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Our Paranormal Chernobyl
Scene 49: Remind Me Never to Take You to a Monkey Knife Fight
Tuesday, 7:05 pm, Cook County General

Crossfire looked up at the sound of sirens. A dozen squad cars charged into the parking lot, red and blue lights strobing. The lights reflected off the underside of the Q-Ball, still hovering over the parking lot. Then as the cars braked to a halt beneath it, the white sphere rose into the night sky, and disappeared.

A car pulled up to the ambulance bay, and Jonathan squinted as headlights raked his body. It was a good thing too; he'd just started to drift off again in a haze of pain. Two figures stepped out. In silhouette, one was short and rounded, the other tall and thin.

"Crossfire," said the tall one. Detective Waters.

"What happened?" Detective Hammersmith said, rushing toward him.

"Took a bad one in the leg, can't walk at all," Jonathan said through gritted teeth. He quickly related to the officers what had happened inside the hospital and ended with being shot in the ambulance bay. "I'm not sure what happened after that or where everyone else is. Agent Pender is completely healed, which goes against what I'd heard happened to her. She's lucky to be alive at all. I guess I am too. Magnitude stopped the bleeding for me, but I still just want to sleep."

"That would be a mistake," Waters said in his low, flat voice.

"It looks like these men can take care of you," Hammersmith said. Lenny the Security Guard had returned with several doctors and nurses in tow.

Hammersmith stepped back as a doctor bent to examine Crossfire's leg. "I patched you up earlier," the woman said. She snipped away part of his leggings to get a look at his thigh. "Let's get you back to your usual bed. Gurney! One to surgery!"

Hearing from inside the ambulance, Maggie opened the doors and peeked outside. "Detective Hammersmith! I'm glad to see you. And you, Detective Waters," she said, nodding at the man. She exited the ambulance, motioning for her charge to follow her. "Are you all right, Crossfire? That was a hefty cut you had."

"Cut? I'm lucky my leg is still attached." Jonathan could recall the Gatling gun being swung in his direction, but little else. Except the pain. "Looks like I won't be any more help to anyone now. And there's still so much to do!"

His gloved hands clenched as an impotent rage washed over him. He watched the paramedics wheel the gurney next to him and wondered what good could he be to his Uncle Darius on an operating table. He looked back over to Magnitude then to the woman that stood next to her.

"Who's your friend?"

"She's the pregnant woman from the school," Maggie explained curtly. Then she shrugged, indicating she didn't know much about the whole deal either. She turned to the woman and asked, "What's your name, ma'am?"

She had been staring at the hospital door. "Lilly," she said, her voice distant. "Lily Marrett." Her gaze turned back to the door.

The paramedics set a lifting board on the ground. Jonathan craned his head around them to look the woman over. She looked healthy. "Pregnant? She doesn't look pregnant. And what school?" Crossfire couldn't remember her. Maybe it was the pain, or it could have been while he was out on his ass the first time at this hospital.

Maggie slapped her face. "You weren't there. Of course." She glanced at the woman, and said, "Mind if I tell him what happened? He has to know."

"If you must."

One of the paramedics moved behind Crossfire and put his hands under his arms. The second paramedic knelt at the archer's side, and put his arms under his lower back. At the count of three, the two men lifted Jonathan and moved him onto the board. Pain shot from his knee to the base of his spine, but he didn't pass out.

Jonathan let out a long breath, then looked back at the girl. Suddenly, her face became familiar. "Wait, wait a minute," Crossfire said, pulling on one of the doctor's sleeves. "You were being carried off by the Ken doll before he shot me. Why?"

Maggie caught one of the paramedics by the hand to keep him from wheeling Crossfire away. "Give us a moment. He needs to know this." Turning to Crossfire, she told him how the tongueless, pregnant woman had been carted off the site where they later fought Jigsaw.

Jonathan's brow furrowed at the effort of concentrating through the pain. Goo had told him there was a woman here at the hospital that had pellets in her. If this was the woman, then why hadn't she changed? But if her tongue had grown back, then maybe that was the change. "Were you injected by pellets as well?" he asked her. "And how did your tongue grow back?"

"When I—" The woman suddenly stopped speaking, and glanced at the two detectives. "When I woke up. I don't know how it happened." She turned toward the door. "Why isn't Agent Pender back? I need to find my baby."

"But a tongue just doesn't grow back like that. How can anyone…" get healed like Agent Pender did? Jonathan finished the thought in his own mind. "Was it the baby? Did the baby heal Agent Pender as well?"

"No!" She said vehemently. "My baby is perfectly normal!"

"Please. Something has happened to you and maybe your baby as well. Of course your baby is normal and healthy, we want to help make sure you both stay that way. Those robots came for you with a reason in mind." Crossfire reached out an open hand, "We saved you, now let us help you. Please."

Lilly stared at the prone, bleeding man, then at Maggie and the detectives, and slowly shook her head. She didn't take his hand. "I don't know why they came for me. I just want my baby, and I want to—to be left alone."

Maggie glanced down at her helmet display, which had just shown a second sharp spike. At Crossfire's mention of the pellets, she had tuned in her helmet radio receiver to the pellet's frequency, hoping that she could afford to lose communications just long enough to catch the pellet's transmission, if there was one. She had turned the volume down, set the radio to display its wave output on her visor, and silently counted the seconds.

Six seconds had passed before the first spike. Ten seconds elapsed before the second spike—just like the other pellets. Both blips were strong, and certainly from nearby. There was a second set of blips from somewhere a bit farther away, and a dozen weaker pellet-like signals in the background. If she boosted the reception, she could track those from the suit as well.

