Young Strangers

1

Tim Bucket paused at the hooting he heard. That usually meant some bully was picking on someone smaller. He might as well find out what was going on. He might have to lend a hand.

He had signed up to be a professional hero despite being in high school. He had quit the baseball team to save the town. It was a choice he could live with better than his father could.

There was nothing he, or Tim, could do about it since Tim had developed his super power. If he played, it would be cheating and he would be exposed. There was no getting around that. He didn't want to be banned and publically humiliated.

And his ability was too out there to hide when he was using it. Anyone with eyes would see what happened when he threw a pitch and the ball became a comet on the way to the catcher's glove. He might kill a catcher by accident with one of his pitches. He didn't need that on top of everything else.

Throwing a human body around wasn't much better, but explainable. Everyone knew Tim had spent hours working on his pitching. No one would question his ability to throw someone into the ground. It would look like Aikido.

And he didn't have to explain how he threw someone into a trashcan because they were giving him lip.

"Don't wreck that." A thin voice cut into the hooting. "That's my homework for Mr. McClaskey."

"Is it?" The voice belonged to Chip Pines. "What would you do for it, midget?"

Tim spotted the trouble as soon as he turned the corner. He shook his head as he pierced the crowd watching things. He stepped into the circle and took the model from Pines.

"What are you doing, Bucket?" Pines turned on him. "We're having fun."

"It's not fun." Tim handed off the model. "It's dumb. The guy has to turn it in for a grade. Breaking it for kicks is something monkeys do. You know better than this."

"Thanks, Tim." The younger boy scurried away with the model in his hands. "I have to turn this in."

"Thanks, Tim." A girl with streaked red and yellow hair nodded at him. "You're a bully, Pines."

She walked off after the boy, book bag hanging from her hand by a strap.

"Why did you get in the way?" Pines turned on Bucket. "We were just having some fun."

"Coach Reilly would have kicked you off the football team if he had caught you." Bucket returned his glare with a steady frown. "Maybe he would kick your butts first before he dismissed you."

"You keep getting in my way, I am going to meet you after school and deal with you." Pines loomed over him.

"You keep acting out in school, and I will use your head for a baseball." Bucket turned to walk away. "Don't pick on anybody else."

"Quitter." Pines turned to walk the opposite direction with his minions falling in around him. He didn't see Bucket pause at the insult. If he had, he might have said something that would have gotten him hurt.

Tim resumed walking. He couldn't tell the whole school that he was earning money as a freelancing hero, and had saved the city from a giant turtle. Who would believe that?

He wondered if he should have done something to Pines to show him that it wasn't cool to bully people. He decided that he had done enough. The kid had his model back, and Pines had been warned. That was the best he could do unless he wanted to throw Pines to the moon.

He doubted he could hit the moon from the ground. He decided that shouldn't matter. Either he could crank his arm that much, or he couldn't. The fun would be in the trying.

And he would love to shoot for the moon with Pines as his ammunition.

It would be like cutting a tree down with a single chop of the axe.

He regretted not being able to play baseball, but this one time he agreed with his Dad. No one could find out that he was also the Trebuchet. That would cause trouble for the whole family.

He walked to his next class, thinking about what he wanted to do after he got out of school. He certainly couldn't play ball with his power. What could his second career choice be?

Maybe he could train to be a personal trainer who helps someone like him to make things easier.

He would be like Coach Reilly without the foul temper.

He could see that instructions would be great as long as he didn't have to hurt someone.

He found his next class and walked in. He settled into his seat at the back of the room and pulled out his notebooks. He had to get through the classes that he was having without having an irritation in his voice. After he was done, he could think of the future.

Tim hoped Pines had learned his lessons and wasn't pushing. He didn't want to escalate things into a brawl at soon as the bells rang.

On the other hand, he wasn't scared to escalate it. He had done some things with the rest of the Strangers. He was in the middle ground as a combat capable individual, but he could throw a car like a fastball. That made a lot of difference in some ways.

Tim plowed his way through school, waiting for the bell to ring. The building was nothing but a place that kept him from chasing things that needed to be stopped. He supposed that he was well on his way to being a reckless vigilante. He would have to watch that.

He put his books in his locker at the end of the day. He didn't have any homework, so he was good to go for the afternoon. And since he didn't have a meeting with the others, he didn't have to be a hero either.

He could go home, and then take a run through the neighborhood before vegging out in front of the computer. He had to fill out applications for schools later in the week. He wanted to avoid it but he knew that his dad would start nagging him over it to get it done.

Tim's quitting the baseball team had been a real blow for Mr. Bucket. The knowledge that his son could throw cars ten stories into the air didn't mollify him in the slightest. The only thing that did was the promise that the government would help him with school.

That alleviated the need for scholarships for sports.

Tim spotted the younger boy and the girl ahead of him. He kept walking. He doubted they would thank him more than what they already had for rescuing the model. It had been a pleasure to show Chip Pines that there was someone who wasn't afraid to mix it up with him and his bullying friends.

He knew that Coach Reilly would put Pines off the team if someone complained on him, but he felt that was up to the victims to come forward and speak for themselves.

On the other hand, he would be glad to show Chip what he could do if he grabbed the guy.

Pines appeared in the lot with his minions. He smiled as he looked at the two victims from earlier. He seemed to have missed Tim coming out the door at almost the same time. He led his gang to cut his prey off from the bus line.

Tim frowned at the group. He didn't have any ammunition on him to throw. He would have to get close enough to throw these guys. If they got hurt, he would have to explain it to the proper authorities.

He definitely was going to talk to the Coach. Something had to be done about Pines's attitude.

"How is it going, Harmon?" Pines cut the short guy off from walking to the buses. "I wanted to talk to you about doing my homework."

"He's doing mine first, apeface." The girl brushed a loose strand of hair from the angry expression on her face. "Why don't you take off?"

"I'll give you something to fill that hole if you keep talking." Pines grinned at her. His buddies had encircled their prey with a show of gloating and malice. "This is between him and me."

Tim pursed his lip as he closed on the two guys behind the couple. He had to do something to overwhelm them before more trouble could be spread around.

He grabbed the two guys by their pants. He yanked and the football players flew over his shoulders. He could have slammed them into the school, but he didn't want to kill them.

"I thought I told you to stop." Tim grabbed the next boy in the circle and flung him in the grass next to the breezeway. "Which part of that did you not understand?"

Pines decided to charge the smaller boy. Tim Bucket had been a hotshot pitcher until he quit but he didn't play football. Once he had Bucket on the ground, it was over.

Hands grabbed an arm. Pines flew through the air. He landed in a roll before settling in a facedown position. He tried to get his hands under him to brace himself to get back to his feet. He had to spit grass out of his mouth first.

"What are you going to do next, Chip?" Tim looked at the boys around him. "I gave you a chance, and you threw it away. As soon as the coach hears about this, you're going to be off the team."

"Why would he believe a quitter like you?" Pines finally got to his feet.

"Because I can see with my own eyes." Coach Chad Reilly looked the group over. "Take off, Bucket. Take your friends with you."

Tim waved at the younger kids to follow him. He had to get them on the buses and away from the school before there was more trouble.

"Thanks, Tim." The girl smiled at him. Her hair struck him as something from a Halloween party but he didn't say anything. "I would have had to hurt some of those idiots."

"That was an impossible throw." The boy frowned at Tim. "How did you do it?"

"You brace your foot and bring the arm back." Tim smiled at him. "Get on the bus unless you're walking home."

"Thanks for helping us." The girl jostled the boy in the arm.

"Thanks." The boy clearly didn't believe Tim's explanation. "See you around."

"Stay out of Chip's way for a while." Tim turned and started walking from the bus line. "He might not like either of you if he does get kicked off the football team."

Tim thought that was the likely result unless Coach Reilly kept him on the team and gave him every punishment detail he could think of until Chip just quit.

Tim figured it was a fifty-fifty chance either way.

2

"I'm telling you." Jimmy Harmon glared at his friend. "There's no way he could have thrown Pines like that the way he did it. It wasn't a martial art move."

"Tim Bucket is a super?" Beth Duquesne laughed at the boy. They shared a seat on the bus near the middle. "Get real."

"I'm telling you it's not humanly possible." Jimmy started to pull out his pad and pen. "He would have to be as strong as an ape."

"Don't." Beth held up a hand. "Let's say I believe you. What does it matter? He got us out of having to deal with Pines. That should be enough for you."

"I know." Jimmy pushed his pad and calculator back in their pockets. "You're the only one I've met with superpowers. I think Tim has something. He certainly didn't want to talk about it."

"Why should he?" Beth shook her head. "I don't go around telling people what I can do."

"You're right." Jimmy looked out the window. "I just feel that he could be a hero with some kind of ability."

"That's not up to you, bro." Beth brushed strands of her hair away from her face.

"All right." He smiled slightly. "I have to work on my wings when I get home. What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to prowl around for a while." She flexed her hand. "The more animals I run into, the more I can do."

"Be careful." Jimmy frowned. "We don't know how long this power of yours will keep working, or what kind of side effects it might have on you."

"I got it under control." Beth smiled. "Don't be a worry wart."

"I wouldn't say I'm a worry wart." He rubbed the end of his nose. "I just don't know enough to help you if something goes wrong."

"It's okay." Beth shook her head. "I can handle myself. You're the one with the untested flight pack."

