By

Jay P. Hailey

Charles Specter was a billionaire. This was not an accident. He worked very hard and was very ruthless to achieve this.

Specter was a handsome man in his late forties. He was tall and thin. He had an expensive Caribbean tan and smooth nautilus muscles. He traveled with an entourage of staff and body guards. The staff was necessary to carry out his every wish. The body guards were there to defend him from the consequences of his rise to power.

More than anything about being a billionaire, Charles Specter liked the power. The money was just an external method to keep score. Specter was more powerful than anyone he met. He liked that. He especially liked to use his great power on those who resisted his will.

Reporters who investigated him found themselves bought or threatened into silence or even killed in a variety of imaginative ways. Senators and Presidents who tried to hold him to their laws found themselves destroyed by scandal or isolated by their party or even assassinated by religious fanatics.

Charles Specter was the most powerful man he knew and that made him happy.

He rode through the warm night on the western coast in an armored limousine. It was, of course, very luxurious and very well protected. His executive secretary, Duffy and two of his most hulking, violent and threatening body guards rode with him.

As the machine rolled through the night along the coast, some of Specter's past was lurking in the darkness. Soon vengeance would strike.

-*-

A hole opened in reality and out fell Molly and Maria. Molly went in face down and felt as though she was being buried in sand. Maria made a graceful diving roll but the sand took her momentum away so that she sprawled out gracefully on her back. There was a omnipresent roaring sound in the back ground and a fresh, warm sea breeze washing over them.

Maria quickly scrambled to her feet. She found herself on a beach. Behind her cliffs rose up into hills. On either side of her, gentle beaches stretched away. Breakers rolled onto the beach in front of her. The beach curved so that Maria could see that she was standing on one point of a gentle concave curve. To her left there were lights against the night sky. A town of some sort was just out of sight in that direction.

Molly picked her head up and spat sand out of her mouth. "We're on a beach." She said.

"Yeah. It reminds me of Jamaica or Florida in a way." Maria said, slowly. Maria was a slim young woman dressed in black techno-leather with armored inserts. Her dark looks and prominently displayed weapons were a clear warning. Hostile intentions towards Maria could be harmful to your health.

Molly had a fresh faced blonde haired "Girl-Next-Door" look. She was taller than Maria and built bulkier. She was wearing a tired blue denim work shirt and khaki shorts. Both young women wore metal back packs with a large variety of useful things arranged scientifically inside. Each backpack had the Greek letter omega inscribed into it.

"How long do we have here?" Maria asked.

Molly slid her back pack off and took a battered device out of it. It had seen better days. Its black plastic case was duct-taped and glued. Many of its handier functions were history. It was a dimensional teleporter. It could open a hole between alternate realities and allowed travel between them. One of the handier functions that the device no longer had was the ability to steer the travel. Molly and Maria used the device to leap randomly between dimensions. They hoped that eventually they might find a dimension where they could get the techno-magical device repaired or where they might be able to hitch a ride home.

The D-hopper required a certain amount of time to recharge its energies for each jump. The time varied for random reasons in each dimension.

Molly read the battered LED readout. "Two weeks until the next jump." She said.

"Well, I hope that town over there is friendly." Maria said.

"That would be a nice change." Molly said.

-*-

Specter's limo slid smoothly along the highway. The highway turned down a slope that showed the beautiful cliffs and the western ocean to good advantage. At the bottom of the slope there was a gentle turn to the south. Further along the highway a small coastal town sat on the shore and enjoyed being itself.

Specter enjoyed the town for its intrinsic value as well as for the fact that he could own it each time he passed through. He didn't have to keep paying for it when he wasn't using it. Most of the residents of the town were unaware of how clearly he owned the town during his visits. They assumed that he was an ordinary man like them. Specter's face showed a hint of the smugly superior amusement he felt. He was not so gauche as to say anything out loud.

In the seat next to Specter, Duffy saw the subtle emotions glide across the face of his absolute master. He froze and willed himself to near invisibility. When Specter's ruminations were interrupted, he often felt the need to prove that his power was superior. This generally involved pain, humiliation and death for whoever caught Specter's attention.

-*-

Along the down slope of the highway a figure crouched. The limo cruised along according to the schedule she had laboriously calculated. As the limo passed the point of no return, she pressed a button on her remote control unit.

In the road ahead of the limo, a carefully prepared bundle detonated with a soft "whump". It scattered wickedly barbed triangles of metal all over the road.

Charles Specter's limo driver was one of the best body guards and limousine drivers in the world. He saw the brief flash of the detonation but knew instantly that there was no way to avoid the consequences. He locked up the brakes of the big limo, trying to limit the damage that would result. In the seat next to him, the body guard's gun appeared in his hand. He was expecting an ambush. The driver almost snorted in derision. What was the muscle bound goon going to do now, shoot the laws of physics?

In the back of the limo, Specter, Duffy and the other body guard were thrown around by the violent maneuver.

"What-" Specter's temper raged. Whoever was responsible for this indignity would pay.

The limo slid over the caltrops. It had armored run-flat style tires. The first caltrop barely penetrated before being squished flat but the next caltrop penetrated more deeply. The limo's tires were soon shredded wreckage.

The driver felt the tires let go. The limo lurched sickeningly to the side. Then he noticed the tall cliff at the bottom of the down slope. The limo should have turned to avoid the huge drop. The driver wasn't certain at this point that he could make the turn in time to avoid the deadly drop.

"Oh, shit." He said.

The body-guard put his feet up on the dash and braced himself thoroughly, grunting with the effort to wedge himself firmly into his seat.

In the back Charles Specter climbed back on to his seat. He was in a fine rage. He picked up the intercom and was about to shout at the driver when he noticed that the limo was flying over a cliff.

"Aaaaaiiiiieeeee!!!" The most powerful man in the world screamed as he plunged over the cliff.

-*-

Molly and Maria turned towards the sudden sound of screeching tires and mangled metal to see the limo plummet off the cliff.

"Whoa." Molly said.

Maria just watched. The limo plummeted nose first into a large pile of sharp looking rocks and bounced. It flipped over and gained a twist. It rolled the rest of the way down the cliff shredding itself against the rocks as it went.

As it came to rest on the beach, Maria turned to Molly "Do we want to get-" Molly was already running towards the mangled car.

Maria sighed and followed Molly to the rescue.

-*-

The limo was a demolished wreck. There was a clear, acrid fluid all over it. Molly dabbed a little on her finger and tasted it.

"Gasoline." She said.

"Uh oh." Maria said. "Are we in danger of a fire?"

"You check." Molly said. "I'll work on getting these people free of the wreckage."

"Be careful about moving them." Maria warned.

"I remember." Molly said.

Maria looked around the car and quickly spotted the dancing of flames on the remains of the engine block "I've got a small oil fire on the engine." Maria called.

Maria looked at the front of the limo at the mangled bodies of the driver and the man in the passenger seat. She felt for a pulse. "These two are dead." She said.

Molly moved towards the back.

Maria watched the flow of gasoline. It was a contest between whether the flames would touch the gas or whether the sand would absorb it all first.

Molly reached the rear of the armored limo. She could hear someone moaning inside the wreck but she couldn't reach them.

"I have to lift up the car." She told Maria.

"Be careful." Maria warned. "There's loose gas on the top." Molly reached under the wreck and got a firm grip. Then she straightened her knees slightly. The car rolled a little bit. Molly slowly let go. The car did not settle back.

Molly dropped to her tummy and wriggled into the limo.

There were three people there. A big man lay quietly. Molly took his pulse. He was dead.

The next person was a tall distinguished looking man. He mildly banged up but not seriously hurt. He was unconscious. Molly checked carefully for head injuries. The moaning man was next. Molly grimaced to herself as she saw his leg. It was twisted at an unnatural angle.

"Mister, can you hear me?" Molly said rather loudly.

"Arggh!" Duffy was certain that Molly was some sort of assassin coming to finish the job. "Get away from him!" Duffy struggled through his pain to try and free his gun. "You have to take me first!"

"Relax! Relax, we're here to help you." Molly said. "Your leg looks broken. Are you bleeding?"

"Are you really trying to help us?" Duffy asked hopefully. What a wondrously bizarre miracle. Random strangers trying to help Charles Specter.

"There's a fire danger. I'm going to have to try and move you." Molly said grimly. Moving injured people was the last thing you wanted to do. More often than not, moving injured people simply exacerbated the injury. But Molly was afraid that the limo would catch fire. It was a difficult call.

"We'll need to find a way to splint your leg, Sir. I'm sorry, it's not going to be fun."

"No!" Duffy yelled. "Take him first!"

"He's not as badly injured as you are. You're going to need more time and more work, Mister." Molly wanted to get him out first. Maybe the other victim would regain his senses and be able to get himself out of the car in the mean time.

"No! Him first!" Duffy cried.

"Okay, okay. We'll get this man out first. What's your name?" Molly said.

"His name is Charles Specter. I'm Duffy, his personal assistant."

Molly slowly arranged Specter and edged him out of the car. Maria met her just outside. "I'll get him." Maria said quietly. "You've got to hurry. The whole bottom of the car is involved."

"I understand." Molly said. She slid back under the car. "Mr. Duffy, I'm going to get you out of here. I'll need to make a splint for your leg so that in moving you, we don't aggravate your injury.

"Mr. Specter. Is he safe?" Duffy asked.

"Yes, Sir. My partner has him. Let's work on that splint."

"Okay."

-*-

Up on the highway at the top of the cliff the mysterious woman finished sweeping up the remains of the caltrops from the road. Not only did she remove a lot of evidence that might be used to trace her but her revenge would be less morally pure if any innocents driving along the road went over the cliff after Specter.

Then she went to the edge and looked at her handiwork. There was the wreck of the limo, starting to burn merrily. There were the bodies of her hated enemies, laid out carefully beside the limo. There were the random by-standers working to save the monsters.

"Damn." The woman cursed softly. The two women down on the beach probably didn't even know what kind of evil monster they had pulled from the fire.

She turned away to leave the scene. Specter would be more alert now but he still didn't know who his enemy was. That gave her an edge.

The woman leapt into a carefully concealed sports car and roared off into the night. She was already thinking of her next attack.

-*-

Charles Specter regained consciousness. It hurt a lot. Charles realized that he had a concussion. His eyes wouldn't focus correctly. He wasn't in the limo. Had he been thrown clear? No, there were other people around.

He rolled over and saw the wreck of the limo. How could he have survived that? It was even burning. There was a slim black haired woman in tough looking leathers. Had she saved him?

Then the limo tipped over onto its side. A taller blonde haired girl held the limo up and spoke to her leathered companion.

The girl in the leathers took Duffy and dragged him away from the car. The blonde casually let the car drop behind her. The fire was now burning all over the wreck. By the time it stopped burning, a quarter of a million dollar armored limousine would be melted scrap.

Specter watched as the leathered girl brought Duffy over near him. She set him down and began to move faster than Specter could see. The sight made him a little sick. Duffy groaned in deep pain. Specter recognized the sound. He had caused it often enough. Duffy's body was suffering serious malfunction and was letting him know it. How had this happened? Who were the two girls?

"He's bleeding." The dark haired one said. "If we don't get paramedics here soon, he'll die."

"Can you reach that town over there in time?" The blonde asked.

"Sure. The big question is whether I'll be able to find help once I get there."

"I only know one way to find out." The blonde said. "Take your watch and stay in touch."

"All right."

The black haired girl rummaged in two metal back packs and took out thick wrist watches. She handed one to the blonde and said "Back soon."

Specter watched as she ran down the beach towards the lights of Santa Clarissa as fast as any motorcycle he had ever seen.

The blonde went to work on Duffy. She got a first aid kit out of one of the metal back packs. She folded some gauze into a pad and then carefully pressed it onto Duffy's leg. He grunted with more pain and flailed weakly at her. Soon he subsided. Specter watched her. She seemed to be willing to hold the compress on Duffy's wound for as long as it took her friend to get back. Specter knew that it would take a pretty serious effort to hold the bandage with enough force to do any good. Only the strongest of people could do it for any stretch of time. It occurred to Specter that the two girls paid more attention to the injured Duffy than himself. They also made no mention of money. That meant that they did not know that it was Charles Specter that they had rescued. Specter was a little miffed as he faded away.

-*-

Maria pelted down the beach at an easy fifty or sixty miles an hour. As she hit the packed sand at the edge of the waves she lengthened her stride and began to speed up. The curved stretch of beach slid past and soon she came to the corner that hid the town from her sight.

The corner was made from a large jumble of fallen boulders. Maria bounded up the pile like a hyperactive gazelle. As she topped the rise, she was greeted by the sight of the small coastal town of Santa Clarissa.

"I've got the town in sight." Maria said. Her wrist watch, a complex communicator relayed her words to Molly's watch. "It looks good. I'm going in."

Maria was pleased that many of the small town's signs were advertisements in English for consumer goods. A good sign that this dimension was a close enough parallel to her own world for her to get by in.

-*-

The paramedics from Santa Clarissa responded with admirable speed and decisiveness. They were hard at work stabilizing Duffy when the sheriff's Deputy rolled up.

After getting a quick run down on the situation, he said "Okay. Where are the young ladies who called this in?"

The paramedics turned to point them out only to find Molly and Maria had quietly left the scene.

"We gotta find 'em." The Deputy said.

"Why?" The paramedic wanted to know.

"That there is Charles Specter, the richest man in the country. I don't know if there was foul play involved with the accident yet, but I figure I'd better get all my ducks in a row or else. Those two girls are part of the investigation now."

"Good luck, Deputy." The paramedic said.

-*-

Molly and Maria continued on into Santa Clarissa. They were happy that they managed to interfere in a positive way. They were also happy with the ease of their escape. Avoiding official entanglement had become a survival tactic on their quest for home. Despite being super powered agents for the United Nations back home, Molly and Maria had discovered that the police generally didn't like impossible girls showing up from nowhere. The police especially resented it when Molly and Maria refused to discuss the details of their origins. The police were most resentful when told the truth of the matter.

So Molly and Maria slipped into Santa Clarissa anonymously, with light hearts and reasonably clear consciences.

-*-

Maria and Molly settled into Santa Clarissa. It wasn't as easy as they would have liked. The big metal backpacks that they wore were supposed to be equipped for multidimensional travel. By its very nature, multidimensional travel was unpredictable. What was money in one world was more likely than not waste paper in the next. Worse it might even bring danger.

Most of the carrying space in each of the large metal backpacks was devoted to wilderness survival equipment. As a guard against the possibility of having to survive in an urban environment, each back pack had been equipped with a fair amount of gold. The theory was that gold was more liable to be used as a monetary metal than pieces of paper or plastic.

On the face of it the assumption was ludicrous. Who knew what worlds and dimensions they would find? A world composed entirely of gold was as much a possibility as a world where gold was completely unknown. In each case it might be worthless.

The people who built the dimensional travel device seemed to like worlds within a certain limited scope of possibility. In all the worlds that Molly and Maria had so far visited, the air, water and temperature conditions seemed approximately the same as on the Earth that they started from. Very often, the dominant form of life was either human or reasonably close.

So the gold assumption had proven to be a very useful one even though there seemed to be little logic on the face of it.

The gold that Maria and Molly carried was not as immediately useful to them as one might expect. They camped out under a pier over night, along with several other people. It seemed a haven for the homeless. The next morning they went to a bank and tried to change their gold for cash. In the world in which they found themselves, direct ownership of gold was completely unusual and possibly illegal. Opinions from different bank officials varied but the basic point was always the same. They could not help Molly and Maria.

After spending all day visiting various official parties, Molly and Maria wound up at the only place that would help them.

-*-

"A life of crime suddenly begins to make more sense." Maria griped. "He paid us about half of what it was worth."

"At least we have some working capital." Molly said. "We should be able to make out okay for the next couple of weeks."

"Pawnshop my butt. More like crook-in-a-box." Maria snarled.

-*-

Delilah Chou-Masters drove her sports car into the garage of the beach house lent to her by a friend. The sports car was running roughly. Delilah noted the sound and the procedure for repairing the expensive foreign performance car flitted through her mind.

Delilah could no longer afford the expensive mechanics who maintained the expensive car. She had learned to take care of it herself. The only problem was that the vengeance business took nearly all of her time. She didn't have a lot of time for taking care of mundane business anymore.

Delilah entered the beach house. It was a subtle but effective statement of taste. The friend who had lent it to her liked only the best the world had to offer. That was why he liked her, mostly.

Delilah went into the main room of the beach house. It was an octagonal room with an open ceiling. Wooden rafters held up the roof. The room was arranged around a set of comfortable black couches, a fire place and a complete, technologically advanced entertainment center. Along the west side of the room the wall was mostly composed of glass sliding doors that led out onto a large balcony. The balcony extended out over the Great Western Ocean.

The other wall held a complete wet-bar. Delilah walked over to that. She poured her self too large a glass of some excellent sipping brandy. She flopped down in the expensive and ergonomically designed couch and turned on the television in the expensive entertainment center.

She didn't note the digital satellite reception. She didn't care about the excellent virtual theater, three dimensional, digital stereo sound. It was probably the first time that the television had been used like a real television to tranquilize the mind. Ironically, after all the money and electronics engineering that went into it, it didn't work. Delilah Chou watched handsome Caucasian people talking on the television.

"I'm Bob Rankle," Said the generically handsome man.

"And I'm Betty Jones," The woman jumped in with artificial timing.

"And this is the Evening News." The man picked up. He began to tell the news in an artificial and sanitized way, meant to make the general public feel informed without actually bothering them with anything.

Delilah felt her brain start to slip. Where in the world was she? What in the world was she doing here? Her brain, always a powerful and sharp instrument at her side betrayed her now by remembering.

From her childhood on the streets of an ancient oriental city to her teenage years as the sole student of ancient martial arts master Chou, to her weird transition into the social life at the Capital. From her career as a young, naive but very skilled secret agent to her later career as a not so young and not very naive private detective. Her foster father died, leaving her a fortune which just added to the sense of a life rushing uncontrolled at super-sonic speed. Like the Lady and the Tiger, she just held on and watched to see where her strange life would take her.

Then she met her husband. John Masters was an inventor in the huge metropolis along the sea, Beach City. He was a genius. He worked where the urge drove him. He didn't see Delilah for her money. They came together and they made love as though it was for the first time.

Following their marriage, they used her money and his inventions to build a small empire of their own. She remembered their adventures together. He was a dark skinned man with broad shoulders and great internal strength. He helped her find the man responsible for the deaths of her real father, mother and even the ancient master Chou. With the death of the man responsible for so much of her early unhappiness, it seemed as though the past was a closed book. Delilah could put away old concerns and concentrate on her bright future.

Then Charles Specter had taken an interest in their small empire. He offered to pay a hideous amount of money for all the inventions John had come up with until that time. Delilah and John discussed it. They knew that Specter used his wealth and power solely for self aggrandizement. John's inventions had better potential than that.