Maggie flipped back to standard radio. "Q-Ball, I'm picking up multiple pellet signals, one nearby. Any way you triangulate that one for me?" she mouthed quietly.

There was a slight pause before the pilot's reply. "Sorry about that, Maggie. I'm a bit far away at the moment, and I'm not receiving any of the pellet signals."

"Roger that," Maggie said. "I've got an idea where these come from."

The doctor who had helped Crossfire stepped up to the gurney. "We've got to get you inside or you won't be able to help anybody," she said. "Take him to surgery, guys." The paramedics began to wheel the archer down the ramp.

"Get well soon," Waters intoned.

"Take care of yourself, Crossfire," Maggie said.

"Please," the man in the bra said, gasping. He spit and tried to clear his throat. "Don't—don't hit me anymore."

Stranger reared back. Clenching his fists he put them up to his mask, and made a loud growling noise. "GGGAAARRHH!"

He ripped the mask from his face and put himself nose to nose with the man and yelled, making sure that saliva flew from his mouth with every word: "ONE OF YOU HAD BETTER TELL US WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!"

The man lurched away from Stranger, fell into a wad of Goo, and yelled again. He scrambled upright, scraping the sticky residue from his arms. "You FREAKS! You want to know what's going on? You're garbage! Leftovers! The tumor-ridden guinea pigs who end up in the dumpster!"

Stranger's eyes got bigger and he pulled his fist back. The man in the Power Puff Girl underwear flinched, but didn't back up. "What are you talking about, mother fucker?" Stranger said.

"What do you think I'm talking about? Let me see if I can use words small enough for you. You. Don't. Matter. So you got powers instead of dying—good for you. At least you didn't end up like slime-boy, here." The man's eyes surveyed Stranger's muscular body. "In fact, you should thank me."

B seemed to be on a roll and Goo didn't want K to divert him, so Goo grabbed K and held her mouth shut.

"MMMFfff!" the woman said, and started squirming in the creature's grip.

"Before Stranger tha-a-anks you," Goo said to B. "Let me ask. We the unlucky? What about your successes—so-called. How lucky they? Life just great for them, hu-u-umanitarian?"

"I haven't heard any complaints. Now leave her alone!"

The sound of police sirens penetrated the cabin, and quickly grew louder. It sounded like a dozen squad cars were converging on the parking lot.

"So-o-orry, can't do," Goo said in a none-too-sorry way. Then it grabbed B ("MMMFffff!") and held him in a similar fashion.

"Stra-a-anger?" Goo asked. "Need to go or something?"

Ignoring Goo and the sirens, Stranger dropped his mask back into place. Then he grabbed the balding man just above the collarbone and slowly began to squeeze.

"We know that you stole the crap you've been injecting into everyone from Freya Sontag's lab. The question I'm fucking asking you is what the fuck are doing this for? Did Sontag put you up to this because that mutant girl has taken a turn for the worst or are just freelancing? Talk fast or collar bone goes bye-bye."

The man screamed through the tendrils of goo covering his mouth. "NNNAAAAAAAA!"

Goo withdrew itself from B's mouth area so that Stranger could hear him more clearly.

"NNNAAAAAAAA!" the man screamed.

In the center of the van, Goo whispered in Woody's ear. "Ni-i-ice crowd. Sure you won't turn on them?"

Goo pulled away from Woody's mouth and listened to whatever Woody might have to say.

"Heeeeeeeelp!" Woody screamed.

In the ambulance bay, the doctor signaled to the other nurses, then turned to Lilly. "Let's get you back inside, ma'am. It's too cold out here, and we'll be able to bring your baby to you."

"Where's Pender?" Maggie asked aloud. "She was going to bring the baby back." She frowned. "She should be back by now. Anyhow, doctor…" She read the nametag. "…Brentley is right, Lilly. We can meet Pender and your baby inside." She smiled. "You'll have to think of a name for him."

"A name…" Lilly said. "I haven't even thought of one." Dr. Brentley took her by her unhurt arm, and when she was sure the woman could stand and walk, began to lead her down the slanted bay to the doors through which Crossfire had just vanished.

"I'll be right with you," Maggie called out. "Let me confirm a suspicion first." She switched her radio back to the pellet's frequency and walked towards the Goo-covered news van—trying to determine if she was simply picking up B & K's yet-unused pellets.

Police cars had surrounded the van, and officers had their guns out. Several of the cops were guarding the unmoving forms of B and the skeletal meta that Stranger had dragged out of the hospital.

After twenty seconds of watching the radio output, she was sure of a few things. One set of blips was coming from that unconscious stone meta. But as for the rest of the signals, unused pellets—at least, any that were in the van—were not the source of the dozens of other signals: those background signals became even weaker as she walked away from the hospital.

Hammersmith left Waters by the figure of K and joined Maggie as she crossed the parking lot. He nodded toward the police surrounding the figure on the ground, and the goo-ey expanse covering the vehicle. "More new metas. At least they're alive. That… stuff covering the van—that's the new one you and Crossfire discovered, hmmm?"

"That's him," Maggie said. "I think he was formed from multiple people, one of them a PRIMUS agent—maybe even Silver Avenger Pirhu." She paused to let that sink in, then added, "I'm getting multiple pellet reads from inside the hospital. Any idea how many were admitted that we know about?"

"I don't know of any living metas that have been brought in," Hammersmith said. "All of the dead were brought to the morgue. The only living victims of the robots seem to be Stranger, this multi-person Goo, and perhaps this stone creature."

Maggie listened to the full-force pellet signal coming from the fossilized meta. "That's definitely one of them."

