Long ago, there was a comics experiment called the "New Universe". It was the forerunner of modern-day diversions like "Heroes" - ordinary people suddenly gaining powers or traits outside the human range, with (at least, ostensibly) realistic consequences. Sadly, commercial pressures drove them from that core vision, and they had the 'Comics Code' to worry about. I've taken what I liked about it, and cheerfully left behind or modified what I didn't.

Though not strictly necessary, I suggest you read the prior story, "Downsides And Upsides", first. Think of it as a prologue, or perhaps a 'trailer'.

# Fairy Chess

## by Optimizer

I always get scared before the action. Practically shaking, truth be told. I hate those few peaceful moments before the shit hits the fan.

That might surprise a lot of people. After all, I have what I've nicknamed a 'vector field' around me. Sort of like telekinesis; no physical object can touch me. Not only am I bulletproof, I'm bazookaproof. It magnifies my strength, too - I once tore my way into a bank vault with my bare hands. What do I have to worry about, right?

But think - how many ways are there to die besides being struck or stabbed? There's chemical poisoning, radiation poisoning, electrocution, suffocation and drowning, frostbite and hypothermia, dehydration and heatstroke, disease, starvation, etc. etc. I have what amounts to totally bitchin' body armor. That does not make me Superman.

This ain't the comic books, either. The people we get paid to fight are under no obligation to be stupid, or honorable, or even unlucky. And they have every reason to want us dead.

The chopper swerved and surged forward. "It's go!" Dustoff called on the shared channel. We made it over the last ridge and the insurgent camp lay before us. Thick black smoke roiled from the west side; Veronique's job had been to take the generators out first, and clearly she'd done it.

Colin popped out the far side of the copter and flew on ahead. As fast as a small plane, but so much tinier and vastly more maneuverable, he was damn near impossible to hit. But he could sweep out any anti-aircraft fire and make safe Dustoff's approach.

The copter passed over the 'motor pool'; one quick glance at Val and I hopped out. A good hundred-foot drop, but at least it was onto pavement. If I hit dirt after a jump like that, I'd usually sink down in to my knees. Annoying.

The asphalt cratered but my boots survived. Probably the most expensive custom footgear in the world - steel-belted Kevlar. I charged at the pair of old trucks parked by the fence. Long seconds passed without any response; even now, paranormals are rare enough that actually seeing one tended to put people off-balance. Coming so soon after a bunch of explosions and the power going out, you can imagine the guerrillas were a little disorganized. The shooting didn't start until I was almost to my first targets.

As I said, though, I'm bulletproof, so I paid it no mind. I simply grabbed the front of the first truck and flipped it over. Then the same for the other one.

Next step was disabling the cars. Nothing fancy, just smashing a wheel or two on each. Bam, bam, bam. They could be salvaged by our employers but nobody would be retreating in them.

Unfortunately, I'd gotten too wrapped up in the job, ignoring the bullets careening off my back. It was the low-tech weapon that got my attention. A Molotov cocktail whipped over my shoulder into the jeep in front of me. A cloud of flaming gasoline splashed in my face.

Heat travels by conduction, convection, and radiation. The first two couldn't get through my field, but the last one had no trouble. Ever swim in a cold pool, then jump in a hot tub? It was like that, from the waist up.

I responded by reflex. A unique reflex, I admit, but it wasn't thought out. The field that normally hugged my skin pulsed out several feet around my upper body. My burning clothes - and the jeep I stood next to - were hurled away and I could breathe again. But I still felt the heat; my pants were on fire too. A second pulse and they were gone. I drank in the delicious coolness.

Of course, except for some smoking boots I was now buck naked in the middle of a battleground.

Goddammit, not again! My headset was junked, I was out of radio contact. Well, they could keep tabs on me through Clyde but I couldn't get new orders.

It was annoying, embarrassing. At least here it wasn't immediately life-threatening. Try being half-naked on a fucking glacier at nineteen thousand goddamn feet - now that was a clusterfuck. Still, our eventual success at Siachen had helped get us this job.

Anyway, I was done ignoring the enemy. I brought my hands up and pointed at the nearest guerillas. The field leapt out again, and they went flying as though they'd been hit by a bus. Already running, I gestured at the final jeep; the side nearest me imploded. Screw salvage. They'd pissed me off.

Okay, fine, they'd scared me. Damn RENAMO for being adaptable. By now they'd learned I didn't like fire much, so the remaining forces were adjusting their tactics. Hopefully too late to do them any good.

One more hit on a clot of gunmen and the rest broke. Some fled into the forest, others retreating deeper into the base. I chased a group of them toward the arsenal. Veronique and I were assigned to materiel; the rest were on antipersonnel.

A low building was in my way. As I ran I pointed my palms at the ground and shot my field out. I could push objects away from me, remaining unmoved. Or, at my discretion, I could push myself off things. This time I popped into the air, landed on the roof, and kept jogging to the far side.

It didn't make physical sense. It violated conservation of momentum, and probably energy too. But ever since the White Event, the "Laws Of Physics" had apparently become the "Suggestions Of Physics, But If You Want To Do Something Else, Hey, Y'know, That's Cool Too."

I hopped down off the roof; the building where the insurgents stored their weapons was already under siege. Screams and crackles and flashes of light filled the narrow 'square' out front.

Veronique scared the crap out of me. She - if gendered pronouns still applied - was basically nothing but a woman-shaped lump of ball lightning. Maybe she'd been crazy before the Event. Probably becoming - in effect - an electrical ghost had pushed her over the edge. Either way she was flatout nuts. She killed with relish, and for no particular reason. God alone knew how Thame had convinced her to join Scylla and not kill her teammates. Besides shelter from the rain, what did she even need anymore?

I watched another pair of soldiers get fried. She could have done it instantly; instead it lasted many seconds. I pursed my lips but moved on to the door.

Kicking it in, I got a surprise - an RPG right in the chest. It startled me some, but it ended up worse for the guys inside - most of the explosion backflashed onto them. Still, better me than Veronique. Although bullets only irritated her, nobody was sure she could survive a major disruption like a grenade.

I secured the interior. Crushing a gang of half-stunned gunmen - gunboys, almost, for a couple of them - was pretty distasteful. Thing is, I couldn't let anyone use the weapons on my compatriots, or me. And shooting off guns around explosives is generally a bad idea.

You can't be in this line of work for long without getting at least somewhat desensitized. Once the job was done, I loaded up a bulky machine gun - looked to be a Soviet PK - with an ammo box and peeked out the door.

Veronique hovered among a dozen smoking bodies; nobody else was visible. She saw me motion her over, and glided my way. In air, she couldn't move faster than a brisk walk. Of course, along a conductor she moved... well, like lightning.

I didn't speak French. Hand signals were enough. I left her guarding the front door and launched myself onto the roof of the makeshift armory. I scooted to the far side to cover the rear.

Finally, a chance to listen. An explosion, somewhere off to the left. Small and medium-arms fire all over. Confused shouting in a couple of dialects. About the way it should be. The main FRELIMO force would be here soon; they'd meet a disorganized resistance at most.

Although the morning sun was warm, the breeze was still a mite brisk, making my private areas... well, huddle for warmth. My endowments were not in the porn star category. Not below average, I hasten to add, but certainly not paranormal. Being naked as often as I was, not always in tropical climes, made me a little anxious sometimes.

A flurry of gunfire sounded from down to my right. I opened up with the PK and drove whoever it was back. We traded fire for a few volleys, then he fell silent, either wounded or changing position. Motion by a wall ahead of me; I fired a short burst. A sharp, pained scream that faded to a gurgle.

You might well ask, 'why bother with the gun'? My parabilities are dangerous, but the field's invisible. I point, and things get smashed. Magic powers are foreign to most people's experience; you'd be amazed how often they just don't make the connection. An automatic weapon, on the other hand... that's a threat people grasp immediately. Even wielded by a naked dork.

The chaos was getting closer. Colin buzzed low overhead on one of his sweeps. A smuggler before the Event, he'd already been something of a tough cookie. Gaining the ability to fly had made him a terror.

Some tiny noise made me turn; a grunt, maybe. I saw a small hurled object arcing toward me from a hut to my right. A grenade, I realized. At the same time, a group charged in from my left, guns blazing.

Before I could respond, Val dashed past me, leaping off the roof; she snagged the grenade right out of the air, and whipped it fastball-style back into the hut. I didn't quite catch whatever quip she made - something about my culo.

She had already rolled into a flip, drawing her other pistol. While spinning, she got off five shots, so fast no one would believe she only wielded semi-automatics. By the time she landed on the ground all the men I could see were dead. Not pausing a moment, she raced around the corner, as fast as if she were riding a motorcycle. More reports echoed back; doubtless more perfect shots. The grenade went off; the hut's roof sagged and somebody screamed.

Val had been a professional gymnast once. Now she was the world's greatest athlete, with superhuman agility, strength, and speed. She wasn't bulletproof like me, but her modus operandi was being somewhere else when the gun went off. That, and a fair amount of Kevlar.

A flurry of gunshots from my right; one ricocheted off my ear. Startled, I whirled around and tried to squeeze off a volley. Instead, my convulsive jerk on the trigger crushed the entire grip assembly. There are definite problems with being ludicrously strong.

"Fuck!" I bellowed in irritation. Chucking the ruined gun aside, I began punching out with my field. In less than a minute, the three nearest huts were rubble.

It was quiet for a minute or two, then a few crackles and screams carried from the front of the armory. I'd scared them off my end, but Veronique didn't bother with scare tactics. Not to scare people away, at least. If they got close, though... well, you've seen cats playing with mice.

There was almost no warning at all. Everything got brighter - imagine the sun suddenly peeking from behind clouds. Except there wasn't a cloud in the sky.

I exploded the field out of my feet - wrecking my boots - and shot into the air on an angle, spinning like a curveball. I landed a full three seconds later, smashing down onto a tent, which collapsed around me. I scrambled for a moment, shredding cloth, still dazzled. Then I flipped over and burst the cocoon into scraps with a pulse of my field.

Remember what I said - that our opponents are allowed to be smart or dishonorable or lucky? Here was a prime fucking example of all three at once.

RENAMO was playing their ace in the hole. A paranormal that could affect light. Redirect it, disperse it, concentrate it. Doesn't sound so bad, right? But consider - what if day suddenly became night for your forces, but not your enemies? Kind of a problem. And remember - a basic two-inch magnifying glass can torch bugs when the sun is up. We didn't know how much area she could affect, exactly, but between dawn and dusk she had melted government trucks.

Oh, and our best guess put her at around fifty-five years old.

This wasn't a time for farting around. I ran as fast as I could for the nearest building and plowed right through the wall. Had to stay out of sight. My entrance surprised some lurking militants, but it didn't take long to to secure the space. Keeping an AK-47 on hand, I carefully peeked out a window toward the arsenal.

Dammit, she wasn't supposed to be here! We'd never have mounted a daytime assault otherwise. The radio exchanges Clyde intercepted had put her retreating west to Odzi... Well, that's counterintelligence for you. Sometimes you get suckered. Of course, it was hard to be philosophical about such things when you were in imminent danger of being vaporized. At least Clyde would let Thame know what I'd seen, so he could pass it on to the rest of us.

Weird shadows and strobes made the air shimmer over there. They'd have to be careful, too much heat could set off the ammo. Heat and light shouldn't hurt Veronique, I'd think. Although... air heated up to a plasma would conduct. That's what lightning was, basically. Which might hurt her... shit. Guesses, that's all anybody had these days. Heck, for all we knew the "Senorah da Luz" had other powers we didn't know about.

I sure thought hard for a second about getting closer. Veronique was a teammate, but there was no camaraderie there. Still, for all I knew, Thame was sending Val that way right now. I couldn't take the chance.

Much more carefully than before, I made my way back, shifting from cover to cover. I got in a brief firefight with some normals, but not having to keep my head down much is a hell of an advantage. I made it in under five minutes. By then everything was dark, like late afternoon or heavy overcast.

Except for the spot shining like an arc welder that swung about, casting crazy shadows in the square. Each time it barreled through Veronique she hissed and dodged. Apparently it could hurt her. More like a taser prod than a mortal wound, though, if I was any judge.

I finally spotted the Senorah in an alley to one side. Jesus, she was small; nutrition in rural Africa wasn't like in America. She looked more like sixty-five to me. A RENAMO handler crouched next to her. It was hard to get a good bead, the shifting light left wobbly trails in my vision; I wished I still had my sunglasses. But if I could give her a good shove with my field, we could knock her out and take her with us. Without her help, RENAMO would fold. And Thame was hoping to recruit her anyway.

I took my time, lining up my shot. Then a brilliant scintillation dazzled me for a few moments. I blinked my sight clear, squinted and raised my hand...

Her throat exploded. She dropped like a puppet with the strings suddenly cut, and her head lolled back in a way that clearly indicated she didn't have a spine in her neck anymore. The handler whirled, but all that meant was the second shot got him in the chest instead of the back.

While I watched, numb, Potiphar stepped into view from the alley beyond, and pumped two more shots into each of the corpses, just to be sure. Fuck he was good. I hadn't a clue he was sneaking up on them. He cocked his head for a moment, probably listening to Thame berate him, and stalked off to the north.

What made it worse in a way was how the whole scene brightened up. A second dawn, almost, as the sunlight went back to following sane trajectories. If it had been a movie scene, you'd have heard a choir - the monster is destroyed!

But she was just an old woman, forced to do the bidding of the thugs who held her grandchildren hostage. I could see a puddle of blood forming under her from where I stood.

Things settled down soon after that. I'm sure a fair number of the insurgents got away on foot. They had no stomach for fighting us, really. Not after the hash we'd made of them over the previous weeks. Lacking anything better to do, I resumed my post behind the arsenal.

A few minutes later, Colin swooped low and hovered above me. "'S'all over. The sodding rebels all scarpered. Thame says hold the fort." Then he hurtled off to watch the perimeter. I kept watch, mostly reassured. Colin would have said something if we'd lost anyone. I was pretty sure, anyway.

A truck stuffed with FRELIMO troops arrived about twenty minutes later, just when I was starting to worry about sunburn. While a handful of the soldiers gave me funny looks, the officer in charge affected not to notice I was 'out of uniform'. I don't know if he was scared of me, or if he just really didn't want to talk to Veronique.

I brought them around front and waved her down. She just floated off. I formally turned the building over to the troops and hightailed it after her, back to the parking lot. Our chopper idled, the others gathered around, boarding it already. Colin chatted with our local liaison to the government forces.

More soldiers were fanning out to secure the area. They gave us a wide berth. Who could blame them? In the space of a month, we'd broken the back of an insurgency they'd been fighting for years.

Welcome to charming Mozambique. The Marxist FRELIMO had wrested control from the Portugese over a decade ago. Despite military and economic support from the Soviet Union, the place was a mess. FRELIMO had sheltered and funded insurgents in neighboring Rhodesia and South Africa. In return Rhodesia founded and financed RENAMO, the 'Mozambican National Resistance', which had been sabotaging and massacring ever since. After white rule ended and Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, South Africa took over the franchise. They'd been lending support and intel and training for eight years now, and at this point Mozambique was deeply fucked.

