There was only one man in the database who matched that description: Paul Page, the Toy Man. He used to go up against the Great Hunt, who were the Ground Zero of their day, once in a while. He can take any existing small object and make it attain its "real" dimensions, organic or inorganic. It's a huge power drain to do this to large items, but he has been known to throw models of shopping malls at people and watch their expressions as it drops on them, full-size. He's been in and out of jail a lot, "out" mostly under his own power, which his guards underestimate; an accomplice might smuggle in a small, harmless-looking item, or he could carve something himself and use it to escape. He was released most recently on a medical exemption with emphysema (a lifelong smoker) and a rare form of neurological cancer, and is rumored to be living with his sister somewhere in town.
    While we were digesting all of this, Winters showed up at the dock and requested a meeting to update us on our other current cases, as we've gone from being more or less idle to having quite a bit on our collective plate. She brought Ellis' autopsy report, which she handed to Lucky while explaining the gist to the rest of us. He was shot five times at close range but almost randomly, apparently by someone who had no idea what they were doing; neither of the two head wounds would have killed him alone. The killer, a low-level schizophrenic with no history of violence, has no memory of what happened; she awoke in the hospital and assumed that she had forgotten to take her medication again. The toxicology report on her blood turned up an unidentified chemical which was not part of her medication, nor any known normal or variant drug. The sample's been sent down to Lancaster [variant studies college near Harborview] for more testing. No trace of it has turned up in the woman's home; apparently she had just finished a bottle of meds, since all the ones they found were sealed. Everything checked out.
    As for the fire, "Would you believe arson without an accelerant?" she asked dryly. From what they can tell, the whole place went up as a unit, started by nothing at all. She's got a theory that with the Mafia unstable, the tongs in Chinatown are getting set to battle amongst themselves for a piece of the local power. The fire and the dead man Promethean found have pyrokinesis written all over them, and she's worried that one of the tongs has hired a variant enforcer, which just escalates the whole potential of the situation and obviously calls for our involvement. We'll keep our eyes open, and Lucky says she'll do some digging around, having some rather specialized knowledge of the field.
    And as if we didn't have enought to think about, it seems that Hans witnessed something rather mysterious this morning, a car accident without a cause. He heard the thud and went down to look, found a truck with the driver thrown half-clear and badly injured, but no sign of what it had struck, aside from some unusual white clay on the front grill.
    After she left, Scott returned to his searching; I watched over what I will refer to as his shoulder. He doesn't usually bother with his more solid, humanoid form. Biotech and cybernetics companies kept coming up in his searches; he's looking for someone who can help Dr. Scott regain his former mobility. It's difficult for someone who was obviously very physically active to adapt to this forced change in such a short time; he's bitter and angry right now. It might not be so bad if they hadn't used him the way they had; I can sympathize to some extent. Scott's searches kept turning up one name, Gabriel Michaels, head of Renaissance Technologies, for their pioneering work in cybernetic prostheses. Taurus showed up too, I noted with interest, although not as prominently. If he manages to get a meeting with these people I think I'll try to tag along.
    I was distracted then by a phone call.
    "Hello?"
    "Hi, this is Winters."
    "What's up?" I had a pretty good idea.
    "It's Lucky. She's behaving like an addict," Winters told me grimly.
    "I noticed."
    "That look on her face this afternoon—I read through her psych profile and I noticed that one person she might be inclined to trust is this man Prentice?"
    "Yeah, probably."

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