"How many more are out there?" he said. And for the first time since this morning, Maggie heard the strain in his voice. "I pray that isn't Raj," he said quietly. Then he seemed to come back to himself. "All right then. Crossfire said that the controllers of the robots are inside the van with Stranger. That's a recipe for disaster. DuChamp did tell me that Stranger and the new meta helped you take out the PRIMUS killer an hour ago, so the news isn't all bad. Maggie, I'd like your help in taking care of this meta on the ground, and in getting those suspects out alive. PRIMUS is flying in with—"

Hammersmith stopped talking. Inside the circle of police, the stone dinosaur had risen, and it had transformed.

"Crossfire"

"Stranger"

"PRIMUS killer"

"New Metas"

"Robots"

Eli lay upon the ground and watched and listened as pieces of the puzzle his life had become gradually fell into place. He had taken a harsh beating from the one called Stranger, and he didn't want to repeat the experience. 

But from the way the police were acting, this Stranger was on their side. Or at least was helping them with… something. Something to do with Eli himself, and the doll-woman.

Another of the dolls (or robots, as he now knew them to be) lay nearby. Was it also assuming inanimateness, hoping to lull the police into a false sense of security?

Eli didn't know. He did know that he was surrounded by a ring of policemen, and he also knew that he had accidentally hurt a nurse inside the hospital.

What were their plans for him now? Would he be incarcerated? Would they take him somewhere and perform experiments upon him? He remembered a television show that had been very popular a few years back (when he had been sane enough to watch such things) about two federal agents who investigated the unexplained and the paranormal. Would people like that soon arrive to claim him?

And from everywhere, new sensations caressing his unmoving form like the softest summer breezes; sound made tangible, tickling his stone body from all directions. His mind conjured shapes and sculpture with each caress—it was extremely distracting.

Enough.

Releasing a control he was still unsure of, he rose from the ground, his body flowing into his normal and natural shape. As he did so, he concentrated, trying again to speak.

"Dahnt shoat meeee. Ahm naught goaing toe huhrt youh," he "said," the sound almost to soft to be heard. He was struck again by the appearance of his body, but couldn't dwell on that now—he had to get through to these people that he wasn't someone they should fear.

Maggie and Hammersmith reached the circle of police surrounding the creature. "That's the stone man Ed told us about!" the detective said to Maggie, keeping his voice low. "I had an ambulance bring him in this afternoon. They said he was dead, but obviously someone overlooked something."

Maggie frowned. "Rather hard to get vital signs on a lump of stone, I'll bet," she pointed out. She stepped up to the man. "Who are you?" she asked.

Eli looked from the young woman to the ring of policeman that surrounded him and back again. He blinked slowly, then raised his hands palm out in a sort of slow-motion shrug.

"Ah victom," he replied, the words almost a shout. "Who are you?"

"I'm Maggie Thorin. I'm helping out the police with this..." She fished for a word. "...situation. Can you tell us your name?"

Eli looked again at the ring of police with weapons drawn, at the van covered in some sort of glistening membrane, at the girl in front of him in the sculpted armor—it was amazing.

"There's a woman inside. A counter fell on her when I jumped on it. She's hurt. I didn't mean to hurt her. I don't want to hurt anyone," he replied, his control over his new 'voice' growing with use. "I'm concerned about the man in the mask. The Stranger. He's very violent," he added in a more level tone.

"The man robot had a black bag. There might be something in it you need. I'd check that if I were you," he finished, remembering where the machine had placed its tools and potions. Sound rippled off his body, constantly distracting him. Jet black eyes met Maggie's own.

"You're very young."

Before Maggie could respond, they heard a wordless scream from inside the van. Stranger's harsh voice screamed something back—something about a 'monkey.'

Hammersmith looked at Maggie. "I think it's time we went inside."

"Heeeeeeeelp!" This second scream came from a different voice.

Carl, Pender, and Mavis stepped out of the elevator on the first floor: Pender with a gun; Carl with a cross; and Mavis with the child. Pender was intent on getting back outside to the child's mother and the rest of the group—and there was Crossfire, rolling toward them. He was on a gurney being pushed by two nurses, headed back through the ER.

"Hold up," Pender said, stopping the procession with an outstretched hand, and summoned up her friendliest face for the nurses. Recent experiences had taught her a lesson. "My name is Laura Pender, and I'm the Acting PRIMUS Silver Avenger for Chicago. Over here, that's Carl, and holding the baby is Mavis; you might know them already. Now, I'm commandeering this gurney because we're going to try a little alternative therapy on you, Crossfire, before committing you to complex surgery and months of physical rehabilitation. Mavis, please give him the baby, if you would."

"What?! Certainly not!"

Pender looked from one nurse to the other, then finally back to Mavis. "Mavis, feel free to take your objections to your shop steward when all this is through, but for the time being, please give the baby to Crossfire."

Mavis's face grew hard, and her tone was icy. "That's enough, Agent Pender. There's blood all over that man. I'm not going to risk Hepatitis C or HIV or anything else with this child. I will give this baby to her mother, and no one else. Is that clear?"

"The only thing at risk right now is this man's life!" Pender could feel Mavis pushing her beyond her breaking point. Instead of being merely irritated by the nurse's stubborn devotion to protocol, she was now driven to outright anger—at Mavis, at the cosmos—by her necessary reliance on someone who absolutely refused to see the big picture.

Crossfire looked up from the gurney to see Pender holding a baby. There was something familiar about it; he wondered if it was the baby that the woman with Maggie was looking for. Still, something else nagged at Jonathan as well. He could have sworn he'd seen the baby before, but in a wooden manger for all the sense that made.