"I did all the research, analyzed the flying machines that other inventors used, and figured out how to build fuel." Jimmy smiled. "I even have a small computer set up to give me realtime flight imagery when I am in the air to prevent running into an aircraft."

"When are you going to test it for real?" She tapped the top of her bag in her lap. "I want to watch you explode in the air."

"I am not going to explode." He glared at her. "I might crash and burn."

"I will be there to take you to the hospital." She grinned at him. "What's left of you anyway."

"Thanks." Jimmy shook his head slowly. "There's our stop."

"Don't test that thing without me." Beth braced to stand up. "I'm warning you."

"You're not the boss of me." Jimmy grabbed his bag. "I can blow myself up if I want it."

"Better not." Beth waited for the bus to stop. "I'll eat you if you do."

"You can't be serious." Jimmy grabbed the back of the seat in front of them. That would brace him for getting up when the bus stopped moving at the corner.

"I have animalistic urges that I must deal with all the time." Beth stood right before the bus stopped. "Eating you will make me smarter."

"I know you're not serious now." Jimmy stood, bag in hand. "Why do you say things like that?"

"Because you have a confused look on your face that makes me laugh inside." She headed down the aisle to the door. She maneuvered down the steps to hop down to the ground. Jimmy followed right behind her.

"I'll meet up with you after my run." She headed for her house. "Be careful with that thing."

"I promise I won't test it until you're there to bail me out." Jimmy crossed his fingers as he made his declaration.

He headed for a little cul-de-sac off the main road. His small brick and wood house stood in the middle of similar houses. He headed for it, looking around at his neighborhood. He could finish his wings tonight and test them before Beth got done with her exercise.

If he could get it to work, he would be able to fly like a bird. He could patent his wings so that everyone would be able to travel through the air. It could change society as he knew it.

If he couldn't get it to work, he was stuck with a lot of useless junk in his workshop behind his house.

Flying like a bird had been a dream of his since the first time he saw a bird. He didn't want to give up now that he was so close. If he could get the wings to lift him up, that would be better than nothing.

Once he had some kind of lift, propulsion could be worked on to move him forward. Making his own fuel would be one of the set of problems that would have to be handled as he worked on his project.

His parents knew of his obsession but they didn't seem to mind as long as he didn't burn the house down. They wanted him to chase his dream, wherever it led. He suspected they believed that he would outgrow his chase and turn to something else that was more practical.

Jimmy didn't plan to give up until he was unable to continue. It was the only thing he wanted, and he wasn't going to stop until he got it.

He had two hours before his parents came home. That gave him a small window to operate on his wings. After that, he would have to show he had his homework in hand. They might give him another hour to work on his project before he had to get ready for bed.

He stowed his books at the small office space they had set up for him in the living room. He went to the fridge, grabbed a bottle of tea and several slices of cheese, then out the back door to his workshop.

He checked his watch. Two hours wasn't a lot of time. He had to do the best he could with what he had.

The shop was a detached garage-like building at the back of the property. It had come with the house when the Harmons had moved in. Mr. Harmon had given permission for projects to be built and tested in the garage as long as Jimmy followed basic safety rules.

Jimmy unlocked the door on the garage with one hand while juggling his snack and drink in the other. He stepped inside and cut on the lights. He placed the tea on a table so he could unwrap the cheese and stack the slices together for eating. He opened the bottle and sipped and munched as he looked at the framework he had hung from the ceiling.

He pressed the power button on his computer. He had made it himself, but had left off a standard casing. He cut a small fan on to cool the parts as the thing booted up.

He waited for the operating system to give him a green light so he could check his records of his testing. He frowned at the numbers on the screen. His propellant wouldn't work with the amount of weight the wings had. The framework would have to be lighter if he wanted his current batch of fuel to work.

He inspected the wings. Maybe he could lighten it somehow to fit the fuel's parameters. If he did that, he would have to run simulations to see what would happen. He didn't want to crash and burn on his first test run.

Too bad he didn't have Chip to use as his test pilot. That would be entertaining at least.

Jimmy plugged in the numbers to his program for alterations to the weight of the framework, the makeup of the fuel, anything else he could think of to fix his problem.

He looked at the clock on his computer screen. His parents would be coming home any minute. He had to shut things down, and get to his homework before they did.

Jimmy saved his work. He could go over the numbers later. He inspected his rig. It should fly. He was so close. He didn't want to stop, but he had to deal with his parents first.

Jimmy shut everything down and locked the shop up. He headed back to the house, sipping his tea. He was ahead on most of his work, but he was behind on his English reading list. He needed to set aside some time to scan the next book for his next test.

His strengths were in the mechanical and biological sciences. His weaknesses were English and other unimportant subjects like history. He had to keep good grades in all of his classes, or his parents would lock him out of his shop until his grades came up. He couldn't be locked out when he was so close to succeeding.

His parents didn't quite understand him, but they knew the most effective way to blackmail him into keeping his grades up.

Jimmy finished his tea while setting up to do his homework. He needed to get done so he had free time to work on the propellant. If he could get it up to snuff, then he could test the wings to see if they worked like they should.

Maybe he could get done before bedtime. He might be able to take a flight that night if he could work things out. He would love to show Beth that he had finally gotten things done.

He might be able to fly around the city and back if he worked things out.

He started reviewing his assignments. He did all the reading first, scanning the pages while running a finger down the text to mark his place. He started on his math and science work as soon as he was done reading.

Those subjects were a breeze for him. He was halfway done before he heard the sound of a car door slamming. He looked out the window next to his desk. His mother stood beside her SUV.

He went back to his homework. He had to get finished so he could have his free time after dinner.

He looked up as the front door opened.

"Hello?" Jimmy stood to look in the front hall to see the door. His mother waved at him. She put her briefcase on the floor by the door. "Hey, Mom."

"Hello, sweetie." She smiled. "Have you heard from your father yet?"

"No." Jimmy looked at the answering machine. The light was not blinking. "I don't think he's called."

"So he's going to be home on time." Mrs. Harmon smiled. "Let me see what we have in the fridge. I'll put on dinner so we can eat."

"Thanks." Jimmy sat down. "I'm almost done with my homework."

"No hurry." Mrs. Harmon took off her jacket and draped it over a dining room chair. "Let me look to see what we have."

Jimmy didn't care what she cooked as long as she did it fast. He still needed to finish checking his math, and try on the wings. He couldn't do that while she was wandering the house.

Maybe he should do the cooking. It might speed things up. He didn't have all night to get things done.

He heard another car door slam. He looked out the window. Mr. Harmon was walking up to the porch, jaunty smile on his face.

It looked like he was going to have a dinner and some free time after all.

He wondered what his mother would cook up. She tended to blend things so the meals had unorthodox ingredients mixed together into something ugly but palatable.

He hoped she would hurry up so he could get back to work.

3

Beth reached her house and dumped her books in her room. She changed into dark tights from her closet. She had experimented and spandex was the only thing that changed when she did.

She felt it was because the cloth was close to her skin and she was able to switch it to wherever she drew her other bodies from when she changed. Anything else was left on the floor. She didn't want to return to normal somewhere and be naked.

She hoped Jimmy listened to her about the wings he was building. She didn't want him to blow himself up test flying the rig. He was stubborn about it like a little kid with a favorite toy.

Beth went to her window. She opened it and conjured her favorite form. A winged cat jumped from the window and disappeared in the brush behind her house. She could use it to fly, but preferred to skulk around like the hunting cat she imitated.

She decided to head down to the lake and back. Then she could check on Jimmy. The lake was where a giant monster had attacked the city. The government had spent some time out there too. It was supposed to be clear. She doubted that.

Things were still showing up in Marlowe. They tended to move on when the local heroes got involved, but everyone knew that the lake had been polluted. It was still making monsters despite what the government had done to clean it up.

Beth was a case in point. She had started changing her appearance right after the giant turtle had come ashore from the lake. She kept her ability to herself as much as she could. No one needed to know that she could assume animal forms at will. That would take the fun out of things.

She paused when she heard a sound ahead in the woods. It sounded like someone humming one syllable over and over. She frowned as she crept closer. Maybe she had stumbled on a supervillain that needed winged cat justice.

She found a green-skinned boy sitting in a cleared circle. He had his eyes closed. When he breathed out, he made the ommm sound. She wondered if she should say something to him. Some people liked their meditation time to themselves.

She decided it would be better to move on. She could come back and see if he wanted to talk later.

Beth was sure that he didn't go to her school. She wanted to satisfy her curiosity but she could wait.

Part of her exercise was changing form rapidly while moving across the woods. She had set up a stone to mark the end of the run. Then she liked to jog back in her normal body.

If she spotted the green boy on the way back, she would stop to talk to him then. If he was a villain, she could try out her mountain lion/grizzly bear combination. She didn't get to use it enough in her opinion.

Beth made her way through the trees, switching up bodies every few seconds. It had taken her a lot of practice to change into more than one animal. Now she had dozens she could do. Working on her speed gave her a better switching time where she didn't have to think about what she was changing into before she did it.

She arrived at the rock and switched back to normal. She took a deep breath, and wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand. This routine was keeping her in shape at least. She let her heart slow down before she started jogging back to her house.

A secondary instinct that had come with her transformations pointed her to her house. So far she had been able to use it from across town. She had no doubt that she could use it further afield. It made hiking in the woods around Marlowe easier to do since she never had to be afraid of getting lost.

She burst in the clearing and found the green boy working on his yoga. He paused when she came to a halt. They frowned at each other.

