Attack Doll 5: The End of Lily Lee

by Douglas A. Taylor

Chapter 27

 

  I took my time getting ready the next morning. After all, there was no need to rush; I had a long, glorious day ahead of me before I would see Li Lin-fa again that evening. I ran into Angie in the hall on the way to breakfast. "Hey, little sis!" I said cheerily.

  "Hey, big brother. You're in a good mood. Your date with Li Lin-fa must have gone well."

  "It --" I stopped myself. I had been about to tell her that it wasn't a date, but you know, it kind of was. "It was nice," I said instead. "Really nice."

  She grinned at me. "How nice, exactly?"

  "Nice enough that I don't want to share the details with my baby sister."

  She drew back and made her eyes go wide in feigned shock. "What could the two of you have possibly gotten up to that you wouldn't want to tell me about?"

  "Not what you're probably thinking," I replied with a chuckle. "We mostly just talked."

  "'Mostly'?" she repeated.

  "That's right, 'mostly'." I gave her my inscrutable smile. "We even talked about you a little bit. Li Lin-fa knows that you're my sister. She says she learned it from Lily. She doesn't know your real name, though."

  I have to give Angie some credit here; she didn't ask how Lily had figured it out. She just nodded and said, "We'll have to let Shelley know."

  "Where is Shelley, anyway? I'd have thought the two of you would be over at the lair by now."

  Angie shook her head. "No, she decided yesterday that --"

  She was interrupted by a sound we hadn't heard for nearly a week -- the ringing of the monster alarm. I think we both jumped about a foot into the air. Angie looked longingly toward the kitchen. "Um, listen, big brother, could you, like, grab me a banana or something? Because I have to go get weapons, and I haven't had any breakfast yet, and I'm, like, really starving, and --"

  "Sure thing," I said, partly to stem the tide of "like"s and "and"s coming my way. "I'll meet you in the common room."

  "Thanks!"

  I peeled a pair of bananas and ate one on the way to my room to get my battle vest. "You're going to Greece today, kids, to the city of Athens," Wizzit was saying. "You had better come loaded for bear. There are eleven monsters waiting for you in the Acropolis."

  Eleven monsters? I frowned over that as I shrugged into my vest. The Junior Prime Blue bracelet on my dresser caught my eye, and I thought, why not? I slipped it onto my wrist as I ran back to the common room. I didn't see what good it could do, but to my mind, it would be better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

  In the common room, Angie tossed me my vajra, and as a reward, I gave her a bite of the remaining banana, seeing as how her hands were full. She quickly distributed the other weapons, then snatched the rest of the banana from me and began wolfing it down. Mike was asking, "How did they manage send down eleven monsters at once?"

  "It's not that difficult to figure out," Wizzit said blithely. "It has been six days since they sent down any monsters. They have simply sent down the five from three days ago and the five for today, and they are borrowing against the next time."

  "That hardly seems fair," Toby said, frowning. "Does that mean they could stop sending monsters down for a year, and then ship out a few hundred all at once?"

  "There is a limit to how far back and forward in time they can borrow," Wizzit admitted. "I think this is close to their limit. And after a time, the planet begins to heal itself, as well; after four or five months had passed with no monsters, they would be back to sending only one at a time."

  "But in the meantime, we have eleven monsters to deal with," Trina said grimly. "What are we facing?"

  "Each of them has the form of a tall male or female human figure -- tall as in nearly three meters."

  Toby groaned. "Not storm gods again!" I could sympathize; that had been one of our toughest battles ever.

  "No, not storm gods," Wizzit assured him. "At least, I do not recognize them as such. They are all draped in white cloths, both men and women; some of the males appear to be wearing wreaths of leaves on their heads. Most of them are carrying weapons of one kind or another."

  "Sounds like those might be togas they're wearing. Greek gods, maybe?" I guessed. "Zeus, Athena, Apollo, umm . . ." I couldn't think of any more off-hand.

  "That would be something the Harley twins would send out," Trina agreed. "Especially to the Acropolis in Athens."

