Wonder City Stories

Here, I am collecting a list of selected reviews of Wonder City Stories:

Multicultural Superhero Drama by Ysabetwordsmith
"Wonder City Stories" is a slipstream story that blends a number of genres.[...]
The story itself is messy, sweet, tragic, and valiant. It doesn’t have the razor-sharpness of a story in which every detail is planned meticulously in advance. It’s more like real life—people make mistakes and try to compensate for them, which sometimes has the result they want and other times not. It is filled with tiny, plausible moments that make you want to wince and cover your eyes; moments that make you think "aha!" and remember a clever solution for your own use later; little realizations that shift your own worldview just a bit to accommodate something you hadn’t ever noticed before. The characters grow on you until you want to cheer their successes and lament their failures.

Super Hero, Super Serial by Intergal
I first came across Wonder City Stories last week during a cursory check of WFG, and managed to read the entire back catalogue inside of 2 or 3 days.[...]
As for diversity of cast, the serial deals with issues like gender theory and sexuality, disability, peer pressure, mental health and coping with grief. Quite a few web serials claim to deal with ‘difficult’ subjects, but this one actually delivers the goods.

Superhero life has the mundane and profound too, you know by Kyt Dotson
In my reading I fell in love with the history of the characters as much as the history of their entire society—the paranormals and their plight.
Readers who want well-rounded drama stretched over believable, and adorable, characters who dwell in a living, breathing world, will find everything they’re looking for in this story. There’s almost something for everyone.

Visit Wonder City by Jim Zoetewey
Wonder City Stories follows the lives of the people comics leave out and takes seriously the aftereffects of the storylines typically found in your average comic.[...]
Rather than run off and fight bad guys, the characters deal with their everyday lives. It’s surprisingly enjoyable to watch them do it.

There are (currently) 6 point-of-view characters for Wonder City Stories. There are also several important recurring characters that they interact with, as well as a widely varied background cast. The list may have a few minor spoilers.
( Read more... )

Another scene from Phoenix Wing. Not only have I been distracted by a WCS-related project, but I've also been fighting writer's block for the first time in my four years of writing Wonder City Stories. I hope that I've had a breakthrough, both narratively and in the stress that's been flattening my writing for the last six months, and that there will be a new Wonder City Stories episode this week or next. Fingers crossed, and I hope you're still reading when I do manage to post something.


"Commander on deck!" Renner announced as they stepped onto the flight deck.

A small middle-aged woman with light brown skin and short black hair snapped, "Fall in!"

Janet glanced around, taking in the flight deck at a glance. Antiquated, the pipes and conduits nestled in the high, arched ceiling blackened with grime, dust, and exhaust output. Retrofitted with gravity panels to that the deck was no longer against the outer wall, but opened through the outer wall. Old damage patched neatly in several places, suggestive of a long history of activity, with all the concomitant launch and landing accidents. The deck itself was spotless, the quartet of short-range cruisers polished and recently repainted. The cargo cruiser showed signs of being currently under repair: the rollaway scaffolding tucked behind the body of the cruiser and tied off to the tie loops in the wall behind it, a closed toolbox properly strapped down to the deck, the scent of patching putty lingering in the air.

As the four other women tumbled or jumped off the ships in the bay, the woman in command presented herself to Janet. "Wing Lieutenant Isis Rosafine!" she said, standing at starchy attention. She pronounced "Isis" as "ees-ees" and enunciated every Spanish syllable in Rosafine, Janet noted. Rosafine was wearing a black t-shirt and grey-and-black manypocketed fatigue trousers, like the other pilots here, but she also wore the grey-and-black casual uniform jacket with the wings on the collar and red-and-gold shoulder slashes. "I have field command of Phoenix Wing."

Renner nodded to Rosafine, and gestured to the four other women who fell into more relaxed attention than their chief. First, a 30-something, tall, capable black woman with her hair slicked back, her gaze watchful under long eyelashes, introduced herself as "First Lieutenant Rory Lake," in a Midwestern American accent. Next, a short, curvy, bleached-blonde white woman in her late 20s, smiling, Oxford-style British accent: "First Lieutenant Charlotte Strong." Third, a short, slight white woman in her mid-20s with dark hair, a sullen look, and a classic northern New Jersey accent: "Mannix, Second Lieutenant." Lastly, a willowy black woman around the same age as Mannix, with just a shadow of a West Indian accent: "Mariam Wanderson, Second Lieutenant ."

Renner then glanced over the assembled pilots significantly, and said, "This is our new commanding officer, Commander Janet Park."

This was the awkward bit that Janet always dreaded -- the introductions, not being sure what the crew expects of the new officer. She cleared her throat, and managed not to wince as it echoed in the silence of the bay. "I'm very glad to meet you all. My previous experience has all been on starships --" Oh, tone that shit down, Janet, you don't want to sound like you're being superior "-- so I'm not nearly as familiar with the daily happenings and key functions of a station, but I'm --" Not eager, not interested, dammit, what word? " -- looking forward to learning a whole new set of skills here and I'm also looking forward to getting to know each of you and what you do best. It's my hope that Lt. Commander Renner and Wing Lieutenant Rosafine --" Yes! Nailed the pronunciation! "-- will keep me from getting under your feet while I learn." She gave them her best professional smile.

Strong beamed immediately. Rosafine allowed herself a professional smile. Lake and Wanderson exchanged glances over the heads of the white women. Renner remained predictably impassive. Mannix looked bored.

"Thank you for your time," Janet said, nodding to Rosafine. "Carry on." And she exited the flight deck with Renner at her side, successfully resisting the urge to glance back.

Renner steered her away from the docking facilities, which Janet had vaguely thought to inspect, and toward what appeared to be crew quarters, still in the military section of the station. "Our chief engineer is off-duty right now," she explained, "but I thought it would be a... delicate attention for you to meet her as soon as possible."

Janet raised an eyebrow at Renner, and began to entertain some dread of the engineer. Engineers were quirky sorts, often tempermental and frequently lacking in social skills.

Renner glanced aside at her. "Besides," she added, "when the commander is on-duty, she is usually in microgravity at the core of the station. And it is difficult to be dignified, meeting someone for the first time in microgravity."

Janet couldn't restrain a smile and a, "Quite so," remembering her own introduction to her second commanding officer.

They reached a cabin like any other cabin (as far as Janet could see; she might have to institute a policy of nameplates), and Renner stopped to ring the doorchime. A moment later, the door slid open, revealing a white woman in... Janet had trouble gauging her age. Maybe her late 50s? She had grey-streaked brown hair, cropped short, and was wearing a turquoise sweatsuit. "Lieutenant Commander?" she said in a polished British accent, eyebrows high and inquiring.

"Commander," Renner said gravely, "this is our new CO, Commander Janet Park."

The engineer leaned heavily on the steel-handled cane in her left hand, as she produced and flashed a card with her free hand. "Vera Montgomery, Chief Engineer," she said.

Janet blinked. "Where did you get an ID card? Why do you have an ID card?" ID cards had been completely phased out of the company when she was just out of the academy.

Montgomery glanced at the card and tucked it away. "From my last posting. Just before they chucked me out." Meaning that she'd been on this station assignment for nearly 20 years. She extended her hand. "Good to meet you, Commander."

"Good to meet you as well, Commander," Janet said, receiving (and hopefully giving) a very firm handshake. The woman's grip was like iron.

"I'm not exactly dressed for entertaining," Montgomery said with a quick smile, "but would you like to come in for a celebratory adult beverage?"

Janet thought briefly about demurring, but said, "Of course, Commander, thank you so much."

Montgomery's cabin was almost austere, but there were a couple of ship models on a shelf, some fractal art on the walls, and some abstract metal sculptures, both large and small, on other horizontal surfaces. The engineer limped to a cabinet that opened to reveal a large stock of liquor. "What's your poison, Commander?" she called over her shoulder.

"Bourbon on the rocks," Janet said, still glancing over the main room of the cabin.

Montgomery pulled a bottle from the front of the cabinet and three glasses from under the counter. "I like this one, Sabine," she said with a grin. Then, to Janet, "Our last CO always drank in a very ladylike way. That is to say, the hard stuff was in her own room, and she only ever had seltzer or, at most, a glass of wine in front of her staff."

"I never saw the point," Janet said, focusing her attention on Montgomery. "Granted, it's gotten me some very odd looks from some of the men I've served with."

"Your usual, Sabine?" Montgomery said.

"Yes, thank you, Vera," Renner said.

Janet noticed that Montgomery poured bourbon on the rocks in two glasses, and gin and tonic in a third. Renner stepped forward to take her own, and Janet followed suit -- presumably so Montgomery would not have to try to navigate without her cane. Janet had a sudden understanding of why the engineer spent most of her work time in microgravity.

