Scott paced.
    "Would you stop pacing?" Winters requested. He stopped. "I wish we'd hear something," she muttered. On cue, the phone rang. "Yeah?" she answered. "Oh, for—remind me never to tempt fate again. We'll do what we can."
    "What happened?" he asked when she hung up.
    She put her head in her hands. "Silverblood and the Blood Boards are down at Quincy Market, trashing the place and insisting that Lucky come out and fight them."
    And she was 200 miles away.
    "Could see if you could slow down the Idiot Patrol?" she requested hopelessly.
    "Sure," Scott assured her, and called the base.
    Albert answered.
    "Is Dr. Scott there?" Albert handed him over. "He's wrecking Quincy Market."
    "Where's everybody else?"
    "In Lancaster."
    "Oh."
    "Yeah, I'm happy." Scott had discovered sarcasm.
    The three agreed to rendezvous at the scene; the reserve forces would do all they could.

    Now that the need for vigilance appeared past, Hans stretched out on the nearest couch to recoup some of the energy expended in his flight.
    Lucky's phone rang.
    "Lucky."
    "Hi, Lucky, Silverblood and the Blood Boards are trashing Quincy Market," Scott informed her. "They're demanding you come out and fight them."
    "I'm in Lancaster, what do you want me to do?" "Well I know, but what, I'm supposed to show up and say, ŒHi, I'm Lucky's social consultant, sorry she's not here?'" "Tell them I had an emergency, I'll make an appointment to meet them tomorrow. Name the time and the place, I'll be there. I mean, if you want to take the son of a bitch out be my guest, but if they want to fight me and there's nothing you can do, tell them I'll fight them tomorrow."
    "I'm not sure their programming tree extends that far."
    She considered what Holly would make of the destruction of a Boston landmark (and revenue source!) due to her own failure to appear, and sighed heavily.
    "All right, I'll be there. I'll owe a vampire bitch a favor, but I'll be there."
    "I'll keep Œem busy," Scott promised.
    She appeared before Lucky could start dialing.
    "Yes?"
    "Please," Lucky mumbled, glaring at her. Yasmina smiled.
    "You owe me, right?"
    "Yes," she ground out.
    "Are we taking the burly one?" At Lucky's nod she leaned over Hans and whispered in his ear in German. "Young man, wake up. Battle calls, young soldier."
    He opened his eyes and yelped, nearly blasted her with a plasma bolt.
    "Don't!" Lucky exclaimed.
    "Excellent reflexes," the vampire approved.
    "What is going on?" he asked.
    "It seems that some of your enemies are attacking an outdoor market in the city, and she's requested my assistance in getting you there in a timely enough fashion to deal with it. We were wondering if you'd like to come along—it would be included under the favor for her, surely, because," a lingering glance, "I barely know you. Unless you're interested in dinner?"
    "All right, let's go." He sat up and straightened his costume. My mother raised me not to talk to women like you. Lucky did everything possible to keep her own expression blank and not to think about the past. "Can we go?"

    Scott reached the market. A holographic Blood Board shouted triumphantly from the air above the building, "Yes! Yes! Trash the place if she doesn't show up! Come on, you coward!"
    Tourists fled in all direction; the robot had already overturned several police cars as useless shots were fired toward its controller. The Bugs Bunny statue had been knocked over. Two other Boards performed skating stunts on the walls.
    "Hey! Cut that out!" Scott yelled, descending in gaseous form.
    The holographic one sneered. "Take him!"
    Silverblood turned on him.
    Remember, it's not intelligent.

At Vincent's Cape Cod home, a woman was speaking.
    "You do understand the deal that we're offering? It was fortunate to discover that the lost item was still active, it might have been damaged. If you want to purchase it, we can give you the correct control systems for it."
    "Yes. I would very much like to purchase it," was the weak reply.
    "Oh. Well, I'll just outfit myself properly." The woman shook her hair from its severe bun and removed her owl-glasses to reveal model-quality beauty. "We didn't expect to be coming back here so quickly, but we should be able to handle the situation. It'll be in your hands in a little while. Would you like to have a battle test of it, first? From what I understand, it looks as if they're going up against it right now, so you can see how effective it will be."
    "Yes, give it a few minutes."
    "As you wish. I'll take care of all the arrangements now." She headed over to the veranda doors, dropped her coat on the floor. Wings extended. Skyfox was gone.
    TECH does nothing without a profit.

