Talon called Candi to see if their evening in exotic Worcester was still on.
    "I'm leaving right now," she assured him. He told her where the hotel was. "I'll go drop off my bags there. You did tell them at the desk that I was going to be showing up? I should be there around six."
    At six, therefore, he left off patrolling and went to meet her there. She was waiting in the room.
    "Hi! Good to see you," she greeted him with a kiss. "How'd the search go?
    "Unproductive so far," he reported. "I think they're laying low."
    "Do they know you're here?"
    "If they don't, they will soon. I don't k now, I don't think this is that big a deal. The Worcester Rooster?"
    "How big a threat can he be," she nodded.
    "I saw a little Italian place over on that street, you want to go?"
    "Sounds great." Later, as they finished up a very pleasant meal, Candi asked, "So, how dangerous is this guy?"
    "Well, it's hard to tell. We haven't actually seen him in a battle, he just overpowered the guard at the art museum."
    "Does he have any henchmen?"
    "He's got the hensmen, these women... six women who are dressed up like chickens. I don't think they'll be a problem," he added sincerely.
    Candi nodded, taking it in. "Six chicken women. Okay...."
    "Theme villains—I don't know what it is. Now I admit there's something weird just about the idea of putting on a costume and going out and fighting people, but a rooster costume?"
    "You've said it before, the world is full of some incredibly stupid people."
    "And they all seem to want to get beat up by me," he sighed.
    "At least you're popular?" she offered with a smile.
    "Yep. How's the show going?"
    "Going pretty well. Right now they're still doing the filming, you guys haven't shown up yet, obviously, you do know that you're going to be needed on the set more once that starts?"
    "Yeah, probably."
    "But things are going pretty well right now. Actually, right before I left I got a phone call from Mr. Paulson?"
    "Yeah?" Him again?
    "Um, he was wondering if—it turns out I'm going to be able to stay out here for a couple of days, actually, 'cause they're planning on doing a publicity shoot out here, just with people from the TV show."
    "Oh. When did this get decided?"
    "Just this afternoon," she replied blithely. "Apparently things just came up. What?" she added, seeing his irritated look.
    "He called the base and talked to Needle. They wanted to come out here and follow me around as I looked for the Rooster guy."
    "Is that wise?" she asked with a concerned look.
    "No, it's not wise! He may be the Worcester Rooster, but he can still hurt people. Somehow I see a connection here. I don't trust that Paulson guy, we know, we know Toy Man's over there somewhere. Obviously, if Toy Man is over there, he's not going anywhere and he's obsessed with us anyway, so it's not a priority. We'll have to get him eventually."
    "Why don't we head back?"
    They walked the short distance, his arm around her waist. As they entered the hotel lobby a dozen lights flashed, momentarily blinding Talon, who assumed a defensive stance automatically.
    "Oh, sorry sir! We're just getting pictures of the latest Agglomerated MegaTelevision star from the show," a cameraman explained.
    "You are?" Candi asked, clearly delighted by this appellation.
    Talon shrugged and moved out of the way as the concierge approached him.
    "Excuse me, sir? You're Mr. Astaverdia, correct? I wanted to let you know that we received a phone call and I was entirely unaware... we've upgraded your room as well. Your belongings have been moved up, here are your new keys. I apologize for the inconvenience." He all but bowed.
    "Who asked for the upgrade?"
    "You're part of the Agglomerated MegaCorp publicity junket," the man replied, blinking.
    "No, I am a law enforcement officer. I am getting reimbursed for this, and I don't think the state's going to go for this bill," Talon pointed out with unusual restraint.
    "Oh, no, AMC is paying for it. You're staying with Miss Rich, correct? She's got a room."
    "Okay...." In that case, may as well save the Commonwealth some money.
    Back in Boston, Holly Shapiro would have wept to know that she had just been robbed of the headline "Phoenix Talon Love Junket."
    Candi and Talon finally reached the elevators after running a gauntlet of photographers.
    "Um, the concierge mentioned something about an upgrade?" she asked.
    "Yeah, apparently they're paying for a new room for us."
    "Oh. Okay. I wonder if there's complimentary champagne." They reached the penthouse suite. "Wow. This is... big."
    Big enough that Phoenix Talon felt he had to search the place before relaxing, but he found nothing amiss. Eventually they got around to seeing where they'd left off when Travis had walked in the last time.
    And then the phone rang. Not the room phone, which he would have ignored.
    "Phoenix Talon," he snapped, picking it up.