Montgomery raised her bourbon and said, "To a long and healthy command for you, Commander, and a fruitful partnership for all of us."

Janet smiled graciously and clinked glasses with the others, wondering exactly what undertones she ought to read from that toast.

Back from WisCon and starting to get back to work on Wonder City. Meanwhile, another scene from Phoenix Wing!


The men escorted them to the entrance to the tether, which was in a corner of Hades station that had been given over to greenery. A few people, mostly elderly, occupied benches that were scattered among the trees, and a couple of older-middle-aged women in straw hats were weeding the flowerbeds.

"Let's have dinner sometime," Fairfax said to Janet. Then he caught a glance from St. Victoire and amended hurriedly, "The four of us. The command teams. For the two stations. Together."

Janet repressed a smile and said, "Of course, Captain."

"Well then!" Fairfax said, relieved. He gave her another shoddy salute and said, "I'll have my admin arrange it with yours then."

"Excellent," she said, returning the salute while thinking, I have an admin?

St. Victoire gave her a very snappy salute before herding his commanding officer away.

Janet paused to glance around, observing that the park was a relatively new installation, not original to the construction. There were roughly arranged fiberoptics and a hacked-together sprinkler system overhead for the requisite sunlight and water, and the beds were walled with salvaged construction scaffolding. "How much green space does Hecate have?" she asked Renner.

"Approximately 12 acres, arranged sporadically," the lieutenant commander said as she dialed open the aperture into the tether. "The station was built before artificial gravity, so most of the decks are retrofitted. Green space was wedged into the corners where they couldn't reasonably install living quarters or storage."

Renner ushered Janet into a long corridor lined with pipes, cables, and steel panels. Some transparent windows showed darkness and stars outside, and a thin arc of the planet below. Commander and second-in-command strode down this connection between Hades to Hecate for a while. They fell naturally into step with one another, boots clicking down on the deck at the same time. Then Janet said, glancing aside at Renner, "You look familiar."

Renner said, "That's because I'm a Mark 3 second-in-command clone from Duplex Industries, serial number 575389XT, engineered, born, and trained to become the perfect second-in-command. You've probably seen many of my sister clones, working their way up to the military position we've been developed to fill."

Janet's step hesitated, boot falling out of sync just once, then picking up the rhythm again. They walked on for a few more steps in silence. The commander said, not looking at her subordinate, "Good one."

Renner, her face impassive, said, "Thanks."

The commander nodded and they continued on to the airlock door.

I have been flaky with a side order of flakiness and flake sauce, and I cannot predict when this will end, though I will do my best to make it soon. Here is my apology: an interlude. I note that this short story was actually written a number of years before Wonder City really took off in my head, and was one of the origins for the Wonder City Stories. I trunked the story some years ago, but thought you might enjoy it, so I've dusted it off, tweaked it a bit, and now submit it for your entertainment.

This is not set in Wonder City itself, but in some other superhero city in the same universe. I usually envision the landscape of Wonder City's USA as being dotted with other artificially-named cities, much like the many cities with different superhero pissing rights in the DC universe.

Even though one of the characters here was the original inspiration for Ira, I see no reason that they can't co-exist in the same universe, especially since Ira has become a much different person. And I don't think it's much of a surprise to anyone that our main characters in WCS may not be superfans of the Oprah of the para world, and thus haven't mentioned her previously.

Next weekend, I will be at WisCon! If you are there and see me, please feel free to introduce yourself!


One Ordinary Day, With Explosions

It was the day for the cattle call at the network offices, and I was dreading it. After I parked, I sat for a moment in my little clunker, checking things out. The line hadn't spilled out onto the sidewalk yet, so I stepped out of the car.

The sleek lines of a red sports convertible slid past and into the spot in front of me. When the first three-inch-high pump (with trademark lightning bolts down the heel cup) emerged and hit the pavement with a spark, I knew who it was.

"Hey, Lisa," I said. "Nice car. New, isn't it?"

She towered over me as she always had, even without the heels. "Hey, Ronnie," she said, her voice clear and brassy as a summer day. "Custom job, dontcha know. The colors this year are awful. Oh, hell," she added as she glimpsed the line through the doors.

"Yeah," I said with feeling.

"You poor thing," she said with abundant sincerity, patting me on the shoulder. "If it gets bad, love, come on up and see us, all right?" Then she exhaled and inhaled, flashing me her television smile. "Showtime!" she said brightly, then threw the doors open.

A ragged cheer went up when Lisa Lightning stalked into the hall, bellowing, "Well, kids, how's the day?"

Her show's opening line of the last decade brought a louder cheer and excited shouts of "We love you, Lisa!" The kids were mostly dressed in the "dark and gritty" costumes that I remembered being the rage when I was in my twenties. No bright chest targets, no sky-high headgear, no two-foot-tall collar points. Just simple dominos and spandex bodysuits.

As I followed along in Lisa's broad wake, I watched her with some amusement, but mostly with amazement. A smile here, an autograph there, a handshake over there, and a couple hundred self-important twenty-somethings melted into squealing fankids before the paranormal world's superstar.

The door of my rented office appeared through the bodies. I wedged myself past a ten-foot-tall girl with a ten-inch-tall boy on her shoulder and heard the little guy say, "Goddamit, this is taking too long! I've got to get to my shift at the drug store!" As I slid unnoticed into the blissful less-loudness of my office, I pondered paranormal cashiers and janitors.

By 4 pm, I was thinking vaguely about turning on Lisa's show at 4 pm, but my Calendar told me just then -- in George Takei's voice, of course -- "Ohhh, myyyyy, you seem to have an appointment."

I waded out through the diminished line to meet my client at the door.

He was punctual, as usual, and was only a little shaky as he got out of the taxi. I noted the lack of costume today and wondered what was going on.

"Ronnie," he said, leaning on my arm heavily, "don't ever get old."

"I'm gettin' up there, y'know, Captain," I said cheerfully, guiding him up the ramp.

"You aren't old yet," he said. "You were the next generation."

"That's so," I admitted. "Speaking of the next generation, Captain..."

When I opened the door, he paused, and he blinked at the kids who were sprawled all over. "This is the next generation?" he said, a little louder than I'd have liked.

"Yeah, well, the network's casting for the 'Network Heroes' today," I said, trying to chivvy him down to my office.

"What sorta costumes these supposed t'be?" he asked, staring as we passed one group in black leather. "You gonna chafe somethin' awful in that," he said to them. "And you! Do you fly? You gonna strangle yourself on the first flagpole with those straps!"

"The outfits are for show, Captain," I said, managing to impel him through the office door. "They're trying to look good for TV."

"Look good? Look good?" he asked, shuffling to his favorite chair. "Back in the day, we looked like shit, Ronnie, but we knew it was gonna get trashed by Baron Schadenfreude anyway, so it needed to be cheap to replace!"

It took me a while to calm the Captain down to where he could talk about his meds, his apartment building, and the kids who smoked cigarettes on the community center lawn. Turned out that his son had taken away all his old helmets and capes and utility belts, which was why he was wearing civvies. "I ain't so good with the needle anymore," he explained to me, displaying the length of blue fabric he'd stuffed in his pocket, the hem uneven and the stitching ragged, apparently intended to replace his missing cape. "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do! I can't go around with nobody knowin' I'm Captain Six! You get forgotten, you got nothin'."

I didn't tell him that I'd seen at least three Captain Sixes that morning (in various different flavors of "dark and gritty," one with a scantily clad "Sixette" on his arm), and that he was anything but forgotten. They just all wanted to pretend he was dead. People didn't want to remember that superheroes got old too.

I made notes and did my job. Thankfully, by the time he was done telling me about the rodent problem in the building ("Captain, you have to stop using your x-ray vision in the building--you're irradiating the other residents!"), the hallway was clear. When the taxi pulled out of sight, I sighed and turned back to the building, trying to rub the tiredness out of my eyes.

"Sir?" a tentative voice said.

I jumped--my danger sense hasn't worked properly in years--and looked around. A pretty, Rubenesque girl was there, wearing a trenchcoat over her crimson bikini. She was holding a small bouquet of bright red and yellow flowers. "Yeah?" I said.

"Could you... I mean, I saw you this morning with Ms. Lightning, and I was wondering if..."

I smiled as best I could. "Sure. Sure I can. How did it go?"

"Oh," she said, just a little wistful, "I didn't get in. But I didn't really expect to. It was just so nice of her to say something to us."

"These are very pretty," I said, taking the bouquet.

"I just wanted to thank her," she said, withdrawing, unable to look at me any more. "Um. Thank you." She took off then, trenchcoat flapping in the breeze, into the sunset-painted clouds.

