Wonder City Stories

My apologies for falling down on the posting last week. It's been an interesting couple of weeks, with very little time or brainspace for writing, but I'm attempting to put coping mechanisms in place. While we wait to see if they work, here's your next episode!


Resistance Is Futile

Ira was listening to the television when Suzanne said, suddenly, "Ira, will you please come to church with me tonight?"

He hadn't heard her come into the living room, her steps on the carpeting drowned out by the news coverage of some sort of atrocity in the Midwest, another house firebombing, the third that week. His surprise addled his wits for a moment. "What?"

"I need you to come to church with me," Suzanne said, and there was something strange in her voice, something half-desperation and half-tears.

"Suzanne, sweetie," Ira said gently, "I've told you before that I don't like churches. I'm a nonobservant Jew, and I'm happy that way."

"Please," she said.

He thought about it. What cost to him if he went with her? But she'd changed so radically after starting there, and he was worried about what sort of technological mental broadcasting was happening at those gatherings. He certainly wasn't one of those people who couldn't be affected telepathically -- his encounters with Master Mind in the 60s were proof of that. And what if he started talking about the sedition happening in Madame Destiny's living room? No, the potential costs were too high. And besides, he really didn't like churches. "I'm sorry, sweetie," he said.

After a long moment, she choked on a sob. "Oh, Ira," she said, and hurried from the room.

He puzzled over that as he listened to an interview with an "expert on superherodom" discussing the apparent absence of the Gold Stars. "We're better off without them," the expert said. "They're a danger to every American, both morally and physically, particularly heroes that style themselves as ultimate humans." He put an emphasis on the word "ultimate," of course. "They're just the sorts to put themselves above the laws of man and God."

He heard Suzanne come in this time. Her voice was subdued as she said, "I'm sorry, Ira, but I have to ask you to... to leave." She hiccuped.

Ira went cold from his scalp all down his back. He didn't have to ask her to clarify; he understood perfectly. It was, in fact, the sentence he'd thought he'd hear three years ago, after Josh died. His stomach tying itself into knots of panic, he kept his voice as steady as he could when he said, "When?"

Suzanne gasped around another sob, swallowed, and said, "Before Sunday."

Sunday. Sunday. What had she been saying yesterday about Sunday? That the tent revival was coming back to town. He tried to force his brain to focus on the conversation at hand. "All right," he said, feeling an unnatural calm settle over him, and he knew it for shock and welcomed it. "I see." Well, he didn't, but he wasn't going to go there.

"I'm sorry," she said again, miserably. He could imagine her wringing her hands.

"It's all right, sweetie," he said, and the endearment drew another sob from her. He fumbled for the remote and shut the television off. "I guess I'm making things difficult for you."

"I have to go," she said, voice thick with weeping vibrato. "To church. Tonight."

"You go ahead," he said, nodding slowly. "Just go on."

He heard the front door slam shut a few moments later, and sat in the silent house, waiting for the reverberations to die away.

Slowly, his brain started to turn over the possibilities of why this was happening, but he quashed that. No use speculating now. There were more important things to think about -- specifically, where to go, and when.

Madame's was right out -- the second bedroom was X's, and the guest room had been turned into holding space for Madame's extensive wardrobe. Jane was staying in Lady J's tiny house with her. Maybe Ebb and Flo could put him up for a bit. There might be other folks he wasn't thinking of. And then there was always his old friend, the YPCA.

As to when... staying after tonight was out of the question, he suddenly decided. He couldn't stand the idea of Suzanne drooping and sniffling around him until Saturday -- he couldn't stand it for even one night.

He stood up and fumbled his way to what used to be his bedroom.

Suzanne had thoughtfully organized the room so he could always find things by touch, folding and hanging his clothes in the same places week after week. He opened his closet and reached into the back to find his battered old leather suitcase. He set it on the bed, opened it by old instinct -- he'd once used it a great deal, when he was subbing for different hero teams week after week -- and started to pack. Underwear and undershirts first, then his two best dress shirts and a half dozen lesser shirts, and two pair of his khaki trousers. His one suit. His sneakers, his loafers, and his dress shoes. He packed his precious little box of mementos of Tin Lizzie, his wife-who-never-was, and his lockbox of papers last, padding around them with socks and his shaving kit. He closed the case and snapped the catches into place.

He sat on the bed for so long he lost track of time, thinking about the years of living there, caring for his comatose son, and existing in the same space with Suzanne. He'd long since come to think of Suzanne as his child, and he knew he was going to be devastated in a day or two. Better to get this over with now. Rip off the bandaid, Ira.

Ira stood and picked up his suitcase, carrying it easily to the front door. There he set it down and started to populate his pockets with his wallet and everything else, but stopped when he got to his keys. With fingers that trembled a little too much, he tore the metal that held the housekey to his keyring and dropped the key into the bowl with a dull clink, the only evidence of his reaction. He took up a pen and the pad of paper that was always there, flipped to the second page, and shakily wrote his best sightless version of, "Will send for the rest when I have a place."

He put on his overcoat and hat, took up his suitcase, and extended his white cane with a flip of the wrist. He went out the door and pulled it shut behind him very softly but firmly, and then made his way to the bus stop.

Upon entering the Y, he immediately collided with the new chairs that hadn't been there last time he could see. He stifled a curse and made his way toward where his desk had been.

"Ira!" a familiar voice exclaimed from down the hall.

He turned that way, feeling utterly betrayed by his deity and the universe at large. He heard the hurried footsteps on the tiles and tried to force a smile. "Andrea," he said, and his voice sounded dead in his ears.

"Ira," his first ex-wife in this timeline said angrily -- she said almost everything angrily -- "what the hell are you doing with that suitcase?"

He glanced downward at the suitcase in his hand as if he could see it. "Carrying it," he said.

"That's your old suitcase," Andrea said. Then, more softly, "I thought I'd thrown that damned thing away years ago."

"Yep," he said. He felt something trickle down his cheek and drip off his chin, and nearly died of embarrassment on the spot as he realized he was weeping old man tears.

"Ira," Andrea said almost softly, laying a hand on his arm. She smelled of talcum powder and a faint lilac perfume. "Ira, sweetie, what's wrong?"

"She's... she asked me to leave, Andrea," he said, and bit his lip in mortification as more tears made their awkward way down his lined cheeks. "Something with her church, I think. I didn't ask."

Andrea started to say something several times and stopped each time, until she finally said, "So you were just going to come break your back on these springloaded cots, rather than call any of your friends. Just like you, you proud old beast."

"Just until I could think of someone to call," he said plaintively.

"You're coming with me," Andrea said firmly.

"I..."

"With me," she said. "You can stay in David's room." She added, uncharacteristically apologetic, "I... I haven't gotten around to clearing it out..."

He was about to try to refuse, recalling that her husband had only died six months earlier, but she'd already taken his suitcase from him, tucked his arm in her free elbow, and started towing him down the hall toward the parking lot door. "Thank you, Andrea," he said in a low voice.

Andrea sniffed as they emerged into the open air. "I'm not about to leave an old blind man to stay alone in the goddamn Y, even if he is my ex-husband."

Jubilee

It was my first time running the android avatar that Larentia Canis had built me in a crowd, but I was going to by damn be AT Ruth's birthday party, not just watch it on a camera.

She was somewhat awkward to handle at first, no matter how much practice I'd had running her in my home. I called her Metro because Larentia, in a fit of whimsy, had recreated the android from Fritz Lang's Metropolis, with the feminine body and helmet-shaped head and deco styling, only with a dark copper finish. I was sititng in my long distance chair, wearing the control coronet. I was also drugged to the gills. Metro also had all sorts of electronic filters that affected mental powers, but the meds brought me down to a level actually manageable by those filters. I had full physical sensation, just as if I were there, without the mental onslaught of the people around me. I was just me, walking around on the hot sand beach of the remote island where everyone had gathered.

I spent a little time enjoying the feel of the sun warming the metal of my skin and the smell of the ocean and hot sand.

Of all the (few) people who knew me, Suzanne Feldstein found me first. "Renata? Renata Scott?" she said, a brown-haired, middle-aged white woman peering into Metro's eyes inquiringly.

"That's me," I said through Metro's speakers, and offered a hand. "Glad to meet you in the flesh, Suzanne. Well, flesh and metal."

Suzanne shook my hand vigorously. She was dressed in a yellow-floral-print sundress, and the sun was already starting to redden her shoulders. "I'm so glad you could come. C'mere, let me introduce you around some."

And so I met Simon, and he was just as fine in person as he was on camera, and if possible, sweeter. "Ms. Scott!" he said, shaking my hand. He was wearing a blue muscle shirt with "TEAM SIMON" on it in block letters and loose black shorts. His hair and Van Dyke were sharply trimmed. "I'm glad to meet you! Oh, I'm glad Mom did such a good job on that android body; it's really gorgeous."

How could I blush at a compliment meant for his mother's handiwork? Don't ask me. "Your mother has been very generous and kind to me over the years. This is only one example."

"She's like that," Simon said, then he stepped back and gestured to someone. "And here's someone who's been wanting to meet you too. Ira, this is Ms. Scott."

"Please," I said, shaking the old man's hand, "both of you, please call me Renata."

Ira beamed at me. He was wearing a big straw hat, a yellow polo shirt, and khaki shorts that showed his pale knobbly knees. He was a little thin and stooped, but otherwise looked younger than his 83 years. "I'm honored to meet you, Renata. You did such a bangup job that night, though I can't imagine it was easy."