"How's it going?" Beth waved as she started jogging again. She could feel Jimmy burning up the neighborhood. She knew that he wouldn't do anything like that, but she thought that maybe he wouldn't understand the risks before he tried to use the jetpack and wings.

He tended to perform the experiment before considering what the side effects would be.

She jogged through the trees easily, breaking out on her street. She aimed for her house, running down the sidewalk. She noted Jimmy's place was still standing and his parents seemed to both be home. Maybe she could go over and talk to him later.

He really wanted to fly like a bird. Maybe he had finally cracked the problems and was ready to go. The very least she could do was make sure he got to the hospital if something went wrong.

She opened the door of her house and ran up to her room. She needed a shower and a change of clothes before she dealt with her friend and his obsession.

The green boy seemed okay despite not talking to her. She knew that she hadn't given him a lot of time to say anything before she ran off. Maybe if she saw him later, he could tell her why he had dyed his skin green.

If that was his natural complexion, it was no wonder she hadn't seen him around school. Chip Pines would have a field day with a green boy.

Beth showered and changed into another set of tights before pulling on a shirt and jeans over them. If she had to change, she could lose the other wear and still be able to roam without worrying about clothes. She pulled on slippers last since they were the only footwear she could change with her.

Her mom still wasn't home. She left a note and crossed the street to Jimmy's house. Maybe she could cadge some food from the Harmons. The stuff didn't look that good, but was better than her own cooking.

She knocked on the door and waited. She hung around enough that the parents thought she was going out with Jimmy. She smiled at that. He was not dateable material in her mind.

A professional matchmaker couldn't fix that in her friend no matter how hard she tried to make him suitable for the dating scene. And Jimmy would not follow the advice because it had nothing to do with flying, or birds.

His mind centered on flying. Anything else was superfluous as far as he was concerned.

Beth thought that was how villains were born.

"Hello, Beth." Mrs. Harmon smiled from inside the threshold after opening the door. "What brings you by?"

"I came by to see if Jimmy has the notes for class today." Beth put her hands in her pockets. "I'm a day behind on everything."

"Come in, dear." Mrs. Harmon opened the door wider. "We were about to eat. Would you like to eat with us?"

"That would be great." Beth stepped in the house. Her house didn't look this good in her opinion. "What are you cooking?"

"I don't know yet." Mrs. Harmon led the way to the kitchen. "I'm still trying to decide."

"I'm sure it will be excellent." Beth enjoyed eating with the Harmons when she could. Otherwise, she ate alone in her room.

"You are such a flatterer." Mrs. Harmon smiled as she opened cabinets to find the ingredients she wanted to use for dinner.

Beth stood to one side. She had taught herself how to microwave basic things, but cooking things from scratch was something she just didn't do.

She admired the mastery of that basic skill in others.

"Hello, Beth." Mr. Harmon walked into the kitchen and hugged his wife. "Hello, honey. Do you want help?"

"I got it." Mrs. Harmon kissed him on the cheek. "If you could set the table, and make sure Jimmy is cleaning up to eat, I should be able to get something together in twenty minutes."

"I got Jimmy." Beth strode from the room. Jimmy listened to her.

Beth found Jimmy in front of his computer, looking at formulae. He rubbed the sides of his head as he checked the numbers.

"It's time for you to rest that big brain of yours and come to eat, genius." Beth smiled. "You're going to worry your mom to death, if you keep this up."

"I still can't figure what I'm doing wrong." Jimmy closed everything down and rubbed his face. "The wings should work."

"Let's have dinner." Beth smiled. "Then you can show me before I go home."

"All right." Jimmy closed his notebooks. "I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but it should fly."

"You ever think you might be working too hard?" Beth walked back into the dining room. "You might need to step back and take another look at it."

"That doesn't make sense." Jimmy sat at his place at the table.

"Sure, it does." Beth sat down opposite him. "Sometimes you get so involved you don't see the forest anymore, you only see trees."

"She's right, son." Mister Harmon brought in a steaming bowl of food and placed it on a large wooden coaster set up for it. "Sometimes you get involved in the details, you miss the big picture things that can wreck you."

"So I should look at the overall design instead of the pieces to see where my problem is." Jimmy held out his plate for the mixture. "That still doesn't seem to make sense."

"Sometimes you have to start over and look at things from the start." Mr. Harmon dipped the soup/gravy from the bowl and poured it on the kids' plates. "It's like looking for something lost. The first thing you do is retrace your steps until you remember where you put your keys."

"Okay." Jimmy nodded. "I got that."

"I've got toast." Mrs. Harmon came into the room with a pile of cooked bread on a plate. She put the pile down next to the bowl. "What would you like to drink, Beth?"

"Milk if you have it, Mrs. Harmon." Beth took two pieces of toast and ripped them up for her meal.

Mrs. Harmon went into the kitchen. She returned with four glasses. She and Mr. Harmon got tea. Jimmy got store label root beer. Beth got milk.

They ate with random conversational subjects. Jimmy tried to divert them away from the talk of college. He had a scholarship lined up if he did well in his science classes. Beth stated that her family couldn't afford college, and she wasn't doing well enough for a scholarship. She hadn't decided how she was going to train to be a vet since that took money she didn't have.

Jimmy finished his plate as the talk turned to other things. He wiped the last of the gravy up with a piece of toast. He grabbed the plate and took it into the kitchen with a mumbled excuse me.

"Thanks for dinner, Mrs. Harmon." Beth smiled at the parents. "It's loads better than what I can do."

"It's just chipped beef." Mrs. Harmon shrugged. "My dad used to make it for us when everybody was home. It feeds an army without going overboard on money."

"And it's good for leftovers for the next two days." Mr. Harmon smiled. "Do you want to take some home with you?"

"No, thank you." Beth stood. "I have to get my notes and head home. Thanks again for the meal. I really appreciate it."

"It's no problem, dear." Mrs. Harmon smiled. "One more mouth isn't a lot."

"Don't let him stay in the shop of his for too long, Beth." Mr. Harmon stood. He grabbed the bowl. "There's more to life than science."

"He'll never think that." Beth smiled as she headed out the back. She walked to Jimmy's shed and knocked on the door.

"Come in, Beth." Jimmy didn't bother to open the door for her. She walked in and found him going over his notes. He shook his head at some of the writing. "I think you were right."

"Really?" Beth crossed her arms. "How so?"

"I overlooked some decimal points." Jimmy smiled. "I can make this puppy fly tonight."

"You're joking." Beth frowned at the contraption. "You can make this thing fly tonight?"

"Sure." Jimmy grinned. "I can do it in an hour if I hurry."

"Gonna tell your parents?" Beth thought the Harmons would not like their pride and joy cruising the sky.

"Heck, no." Jimmy put the notes down. "Give me a hand, will you?"

4

Mark Whittaker sniffed the air as he walked through the trees. He wasn't sure where he was, but he knew he could find his way home when he wanted to go there. He covered miles on foot and being able to get home was something he had learned years before when he was still in middle school.

Mark paused when he saw a green boy sitting under a tree. He looked up at the twilight sky. He had time to satisfy his curiosity. He walked over and sat down in front of the green kid.

Mark waited. He was stout despite his constant walks, with brown hair pushed back from a sloping forehead and long nose. Brown and gold eyes inspected the other boy.

"Can I help you?" The green boy opened his eyes to stare at his visitor. His face divided into dark and light green patches with a pale green color at the base of his neck. He didn't have hair as far as Mark could tell. Fingers and toes had webbing between the digits to help with swimming.

"I was wondering why you were sitting out here." Mark checked his position. He didn't want to cause trouble, or appear to be a threat.

"I am meditating." The green boy's eyes seemed to look to either side, rather than straight forward. "I find it helps me clear my mind."

"Why out here?" Mark looked around. "Wouldn't a temple be better?"

"Meditation can be done anywhere." The green boy smiled. "It's an activity that requires nothing but a small space to sit and think."

"I guess I can see that." Mark shrugged. "The woods can be a great place to meditate I suppose."

"Exactly." The green boy nodded. "What else do you need?"

"I don't know." The bigger boy conceded. "Mostly, I was just curious. I saw you sitting here, and decided to stop. I suppose I should be turning around and heading home."

"I should also head home." The green boy stood up smoothly. He was taller than Mark expected. Most of his height was in his legs. "I have exams in the morning."

"I'll see you around." Mark stood, brushing off his pants. He waved as he turned to retrace his footprints.

The green boy hopped away among the trees. Maybe he was heading for a local pond.

Mark sniffed the air as he walked. His own scent stood out to him like road signs. He headed for his own side of town.

Marlowe had grown some in the last year since the monster attack from the lake. Some of the new residents were there to check the water purity. Alchemo had dumped toxic sludge in the water which had mutated a turtle into a monster, and probably changed some of the residents also.

The company denied any involvement despite being caught in using kids as guinea pigs for super soldier drugs. Some kind of shadow vigilante had provided proof in the way of stolen documents to the government regulators.

It stood to reason that they had been caught doing one thing, and done the same to the lake.

Mark knew he wasn't a normal kid. He was stronger and tougher than he looked, he could smell things well enough to track down the source, and he could operate at night better than he could in the daytime.

He was almost a human badger. He supposed he was the only one who had made the connection. He didn't plan to share it with anybody.

Some people thought the government liked to experiment on strange people. He didn't know about that. He didn't want a company like Alchemo deciding they needed a human digger and becoming their first choice.