FRELIMO wasn't exactly the side of the angels, either. Like most revolutions they'd started out with high hopes, but the civil war and economic collapse had eroded goodwill all around. "Re-education camps", secret police... it was probably hard for most civilians to see much difference. Literally millions of refugees were trying to flee the situation. In the end, the government had more money, though. So that's who we worked for.

I climbed into the chopper. Veronique's Leyden jar was secured in a plastic frame - she didn't have power lines to travel on out here.

Potiphar silently handed me a blanket, but the slight smile on his face said it all. Val made a little "Aw" sound as I wrapped it around myself and sat down. Well, not so little if I could hear it over the sound of the engine. I grabbed a pair of headphones and put them on so we could converse without shouting.

"You're clear, mate," Colin was saying from the ground; his helmet and facemask were patched into our channel. The chopper lifted up and rose swiftly. We vectored off to the north.

Val smirked, as usual. "Again you lose your clothes. Come, you do this to tease me, no?"

Under other circumstances, I might have blushed. Right now our banter was a tad forced. "Not my fault they can't make a uniform as tough as me."

Then Colin swooped into the still-open door. I was a little surprised. He could have flown all the way back to the capital, and he didn't usually ride with us. "Love the haircut," he quipped as he sat down.

Val motioned me to bend over. Quizzically, I did so, and she ran her hand on my skull and along my cheek. "Tsk. Come una pesca. At least you still have di sopracciglia. Eyebrows." I kept my hair short anyway, but the Molotov had burned a lot of it off. Unless I deliberately pushed it out, the field clung to my body very tightly. I usually had at least a couple days growth of beard because of it, and my fingernails were longer than I'd like. I could only trim them so close; the field wouldn't retract below a certain distance.

Colin sounded like he was grinning behind his facemask. "He keeps forgettin' to duck, he'll lose more than eyebrows someday."

"Oh, suck me, James," I groused. As comebacks go, it was lame, but he hated to be called by his first name.

"Isn't that her job?" he retorted, flicking a thumb Valeria's way. She affected an offended look, but couldn't fully hide her smile.

Clyde just smiled, too, from his station at the back. Of course, I would have been shocked if the albino had said anything; he was mute. I'd never managed to find out if he'd been that way before becoming a paranormal or not.

Ironically, he was the lynchpin of our communications. He could directly receive and broadcast a broad range of radio waves. More, he could generate complex signals - if he wanted, he could become a living TV camera, showing on a screen what his eyes and ears picked up.

What confused the hell out of me was that he could do that to other people. He could touch them and set up an interface of some kind, receiving what they saw and heard, and transmitting it on if he wanted. A bank of VCRs stowed in the rear of the copter had taped our exploits today for detailed review later.

I mean, fuck knows how that worked. In some ways, it made less sense than my paranormality. But he could do it anyway. At least it made debriefing a lot simpler.

Potiphar gave every appearance of ignoring the repartee and just leaned back in his seat against the wall, impassive. His English wasn't all that great, anyway. Oddly enough, it was really only the normals on our team that went by superheroish nicknames. Named after Pharaoh's executioner in the Bible, he didn't need powers to be a damn good killer. And Harry, the chopper pilot, who insisted on being called Dustoff.

"Let's just get out of here, okay?" I said sullenly, hoping to end the conversation.

"Rest of us held onto our radios, mate," Colin said with a bit more edge. The teasing had a serious undercurrent. What if one of my squadmates had needed me to go lend them support? What if I didn't get a warning in time, and knocked down a building they were in? Small, elite, powerful units could accomplish a lot... but they had to be coordinated.

The ribbing was interrupted by our commander's voice on the headsets. "Good work, everyone. Our employer is pleased and we've been paid the early-completion bonus. We'll hold debriefings this evening at the hotel, starting at 1700 hours. Until then, amuse yourselves as best you can."

Hearing Thame speak was always just that touch surreal. Ever see an optical illusion that can be viewed two ways? You know, maybe if you look at it one way it's a figure of a young girl, but if you blink you can see it as an old woman's face?

His voice is like that, only you can't switch how you hear it. He speaks in tongues - not the gibberish of the fundamentalist weirdos, but the real deal. If I try to pick up individual syllables, I can sort of tell he's speaking his native Greek. But when I listen to whole words or sentences, that melts away and I hear perfect, midwestern American English. Val hears Italian, Potiphar hears Egyptian.

It's disconcerting, but you get used to it. Lord knows we'd gotten used to stranger.

An hour and a half later the chopper landed in the main base at the capitol, Maputo. An intoxicant-laden and raucous celebration was in progress. Guns firing in the air, chants and songs. The troops could hardly believe how fast our little group had turned things around. They were almost superstitiously worshipful.

I think Colin got off on that, but the rest of us were either indifferent or uncomfortable. Thame had a couple trucks waiting and we were whisked off to the best hotel in Mozambique. Mind you, a five-star hotel in the third world isn't much better than a three-star hotel in the first world, but it was plenty comfortable compared to a military bivouac. I felt a little sorry for Mutabe; we wouldn't be seeing him before we left. He couldn't be on land for long anymore.

Siegfried and Susana stuck with Thame as we split up. He always had some paranormal security, in addition to Stephan and Alejandro, his normal bodyguards. While most of the group went to the elevators, Val went over to the restaurant. I almost followed her - the field meals hadn't been all that appetizing - but instead I gave her a little wave and took the stairs. A chance to exercise. Plus I wanted to reflect a little. Even I was a little shocked at how definitive our victory had been.

It wasn't just power, it was that Thame knew how to use it. Clyde was a one-man SIGINT division; even the fancy frequency-hopping radios the South Africans used were nothing to him. More, he could instinctively triangulate where the signals were coming from, the kind of thing that normally took an AWACS overflight. And Thame didn't just speak in tongues - he automatically understood what people were saying, even through codes and slang and circumlocutions. After one week in-country, they grasped RENAMO's organization and deployments better than its leaders did.

At that point, Colin started playing merry hell with the airdrops South Africa sent. Planes have to be light to fly; a simple magnetic grenade did horrific things to flight surfaces. Mutabe watched the coasts, sinking boats that tried any drop-offs. Potiphar, Susana, and Siegfried harassed the truck convoys. Practically overnight, RENAMO's supply lines were shut down.

Meanwhile Val, Veronique, and I supported FRELIMO's troops in a huge, coordinated offensive. We forced RENAMO to expend their remaining supplies rapidly, attacking multiple sites per day. Insurgent forces usually melted into the brush when the heat got too intense, but we simply didn't give them time. Their losses were catastrophic.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't all us. We made the key difference, though. We were the catalyst - a very precise metaphor, actually. A catalyst speeds up a chemical reaction without being consumed itself. We sure didn't intend to get consumed, and we changed the military situation but quick.

For example, both sides used mines extensively - but Siegfried or I could clear minefields in bulk. If normal troops got bogged down or met exceptional resistance, paranormals could break the logjams quickly, preserve the momentum. Plus, defeat on top of continual defeat just slaughtered RENAMO'S morale. Desertion became rampant.

Today's raid had sealed the deal. RENAMO wasn't totally dead, and neither were their bankers... but they'd lost their best asset, la Senhorah da Luz, and it'd be years before they could regroup to mount any serious offensive. FRELIMO would have a free hand practically everywhere in Mozambique for a while.

Who knows, it was just imaginable that some of the civilians and refugees might wind up slightly better off.

With that semi-cheery thought, I reached my room. I unlocked and shoved open the door. Nobody behind it, so I stepped in and closed the door behind me. Automatically, methodically, I began a sweep. Counterclockwise, moving along one wall, checking each space off in turn, until I'd come back to the door. Habit fulfilled, I went back over to the closet and got out my bags. The sooner I was on a plane out of here, the better.

Packing didn't take long, so I had some time to kill. I got out a bottle of pop and pulled the cap off by hand - no bottle-openers needed for me. Carbonation killed germs, and I wasn't going to trust the water here. My immune system wasn't paranormal, after all.

The other disinfecting option was alcohol, but I don't need help breaking things.

I'd long since read all the books I'd brought, so I switched on the TV. They had a satellite feed of CNN. Then I did what I always did with any downtime - I worked out. Like a diabetic tracking their blood sugar.

The field amplified my natural strength; the harder I pushed, the more pressure it put out. That meant the stronger I was - the greater the range of forces my actual muscles could exert - the finer was my control over the field. So I dropped to the floor and started some one-arm pushups.

Not to brag, but by now I was built. I wasn't 'ripped' and fatless like a bodybuilder, though. My muscles were dense and compact, like a gymnast: they weren't for show. Strength and endurance was the priority, not size. My exercise routine needed little of my attention; it was practically burned into my spinal reflexes. I had no trouble following the news reports.

"Kuwait renewed its protests at the U.N. today," intoned the announcer, "stating that vessels from Greater Iran were interfering with shipping in the Persian Gulf. The Kuwaiti delegate also cited 'ominous' troop buildups across the border with former Iraq."

There was an unsettling situation. The Iran-Iraq war had ended late last year. A brokered meeting between Saddam Hussein and the Ayatollah Khomeini had ended with Hussein converting on the spot from Sunni to Shi'ite and pledging his whole country over to Iran. There had been some turmoil in the transition, but Greater Iran was now solidly welded together.

And welded shut. Thame had learned from his contacts that intel was nearly impossible to get out of there. Nobody criticized the regime... for long, anyway. They'd have a forced 'audience' with Khomeini and wind up the newest, biggest fan of him and his theocracy.

It was a reasonable bet that some world leader would end up a paranormal. But why did it have to be him?

Mind control terrified me. The idea of someone screwing with my thoughts and feelings... Fuck, I'd much rather die.

Business news came next. "Tension in the Gulf region drove oil prices higher again today..." As if the world economy needed more stress. Savings and loan firms going under, oil prices spiking, the whole east coast of the U.S. under an ash cloud... Uncertainty was a bad thing for investors and financiers, and these days even settled natural laws were unreliable.

"The market closed slightly higher today, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average reaching 1,839 points..." I listened to the bleak financials without much real interest, moving on to sit-ups. My portfolio wasn't doing all that well; but nobody's was, really, and I had to put the money somewhere.

"In politics, with the Republican convention only days away there is a great deal of speculation regarding vice-presidential candidates. GOP leaders privately acknowledge that President Bush needs to find a response to Michael Dukakis' surprise pick for the Democratic vice-presidential slot, political outsider Philip Voight."

Another sign of the times. Voight had been a psychology professor, and switched to parapsychology at the right time. His foundation, the "Institute For Paranormal Research," wasn't laughed at anymore. The Congressional testimony he'd given late last year, when Pittsburgh finally forced the world at large to admit that weird shit was happening, had gained him national celebrity.

They played a sound bite from his acceptance speech: "The challenges that our great nation faces, that the world faces, cannot be overcome with conventional thinking. We need leadership that will bring fresh ideas, a new vision. Governor Dukakis has demonstrated just that brand of leadership in Massachusetts, and I am proud to..."

The knock I'd more than half expected came at the door. I got up from my sit-ups, switched off the tube, and checked through the sight. It was Val, of course. She often got frisky after combat.

I let her in. "Kinda hoped you'd visit..."

"But of course I came! With you flashing your naked body around like that? The scandal!" Quickly she jumped onto me, wrapping her arms and legs around me and planting her lips on mine.

Very deliberately, I tapped the door closed with my foot. It still slammed shut with a bang, but at least I didn't break anything. Even more deliberately, I carried her toward the bed. Much of my attention was on her mouth and I didn't want any accidents.

She surprised me by letting go early and dropping to the floor. Looking up at me with mischievous eyes, she peeled off her clothes. I started doing the same. "Took you long enough to get here," I teased.

"I like it when you're already sweaty," she proclaimed as she slid her pants and panties off. Valeria in profile is a sight I love, clothed or not. But deshabille is best.

I finally twigged to her intentions when she flipped my suitcase off the bed to the floor, and stepped onto it. She bent forward, grabbed the edge of the desk, and spread her legs slightly.

My smile widened. Our usual female-superior was nice - actually, very nice. I had no complaints about it; Val's level of muscular control was, as I said, superhuman. But variety is the spice of life, and our positional options were limited. Twice we'd tried me on top... but I was so scared I'd squash her like overripe fruit that it hadn't been fun for either of us.

So long as she had some space to maneuver, though, I couldn't hurt her doing it from behind. If I thrust a little too aggressively, her superlative reactions could compensate. But she was so short she needed something to stand on.

I took my station and carefully slid in. My field was better than any lube - like a thin coating of oil all over my skin - but she was ready. Every part of her body had a fast reaction time now. I began to pump.

Val had been my first, and was likely to remain my only. I'm stronger than a lot of major earthmoving equipment; it takes a special kind of woman to want to mess around with that. She seemed to regard sex with me as another extreme sport. It didn't bother me - a month ago I'd been convinced I'd never have sex at all.

She'd helped me make up for lost time, though. Borderline hyperactive by normal standards, she had inexhaustible enthusiasm for nearly everything. Then again, you'd seem impatient too if - from your perspective - everyone else moved and thought like tranquilized geriatrics. Her cry of release announced she was climaxing already.

She flexed away, popping me out of her. Immediately, though, she laid her pussy on top of my dick, sliding back and forth. She pressed down hard, giving herself clitoral stimulation while my head and shaft got rubbed. We could do this better than normals, even - my cock alone could support her entire weight if we wanted.

And there was another thing I could do that normals couldn't. I visualized slight ridges rising along my shaft; her ride got a fraction bumpier as my field shifted down there to match. She came again in less than a minute.

Val slacked off not a moment; once she was done she executed a maneuver that would have won her top scores if there were a Sexual Olympics. She hopped up off me, simultaneously flipping over. A leg whipped past my face, making me blink. Then her legs wrapped around my waist and she enveloped me with unerring accuracy. She was now leaning back, arms supporting herself on the edge of the desk. A normal woman would doubtless have found it uncomfortable, but Val could hold a position like that for hours if she didn't get bored first.

It gave me a view of her precious tits, though, so I tried to keep her from getting bored. Thrusting vigorously, I reached one hand forward to gingerly fondle a nipple. My other hand glided along her flank. I had to be careful to leave her an avenue of retreat...

Even her orgasmic rhythm was up-tempo; I felt the rabbit-heartbeat pulsing around me as she came again. My unofficial rule was to let her climax three times or so before I let myself go. I finally quit focusing on distractions and came shortly after. I was probably getting conditioned to be a premature ejaculator, but what the hell.

Val practically bounced off the desk and wrapped her arms around my neck. We kissed again happily. As was our typical pattern, I didn't pull out as I deflated. Instead I played with my field a little, giving her internal stimulation in ways no normal penis could manage. Another minute, and she orgasmed one last time.