"You did a pretty good job yourself, sir," I said.

"Ira," he corrected me.

"Ira," I said, wishing Metro's smile wasn't so very... scary, and that Larentia's attempt at the overlay projection (a la Maria's duplicate) hadn't failed so spectacularly. Someday, I'd be able to smile at people too.

Suzanne, I realized from her movements and her half-empty drink, was already more than a bit tipsy. She reached out and snagged the arm of a mousy, bespectacled white woman in jeans and a t-shirt. "Watson, Watson, come meet Renata."

So there was an orgy of introductions conducted by Suzanne, who was adding every moment to her "sheets to the wind" quotient. I met Watson Holmes, Megan Amazon, Ivy and Malik Canis (each holding a squirming puppy they introduced as belonging to their sister Jasmine -- I wasn't entirely sure what they meant by "belonging", given that the puppies were exclaiming my name delightedly), Ana Hernandez, Flo and Ebb Starr, the Silver Guardian (who was an old friend of Suzanne's apparently), and Sekhmet of the Gold Stars, and... a lot of other people whose names I'd heard but who I'd never met "live" before.

I was glad to be drugged to the gills, honestly. It was the largest crowd I'd been in for over 20 years.

Simon finally, kindly, as the afternoon advanced alarmingly toward evening, led Suzanne off to the buffet tables, saying, "We'll catch you later, Renata," over his shoulder. He winked at me, the little devil.

Left to my own devices, I made my way from the beach, where I'd been trapped by the introduction nexus after arriving there via the teleport link, up toward the line of umbrellas and beach chairs where I spotted Gloria Revelle's lean, solemn face peering around periodically. I figured that wherever Gloria was, Ruth was likely to be.

I was right. Ruth was ensconced in a thronelike wooden beach chair with some colorfully umbrella'd adult beverage in an enormous glass in one hand, grinning like a fool up at me. "You did make a gorgeous thing there, Larentia," she said, glancing up at Larentia, who was standing nearby. Ruth carefully balanced the glass on the arm of the chair, and got up to hug me. I saw Sophie reach out and steady the glass behind her, just as Ruth got me in a careful bear hug.

I leaned Metro's chin on her shoulder and enjoyed the various sensations of a solid, muscular, warm human body in my arms. I loved Ruth for many reasons, not least because for her, hugging one of her friends manifested in an android body was hardly the oddest thing she'd done in the past five minutes. "You look so much better than you did last I saw you, Ruth," I said.

"I feel so much better, Rennie," she murmured, not letting me go yet. "You helped give me back my baby. I won't forget that."

"Hell, Ruth, you gave me my life," I said, not willing to let go, feeling like I'd been in the desert for 20 years and was just getting a small sip of water. It had been so long since I'd touched a human being, and I can't actually remember when I last hugged someone without immediately being inside her or his head. "I'm glad to give something back. I mean, what do you get the most powerful para on Earth for her birthday anyway?"

We laughed, and finally stepped back a little, but our arms lingered around each other's waists. Ruth gestured around, saying, "You know Gloria, of course."

I shook hands with Gloria, and was amazed to actually see the woman smile. She had a little lopsided smile, with a mostly closed mouth, and I noticed that she had a bit of an overbite -- I suspected that might be why she doesn't smile more often. "Gloria, thank you for everything you've been doing lately with the chef roster. The variety has been really wonderful."

"I thought we could use some new blood in the kitchen," she said in her deep voice and blunt MidAtlantic accents. "You're my lab rat, you know. These are all chefs I try out on you before using them for catering and events."

"Glad to be of service," I said. "Delicious service."

"Here's Olivia," Ruth said, drawing the Fat Lady into the circle. The Fat Lady was wearing a remarkable gauzy white dress that drifted dramatically on the breeze and looked just right with her complexion, and her sleek black hair was caught up under an extravagant white sun hat.

"Renata, I've heard so many good things about you," Olivia said, turning her famous dimples and dazzling smile on me.

I confess to feeling just a little overwhelmed and, well, fangirlish, so I think I managed to mutter something polite and possibly gushed about loving her work before Ruth sicced Sophie on me.

The girl had some of the most intense dark eyes I've ever seen, and even though I technically shouldn't have been able to sense a damned thing about her, I could feel the wheels of her mind turning and turning. It was almost like I could see and feel the clockwork moving through those remarkable eyes. That's what you get from the intimate connection of stuffing someone back into her head, I suppose. There we were, caught in mid-handshake, staring into each other's minds, I think, for what felt like a piece of eternity, before we both shook ourselves and she said, "I've been wanting to thank you for everything you did."

I shrugged. "There were lots of folks who did more than I did."

"Yes, well," Sophie said, flashing a grin. She reached behind her and dragged another white girl her age foward. This one was brown-haired and utterly average in terms of looks and overt charm, but I recognized her.

"Pacifica," I said, shaking her hand. "Glad to meet you outside your head."

She smiled shyly, pressed her lips together and hunched her shoulders a bit. "I'm flattered you remember me, Ms. Scott."

"Renata," I said, thinking, Girl, how could I possibly forget you? Aloud, I added, "Your arm seems to've healed up nicely."

"It's still stiff," she said, "but Sophie makes good healing accelerators. Even if I did have to spend time in tank full of blue goo. Why was it blue, anyway?" she added, turning to Sophie.

"I didn't want anyone eating it," Sophie said.

"No one would eat that, it smelled too bad," Nereid said.

Sophie grinned. "You'd be surprised..."

There was a loud crack of lightning overhead, and everyone tensed. Ruth looked up quickly, then rolled her eyes and said to Sophie, "Didn't you give that child an invitation?"

Sophie shrugged. "I did," she said, "but she always prefers to crash." I thought I picked up just a bit of mischief there, as if, perhaps, she'd had some idea in advance.

High above us was a flying stage, limned in neon and flashing lights against the twilit sky. It slowly lowered until it was hovering just above the ocean, with the spectacular painted clouds of sunset sprawling out behind it. Myriad small, hovering robots levitated from the stage and sprang into formation in the air, turning colored spotlights onto the platform. A backdrop of enormous metal struts extruded from the back of the stage, arching up into Gothic points and then blooming into weirdly delicate curlicues that suggested tentacles, or possibly fruit.

"What the hell is that?" Sister Power said, as though she knew exactly what the hell it was but was a bit afraid of the answer. She crinkled a smile at me, her dark brown face highlighted by a glorious mane of silver hair. I'd forgotten how old she was; she'd gotten her start in the 1970s, so she must be in her 60s by now.

Ruth massaged the bridge of her nose. "It's Sophie's little friend. You remember her, Imara. The one who started a band in college. Calls herself Gogo."

Sophie snorted at this description.

An enormous grinding noise silenced us all and a pillar rose up from the middle of the stage. It appeared to be girdled with a bank of steampunk consoles and quite a lot of flashing lights. The grinding noise stopped, and then, in a burst of music, it flew open, revealing a young white woman whose top was dressed in a silver jumpsuit, and whose lower half was a kickline of seven sets of robot legs. A drum line started. She leapt down to the stage with surprising agility for someone with fourteen legs, and subtle instrumentals started up. She started to declaim in a deep voice that was projected to several points around us.

People keep saying it's the end days,
Skynet's won, we've run the maze.
In the center is Room 101:
Can we boldly go when all is done?
All the things I tried to save
Are just putting flowers on a mouse's grave.
Game over, man, and everybody dies
And there's nothing to eat but lies, lies, lies.

"I do believe," Gloria said, "we are about to have a concert."

"Oh, god help me," Ruth said, taking the umbrella out of her drink so she could swallow it faster.

A robot guitarist, keyboardist, bassist, and drummer emerged from the surface of the stage, apparently fused to their instruments. I noticed the drummer had long hair so it could swing it back and forth. All of them were silver-skinned, like Gogo's jumpsuit and legs, but with gold accents. Gogo strutted down to the front of the stage (there's a lot of strut in seven sets of robot legs), seized a microphone that was dropped from above by one of her ubiquitous flying drones, and burst into song with a crash of music.

I won't be just a worker in the heart machine
I'm going to see the light of day.
I'm going to crack the world's shell is what I mean
Put on my wings and fly away.

Everyone asks me am I bad witch or good
Or one of the genetic elite
But I am telling you I'm Lilith's Brood
And we have never known defeat!

We're from Ultima Thule
And we include me and you.
She's the hero we need
Cause she makes us heroes too!

"Oh, no," Ruth groaned, and finished her drink.

Sophie looked contrite. But only a little. Nereid was watching Gogo with her mouth hanging open. An attractive androgynous Asian person appeared over Nereid's shoulder and raised inquisitive eyebrows at Sophie, who said defensively, "It's not my fault!"

Just living day to day
Learn to rise up and say
She's the hero we need
To sing Hero of Heroes today!

She's the Ultimate test!
In her Prometheus rests,
She's the hero we need
Because we give her our best!

I was pretty amazed at the dancing you could do with fourteen legs in perfect unison. At the end of the first chorus, backup dancers also melted out of the stage. I felt distinctly upstaged when I realized that they all looked just like my android body, except in silver. Talk about embarrassment for wearing the same outfit to the party.

"Hey," Larentia said faintly. She patted my shoulder apologetically.

Gogo spoke into her microphone again.