He liked being a slacker too much for that.

He didn't know what he was going to do once he was out of high school, but sports was out. He could never pass the League's tests for superhuman abilities. He knew that deep down one blood test would out him as a superhuman trying to play against normal athletes.

And he wasn't sure what would happen if he used his full strength without meaning too. He might hurt people by accident.

Maybe he could find a job as a construction worker, or in a factory somewhere. He needed the money if he wanted to move out and live on his own.

Using his ability seemed to be the best way to do that. He couldn't imagine a job where having a great sniffer could earn him some money.

He wondered if the green boy had a job. Maybe he could ask the next time they met. He doubted master of meditation was a viable source of income.

Maybe he could use his obvious swimming abilities to search waterways for things. That should earn some bucks if the demand was high enough. That wouldn't help Mark since he could barely swim.

Maybe he could use his sniffer to find things for people. The police used cadaver dogs all the time. He might not be able to match up with their capabilities, but he was almost as good, and almost as smart.

Maybe he could ask a policeman. He mulled it over as he made his way across town. Someone would have to know if there was a job in something like that.

Maybe he could use the Internet at school to find out something about it. How much could he charge for something like that? He needed enough to get a place of his own.

He thought about it, and realized he would need a steady income. How often was a search dog needed by the police? He didn't want to move out, only to have to move back in because he didn't make enough money to stay out.

That would be humiliating as far as he was concerned. He wanted to have a place of his own. Once he had it, he didn't want to give it up.

Maybe he should ask the green boy if he wanted to go in with him. They could be a specialized rescue team for the city. He knew they had heroes on the payroll in case there was another monster attack.

Two more consultants should be okay to add to the payroll.

He looked up at the sky. It was too late to track back to the forest and find the green guy. He would have to do it tomorrow. Just because he had an idea didn't mean he could get the other guy to be his partner.

Heroes for hire seemed the best way to go with this. Maybe there were others who were looking for something to do. Powers were great, but normal work seemed boring when you could do other things with your abilities.

Maybe that was why costumed villains showed up. What else could they do if they just wanted fast money without working for it? Robbing a bank was low risk for some of them.

Mark thought he could break into some of the banks in town, but why bother? It would just bring down trouble on his head. He would have to look over his shoulder until the statue of limitations ran out. And he didn't want to hurt anyone, and he would have to do that to stay out of jail.

Finding a legitimate way to use what talents he had seemed to be the best way to do things.

He needed to talk to someone who knew more about this than he did. He frowned as he considered who he knew that fit the bill. He shook his head. He could only think of the Internet as someone who could show him how to set up a business.

Maybe he could ask the group the city used for emergencies. Maybe they knew someone he could call and try to set up his venture.

They might be able to give him some kind of reference if he made a good impression.

Proving his talent was a given. What could he look for that was fast and easy to show he could do it? Dirty socks seemed to be the easiest thing in his mind.

Mark paused when he had reached his street. He looked up in the sky. He had been wandering around for hours. Hopefully he had beaten his mom home. Otherwise, he would get an earful about responsibility and laziness.

He really needed to move out so she couldn't harangue him anymore.

He didn't need her constant harping about the future. He knew he had to be responsible for himself. He walked toward his house. He needed a job.

Wandering around town was fun, but it wasn't making him any money to support himself. He needed dollars coming in so he could get away from his mom once and for all.

Living on the street wasn't an option as far as that went. He needed a real home so she couldn't try to lord her house over his head.

Maybe he should have asked the green guy if he needed a roommate who could learn how to meditate. That would have solved one problem.

Getting a good job and moving out seemed to be the best way to solve things as far as he was concerned.

And not giving his mom the address would secure some kind of peace of mind. He might even be able to buy his own computer when he had enough money stored away.

It would beat having to go to the library when he needed to look things up.

He let himself in and looked around. One sniff of the air told him he was alone. He wondered how much time he had before his mom came home to make him miserable. He decided the best thing to do was grab a sandwich and head to his room. If his mom thought he was asleep, she usually left him alone.

It didn't always work. Sometimes she woke him up to give him a lecture about some part of the house he hadn't picked up while she slaved away all day.

The area in question was usually some place he hadn't used all day like the living room.

Mark raided the fridge long enough to grab a sandwich. He wrapped it in a paper towel so he wouldn't leave bread crumbs everywhere. He grabbed a can of soda from the pantry. He retreated to his room.

He ate with his lights out, sitting by the window. He finished the can and debated getting another one. He decided it was better to stick to his room.

There would be less trouble if he wasn't caught in the kitchen with drink in hand.

He watched as his mom's car rolled down the street and pulled into the driveway. He placed his paper towel and empty can in the trashcan under his desk. He would have to get rid of the trash before she lectured him about that too. He listened as she came in the house and bustled around. Light played under his door, but she didn't open it to check on him. Then silence settled on the house again.

Mark waited until he was sure she was asleep. He turned on the lamp on his desk and pulled out a comic book he had hidden under the desk. His mom didn't have time for frivolities, and neither did he as far as she was concerned.

When he had his own place, he would have all the frivolities he wanted.

He smiled at the thought of comic books to the ceiling. He would love something like that. He wouldn't have to hide them in his own place.

He hid his comic book under his desk. He didn't want his mom to find it. He would never hear the end of it. Every time she had something to lecture him about the comic book would be the first thing brought to demonstrate why he wasn't good enough.

He cut off the lamp.

5

Lars Drogan paused, listening to the air. His strange eyes scanned the night around him. What had made that sound?

He moved carefully to his left. The wild lands around Marlowe had grown strange. He had no desire to meet something out hunting. It was better to avoid trouble than defend yourself in the first place.

The noise echoed again. He looked up in the night sky. Something rode on giant wings up there.

He decided to use the trees as cover. The beast hadn't seen him yet from all indications. He could avoid an attack on his person with the right amount of stealth.

He moved away from the potential confrontation as quietly as he could. Birds had excellent eyesight. He thought they homed in on moving targets like heat-seeking missiles. Slow and steady was the answer to this problem.

Lars watched the sky as he hopped to the next tree he wanted to use for cover. He hunkered down, glad to be wearing his practice clothes. If he had to fight, the gi he wore was the thing to fight in.

Too bad it was white and shone slightly under the Minnesota stars.

The winged creature almost hit a tree as it looped around in the air. He moved as the thing ducked and wove around the natural barrier.

"Watch what you're doing, doofus." Lars paused at the female voice on the ground with him. "I don't want to scrape you up to take you back to your parents."

Lars peeked from behind his tree. It never occurred to him that the thing in the sky might be intelligent. Its flight was tremendously erratic in his opinion.

A girl stood in a clearing. She wore a headphone and mike on her head. She looked up in the sky. He recognized her as the jogger he had seen much earlier in the day.

Should he approach and find out what was going on? Should he circle around and go home without becoming involved? He was curious, but knew that could cause him problems if indulged.

He debated silently on the best course of action before deciding that he was in no danger. There was no need to skulk. He was going home and minding his business.

He should be able to stand up to a girl with a weird dye job.

"Hello." Lars thought that was the best approach as he stepped from his cover. The winged creature above did a barrel roll before straightening up and heading upwards into the night sky.

"Oh!" The girl turned to face him. For a moment, it looked like her eyes were glowing in the dark. The small spots disappeared as she completed her turn. "Hi. You're the karate guy that was out here earlier."

"I never left." Lars placed his hands behind his back. "You're the jogger I saw. What's going on?"

"My friend and I are doing some science stuff." She waved a hand at him like a crossing guard. "Nothing to see. Move along."

"Really?" Lars smiled. He looked up in the sky. He could see the silhouette of a winged figure still heading straight up. "I think your friend is having trouble."

"Here, hold this." She handed him the headset. "See if you can talk him down."

Lars watched as she ran into the trees. He pulled the earpiece and microphone to his head. He pressed the send button.

"Hello. This is Lars."

"Where's Beth?" The voice on the other end sounded scared across the static.

"I don't know." Lars looked up in the sky. "She handed me the radio and said to start talking. So I am talking. What would you like to talk about?"

"I would like to talk about getting the steering back under control." The pilot sounded really scared now. "Any suggestions, Lars?"

"Take deep breaths." Lars echoed the advice to show him what he meant. "You have to level out. You are almost invisible from the ground."

"Deep breaths." The pilot started huffing away on the radio.

"Too fast." Lars shook his head. "Breath in, count to three slowly, breathe out. Can you do that? Count three hippopotamuses, then release. Count three, and breath in."

"Okay." The pilot started breathing calmly. "Okay. I got it."

Something huge with giant wings exploded from the trees. Lars paused as it rushed into the air. It seemed to be headed for his charge.

"I need you to keep breathing." Lars grimaced. "There is a winged creature ascending behind you. Look down. Do you see it?"

"Yeah." The pilot seemed to be smiling from the tone in his voice. "It's Beth. She's trying to climb up to rescue me. I'm going to try to alter course to meet her."

"All right." Lars frowned. He named his dragon Beth? Whom did that?

The winged creatures danced in the air for what seemed like minutes. Then the dragon grabbed the smaller flier out of the air with a giant paw. It glided down toward the ground, vanishing into the trees.

Lars pulled the headphone away and started toward where the two had landed in the trees. There might be something he could do for them. His long legs carried him in bounds instead of running steps. He reached a clearing with a hole torn in the canopy above in a minute. He paused to take in the situation.