When they refused Charles Specter, he became enraged. Then they discovered the true extent of his power. A long series of attacks and disasters followed Delilah and John until the final act. Agents of Charles Specter attacked them in their Beach City home and even though the naked and unarmed Delilah and John inflicted terrible casualties on them, they took John Masters away.

Now the Chou-Masters financial empire was a memory. Delilah lived with only the few objects that she could personally rescue from the creditors that stole them.

The only safe harbors she found were in the homes of old friends who were confident enough to brave the wrath of Charles Specter.

Revenge was her cause and her noble purpose, now. Charles Specter would pay for his crimes, but it didn't keep her warm at night.

The two talking heads on the news were replaced by police artist sketches of two young women. One was blonde, one was dark haired but like everyone else in the police sketches, they looked vaguely guilty of something.

The faces looked almost familiar to Delilah.

She turned the sound back up.

"We reported earlier about the strange accident that befell billionaire Charles Specter, Betty," The man said.

"That's right, Bob but now new information has come to light. Although Charles Specter was injured, two young women, here depicted by a police sketch artist, pulled him free and saved the billionaire's life." Betty said.

Bob rejoined "They disappeared from the crash scene, Betty, without asking the billionaire for a reward or even staying to hear his thanks."

"If you are the good samaritans who helped Charles Specter," Betty said earnestly. "Then the Santa Clarissa Police would like to speak with you. There may be a reward, Bob. Who ever those two good people are, I hope they come forward."

"That's right Betty. Now in other news-"

Delilah shut off the television. They were the two young women who interfered with her plan. If Specter wanted to express his gratitude to them, then they might be her ticket to vengeance. She left the beach house and drove her battered sports car back into Santa Clarissa.

-*-

Charles Specter was released from the hospital the next day. He immediately took up residence in his hotel in Santa Clarissa, The Hibelson. The hotel chain was still named after the man that Specter had taken it away from. He kept the name as a reminder both to himself and to his discredited opponent.

In the presidential suite, he relaxed and tried to come up with a replacement for Duffy. His executive secretary was still in the hospital suffering from massive blood loss and the compound fracture of his leg.

But Specter had other priorities. He was speaking with his chief of Security Melos Dubois. Dubois had been in the Army and then in the Special Forces and then he had served in the top secret intelligence agency. Now he worked for Specter. The pay was better and Dubois got to do what he was good at, hurting people. It was the only thing that made him feel truly alive. It was a hobby, a calling that both Dubois and Specter had in common.

"All right, let's summarize." Specter counted off. "One. I was hit and I want to know by whom. Second. Who was that who rescued me? Find them. Clear enough?"

"Yes, Sir." Dubois said. "Shall I take care of the assassin myself or would you like to be advised?"

"Advise me. I didn't think that I had left anyone in condition to make a run at me or I would have been more alert." Specter said. "I'm curious about who could be so desperate and so stubborn to keep it going at this late stage."

"How about the samaritans?"

Specter stopped for a moment. He remembered the leathered girl flying down the beach, running faster than any human should. He remembered the blonde casually hefting the wreck of his limo. They represented power. They were a power that he didn't own. They were a power that he couldn't control. They walked through his world and rubbed his nose in the fact that there were at least two people that he couldn't control. Even though he knew that he should be grateful that they saved him, he wasn't. He hated them. He resented them for being people who were not under his thumb.

"Advise me." He said quietly.

Dubois was too professional to grin.

-*-

Molly and Maria got rooms in a fairly clean but ancient long stay hotel. The Hotel Buena Ventura was a relic from fifty years ago and so were many of the people who lived there. They checked in and quickly searched the room. Then they each stood guard while the other showered. Then they dressed in fresh clothes. Feeling well groomed and in control they went to eat. The nearest place they found was a place filled with more of the old people from the neighborhood. The two young ladies drew stares. Many of the older men appreciated the view but most of the people were suspicious of young people in their midst.

Over the next couple of days, Molly and Maria made a point of avoiding the old people and going down by the beach and the pier where there was something resembling a night life.

-*-

"Excuse me, ladies." The deputy said. Molly and Maria kept walking with carefully neutral expressions.

"Ladies!" The deputy called. He hurried up to them.

"Oh! Hello, Officer." Molly said. She was dressed in a flowery sun dress. It was a little light but Molly wasn't seriously bothered by temperature. Maria was dressed in a much less threatening style with jeans and a T-shirt. Her usual armored leather jacket had been cleaned and the lining washed. Worn open in a studiously casual manner it easily passed as a pretentious article of fashion.

"May I see some identification, please?" The deputy asked.

Both Molly and Maria hemmed and hawed. They didn't carry their IDs. They both had very official IDs that identified them as special peace keeping agents of the United Nations. Cops tended to become resentful when presented with very official looking ID from a non-existent multinational police force. They became even more resentful when the non-existent police force was empowered by a non-existent world organization.

More often than not, Molly and Maria left their IDs in the metal back packs.

"Don't you have any?" The deputy asked.

"No, Sir." Molly said abashedly. She had a pretty good "innocent abroad" act. She looked unhappy and pretended not to understand why the police were making a big deal. Very often she could trigger a protective urge in a cop and he would help her through the crisis. This didn't often work in bigger cities. Maria had a harder time selling the innocent act. She was further away from being innocent and it showed. Together Molly and Maria could often sell the idea that they were innocent young suburban women out for some fun. This was the spin that they automatically assumed for the deputy.

"Ladies, you know that it's illegal for you not have an ID, don't you?" The deputy sighed. "I might have to run you in."

"Oh no." Molly's dismay was quite genuine. She tried to overlay some innocent waif over it but didn't succeed too well. Maria began to take on a more neutral look.

"Listen, if you're just down here having a little fun, I can understand that. I don't have to run you in. But I need you to be honest with me." The deputy said.

Maria smiled a grim smile but managed to wipe it off her face before the deputy saw it.

Molly thought about it. Then she gambled. "This is about the limousine, isn't it?"

"Yes. Was that you?"

Molly sighed. "Yes, Sir. We're not where we're supposed to be. We saw the limo go over the cliff and just sort of jumped in. But we really don't want to be involved."

"Do your parents know where you are?" The deputy sighed.

Molly thought about it. "They know I'm taking a trip. They just don't know where."

"How about you?" The deputy asked Maria.

Maria thought quickly. She hated Molly's style of lying. Selectively stating the truth and letting the mark make his own assumptions was a time honored method but it made everything sound like a lie. Even the truth. "All my parents know is that I'm following her." Maria said, gesturing at Molly. At least Molly had the good graces to blush about it.

"Okay, ladies, here's the deal. You pack on up and move along home and I won't run you in, all right?" The deputy looked stern in a sort of bored, routine way.

"Yes, Sir." Molly said.

"Uh huh." Maria said.

The deputy walked away. Molly and Maria continued with what they were doing. It was a routine police hassle. If they kept their noses clean and didn't come to the deputy's attention again, then they had nothing to really worry about.

-*-

Dubois reported the Specter. "We found the Samaritans, Sir. They seem to be camped out in town."

Specter nodded. "Good. Good. Keep an eye on them and keep me informed. I'll go speak to them now. Any progress on the other matter?"

"We have a good profile on the MO. We'll have results for you soon."

"Don't keep me waiting too long, Dubois." Specter warned.

"No, Sir."

-*-

Molly and Maria walked into their hotel room. The small town was endlessly fascinating to Molly. She liked watching people and watching what they did. There wasn't enough of a night life there to entertain Maria but she really didn't mind. She was relaxing a little bit while they tooled around and window shopped.

The room appeared untouched but Molly noticed one difference. There was an envelope on one of the beds. She signaled to Maria and they searched the rest of the room diligently. Their packs didn't seem touched. There was nothing else different in the room.

Maria backed off and Molly approached the envelope. Molly was overconfident. There was no poison that she had met so far that had been able to hurt her. If the envelope held a bomb there could not be enough explosive in it to seriously injure her.

The envelope simply contained a message:

"I really don't want to hear the truth about Charles Specter." Maria said.

"We should at least check and find out if we're being followed." Molly said.

Maria sighed. "There are two ways to deal with it. If we check and find that we're being followed we'll have to pack up and run. If we assume that we're being followed and just pack up and run now, then even if we aren't being followed at least we haven't lost anything."

"There's a couple of other things we can do. We can ignore it and hope it goes away."

Molly said.

Maria snorted.

"I don't like that one either. The last one is that we can poke around and try to figure out what's going on." Molly said.

"No, no, no, no! Remember the last time we tried to fix things, Saint Molly?"

Molly blushed. "That was an accident. I didn't know that the Bishop was talking about me until it was too late."

"That's not the point," Maria said "If we hadn't talked to the Bishop in the very first place then we would have never been in the situation to begin with."

"What were we going to do, let the wagon haul those people off?" Molly asked.

"None of this is our problem! That was a whole different dimension. They have their own solutions to their own problems. Our job is to survive to get home." Maria said.

"I'm not going to stand by and let people get hurt. My job is to try and help. That's all. Where, when, why, and how are just the details."

"Okay. Let's narrow it down. Who gets hurt if we leave right now?" Maria asked.

Molly thought about it. "You're right. Let's make sure that we're being followed, though. I don't want to be running away from a figment of the manager's imagination. I like Santa Clarissa."

"Okay." Maria agreed, "We'll look and see if we're being followed."

There was a knock on their door. Molly and Maria looked at each other. Then they quickly grabbed their weapons. There was another knock.

Molly stood brazenly in front of the door. This was a standard tactic for Molly and Maria. Molly would make herself the target while Maria crept around for a back shot.

"Who is it?" Molly asked sweetly.

"My name is Charles Specter. We met on the beach the other night. I'd like to speak with you." The voice came back.

"I guess that settles that." Maria whispered.

Molly went the door and unlocked it. She opened it a little bit. Maria tensed with a sniper's rifle in her hands. If Molly were attacked, then she would be thrown back through the doorway, giving Maria a clear field of fire through the door.

Molly peeked out the door. There was the tall distinguished looked man from the limo. To his side there was a man about the same height. He weighed close to fifty pounds more than Specter. He was wearing a dark suit and dark glasses. His attitude and expression were neutral and almost passive. Specter and his body guard did not attack Molly.

"Hello. I'm Charles Specter." The distinguished man introduced himself. "This is my associate, Mr. Dubois."

"How do you do?" Molly said. "I'm Molly. Are you alone?"

"Yes, Molly. It's just us here." Specter said.

Molly waved two fingers behind the door, telling Maria how many targets she saw. Molly opened the door and stepped back. "Please come in." She held her gun down to her side as she stepped backwards.

Dubois looked at Molly's gun and froze for a second. It looked like a machine gun action mounted on a pistol grip. The gun must have weighed ten pounds. There was no way that a girl Molly's size could fire the gun without hurting herself.

Keeping a perfectly blank face he followed Specter into the hotel room. Along the back wall he was covered by the dark haired girl. She had a sniper's rifle. Dubois looked at it. He didn't recognize the make or model but he recognized the binocular laser range finding sights and the small boxes fit to the grips might be gyro stabilizers. It was a ten thousand dollar assassin's rifle. She quickly brought the weapon to high port and left it there. The threat hung in the air. Try anything and be shot very accurately.

"Well, who have we here?" Charles Specter smiled. He was completely convinced that he was safe. Only the most savage psychotic would kill a helpless stranger in front of them without first finding out what they wanted.

"This is Maria Giarelli." Molly introduced. "Maria this is Mr. Specter, one of the people we pulled out of that limo." She gestured toward the body guard. "This is Mr. Dubois."

"Pleased to meet you." Maria said dubiously.

Molly holstered her gun. There didn't seem to be anything about Mr. Specter that was threatening. Molly's huge hand gun was just back up for her fists, anyway. "Please have a seat, Mr. Specter, Mr. Dubois. I'm sorry we don't have anything to offer you."

"That's quite all right." Specter waved the idea away. "I'm really just here to discuss business with you. I hope you don't mind."

"I'm sorry Mr. Specter. I don't know how we might be able to help you." Molly said.

"You helped me just fine a couple of days ago." Specter grinned. "I must say that you displayed some unusual talents in the doing."

"I don't know what you mean." Molly said.

"I did wake up briefly right after the accident." Specter said. "I saw you moving my limo to get at Duffy. I saw you, Miss Giarelli running down the beach. I must say that I was impressed. You two are truly unusual."

"Thank you, Mr. Specter but I'm sure that you're exaggerating." Molly said modestly.

"In any case you look like competent and capable young women. I would like to hire you. I want your talents working for me." Specter said.

"No." Maria said simply.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Specter. We won't be in town for very long." Molly said.

"I'm certain that we can over come any problem if we work together," Specter said. "Money is not an issue. I am prepared to offer you enough to live in the lap of luxury for the rest of your lives."

"I'm really sorry, Mr. Specter. Like I said, we'll be moving on soon." Molly said.

"Moving on where, Dear?" Specter asked. "Where ever it is, I'll get you there in style."

"I'm sorry, it's a personal thing." Molly said.

Specter said. "You act as though I'm a local boy, Molly. I own businesses and companies all over the world. There's no where you can go that's out of my reach."

"I'd really rather not discuss it, Mr. Specter." Molly said firmly. "We're not looking for work."

"I'm sorry, girls." Specter said. "I've been a little pushy here. You see I'm afraid."

Maria looked skeptical.

"Of what?" Molly said despite herself.

"My limousine didn't fall off that cliff by accident. Someone's trying to kill me." Specter said. "I guess it's sort of hard for me to admit when I'm in over my head."

Dubois simply stood and watched. Molly and Maria were the oddest mix of pro and amateur that he'd ever seen. He had no idea what they were going to do. He filed Specter's patter for further reference but otherwise paid no attention. It was all moves in the same direction and he knew it. Specter's mention of special talents were bothersome. Dubois didn't know what in the world Specter was talking about there. Specter had made a collection over time of odd and note worthy people. Talents and prodigies and some of the best people in the world at what they did. Specter didn't have to be the best mathematician in creation or the most skilled martial artist. He simply had to control them. Dubois worked with Specter and supported his power hungry tactics because it the quickest and easiest route to getting his own needs fulfilled. Without Specter, Dubois knew that he'd be a serial killer in some FBI file. At least now his urges and talents were put to protected use. He idly wondered what it would be like to kill Molly and Maria. He didn't think about it too hard. He had an impassive facade to maintain.

"I doubt that you're in over your head." Maria said slowly. "Mr. Gunboat over there looks like seriously bad news. What do you want with us?"

"I want to know what you can do. I want to know what you two really are. I want to bring your abilities to their fullest potential and use them for the betterment of all mankind." Specter said. He had a glint in his eyes. You could almost see him looking into a grand future.

"I'm sorry. No." Molly said.

Specter shifted uncomfortably. "All right. You push a hard bargain. A million dollars. Think of what that might buy you."

"No." Maria said. She said it quickly. She actually considered taking the job, demanding payment in advance and then skipping out on Specter anyway. It was a bad habit encouraged when she was young by her uncle. Maria struggled to rise to a higher ethical plane. "What part of this are you having trouble with?"

Specter took a deep breath. "I can see we have some work ahead of us. Let's turn to more immediate matters. Are you hungry? Would you like to go to lunch with me?"

"I'm sorry. I don't think it would be appropriate." Molly said. Maria almost overruled her. If Specter was willing to part with lunch it couldn't hurt to eat his food. Maria let it pass anyway.

"All right, then are you comfortable here? I own a hotel in town. I'll let you stay there until you decide to leave, free of charge." Specter said.

"No, Sir." Molly said. Maria agreed with her about that. They might as well carry around video cameras and tape everything they did for Specter's amusement.

"Well at least let me show you my appreciation for pulling me out of the wreck." Specter said, annoyed.

"We don't do that kind of stuff for money." Molly said.

"Sure. No problem." Maria said.

Molly shut up with a stubborn look on her face.

"Really? Excellent. What can I do for you, Miss Giarelli?" Specter seemed happy at last to find something to find something that the two girls would accept. This hid his true feelings. He was enraged. Molly and Maria would eventually call him master and offer anything they had to please him. He kept the anger carefully hidden.

"Gold. Twenty-four carat. Three pounds each." Maria said.

Specter did the math quickly in his head. "That's about 38 thousand dollars."

"You asked." Maria shrugged.

Specter nodded. "So I did. I'll have it delivered tomorrow."

Molly said "Thank you, Mr. Specter. Mr. Dubois." While looking hard at Maria.

-*-

As Specter walked out of the Buena Ventura, he said to Dubois "Find out everything you can about those girls. I want to know what their mothers had for breakfast the day they were conceived. Once we find their pressure points we are going to lean hard."

This time Dubois allowed himself to grin. "Yes, Sir."

-*-

"Well. That was interesting." Molly said after Specter left.

"Yep." Maria grabbed her metal back pack and started to pack it for travel. "Just an ordinary, every day, happy, rational businessman."

"Uh huh." Molly started to pack her hard-pack, too. "What about your six pounds of gold?"

"$38 Thousand is a lot, but if it buys peace of mind, then it's cheap." Maria said.

"Good point." Molly said. "I wonder what's along that highway that goes through town?"

"If it's within ten days walking distance, then we can find out." Maria said. "Shall we?"

"Let's" Molly opened the door and gestured Maria out.

-*-

"Mr. Specter, I have a report on the other matter we discussed." Dubois reported to Specter. He was happy. The two new victims were a good thing but this was a matter he had been waiting to resolve for some time.

"Who was it?" Specter asked. Over the last two days he had been balked and assaulted too many times. He wanted to relieve some of his tension.

"Delilah Chou-Masters." Dubois said. He had been waiting to get his hands on her for a long time. Although he didn't look it, he was excited. "She's staying at a beach house owned by Gabriel Chavez."

Specter's eyes glittered like polished obsidian. "Set up the hit immediately. I'll make arrangements to deal with our Mr. Chavez later."

"I'll need to pull some people from the samaritan effort." Dubois said. "We might loose them."

"Do it. We can reacquire the dear girls at leisure."

"Yes, Sir." Dubois grinned. "Will you be attending?"

"Of course. Do you think I'd miss it?"

"We'll appreciate your company as always, Sir."

-*-

Delilah watched Maria and Molly make their move. They quietly checked out of the old people's hotel and just walked away. Delilah was smart enough to realize that they probably wouldn't make the carousel meeting that she suggested but she still had to try to win them over. They were her ticket inside Specter's organization. But in order to speak with them and to tell them the truth, she had to eliminate their tails.

Molly and Maria walked casually up Santa Clarissa's Main Street, towards the highway. The easiest tail to neutralize would be the point man. Delilah thought to herself for a moment. Where would she be if she was on point? There he was. The man in the blue coat. Delilah held her position on the hills over looking Santa Clarissa and watched the procession.

The two young targets of the surveillance turned a random corner. Delilah grinned. They knew that they were being followed.