    Scott assessed the situation. Silverblood was probably powering up its weapons systems. He launched himself without hesitating, hoping that a solid enough blow would force his counterpart to change state. He could tell his attack had done some damage; it struck at him with a pseudopod in return.
    That it was stronger than he was apparent immediately. TECH's exoskeleton technology had been incorporated into its body, enhancing its power, along with some antigrav device which allowed it to fly in liquid or solid form. He shifted to gas and set himself to absorbing every last bit of energy from the immediate vicinity, hoping to wear down Silverblood's power supply. Darkness enveloped the area. The hologram winked out—he had succeeded in interfering with the control transmission. A Blood Board careened through a plate glass window.
    Silverblood morphed into a manta-like form and went up through the gray cloud. The hologram reappeared. He would just have to try to keep it busy until the others could get there.
    From Lancaster. That was a good hour and a half. He'd have to try.
    One of the hovercycles pulled up nearby; Albert dismounted, kissed the ground without losing any of his dignity. Dr. Scott brought the cycle back up off the ground, working with the device he had built.
    Scott kept pace with the manta and continued to maintain his enveloping cloud; the hologram flickered, the Blood Board ranted. Silverblood dove straight for the ground and drove in through the long corridor of Quincy Market, trying to shake his counterpart.
    The rest of the team appeared in the doorway to the greenhouse off to one side of the market. The place was a mess to their startled eyes, broken glass everywhere. One of the Blood Boards whooped in their direction, saw them and screeched to a shocked halt.
    "She's here! She's here! Stop dicking around!"
    Hans saw Scott, trailing Silverblood inside the main building. Nearer at hand were two of the Blood Boards. One of them was beating up a shopkeeper. Not for long.... A plasma blast arced toward the Blood Board and introduced him to unconsciousness.
    Scott, a cloud, moved his voice around within himself, trying to lure Silverblood back toward one of the doors, then out the window, a huge, streaming silver shape.
    The hologram saw Lucky.
    "There she is! Go get her! Get her!"
    The last one standing headed off around a corner. Turned it. Saw Albert standing there calmly, hands braced on his cane. The youth's eyes went wide and he careered off madly, eventually running into a wall. Albert entered the market and began calming the tourists huddled there.
    The silver robot dove toward Lucky, who remained where she was; when the ultrasonics hit her she was ready for it and rolled out of the way. Glass shattered behind her. Hans threw a stream of plasma at the thing as it passed; Silverblood's substance parted around it, unharmed. Lucky turned her staff to flame and hurled it, leaving scorch marks on its surface.
    The hovering Blood Board looked displeased, wrestled with the robot's controls and swore. Silverblood arced up and dove again toward Lucky, who threw herself aside; she felt its edge just brush her. Above the field of battle, Dr. Scott tested a series of frequencies, ignored by all. Scott continued to cover Silverblood, interfering with the controls and keeping his counterpart from recharging its spent energy.
    Hans rocketed up to meet it coming down and threw a wave of plasma toward it.
    
    "Silver, get out of the way!" Dr. Scott called, making a final adjustment his device. Scott changed to liquid for a moment and dropped down. The plasma blast seemed to shatter Silverblood for a moment, before the liquid segments clumped back together and regrouped.
    "What! No, this isn't—hold it!" the Blood Board sputtered.
    "Shut up, you little punk bastard," Dr. Scott murmured. "This thing's mine." He pressed the control. Electricity arced from Silverblood as it came to rest just above the ground. "OK, right now it doesn't have anything that isn't part of my programming. It's trying to counter, hurry up!"
    Lucky slammed the flaming staff into its substance with a cry. The air seemed to flicker. More char marks on its outer edge. Scott returned to cloud form and covered the other robot again.
    "No, no, get up!" the Blood Board yelled. "What—who the hell are you?"
    They all saw his holographic image turn, eyes wide with startlement and then fear. Saw the plasma blast destroy him. The hologram vanished.
    Dr. Scott worked at his makeshift control. "Frequencies are changing," he announced tersely. "Someone's doing something on the—"
    More sparks. An arc lanced out and set the nearest rooftop on fire. Scott changed to liquid and enveloped the downed robot—This is either going to work, or hurt, he thought, but found that he could absorb the electricity without difficulty.
    "Oh, shit," Dr. Scott said. "Silver, get away from it. Get away from it!"
    The team scattered. Scott turned to back gas just as Silverblood began transmitting on the same frequency as Dr. Scott's device. It froze him in place, in gaseous form, as his neural net slowed to a crawl. The cloud obscured everything in the area. Lucky hurled her spear again as Hans directed another plasma wave toward where the thing had last been seen.
    The transmission stopped. Silverblood was gone, nowhere to be seen. The blast had cracked the pavement down to the level of the sewers. No sign.
    Scott put out the fire on the roof. Albert emerged, tapped his cane on the shattered ground.
    "No body, I see," he noted thoughtfully. "Pity. The young gentleman over there who rammed into the wall has returned to consciousness, proven himself quite helpful. Would you like the address where the rest of his compatriots are? And then I'll let him think that his eyeballs are his again."
    "Just have them send a body bag," Lucky muttered. "Judging by what TECH just did."
    The police and news were there in force. Lucky called the morgue.
    "Jesus," Dr. Scott muttered, landing the hovercycle at the edge of the crater. "Odds of that thing being dead?"
    "One in a million," Scott agreed.
    "That was my best shot," Hans said indignantly. "What do we have to do to the damn thing?"
    "Feed me to it," Lucky answered.
    "It probably won't care about you any more," Scott pointed out.
    "If TECH came and picked it up, they're undoubtedly carrying it off with them to do something else with it. At least it's gone from the city," Dr. Scott said.

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