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Our Paranormal Chernobyl
Scene 58: Safe Haven and Rotten Apples
Wednesday, 2:40 am, New Orleans

Ed lay on the floor, his eyes blinking away the water that still fell from the ceiling. His head felt like it had been hit by a Mack truck, and his mouth tasted of blood. He'd bit his tongue when he fell over, and the sting of it was sharp.

Then he realized where he was… and what might be getting ready to kill him. He tried to get up, and fell back on his ass, his vision swimming. He managed to push away from where he thought the shape changer had been, blinking rapidly as he tried to take in the room.

It was lying a few feet away from him, Pender standing over it with a chair. He blinked again, exhausted from his last strike on the creature. He felt like he couldn't get enough air. Was it down? Down for good this time?

There was still fear in the air, but from Pender came a strong sense of satisfaction. He looked at her, then back at the creature, then back again.

"Is it out? Did we do it?" he croaked.

"We did, Ed," she confirmed. "Nice work. Good thing you brought the dog."

"Umm… yeah. The dog." He looked around, wondering where the hell Argo had gotten off to.

Ah. The dog was sprawled against the far wall. As he watched, the German Shepherd got slowly to his feet and shook himself, spraying water.

Argo looked up, saw Ed looking at him, and nodded. "Hey," he said. And sneezed.

There was a shriek of metal from behind Pender. The woman spun to face it.

Stranger shook his head in confusion, then pushed again at the tangle of steel furniture surrounding him. He staggered to his feet, still shaking his head. His mask was pressed obscenely into his skull, and it seemed as if his entire face had been twisted to the right.

The man's hands lifted to his face, found the edges of the mask. He breathed deep, and yanked.

The mask came free, followed by a clump of hairy flesh. Blood coursed down his forehead, filling his eyes. Stranger groaned. He lifted his face to the ceiling and let the water wash down his face. In a moment, the bleeding had stopped.

Theo August looked slowly around, his eyes finally resting on Pender, standing over Sontag with the metal stool.

The scarred face broke into a grin. "Heh," he said. "You go, girl"

Pender did her best to look positive in the face of Stranger's gruesome, mutilated visage, but ended up with something between a nervous smile and a horrified grimace. She gave Sontag a tire-kick, dropped the stool, and walked over to Ed.

"You alright?" she asked, extending a helping hand.

The young esper was staring in horrified wonderment at Theo August.

"Christ fucking almighty, August…" he said in a low, strangled voice.

He tore his eyes away from Theo and stared at Pender. For a brief moment, he looked every inch the terrified, exhausted, drenched and bewildered 18 year old kid that he was. Then it was gone.

"Yeah… No… I don't know," he said. "Yeah, I'm fine." But he took the hand offered as if it were a life preserver as the Titanic slid beneath the icy seas.

"Thanks."

At that moment the alarm stopped and the sprinklers turned off. The sudden silence was strange.

"Let's check on the others," Pender said. "Miss Thorin's locked in an alcove over there; you want to let her know she can come out now?"

"Yeah, yeah sure. I can do that," he replied, letting go of the agent's hand and walking towards the alcove in question. He looked at the supine shape shifter as he walked, stuffing his hands in his pants pockets to still their trembling. "If it moves so much as a fucking centimeter, I'm going to send it into a coma."

"Suits me." Pender followed after him, picking her way through the wet debris, and stopped at the edge of Goo's featureless, lifeless puddle. She knelt down beside it. Her tentative hand found no comfort in its slimy texture, and certainly no sign of Raj.

"Raj—Goo—" she began awkwardly. "Can you… can you hear me?"

The creature didn't respond. She might as well have been talking to Jell-O.

"Dammit, Raj," she pleaded. She had no idea what might help him now, but she knew what'd help her. She wished Freya was on her feet again so she could knock her off them one more time. The water dripping off her hair and down her face made it easier to pretend she wasn't crying just a little.

Ed reached the door, but there was no handle, no switch. Just a keypad. He stared at it.