Finally she let go and slithered off me. She quite unselfconsciously found my underwear and used it to wipe herself off down there. I could hardly object; I'd always admired her practicality. Hell, less laundry for me to take home.

We got dressed again. As I changed into civvies, she sat on the bed, uncharacteristically quiet. I sidled up and sat down beside her, laying an arm across her shoulders. She leaned into me a little. "What's wrong? Seoul got you down?" The Summer Olympics would begin in just over a month. Val had competed twice, and never placed. If, somehow, she could go this time, she'd get every gold medal she tried for. Easily.

But she shook her head. "No. I'm just... sad."

I wanted to kick myself. Val wasn't like Veronique or Colin or Potiphar. She didn't enjoy killing. Unfortunately, with her paranormality, she was spectacularly good at it. And she caused a lot less collateral damage than I usually managed.

Going into danger and surviving is exciting, life-affirming. Like I said, she was often amorous after a mission. But just as often she'd be depressed. This time, it was apparently both. Or she'd been using sex to drive away the guilt...

"Do you not wish things were different?" she asked quietly, in the face of my silence.

"You know I do. I wish the Event never happened. But then we wouldn't have met," I said, giving her a gentle squeeze.

It didn't cheer her up. She sat there for several seconds - a long time by Val standards - and then she turned and stared intensely into my eyes. "What if we ran away?"

I sighed, shaking my head. "It won't work."

"We could just quit! Go, hide. To hell with the rest of the world!"

"No, we can't," I retorted desultorily. "Paranormals are too valuable. Ones like us, with actual military experience? Forget it." I shrugged. "At least with Scylla we have some autonomy."

"Yes, of course," she said bitterly. "We are free to follow directions."

"Val, that's how it is. We're hot commodities."

"Is that all I am to you? A thing, a toy?" she demanded.

"Whoa, hey, take it easy!" I put my hands up. "I was talking about the spooks and the generals. We're just pawns to them." She was still glaring at me. "I don't take you for granted, Val. You know that." She scowled, but there wasn't anything to say.

Thame paid us well, gave us vacation time, treated us like employees. He never threatened us. He didn't need to. Lone paranormals were big fat targets. If we we left Scylla, any number of groups would try to capture us. And if they couldn't, they'd try to kill us - to deny our 'talents' to others.

But working for Scylla gave us a known status. We could be hired - and even governments sometimes found it handy to work through intermediaries. Plausible deniability, cut-outs, you know the drill. Even if we were deployed against somebody, they knew it was only business. We might work for them next time.

Her face pinched up and she made a sound almost like a growl. "So we keep fighting, killing, until we die."

I shrugged again. "Scylla - it's not just a job, it's an indenture."

She might not have understood the word, gotten the pun. It wasn't that great a joke to start with. Either way she stood and left, not looking back.

I sat on the bed, staring at the closed door. "Shit," I muttered.

The next morning found most of us at the airport. Sometimes it was necessary to travel by commercial passenger flights, but Scylla had a pair of chartered jets waiting for us.

Most of the group was in the plane heading east, with stops in India and Australia. Thame, Potiphar, Val, and I were heading north. Potiphar would be getting off early, while Val and I accompanied Thame to Lisbon, the new gateway to North America. After that, she and I would be 'at liberty' for a week. Together.

We'd be Thame's paranormal security until then. Alejandro and Stephan could handle the conventional threats. We were in an unconventional business, however, and it paid to be prepared.

A number of Scylla's former mercenaries had left the company as it had moved into 'paranormal services', for various reasons. Some didn't want to fight people who could 'cheat'. Others felt less valued, or didn't feel like teaming up with "fucking amateur freaks". Most had stayed for the money, though, which had gotten awfully good.

Thame's bodyguards nodded respectfully at Potiphar as he boarded the plane. He made an almost imperceptible nod in return, stowed his bags, then went and sat in a corner by himself, not even looking out the window.

They were a little in awe of him. To tell the truth, so was I. Sometimes I wondered if he had some kind of luck power, or precognition, or something. Thing is, he'd had a legendary rep before the Event. I guess with five billion people in the world, there's room for a freak of nature or two. He didn't talk much, and had a poker face like you wouldn't believe. He reminded me of nothing so much as an action-movie villain.

Val had ignored me all morning, and kept it up after we boarded. She went and laid down for one of her catnaps. Thame said once that Leonardo da Vinci had been like that, taking short naps every few hours rather than getting a full night's sleep. I don't think 'accelerated metabolism' was his excuse, though.

Sometimes I worried about that. Would she age faster than normal, too? But she'd been like this for close to two years, and she didn't look ten or twenty years older, so - knock on wood - it didn't seem likely.

For my part, I sat glumly for a time and sipped orange juice. (And not because I was technically on duty. Alcohol? Me? On a plane?) Thame sat in the back, looking over papers and printouts, occasionally scribbling notes. Eventually I wandered back and sat across the table from him, looking out a window. Even with all the flights I'd been on, I still enjoyed the view. Carefully, I did my seated isometric routine, pitting my muscles against each other.

It took about an hour, but I sure got bored. I didn't want to doze off. Although I wasn't a particularly restless sleeper or anything, it wasn't a wise choice. One nightmare and I could punch a hole in the fuselage. And, well... I did get more nightmares since I'd joined Scylla.

Thame sat back from his papers and glanced my way. I couldn't call us close; by necessity our line of work had clear divisions of authority. Still, we occasionally managed an interesting conversation. I'd been angling for one, coming back here.

He had probably always been good at reading people. I wondered sometimes if his interpretive powers extended to body language, too. In any case, he raised his eyebrow and asked, "Something on your mind, Seth?"

I wasn't going to consult with him about relationship trouble. I had concerns he'd find more relevant, anyway. "We're gonna get a lot of attention after this job. Not all of it positive. Are we ready for that?" There was no point being anything but direct with him.

The ghost of a grin flickered. "Winning an entire war - even a sordid little third-world spat - is too high-profile, you think?"

"In a word, yeah."

He considered me for a moment. "Seth, did you ever play chess?"

I squinted back. "A little, with my dad."

He nodded. "Chess is war. There are different units, each with different abilities, and one must compose a strategy to apply their strengths effectively. The earliest versions in India were, precisely, battle simulations." He looked at me carefully. "But chess was not always the modern game. The rules have changed over time." He smiled, visibly warming to his subject. "In the beginning, the queen could only move one square, and only diagonally, for example. Gradually the rules changed, pieces gained powers."

He saw me sit up a little at that. "Indeed. The queen acquired her current abilities in Europe, in the 1400s. Needless to say, that forced a revolution in strategies." His eyes were distant. "But even today, there are those who explore variations in the rules. Many alternate versions of chess have been invented - some with different opening positions, or different numbers of pieces, or oddly-shaped boards."

He smiled self-deprecatingly. "I like to think I could have been a Grandmaster, but I became too involved in the variations. It drove my tutor to distraction. My favorite kinds were called 'fairy chess'. They involved new pieces, ones that moved differently or had other strange attributes." His eyes were distant for a moment, then returned to the present, and me.

"I said that chess is war, and I meant it. Sometimes new pieces arise in war as well - crossbows, cavalry, cannons. And when new weapons arise, strategies must change. Your American Civil War shows what happens when generals don't adapt to new technology." He shrugged. "See how far nuclear weapons have changed war. Pieces that, if played, can destroy the very game."

Like I said, he was good at reading people. "Ah, you see my point. Since the White Event, the fairies are among us. Thousands of unique new pieces that upset the traditional strategies." He paused to make sure I was getting him. "Take yourself. A wonderful example! You combine the best features of light infantry and heavy armor, with none of the disadvantages of either."

"Yeah, but... chess pieces get sacrificed," I noted dryly. Like I said, subtlety was wasted on Thame.

"No analogy is perfect." His eyes twinkled. "The wise player sacrifices only when needed. And in the games we play today, the pieces are unique. We cannot just pull them back out of the box for the next game." His mouth twisted wryly. "It does not seem the larger players have grasped that."

"You planning on going up against the big boys?" The idea made me nervous. "They've got majorly big boxes to draw from." Smuggled video out of Afghanistan came to mind, a man and a horse disintegrating in a flash. "And some of those pieces are pretty big all by themselves."

"I only take on tasks that I feel will have good returns." Which meant precisely nothing. And thus ironically spoke volumes.

I hesitated for a few moments, staring out the window. I wasn't trying to figure out how to phrase things politely - no matter the wording, Thame would take my meaning. I was trying to figure out what to say, get it straight in my head. If you're going to be perfectly understood, you'd better understand what you're saying.

Thame waited patiently. I turned back. "You're playing with pieces that have their own goals. And can make their own moves." I jerked my thumb over my shoulder, indicating the front of the plane. "Some of them aren't expendable."

Thame didn't seem terribly perturbed. He just smiled, glanced to my right, and said, "Your aim is off. Unless you meant Potiphar?" I turned my head to find Val standing in the aisle next to me.

Just for a second she was frowning, eyes darting between me and Thame. She had to have heard at least what I'd just said. Then, muttering something in Italian - probably something vulgar - she pulled me to my feet. "Seth, I will speak to Thame about me, yes?" She sounded annoyed as she dragged me forward... but she had a little smile on her face, too.

I went with her. I stole one glance back at Thame, wondering. The timing had been rather fortuitous. I'd never heard of a paranormal with superhuman intelligence. Then again, if there were any, they'd probably be smart enough not to let anyone find out...

Val had me sit next to her. She still didn't talk to me, any more than Potiphar did as he wordlessly deplaned while we refueled in Cairo. I suspected that prospects for our vacation had improved, though.

My guess was confirmed shortly after takeoff on the Spain-bound leg. Val leaned over to give me a kiss, and before I knew it she had a hand at my crotch.

I realize how she's coming across in this account, but you have to understand. She was hyperkinectic, bored, all slept out, and there was literally nothing else to do. As for me, well... I was a fit young man who'd been a virgin a month ago. Besides, we were in a business where you learned to seize opportunities before they were gone forever.

Once it was clear I'd taken her up on her proposal, she did a flip over the back of her seat, landed in the aisle, and drew the curtain, closing off the front half of the cabin from the back where Thame and the rest were. I didn't have to see her face; I could imagine the sardonic grin she gave the bemused bodyguards.

I had stood up and seized her before she turned back to me. Well, grasped her, anyway. She liked me to take charge sometimes, but not to the point of killing her.

I rubbed my face in her short dark hair as I ran my hands down her front. She let out an "Mmmmm" and leaned back into me. One hand came up to rub my hair as I bent lower and kissed her neck. My left hand stroked across her breast, my right roamed down to the front of her thigh, and curved casually inward.

She turned her head up to me and we kissed. My fingertips slid along her crotch, gentle but not tentative. I'm sure she could feel my erection pressed against the small of her back. I exerted just a little more pressure on her vulva. She had room to pull back, but I still had to be careful.

I moved back a couple steps. She kept pace effortlessly, her tongue never faltering in my mouth. I have to admit, I was enjoying the chance to take my time. Sex with Val was usually intense, and often explosive. One of the goals here was to kill time, though, so working at a more normal pace was just fine.

After I while I let her turn in my arms, and we embraced face-to-face. One knee came up, her thigh rubbing against my leg. I stroked her back, her cheek, my breath coming faster. I reached down and kneaded her ass. It was a wonder, that ass - just the right amount of give, and splendidly-shaped.

She got her hands under the sides of my shirt, lifted a little. I released her and moved back a pace, bending and raising my arms. My shirt slipped off. I came forward and returned the favor.

I took her in another close embrace, appreciating her skin against mine. I was a little starved for human contact, sometimes. I could hardly blame people for giving me space, but... touch is important. Eventually I decided I wanted some more skin-to-skin.

I let go, though our tongues still wrestled. The bra straps parted after a brief fumbling struggle. I hooked my thumbs beneath her shorts and panties, and slid them down to her thighs. They fell as I let go. She'd already gotten my belt and pants unhooked; she stooped, disentangled her feet from the clothes, then dropped to one knee as she pulled my pants down.

She licked my scrotum, and I groaned. Gently, I ran my fingers through her short hair as she lifted a ball with her tongue, then let it drop. Then she glided her lips up my shaft, and swirled around the groove at the base of the head.

My breath was accelerating, despite my efforts. Still, I was able to hold it together as she took me in.

Suction is important when it comes to oral; unfortunately, my field made an airtight seal impossible. Fortunately, it hugged my skin the closest where the nerves were densest - hands, face, and... well. There was just a slight hiss, almost a whistle, as she worked on me.

A hand came up and tickled my ass. I tried to back away - she hadn't had her turn yet! - but she followed, perfectly controlled, even on her knees. I gave up. Trying to disengage without her consent was pointless, unless I wanted to risk hurting her.

She redoubled her efforts - tongue flicking like a hummingbird's wings, impossibly quick - as she looked up to lock eyes with me. She gave my rear a squeeze, and I came. She had never been shy about swallowing, and she didn't start then.

Once I'd stopped, she stood up with an almost feline purr, lazy smile in effect. I gave her a kiss, nuzzled her for a moment... then clutched her up and flipped her over the seat beside me.

She giggled and wriggled, throwing her arms past her head to support herself on the armrests. Like I said, she enjoyed me taking charge on occasion. I worked to extract my feet from my pants, and managed the job somewhat less gracefully than she had. There was a ripping sound as cloth tore. She let out another giggle at my muttered curse.

So there she was, draped upside-down over the back of the seat, legs in the air. I leaned in and got a taste of that delectable pussy. By now I knew what she liked - she'd never been shy about correcting my technique, either. First a few kisses and snuffles on the lips, then I worked my way in.

I played around for a while, hitting all the important geography. My tongue got deep within her; my field even more so. Careful visualizing was necessary, but needless to say she had my full concentration.

Hanging upside-down for ten minutes or so would impair the erotic mood of any normal woman. I doubt if Val gave it a second thought. I got two good orgasms out of her, minimum, before she slipped away. Too quickly to follow, she was kneeling on the seat and I was kissing her other lips.

A fit young man I was, so when she broke off and moved into the aisle I was sporting a new boner. She closed with me - and to my surprise, flipped me right over her shoulder. I plopped on my back in the aisle.

The next second she landed over me, feet touching down on either side of my hips. She squatted, on her tiptoes, and guided me into her ass with one hand. She stayed on her tiptoes, too, essentially doing deep knee bends to move me in and out. Another situation totally impossible for a normal woman to maintain. Anal with me didn't require lube - it just called for maximum control.

Her control was exquisite. One of her hands kept a light hold on a seat, the other was rubbing her clit. I closed my eyes, my own catlike smile emerging. It'd be a while until we arrived in Spain.

Private planes for corporate clients got special treatment. A customs agent rode out to meet us in the hangar in Lisbon. I dug out my papers for the pro forma inspection.

Canadian passports were easier to come by than American, and scrutinized less stringently, so that's what I usually traveled with. Not that it mattered this time; the lady just looked it over with bored disinterest for a moment, then stamped it and said, "Welcome to Spain, sir." That was it. Never even looked in the direction of my bags. The same with Val and the rest of us.