At Yoshiwara's we'll dance and fight
Always alone in the night,
But reaching out, touch hand to hand,
Galadriel or Servalan.
Is the Slayer really born this way?
Or Sleepless walk both night and day?
Or maybe we'll stand up and see:
You have no power over me.

Sister Power said, "None of this makes any sense. What the hell is a servalan?"

Sophie started laughing helplessly into her hands.

The music kicked up again.

For some reason, Gogo threw her microphone into the audience. Then, with a satisfied little smile, she leaned back and another one sprouted, or seemed to sprout, out of her chest. She grabbed that one and kept singing. I noticed a middle-aged black woman, oddly wearing a suit on the beach, making her way through the crowd with purpose in her eyes. She didn't even flinch at the volume of the music. I nudged Ruth. Ruth looked over. "Marilyn, heeeey, girl!" she said, waving her hand. I wondered idly how many of those giant glasses of booze Ruth had already consumed. The woman, who I now recognized as Marilyn Henderson, lawyer to paras, arrived in front of Ruth with a grim little smile on her face. "Interesting entertainment." "It's not what I would've chosen, true," Ruth said. "But the girl's got a good heart." "And is showing a great deal of leg," Marilyn said with a glance upward. "What're you doing, wearing that penguin suit here on the beach?" Ruth said. "Take that jacket off and set a while." Marilyn straightened her shoulders in an ominous way that made both Gloria and I tense up. "Ruth Thomas, I am here to give you some important paperwork." Ruth laced her fingers together and placed them under her chin. "At my birthday party." She didn't make it a question. "Yes," Marilyn said. She whipped a folder out from under her arm and extended it to Ruth. "It couldn't wait." Gloria's thin form had risen up and arched in a predatory fashion, inclining very slightly toward Marilyn. Ruth sighed and took the folder.

We'll come down like angels on Tokyo And we don't need roads where we're going. At the end of the world can you tell me where And in what way the time is flowing? I can build my friends but I can't build you A place for opossums to call their own. But don't look back, don't blink I'm telling you It's dhoom again but we are flown! A hero right through Like flying snow in bamboo She's the hero we need Cause she makes us heroes too! Take my ansible call 'Cause it's for one and all She's the hero we need Cause she makes us stand tall! She won't be suppressed Or sent into the West She's the hero we need Because we give her our best!

Gogo chose that moment to distract us all with another spoken piece.

We need a hero that's worth our while
Whether Wonder Woman or Trio-style
So put on your clothes, or dye your hair
And sing electric grandmother
From Alderaan to Whileaway
The winning move is not to play.
They tell us we're beyond the pale
Bionic-made or automail,
Whether you are you or me
Virtual or karakuri
Rise up and greet Red Dawn today
Like Nauscicaa we'll fly away;
To Iskandar we'll fly away;
On ships that sing we'll fly away.

And she then started singing again.

Ruth looked back down at the folder in her hands, heaved another sigh, and flipped it open. I have never before seen Ruth stunned. I'm not sure anyone has. Her whole body jerked and her eyes went wide and she stared fixedly at the papers. Then her hands began to tremble, and Gloria snatched the folder away before those tiny muscular tremors could reduce what she was holding to paper pulp. Sophie had moved to stand at Ruth's shoulder, and I noticed her giving Marilyn what I sensed was a conspiratorial and questioning look. Marilyn's smile widened incrementally. The thing about Ruth is that she is the most powerful para in the world. And so the fact that none of us saw her move is just not that surprising. The look on Sophie's face changed to triumphant delight as Ruth threw her arms around her, though. "You two!" Ruth roared, only locally drowning out Gogo's band. "You two!" she said again, apparently at a loss for other words. "What's going on?" asked Imara, peering curiously over Gloria's shoulder. Gloria said, mock-grumpily, "That girl finally pulled her head out of her ass is what's going on." Sophie said, breathless with embarrassment and her mother's embrace, "My adoption papers. I signed them."

She's returned from the blue And Zaha'dum too-- She's the hero we need Cause she makes us heroes too! Dark Lords big and small We will spit on them all She's the hero we need Cause she makes us stand tall! Stand tall, stand tall, stand tall Stand tall, stand tall, stand tall Stand tall, stand tall, stand tall...

Gogo's army of tiny flying robots, which looked, I noticed, like dragonflies, chose that moment to shower us with her new album.

Larentia caught one and so did I. The cover was a brown-skinned woman's arm, reaching up as if to pluck a fruit from a tree, but the fruit was a giant oval containing a twisty, maze-like structure. To give Ruth and Sophie a moment of pseudo-privacy, Larentia began to read from the cover. "'Mitochondrial Eve,'" she said. "I like the title."

I overheard some people passing nearby. One of them said, "I liked her second album the best, 'Amazon Women and the Space-Time Continuum'."

The other said, "Oh, I haven't heard of that one."

"It was back when she was Gogo and the Gadgettes," the first said, and they drifted out of hearing.

"'My Mother's Positronic Brain,'" Larentia read from the track list bemusedly. "'Dear Mr. Heisenberg.' 'Cyborg Manifesto'?"

I skimmed down the list myself. "'Bad Chemistry,' 'Soylent Blue,' 'Love Me and Despair'."

Gloria said, with a roll of the eyes, "Anyone else get the feeling that child is trying too hard?"

Nereid, who I had forgotten, said wistfully, "She looks like she's having fun."

On stage, Gogo had swung into her well-known song, "A Robot of One's Own."

The well-tailored Asian person to whom I really needed an introduction said, "There's a dance floor over there, Pacifica. Would you care to join me?"

Later, around the time that Sophie was finishing up her guitar-playing on-stage with Gogo (oh, yes, she'd just happened to have her guitar with her), I overheard Suzanne saying to Watson, "Is this your work? Remind me never to piss you off!"

I looked over and saw Suzanne showing Watson her StarPhone. Watson frowned down at it, clearly puzzled. "No," she said after a moment, "that's not my work."

Suzanne noticed Metro looking her way, so she turned the display toward me. "'Aloysius MacCready, legally 93 years old,'" I read aloud, "'has been arrested on a charge of second-degree murder and multiple charges of armed robbery, among other offenses. MacCready was processed for a temporal displacement grant upon his return to this dimension, and had disappeared from his stated address. More in-depth analysis of historical records found that in 1932, he participated in an armed robbery of a bank for African-Americans during which he pistol-whipped a bank teller. The teller, 26-year-old Norman Jefferson, later died of the head trauma.'"

"I know the statute of limitations doesn't expire for murder," Suzanne said. "And the temporal displacement laws extend the limitation for the armed robbery charges. But the witnesses must all be dead, so how can they prosecute?"

Watson skimmed more of the article. "They had eyewitnesses who knew MacCready by name and appearance, and who gave depositions identifying him. So with that in hand, they could use the Stefanopolous Laws."

Ana had looked over from her conversation when I started to read, and now she spoke up with, "I think I've heard of the Stefanopolous Laws, but I've never been sure what they're about."

Suzanne said, breezily, "Watson'll have to explain. I'm too drunk. But they involved a vampire."

Watson quirked a smile. "Andrei Stefanopolous was a vampire who was a repeat spree killer. He was notorious in Europe in the late 1700s and early 1800s, and then he moved to New York City. They caught him after a rampage through an Italian and Greek neighborhood in the 1880s, but of course, there weren't para-ready prisons then, and he escaped to go underground again. He resurfaced in the same neighborhood 1952, and the grandchildren of the original people victimized went to the police with the photos from the 1800s and their own photos of him in the neighborhood, begging police to pick him up. They didn't -- all the original witnesses were dead and it seemed like too much trouble and besides, there weren't many people who actually believed in vampires at that point. So then he went on a much wider-spread killing spree."

"Oh, yes, the Vampire Murders," Ana said. "That's all in the college para history books."

"Yep," Watson said. "And after they caught him and the Gold Stars imprisoned him, the story broke that the police had refused to pick him up and why. So the Stefanopolous Laws were passed in a hurry to cope with immortal or temporally displaced violent offenders."

"Technically," a sleek, black-haired, white -- very white -- man said, sliding easily into the conversation and gently twirling his black parasol, "it is for the long of life, not the immortal. Because no one is truly immortal, yes?" He had an eastern European accent and what had to be a hand-tailored white linen suit. He was also the only person I'd ever seen wearing a Panama hat on whom it looked stylish.

Watson nodded and waved a hand of acknowledgement. "You're the authority there, Zoltan."

"Zoltan," Suzanne said in that floppy-headed drunk way some white women have, "it's night time. Why are you carrying that parasol?"

"Ah, dear lady," he said, "to protect against the bites of sharks."

"Oh," Suzanne said, blinking.

"Not to mention robots," he added, "and other undesirable things that fall from the sky."

"So what will happen to this MacCready anyway?" Ana pursued, having produced a StarPhone of her own and apparently searching for the article.

"He's being held in prison," Watson said. "Apparently some anonymous person provided the police with both his DNA and a single-use scanner to locate it, because he has para powers that enable him to avoid direct detection." She looked up and past the dance floor and nearest buffet table toward a line of well-occupied comfortable chairs.

I glanced in that direction and saw Sophie sitting there, with Nereid on her lap, chatting with Simon and Ivy.

"Who could've supplied a device like that?" Ana pondered, frowning at her phone.

Watson and I looked at each other, then back at Sophie. Sophie noticed our regard and gave us a smile and a little finger wave, as if she knew exactly what we were thinking.

