July 27, 1987

Phoenix Talon continued to meet with the Blood Boards for regular training. He could tell they were getting together on their own to hone their skills and work out maneuvers using their boards, which spoke well of their dedication.
    "Okay boys, line up!" he barked; they broke off sparring instantly and formed up. There were twenty now, an ethnically mixed group in their late teens except for Stu (Stu was forty and a CPA, but he was determined to be a Blood Board, and since he was harmless and had kept low during the gang's more edgy endeavors, he'd been allowed to hang around; his kids wished he'd stop embarrassing them like this). "Your combat training's coming along very well," he told the assemply.
    "Yes, sensei!" they chorused.
    "Soon, I'm gonna start taking you, small groups, two and three, we're gonna start detective skills. Patrolling the streets, knowing what to look for. Also I've been trying to instruct you in the basics of law, when you can hit somebody and when you can't, that's the most important thing. Yes, Johnny," he looked at the raised hand.
    "We kinda got a jump on you on that one," the kid said. "Um, I been waitin', can I—sensei is it all right for me to—can I?" He was too excited to speak coherently.
    "Go ahead," Talon told him.
    "So me and Billy and Kibo, we were out, y'know, just us, doing the board thing, but not, you know, not doing the crime thing anymore because you told us not to do that, and we came across a bunch of the Alley Cats, y'know, and they were like, mugging somebody, so we came up on them, and what did we do, Kibo, what'd we do?" he demanded.
    "We kicked their asses, that's what we did!" Kibo announced.
    "That's right! There were five of them, three of us."
    Phoenix Talon was a little taken aback, but not displeased. "Okay. This is a start. Five of them, three of you, that's pretty good. Anybody damaged? How'd you guys do?" He looked at them a bit more closely; Billy had a black eye. "Okay, that's a good start."
    Johnny had more. "Of course, y'know, then like the people that we rescued saw that it was us and ran away, but still!"
    "Hm. That's a problem." Changing the public image of the Blood Boards was going to require a lot of thought.
    "But we stayed, and the cops showed up, and we told 'em what you said to tell 'em, that y'know, that we were making a citizens' arrest and just doing the, and if there were any problems they should call you, and what'd he do?" He prodded Kibo again.
    "He shook my friggin' hand." If self-satisfaction was tangible he would have been crushed under its weight.
    "See? Feels good, don't it?" Phoenix encouraged them.
    "And then I filched his wallet. No, just kiddin' man," he grinned.
    "That's good. Okay, good. Good. And the cops didn't call me. So they took the Alley Cats into custody?"
    Johnny nodded. "Yeah. Oh yeah. I don't know how long they held them, because like since the people who'd been mugged ran away there wasn't any proof, but it was obvious that we were the good guys and they were the bad guys, so, boom. Put 'em in the wagon, drive away. We were waving."
    "That's good. This is a start. Everybody, back in line," he snapped as discipline seemed to be breaking up amid the general mood of excitement. "I'm glad to hear this, this is a good thing. Now, we'll have to work on the victims being scared of you guys, that's gonna come in time. You gotta get some better publicity. What I want to address right now is the possibility of retaliation."
    "What'ya talking about, retaliation? We kicked their asses!"
    Rick glared. "This is serious. Listen to the sensei."
    "They're always going to come back," Phoenix Talon warned them. "Unless you've got the criminal in jail where he's being watched twenty-four hours a day, he's out there somewhere. Trust me. Doc Cold, he ain't dead. I've told you about Doc Cold."
    "Wait a minute, he was on an island that blew up," someone protested. "After he absorbed all the energy that was there, and there's no body...."
    "Unless you know, unless you can go in your living room and the corpse is there, underneath the coffee table, he's coming back. So you gotta watch your back," he stressed. "Nobody here, none of you. Now this is a smaller scale, this is the Alley Cats, not Doc Cold, but they're out there."
    "And we don't fight Doc Cold, right?" somebody asked.
    "Right."
    "Okay."
    "But the Alley Cats you do fight, and they're the problem we want to focus on. So five of 'em are in jail, but all their buddies are still out on the street."
    "And I heard, I was talking to some people and I heard, that Tybalt has like a magic tattoo. That's Weird Shit, isn't it?" another youth asked anxiously.
    "That is Weird Shit, and I'm gonna have to deal with that," he agreed. "Where do the Alley Cats hang out?"