George and Jesse were waiting nearby. They'd be Thame's paranormal security from here.

My eyes almost watered at George's pastel suit. He could have stepped off the set of Miami Vice... if weren't for that gut. He was tall and beefy, with long dark hair and big glasses - always reminded me a little of Penn from Penn & Teller. His personality was equally brash, and pretty crass. It was a good thing he got paid well or he'd never get laid. As it was, drinks were thrown in his face quite regularly. Funny, the other Canadians I'd met tended to be polite.

He wasn't much on offense, but he was actually tougher than me. He could generate this... aura of sorts. Like mine, it blocked kinetic energy - but his reflected all forms of energy. And it reflected stuff exactly backward; fire a gun at him and you'd get smacked by your own bullet. They'd tested a welding laser on him and it burned out from the feedback. Same with radiation. It protected his clothes, even, to my envy.

Of course, he had to consciously activate the effect. If he got taken by surprise, he could be hurt like anybody else.

Jesse, wearing his usual sweatpants and t-shirt, looked like he'd stepped off an inner-city basketball court. He needed flexible clothing. You would, too, if you were 'quadruple jointed'. He could turn any joint in his body in any direction he liked. His muscles and tendons were more resilient than normal, too. I'd seen him leap from a fourth floor balcony, accordion onto pavement like he'd melted, and pop back up without even a sprain. He could turn his head completely around, like an owl.

It was goddamn disturbing to see him in action, I'll tell you, and it drove hardcore martial artists nuts. Clyde once showed me some video of Jesse sparring with a Judo master Thame had hired. The old guy was near tears, unable to adapt to the paranormal's inhuman flexibility. Flips, pins, grips - nothing worked. Jesse wiped the floor with him. Literally, at one point.

The weirdest thing about it was that he didn't look weird so long as he wasn't twisting himself like a pretzel. His internal arrangements had to be completely bizarre, but I couldn't see anything strange in his gait as he ambled up to us, George in tow.

"Yo, stud! Wearin' clothes this time?" Jesse never turned off the trash-talk. And he seemed to instinctively know just how to needle anybody he met.

"Hey, Jesse," I said, smiling. Why give him the satisfaction? I sure as hell wasn't going to admit I'd already had to replace my pants today.

He turned to Val with an exaggerated leer. "Lookin' fine, baby. Y'know, I don't remember you had any tan lines, either." My eyes suddenly narrowed; was he implying what I thought?

Her smirk was just a trifle frosty. "Ah, but the past is past, no?"

"Come on, babe. Can't tell me you don't miss this, right?" An unsettling wave rippled up from his feet; his pelvis did a rather amazing wobble on the way.

My guts dropped. I couldn't keep it all off my face. Val and Jesse had gotten together? When? God, the only person on Earth more limber than she was... Val's lips pursed, just a flicker but unmistakable. Like I said, Jesse had a positive genius for irritating people. His half-friendly sneer pushed my blood pressure up another notch.

Now Val was shaking her head sadly, aplomb restored. "A woman craves a certain firmness, no?"

If her riposte bothered Jesse even slightly, I couldn't see it. He just laughed.

George spoke up then. "I got some firm right here, anytime you want, eh?" he said. You'd think that'd piss me off - here he was, propositioning my... well, girlfriend, I guess - yet it actually made me feel better. This was a guy who'd never have a shot at Val.

Jesse laughed at a new victim. "Ain't nothin' firm on your whole flabby-ass body!" George gave him a sour look. Not offended personally, just upset that Jesse was undermining his prospects.

Val dashed those prospects instantly. "Magari! We part again, so soon! There is no time." Her expression was perfect - almost convincing sadness. Just enough to give a socially oblivious dolt like George hope, not enough for anyone else to take seriously.

Jesse clapped him on the back. "Hell, you wouldn't know what to do with her if you got her!"

They made a good team. George had never suffered from an excess of introspection. Jesse's steady rain of jibes just rolled off him.

"If you are all quite finished?" Thame drawled, motioning his entourage to follow him.

Jesse's shit-eating grin turned to me even as he went to follow Thame. "Have fun, boyo! Don't do anything I didn't do!"

I maintained my smile. I could at least pretend it was all in fun. "Y'know, I'm pretty sure the boss wouldn't dock my pay too much if I shoved your head up your ass. I mean, you could probably live through it."

He chuckled and flipped me the bird, with his fingers folded onto the back of his hand. It almost made me cringe, but I wasn't about to show any sign.

Thame was whisked away in a limo, and we were on our own. Val and I grabbed our bags and walked over to the main terminal. There was a special entrance for corporate-flight transfers. We weren't speaking much. Again.

It's hard to describe the feelings you experience, flying from a third-world country to a first-world one. You get off the plane and it's like you're on an entirely different planet. Jumping from utter, desperate poverty to the conveniences of a wealthy nation is a major culture shock. Food, drink, luxury items for sale. TVs everywhere. Just electricity everywhere was a big change.

There was a lot of construction going on. Lisbon was having an economic renaissance, as a new air travel hub. Even limited hope was another thing to adapt to. Though I could have wished there was a more pleasant reason for their optimism. Paris and London and Amsterdam weren't doing so well anymore. Thame had lamented the loss of Concorde fights.

We made directly for the gate, anticipating that our progress through the crowds would be slow. My fault, of course. The people jostling me couldn't know they were brushing up against someone that might crush them like a steamroller if he made a mistake. As it was, I turned at one point to ask Val something and wound up knocking a lady flat on her ass. I apologized profusely but her husband just glared at me as he helped her up. We found a seat by the gate and got me situated. Val gave me a peck on the cheek and dashed off, gracefully sliding through the crowd. I watched appreciatively, and a touch enviously.

It gave me a chance to calm down and think. Who Val had boinked before me was none of my business. Hell, looked at a certain way, it kind of argued in my favor, didn't it? Whatever games they'd gotten up to - my imagination painted a couple uncomfortably vivid speculations before I could stop it - she didn't seem disappointed with my performance.

Yet? God damn Jesse.

She returned a while later with espressos and pastries and magazines. We chatted about nothing much of consequence. Still, I felt the tension drop some. Why should we let Jesse be more than a speedbump? As Val said, the past was past. And hadn't I just been thinking about grabbing opportunities while you could?

The plane hit cruising altitude and we pulled out the magazines Val had picked up at the airport. There was a lot to catch up on.

OMNI looked interesting, if depressing. The cover had a picture of the new Soviet lift vehicle, the Energia-R "Apollo". Unveiled three months ago, it was claimed to be able to lift 500 tons into orbit... and was rumored to be capable of twice that. Reusable, too. It had taken two flights already, and the Mir space station was growing by leaps and bounds. The U.S. had been issuing diplomatic protest, citing treaties which banned the use of large nuclear reactors in space, but the U.S.S.R. insisted it was using a new, classified design. The article quoted unnamed intelligence sources that stated the exhaust was radioactive, but only slightly.

In true OMNI fashion, they went on to speculate that the power source was the fabled "Green Man Of Chernyobl". Those pictures had been discredited as fakes, but... I wondered. Russia jumping so far ahead in aerospace like that... it could be a paranormal. If so, that was unsettling. I could lift eighty-six tons last time we'd checked, but not five hundred tons. And I sure as shit couldn't throw that into orbit.

Besides, a world where Russia had space dominance... doubleplusungood.

The rest of the issue mostly just pissed me off. OMNI had always mixed real science with fringe ideas, but lately it had been increasingly focused on paranormality. I could understand that - better than most - but their bullshit-detector's threshold was set way too high anymore. I mean, 'crystal healing' my ass; every paranormal I'd ever heard of - and again, I knew better than most - was human, or at least started that way.

More and more people were ignoring science, going for quack cures and con artists. There were a few people who could heal with a touch - I'd met one, and been briefed on another - but if you wanted to get better, modern medicine was still your best bet.

Science itself was in crisis, though. If anyone had figured out what the fuck was causing us paranormals, I sure hadn't heard about it. To my knowledge, nobody had anything like a decent hypothesis. Christ, even the notion that the White Event had caused the paranormals was basically a guess. Thame had gotten his parability two days later, and there were no documented cases of paranormality before it, but...

Val closed a tabloid and leaned back for another catnap. I was a little nervous about this trip. We'd only been an actual item for just over a month, and for most of that we'd been kind of busy with the Mozambique job. Thame had taken our request to work together in stride, and we'd managed some quality fucking time here and there. Now, though, it'd be a week of the just the two of us. We'd proven we were physically compatible; were we romantically compatible, too? Heck, I wasn't entirely sure what the parameters of our relationship were, or should be.

Such thoughts occupied me as we whiled away the flight. Val looked so peaceful; I wished I could doze off, too. Even in a first-class seat I wouldn't do it. It was a short enough hop, though it felt longer because it was the last leg. She woke as we descended.

As we taxied to the gate, Val said something and I barely heard her. So I swallowed - there was a huge pop and suddenly it was like I'd pulled out thick earplugs. Everything got louder and I could hear the little noises I'd missed before. A pressure differential like that would have been excruciating for a normal's ears, but it just snuck up on me. "I'm sorry?"

"I said, I hate Milan. No culture."

I'd twigged long ago that this was partly bluster. Southern Italians made fun of the North, and vice versa. And both derided the Sicilians. But though she couldn't go home, she loved being anywhere in Italy. I knew the feeling; I'd only been back to America a few times since joining Scylla. Despite the changes it had undergone it still felt more familiar than anywhere else.

We got our bags and retrieved Val's dinky European car out of long-term storage. She talked for much of the drive, criticizing things she saw... but she was smiling. I smiled a little myself and made small grunts of agreement now and then. She got quiet as we turned onto the dirt drive to her house in the country, however. Eyes roving, we looked for any signs of disturbance or ambush. She parked, and we got out. She tossed me the keys over the car, and I caught them.

Being the most durable, I was the logical choice to take point. Alert, I walked to the door and undid the locks. I pushed the door open, but didn't step in yet. Nothing unusual happened. I moved forward and began a sweep.

A couple minutes later I waved Val in and she joined me in the check. Not long after that we relaxed. She confirmed there was no sign of any tampering or booby-traps. For the next few days we could pretend to be just a normal couple at their vacation house.

Well, almost. We'd been travelling all day and I was tired. Tired meant clumsy and I had no intention of putting dents in the walls. The bedroom beckoned; I brought my bag in there and pulled down the sheets. Val gave me a peck on the cheek and left wordlessly. I took the kiss to be a good sign. Her leaving didn't worry me - even if she'd been tired, sleeping next to me was a terrible idea. I stripped down to my shorts and climbed under the covers. I was asleep in no time.

Something landed on my face, startling me out of slumber. "Guuuhhh!" I yelled, shoving it off, sitting up. Where was I? What was going on?

The laughter finally registered. It was a sound I knew well. Val stood at the foot of the bed, thoroughly amused.

I shook my head back and forth, trying to wake up. At the same time, I groused. "What the fuck? You know better than that!"

She just laughed again. "Oh, like a... like a puppy you were, so surprised!"

"What if I'd put a hole in the ceiling?" I remonstrated.

"Then I would have it repaired. I can afford it, no?" A familiar glint was in her eyes as she ambled toward me. No mistaking her intentions. "Come, we have a saying: 'The morning sun brings gold in its mouth!'"

"Hey, I just woke up!" But I had to fight down a smile. I was generally a little clumsy when I first awoke. No wonder she'd done that; a spot of adrenaline works wonders.

She whipped off the covers, exposing my morning wood. "You lie! He has been awake for some time, I see!"

"That's 'cause I gotta make some gold myself."

"Then you shall be, what is the word, motivated!"

We did it with me sitting up, my back resting on my bedframe, knees bent up a little. She was cupped on my hips, knees at my sides, chest pressed against mine, faces close. It was a great way to wake up. Intimate.

After, though, I booked over to the bathroom. And couldn't piss for the longest time, the works being frozen from a lengthy erection.

It came to pass that I, well, came to pass, and was able to get some boxers and a shirt on. I returned to the bathroom and began my somewhat bizarre oral hygiene routine.

Yet another mystery. I could drink, so long as the fluid wasn't too hot. I could chew food, and after it was masticated enough, the field would let me taste it. Once swallowed, it seemed like the field considered stuff 'part of me' and protected it from acceleration like the rest of my body. So, yay, I didn't starve. And on the way out - well, I hardly needed toilet paper, let's leave it at that.

But the field didn't like toothbrushes; the bristles never quite made contact. So I went through a lot of mouthwash, and scraped teeth and tongue with my nails. I had a terror of cavities - how could I possibly ever get a filling, let alone have a tooth pulled? Either I was lucky to have avoided any so far, or maybe the field fought plaque too.

The mutations or changes or alien symbiotes or whatever-the-fuck-it-was that made paranormals into paranormals seemed to be subtle and well-thought-out. Nothing automatically lethal. Take Val; it wasn't just her muscles that were enhanced; her bones and tendons were tougher, too. Otherwise she'd break or tear something just running around.

The smells hit me as I came down the hall from the bedroom. Val had things going in the kitchen. Breakfast was an omelette made with eggs that had been laid yesterday, not even two hundred yards away, and ham from a pig raised at the same farm. It was delicious.

While I digested, I ran through my workout routine. Then we went out for a jog. For me, a four-mile run was exercise. For Val it might as well have been a pleasant walk, but we enjoyed each other's company. Winding roads, gentle hills. Fields, not forest, mostly. Very pretty country.

She let me help make lunch, to the extent of allowing me to boil the pasta. In the Italian way, it was the biggest meal of the day. Roast beef with veggies, pasta, bread, sauteed zucchini, and more. I even joined her in a little wine. It felt very European, and yet homey, at the same time. Best yet, Val wouldn't let me help clean up because I'd been drinking. So I retired to the den and read a magazine.

I got a surprise that evening - Val had an actual Testarossa in the garage. I regretfully passed on her offer to drive it, but I enjoyed just being in one. Especially after that dinky Fiat. God damn that thing could accelerate!

We took dinner in town that night, at a little place that might have been open back in the Rennaisance for all I knew. Val pointed out several buildings that dated from Roman times. I shook my head, recalling a quip Thame made once: "An American thinks a hundred years is a long time. A European thinks a hundred miles is a long distance."

Italy practically shut down for August. Just about everyone was on vacation - shops and restaurants were closed all over. If you wanted to eat out around now, you had to be willing to pay top lira. This place was classy and upscale. I felt underdressed and my "Don Johnson" facial hair didn't help.

Price was no concern at all, though. It didn't matter how spendy we got. For one thing, we each received mid-six-figure incomes, plus bonuses. For another, neither of us figured retirement planning applied in our case. Even if we survived - even if the world survived - there would never be a time we weren't in demand.

I had more money than I needed, really. I owned a couple houses, nicely furnished and plenty of gadgets. I didn't go in for cars but I'd collected some sweet motorcycles. A lot of cash got dropped on food. With my fitness regimen, I was never going to get fat, and what else should I spend it on?