"Nobody uses a key anymore," he muttered as he knocked loudly on the door. "Hey, Thorin!" he shouted. "You can come out now!"

The door immediately slid open. "What? What happened?" Maggie said, then saw Freya's fallen form and grinned. "You did it? Oh wow, that's awesome!" She stepped out of the alcove with a smile on her face. "Hardly the most glorious episode of my career though," she said apologetically, "but I do hope I was vaguely useful and gave you guys a diversion at least… how'd it happen?"

Ed shrugged, then moved over to the wall and leaned back against it, hands still in his pockets, water dripping off his chin. He stared at the shapeshifter as he spoke.

"I dunno. One minute the … she had me in her hand. The next I was on the ground. I think Pender hit her. Or something. I nailed her soon as I could, then Pender hit her again and that was it."

He sniffed, and rubbed his nose with the back of a hand. "You got any way to tie her up? Got one of those box things those dicks at PRIMUS use or anything?"

"Well." Maggie looked around the lab, taking stock of what wasn't trashed. "I don't really, but I can see what I can whip up. Maybe one of the alcoves will hold her—it'd be surrounded in force fields so she can't ooze through, and I might be able to rig the halon gas system in those to dispense some neutralizing agent instead, but it'll be a jury-rig. Best I can do on such short notice. Maybe we'd best call PRIMUS."

They heard steps behind them and turned. Three Thorin security guards ran toward them, tasers drawn.

The lead woman, Arisha Masters, called out, "Ms. Thorin! Are you all right?"

Maggie smiled at them. "I'm all right—thanks to Ed and Agent Pender, here, and Stranger, more than to myself."

"We're detaining one man upstairs," Masters said. "The elevator's disabled, so we came around the back. The rest of the compound seems normal." She surveyed the room, taking in the destroyed furniture and the odd assortment of people, animals, and creatures in between. "Do you want me to call the police? PRIMUS? The National Guard?"

"One man—Goran? Please bring him down here, will you?" She shook her head. "Don't call anyone just yet—we'll handle it. I'm really not too sure who we can trust."

Masters nodded, and sent the two other guards back the way they came.

Maggie glanced at Agent Pender. "I hope you'll help me figure out who in PRIMUS we can safely talk to. We cannot contain Freya for long without their aid. "In the meantime…" Maggie moved to one of the counters and opened a miraculously intact cabinet, pulling out a large white briefcase marked with a Red Cross and the whimsical inscription, 'the First Aid Kit From Hell.' "Best tend to the wounded first."

"I'm trying," Pender muttered, then finally stood up. Lily still looked frightened as hell, but for all that, she was uninjured. Mavis and Crossfire had been lucky, sitting ducks; they were fortunate Sontag had moving targets to contend with, although Pender had a feeling even the shapechanger would've thought twice about going toe-to-toe with the stubborn nurse. Stranger was gruesome, but recovering, in a fashion, and Ed had enough wind in him to pull the sulky teenager act. As for herself, she was ironically bothered by just how intact she was. Whatever Lily and her child had done to her had certainly saved her life more than once, but things were starting to slow down enough that she had a chance to roll it around in her mind, and she didn't like the way it rolled. For the time being, it was easier to solve others' problems and leave her own to sort themselves out. She called out to Mavis.

"Mavis, how's your patient?"

The nurse opened her mouth, closed it, then abruptly turned toward the still-unmoving Crossfire. It was the first time Pender had seen the woman at a loss for words.

"The same," Mavis said finally.

Pender crossed the room to her, through the wet and the debris. "I'm sorry about this, Mavis," she said when she got there. "You shouldn't have been here, but I'm glad you are. If the rest of the nurses in Chicago are anything like you, we'll be in good shape. Thanks."

Suddenly, she surprised both of them by giving Mavis a hug, then stepped back. "Come on. Let's see how the mother and child are doing."

Lily had righted one of the lab chairs and sat down, the baby asleep in her arms. The infant had been kept dry, and looked perfectly content.