    "We don't know where they hang. We tried following them," one shrugged, "but that was before Rick got the baffles set up on the rockets, so it's not like we were quiet."
    "I'm workin' on that," Rick insisted. "Okay? I'm telling you, there are big tech advancements coming! Right?" he glanced at Talon.
    "Yeah. Remind me, one of you guys give me your board after we quit here today. I'll take it back, we'll have Scott take a look at it. I'm sure there's some ways we can improve it or at least repair it, 'cause y'know, you guys have got 'em stuck together with chewing gum right now.
    "All right, I'd like to congratulate Johnny and Kibo and Billy on their initial victory. This is just going to be the first in a long series. Again, everybody watch your back. You've all got my cell number, don't be afraid to use it."
    "Everybody, who's your riding buddy?" Rick reminded them.
    "I think, y'know, it's gonna be time soon to take care of the Alley Cats. You guys're gettin' a lot better, and they seem to be the main problem."
    "It's all right, we'll kick their asses!"
    "Yeah, we will. But don't underestimate them. Never underestimate your enemy."
    "Yes, sensei!"
    "But, we can kick their asses?" an uncertain member spoke up.
    "We can. Confidence is good, overconfidence is not," Talon explained. "It's a balance, you'll learn it."
    "You remember what it was like when we had overconfidence?" Rick reminded them. "We had overconfidence when we thought we could take out the sensei."
    "Thank you, Rick." The kid was clearly trying to score points with the dad. It was working.
    "Saturday, you, you and you. We're going to start a basic patrol. I'll take you around the streets. All of you guys are gonna do this as we go on. I think at this point, we're gonna cut membership off at the level it is now. I know the Alley Cats have a few more members, but you guys are better than they are."
    "Damn right, sensei!" they chorused.
    "I'd rather keep the group at the level it is now and maintain quality than just let anybody in and get swamped."
    "Than having an excess of members dilute the pool, sir?" Stu spoke up.
    "Yeah, that's kinda what I'm saying. Gonzo, give me your board, I'm gonna borrow it for the night. Everybody out, have a good night."
    They gave one last cheer and split up for the evening. Talon returned to base and found Scott.
    "D'you have a minute?
    "Sure, what do you need?"
    "This is one of the Blood Boards' boards. I promised them I'd have somebody look at it. For one thing, we need to find somebody who can repair this, 'cause you see look, it's coming apart here. I mean, I don't know what the hell that does, but it don't look good. And for another thing, is there a way to improve this? There's a few capabilities I think the boys could use?"
    "Like?"
    "Better bafflers so they can move quieter, 'cause these things make a ton of noise. Hover capability, that would be good.... I don't think they need any kind of weaponry."
    "Well, that's good," since Scott didn't think so either.
    "Maybe like a mesh gun?"
    "Right after I build me one."
    "Okay, okay. Just a suggestion. You can't repair all the boards by yourself, but maybe you could look at it, put a few improvements on it, and then we could hire somebody to get 'em all up to the standard."
    "Well, I could probably cobble it back together, but I'm only really good with Plovian technology," Scott explained regretfully. That might be a problem. "Hm. I figured since you knew that, this'd be simple. Hm."
    "Well, it's built in. It's not like I was taught. I could probably rewire this if you can find me a Plovian power core and a couple ounces of superconductor...."
    "Do you know anybody else?"
    "Who can put this low-tech piece of stuff back together? Take it to a garage," he shrugged fluidly.
    "And improve it," Talon stressed. "We need a superhero electrician."
    "Dad could do it. New Horizons could do it." Dad being on the other side of the country, it wasn't likely that he could help. "Renaissance could do it. There's probably some guys at MIT who could do it." Whether or not it would be in one piece afterward was another question, of course.
    "Yeah, but I'd like it to be somebody we have a relationship with, I was hoping to hit 'em up for some pro bono work. I don't have a lot to work with here."
    "I can fiddle with it for a while if you want to leave it. I can probably repair it. Attempting to improve it is going to be a little esoteric."
    "Could your dad recommend somebody who lives around here?"
    "I could ask, sure." It was a reasonable time of day; he gave the man a call immediately.
    "Hello, Jeffrey Scott."
    "Hey, dad."
    "Hey! How are you?"
    "Good, and yourself?"
    "Can't complain, can't complain. Work's going well. I saw footage of you guys, very impressive.
    "Giant rubber monster," he explained briefly.
    "Giant rubber monster? Shame, that. Still looked good."