---

Note from the Author:

Apologies if the table format didn't work well for you -- I optimized for what I thought would be a usual sort of view.

Gogo's song was written as a winter holiday present for me by my multiply-gifted, brilliant, beautiful, magnificent wife. I had been banging my head against how to do it, and then she volunteered. I don't think I've ever seen quite so many SF&F references packed into one place so effectively, and I think it also works beautifully as a pop song. (And yes, Lady Gaga DOES exist in the Wonder City universe, so Gogo IS in fact purposefully referencing her.) See this document (PDF) for most of the references.

Also, in case you're interested, the full track list for Gogo's new album, "Mitochondrial Eve", contains:
My Mother's Positronic Brain
Mitochondrial Eve
Dear Mr. Heisenberg
Cyborg Manifesto
Les Guérillères
Bad Chemistry
Soylent Blue
To Milton, Love, the Monster
Ultima
Love Me and Despair
The Doom Song
I Can't Be Having With This
Bonus Track: Schoolhouse Rock Mashup (feat. "Sufferin' for Suffrage")

---

Wonder City has been nominated for the Rose & Bay Crowdfunding Award! Thank you! Now, y'all should go check out all the nominees for fiction, webcomics, art, poetry, patron, and other projects. And VOTE!

And remember to vote for WCS at Top Webfiction!

Abiit, Excessit, Evasit, Erupit

Suzanne hurried out of the kitchen of the Stars 'n' Garters on Simon's heels. Simon, for his part, bolted out the cafe door after Nereid, speedy even on two legs. The Equestrian and Lady Justice were standing, looking after him.

"That sounded like a suboptimal result," Suzanne said, grimacing.

"Damn noisy kids!" the Damned Yankee exclaimed from behind his newspaper. "All on drugs, the lot of 'em!"

"I found out what I needed to find out," the Equestrian said, sighing and sitting down. "He arranged it all. I can check that little monster hunt off my to-do list."

"And you picked out some of the holes in the rest of his story," Lady Justice said, edging around the Equestrian to put an arm around Flo's shoulders.

"If he shows his face anywhere near me," Flo said through gritted teeth, "I will damn well shatter his bones and crush him to paste and wash the rest away into the sewers."

"I know, dear," Lady J said, her hand pat-patting Flo's very tense shoulder.

Suzanne poked her head back through the kitchen door curiously. Ebb was sitting on his stool next to the prep table, crumpling his little white cook's hat in his hands. He looked up at her bleakly. "Will she be all right?" he whispered.

She took a leaf from Lady J and patted him on the shoulder awkwardly. "Teenagers are very resilient," she said. "And she has her friends."

"I know Molly said it had to be done," he said, still in a low voice, "but I wish... I wish we could've warned her or something. It was just so brutal."

Suzanne hugged the man in a spontaneous rush of affection. He was a soft, round teddy bear of a man who smelled of fried food. "I really do think it will be all right, Ebb."

By silent agreement, everyone settled in to waiting for Simon, at least, to return. The Equestrian and Lady J fell to playing chess. Suzanne took over Madame Destiny's table with her laptop and wrote. Flo and Ebb went about the business of their cafe, dealing with a number of takeout customers as the dinner hour drew close. Damned Yankee cursed kids and drugs and the war several times. The Tinkerer never looked up, but continued to, as far as Suzanne could tell, disassemble and reassemble a pocket watch.

Molly got antsier and antsier as the hours drew on. She stood up and moved around restlessly, muttering to no one in particular that it was her responsibility to see this all the way through, and returning to her game.

It was dark by the time that Simon reappeared in the diner. "I caught up with her," he said, flopping down in the chair opposite Lady J. Suzanne got up and hugged him from behind. He gave her a tired smile over a sagging shoulder.

"Well?" the Equestrian said irritably.

"She was upset," he said, pausing to smile and thank Flo for the soda she brought him. "Obviously. He'd just vanished when he left -- I couldn't even track his scent."

"He learned a little something over there, then," Molly said. "Something for covering his tracks. Probably some other glamour too."

"Well, he did it pretty well," Simon said. "I got her to sit down and stop running around calling him and things. And then she cried a lot. But..." He stopped and looked perplexed while taking a long drink. "She didn't... like... leak at all. Usually she's so, um, soggy, you know?" He looked at the Equestrian and Flo, clearly baffled.

Lady Justice laughed without any trace of humor. "She's been learning control. Because she has to. Because she's killed someone."

"My poor girl," Ebb said from the doorway.

"She did what she had to do," Flo said, in his general direction, "and I'm proud of her for it."

Simon sighed. "She... felt different while we were talking. Anyway, she cried for a long while, and she was really angry with you guys. I don't think she'll be talking to you for at least a couple of days," he added with a twisted smile.

Lady J mirrored his smile, but Molly was on her feet again, pacing. "So what happened next? Did he show up?"

"No," Simon said. "I finally walked her back to her flat at the Cosmics. And... he'd tossed it. The whole place. Anything that wasn't nailed down and was reasonably portable, he took. Cash she had in a nightstand drawer, her laptop, her StarSeed, some jewelry -- that made her laugh in a way I'd never heard from her before -- even her clock-radio. Anything that looked like it might be expensive or pawnable, I guess, to him."

"Little bastard," Flo, Molly, and Suzanne all said simultaneously.

"Anyway, she cried some more, and I think she would've sat there on the floor in the mess, crying, if I hadn't started cleaning up." Simon finished his drink. "That was what really took so long. He made a thorough -- spiteful -- mess of the place."

"I wish she'd gotten a chance to throw him out," Lady J said. "It would've felt much better for her."

"How do we find him now?" Flo said.

"We don't," the Equestrian said, finally standing still. "It's over, except for the crying and other things. He's got Faerie magic to help him hide out, and some money. It'll be very difficult to track him."

"But surely...!" Flo said, turning to her angrily. After a short, silent staring match, Flo dropped her gaze. "He doesn't deserve to be able to do that to my daughter," she said, hunching her shoulders a bit. "Not and get away with it."

"I promise that if I encounter him," the Equestrian said, "I will deal with him accordingly."

"Flo, I understand," Lady J said, "but we all have better things to do than go on a manhunt for this... Aloysius."

"There once was a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it," Suzanne quoted thoughtfully.

Simon let out a short bark of a laugh. "Well, in terms of people who do matter, I left Pacifica in an apartment that was much cleaner than she left it this afternoon, I daresay, with an impossibly cheerful android for company."

"You're a good man, Simon," Flo said with a sigh, stroking his cheek. "Thank you for taking care of her."

"Any time," Simon said, standing.

The gathering had started to become awkward, so Suzanne snatched up her purse and laptop and they departed in a flurry of farewells.

In the car, Simon closed his eyes and laid his head back against the headrest. "Jasmine could have handled all that better," he said wearily.

Suzanne started the car and looked over at him. "You handled it as it should be handled," she said. "You did the needful things. That's all anyone can do."

He opened his eyes and smiled at her. "You're the expert on that, love."

---

Note from the Author:

Here is the final episode for 2011. I expect it's just made y'all angrier at Aloysius, because he's a right little asshat. Still, Simon's getting a bit overworked in terms of helping resolve crap, poor guy.

See y'all in 2012!

Please remember to vote for WCS!

Habeas Corpus

Suzanne woke from her warm, comfortable doze with Simon reaching over her for his phone, which was vibrating on the nightstand. "Do you have to answer it?" she said drowsily.

"I just want to see who it is," he said, fumbling the phone around in his hands. "The hospital? What the hell?"

Suzanne blinked herself more awake as he flipped open the phone. She smiled vaguely, admiring the beauty of his hands.

"Hello?"

She could hear the buzz of the person's voice on the other end, but couldn't hear the words. Of course his volume would be turned wayyy down.

"Speaking," he said, frowning.

Suzanne twisted around to see his face more clearly.

"You have got to be shitting me," he said to the person on the phone.

Simon was silent for a long moment, then he sat up and swung his legs out of bed. He started to fumble one-handed for the buckles of the harness at his hips, and Suzanne leaned over to help. She caught the assembly, as well as the Great Blue Willy, as he stood up and shook it loose. "All right, all right, I see," he said, reaching down to the floor to grab a shirt, a pair of underwear, and his jeans. "All right, I said, we'll be there as soon as we can." He flipped the phone shut against his hip.

Suzanne was sitting up in bed now, fastidiously cleaning the toys and watching him start to pull his clothes on. "What's up?" she said.

"You will not fucking believe this," Simon said, jumping up and down to fit into his tight jeans. "I don't think I fucking believe this."

"I can't tell you one way or the other unless you tell me," she said, tucking the toys into the cabinet at the head of the futon.

Simon looked at her, a little wild-eyed. "They want me to come claim Brandon's body."

She blinked. "What?"

"Yeah, they want me to claim his white boy ass and all the rest of him," Simon said, pulling a muscle-hugging t-shirt on over his head. "Because they can't reach either of his parents, and there's some law -- have you ever heard of it? -- called the Gold Stars Act."

"Oh, yes," Suzanne said, rolling out of bed and going in search of her own clothes. There was a trail leading back to the couch in the front part of the apartment. "If a para's body isn't claimed within two weeks, it reverts to government property and goes to the National Institute of Paranormal Research for... whatever research they want to do with it."

