"You look distressed, son," J.T. remarked when my teammate arrived.
    "How'd things go with Mort?" I asked.
    Thunderbolt looked away and sighed heavily.
    "I'm not going to like this, am I?"
    "No, you're probably not. I have a stop for us after this is all done, though."
    "Oh? Do elaborate."
    "Well, I had another less than stellar run-in with Cait Sith...."
    "Really."
    "This time she left me a note with an address."
    "What does the note say?" J.T. asked. He gave us the gist.
    I shook my head. "So, I take it you didn't get any information out of Mr. Mort?"
    "Who was talking?" the Windjammer asked sharply. "In the note, it said that you'd find the people you were looking for here, that's what they were talking about? Who were you looking for?"
    "The League of Nations."
    "Son, I'm afraid you've let your hormones distract you slightly," he said sternly. "You went to go check this Mort fellow out because you think he might be a League of Nations sympathizer. This Cait Sith lady's telling you that the people you were looking for there are somewhere else, gave you an address. Why are you hovering over the street with me if you already know where they are?"
    Because it was difficult to trust someone who humiliates you at every turn? It was still worth a look. I gave Sparky my phone and showed him which button to push if something happened while we were gone.
    We headed for the Pine Street Inn homeless shelter. We were a few blocks away when the roof went up with a familiar, actinic flare of plasma.
    "That little son of a bitch," I said aloud.
    We approached carefully; we weren't sure how many of them were in the area and which ones those might be. The destruction appeared to be well-contained, and there were some injuries but no dead; we questioned pedestrians and tried to follow their trail, but that disappeared shortly. There were three of them: a woman in a jumpsuit, a big guy, and an orangutan wearing a beret and carrying a fourth, unconscious man. Thunderbolt informed me that the ape would be the French assassin Rue Morgue; he didn't know the woman.
    We returned to the scene and talked to the woman who had been in charge at the shelter. From what she told us, the three of them had walked right on in to the shelter; the woman had touched a young man our witness knew only as a slightly nutty guy called Mike, given to fits of raving in German, who had then blown the roof off the place and lapsed into unconsciousness before being carried off. Well-planned, like most League operations.
    Son of a bitch. I can't believe he was here the entire time, although I suppose it's not all that surprising that he would have amnesia after being hit in the head with a baseball stadium. On the one hand, I'm pissed that the League has Marcus now. On the other hand, I had assumed that he was with them since Promethean disappeared, so we're not actually any worse off than I already thought we were. Thunderbolt and I were both looking pretty grim.
    At least now we know for sure that Mort is working with the League. That might be useful. But I don't know what else they might be here after besides Marcus, if anything.
    We kept an eye on Mort's place, but nothing turned up. No signs of their presence anywhere else in town, no further explosions or mysterious murders. Maybe they got what they wanted and have gone again.
    I hate this. Mainly since I don't know whether or not to be relieved, or even more worried.
    The Egyptian artifacts are at the museum now; we're going to have to work out some way to keep them under a close eye while they're on exhibit. With Manta Master missing, a small horde of other theme villains on the loose, and possibly the League of Nations as well, it seems unlikely that things are going to go without some kind of hitch.

September 12, 1987

Scott's back, and he brought some very interesting souvenirs from his trip to the Berkshires. Some of it is uncomfortably familiar-looking, although the tech is a strange amalgam of the old and up-to-date. Like someone was way ahead of his time about fifty years ago. Stasis tubes, like the one Tempest had been stored in. Fortunately for my peace of mind, he's got them stashed back in the lab, where I don't have to be walking past them all the time.
    "I found the Resurrectionist's old lair," he explained when I asked how his trip had gone. "The ones that actually had people in them went with the FBI."
    "Oh. They're building up quite a collection, there." The thought lends itself well to imaginings both morbid and paranoid, so I've been trying to avoid it.
    "I think they transplanted the flesh garden."
    "Flesh garden?"
    He told me about the nightmare he stumbled into out there. The zombie clones do seem to provide a link between the theme villains and the Resurrectionist—not him personally, but at least elements of his style— but we haven't seen anything like this grim from 1-800-HENCHMEN. At least, not so far. Maybe someone who knew him way back when decided there was more money in goofy thefts than in murdering people and cutting them up for plant food.
    Interesting that apparently a number of people have spent time on the problem of how to mass-produce human beings. The Ressurectionist's technique looks to have a higher success rate than the one the WCL is using, as long as you don't mind the occasional drawback like the results being undead.
    On another note, something my silver teammate had said at one point had stuck in my head; we hunted through the records to find a picture of the old Toy Man, in case he really had found the fountain of youth. If he has, we haven't seen him; neither Scott nor I recognized him, but the picture's up on the "active" board, which has way too much on it to make me happy.

September 14, 1987

I don't believe this. One little comment by Scott (based, mind you, on a totally inaccurate observation) a few weeks ago appears to have triggered an avalanche called Molly (who I'm starting to think has way too much time on her hands), which seems determined to engulf my life whether I want it to or not. It would help if it wasn't so damned hard to say no to the woman; I don't know how she does it. Every time she shows up I feel like I've gotten pulled deeper into some bizarre web, and I have no idea what's at the center.
    This morning a chopper landed in the front yard; I went out to meet it, assuming an emergency although it didn't look like an official vehicle....
    "Yoo-hoo!" Molly called, leaning out as the rotors slowed. "I figured you'd be busy, so I brought the designer with me! Come on, Pierre!"
    Oh dear God, I have nowhere to run flashed through my mind. "Hi, Molly."
    "Hi! This is Pierre, Pierre, this is Sasha."
    "Enchante," he assured me.
    "Bonjour," which is about the extent of my French.
    "So what do you think, you think you can do something with her?" Molly asked him.
    "Oui, oui," he nodded as I gave her an outraged look. "Definitely potential. But the black... is utilitarian, is... no," he dismissed it.
    "I get a lot of blood on me in my job, sir," I informed him. Mostly mine.
    "We're not talking about work clothes, dear," Molly sighed. "You don't get up every day and wear work clothes, do you?"

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