Lily looked up as they approached. Her long brown hair was wet and straight, framing her face. "What do we do now?" she asked.

Pender looked over at Mavis, then leaned against a table as casually as possible. "Well… what do you want to do? Nobody's going to order you around or hold you captive. That's what all this was about," she said, gesturing about her at the wreckage. "Tell me what you want, and then we'll see how we can make it happen."

Lily looked at the gray form laid out on the wet floor, its indistinct features looking like they were dissolving in the water. "The wicked witch is dead," Lily said. "I want to go home."

Ed looked at the thing lying on the floor. It was old, it was evil. It had fucked with God himself knew how many people. It deserved to be locked up. They should call PRIMUS and lock it away in one of those boxes they'd put Ed in. Yeah, Ed had hurt Agent Laura Pender. Even tried to kill her.

But it wasn’t him that had done it. It was the piece of Jigsaw he’d pulled from the man's head. All for Lily.

Yeah, Lily.

He looked over at the woman, arms held tightly around her child. The image of the warehouse and the pool of blood threatened to overwhelm him again, and he wrapped his arms around himself as he shivered. Where did he even start to try and untangle the mess this had become? He knew one thing for sure: He was NOT going back into one of those boxes. No way in hell.

"Hey," he said quietly as he walked over to the young blonde woman. "You call PRIMUS if you have to, but I’m not going with them. I’m not going back in one of those boxes. I’ll stay here long enough to keep that thing unconscious till they’re close, but I’m not going back with them. Okay?"

Before she could reply, he hastily added, "I don’t need a lecture on the law. I don’t need you telling me right from wrong and all that crap. I’ll talk to Hammersmith and the cops. But I am not going to PRIMUS. I’ve been through more hell in the last two days then you even want to know. I’ve had a piece of that fucker Jigsaw living in my head. I’ve been blinded, walked through chopped up bodies and a goddamn floor full of blood. I’ve had everyone in this room's fear and terror and hate hammering at my head for hours. I’ve had my life pretty much blown to shit all because I just wanted to help. Well, I’m not going to trust what I have left to those people. I’m not. I don’t trust them."

"I don't blame you—no offense, Agent Pender," said Maggie. "PRIMUS appears to be implicated up to their ears in this thing, and it's hard to tell which apples are the rotten ones." She sighed. "Unfortunately, unless I can whip something up quick they're about the only ones with the facilities required to contain a shapeshifter, so we'll have to deal with them." She looked to Pender. "What do you think? Anyone we can trust enough?"

Ed waited to hear Pender's reply. He really didn't want to see her PRIMUS goons again, but there didn't seem to be much of a choice. He glanced at the shape shifter, then let her have another dose of his talent: the last thing they needed was to have that damn thing getting up.

He avoided looking at Theo as much as possible. The whole 'ripping-off-half-his-face-cause-his-mask-was-hurting-him' thing was just wrong…

The PRIMUS agent, still talking with Mavis and Lily, turned her attention to Maggie at the question. She laid a reassuring hand on the young mother's shoulder, then walked over to the scientist and her security guards, leaving Lily in the nurse's capable hands. She didn't want to discuss a matter such as this out in the open, but the short walk also gave her a chance to consider Maggie's question. Who did she still trust in PRIMUS? Anyone? She approached her with a sigh.

"Whatever this is, it must go pretty deep," she began. "B and K aren't exactly standard issue." Her voice had gotten quieter, more introspective. She shook her head as if to clear it, and continued. "In the short term, we can contain Sontag here. These force fields of yours are stronger than anything we're likely to find outside of Stronghold. Meanwhile, I can make some inquiries. Let's at least get some restraints on her, keep her knocked out with sedatives."

Ed glanced over at Pender.

"I'm taking care of that. It's not going anywhere," he said flatly. He really wished he had some dry clothes to get into. This damned suit was probably ruined.

