Sci Fi FUSION: Not What They Seem

Table of Contents
Use these links to jump to a chapter. You can drag and drop them into your Address Bar if you don't want them to open in a new window.

CHAPTER 1 - "Justice Watch"
CHAPTER 2 - "Harsh Justice"
CHAPTER 3 - "Death Gleams"
CHAPTER 4 - "And there was Fire"
In the News . . .
CHAPTER 5 - "Candela"
CHAPTER 6 - "Affiliations"
CHAPTER 7 - "Crash"
CHAPTER 8 - "Mind Crush"
CHAPTER 9 - "Indigo Intent"
CHAPTER 10 - "Forge"


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Chapter 1- "Justice Watch"

He stood high atop the roof of Covenor City library, a sharp gale slicing at the ridges of his body armor. He could not feel it consciously. Tiny sensors imbedded subcutaneously behind the thin layers of augmented dermaplast allowed him to perceive the wind but not really feel it. [/color]

His synthetic tendons and joints were too far removed from what they had once been. Too mutated by genetic engineering and cyber enhanced armor to let the wind properly chill them.

Instead, his autonomic senses fed his cerebral cortex the information in a strictly empirical sense. Temperature in degrees Farenhieght or Celsius, humidity, texturization & so forth.

Pressure sensors allowed him to apply his strength in carefully apportioned measure. An egg could rest unharmed in one fist whilst his other could clench a bowling ball until powderized.

It was precision he was proud of. But it seemed as if even that 'joy' was slowly slipping from his iron grasp.

The readout inside his visor scrolled a mouthful of technical jargon that only he could decipher and the microphones on his form fitting helmet picked up a cacophony of sound that only his internal hard drive could filter through.

Somewhere in the discordance, a familiar sound triggered a long buried ghost. And for the briefest of moments, Darren Walker thought he heard something that sounded faintly like music. Not just any music, but a song that used to mean something to him.

To someone he loved.

To someone he could not remember.

But it was just as quickly lost in a buzz/chime of circuitry and an intangible parade of 1's and 0's. Daren Walker was not supposed to exist anymore.

He was merely a vessel, a host for the metallic consciousness that now pervaded.

For there was no Darren Walker, there was only the machine, the embodiment of law enforcement, the government-sponsored cyborg dubbed by the public to be the world's first "super hero."

American Justice.

Chapter 2 - "Harsh Justice"

He was nothing more now than a walking sarcophagus, a slickly designed mesh of wiring and circuitry entangled in what was left of a pulsating sack of organs and nerve tissue that bared a striking resemblance to the remains of a central nervous system.

The echo from the past had been just that. A ghost of an emotion summoned inside the spongy recesses of his positronic neural network.

Thought not a true positronic brain in the classical literary sense, the team of scientists behind the forging of Darren Walker's hybrid cybernetic mind had paid homage to the Asimov imagining and somewhat affectionately referred to their construct as "positronic" so many times that the name had stuck. They had theorized that on occasion, when sensory input from an outside source was perceived with significant similarity to stimuli the brain had encountered before, that even though emotional responses had meticulously been programmed to remain repressed, the Darren Walker portion of Topic 7 could possibly "feel" something akin to reminiscence.

Taking that into consideration, the human subject selected for Topic 7 could never have been anything but the most compliant of volunteers. A devoted patriot with no significant ties or history that could come into conflict with the primary directive ingrained into every sinew and circuit of his cybernetic housing, that being "Protect and Serve".

Quickly dismissing the aberrant data he turned his attention towards a sudden spike in the EM field. A spike synonymous with data regarding the suspect he had been assigned to apprehend. Switching his optical sensors to virtual tomography, he strode effortlessly against the harsh winds, across the library's flat roof top and took a vaulting step up to it's narrow ledge. There, approximately half a kilometer south of his position, darting between a series of structures outlined in glowing yellow bars, was the distinctive yet translucent skeletal structure of a female in a frantic sprint.

Although running in of itself was not enough to pique his suspicions, the timing of her run coupled with the recent intel, and of course what remained of his natural born instincts, was reason enough. He somehow managed to calculate her erratic trajectory and leapt from his perch atop the library's ledge landing nearly thirty meters on the rooftop across the street. Moving in her anticipated direction, he took pursuit bounding effortlessly from rooftop to rooftop and moving at an incalculable rate. At least, it was incalculable to anyone else but him.

Audio sensors filtered out the sound of cars passing beneath him in the streets and muted his footfalls against the flattened city rooftops but focused impossibly on the heartbeat and vital stats of the woman he was now closing in on. He could still see her stumbling awkwardly down what appeared to be a back alley, toppling over garbage cans and startling vermin out of their hiding places. He could clearly hear the clang the metal canisters made as they crashed into the alley floor and the screeches that echoed from the startled life forms inside them.

In one smooth motion he vaulted up a nearby water tower gaining more altitude that the general four-to-five story buildings of Covener could provide and used his position to launch himself diagonally across three rooftops in a single bound. His trajectory dropped him between two parallel structures, directly into it's back alley.

He impacted the concrete with far more force than his weight should have delivered. He had propelled himself. Launching himself off the water tower like a rocket, he dented the concrete alley way like an enormous sledge hammer. The woman he was pursuing stumbled yet again as the ground shook beneath her. She rolled around, the look of abject horror on her face at the site of this gleaming warrior, the red white and blue marking strategically placed on his armor so as not to be dominating but to convey no doubts as to his authority. He could see that she new “the law” when she saw it.

Upon impact with the alleyway, wrist mounted sonic disruptors distorted the air and the concrete with comparable ease. From the pile of debris he had created the ground began to up heave in her direction. It's as if he had called some kind of burrowing beast and it was now headed hungrily underground in her direction. She turned and bolted but the rising ground easily caught up with her. She sailed into the air landing face first into the closed lid of a rusting dumpster. Momentum rolled her body across its lid and she crashed into a pile of overfilled trash cans.

Justice moved towards her, slowly now, having immobilized the suspect. She twitched and a faint moan gurgled from her throat. With a contrasting black armored hand he seized the woman by the hair and indelicately lifted her eyelevel.

“Tell me what you know about Cli-MAXX. Who is your dealer?” His voice was deliberately baritone and metallic. A feature that he could turn on and off, he noticed he got more result from interrogation when it was turned on.

The woman opened only one eye, as the blood from a gash in her forehead had poured into the other one. She whimpered hazily in response.