My parents got a good chunk of change sent to their account once a month from a Swiss bank. It was the only contact I had with my old family anymore. Severing ties was the best way to protect them.

I did another workout when we got home. Not long after that, we had a little romp in my bed and I drifted off to sleep as she slipped out the door. I wish I could get used to this, I remember thinking.

A little rain in the morning. Val had gone shopping before I woke, so I made a simple sandwich, got in a workout, and flopped on the couch. I skimmed the TV channels; news and talk shows and dramas in Italian.

I finally found MTV. Madonna's new video, the dance-club remake of "Ball Of Confusion". She writhed in front of a big screen, news clips and photos flickering on it. The iconic shot of refugees marching along I-376, clouds from what would become Mt. Pittsburgh rising behind them. Footage of Russian paranormals stomping all over the poor Mujahedin in Afghanistan. Draft protestors on the Mall in Washington, dust masks and bandannas on their faces.

The Material Girl always had a handle on the zeitgeist. I watched in morbid fascination as a clip of me blipped past - a telescopic shot, wobbling as I flipped a tank over. Then that 'Captain Manhattan' asshole. I still couldn't believe anyone had been stupid enough to actually try to be a superhero. He'd been active for about six weeks, taking out crackhouses - and then vanished. Probably snatched up by the spooks, but who knew?

Val returned and I helped her put the supplies away. We had another big lunch and made some plans for the rest of our stay. Then we went out for a jog when the cleaning lady came.

Supper was marred by one of my accidents. I was getting plates out of a cupboard, and a mug fell. When I grabbed for it I put my arm through the countertop. Val just shrugged and finished cooking up some sausage and risotto, while I went outside and paced around the grounds in back.

Sometimes I got the sensation it was all unreal, a dream. When everything around you feels as flimsy as a stage prop, it can be hard to take seriously. Like you're the only real thing left in the world.

I settled down by the time the food was ready. The clouds had broken up over the day, so we ate on the patio out back, sipping wine, enjoying the sunset. Volcanoes had their downsides, like colder winters. But evenings and mornings all over the world had been gorgeous since Pittsburgh.

We took an evening walk that turned into a jog, getting back just as dark was really arriving. Val led me around back and we undressed and coupled outside. Before we got too far, though, she cursed and pulled me in through the sliding door - mosquitoes couldn't get me, but she wasn't immune.

I sat at the bar, drinking juice. Val danced in the crowd, preternaturally graceful. Even Euro-trash sounded better when she was grooving to it.

There were more musical genres under heaven and Earth than had been dreamt of by this Minnesota boy. In the clubs around here, a style called "Italo Disco" ruled. Lots of synthesizers and drum machines. And weirdly enough, the lyrics were mostly in English. Not particularly good English, mind you, but I never did figure out why they didn't do more Italian.

I hadn't been a dance enthusiast before the Event, and now... well, you don't take a bulldozer out on the floor. If I tried to get my funk on, someone would end up in the hospital. Probably several someones. Thus my position at a healthy remove from the action.

Val never lacked for partners, of course. Especially in the short, slinky, sequined, backless nothing she wore. It was one of the spoils of our afternoon campaign on Milan's fashion district. For the first time I'd seen Val complain about the timing of our trip - a lot of places were closed. Still, an excess of money can open doors.

I'd never suspected she had a taste for dangly jewelry and hoop earrings - she couldn't very well take that crap on a mission. Maybe it was to make up for the fact that she'd always had to have short hair.

Needless to say, shopping for clothes wasn't my favorite activity. At least I got to see Val in plenty of different outfits, and before we left Italy a pair of custom-tailored suits would be ready for me.

This evening we were clubbing. Well, she was clubbing and I was observing. She'd dance with some guy for a while, then dismiss him and move on to another. Every so often she'd send a smile my way.

I people-watched and cultivated a philosophical attitude about other guys getting their hands on my girl. She could break any of them in half if they got too forward, so I wasn't worried on that score.

But then, what exactly did Val consider 'too forward', anyway?

A young woman said something to me in Italian, startling me out of my black thoughts. I gave her a glance, and said, "Sorry, ma'am, I only speak English."

"An American!" she exclaimed. "I thought so!" She had a heavy accent, but was otherwise fluent. I shrugged, not denying the charge. My eyes flicked around, searching for signs of trouble, anyone sneaking up behind me - pure reflex. A moment later my gaze swung back to Val.

She followed my gaze. "Can you not simply ask her to dance?" she said, sly and teasing.

I smiled. "No point. I'm going home with her anyway."

She squinted, just slightly, in puzzlement. "You must ask her, no?" She turned to face me more directly. "What if someone asks you before?" This was the country the Mona Lisa had come from; I recognized the smile.

I shrugged. Not that I minded being hit on, but it was time to cut this off. "I'm on duty, I'm afraid." I tilted my head Val's way. "I'm her bodyguard."

Her eyes widened, and she said something in Italian. Then she said, "Sorry to bother you," and moved away. I caught her glancing back nervously.

I sighed and resumed my "surveillance" of Val. Heck, I had gotten a couple weeks of bodyguard training, so this was a chance to hone those skills. One thing you're supposed to look for is people paying untoward attention to you or your subject. The problem with that was that Val was such a good dancer she automatically became the center of attention.

That said, I think I spotted one actual bodyguard. He stayed on the sidelines, had the right size and wore a jacket, even in the sweaty club environment. He ignored me, and vice versa. I couldn't tell who his subject was; sunglasses are useful for concealing your gaze. I'd have worn some myself if this were a real job.

Val left with me an hour later, flushed and smiling. She didn't look back, and her arm curled into mine companionably as we waited for the valet. The cool night air felt good after the stifling interior of the club.

Apparently Val agreed; she took us on a late-night drive around the city, windows open, just soaking up the atmosphere. Though she said little, she was acting even more charged-up than usual. When we got on the highway toward home, she sped up alarmingly. Smiling, she grabbed my hand and pulled it to her crotch.

It was kinda the inverse of the rock video fantasy. I mean, normally it's the coked-out guy getting a blowjob on the freeway, right? I could drive, even stick, and had - but in a handful of emergencies only. Picture what would happen if I jerked the wheel sharply, or slammed on the brakes. After seeing the way Italians drove, I wasn't even the least bit tempted.

So I slid closer and worked my digits under her panties. Engine and wind roaring, scenery blurring by... made quite a backdrop. I couldn't hear her if she made any of her usual noises as I slid my fingers in. I was jerked around once or twice as she whipped across lanes to dodge slowpokes, but she compensated.

In the end I wound up using my field to do most of the work. Cramped quarters, awkward angle, etc. She had to have the seat jacked forward all the way s she could reach the pedals. I pictured flowing waves and gentle bumps and the occasional extension. She bucked and rolled her hips, then let out a cry of triumph as we zipped along.

Saturday morning three workmen came to tackle the damage to the kitchen counter; they were getting something like quintuple pay to come in off vacation. Val and I drove back in to Milan and caught the new Bond movie. We couldn't help but laugh at the preposterous firefights. Even the way he held his gun was wrong. At the end, though, when he dropped the bomb on top of the paranormals threatening the Mujahedin, it sobered us up a little. Later, sitting at a café, I broached the subject.

"Think it'd be that easy?"

"No, certainly not," Val said, shaking her head. "The one they call 'Kinship'... I do not know if he can die."

I sipped on a latte. "I hope Thame doesn't... overreach."

"Would you go there, if he ordered?"

I looked up to the sky, judging. "I'd want to hear the plan. All about it."

"You can become disintegrato, you know!"

"I know I'm not invincible, believe me." I shrugged. "But that doesn't matter if you're not where the disintegrator expects you to be. I haven't seen Thame be stupid about strategy yet."

Val sniffed, but let the subject drop.

The next day we took a drive up into the mountains. The Lombardy region around Milan had everything from the plains I'd seen, to hills, to a section of the Alps. Our morning picnic looked out over a broad valley, then we went skiing in the afternoon. Especially with the cooler summers Europe was having, there were still slopes open in August.

I was barely more than an amateur, but she led me straight to the steep, advanced slopes and I got a lot of experience - quick. Val reached some truly terrifying velocities, and even I had my moments. But then, it's easy to take 'risks' when there's no chance of even a bruise, much less a bone fracture.

I had to pay for broken skis. Twice; the rental guys shook their heads in amazement that I wasn't dead, though I faked a limp. Technically it was a bit risky to stand out like that; Val was able to spin a story about God blessing fools with luck.

We spent the night in a high-end room in the lodge, partaking of the hot tub and the large bed. In a strange way it felt almost familiar. We mostly lived out of hotels anymore.

Stretched out on my back, fingers laced behind my head, Val riding me, facing my feet - that's the image that stands out. So far as I could tell, she could flex each muscle in her pussy individually; she sometimes played my cock almost literally like a flute.

God, swimming was weird now. The water couldn't actually touch my skin, so when I dived under it was like my whole body was coated in Saran Wrap; cool, but not wet. Yet I floated in it, as though gravity had been temporarily suspended. It felt... humid, like a cold mist. And since I was so strong, water offered about as much resistance as a cold mist when I waved my arms and legs around. I could swim faster than any normal.

Not as fast as Val, though. She shot around like a damn dolphin. I could at least hold my breath a bit longer - her metabolism had some pretty high oxygen requirements.

We'd gone almost a quarter mile out, finding a place to cut loose a bit where we wouldn't draw dumbfounded stares. Val did a Shamu move, popping up out of the water and doing a flip ten feet above the surface.

She emerged near me, laughing. "You cannot do that!"

I gave her a haughty grin. "Can you do this?" I rolled onto my belly and pushed the field out around my hands and feet. Air rushed in to fill the voids and I rose out of the water. Within moments, I was up in the air, little dents in the waves under my extremities, perched like a water strider on the surface.

She laughed and clapped. "Che prezioso!" She paddled closer, then suddenly gave me a shove on my side. I flipped, practically frictionless, and fell off-balance into the ocean.

I came up gasping, but she'd darted out of range. I sneered arrogantly and laid out on my back. I pushed the field out below me, all along my back surface. Not more than an inch or so - didn't want to rip my swimsuit - but I was floating again. Felt kinda like laying on an air mattress.

Val dived under. I kept an eye open, though I didn't deign to acknowledge any threat. Long seconds passed, then she exploded out of the water a few yards away, rolled in the air, and slapped down straddling my belly.

It probably took a lot of her skill to balance there, with me being so slippery and all. She showed no sign, if so. Instead she leaned forward and gave me a kiss. Slow, lingering.

She wasn't wearing a top, which was no big deal here. She slid around, turning on top of me, and eased my trunks down. Still facing away, she untied one side of her bikini bottom, then the other. She drew it out from between her legs - making a production of things - swirled around to face me again, and laid it gently across my eyes.

'Blindfolded', I felt her glide backward, her belly and chest laying on mine, her pussy lips coming to rest against my cock. Her legs scissored together, and my prick was enclosed, enveloped in the space at her crotch. She flexed her hips up and down, and I groaned.

She didn't tease me long, impatient as always. All in one smooth motion she sat up and onto me, taking me inside her, beginning the rhythm.

It was a bit like doing it on a waterbed. Albeit outside, in broad daylight, if the waterbed were big enough to support real waves. I'm in a position to say that it's not literally the motion of the ocean... but it doesn't hurt.

My concentration faltered as I came. We sagged into the water, from my waist down. A wave washed over her hips and my belly. Thankfully, we didn't go under, and I was able to push us back out, seconds later. Val was unperturbed; by her smile, revealed as she retrieved her swimwear, she even seemed to take it as a compliment.

We smooched for a bit, then made for shore. It was quick work.

I muted my strokes as we got closer to the sand, and finally stood and walked out onto the beach. The warm air felt good on my cool - but dry - skin. The area was packed. I'd thought everything was closed before. Today was some religious holiday that was the center of 'vacation month' around here, and hardly anybody was working today.

Val drew a glance or two from some of the people we passed; as I said, I had more actual cloth on than she did. Of course, this wasn't particularly unusual around here. She was just an attractive female getting the normal due attention.

Our towels and bag looked undisturbed. Both of us kept our eyes moving as we approached. We'd selected this spot next to a low, half-buried concrete wall for several reasons. The wall could provide some cover. We had a good view of the surrounding area; it would be hard to sneak up on us. If we had to run, we could be off the beach and in one of several nearby alleys in moments.

You get a different perspective on things, being a mercenary. All these considerations were automatic. It gets hard not to see the world in terms of threat and response. We hadn't needed to say anything to each other when we'd set our stuff down; we just knew we wouldn't have been comfortable anywhere else.

There were no signs of trouble I could pick up. I sat down on my towel, but Val remained standing.

"I shall get us some gelato," she said, spying a stand in the distance. I watched her walk off for a moment, bemused.

I lay back on the towel and searched for the atomizer in the bag. I couldn't apply sunblock the normal way - my field would keep it from sticking, just like the water. The trick was to spray it in ultrafine droplets that didn't trigger my defenses. I'm totally stumped how my field 'decided' what to let through and what to reject, but there it was.

A few sprays and I lay back on my elbows, enjoying the sun, the beach. Familiar in some ways - the cries of birds, the sound of kids playing. Different in others - the briny smell of the ocean, the architecture of the city. Minnesota had a ton of lakes, but no salt water.

A passing trio of girls gave me six new reasons to be thankful for the delightful European habit of going topless. One of them favored me with a flirtatious smile, to my astonishment. I'd never been a jock; I kept forgetting how muscled I'd become. With a shirt and pants on, I just looked fit. Wearing only swim trunks, it was obvious to anyone that I was exceptionally well-trained.

But that thought triggered my nervous habits. Once they'd moved on - I didn't want them to think I was showing off for them - I did another quick round of isometrics.

I was doing some stretches when Val got back, to her thinly-disguised amusement. She could give most contortionists a real challenge. Not in Jesse's league, naturally... but she could literally lick her own pussy. Only on a dare, however; it wasn't a particularly comfortable undertaking.

At that, I was a lot more flexible than you might suppose. I could stretch hard, right to the edge of pain, and my field wouldn't let me get injured. I'd just hit the safe limit and stop. I wasn't ready for ballet, but I could do a creditable high kick now.

Anyway, the gelato coaxed me away from my conditioning - straciatella, the Italian version of chocolate chip. Not as creamy as ice cream, but sweeter. Good stuff.

We licked and slurped it up. Although the drips just ran off me, Val's face got a little messy. I manfully volunteered to help clean her up, and we invited public scandal with a make-out session that may well have broken even European laws.

The sun was making its lazy way down the sky when we packed up and found our car - the little Fiat this time, no enclosed parking at the beach. I melted into the passenger seat, sun-drunk, and just stared out the window. Pop music, half-heard, came out of the radio. Not paying attention, it took me a while to realize we weren't headed for home. I squinted at Val, but she just smirked and said nothing.