The fifteenth floor was as active as the first floor was dead. I had to dodge energetic technicians and stressed-out PAs as I picked my way to Lisa's dressing room. I nodded to her security guard, who had been a junior member of our team back when, and she smiled. She knocked at the door, and Lisa said, "Come on in."

I stepped inside. "Oh, Ronnie! Kids gettin' to you?" Lisa asked from where she sat in front of the mirror, methodically stripping makeup from her face.

"Nah, they're all gone. One of 'em asked me to give you these," I said.

She spun around, half her face still made up for the camera, but the smile still there. "What a darling. Which one was it?"

"The red bikini girl," I said, relinquishing the flowers.

"Oh, she's a looker, that one," Lisa said, deftly locating a vase of just the right size for the bouquet. "Fill this with water, there's a dear. Didn't get in, though, did she?"

"Said she didn't expect to," I said, running water in the bar sink. "But she wanted to thank you for being so nice to them."

"Good kid," Lisa said, staring at herself in the mirror. "All of 'em are good kids, Ronnie." She plucked the other set of false eyelashes off and deposited them on her tabletop. "And they'll all end up flipping burgers somewhere."

"Well, all of 'em that don't become villains," I amended, setting the bouquet in the vase.

"Even the villains aren't usually so bad," she said, adding wistfully, "Remember Mantis?"

I hooted. "Do I ever! Remember when he and Ant-Rider were getting into it in the back of your Lightning Rod?"

Lisa exploded with laughter. "With the whole thing rocking in the middle of the street and me screaming, 'If you're gonna do it, at least shrink back down so we don't hafta see it!'"

"Atlas never could figure out why we all acted funny whenever we fought the Doom Brigade," I recalled through giggles. "Or why we couldn't capture Mantis."

"'You're so good at what you do, Andy!'" she said in an imitation of our former leader. "'You catch Lightning Bug and the Microgirls and Mini Morse just like that! Why not Mantis?'"

"Couldn't exactly tell the big guy that Mantis had a much nicer ass than Lightning Bug," I said. "They only kept it quiet because they usually did shrink out of sight. Your very visible fling with Calamity Jane wasn't destined for greatness."

"Neither was the one with Patchwork," she admitted.

"I thought that was mostly because you found out that all of him was pretty much detachable," I said.

"Auuuugggghhhh," she said, shuddering. "I'd almost forgotten that, thank you very much." She threw her powderpuff at me.

"They've got a school now, you know that?" she said when she'd finished scraping the rest of the camera makeup off her face. "Andy and Mantis."

"I'd wondered if they'd gotten back together after Mantis finished his stint in prison."

"Oh, yeah," she said, rapidly applying her usual makeup. "It was all romantic, with Andy waiting at the door with flowers on release day." She paused, eyeing me in the mirror. "I heard that the Stormlords pulled a bank job over in the Heights."

"I thought they were out of commission?" I said, looking around the room.

"Apparently not," she said, turning toward me. "Heard anything from him?"

"Who?" I asked coolly.

She looked at the little bouquet and reached out to touch a red gerbera daisy. After a moment, she began, slowly, "I know things didn't go so well, Ronnie..."

I held up my hand. "Lisa, I know you mean well, but this really isn't a subject I want to revisit."

"Ronnie, it's been ten years!"

I shrugged. "Hell, Lisa, he's fifty-something and still pulling bad bank jobs!"

She picked up the vase and sniffed the flowers. "What other option does he have? What has he ever actually done to harm society any more than we have? We caused more destruction of property than I want to think about. And then..."

I said, "I know," quickly, to cut her off. There were so many things to regret, and I didn't want to hear them.

We were silent for a while.

"Y'know," she said, trying to recapture her earlier tone, "I just heard one of Atlas's kids is gay."

"Serves him right," I said with a half-assed grin. "Looking so very hot and being so very straight. How many kids does he have now?"

"After four wives?" she said. "I lost count."

"Only four?" I said. "Speaking of kids, I should go. I've got to call Captain Six's daughter and let her know that her brother took all the Captain's costumes away."

Lisa smiled at me, a little sadly. "When I hear things like that, I'm almost glad I never had kids."

"Me too." I straightened up and turned toward the door.

"Ronnie," she said, and almost said something else when I looked at her. Then she just shrugged and said, "Let's go for dinner sometime."

I smiled. "Okay."

The phone call went long, with the daughter talking police and restraining orders against her brother, and the son calling me in the middle of things to tell me that the Captain was flying around the apartment building in his skivvies. When I got there, he was yelling about stupid kids in leather straps and how he'd remind them that Captain Six hadn't even bothered with a cape in the old days and didn't need even his old union suit anymore, and oh, what a circus it all turned into. When I got home that night, I immediately collapsed into my favorite chair.

Freddie, the robot from our old headquarters, rattled out of the kitchen. "Welcome home, Master Leonus," his ancient voicebox creaked.

"Hi, Freddie," I said. "One of the usual, please."

"Certainly," he wheezed, and clunked his way back into the kitchen.

I sat there, eyes closed, wishing that the earth could have opened up and swallowed me about two hours earlier.

"Hey, Ronnie," a familiar voice said from behind me. Presumably from the formerly secret panel to my former secret lair in my present basement.

I cursed my malfunctioning danger sense and opened my eyes. "Did you tell Lisa you were going to look me up or something?"

"Me?" He sounded honestly startled. "Hell, no. She'd probably force me to be on her talk show or something. 'So, Black Dog, how did you really feel when the Adamant Kid used your skull as a piledriver back in '82?'"

"'Well, Lisa, it took years of chiropractors to fix it,'" I said. "It's just she mentioned you today."

"Nice to know you all still talk about me."

"Why're you here?"

"Well... I'd say it was just to see you, but the truth is that the job went sour and I'm hiding."

"So you pull a bank job and hide in my basement?"

"Anyone else would throw me out."

I stood up and turned to look at him. He was still as lean as he was when I last saw him, a lanky, hungry look that had looked gawky in his twenties, but turned languid and graceful as he got older. The lock of hair that always fell in his face was salt and pepper, and he'd cut the rest of his hair short. His eyes were still dark and intense and completely at odds with the way he presented himself to the world.

"That's my shirt!" I exclaimed, recognizing the flannel he was wearing. "And my jeans!"

He shrugged, looking a little sheepish. "My costume got totally shredded. We were up against Windfall, and you know what hell she is on outfits."

"She's still working? Wow. I haven't seen her since... hmmm... she and her wife got hitched, I think."

"Oh, good for her," he said, leaning on the doorjamb. "Always respected her for being out like that."

"You weren't exactly out yourself," I said, gesturing to the chair opposite mine.

"A lot you know," he said, dropping bonelessly into the seat. "The entire villain community knew me as 'Fag Dog'."

"Great. Nice folks you associate with, Tony," I said, falling into my own chair again.

"You know, there's all sorts of things I could say to that," he almost-but-not-quite snarled. "Like about your own costume closet."

"Look, I've had a really long day and I don't really need this shit," I said, taking the glass of wine from Freddie. I waved the robot over to my guest. "What would you like?"

"Isn't that...?" he said, staring at the robot.

"Yeah, well, we were able to buy the HQ equipment cheap," I said, taking a long, slow drink.

"I was sorry to hear the team went bankrupt," he said, after asking Freddie for a glass of sparkling water with a lemon slice. "I was in Europe then, and I thought about writing you, but, well, I didn't."

"So," I said, looking up from my glass, "should I ask the question one always asks during reunions like this?"

"Whether I thought I could get away with it?" he asked. He still had a really nice smile, and the extra-pointy canines still charmed me.

"No," I said. "The question about whether you're single or not."

"Oh, that kind of reunion."

I let Freddie clank his way across the room to deliver the sparkling water before I said, "So, are you seeing someone?"

He smiled sadly and looked away. "I did, for a while. But right now? No." He smirked. "I noticed that only your stuff was in the closet."

"Did you check my medicine cabinet too?" I inquired in an offended tone of voice.

"Yep. Boring. Razor, shaving cream, bandaids, not even a bottle of cologne."

I sighed and finished my glass of wine. "Freddie, I'd like another!" I called toward the kitchen. "Nobody's much interested in washed-up spandex these days."

"Isn't anyone interested in social workers?" he asked, leaning forward in his chair.

"Nope. Social workers are definitely just as out of style as spandex."

We had another pause while Freddie dropped off another glass of wine for me. Then Tony said, "Well, call me old-fashioned, but I'm still into them both."

I laughed. He grinned. "You're a very bad dog, with very bad lines," I informed him.

"I always have been," he said. "And despite that, you liked me anyway."