Justice pulled his side arm from its sealed holster and placed the barrel squarely against the woman’s forehead.

“There is not much time left. I know what you’ve done. I will not allow you to live much longer. But I will make it more uncomfortable if you refuse to cooperate.”

The woman now partially out of her haze began to sob uncontrollably.

“Why - why can’t you just leave me alone?” She pleaded desperately.

Justice shot her in the upper thigh.

Her screams rebounded off the alley walls and justice had to turn down the sensitivity on his audio sensors and she began begging mercifully. The woman’s pleas went unanswered.

“I will ask you one more time,” Justice said to her placing the gun barrel back on her forehead. And then I will shoot you in the stomach. It will not kill you. But it is considered one of the most painful places to be shot. After that I will leave you to slowly bleed to death, unless you answer my questions. Who is your dealer?”

The woman’s cries of agony continued. She said, “I-I don’t know. I-I don’t know his name. He’s just a guy. I don’t even have to look for him. He finds me when I need him- agglk!” She coughed up blood. Apparently her fall had injured her more severely than he'd realized.

“Oh God!” she said. Oh dear God!!” Tears mingled with the blood on her face. He rechecked her vital signs and saw the punctured left lung. She would last a little bit longer but he wasn’t buying her story. Calculating the precise abdominal trajectory a bullet would need to take to avoid death even with injuries as severe as hers, he pulled the gun away from her forehead.

“I don’t believe you.”

He pointed the gun at her stomach and pulled the trigger.

Chapter 3 - "Death Gleams"

Police Commissioner Charles Sigmon arrived on the scene around 8 o’clock that mourning.

First day on the job and he had hardly gotten any sleep. He’d been checked into his hotel room all of fifteen minutes when his cell phone rang with the call from a Detective Sipes of Homicide. He never thought to ask Sipes where he’d gotten the number, much less how he knew to call him for Cli-MAXX related homicides. But it was a good bet the Governor had dropped Sigmon’s cell number all over Richards County weeks before he’d even booked a flight to North Carolina.

He pulled up behind one of two black and whites that had formed a barrier in front of an alleyway, supplementing the yellow caution tape. The pulsating bursts of azure from their rooftops were mesmerizing on a brain that hadn’t really slept in twenty-six hours and he very nearly rear-ended one of the patrol cars. Not a great way to make a first impression.

He sighed, cut the engine to his rental car and smoothed the white hairs that formed a crown around the base of his skull. Although Sigmon had started going bald some thirty years earlier, he only lamented his shiny dome on cold, drizzling days like this one. Covener was bleak, draped in hazy damp curtains this morning. Like a medieval city perched upon the edge of a boggy moor. Perhaps this was fitting, he thought. A handful of years ago a veil had been lifted and the titans from our dreams began roaming the streets and skies just like in our children’s fiction and fairy tales. They had always been there. We just chose not to see them. Now it appears that veil had never fully lifted. That’s why he was here. In this god forsaken little hole of a town. To lift the veil on Covener’s perceptions one last time.

A dark haired, man in a slightly disheveled gray trench coat ducked out from under the caution tape, his hands wrapped lovingly around a steaming Styrofoam cup. The man immediately noticed Sigmon and began moving in his direction. Sigmon, now lamenting the loss of his morning coffee, stuffed a pen and pad into his own brown trench and opened the car door.

His glasses immediately frosted over with condensation.

“Commissioner Sigmon?” came a voice from behind the frost. “Detective Vernon Sipes. We spoke on the phone this mourning.”

The southern drawl caught Sigmon off guard. The accent wasn’t something he was used to. He faltered a split second and whipped off his glasses only to see Sipes standing there with a blurry, outstretched hand. He took Sipes hand firmly, searching his pockets with the other for a handkerchief. “Detective.” He greeted, trying his best to sound alert.

Still not having any luck with a handkerchief he pretended to scan the area with his eyes, though all he could really see were various shade of blurry. “I expected more looky-loos.”

Sipes shook his head agreeingly, “Well, most folks are either at work, in school or at home taking care of their youngins' this time of day. Stores don’t open till eight thirty. Bout the only folks with any free time this time of day are the unemployed or the retirees. The unemployed cant start pounding the pavement till later, and the retirees...well there all at Hardee’s.”

There was obviously a little smirk on Sipes face even though Sigmon couldn’t really see it. He finally found his handkerchief in his back pocket. “What have got Detective?” Straight to business, he thought. Sipes didn’t seem taken aback by it. He started briefing Sigmon as they made their way towards the alley.

“911 got the call about 6:30 this mourning. Little old lady owns the sewing shop right here.” He pointed to the storefront. Sigmon noticed even through his blurred vision that the storefront glass had been cracked. “Mrs. Bright Fulbright, yeah I know, but it’s her real name, widower. She arrived at the shop this mourning around 5 am. She’s pretty much deaf in both ears so all she says is that she felt the ground rumbling like an earthquake around 6:15. She thought the garbage truck was here early so she went to gathering the bags of trash up from the store and rushed outside. That when she saw our vic.”

“Where is Mrs. Fulbright now?” Sigmon asked rubbing his eyeglasses vigorously.

“County Hospital.” Said Sipes with a sigh. “Poor thing almost had a heart attack. She said she thought “Death” was waiting to meet her.”

“Death?” Sigmon asked. “Why would she think that?”

By now they were up against the caution tape and Sigmon could see a number of bluish blobs and plain clothes blobs moving around the big grayish blob of the alley way.

Sipes made a mock shrug-like gesture and shook his head. “You tell me, Commissioner.”

Sigmon looked at Sipes once more realizing the man saw something he didn’t. He fumbled with the handkerchief one last time and slid his glasses back on.

There in the middle of the alley was what had been a silverfish blob that he had mistook for light at the alleyway’s egress. He could see clearly now that this alley had no outlet. There was a large crater near the entrance and few feet of dug up pavement forming a path inward. And at the end of that pathway standing upright with it’s arms extended was a perfectly polished gleaming silver skeleton.

Sigmon felt acid in his stomach. More accurately, his ulcer which he fought to keep down. Sipes noticed his discomfort. “Are you alright sir?”

Sigmon dismissed him. “Old wounds Detective. Old wounds for an old man.” He swallowed, held onto his stomach and ducked under the tape into the alley way. Sipes followed.

“I take it then, that I.D.ing the victim is merely a formality at this point?” Sigmon asked sardonically. Sipes chuckled softly. “I’ll take that bet, sir.”