  "Well, we certainly won't find out standing around here talking," Mike declared. He looked around at each of us. "Everyone have their weapons? Good. Let's go." The seven of us activated our force shields and Wizzit teleported us out.

  Besides the Parthenon, which I recognized from pictures, there are a couple of other, smaller ancient temples on the site of the Acropolis. Wizzit materialized us inside one of them that was relatively empty. Looking out from among the columns, I could see one of Wizzit's fifteen-foot-tall Greek gods stroll by; this one wore a lionskin over top of his toga, and he carried what looked like a huge wooden club on his shoulder.

  "I don't think I've ever seen so many Zoinks in one place before," Toby commented, sounding awestruck.

  I followed his gaze, and I had to agree; there must have been a hundred or more, and every one of them seemed to be menacing an innocent bystander. It was early June, probably the beginning of the tourist season in Greece, and the place was flooded with people from all over the world. I could hear screams of fright; some people were starting to panic.

  "First order of business is to get those Zoinks under control," Mike said grimly, starting forward.

  "We can't control them all!" Padma protested. "There are too many of them."

  I moved to follow Mike. "Maybe not, but we can create a buffer zone between them and the civilians, give them time to get away."

  "We've got no one who speaks Greek, so Green, start yelling our standard warning in English," Mike ordered. "Orange, in French; Yellow, in German. That ought to cover things."

  "You might want to take into account, Red," Wizzit broke in, "that scans of local hotel registries indicate that a number of Russian nationals are in the area today . . ."

  "Ah. Thanks for the update, Wizzit. Orange, in Russian, then. Indigo, in French."

  ". . . as well as a large contingent from Warsaw . . ."

  Mike sighed. "Fine. Yellow, you're speaking Polish today. Blue, take German."

  ". . . and a sizable group from Barcelona."

  "That'd be me," Angie piped up before Mike could say anything.

  "Right," he said, obviously working to maintain his patience. "Anything else?" When Wizzit didn't answer, he went on, "Everyone know their assignments? Good. Let's get to work."

  It occurs to me that I have not yet explained what Zoinks are, so you might be wondering what sort of threat they might pose to me, the tourists, or anyone else. Zoinks are mindless, probably-not-really-alive foot-soldiers that Enclave will often send out to accompany their monsters and cause mayhem. Enclave calls them drones. A well-trained, athletic human should be more than a match for a single Zoink, but today there would be just the seven of us against a horde. We needed to get down to some serious Zoink-fighting.

  Fortunately, if there's one thing I'm good at as a Prime, it's beating up Zoinks. I'm, like, the Zoink-master. And despite what some of the others might tell you, fighting Zoinks can be fun. They're tough enough opponents to keep it interesting, but not so tough that I'm likely to get in over my head, and the neat thing is, I don't even have to worry about accidentally killing or even maiming them. So I waded in, fists and feet flying, and started taking care of business.

  It was pretty confusing, as melees go, at least at the start. For one thing, I had no idea which way I should be herding the Zoinks and where I should be encouraging the civilians to go. I think Mike eventually had Wizzit figure out just where the paths down the hill were. Then he and Toby set themsel
ves, one at each exit, and did their best to keep them clear. Once they were in place, Trina decided that she would make her way through the confusion seeking out tourists who seemed to be in trouble and escorting them to safety. Nicolai soon joined her.

  Padma, Angie, and I, for our part, did our best to create a Zoink-free corridor through the center of the Acropolis. Padma and I had pulled Zoink duty many times during her first few months as a Prime, and we still worked pretty well together, pummeling Zoinks into submission and heaving them over to one side or another.

  And my sister? Well, Angela had fought Zoinks before, both as a civilian and as the relatively unpowered Junior Prime Pink, but this was the first time she had had a chance to really cut loose as a fully-powered Prime, and she was having a ball, whaling away on Zoink after Zoink.

  Whenever I had a free moment, I looked around to try to figure out who their minder was. See, Zoinks don't do well without someone to give them orders. They're not self-motivated at all. Commander-mode Lily had been Enclave's Zoink-minder-in-chief for most of the past year, but there have been others on occasion.