I drank about half the glass and stared into the wine again. "You know, I could just call the cops on you."

"Yeah," he admitted. "But you could call 'em in the morning too."

I carefully set the glass on the table. "Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that I don't call the cops. Can you keep your pants on long enough for us to have some dinner? I'm starving." I stood up and stretched.

"I think I could manage that," he said, standing as well. "I'm not as young as I used to be either."

"Are you calling me old?"

"You're thinking with your stomach first. You're old."

"I've always thought with my stomach first."

He put his head to one side. "True," he admitted. "That's the big cat in you, I suppose."

I let out a little roar, not even enough to rattle the china, and beat my chest. "There, see? I've still got it."

"You've definitely got something," he said, looking me up and down. "I think I like the grey at the temples."

I reached out and touched the ever-present forelock. "I can't believe you still have this."

"You'd prefer this crewcut you've got now?" he asked, running a hand over my hair.

I startled myself by pressing my head into his hand. He smiled, and I said, reluctantly, "Okay. I guess I've missed you."

I thawed some chicken enchiladas and had another glass of wine. We ate like we were starving. Then things were starting to get warm and naked, and even maybe a little slippery...

When spotlights in the street clicked on, pouring hard blue-white light in every window, through every curtain.

Tony cursed. I used a pillow as a fig leaf and went to peer out the window.

"BLACK DOG, RELEASE THE HOSTAGE AND YOU WON'T BE HURT!"

We looked at each other, confused. "What hostage?" we both said.

At that point, I became aware of Freddie's old-fashioned high-pitched built-in modem shriek (he doesn't use it much these days because it drives me nuts) and said, head in hand and teeth gritted, "I'm going to take that robot apart with a sledgehammer."

Tony gave me a disbelieving look. "You didn't get it reprogrammed when you bought it?"

"Well I didn't think I'd be entertaining supervillains in my house!"

A different voice bellowed, without the benefit of a bullhorn but still deafening, "YOU WON'T TAKE BLACK DOG WITHOUT GOING THROUGH THE STORMLORDS!"

"Oh, shit," Tony said, turning pale.

I facepalmed. "You came to hide in my basement with your ill-gotten gains?"

"Worse," he said with a ghost of a smile.

"THE NETWORK HEROES WILL TAKE YOU DOWN!"

"You were double-crossing your supervillain team by hiding in my basement with your ill-gotten gains?" I asked disbelievingly.

"Heh," he said sheepishly.

There was an explosion outside, followed by shouts. I peeked out past the curtain again. "They just dropped a telephone pole on my neighbor's car," I said. "I hope he's got para insurance."

"Look, Ronnie, you gotta help me out here," he said, girding his loins with my sheet.

I turned a severe look on him. "Tony," I said, oh-so-calmly, "I gotta help out Captain Six when he's buzzing his neighbors' balconies in his boxers. I gotta help out Soozy Q when she gets thrown outta her house by her parents. I gotta help out Vin the Supergoth when he wants to go into rehab. You, I don't gotta help out."

He looked hurt. There was a rending sound outside.

I said, a little sadly, "Those were my arborvitae."

"Ronnie, I'm sorry about all this, really I am," he said contritely, pulling on my jeans and trying not to zip himself accidentally in his rush. "Please, for old time's sake?"

I thought about what I had expected to happen that night. I heard the roar of flames outside and knew that my roses were toast.

Then I sighed and threw my flannel shirt at his head. "Go back down in the basement. In the corner furthest to the right is the old secret escape tunnel, not the one you came in through. It comes up about six blocks from here, over near the convenience store."

He pulled the flannel on and kissed me. "You're a lifesaver. I'll come back when the heat's off and take you to dinner, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah," I said, pulling on my pajama pants and tightening the drawstring. "Get out of here before I throw the dog to the dogs."

He grinned. Damn, damn, damn me for being charmed. "You're just a big pussycat after all."

"Out!" I commanded, pointing to the basement door, but I was grinning too.

When he was gone, I caught up to Freddie in the kitchen and yanked his power core. When his little red LEDs went out, I walked to the front door and opened it. I stared at the chaos, and thought, I'm about to tell those damn kids to get the hell off my lawn. Captain, I am getting old, and let me tell you why...

I dodged the divot of my front lawn that flew at my skull and forced my power on. It hurt like hell to change shape these days, but it was the best way to get their attention.

I roared, lion-headed, over the chaos, "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?"

They all stopped dead in the middle of their fighting and stared at me.

Well, hey, I've still got it, apparently.

I glowered around, making sure I got the eyeglow going. "You show up in the middle of the night and start fighting. You've wrecked my garden and my neighbor's car, you've knocked out the power for ten blocks around, and you woke up the baby four houses down! I ask again, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

One of them shuffled. A couple more looked away. One particularly perky, shiny-faced idiot piped up, "We had a report that Black Dog was holding a hostage here!"

I gave him a glare. "Do I look like a hostage to you? Do I look like someone who could be taken hostage to you?"

Shiny-face looked at his boots. They all did. One scratched the back of her neck. I thought I recognized her from the casting call that morning -- the one with the straps, I think.

"If you have to fight it out with the supervillains, don't do it here!" I continued. "There's a park half a mile thataway. Go have your damn showdown there. Go on! Scram!"

The Stormlords had already taken the opportunity to slink away into the night. The Network Heroes looked around and, after they sheepishly lifted the telephone pole off the car and put out the fire in my garden, their support crew turned off the spotlights and the cameras and they drove (or flew) away.

My neighbors cheered. We all went back inside.

I reflected as I went back to my empty bed, reeking of burnt lawn, that shifting up to my Leonus shape was gonna make my face and shoulders ache all the next day, but it was worth it. And I had been thinking about taking out the arborvitae anyway. And I was willing to wager that they'd remember me for... a while, at least.

I grinned in the dark and thought about telling Lisa, "A funny thing happened to me on my way to bed..."

I was just drifting off when the doorbell rang. Cursing, I got up and stomped to the front door.

"What?" I demanded, half-lion again.

Shiny-face was standing there, trying not to look at the ruin of my lawn. He wasn't half-bad looking, really, when he wasn't trying to be officious. He shuffled a little, then fidgeted with his utility belt. "I, um..."

I folded my arms and looked patient. I sucked in my gut a little.

He pulled a card out of his belt and held it out to me in one gloved hand. I eyed him suspiciously for a moment, then took it.

"I... that has my cell phone number on it," he said, all in a rush. "Call me sometime and let me take you to dinner as an apology?" He smiled hopefully. I couldn't see his eyes under the eyeshielded mask, but he had a nice smile.

I looked at the card, then back at him. "I... ah... yeah, sure." I bit the "kid" off the end of the sentence.

"Great!" he said with such sincerity that I had to believe him. "I'll, um, talk to you then!" He turned and walked away down the sidewalk, waiting until he got to the end to leap dramatically into the air and zoom off. When he thought I couldn't see him any more, he did a little loop-de-loop. Ah, the joys of cat night-vision.

"Huh!" was all I could say to myself, standing there on my stoop, staring at the card.

What the hell, I thought. I'll give him a ring tomorrow. And off I went to bed, where I slept the sleep of the righteous homeowner, cranky ex-boyfriend, and hot older guy.

This week has been weird and surreal -- I live in central Massachusetts, and work in Cambridge -- and today has been particularly strange, with the refreshing the browser and checking Twitter and such. I have successfully distracted written the lion's share of this episode today, however, and I hope you will forgive any little gaffes as being products of my distraction.


Torschlusspanik

"Ah, Mr. Frost," Zoltan said at the door of the enormous luxury board room, his eastern European accent rolling softly over the name. "And Nereid. So pleased you could make it to our little discussion group."

Nereid stared at Zoltan. For a man who never aged, the very fine lines around his eyes and mouth seemed much more pronounced than they'd been last time she'd seen him, at least a year before. He was dressed very finely in a pale grey three-piece suit, a white shirt, and a pale blue tie. She noticed his cufflinks, though, as they shook hands -- tiny gold bats -- and it was all she could do not to giggle.

"I was pleased to be invited," Michael Frost said, staring beyond Zoltan's head at the far side of the room.

"Ah, yes, you see that Baroness Von Drachenberg has arrived before you," Zoltan said, stepping aside gracefully and gesturing them into the room. "We still await Ms. Washington, from your folk. My folk are represented, as are most of the other Mystikai."

Nereid stared around the echoing room and was gratified by the presence of Madame Destiny and X, and also the Equestrian and her steed (in tall, lean, redheaded human form) Maelstrom. She didn't know any of the many others, and noticed that a certain amount of space was left between every knot of beings as they stood around and drank coffee. Sophie would probably snark about it if she were here. Which she wasn't. And Nereid wasn't sure why she wasn't, but the absence made her anxious.