They moved passed the devastation towards the strange statue at the center. Sigmon noticed the brick wall to the skeleton’s back was blackened from floor to rooftop, as if by tremendous fire. He approached the gleaming victim and moved around it to get a better view of what was left of its face.

The helmet was about the only thing remaining from the victim’s attire. The visor had been completely melted away and he could see the hollow sockets on the inside. Upon closer inspection, there were dried droplets along the extremities and ribcage. Almost all the bones were intact with the notable exception of missing hands.

Sigmon stood up on his tip toes to get a better look at the helmet. Burnt and blackened, the helmet had clearly not weathered whatever devastation it’s wearer had as well as his skeletal structure. That made things harder to see, not to mention the good two feet the skeleton had on Sigmon. But he had to be sure.

And there, along the upper left hand corner above the visor was the vaguest impression of red, white and blue stripes. The American Flag.

“Detective Sipes.” He said loudly. Sigmon hadn’t noticed Sipes on his cell phone.

“I'll let him know.” Sipes said into the phone and slapped it shut. “That was Headquarters. They said the coroner is trying to get a hold of some special equipment considering... well, considering the unusual nature of the DB. That’s why he's running late.”

“Detective, I want more men here. Tell them canvas the this area for a radius of three miles.”

Sipes blinked rapidly, “Th-Three miles sir?”

“I want all residences, all back alleys, and all businesses searched. Particularly public restrooms, and alleys. If there are any known or suspected crack houses in the area I want them searched first.”

Sipes jaw would dislocate if it dropped any farther. “Commissioner," He said incredulously. "We're going to need a hell of a lot a warrants to do a residential and business search on that scale. Either that or a whole hell of a lot of cooperation.”

“Your about to get it.” Sigmon said pulling out his cell phone. “The warrants, that is.”

He tapped a speed dial button and stared into the face of the skeleton as if he were talking to him instead of to a voice on the line. “Governor, this is Commissioner Sigmon. We’re going to have to use the Special Powers act.”

He paused to listen.

“Yes. Yes sir, there’s no doubt about it. The coroner will still have to verify. But I’m standing two inches away and there’s no other possibilities. Our homicide victim is American Justice.”

Chapter 4 - "And there was Fire"

She woke up in a puddle of rainwater behind a restaurant in downtown Covener. She recognized the back alley, had slept in the same puddle before, next to the rusted dumpster reeking of half rotten pork barbecue. She always woke up here after ... the black outs. Her clothes ripped to shreds and doing sore little to provide any actual covering. Only this time there was no blood on her. No wounds. In fact, she felt rested.

She rose from the puddle trying to regain her balance and realized that though refreshed she no longer felt the buzz. The cravings were still there. She instantaneously knew she had to have more. She needed to have more. There was nothing else. Life was elegantly simple. There were only her needs and the fulfillment of those needs. Anything else was just in the way.

She felt the cramp in her right forearm and realized that her hand was balled into a tight fist and apparently had been for several hours. Her knuckles had locked, creaking as she used her other hand to pry them apart.

There, practically embedded into her palm, rested a triangular shaped object. Elongated and pointed on each end, the object felt and looked like sandstone, but was contrastingly light in weight. The two pyramidal ends butted together at their base where a black tar-like substance neatly conjoined them. There where odd writings on the flat sides reminiscent of Egyptian hieroglyphics, but blocky, simple in design and form.

She sniffed the object, as if attempting to verify its authenticity. Her body began to quiver uncontrollably. The double-ended pyramid was now her entire reason for living. There was nothing else.

She ripped the pyramid apart with all the strength she could muster. The tar-like substance gave way with a snap. Tendrils of energy snaked violently out of each of the broken ends and quickly found there way to her eyes. Raw energy bored itself into her through her optic nerves. Her body convulsed and the tattered remains of her clothes scattered to the four winds.

She was free again. She was alive again. And there was fire.

In the News...

Chapter 5 - "Candela"

Ali raised one lean leg onto the bed and closed the seal of her black thigh length boots. She looked at herself in the mirror sardonically as she did. It seemed that no matter who she worked for, they always ended up putting her in something that showed off her thighs. The other boot slid on with comparable ease and Ali stood in front of the mirror regarding her uniform once more.

The high cut waist, the turtleneck collar and exposed shoulders made her uniform an almost exact duplicate to the one she wore in her intelligence gathering days. Right down to the black boots that cut off just above the knees. A glorified swimsuit, she had originally called it. The only thing that had changed where the colors and logo that emblazoned the front of this uniform. The square asymmetrical arrow that would be pointing at her crotch had it not been lopped off before the point. Apparently Mathieu Ryder was fond of the cut and design and carried it with him he when he formed this little organization.

It wasn’t so much that the outfit was blatantly sexist, at least by human standards, that bothered her. It was that it was blatantly sexist and that she liked it so much more then her street clothes! She got attention in this outfit, for more then one reason. Attention she never got before. Before things changed. It somehow made her feel and look more powerful then she would in anything else.

She pulled her long blond tresses off her shoulders and gathered them behind her head, wondering if she should put her hair up in a ponytail. She decided she wasn’t going to this meeting to impress anybody and let them fall to her waist. In spite of sexists viewpoints, she relished her outfit much more then she would ever admit to anyone.

The television embedded in the far wall was on an all news network and had been cycling the same stories now for about eight hours. Ever since the police department released the news of Justice’s death and possible murder, the only news coverage on television seemed to revolve around that.

“The nation continuous to mourn the death of it’s one and only federally sponsored Super Heroes: American Justice.” Said a strikingly dark and pretty anchorwoman identified as Tonya Strong. "Justice, who was murdered two days ago in alley in downtown Covenor by an, as yet, unidentified assailant, is believed to have been on the verge of uncovering a drug ring here in the Charlotte area when he was mysteriously killed."

And so it went, hour after hour. The “big gun” had been taken down, and by an ordinary person, no less. Ali almost found it funny. How the mighty always seem to fall on this sad little world. There is no consistency. Only bedlam. Only chaos.

The bald sexagenarian who then appeared on the screen was not the Police Commissioner Ali remembered presiding over Covenor. “Cli-MAXX has the ability to endow its user with paranormal abilities the likes of which has only been seen in the SBP community.” Her television suddenly became a white blizzard.

“Damn it, Walter.” She said under her breath. “They couldn’t give you a room on a separate floor from all the electrical appliances?”

