go arrest The Bitch?" They headed off in a squad car toward Holly Shapiro's broadcast headquarters, leaving me and Albert with the authorities to hear the story.
    "Biologically generated mind control, then," I half-asked.
    "Originally. They developed a way to duplicate it mechanically. They've been sending it out for several months."
    "So she was working for Them." I glanced at Spanner.
    "Yes. She originally hired me in hopes of being able to send dangerous subliminals through my show. My show." He spent a moment contemplating the insult, then went on. "As well as Ms. Shapiro's tripe. Eventually they began widening their broadcasts to everything, all radio, all television, all of it as the equipment got more and more advanced. You've noticed, we've all noticed, over the past few months, that the town has been becoming more and more acrimonious to our presence. Artificially generated."
    "That's good. In a way. At least it's nothing we said."
    "I'm sure that with luck we might even be able to push all of Lucky's unfortunate past into a small corner where no one will look at it. At the moment we can ride high on public good feeling."
    "Thank you. We needed that."
    "Miss Spanner?" he addressed the captive. "It's time for you to wake up."
    "I can't believe I lost Gordon," I muttered to myself.
    "Who?"
    "Another one of their people, I was looking to talk to him."
    She moaned, distracting his attention. "Where am I?"
    "You are in custody, Miss Spanner," he informed her gently.
    "What?"
    "I recommend that you tell us everything you know, about the World Crime League, the people you work for."
    "The World Crime League? What are you talking about?"
    "The people who were employing you. The woman, Susan Bates, who you had working for you. Your project in mass mind control. I am willing to bet that the villains ultimately responsible have hidden all of their activities deeply enough that we can't connect them. But you received an order today. Who was it from, and where are they?" His eyes reacquired that burning intensity.
    "The only name I had for him is Cooper. He's the one funding the machine, I don't know who he was, but he also sent us information, immediately after Susan's death, he put the whole project on hold."
    "What information was that?" I asked.
    "Notes, about her biochemistry. How she might have been doing it." Spanner appeared too stunned to notice that I bore her late employee a rather close resemblance, and in any case could not take her eyes off Albert.
    "And where is Cooper?" the mesmerist asked.

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