The Baroness was a short, round, cheerful woman who appeared to be middle-aged, accompanied by a couple of stocky, balding men in tweed suits. She gave Mr. Frost a little finger wave that he ignored. Nereid smiled nervously in the woman's direction.

A moment later, a ridiculously tall, willowy woman with long white hair, wearing a strangely familiar long, flowing black leather coat (with large spiky shoulder pads) and pants, strode past Zoltan into the room without a word. Under the coat, she seemed to be largely wearing straps, which accented her... prominent cleavage. She paused to regard Mr. Frost, then the Baroness with a sneer, and made her way to the center-back of the room, throwing herself into the chair at the foot of the ridiculously long table. She put her booted feet up on the table with heavy clunks.

"And with the arrival of Ms. Washington," Zoltan said, nodding to the t-shirted bar bouncer-types in the hall and shutting the door, "our numbers are complete. I am, as most of you know, Zoltan Farkas, and I speak for the Grand Matriarch of the East today, though her granddaughter --" he bowed to an African American woman who was taking a seat near the middle of the table "-- is here to correct me if I step wrongly. Speaking for the Grand Matriarch of the West is Doña Juana Salazar. Between us, we speak for the Family here in North America."

He nodded, and the Equestrian stood, looking very out of place as a young blonde teen dressed for a horse show in a velvet coat of bottle-green, breeches, and tall leather boots. "All of you know who I am," she said in her British accent. "I'm here for the Good Neighbors, specifically the one known as Lady Daphne, my sometimes-patron."

A broad-shouldered, tanned man in a black suit, surrounded by several individuals in similar suits, introduced himself as the elected speaker for the shapechanger Mystikai. Several more people introduced themselves as chosen or appointed speakers for various schools of magic. There was a fascinatingly tiny woman who was the representative of the Appalachian Gnome Queendom. A pair of thin, pale women who were clearly twins said they were there on behalf of the Wonder City vampires. A perfectly normal middle-aged middle-class woman in jeans and a sweatshirt that sported a picture of a kitten, with the glittery legend, "Hang in there!" arcing over it, introduced herself as the Outsider.

Madame stood and bowed. She was dressed elegantly in a long black dress and a black turban, a silvery-grey wrap draped around her shoulders. She was made up extravagantly, with dramatic swooshes of shadow above her eyes. "I am Madame Destiny, the current vessel for the Mystikai known as the Oracle, and I have been asked here by my friend Zoltan in case we need to consult the Oracle's wisdom." She gestured to X, who was conservatively done up in a black suit and garnet-colored cravat. "This is my apprentice, X." And she resumed her seat.

Nereid became aware, as silence fell, that Mr. Frost and the Baroness were staring at each other across the room. After a long, tense moment, Miss Washington drawled, without standing, "I'm Washington. I'm a dragon."

Both Mr. Frost and the Baroness looked at her at the same moment, a fleeting glimpse of disgust crossing both their faces. They looked at each other again, and the Baroness shrugged, and said, "I am the Baroness Von Drachenberg, and I am a Reptilian-American." She glowered in Washington's direction, then gestured grandly to Mr. Frost.

He inclined his head briefly and said, "I am Michael Frost, also Reptilian-American, and I am the patron of the superhero team, the Young Cosmics." He dropped a hand on Nereid's shoulder. "This is my team's Class 10 elemental, Nereid, who kindly agreed to accompany me."

Zoltan seated himself at the head of the table and folded his hands. "Thank you all for coming. I think we can agree that the situation in the United States, and in Wonder City in particular, is growing intolerable and is threatening everything each of us has worked for. Several of us wanted to bring the community together to discuss possible options for information-gathering and action."

One of the myriad magic-using people -- one of the few dressed in what Nereid thought of as normal clothes -- raised her hand. Zoltan nodded, and she said, "I think it would be helpful if we pooled our intelligence as to the nature of the troubles and possible sources."

"Agreed," Zoltan said, nodding cheerfully all around the table. "So let us do so. I confess that the Family has very little information on the nature or source of the troubles, only a fairly close analysis of the results. So who has more information?"

Several of the magic-using people spoke up about scrying and analytical magic and things that immediately and pedantically went over Nereid's head -- another reason to regret Brainchild's absence, she thought, was her inability to ask Sophie later what something had meant. Nereid was also distracted by Washington's openly bored posture with her head tilted back, staring ostentatiously at the ceiling.

"So what you're telling us," Zoltan said, smoothly interrupting one of the interminable lectures, "is that the main threat appears to be in orbit, and radiating something down at us that is affecting human behavior?"

"Uh," said the man in burgundy robes. "Yes. Essentially."

"Thank you," Zoltan said, and he even sounded like he meant it. "Have any other Mystikai ascertained any details?"

Nereid glanced aside at Mr. Frost's pleasantly-smiling face, expecting him to say something. Instead, Madame Destiny said, "Yes, we have."

All heads turned her way. X met Nereid's look with briefly raised eyebrows.

"Our group of... friends," Madame said with a self-deprecating air, "have determined that the ships in orbit are, in fact, of alien origin, and that the nature of the projection is a technological enhancement of a para with empathic abilities."

And then the meeting exploded into discussion, debate, and questions. Nereid watched it all, bewildered, and also watched the three drago--- Reptilian-Americans, she corrected herself. The Baroness beamed delightedly as her two tweedy companions leapt into a debate with a trio of mages and one shapeshifter. Mr. Frost watched the proceedings with a small smile. Washington continued to stare at the ceiling. The only other person who appeared so disconnected was the Equestrian, who slumped in her chair and frowned at the tabletop.

During a brief lull in the conversation, Washington burst out with, "Tell me why I should care."

Everyone froze. Nereid heard Michael Frost inhale, but whatever he was going to say was preempted by the Baroness Von Drachenberg saying, sweetly, "I would explain, but I think that you are too young to understand."

Washington leapt to her feet and glared at the Baroness. Nereid felt obscurely that she ought to have a large magical sword in one hand, then realized that as a drago-- Reptilian-American, she didn't need a weapon of any sort: she was one.

After a long moment, Washington said, in tones not nearly as sweet as the Baroness', "Try me, old woman."

Nereid noticed one of the tweed-clad men next to the Baroness discreetly scribbling notes in a battered leather-bound notebook, while the other was sliding an old pocket dictation recorder onto the table and looking around surreptitiously. Some of the mages and a few of the shapeshifters were subtly fading back from the table. Nereid herself was feeling more and more nervous sitting next to Mr. Frost.

The Baroness folded her hands on the table and, still smiling, said, "As someone without much experience in the markets of the world, you perhaps do not know how very destabilizing these sorts of events can be. You may think that such disquiet would make your particular objets du dèsir easier to obtain -- whenever you decide to obtain them -- but it is not so." She paused, reached down without looking, and clicked the tape recorder off. "At least, not in the long run."

Washington was pale with a cold rage that Nereid could feel from across the room. She leaned forward to place her hands flat onto the table, her white hair starting to blow behind her in a breeze that seemed to affect nothing else. Before she could say anything, though, Michael Frost began to laugh.

The look Washington turned on him was very little altered from what she had just been aiming elsewhere, but the gaze the Baroness turned on him was cynical, withering, and underneath it all, so sharp that Nereid had to repress the urge to run out of the room. The mages and shapeshifters took the opportunity to slide entirely back from the table toward the outer walls.

"Do forgive me, Baroness," Michael Frost said, in his suavest voice, "but it seems to me that if we are here, we have already agreed to act. There is no need for this attention-seeking posturing."

The Baroness was no longer, at all, a pleasant-looking little woman. Nereid saw the representative of the Gnome Queendom retreating behind a heavy credenza and felt an urge to join her. As if reading her mind, Michael Frost chose that moment to lay his hand over hers on the table, and action that made Nereid unbearably uncomfortable for too many reasons to list.

Nereid attempted to comfort herself with her ability to dissolve into mist at the first sign of actual violence.

At the head of the table, Zoltan looked as if he might be comforting himself similarly. He was exchanging looks with the other representatives of his Family -- whatever that was, Nereid thought, wondering if it he was a member of some kind of vampire mafia -- and both women were giving him cheerful sorts of "I wouldn't be you for a million dollars" encouraging smiles.

Washington was staring at Michael Frost, and Nereid noticed that she was becoming visibly more irritated when he refused to stare back. Her long, slender fingers gripped the edge of the table, and Nereid had an unpleasant image of her flipping it. But the moment passed, and she sat down in a kind of anticlimax.