"The morgue crew at Wonder City General apparently don't like to see that happen," Simon said, stepping into his blue hightops. "Which does make me feel better about them, I guess. But since no one can reach the deJongs and no one knows of any other relatives, someone has to claim his body and 'make arrangments' within the next 12 hours or it goes to the NIPR."

"I'm appalled that no one has repealed the Gold Stars Act," Suzanne said, sliding into her underwear and slacks. "I always thought it had been. Repealed, I mean."

"Ask Ira about it." Simon came up behind her to fasten her bra. "You don't have to come with me, you know," he said. "I'm going to call the others. I figure if I've gotta suffer, so do they."

"I wouldn't miss it for the world," Suzanne said, turning to kiss him hard. "I'm a journalist, and you, my fine, fine object of lust, are news."

"I love it when you talk dirty pool," Simon purred against her shoulder.

While Suzanne drove them to the hospital, Simon called or texted the others from the Wonderful House.

They met Jeshri and Lizzie in the main lobby. Tom was on a truck run in Illinois, but told Simon to keep him in the loop.

"I can't believe they called you," Jeshri said, hugging Simon.

"Oh, hi!" Lizzie said, staring at Suzanne. "Mrs. Feldstein, right?"

"Please call me Suzanne," she said, shaking first Lizzie's hand, then Jeshri's. Both the young women shot Simon looks with raised eyebrows.

"She's, um, my, uh..." Simon said, a blush creeping up his neck to his ears, then forward into his face.

"Girlfriend," Suzanne supplied cheerfully. "Also, I'm a professional noseyparker. Win-win for me."

"That's right, you were there that night because of the blog thing," Jeshri said. "I... we didn't know Simon was involved with you." She gave Simon a knowing smirk that only made him blush more deeply.

"All right!" he said, rubbing his face, "we're here on the world's stupidest mission."

"Yeah," Lizzie said. "Doesn't he have parents somewhere?"

"I called the producers," Jeshri said. "Betty, the admin, told me his mom is in... Cambodia or someplace. Shedding white on the people, I suppose."

"Oh, right," Simon said, memory dawning. "He mentioned that she was a missionary once."

"No wonder he was such an asshole," Lizzie said. "What about his dad?"

Jeshri shrugged. "She said she'd given all the home info to the police. Maybe his dad is anti-para or something."

Lizzie sighed. "We shouldn't even be here. We hated him, remember? Let his corpse go off for research."

"I've been thinking about that too," Simon said.

Jeshri looked at the floor. "You guys don't have to stay, but i'm going to go claim his body."

Lizzie gave her a look that clearly said she thought Jeshri was unhinged. "Why?"

Jeshri shrugged again and didn't look up. "I guess because I hope that someone would show up for me if I... you know."

Simon and Lizzie traded shamefaced glances.

"Well," Simon said after an awkward silence, "Let's go. This will be festive."

It was very festive, Suzanne thought, for meanings of festive equating to "depressing as hell."

There was paperwork, and Simon, Jeshri, and Lizzie had to produce identification. Then they had to identify the body.

Brandon's blue eyes were closed and his blond hair was limp and dark against his clay-pale brow. He looked much younger than he ever had on television. His bare shoulders were bonier than Suzanne thought they would be, his muscles lax on his frame, his skin bloodless and gray. There were a few dark marks on his chest, contusions and punctures on his arms, and there was something not quite right about his ribcage, something unusually flat but lumpy.

Simon's hand trembled in Suzanne's. He reached out and took Jeshri's hand. The three of them stood together. Suzanne glanced at Lizzie, who stood a little apart, her face composed and emotionless.

"Yes," Lizzie said after a long moment, her voice flat and unlovely and practical. "That's him."

Simon and Jeshri both nodded, and the morgue staffer let the sheet fall back over the body's face. "We need the name of a funeral home to send him to," the staffer said.

The three young people exchanged baffled looks. Suzanne raised a questioning eyebrow at Simon, and he nodded. "Weinstein Funeral Home," she told the staffer, who dutifully wrote it down on her clipboard while walking away toward the office. In response to Lizzie and Jeshri's blank looks, Suzanne said, "They did my husband's funeral."

"Funeral," Lizzie said, staring at Suzanne, then cocking her head at Jeshri. "Funeral? What the hell are we going to do about that?"

---

Note from the Author:

Poor ol' dependable Simon.

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What Your Shoulders May Refuse

A smoky indigo darkness like a tornado's phantom spun down out of the hole in the dome. It touched Sator and he laughed, spreading his hands wide so that the winds stretched out to the walls well before they reached the floor.

Nereid's arterial gout that had been, at least, distracting him a bit, was blasted around the room by the roaring wind. The air reeked of it. Everyone looked like they'd walked through a Hollywood slasher movie. Blood dripped off Nereid's nose and chin and she was badly nauseated from the smell. Everything felt cold and coagulated after the wind passed her on its way to the wall.

At least Sophie, being down on the floor now, seemed to be out of the range of the suction of the funnel, and being untouchable, wasn't covered in gore. She was moving around slowly, apparently confused by the information her spirit-senses were giving her. Nereid wondered why Renata hadn't pulled Sophie into the telepathic link.

Her mind's all slippery, Renata said. I tried.

Simon was a wolf again, leaping toward the magician and trying to lock his jaws into the man's calf muscle. Sator laughed at him and kicked him in the chest. Simon yelped and spun away, but said, in the link, I'm fine. I'm fine.

Nereid knew that Suzanne was out there, listening and watching, and kept looking away from Simon, hoping he was telling the truth.

The Equestrian was on Maelstrom's back, and they were in the air. The Equestrian said, Fuck me, fuck me, that wind is eroding the dimensional wall. He's trying to merge this world with Earth!

Maelstrom threw back his head and let out a shrill horse scream, which drew fire from nowhere to rain down on Sator and made the hair on the back of Nereid's neck stand up. The magician flinched as the flames struck him through his sorcerous shield, and then he gestured dramatically and a net of spinning, glowing barbs closed around Maelstrom and the Equestrian.

Sator flicked a hand at Nereid, and Nereid found herself sailing through the air. She tried to catch herself, knowing in the insanely dilated time as the wall came closer that she was about to hurt a lot, that she mustn't hit her head. Then she hit and felt sharp pains in her arm, her shoulder, and her chest as she crunched into the wall. But at least her head didn't hit. She slid down the wall to the floor, her costume and skin tearing on the sharp teeth of the spinning metal gears.

She looked up. Tam was crouching behind the remains of the control panel that Megan and Meteor had thrown. Sophie had stretched to life size and was crouched, staring around, not far from him, apparently bewildered. Nereid tried to get up. There were warning twinges in her right shoulder that told her: Not this arm. Try again later. She rolled to the other side and pushed herself up to her knees with her left arm. She weaved back and forth, then got her feet under her and stood up.

The world was weird and tinny and distant.

Sator had a moment of freedom while the Equestrian and Maelstrom were dealing with his snare, and he grinned down at Sophie. "Come, you'll seal my victory," he said, and reached out his hand.

Nereid -- her face weirdly numb and cold, her vision going dark around the edges, the voices in the room and in her head moving further and further away -- knew absolutely that she was going down. As Sophie's spirit stretched unwillingly toward Sator, Nereid slid to her knees and locked her gaze doggedly on Sator. There had to be something, anything she could do.

Keep away, keep away, KEEP AWAY FROM HER, she thought, or possibly shouted, her vision going black. She reached out desperately, dragging with all her might on the blood moving in his body to keep him from stalking after Sophie.

---

Note from the Author:

Possibly it's just as well you didn't have to wait till Tuesday for the resolution of this one. :) As before, 10 COMMENTERS gets you the next new episode on Thursday!

And remember to vote for WCS!

Hope Like Hell That Man Is an Evil Man

Megan shouldered Meteor aside and leapt over the contorted body of the serial killer they'd chased and through the doorway. She felt Meteor follow via the link. In a corner of her mind, Megan was very impressed with Renata's power -- not every telepath could maintain contact with multiple minds through a dimensional gate, even initiating new links on the other side of the gate. In fact, Megan couldn't think of a single telepath in the literature who could.

Sator's a showier mage-type than we thought, she reported to Watson.

Sator was inspecting his opponents coolly from his vantage point, hovering well above the floor. "Ah, you," he said, his gaze falling upon the Equestrian. "I wondered when she would send you my way."

"You can hardly imagine that she'd ignore what you've been doing here," the Equestrian said, rolling a green glowing ball from hand to hand.

You knew what was going on? Nereid exclaimed in the link.

Of course not, the Equestrian said.

What is going on here? Simon asked, and Megan could hear an echo of the question from Suzanne and Watson.

If evidence can be believed, the Equestrian said, he's collected hundreds of human souls to power an interdimensional engine.

"She rarely cares about the outskirts of her realm," Sator said.

"She cares when you start rearranging the furniture in her house," the Equestrian said, gesturing upward.

"Oh, she'll like the results," Sator said with an unpleasant smile. "For about five minutes. And then I'll destroy her."

The Equestrian looked over at Maelstrom. "Where've we heard that one before?"

"Only every two-bit pretender that's come along," the horse, now much more horselike, said.

I think you all should probably back out slowly, the Equestrian said. We're used to dealing with blokes like this.

Sophie! Nereid and Wire said simultaneously, and Megan noticed, for the first time, the bell jar containing a tiny version of Brainchild.