Over the next two hours, Delilah watched a marvelous game of cat-and-mouse develop on the streets of Santa Clarissa. Molly and Maria simply walked at random. Over time it seemed as though they made nearly everyone following them. Delilah wondered when they would startcutting the tails off. These two young ladies were a pleasant surprise.

The only problem as far as Delilah could see was herself. She was watching from a nearly perfect vantage point on the hills over the coastal town. Where was the enemy? It only made sense that Dubois would have an observer on the hill. Delilah searched while she kept an eye on the action in the town.

The hills weren't a totally perfect vantage point. It was easy for Maria and Molly to stay in the shadow of buildings in town. They could move for a whole block out of sight of the hills. With luck they might even loose an observation man that way.

Delilah thought it through and the only answer was that Dubois was pulling people for another task. She was even happier about that. If Dubois and Specter were stupid enough to divide their efforts then Delilah would capitalize on the advantage they were giving her.

But first to try and turn the two travelers. The more Delilah watched them, the more she wanted them on her side. The first step would be to get them out from under the watching eyes of Charles Specter.

-*-

"Are we ready?" Molly asked.

"Yeah. Are you sure that you have them all?" Maria said.

"Never any guarantees." Molly said. "I've pointed out all the faces that have stayed the same."

"Right. Okay." Maria said. She took off her hard-pack and handed it to Molly. "Keep your head down." She growled.

Maria took a quick turn down an alley as the two passed. Molly kept walking.

Maria slid into the shadows. She was focused on her job, taking out the people tailing them. For a moment she cataloged her weapons and defenses. She didn't like it. No personal force field. It had been lost many dimensions ago. No sniper's rifle. It was too much to ask that Maria could walk casually down the street with her rifle assembled and ready to go and yet not be noticed. Her hockey stick would have been nice but again it was too hard to conceal. Maria's hockey stick was made of some strange indestructible metal. It shined with an eerie bottomless green shine. The edge was razor sharp. With the hockey stick she could cut a tank apart. She was down to throwing knives and her body.

Her leathers had the kevlar inserts but that just added to her chances of surviving the hit. Even against basic handguns she would be hurt and possibly injured. That was no way to get the job done.

Maria tried to comfort herself with the knowledge that they had only spotted normals in this dimension. They had seen no meta-humans. Maria had a chance if she didn't make a serious mistake.

At the end of the alley, Maria crouched and leapt up to the second story roof of the building that faced the street. She landed lightly and crept around the large air-conditioner housing. There was one of the followers Molly spotted. He was on the roof with a pair of binoculars and a small hand held radio.

Maria crept quietly as closely as she could to him. She could barely hear what he was saying.

"Samaritan Two has broken off. I've lost contact. Samaritan One is still cruising. C'mon guys. I need some back up down here to maintain contact."

Maria carefully gauged the distance. She had about half the roof to cover to get to the observer. He swept the binoculars back around. He was facing away from Maria. "No contact with Samaritan Two." He said.

Maria knew that this was her best opportunity. She hopped up on her feet and ran over to him. He jumped and started to scramble in slow motion. Everything looked like it was slow motion to Maria. She belted the man in the face three times as hard as she could. His eyes glazed and he started to fall backwards. Maria knew that she had a little time before he recovered from the violence. She took his radio away and as he landed on the ground she opened his coat and found his gun in a shoulder rig.

To the observer it looked as though a black shape flashed into existence beside him. He jumped and tried to take a defensive pose, only to have his face explode. As he landed on his back with his face throbbing and ringing in his ears, a gentle tugging relived him of his gun and radio.

The man was a tough agent and good at what he did. It was going to take more than three punches to the face to stop him. He rolled off his back and leapt to his feet, only to see the person he knew only as Samaritan Two watching him with a cool gaze.

Maria let him up to find out where his back up gun was. She grinned as his unsteady balance took him close to the roof's edge.

The agent reached down to his ankle and took his gun out. To Maria, the whole process looked painfully slow. He brought it slowly up and Maria moved. She walked up to him and grabbed the man's gun hand by the wrist. He was good. He let the hand bend and instead concentrated on punching Maria with his other hand. He struck her a glancing blow on the side of her face. Maria stepped back as the man's second gun clattered to the ground.

Maria stepped up to him and planted a big kick in his gut.

The man whoofed slowly. He stumbled back. With a slow strangled cry he went backwards over the edge of the roof. Maria turned and walked away. Back in the alley, she jumped back down to street level. She walked around to the front of the building away from the evening crowd. They were gathered around the mysterious man who had just fallen and broken his arm. What was he doing on the roof anyway?

-*-

Over the next fifteen minutes, Molly led her followers into traps set by Maria. After the first few walking observers were taken out, Specter's agents began to withdraw.

Delilah Chou-Masters watched carefully from a distance. She didn't want Molly and Maria to mistake her for one of Specter's agents.

The two travelers finished off a car that made the mistake of following Molly into a deserted parking lot. Maria retrieved her throwing knives from the ruins of the car's tires. They were made of the same indestructible green metal as her hockey stick.

Having mugged, beaten or driven away all but the most careful followers, Molly and Maria began phase two. They arranged themselves for travel and began walking towards the highway. They would hitch hike southwards and hope to out distance their pursuers.

As they got onto the long road, a sports car chugged up beside them. A woman with golden skin, straight black lustrous hair and eyes like chips of ice said "Do you need a lift?"

Molly and Maria looked at each other and made a wordless mutual decision. If the woman turned out to be hostile, they could beat her up and steal her car. They threw their hard packs into the back seat and got in Maria in back, Molly in the passenger seat beside their benefactor.

"Nice car." Maria said as the car pulled away. She didn't recognize the type but it seemed like an expensive performance car.

The woman snorted softly to herself. The car was a shambling wreck compared to when she bought it. "Thanks." She said softly.

"How far are you going?" Molly asked brightly. How long was this ride good for?

"All the way." Delilah Chou-Masters said.

-*-

"I noticed that you were being followed." Delilah said to the young women. "Are you in some sort of trouble?"

Molly gave Delilah her best stupid look. "I don't understand."

Maria shifted until she had a good position for a back shot. The woman had one move before Maria took her out.

Delilah seemed unconcerned "I've been watching you two operate. You're good. But I'm better."

"Better than what? We've got you right where we want you." Molly pointed out.

"Trust has to begin somewhere. My people believe strongly in the concept of honor. I have put myself into your hands. I would like to invite you to stay at my home tonight while I explain to you what you've stumbled into. You have all the advantages and my word of honor that you will be safe. I'm a trained espionage agent. Tomorrow if you have heard what I have to say and choose to go on your way, then I will help you evade Charles Specter's forces and make a clean get away."

Molly was skeptical. Maria was touched by the woman's reference to honor. As they traveled from one dimension to another the rules of the game often changed. Maria had been developing the conviction that a personal code of honor was her only anchor to sanity. Maria believed in honor.

"All right. We'll listen, no more." Maria said.

Molly looked back at Maria. Seeing the expression on her best friend's face Molly sighed.

There was no point in arguing now.

-*-

"...and that is why the man you helped that night is a monster." Delilah explained.

They were standing in the octagonal main room of Chavez' house.

Molly nodded thoughtfully. She looked back at Maria. Maria's face was hard. She didn't want any part of this.

"Can't you get enough evidence to take Mr. Specter to the authorities?" Molly asked.

Delilah chuckled darkly. "He owns the authorities. Any evidence that they get disappears some how."

"I'm really sorry for your loss," Molly said. "But we'll be gone soon. I don't see how we could help you."

"You can be my ticket inside his operation. All I need is that one unlocked door or open window. Then I can bring justice to Charles Specter." Delilah said. Molly and Maria could feel the cold fire radiating from her. Her intensity and focus bordered on madness.

"You chase your own whales." Maria said. "We've got business elsewhere."

Delilah turned to Maria. "You don't understand. You think you can slip into the night. You think that once you're out of sight that Specter will forget you. He doesn't work that way. You've caught his attention now. He won't stop unless he has you under his thumb. He'll never give up. Your refusal to serve him has enraged him. He will never stop searching until he finds you. He'll never stop working until he has you at his mercy. Then Specter will show you that he has none."

"You said that you'd help us escape." Maria said accusingly. Was the woman going back on her word?

"I will. Charles Specter will have no idea where you are. But he won't stop looking. I'll get you cleanly away this once but I might not be there next time. When he finds you the second time you might not escape. If you do, then you'll have to worry about the third time."

"There won't be a second or third time." Molly said confidently.

"Here's another fine mess you've gotten us into." Maria growled. She was joking, mostly.

-*-

"I have the mark." The observer said. "Two bogeys with her, unknown persons."

Dubois finished getting his gear on. He slipped a well made automatic pistol into it's holster. He loved the smoothly engineered action. He loved the quiet chuffing noise it made when fired with the silencer. He loved the sound of the bullet striking flesh. He loved the quivers and spasms as his victim's body tried to deal with the damage and the pain. He loved it when he could see the realization growing in his victim's eyes. He was the angel of death. He loved it when his victims understood their pain and looked at him, knowing there was no hope.

"Identify the bogeys." Dubois said. Would he get three deaths for the price of one tonight? He loved to take his victims and guide them through their hopelessness. A lot of pain and the right words here and there and he could feel the hope die long before the victim's unwilling mind and flesh. There was nothing better than ultimate power over someone. Nothing.

"Unable to identify." The observer said. "Persons unknown."

Dubois knew that Molly and Maria had lost their tails earlier that night. "All operatives." He called. "We go in five minutes." That was a change. Usually he held a certain number of soldiers in reserve. It was just prudence. The thought of getting Molly and Maria in his clutches along with Delilah Chou-Masters was enticing. He elected to gamble and see if he could get a grand slam for the night.

"Team One, are you ready?"

In another armored limo two miles away, Charles Specter and two more heavily armed body guards waited. When Dubois announced that he had pacified the scene, then Specter would arrive as though he was just driving through. Specter checked his own weapon. It was an expensive carefully balanced target pistol, Specter practiced with it often, but it was years since he had to kill anyone in person. His guards were better armed and more recently practiced. Specter missed Duffy. He enjoyed how uncomfortable the man got when they prepared for a killing or a capture. After years he had never grown used to the idea. Specter repressed a sigh. "This is Team One. Go ahead."

-*-

Molly was watching television. It was some sort of educational travel show. She drank in the information about an obscure corner of the world in which they found themselves. Maria lounged and tried not to think of Delilah's quest.

Delilah stood in the octagonal room and went through a slow, delicate and utterly deadly kata. She doing it slowly in practice but in combat it would be done with lightning speed and careful leverage. She was dressed in black workout tights that highlighted her graceful body.

All power to the house went out.

Molly froze for a split second, letting her eyes adjust to the twilight view of the ultraviolet spectrum.

Maria also froze, but for a much shorter time. Her eyes quickly adjusted to what ambient light there was.

Delilah never froze. With a quiet, smooth face it seemed as if she went into "surprise-attack-in-the-darkness" kata. She danced lightly towards her purse sitting on a table in the middle of the room.

A window crashed and a small object came into the room. Molly turned to look at it. Maria turned, saw that it was a grenade and covered her eyes. Delilah closed her eyes and swept up her purse in a graceful motion.

The grenade exploded with a bright flash and a large whoofing noise. The remaining windows of the house exploded outward with the out rush of air.

"Urg!" Molly said, trying to blink away the spots in front of her eyes.

With a casual leap Maria inserted herself into the open rafters. She looked with longing at her hard-pack and the hockey stick tied to it. No time now. If they followed the pattern they'd crash through the broken windows about now.

Delilah had a blank look with a small mona-lisa smile. She was in a world of her own, now. She pulled out her gun. It was an exotic and precise tool of death, with quick fluid motions, she prepared it andfired into one of the dark figures now storming into the house.

The gun popped and the man grunted. He fell down heavily. He was wearing black nylon covered body armor. It might have been any SWAT team or special forces group, but Delilah knew who they were.

Molly said "What?-" and one of the black clad figures shot her with a silenced pistol. Molly said "Oof!" and fell backwards over the chair.

Maria reached up behind her neck and drew out one of her indestructible throwing knives. She had to open a hole to her hockey stick.

Several of the figures shot at Delilah as she danced away. Bullets flew and tore the walls of the beach house into wreckage. Delilah stayed half a step ahead of the fusillade firing her weapon with glazed eyes and a slight smile. One of the black clad figures screamed and grabbed at his face as he fell.

Maria made a quick, short flinging motion and one of the attackers grew a knife out of his arm. It wasn't as heavily armored as his chest or head. He cried out, and grabbed his arm. The razor sharp indestructible metal penetrated deeply.

Maria leapt to another rafter and spidered along it carefully. Several of the attackers shot the hell out of the rafter she had just vacated.

More of the attackers lined up on Delilah. Idly, part of her brain wondered how many there were. She knew that she couldn't avoid their aim forever, so she decided to neutralize the advantage.

Delilah danced into the group of attackers. They couldn't fire at her with risking hitting their own men.

Maria kept ahead of the barrage. She also knew that this was a temporary solution. Some bright guy always got the idea that you led speedsters more eventually. She leapt off of the rafter onto the floor. She grabbed her hard pack and skittered backwards out of the broken windows stripping her hockey stick off the pack.

Delilah executed an attacker with a strike to his neck. Then she turned and crippled another with a kick to the knee. She dodged a counter strike and then shot a target who thought he was too far away from the combat. The mix of gun combat and martial arts was odd. She had worked for years on mixing them well, but this was the first time Delilah had ever been in such a picture perfect position to practice her new martial art.

The attackers lined up on Maria slowly. She stood weaving slightly and waited for what seemed like hours for the men to set themselves up. Untrained normals would simply put a wall of bullets up and hope that something hit her. She would hide behind them and let them shoot themselves. Trained normals would form a line and try for zone coverage fire. That was worse, but not much. Maria could easily end run such a firing line.

These attackers combined the worst of both. They failed to form a neat line, but didn't shoot each other either. Maria waited until the last minute and then swept past one of the attackers with blinding speed. The sharp edge of her hockey stick cut one of the attacker's arms off.

"Aaaaiiieeeee!" The maimed man's scream had peculiar piercing quality.

A big black couch from the living room flew through the air and smashed into a group of the attackers. Several of them turned and shot Molly again. The sound of bullets thwaping into her was a hideous patter. Molly grunted and fell over again.

Maria cut another attacker, nearly severing his foot. "Molly!" She called, seeing her best friend fall. It had extremely unpleasant echoes of her time in Italy. Maria was one of the few survivors of the Italian national super team's battle with the Mafia.

An attacker shot Maria in the back. The blow threw her to the floor with pain wracking her back.

Delilah continued her whirlwind of destruction. One attacker cut her arm severely before dying. Delilah's expression never changed. Her motions were not affected by the pain. An astute observer might have noticed that Delilah began to favor the damaged arm.

Maria recovered from the blinding pain and knew instinctively that she was in trouble. She rolled to the side and scuttled towards cover. Several bullets belatedly tore up the floor where she had been.

Maria dove behind the bar. She took a couple of deep, painful breaths. What would they be doing? Bullets chewed into the bar, but they weren't the main problem. They were meant to keep her head down while more men came in close to finish her off. Maria winced at the pain in her back. The kevlar saved her life, but it felt as though she had a cracked rib.

Right on schedule, two men flanked the wet bar. Maria leapt, but not straight up. She altered her trajectory at launch and flipped over the head of the one on the right. The one on the left couldn't shoot with out hitting his own man. Maria looked for a moment at her attacker's equipment belt as he slowly turned to face her. He had a large knife. Maria took it off his belt. She wrapped her arms around him and drew the blade across his neck. He gurgled and screamed slowly. Maria grabbed his gun as he dropped it and emptied it at the other attacker.

"Jesus Christ!" The other one shouted as he dove for cover.

"Bitch! You cut me!" The attacker shouted holding his neck. Blood poured down his hands.

"Better have that looked at." Maria said absently "Looks nasty." She emptied the gun almost at random at the attackers as she crossed the floor towards her hockey stick.

Another couch flew through the air, pegging a couple of attackers. Molly didn't stop this time. She grabbed another attacker and threw him out of the house into the ocean.

"We must leave now." Delilah said, conversationally. She killed another attacker with a blazingly quick combination to his head and chest. Maria winced. To her it looked like slow motion. She could see things breaking in the unfortunate man's body as Delilah killed him.

Molly turned her hips into a short uppercut. The attacker's bellow was cut short as his ribs collapsed. He flew across the room. Maria could see blood all down Molly's front. Was Molly even coherent at this point?

Sliding quickly up to Molly, Maria slowly said "You okay?"

Molly grabbed an end table and pegged it at one of the attackers, grunting. Maria could see a cut over Molly's eye. A bullet had ripped open the skin there and blood was running down Molly's face on that side. "I'm okay." Molly said in a raspy voice. "Get the packs and go."

Maria picked up her hockey stick and swept it past one of the attackers. He screamed as the fingers holding his gun were cut off. Maria grimaced with pain from her back as she lifted the two hard packs. Then she got Delilah's purse. She went into the garage and found the sports car with the hood up. Some one had carefully smashed the fuel injection computer.

Cursing in Italian Maria returned to the main room.

The attackers were retreating now, carrying their wounded. Molly held a struggling man up off the floor and ripped his battle harness off. Then she threw him down with a crunch and stripped all the remaining visible weapons off. He groaned and twitched feebly, but did not move.

"The car's dead." Maria explained to Delilah. "We're on foot."

Delilah nodded and slid into the bedroom. She began to take essential equipment and pack for an over land run.

Molly took her hard pack. Soon Delilah slid out of the bedroom, her exercise tights covered with nondescript denim work clothes.

Stepping over the bodies and wounded the three women ran onto the beach and away into the night.

-*-

"My arm! What am I going to do without my arm!?" The attacker who lost his arm to Maria said.

Dubois was coldly angry. A white fire burned in him. He looked at the screaming man. Dubois chose his operatives from proud arrogant men who firmly believed that they were too tough to fail and too smart to take it for granted. Now the man's body was incomplete. He would have to adjust to a whole new mind set. Dubois took his gun out of its holster and carefully shot the man through the temple. He was dead before he hit the floor. It made Dubois feel a little better, but not enough. He turned to look at the rest of his shocked troops. "Get to the fall back position and prepare to move out. We'll get the survivors to the island and treat them there."

The men started moving slowly. Dubois knew that they had enough discipline to get themselves together and be prepared. He would put them on a helicopter and destroy it. Once they had been defeated like that, their confidence was shaken. They knew too much and a carefully constructed state of mind that Dubois had instilled in them was gone. Now he had no guarantee that they would not eventually give up their secrets.

The beach house burned merrily behind them, destroying all the evidence and all the bodies they had left behind. Specter's agents would pose as the FBI and carefully eliminate all forensic evidence.

As soon as Dubois was away from the defeated attackers he made a phone call. Specter's limo had pulled away as soon as it became apparent that the battle wasn't going the right way.