"Pender, what's happening here?" the archer asked.

At the end of the hallway leading to the ambulance bay, the tongueless woman appeared, being helped by a nurse in blue and another woman in a white coat.

"Wait," Pender told both Crossfire and his nurses, then pitched her voice to reach the child's mother. "Ma'am! We have your baby here."

The gaunt young woman in the hospital gown shrugged off the arms of the nurse and doctor and hurried toward them, her face anxious.

"Is he all right? Give him to me." She reached for the child.

Mavis looked at the doctor to see if she would object, and then put the child in the woman's arms. He began to cry, and she lifted him to her neck. She ran a hand over his fuzzy head, caressing him. The last time the woman had seen her baby, Pender realized, he'd been a mucous- and blood-covered squalling thing.

"Ma'am, I have an odd request, but one I think you'll understand," Pender began, keeping a watchful eye on Mavis. "Would you give your child to Crossfire for a moment?"

The woman seemed not to hear her. She continued to caress the child. "He's just a baby," she said without looking up. "A normal baby."

"Dammit!" one of the paramedics said. "We've got to get this man to surgery!"

The woman glanced up at Crossfire. "Wait." She stepped toward the gurney. "Agent Pender… she's right."

"Ma'am," Mavis said, "I have to tell you that—"

Pender cut her off with a gesture.

The woman bent close to the archer, the child in her arms.

Jonathan struggled to sit up, pain lancing up his spine. He'd met this woman—Lilly Marrett—a few minutes ago. But now, standing over him with the baby, he realized that he knew her from somewhere else. But where? She'd been dressed differently, and she'd been standing in a spotlight with darkness around her, with the baby…

A Christmas Play. Flashes of a dream came back to him. He'd been on stage, trying to remember his lines. This woman had stood next to a man sharpening a long sword, with the baby in a wooden manger. And there were others on stage, and in the audience… but who?

"I don't know what to do," Lilly said to Crossfire. "Just… kiss him." The baby had stopped crying, and was staring at Crossfire expectantly.

Crossfire looked from the baby, to his mother, then to Pender, and back to the baby. He'd seen those expressions before: that expectant, anxious look in the eyes. It was in the dream. But in the dream there were three magi, carrying gifts, but wanting something of their own from the baby. And the magi were the people he'd seen that morning at the art gallery.

His mind lost focus then; the baby and the mother and the hospital staff seemed to disappear. The day's events washed over him, and his mind coursed back to last night's firefight in New York, back over the year of training, back to his parents' deaths… back, back, to where there was nothing left to wash away. 

The world abruptly returned. The baby smiled at him and Jonathan smiled back.

He took the baby gently in his hands and drew him to his face. The infant's skin smelled of soap and something else, a complex scent he couldn't name but seemed familiar and comforting.

Jonathan kissed him softly on the forehead.

The stone man turned at the scream. "I can help," Eli said. "If you want."

"Sure," Maggie said, unwilling to argue the point anyhow—first order of business was to get over there.

She ran through the cordon of policemen and reached the van. "Goo, what's going on in there?" she yelled.

"Stay back," a voice yelled from inside the vehicle. It was Stranger. "The van is contaminated. I think these idiots have exposed themselves to the mutating agent."

Eli watched as the girl ran towards the van, then turned and looked at the ring of policeman surrounding him.

"Can I go help her?" he asked, his voice getting ever-closer to what it once was.

Hammersmith nodded to the men, and they made a gap in the circle.

Maggie's mind raced, courses of action already forming in her mind. "Goo, how did they do it? Is the agent airborne, or did they just inject it?"

"No-o-t sure. But might be goo-oo-ood to subdue robot K, in ca-a-ase idiots regain contro-o-ol."

"I'll do that," Maggie said. "Find out how they've been infected. Also try to see if you can find the pellets they were using, or anything that looks like it might be the antidote. They have to have at least a few doses in there!"

Goo didn't immediately reply. Maggie was next to the van now, and she heard voices from inside. Stranger said something, and another male voice replied angrily, but she couldn't make out the words.

"Talk to me, Goo!" Maggie yelled.

Goo extended a tendril toward Maggie.

"Ma-a-aggie, people inside say lawyer coming, don't seem worried.

"I ca-a-an't figure. Caught red-handed. You any idea why they think b-e-e okay?"

"They'll have trouble finding a lawyer who can pull them out of this one, even if the arrest was a little weird. Just make sure the mutagenic doesn't get out of that van, Goo—and try to figure out if it's airborne or not. I'll go take care of the bots."

Eli had turned away from Maggie and Goo, toward the hospital bay. The line of policemen blocked his way.

"Where you going?" the officer in front of him asked. He was a white man in his thirties, with a wide face and a thick Chicago-style moustache. He held a shotgun that a minute ago had been pointing at Eli's stomach.

A handful of the dozen other officers looked at the Stone Man. The rest of them had their attention on the Goo covered van, or Maggie, or the inert Barbie. Hammersmith, crouching next to the female robot, looked up as well.

Eli raised one multicolored hand and pointed towards the male 'bot. "That one has a bag. Inside the bag is evidence. Serum. Samples. I don't want it to leave with the bag. I don't think you can stop it. I can. I'd like to get the bag and make sure it isn't faking inactivity." His voice was deeper now, and the volume was just about normal.

"Just hold on a sec," Maggie called out. "I'll go with you and disable it." She passed the stone man, and the line of police parted for her. Eli followed and no one stopped him.

Maggie reached the prone form of the robot and addressed Hammersmith. "I'm going to spray it with EMP goo; that'll keep it from waking up temporarily until we have time to disable it more permanently."