Dammit, the Equestrian said, and there was an edge of dawning horror from her mind. She's probably the linchpin to kick his machine into high gear. There are few things more powerful than a disembodied living human spirit in this realm.

Bugger, Maelstrom said, and stepped in front of the Equestrian again just as the room became a fireworks show of multicolored magics.

"Where did you get this many souls, Sator?" the Equestrian said, gesturing a magical shield into existence.

"I've been here a long time," Sator said. "And humans -- particularly paranormals -- are very useful for fetching and carrying."

Like the serial killer? Suzanne said. I wonder if he demanded the victim type switch for some magical reason.

"Like the poor chump you've been using lately?" the Equestrian said, raising blue vines from the floor to entrap Sator.

"Oh, he was a killer to start with," Sator said, creating a shredding whirlwind around himself that took the vines to pieces. "He came to me, pathetic thing, wanting to know how to get rid of the ghosts that were following him. So I took them away, and tucked them here for safekeeping. And he went off to make more."

"Not all girls, though," the Equestrian said. Maelstrom kicked a ball of fire up at Sator.

"Oh, it was some Oedipal thing," Sator said, flicking the fireball away. "He didn't get to kill his father, so he wanted to kill his father. I promised to raise his father so he could kill him -- imagine me going to all that trouble for a foolish little creature like that -- and he went out to fetch more souls. But temptation took him back to his original targets. Humans are so predictable."

There you go, the Equestrian said to Suzanne.

That's terrible, said Suzanne.

At least there won't be any more, Ira said comfortingly.

By this one, Suzanne said.

Megan looked around as she ducked the lightning and fire and wind. There was a big, heavy control panel nearby, behind Sator. She ran to it and found herself face-to-face with Meteor, who apparently had the same idea. They nodded to each other, bent, and jammed their fingers underneath the solid mass of steel and lights.

Megan counted, One... two... THREE! and they both heaved with all their might.

The panel tore free of its moorings and slammed into Sator's back, exploding into more lightning and fire and wind.

Sator lost concentration, apparently, as his part of the fireworks ceased for a moment. There was a whirring, whining sound that cut through the air, and Wire's trademark wires, which she reputedly never used on living things, lashed out to wrap around Sator.

His clothing was reduced to ribbons, but his skin was impervious. He pursed his lips and raised a hand. The wires rebounded, lashing back toward their creator.

Wire leapt aside just a fraction of a second too late, and her left arm just... fell off below the elbow.

Megan felt Renata clamp down on Wire's reaction, but she saw the blood burst onto the floor. Wire fell, clamping her remaining hand over the stump. Somehow, Wire stayed silent against some sort of desperate panic that Megan didn't understand.

Worse, the churning, spinning wires kept on and slashed through the glass bell jar that hovered above the funnel, sending glass fragments everywhere.

Nereid screamed as Brainchild's spirit slipped toward the abyss of the black cone.

---

Note from the Author:

Ten commenters get you the next episode on Thursday!

And remember to vote for WCS!

Battlestations!

I settled into what I call my long-haul chair. It's intensely soft and it floats on some sort of magnetic cloud and is more stable than the floor, so even if I lose my shit and try to get up without the proper escape sequence, it won't totter over or anything. All my monitoring systems were online and checked. All my robots were nearby to try to minimize anything physical that I might try to do to myself. I had taken my pain medications and my focus-enhancing medications. At hand was an automated system that could detect incipient psychic flares (which are like solar flares, except they disrupt mental processes rather than electromagnetic processes) and either administer a fast-acting intramuscular tranquilizer or a hard electric shock, depending on the predicted magnitude of the flare.

I took a few deep breaths. It had been a while since I last did this. Being the nexus of a telepathic network is a surprising lot of work, primarily filtering of content and translation of the way that a given person thinks about things into a mutually understandable language. Doing this for a group of non-telepaths simultaneously requires the most exacting walls and split-second multitasking. I expected, when I agreed, to be wrecked for at least a week afterward.

I had remembered to go to the bathroom before I started. My mother had crammed some valuable life lessons into my brain on those long car rides to the Shore.

"Imaging on," I said, and the computer flipped up photographs of my telepathic targets. Which first? I contemplated the Wonderful House crew and decided, as I had expected, that I felt the most connection to Simon, so I focused on his photo, paying minute attention to the perfect lines of his jaw and cheekbones, the tight ripples of his brown-black hair, the yellow eyes behind their tinted shields...

Hello, Mr. Canis, I said when the tingle of contact rippled down my spine. His was a warm, quick-moving mind, full of an idealism I'd not had since I was eight or so.

Hello! he replied, trying not to sound startled, though I knew he was. A pleasure to, uh, meet you.

He had the pleasantly repressed mind of someone who has been trained to cope with psionics. The pleasure's mine, Mr. Canis. I stopped short of telling him I was a fan. Nothing like having a telepathic fangirl in your head to make you nervous.

Now it was easy. I looked at the others through Simon's eyes (and his other senses, which were distractingly acute) and added them to my collection: Jeshri, whose mind was a sharp stacatto of thoughts like blows; Tom, who was in an agony of fast-moving anxiety; Lizzie, whose world was always a little blurry; Megan, who was quivering with a steel-jacketed terror; Suzanne, whose inner world flew apart in pieces and crashed back together with her heartbeat; Watson, whose turbulent ideas had parted and smoothed for my entry; and to my surprise, Suzanne's father-in-law Ira, who was abuzz with excitement and nostalgia.

I stopped short of picking up the camerawoman, and after a quick consultation with Watson, left her out. She had not, after all, consented to a telepathic link and all its risks. I did scan her quickly, though, and discovered that she was Jeshri's camerawoman, her name was Eartha (yes, named for Eartha Kitt), she was, in fact, para, and she was rather nervous and excited about all this. At least they'd warned her it might be dangerous.

I saved the ghost for last. Meteor was alarmingly present for someone possessing another person, and I only got the faintest whiffs of the host personality. I wondered if Watson had set this up to see if I could pry Meteor loose from her moorings. I would believe in that sort of Machiavellian scheming from her.

All right, I said to them all. Everyone's in the loop.

I naturally picked up things I shouldn't know from their subconscious emotional levels. It shouldn't have surprised me that Megan and Simon had a history, I suppose, but it did; they'd played it very cool in Megan's one appearance on-screen. Watson and Megan were lovers, and both of them had been involved with the woman possessed by Meteor, resulting in some spectacularly conflicted emotions. Suzanne and Simon, of course, were desperate for each other. Lizzie had mad crushes on all three of her housemates (that was another surprise). Meteor hated everyone equally for being strange, perverted, and living (that was not a surprise). Lizzie also felt like she really should have gone before she left the house; I had to filter that like whoa or everyone would need to pee, including me.

Thank you, Watson said once I'd delivered all the general greetings. Her mental voice was crisp and snappy, and she was also speaking aloud for Eartha's benefit. You all know where you need to be. Megan, Meteor, you start now. House crew, give them two minutes and then start strolling to your destination.

What about you? Jeshri said. She was speaking aloud as well.

I'll be only a few blocks away with Suzanne and Ira, coordinating with Renata's help, Watson said.

There was a wisp of an apology as soon as my first name came out. Nothing like being inside each other's minds to bring everyone to a first-name basis, is there? I assured her.

Amusement came back from Watson, and I turned my attention to following Megan and Meteor.

The two of them proceeded in silence that was angry on Meteor's part -- I could tell she hadn't been entirely warned that she'd have to work with Megan -- and irritated on Megan's part -- because Meteor was snappish and because she had a terrible conflict between wanting to hate Meteor and having some sympathy for the girl. They were trying not to be noticeable as they hurried to the dilapidated dock where they were to hunker down and wait. Meteor, growing, could get them to the meeting place in a few seconds rather than the couple of minutes it would normally take to run there. I would have to do a tight job of filtering on these two: Meteor not only hated Megan but was terrified of her, particularly of being touched by her. A contagion sort of terror. Homophobia at its most refined. Lovely.

I watched the Wonderful House crew trying to stroll casually to the appointed meeting place. Jeshri and Lizzie kept exchanging reassuring hand-squeezes. Tom was concentrating on looking as intimidating as possible, throwing back his broad shoulders and puffing out his chest. Simon was quivering with nerves, paying exquisite attention to every breeze and every sound. He was worried about being able to get out of his clothes fast enough, and so had worn a thin knit v-neck sweater and a loose pair of linen trousers -- things he knew he could rip easily.

Watson was chattering easily and meaninglessly with Suzanne and Ira. Ira was peppering her with questions that even I could tell came from long experience -- no wonder Watson wanted him there as part of her strategy team. If nothing else, he could make a general prediction of the behavior of most sorts of supervillains.

I took a deep breath and consciously relaxed the muscles that had tensed up during this preparation.

It was almost midnight.

---

Note from the Author:
And so...

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We'll Look At Them Together, Then We'll Take Them Apart

Suzanne basked languorously in the heat of Simon's body, her gaze drifting across the blue floral draperies of the four-poster bed. Her fingertips moved absently over the flawless brown satin of his hip. She considered her previous lovers in light of her current life, and silently bemoaned twenty-five years of believing that those ham-fisted lunkheads knew the least thing about how to make her skin sing.

Her lazy train of thought was disrupted by an explosion of triumphal music from somewhere near the floor. She was glad that Simon's phone had not sounded that particular ringtone -- the victory music from one of his favorite videogames -- a few minutes earlier. He would have been insufferable.