"What are your plans now, Mr. Dubois?" Specter asked in a neutral tone. Dubois recognized the tone. Specter was emotionally distancing himself. Dubois was dangerously close to becoming a liability. When that happened, what might Specter do? Dubois didn't fool himself that he was the only agent working for Charles Specter. The Agency produced enough psychopaths to keep Specter happily supplied for decades.

"If I can arrange assets soon enough, I will hit them again. Chou-Masters and the two girls are injured and on the run. They have no safe harbors that I know of. They are weak now. I believe that I can successfully capture them." Dubois resisted the urge to look over his shoulder. Whose sights was he in?

"Go ahead. I'll await your results." Specter said.

Dubois hung up. If Specter had told him of the amazing things those girls could do, then he might have been able to plan a better assault. It was not profitable or safe to think these things about Charles Specter. Instead Dubois chose to look at it as a challenge.

Dubois made another call and began to assemble his next strike.

-*-

The public rest rooms at the beach south of Santa Clarissa were usually closed for the night. That didn't stop Delilah, Maria and Molly from getting into one and using it to clean up.

Delilah finished bandaging her own arm. The cut could use stitches, but it would heal on its own. There would be a pretty scar there. She looked at Molly and winced. Molly's destroyed work shirt was gone. All down her bare front, Delilah could see shallow wounds from the bullets. It was as if the bullets had barely penetrated kevlar, except that Molly wasn't wearing any.

Maria picked a bullet out of a wound and with a flick of her wrist she tossed it across the room and into a trash bin. Maria hit with every throw so far.

"What kind of people are you?" Delilah asked. "I've never seen anything like that."

Molly hissed in pain. "In our world we're known as supers, or meta-humans."

"Is that where you were trained?" Delilah asked. It made sense. You'd recruit super-people for an agency if you could. If super-powers were a random occurrence then you'd have to take anyone you could get. The standards of training and behavior wouldn't be as high, but the talent would more than make up for it.

"That's none of your business." Maria said, plucking another bullet out of Molly. "We're done with you."

"Surely you don't think you can just walk away." Delilah said. Wasn't this proof enough? Charles Specter's reach was almost infinite.

"Molly said it, even though I wish she hadn't. The operative phrase is in our world. We're not in our world. Soon we'll be out of yours." Maria explained, plucking.

"Nine days." Molly gritted her teeth.

Delilah was stunned. There were other worlds? Whole other worlds with people and civilizations and everything? Maybe Charles Specter's reach wasn't as far as she thought.

"You mean in nine days you'll go to another planet, and that will be it?" Delilah asked.

"Yes." Maria said. "The UFO will pick us up and we'll be on our way."

Delilah laughed. "Wonderful. Specter will eat his heart out for the rest of his life looking for you and you won't be anywhere he can reach."

Maria turned to Delilah. "Did you send the limo over the cliff?"

"Yes." Delilah said. She looked Maria right in the eye. "And I'll do it again, if I can."

"Then our involvement with this whole mess begins and ends with you. Get away from us." Maria said dangerously.

"We aren't in the vengeance business." Molly said. "That's not what we're about."

Delilah reached slowly into her pack and drew out a pale blue denim work shirt, handing it to Molly. "Here. It's the least I can do. I'm sorry."

Delilah left the public rest room and faded into the night.

Molly finished bandaging her wounds and put the new shirt on. Maria kept careful track of what was going on outside.

"Huh." Molly said. Maria turned to look. The new shirt was almost identical to Molly's old one.

"Maybe the next world will have fashion consultants." Maria suggested.

"If it has fashion police we're both in trouble." Molly said. They packed up and moved out.

-*-

They walked until Molly's enhanced metabolism healed the wounds enough to avoid more bleeding, then they shifted pace. For Maria it was a brisk walk, for Molly it was a hard jog. Maria's mutant metabolism regenerated her rib as she ran.

Both the beach and the highway south were too good a route away. Although they figured that these would be the first places that Specter would look, they hoped to make enough time to evade pursuit. There were no faster or better ways out of Santa Clarissa except the beach and highway to the north.

Maria and Molly might have taken to the hills to the east, but they didn't know the area and didn't want to spend the next nine days playing rambo until the D-hopper recharged. A quick trip south hoping to make the one hundred miles to Beach City ahead of Specter seemed like their best bet.

At three that morning, a helicopter appeared over them. They couldn't make out any details, but when it hit them with a spot light and then shot at them, they knew who it was.

-*-

Inside the helicopter, Melos Dubois grimly piloted so as to keep his gunner in firing position. The dark haired quick one zipped off into the brush at over one hundred miles per hour. The blonde started leaping around at random. The gunners had a hell of a time trying to bring her down.

Dubois ordered the lights turned off and infrared goggles to be activated.

A bullet hole appeared in the cockpit window next to Dubois. The bullet buried itself in the seat next to him. He laughed merrily. The dark haired one wasn't running away, she was just getting to a better firing position. He looked and saw her taking aim with her expensive and deadly sniper's rifle again. He started swerving the helicopter around to try to deny her the shot.

Dubois turned the helicopter and made a very low pass at the blonde. One of the mercenaries he hired dropped a satchel charge. The explosion rocked the Helicopter and threw Molly several feet through the air. She landed and lay still.

Maria could see this but couldn't hear anything. Molly was trying to yell over the roar of the helicopter that she was only playing dead. Maria didn't hear it.

"Molly!" She yelled. A mighty leap carried her out of the tree and onto the beach. She streaked down the beach flat out trying to reach her friend. The helicopter was now hovering over Molly.

Maria tripped. Her foot caught something. At full speed her foot shattered, and she tumbled headlong down the beach. The speed of the impact was similar to a motorcycle accident. Maria was severely injured.

Molly picked her head up and saw her friend fall and tumble. She gasped. Maria almost always wore a force field belt back home. Now Molly understood why. Molly bounded to her feet and ran as fast as she could go towards Maria. "Maria!" She called.

Arriving by her friend's side, Molly took stock. Maria had broken a lot of her bones. She was also bruised and scraped badly, but the impact trauma and the broken bones were paramount.

In the helicopter Dubois saw Molly bolt towards her friend. He also saw Maria down in the sand of the beach.

"Hold Fire!" He yelled. "Here's where we dismount and taken them!"

The mercenaries looked at Dubois. This was no battle, this was just shooting some girls hiking down the beach. But he was the man paying the tab, they would play it his way.

The helicopter landed nearby Molly and the injured Maria. Given Maria's ability to regenerate the injuries would only need half an hour or so to heal. Molly couldn't risk scooping Maria up and trying to run off with her.

Dubois and his second team walked up to the women. The mercenaries were armed with some sort of assault rifle. Molly was pretty sure that they fired heavier bullets and more of them than the guns she'd been shot with earlier that night. If they opened up on them, Molly feared the worst. She raised her hands.

"We surrender." She said.

Dubois walked up to her and pointed his gun in her face. He noticed that she looked at the gun seriously only once, then she looked behind him at the mercenaries. She wasn't afraid of his gun. She was afraid of the hail of bullets that the mercenaries might throw. He was impressed.

He turned and pointed the gun at Maria.

Molly tensed, but didn't move.

Dubois grinned. "Do exactly as I say or I'll shoot your quick footed little friend."

"She's injured." Molly said.

"My employer would prefer you two alive," Dubois said, "but if you give me an excuse, I'll have to shoot her."

Molly stared grimly at Dubois. "Okay." She said.

-*-

Delilah Chou-Masters saw the helicopter take off and fly out to sea. She heard the explosions and the gun fire earlier. Now the helicopter was heading out to the west, towards the islands that dotted the western coast line.

Charles Specter had a nearly impenetrable stronghold on one of those islands. Delilah knew it as well as anyone could who had never been there. She had searched desperately for weeks to find a way into it while Charles Specter held her husband there.

"Damn!" Delilah cursed. She put her stolen car into gear and slid down the highway to the south.

-*-

Maria came groggily awake. She remembered the sharp pain in her foot and the ground coming up to meet her. She didn't hurt. That was odd. She should have. Her mouth tasted funny. She was being wheeled somewhere. She was on a gurney. What was she doing there? Maria tried to sit up but found that she could not. She tried to ask a question, but her mouth wouldn't operate well. She looked around. Men in white coats were pushing her gurney. The open sky was replaced by a ceiling and lights.

A noise died away and Maria realized that she had been hearing a helicopter idling. Was she home? Was it a UN helicopter? No. The motor sounded wrong. Not there yet. Maria tried to bring one of her arms up. Nothing. She tried as hard as she could before the nerve signals registered. She was under restraint.

"God, she's coming out of it again!" A voice said.

"Hit her again. One last time and we'll have her all sewn up." Another voice replied.

Maria felt a small pricking sensation in her arm. Oh. They were doping her up to keep her docile. Somewhere deep in Maria's brain she cried out in fear and frustration. Nothing reached the surface as she drifted away.

-*-

Rough hands shoved Molly. She didn't move very much. Molly's molecular structure was pretty dense. She looked like she might have weighed one hundred and fifty pounds or so. She weighed close to three hundred and thirty. Molly generally avoided casual contests of strength, but with a black hood over her head, she couldn't see a shove coming.

"God damn it!" A voice yelled. A very hard shove sent Molly stumbling to the floor. It was a concrete floor with a smooth finish.

"Hey, stumble bum! Don't hurt the merchandise." A voice barked.

"If she fucks with me, I'll show her all about hurting." The first voice threatened.

"Dumb shit, did you see who our boss was reporting to?" The second voice said.

"What the fuck?" The first voice asked, confused.

"That was god damned Charley the fuck Specter, the richest fucker who ever lived. If he could keep this set up, do you think he would have any trouble making us disappear?"

"So?"

"So he sent his goon to hire us to bring the girl back alive, hello?"

"Oh." The first voice thought about it. "Okay, sweety." Rough hands grabbed Molly and grunted to get her standing. "Jesus, she don't look that fat."

"Whatever, just get her in there."

They continued walking. Molly could hear their footsteps echo. "Okay. The map says put her down there." She could hear the shrill buzz of a sonar unit. Some sort of security system, she guessed.

A new voice said "Thank you gentlemen. We'll take it from here." Molly was reminded of an evil dentist or undertaker.

"Okay, Jack." The leader of the mercenary party said. "See ya." Molly heard their foot steps recede.

She was hand cuffed. She waited for the cuffs to be released. They weren't. She waited for the hood to be taken off. It wasn't.

"Very good, my dear. Welcome to your new home. Let's keep the screaming down to a minimum, shall we? The island is owned by Mr. Specter and all of us here are perfectly loyal. The area is sound proofed, so there really no point in it, is there?" The evil dentist said.

"CHARLES SPECTER HAS NO DICK!" Molly screamed at the top of her lungs.

"Please. Let's not be rude." The evil dentist said disapprovingly.

Molly ran through her entire repertoire of curses and insults. Some were in different languages. Since Molly had a photographic memory, she remembered quite a few specific cases and applied them all. It took a little while.

When she stopped, the evil dentist said "All right. Have you got that out of your system?"

Molly essayed a short kick at where she estimated him to be. She missed.

"Now, now! We'll have none of that!" The evil dentist said menacingly. It was all the more menacing because he sounded effeminate and wimpy and utterly incapable of carrying out any threat on his own. "We still have your friend hostage. At a word from me, she dies. I can also make sure that she feels exquisite pain. Your behavior determines her treatment. Bear that in mind, will you."

Molly stopped and reigned herself in. "<Your Mother was raped by Orcs.>" Molly said in Elvish. "<She went back for seconds.>"

"I have no idea what you just said, but it didn't sound nice. One more outburst like that and we'll just have to prove how serious we are. Come along." A limp sweaty hand grabbed Molly's arm and gently tugged. Molly thought about it and went along. "<The Orcs turned your mother away.>" She said in a sweet tone of voice. "<We don't know where she is, now.>"

"That sounds like a beautiful language." The evil dentist said. "I hope you'll teach it to me during your stay. We'll have plenty of time together."

Then he gently shoved Molly. She plummeted and landed hard. "Oof!" She yelled. It felt like fifteen or more feet. She quickly broke her cuffs and ripped the hood off her head. She was in a concrete cell. There was padding on the floor. The only light came from a fixture housed in wire mesh on the ceiling. It was a fluorescent fixture casting everything in a hideous blue white glow. In the other corner, a desiccated body lay. The flesh had degraded to a brown leathery consistency. Eyeless sockets stared emptily. The mouth grinned in a horrible rictus.

"Hey!" Molly yelled. "There's a dead body down here!"

"Yes, my dear." The dentists' voice called back. "That's the presidential suite." A sick, tittering laugh accompanied the unseen jailer down the hallway.

Molly looked morosely at her cell mate. "Hi. My name is Molly."

John Masters said nothing.

-*-

"Is this all they had with them?" Specter asked. He looked carefully over the contents of Maria and Molly's hard packs, noting details.

He picked up a battered electronic device. It was duct taped and glued. It had seen better days. An LED readout blinked. 756,802. A second later another digit counted down to 756,801.

"What in the world is this?" Specter asked.

Dubois shrugged. "We don't know yet. We're going to have to investigate it."

Specter did the math. "If that's a count down, they have about eight and a half days left until it reaches zero. How about the rest of this stuff?"

"It seems to be relatively standard expedition gear. There's MRE-type rations, equipment, first aid kits. A lot of it is self explanatory. They also have these." Dubois fished out some 8 X 10 photographs. They depicted a group of people in a sort of class picture.

"Hmmm. Omega Squad?" Specter said. "What's that flag behind them?"

"We don't know. In each picture, there is a group of similar people, but they change almost at random. Like in this one. Here's an Indian looking man with these huge legs." Dubois pointed out.

"Incredible muscle development." Specter mused.

"Impossible." Dubois pointed out. He switched pictures. "And yet in this picture there is no hint of that man. Instead there is an Indian woman with the same over-development of the legs and a striking similarity."

"His sister, perhaps?" Specter said.

"Possibly. There's too much we don't know."

"Well, that's all right. We'll have Miss Giarelli secured soon and then we can start working on our newest guests. In time they'll tell us everything we want to know."

Dubois just nodded at Specter. His domination games were just the prelude to the real power game. He hoped that Specter left him enough to work with.

"Any word of Delilah Chou-Masters?" Specter asked.

"No, Sir. Once again she has slipped through our search net." Dubois answered.

"No matter. We'll catch up with her soon enough. She's running out of places to hide."

Specter smiled. "Next time, we won't leave her to chance."

"No, Sir." Dubois said. He was anxious to settle up with Delilah Chou-Masters.

-*-

Maria came to. After a while of bed spins and fuzzy thinking to realize that she was very firmly restrained. She struggled against her restraints. Her fuzzy headedness and dizziness worked against her badly.

"Ah. I see you're awake. Interesting." A man in a white lab coat said.

"Where am I?" Maria asked. She was surprised that she was able to keep a calm tone.

"You're the prisoner of Charles Specter. Your are totally under his control. He is the most powerful man in the world and he has you totally at his mercy." The man informed her, kindly. It was as if he was describing a bizarre and sad medical condition. In his own mind he was.

"Again?" Maria sighed. "What's his plan for world domination?"

"Hmm. You're a little late on that one. It seems as though he has already executed it." The man said. "I would like to ask you a few questions."

"No." Maria said simply.

The man continued as if he hadn't heard her. "When you came in last night, you had numerous broken bones and contusions. I would have predicted reconstructive surgeries and at least eighteen months of recovery. Eight hours later, you are fully healed. The injuries are beginning to appear old in the x-rays. How do you do that?"

"To begin with, I never, ever sell out to power mad egomaniacs." Maria said.

The man sighed. "Then I am afraid your health is about to be negatively impacted."

"How so?" Maria asked. She expected tales of exotic torture.

"Everyone sells out to Mr. Specter eventually." The man looked haunted. "Everyone."

-*-

After an examination there was a round of questioning. Maria was resolutely unhelpful. Then a group of technicians came in. They cleared Maria's neck and some of her shoulders of restraints. Her head was still tied to the board. It was incredibly boring to be tied up while people moved around in slow motion. Maria almost went back to sleep. One thing stopped her. She was starving. Her body had used nearly all food and available reserves to regenerate her damage. She needed to eat soon.

The technicians rotated her bed until she was tilted mostly upright and then took a complex collar off of a tray and checked it. It had batteries and boxes of equipment on it. It was padded with terry cloth. Then they attached it around Maria's neck. They applied electrodes and sensors to her body, linked to the collar. Maria only noticed then that she was almost completely naked. They had taken everything she had off.

Then they tied in computer data links and a screen came up showing Maria's heartbeat, respiration, blood pressure, temperature and dozens of scientific facts about her.

The doctors and technicians started at the readings. Maria's body raced at two and a half times the human maximum. Her heart beat, respiration and other physiological reactions were as fast.

It took a while to tune the computer to read Maria's telemetry so as not to give warnings of immanent death. Maria did her best to impede the process by holding her breath and then hyper ventilating and trying to convince her heart to fibrilate.

Eventually the object was adjusted. Then Charles Specter came into the lab. He was dressed in filthy rich casual, which entailed tennis clothing and three hundred dollar athletic shoes. He was freshly groomed and his skin was shining with good health. "Hello, Miss Giarelli. How are you this morning?"

"I've been kidnapped by a maniac. Other than that, fine." Maria retorted.

"Good, good. I see you still have your spirit with you. I wouldn't want to crush it, yet. You might be very useful to me." Specter said. He radiated confidence.

"Only if you're into pain."

"Ha ha." Specter laughed an insincere laugh. "I see you're in need of a demonstration."

"Oh hell," thought Maria. "Here it comes."

Specter took a gold plated pocket knife out of his pocket and opened it. He leaned into Maria and gently cut the restraint off her left arm.

Maria was stunned for a moment. Did he want her to try and escape? Then she should go limp and foil his wishes. But if she thought every chance to escape was a trap. He could hold her with nothing more than suggestions for the rest of her life. He might have underestimated her speed and reflexes. She might never get a better chance. To Specter it seemed at most half a second's hesitation and then Maria's left arm flew into action. Right arm. Free. Head, free. Torso, free. Legs, free. Feet, free.

Maria leapt down off the bed and stepped towards Specter. He was still stepping back from her and a look of shock had crawled across his face. His shoulders were hunched. Doom had come for him on fleet wings and he could barely see it, let alone run. Maria enjoyed the look. She stepped up to Specter, prepared to do him seven kinds of martial arts dirt.

Then she was on the floor. She hurt. Her arms and legs were twitching. "What happened?" She thought to herself confusedly.

Specter was shouting. "My God! She almost reached me! Why didn't anyone tell me she was that damned fast?"

It took long enough to listen to Specter's shouting that Maria could feel her arms and legs begin to regain control.

"Look out, she's coming around!" A voice yelled

Maria staggered to her hands and knees. It was tough work. Whatever they had hit her with was nasty.