Hammersmith stood and stepped back from the robot. "Be my guest," he said.

Eli stared down at the dormant robot. A wry part of his mind noted that he and his 'creators' both were effigies—human in form but…

It was best not to dwell on it right now. He watched as the woman called 'Maggie' pointed her arm at the thing.

A spray of white, slightly translucent paste covered most of the robot's form. Maggie lowered her arm and nodded in satisfaction. "Step away before you try to use your radio or cel," she advised. "The spray will cause interference."

Maggie looked up at the sound of a helicopter in the distance. The Chinook helicopter that had hovered over the schoolhouse—F.M. Buck's vehicle—was heading toward them.

Maggie strode across the parking lot, Hammersmith and Eli flanking her. There were about a dozen hospital workers in the ambulance bay, watching the hubub in the parking lot, and about thirty other workers and patients watching near the ER waiting room doors to their right. Two nurses in blue looked out from a huge hole that had been knocked through the wall.

Maggie approached Waters, where he stood in the ambulance bay beside the upright frozen form of the Ken-bot. "Quite a piece of work, no?" she offered to the taciturn detective. She pointed her weapon at the bot and said, "Stand aside a bit, please. I'm going to make sure it stays put."

Waters moved aside without a word, and Maggie sprayed again. The robot stayed frozen.

Behind them, F.M. Buck's helicopter hovered over the parking lot, almost exactly where Q-Ball had been a short while ago.

"Maggie," Hammersmith said, raising his voice over the sound of the rotors. "What's going on in the van? I don't want Stranger in there alone with them. I'm going to get PRIMUS to contain them, and if you say so, contain Stranger and… anyone else as well."

Maggie sighed. "Goo is keeping the van contained. He told me there was exposition to the mutagen inside, so I don't think we want PRIMUS or anyone else mucking around in there until we've ascertained that this exposition wasn't airborne. I doubt it was, however."

She paused. Both substances she'd studied in the police lab would have dried out immediately in the air. They needed to be injected or put into contact with a bloodstream somehow.

"Anyhow," Maggie added, "There's no need I can see to contain Stranger just yet. Let's deal with the possible contamination and then we can bring people into custody."

"All right," Hammersmith said, nodding, "so can you determine if it's airborne? If PRIMUS isn't prepped for handling airborne toxins, I can bring in a hazmat team—but I don't want to do that if there's no real risk."

Maggie nodded. "I agree. My current analysis of the virus is that it cannot propagate from an airborne vector—but I would rather use caution and keep people away from the van until we can be certain that it is not some variation on what we have seen so far. I suspect it's just a case of injections with the pellets we've seen so far, however. Let me see if I can find out from Goo what exactly happened, and if there is a risk, we can analyze an air sample." As she spoke she headed back towards the van.

Hammersmith glanced at the stone man and Waters, then quickly followed.

Stranger whispered to Goo, "Keep these animals quiet. We need a few more minutes and I have an idea."

He put his other hand over the funny-looking man's mouth and yelled out to Maggie, "Stay back. The van is contaminated. I think these idiots have exposed themselves to the mutating agent."

Goo and Maggie exchanged words, but it seemed to Stranger that Goo was willing to go along with the delaying action, and that Maggie was falling for it. Stranger gave Goo a thumbs-up, and then turned back to the man in the girl's underwear, who was shaking his head in disbelief.

"Okay, chief," Stranger said. "So you made a few deliveries for this lady. Did she give you all the robots as well, or did you supply the hardware as part of the deal?"

The man looked scornful. "You think you can just pick these up at Wal-Mart and steer them around like remote-controlled cars? These are works of art! I designed them myself, by hand, with my own sweat. Inhabiting them with grace requires an incredible amount of skill and training." Discussing the robots made him more confident; he stood a little straighter and nodded in the direction of where Maggie's voice had come. "Why don't you want her in here? Because she'll stop your bullying?"

Stranger lightly flicked the man on the head.

"Bullshit. Word is that those bots are from PRIMUS, so don't give me that crap about designing these yourself. Either you fucking stole them or your boss gave them to you. Which is it?"

"PRIMUS?! WHAT?!" He face reddened in anger. "There's nobody left over there who could build a SOCK PUPPET! I designed them, I built them, and I'm the one who made them work. I won't allow those self-righteous corporate morons to steal my work ever again!"

Stranger's mind shot back to what Q-Ball had said and he quickly made a connection.

"Look, Russell," Stranger said in a soft, even tone, and the man's eyes went wide at the mention of the name. "I'm not as interested in your Birthstone robots as I am in what you've been doing with them. Now from what I figure you've been at this game for a while and I find it hard to believe that a man of your superior intellect wouldn't bother finding out who was paying him. So you must be stupid as well as crazy." He gently stroked the man's balding head and then lightly ran his fingers over his eye lid.

The man tried to jerk his head away, but Stranger's grip was firm.

Stranger leaned closer and rubbed the steel of his facemask against the side of the man's cheek. "So," he said in a whisper, "if I don't hear her name and how you started working for her in two seconds, I swear to God I'm gonna show you why they locked me up."

The man, face still red from his anti-PRIMUS rant, jerked as if he'd been struck by a taser. "I don't know who you're talking about! It was a different person every time!"

"And just how did she contact you the first time?"

He shook his head. "She who? Who are you talking about?"

Stranger plinked him in the head again with his finger. "I asked you how you were first contacted by these ever-changing persons."