It went off again and she nudged Simon. "See what it is," she said into his ear.

He muttered something, but rolled to the edge of the bed and leaned waaaaay off it to reach his trousers on the floor. The bed and breakfast liked the really high old-fashioned beds; Suzanne needed the provided stepladder, though Simon just bounded onto the mattress. Ah, youth.

Gravity began to overcome friction as he fumbled and cursed, and so she grabbed hold of Simon's legs to keep him from sliding off onto his head, not relishing the potential emergency room stories.

Simon rolled onto his back and sat up with no assistance from anything except the remarkable abdominal muscles he'd been developing. She couldn't resist kissing them; all of them. "Hey!" he said, then, "Mmm," as she got distracted with her proximity to other body parts, and there wasn't much talking for a while.

Finally, she said, "So who was that on the phone?"

Simon scrabbled under the sheets, the blanket at the foot of the bed, and finally found the phone inside Suzanne's pillowcase. "A text from Tom," he said. "He says Jeshri's gotten an anonymous threat."

Suzanne's journalistic instincts started digging themselves out from under the tingling in her toes and other portions of her anatomy. "How anonymous?" she said.

Simon's fingers flew over the tiny keyboard. Suzanne had got quite good at texting recently, but she'd never match up to the younger generation's speed and dexterity. She restrained herself from kissing his fingers, because she knew that it would only lead them astray from the topic again.

The phone buzzed in his hand a moment later -- apparently he'd taken it off ringtone -- and his lips pursed attractively. (She had to stop looking at him!) "First there was a comment on her blog. 'You won't like it if the others get out.' And a link. The IP address goes to some dead end in Nigeria. The link goes to a site in Russia, and it's a photo of Jeshri dancing."

"Let me guess," Suzanne said, sitting up and peering over his shoulder at his phone. "It's one of a set of photos."

"Got it in one," Simon said, still exchanging texts while talking. "Three boyfriends ago took photos without her knowing -- he showed her afterward -- and some of them are compromising. Really compromising."

"I don't want to know, do I?" Suzanne said, remembering some photos from one of her own college relationships that fortunately never followed her because she grew up in the era of rotary-dial telephones and vacuum tubes.

Simon gave her a shrug. "I dunno. I can probably imagine worse things than whatever was in those pictures. Tom says that clicking the photo took them to the next comment, which was on a Wonderful House forum not sponsored by PARABI," he said. "The subject was 'Jeshri' and the content was a date and time in UTC and a location in longitude and latitude."

"Also anonymized somehow?" Suzanne said, snatching up her tablet from the bedside table. "Have they looked up the location yet?

"No," Simon said, and read them off from his phone.

Suzanne brought up a lookup and entered the coordinates. Somehow she wasn't at all surprised by the result. "Staybird Park," she said heavily.

"At least he doesn't think we're onto him?" Simon said. "Otherwise, why tip his hand like that?"

"Anyone looking into this?" Suzanne said, tossing her tablet back onto the table.

"The forum owner is cooperating with Jesh," Simon said, "but of course the producers think this is the best thing since sliced bread. So they aren't doing a damned thing."

"The killer's not such an idiot that he'd think she'd go alone," Suzanne said. "Maybe he thinks he can handle you and Tom and Lizzie?"

Simon bit his lower lip and stroked his Van Dyke. "If he's superstrong and invulnerable, like you think, of course he could take us. Tom can challenge him by not sleeping! Jeshri would be limited by access to electricity. Lizzie... doesn't do much without kitchen implements. I'd be the biggest problem, but if he took me down fast, the others would be cake." He exhaled and rubbed his face. "I'm just trying to think of who to call to bring in on this."

They looked at each other for a long moment, then both said decidedly, "Megan."

---

Note from the Author:
I'm sure it was obvious to all of US, but you have to make allowances for their scrambled brains. ;)

Stormcrows and Sympathy

As Suzanne was driving them through the evening sleet storm, Ira said, "By the way, hon, I found a new one in the archives."

Suzanne had been thinking about Simon and how she would get to see him next week and whether or not to try the little boutique hotel in town, or if they should run down to a B&B in New Hope for the overnight, so her entire romantic steam engine of thought had to come to a halt before she could switch over to the more prosaic Amtrak train. "New one?" she said to cover the hiccough in her usually-swift mental processing.

"Another murder," Ira said. "A guy named the Jellyfish was killed last December, not too long before... you know, everything. His body was shoved under one of the Staybird docks, instead of up in the park around the main town dock area like the rest of them. Little tiny back page item."

"Between the location and the timing, it's no wonder he was a back page item," Suzanne said, frowning. "No one likes to hear about violence in Staybird. It's supposed to be our quaint little Victorian town within the city or something, according to the tourism board."

"Despite the fact that it's always been one of the poorest areas," Ira said, looking out the window. "Anyway. I thought you'd want to know. I pulled the clipping out of the stack for you."

"Thank you, Ira," Suzanne said, pulling up at the curb. "Do you know anything about the Jellyfish?"

Ira shrugged. "He was a middle-aged thug, though he started out trying to be a hero twenty-odd years ago. Poor kid. You should probably check with your police friends to see if he was strangled too."

Suzanne nodded, stuffing her keys into her purse. "I'll do that." She thought of Ira, painstakingly poring over the clippings in that stack while she was at work, peering through his cataracts and a magnifying glass to find just one more clue, and finding it. She added, "That was great work, Ira."

Ira gave her his dazzling smile. "Glad to do it."

They got out of the car and Suzanne dropped a few quarters into the meter in front of the Stars 'n' Garters, squinting against the driving tiny stinging shards of ice. The blue door was a little kooky and inviting, though the sign hanging lopsidedly and the cracked windows were somewhat less attractive. The windows were steamed up, and Suzanne could only see a few shadowy figures moving ominously inside.

Then Ira opened the door, and the cheery little bell dissolved the threatening illusion. The inside was brightly lit and warm and comfortable, if a little shabby around the edges. The melamine tables were occupied by, mostly, Ira's contemporaries, several of whom she'd last seen at Josh's funeral. She smiled at Madame Destiny, who gave her a little wave. She nodded at the Damned Yankee, who blinked at her in confusion, apparently not recognizing her as the cute young thing whose posterior he had smacked with such vigor at his centennial birthday party. The Tinkerer, swathed in coats and sweaters and scarves and goggles and a hat, didn't even react to the door. Lady Justice rose to greet them, her straggling grey hair more or less captured by a rubber band at the nape of her neck. A slight, short-haired Hispanic woman in her twenties rose with her and grinned madly at Suzanne.

Ira shook hands with Lady J and said, "Lady, you remember my daughter-in-law Suzanne, right?"

"Of course," Lady Justice said in her husky voice. "You know, don't you, dear?"

"That one of your powers is to cause people around you to tell the truth?" Suzanne said. "Yes, ma'am." She laughed inwardly at herself -- she hadn't called anyone "ma'am" in quite that tone of respect in a long time. Simon was rubbing off on her. "If I hadn't known it before, reading Ms. Hernandez's excellent article would have told me." She extended her hand to the younger woman. "Ana Hernandez, I presume."

"Suzanne Feldstein, of course," Ana said, shaking her hand with enthusiasm. "You've been one of my journalistic idols since I was in school. We read your classic 'Masks In Silence' piece on sexual harassment on para teams. It was brilliant! It's such an honor to meet you."

Suzanne managed to keep her face from showing too much; she wasn't certain how she liked being a "classic." "You're very kind," she said, one of her standard platitudes dug up for the occasion. "And this is Ira Feldstein, my --" she quickly discarded her temptation to call him her "trusty sidekick" and just said "-- father-in-law."

"Mister Metropolitan!" Ana said, shaking Ira's hand. "I feel like I'm meeting so many legends because of meeting Lady Justice. It's all so amazing."

Lady J patted her on the shoulder. "You're seeing that we're all just human after all." She gave Ira a wry smile and shot an ironical glance toward the Damned Yankee. "Just one more word of warning," she added to Suzanne. "If you don't want to be forced to tell the truth, don't try to say anything at all."

"That's interesting," Suzanne said.

"No one's ever figured out if she just stops up the part of the brain that lets you spin tales," Ira said. "Didn't have the science to find out back in the 40s."

"And now no one seems very interested," Lady J said, mock-sadly. "Ah, well."

Tthey all settled down at their table. Flo, her orange beehive hairdo resplendent and her traditional waitress uniform crisp, emerged a few seconds later with a single menu that she handed to Suzanne. "Everyone else want your usuals?" she asked, snapping her gum.

"Yes, thank you," Lady J said, and there were affirmative murmurs from Ira and Ana.

"Just a cheeseburger and a diet cola for me, please," Suzanne said, returning the menu.

Flo nodded. "Flo," Lady J added as the woman turned to go. "Still no word?"

Flo gave the table a tight smile. "Not since the message from the Equestrian, no." She hurried into the back.

Suzanne and Ira gave Lady J quizzical looks. She said in a low voice, "Her daughter went off with the Equestrian -- some quest for the Young Cosmics, after one of their friends that got lost. Molly sent word back that Pacifica got separated from the group and they were looking for her."

"Lost in Faerie?" Suzanne said, voice low but appalled. "That's awful. Poor Flo."

Lady J nodded and Ana made a sympathetic noise. "Anyway, she's been waiting for any more news, but you know... Faerie." Lady J grimaced. "I just hope the poor kid doesn't have an experience like mine; it's hard to come back to a world that's run past you. At least now she's not likely to be declared dead while she's missing."