  After a while, I spotted their ringleader, or one of them, at least. He was a tall alter, with long fangs, huge bat-ears, and a long, barbed tail. He looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't quite place him. He wasn't as effective as Lily had once been, but he was making it plenty tough for us. "Wizzit," I said, "see that alter over there? Has he done anything overtly hostile? Is there any chance I could attack him, get him out of our hair?"

  I didn't have high hopes. Enclave monsters are supposed to cause mayhem -- that's their job -- so it usually isn't too long before Wizzit gives the okay for us to go after them. And it's always open season on Zoinks, wherever and whenever we run across them. Minders, though, don't always take an active part in Enclave battles, and evidently telling a Zoink to go punch someone in the nose isn't enough to put you on the bad-guy list. So you can imagine my surprise when Wizzit said, "Yes. Take him out." His voice was flat, almost grim.

  Of course, being surprised didn't mean I hesitated. I used both hands to heave my current Zoink out of the space we were clearing in the middle of the Acropolis, and then I started fighting my way toward Bat-ears. The whole time I was making my way towards him, something was tickling the back of my brain; I knew I had seen this guy somewhere before. I started wondering why Wizzit would let me go after him -- heck, he had practically ordered me to do it -- when Bat-ears probably hadn't done anything that we could classify as hostile.

  Or rather, he probably hadn't done anything hostile today. Maybe, I thought, Wizzit had him on some sort of permanent take-down list because of something he had done before. The only other time he'd done that, though, was when we believed that Lily had . . . and then I had it! In a flash, I knew where I had seen him before, and I knew why Wizzit wanted me to go after him.

  "Hey, Indigo!" I called out, Prime-to-Prime. "Do you recognize that alter over there?"

  Padma followed my pointing finger, looked over at Bat-ears, and froze. "He is the one who killed Prime Commander." There was no uncertainty in her voice.

  I suppose that a short explanation would be in order at this point: As I've mentioned before, the original Prime Commander had been killed when Lily escaped from us the first time we had held her captive, months ago. We initially assumed Lily killed Shelley's father and used his cellphone to call JB Swift for a ride home.

  That initial impression turned out to be slightly mistaken, though. Lily indeed grabbed the phone and contacted JB Swift, but she didn't kill Commander Windham; she merely knocked him out. Taking her location from the phone's GPS, JB Swift teleported both Lily and Prime Commander back to his lab. JB Swift left to take care of Lily, who was in bad shape, and he had ordered our good friend Bat-ears to send the semi-conscious Prime Commander back to the stronghouse. Bat-ears did so, but he murdered Commander Windham first.

  And how do I know all this? Simple. Knowing that we blamed Lily for the killing, JB Swift gave me a surveillance vid of the whole gruesome affair. Padma and I together watched Bat-ears grab Commander Windham's head and wrench it around, snapping his neck, before teleporting him home. It was pretty awful to see, and I had never been able to bring myself to talk about it with any of my teammates. Wizzit had seen the vid as well, though, and I had to assume that he had informed them and Shelley, too.

  "Does Prime Commander know this guy is here?" I asked Wizzit.

  "I have not yet informed Prime Commander."

  "Don't you think Prime Commander would want to know that we've got ourselves a murderer?" I demanded. "Especially considering whom he killed?"

  "Prime Commander is sleeping at present; it would not be advisable to wake Prime Commander for something like this."

  "Prime Commander is asleep? In the middle of a battle?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I mean, I knew Shelley had to sleep sometime, although I wasn't quite sure when, given the way she bounced around timezones from HQ to her family's ranch to wherever Bill was lecturing. I had never known her to miss a battle, though.

  "Don't ask; long story. Will explain later. Just take this guy out, would you?"

  I sighed and shrugged. "Sure, Wizzit. Whatever you want."

  I tried to get to him, I really did. Padma did her best, too, but even Zoink-masters like us can't do everything. I zapped him a few times with my blaster, but I was never able to get close enough to do any more damage than that; he packed the Zoinks too tightly around himself.

