"We are going up faster before laughing boy notices there's a large moving thing right behind him," Cockatrice stated.
    "Okey-dokey." He had a good point; I punched it and watched the pursuing energy blast fizzle out on the monitor. "Persistent bugger."
    Thunderbolt strapped himself into the copilot's seat and started sorting through the weapons systems. The missiles probably had a greater than half mile range, and the energy weapons were pretty powerful but nothing that he himself wouldn't have been able to handle.
    "This is much nicer than anything we have back home," I said admiringly. "After him or back to civilization?"
    "Why don't we do both and head for Boston?" Cockatrice said.
    "Okay." I set a course and noticed how nice the moon looked, decided to see what this thing could do in terms of speed. There was a bit of a vibration as we passed Mach 2, and I found myself grinning. On the way Ezra got us up to speed on some important features of the present day. "We still have a democracy and everything, right?" I asked him.
    "In theory," he drawled. We seem to be in the third term of a conservative government. Between 2010 and 2020 there was a war, fought mainly in Europe. Nukes flew and so did heroes, and many variants were killed. The superpowers were disturbed by the relative ineffectiveness of their weapons, but there was considerable destruction regardless. Massive battle involving the US variant armed forces, Flight of 1000 Cranes, and the Host (whose memory was still celebrated in circles such as Ezra's); since then variants have either stopped appearing or stopped making themselves public as the tide of opinion turned against them. We were probably most surprised to learn that the Chinese and the Russians are working together again.
    One other thing he mentioned was that one of the major political forces of the present is a movement afoot in Europe, trying to unify the countries there and prevent them being the battlefield again—a movement headed by Mind Lazer.
    I put my head in my hands. "How?! Out of all the people who could still be around, why him?!" Thunderbolt just sighed.
    Ezra looked at us, confused; he had seen pictures of Mind Lazer and knew the man to be in his fifties. Not sure what to make of this.
    It seemed that no one (else?) from our own time had survived this far. We continued on. The city looked a lot like we remembered, which was almost harder to take than it would have been if it were entirely different. Some of the street patterns have changed, they removed the 93 overpass at some point, and it has sprawled a lot further around the edges. Some of the skyscrapers have dirigible moorings.
    "We could go stay with my friends at the Black Flag center," Ezra suggested. "Though I don't know what we're gonna do with the airship."
    "The Black Flag center? They like punk music?"
    "Well, that's about a hundred years out of date. Neo-quasi-punk."
    We decided to take a swing around the bay, just to see. They had built a lot of things out over the water without landfill, lending a Venice-like effect, and on our island was what looked like a high-tech castle complete with a couple of spires. Caution, Do Not Approach signs surrounded it.
    "Well, it looks a hell of a lot better than it did last time we saw it," I remarked, surprised to see anything there at all. "We need to get these guys to a hospital."
    Mass General was still there, having taken over about a quarter of the city. I swung us around and looked for a landing place. Cockatrice tried communications.
    "Yes, this is Mass General," someone answered. "Are you the big plane coming in with the Force Defense Contractors ID tag?"
    "That would be us. We have two dead and six wounded in need of urgent medical attention."
    "We—we can do that. Who are these dead and wounded?"
    "Force Industry employees," he said as if it were self-evident.
    I brought the airship in to hover.
    "So, 1986, what's that like?" Ezra was asking Stephanie as the EMTs swarmed out and loaded the wounded onto hovering platforms surrounded by protective micro-forcefields.
    "So now what?" I wondered.
    "We should probably get out of here before the constabulary arrives," Cockatrice recommended.
    "Really? Why?"
    The medics took Force and Warpath off, exclaiming over the damage. Thunderbolt watched them go. As they took the American off, there was some kind of interaction between his armor and the force field, a moment of buzzing, sparking intensity before it seemed to quiet down. As they pulled Force and Warpath off, Force started sitting up. They pushed him back down and put a mask over his face and hustled him into the hospital.
    "What happened to these people?" a medic asked as they began removing the two dead.
     "I'm going to have to see some identification," a less surgical sort said, "from you...costumed people." He tore his gaze away from Stephanie.
    "They ran into Power," Cockatrice told them. "Or Power Squared as the press is insisting on calling him now."
    "Oh. Where did this happen?" The official was sufficiently distracted by that.
    "Partway between Worcester and here."
    "So he's uh, he's near here, then?"
    "Not so much near as near-ish," I supplied, which probably didn't help.
    "Okay," he said nervously. "Well we'll just... see to these people, then." He ran back into the hospital.
    "Um, okay. So, now what?" Stephanie asked. "Are we going to have to give their ship back?"
    "Not right now," Paul said.
    "I think we need to go underground," Ezra said.
    "Why?" she wanted to know.
    "Force Industries is going to be after us."
    "For rescuing their people and bringing them here?"
    "They don't care, we messed around with their affairs. Plus I'm an escapee."
    "There is that problem," Cockatrice murmured.
    "If you're an escapee then why did they have you with them, there?"
    "I was supposed to be part of the team."
    "And you just successfully rescued the whole team after the fight. It's not an escapee, you're a, a Samaritan, you're their defensive linebacker you're why are they going to be hunting us? I am sick to death of people hunting me!" she yelled. "Except you, hon," she added as Paul put a soothing hand on her shoulder.
    "Um, do you need something to eat, maybe? Been a while? Something to drink? Saucer of cream, something?" Cockatrice inquired.
    "Can I have something that's not a dead mouse, please?"
    "Yeah, we can arrange that," Ezra agreed. "I know a great little place in Back Bay, let's just get on the subway, it's not very far from here."
    "We're just gonna leave this here?"
    I sighed at the thought.
    "Where are we gonna take it?" Ezra shrugged.
    "I don't know, you got a castle," Cockatrice noted.
    "Who's got a castle?"
    "We do," Thunderbolt nodded.
    "Presumably. We should go out there and see what's there," I agreed.
    "That castle out in the harbor?" Ezra seemed dubious.
    "Yeah."
    "The Revolution—that's your Revolution?"
    "I have to assume so, unless there was another one after us."
    "Wow. It's like Boston's premier haunted house, nobody's been in there for decades!"
    "Well then, by all means. Sounds like home," I said.
    "You didn't have a nuclear reactor in there, did you?"
    "Not when we left." I wanted to keep the ship for the time being, so we lifted off and headed back out toward the bay, descending toward one of the towers. Little boats zipped around the waterways between the regular buildings, but nothing traveled on the open water around our old island. It didn't look exactly like it did in my memories from Gretchen's world, but as if someone with lots of money and techno-modernist sensibilities had taken the rough plans for a castle and decided to enjoy him or herself. I kept our rate of descent slow in case of automated defense systems.
    Someone in a neat police uniform materialized on the roof. "Citizens and employees of Force Industries, we regret to inform you that this area is off limits. We suggest that you leave now. I repeat, this area has been designated off-limits by the government of the city of Boston and the state of Massachusetts. We recommend that you leave now, for your own safety. Authorities have been notified of your presence, and while it is not an official crime to land here for a brief period of time, attempting to exit your vehicle or staying for longer than fifteen minutes will result in the authorities being notified." The message began to repeat.
    I shrugged. "It's our damn base."
    "In case you wondered why I live in the ruins of Worcester," Cockatrice sighed. "This is involved. Holographic police announcements."
    "I can see how that would get very irritating in a very short period of time. So we have fifteen minutes to get our bearings."
    "There's no need to have a confrontation," Thunderbolt said. "Our first order of business should be Power. We have to find out everything we can about him."
    

| Top |