The man started to say something in anger, then stopped. He exhaled slowly. "First contact, nobody does anything face to face," he said. He had the over-precise diction of the doctors who used to lecture Theo on his behavioral problems. "There are go betweens. Anonymous numbers. Eventually, we reach agreement on a price. The people I eventually met remained nameless, and that's the way we all liked it. Payment was in cash. That's the way you'd want to work, wouldn't you, Stranger?" He smiled slightly. "You could make a lot of money. Someone could leave a briefcase full of cash, perhaps a note describing what they'd like done. You might want to think about it. As a career plan."

The sound of a helicopter, coming closer, penetrated the walls of the van. From its outside surface, Goo could see the same helicopter that had appeared at the school building. From another part of itself, it could see the cops surrounding the Barbie-bot, the expanse of the parking lot, and the more distant figures of Maggie, the stone man, and some other men that were obviously police officials. It was happy to see Maggie spray the Ken-bot with her EMP weapon; Goo approved of goo of all types.

Stranger ignored the man's "career advice" and pressed on. "Did they give you the mutatagenic materials that you have been using, or did you have to get them yourself?"

The man smirked. "A minute ago you were absolutely sure where we got them. You don't know anything at all, do you?"

Stranger smiled under his mask. He had to admire the man's guts given his precarious situation. It was clear that he'd have elevate the intensity of his methods. Stranger quickly moved his hand under the man's nose and inserted his pinky into the man's left nostril and lightly lifted.

The man whimpered, but didn't scream. He stood on his toes, trying to keep the nostril from ripping like a Chinatown nose-job. The cabin grew noisier; the helicopter seemed to be hovering directly over van.

"Okay, let me re-phrase the question," Stranger said. "Tell me how you got the materials."

"They just came along with the cash! I'm not a chemist, I don't even know what the stuff's made of!" He shifted his weight to his other foot. Stranger heard a creak as the metal floorboards shifted. "The instructions were simply to—what?" The man followed Stranger's gaze to the floor.

The rat crawled from between the sheered floorboards at the man's feet, a wire in its teeth. Theo's old friend from the sewers plucked the wire from its mouth and waved it at him. "A lying man is also like a wheel of Swiss cheese," it said to Theo meaningfully. "To find the holes, you must break it in half."

Stranger nodded. He realized that this rat must have been the street tough he had the run in with before. It was clear that he had a bad attitude, but could he be trusted? Most of the rats that he had encountered today seemed to be giving him good advice. He had to follow his instincts, and the rodents seem to be right. Was the man trying to play him for a fool? Stranger's mind raced.

He was so confident and smug in his position, even though he had been caught red handed, that maybe the fix was in. How could this guy not know who he was working for? And time was running out to get the answers.

Stranger's eyes glazed over. "...break in half," he mumbled to himself.

The rat was right.

"YOU'RE LYING," Stranger shouted as he released the man's nostril. As the man relaxed, Stranger struck. Using a tiny fraction of his strength, he landed a light punch on the bridge of the man's nose, and simultaneously stepped on the man's left foot.

The punch didn't break the skin, but it did draw a whimper from the man. He didn't seem to notice that Stranger had also stepped on his foot. He held his hands in front of his face and shrunk back against the wall.

"Look, you stupid mother-fucker. I know that you're lying about all of this. Who are you working for and what the hell is all of this for?"

The man said something in a small voice that was drowned out by the sound of the helicopters.

The rat, chewing methodically on the wire, shook his head in disappointment.

Stranger grabbed the man by the front of his bra and pulled him close.

"I'm waiting."

Eli felt each the steady pulse of the chopper blades biting the air behind him, and he paused a moment to savor the sensation.

So strange…

Then he returned to the task at hand, crouching down next to the robot, looking for the bag.

He didn't see it at the automaton's feet, so he scanned the area. The tall man in the suit who'd remained behind watched silently. A few seconds later, Eli spotted the bag under the bumper of the ambulance.

He crouched down beside the vehicle, reached an obsidian hand underneath, and pulled the bag out.

He pulled the bag toward him. It had the inertia of something heavy, yet Eli moved it easily.

The bag looked like it was made out of cheap black plastic, but it was obviously strong enough for the weight of its contents. A simple metal clasp held it closed.

The tall detective moved behind Eli. "What do you have?"

Eli clasped the bag to his chest and pondered the man's question.

"Genesis," he replied softly, looking down at the bag as he flicked the clasp open.

The bag was divided into several compartments, each loaded with objects of various sizes.

The items in the first compartment were easy to identify: a black mag flashlight, a stethoscope, a roll of duct tape, two black markers, a box marked "Band-Aids," a bundle of sealable plastic bags, and a small aerosol can labeled "Alberto VO-5."

The items in the next compartment were curious: A white metal box, about two inches square, with a tiny LCD screen on its face; three gunmetal gray cases, each the length and width of a brick, though only an inch thick; and a long thin tube topped with something that looked like a serrated melon-baller.

In the wall of the last compartment was a row of narrow pockets. Three of them held empty syringes, topped with thick needles. The rest of the pockets were empty. And nestled at the bottom was a device Eli remembered well.

He'd been sleeping at one of his usual places, the bench outside the convenience store down from the bus station. He awoke to a sharp pain in his bicep, and he sat up, swearing. His old, chaotic mind (distasteful to think of now, like uncovering an ugly sculpture that he had once been proud of) was more confused than usual. It was the middle of the night, and the doctor and nurse stood over him, smiling, their plastic skin reflecting the streetlights.

The nurse held a needle-topped syringe, empty after injecting him. And the doctor held the device he was looking at now, a gun-shaped thing with a long needle at the end. The doctor had smiled at him, told him that he could go back to "beddy-bye" in just a moment, and pushed Eli face down on the bench. The pain came a moment later as the doctor shot something into his left buttock.