  Which is not to say that our efforts did no good. Even the best general can't lead his troops very well if he has to concentrate on saving his own skin, and Bat-ears was not among the best of generals. By harassing him the way we were, we were able to create a leadership vacuum that neutralized probably half the Zoinks in the battle, which is far better than the two of us could have done just by Zoink-fighting alone.

  I had just told Padma to keep going after Bat-ears while I started taking care of some of the still-active Zoinks when I heard someone cry out in pain. "Orange has been hit!" Toby exclaimed.

  "Orange, are you all right?" Mike rapped out. There was no reply. "Orange, please respond!" he shouted.

  "Teleporting Orange out now," Wizzit replied calmly.

  That sounded bad to me. We Primes often get hit in the course of our battles, and we even get knocked out once in a while, but Wizzit doesn't usually teleport us out immediately afterwards. Trina must have been hurt but good.

  "What hit Orange?" I asked.

  "Not sure," Mike said, sounding distracted. I imagined him looking around wildly, trying to figure out just what had struck Trina. "I didn't see it."

  Toby replied, "I heard a sound almost like a triple blaster, and then Orange collapsed right beside me."

  "Red, look out behind you!" Padma shouted suddenly.

  I followed her gaze. One of the Enclave monsters was standing in front of the Parthenon. She -- it was a she -- was holding a bow, and she appeared to have sent out a bolt of energy of some sort from it. Unlike our mission in Honduras, Padma's warning came in time this time; Mike's head whipped around, and he easily used his broadsword to bat aside the energy blast.

  "Much obliged, Indigo," he said, sounding grim. "It appears that the monsters have decided to take a hand in things. Look lively, everyone. Wizzit, I'm guessing we'll need some help today."

  "I have already contacted the Emeriti. Gold and Blackiron will likely be unavailable for the duration; Copper, Steel, and Silver will come out as soon as they are available."

  I expected Mike to ask about Shelley and Bill -- I know I was dying to know what was going on with them -- but he passed right over it. "Fair enough," he said. He had drawn his blaster and began firing at the monster with the bow. "Yellow, how are we doing with the civilians?"

  "Two groups left, Red," Nicolai said. "Orange and I had split them up between us. My group is almost clear; I d
on't know what happened with Orange's group."

  "I've got them," Angela piped up. "I think they're Russians. At least, they don't speak any languages I do except a little English. I got them to follow me, though. Heading your way, Green." I heard her ki-yup, the particular sound she makes when she's fighting especially hard. "Darn Zoinks aren't making this any easier!"

  Toby said, "I see you, Violet. Got my hands full helping Yellow's group at the moment, or else I'd come help you."

  "I'll help," Padma offered. "The Zoink minder I had been fighting seems to have gotten clean away from me."

  "Sounds good," Mike said. "Blue, what are you up to?"

  "Just mopping up some Zoinks," I replied. I threw the drone I had been carrying onto the pile of struggling Zoink bodies I had been collecting. "After that, I had planned to go find the minder Indigo was going after. We really need to take care of that guy, Red."

  "Never mind him. We're getting more monsters coming out of that big temple. Wizzit, which ones are hostile?"

  "Just the one with the bow at present."

  "Fine. Blue, use your blaster and help me keep her off-balance."

  "Will do."

  I felt a pang of disappointment when he said that because I wanted to get Bat-ears, but I also felt a small glow of pride. A little over a year ago, Mike would never have dreamed of suggesting I use my blaster to snipe at monsters. I was easily the worst shot on the team and was probably more a danger to my teammates than to those we were fighting. Ever since I had decided to follow Trina's advice and start taking at least a hundred shots a day on our practice range, though, I had improved quite a bit. I mean, I'm nowhere near as good as she is, but these days I do generally hit what I'm aiming at.

