"I placed a couple calls to him at this number." It was the one we had traced to Gordon. "But the one today was to somewhere else"
    "The number."
    "I don't remember."
    "You will remember the number, now," he ordered, leaning in just a little. "Or you will suffer torment that you never imagined possible." The PITS guys exchanged a nervous glance. Spanner scratched at her hand, looked at it in sudden fear.
    Albert whispered in her ear. "Don't worry, it's unlikely the larva will hatch, if you tell me what I want to know soon enough."
    Dear god, he's scary.
    "456-4513. That was the number."
    "Thank you very much. You've been most helpful, and hopefully you'll be most helpful again. On the witness stand."
    "Winters, you got anything here we can trace this number with?" I asked her.
    "Yeah, not here, but I can have my people back there track it." She made the call. "Good. Ha! Warehouse outside the city."
    "Who wants to come?" I invited. The PITS guys nodded.
    "We got played in this as much as you did," one stated. "Let's go. Want to take the chopper?"
    "How fast is it?"
    "It can keep up with you."
    "Okay, then."
    We piled in. Winters escorted Spanner into custody. Albert headed off to get some sleep. One of them took the aura damper off my arm.
    "Thank you."
    "It was no longer active, but I didn't think you'd want it on any longer."
    "You were very polite about arresting me."
    He shrugged. "We'd got orders. We weren't supposed to engage you, apparently Scott had already saved one of our boys. Sorry about everything before."
    "These things happen. Oh, could you turn the tracking me off on this, in case we have to shoot anybody else?"
    Switches flipped. "This is your case," he told me, "we'll hover outside and be ready to shoot while you guys go in and arrest them."
    I called for backup from the rest of the team.

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

    We converged on the warehouse, Scott on the hovercycle, Phoenix and Lucky in their commandeered squad car, the three of us in the chopper. We hit four separate entrances at the same time. I took the skylight and found myself in a large room filled with bullet-riddled corpses. Too late again. Son of a bitch.
    Lucky started trying to figure out what had happened—a lot of the same chemical trace from their enhanced thugs, one of whom might have been the one who killed everyone else. Some of the bodies also showed signs of energy blast damage, maybe lasers.
    I headed back up to let the guys know we'd missed them. There were too many roads in the area, and we were close to a major highway. No way to find them now. When I glanced down again I saw the rest of the team running pell-mell out the doors, enough sign that the pilot took us up as fast as he could, just before the entire building exploded. Then the magnesium caught.
    "I'm getting sick of this shit," I muttered, staring in dismay at the flaming wreckage. Then Scott joined us in the chopper to let us know that Lucky had found a scent trail leading to the highway, which led to the airport. I had the PITS guys radio the tower and ground all departing flights. I could outfly the helicopter if I tried hard, though the continued effort was starting to take a real toll; I took Lucky with me and poured it on, soon saw the familiar patterns of Logan beneath me. One small plane careered across three runways and finally found enough of a straightaway to take off heading north.
    There was no way in hell I was going to be able to catch it. I slowed to a hover and used every filthy word I knew, somewhat surprising Lucky. Having access to Italian, she outdid me. "Radio every airport in this country. When that thing comes down—"
    One of the PITS guys sighed over the radio. "You have any idea how many small airports there are in this part of the country?"
    "I have a very good idea, I've landed at almost all of them and—"
    "Poughkeepsie," Lucky said quietly, cutting me off mid-rant.
    "Good thought," I acknowledged. "Call Poughkeepsie first. And then call the rest."
    I knew it was useless. If they wanted to, they'd never be seen again. And we were in no shape to head out and try to confront these guys right off, even assuming we're right and they're where we think they are. Phoenix and Lucky were still battered from their fight with the chemically-enhanced thugs, Scott needed some down time for diagnostics after all the explosions and gunfire he'd been caught in, and I've never pushed myself as hard as I had been over the past three days, with precious little sleep in between efforts. Losing control like I did twice in five minutes is a pretty clear symptom. A few hours one way or the other wouldn't hurt us, and it might be vital that we all be at our best.
    Poughkeepsie.

[Perspective switch: Scott; Lucky]

    Someone should keep an eye on Spanner, I decided despite my exhaustion, lest we lose another witness from under our noses, so I went to the station with the PITS guys. If I had to shield her personally twenty-four hours a day, I swore, this one was not going to get away.
    When we got there we found that the PITS contract had been canceled, though they would be paid for the work they had put in; they understood this perfectly and weren't planning to sue the city, I was told when they stopped by the holding area after their chat with Jessica.
    "Nice working with you. Maybe we'll bump into each other again, we're just one state over," one suggested.
    "Yeah, sure. Give a call."
    "You're not exactly our type of professional, but you're some type of professional."
    "Thanks." That was probably as good as I was going to get, and it was better than I expected. They're good guys. A little stiff, but decent.
    "And if you want to come out and practice with some of our flyboys sometime, I think it might be good for you."
    "I'll take you up on that." I could use some R&R at this point.
    "Oh, Winters said she wants to talk to you," he added. "If you want, we'll keep an eye on your pigeon here until you get back."
    "Uh, that's okay." I didn't care to let the woman out of my sight. I called her instead. "Yeah?"
    "I need to see you up here, I gotta talk to you about some paperwork that the Senate wants pushed through about this," she told me. "Five minutes."

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