Though it wasn’t like she was missing anything. She probably knew more about Cli-MAXX then anyone on earth. Probably more then her associates. She’d been tracking the spread of this so called “narcotic” since the beginning. And would no doubt see it through to the end.

She clicked off the television with the remote and strode out the automatic door into the hallway. Her hair hung so low that it tickled the back of both thighs as it swayed. Another subconscious pleasure she’d never say out loud. She had changed so much in recent years that her family would never recognizer her. Never in a million years believe she had come so far out of her shell as to be nearly shell-less. Never once would they think she had stepped into stepped into such an important position much less boldly wear the uniforms she so daringly wore. Of course, they wouldn’t expect Ali Candela to do these things.

Not even if they knew she was still alive.

Chapter 6 "“ "Affiliations"

Ali walked into the hanger bay/conference room fifteen minutes after the meeting started. Funding always went into field technology and, on rare occasions, into paychecks, but seldom into making HQ resemble a base of operations in any way, shape or form. It looked more like a run down college dormitory with a place to land a helicopter. Beyond that, the best they could do for a conference area was a card table and a rolling black board next to a make shift kitchenette in the hanger bay. Certainly not a step up from Ali’s last job.

“Nice of you to join us Allison.” Mathieu said dryly.

Mathieu’s eyes, hidden behind a red-tinted visor, still managed to bore holes into you when he glared in your direction. Ali wondered if it was part of his cybernetic abilities, or if he just had a knack for making everyone in a room feel uncomfortable. Not the most inspiring quality in a leader, if you asked her.

She shrugged off his comment and jabbed her middle finger into the air like she was demonstrating what she was suggesting. “Up yours space man.” without attempting to conceal her contempt.

More then a few seconds of uncomfortable silence fell upon the room. Mathieu said nothing. He stood motionless, his bulky arms folded rigidly against his chest and the lopsided arrow insignia emblazoned across it. His jet black uniform starkly contrasted Ali’s egg shell version and every one else’s on the team for that matter. Other then his exposed jaw line and proboscis, nothing of his flesh could be seen. His hair, eyes and ears were completely obscured by the visor and the hood of his form-fitting leather-like accoutrements. It was less the mantle of a team leader from Ali’s viewpoint, and more the shroud of an executioner.

2-Hype, the enigmatic African warrior from some tribe Ali had never heard of, stood behind Mathieu examining some kind of data node with his “good” eye. He gave Ali a sideways glance over the collar of his bulky bomber jacket that Ali might have found contemptible, if he didn’t look at everyone that way.

Melinda (who had chosen the ridiculous code name of Sweet Thang) crouched beneath an open panel on the hover-copter that served as the team’s main mode of transport. If Melinda found her uniform in any way revealing, then she didn’t show it. A carroty duplicate of Ali’s, only with matching boots and wristlets that bore similar marking to the lopsided arrow insignia, Melinda wore her uniform with confidence that bordered on trashy. Her page boy haircut concealed her ebony face as sparks shot out from the avant-garde soldering tool she was using. She paid no attention to the interchange. She was absorbed in the inner workings of “her” hover-copter like a lover lost in coitus. Team interpersonal relations were clearly not her concern.

Walter leaned casually against a far wall, his metallic silver uniform a total departure from the team standard. Ali supposed it had to be to accommodate his unique “needs”. His expression was not visible behind the metal V-shaped masked that attached to his face, but his posture was giving his bemusement of the situation completely away.

Maria on the other hand, hovered in one corner of the hanger bay, literally looking down on Ali and the others. Her gentle features were discernibly troubled, as it seemed Maria, or Corazòn, lived up to her code name in more ways then one. Empathy was her curse and her blessing, as she felt the emotion of every single being within a twelve mile radius. The strongest emotions being the ones in her immediate vicinity. Right now, Ali could only imagine what it felt like to feel irritated, amused, absorbed and angered all at the same time. Not to mention dealing with her own inherent feelings.

For a moment, Ali remembered what it was like to be the one with shuttered away feelings. The insignificant one in a group. The one who let every awkward moment and harsh word hurt like a finger poke to the eye. But this was not that Ali Candela. That Ali died long ago.

“I barely got any sleep last night what with this complex’s incessant droning-” She marched defiantly passed Mathieu and not so subtly bumped into Melinda’s posterior. “Melinda’s constant welding-” it seemed she was making a bee line for David, “And whatever the hell that God awful noise was coming from your room all night.” She stuck a finger in the general area of Walter’s face, careful not to make actual physical contact with him.

She smoothly turned around addressing more the group then Mathieu, “So you’ll excuse me if I’m a little on the irritated, groggy side this morning.” Seating herself in a metal folding chair, she pretended the metal wasn’t ice cold against her exposed thighs. She brusquely crossed her legs, folded her arms and said, “Or you can kiss my ass. Whichever you prefer.”

Mathieu stood stone faced for what felt like a solid minute. Whatever was going on in his mind, it appeared he would address any issues with Ali at a later time. But not before making sure all five people in the room nearly asphyxiated on the awkward silence.

“Please continue with the mission briefing, Maria.” He said, with his body so rigid, it looked as if he were carved out of onyx.

Maria descended angelically from her position above the hover-copter, tiny bursts of crimson radiance sparkling in her wake. She had probably been spot checking something for Melinda when Ali walked into the room. The ivory color of her uniform’s version contrasted her own olive complexion and the jet-black main that seemed to flow about her countenance as if it were a living, breathing entity unto itself. The heart symbol on her chest, that replaced the typical inverted arrow stump, shimmered, almost as if to beat like an actual heart. She should have looked like an oversized playing card, but something about Maria, even Ali couldn’t deny, was inexplicably graceful. Her every motion and gesture an elegantly orchestrated pantomime, a choreographed and meticulously rehearsed ballet. No one should be that graceful, Ali thought. Not a regular human being anyway. But she supposed that Corazon was not exactly a “regular” human being. Nobody in this room could fit that definition.

Maria came to rest in front of a large rolling dry-erase board that had a pyramidal object sketched out on it in red ink. She cleared her throat and began speaking in a distinctly Hispanic patois. Her voice was soft, her words carefully chosen and spoken melodically. Ruby red lips parted in graceful cadence as she began seamlessly filling in the details Ali had apparently missed. “As I was saying, you have all seen the news reports of the brutal attacks on random U.S. citizens over the last year and a half. Even before the apparent homicide of Captain Darren Walker, better known to you as American Justice, our own investigations into the these bizarre attacks and murders had us on the trail of the Cli-MAXX narcotic long before the press, or even the police, were aware of the situation.