They left him then. He raged, screaming at the night sky, and no one came to help him. After a half hour he was cold again, and sleepy. Finally he'd laid back down, and dreamed of insensate stone, and the shapes that he would sculpt again if only he could clear his mind.

He thought about the contents of the bag a moment, waiting for some sort of reaction—after all, the equipment he was now holding had changed his life more than he could have thought possible.

But there was nothing. No fear, no anger or sadness. Just… acknowledgement. He looked up at the detective.

"It's what they used to give me the shot. The drugs. You should probably see to it that a doctor gets this. Maybe they could figure out what it is. How they did it."

He looked at the bag's contents again, then closed it with a muted snap. The leather of the bag felt like silk. He silently offered the bag to the detective.

There was really nothing left to say.

Ahead of Maggie, the double-rotored helicopter dropped until it was eight feet off the ground. The side door opened, and six armored PRIMUS agents with MCT weapons jumped out, onto the roof of a green sedan, and then down to the pavement.

The short, bearded F.M. Buck jumped out last, but stayed on the car roof to survey the situation. The helicopter rose to a safer height. The dwarf saw Maggie and Hammersmith striding toward him, and he jumped down to meet them.

"What's the story, morning glory?" he asked Maggie.

"Very mixed, I'm afraid," Maggie said. "We've disabled the two plastic people, and we have the two 'pilots' in custody—over there." She indicated the Goo-covered van. "Stranger is also in there. But Goo says they've exposed themselves to the mutagen—I strongly doubt that it's airborne, but I wouldn't take any chances and keep people away until we're certain there's no risk of exposure. Crossfire is inside with severe injuries, and as for the rock-man, he seems to be a mutagen victim, and he has been helping out." Maggie waved to the van. "We were just about to go and ask Goo precisely what was happening in there. Care to join us?"

"Just a sec," the old dwarf said, and turned to address the PRIMUS agents surrounding the van. "HOLD 'ER UP, BOYS." He squinted up at Maggie. "Now, you got a free-range mutagen that's probably not airborne…" He gestured at her armor. "I assume that thing's air tight, then?"

"I'm afraid not." Maggie took hold of some of her long, thick mane of hair and waved it for illustration. "It's rather hard to get an airtight seal with all this coming out of my head, but I've been looking into it." She let go of the blonde strands and shrugged helplessly. "Of course that won't help our current predicament, but encounter suits might. Assuming it's even airborne." She opened her visor and popped some bubblegum into her mouth. "Look, let's not waste time until we need to. Easiest is to ask Goo exactly what happened. We can assess risks from there. I bet the exposure was by injection."

Buck thought about this. "All righty—but I'm going to keep my boys back a few feet. If you tell me it's airborne, though, we're going to bubblewrap the whole shebang—Goo and all—faster than you can say 'Bob's yer Uncle.' Then we call the specialists. Let me just fill in the team." He covered one ear and seemed to stare into the middle distance for a moment. Maggie saw the muscles in his throat move and realized he was subvocalizing. The four PRIMUS MCTs that Maggie could see on this side of the van backed up six feet and readied their weapons.

Hammersmith exchanged a look with Maggie, and shrugged.

"Okay then!" Buck said aloud. He bowed slightly and swept one hand toward the van: "After you, miss."

Maggie smiled amusedly, nodded, and walked past the dwarf and the detective directly towards the van, glancing at the PRIMUS MCT as she passed by him. She stopped about a pace inside the ring of PRIMUS agents.

As she opened her mouth to speak, a blood-curdling scream came from inside the van—and suddenly cut off.

"Goo!" Maggie screamed. "Please tell me what's going on in there."

"O-o-oh God. Not good," Goo said. "Stra-a-anger's lost it."

The baby gurgled, head lolling against Jonathan's chin.

"And?" Pender said after a beat, accidentally giving voice to her expectant thoughts. She wanted Crossfire healed, certainly, but on a more personal note, she'd hoped that he might be able to indirectly shed some light on her own miraculous recovery. "Crossfire, how do you feel?"

"Like my leg has been sawed in half."

This bewildered her. "But—"

"Before I go into surgery, you need to know this baby may be in trouble with some not nice people."

"I was starting to come to that conclusion myself. I just don't understand…." She trailed off, catching a look from one of Crossfire's nurses. "Never mind. We'll keep an eye on the baby; you worry about yourself."

Mavis stepped forward and swept the baby from Crossfire's arms, somehow combining gentleness and speed. She held the baby to her chest with both arms and addressed Pender, her eyes flashing.

"I don't know what you think you're doing, Agent Pender, but I've had enough."

Jonathan looked over at Pender. While they hadn't agreed on much until then, he hadn't heard her sound hesitant before. She'd been convinced that the baby would have helped him, just as the newborn had healed both its mother and the agent. Somehow, the baby had gained an ability from the mother's exposure to the pellets. But how? What could the mother and baby have passed between them?

Crossfire looked down at his leg and realized the answer. It was the same way that medicine passed through the body. Or, perhaps a more apt description, how some diseases could be spread between people.

"Blood," Crossfire murmured. "The pellets infect the bloodstream."

"Of course they—" She stopped herself as the full meaning of his words sunk in. "Then it wasn't the boy at all. It was her blood. Your blood," she added, looking over to the mother. "Is that what you're trying to say, Crossfire?"

Crossfire hadn't actually considered that it could be the mother's blood. "I—I don't know. Trans… trans…"

"Transfusion," Pender said, finishing his thought. "Crossfire?"