    "There doesn't seem to have been any footage of the truck. That was really impressive."
    "The truck?"
    "Full length, forty-foot semi, eighteen wheeler, capable of flight over two hundred miles an hour I'd estimate, fully submersible, full energy weapons system, high-grade computer system, near low-grade AI."
    "Sounds like quite a truck."
    "The energy projectors are extremely nasty."
    "I can imagine." Pause. "I don't suppose you've got the truck in custody?"
    "Yes we do, actually."
    "Hm."
    "It was doing poorly after the guy who owns it flipped out and decided the giant rubber Godzilla was actually the Midgard Serpent and rammed the truck into it."
    Jeffrey sighed. "Y'know, I'd hoped that when I had a child, there would be a period of time where he would think that my career was more interesting than his career."
    Oops. "Well, actually, I called you about your career, by the way."
    "Oh, okay?"
    "Do you know anybody who's out here who could and would be interested in maybe doing some semi-pro bono work on repairing and maybe upgrading rocket-powered skateboards?"
    Long pause. "I'm gonna ask once, why are you trying to repair the Blood Boards' equipment?"
    "Phoenix has a plan," Scott started, and got no further.
    "I'm sorry, I have to go, the Christmas tree's on fire...."
    "He thinks he can reform them. He might be right. The police are willing to, what'd he say, give him enough rope?"
    Dr. Scott's eye-rolling was almost audible. "Oh, that's often what police say when they're on your side. There's nothing police like more than macrame."
    "Anyway, so they've agreed to stop the mugging, looting, protection rackets and beating people up, forcing very large women in leather coats to beat them mercilessly about the head and shoulders with energy weapons, in exchange for, well, for mostly getting their boards fixed I guess."
    "Well, if he's got that in mind... I'll make a couple of phone calls."
    "He was asking me, but there's not really much I can do with the boards unless I can find a Plovian energy core."
    Pause. "I certainly hope you weren't seriously considering giving the Blood Boards Plovian weaponry."
    "Good grief, no. I wouldn't even give that to Phoenix, much less the Blood Boards."
    "I'll make some phone calls. Could you tell me where the truck is?"
    "The police had it in impound."
    "The guy who was driving it, is he in custody?"
    "He got away. I can send you his file. Large guy, rebuilt into a cyborg, decided he was actually the reincarnation or something of Odin, used to be a professional wrestler."
    "Okay. Mostly I think GEMINI would be really interested in taking a look at that truck's computer system. Maybe you could get it shipped out here. I'll make some calls."
    "Okay."
    "So how are things going otherwise? You started school yet?"
    "Not yet, it's been a little busy."
    "Signed up for next semester, I hope?"
    "Looking at classes," he hedged a bit and changed the subject. "J.T. Leonard's opened a base on the next island. Full Mariner Corp. facilities being set up."
    "That's nice. Has he convinced you that you really want to study electronics and metallurgy yet?"
    "No, but he did find some really fascinating Egyptian ruins underneath the Indian Ocean." It appeared that Jeffrey wasn't quite ready to accept that his "son" didn't plan to follow in his career footsteps, at least not anytime soon.
    "Hm. Actually, I think I remember reading, there were a couple of articles about the beginning of the dig in National Geographic. I'll have to go through and pull those out. Is he planning on showing them anywhere?"
    "There's gonna be a display here in the museum in September."
    "See if you can't talk him into bringing the show on the road for a little while, or at least loaning them out to other museums, I know some people here who'd like to take a look at them."
    "I'll be sure to mention it." After a few pleasantries they signed off. "Dad said he'll see if he can find some people who'd be willing to do this."
    "Okay, thanks!" Phoenix Talon told him.

A darkened room, lit only by television screens showing footage of the Godzilla battle. Newspapers from across the country were scattered on tables and the floor, all with similar headlines:
    Mysterious Giant Monster Attacks Boston.
    Japanese Authorities Baffled by Atlantic Giant Monster.
    New England Variant Program Shows Worth, Revolution Drives Off Godzilla.
    New Threat in New England: Revolution Reveals Toy Man Responsible.
    Who Is the Powerful Toy Man?
    The Toy Man was wearing his battle armor, still somewhat fatigued from his recent exertions. The screens went black one by one as the tapes ended. The room was dark.
    "Sooner than I expected, but the plan proceeds. Wonderful, wonderful. I need more. More! I'm not through with them yet!" His laughter echoed in the empty room.

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