He sighed, then looked again at Lily and the baby. Something was up with the kid. Every time Pender looked at it, and at Lily, there was a surge of… something. He sent a tentative touch of his talent towards the child, nearly brushing it's thoughts, and skimmed off milky half-thoughts. It was asleep, and seemed to be a normal kid.

"Boy, it's nice to see that you really care!" Stranger suddenly exclaimed. Everyone in the room turned their attention toward him. "If all of you were so concerned about PRIMUS, why the fuck did you leave Ed and me? Yeah, I still remember how quick you all were to jump my ass and ship me off with the PRIMUS bastards." He turned towards Lily, and the woman jerked back.

"Remember me, lady? I saved you and your baby's life." He pointed at Pender. "I also saved hers as well, but she didn't have any problem leaving me in their hands—and for what? Because I roughed up one of the assholes who did this. Shit, Jell-o man was right there with me through the whole thing and nobody said boo. They're two-faced. You hitch your wagon with them and watch the fuck out. You think that PRIMUS is going to let you go after all of this? You think that a 'former' PRIMUS agent who's on the run isn't a liability? They're going to have to call them sooner or later to clean up this creature's mess and then it's only a mater of time."

He shook his head. "Everything they've touched they've fucked up. Get away from them, lady. Get away from them if you know what's good for you. Now where's Q-ball?"

Pender felt a wave of anger wash over her. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Did August really think this was the time to air his petty, irrelevant grievances? Now, when things were almost resolved? As if Lily weren't scared enough. All they needed was this psycho going off the deep end, frightening her away from the one safe harbor that remained.

But then she paused, stepped back from the situation. That's exactly what August was: a psychotic. A mangled, ranting psychotic, half his face torn off by his own mask, trying to convince this poor girl that taking Pender's word at face value was crazy. Did he really think Lily would take his word over hers? That thought calmed her down.

"Stranger, I had nothing to do with that and you know it. We're not bringing PRIMUS into this, and we're certainly not handing Lily and her child over to them. I'll make sure of that myself.

"And if you want to have it out with me or anyone else here, Theo," she added, fixing his hamburger face with a dead-eyed gaze, "save it for later."

Stranger burst into laughter, loud and derisive. "So you're not going to bring PRIMUS into this. That's rich. So you no longer work for PRIMUS? You're a turncoat? Did you send them a note or something, 'cause I thought the acting Silver Avenger had to give at least a few weeks notice. I have a feeling that when this is all said and done PRIMUS is going to plant you in a deeper hole than the one they were going to plant me in. They just thought I was crazy. You actually betrayed them." He waved an arm at Sontag. "And who is going to keep that thing under wraps? It almost killed all of us. What are you going to do? I'll tell you. You're going to give it over to PRIMUS because that's all you can do, it'll spill the beans on everything and then we'll see who can hide. And what about its mutating child? Who's going to fix that thing, Dr. Thorin? You? It was willing to kill everything in sight to save it. What makes you think it won't work for PRIMUS in order to save its child? PRIMUS is probably already looking for all of us right now."

He turned towards Lily. "Picture this, my sweet. Good ol' Pender here sets you up in some new place to start fresh, hidden from PRIMUS. And what does she do? Gets caught is what. She's a high level rogue agent for the most powerful organization in the world. You don't think that she just made it to the top of someone's hit list? And when they're through with her you don't think she'll give you up? She left the organization she devoted her life to just like that. What do you think she'll do when it comes to you?"

He wheeled back to face Pender and the others. "I've already had it out with you all. Don't you remember—everyone attacked me when I went to check on Crossfire. And you let them stuff me in some fucking cage. One word, lady. One word from you would have been all that was required. One word before they shipped me off. You didn't trust them and you still left Ed and I in their custody."

He took a step forward towards her. Most of his face was beet red and deeply scarred from the burns of his youth, with the exception of the portion of his face that had taken the impact of the creature's attack. That part was a healthy pink and smooth. He pointed his finger at her.

"And don't call me Theo. This is not the face of a Theo August. My name is Stranger."