“For the last year, we have attempted to track down the distribution of Cli-MAXX to its source, and while the effort has garnered us some small victories, the origin of this terrible weapon has remained ever elusive. We have shut down regional distribution centers, contained so-called ‘MAXXAddicts’ at critical stages of their transformations and undoubtedly curbed a swelling tide of chaos and death that would have consumed many of this nation’s communities. Nevertheless, we have been little more then a treatment for the symptoms of a much larger disease. A stop-gap for the unrelenting wave of anarchy that will no doubt ensue if this drug’s originators are not swiftly discovered and appropriately dealt with. Today, our tactics change.

Mathieu moved in behind Maria, “Melinda is making adjustments to the Enforcer’s external sensors, increasing their sensitivity to psionic energy spikes by roughly 600%.”

“This will, of course, burn out the entire sensor array and it will have to be replaced-” Maria began to add.

“But for a few seconds,” Ali interrupted. “We’ll know exactly when and where a Cli-MAXX pyramid has been snapped. So big deal. What does that give us besides a ruined sensor array and a cut in pay?”

Mathieu tilted his visor downward, almost as if he planned to look over their ridge like a pair of reading glasses. “What it gives us, Allison, is a opportunity to confront a MAXXAddict at the initial stages of his transformation. When he or she is at their most powerful”

“Something we’ve never managed to do.” Maria added.

“She’s right” Interjected the charcoal complexioned African. He had turned to Ali gesturing with what looked like a scalding cup of black coffee, and was glaring at her with that one gleaming golden eye. “Even before you rejoined the team, we were never able to confront a MAXXAddict before they excised a big chunk of property and lives from the landscape. We’ve never been anything more then a clean-up crew.”

Walter’s silver V-mask glimmered as it bobbed back and forth in amusement, his cockney accent slipping slightly, “Now we’ve got a chance to nip things in the bud before they get out of control! Fantastic!”

“And more importantly” Maria continued, “ we will be given the prospect of apprehending a Maxx Dealer or tracking him to his source.”

“Whoa, whoa! Hold up one second” Ali stood up with palms open. “Catching a Maxx Head while he’s shooting up in one thing. Catching a MAXX Dealer and backtracking him to his source is a bit far fetched don’t you think? Distributors were easy. There were never anything more then storage units with great advance warning systems and even better escape routes. But a dealer? Come on! Your reaching for this one.”

“Not really.” Walter shot back. “Think about it. What’s the one thing we do know about MAXX Dealers?”

“That their hard to catch.”

“Impossible to catch! Which means that their constantly mobile. Making only one or two deals at a given place or time. These blokes ain’t selling dime bags out the boot of their BMWs. Their going to their users, making their sale quick and painless and heading for the hills soon afterward. And since a MAXXAddict never waits more then a few minutes after scoring a hit-”

“Then when we locate the addict doing whatever it is he does with that triangle thingy, we follow the black sedan racing from the crime scene back to his lair. Alright, I get.” Ali still wasn’t completely convinced judging from the sardonic lilt she used, but figured she might as well play along and see where all this would led them. She hadn’t seen much action these days anyway and it’s not like she had much say in matter.

“And before Allison finishes another one of our sentences, remember this,” Mathieu apparently agreed with Ali in that respect. “Our mission relies primarily on time and circumstance. What your people refer to as luck, we need in immense quantities. Time is running out. Funding is running out. We’ve got one shot and one shot only. We fail, and FUSION dies.”

Ali was not impressed, “Enough with the melodrama already, when do finally get on with it?” It was less of a question then it was an instruction.

Mathieu glanced in Melinda’s direction and she seemingly responded to his gaze. As she removed a pair of darkened soldering goggles, the straps caught her bobbed reddish locks revealing her finely chiseled ebony features. She looked over one shoulder at Mathieu and smiled with gleaming white teeth, as a delicate chain that connected an earring with a nose ring glistened against an elated cheekbone. The immeasurable pleasure in her voice was almost disconcerting.

“Oh, it’s on baby!” She stood up with hands on hips, working her neck back and forth. “It is on!”

Apparently, it was on-

Chapter 7 "“ "Crash"

The pain that tore through her right side was beyond agonizing. It felt more like cold absence. The sensation seldom felt by most people, when a lesion runs past the flesh and deep into the organs. She had come down and come down hard, in another rain puddle, in another dark alley, beside another dumpster.

Rain was hammering down onto her naked body and forcibly washing into open wounds. It was unbearably cold. She choked on the rain water and blood that had formed the puddle she lay face down in. She cried out in horrifying agony, a sound barely audible over the cacophony of the downpour. Lifting her head out of the puddle took everything she had. She was certain parts of her were damaged beyond repair. Her head collapsed back into the rain water and she gagged yet again on the strange stew she was simmering in.

Control began to return to certain appendages. Her left arm, though covered in black and reddish sludge, began to respond to her will. She used what strength she could muster to prop the arm in front of her and lift her head out of the soupy mixture that she would surely drown in. The right arm did not respond. That side of her body was nothing but a fleshy mass of racking pain. She could not use any appendage on that side of her body, so her efforts only caused her to roll to the left, grinding her injuries into the merciless rough of the pavement. The streak of pain that ripped through her body could only be described as blinding white radiance liquefying every thought she ever had. She opened her mouth to scream and rainwater poured into it, making a gag-cry that sounded like the death wails of some bizarre animal.

Lightning accentuated the radiance of her agony and thunder rolled along the surface of the ground like death calling to her in the ripples of the cold sludge. At some point, her mind and body cold no longer find the muster to flail and agonize and her brain functions began to shut down defensively. Pain became more like a dense fog that funneled around her peripheral vision, creating a tunnel where only one thought and one vision could be perceived at a time.

She rolled her head back and her ebon curls unfurled in the muck and formed an odd, undulating crown about her head. There was too much rain to breath properly and even if she could manage to roll back on her stomach, she would simply be face-down in rainwater again. And this puddle was becoming increasingly less shallow. All that aside, she was tired of struggling. So tired. Her thoughts ventured back to memories like a swathe of nothingness. There should have been a mother and perhaps a father. Possibly brothers, boyfriends or husbands. But there was nothing. A blanket childhood that could have been anybodies. A blanket adulthood that could fit the mold of a million women. Strange that her life would end this way. With nothing to live for and nothing to look back on.

