"Thanks."
     "I apologize for blowing up the tank. A tactical error," Hans noted in his typical fashion.
     "I don't call it a tactical error, I think it worked real good."
     "It would have been much simpler for me just to blow the glass myself without the boiling water."
     "Well, we live and learn. Everybody alive?" All present and accounted for, except for Scott.
     "Needle?" Lucky said.
     "What?"
     "Are my gloves nearby?"
     Those damn gloves again. "I don't know. Let me look." I scanned out to the edge of my range. The walls were thin enough for me to "see" through, although fuzzily. I sensed two people guarding the door, nonvariants by the feel of them, and some people leaving the area. Powerful ones. No sign of the gloves.
     Lucky sniffed. "Scott?" She could smell him somewhere nearby. We fanned out and started looking for him; it was the large metal box No-Name had been sitting on. Lucky smashed it without much effort, freeing our amorphous companion, who bounced out, cheerful as always.
     "Hey! You got deathtrapped? How come I didn't get a death trap? Was I unconscious? I've never been unconscious before."
     "You'll probably have lots of chances to repeat the experience. There's two people outside guarding the door, please don't kill them," I told the others. "They might be able to tell us something useful."
     "I'm not going to kill anyone, back off," Lucky growled.
     Hans decided we should lure them into the room and take them out. I didn't point out that I could probably knock them both out from this side of the wall; it seemed best to let him and Lucky work out their frustrated aggressions. We all hid in shadows; I opened the door from a distance.
     They didn't have a chance, two guns apiece or no. They'll survive the day, but that's about all to be said for them.
     Outside was a hallway. With fluorescent lighting. Scott immediately flowed up to the ceiling, yanked out a tube and plugged himself into the socket. Lucky was looking at me expectantly. I sighed and headed down the hall, keeping my "eyes" open.
     There. Above us. That wicked creepy sensation, and a person nearby. No one I recognized, hard to guess about powers at this distance. No one else within sensing range.
     "Your gloves are upstairs. Let's go get them and get the fuck outta here." My language goes downhill in situations like this. All defensive bravado, like a cat trying to make itself look bigger.
     Scott took the lead; I brought up the rear as we headed up the stairs. We seemed to be underground. Still no one. No guards. We found the proper door.
     "Scott?" Lucky whispered. He slipped a small pseudopod under the door and took a look around. Then, much to our collective surprise, he reached up and opened the door.
     We stared at the small Chinese man inside the prototypical wizard's chamber, and he stared back at us. Only Scott retained any faculties; he reached out, whisked the gloves away from the wizard and passed them through his substance to Lucky. Then he reached out a few liquid limbs and pinned the old man against the wall.
     "I'm glad you were prepared for you to do that," I muttered.
     "Maybe somebody should call Chandler?" Lucky proposed.
     "What's his number?" Scott asked (his phone being built into his body, he was the only one who still had one).
     In the meantime, the old wizard grew to seven and a half feet tall, started glowing and flowing over Scott's hold on him, apparently breaking free. It wasn't the same terrifying concentration of light which had shut down my mind before, so I could compensate for my sudden blindness, but it's still unpleasant. I'm seriously considering adopting mirrorshades as part of my outfit.
     At least I now knew that Scott still had him pinned, contrary to what my eyes had been telling me, and my vision cleared quickly. The wizard fired another of those light blasts at Lucky, who blocked it with her staff, then stepped up like a batter to the plate and took a swing. Something cracked nastily—I think it was his shoulder—and he was out cold. The light and the illusion faded, leaving the little old guy still pinned against the wall.

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