Ed gulped. It was so strange to him: there Theo was, ranting and raving like the psycho he truly was, and Ed couldn't pick up a single empathic trace. Nothing… It was like watching a movie in real life.

And the shit he was saying… Truths, but warped and twisted. Sure Pender had stuck their asses in those boxes. Truth be told, Ed owed her one for that. It had let him clear his head, push the piece of Jigsaw away, push everything away.

He wasn't about to go into the thing again, but he understood why she did it. He'd tried to kill her, and was a complete mess. And Theo… shit, Theo still needed to be contained. Put to sleep till someone could help him out of that tower he'd built in his mind. Help him deal with the things in the yard.

Ed sighed, the emotions from everyone in the room swirling and gusting around the eye of the storm that was Theo August. And there was nothing he could say to the guy to calm him down. Not really.

"Hey, Pender," Ed said. "Could DuFord take her and the kid somewhere? Somewhere safe, away from PRIMUS and…" he waved his hand at the shapeshifter "…away from that thing? You'd know where she was, and maybe that's good enough for everybody. And DuFord is a good guy. I can feel that now."

He shrugged. "For what it's worth, I know why I was put away. If I were you, I'd have done the same damn thing. I'm not going back though," he added quickly, "no offense."

He looked at Thorin. "Are you gonna be able to help its kid?"

He sent his talent again into the thing, stirring up a neural storm that hopefully would keep it down.

"I hope so," said Maggie. She looked at Lily. "I might need your help to do it though. You and your child's. I know she—" Maggie designated Freya with her chin. "—didn't give you any reason to help her family—far from it—but it's not her child's fault. She's a little kid, and she's dying."

Lily looked from Maggie, to Stranger, and back again. "I—all right. As long as you don't… as long as my baby is okay."

Maggie's eyes flashed. "I swear—I'll die before I hurt your child."

One thing you could say for Thorin, Ed thought, she was hell-bent to make sure the child was cured. Which made her okay in Ed's book.

He glanced around the room, trying to find out where DuFord was. He'd been picking up an eddy of pain and confusion from the man, and that probably wasn't a good thing. "Hey, where's DuFord at, anyway? I think he's hurt."

The esper zeroed in on the pain. There, by the wall.

On the floor across from the shapechanger, laid out like a broken doll, was the tiny figure of DuFord, face down in a pool of water.

"Oh crap," Ed said. "Um…" He pointed. "He's over there. In the water. Should I move him, will it break something, uh…"

"Oh crap," Maggie repeated. Still holding the First Aid Kit from Hell and rushed to the pilot's side to check on him. She checked for a pulse and allowed herself a small sigh of relief. "He's alive." She quickly checked that she could safely flip him or at least move his head so he would not drown.

"Jesus, DuFord," Pender breathed, feeling impotent, wanting to somehow blame Stranger for distracting her from searching for the diminutive man. Wanting to blame him for anything at this point, wanting to break her foot on his groin if she thought he'd feel it. But she couldn't take her eyes off DuFord, lying in the water like a broken bird, the second time Sontag had almost killed him. "Ed, can you—is he alright?"

If anyone but Pender had asked him to do this, he'd have told them to fuck off. The last thing he wanted to do was mind dive someone lying face-down in a pool of water.

Shit.

"I'll see…" he said, trying to mentally brace himself for the God-alone-knew-what he'd encounter in DuFord's mind.

DuFord… DuFord, it's Ed. Can you talk to me?

He was drowning. His back brain was a confused jumble, but the need for air clawed at him. Ed gasped; it was exactly like being inside Iggy's head this morning.

The day had come full circle: they'd started the morning giving CPR to a four-hundred foot giant, and now they was trying to save the life of a man six-inches tall.

Maggie yanked off one of her gauntlets and placed a finger against the back of DuFord's tiny neck. How could she feel a pulse, when her own pulse was a hundred times stronger?

She focused on her own heartbeat, waiting for the stillness between contractions, and in those pauses concentrated fiercely. She felt a faint quivering, and wondered if DuFord was going into cardiac arrest. But no; his tiny heart was pulsing like a mouse.