A slight boy in leather armor held a helmet in one hand while he inspected the wings he wore under his arms. He shook his head.

"Hello." Lars held out the radio set. "I see things worked out for the best."

"Lars?" The boy smiled. "Thanks for your help. I'm Jimmy Harmon."

"It is a pleasure to meet you." Lars smiled. "I see things went better than I expected they would."

"Not as good as I wanted." Jimmy shook his head. "Are you green?"

"I have a skin condition." Lars shrugged. "Nothing I can do about it."

"What went wrong, Jimmy?" The girl appeared out of the darkness. "You were doing okay, but not great, before you started having problems."

"I think one of the controls stuck." Jimmy shrugged. "I was flying. It was great."

"I saw." She smiled slightly. "Thanks for the help, Kermit."

"You're welcome." Lars nodded. "That giant monster. What was that?"

"It's my secret." The girl smiled. "And I don't want to share it with anyone yet."

"I understand." Lars nodded. People were entitled to keep things to themselves.

"I have to go." Jimmy looked down at his gear. "Mom and Dad will kill me when they find out I snuck out to test this rig."

"Thanks again." The girl smiled as she took the helmet from the boy. "It was a pleasure to meet you."

"I'm Lars Drogan." He bowed as he had been taught. "The pleasure was mine."

"My name is Beth." She gestured for Jimmy to proceed. "See you around."

Lars watched as they entered the trees. He made a note of the direction and thought it copied the earlier one the girl had been jogging when he had first seen her. He found it odd that they only made a passing note of his skin condition, but didn't ask him questions about his background.

The boy who had stopped to talk to him had been the same way.

Two experiences like that might mean anything. The reason he liked to practice in the wooded areas around Marlowe was to avoid any comment from people who might see him. If the worse from these two encounters was to be called Kermit, he could live with that. He had helped someone in need. That felt good.

He smiled. He liked the inner fire that such a thing stoked. He wondered if he was feeling too much pride.

One question did bother him.

Where had that dragon come from to save the boy? Where had it gone? Why was it named the same as the girl? And why didn't she want to talk about it?

He had a feeling that he already knew the answer but was too blind to see it. He needed to get some rest. Maybe it would come to him in the morning.

Lars jogged toward Lake Marlowe in the distance. The water called for him. He didn't have time for a swim. The brothers were lenient with him, but he still had to return to his room to sleep and help with chores in the morning.

They were the only other people that treated his condition as unnoteworthy. He appreciated that since encountering people outside the walls. Pointing fingers and laughter were what he expected from people who met him.

Now he had met three people in one day that didn't care what he looked like other than cursory interest.

Lars paused at the shore of the lake. He looked at the water rippling across the surface. This was where the mighty Zornwill had started his rampage. Further down the shore was where he had been found and taken in by the brothers.

He studied the ripples for some clue to what his purpose in life should be. It said nothing back to him.

6

He rested on the cushion. Things were going as well as he expected. His minions had gathered the materials he had demanded of them. He had allowed them personal freedom until he needed extra hands to put things together.

He worked his claws as he sniffed the air. His tail twitched around him as he considered the next parts of his plan.

He needed to install the dishes that would form the wall of his planned habitat. They had to cover all of Marlowe. He had to reach the entire city with the signal.

Then he needed to arrange for power to reach the dishes so they would transmit the signal. Using the wiring of the target buildings should be enough for that part of the job.

He would have to set up his protective devices to keep the humans from destroying his equipment. He figured one of his exotic weapons could protect the dishes from a counterattack.

He would have to use a wall of gun barrels to keep people out of his city. No one could be allowed to get in the way of his land grab.

The Strangers would be forced out with everyone else, so he didn't have to worry about their heroics trying to take the city back.

The main problem was camouflaging the dishes so no one could attack them from a distance. Anyone with the right equipment would note the signal and realize what was going on. He had to make sure they couldn't bomb the area.

He might need to take hostages to work on his inventions so he could fortify his planned nation state.

He knew that other villains had tried to do things on a big scale. They had always lost. His conclusions led him to think he could do better with better planning and more defensive machinery.

Taking on someone like the Leaguer required a minimum amount of effort if you were entrenching an area instead of running every time he showed up.

And the Leaguer was one of the biggest guns out there, ranging over the whole world when he had to. It was prudent to run when he arrived unless you had a counter to his armor.

He called up his plans and schematics to check them one more time. You could never plan enough in his opinion.

Once he was ready, he didn't want any enemies able to stop him from setting up his utopia. His people would be able to run things as they were meant to instead of cowering in the shadows.

He planned to expand the Minnesota area until he could invite everyone from across the Midwest to his community. Then he would ensure their loyalty and arm them to fight the human oppression.

He would teach the humans what it meant to make a genius and make that genius hate you.

Everything looked ready to proceed. He needed to call in work crews to start putting the first dish in place. Once he was done with that one, he could put the second in and line it up with the first. Then the third would form up his triangle. Then he could go on to the next step of his plan.

He reached out with his mind. His ears twitched as he searched for his followers. He touched their minds with his own. They snapped to attention. He selected a scout team to inspect the area. They would form the warning line when the rest of his people went about their business.

He gave them their orders and they began moving out.

Humans could not be allowed to interfere in these early stages. His people could not hope to stand up to the oppressors.

And he didn't want to risk his plans before he got rid of the Strangers. Their powers would change the odds once they got involved in things.

Once his watchers were in place, his mechanics and movers would start on the dish. He would need to rig up a crane to lift the pieces to the roof so they could put the thing together. They would have to wire the antenna to the building's electrical wiring.

He sent the signal for his army of engineers to report to the target location. Their natural stealth would help them in their work. Once they had begun, they would have to work under cover of night until they were done with the extensive setup.

A second set of engineers would start on the next dish when the first was almost done.

He would move his first set of engineers to the third target once the second dish neared completion. Testing the signal could be done in brief bursts. Then he could drive the humans from his planned kingdom.

The scouts reported that all was clear. They were alert and ready to attack anyone who might discover the secret temple.

He sent in the first group of engineers. They would have to figure out how to get the parts to the roof and put everything together for him.

That might take most of the night. He couldn't do anything but add manpower, but felt that was too risky. If his minions were spotted, his plans would be threatened. It was better to be slow and cautious.

His minions knew how to carry out the missions he demanded of them. His connection told him that. He might as well wait until they had some progress to report.

That was the hardest part. He didn't like the waiting. He settled on his cushion. He didn't like it, but he had to put up with it.

The engineers were tiny by any standard. The task was monumental. It would take time to get it done.

He looked around his lair. He needed something to occupy his time while he waited. He couldn't look over the shoulders of his faithful all the time.

And checking constantly just made him look unworthy of being the leader.

He looked at the face of a salvaged wall clock. He decided to check in when the next hour was gone. That should be enough that he didn't look stupid in front of his minions.

He didn't want them to start fighting his control when he didn't have anything for them to do that was dangerous. He expected them to start fighting him if his war kicked off before he got the first parts of his plans in place.

After he had control of the city, they were as expendable as anything else he wanted to use up.

He didn't plan to just throw them away. They were his cousins. But killing the humans made a certain amount of loss acceptable.

He could live with that.

The engineers reported rigging a crane system to lift the parts to the roof of the target building. They could start assembling things at any time. There was some worry that the day would allow their operation to be discovered.

He assented to their concerns and told them to conceal their crane as best they could instead of tearing it down. The parts could be concealed nearby until the night fell. They should rotate a watch until the sun went down and they could get back to work.

It was the best use of their time that he could come up with instead of allowing them free time and having to order them back to the work area when he needed them to get to work.

He had time, but he didn't want to waste it if he didn't need to do that.

He made a cursory check of his other operations and saw they were going as well as could be expected. The weapons would have to be shipped to the prescribed areas as soon as his dishes issued the signal.

He would need roving anti-aircraft weapons to make sure his boosters were protected from air bombing. He checked his inventory and saw that all of his machinists were working on ground-based guns and shields. He broke off a unit and implanted the diagram of missile defenses. They started work on the parts for it.

They would be behind on the construction timetable, but they should be ready when he started moving his defenses in place. The first few days would be full of humans leaving. Then they would start looking for causes. He had no doubt someone would notice his buildup.

He needed to be ready to fight off Leaguer and others who might want to stop him. The Strangers would also want to stop him and he was sure he could handle their powers with his preparations. Other heroes and groups might want to interfere but he felt they were too far away to stop him before he made more general preparations against their powers.

He had files he had compiled from news services. He felt he had a grasp on what his enemies were capable of doing. He had invented devices to deal with them. And he had numbers on his side.

The only one who might be able to match him in that regard was Super Squirrel. The rodent hero had to die first.

Only his ability with squirrels matched the mastermind's control of other rodents. With him gone, his personal assistants could be added to the army of rats and mice already assembled.

That would make the takeover easier and allow for a faster response time for emergencies.

Alice the Owl would have to go too. She was a symbol of everything he feared. And with those two out of the way, the Strangers would be short two of the members who could directly oppose him.

7

Jimmy Harmon threw his school bag on his bed after getting home. His test flight hadn't gone the way he had planned, but he had flown. Except for the few seconds he thought he was going to die, it had been wonderful.

He had hoped it would be great, but it had been better than he had expected. He needed to get back into the air again. He could fly for a few hours before his parents came home.

All he needed to do was refuel the engine, put everything on, and take off. He just needed to make sure that he got home before his parents did. They wouldn't approve of him fieldtesting the thing.

