"She's going to be so mad," Scott sighed. "Can we close the door now?"
    "Yes, I want an explanation," Samantha said firmly.
    "For?"
    "What's going on?"
    "Did you short-circuit?" John asked.
    "Certainly not," Scott replied huffily.
    "And how come you seem to know each other?"
    "Because we do," Paul sighed.
    "Oh I get it!" Witchfire's eyes lit up. "He's been a secret agent this whole time! He's been feeding you information! That is awesome!" She hugged Paul enthusiastically.
    "Do you know anything about a guy called the Toy Man?" Talon wanted to know.
    "Yeah, you hate him," Scott replied.
    "Well, everybody hates him," she observed with a shrug. He was a criminal mastermind, after all.
    "Anything else?" Phoenix prodded.
    "Yes. The silver blob's been a secret agent. Yeah," Paul decided to go with that explanation.
    "We're not actually in Boston, by the way," Scott told him.
    Oh, good. "John, 'Samantha,'" Thunderbolt started carefully.
    "Samantha? Oh, right. Oh gods," Scott added, remembering the story. "I'm in so much trouble."
    "I'm gonna have to ask you to trust me on this one," he went on. "Trust Scott. He's on our side."
    "Okay," she shrugged.
    "If you say so, captain. I gotta check in or the lieutenant's gonna blow a gasket," Talon realized.
    "No, I don't think that's a good idea," Paul continued in the same careful tone.
    "Well, you know where Techmaster's headquarters is, you can lead us right to it!" Witchfire pointed out, looking at their new ally.
    Scott could see no reason not to. "Okay."
    "Looks like we might just have to follow this through to the end," Paul sighed.
    "I suppose we'd better, 'cause there's in theory a wave of robots that in three days will be released upon the city."
    "Yeah. Let's go get 'em." He didn't sound enthusiastic. "Have you seen or heard anything that would help explain our situation, Scott?"
    "Nothing since the Berkshires, no."
    "Me neither. Fifteen days, gone."
    Berkshires? Something in the back of Samantha's head nagged at her.
    "What's in the Berkshires?" Talon wanted to know.
    "Yeah, that other house designed by Orobouros," Scott prompted, to no avail. Their companions remained unaware of their situation.
    "Techmaster it is," Thunderbolt directed.
    "Why do you think I shouldn't check in at police HQ?" Talon wanted to know.
    "We're going after Techmaster of course."
    "I'm not gonna tell 'em that, I just gotta let 'em know that I'm not gonna be in today."
    "Other than the fact that the phone system is bugged, police HQ is bugged," Scott pointed out.
    "Well, I guess you'd know," Talon shrugged. "It's not like I'd be delaying a partner, after the past three dead ones they don't assign me any."

[Aside: Two Scenes]

    "Shall we invade the giant underground base?" Scott invited.
    "Let's," Thunderbolt agreed darkly.
    "I'm really sorry about this, but whoever this is doesn't know any of the tunnels under Boston. They're all wrong."
    "That's probably for the best."
    "But if they're down here, wouldn't they pretty much have to know the tunnels of Boston?" a confused Phoenix Talon asked.
    "Well, if we were in Boston, yeah."
    "I think he's got a screw loose quite literally somewhere," John whispered to Witchfire.
    "No screws in my construction, sorry, you should know better than that," the robot replied cheerfully.
    If we were in Boston... "Oh, shit," Witchfire said, looking down at herself with a certain change in the timbre of her voice.

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