She allowed herself a small sigh of relief. "He's alive."

She quickly checked the alignment of his legs and spine and decided that she could turn him over. Carefully working her fingers under him, she lifted him up, then set him back down on his back.

His nose was smashed flat, and blood ran from mouth. He skin, however was tinged blue. His chest wasn't moving.

Maggie used her index finger to delicately press into the tiny man's chest, much like she would if handling a guinea pig—this caused reddened water to escape from his mouth. She waved Ed forward.

Quickly she stood up and walked to one of the lab counters, and opened a drawer. "I think that's what I prefer in this line of work," she said sarcastically. "The weird, whacked-out medical situations. Giant in respiratory arrest? No problem. Need CPR for a six-inch-tall guy? Just call Maggie Thorin, Doctor to the Bizarre." She returned from her drawer with a small pipe, the sort used to manipulate chemicals, and a hand pump. "Of course, we're lucky to be in my lab—the best stocked Bazaar of the Bizarre in picturesque New Orleans." She attached the pump to the pipe and inserted it in DuFord's tiny mouth, wrapping his lips around here. Blocking his nose with her small finger, she pressed on the pump lightly, pushing air in the small man's lungs; then she loosened his lips to let the air out. With this impromptu contraption, she went through the standard CPR technique, alternating pressing on the lungs and pumping air—though the instructors sure hadn't covered this case…

Argo padded forward and stood next to Ed. He looked down at DuFord and whined softly.

Ed sent his talent in deeper, as he'd done with Iggy, trying to reach DuFord in whatever sheltered place he'd built to hide from the panic and the pain.

C'mon man, he sent. Thorin is working on you, trying to bring you back. You're not in the water any more, you hear me? You're not in the water, and we need you to breathe.

Not now, Dad, I'm sleeping, the man's mind sent back.

Then the tiny body convulsed, and DuFord sat up, coughing. He looked up at Maggie, Ed, and Pender, then grimaced.

"My nobe hurd," he said.

Ed breathed a sigh of relief, even as he winced at the pain that was pouring off the ex-PRIMUS employee. He glanced at the shape shifter, letting it have another dose of his power, then looked at Pender.

"Now what?"

The $64 question. "Sontag," she began, starting a list. "For now, Ms. Thorin's containment fields and an anesthetic or narcosis of some kind should do the trick. Later, we'll rig up something mobile, and if you're feeling up to it, DuFord, you and Maggie can transport her to CPD, explain everything." She thought about that a moment. "Stokes seemed like a good man. A good place to start, anyway."

"Second priority: Lily." Pender indicated her with a nod. "She wants to go home, and I can hardly blame her. Maybe CPD can relocate her securely in the city—something else to bring up with Stokes, or anyone else in the CPD you may have developed a working relationship with during all this."

"Stokes works for me," Maggie said. "Anyone who'd blow his cover and risk his life to save someone else's always earns my deepest respect." She looked meaningfully—and gratefully—at Ed as she said that. Then she returned to dismantling the panel next to one alcove door to bypass the controls—especially the fail-safes that would prevent someone to be locked in. Seeing as it was exactly what they didn't need right now.

I'll talk to the CPD—now that we know they won't be her," she said, indicating Freya with her chin. She turned to Lily. "If you'd rather lie low until the ruckus died down, or go stay with relatives for a bit or anything like that, I could also have you flown and put up wherever you want. Or you can stay in New Orleans if you prefer. It's the least I can do. Chicago's also fine if it's what you want."

"Chicago is my home," Lily said simply. 

Pender nodded. "All right, then. As for PRIMUS, there may very well be someone I can contact there," she said, sounding reluctant, "but if I do, it will be as a friend and not as an agent. I don't want PRIMUS involved, despite what some may think."

Ed wiped water off of one of the tables and hopped up on it while Pender spoke, making sure that he could keep an eye on the unconscious shapeshifter. He was so damned tired. He hadn't really slept since he'd stepped off the damn bus…

Christ, just yesterday morning?