He would be grounded until he could prove the technology was safe. That would take forever. He didn't want to waste any time on changing their minds when he could fly right now.

Jimmy hurried down to his shop. He unlocked it and went inside to the fuel collectors. He frowned as he checked the level. He only had a few minutes of flight from the looks of things. He could maybe make a circuit around Marlowe with what he had.

He looked at the tubes and piping he had constructed. Ingredients were being turned into more fuel. It was taking too long. He needed a bigger and faster set up so he could make as much of his fuel as he wanted.

Jimmy put those thoughts aside and concentrated on the level, and the math to convert it to flight time. He figured he could fly at least to the lake and back as long as he didn't do anything other than a straight line. He might have some room on either side, but he didn't see much.

He decided to do it before he lost his nerve. The faster he did the flight, the less chance he would have of running into his parents.

Jimmy pulled out his flight suit. He had built it to keep him warm in the upper air. He didn't know how high he could fly, but wanted to test it eventually. The suit was in preparation for that. It also gave him some small protection in case he crashed.

He knew he was kidding himself about the protection. His numbers told him that if he hit the ground at full speed, there wouldn't be enough of him to scrape up for a funeral. He thought that was an okay trade for flying under his own power.

He changed into the suit. His clothes went on the rack before going into the space he had devised. He checked the wings and fueled the jet before pulling them on his back. He locked the locks together. He pulled on his flight helmet last. He hooked the helmet to a mobile hotspot and watched as the displays lit up.

Jimmy smiled. Everything seemed to be working smoothly. He supposed he would have problems switching up as the hotspot moved. He would have to think of a better system to hook the helmet to his home computer in the shop.

That was for later. Now that he was ready to go, he should go.

Jimmy walked out of the shop. He closed the door, but didn't lock it. He might need to get back inside in a hurry. A locked door would prevent that. He spread his arms, spread his wings. He pushed the button and lifted off.

He flew away from the ground, spiraling upwards. A small oxygen tank might be necessary if he wanted to lift his altitude ceiling. He needed to think of a way to hook it to the jet harness and the suit underneath the harness.

He turned and headed toward the lake. He could see the water glittering in the distance. He hoped he was avoiding notice from the ground. A flying boy might not be anything special in town. He didn't want word spreading around.

He flew over the lake, scanning the water for boats. It looked like no one was in the water. He checked the time, and fuel levels, as he circled the home of Zornwill.

He still had time to fly into town if he wanted. He smiled as he turned and headed toward the city. He wondered if he could improve the engine until it barely used any fuel at all.

Jimmy envisioned a sky full of wing wearing commuters flying to work, to school, maybe heading to other countries in the air. It could change the world.

He flew over the buildings once before turning and heading back to his house. He had to get home, change, and get started on his homework. He didn't see anyone who might be responding to him. That was good.

The last thing he needed was a picture of his suit going viral while he was still trying to work out the bugs in the wings. He didn't want to go into a spiral and crash because the vanes didn't keep him in the air like they should.

He lined up his compass to head back to his neighborhood. He had to drop down and cut the engine just above the ground. It should be a snap.

He spotted his house after a few seconds of travel. He swooped down to the back yard and pulled up at the last second. He cut the jet. He dropped to the ground a few feet left of where he wanted to be.

He needed to work on his landings. He needed to be able to touch down on a designated spot with no problems. A few feet either way could cause trouble later.

Maybe he could add landing jets to allow him to hover to a stop. It might increase his ability to simply hover which would be a bonus. Then all he had to do was swoop in and let the landing jets take over while cutting power to the wings. The rest would be a slow drop.

He thought about ways to build the jets into his flight suit as he slipped inside his workshop. Hopefully, no one saw him coming in for his landing. He didn't want to answer questions later.

He was sure that he had warned aircraft controllers that he was in the air, and was a danger to navigation. He needed to work on that.

The Feds breaking down their door would be hard to explain to his parents.

Maybe he should think of some way to tunnel out of his shop and launch from somewhere else in the neighborhood.

That would keep nosy people from reporting him to the police. He expected them to search his shop and seize everything if that happened. He didn't like that at all. Maybe he needed another workshop that he could keep hidden from others.

He would have to move things, but he liked that as a step to keep things hidden from public view. It also meant that he would have to take time to go to that other place to work if he was going to keep things hidden from his parents.

Telling them that he had built a flying suit was out of the question. They would want to tell people, and forbid him from using it at the same time.

He didn't build a flying suit to be prevented from using it.

He hid the suit and wings in the secret space after changing. He took the helmet and plugged it into his desktop. There should be a lot of footage of the city from his bird's eye point of view.

He checked his computer clock. He had to get started on his homework. He could check the footage later.

Maybe he could post it on Youtube. That would be interesting for people who loved flying like he did.

At least the wings worked without a problem. He hadn't gone into a spin like in his test run. He hadn't lost control in any way. He needed a speed run to see how fast he could really go before the jet and wings had problems.

Would Beth act as his spotter while he was doing the run? He needed to ask her.

Jimmy let his computer process the gathered data from his helmet as he locked up and went to the main house. He needed to get his homework down. He had to keep his grades up if he wanted a scholarship to a university.

Maybe he could use his flying suit to get money to help Beth through school. He didn't know how much a vet school would cost, but it couldn't be cheap. Maybe there was something he could do with the suit to make money. Maybe he could be a fast messenger, or something.

How many people needed a real messenger these days instead of UPS, or FedEx?

He needed to think of a way that he could get enough money to build more wings.

Maybe he could build a factory and let robotic arms build the suits for him. All he had to do was quality ensure them before he sold them.

A talk with Beth might spark some kind of idea on how to proceed. She kept him from flying into wild daydreaming with her solid approach to things. She had saved his life when he flew out of control.

Maybe she could help him figure out how to secure funding for his factory. They could be partners if things worked out right.

8

Jimmy ushered Beth into his shop. He couldn't stop smiling. His wing had worked perfectly. All he needed was some further testing in the real world, then he could think about patenting it.

People would pay big bucks to be able to fly across the country without a plane. Look at the ultra-light industry. He admitted it was a niche market until he mass produced the first thousand sets of wings at the same cost as his original.

"You went flying without me." Beth punched him in the arm. "You promised you wouldn't."

"I just took it up for a little spin." Jimmy rubbed the sore spot on his upper arm with the opposite hand. "I took video to show you."

"Let me see this video." Beth didn't stop frowning at him. "What if you had gotten hurt? How would I explain that to your folks?"

"Nothing happened," said Jimmy. He gestured at the computer monitor. "Let me show you this footage. I took it while I was flying around."

"Go ahead." Beth waved a hand. "Let's see what you got before I punch you again."

"Okay." Jimmy rewound the captured footage from his helmet. "You don't have to punch me. I'm sensitive."

"Sensitive is the last thing I would say you are," said Beth. She looked over his shoulder as the pictures of town rewound in front of her.

"All right," said Jimmy. "This is what I did."

The film took to the air, headed out to the lake, circled around and then headed into town. The volume was down because he didn't want her hearing his screams of joy. The camera passed over the buildings in a blur before the cameraman turned and headed to the outskirts of town. The landing was a little shaky but serviceable. The film went black.

"You didn't hit anything," said Beth. "I'm amazed."

"I just need a little more practice." Jimmy smiled. "In a couple of weeks, I'll be able to fly rings around anybody in the sky."

Beth rolled her eyes.

"You'll be fast, maybe maneuverable, but there are still guys out there who can be faster, and more maneuverable than what you got," said Beth. She waved at his shop. "It's still a good start with what you got here."

"Who could be faster?" Jimmy set the footage to roll again at a slower speed.

"The Leaguer off the top of my head," said Beth. "His armor allows him to fly around the world in a few seconds. You would have to build up to the same setup to match him. There some other guys who are almost as fast in the air. And the Blinkers are the holders of the ground speed record for superhumans."

"That's on the ground." Jimmy watched the screen as the flight video moved in slow motion. "We're talking about in the air."

"I have an encyclopedia at home I can show you," said Beth. "It shows all the current heroes in operation up to two years ago."

"That's odd." Jimmy paused the video.

"That I have an encyclopedia?," asked Beth.

"No." Jimmy typed in some commands on his keyboard. "Someone has added equipment to some of the buildings downtown."

"What kind of equipment?" Beth leaned closer to look over his shoulder. "How do you know?"

"I don't know what it is, but I know there's no reason to put a dish with antennae that big on a building." Jimmy pointed out the alteration with a finger. "There's another one. Let me watch the rest of this."

He played the rest of the video at slow speed so that he could look out for more of the installations. He frowned when he spotted several more. He had been too busy flying to realize he had seen something strange. Luckily, the camera had picked up what he had not noticed.

"I need to take a better look at those things." Jimmy pulled up a map of the city. He placed the spots he could see from his flight on it. "It looks like a ring around downtown."

"Why?" Beth crossed her arms.

"I'm curious." Jimmy smiled. "And it lets me fly around town again as soon as I refuel the jet."

"This could get you killed." Beth frowned. "What would your parents say?"

"I'm just looking," said Jimmy. "It's not like there's a villain behind it."

"Excuses, excuses." Beth shook her head. "You just want to take out your rig again."

"It does need more testing." Jimmy smiled. "The first time flying around was scary. The second was exciting. Soon it will be like walking in the air."

"What do I tell your folks if you explode?," asked Beth.