Even her pain had been reduced to nothing more then a perception that her mind could no longer contain. Her emotions left her. She was empty. She was alone.

She stopped fighting the rain water from pouring into her throat and let her eyes roll back into her head. As she did, her tunneled vision caught a glimpse of the alley way just as another bolt of lightning cracked the skyways. And just as it did, she caught sight a figure in the alley.

Lightning struck once more and suddenly the figure was upon her, standing at the edge of the puddle above her head. A featureless silhouette, the figure made no apparent moves or gestures that would indicted salvation. The figure’s hands appeared buried in pockets of a large rain coat and the head only moved once to look down upon her and the puddle.

Briefly, her mind found rationality and reached out one last time for a hope that she had once abandoned. She coughed muck from her throat like some sick fountain and managed to roll her eyes out and center on the form above. But the motionlessness of the figured brought no reassurances and soon she found sweet release calling her once more to oblivion.

And then, something in her twitched. A perception she should not have felt brought her back from the precipice. A tiny sensation, a tap of weight against her breast bone stirred her. Her eyes rolled back almost involuntarily, and her eyes found focus on the small object that rested between her bosoms. A pyramidal shaped object.

Her hands were upon the object without effort or bidding. Strength she should not have had found their way into her hands and appendages once more. Her life once again clear. Her purpose once again before her. The pain was meaningless now. Fear of death was meaningless now. There was only the pyramid and the power inside.

A great swell of energy, mustered from her core, surged into her hands and fingers. With a liquid filled gasp, she grasped the pyramid by both ends and snapped it in two.

Chapter 8 - "Mind Crush"

On rare occasions, with much concerted effort, Corazon could open her mind to more then emotion, and localize the emotion's origin, to the exact thought that triggered it. It was an imprecise technique at best, as people's thoughts tended to muddle together, like an orchestra pit full of tuning instruments. Picking them out required more then training one's "ear". It required great strain on Corazon's mental faculties. And most attempts left here exhausted and disoriented.

She flew low above downtown Covener, oblivious to the dank moisture condensing against her exposed skin. Cold, heat, nothing seemed to affect her. Her whole life, or what she could remember of it, she seemed impervious, or perhaps more accurately, oblivious, to both the niceties and pleasantries of Mother Nature. If anything, she took far more damage form the emotions and feelings of the people around her then she did from anything this world could dish out. She would have to be cautious when opening her mind to humanity today, even if it only turned out to be a small group.

The inverted arrow com link on her collar crackled to life. "Sweet Thang to Fusion!" The chopping sounds of the Enforcer's rotors could be heard in background, along with something akin to the sound of rice crispies being stepped on. "Is everyone reading me?"

Corazon waited for her turn in the response queue as each member chimed in preordained succession. "Go ahead Sweet Thang" Mathieu's voice came over the line.

"I got good news and bad news. The bad news is my sensor grids just blew up like a "˜76 Pinto. The good news is I got a psi spike that the independent system that read as somewhere around Level 16."

There was a an audible pause as everyone waited for Mathieu's reply. That had to be a misread, Corazon thought. The sensors must have been over calibrated to register a Level that high. "I need a proximity grid location, Sweet Thang"

"Stand by" Corazon braced herself.

"Section 5 niner delta."

"I'm on it." Crackled 2-Hype's stern voice over the com. "Candela, I'll need you as air support."

"Roger that, 2-Hype." Ali responded. "I'm 2 minutes away."

"Be careful, you guys. That spike went off the scale. Whoever he is, he'll be at the peak of the Cli-MAXX's potential for the next 10 minutes."

"Understood, "˜Sweet Thang'. Candela out."

There was a low whine as Mathieu open a direct line to Corazon. "Maria, 2-Hype and Candela are on the war path. It will take Melinda and I nearly ten minutes to get to where they are. They'll need your back up as soon as possible, but I need your talents first. My best guess is our bad guy will be running somewhere in Delta Sector. That gives you a quarter mile radius. That enough to go on?"

"It will have to be. I can be in that sector in three seconds. I will contact you as soon as I've found anything, Corazon out."

The line chirped as she shut the signal off manually. True to her words, she was above sector Delta in two seconds and some change. She would need complete concentration for this if she were to garner any positive results.

She cleared her mind and concentrated on the probable emotions of a MAXX-dealer who'd just made a sale. The person she would be looking for would not doubt be hurried, rushed, possibly panicked. She would have to fine tune her abilities to sense only those emotions and then open her mind to the thoughts of each in hopes of singling out their quarry.

She hovered majestically in place, her arms outstretched as she opened her mind to the citizens of Covener. At first, she felt nothing. Then she felt a wash of ambiguity. Multiple emotions all blended together no longer retained their vibrant colors, but meshed into a incoherent brown. This degree of sensitivity was to imprecise. She needed to open her mind wider if she were to feel more specific emotions.

She gasped.

"No!" She cried out, her hands steepled on her temples. "No, that's too many. Too fast!"

It was too many. She had opened her mind only a little, but the thoughts and desires of entire city are what began rushing in. It was like putting a tiny crack in the glass of a marine aquarium. The slightest opening was all that the pressure of a thousand nearby minds needed to come flooding in.

"No ... I "¦ can't "¦ No!"

The minds swirled around her. She was no longer lost, but chaos lurked ever so dangerously at the doorstep to her psyche. "One thought, Maria." She said to her self.

"I must find one thought. One soul only. One mind. One thought." She repeated the mantra over and over again, not realizing she was slowing losing altitude in the material world. Over and over again, until at last she released the random thought back to the ether and pulled a specific one from the torrent around her"¦

It was as if she cradled the though in her hands. "Tecohi."

"Corazon to Ryder. Corazon to Sweet Thang. I have him."

Chapter 9 "“ "Indigo Intent"

2-Hype parked his vehicle nearby the alley that fell within the section five-niner coordinates. Typical, he thought. MAXX-dealers and their clientele were alley rats. Cockroaches were always fond of the dark. These insects are no better.

He pulled up the collar to his bomber jacket as he stepped out of his vehicle. The storm had stopped abruptly, almost at the same time Sweet Thang's sensor grind went offline. But the cold was still there, clawing at his skin like a winter demon. He had lived in so-called "civilization" for ten years now, and he would never become accustomed to the frigid winters of the Americas. His land was temperate, dry and soothing. Not moist and dank like the winters in this North Carolina were.