  Regardless, I whipped out the ol' blaster and started blazing away. The gal with the bow -- my knowledge of the Greek pantheon was a bit hazy, but for some reason, I kept wanting to call her the Huntress -- had been joined by two others, the guy with the lion skin and club that I had glimpsed before and another guy, tall and thin, draped in black cloth rather than white, and carrying a two-pronged spear. According to Wizzit's rules, I couldn't shoot either of them yet, but the Huntress gal was drawing her bow again, and it looked like she was aiming for either Padma or Angie.

  I sent a few blasts Huntress' way. My first shots were off the mark -- I was still getting the range -- but that wasn't particularly worrisome as long as I didn't hit Club Guy or Black Bart. Thanks to the way our blasters are designed, the only ones I could actually hurt with a blaster shot were Zoinks and other Enclave bad guys or my teammates, and none of the other Primes were anywhere near my line of fire. If I accidentally shot a wall or a civilian or even one of the Emeriti, the effect would be approximately the same as if I shined a flashlight on them.

  The thing that was worrisome was that after I adjusted my aim and started actually zapping the Huntress, she just ignored me. Now, that should not have happened. I know that my little raygun is only one-third as powerful as Trina's triple-blaster, but even the toughest monsters usually feel something when I shoot them, even if it's only a sting. But this gal? Nothing.

  Mike called out, "Look out, Indigo, Violet. She's about to fire," just as the Huntress let loose with another of those bolts of energy. Thanks to his warning, Padma and Angie each managed to grab hold of a Zoink and muscle it around in front of them. The blast struck Angie's Zoink square in the back, and it fell from her grasp to land in a smoking heap.

  "I'm moving in closer," I told Mike, whose blaster seemed to be just as ineffective as mine. "I'm going to try shooting her in a vulnerable spot, like the nose or eyes. Maybe that'll have an effect."

  "Right behind you, Blue," came his reply. "Just be careful. One of these drongos might take it into his head to swat you like a fly."

  "I'll keep my eyes open," I promised.

  I crept closer, trying not to draw too much attention to myself. Enclave monsters don't usually intimidate me, not like they did when I first joined up, but at about fifteen feet tall, these guys were big, even by Enclave standards. I felt like I should be looking around for a beanstalk to start scrambling down.

  There were five of them out there now; the original three had been joined by a female carrying a spear and wearing a helmet and some really ugly-looking guy covered with what looked like soot and holding some sort of a large mallet or hammer. So far, though, the Huntress was the only one who seemed interested in attacking us.

  I made my way almost up to the hem of her robes. She didn't seem to realize that I was there; she was too busy surveying the Zoink battle and looking regal and goddess-like, I suppose. She slowly raised up her bow, drawing her other hand back nearly to her ear. I took careful aim and fired directly up into her left nostril.

  This time she reacted. She sneezed. It wasn't even a big sneeze, either; I didn't get showered with monster goop or anything. Not that I was hoping to, but come on! I had given her my best shot and all it did was make her sneeze? Sure, it spoiled her aim and all, but this whole let's-ignore-Blue thing was starting to make me mad.

  "All right, honey," I muttered to myself, "let's see whether this gets your attention." And using the knob end of my vajra, I struck down with all my force on the top of her sandaled foot.

  That gave me more like the reaction I had been hoping for. The Huntress shrieked as if I had just given her a hotfoot, and she dropped her bow and grabbed her lower extremity, hopping up and down in a most undignified fashion. I could see her looking around furiously, trying to figure out who had hurt her. She overlooked me completely for some reason, and her baleful glare fixed instead on Mike. Quick as a flash, she snatched up her bow again and sent an energy blast straight at him. And quicker than a flash, Mike swatted the bolt right back at her, knocking her down.

  "Watch it, Red," Wizzit warned him. "Don't hit anyone except her."

  "Doin' my best, Wizzit," he replied. "But it would be easier if the rest of them just decided to attack us instead of standing around like that."

  "Be careful what you wish for," Toby growled.

  Nicolai announced, "My group is now off the Acropolis. Coming to help you now, Violet."

  "Same here," Toby called out. "Between the four of us, we ought to get everyone to safety in just a few more minutes."

