"What's our next move, captain?" He looked at Thunderbolt.
    "I think I need to lie down for a little while."
    "Maybe we should take him to the hospital or something," Samantha wondered, worried anew.
    "No! I'm all right," he hastened to reassure them. "I'm just a little disoriented. I must have gotten... I don't know, disoriented, or something."
    "All right, you go up for a while, and we'll watch this tape of The Last Action Hero," John suggested.
    The doorbell rang again as Thunderbolt was on the stairs. Phoenix Talon got it—it was the giant silver blob-thing! His katana was on the bike, and it was useless against this enemy in any case; he drew his .44 Magnum from its shoulder holster and fired point-blank. Witchfire's defenses went up.
    "Hey! What'd you shoot me for?" Scott yelped, going to gas form. "Look out, Phoenix has flipped out!"
    Thunderbolt realized that someone else here didn't know what was going on—just like he didn't. "Everybody STOP!"
    "What?" the other two demanded in chorus.
    "He's been mind-controlled!" Witchfire announced, scanning his aura. It looked the same as it had earlier, which meant that if he was mind-controlled, he had been since early this morning....
    But Thunderbolt was never wrong about anything. Phoenix Talon kept a bead on the evil silver robot and asked their leader, "Why?!"
    "Give us a good reason to think you're not mind-controlled," Witchfire demanded.
    "If I thought I could answer that convincingly I would have done it already," he muttered. The tableau held for a few seconds longer while he tried to think of what to do.
    "Captain, say something or I swear I'm gonna shoot him on general principles!" Talon announced grimly.
    "Just stand down for a second. Who are you?" Thunderbolt asked Scott. "What's the last thing you remember?"
    "Besides being shot by him?"
    "Before today. Does anything seem unusual to you about this situation?"
    Well, yes. Scott searched his memory files. There was a big gap. The last recorded date was October 11, when the four of them had headed up to the Black Whip's mansion in the Berkshires. He remembered getting there, working his way into the building in gas form, being attacked by an energy drain and passing out. He told Thunderbolt this; the man looked intensely relieved.
    "Okay. All right Scott, it's me, it's really me."
    "What?" a paranoid Phoenix Talon demanded.
    "John, you can keep a bead on him," Thunderbolt assured him in a soothing tone. "Scott, you can stay in gas form, I don't care what you do. John, he's okay. What's the last thing you remember before today?"
    "Fighting this guy last night, less than twenty-four hours ago!" Something tickled the back of his mind as he said it, though....
    "Think about it John, this isn't right." Having heard Scott's explanation, Paul's memories were coming back as well. He and Phoenix Talon had been infiltrating the house from opposite directions. He'd seen Scott jumped by a group of six people, had moved in to protect him, but the Circuit Board's collective energy-manipulation powers had cancelled his out. He'd been hit several times, and the last thing he recalled was being pummelled unconscious... by ducks? Five of them, made of metal... someone had said a name, hadn't they?
    Roy McCoy and His Hyperalloy Decoys. That was it. And thank God, no one else had been there to see it.
    Phoenix Talon looked confused, but still deeply suspicious. "This could possibly be the work of the Toy Man, one of the most dangerous and cunning opponents I've ever faced!"
    Oh my God, he's mind-controlled even worse than I thought, Thunderbolt realized. "Needle, I can only hope that's you in there?" No go, judging by her baffled expression. Not to mention the fact that she was exhibiting no self-consciousness whatsoever about being dressed in a t-shirt and her underwear.
    "Scott, if that is your real name," Talon said to the robot. "Why are you here?"
    "That's a good question," Thunderbolt admitted. "How did you find us?"
    "You're on the monitors."
    "What monitors?" Phoenix Talon demanded.
    "The big monitor board down in the giant underground base."
    "Techmaster's giant underground base?" Witchfire asked.
    "Yeah. Which is kind of why I was hoping we could close the door sometime soon," he added. There was a truck pulling up outside even as he spoke. "Too late."
    "We're on the monitors, it doesn't matter," Thunderbolt shrugged.
    "The camera's out on the street."
    "Then how did you see me and her?"
    "Through the window. Look out for the goofy-looking robots." They rolled out the back of the van, unfolded, and advanced in formation, clearly meaning business.
    Witchfire promptly picked up a robot and threw it into their midst, shattering another.
    "Now I understand, this was an ambush! You set us up!" Phoenix Talon sprinted out the door, went into a shoulder roll, came up and shot one, blowing its head into shards before grabbing the katana off his bike.
    "Even mind-controlled, he's still wrong," Scott sighed. He knew from what he'd seen underground that these were Techmaster's weakest servants. He snaked a pseudopod out and disabled the one driving the van. Thunderbolt, wanting this over, sucked a half dozen robots dry of power. It didn't take long to wrap up the battle. Afterwards, Scott pointed out the camera across the street for him to slag, and Witchfire changed into her costume, since it looked like they were going to be going into action; she just felt more dressed that way, even though far less of her was actually covered.

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