Specter slowly stepped up to her. She scrambled to get out of the way but her arms and legs wouldn't respond fast enough. He kicked her hard in the ribs. Maria felt a crack and intense pain. She rolled onto the floor hunched around her middle. Specter had broken one of her ribs.

"Impressive..." Specter began. Maria focused her will. She stood up. She was dizzy and could barely stand up. Her ribs hurt and she couldn't move right. That meant that she couldn't waste time with style. She stepped up again to Specter and punched him. His head slowly snapped back. It was nothing more than a jab. Maria hit him again and again.

Then she was back on the floor. It hurt even worse this time. She was fading in and out. She couldn't even reliably feel her body.

Specter was being hustled out of the room. He was holding his face in his hands and blood was pouring down his front. Maybe Maria broke his nose. "It just wasn't enough." Maria thought bitterly as she slid into blackness. "Not enough..."

-*-

Maria came to. She felt awful. She was restrained again. She was dimly aware of something in her mouth going down her throat. "What the...?" she thought. She could not place it. As she rose to the surface of consciousness again, the object was pulled out of her mouth and throat. She opened her eyes to see a plastic tube filled with white viscous fluid being lifted away.

"Just in time, Doctor. She's awake."

Maria was angry and confused. She was also happy for some reason. She quickly identified the feeling. She wasn't hungry.

"How are you?" The Doctor asked her.

"Still captive." Maria said bitterly.

"I guessed that you would need a lot of food to sustain that metabolic rate. You started to suffer malnutrition right after your little display." The Doctor said. "Are you doing all right?"

Maria didn't say anything. She caught herself thinking that the doctor was really sort of nice, and she didn't like the feeling. He was a patsy working for a monster. If she felt a moment's pity or compassion for him then she might not get free. Maria dug deep and made a stone of her heart. She didn't like doing that, but first things had to come first.

"I guess so." The Doctor concluded. "You're awake and your attitude is intact."

After a few more wordless examinations, the Doctor went away.

Then Charles Specter returned. He had a bandaged nose and bruises all over his face. Maria also noticed an electronic black box on his belt. That didn't look good.

"You will eventually pay for this." Specter said. "But later. For now I want to tell you what happened." Maria noticed that he didn't get closer than half the room to her. "The collar around your neck is equipped with a powerful electric stunner. It will channel 250,000 volts through your body if you attack me again. You will never successfully attack me again. At first the collar was trigged by my security staff. They were watching on video camera. That system worked well in the past. Now we are trying a new one. These boxes," Specter gestured to the electronic box on his belt, "transmit a very weak radio signal. If you get within fifteen feet of me again, the collar will be activated automatically, at the speed of light. You were fast, Maria, but not that fast."

Specter took a step towards Maria. This time she could feel the strong jolt of electricity. She could feel every muscle flex against her restraints. She could feel the agonized confusion of her nervous system. The electrical hand that gripped her let her go. Maria sagged against her restraints. Her muscles quivered and she couldn't think straight. Eventually she was able to raise her head. She should have hated Specter. She should have been angry. She was not. There would be time for that later. She simply watched him and looked for an opportunity to kill him.

Specter met her gaze and laughed. "You are very tough indeed Maria." He seemed genuinely amused at what he saw in Maria's eyes. "But not quite tough enough, I'm afraid."

Maria surveyed her surroundings. There were technicians in lab coats. The didn't have the boxes on their belts. Specter did. There were several tall, muscular men in chinos, polo shirts and aviator glasses. They held shotguns in a ready position. Maria thought they would be loaded with double ought buckshot. It made the best compromise with pattern spread and penetration. Maria was fast, but without any armor, the cones of shot from the shot guns would tear her to shreds. They also had the little black boxes on their belts.

The logical part of Maria's mind realized that the odds were against her, but kept watching. There was nothing to say a break wouldn't come her way. It didn't look good. It might take a while. Maria had to be ready.

-*-

They left Molly down in the hole for eight hours. Almost as soon as the evil dentist left, the screams sounded. Molly didn't know if they were actors or recordings of people being tortured for real. She knew that they were recordings. They sounded a little flat to Molly. Her hearing extended into the ultrasonic range. Almost no recording equipment reproduced sound in those frequencies. There was no need since most people couldn't hear it.

The screamers sounded sincere in any case. They varied the volume that the recordings were played at. A little quieter and then a little louder. Molly assumed that the intent was that she would never get used to the sounds. Another element that annoyed Molly was the murmurings. They were also recordings. They were played at the edge of audibility. Molly was curious about what the people in the recordings were saying. She couldn't quite make it out. She made an effort not to worry about it. Maybe she would find out and may she wouldn't, but she wasn't going to let Specter manipulate her curiosity bump that easily.

The light in the cell also varied in brightness. It was very subtle, but it added to the subconscious sense of everything being uncertain and controlled from the outside.

Molly made herself as comfortable as possible and simply sat and hummed to herself. She was trying to arrange every piece of music that she had ever heard for a two guitar rock band with a drum set and a bass, but no keyboard. Molly played the keyboard. With her own personal model and enough time to overlay tracks, she could have taken a good shot at nearly anything.

Arranging The Nutcracker for a rock band kept was keeping Molly busy.

-*-

"Welcome back, Duffy. I've missed you." Specter said.

Duffy's joy at being acknowledged disappeared in a flash. "My God, Sir! Your face! Are you all right?"

Specter grinned. "We're indoctrinating some new guests. One of them is quite spirited."

Duffy's heart fell. He analyzed the feeling and knew that after so many years he still carried a faint piece of hope inside him. Specter had been a friend twenty years ago in college. Duffy was proud to know a man with such drive and potential. They might have changed the world. But there was a blackness inside Specter. Duffy lived in the hope that someday something would wake Charles Specter up and make him take a good look at himself.

He actually was hoping that the attempt on Specter's life would have been the key incident. Of course it wasn't. So many people had been hurt, dominated or even killed that Duffy suspected there was no hope for his friend. But Duffy held tight to his dream. Maybe someday it could all be turned around.

"Who are our new guests?" Duffy asked. Who had fate led into a blind alley?

"Do you remember the girls who helped us out of the limo?" Specter asked.

"Oh no." Duffy said quietly.

"That's right. They had some delusion about being free spirits. I have decided to take them under my wing." Specter said. He savored Duffy's reaction. How had Duffy stayed by his side for twenty years, been an intimate witness to all of Specter's acts and still maintained his Pollyanna delusions? Specter didn't know, but he knew that Duffy would be as loyal as a dog. He had seen to it himself. He enjoyed spearing Duffy's naive conscience on reality and watching it squirm.

"I'm sure that once they come around you'll be very good for them." Duffy rationalized.

"Yes!" Specter said gleefully. "The best schools and the best places. They would never

have had these opportunities without me. I will make them into real ladies."

Duffy looked up at Specter. His master was grinning happily. Maybe he really did think he was doing them a favor? A little pain and then they would serve Charles Specter all over the world. Maybe it was really a blessing is in disguise. "And when they realize what you have done for them, they'll thank you."

"Yes." Specter's grin widened.

-*-

Technicians released Maria. She thought about it carefully. Hurting the technicians would probably make it so that Maria was too dangerous to let loose. Being restrained was hellish while the world passed by in slow motion. Besides, Maria figured that she would have more opportunities to escape or at least hurt her captors if she was let loose.

Dubois came in. A technician wheeled in a tray behind him.

Maria just looked at him. With out the aviator shades Maria could see his eyes. He looked at her. Maria remembered the stone killers that she had met in Italy. Young men with nothing left to loose. That was not the look she saw in Dubois. She saw a hunger, a lust. It wasn't a lust that she understood. It wasn't for her body. Maria's skin would have crawled but she was saving all that for later. He was big, and his reactions were probably as quick as anyone's in this world. She gauged him. He was up to something. She couldn't see a black box on him, but nothing prevent him from hiding one on his person. Maria elected not to attack at the moment.

Dubois took a covering off the tray and revealed several of Maria and Molly's belongings. He picked up the D-hopper. Maria would cringe about that later. If it was damaged or lost, then she and Molly were stuck in this world. Maria didn't like the idea. She wanted to go home. But if Dubois knew how important the object was to her, then he would probably try to use it as leverage. Maria kept a neutral expression on her face.

"What is this?" Dubois asked.

Maria said nothing.

"Eventually we will resort to torture, Maria. Everyone breaks eventually. You might as well save the effort and give it up now." Dubois said. He didn't like questioning Maria. There was a suggestion of reaction, but nothing concrete. She was moving so fast she was able to cover her reactions before he could see them clearly. He would have to look at the videotape later and slow it way down.

"What's this?" He picked up a data reader. The disk that was made for it looked like a small digital disk, except it was golden. It was from the weird world of Seattle in the 2050's that Molly and Maria had visited.

Maria said nothing. Dubois put the disk into the reader and played it. The disk was a travel guide to Seattle. That particular alternate of Seattle had been rocked by repeated natural disasters, civil wars and racial stresses. It was populated by Elves, Trolls and mega-corporations. To Dubois it might have been a puerile work of fiction except that it was an extremely detailed travel guide, and the technology was somewhat advanced from anything available on his world.

"Where is Seattle?" Dubois asked. "Explain this to me."

Maria said nothing. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a guard with his chinos and shotgun out the door to the lab area.

"Okay." Dubois said. "We'll do it the hard way." His voice was a little softer, and his body language slightly different. Maria identified the lust in his eyes. He wanted to hurt her. Maria knew that she had a lot of shuddering to catch up on, later. But for right now she stayed focused. Her opportunity would arrive. Maybe she and Molly could escape this world, and maybe not, but Maria promised herself. She was not going to remain Specter's prisoner.

-*-

Molly was wrestling with the arrangements for the 1812 overture. She could not come up with an acceptable substitute for the cannons with the tools she had allowed herself. On a large stage she figured that pyrotechnics could serve adequately, but on a small stage, as in a club, there wasn't anything she could really do. She put the project aside and thought of the next piece of music that she could arrange.

The recordings stopped and the lights stabilized. Molly realized that she had been in a near trance for several hours. She had been in the hole for ten hours.

Footsteps approached. Charles Specter peered over the edge of the hole. "Good morning Molly!" He was tanned, and looked well groomed and rested. Molly saw the bruised face and the bandaged nose and almost chuckled. He must have gotten too close to Maria. Molly spent a moment sincerely hoping that Maria was still alive.

"Good morning." Molly replied.

"I have a few questions about you. I hope you don't mind." Specter said. He was using his charming salesman's voice.

"I mind a lot." Molly said.

"Well, I'm sorry about that. What kind of person are you?"

"I don't understand the question." Molly said. Did he mean physically, emotionally, ethically?

"Did you know that we were taping the attack on the beach house? By my count you were shot eleven times, and yet there's no hint of blood." Specter said.

"It wasn't me. It must have been my evil twin Skippy." Molly said.

"I'm sorry to hear that." Specter said. "You know, Maria was much more cooperative."

"You mean that you wanted your nose broken?" Molly asked.

Specter chuckled. "Ha ha. Well of course, we had to convince her." He let the statement hang in the air.

Molly had enough. She crouched and leapt. She could not leap as far or as fast as Maria, but she was no slouch. Her hand brushed the edge of the lip and she caught it. Specter was skittering back towards the door with a panicked look on his face.

Molly hauled herself up to the floor with ease. She straightened up and faced Specter. "You're under arrest." Molly grimly said.

"Everyone has their price." Specter said. "I'll find yours eventually."

Molly said "Free all your captives, destroy all your blackmail evidence. Sell everything you own and give all of your money to charity. Go to a temple in Tibet and search diligently for enlightenment for the rest of your life." She stepped closer to him.

"What's Tibet?" Specter asked confused.

"I am a United Nations Peacekeeper and you're under arrest." Molly said.

"What's a United Nations?" Specter asked craftily stepping backwards.

"It doesn't matter." Molly reached out for Specter. "You're finished."

Specter reached to his belt and fished off his black box. He waved it at Molly. "Do you want Maria dead?"

"What's that?" Molly asked.

"It's a remote control. If I press this button, then Maria's head will come flying off with a loud bang." Specter said.

Several body guards stormed into the room. They were wearing pastel polo shirts and aviator glasses. Tan and khaki pants and deck shoes looked out of place next to the shotguns they all pointed at Molly.

"Maria may be your hostage," Molly pointed out, "but you're mine. If anything happens to her, I'll kill you and start breaking things."

"Do you think we're stupid, Molly?" Specter lied. "Those shotguns are loaded with armor piercing slugs. You might even stand up to one or two, but they'll keep shooting you until you're dead."

The guards brought their shotguns up and aimed at Molly.

Molly's face was red with anger. She clenched her hands into fists. They had her about checkmated. She hated it. "Are you willing to bet your life on it?"

"I can ask the same question. Are you willing to bet with Maria's life?" Specter said. "You may or may not survive to kill me, but you pay with Maria's life to even start."

Molly was near to screaming with frustration.

"I don't even have to press the button myself." Specter waved at cameras watching the action on the walls. "There are people watching us and watching Maria. They can kill Maria with press of a button and they will if they see you attack me."

Molly subsided. They had her in check for now.

Specter took a deep breath. His face was red and he was sweating. Behind Molly one of the guards listened to the button in his ear and then gave Specter a thumbs up. They were readying to make Specter's bluff a reality even now.

Molly took a deep breath. Specter could see her wrestle her temper back under control. "What was the question again?"

"What kind of person are you?" Specter asked again. He was about ready to jump and shout. Progress with Molly and Maria had been painfully slow. A crack of any kind in their resolve was a triumph.

"My strength is that of ten because my heart is pure." Molly said.

Specter nodded. Molly was going to find the line. There was a certain limit to how much misbehavior would trigger revenge.

"Shoot her." Specter said. He had seen nine millimeter bullets strike Molly but fail to kill her. He was pretty certain that the double-ought buckshot that he had ordered loaded against Maria would not kill Molly. He was also sure that it would hurt.

A guard raised his gun. Molly started to leap away. The guard shot her, shredding her shirt across her stomach. Molly grunted and fell to the ground.

She began to rise almost immediately. "Again." Specter said. Another shot put Molly back down on the ground. She lay still.

"Check her." Specter said to one of the guards. The man leaned forward to probe Molly's back where the second shot had gone in. "There's blood, but not much. He brushed lightly at Molly's back, dislodging a shot that was wedged into her skin. He picked it up and held it up to Specter.

"Didn't penetrate." The guard said, wonderingly.

"Like being shot with a BB gun." Specter said.

Molly's fist lashed out and caught the guard's face. There was a crunching noise and his body flopped away. She began to stand up.

"Ah ah." Specter said brandishing his box. "Think of Maria."

Molly stopped and her face screwed up. Despite himself Specter was frightened and impressed. Molly and Maria were very dangerous. He had ever had so much fun?

He grinned. "Three more times across the legs."

Shotgun blasts were mixed with Molly's screams.

-*-

Dubois watched the tape again slowly. Somewhere in the first interview he had hit on something, he was sure of it.

The frames slid by slowly. He timed it. At the extremely slow pace of the videotape, he could see that Maria had looked at the mysteriously counting black box for twice as long as she had looked at anything else. The difference was measured in tenths of a second, barely within his perception tolerance.

Dubois grinned. The black box was important to Maria. It was his route under her skin.

-*-

Delilah arrived at the Beach City hangar that held the last of her husband's inventions. It was nothing too extreme, just an airplane. The airplane was built with advanced composite materials and an advanced wing form. The passenger cabin was slung beneath the wing form like an afterthought. It wasn't. The plane was meant to make civilian air transport cheaper. The more people saw, the more they could understand. John wanted everyone to see what was really going on in the world. He was trying to grease their paths to other places and other times.

Delilah now had to turn John's magic carpet ride into a weapon. She had to do it secretly and in the dark. One of Specter's aircraft companies had the delusion that the plane was theirs now.

Delilah shook her head ruefully. To modify and then steal a plane under the noses of Specter's professional security services was a tricky job at best. To do it alone and without the proper equipment would have been considered suicide. Her boss back at the agency would never have allowed it. Delilah considered him too careful and too hesitant over matters of right and wrong. But the facts were unarguable. There were old spies and there were bold spies, but there were no old, bold pies. Her boss was a very old spy. He must have known something to have survived for so long.

So Delilah did the risky job as carefully and as thoughtfully as possible. She put herself and one gym bag into the plane and nothing else. She would make the modifications without leaving the hangar. That would eliminate the problems with sneaking around the tightly secured aircraft company.

Her world shrank to the prototype plane and the task ahead of her. The capture of the girls was the last straw. Now Gabriel Chavez would be under Specter's gun. He was ready to fight it out with the megalomaniac. But Delilah was running out of places to hide. She was also tired of hiding. She balanced the costs and benefits and carefully reached her conclusion. She going onto the island. Only one of them would come off. It didn't matter if she died, if Charles Specter was stopped. Relieved of thinking about her life afterwards, she made her arrangements with eerie calm and focus. She didn't even care if she was sane. She was free for the first time in years.

-*-

"I want you to tell me about this object." Dubois said. He had the D-hopper. He held it so that Maria could clearly see what it was.

Maria said nothing. The D-hopper didn't look quite right somehow. Maria was afraid that they had already taken it apart and had damaged it worse trying to figure out what it was.

"All right." He said. He dropped the device on the floor. It landed with a clattering thunk.

Maria just looked at him. He wordlessly stepped on the device. With a crunch it disintegrated under his shoe.

Maria's face twitched. She watched her ticket home disappear. She looked at Dubois' face.

"What ever that did for you it'll do no more." He said wordlessly. "I still have more of your belongings."

Maria was bitter. Didn't the idiot realize that he had already destroyed the most important item? Then she looked at the ruins of the D-hopper. Together Molly and Maria had pieced it back together from similar ruins. Maybe they could do it again.

There were electronic components and the shattered remains of the crystal.

The D-hopper was a mix of magic and technology. The technology Molly and Maria dimly understood. The box held a crystal. When the crystal reached a charged state the box held it at a particular orientation and applied a specific vibration to it. The crystal was the magic. Facing certain directions under the influence of certain sounds, it would open the hole between worlds.

The crystal was indestructible. Maria looked at the shattered remains on the floor and realized that Dubois had destroyed a replica. It had been a good one. She still wasn't happy. Dubois had seen the inside of the D-hopper well enough to try and mimic the crystal at the center of the device.

She looked up and said nothing.

Dubois sighed. He had seen the reaction, although not well enough to understand. He could see the resolve in her face. His gambit hadn't worked.

So he turned and walked out. Maria didn't like her nearly wordless relationship with Dubois. Soon he would find the route inside her or he would just decide to go ahead and hurt her. She wanted her break to come quickly.

-*-

Specter brought Maria into his guest house. She looked at a fairly standard suburban house transplanted onto Specter's island. The normalcy of the place was surreal to Maria. It concealed intense surveillance facilities. Maria assumed as much but never really saw that much of them. There were speakers in the ceilings through which Maria was given instructions.