  Four more of the monsters had come out while we were talking. In addition to the previous five, we were now facing some old guy holding a scythe (which was basically a curved blade attached at right angles to a long stick), a somewhat younger-looking guy with a curly beard spilling down over his bare chest who was holding a trident, a third guy with horns growing out of his head and goat's hooves for feet, and a fourth monster who just had to be Cyclops. I mean, he had the whole one-eye thing going and everything.

  "Why aren't they attacking?" Padma wondered. "What are they waiting for?"

  "Maybe they want to make sure all the civilians get away safely?" Angie said hopefully.

  The rest of us all laughed. Toby murmured, "So young, so naive . . ."

  "They're probably trying to make this a dramatic entrance," Mike explained. "They do that sometimes. I'd guess that as soon as the final two come out, they're going to cut loose on us."

  I privately agreed, and sure enough, things started happening after the last two monsters made their appearance. The newcomers were a tough-looking guy carrying a sword and shield and someone who looked like he was only a boy (although a ten-foot-tall boy) wearing a cap and sandals, both of which had wings on them. They joined the rest of the monsters in a line directly in front of the Parthenon.

  I hated to say it, but they were a pretty formidable-looking group. Even the Huntress had recovered her dignity and was standing beside the others, looking mean and impassive. And then, as if in response to some signal we couldn't see, the entire bunch of them stepped forward and started swinging their respective weapons.

  I have to admit
at this point that I didn't see much of the battle first-hand. In fact, I'm pretty sure I was the first Prime to go down -- after Trina, of course. I heard a rushing sound off to my left. I turned and saw the kid with the winged hat and shoes bearing down on me. He wasn't as fast as JB Swift, but from what I saw, he came pretty damn close. I tried to bring up my vajra to protect myself . . . and that's all I remember.

  The next thing I knew, I was on the floor of the lounge waking up from a healing coma. Looking around the room, I saw that Mike and Toby were sprawled out on the floor as I had been, both in what appeared to be maximum-depth healing comas. I got to my feet and carefully made my way around their limp bodies, out of the lounge and over to the office. Inside, I found Trina, Padma, and Angie, together with Mayumi, Cathy, and Alvaro, and every single one of them looked as if their best friend had just died.

  "Where's Nicolai?" I asked as everyone turned to look at me.

  "In the kitchen," Trina said, sounding distracted.

  "He was bleeding quite a lot when Wizzit brought him in," Padma explained. "Wizzit teleported him there to heal up."

  I nodded in understanding. Blood was easier to clean off the tile floor of the kitchen than the soft carpeting of the lounge. We do try to keep our headquarters tidy, after all. "He's going to be all right, isn't he?" I asked anxiously, suddenly worried by all the gloomy faces.

  "Eventually," Padma said, "although I understand that it was a near thing."

  "He should be up and about within twenty minutes," Wizzit said in his usual chipper voice. "Mike and Toby will be operational within five."

  "Thank you, Wizzit," Trina said absently.

  With Mike temporarily out cold, Trina was in charge. I asked her, "So, what's the plan, boss? When do we teleport back out?"

  She stared at me for a moment, then shook her head. "I honestly don't know, Trevor. I don't know what to do."

  That brought me up short. We Primes always have a plan -- always. Even if it's just "go out there and hit them as hard as we can."

  "I teleported into HQ a few minutes after you Primes left for the Acropolis," Cathy said. "Wizzit wanted to wait and see how I could help best before sending me out, so I was able to watch most of the battle from here." She shook her head, much as Trina had done. "Things don't look good. These monsters are incredibly powerful."

  "We are going to hold a short debriefing as soon as Mike is available," Trina said. "We'll try to come up with a course of action then."

  I looked around the room. "Where are Bill and Shelley?" I asked. "Shouldn't they be here?"

  "Prime Commander is recovering quite nicely," Wizzit informed us cheerfully. "Much more quickly than I had anticipated, thanks to some clever thinking on Bill's part. She is still weak, and I seriously doubt she will be able to take part in the battle, but she has regained consciousness and is coherent. I should be able to bring her out here for the debrief as soon as the others are available."