He rubbed at his eyes with the palms of his hands and stifled a yawn. He had no idea what he could offer at this point. Nobody he knew could help, he wasn't even in the same damn city he'd been in yesterday, and he was soaked to the skin.

"And what are you going to do about me?" he asked tiredly. Her jerked a thumb towards Theo August, rather than look at him. "And him?"

"Me? Nothing," she answered. "But I suggest you two put some space between you and anything connected with this incident. We wouldn't be able to have this conversation if it weren't for you and August; if it were up to me, I'd say that balances out anything else you might've done."

Ed wasn't sure what to make of her answer. It wasn't what he expected, to say the least.

He also wasn't sure things were balanced either. He felt like he'd been run through a goddamn wringer, and what was he gonna have to show for it? Probable capture by those PRIMUS jerks, a long hitchhike home (wherever that might be these days), a pounding headache, and a ruined five-hundred dollar suit.

Not to mention the hatred of the thing lying on the floor. God help him if it ever got out of wherever it was going to be stuck.

He sighed.

"Right. Okay," he said wearily. "How do I do that? How do I hide from your people. You know, the…" he hooked his fingers in the air "'Good guys'? I go all Incredible Hulk, hitchhike from place to place and shit? I'm open to ideas here."

He looked at the others.

"She's already home," he said, pointing at Maggie Thorin. "He can do whatever he wants, 'cause there's not much on this earth that can bring him down." This directed at Theo August. "Argo can probably hang out with the pajama crowd…" He began to tick everyone off on his fingers.

"DuFord can just go back into hiding, Red will get all better in the hospital and then go back to whatever secret Bruce Wayne shit he's got going with his uncle." He was about to say more, when he glanced at the puddle that was Goo.

Stop bitching, Ed… shit, at least you're still human. What about Iggy, and all those dead people? They never got a chance, and here you are whining about some wet clothes. Gram would kick your ass, boy.

And there was still Lily and the baby, wasn't there? He shook his head and chuckled. "And you've got to go lie or quit your job, cause you're in it up to your neck, huh Pender? And that Goo thing is royally screwed. It's almost got to go back to PRIMUS. Guess my options aren't so bad…"

"No," Pender agreed dully. Now she was staring at Goo. There was a lot going on behind her eyes. "I guess they aren't."

"Are you crazy?" Stranger said, marching toward them. "Your options pretty much suck, Ed. If you're smart you'll lay low for about ten years. It'll be that long before PRIMUS stops looking for all of us. Shit, it's time to make tracks outta here. Let's collect everyone who's going and go before someone jumps me again. Q-Ball, could I get a ride with you?"

The tiny man on the desk looked up, still holding his bleeding nose. "Uh, sure." He looked at Pender. "I'm taking everyone back to Chicago, right? I'll drop you off."

"But…" Ed began, his face twisting in confusion. "What, we just all leave? We can do that?" He looked from Pender to Maggie to DuFord, skipping the mangled visage of Theo August.

"What about Lily and the baby? What about the cops and this thing?" he pointed towards the shape shifter, letting it have another dose of his talent for good measure. "We can just leave it here and go?"

He blinked, then looked at Argo. "And what about you? What are you going to do?"

Shit, what are you going to do, Ed my boy? Aside from sleep for about a day and a half? Where do you go from here? This was nothing at all like the comic books he'd read as a kid. In them, the heroes always flew off into the sunset, the bad guys got thrown in jail, and there were no messy fucking loose ends!

Here, there's a baby… there's Lily and DuFord and Pender (who was probably gonna get fired or something). There were fucking mangled body parts in a warehouse, dead homeless people that had been murdered by a… a… thing, or whatever you call something that can be whatever it wants to be.

Red had gotten the shit beaten out of him, and who knew what he'd do when he woke up… Hadn't he threatened to kill that kid and that old man back at the museum? Iggy was still prowling around beneath Chicago, Jigsaw needed to have about a jillion volts put through it (if only so Ed could have even the remotest possible shot at sleeping at night) and Goo… well… Goo was about three poor bastards rolled into one.