"I went out in a blaze of glory." Jimmy went to his closet. "I have to refuel and pretend to go to bed before I can do anything. You want to come along?"

"Sure." Beth brushed her hair from her forehead. "Someone has to keep you out of trouble."

"Meet me at the launchpad at ten if you can." Jimmy wrestled his suit from its rack. He spread it out on his work table. "I hope you got something fast to keep up with me. This thing moves when I let the throttle out."

"What do you think those extra dishes mean?" Beth thought she had a couple of bird forms that could keep up with a jet, but she wasn't sure.

"I don't have a clue." Jimmy went to his fuel making set. "I'm hoping nothing. Maybe the businesses in those buildings are setting up a new communications relay system amongst themselves."

"That's not likely, is it?" Beth didn't think businesses would go out of their way to talk to others unless they were owned by the same corporation.

"I don't think so." Jimmy scratched his face. "That's why I want to look at them. Maybe something crooked is going on. If it is, we can turn everything over to the cops and let them handle it."

"I'll meet you out in the woods." Beth nodded. "Don't take off without me."

"I won't." Jimmy pulled a hose off its holder. "I'll need someone to watch my back while I'm snooping."

"I have to head home and get my own homework done." Beth went to the door. She took a moment to look the shop over before she left. "You're turning into a mad scientist, Jimmy."

"It's a hobby," Jimmy said. He started pumping the chemical mix from his stores into his jet. He wanted to have a full load when he took off later. "See you later."

"Right." Beth slipped quietly out of the shop. She made sure to close the door to prevent anyone seeing the work going on. Mr. and Mrs. Harmon would have a fit if they knew their son had the potential of blowing up the neighborhood stored behind their house.

Jimmy put the fuel away as soon as the jet was topped off. He hung the suit and wings back on their rack. He closed the space again.

He went back to his computer and ran the video again. He tried to zoom in on the installations. He couldn't see anything from what he had captured on his camera. He would have to look at things personally.

He wondered if he was overreacting. There was probably a simple explanation for the new dishes. Maybe a new company had set up in town and he hadn't noticed it. He could be making a big mistake.

On the other hand, he would be able to fly again. Any excuse was good enough for that.

He took a moment to consider his motives. He decided flying outweighed the risk of a false alarm about mechanical parts where they shouldn't be. He found that an easy justification to make.

He wondered if that was what villains did when they started breaking the law. I can do it, so I am.

He decided that flying was great, but staying out of trouble so he could keep flying was better.

Once he had satisfied his curiosity, recreational flying was all he was going to do in the future.

He wasn't a hero, and he wasn't going to pretend to be. He just wanted to fly until he couldn't fly anymore.

The Strangers were the heroes in town. Let them stop monsters and villains when they showed up. That wasn't his problem.

He checked the positions on the map he had marked out. One, or two, stops should be enough for him to look at things and see if they were innocent, or not. If they weren't, he would let the police know what was going on.

He definitely needed to show them the video from his helmet to make sure they knew what they were looking at when he called it in. He didn't think they would believe him on his word. Evidence was always better than trust.

And Jimmy admitted to himself, other than his parents, the only person he really trusted was Beth.

He didn't believe anyone else. Everyone lied.

Jimmy shut everything down. He still had to get his own work done, and get through dinner with his folks. He didn't know how he was going to keep his secret. His parents would frown on the whole flying thing. They thought he was still a baby.

He wondered when they were going to think they didn't need to protect him anymore. He supposed that was never going to go away.

He made a face as he locked up his shop. He was always going to be their baby. There was way to get around that.

He walked up to the house, turning over his flight plan in his head. He could sneak out and walk over to the clearing in the woods he and Beth called the Launchpad. Then he could take off for downtown. He doubted his chemical trail would be visible from the ground.

He knew Beth wouldn't be depending on what she changed into.

Then they could try to figure out what he had seen.

9

Mark Whittaker followed his nose into the woods. The sun was on the horizon, and shadows cloaked him. He wondered if the green guy would be doing his yoga in the same place.

He knew his scheme wasn't the best plan for a future, but he wasn't old enough to join the army, and he didn't have a job to show anyone he could be emancipated. At least a small rescue operation for money would let him build up a nest egg so he could move out.

His mother made it seem like everything in the world was a sin and nothing was good. Engaging in his nightly walks told him that wasn't true.

This green guy seemed okay despite being green. It was obvious that he had been exposed to the pollution in the lake. A giant turtle had crashed out of there. A guy looking like a frog was not out of the question.

Mark knew he didn't look quite right either. He doubted it was because he was the spawn of Satan like his mother told him. He had done some reading and knew that the world had a lot of causes for someone like him to come along. And he doubted magic was one of them.

If he was the spawn of Satan, he wished he could hit the old man up for a loan to get a place of his own.

Mark picked up his trail and followed it deeper in the woods. His nose picked different degrees of freshness and showed him the more recent path. He ambled along toward the source.

He should be able to catch up in a bit. His pace was one he used for roaming. It didn't push on his endurance but it covered ground faster than a walk. He called it his Badger Amble.

He smiled at the thought of getting that trademarked. The government office would laugh him out of the building.

Mark found the trail and headed down through the trees. He paused at a fork. The trail went to the right. He ambled that way. He noted animals moving away from him. He knew some of the local predators were wary of him. He supposed it was because of the way he smelled.

Badgers could be aggressive, and a giant badger could be another level of trouble. Not many animals would like to take on something that might be able to do serious damage. Even predators liked weaker prey.

He crossed a boundary and the clearing where he first met the green guy spread out under the stars. The other boy was practicing his moves in slow motion.

Mark paused. He had never thought about training to fight. Any bully who thought about picking on him usually went the other way after two seconds of staring. The fact he was the biggest boy in his school tended to help them make their decision not to get hurt.

And he had no illusions of just taking a hit and shaking it off. He was more likely to lose his temper and demonstrate what teeth could do.

"Hello again." The green guy froze in mid-position, hands in the air, one leg bent up so he stood on one foot. "How are you doing tonight?"

"Okay." Mark sat down on the grass. "I was wondering if you knew anything about rescuing people for money."

"No, I don't." The green guy moved to another position. "That's an odd question."

"I was thinking that we could go in as partners." Mark winced. He realized he hadn't thought this out as well as he could have. "The city is paying a group to do big rescues. I am hoping that we could do little rescues."

"For money?" The green guy settled down on the ground opposite Mark. His wide eyes were pools of darkness. "Why?"

"Because I would like to move away from my mother." Mark shrugged. "This seemed the easiest path to do that using my skills."

"I would have to ask the brothers before I could give you an answer." The green boy frowned with his wide mouth. "They perceive money as a tool to help the monastery stay open and not as something to be craved in itself."

"I was hoping you could be the diver for our team." Mark scratched his nose. He hoped he wasn't being offensive. "A lot of people get lost in the lake and a few of the streams that feed it. I thought maybe you would have an easier time finding them than a normal diver."

"That is a good supposition," said the green boy. "And there would be money in this?"

"I think so," said Mark. "I don't think I am asking for anything dangerous unless there's another giant turtle in the lake. I feel that you would be a good diver which would make it easier to find people in the water."

"What would you be responsible for on your part of this?," asked the green boy.

"I can track people in the woods, and can move things without a lot of trouble." Mark had been able to push more weight than anyone in his class and felt he had a fair assessment of what he could do.

"And apparently you have good night vision." The green boy smiled. "I will ask the brothers if they will permit it. Getting involved in the community might appeal to some of them."

"Thanks." Mark stood up. "I didn't really think about this. I just came up with the idea last night after talking to you, and thought it might be a good way to get money to get away from my mother."

"I suppose I understand that." The green boy's expression said the opposite of his words. "I'm an orphan myself."

"The monastery take you in?" That seemed logical to Mark. The guy was in the woods, practicing yoga in a karate gi, and an orphan on top of that. It was a stereotype from a movie.

"Exactly." The green guy smiled. "They found me by the lake."

A girl with dyed hair jogged up through the trees. Her scent was complicated to Mark's nose, but he recognized it from other visits in the woods. She paused in her run when she saw Mark standing over a sitting frog boy.

"Hello, Lars." She seemed to be considering if she could take Mark in a fight. "How's it going?"

"Hello, Beth." Lars stood. "This is someone who has asked me to go in with him on a business venture."

"Mark Whittaker." Mark smiled. "I was hoping to set up a rescue business."

"I would cover the swimming parts if the brothers would allow it." Lars smiled. "Mark says he can track people in the woods which would cover anyone lost."

"That sounds great." Beth smiled. "If you guys need any help, let me know. I can do some things in that area."

"Really?" Mark didn't conceal his disbelief.

"Yes, really." Beth's expression darkened. She checked her watch. "I have to go. Jimmy is going to check out some antennae he saw in town. I have to keep him out of trouble."

"The flying suit?," asked Lars.

"He says he's got everything under control." Beth shrugged. "He's going to fly into town and check up on what he saw earlier."

"Fly into town?" Mark scratched his nose. "Your friend can fly?"

"He built a prototype." Beth shrugged. "I don't know if he is as smooth in the air as he claims."

"I would love to see that." Mark smiled. "Do you think he would help Lars and me out with this rescue business?"

"I don't know." Beth shrugged again. "Right now, he's really invested in these wings. He might take it on as test flying to work out the kinks."

"It won't hurt to ask," said Lars. "And if I can't participate, you will have someone who can search from the air."