Randy made a series of phone calls, and a steady stream of people arrived at his house, until there were ten of them gathered there. One missing.
    "Chandra. I haven't been able to get in touch with her. I spoke with her a couple of days ago, she said that she was going to be working some crazy, crazy hours," one of the other survivors told Privateer.
    "Where does she work?"
    "Out at the Weathervane, in the mall."
    "Call the police. Have them available to watch over everyone here. I will try to find Chandra." He left the house silently, leaped onto the skimmer and headed for the outlet stores at top speed.
    As he reached the mall he saw a flying man smash through the long, arched glass roof over the atrium. A couple of crop-duster type planes disgorged a half dozen women who glided downward on white feathered parasails.

    "Phoenix Talon! We've got him! We know where he is! He's attacking the outlet shops, you have to get there right now!"
    He'll be there tomorrow, won't he? he almost asked aloud.
    Fortunately, it wasn't hard for Talon to change into his costume at that point. "Sorry, hon, this won't take long. It's the Rooster."
    "Oh. I'll be waiting," she promised with a faint sigh. This was an aspect of dating a superhero that she hadn't really thought about.
    "I'll get back as soon as I humanly can." I'm going to make him suffer for this. He ran out to the hoverbike parked on the balcony and took off.
    When he got to the mall, there was a big hole in the roof and a figure on a flying device, wearing a billowing cloak. The Rooster!

Privateer had time to see someone flying towards him, very fast and looking more than a little pissed off. The last of the hens were disappearing into the mall.
    This guy was pretty fast, Talon noted. He did a fly-by and kicked him in the head. His target saw it coming in time to roll with the blow, and managed to hang onto the skimmer.
    "Hey, Rooster, I'm gonna kick your ass!" Talon shouted.
    Then they recognized each others' costumes.
    "They're in there," Privateer snapped, pointing at the mall and politely refraining from skewering Talon in retaliation for the unprovoked attack.
    "Sorry, man.... You're here for them, too?"
    "No, but I'll help you out if you want." A crime was in progress, after all.
    "Yeah, sure, let's go!" The two swooped down into the atrium through the broken window. The crowd three stories below was panicking as the Rooster landed atop one of the huge decorative "hot air balloons" that hung from the ceiling girders. He crowed as the hensmen scattered below, dashing into stores to empty cash registers and firing their egg-guns, which released clouds of a noxious, sulfurous gas.
    "Ha ha ha! Quickly, my hensmen, we'll empty out the entire place! No one in this pitiful town can stand against the Worcester Roost—uh-oh." He noticed Phoenix Talon.
    Talon extended an arm and clotheslined the Rooster, who was knocked off the balloon but flapped his arms with their attached glider-wings a few times and remained aloft, flying a bit clumsily. He was obviously wearing some sort of body armor under all the feathers.
    "The Revolution? I'm not afraid of you!" the Rooster shouted.
    "You will be soon," Talon promised grimly, trying to put Candi out of his mind.
    "This is my town, mine!" The villain swooped past and slashed out with one of the spurs on his legs, but wasn't anywhere close to striking. "Dodge all you want! Eventually you'll be defeated!"
    "I didn't have to dodge, you missed!"
    "I am the master of the air, ha-ha!" He flapped madly to regain altitude. Phoenix Talon drove the bike straight at him, but the Rooster closed up his wings and dropped down to evade him.
    Meanwhile, Privateer concentrated on the hensmen, attempting to magnetically yank away one of the egg-guns, but she kept her grip on the weapon.
    "Hey, give that back!" One of the two fired eggs exploded against his chest, drenching him in sulfurous gas. He coughed, blinked suddenly streaming eyes.
    As clouds of gas drifted up from below, Phoenix Talon put his rebreather on and tried another fly-by. This time he hit the Rooster square; the guy folded up around his fist, "wings" obscuring most of Talon's field of vision; he took the bike up in the knowledge that whatever he might hit, the Rooster would hit it first.
    Privateer made another try for the hen's gun, but missed. Several of them ran out of stores, clucking, carrying wicker baskets of money.
    "Bawk-bawk-b-boss? Do you think we should go?" one shouted. The others milled around indecisively. He finally got his eyes clear and activated the magnetic fibers in his cloak, which moved around him as if of its own accord, ready to deflect any further missiles.
    There was a shattering sound from above as Phoenix Talon drove through the remaining panels. The Rooster hit tailfeathers first.
    "Yeowch!"
    Phoenix Talon grabbed the Rooster with one hand to keep him from falling, slammed a fist into his face. "You unconscious yet? 'Cause we can keep doing this all night."
    "Aaugh! My nose!"
    "Are we done?"
    "Uhhh... Yeth," the Rooster decided. "Can I go to the hothpital now?"
    Seeing that their boss was out of things, the mother hen called, "C'mon girls, get to the truck!" They barrelled through the crowd toward the parking garage, Privateer close behind. Parked out there was a big pickup truck, a woman in a chicken suit at the wheel.
    "Go, go, go!" a hen shouted as they all piled into the back.
    "No problem!" the driver called back.
    Halfway across the garage, Privateer magnetically removed the keys from the ignition.
    "Problem! We have a problem!" the driver corrected.
    "Looking for these?" he inquired, dangling the keys from a guantleted hand.
    The hens bowed to reality. "All right, we give up...."
    From the mall behind them came a sudden screaming that was not induced by the Worcester Rooster. Privateer swiftly wrapped the hensmen up in a cable fired from one of what looked like a set of antique flintlocks—they wouldn't be going anywhere—and ran back inside, unpleasantly certain of what he was going to find.
    Phoenix Talon looked around and saw police cars arriving, took his prey down to turn over.
    "My nothe," the Rooster was still complaining. "He bwoke my nothe!"
    The cop was less than sympathetic. "Well, just sit down inside the car—"
    "I can't thit down!"
    "You'd better put him in the ambulance," Phoenix Talon suggested. "I'm gonna come talk to you tomorrow," he warned the Rooster. "I got... stuff to do this evening."
    "Okay. Ow."
    Talon went looking for Privateer, found him standing at the door to the changing rooms at the Weathervane store. A woman nearby looked like she was trying to decide between throwing up and simply fainting. When Phoenix Talon looked inside, he had to suppress his own gag reflex and glance away for a moment.
    "Sabertooth recently was part of a breakout at Harborview," Privateer informed him tersely. "I'm on her trail. Spoke with a number of potential targets, and Chandra here was...."
    "Her?"
    "Yes."
    "Shit. Did you get the chicken women?" he asked after a moment.
    "Yeah, they're back there."
    "Thanks for your help."
    They got some police up there, and while they went about the usual grim tasks Privateer mentioned to Talon, "If Sabertooth is done here, it is possible that her next likely target is in Boston."
    "Why is she targeting these people?"
    "They're survivors or bystanders of the daemon incursions, I'm not exactly sure beyond that."
    "Hm. Too bad Lucky's not around, she might be able to tell us something."
    "I have a quick stop I have to make, before I go anywhere."
    "Do you think she'll hit again tonight?"
    "I have the other possible targets under police surveillance right now, I'd like to go check up on them."
    "Here's my phone number, I gotta get back. Important business." He returned to the hotel, pausing only to let the cops know that he'd be by to talk to the Rooster in the morning before heading back to Boston.
    News of Sabertooth's attack had made the news by the time he got back, with some rather graphic shots of the crime scene.
    "Hi," Candi said shakily
    He looked at the television. "Yeah, it was pretty bad."
    "Did you... catch...?"
    "No. You saw the Privateer on there, we just kind of met each other out there. He's on her trail, needs my help. He's gonna call."
    The mood had been quite obviously ruined. Again. He held her until she drifted off to sleep, thinking that he should have hit the Rooster harder. Though before she'd drifted off, she'd said something about his birthday coming up....
    Privateer verified that the other survivors were all right—they'd been warehoused in the local jail for the time being, which was fine with them. He stationed himself outside the building to keep watch.