Theo August needed a Prozac the size of a truck pumped into him…

Ed really, really needed to call Gram. He had to find out if she was okay, and he had to talk to her about what had happened in the box. And he couldn't remember where he'd left his fucking backpack with his old clothes inside. PRIMUS? The police station?

Shit…shit shit shit…

And he had to ask Pender what the fuck happened with her, didn't he? Had to know how she made it through what he'd done to her, and, more importantly, explain why he'd done it.

"We don't leave them here, Ed," Pender was saying. "We'll work with CPD to get Lily relocated, and we'll come up with a plan for Sontag. You keep acting like there's someone besides us in control of this situation, but there isn't. It's up to us, Ed—it's up to you. And you, Stranger." The last thing she wanted for Chicago was Theo August roaming the streets, but she was in no position to stop him. "I think we all have some thinking to do."

"What about the reason this whole thing got started?" Stranger demanded. "What are you going to do about Sontag's daughter? She's another victim in all of this. Do we even know where she is?"

'Up to us?' Ed thought. How the hell did she figure that?

"But… what are we supposed to do about that?" Ed pointed at the shapeshifter. "And what about the cops? And your bosses, they're gonna want to know just what happened, aren't they? And Theo's right—what do we do about its kid?" He looked over at Maggie. "But you said you could take care of her, right?"

He shut his mouth, because he was just asking the same things over and over again. And also because it really wasn't up to him—he had no ability to take care of any of this. He couldn't take care of a kid, or do anything about the shapeshifter. He'd really done all he could do in just stopping the thing.

The best thing he could do was take Theo's advice and bury himself deep. Maybe here, maybe Chicago… Shit, everywhere he went he ran into insanity.

"Don't worry, Ed." Maggie slapped the control panel for the door closed. She'd seemed concentrated on her task and yet it seemed she hadn't missed anything. "I wasn't kidding when I said I was the best chance she's got."

"Roya's my responsibility," a voice said. Goran Vrlick came into the room, escorted by one of Maggie's security guards. The man looked haggard, a shadow of the overconfident, enthusiastic geneticist Maggie had met over dinner a day and a half ago. Sontag's impersonation had been entirely too flattering. "I've worked for years to cure Roya, and I won't stop now. Let's find her."

Maggie gave Goran a serious look. "You've still got my help."

"Hey," Argo said. "Can I say something?"

The dog padded forward. "I don't know where Sontag's daughter is, but the scent is freshest in Chicago, so we can start there. I'll try to help you find her. As for safe haven for Lily and the baby… well, I have a contact in the underground." Argo looked at Ed as he said this, and once again Ed wasn't sure what was freakier, that the dog was talking, or that it was talking without moving its lips. "There's a place I know where they'll be safe—I can't imagine any place more inaccessible, or guarded by anyone more formidable. Ed, Theo, and Goran have all been there, and they can vouch for it. Mr. DuFord, if you can get us to Chicago, I know a big-hearted guy who's a good friend of hers. "

Shit, Ed thought. He hadn't even thought about Iggy acting as protector to Lily and the baby. That made perfect sense.

It all sounded fine to him. Just fine. And there was even a ride thrown in to boot.

"That all works for me," he said. "Iggy would be perfect."

"If you can't find Roya, I'll ask Freya," she said. "If she wants her daughter saved—and heck if there's anything she wants that's it—she'll tell me. She knows I'll do my darnedest to save her even if she's off to Stronghold."

"Ask her what you like, but let's get her confined first," Pender replied. "The rest of the plan sounds solid."

Maggie  approached Sontag carefully. "Can someone help me here? Make sure she's out, then help me move her."

"Don't worry, she's out," Ed said. He lifted the gray shapechanger with his mind, and floated it to the alcove. He dropped her inside, then slammed her mind one last time—just in case. "Close it," he said. 

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