The Baroness and Michael Frost, however, continued to match gazes, and Nereid thought that perhaps there was some sort of battle going on that she was too human to perceive except on the most uncomfortably lowest levels of her lizard brain. Like the so-called brown note, she thought.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," the Equestrian exclaimed, slamming her small hands on the table with moment-shattering slaps. "The rest of us don't have time for your--" she paused over word choice for a moment, then continued sourly "--politicking."

The two dragons snapped their heads around to look at her and the Equestrian pursed her lips and tilted her head slightly in the direction of Maelstrom, who appeared to be dozing in his chair. Mr. Frost and the Baroness each glanced back at each other, then exhaled, and the tension oozed out of the room.

Zoltan shuffled some papers. The mages and shapeshifters glided back to the table. The Gnome Queendom representative returned to her chair.

"I think," said Doña Juana Salazar, smiling thinly around the table, "that perhaps we should take advantage of the presence of the Oracle to ascertain what level of action would work best for the Mystikai as a whole."

"Yes," the Baroness said, her good humor apparently restored, though Nereid was unsure if that was true. "It is so very easy to overreact and do more harm than good."

Michael Frost said, "Yes, let's." He yawned elaborately.

Washington just waved a hand irritably.

"Perhaps it would be best to determine what the maximum level of involvement we would be willing to pursue should be," piped the tiny representative of the Gnome Queendom.

This led to another bewildering half hour of conversations, cross-conversations, and sub-conversations that Nereid could not parse at all. None of the dragons involved themselves in these discussions; they just watched.

Zoltan tapped a glass (where did he get the glass?) with a spoon (likewise?), and the sound rang out over the room, bringing conversation to a faltering halt. He said, "If we are going to make use of the Oracle, then I think we should do it quickly. We are unlikely to come to a consensus on this issue, nor do I think it is necessary. We simply need to remember to ask yes or no questions for optimal accuracy."

"And minimal cryptic ramblings," the Equestrian muttered, getting a short laugh out of Madame and X, at least.

Madame got up and moved her chair well back from the table, then resumed her seat. X moved to stand facing her, a little to the side. Everyone at the table turned to watch Madame with great interest -- even the dragons.

Nereid had seen Madame do this many times before, and all went as usual. Madame composed herself in her chair and closed her eyes for a few moments. X watched her fixedly. Then the light in the room changed to the harsh, focused, bluish tinge it always took.

Madame's face in that light startled Nereid, like she was seeing straight through the makeup. Madame looked old. Really old. And sick, and strained. Tears began leaking from the corners of her eyes. Then her eyes popped open and blue light crackled there, making everyone blink and look away for a moment.

"SPEAK, CHILDREN OF MAGIC," the Oracle said with Madame's mouth.

X turned to Zoltan and nodded.

But then the Oracle said, "STOP."

Nereid could see Madame's head and hands vibrating as if she had a palsy. The tears were coursing down her face and dripping off her chin. Her face looked grey in the blue light.

Madame gasped, in her own voice, "No!"

The light changed again -- instead of seemingly radiating from Madame's whole body, it shifted to solely from her head. And then blue lightning stabbed out from Madame into X, who echoed Madame with a more gutteral, wrenching, "No!"

Nereid ran to Madame as the older woman toppled from her chair, pulling her up from the floor and cradling her head against her shoulder. For a long moment, Nereid gazed down into her exhausted, drawn, tear-streaked face, and irrelevantly remembered the same woman, five years earlier, patiently helping her with her math homework. She remembered that Madame had been studying to be a mathematician, that she was really good at it, until the Oracle took up residence in her body.

X was suspended in mid-air in the middle of the room, blue light and lightning leaking out spasmodically. Most of the people in the room were at least standing, if not moving cautiously toward X.

Madame's eyes opened and she tried to sit up, but couldn't, then relaxed back into Nereid's arms. She croaked urgently, "Don't touch X!" into the tense silence, and everyone moving stopped.

"If you touch X," Madame said more calmly, "it could distract zir from what focus zie could gather. If that happens on the first possession, we might never get X back." She closed her eyes again.

Nereid was chilled to the bone by the idea of the Oracle being permanently "on" in X's body. She looked at the disheveled figure dangling like a marionette in mid-air.

"NOW YOU MAY SPEAK," said the Oracle with X's mouth.

"Oh, god," Madame groaned.

"It's all right," Nereid whispered to her.

"I thought I could hold on," Madame said, tears trickling out of her eyes again. "I thought I could keep going. Anything so X wouldn't have to..."

"X knew this would happen eventually," Nereid said in low tones, vaguely registering that questions were being asked and answered with a staccato precision elsewhere in the room. "X was prepared for it."

"You're never prepared for it," Madame said faintly. "Never. I knew for years, and I never expected what happened."

"Is it so bad?" Nereid said.

"It's like a seizure," Madame said opaquely. "Oh, god, I should get up, I should spot X, keep people from asking too many questions." She began to struggle to sit up, at least.

Nereid helped her sit up when it became clear that she was too agitated to rest. X was still held off the floor, but was no longer quite so high in the air. Madame took one look at X's face, which was lined with strain, and made a throat-cut motion to Zoltan, who nodded and stepped between a ponderous mage and X.

"Thank you for your generous assistance, oh, Oracle," Zoltan said with a graceful bow. "Your vessel needs rest, and we have our answers."

"VERY WELL, TRAVELLER," the Oracle said in its booming voice. "CARE FOR THE EMPTIED VESSEL AS WELL AS THE NEW VESSEL."

With that, X was released into Zoltan's waiting arms. Maelstrom took X from Zoltan and the Equestrian peremptorily gestured Zoltan back into the scrum of loudly-discussing Mystikai.

Madame reached out as Maelstrom knelt to set X next to her. She stroked X's sweat-beaded forehead maternally and whispered, over and over, "I'm so sorry."

Nereid stayed on the ground with the two of them, an arm around each, content to be a literal support. X was moving slowly, blinking dazed eyes up at the ceiling. Madame was still murmuring what sounded like apologies. As an afterthought, Nereid dried their clothes and faces and hair -- sweat and tears and whatever else would leave a bit of a crust, but at least they wouldn't feel damp.

"You have my promise," Michael Frost was saying, coming to stand near Nereid and Madame and X, "that I will match the Baroness' contributions financially, and that I will permit limited involvement of my Cosmics in a decisive para action."

Washington strode almost up to him, then past, saying, "And you have my promise that I will participate in the para action myself... if it seems fun." She kicked the door open and walked out of the board room.

"I am going to take Madame and X home," Michael Frost said, reaching down to effortlessly lift Madame in his arms. Nereid helped X to stand, and stayed under the strong arm that she remembered so vividly holding her up at one time. "The rest of you may go on discussing whatever you like. Zoltan, if anything significant comes up, I trust you will notify us via the usual channels."

"Of course," Zoltan said, catching Nereid's eye with a questioning raise of his eyebrows. Nereid smiled, she hoped, reassuringly, and turned to help X follow Mr. Frost out of the room.

Madame Destiny's theme today is clocks: tiny clockfaces adorn her dangling gold earrings, there is a half-dollar-sized gold watch resting just below the crisp collar of her buttoned white shirtwaist on a gold ribbon, and her left wrist sports a loose gold watch-bracelet. Across her neatly-tailored brown waistcoast drapes a magnificent triple-stranded heavy gold Prince Albert watch chain from one brass button to the watch pocket, and the fob of the watch chain is also a tiny watch. An enormous ring shaped like a grandmother clock lines her left middle finger like armor. The folds of her voluminous brown skirts periodically display a large golden watch hung like a nun's rosary from Madame's wide leather belt. Close examination reveals that the fine pattern on her waistcoat is, again, tiny clockfaces. This is only topped, so to speak, by the fine, tall, black silk tophat whose band is adorned all round with clockfaces.

Madame Destiny ticks from all sides and angles. They are all set to different times, and the resultant hum of unsynchronized ticking is suprisingly soothing.

She gently cracks her knuckles, one at a time, and smiles across the table. "A full reading today, yes, dear? It's been a while since I last saw you. Let's see what the Universe has been thinking about you lately."

( For Cliodhna )

Sorry about my post-fail last week. It's been a little rough weather here. But so is it rough weather in Wonder City.


Partying the Hard Way

Tam Lane was pressing her up against a cold metal wall, bending over her, his long auburn hair shading their faces. "Come on, baby," he was whispering, pulling her hand against the bulge in his jeans. "Do it."

Before Nereid could say anything past her horror, Tam was dragged away from her and thrown to the ground. Sophie brought a baseball bat down on the man's pretty face. There was a crunch, and a wail, and Nereid turned away.

A warm hand pressed against her back. "It's okay, Pacifica," Lucid's sympathetic voice said. "It's just a dream."