Ira patted Lady Justice's hand awkwardly. "She'll be fine. Molly'll find her, and everything I've heard about Pacifica tells me she'll find her way all right. She's got that true-of-heart thing going for her."

Lady J gave him a twisted smile. "So did I," she said.

They all fell silent at that, until Ana pounced on Suzanne in a frenzy of trying to overcome the mood. "So! You're taking up blogging! I've been reading your coverage of the murders, and I have to say, your evidence is pretty convincing. I can't understand why the police won't acknowledge it."

"I think I've shamed them with Yanaye Smallwood's story," Suzanne said, thinking back to the funeral, where she hadn't approached the family, but one of their friends came over to earnestly shake her hand and thank her. It was only after a short frenzy of conversation that she found out the woman was the sister of Renata Scott, her contact. Theresa Price was a dignified, matronly black woman of fifty-something, with only a few silver hairs in her perfect coiffure that weren't concealed by her hat, wearing a black dress that fit her perfectly, who had made Suzanne feel both welcome and awkward, as well as terrifically underdressed. She sighed inwardly and chalked it up, again, to a learning experience. "One of my contacts says that they're reexamining all the evidence, and they've contacted the Pittsburgh PD."

"I'm glad, though I doubt the impetus came from within," Ana said, with a cynical twitch of her eyebrows. "I'm betting you have a reader in high places who made a few phone calls."

"Oh, you're probably right," Suzanne said with a sigh. "I like hoping that maybe my golden prose will make a difference in and of itself."

"It probably did, dear," Lady J said. "Just not the way you hoped."

"As long as they're starting to take the serial killer proposal seriously," Ana said. "Maybe you can prevent any more deaths."

Suzanne pursed her lips doubtfully. "I expect we're going to get a few more bodies before the police manage to spot anything useful. Or maybe the killer will just move away, wait a little while, and change his victim profile again."

"They usually don't," Ira said.

"But he might, since he's done it once already," Suzanne said. "Or maybe we really are dealing with two separate killers and the Pittsburgh killer just moved to town to join in the fun."

"You'd think that in a town full of people who can see through walls and jump tall buildings in a single bound," Lady J groused, "we wouldn't have issues like this."

"What if it's one of the rooftop-dwellers, though?" Suzanne said. "What if it's someone all these noble protectors trust? Or are just used to seeing out there every night, and suppose him to be fighting the good fight?"

That silenced the group again, long enough for Flo to deliver their food and drinks.

Suzanne cleared her throat. "So. Anyway. Yes, I'm blogging. And I saw your call for fellow feminist journalists to work together on a group blog. If you don't mind an old fogey joining up, that is," she added with a lopsided grin.

Ana's jaw dropped open and her eyes shone. Suzanne kept her grin on her face, but was aware of Ira and Lady J at the edge of her vision, both trying desperately not to laugh. "Oh, Mrs. Feldstein, we'd be SO honored to have you on the team!"

"On one condition," Suzanne said.

"Anything!"

"Do me a favor and never call me 'Mrs. Feldstein' again," she said, and swatted at Ira, who was giggling into his hand.

---

From the Author:
If you don't remember Ana Hernandez, you may want to read the Wonder City Interlude, "Truth, Lady Justice, and the American Way" as a refresher.

Have you seen the cleaned-up sketch meeks did of the faerie wedding? Go! Gaze upon its awesomeness! If you can tip, do tip, or at least leave a comment. You know artists and writers LOVE comments. It always makes my day to see my readers' reactions.

Speaking of which, through May, I'm running the commenting incentive again, because reading your comments is the most fun on the Internet I have all day. So if I get 50 total comments in May, I will post twice weekly through June. As before, if you all post 75 comments, I'll post twice weekly through July too. Get up to 100 comments, the twice-weekly postings continue through August.

Vote for us at Top Web Fiction. Noooooooo we iz fallin down the list into oblivion! (Apparently, my writing goes all LOLcat sometimes.)

Women Are More Dangerous Than Shotguns

It was the first of the February thaw, and Suzanne was nearly giddy with a desire to throw off her heavy winter coat and boots and run through the grass that was just starting to peek through the snow. However, she did not -- she, after all, had a reputation. Instead, she decided to walk along the bus route home -- that way, if she got too cold or tired, she could catch the bus.

"Mrs. Feldstein," a polite young man in a sharply-tailored dark suit said when she'd gone about six blocks, "Mr. Maguire would like a word with you, if you have a moment."

Suzanne turned slowly in the direction he had gestured and stared at the vintage black limousine, gleaming under the streetlights at the curb. The windows were dark. "I... see," she said.

"He wanted me to assure you this was a friendly chat," the young man said.

"Glad to hear it," she said. She had a moment's thought of calling Ira. And then she dismissed it. What would she say? Hi, Ira, possibly getting kidnapped by the mob. I'll be home late. She shook her head to clear it and stepped toward the limo.

The young man hurried to step ahead of her and open one of the back doors. She nodded to him and stepped into Mr. Maguire's realm of soft upholstery and sharp knives.

The door shut after her with muffled finality.

He was a different Mr. Maguire than the one she'd met twenty years earlier. Not surprising, really, she thought, given the local organization's upheavals in the late 90s. This Maguire was an angular, gawky man who would probably tower over her on the street, but here was forced to slouch unbecomingly against the burgundy velour seat, his long legs splayed out to take up half the floor of the compartment. She could see why this Maguire had earned the nickname "Daddy Longlegs." Still, he wore a bespoke Italian suit, dark grey with pale pinstripes, sleek Italian leather shoes, and a forest green tie pinned with an emerald tie tack.

Maguire smiled at her, an easy smile that wrinkled his sixty-something face into a topographical map. He still had excellent salt-and-pepper hair, with no sign of thinness on top, and his teeth were white and strong. His blue eyes might have been said to twinkle, if only she didn't know that the Maguires as a rule did not have a sense of humor. As such, she did not comment on the change, merely said, "Good evening, Mr. Maguire," as politely as she had as a novice journalist.

"Good evening, Mrs. Feldstein," he said, his voice gravelly with years of smoking. She thought he could detect a very slight Jersey accent, but she might have been wrong.

The car accelerated smoothly away from the curb and Suzanne struggled to maintain her professional smile. "To what do I owe the honor, sir?"

He gave her an open-handed gesture that might have been a shrug. "My friends and I simply wanted to tell you how glad we are to see you back in the game."

This was not what she had expected to hear. "Oh?" she said, trying not to look surprised.

"We respect good, high-quality journalism, you see, Mrs. Feldstein," he said, clasping his hands together around one of his knees. "And we are... unhappy with the tabloid hacks that have cursed our fine city for several years."

"Surely they aren't all that bad, sir," Suzanne protested.

"None of them, as you know, can independently research their way out of a paper bag, Mrs. Feldstein," Mr. Maguire said. "For instance, if the police say it's the mob, it's the mob."

Suzanne began to see the light. "Well..." she began, but Mr. Maguire held up a long, spidery hand to stave off her protest.

"You have an eye for truth, Mrs. Feldstein," he said. "And I want you to know that we are grateful. I can tell you that we are absolutely not involved with these bodies down by the river."

"I know that," Suzanne said, and smiled faintly. "I was told some years ago that unless the body was found immediately and was clearly a warning, the body wouldn't be found at all."

Maguire extended a hand, conceding her a point. "We'd just like you to know, Mrs. Feldstein, that we're glad you're reporting again, and that if you should ever need a favor..." He left the statement hanging.

That was handsome indeed, Suzanne thought, and wondered why the concern about the press coverage. Filing that thought away for later, she said, "I'm very glad to be able to help reveal the truth, Mr. Maguire."

"And that's all we want from you, Mrs. Feldstein," he said. He knocked on the window to the driver's compartment, and the car immediately slowed to a stop at the curb. "I hope you have a pleasant evening."

Unmistakably dismissed, Suzanne said, "And you too, Mr. Maguire," and slid out of the car. "Thanks," she said to the young man who opened and shut her door for her, and strode off quickly.

They'd taken her partway home, she realized after a moment of brisk walking. She was only about six blocks from the house now. She was grateful. She was astonished. She wished she still smoked.

Her hands had just stopped shaking when her cell phone rang in the distinctive peppy beat of "I Want a Cape to Call My Own." She fumbled the phone out of her purse and flipped it open. "Hi, Ira," she said.

"Hi, sweetheart," he said, his voice more energetic than she'd heard it in a long time. "I've got some news for you!"

"What's up?" she thought, letting him get his news in before she dropped hers.

"One of your old friends in the police just called here," he said. "You should get down to the riverfront. There's a new body!"

She immediately looked around for a cab and frantically waved for one that was coming down the street. "Great! Er, you know what I mean. Any other details?"

"Yep," he said, triumphantly. "This one's a young woman."

---

From the Author:
Thank you all for your patience while I went to be with my family for the planned replacement of my dad's pacemaker. He is recovering well (knock wood) and has new cyborg parts with wifi capabilities! I like living in the future. I hope that the rest of the month will not be quite so travel-filled and worrisome.

Thanks to you all, Wonder City Stories has made it to Round 2 of the Best Fiction voting for the Rose & Bay Award! Please take a moment and go vote for your preferred finalist! It would be lovely if Wonder City were to be your choice, of course!
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