  To judge by the startled reactions I heard around the room, I was not the only one who'd had no idea anything was wrong with Shelley. Padma exclaimed, "What has happened with Prime Commander?"

  "Shelley apparently suffered a reaction to the Unity belt," Trina explained. "She collapsed sometime early last night. Bill is with her right now. I don't know much beyond that. Wizzit informed Mike and me of the situation early this morning; we had planned to tell everyone immediately after breakfast, but the monster attack intervened."

  "You said she reacted to a Unity belt?" Alvaro asked, sounding interested. "Did Bill and Nicolai finally manage to create one?"

  Trina nodded. "I don't know how much you know about the project . . ." she said hesitantly.

  "I have never heard of it," Mayumi murmured. "What is a Unity belt?"

  "It was after your time, Mayumi," Alvaro told her. He turned to Cathy. "Do you remember? It was a project Bill and Nicolai started working on when I was Red and you were Orange."

  "I remember hearing the name," Cathy said doubtfully. "It's been a long time, though."

  "It was supposed to be some sort of super-Prime device," he went on eagerly. I noticed that Padma winced at the word "Prime". I guess mathematicians really are sensitive about that kind of thing. "They seemed to think it held great promise as a --"

  Trina held up a hand. "Perhaps, Alvaro, it would be best if we explain it from the beginning," she said with a smile. "Padma, would you . . .?"

  "Of course." And Padma spent the next ten minutes describing the Unity device Enclave had created and the one we had subsequently built on our own. I noticed that she took pains to explain that it was not a Prime device at all, but rather a Unity device, and that its wearer would have almost none of the usual Prime powers.

  Mike and Toby had joined us by the time she finished. As they entered, Trina got up from her seat and began speaking quietly with both of them, no doubt explaining the situation with Shelley. Once Padma concluded her explanation and answered a few questions that Mayumi had, Wizzit declared, "Bringing in Bill and Prime Commander now."

  There was a double flash of light, and two figures appeared in the center of the room. Bill looked exhausted -- even more tired than he had the previous day. That would make sense, I supposed, if he had been up all night with Shelley. As for our fearless leader, I couldn't tell how she looked, because her features were hidden beneath the robotic facade of Prime Gold.

  "Shelley?" Mike asked, staring curiously at her. "Why are you activated?"

  "It was Bill's idea," she said. Her voice sounded strong, at least. "You've heard what happened with the Unity Belt?"

  "Just that you had collapsed," Mike said.

  "Oh. I guess we'd better fill you in on the details, then." She reached down as if she were going to lean against her desk. Her hand slipped, though, and she nearly fell. With a cry of alarm, Padma and I leaped out of our chairs to catch her. "Sorry," she said. "This whole business has taken a lot out of me. If I could just sit down for a minute . . ."

  "You don't have to stay here, hon," Bill admonished her. "Go on back home. We'll take care of things. You need to rest."

  Shelley shook her head. "I'd rather rest here. It's the best place for me." At her prompting, Padma and I helped her behind her desk and into her chair. She sat there for a moment, resting her forearms against the desk's surface, her head bowed. Then she seemed to gain strength, and she straightened. "Would you explain what happened, Bill?"

  Bill glanced around at the rest of us. "We were having dinner with Mrs. Windham and Francesca," he began. "Shelley hadn't been feeling well for the past hour or so, which was pretty unusual."

  We all nodded. None of us are ever sick, not even the Emeriti; it seems to be a side effect of using a force shield, or maybe a healing coma. Regardless, if Shelley was feeling poorly, it was a sign of something serious.

  Bill went on, "About halfway through the meal, she got up to go lie down, but she fainted before she even made it out of the room. I carried her to her bedroom. After that, she was semi-conscious, drifting in and out of awareness. I contacted Wizzit immediately, and since the only thing about her that had changed recently was the Unity belt, I also had her remove it during one of her lucid moments. A couple of hours later, Wizzit contacted me and told me that no Prime or former Prime was ever to put on the Unity belt again, under any circumstances." He glanced up at the ceiling speakers. "Wizzit?"