Imagine my surprise when we pulled up to the club we'd gone to a few nights before.

"It's gonna be closed," I noted. "It's four in the afternoon! On a holiday!"

She parked and pulled me out of the car anyway. She knocked at the door; after a few moments, a greasy young man opened the door and peered at us.

Val spoke in rapid-fire Italian, and the boy nodded and pushed the door open to let us in.

I followed her cautiously, blinking into the gloom. She made for the dance floor, not looking back. Before I'd gotten there, lights were coming on and music started playing. Some other guy was in the DJ booth, making adjustments.

Val waited, right in the center of the floor, watching him work. The first guy who'd opened the door joined the DJ, they wrapped up, and gave Val a wave. Then they walked away, out some back door, lighting up cigarettes on the way.

"They shall leave us alone, until we need more music," Val yelled over the throbbing of the speakers. "Come, dance!"

I stepped out onto the floor, head swiveling. "You set all this up? For me?"

"For me, also," she grinned. "I do wish to dance with you, you know." She waved vaguely around. "I have money to buy privacy. It does me no good in a bank."

We practiced. She was surprisingly patient with my missteps. I sure as shit was no Baryshnikov, and had only a vague sense of rhythm. I kept at it, though. By the time we had to leave, I was doing all right. And Val relished the chance to stop holding back. Imagine the best acrobat you ever heard of, with quicksilver reflexes, able to jump twenty feet in the air - dancing for fun. She was marvelous. She used me like a set of monkey bars, fluidly twirling around and over and under me.

There were things about my life that completely sucked. Yet, sometimes, it had its compensations.

Val curled up next to me in the bed at her house. "This has been good, our holiday, yes?"

"Damn right. And we've still got two more days." I smiled a dreamy post-coital smile. I wasn't going to let myself fall asleep, but a little dozing rest sounded good.

"What if we had more time?"

I snorted. "You feel like asking Thame for another week?"

"And what if we did not ask?"

I sat up out of her embrace. I wasn't dozing at all now. Or smiling. "Are you still on that?"

She wasn't smiling either as she got up on one elbow. "You enjoy to be shot at, blown up?"

"Hell, no. But we'd get shot at either way!"

Val's frown was very determined. "We have money now. We could go somewhere, away. Argentine. I Phillipines."

I can't tell you how good it sounded. Just sitting on a beach somewhere, or on the side of a mountain. Somewhere far away from artillery, let alone the risk of getting turned inside-out or brainwashed or flash-fried. And yet... "Thame found you early, before anybody else got organized. It's not like that now. Anything strange, you get checked out."

"But with care, we could..."

"One of us, maybe. Maybe." I shrugged. "Us both, together, though? Kinda distinctive. A fitness nut and a small, pretty, hyperactive woman." My mouth crooked. "That money can be a way to trace us, too."

A sudden, horrible suspicion struck me - maybe Val was just grooming me. If she ran, it might be nice to have a powerful ally come along. One she could lead around by the dick - even better! How much of our relationship was calculated? And how could I know?

If Val suspected my suspicions, she hid it well. Either way, she shifted tactics somewhat.

"We should have such plans anyway. What if Thame were to die?"

"Huh." That gave me pause. "Good point." If Thame were gone, Scylla would be gone. We'd need to cut and run. Having something ready would boost our chances a lot.

I thought about it. Val was unusually patient as I processed. Making plans would mollify her some, anyway... "If we do it, we gotta do it right. Y'know, smart, careful." I looked up at the ceiling, thinking. "Money. Safe house. Good identities."

"Houses."

"Fair enough." The more I thought, the more complicated it got. "And don't take this wrong, but we should probably have some backups we don't talk about."

A brief hesitation, and she nodded. "That is so." She knew it as well as I did. If one of us were captured... Torture. Blackmail. These days, maybe even mind reading. You can't spill what you don't know.

It made too much sense. Nevertheless, it's hardly the most romantic thought in the world. Val got up a little later, and padded out the door. Though I'd been dozing before, it took me a long time to fall asleep.

Phone ringing, disturbing my slumber. I rolled over; let Val get it, I thought. I heard murmuring in the other room, began segueing back to dreamland... and then she burst through the door and turned on the lights. "Andiamo, lazy. Up, it's Thame."

I fuzzily sat up, but reached for the phone carefully. No adrenaline to polish my coordination now. I looked at the clock; a little after three a.m.

"H'lo?" I mumbled as Val picked up the extension in the living room.

"Be at the Milan airport by 05:30. A plane is prepping now. Incidentals only, you'll get anything you need when you arrive."

So much for our vacation. "Arrive where?"

"Briefing on arrival," Thame said with a shade of reproof. I felt embarrassed; of course he wouldn't say any more right now, the line wasn't secured.

"Uh, okay. Sorry."

Val said "Si," and Thame hung up.

So, by mid-morning we were in a hangar by the Liverpool airport, introducing ourselves to Nigel Gatwick, one of Thame's people in Britain. He'd be our handler for the duration. Very rapidly we got whisked into the back of a van. It was a surveillance unit, with a bank of TV screens and a diverse set of radios. I could hear muted police chatter as I sat down. Val was inspecting the weapons locker and procured a couple pistols for herself - P226's, it looked like. She normally preferred Berettas. The van lurched forward, forcing Gatwick and I to grab onto our seats. Making a graceful wriggle with her legs and hips, Val barely swayed. So far as I could tell, it was completely unconscious.

Gatwick was pulling sheets out of a folder as we got onto the main concourse. "Our subject is April St. John, a student at university." He pronounced it the British way; 'sin-jun'. A picture of a slightly mousy, brown-haired girl was passed around. "She's targeted by the Security Service's paranormal division, been on the the run for four days. Thame wants her, so we're running an exfiltration op." I cocked my head in silent question. "We don't know exactly what her paranormality is. She killed one of the agents sent to retrieve her, though. The reports are vague on exactly how."

A nod to Clyde. "He's been monitoring MI traffic for us. They think she's in this area. Believe she's linked to some sort of rash of counterfeit money, so far as we can determine." At our befuddled frowns, he shrugged. "It would seem she's managed to pass off strips of newspaper as twenty-pound notes."

That made me nervous. I recalled the scene in Firestarter where a guy with the power of 'mental domination' made a cab driver see a one dollar bill as five hundred dollars. I did not want to be fucking with anyone who could screw with minds or cast illusions or whatever.

I lifted a finger; Gatwick tipped his head. "Why are we here?" I asked. "I mean, this isn't our style op at all."

Gatwick nodded again; it was a fair question. Neither Val nor I were stupid, but we lacked the experience and training for undercover work. Val's strong suit was not subtlety or patience, and my paranormality made it difficult for me to operate in normal society. To a rough approximation, I was the equivalent of a main battle tank; putting me on non-military missions was kind of a waste.

"Two reasons," Gatwick said. "First, we're dealing with a largely unknown paranormal who's killed at least one MI-5 operative. You two were the closest exotic field assets we had." He paused. "Second, Thame thought the pair of you might make a more persuasive pitch."

Val twigged faster than I did, as per usual. "Wait, we are to approach her? We are not simply security?"

"That's right."

We exchanged a bemused glance. After that, there was a bit more briefing. In short order, however, boredom set in. We spent hours just driving aimlessly around the city while Clyde listened to the radio messages, occasionally passing clips on to Nigel. That was the job, really. Long stretches of tedium sprinkled with occasional bouts of sheer terror.

While we ate some take-out Chinese for dinner, I braced Nigel. "Why does Thame want this girl so much? What's so special about her?"

"To be frank, I don't know." He gave me a look I couldn't quite interpret. "I've learned not to second-guess his hunches, though."

The TV screen showed a motel door. The image jumped and stabilized; no obvious change, but now Clyde would control what MI-5 saw and heard. He nodded at us. Val and I stepped out the back of the van and walked briskly around the corner. I could feel the faint tingle in my head from Clyde's interface; he and Nigel would be able to monitor everything we did.

The Security Service had found April for us. Clyde knew as soon as it was reported. She'd gotten a room in a motel and was presumably settled in until morning. The U.K's spooks were prepping a team to capture her - after nightfall, when she'd be asleep, and there'd be less chance of civilian witnesses or casualties. That gave us the opportunity to move first, sneak her out from under their surveillance.

Such was the plan, anyway. I felt an almost superstitious dread as we walked the two blocks to the motel, squinting at the evening sun. There was just no way to know what to expect, what she might be capable of. Why couldn't the natural laws have kept doing their jobs?

We started up the stairs to the second floor. Approached her room. Arrived at her door. I took a deep breath, striving to relax. The light was on; I could see a little illumination from the edges of the curtain in the window. The guys surveilling from across the road wouldn't see us on their cameras; Clyde was looping in old footage. Still, they might look out a window, and he couldn't interfere with their eyeballs. So it would be best if we could get inside ASAP.

I knocked softly on the door, determined to be as polite and non-threatening as possible. "Excuse me, miss St. John? May we come in? I promise, we're not with the British government, and we mean you no harm." As I said that I wondered if Thame picked us partly for our non-U.K. accents.

A sound from inside like she'd dropped something, then silence. "Please, miss. Your room is being watched right now, and we're hoping to stay out of sight." I waited a bit longer. "Look, I'm sure you're scared. But if we really meant to capture you, we'd just have pumped some sleeping gas into your room or something."

A couple more seconds, then the peephole got darker as she inspected us through the door. I tried to look meek and gentle. She hesitated a bit longer, then I heard the locks turning. The door cracked a bit. After a second, I pushed it open. It was a small room; she had backed up by the bathroom. I stepped in slowly and made room for Val, who closed the door behind us. We kept our hands visible.

"Thank you," I said. "I'm afraid we don't have a lot of time. Your government is putting together an assault force right now, and I don't think you want to be around when they get here."

"Who are you?" she barked, a little tremor in her voice. "CIA?" She was definitely the girl in the picture... after days of stress and fear and very little sleep. She wore dirty jeans, a wrinkled blouse, and big bookish glasses.

I smiled as reassuringly as I could manage. "No, nothing like that. We actually work for a private security company called Scylla. We're hoping to hire you."

Whatever answer she was expecting, it clearly hadn't been that. "What?" she asked, puzzled.

I sighed with genuine sympathy. "I know how you feel. Better than you'd think, actually. Your life suddenly turned upside down, on the run, everyone after you." She squinted at me suspiciously. "I won't kid you. Now that you're a known paranormal, you're a hot commodity. Everybody wants a piece." I shrugged. "You're either going to wind up working for somebody, or in a lab somewhere, or, uh... dead."

At that, April tensed up. I put my hands in front of me; unless she knew about my powers it would look like a placating gesture. In reality I was doing the equivalent of jacking a round into the chamber; if necessary, I could snap my field out very accurately now. "Please, I'm not trying to threaten you!" I said hastily. "I just want to give you my pitch, that's all. If you tell us to take a hike after that, we will leave, honest."

By my side, Val hadn't even shifted her weight. She didn't need to. If this girl did make a threatening move, Val could draw her concealed pistols and get shots off in a fraction of a second.

"What is it you want?" the girl bit out.

"Well, like I said, this is basically a job offer." I waved - slowly - at the window. "If they capture you, you'll be drafted. You'll do what they tell you, or you'll be punished. Or your family, maybe." At that, her eyes widened and she bit her lower lip. "With Scylla..." I paused.

Damn Thame anyway. Had he known about Val and I wanting to run away? The best way to learn something was by having to teach it.

Fuck. I hated being manipulated. Thame seemed to have at least three motives for everything he did.

I continued, almost lecturing myself as well as April. "With Scylla, there's none of that crap. You get paid. And, uh, really well. You get vacations. There's no bullshit about being tortured if you refuse to cooperate." I shrugged. "I won't lie. The work isn't usually fun, or all that safe. But it's the closest thing to a normal life a paranormal can hope for, after they've been exposed."

She mulled that over for a few moments. I could tell Val was pondering it, too. Suddenly she peered at us carefully. "Are you... are you paranormals, too?"

No point in being coy. "Yes."

"Show me," she said, a little defiantly.

I looked around for a second, then pointed my head at the simple, wood-frame chair next to me. "Watch that." Gently, ever so gently, I pushed the field out from my forehead and tipped it over.

Her eyes got very wide, shooting back and forth between me and the chair. Then she focused on Val. "And her?" she challenged.

Val was squinting a little, annoyed. She walked over to the chair, hooked her foot under one side, and flipped it up spinning into the air. She bounced up and landed on the chair with one foot. It was balanced upside-down on one corner of the backrest, and she stood with one foot on the opposite chair leg, maintaining it in that crazy position with hardly a waver. Val looked down at April with a haughty yet bored expression.

If anything, April's eyes got wider, and her mouth dropped open.

We stepped out of the room and walked briskly over to the stairs, keeping our eyes peeled. April was between us, me in the lead - standard bodyguard routine. On the way down the stairs, though, Nigel's urgent voice sounded in our earpieces. "You're blown. One of the watchers got off a warning before Clyde could jam it. Get moving."

"Crap," I muttered. April was looking at me. "Gotta pick up the pace. Company's coming." She gasped, and we moved to a brisk walk, not quite a run.

We covered one block before things went to shit. As we approached the intersection two vans screeched to a halt and started vomiting security types. They weren't in full military regalia but they had bulletproof vests and assault rifles. I stepped between April and the goons, keeping my eyes moving, trying to take in the scene. They weren't talking, which was a bad sign. I stayed in front of April as Val drew a pistol and jumped over a car.

You can frequently pick out the paranormals in a combat situation. The modern warrior is generally between 25 and 40 years of age, male, in good shape. There's a way they move and talk; where they look, what they pay attention to. Once you get some experience, it's not hard to spot. Paranormals mostly don't fit that demographic.

The older guy and the woman stood out. I didn't get much chance to inspect them, however. I suddenly saw the asshole with an Uzi pointed right at Val. Too late... he pulled the trigger. Must've emptied half the clip.

She tumbled, flipped, and dove behind a car. Not a single shot hit her.

Take a 45 rpm record and play it at 33-1/3. That's about two thirds normal speed... and it's amazing how slow that sounds. Now, Val's practical reaction time is up to ten times as fast a normal human. To her, bullets are moving about as quick as a pitch in major league baseball is to you or me. Speedy, but dodgeable.

Before I could even lash out at the fucker, Val's hand emerged around the side of the car, gun in hand, and two shots rang out. Right in the guy's face, and that ended that. I caught a little flicker as she dashed for other cover. I grabbed the car next to me and tossed it at the knot of spooks across the street, aiming for the probable paranormals.

Throwing a car isn't as simple as it sounds.

It shouldn't be possible at all, really. Something that weighs as much as a human has no business picking up a car, regardless of how strong they are. They should tip over. I'm under 200 pounds; a car's, like, a ton. No way to balance that. My field doesn't seem to give a crap about Newton's Laws, though, so I can actually do some of the bullshit you see in comics.