She didn't want to bathe. She didn't want to take her clothes off for them. But in her peculiar mindset, she realized that her sexuality was fairly irrelevant here. They had probably seen much more than a young woman taking a shower. She wrapped her modesty up and stored it carefully away with the rest of her emotions. The only thing she couldn't take off was the damned collar. She showered with it on. It was a metal collar. She felt it carefully. The boxes were screwed on tightly with tiny screws. She couldn't quite get the leverage with her bare hands to undo them.

"Take your hands away from the collar." A voice said through the speaker on the ceiling.

Maria found the lock that held it on. It was a cylinder a little less than a half and inch across. Was kind of lock was it? Maria needed to know at least a little about the lock before she tried to pick it.

"Last warning." The voice said.

Maria took her hands away and continued with the business of getting clean.

Then she went to the room that had been assigned to her and found generic young woman's beach clothing in her size. It was ugly in Maria's estimation. Lots of girlie patterns and styles. None of the tough action oriented styles that Maria preferred.

She dressed in white shorts and a baggy blue striped T-shirt. The deck shoes were slip ons. They were pathetically inadequate for Maria's use. Her powers required heavily over built shoes, and she went through them quickly. She could get by barefoot but it severely limited her mobility.

Then she went to the kitchen and warmed up a pre-prepared meal. The brand name seemed generic, but Maria had never seen it before. She wondered what was coming next.

-*-

They brought Molly into the medical lab. She was a mess. The doctor and several orderlies took her away from the blood stained guards and hefted her onto a table.

"My God! What did you do to her?" The doctor could see dozens of small ball bearings imbedded in Molly's skin. She was bleeding from hundreds of small holes around her body.

Shreds of clothing hung from her body. She was limp and incoherent.

"What I told them to do, Doctor." Specter came in with a sharp voice.

The doctor looked up and straightened.

"Clean her wounds and bandage her up." Specter ordered.

The doctor grabbed a pair of forceps and began to pluck shotgun pellets out of Molly's skin.

"Arrange a collar for surveillance. I want to know where she is and what she's doing. You know the drill." Specter told a technician. The man nodded and quickly began to assemble a collar similar to Maria's.

The doctor cut away the remains of Molly clothes and carefully took every pellet he could reach out of her. The guards had confined their shooting to mostly the central body area and Molly's legs. Some of the shots were imbedded in Molly's face. Her left eye was a ruin.

The doctor realized that even if Molly survived the terrible damage, her skin was going to resemble a moonscape over most of her body.

"This is new. What did you do, load shotguns with under powered cartridges so the pellets wouldn't penetrate?"

"I don't like your tone, Doctor." Specter said. "For your information, Those were fully loaded shots."

The doctor turned and carefully eyed Molly. "Her muscles must be like kevlar."

"Continue your treatment." Specter said.

The doctor turned back to Molly only to find that most of the wounds were scabbing over. "Get over here!" He called to an assistant. "She's got some sort of advanced metabolism. If we let her go too long, The skin will close over the pellets!" He hurried to get the rest of the metal out of Molly's skin. He knew he couldn't get them all, but he did his best. He wondered if he was doing Molly any favors.

"Record this. I have to take care of business elsewhere." Specter said.

The doctors continued to work on Molly.

-*-

Specter walked in to the guest house. Maria stood up carefully.

"Maria, my dear. It has come to my attention that you haven't been cooperating with Mr. Dubois." He said.

She just looked at him.

"I want you to take a walk with me. I'll show you some new things." He said.

Maria just stood there.

Specter reached for his belt. Maria twitched so fast that he could barely see it. He trigged the shock collar. Maria fell down her muscles and nerves overwhelmed by a blast of electricity.

"The batteries on this thing are going to run out, eventually." Maria said, climbing to hands and knees.

Specter triggered the device again. After Maria got done twitching he said. "Maybe, but you have no way of knowing when. Eventually you can put a person into a coma with one of these. You can have brain damage and all sorts of awful side effects. I've done it to people who thought they were tough, just like you Maria."

Maria waited until she could control her muscles again and then slowly regained her feet. She waited.

"Let's go." Specter waved her towards the door. Being careful to stay away from him she walked to the front door.

-*-

Specter took Maria on a tour of his island. There was a major office complex and it's staff. There was a hangar and several helicopters. There were docks and all manner of pleasure and small utility boats. There were armed guards in evidence everywhere Maria and Specter went.

"I am worth over a billion dollars." Specter said. "I employ two million people. I directly affect the standard of living of several million more people. Indirectly second or third hand, I can affect half the world's population."

Maria just looked at him.

"There are people who would otherwise be starving, who I feed. There are people who would otherwise be on the streets that I house and employ. I am not some mustache twirling villain who's tying you to a rail. I have reasons for what I do."

Maria just looked at him.

"Every day, Governments make decisions that result in deaths and pain. They are empowered to do this because it's necessary so that the majority can enjoy their lives." Specter said.

"I am a government. I am a king in my own financial empire. I built this empire. I make it function with my mind and my personality. Sometimes people stand against me. They say that I mustn't do what is necessary to make my kingdom function. They say that the freedom and life of an individual is worth any cost, even a whole kingdom."

Maria just looked at him.

"Tell that to the soldiers who died in the Great War. Their lives were sacrificed for the good of the nation. I doubt any of them would volunteered to die, especially in certain battles that were tragic and yet irrelevant. Every day cops and criminals die in the cities. Their lives are sacrificed and for what?"

Maria just looked at him.

"Put yourself in their position. You are being asked to trust a captain, or a general to use your life well to accomplish ends that you may or may not understand, that may or may not be relevant in a year or a day. Without knowing, you are asked to trust and to spend your life. What's the difference with me?"

Maria just looked at him.

"I have a plan. I know what I'm doing. I won't let people who don't understand foil me, or resist me. I can't. It's not just about me. It's about this thing I'm building. It's about the two million people I call mine. It's about my two and half billion neighbors. You have your United Nations. They make the kinds of decisions that I do every day, yet you serve them. Peacekeeper Giarelli, your job is to enforce the edicts of your government. To spend your life and the lives of others if necessary in pursuit of certain goals. What goals? Peace? You're prepared to kill to enforce peace? Freedom? You're prepared to send people to jail and take their freedom away. How does that forward the cause of freedom?"

Maria just looked at him.

"I won't let you resist me Maria Giarelli. I'll have you on my side. I can't have it any other way. This thing I'm building is too important."

Maria just looked at him. On one level she was impressed with his fervor and dedication. Part of her wanted to believe in him. She wanted to believe in something bigger and more important than herself.

"You and Mussolini." Maria said.

"Who?" Specter didn't recognize the name. "I'll guess I'll just have to prove to you how serious I am. Come along."

Her led her towards a wing of the office complex. Maria recognized the medical lab.

As the entered, Maria saw a figure on the table where she had been restrained. She gasped as she saw Molly's ruined features.

Specter was shocked, too. Most of Molly's skin had returned. The myriad of small holes in her skin had closed. It looked like a bad case of acne. She had been cleaned and so the wounds were more evident against her pale skin. The main injury that remained was the eye that had been shot. Even the skin outside her destroyed eye had almost returned to normal. The eye itself was a scarred white orb. Maria had never seen Molly eye damaged so before. She wasn't certain if it would return.

The doctor approached Specter.

"She can regenerate, too?" Specter asked.

"Yes, Sir." The Doctor reported "Even the eye is regenerating, albeit at a slower rate. She ought to get her sight back in eighteen hours or so at her current rate. She's sedated now, but I don't think it will last long."

Maria looked at Molly. No sedative worked on her. She was playing possum.

Molly's good eye opened and swept the room. She saw Maria and her face burst into a grin. It looked painfully slow to Maria. She slowly winked at Molly. If she winked at her normal speed, then Molly might think she had a twitch.

"She's awake." One of the Guards said. His shotgun came away from his shoulder and took up a more ready position.

Maria sighed in frustration. They couldn't do anything without being seen and ratted out.

Specter turned to Molly. "Well dear girl, how are you?"

Molly opened her good eye again. She speared Specter on a hateful look. Unselfconsciously, she stepped down off the table.

"Shoot her again." Specter said. "Get her feet."

Maria gritted her teeth. She didn't dare attack the guards or Specter they had the boxes that would activate her collar. She couldn't help Molly from the floor.

Molly jumped and growled. A guard pointed his shotgun at her feet.

"No, you fool!" The Doctor screamed

The guard pulled his trigger and Maria watched a load of shot embed itself in Molly's feet and the floor. The sound of ricochets whining and slapping into the walls echoed.

"Ah." Molly said. She bent over and covered her newly bloody feet. Maria knew that the pain wouldn't stop Molly for long. Then she realized what the pinprick holes all over Molly's body meant. In the last hour or so, Molly had been shot like that a lot.

Maria's reserve broke. They were torturing Molly. Molly was too tough physically to develop the inner toughness to handle torture for long. Her friend would be hurt on a deep level where Maria was certain that Molly didn't have the proper defenses.

"Stop!" Maria said. "Stop, damn it!"

"I need cooperation from one of you ladies and I intend to get it." Specter said.

Molly looked up at Maria. "Don't," She said.

"Shoot her a few more times." Specter said.

"Mr. Specter, the girl might be bullet proof but my staff isn't!" The Doctor angrily approached Specter.

Specter nodded at the doctor. "Start with him."

The guard shot the surprised doctor. The shotgun blast him in the chest and splattered him all over the lab.

"Stop!" Maria screamed.

Molly started to scramble to her feet. Anger and fear showed with even clarity on her face. A guard shot her on her right shoulder. A few of the pellets lodged themselves in her face. Molly was thrown to the floor. She covered her face and head with her arms, and curled into a fetal position. Another guard shot her in her back.

"Stop, God damn you!" Maria shouted.

Another guard shot Molly. She screamed.

"STOP!" Maria screamed. "I surrender!"

"Hold your fire." Specter said in a conversational tone. The guards stopped. "What was that, Maria?"

"I surrender, damn you." Maria said. Tears ran down her face. "Damn you."

-*-

The airplane cruised smoothly and efficiently in the western skies. Delilah enjoyed the feeling. She and John had only flown in it once before Specter destroyed them.

The plane wasn't a weapon of war. Delilah had to plot her kamikaze approach carefully in order to even get close.

She flew in a civilian flight path at a regulation altitude and speed. She looked just like a normal civilian air plane.

As the evening wore on, she deviated out of the flight path, slightly. Her target was a point in space above Specter's island. It should look like a normal everyday doofus set his trim wrong and then went to sleep, while plane flew him along.

The plane was bursting with fuel. Far more than it was ever designed to carry or use. She attached a piece of strange electronics to her radio. She checked her guns and sword. Then she waited.

-*-

Duffy stepped out of the warm summer night of the island into the guest house.

"Sir, we have a Security Alert." He nervously told Mr. Specter.

"Why aren't you reporting to Mr. Dubois?" Specter demanded. He and Maria were in the guest house, quietly going over the details of alternate universes and what happened there.

Maria answered his questions and just waited. Her break would come. She told him of alternate dimensions but slowly, She only answered direct questions. She let Specter do the work.

Specter was so excited by the idea of new worlds to explore and conquer that he didn't really notice that Maria wasn't telling all she could. He figured that he had all the time in the world.

"Mr. Dubois has taken some time with Molly." Duffy said. He looked a little ill. "He left instructions not to be disturbed."

"Sonofabitch!" Specter cursed. "She's not his yet! Get some people down there and disturb him!"

"You son of a bitch!" Maria leapt to her feet, "That wasn't the deal!"

Specter grabbed his control unit and shocked Maria. "Molly is my hold on her." He explained to Duffy. "If he hurts Molly, then Maria is out of the damned bag!"

"Sir," Duffy said tiredly "The security alert?"

"All right. First things first. Security!"

"Yes, Sir?" The speaker in the ceiling said.

"If Maria tries to leave this room stun her. One warning."

"Yes, Sir."

Specter left to go take care of his alert and wayward security chief.

-*-

"Delta Charley One Niner, You are off course. Your are in restricted air space. Veer off and leave immediately." The radio called. Delilah grinned. They were probably arming surface to air weapons now, but they were hesitant to fire. Specter would rather let a civilian get away and take clandestine revenge later than risk a media circus. He had a reputation to protect.

She activated the electronics and then said "<Cough>, <Cough>, <Snort!>, Ahhhhh station identify." She slurred her words carefully.

On the ground, Delilah's voice came out deeper and slower. She sounded like a drunken man waking up. The controller rolled his eyes. Great, another drunken flyer. It never rained but it poured.

"Delta Charley One Niner," he said carefully "You're in restricted air space. Please veer off."

"I said station identify." Delilah slurred again.

"This is Specter station, Santa Maria Island. This air space is restricted." The ground controller said. The plane was cruising high over head even now. It would have passed completely over the island by the time he made the brain damaged drunk understand what he was talking about.

"Where the hell is Specter station?" Delilah wondered, drunkenly. "I'm headed for Pickettsville."

"Sir," The ground controller said, "You know that it's a violation of regulations to fly while intoxicated."

Delilah grinned and then leaned into the microphone and enunciated with exaggerated precision. "Who says that I'm drunk?" So far so good. She was almost to the target point.

The ground controller sighed and said "Sir may I have your license and registration numbers, please?"

"You still haven't identified yourself." Delilah said.

"This is Specter Station. Delta Charley One Niner please relay pilots license number and registration number according to regulations two of five." The ground Controller said pointedly.

Delilah ruffled some papers at the mike. "I don't see no Specter Station on my charts. I'm on my way to Pickettsville."

"Look on page twenty four of your pilot's handbook, under the section for reserved airspace." The Controller said officiously.

Delilah almost laughed. She was within a few moments of the target zone. "Reserved airspace? Where am I?"

The Controller gripped the bridge of his nose. Charles Specter walked in behind him. He surveyed the situation. It looked like a civilian airplane had strayed right over the island. Directly over the island. It was too big a coincidence.

"Who is that?" He demanded.

"A civilian ship, Sir." The controller sat bolt upright as he reported.

Specter grabbed the microphone and said "Pilot, identify yourself!"

"Identify your own damned self!" The drunken man's voice responded.

"I'm Charles Specter. I own this island. Veer off now!" Specter barked. There was something wrong with the voice, but he couldn't place it.

"Charles Specter? No shit? Can I have your autograph?" Delilah was having too much fun.

Then it hit Specter. "You fool! That's a voice scrambler! Give to order to fire!" Delilah heard him over the Controller's open mike.

"Are you certain, Sir?"

"Oh, shit! I'm leavin'! Don't shoot!" Delilah cried hoping to confuse the issue.

"Fire! Fire! She's right on top of us!" Specter said. He almost laughed himself. He had a perfect shot at Delilah Chou-Masters at last. New worlds to conquer on the same day as eliminating his last real enemy in this one. Could a day get any better?

"Sir?" The controller asked, confused.

Delilah put the prototype plane into a dive.

-*-

Molly was back in the cell with the dead man. She huddled around herself and cried, bitterly. She had never been so thoroughly defeated before. There had always been a fighting chance. But the shotgun blasts at close range had hurt a lot. Before she could even move or think or fight back she had been on the ground curled up screaming for them to stop.

The wounds on her body were healing, but her spirit was shattered. She especially hated the way Maria sounded. Maria had to surrender to protect her. The thought galled and humiliated Molly. Usually, Molly was the one placing herself in front of Maria and keeping harm away. Now, because Molly had been weak, Maria had to do it and in an especially hateful way.

-*-

Melos Dubois hadn't killed in long enough. He wanted Molly very badly. He could almost imagine her naked body shuddering in her death throes. He could almost see her eyes glazing over, the fear of him their last expression.

He was breathing heavily and he was aroused. He was gambling that he could kill Molly and still survive Specter's wrath. It didn't really matter anyway. The need was too strong to deny. He sent the guards away from the building. They knew what he was up and got out of his way. When it came to killing, Dubois preferred women, but he could make do with men. They all knew it.

He entered the containment area and ignored the weasely little man that Specter had running the place. The recordings of screams that he had torn from earlier throats were just fuel on the fire. He rubbed his sweaty hands on his pants.

"Can I help you?" The man slid sideways up to him.

"Shut that shit off." Dubois ordered.

The Weasel turned and hit a switch that ended the recordings. "Ah, ah. Have you come to visit our guest?"

"Yes." Dubois shuddered with anticipation.

"I'm not certain that Mr. Specter would- Urk!" Dubois grabbed the Weasel around the neck. His flesh was soft. Dubois could almost feel the fear run through him. It felt very good.

-*-

Maria looked longingly at her hockey stick. Specter hadn't gotten around to asking her about it, yet. She knew that the concept of virtually indestructible metal would excite him.

Duffy watched her nervously. He had seen the tapes of Maria's first meeting with Specter on the island. "Don't even think about it, young lady." He warned.

"Think about what?" Maria said.

"You might be able to get to the stick and even chop me up with it, but there's a man watching you right now with his finger on the button of that collar around your neck." Duffy said. He tried to mask his fear unsuccessfully.

Maria lounged casually on the couch. "So, is torturing girls your idea of fun or do you just work here?"

"There is no need for that attitude, young lady. If you just relax and accept the inevitable, you will find that Charles Specter can be a very generous patron." Duffy huffed.

"Whether I like it or not." Maria said.

"Exactly. You understand."

Maria thought for a minute. "I was going to ask if Specter was holding your prick in escrow somewhere, but it's not an appropriate question."

"No, it is not."

"I can tell just from my short acquaintance with you two that your manhood was Specter's first corporate acquisition."

"Now, see here!" Duffy sputtered.

-*-

John Master's last invention plummeted out of the sky, howling. Delilah Chou-Masters gripped the steering column and let out a whoop. She yanked a cord that led to the extra fuel tanks. Valves opened and the fuel began to spew out into the plane and the disturbed atmosphere around the plane.

Missiles streaked by. They had been tuned to shoot down airplanes before they ever got so close, even before they had begun their attack. They were not prepared for Kamikaze attacks by civilian planes. The missiles exploded well above the plane.

If they had radar targeted machine guns, Delilah would have been doomed. They never expected to need them, and so she plummeted through the aerial defenses like a stooping bird of prey.

As the plane dove, Delilah could feel the advanced wing form begin to shudder. It was never intended for high speed dive bombing.

"YeeeeeeHaaaaaaaaa!" Delilah screamed.

-*-

The Weasel grabbed feebly at Dubois' hand. He tried to pull Dubois hand away. Dubois could feel the contest between his need and the Weasel's need to live. He shifted his grip and ran his fingers over several sensitive pressure points on the man's neck.

The Weasel squeaked in pain and began to kick at Dubois. He knew he was in terrible trouble and wanted to be anywhere else. Dubois could feel the desire and he enjoyed it.

