Phoenix Talon submitted his expense report for the taxi ride and called the company to complain about the driver, who had gone off without giving him his receipt. Then he called Rick.
    "Hello?" a woman answered the phone.
    "Hi, is Rick there?"
    "Just a sec. Honey, there's a phone call for you!"
    "Okay, mom," came faintly. "Yeah?"
    "Rick, it's Phoenix Talon. You see the papers this morning?"
    "Yeah."
    "Okay, I can't imagine that there'd be anybody left in the gang who wouldn't be in a mood to listen to me."
    "No... Wendell, the guy you let go, was like, psyched. He managed to talk the rest of the group, especially with the 'this idiot just told them where we were going next' argument, which seemed to be remarkably effective."
    "Okay, listen, the time is right. Can you get a meeting together for tomorrow night?"
    "I'll see what I can do, yeah."
    "Okay, call me back."
    "Right."
    Then he went to the comic store to pick up the month's new manga, something he'd been getting into more since his trip to Japan. There wasn't a whole lot available, but he gathered his usual titles. The rest of the day was reading, relaxing, figuring out what to say to the Blood Boards, and getting to know Thunderbolt.
    "In Japan the addresses are like, different," he found himself explaining. "They're like you've got the block, and the address is where your house is on the block, not on the street. It took me a while to get used to it. And they drink a lot of beer over there, it's like in vending machines."
    "Really?"
    "Yeah."
    "Is it good?"
    "Yeah, I got some in the fridge." He fetched a Sapporo. "So where you from?"
    "I can't tell you."
    "Come on man...."
    "Just kidding," Paul grinned. "Area 51."
    "I'm from Massapequa, it's on Long Island."
    "Hadn't guessed," Paul deadpanned.
    "I went to school in Houston. It was the only variants program that would let me in."
    "Variant studies?"
    "I thought you got into Lancaster?" Scott asked.
    "Interview didn't go well."
    "Did you hit him?"
    "No, I never hit any of the interviewers," Talon maintained. "I... made some implications, but... they kept asking me these questions.... But I liked University of Houston. Lots of parties, girls. It was a good time, and I did okay, when I put my mind to it, every so often. You got a girlfriend?"
    "No. No time." Thunderbolt shrugged.
    "Yeah, I know the feeling." He racked up the pool table.
    "Actually, I was born and raised in Cleveland."
    "That's cool. The river caught fire, I would've loved to have seen that." Dawn came in and sat down to watch them as Scott selected a cue. He didn't technically need to use one, but to do otherwise would be to ignore the rules of the game, he explained.
    "The rules of the game are very important. Otherwise you get people like Javelin."
    "Yeah, he probably does cheat at pool," Talon agreed, lining up his break.
    "Mostly he probably kills people with pool cues."
    "So did you work for the CIA?" he returned to questioning the new Revolution member.
    "Majestic 12," Thunderbolt replied, appearing entirely at ease to be playing pool with a man in silver and orange spandex and a large liquid robot.
    "Oh that's right, the Navy thing. So where were you stationed?"
    "Majestic 12 is based in Area 51, but I was overseas, I can't really talk about it."
    "Oh c'mon...."
    "It's classified."
    "Look, we've all got secrets...."
    "I don't," Scott contradicted cheerfully.
    "I could be arrested for telling you about these."
    "Well, yeah, but you should hear what happened to Needle.... We had to go rescue her 'cause these people, they like cloned her? And so they recaptured her and they were trying to like put her under mind control."
    "Wait, they cloned her, or she was the clone?" Thunderbolt asked, blinking. This was not in their team leader's dossier, and he wasn't at all sure what to make of it.
    "She was the clone. She was one of the clones of a lady named Tempest."
    "I've heard that name."
    "Really powerful supervillain. And we almost got her, she was like in the place in Poughkeepsie, and she got away."
    "Nearly snuffed the guy who tried to stop her," Scott added.
    Phoenix Talon's stream of consciousness continued to run through the team's brief history. "You missed Lucky... I don't know what happened to Lucky, we just woke up one morning a couple weeks ago and she left."
    "That explains why I'm here, I guess," Thunderbolt conjectured.
    "Yeah, I know. I don't know, she was good. Good in a fight. Even though one time I got mind controlled and I kind of whomped on her. I wouldn't have done that unless I'd gotten mind-controlled. 'Cause I don't do that to teammates," he added. "It's important you gotta trust people. One time Needle got mind-controlled, that was a bad scene. Needle almost killed Chandler."
    "Who's Chandler?"
    "Chandler was this wizard guy, he helped us out a lot. He went with Lucky, that was... they were, I know they weren't going out, 'cause Lucky didn't swing that way if you know what I mean, but there was some kinda connection... it was weird shit, more weird shit. There's an endless river of weird shit, bizarre manure running down from the hillsides," he philosophized. "That's what you get as a superhero. 'Cause you weren't a superhero 'til you joined us, right?"
    "You are a unique individual," Thunderbolt told him with perfect honesty. "I just want you to know that. I've never really met anybody quite like you."
    "Thank you. What we saw today, that was normal. Scott, did anything that weird happen yesterday, do you think?"
    "Not really. Nice car we totalled. Most villains don't drive cars that nice," he judged.
    "That was about it," Talon agreed. "That was standard operating procedure."
    "It's definitely different from what I've encountered in the military," Thunderbolt remarked.
    "When things get weird—and trust me they get weird—then, they get weird. I can't even say it, how weird they get."
    "I've seen weird."
    "Yeah, what?"
    "I don't even want to talk about the Daemonwar."
    "Oh, that's right, they mentioned that. Then maybe you do know what we're gonna be doing."
    Phoenix Talon won the pool game.

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