But wait! Imagine you've got a pair of clamps the size of human hands. Where do you attach them to a car... that'll actually support that weight without tearing?

When I'd first joined up, my Scylla trainers had taken me to some junkyards, and we'd worked out how to do it. First I had to get under them, grab onto the chassis. Lift it up, and then give it a toss in the direction I wanted it to go. Not too hard, though, or I'd just shred metal. Finally, I'd extend the field from my hands and give it a good whack. I could hurl one over half a mile if everything went well. Not with any accuracy, mind you, but I could get it that far.

Anyway, getting one across the road was easy. Several of them dove for cover. The white-haired one stood his ground... and the car went around him.

I don't mean it changed course. It kept following the same ballistic trajectory. But he just kind of... swam through it. It flowed around him like water and smacked into the wall behind him. I didn't enjoy having my guess confirmed.

A flying car brings traffic to a halt; the nearby vehicles braked. "Time to move, April." I pointed back down the street, away from the enemy, and she started to run. I kept my eyes on our opponents. The older guy was marching in my direction, and he walked through another car as he stepped into the street. It was weird. I've reviewed the video Clyde took through my eyes, and the metal of the car just rippled and circulated around his body, freezing up in wild swirling patterns after he passed. Maybe he was bending space, I dunno.

I wasn't really worried, though. I didn't have to throw things at him to hurt him. My field extended out of my hands to give him a good shove.

It went around him, too.

My field always moved in straight lines, no curves. Exactly perpendicular to the surface of my skin. When it impacted something, I could feel it. Not quite like a touch on my skin, but close. The feeling when it got to him was utterly bizarre. Slippery, slimy. It wouldn't touch him. I quickly drew my pistol and got off some shots. I was at least an average marksman, I definitely didn't suck. Out of six rounds I had to have hit him at least twice. If so, they just went around him, too, because he never slowed down. He just kept walking. I think he couldn't run while doing... whatever he was doing.

Now I was worried. Discretion being the better part of valor, I moved to follow April.

But she was laying on the sidewalk a couple dozen yards up the road. For a second I feared she was dead, but she moved a little. A weird light was fading from above her. I followed it back to one of the people who'd dodged the car. The dumpy woman. Kind of skanky-looking, really. One of her hands was pointing at Val, who was bathed in the yellowish light. Val dashed back into cover... and tripped.

I'd never seen that happen, ever.

I shouted wordlessly, and the woman pointed both hands at me and let me have it with the light. I was already trying to dodge, but I got hit with the fringe.

I stumbled, the world spinning slightly. The feeling was instantly recognizable, though it had been over a year and a half. Okay, I'd been a geek. However, I had been a college student.

I fell more than crouched behind a car to hide from her. "A drunk ray?!" I exclaimed to myself, slurring my words. "Are you shitting me?!"

Peeking around the car I saw Val stick out her gun and fire. It was fast, four shots at least, in quick succession. But only one actually hit, and in the shoulder. Still, Drunk-Skank went down hard.

Time to move. I stood and made my wobbly way toward April. Shots rang out. A couple pinged off me. Three men were running up to her. One turned and sprayed me with another Uzi. It didn't do much good. When I got close he switched to some kind of martial-arts attack. I powered through it and stiff-armed him away. Another guy fell; Val had shot him. But then she had to duck, more people were shooting at her.

Fuzzily, I realized I had to be careful not to hurt April. The last guy - I had an impression of very dark skin - jumped at me. A disorganized bit of wrestling while he flailed at me with no effect, and I got hold of his shirt.

Now, I was pretty drunk, and not processing things particularly well. So when I threw the guy at a brick wall and he shattered, I had to look again.

I thought for a second his corpse was covered in bugs or something. Then I realized that he'd broken up into little copies of himself.

No, really! Clyde has the video! There were dozens, hundreds of little guys swarming in a pile, all different sizes. The biggest was about two foot tall, but they ranged down to around an inch. They all had little copies of his clothes, even. As I stared in a drunken stupor, some of them merged, accumulating back into larger copies.

Val's screaming startled me out of it. "Scapa, Seth! Move!" I blearily turned around, and the swim-through-stuff motherfucker was getting close. I lashed out with my field, instinctively. Again, the energy just slipped around him. But it shattered the pavement under his feet, and he stumbled. I turned and ran. Drunkenly.

It was sheer dumb luck that I saw the gas station, that it was close enough to reach. In my blotto state, I'd never have come up with the idea otherwise. But once I recognized it, I made a wobbly beeline for the car at the pump.

The guy filling his tank looked up in alarm as I staggered toward him, fuzzily shouting at him to run. He frowned and began to object. I just grabbed him and tossed him away, underhand. He was better off that way than staying nearby.

I spun back around... and almost fell flat on my face. Recovering, I fumbled in desperation for the pump handle, and finally got it. By some miracle, I didn't crush it when I pulled the grip and pointed it toward the oncoming paranormal.

The gasoline only went a few feet. That's all it needed to, though. The 'Swimmer' was almost on me. Everything got soaked as I frantically waved the nozzle around. I stumbled back, and fell on my ass. He strode implacably closer, unstoppable, smiling a little. Looked like somebody's kindly uncle. One arm out, he was going to reach in and scramble my brain or my heart. I took a deep breath as I grabbed the side of the car, jerked off a fistful of crushed metal... and dragged it across the cement. Sparks flew and I closed my eyes.

You know those big fireballs in movie explosions? Like when a car crashes? Most of them only use a couple ounces of gasoline. I set off close to two gallons of the stuff.

There wasn't a big roaring boom like in the movies. It sounded more like a loud FFFFFUMPFF and everything got painfully bright and hot. I blasted out with my field and flew though the air. A building smacked me right in the face and I fell two stories onto the sidewalk. For long seconds, I just lay there, dizzy and plastered and - yet again - stark naked.

Eventually, I rolled over and lifted my head. The 'petrol' station was just totally engulfed in flames. My field had flipped the car over and a column of fire was shooting out of the open gas cap. The pump I'd fallen next to was sheared off and a burning geyser was coming up out of the ground there. The heat was intense, even across the street.

"Swim through that, asshole," I muttered drunkenly. I saw a flaming lump that might have been his body. I was in no mood - or shape - to investigate.

I got to my feet and made my unsteady way back toward the action. The rest of their team had Val pinned down behind a dumpster in an alley just off the road. She'd accounted for at least three of them but lacked her customary accuracy. She was frantically stomping on the swarm of tiny men harassing her while keeping an eye on the shooters.

One of the operatives had been about to toss a grenade to flush her out, but when he saw my nude ass headed his way he threw it at me. The bang knocked me over, but I got right back up.

They'd had enough. They retreated toward a van. One of them had April in a fireman's carry, another was dragging an unconscious Drunk-Skank, and two more were laying down covering fire. Very professional, very military.

I sighted with exaggerated care, then gently - for me - pushed out with my field. One van tipped over on its side. I reoriented and did the same to the other one.

Now they were worried. Bullets in my face bothered me; still, I could see the shooters weren't next to April. There was no more time to worry about precision or civilian casualties. I laid the Hammer of Thor on 'em, smashing out with my field. The cars they crouched behind were junked and hurled backward, crushing them in turn.

Val had emerged from her cover, shaking off some clinging miniatures. One shot rang out, and the guy hauling Drunk-Skank fell to the ground, a bullet in his leg. The operative carrying April stared at us for a second.

"Walk away. Just walk away." I attempted to sound bad-ass, even as I rocked tipsily back and forth. He weighed his options, clearly trying to work out if he could stall us until reinforcements arrived. I heard Val cock her pistol behind me. That decided it. He set the girl down and backed off.

We didn't have any time. It was a miracle no other teams had gotten here yet. Flashing lights were coming up the road. I let Val grab April and I trotted past the vans out into the intersection.

A traffic jam was forming fast, the overturned vehicles in the road stopping everything up. I stepped up to the nearest car and punched out the driver's side window.

Except I was in Britain. It was the passenger side, and a scared lady screamed at me. And so did the kids in the back seat.

"Oh, fuck," I muttered. This kind of crap never happened in the movies. I turned around and punched out another window, this time on the correct side. A small guy with gray hair cowered there, shivering, eyes huge behind his glasses.

"Get out!" I growled. It probably would have sounded more threatening if I hadn't slurred it. Even so, he scrambled out the door and ran away. Val was trotting up with April on her shoulders.

She stuffed the girl in the back while I used my field to shove a toppled van out of the way. Then I gingerly got in the passenger seat - even knowing it can't hurt you, it takes an effort of will to sit your bare rump on broken glass - while Val jumped in the driver's side. I pulled the door shut; it latched, but I jerked the armrest off the inside of the panel. She pulled the seat all the way forward, and burned rubber getting away. I wasn't worried about her driving. Even massive inebriation would just drop her coordination to normal.

Clyde and the rest met up with us about ten minutes later. He still had his interface with us so we didn't need to call him - we just got off the main roads and waited. Our van drove up and we piled in. April puked while they got her situated, but at least none of it got on me. Everyone was giving me plenty of clearance.

Clyde hadn't come to help us in the skirmish, of course. His power wasn't directly useful in combat, and he was far too important to Scylla to put at undue risk. As useful as Val and I were, I knew Thame would sacrifice us to save him without hesitation. I couldn't hold that against Clyde.

Now that the adrenaline was fading, the alcohol really hit me. I started feeling sick, and my skin was turning red in spots. We made a quiet group as Clyde took us along a highway. Through my buzz, I saw on the TVs that we were headed back to the airport. A fast getaway sounded like a really fine idea.

It didn't turn out all that fast. We couldn't risk police attention by speeding. There was traffic and such, too. I had time to down most of a thermos of coffee. They didn't manage to get much into April; she was pretty well out of it. We finally got to the commercial airport entrance with the sun well and truly down.

We thumped over speedbumps, the driver showed some ID, and before long we were in the hangar with Scylla's plane. The pilot, warned ahead of time, was running through a preflight checklist. I just wanted to get on the plane and sleep it off. Strap me in a middle seat and the risk wouldn't be too bad...

As we shuffled dispiritedly out the van's back door, Val suddenly made an exclamation and slapped at her shirt. We backed off as she danced, stuffing a hand down her collar. The hand came back gripping something small and wriggling.

I assumed it was an insect, but then I got a good look. A tiny man, half an inch tall, one of those copies. It - he - struggled. The face was too small to read any expression, but his motions looked panicked.

"Oh, fuck," I breathed. "Shit. How much you want to bet they can track us through that... that..." Words failed me. "Him?" I finished lamely.

Val, emitting a steady stream of flowery Italian curses, threw the thing to the ground and stomped down on him. A dark spot lingered. I was pretty sure it was wriggling. I got down and hands and knees, and squinted. I saw a bunch of really tiny copies, smaller than an ant. As I watched, they began merging again.

I shot a look up to Nigel as I stood. "Get prepped. We bug out now." I looked to Val, motioning down at the spot. "Keep an eye on that." I glanced around the hangar, hoping for inspiration. A container of jet fuel... What if we burned it - him - whatever - up? Then I wondered how small they could go. Microscopic? I didn't want to breathe one of the fuckers.

I walked over to a sheet-metal table. Shrieks echoed through the space as I forcibly extracted a ragged square foot of flat metal. I came back to the spot Val guarded - they'd almost finished recombining - and I scooped him up along with a divot of cement, and wrapped the whole clot in folded steel. Same principle as wrapping up a bug in tissue paper. I went to the side access door, leaned out, and gave the softball-sized lump a good smack with my field. It shot off on a low trajectory; bet I knocked it a mile.

I came back in, feeling better, Val and I smiling at each other. It didn't last. The pilot leaned out of the plane's door, just as Nigel was coming up the steps. "Uh, everyone, ATC just ordered me to stay put."

Nigel, Val, Clyde, and I exchanged glances back and forth at each other. Clyde and I ran for the main door, and I pulled it open a crack. Lots of vehicles - some looked military - were converging on our position. "Aw, fuck."

I wished great ill upon that damn little copy. Part of me hoped the impact had hurt - what? The main mass? Was it even one person? What kind of mind could split and rejoin like that?

No time to worry about that now. The jeeps and vans had gotten close. They stopped about fifty feet back, and soldiers took up cover positions behind them. Once they were set, two of them started to approach the doors. Clyde fired off a couple warning shots; the guys ducked and retreated fast. Clyde handed me his pistol and retreated himself, to the van. Again, I didn't blame him. April, hanging off the driver's shoulder, moaned incoherently.

I peeked outside, and growled. "Fuckity fuck fuck," I muttered. They weren't talking; they just held position. They were keeping us here until reinforcements arrived, or possibly they were planning to kill us all. Bad news either way. Then I raised my voice for the benefit of the others. "They've got a... no, two choppers. Pumas, I think. Circling at maybe half a klick."

Nigel had arrived and was peering out a window, gun drawn. "Nah, mate, Lynxes."

"Whatever," I groused, irritable. More bad news. The plane was no longer an option in any case; even if we managed to take off, we'd be intercepted. Aerial surveillance made driving away useless, now, too. A land vehicle simply can not elude a helicopter except in the movies.

Val had already taken off for the van. I stayed by the door, popping out occasional shots, keeping them at bay. In return, they fired a few bursts back. For the moment they were aiming high, just trying to keep us alive but pinned.

Which was working. I couldn't go out after them; as it was, I worried about the three other sides of the building I couldn't cover. If they tried a breach, I had to be close by.

Val popped out of the van with a rifle slung over her shoulder. Clearly her paranormal grace was returning - she made a quick series of leaps onto a wing, the plane fuselage, and then into the rafters above. In between the bursts of covering fire I was laying down, I heard glass shatter as she broke through a skylight to the roof.

Switching weapons had been necessary. Although Val was spooky-accurate with a pistol, there's a limit. A pistol just can't fire a bullet as precisely as a rifle - if nothing else, the barrel's too short. You can lock a handgun in a vise and it'll still make wider groupings than a rifle. Just simple physics. Val couldn't hope to take down a helicopter with her pistols even if she'd been completely sober. Not at that range, anyway.

A high-powered, scoped rifle was a different story. I didn't hear anything over the Uzis, or see any visible damage, but one of the choppers suddenly wobbled and pitched over. A few seconds later, before the first had time to crash, the other one lost its tail rotor. She must have hit close to the axis of the blades. That one went into a spin and dropped rapidly.

I gave Nigel a meaningful look. "We gotta make a break for it now, before they get any backup." He thought about that for a split second, then nodded. "Get everyone in the van," I ordered. He spun and ran to the others. For a moment I wondered. Technically he should be the one giving the orders... but this was more of a military situation, so he was apparently willing to follow my lead. That scared me. I was no kind of leader, and I was still buzzed.

I turned to stare out through the gap between the doors. The troops all looked conventional, but paranormals didn't have to look weird. Anyway, tipsy or not, I was - as usual - the logical one to take point. I could smash an opening in the blockade and we might, with luck, get away before they could round up another chopper or two.