The Weasel understood Dubois' attraction to the act of murder but was too busy wanting to live to feel disgust. He tried to scratch at Dubois' face but the bigger man simply took his arm and used it for better leverage against him.

Dubois knew that he was seriously out of control, now. He might escape retribution for killing Molly, but to kill Molly and the Weasel would be too much for Specter to tolerate. He had to hurry or his need to feel the end of Molly's life would go unfulfilled.

He loosened his grip on the Weasel's throat and spun him around.

"Eeeeeeeee!" The Weasel screamed. He flailed around trying to find purchase with which to defend his life. He found nothing.

-*-

Molly heard the scream and looked up. She could hear scuffling noises and the evil dentist's wailing scream. Molly hadn't jumped back up to the lip of her cell or attacked the men shooting her because she was afraid of what they might do to Maria. But this might be a lucky break, or the cavalry coming to their rescue.

Molly leapt up to the lip again and hauled herself up to the floor above.

-*-

Dubois grabbed the back of the Weasel's neck and wrapped other hand around his chin. A sharp twist broke the smaller man's neck.

"Eeeeee-" The Weasel's scream died into gurgling. Dubois held the Weasel and gently lowered him to the ground. The twist was sharp enough. The Weasel's head sat backwards on his body now. He tried to gasp and scream some more. The nerve connections between his brain and his lungs were severed. Dubois looked deeply into his eyes.

The Weasel, knew that he was dying. The only man who might help him was his killer. He stared into Dubois' eyes. Wordlessly he pleaded. "I really don't want to die." He thought. "Please." His brain began to shut down for lack of oxygen and blood. "pleeease..."

Dubois shuddered as waves of pleasure surged through him. Another death. It was a good one. Dubois never had a kill that he didn't like. But now it was time for a long slow one.

"What are you doing?" Molly asked.

Dubois turned and saw her. She was a vision. Naked, with smooth white skin, Blonde hair and pubes. The most recent shotgun wounds were pin-prick holes, now. Soon they would have been gone, but that was not going to happen. He looked at her breasts and groin and thought of the sex and love and the family that would never be. Wonderful. He wasn't just killing her, but her entire future as well. Dubois was exited and aroused. Adrenaline mixed with testosterone in his blood stream. His body was hyped to its maximum levels.

Molly saw the look on Dubois' face. She saw his gaze travel up and down her body. She saw the sheen of sweat that covered him. She recoiled. "Eeeww!" She said.

-*-

Delilah aimed the experimental plane as a particular building as she dived. It was the generator complex. Although Specter's island was a fortress it was aimed more at assassination and espionage than outright warfare. The generator building housed both the main generators and the backups. It would be extremely difficult for an intruder to approach and disable the generators through the tightly woven security net on the island.

At the last moment Delilah opened a hatch in the canopy and bailed out of the air plane.

The airplane didn't hit the generator building, Uncontrolled it veered just enough to miss it. As the airplane plowed into the ground, The fuel tanks burst and flooded the area, including the burning wreckage of precisely engineered and very efficient turbo props.

The fuel exploded. The atomized fuel in atmosphere surrounding the wreck exploded. The air mixed with fuel made a much more potent explosive than the fuel alone. This was the principle behind the fuel-air explosive. Delilah's improvised model was much less efficient and powerful than a military model.

It was good enough. A huge globe of air detonated in a flash. A shock wave raced across the island. The shock wave was a wall of overstuffed air trying to get the hell out of the way. The effect was not very bad for people. Popping ears, a moment of dizziness, maybe a breathless feeling. It was completely devastating and destructive to buildings. All over the island people felt their ears pop, and then buildings flew apart like houses of cards.

The generator building was shredded and thrown towards the ocean. Both the main generators and the backups were destroyed.

The hangar fluttered as though the corrugated metal panels were flags, and the fell into itself. At the main office building all the windows shattered and flew inwards in a deadly hail of shrapnel. Part of the building was damaged.

-*-

The lights went out and then a big whoosh came along and pushed all the windows in. Maria felt the broad thunderous sound of the explosion and saw the fireball rising into the sky. She grinned. That was a big one!

Then she looked back at Duffy his face was ashen and he was staring at her. "Now, now..." He began.

Maria was confused. He was frightened of something.

"Don't do anything rash..." Duffy continued.

She looked around again. Lights were down all over the island. Everything was lit by the rising fireball. No power.

"I'm certain the consequences will be worse than you want to confront..."

Without the power the guys watching her collar were in the dark, too. Maria grinned. She stood up and walked casually towards her hockey stick.

Duffy hobbled towards her. He was still on canes and a cast from going over a cliff in the limo.

Maria scooped up her stick.

"Really! Don't! You don't know what he'll do!" Duffy was shouting.

Carefully using her fingers, Maria found the cylindrical lock that held the collar in place. Then she carefully edged the razor sharp blade of her hockey stick up to it and began to saw the lock off the collar.

"Don't make me call for security, please!" Duffy sounded desperate. He didn't want to see Maria or Molly hurt anymore.

Maria sneered. His concern went right up to the point where he had to resist Charles Specter.

The lock popped off and Maria was free.

"Security! Come quickly!" Duffy shouted.

Maria stepped up and was about to swing the hockey stick through Duffy. She found that she could not. He was wounded, still in crutches and a cast. He was incapable of fighting and had no manhood. He was crippled badly enough so that she couldn't eliminate him in good conscience. Instead she slapped him. She moved her open hand back and forth across his face several times. The sounds of slapping over lapped.

Duffy fell backwards with his ears ringing and pain slamming through him.

The door slowly flew open and there was a guard with a shotgun. Just like the ones that shot Molly. He was bringing the shotgun up to fire at her. She moved towards him and went underneath the shotgun, She disemboweled the guard. His guts fell out onto the floor and he screamed a hideous piecing scream.

Maria stepped over him and into the night. She didn't know exactly what was going on, but she wanted to make as much mayhem as possible while everyone else was in the dark, too.

-*-

The building rocked and the windows exploded inwards. Molly just looked around. Massive explosions were usually her cue that a battle was beginning. She didn't let them worry her unduly.

Dubois knew that something had seriously wrong, but didn't care. He was too far down the road now to care about anything but his immediate need and that was Molly. Crunching on the broken glass he stepped for her. He could feel his personality bore through his eyes at her. He knew that everything he was thinking was written on his face.

Molly said "Stay back." In a warning tone of voice. They often did that. Most people lived with the delusion that they could put up enough of a fight to defend themselves. When it was Dubois they were talking to, they were wrong. He kept moving in.

"I mean it, stay away." Molly said, stepping backwards. More fear showed through.

He grinned lovingly. The surprise she felt when she found that she was helpless against him would be delicious.

He reached her and grabbed for her. Molly pushed him away. Dubois staggered back several steps and sat down hard. He shook his head. Molly was incredibly strong. He'd forgotten.

Molly took a deep breath. She was afraid. She wasn't used to the feeling. Molly never thought she would have to be afraid of anything. What if Specter came back? What if he brought more men with shotguns? Molly wanted to be anywhere else. The look on Dubois' face was eloquent. He liked hurting people. What did he know that Molly didn't? Did he have any more surprises like those shotguns?

-*-

The fire ball caught Delilah Chou-Masters and threw her higher into the air on her parachute. She fell out of the flames. She was dizzy. Then her shroud caught fire.

She swung from the rigging. and struggled to regain control. She figured she had a few moments of control left in the steerable 'chute before it collapsed utterly.

She could see by the dying light of the fire ball that the island was blacked out and there figures running everywhere in the confusion. She grinned Charles Specter was close now, and vengeance called to her sweetly.

At a height of fifteen feet the 'chute became untenable. Delilah unhooked her self and plummeted the rest of the way to the ground. She rolled out of the fall and began to move towards Specter's office. Shotguns were firing off on the other side of the island towards the guest house. Delilah hoped that Molly and Maria could survive the night ahead, but it didn't matter. One way or another they were going to be Charles Specter's last victims.

-*-

Maria was very angry as she swept out of the house. She felt persecuted and hounded and she was going to take it out on the first people she came across.

As she left the building she spotted a group of security thugs. They were jogging to the guest house with shotguns at high port. Maria grinned a cold, evil grin.

She ran a long hook pattern, and swept up behind the formation. The guards saw a flash of motion in the darkness and reacted well, they split into two groups of two and stepped to the opposite sides of the road.

Maria made her first attack run. She sped by one of the men holding shotguns. Her stick held up at chest level. The razor sharp green blade cut through the man's arm.

Maria juked and turned as his desperate cry rang out. He might live, but he wasn't much good for the goose stepping thug business anymore.

Shotguns boomed. The men did not get close to Maria with their shots. She made a hard turn. She could feel the cheap deck shoes start to come apart under the ferocious pressure of human legs running at fifty miles an hour. Her shins tingled. Her muscles coiled and rebounded like spring steel.

She whipped by a desperately turning guard, Her stick low. His foot came off and bounced away.

"Aggghhhhhh." He yelled as he fell. Another candidate for physical therapy. Maria actually hated the screams of pain. But they asked for it. No one forced the shotguns into their hands. It was their tough luck to be up against a Giarelli. No one said that life was fair.

She slid to a stop in front of a surprised guard. She could see the fear in his face. He was about dead and he knew it. Maria could see his well trained reactions coming in to play, slowly. She made a short chopping motion and several of the man's fingers came off.

"Eeeeeee!" He screamed. He looked with dawning horror and comprehension at his hands. His scream took on a hopeless tone.

"There has got to be a better way." Maria thought. She stepped back away from the lone survivor. Another shotgun blast swept by. As adrenalized as she was, Maria could almost see the shot flash by. They were just normals. Once she was in fighting trim, they stood no chance against her.

Maria remembered other attacks by normals, in Italy. Car bombs and rockets launched into her home at night. Ambushes with machine guns and anti-personnel mines. The survivors of the Italian super-team quickly dropped the flashy costumed hero motif and went for better survivability.

No individual Mafiosi had a chance against them, but the Mafiosi rarely appeared alone or where you could easily get to them. Maria had killed or crippled many of them. It was appropriate there. It was a war. But Maria wasn't at war anymore. She left Italy behind her. Eventually life during war time had to end.

Here Maria was, back in the head. She saw a gun and took the owner out. But these people had no way to know what they were up against. It wasn't fair.

Maybe life wasn't fair, but that didn't mean that Maria couldn't be. It was time for the war to end for Maria. It was time to begin a new way.

Maria speared her Hockey stick into the ground. She wasn't going to abandon it. There were things that were too tough for her to take with out it. But they didn't have any tanks on Specter's island. She didn't need it for these guys.

Maria stepped up to remaining gunman. He was whipping the shotgun around desperately, trying to get a bead on the speedster Maria.

He whipped the gun around and Maria slapped it. He kept spinning for a quarter turn. She stepped inside and struck him with a combination of hand to hand blows. Face, face, gut, gut,gut.

He stumbled back leaning over. She grabbed his loosely held shotgun and spun with a twisting motion. She completed the spin with a new shot gun. The unfortunate gunsel flew away willy nilly.

He landed heavily. Maria stepped up and planted the butt of the shotgun in his face and mid-section repeatedly. He was battered and bleeding. He was no threat to her. And as a special added bonus, It didn't feel like murder.

Maria sped away into the night grinning.

-*-

Delilah jogged casually towards the main building. Specter would be there. She hadn't been able to find any plans for the building, but she knew how Specter thought. There would be a huge office. Maybe a large electronic control center. He would try to reassert his control. Just when you thought his obsession would hold him to the sinking ship, he would cut and run.

Delilah wanted to catch him in the reasserting control phase. He might escape if he understood that he was on a dark island with Delilah.

A group of guards was heading for the containment area. Delilah remembered watching it through high powered scopes.

They stopped and looked confused at Delilah. She wasn't dressed like anyone else at the island. She was wearing black baggy clothing and nylon harnesses. She had her gun and her sword strapped on as well as a few extra pieces of equipment here and there for emergencies. He black hair was braided into tail behind her.

Delilah didn't wait. "Report!" She barked in her best drill sergeant voice.

The guards came to attention. Was she an intruder or one of Specter's agents? "There has been an explosion at the generator building. Were going to look for Mr. Dubois, Ma'am.

"No. There's not time. They'll be here in moments." Delilah improvised "Get as many men together as you can and get to the beach. They'll be all over us in a minute."

The guard looked confused. "Yes, Ma'am. You heard her, Let's go!" The guards ran off in formation. Delilah thanked her gods again for the military mind and continued her search.

-*-

Specter looked at the readouts in his high tech control room. There weren't a lot of them and the few that existed were red. Surveillance cameras shows a dark flash and the turned off, leaving blank screens.

"No luck restoring power, Sir." The Control Officer said.

"Luck? Luck!?" Specter shouted. He grabbed the man by the collar. "That's not luck, it's your incompetence! Now get out there and get me some power!" He threw the man towards the door. Specter was a little stressed.

"Can we get any of those idiot guards on the radio?" Specter demanded. "I need information."

Another worker said meekly "No, Sir. Building radio is out of power."

Specter slammed his fist. "Damn!" He spotted one of his own personal body guards. He was standing there impassively with a pink pastel polo shirt, tan chinos a shotgun and a white bead in his ear.

"You!" Specter shouted "Give me that!" He grabbed for the guard's bead. He fumbled it into his own ear and listened.

"Station three, what's your status?"

Static.

"Station four? Station four, who was that?"

"No report, Dan. I dunno who that was."

"Boat docks are still secure."

An irritated voice said "Thanks Freddy. We copy."

Specter marveled at the ability of any social group to develop a geek.

"This is Charles Specter. Report by number if you read me." Specter said.

The body guard coughed. "Sir, that radio is listen only."

"Then go get me one that isn't!" Specter hissed.

"Are you certain, Sir? I wouldn't want to leave you unprotected." The body guard was uncertain.

Specter took the guard's gun and shot him with it. The guard fell on the floor and gurgled with a surprised look on his face.

"I was paying you too much!" Specter raged. He shot the guard again.

Specter looked up to see his staff bolting for the door.

"Stop! Stop NOW!" Specter said. He shot a fleeing technician in the back. She screamed a short, chopped off scream and fell still.

The staff ran faster.

"Damn it!" Shouted Specter.

-*-

Dubois stepped gingerly up to Molly. He feinted with his right hand. Molly's hand came up in a reflexive defense. It looked a lot like boxing to Dubois. That confused him. Molly didn't have the body style or the bulk for classical boxing. He reached his left hand inside her guard, under her right breast to the sixth rib. He felt for the nerve cluster. Pushing the muscle out the way was difficult. Molly felt like all of her muscles were steel belted radial tires. He found the nerve cluster and twisted.

"Ugh!" Molly grunted in pain. Her right arm tucked automatically against the pain. Molly moved her left had to her right shoulder and then backhanded Dubois across his face. It was an off balance and wimpy blow.

Dubois' head snapped way back. He took a couple of steps backwards, covering. He'd had grown men punch him full on and get about the same effect. Molly followed the blow in.

Dubois met her with a knee to the mid section and a karate strike to the nerve cluster at the base of the neck. Molly whoofed and countered with an off balance right hand punch to the face. Again it was not a good blow. Dubois half spun to the floor.

He scrambled to his feet. His knee complained. His face throbbed. Fighting Molly was like fist fighting a bulldozer.

Molly shrugged her shoulder. The karate strike to the neck made it feel tingly and half asleep.

Dubois breathed deeply, His need would not be denied. He needed to feel Molly's life draining away. He attacked again.

He stepped up and then sidestepped. Molly flinched and stepped back. She was afraid! Dubois knew that he had the edge. He reached around Molly's head and grabbed a handful of her soft blonde hair. He stepped over and twisted. Molly went down.

"You may be tough, Molly, but I am an expert at this." Dubois said. "All your strength can still be overcome." He planted the seeds of doubt carefully. He needed Molly to believe that she was helpless or he would be in serious trouble. "I can use leverage. I take your nerves out of your body and twist them around my fingers. You'll feel pain like you've never felt before."

Molly rolled over and got up. While he had her back to him, Dubois planted an elbow into her back. He planted the strike perfectly. Molly shuddered with pain but still got up. Dubois' elbow felt like he had hit a stump.

"Why? Why are you doing this?" Molly gasped.

Dubois looked Molly in the eyes. One of Molly's eyes was clouded with pain, fear and doubt. The other was just clouded. Dubois marveled. The ruined eye was growing back.

"You may be stronger, but inside you're no different. Just like the others." Dubois said. "You can't stop me. You can't save yourself."

"What others?" Molly said.

Dubois chuckled. Sometimes people were fascinated when they didn't realize that he meant to kill them. Some women were attracted to the power of a man who kill indiscriminately and get away with it. "There have been many others, Molly. They all die just the same."

"You bastard!" Molly hissed.

"Mothers, fathers, lovers, children. I've killed them all." Dubois said casually. He had to plant the idea that he was an irresistible killer. If Molly didn't believe that she could survive or triumph, then she wouldn't.

Molly's face contorted. Dubois grinned wider. "Now we'll start the final act."

Dubois moved in. Molly's block was slow and misplaced. Dubois threw her to the floor again. Molly flailed at him. He blocked and tried not to let the pain he felt in his arms show. Christ, it was like molesting farm machinery. He delicately grabbed another nerve cluster and twisted.

"Eeeeee!" Molly screamed. She twitched and tried to roll away. Would Dubois ever have a kill as good again? He doubted it. Maybe it was a good thing that this would be his last.

Dubois let her go and then stepped towards her. He hit another nerve cluster and held it. It was work. Only the fact that Molly had no leverage saved him. She struggled and he rolled her so that she had no traction against the floor. His muscles strained to their limits against Molly's three hundred pounds.

"Ahhh" Molly cried. She knew that he was right. He was too skilled for her. Hopelessness descended. Molly sobbed.

"You're wonderful Molly." Dubois said. His arousal was near completion. His voice was soft with emotion.

"Sick bastard." Molly sobbed.

"So much fear in you. Soon the fear will be gone." Dubois said. "Soon it will be all gone." He felt in Molly's neck. A grabbed her trachea. With the right leverage, it would snap easily. Then Molly would slowly suffocate from lack of oxygen. He picture her chest heaving, desperately seeking air. He pictured her face turning a delicate shade of blue. He pictured her thrashing and then fading.

He batted away Molly's flailing hands and gripped her neck.

"Ag!" Molly choked.

-*-

Specter stormed into his huge executive's office. The time had come to cut his losses and move on. That was the difference between himself and all the comparable men before him. They didn't know enough to get while the getting was good. For a powerful man, a superior man, tomorrow was always another opportunity.

He walked across his office and to the safe. It was next to his ancient oriental swords set into a piece of modern sculpture. The greatest living sculptor had created the facade working with a Hollywood special effects house. Although Specter had to threaten the man's mother to get him to start the original project, the man was now happily sculpting away in Hollywood as an alien prop designer.