Nereid turned back to look at her, slowly rising into lucidity through her paralysis and confusion. "Really?"

Lucid smiled at her. "Yes, really. I should know, right?"

Nereid looked toward Sophie, who was still plying her baseball bat, even though most of the dream was fading away around them. Lucid said, "Sophie, time to go."

Sophie dropped the baseball bat with a little grimace and nodded, pushing some of her hair out of her face.

They walked silently away from the disintegrating scene, Lucid keeping an arm around Nereid's shoulders. Shortly, they came to a train station and mounted the steps into one of the waiting silver cars. They sat down along the side of the subway car, and the train started into motion, the rubber loops swinging silently with the motion of the car.

Nereid blinked, and took deep breaths, and looked down at herself. She was wearing her uniform, the swirling blues and greens in close-fitting spandex. She ran her hands over the fabric and forced herself to feel the texture, still breathing deeply. She'd done this a number of times, visiting Lucid's Dream Party, but it had been a while since their last trip.

"Just a baseball bat this time?" Lucid was saying curiously to Sophie as the train slanted downward into a dark tunnel.

"I've got a lot of anger issues right now," Sophie said.

"Apparently," Lucid said. "How've you been doing, Pacifica?"

Nereid blinked hard and smiled. "All right, I suppose, Leah. Wonder City is just kind of... hard."

Lucid nodded. "Seattle's no bed of roses but at least we're not having a modern-day Les Mis, like in California."

Nereid looked at her and said, "Les Mis?"

Lucid smiled briefly and bitterly. "Food riots. Water riots. Police declaring martial law and killing people left and right. It isn't just the LAPD, but that's where it started."

Something flickered in the window opposite Nereid. It was one of those advertisements consisting of a series of stills posted on the subway tunnel wall that become a little animated movie when the train rushes past them. This one only had a man's face in the center of a bright starburst. He was a handsome thirty-something with short, sleek ash-blond hair and bright, earnest blue eyes. He was speaking in the image, enunciating carefully so, Nereid supposed, someone could lip-read what he was saying.

Almost against her will, she was drawn to stare at his mouth, trying to puzzle out the words.

Lucid got up, walked across the car, and yanked down a window blind that Nereid hadn't seen there before, breaking the spell. "I am so very tired of that fucker."

"Who is he?" Nereid said, rubbing her eyes.

"Pastor Al," Sophie growled. "Tent revival boy. Is he appearing in the dream world a lot?"

"All the fucking time," Lucid said. She sat down heavily. "He's always trying to say something to the dreamers. It's not like he's actually here -- believe me, I've looked. I think that he's just a really potent symbol."

Suddenly, his face reappeared in every window of the car, and each face was saying something different, smiling a slightly different way.

Lucid's eyes narrowed and she stamped on the floor. Blinds snapped down over every window.

"We'll be there soon," she said after a moment.

"Good," Sophie said. Then, more softly, "Thanks."

Lucid squeezed Sophie's knee and patted Nereid's shoulder. "I couldn't let down some of my favorite people."

The Dream Party was less populated than Nereid had ever seen it before. The buffet was still busy. There was still a small jam session in the corner, consisting of variously-dressed people playing guitars, Vulcan harps, and drums. But there were definitely fewer beings chatting in little groups, and they spoke in lower voices.

Nereid noticed a woman sitting nearby, calmly watching roses grow from her left arm. Green sprouts burst through her skin, grew and extended, and eventually exploded into blood-red blooms. When one bloomed, she carefully snipped it off at the base with a pair of scissors, and slid the rose into a nearby glass vase that was overflowing with flowers. The water in the vase was red.

A small blue dragon alighted on the table, arranged its feathers carefully, and watched this ritual for a few moments before asking, "Does that hurt?"

The woman said, "Like a bitch. But it's the only way I know to get rid of them."

"Your friend is waiting in the private room," a second Lucid said, gesturing over her shoulder toward a door. The two Lucids nodded to each other and stepped together into a single Lucid. "Let me know if you want anything."

Sophie cast a longing glance at the buffet, but said, "Thanks," and, taking Nereid's hand, went through the indicated door.

X was seated on a straight chair with long legs crossed in the very masculine way Nereid had noticed before when X was angry. The outfit for this Dream Party outing consisted of a dark blue velvet cutaway coat over tailored black trousers and waistcoat. X was also wearing sunglasses.

X looked in their direction but didn't get up or say anything, though there was a nod to Nereid.

Sophie shut the door and said, without any introduction, "This is why I asked you both to come here." And then there was a sound like wrenching metal. Sophie let out a little gasp and staggered to one side, while another woman staggered away from her in the other direction.

The other woman was a stocky, dark brown African-American woman of medium height. Her dark hair was shaped into a short afro. There were deep lines around her eyes and mouth, lines that made her look a great deal older than Nereid would have guessed from the rest of her body. She was wearing a t-shirt and old jeans. After she caught her breath, she straightened up and put her hands on her hips.

"This is damned weird," she said, looking around at the three of them.

Sophie coughed and slid into a chair. "X, Pacifica, meet Renata Scott."

"Oh!" Nereid said, then covered her mouth with both her hands. Renata, the telepath who'd been in her head when she'd killed Sator. Right.

X rose, swept off the sunglasses, and crossed the room, extending one elegant hand. "So pleased to meet you."

Renata looked at X, grinned, and -- somewhat gingerly -- shook hands. "Hah!" she said. "This is damned weird. I'm glad to meet you finally, X. I saw you at Ruth's birthday party and didn't get introduced." She looked at her hand, then Sophie. "You must be filtering me big time."

"Well, me and your prison, I think," Sophie said, then waved a hand. "Tell them what you told me."

Renata shook hands with Nereid. Nereid gave her an embarrassed, somewhat hopeles little smile.

Then Renata threw herself into an overstuffed chair and said, "Sit yourselves down, and I'll tell you about the aliens."

X sat obediently, eyes fixed on Renata. Nereid sat down more slowly, glancing over at Sophie, who was leaning her forehead on her hands.

"They've been trying to get me to work for them," Renata said. "They won't say outright what it is they want me to do. But I suspect."

"They're projecting some sort of psionic energy via mechanisms Brainchild built," X said, and Nereid was a little startled by hearing X use Sophie's spandex name.

Renata nodded. "I know," she said, and glanced aside at Sophie, who hadn't raised her head. "And I know whose psionic energy it is."

X sat forward in the chair, perching on the very edge. Nereid blinked at Renata.

"Look," Renata said, looking at them, but running her fingers over the tooled leather of the chair she'd ended up in, "I'm imprisoned on the spaceship until I either work for them or they decide what else to do with me. They've given me a very comfortable apartment, and I'm heavily shielded from psionics there. The only reason I can project to Earth, in fact, is because I stuffed Sophie back into her head a few years ago, and so I know her better than any other human on the planet and could probably find her anywhere. The aliens have captured and imprisoned Ruth and the rest of the Gold Stars in an interdimensional prison, and they've got some jackass as their 'human liaison' whose wife is an empath. Somehow, they amped her up and she's projecting her own emotional dogma down at the U.S. of A."

X slumped back in the chair, exhaling, "Shiiiiiittttt."

Nereid looked over at Sophie again, but Sophie wasn't moving. So Nereid said, "Does she know about the new church and stuff down here?"

"Probably," Renata said with a shrug. "What little I got during my brief interviews with them was some serious right-wing religion."

X said, "That's probably what's doing it, then."

"Doing what?" Renata said.

X sat forward again, counting off on slender fingers. "Here it is: resource riots, little teams of men in black roaming the streets, martial law, nationwide mental health crisis, tripled suicide rate."

Renata stared.

"I can't get hold of Simon any more," Nereid said slowly. "Every time I call, his friend Megan answers, and she doesn't seem to know that... that Simon's human. I don't think he can be human any more. He told me he was feeling horrible about himself about and... you know he's trans, right? He was even thinking about... going back to living as a girl, just to try to make it easier to be human."

"I think the men in black may be minor telepaths," X said. "I think they may be altering potential troublemakers. A therapist I know told me that people who say they've met up with a group are often... never quite right afterward."

"I met some," Nereid said with a shudder, and started remembering like a nightmare. "For a little while afterward, I felt better. Or I thought I did. Everything was so clear. They gave me a ring. Every time I met them, they gave me a ring, and Sophie took it away from me. But after a couple of days, things weren't so clear any more, and my brain was like thick soup, and I'd feel even stupider than I used to in high school."

X reached over and put an arm around her shoulders. Nereid could feel herself shaking in the circle of that arm, but was so grateful for X's familiar warmth.

Renata's face had grown stern. She looked like an old woman, Nereid realized, though her body was young. "I can't play any more," she said. "I can't hide in my room. I didn't... I wouldn't face what was going on, but I've got to do what I can to... make it less horrible." She stood up, and her hands were clenched into fists.