His organic eye scanned the perimeter of the alley access, while his left reached out to the alley itself, feeding him sensations his mind could not quite interpret. He paused and consciously struggled to give the Golden Eye clarity. For a moment, he could perceive the alley in ways not entirely familiar. The eye fed him a sensation that he could only interpret as stone or brick. It had the signature of mortar, and even a sour feeling in the back of his tongue that he could only describe as being metal. It seemed the eye was focused on giving him data regarding the inanimate, but not on any potential life forms.

He cocked his head up towards the sky, looking for any signs of Candela. She was taking longer to arrive then she said she would, and time was not on their side tonight, not with a potential MAXX-Addict at his fullest flower. He had not worked with Candela for long, and he was not a part of the original team, but his faith in his fellow team mate was diminishing by the hour. The Golden Eye only worked well in extreme instances of distress and, apparently, Candela only worked in extreme instances of when she felt like it. He would have to risk going in without backup and going in blind.

A pedestrian on the side walk ambled by and caught a glimpse of 2-Hype's haircut. Caught in the moment, the man quickly averted his gaze when he realized he was staring. Sweet Thang had called it a "Ronald Reagan" once, however that applied, but it was actually the customary cut the men in his tribe received when they finally reached manhood. While he had achieved this honor at a far younger age then was customary of his people, he was beginning to feel less and less like a man in this female dominated society. It wasn't that he felt emasculated by women in positions of authority, nor did he feel that women were incapable of doing anything a man could do. But it was his belief that that the world functioned far more smoothly when everyone fulfilled their expected obligations, rather then trying to compete with everyone else.

He paused a few more moments letting the passerby put some distance between them. He checked the area for more civilians, and unzipped his bomber jacket to get a grasp on the gun holstered within. He released the safety mechanisms and the sound of power packs charged in the lower bandwidths. The weapon was alien to him, but more reliable then the Golden Eye when it came matters of offense. He steadied the gun in both hands, took a deep breath and pushed forward into alley.

________________________________________

It was likely too late. 2-Hype found his Golden Eye granting him the privilege of night vision. The alley looked charred. An entire wall and dumpster bore the distinctive marks of charring. The dumpster was conspicuously melted in places. Something unnatural had happened here for sure. But whoever was responsible was obviously long gone.

He put two fingers on the inverted arrow com link on his collar. "2-Hype to Candela."

There was a brief crackle of static before Candela responded. "I'm here 2-Hype. I'm on my way. I kinda got "¦ lost." She sounded genuinely embarrassed by the statement.

"It might have been nice if you had contacted me when you realized you were going to be behind schedule." He shot into the com. "No matter now. I have signs of a MAXX-hit at these coordinates. Charred walls and melted metal. There is an odd smell here that I cannot determine is actually something in the air, or something my eye cannot properly convey to me. But it is acrid. Possibly the smell of cooked meat."

Candela paused. "Any chance that magic eye of yours can determine what direction our MAXX-Head took?"

2-Hype shook his head as if she could see him. "Negative. It works when it needs to. It only shows me what I need to know."

He glanced around the alley once more, taking in that he could before the eye decided he'd seen all he needed to see. Trash cans appeared to have slammed to one side of the alley. They were not burned, but were toppled over, trash strewn about and smashed as if caught in the blast impact of an explosion before the fire reached them.

The air shifted slightly. The "meat" odor became more subdued and something sharp, almost like a high-pitched tune rang through the air. It was an odd sensation, nothing 2-Hype could accurately draw comparison to. A sound was the closest thing he could associate with the feeling, though not precisely the same. It was an unnatural sensation, alien. He made another visual sweep of the strewn about garbage, and the sensation heightened. The eye was trying to tell him something, but in a language totally foreign to him.

"2-Hype? Hello? Are you alright?"

"Standby." He clipped.

He moved towards the smashed garbage cans, in spite of the discomfort the sensation was beginning to cause him. Whatever it was, it was here, hidden in the waste products scattered all about the alleyway. He began playing a game of hotter/colder, as his visual sweeps of the trash raised and lowered the "˜pitch" of his quarry. He kneeled down in a particularly uncomfortable pile of garbage and began digging. There, beneath a rain soaked cardboards container, laid a pyramidal object that sang a song of obscure feelings 2-Hype could hardly stand. And just as abruptly as the air had shifted, the discomfort passed.

"It looks to me like we're too little, too late. Again. I've got an empty Cli-MAXX pyramid." He put the safety back on his weapon and holstered it, trading it out for a white handkerchief and Ziploc bag. Gingerly, he lifted the object with the handkerchief to place in the bag for later forensic analysis. His normal eye caught the scorches across the pyramid's husk before he dropped it in.

"This casing is burned." He told Candela. "Burned pretty bad too. I'm guessing we're dealing with an Elemental brand, but I cant make out the markings on the case."

"I'm about 40 seconds away, 2-Hype." Candela responded "These damn streets all look alike here. When I get there I can probable shed some light on the alley way and maybe we can pick up some more forensi"¦"

The com link went to static. "Candela?" Unintelligible bits of her voice popped in and out behind the crackling. "Candela, do you read me. I"”"

The alley became awash with an indigo glow. There was heat with this glow. And this time, it was definitely not a misperception of the Golden Eye. 2-Hype pivoted on one knee to face the source of tremendous heat.

She stood before him audacious, her naked body ablaze in a fury of cerulean flame. Her eyes and mouth exuded tongues of even brighter fire, flames burning from deep within her nucleus. Her poise was amorous, licentious. Blazing eyes bore into 2-Hype's with the fervor of a wanton lover. It was more then apparent to 2-Hype; he had seen that look before, in the eyes of Lions. When hunting, when mating. She had the look of conquest in her eye. The look of the kill. She was going to take him. And he would surely nosurvive.

She grinned wide and brazen. "Hello big boy." Her voice was as lustful as her posture, and every bit as terrifying. "Looking for a hot time?"

Chapter 10 "“ "Forge"

"2-Hype? Hello? Are you alright?"

"Standby." He clipped.

Arrogant son of a bitch, Ali thought. She was going to let the comment about being late go, but if he continued to be short with her, she'd give him more then a piece of her mind.

"It looks to me like we're too little, too late. Again. I've got an empty Cli-MAXX pyramid."