"We'd better—" one of the nurses began.

"I know. Get him out of here."

Without waiting for another word, they quickly wheeled him out of sight.

Pender turned to the maternity nurse with a suppressed sigh.

"Mavis, I don't have to tell you to take that baby someplace safe, but I am going to send someone with you as protection. I'm not in a position to explain everything now," she continued, raising a hand to quell Mavis's indignant expression, "but you'll have to trust me that it'll be best for all three of us, especially the child. You should know that this—all of this, this mess around us in every direction—is probably due in large part to him."

Mavis looked down at the infant, then back up at the PRIMUS agent. "This baby." She shook her head. "Agent Pender, I don't know whether it's scarier that you believe that, or that you could be right."

"I've made a career out of getting paid to deal with this sort of thing; odds are I am right. I—I'm sorry," she added lamely, an improvised attempt at comfort. Mavis was clearly frightened, however much she was trying to hide it, and however much Pender hadn't bothered to notice until now.

The nurse seemed to pull the child closer. "I'll keep him safe," she said, her gaze took in the disheveled looking mother. "Any protection you want to add is fine by me."

Pender turned to Carl, all business once more. "Carl, is there a room in this hospital that you can guarantee is secure?"

Carl gulped. "Uh, that depends. Secure against what?"

"Secure," she repeated. "Only one entrance, no windows, solid walls—preferably underground. A holding cell, or a vault of some kind."

"Oh! Secuuure. Well, we don't have any holding cells or vaults, but in the basement we have a buncha storage rooms, the boiler room, and the telephone room. And the morgue."

"The boiler room, then," Pender replied, guessing that Mavis and the baby would rather hide behind machinery than inside a freezer. "Take us down there, Carl, then watch over these two while I get help."

Assuming there's help to get, she added silently. Considering Crossfire's condition, the situation in the parking lot might prohibit Thorin or the others from being able to lend a hand.

The man in the Power-Puff Girl undewear stood awkwardly, his bra strap clenched in Stranger's fist.

"All right," he said more clearly. He took a deep breath, and with some concentration dropped his arms to his side. His hands were shaking. "You want the truth? Fine. The short version: I'm dead, and you're screwed, Stranger. You don't realize that you're surrounded by your own enemies. PRIMUS, my old employers, hired me. And that creature you're so friendly with?" " He nodded toward the portion of Goo holding Woody. "He's a PRIMUS agent, believe it or not. He tried the serum on himself. That helicopter is full of PRIMUS agents. Now that I've told you, they'll kill me for sure. Margaret and Woody, too. But you'll get it worse. They'll experiment on you, just to see if they can learn anything useful for their program."

Goo was taken aback by the man's accusation. Could it be true?

Goo tried the memories on for size. It thought about itself as Raj Pirhu, Silver Avenger, working with B, K, and Woody. About voluntarily exposing himself to the serum. And about the awful ramifications this would have; what kind of a terrible person it—Raj—would have been.

No, none of that seemed right. The times when Goo had most felt like Raj Pirhu—commanding the other PRIMUS agents, and singing along with Barbra Streisand in that beautiful car—Goo had felt a kind of straightforward goodness in the PRIMUS agent that didn't jibe with the man's story. And when Goo had attacked the van and finally confronted the people responsible for all this death and destruction, he'd felt a righteous anger that seemed very Raj-like.

Then again, maybe not. Maybe it came from some other part of Goo.

PRIMUS, Stranger thought. He had been right all along. He knew that there had to have been some connection. Was this some rogue project or was it something more?

But wait, wasn't it unlikely that PRIMUS would allow the deaths of so many of their own agents? Surely if they were in control they would have stopped the mission or they would have kept their agents out of it. And the part about Goo—considering all of the horrible side effects the serum caused, Stranger didn't think someone in the know would be stupid enough to try it on themselves. The man was lying, again.

The rat was right. Time was running out. Stranger grabbed the man's right hand and squeezed.

A sickening crunch as bones snapped and ripped through the skin. Blood squirted into the air like juice from a ripe tomato. Russell Reinhardt-Mapes screamed, making a high-pitched animal sound, and then his eyes rolled back into his head. He collapsed onto the floor, unconscious, his arm outstretched to where Stranger still gripped his hand.

Stranger saw the rat nod appreciatively. "Now that's an omelette!" Then it scampered toward the hole in the floorboards. "Don't get caught in the open," it said, and disappeared.

Stranger turned towards the woman and the man that Goo held. Their mouths were covered by Goo's tendrils, but their eyes were wide with horror. "Okay, this time I'll say it for the cheap seats. Who are you working for and what the hell is all of this for? And somebody better talk quick 'cause I'm really starting to doubt if Russell will ever play the violin again."

Over the sound of the helicopter came Maggie's voice.

"Goo!" the woman screamed. "Please tell me what's going on in there."

A wall of Goo tendrils bubbled up between Stranger and the other two perps.

"No-o-o, Stranger. That is no-o-ot kind of person I am. Stand down. Now!"

The back doors of the van opened, and sunlight shined in.

Two PRIMUS agents in full armor swiveled their very large guns to cover the van entrance.

Stranger stood there holding Russell up by his bloody hand. He was surprised by Goo's response to his line of questioning.

"What? You didn't seem to have any problem with it a minute ago. Geez, I wish you would have said something before we started this," Stranger said, shaking his head. "I thought it was pretty clear where I was going with it."  With the doors now open he knew that the game was up. Stranger dropped the man and turned to walk out of the door.

"Remind me never to take you to a monkey knife fight. Boy, you haven't lived until you've seen a monkey knife fight."

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