A sequence of details on the surface of the sculpture were actually buttons. He pressed them and then held his hand on a flat spot. The carefully concealed palm scanner failed to work. There was no power.

"Damn!" Specter shouted. Not only was his escape money in there, but a lot of evidence. If the so called authorities were to gain access to the safe then Specter would be behind a lot of cover up money and possibly a few killings. He wasn't going let his own safe balk him that easily. He was the most powerful man in the world!

-*-

Duffy struggled across the island. He hurt and wasn't moving to well, but he had to warn Charles. He laughed. Specter would have had to have been in a coma to miss the battle raging on the island. Duffy felt an intense need to get to Charles' side and to support him. It was all he knew how to do.

He watched Maria flash by. She had dropped her devilish hockey stick and had switched to a borrowed shotgun. Duffy remembered having to use his crutches to cross the dead guard's viscera. He remembered the weeping, screaming men just outside the guest house. He thought at first there was a monster loose on the island. He feared that Maria would kill them all. Then he began to encounter guards who had been simply beaten. It was brutal, but not permanent. Did young Maria have a conscience? Was she fighting Specter or was she fighting for herself? Duffy saw her stop and aim the shotgun. There was a radio antenna on top of the roof of the office complex. The shotgun boomed and the radio antenna fell over. Maria staggered and grinned. Duffy knew that she was bruising the hell out of her shoulder that way. She really wasn't big enough for a shotgun. More guards rounded the corner pelting in pursuit of Maria.

Maria swept into them, using the butt of her shotgun like a bludgeon. Duffy almost had to laugh despite himself. Maria had let go. She was enjoying herself. Who was to blame? They brought the rampage down upon themselves.

Then Duffy remembered Charles Specter. Maria might get away this time, but such a reverse would drive Specter to new depths of depravity in his anger.

Maybe not. Maybe this would be the key incident that opened Charles' eyes. Maybe there was still a way to fix this. Duffy kept hobbling.

-*-

Maria stopped as the guards ran towards her. She struck an exaggerated pose. "Lil' ol' me?" She seemed to say.

"There she is! Fire!" The leader of the group shouted.

Maria waited until their shotguns were nearly in position and then she moved. Another down and out pattern. Maria skipped into the formation and swept her empty shotgun's butt into the gut of one of the guards. He shouted in pain and went down. The guards whirled. Maria showed the open action to the team leader. "Look! No more bullets!" He jerked back from the shot gun. Then his eyes focused on the action. The knowledge that Maria's shotgun was empty began to filter through his brain.

Maria hit him in the temple with the butt of her empty shotgun. He collapsed slowly. She stepped behind another guard. One or two of them were trying to hit her with their shotgun butts. "Copycats." Maria thought acidly.

The guard she had taken cover behind began to whip his shotgun around in a desperate blind strike. He had the gun almost halfway to Maria's head before she ducked. Impressive for a normal.

The shotgun swept by and the guard over rotated with the follow through. She smacked the guard with a short, sharp strike to the face. His nose spurted blood slowly and he fell backwards.

The next guard had gotten into firing position and was bringing the shotgun around.

Maria stepped over beside him and watched his firing position. The shotgun boomed.

"Pretty good." Maria thought, "Let's give you a real test." She reached in and grabbed the trigger. She yanked it several times as quickly as she could. The shotgun fired and the automatically loaded another shot into the chamber and fired it as many times as she pulled the trigger.

To the guard it seemed as if his shotgun had suddenly turned into a machine-gun. The kick of five shots firing instantly hit him hard. His shoulder was heavily bruised and the shotgun flew out of his grasp.

Maria swept the butt of her empty shotgun into the guards crotch, firmly. His eyes slowly bugged out and his face turned red. Maria winced. "I bet that hurt!"

She turned to the last guard. He did something unexpected. He threw his shotgun to the ground and raised his hands.

"I give." He said.

Maria looked at him for a moment unsure of what to do. He was tall and broad shouldered. He had a handsome face and sensitive brown eyes. Maria smirked. She picked up a shotgun with more bullets in it and pointed it at him menacingly.

"Oh," she said, "you want to live, do you?"

He gulped but kept his eyes on the horizon. Maria looked around carefully. She had enough time, it seemed.

"Take off your clothes." She said to the guard.

He boggled. "What?"

"I said take off your clothes!" Maria said menacingly. She gestured with the shotgun to emphasize the point.

"But, but..." The guard said unhappily.

"But what?" Maria demanded.

The guard looked at her for a moment and then began to undress.

Maria watched with detached interest. A little beefcake was okay, but she was running out of jokes to pull on these guys. What could she do next?

As soon as he was undressed she tried on his shoes. They were too big. "Why don't you have any decent shoes on this island?" She demanded. The guard didn't say anything. He kept his eyes on the horizon.

Without better traction and protection on her feet Maria's mobility was crippled. She decided to keep looking. She was keeping a sizable proportion of Specter's guard force busy. If Molly got free or if the huge explosion was really a precursor to an attack, Maria wanted things to be as easy for themas possible.

-*-

Delilah ducked into another office and hid behind the door. A guard burst in and shot the desk with his shot gun. The desk was the logical place to seek cover. Delilah killed him with a well placed shot from her gun, Then she stretched around the door and crippled the other guard with a not so well placed shot. "Oh," she thought, "It was a difficult position, anyway."

She went to the window and leapt to the ground outside Specter's office building. The guards closer to Specter were not a gullible as those further away.

She slipped back into the building. There were wounded people trying to escape, and guards watching alertly. Delilah slipped into the shadows and replaced her gun with her swords. She had to kill quietly and raise no alarm to warm Specter of her presence now.

-*-

Dubois grunted and twisted harder. Molly's trachea just wasn't breaking. He stared at her for a moment. What was she made of? Molly grabbed Dubois and rose to sitting position. She held him over her head for a moment and then tossed him across the room.

He hit the wall hard and slid to the floor.

Molly rubbed her throat, and grimaced. She was bruised and could almost feel something in her neck break under Dubois' treatment. Anger boiled in her. He was a damned psychopath. How many people had he killed? Why? Just because he could. Molly was all ready half crying. The bitterness of it almost overwhelmed her. Damn it. To have your life cut short just because Dubois was a pervert.

Dubois raised his head and looked at Molly. Fear ran through him for the first time. He had her dead to rights. She should be choking now. But somehow he hadn't strong enough! The trachea can crush under fifteen pounds of pressure applied correctly. What had gone wrong?

Molly saw his fear and confusion. "Son of a bitch!" She snarled. "Should I be dying right now?"

Dubois scrambled to his feet. He tried to reassert his dominance. "If that didn't work I'll keep trying until I find something that does. You can't beat me."

Molly also rose to her feet. "Is that the way it has always worked for you before? Sinners, saints, children are we all just your victims?" She snarled.

A beatific smile played across Dubois' face. "Yes, exactly."

Molly stepped in and gave him an uppercut to his mid section. She moved faster than he was expecting. He got an arm up and blocked about half the force of the blow. He was thrown back into the wall. His ribs ached.

"Just another damned psychopath." Molly said bitterly. She put a left cross into his face. "Just another loon who thinks he's the center of the universe." She grabbed Dubois and threw him up back into the wall. "As if we're all just playthings for your amusement!"

Dubois hit Molly with stiffened fingers on top of a nerve junction at her left shoulder. Molly cried and stepped back. Dubois staggered away holding his hand. He had nearly broken his fingers. Molly came after him again. Fear filled Dubois' mind. This was wrong! This wasn't the way it was supposed to go! He kicked Molly in her knee. She grunted and staggered but kept coming. It wasn't fair! He'd crippled men with that kick. They were all just fragile toys! She broke the rules! It wasn't fair!

A right hook sent Dubois to the floor. Molly picked him up and threw him into the wall again. His face was beginning to puff up. His mouth was bleeding.

"Am I going to have to kill you to keep you from hurting anyone else?" Molly yelled.

"Fuck you!" Dubois yelled. "I'll get you! I'll kill you! Over and over and over! You can't do this to me!" He struck out, blindly. He pounded Molly with his fists. They met her muscles and bones and just stopped. He grunted and held his hands against him in pain.

"I'll come back some day." Dubois said. "You'll never be able to sleep. You'll always be looking over your shoulder. I'll convince them that I'm sane. I've done it before. They'll let me go. Then some time when you're asleep or making love or reading a book I'll be there. I've done it before."

Molly took a deep breath. She knew that she would be away from this dimension in a few days. He couldn't hurt her anymore, but what normals might he hurt or kill? Delilah Chou-Masters said that Specter owned the justice system in this world. Would he protect his pet psychopath and use him against other people? Molly didn't want to have to decide. She wanted it to be someone else's problem.

"I'll break the small bones up inside your sinuses." Dubois said. He was in a world of his own, now. "They slide into your lovely brain. You'll kick and fall twitching. Your body will go into deep shock. The oxygen content of your blood will fall and then your cells will begin to suffer narcosis. He he he he. Your spirit will slide out and you'll relax utterly. You sphincters will let go and your eyes will be frozen looking into beyond. Oh...." He arched in his arousal.

Molly swept her hand through his skull in a single quick motion. He never understood what happened to him before his body was turned into empty wreckage. He flopped against the far wall and never moved again.

Then Molly turned and began to throw up and cry, a lot.

-*-

Delilah slipped up to the door of Specter's office. Her swords were covered in blood. No one had survived to give the warning to Specter. An emergency light showed from Specter's office, but Delilah didn't expect to find him there. One Specter's bodyguards lay dead with bullet holes in his chest and head. He had been shot with his own pistol. Who else would do that but Specter? He had probably shot the man in a fit and then left. Delilah crept closer anyway. She could soon be down to the docks and into a boat to pursue Specter. He wouldn't escape today.

She peeked in the open door to the opulent office, and saw Specter. He was alone. She almost couldn't believe her eyes. He using a priceless Oriental sword to deface a sculpture. Delilah couldn't let the opportunity pass. She slid into the office on cat's feet.

A finely honed instinct in Charles Specter told him that he had overstayed his welcome. He decided to forget the safe and get the hell out of town while he still could. He rose and turned to face Delilah Chou-Masters.

"Shit!" Specter hissed. He automatically raised the sword into ready position. It was a long sword with a single edge and a peculiar notch in the tip. The handle was long and ornate, designed for two hands. He wasn't the best sword fighter in the world. He owned the best sword fighter in the world. He did study under the man though. The sword and its companion martial arts style was an excellent exercise and mediation technique that brought clarity to Charles Specter's mind. That clarity was not present today.

Delilah had a matched set of short, wide swords in either hand. They were single handed swords with hand guards. She held them lightly in front of her, ready to strike. When she moved she would turn into a whirling mass of flashing, mirrored, razor sharp metal, named for the innocuous butterfly.

"Charles," Delilah hissed. "It's been a while."

"I wish you had called ahead. I could have arranged a better reception." Specter said casually.

They moved. Metal clanged, and blades flew in motion faster than thought. Thought was poison in this battle. There was only reflex and flowing motion.

Specter passed with a strike and then spun in a quick reverse, whipping the sword around towards Delilah's head. Sword met sword. Delilah's other sword swept towards Specter's face, only to met his own sword on its return stroke. She almost lost her arm to the counter strike and destroyed Specter's expensive sports coat with her own reprise.

They faced each other again. "Kill me, and you'll never see your husband again." Specter warned.

"Without you to interfere, He will be able to find his way home." Delilah said matter of factly. Her face was frozen in her small mona-lisa smile.

"Without me, they'll kill him." Specter tried again.

"Without you, your minions will dry up and blow away. I don't fear them."

Again they moved.

-*-

Duffy wheezed up the stairs on his crutches. He should have been outside organizing the recovery process. They had talented people running around outside with no clues. But something drove Duffy to see Specter first. He moaned in pain and kept going.

-*-

The next pass was completed and the results were not in Specter's favor. Both combatants were bloodied but Specter knew that he was outmatched in sword fighting skill. He maneuvered for the door. He would try to retreat into some of his security personnel. He felt certain that most of the ones in the building were dead at Delilah's hands. He hoped that the continued shotgun blasts meant that there were still security men operational outside. He began to edge towards the door. Delilah saw the motion and understood what it meant. She pressed another attack.

-*-

Duffy made it up the stairs and into the hallway. He was puffing and wheezing. His leg hurt badly. He hobbled down the corridor for a few steps, and stopped. What was that sound? It sounded like something metal was being whipped by another piece of metal at high speed. Duffy tried to imagine what might cause the noise. He kept moving, confused.

-*-

There was more blood, now, but Specter was in position. He didn't feel much pain. He knew that this was the result of adrenaline and extremely sharp blades. When the wounds healed, there would only be small, straight scars. He made a mental note to thank Delilah if she lived through her ill considered assault.

She had caused major property damage, but only to one facility. Specter had several. She didn't take away what made Specter powerful. The money and the people that he owned. If he could just get free, then he would be able to fall upon Delilah Chou-Masters with his full weight. He never doubted that he would win free long enough to triumph over Delilah.

For Delilah there was only the reflex and the motion. Everything else, life, John Masters, good or evil were irrelevancies that were temporarily discarded. She was thought and motion made one.

Specter backed into the hallway and used the door way ferociously in his own defense. The doorway limited the number of paths open for Delilah's attack.

Duffy saw Specter backing slowly through the door way. At first he didn't understand the motions or the noises or the blood that poured down Specter's side. Then Delilah made it through the door and Duffy saw the flashing blades that orbited her, seemingly at the speed of light.

"My God!" Duffy yelled. "Charles, you're bleeding!"

Delilah and Specter both turned and took in Duffy. Delilah saw a noisy obstacle, not much of a factor in the conflict. Specter saw an opportunity and leapt for it.

He leapt for Duffy and got behind him. Wrapping one arm around Duffy's neck he held the sword to his throat.

"That's far enough, Delilah." He said coldly.

"Charles! What are you doing?!" Duffy wailed.

Delilah froze and stood in a ready position, her expression unwavering.

"I'll kill him!" Specter hissed.

"What? Charles you're bleeding on me!"

Delilah's expression went from distant mona-lisa to slightly less distant confusion. "That seems a little optimistic, Don't you think?"

"No. You won't let a non-combatant be harmed. Do you think I'm stupid? Of course I studied you. I know how you think!. I have read every detail of your life. The Agency knows more about you than you think, Delilah. Your sacred code of honor is your foundation. Even if Duffy is my man, you won't kill him in cold blood." Specter said shuffling backwards.

"I've butchered seventeen people to get to you tonight alone." Delilah said. "What's one more?" It was a desperate bluff. Specter had her and she knew it. She kept an even distance between them.

Specter called her bluff. "Then make another move." The tip of the sword pressed into Duffy's neck.

"Charles, Charles please see reason!" Duffy called hysterically. "My God, you're fighting with a priceless antique! Look at how banged up it is, now! Surely we can settle this like adults." They shuffled another few steps down the hallway.

"Shut up." Specter said, coldly.

"He's your best friend." Delilah said wonderingly. "I've studied you, too, Charles. You've just taken you best friend's life hostage against me."

"She right, Charles. This doesn't make sense." Duffy shuffled.

"Shut up, you fool." Specter said. Another shuffle.

"Your only real friend in the world." Delilah said sadly.

"I can buy Duffy and sell him fifteen times. Duffy is my pet! He's my slave! His life matters only to him and to you. That's your weakness and I'll use it to destroy you!" Specter snarled.

Duffy realized at that moment that all of his hopes and dreams about Charles Specter were wishful thinking. He said quietly. "Charles,"

"Shut up, or I'll make you regret it." Specter warned.

"I quit." Duffy said. He elbowed Specter sharply in the gut and tried to push away. Delilah didn't expect it. The pysch reports said the Duffy would have remained loyal to Specter past death if possible.

Duffy's broken leg and injuries betrayed him now. He staggered unable to move. Specter sliced his throat with the wicked blade. Duffy gurgled an agonized scream and his blood spurted into Delilah's face. She fell back defending while blind. Specter leapt at her and cut a vicious swipe across her mid-section. Delilah managed to get her eyes partially clear and continued to defend. She found that the injury and the removal from her calm center had destroyed her ability to fight. Strike after strike, Specter pressed. Each came closer to eliminating Delilah Chou-Masters.

Then a single gunshot popped. Charles Specter jerked and his eyes grew wide. Delilah cut him seven times with her flashing blades. He dropped like a puppet with its strings cut, dead.

Delilah saw Duffy lying in a spreading pool of his own blood with a slim automatic pistol dropping from his hands. She moved over to him. She was bleeding freely from her own injury. Her head was light and the pain was beginning the wash in.

Duffy looked up at her and breathed. Bubbles boiled from the blood pouring from his neck. "I'm so sorry..." Duffy said, and then he too died.

-*-

An exotic home in the hills north of Beach City. All white plaster and stucco. Large glass and metal fittings painted flat black. It was an expensive and luxurious home.

Molly and Maria were freshly bathed and dressed. They were well fed and their hard-packs were fully restocked. All their external wounds had long since healed.

Delilah Chou-Masters escorted them into the large open living room of the house.

"How much longer?" Delilah asked them. She was dressed in flowing white cotton garments. They matched the bandages that covered her wounds.

"Five minutes." Molly said. "Thank you for your hospitality."

"Think nothing of it." Delilah said "I wanted to prove that this dimension had its good points, too."

"Yeah, well." Maria said. She still wasn't sure about Delilah despite a week of excellent treatment. "What will you do now?"

"Without Specter, his financial empire has fragmented and begun to dissolve. He never expected to be defeated and so he made no provisions about what to do after his death. Gabriel Chavez is financing an organization to recover Specter's empire and put it to humane use. We'll also recover John's inventions and put them to the uses he intended." Delilah was happy that she had been able to at least bring her husband's body home and had a chance to put his legacy to good use. "We're calling it the Phoenix Foundation. Appropriate, no? Gabriel has asked me to become his Chief Executive there."

"Are you going to do it?" Molly asked.

"Yes. The vengeance business has dried up around here, lately." Delilah grinned.

"Don't bet on it." Maria said. "There's no way he could have done all those things he did without making it worth the while of some nasty people. I'm sure they aren't very happy with you."

Delilah sighed. "There's always somebody unhappy about something. Listen. If you two are tired of wandering, I'm certain that we could find posts for you at the Phoenix Foundation."

Both Molly and Maria reacted in unison.

"No thank you!" Molly said.

"We have to go!" Maria said.

"Not that we don't appreciate the offer..." Molly said.

"That's all right." Delilah said. "Just make sure to say hello if you pass by this way again."

"You got it." Maria said with an insincere smile on her face.

"Time." Molly said

"Good-bye." Delilah said. "Good luck."

Molly held the banged up patched together D-hopper out. As the timer reached zero, Molly pressed the button. A swirling mass of energy began to form in the middle of the room.

"Good-bye." Molly said.

Maria stepped up to the swirling gate way and jumped through. Molly followed.

Delilah Chou-Masters turned away to begin her new life, free at last.

-end-