Ali figured as much. This was a wasted effort, trying to catch a MAXX-head at this precise moment. Then again, it wasn't really the MAXX-head they were after, but the dealer who was no doubt still in the area. But if they can't even catch the MAXX-head moments after he "shoots up", what are the odds they're going to catch a dealer who's had sense enough to make tracks before that happens?

"This casing is burned. Burned pretty bad too. I'm guessing we're dealing with an Elemental brand, but I can't make out the markings on the case."

Burned? And 2-Hype said something about the smell of cooked meat. She involuntarily choked up a bit if bile. Nauseated, she tried to shake the ghost in the back of her mind with a quick change in subject.

"I'm about 40 seconds away, 2-Hype. These damn streets all look alike here. When I get there I can probable shed some light on the alley way and maybe we can pick up some more forensics-" a noisy crackling of static cut her off.

"Can"”"”"”? Candela, "”"”"”"” read me? I"”"

"2-Hype? 2-Hype? Come in." she begged, but the interference seemed to be overwhelming 2-Hype's end of the comm. The crackling rose in pitch and Ali thought she vaguely heard the sound of another voice, a woman's voice."

"Come on 2-Hype, let me know what's going on?" But the comm continued to spit and hiss at her. Her only option was to pick up the pace and get to 2-Hype as quick as she could.

She adjusted the volume of the comm link pin on her collar, and cranked it up as loud as it would go. She hoped to see if she could pick up anymore of the feminine voice she thought she heard.

Abruptly the static went dead. Ali paused. She opened her mouth to see if she could rouse 2-Hype again but just as abruptly, the African's screams came shrill over the airwaves.

"2-Hype?! 2-Hype?!" No response.

Ali, who was already in flight just above the city skyline, burst into flames and plummeted downward towards the lower downtown district. "Dammit! I'm on my way!"

__________________


"Just hang in there!" yelled Ali's voice from the comm link. But 2-Hype could not respond. In the back of his mind, he could barely even acknowledge her existence.

His concentration was focused in a manner he had only managed once before in his life. It was focused on the Eye. Every fiber of his being was not only focused, but dependant, on the Eyes energies keeping him alive.

A golden translucent sphere of energy swirled about him and shimmered as cerulean tongues of fire danced across its surface. The flames emitted a heat unlike anything he had ever felt before. They burned him from the inside, almost as if the heat was generating from his own core. If he had the spare synapses to hypothesis, he could only imagine what the flames would do if the Eye weren't forming a protective barrier around him.

The blasts of azure heat shot fluidly from the woman's eyes, as her hair continued to dance above her in concert with the blue fire that enveloped her body. She was grinning, a mad Cheshire grin that complemented her body's ever wanton poise, conveying the perverse ecstasy she took in her fiery assault. 2-Hype thought he could hear her laughing over the sound of her raging fire, but he didn't have the luxury of straining to be sure. His mind and spirit were forged as one, unified in an effort to control the often uncooperative Eye into protecting them both from blistering oblivion.

The woman hissed sensually at 2-Hype. "Oooohhh. You've got protective shielding. I like that!"

Her voice was eerily audible over the blaze that continued spew forth from obscured eye sockets. It was as if the flame lessened slightly in order for her victim to hear its Mistress. She ambled casually closer to him as she spoke.

"It's so much more fun when they put up a fight. Don't you think?" The heat began to grow more intense.

"Oh, but if course you do. You're a man. All men feel that way don't they? That it's more exciting when a woman says "˜no'?" Her pristine features became frighteningly visible behind the stream of blue fire. Her equally beautiful and terrible eyes locked with 2-Hype's, and he caught a glimpse into the woman's soul that he would never forget and never wish to see again.

"I for one found that out the hard way" She was terribly close to him now. The fire pressed hard against his shielding, and for the briefest of moments, 2-Hype considered the sweet calling of surrender.

"Silly ol' me didn't know that when a woman says "˜no', she means "˜yes'." She locked a single eye on 2-Hypes real one. Her glare burned just as hotly as any fire could. "And that when she struggles to get away it means beat the crap out of her!"

Then unexpectedly, all her fire abated. She stood there motionless, naked, her light brown skin neither looking burned nor clammy, her hair draped about her shoulders in thick blackened curls. She looked off to the side with nether the fervor nor ardor her stance had before. She was contemplative now. Calm.

"But I keep forgetting," her normal raspy voice was one of a young girl, and not of fiery temptress. "You're a man. You already know these things."

She once again looked into 2-Hypes eyes, only this time an anguished little girl looked back at him. For a moment, it looked as if the little girl would crumple under sorrow's weight.

It wasn't to last.

"You already know these things. Well here I am big boy. HURT ME!!!" And just as suddenly as she had arrested her assault, it reignited with a passion behind it that set the whole alley, the buildings, the brick, the mortar and anything in them bursting into flames.

2-Hype had never let go of his mental grip on the Eye's shielding, knowing that if it was needed quickly again, he would not have the time to erect it. But this time, the heat was simply to much. The Eye may have been powerful, but the man who possessed it was still mortal flesh and bone. He felt his insides begin to tremble and sweat soaked the back of his bomber jacket and poured stinging salt into his organic eye. The last thing he felt were the soles of his shoes sizzling as they melted into the pavement and then he lost consciousness, knowing full well that when his mind did shut down, it would also let the full fury of azure flame into his sphere. But he no longer had the strength to maintain it.

The sphere cracked and fragmented as 2-Hype collapsed onto the pavement. The indigo fire swirled about him in fraction of second, like snakes moving upon prey at the speed of light. It would have consumed him, but for that the fact that the fire shot upwards and away.

The woman's rage quickly shifted to confusion as her flame clearly was no longer obeying her will. She turned towards the sky and saw that the normally black night was now a roiling sheet of orange and yellow, the traditional colors of fire.

Then from within the roils came a shadow, a silhouette of something swift and animate. The figured revealed itself as it dropped through the flames and a golden angel crashed down upon her, striking her across the jaw line and into the hard shattered concrete behind her.

The woman shook the stars from her eyes and stumbled back as she struggled to remain upright. She looked up in amazement at the flaming yellow goddess before her. It would be like looking into a mirror, if the other woman's skin had not been so fair and her spirit so bright. The other woman's long golden hair billowed about her as she stood protectively over the fallen African.

"Lady, you've got some serious issues." Ali rubbed the knuckles of the fist she'd used to give the woman a right cross. "You need help. Maybe you should try Charter."

She gave the woman a rye smile. "But if you don't get help a Charter, please, get help somewhere."