The me from six months ago would be horrified at what I just wrote, but she was a very different woman.
    "Yes?" a man at the door said when I walked up.
    "Hi, mind if I take a look around? I need to bring in the plants next week," I ad libbed.
    "Oh yeah, sure, go ahead." He waved me in, and I spent a few moments poking through what looked like perfectly normal office space.
    A man in the main room was saying, "No, that desk goes over there, this goes—yes, can I help you?" he asked impatiently, spotting me.
    "Hi. Where do you want the ficus?"
    He gave me a blank look for a moment, then shook his head, focusing. "Ficus. Over there. I thought you said fetus for a minute. We're not supposed to be getting those 'til next week?"
    "They are, I just wanted to know where you want them. That way I won't have to bother you then," I pointed out with a pleasant smile. I think I'm getting better at this stuff.
    He looked, and sounded, exasperated. "Lady, we don't even have the desks in the right place yet. They're gonna be over there, and they're gonna be over by the door, okay? I'm sorry, I'm just... having a really hectic morning. If you'll excuse me." He strode off.

[Aside: The others]

    I was on my way out of Caduceus when I got Scott's call about a robbery in progress, and reached the scene just as the presumed bad guys were pulling away in an astonishingly well-preserved antique convertible. Scott and Paul came out of a nearby building and jumped on the hoverbikes to follow.
    Despite his lack of a costume, I recognized Phoenix Talon as the man climbing out the window of the moving taxi below. He paused to pull something out his pocket and hand it to the driver, yelling, "I got your taxi number, I'm comin' back for the receipt!" Then he made his way to the taxi's hood and jumped onto the back of the fleeing car. The man later identified as Count Bastard (where do they come up with these names?!) was driving, with one of his men beside him and the other in the back seat. They weren't going all that fast—as Scott observed, Boston is a poor city in which to attempt a getaway by car—so I plucked the driver out of the car, figuring that this would force one of the men to grab for control and leave the other for Phoenix Talon.
    The guy in the back seat (Licorice Stick) was messing with a violin case. Phoenix Talon went for him with a paralyzing nerve strike, which missed as the man threw away the case and came up with a Tommy gun.
    Paul zipped around me and dropped down from the hoverbike into the driver's seat of the car, tried to punch Double Bass and missed him as the car lurched.
    "Ha! I've got you now!" The machine gun barked. After a moment of panic Phoenix Talon realized that he wasn't being shot. Licorice Stick looked at the gun in disbelief, then threw it away. "Blanks!?"
    "You guys need to find a new gun shop," Talon advised. "I'm gonna make you eat that, boy."
    Double Bass grabbed the steering wheel and yanked, making the car veer wildly, but Phoenix Talon kept his footing.
    Catching up to the rest of the group, Scott dropped down in front of the car in liquid form and ate the spark from the engine. They began to slow down even further.
    I tried to get the weird-looking trumpet the Count was carrying away from him, but the dang thing slipped out of my grip. I hate trying to work with inorganics; they just don't feel right.
    "You cannot have my trumpet, my masterpiece!" He clutched it closer to him, then brought it up to play. "You look like a woman of taste and quality; you too will fall under the spell."
    It was one of the nicer forms of mind control I've seen so far, I must say. While I could do nothing but listen to the music, we drifted slowly toward a rooftop.
    Phoenix Talon tried the neck chop again and put Licorice Stick out of commission as the car continued to slow to a crawl. Sutton punched Double Bass solidly, knocking him out.
    "Good shot," Talon congratulated him. He ducked down in the back seat and pulled his costume out of his backpack, put it on.
    I broke free of the pleasant spell, realized where I was and what I was doing, and put the trumpet-playing thief out very gently. His music isn't actually all that bad.
    Scott called for pickup. "We're about two blocks from where you put in the call."
    Phoenix Talon checked the captives for ID and found business cards, among things, for "Count Bastard: Wacky Guy With Funky Trumpet." One of them had a color glossy pamphlet in his back pocket from 1-800-HENCHMEN, which Talon confiscated. It had enthusiastic testimonials from no-name supervillains, pictures of the various costume designs they could provide, and gushing descriptions of the breadth of available services.
    "Where did you get this?" he asked.
    "What?"
    Talon smacked him. "Where did you get this, boy?"
    "I don't know nothin'," Licorice Stick mumbled.
    "Look, if I put in a good word for you with the cops, you don't go away for as long."
    "What, you think you can keep me out of the hoosegow?"
    "It ain't like that, but I can put you in there for less time. All you gotta do is, where did you get this? I've already seen a couple of these on the street, and I'm tryin' to track them down."
    "I picked it up in a bar."
    "What bar?" Sounded like a place Lucky would hang out. Phoenix Talon hesitated, decided to try to satisfy a point of nagging curiosity. "I just gotta know, when you called this—didn't you see that it would end up like this?"
    "Whattya mean?"
    "I just want to know, when you saw Count Bastard over there, what went through your head?"
    "'Wow, this guy's got a plan,'" Stick told him seriously.
    "Never mind."
    The cops showed up, chuckled a bit at the names, and dragged them off to lockup. As they put Count Bastard into the van he shouted, "This is not the last time we will meet! I have other contracts! I'll be in the top ten, you can't stop me!" Then the door slammed.
    "Yeah, maybe next time it'll last ten minutes," Phoenix Talon muttered. "Everybody okay?" Nobody had even been scratched.
    "How you doing?" Scott asked Sutton.
    "Good," he grinned.
    "It's a good feeling, ain't it?" Phoenix Talon agreed.
    "I like it."
    The news crews were on their way. Talon hauled us all off to a quiet alley for a brief conference.

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