  "When Bill contacted me, I reran my analysis of the belt's impact on human anatomy," Wizzit said. "It was unchanged; it indicated that the Unity field should have no deleterious effect on an ordinary human body. However, I then ran an analysis of what wearing the belt would do to a Prime body, and the results of this test were somewhat different."

  "Wait a minute," Toby interrupted. "Are you saying that we're not human any more?"

  "Of course you're human," Wizzit assured him. "However, the constant use of your force s
hields has made some subtle changes to your respective metabolisms. Your immune systems have become more efficient, as have your musculature, your circulatory and respiratory systems, your injury repair mechanisms, and nearly every other bodily function. The perceptual bias that enables most of your powers has, in essence, been driven down to the cellular level and has made everything work better."

  "All right, so we're superhuman," Mike said impatiently. "But --"

  "Slightly superhuman," Wizzit corrected him.

  Mike rolled his eyes. "Fine, slightly superhuman. But what does that have to do with the Unity belt?"

  "The Unity belt would undo all of that. Isn't that right, Wizzit?"

  We all turned in surprise to see Nicolai standing in the doorway. He grinned when he saw that he had our full attention. "I caught just the last minute or so," he explained, stepping into the room. He looked down self-consciously at himself. His tee-shirt was ripped open just below the ribcage, and he had obviously bled out. He must have washed off his legs, because they were fairly clean, but his shorts and the lower half of his tee-shirt were covered with sticky, half-dried blood. "Sorry, I'm afraid I left the kitchen in a bit of a mess," he said diffidently. "So, am I to understand that the Unity belt was killing Shelley?"

  "In a word, yes," Wizzit replied. "It was in the process of removing the perceptual bias from every cell of her body. If it could have done it in one fell swoop, everything would have been fine. It lacked the power to do so, though, which, incidentally, is also why she was unable to activate the belt. The resulting dichotomy caused a sudden, severe auto-immune reaction. In essence, the biased cells did not recognize the unbiased cells as part of her body and began attacking them."

  He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice carried a tone I had never heard from Wizzit before. "Commander, I apologize deeply for not having caught this beforehand. It was an elementary error in my calculations, and if it had resulted in your death, I would never have forgiven myself. I am truly sorry."

  "No harm, no foul, Wizzit," came Shelley's altered voice from beneath Prime Gold's robotic exterior. "We caught it in time, and I'm going to be fine. I'm feeling much better already, in fact."

  Nicolai was staring at her, and I could practically see the gears in his brain turning. At last he gave a satisfied nod. "I see. Having her activate as Prime Gold is imposing a mild perceptual bias on her cells once more. In effect, it is redoing what the Unity belt was undoing."

  "Exactly," Bill replied. "Even my putting the bracelet on her wrist seemed to make her feel better, and once I had her activate, she began improving rapidly."

  "Putting a full Prime force shield on her would result in an almost immediate cessation of her symptoms," Wizzit added. "But since we don't have a spare Prime belt lying around, she'll have to content herself with a gradual return to health over the next four hours or so."

  "Which is why she should spend that time at home resting," Bill said with a pointed look at Shelley.

  She ignored him. "Mike," she said, "I understand that the team was called out to a monster battle this morning. Since everyone has returned to HQ, can I assume the battle is over?"

  Mike shook his head grimly. "The truth is, Commander, we got our arses kicked. Every single one of us had to be brought back for a healing coma, and we could barely do a thing against them. Those monsters are still out there doing who knows what, and I don't know what we can do to stop them."

  "Not everyone had to be brought back for a healing coma," Trina corrected him softly. When everyone turned to look at her, she went on, "I thought we should hold a short debrief on the failed mission as soon as everyone was available. Perhaps we can come up with another approach, or . . ." Her voice trailed off.

  "Let's get started, then," Shelley said. "Wizzit, play the vid."