Thunderbolt's hand was on the phone, ready to call Stephanie about that baseball game, when it rang.
    "Revolution headquarters?"
    "Hello, can I speak with Thunderbolt, please?" a breathy voice asked.
    "Speaking."
    "Captain Sutton, this is Tao, I was wondering what you were doing this evening?"
    Oh, Christ. "I'm actually kind of busy tonight. Why?"
    "I was just... I wanted to thank you again for everything today, and there's a dinner tonight, there's this French fashion designer, Pierre, in town, we're going to be doing one of my last modeling gigs before we actually start the real filming on the series, and that's supposed to be tomorrow, so we're all getting together tonight beforehand, just casual, I was wondering whether or not you wanted to show up."
    Fortunately, there was a ready excuse. "I do have to work tonight, have to go on patrol. Sorry, I'd love to show. Duty does call."
    "Okay. Well, all right. I just thought I'd ask."
    He called the office; Stephanie wasn't there. Called her boss to get her home number.
    "Hello, you've reached the home of Stephanie, Sally, and Gillian. Unfortunately none of us are here right now. If you leave a message after the tone, we'll call you back as soon as we can."
    Beep.
    "Hi, Stephanie, this is Captain Sutton. I was trying to find out more information about the baseball game you mentioned. Call me back at the base."

| Top |