"Excuse me, back here!" Scott chirped from behind the thing.
    The headlights swung around, trying to pinpoint him.
    Phoenix Talon finally picked up his phone. "We have a giant robot smashing up the theater here, could you please come and help?" I suggested.
    "Be right out."
    Now that the area was clear of endangered civilians, I turned my attention to the robot, focusing to see if it was a robot. Not quite; there was a human bio-aura glowing dimly in the center of all that metal.
    "We've got a warm body in there, Scott, don't hurt it too badly."
    General Motors was talking to himself. "Wait a minute—stop paying attention to that, the compass I have dangling from my rear-view mirror will tell me where they are!"
    "Is there a pair of fluffy dice on there, too?" I inquired, raising my eyebrows.
    "Shut up! They're my lucky dice!"
    "Do you have a raccoon tail hanging from your antenna?" Scott wondered.
    "One of those little hula girls on your dashboard?" I tried.
    "Or a dog with a bobbing head?"
    Motors roared and swung the bus. He had the right direction, but the distance was a little off, missed me by a foot and the theater by six inches.
    I went for the old exhaustion trick and got him quite nicely if I say so myself.
    "Can't... pass... out..." the driver gasped in defiance of reality.
    Scott tangled himself around the robot's legs to try and trip it.
    "Gyroscopes... not functioning... vision going... hazy... must... get Nips!"
    "Nips? Nobody says Nips, except guys who were in the war and never learned better," I muttered indignantly.
    The robot was staggering back and forth, lashing out blindly and crushing several cars in its fight to remain upright, trying to use the bus like a counterweight. In his unpredictable motion, he tagged just the edge of my shield and smashed the building wall. I went hurtling back into the theater with no semblance of control over my path.
    Thunderbolt ran to try to catch me, tripped on a piece of rubble, and did manage to break my fall. We landed in an, um, undignified position, particularly with my dress ripped like that. I saw a camera flash go off and decided that someone was going to die.
    "Hey!" Scott yelled, losing patience with our attacker. He found the door and ripped it off its hinges. "Hey, you!" he said to the wiry, balding, forty-year-old sitting groaning in the control chair. "Are you going to give up now, or am I going to have to remonstrate you?" he demanded sternly.
    "Can't... pass... out...."
    Scott poked him. He passed out.
    About then, Phoenix Talon arrived on a... skateboard? and immediately dashed around the building looking for henchmen. We do learn. He found them hiding in the coat closet, wearing blue coveralls with Pinto and Dart written on the backs. They had been planning to escape in the confusion, having realized that the plan was kaput. Phoenix Talon heard them talking, popped a flash to blind them both, then slammed their heads together and dragged them outside.
    I got up, dusted myself off, and gave Thunderbolt a self-conscious hand up. "Oh, shit, I lost a shoe." I flew back outside to see what was going on there, trying not to think about the fact that my shield was all that was holding my dress in place. And Molly thinks I should spend more time out of uniform? Yeah, right.
    "Found the henchmen," Talon announced, bringing his captives out.
    "Good job, Phoenix," I approved. "And excellent work taking out the robot, Scott."
    "Hot damn. All that effort to be just as stupid as Count Bastard," Phoenix Talon sighed.
    "Actually, I think Count Bastard's a lot smarter than this guy. All the stuff he packs into that horn?" Scott found a big red lever on the control panel inside the robot and pulled it; the robot turned back into a '49 Roadster. "Nice trick, unconscious man. I'm sure the police are on their way, but could we call for a wrecker as well?"
    "We're gonna need a special impound at this rate," I muttered.
    Phoenix Talon did another check, but found no more henchmen. "Looking good, Needle, looking good," he observed the mess that I currently was. "So what do we do with these guys? If we hand these guys over to the cops, the Wall, Stone guys, they'll be out tomorrow."
    "Well, yes, what are you suggesting we do, slit their throats?" I inquired.
    "I don't know, I'm asking for suggestions."
    "There really isn't anything else we can do," Scott shrugged.
    "Phoenix Talon, we work with the cops. We give them to the cops," I explained for what felt like the sixth time. "What happens to them afterward is part of the legal process. We will, however, keep a very careful eye on them in jail."
    Said cops got there about then, and we went through the usual routine.
    "This guy's got some ID on him," one noticed. "So, Mr. Buck Skylark, what'd you think you were doing?"
    "You realize that's gotta be a fake name," Scott sighed.
    "I'm guessing we've got a disgruntled... factory worker?" I said.
    "Disgruntled automotive engineer," Scott suggested.
    "I'm the world's greatest automotive engineer!" General Motors roused somewhat. "I'll show them, I'll show them all! Profits down, Japanese stealing market share...."
    "You resisted fuel injection, didn't you?" Scott said sympathetically.
    "Who needs it!"
    The cop shook his head. "Standard operating procedure means that we now have to put the forty-year-old inventor in the armored paddywagon. And I'm not at all guilty about that. Get in there, you little dork."
    "Screw this, I'm gonna go look for my shoe," I muttered, leaving this little farce to play out.
    "We're gonna have to build a whole new wing for these guys," one of the cops remarked as they left.
    "Sorry about your theater," Scott said to no one in particular, looking at the destruction. He moved in to help them clean up as far as he could.

[Aside: Elsewhere]

August 15, 1987

Watched Shapiro's show, as usual. I have a fond hope of actually catching her in a libel someday; she doesn't have the excuse of being mind-controlled anymore.
    "Here I am at the site of the latest Revolution battle," she said. "The wreckage of the building behind me shows once again the dangers posed to the average citizen of Boston by variant vigilantes and villains operating virtually without license in the city."
    "Except for the fact that no one except me actually got hurt," I told the screen acidly.
    "And it probably would have been worse, because we weren't really supposed to be there, we just got complimentary... no, I really think you kinda blew it this time, Holly," Scott judged.
    "She's stretching lately," I shrugged, changing the channel. "We haven't screwed anything really major up in a while. Give her time."
    "Or us."
    Cheerful thought. It's a distraction from what was in the paper this morning, though—that photo of me and Thunderbolt, juxtaposed with the latest news on Talon and Candi, who I guess are now an official item. "Hearts and Flowers on Revolution Island" indeed—I may be ill. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to think of a denial that wouldn't be read as a confirmation by those slavering yahoos. This town should thank God that I'm not Tempest. There wouldn't be a soul alive for miles.
    I don't think Paul's seen it. If he has, I'm going to stop playing poker with him.

[Aside: Elsewhere]

[Aside: Phoenix Talon]

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