"I'm going to need a nap before we do anything," I admitted. "I'm thinking once you're back up to snuff maybe we should take out that weapons shop."
    "Okay."
    "You want to start making a series of concerted strikes against them?" Reilly asked.
    "The problem is how to flush them out. I don't like the fact that they have that place here."
    "It's probably not the only one."
    "That's the bothersome part," Scott agreed.
    "Lord knows how much of an infrastructure they've built."
    I got up. "I'm going to go out and run these names before I go to bed."
    "What they don't have, fortunately, as this point, is bases in the tunnels under the city," Scott went on
    "You're certain of that?" Reilly asked.
    "Well, here's the current map...."
    "Oh."
    "This has been my current project."
    "Okay. What's that big section right here under Copley?"
    "Don't worry about that." Just the Blobcave. "This over here is the section I haven't been able to figure out how to get into."
    "So you know there's something there?"
    "Well, I know I haven't been able to find any way in there, and there's a big area where there are no tunnels."
    "Well, that would indicate that—"
    "Gretchen was using this area here," he pointed out a few spots. "This is where the giant ants were. The whole area seems to be riddled with caves and tunnels, except for here. So that bothers me. I haven't been able to figure out how to get in there yet. But I'm working on that."
    "I'm sure there's gotta be something there."
    "I'm kind of gunning for a giant lost temple from a forgotten race myself."
    "Well. So Dawn's saying that something evil this way comes. You're saying that you can get in touch with this Cait Sith lady and get us more information about what she knows of the League. If you could," he added to Scott. "Mort's gotta be involved in this somehow. Could you send your people off to do some sort of check on his finances? Maybe he's buried into—"
    "—Money laundering?" Scott suggested.
    Reilly nodded. "There's gotta be some sort of detail. Anything else you can dig up, this has got to take priority over everything else right now."
    "Undoubtedly," I agreed. "These people are just way too dangerous." Well-organized and professional, too; not a type of foe we have historically done well against.
    "I don't mind at this point if there are a couple of theme villain robberies while we're stopping international terrorists. I'd like to be able to give them something soon."
    "We'll certainly do what we can," I assured him.
    "All right. I'll talk with you guys later; here's hoping it's a quiet day from this point forward."
    Right.
    The meeting came to an end.
    "Do you want to help me talk to Paul?" Scott inquired.
    I sighed. "Yeah, I suppose somebody's going to have to." Get one distraction off the table, however minor.
    We knocked on his door; a somewhat groggy-looking Paul answered it, looking from one to the other of us with a questioning expression.
    "About your girlfriend," Scott began.
    "What are you talking about? Oh, that Cait Sith picture?" he sighed.
    "Yes."
    "And then there's Tao," the robot pointed out inexorably.
    "Ah. Yes."
    "And Stephanie. Who, I think, has expressed some interest in you?"
    "Yes...."
    "So the question is—"
    "The question is," Dawn interrupted from behind us, "why, if you know she's interested in you, you're getting your picture taken like that with that other woman?!"
    "Because he can, hon," Phoenix Talon smirked, joining the crowd in the doorway. "Because he can."
    "Oh, okay. So if it's all right for him to date multiple women, it would be okay for me to date all of the Blood Boards, then?" she snapped and stalked off down the hall, pursued by her alarmed father.
    "Let's do this in a straightforward, systematic fashion. Question one: Do you have any actual interest in that surgically altered actress?" Bit of a bias, there, Scott.
    "No," Paul averred.
    "So you're not actually interested in Tao."
    "No."
    "Tell her that," I suggested with some asperity. "Today."
    "I'll put it on my list of things to do!"
    "It won't take very long. Just try to be nice."
    "On to the rest of your problem, then," Scott continued.
    "For one thing, hon, they'd kill each other," Phoenix Talon told Dawn, following her back toward us. "They'd just all kill each other."
    "All right, so let's just assume for a moment that I were to date—"
    "Are you seriously suggesting this?! I wasn't entirely serious y'know!"
    "Okay, I'm just making sure that you don't think it's all right for him to be stringing multiple women along."
    "No! No, I don't! Even if I did at this point I'd say—"
    "Dad, that's not the point...."
    "So what about Cait Sith?" Scott resumed.
    "What about Cait Sith?" Paul returned, exasperated.
    "Nice photo. Is there some particular reason you decided to tell her that you'd rather she steal the ruby than date her?"
    That one was news to me.
    Paul looked like he was about explode. "I don't know!"
    "Remember," Talon put in, "Cait Sith's a costume, so she'll understand better than Stephanie."
    "Stop helping before I hurt you," Scott told him calmly.
    "Stephanie has first dibs! I can't believe I said that," Dawn added.
    "I'm kind of surprised myself, hon," Phoenix Talon admitted. "But you have to think about the long-term good of the relationship. It's hard for a normal and a costume to date. Not impossible," he was quick to add. "Not impossible, but there are problems."
    "But Stephanie's around costumes every day," Dawn argued. "She understands costumes. Plus she's stable, she's grounded, she's not some flitting-off international agent...."
    "But he is!"
    "He's grounded now!"
    "All right, look," Thunderbolt interrupted. "I don't have much experience in this area, as you can probably all guess. I don't know what's going on, I don't really know how to handle it in a nice way to everybody."
    "I think I can tell you what would solve all of your problems," I replied. "Date Stephanie."
    "Why her, specifically?" he wanted to know. "Not that I'm saying it's a bad choice."
    "Stephanie has two things going for her that will simplify the equation for you," Scott told him. "One, she's not Tao."
    "Okay...."
    "And two," he placed a pseudopod about an inch from Paul's face, "SHE'S CAIT SITH YOU IDIOT!"
    "She's what?!"
    "Hontoo desu ka?" Talon asked, blinking. "Why are we arguing about this then?"
    "Oh. You can date both of them, then," Dawn shrugged.
    "I see. It was more amusing to you all to allow me to flounder with this than to just tell me?" Paul inquired, visibly annoyed.
    "We thought you'd figured it out," I told him. "Christ, even I figured it out."
    "Well, Phoenix didn't figure it out," Scott pointed out.
    "I didn't actually completely figure it out until Halloween." That had been the final piece, at least. I'd had an initial suspicion after that first thing with Molly, dismissed it at the time as ridiculous, entertained it more seriously as Cait Sith's career continued, and finally had it confirmed the other day. Very few people move like Felix.
    "Which was how long ago?" Paul demanded.
    "Two days."
    "Wait a minute, if she's Cait Sith, then Trick and Treat are....?" Dawn looked at Scott.
    "Yes."
    "Oh, that's beautiful!" she grinned.
    "She kind of decided that since he wasn't paying any attention to her, she had to do something to get his attention."
    She might have asked the wrong people for advice on that one. Or maybe it's just that Paul hasn't been in the private sector, so to speak, long enough to learn the rules. In any case, he swore to call Stephanie just as soon as he'd gotten a couple hours of sleep. That little problem finally resolved (we hope), I dragged myself downstairs to a terminal and began typing in names while Scott went to work on the financial angle. Phoenix Talon retired as well, to rest up for the next effort.

[Aside: Chinatown]

    Then the klaxons went off. That's the "serious fucking emergency" alarm wired into the city police stations.
    "Hi, is this the Revolution?" a breathless officer gasped. "I'm at the precinct office just outside of Chinatown there's a—"
    Static.

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