"We're doing what we can," X said, also standing. "Or we'll try. I have friends who're trying."

Renata nodded sharply. "Once I know more, I'll get Sophie to bring us together again. Perhaps Lucid will be willing to bring in some of your friends, X."

"Will you come if we need to talk to you?" X asked.

"Tell Sophie," Renata said. "She knows how to get in touch."

Renata walked over to Sophie and laid a hand on the younger woman's shoulder. "Quit beating yourself up," she said quietly. "You can't help anyone that way." And then she vanished.

X sighed and said, "She's right, you know. We all need to work together in any way we can."

"Easy for her --" Sophie said, gesturing over her shoulder and upward violently "-- to say. She's not party to mass murder."

"You made an outstandingly shitty choice," X said, going to stand over Sophie, hands on hips. "I'm certainly not going to argue that you didn't. But you've got to find a way to try to make up for it now. It isn't like you're the first para to accidentally almost destroy the world."

Sophie snorted. "I could at least have done it more cleanly if I'd done it myself."

Nereid walked over to the two of them. "Yes, we all know how much better you'd be as a supervillain. You tell us all the time." She crouched down in front of Sophie and butted her forehead against her girlfriend's, looking up cross-eyed into Sophie's glasses. "But you're not, and I won't let you be, all right?"

Sophie almost smiled as she pulled back, shaking her head. "Puppydog eyes don't work at that range, dammit."

X smirked. "They do, though. From Pacifica, at least."

"That's her other damn superpower," Sophie said, standing and pulling Nereid up too. "Class 10 puppydog eyes. Let's eat, for fuck's sake."

Compass Rose, Episode 1: Once Upon a Time FINALE. May not be what you expect. :)


"You will note," said their once-upon rescuer, "that I am heroically refraining from saying I told you so."

"You will note," snarled Tom, "that I am refraining from punching you in the face a second time." Her knuckles were still sore and split from the last punch; who knew that faces could be so damn hard? She made a mental note to punch softer places should the occasion arise again.

Christopher said, "Um, could someone tell me what's going on? What are we doing?" He probably didn't mean to sound quite as plaintive as he did. The white sheet the Dean had given him for modesty was still draped around his shoulders.

Tom, the villain-prototype, and Christopher were sitting on white plastic garden chairs which looked as though they had been extruded from a Seventies orifice. Tom was drinking something that purported to be coffee from a plastic mug (white), Christopher was clutching his sheet and shivering, while their erstwhile betrayer was merely sitting with the tips of his fingers under his chin, looking villainous.

Although, come to think of it, he didn't have much choice when it came to the looking villainous department.

"Waiting for the Dean," said Tom into her mug of coffee.

"I'm not sure it's the Dean we're waiting for," muttered their pet villain.

"What on earth?" asked Christopher.

"You'd make me laugh if it wasn't prohibited," said the saturnine man.

"Prohibited?" asked Tom. "Is this one of your programming things again?"

"We've lost our rights," he said, looking up at the ceiling. "We got rid of them."

Tom gave Christopher a bewildered look. Christopher stared back with all the comprehension of a cocker spaniel puppy attending an astrophysics lecture.

The face of their villain-type threatened to break into a smile, but failed at the last moment. "Once," he intoned, "I was a real turtle."

Christopher got to his feet. "I'll get the Dean," he said. "There's something wrong with him!"

Their long-ago guide heaved a deep sigh of obvious patience and folded his arms. "Neither of you has had any education at all, have you?"

"Time to go," the Dean said, walking past just quickly enough to indicate that hurry was called for.

"Where are we going?" asked Christopher, as they all stood up, drawn into the Dean's wake like so many ducklings.

"What's taking you so long?" asked the Dean, prying open what looked like a computer panel with a fetching old-fashioned tape-drive but which turned out to be a door to -- of course -- a long dark tunnel.

Tom sighed and followed. After a moment, she said to their guide, "Do you know where we're going?"

He replied, "I can guess. But I would prefer not to, given your friend."

It was much longer than Tom wanted to walk -- she rehearsed grumpy monologues in her head, mostly having to do with how much her feet hurt and how little the Dean said about where they were going -- before they reached a large, round room.

Christopher said, looking at the large metal pyramid (helpfully decorated with small blinking lights and some sort of controls near the bottom) which occupied the center of the room, "Is that Godmother?"

A pleasant female voice answered from mid-air, "Please input story, myth, fairy tale, parable, allegory, fiction, plot, or desired outcome."

Christopher recoiled. "Oh my God, it is!"

However, upon taking in the distinct lack of death-bots or murderous knights, he slowly uncoiled. "What are we doing here?"

The voice repeated, "Please input story, myth, fairy tale, parable, allegory, fiction, plot, or desired outcome."

"Um," said Christopher.

"Please input story, myth, fairy tale, parable, allegory, fiction, plot, or desired outcome."

"Dean," said Tom slowly, "What have you done?" Her arms were ridging with horror.

The Dean glanced at her briefly. "Nothing, in the sense you mean."

The once-and-future villain laughed. It started out as a hollow chuckle and escalated into a full-fledged mad-scientist whooping and cackling. Christopher and Tom stared at him in astonishment. The Dean eyed Godmother thoughtfully.

"What on Earth..." started Christopher, then stopped, perhaps remembering that they weren't.

"Are you--" started Tom.

"She's done nothing! Nothing!" He had to pause to get his breath back. "Nothing but show the eternal emptiness of existence, of course! Godmother is dead! Long live Godmother!"

Tom and Christopher stared at him some more.

"Was I sleeping, while the others suffered? Am I sleeping now? Tomorrow, when I wake, or think I do, what shall I say of today? That with Estragon my friend, at this place, until the fall of night, I waited for Godot?" He burst into another cackle of laughter.

Tom looked at the Dean. "I don't..."

The Dean sighed. "AIs are notoriously unstable. It looks like this one died quite a while ago."

Christopher said, "Then what tried to kill us?"

The Dean said, "Automatic security measures. You'll notice they weren't very... efficient."

"And the story?" Christopher asked in a very small voice.

The Dean patted him gently on the shoulder. "Well, you have to understand that the people here don't have any other way of relating to outsiders."

Their once-betrayer leaned against the wall and mopped his forehead on his sleeve. "What the penny public want is plot, and plenty of it; surprises, and plenty of 'em; mystery, as thick as a November fog."

"Did you know about this?" demanded Tom.

He shrugged. "Make something unspeakable and you make it unthinkable."

The Dean gave him an opaque glance. "Well, it's certainly been an education for... Tom and Christopher," she said. "But we really must go."

The villain gave a short, brief nod. The Dean strode toward a small door on the opposite side of the room that Tom could have sworn had not been there before.

Tom paused and asked, "What are you going to do?"

He shrugged. "Practice measurement, practice the sign that means that really means a necessary betrayal, in showing that there is wearing."

She frowned. "What."

The smile which had been hovering for so long finally broke free. It did not make him any more good-looking. "You know, I never really understood Gertrude Stein, either."

Tom gave him an awkward smile and then turned to follow the Dean, who was standing and gesturing Christopher towards the door.

"Wait!" said Christopher. "What about -- shouldn't they know that it's all an illusion, that Godmother doesn't exist? What about that weird war between Godmother and the Merry Men? And, and, the Prince got killed and--"

"You can't solve people's problems for them," said the Dean.

"But can't you at least--"

"Do what? Raise the dead? Save the world? Rescue someone like a prince on a white horse?" The Dean leaned down towards him and said, very quietly, "Not in my mandate."

Christopher reeled back as if slapped.

"We're just going to... leave them here?" Christopher said after a moment.

"Yes," said the Dean. "We leave. They can stay. And wait for Godmother, if they like." And she shoved Christopher through the door.

---

Quotations used in this episode:

“You'd make me laugh if it wasn't prohibited,” "We've lost our rights," "We got rid of them," and "Was I sleeping, while the others suffered? Am I sleeping now? Tomorrow, when I wake, or think I do, what shall I say of today? That with Estragon my friend, at this place, until the fall of night, I waited for Godot?"
Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett

"Once, I was a real turtle."
Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

"What the penny public want is plot, and plenty of it; surprises, and plenty of 'em; mystery, as thick as a November fog."
The Doctor's Wife, Mary Elizabeth Braddon

"Make something unspeakable and you make it unthinkable."
"What Can a Heroine Do?" Joanna Russ

"Practice measurement, practice the sign that means that really means a necessary betrayal, in showing that there is wearing."
"Tender Buttons [A Chair]," Gertrude Stein

The third batch of single-card draws!

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