A glance back. Val was at the wheel of the van, she'd shoved the driver aside. Everyone was loading up. A couple seconds later, the doors closed and she honked.

I shoved the hangar door wide open and lunged out. I don't know what they thought of a naked guy with a pistol running at them, but the soldiers opened fire. As I'd prayed, no energy beams or spacewarps or poison gas clouds struck me down. I kicked the jeep in front of me out of the way, then spread my arms. My field sent another jeep and a van flying. I raced - still a little unsteady - to the right, ignoring the soldiers, concentrating on the vehicles. We couldn't afford any potential pursuit, assuming we got out of this at all.

Obviously I had the full attention of the military types. I managed to keep it, by grabbing the last van and flinging it back the way I came. The troops scattered. Best I could arrange. I used my field again, disabling the rest of the trucks and jeeps as I ran back to the opening I'd made. Our van barrelling out of the hangar took them by surprise. It swung close to me and I jumped onto it, sinking my hands into the metal and making a good grip. Bullets whizzed at us but mostly missed.

We got close to a fence and the van slowed. I was staring back toward the burning wreckage of one of the helicopters. Nigel rolled down the window and yelled, "Make a hole, you asshole!" I smashed out a section of fence, and we bounced over some uneven ground onto a service drive.

We got a mile down the road and stopped another van by the expedient of getting in front of it and forcing the driver to brake. The poor lady was totally flustered and confused. Not many people will hijack an automobile at gunpoint, then strip naked and leave everything behind but their weapons as they drove off. We couldn't take a chance there weren't more tiny men hiding in the van, or our clothes.

For once I wasn't the only naked operative around. It wasn't as satisfying as I'd imagined.

I woke with a headache, and raw spots on my skin like sunburn. The room gently swayed back and forth. I opened my eyes and remembered that it wasn't drunkenness that caused the swaying. We were on a fishing boat.

Nigel had been back in his element after the getaway. Even with a bullet wound in his leg, picked up as we'd fled the hangar. Displaying impressive speed and panache, he got us to a safe house, procured fresh clothes, and before dawn he'd finagled April, Val, and me onto this tub. He and Clyde had gone somewhere else, to take some other route - and naturally they hadn't told us anything about their plans. I'd just about collapsed once we were underway.

I slipped out of my narrow bunk and smelled my rumpled clothes - jeans, a 'Wang Chung' T-shirt. They'd do. I found my way to the very simple kitchen and put together a cold sandwich. It took some forcing-down, but I ate it and didn't throw it up. I'd only had two real hangovers in my life before; this just firmed my resolve not to have any more. I chugged water and wished for aspirin.

No signs of Val or April or any crew. Well, if they needed me they'd find me. Besides, I wanted to wake up a little before facing anyone.

The morning sun was too fucking bright up on deck, and nobody was around besides the driver or captain or whatever the nautical term was up in the control room. But there was some clear space on the forward deck. I looked around to double-check that nobody was close enough to be in danger, pulled off my shirt, and started some stretches. Then I moved into a simple Tae Kwon Do kata, almost dancing as I blocked, punched, and kicked at imaginary opponents.

Eventually I noticed April had come up to the deck, and stood watching me. As well as she could with one lens of her glasses cracked, anyway. She didn't seem to have anything to say, though, so I just kept going. By the time I was done, she was staring off at the horizon. The coast was out of sight by now. She looked tired and even more hung over than me. The clothes they'd found didn't fit her well.

I had a flash of her last night, naked. Plump - no, not really. She was merely curvy. It was just that hardly any woman looked lean next to Val.

I came up beside her, and asked, "How do you feel?"

"Dreadful," she snapped.

"Sorry. We did what we could. I'm just glad that whatever-it-was wasn't permanent."

Sensing her alarm from that new possibility, I quickly sought a different topic. "So, what is it you do, anyway?" I asked. Up to now, I didn't even have any proof she was a paranormal.

She looked back at me. "I copy things. After a fashion."

That gave me pause. "Show me," I invited.

She looked around, searching. Then she pointed to the T-shirt I was holding. "May I have that?"

I held it out, and she took it. She grabbed it with both hands, then frowned, concentrating. A faint sort of... ripple... passed along the shirt. She handed it back.

It was tattered and frayed and almost fell apart in my hands. Like it was a hundred years old. "That's not a copy."

"Not yet," she said, a ghost of a smile on her face. She brushed her fingers along a bulkhead and the metal... well, it kind of... wrinkled and peeled. She sucked a layer off the top and suddenly there was my shirt again. I kept looking from the shiny exposed metal to the cloth in her hand. Then she did it again.

"Now that's different." She handed me both shirts. They looked exactly the same, but as I fondled them gingerly I noticed they felt a little off, somehow. "Feels more like... like polyester than cotton, there," I said with a question in my voice.

"I kind of have an, an image of it inside me. But I can't hold everything. I... it's a sampling. It's a recipe for how to make a shirt. But it's not perfect, it..." She trailed off.

"I understand," I said with sympathy. "It's hard to explain what my parability feels like, too."

She flashed me a grateful smile. It was nice to see something besides fear and worry on her face. I had a feeling she'd actually be pretty cute if she got a little rest and a change of clothes. The accent helped, too.

Fortified, she went on. "Organic stuff is a bother, it's so complicated. Living things are impossible. I tried to copy this little shrub once, and it was... overwhelming. It hurt." She shook her head. "Cotton was once alive. I... whatever it is I do... it's as though it has to take shortcuts. I suppose."

I looked at the original shirt, now a rag. She followed my gaze. "When I 'record', when I 'sample'... it scrambles things." She huddled in on herself, suddenly shivering.

The connection was easy to make. "You killed somebody like that, getting away, didn't you?"

She wouldn't meet my eyes. Another topic was needed; I was acutely aware of how I'd felt the first time I'd killed someone.

My eyes jerked back to the bulkhead. The two irregular silvery patches reflected my startled face back at me. "Wait a minute. You... you turned metal into cotton? You transmuted elements?"

"I don't think so."

I cocked my head quizzically. The corners of her mouth turned up a bit; progress of a sort, I guess.

"The copies don't last. They... decay. Turn back." She actually giggled a little then. I must have looked so confused. "Here, give me those back." I handed her the copies. She held them for a moment, concentrating. Another ripple, much easier to see now. The cloth changed color and texture, darkening and getting rougher.

She handed them back to me. Stiff, brittle. Chips kept flaking off. I looked closely. "Metal? You turned them back to metal and paint?" I held lumpy foil sculptures of shirts.

"I... I took their 'copy energy' away. It happens by itself after a few hours. A day, perhaps, if I really... 'charge them up'." She shrugged. "Until then, they work exactly like what they're supposed to be." I opened my mouth, and she cut me off. "I played around in the laboratory at school one night. I turned wood into silver. I did some chemical assays out of the textbook, and they worked like they should. Amounts, times, colors, everything."

"And when the, the 'clock' ran out?"

"I had beakers of wood sludge." She grimaced. Again, very cute.

"How the fuck could that possibly work?" I asked, half to myself. She shrugged mutely. "Maybe... maybe the energy is what actually mimics the properties, and the material you suck up is just... mass, filler?"

She bit her lip, pondering that. "I... That's rather better than anything I came up with. Quite clever, really." She peered at me with new appraisal, cocking her head to the side.

"Hey, I wasn't always a mercenary. Before the world went crazy I was gonna be an engineer."

"Oh," she said, mulling that over.

"I, uh, saw a dossier on you," I admitted. "You were taking math, biology, chemistry. What did you want to be?"

"I had this notion I might be a chemist. Er, pharmacist, I think you Americans call it."

"Huh. Sorry."

We stood in silence for a while, just watching the water. Then she let out a cry of frustration. "Why couldn't things have kept making sense?"

"I know what you mean. It's like a curse, almost. I used to study physics, and now I violate Newton's Laws on a goddamn daily basis."

She gave me that appraising once-over again. "Yes! Exactly! I loved chemistry, I understood it. But now, I, I make a mockery of it all!"

"Yeah. This crazy shit... Before, I made fun of magic and New Age bullshit, and now it's in me, y'know?"

She nodded forcefully. Here was someone who understood how... offensive all this paranormal crap was. Val was too focused and practical to worry about it, Colin and Jesse and even George loved it. But some of us couldn't help wondering what the fuck was going on. As the Talking Heads song went, "Dreams walking in broad daylight."

Fairy chess indeed, I thought to myself. Except the rules kept changing, and nobody had a manual. Now look at poor April, here, caught up in all this crap.

Yeah. Look at April...

My mind finally started working. She noticed my pensive frown. "What?" she asked, cautiously.

I hesitated, then shook my head. T'were best done quickly. "Wait here." I went back to my cabin - finally passing an actual crewman, who stolidly ignored me - and got a pistol out of the bag Nigel had given us. I brought it back to the deck where April stood. Her eyes widened.

"Can you copy this?" I asked.

"I suppose so..." she said hesitantly. "Up until a few days ago I'd never even seen a gun except on the telly."

I gave her a highly abbreviated gun intro lecture - showed her the safety, told her to keep her hands off the trigger, point it away from anyone, etc. - then handed it off. We stood by the rail. She held the pistol, reluctantly, and got that look of concentration. A ripple passed through it, and the metal dulled. I took it carefully back and examined it. It was like a badly-made toy now - the steel was rough like cast iron, the fit was so bad I couldn't work the slide. I squeezed a little and the barrel shattered. Grains and lumps were scattered through the metal.

I carefully put what was left aside. Thame would want to see it. I gave her a meaningful glance and she reached out to the same bulkhead as before. A lot more metal was sucked to her hand, an actual hole opened up. In maybe a second she held a pistol.

She passed it to me like it might bite. Wordlessly, I waved at her to back up behind me. I pointed it out over the water, flicked off the safety, and fired.

A solid report. Felt entirely normal. Three quick shots in a row. It was a perfectly serviceable weapon. I sighed, feeling real pity for her. I could already see how Thame would use this new chess piece. She'd demonstrated her utility at short-term counterfeiting - I pictured bars of pure gold for a second - but that was just the start.

Imagine a group gets past a security checkpoint. April touches the wall or the floor, and suddenly everyone's armed with guns and grenades. Or she turns a chair into a block of TNT and a timer.

Worse was the fact that the copies reverted back after a while. Imagine her turning a jug of cyanide into lemonade. Drink it and a few hours later you keel over dead with ounces of cyanide all through your system. Shit, why bother with cyanide? Plain old sand, or salt, would work just as well. Completely undetectable poisons...

I speculatively eyed the hole in the bulkhead. What if she turned the door of a safe into lemonade? What lock could stop her?

All that, plus she had the touch of death. If she tried to copy you... Sweet Christ, she might be more useful than Clyde.

My musings were interrupted as Val exploded out of the door, pistols drawn. Her head swiveled about in a way that would have been spastic on anyone else, searching for a threat.

April cowered behind me, startled. I waved at Val to let her know she could stand down. She looked a little silly in the young misses dress that had been the only thing her size, but now was not the time to point that out.

She proved that by glaring at me and letting out a string of epithets in Italian. I'd made a little progress picking up the language, but she was speaking fast and I only caught a few words. "Stronzo," for example.

I shrugged sheepishly, trying to calm her down. "Sorry, we were kind of... running an experiment."

She relaxed marginally, but squinted at April, who was using me like a human shield. "What is it she does?"

"Copies things. Sort of."

Val looked so aggravated by that point that I hastened to summarize what I'd learned. April hesitantly demonstrated again, producing a new shirt for her to examine.

"How many copies can you make?"

She shrugged. "It's not so much how many as how big or complicated they are. I can only make one of something really complicated, like a leaf. Something simple, though... about as much as I weigh. Say..." she paused almost imperceptibly. "...eight stone."

Val snorted, which drew a sour look from April.

"Uh, come again?" I said, not following.

"Stone. It's a British thing. A stone is 14 pounds."

I did some math in my head, then peered at her a little dubiously. She looked more like nine stone to me, and apparently Val too. "Um, okay. So call it, uh, around fifty kilograms."

"Of something simple," she elaborated. "Cotton or leather or what-have-you... maybe five or ten kilograms."

I held up the gun. "How tough was this?"

She shrugged. "Pretty simple. It's all artificial."

"Wait," I said. "You just copied a pistol. You've got... 'records' of both of them?"

"Yes. Like a computer. Here..." she waved at the poor wall, and handed me a twenty-pound note.

"How big is your, uh, 'disk'?"

"Not infinite. I have to, so to speak, 'purge' things if I get full."

"What do you have in there now?"

"Well, the shirt, and the gun, and this..." she conjured a 20 pound note out of the bulkhead and handed it to me, "and some odds and ends. I've still got plenty of room."

"Could you fit a few more guns in there?"

"Certainly."

Oh, sure. April the walking armory.

We transferred to another boat out on the ocean, and it docked in France around noon. A couple guys were waiting, armed with the correct countersigns, and we turned April over to them, along with the ruined gun and the copy.

She was obviously nervous at the idea. I reassured her as best I could. "Don't worry, they'll take good care of you. You're an investment now." She didn't seem all that placated. "Look, it's safer to travel separately. I'm sure we'll see you soon."

One of the guys set us up with passports, francs, and a phone number to call. April stared at us out the back window of the car as they drove her off.

We got lunch at a café up the street, putting off the inevitable. Then we reluctantly tracked down a phone and made the call.

"Pegasus Deliveries," an aggressively nondescript voice answered. I identified us, Val's cheek pressed to mine so she could hear. "Hold, please," he said, and the line went quiet for almost a minute.

"Ah, Seth, Valeria. How kind of you to report," Thame drawled.

"Has Nigel filled you in?" I asked.

"Oh, indeed; a most entertaining story. So dramatic and flashy and public." The word 'public' was spoken with noticeable distaste.

"Yeah, well, you know subtle's kind of a problem area for us. Especially when they shoot first."

He sighed. "While perhaps not as unobtrusively as I'd hoped, you did manage to complete your objective, I suppose."

"Hey, we did what we could! You know how fast things can go pear-shaped..."

"I was not scolding you," he said. He said it with his supernaturally expressive tone, though. A tone that somehow - even over a scratchy international phone line - made plain that he was scolding us, a little, but he wasn't upset enough to make an issue of it - this time. "Still, it appears Scylla shall not be welcome in the United Kingdom for an interval. In fact, I think it would perhaps be best if you two were to absent yourselves from the European theater until tempers cool."

He paused, giving us a moment to consider the consequences of heated tempers. "Your vacation was interrupted," he went on to note, while his tone made no apology for that. "Perhaps you'd consider completing it in the States? I've a situation in mind that might fit your talents," and here the timbre of his voice conveyed an amused editorial speculation on how limited those talents might be, "reasonably well."

"Well, sure, okay..."

"I suggest you set out directly. I'll call you in a few days."

I mumbled an acknowledgement and he hung up. Val and I shared a bemused glance. A snort, and she stirred into motion.

"Come. I wish fresh clothes. Then we shall have to see about tickets."

End