"If he goes along with it." Mark nodded. "Let's ask him. Maybe if we help him with these antennae, he'll agree to help us."

"I have to meet him in a few minutes." Beth checked her watch. "Let's get a move on. He'll launch without me if I'm not there."

"Go ahead." Mark waved her on. "You're faster than us."

"All right." Beth started jogging toward the clearing they called the Launchpad. She doubted that Jimmy was there already, but if he was, then he was getting ready to fly.

Mark started after her in his ambling pace. He sniffed the air as he went to keep hold of the scent. He knew he couldn't keep up, but he could pace along until she wore herself out.

Lars kept up by leaping ahead every three four paces and waiting on him to catch up. He had lost sight of the girl after the first few minutes.

They arrived at the clearing as Beth and Jimmy argued about including them on the action. Mark assumed it was Jimmy since he had on a suit with wings flowing along the arms. The guy was smaller than the girl.

"How's it going?" Mark put on a smile. "I'm Mark Whittaker. I think you know Lars. Beth told us you can fly."

"I have a jet system which is supposed to be secret." Jimmy frowned at his friend. "I don't have a lot of time, so I am going to look at these machines and take pictures. I'll let you know how it goes."

"I have a couple of hours before my mom comes home." Mark nodded. "I can wait for you to come back."

"Fine. Wait right here." Jimmy took to the air in a blast of wind. He soared off.

Beth had vanished while they had been talking.

"Rocky start?," said Mark.

Lars nodded.

10

Jimmy sailed over the city. Everything worked just like he dreamed. He needed to talk to a lawyer to see how he could patent the design. There wasn't much of a demand for wings yet, but he saw a future where there would be.

He coasted toward the nearest building with the new setup. He wasn't sure what he was doing, but looking at the antennae, and dishes, should be okay as long as he didn't touch anything.

He didn't want to be fined for simply looking at something that seemed out of place on the roof of a mall. His parents would blow a gasket.

He swooped down and landed gently on the gravel roof. He looked around, his helmet's optics marking things for him for later examination when he got back home.

"There's mice all around." Beth spoke from his shoulder. He tried not to jump. What was she this time? "They're carrying things."

"What kind of things?" Jimmy pushed a button on the side of his helmet. The visor showed him a small army of mice. It looked like they were armed with rifles of some kind. "Are those lasers?"

"Go, Jimmy, go!" Beth launched from his shoulder. She sailed from the roof on flaps of skin running down the sides of a squirrel body. The rest of her creature looked kind of like a monkey to Jimmy as he spread his wings and took to the air.

Flashes of violet light cut the air as he tried to climb out of reach. He veered right to use another building as cover as the beams sliced by him. He tried not to scream in terror as he wondered if he had lost his mind.

Where was Beth? Were they shooting at her like they were shooting at him? How did he get the mice to stop shooting at them?

The collision indicator lit up. He jerked to the right again as he looked behind him. The mice had jetpacks of their own. He felt tears well up in his eyes as he saw the flying army chasing after him on trails of fire like small missiles.

"No way!" Jimmy started spiraling out of control. "No freaking way!"

Jimmy tried to think as he spun towards the ground. He needed to pull up and away from the street. The mice were descending with him to make sure he hit the ground and blew up. At least they had stopped shooting at him until they were sure what he was going to do.

He doubted laser burns would stand out from the ordinary burns of his fuel cooking him inside his suit. He needed to fix his flight problem first. Then he could worry about the super science mice.

He spread out his wings, pushed into a dive to get out of the spiral. He jerked up from the ground. He crashed into some of the mice and sent them flying. He hoped they hadn't wrecked his wings as he climbed up away from the street.

He kept climbing as the mice fell in behind him and tried to follow him toward the open sky. Violet flashes reached for him as he kept going. In a moment he would hit his operational ceiling. Then he would see how things would go as his jet cut out and he started falling again.

Would the mice be able to keep up with him as he headed back toward the ground with the speed of a rocket?

The question was would they dodge as he dove down on top of them. He hoped the answer was yes. A midair collision was not something he wanted. He didn't know how tough his suit was, but he didn't want to test it against the equivalent of bullets.

His jet cut out on cue. He fell upwards for a few more seconds. He turned his body so his head pointed at the ground. He drew in his wings and started down. He clicked the control to refire the jet as he fell.

He smiled as the mice veered out of his way instead of shooting at him. He hoped that was some kind of self preservation instinct kicking in. It could be something he could use against them.

He needed to find Beth. Where had she gone? Had all the mice decided to chase after him? Could he dump them before he ran out of his fuel? Was he really scared of super smart mice?

Lasers flying by him made him admit that he was deathly afraid of anything that resembled super smart mice.

At least their aim was terrible. He supposed it was because he was swooping toward the ground like a falcon and that made him hard to hit. It also could be that their paws weren't made to use tiny lasers. He decided to analyze the reasons after he was clear of them.

One of the mice blew up. He kept triggering his jet as parts fell behind him. He didn't spare a glance backward. He needed to fire the jet so he could pull out of his dive and get clear of the mice.

He smiled as the jet caught fire. He pulled away from the mice. Now all he had to do was pull up and make a run for the woods. How hard could that be?

He realized he might have a problem when he couldn't extend his wings to catch the air. He checked the altimeter and calculated he had a minute before he hit the ground.

He twisted to get his feet under him. His main jet pointed down. That slowed him to a stop. He spread his wings and took off. It cost him a lot of speed, but at least he hadn't crashed.

Maybe satisfying his curiosity hadn't been the best idea. At least he was working the kinks in the suit out. That had to count for something.

Jimmy missed a car turning on the street by skimming over the roof with a small adjustment. He wondered if he could make the mice crash into things at ground level.

He veered around a light pole. The roar of the tiny jets still kept up with him as he looked for something else to throw in their path.

He saw Beth standing on the sidewalk as he barreled down the street. She waved at him as he went by. He looked over his shoulder for a second before he avoided a metal public trashcan in his way. One of the mice hit the trashcan with a fiery bang.

"That'll teach you." Jimmy dodged around a panel truck. He didn't check to see if the mice hit anything. He had to concentrate on what was in front of him.

The last thing he needed was to hit something himself. The speed he was going meant he would be killed on impact. Then Beth would drag him away so she could eat him. She would tell his dead body it was his punishment for being stupid.

He didn't plan to give her the satisfaction.

He cut through an open door of an apartment building. He flew to the door to the emergency staircase, and headed into the vertical space. He headed upwards as impacts sounded against the door.

He landed on the landing for the top floor. He wondered what the mice were doing. He doubted they could get through the door with their paw hands. It should hold them unless they decided to come at him from the roof.

He stepped out in the hall and started walking. He needed an exit the mice wouldn't think to block. Then he could head home to look at the helmet cam, and try to figure out what he could do to battle the flying mice.

Their packs seemed to fly better than his wings. Whomever had come up with the jets knew what they were doing.

Who in their right mind would use mice like that?

Had he lost them? Could they get in the building to get at him? What was his next move? Did he dare go home?

He decided he didn't dare go home if they could track him from the sky. He couldn't let them catch his parents in the crossfire. Where could he go?

He needed to talk to Beth. He was in the deep end and he didn't know what to do. All he wanted was to fly around town. Dealing with a supervillain using mice as his army was not what he wanted at all.

He needed a place to hide out until he figured out what to do.

He definitely couldn't use Beth's house. That would be just the same as leading them home. Where else could he go?

Maybe he could use the school to recoup and see what he could do about this situation. The roof should be okay for a landing point and he didn't care if the mice lasered the property.

He realized those two guys might still be waiting at the Launchpad. He hoped they headed home. He didn't need to worry about two strangers when he was busy worrying about himself and Beth.

He lifted his wings as he stepped out on the roof. Burn marks creased the material. Holes were in some of the vanes. He had lucked out the mice hadn't been able to score a direct hit on his jet.

At least if he had exploded, they would have a hard time identifying his body and letting his family know. It would be just like he was missing instead of a smear on the ground.

The only one who would know would be Beth. Would his parents believe her about flying mice with laser guns? He doubted that.

He looked around. He didn't see any jet trails. It should be safe for him to take to the air. Where should he go? Maybe he should try the school first. That way if the mice were still hanging around, they would chase him to a spot he could use to his advantage.

Maybe getting them in a confined space was the best way to handle them.

11

Beth examined the roof with several different animal forms. The various scents and marks only told her that she would recognize the smell from the mice when she ran into them again. She took on her human form and inspected the machinery that had been lifted onto the roof of the building.

She didn't know that much about electronics but she didn't like the way things looked like they were ready to be powered up and pointed down at the street. How did she stop it?

She decided she didn't have to take the whole thing apart. She just needed something from inside the machinery that the mice wouldn't notice was missing. That should stall any plan they might have until she and Jimmy got together and figured out what was going on.

She didn't like the fact that mice had turned into a high tech army capable of jet packs and laser guns. You didn't see that every day.

Beth inspected the machinery, deciding to open a control box. She found cards in a rack to tell the machine what to do. She pulled one out, punched a hole in it with a suddenly bearish tooth, then put it back. She hoped she had fouled up the controls in some way.

She decided to pull another card and snap it in half. She threw the halves off the roof before she closed the machine. She felt that an obvious sign that she had been messing with the thing would trigger an inspection.

They'd find the card that she destroyed, but hopefully miss the one she sabotaged and put back. Maybe that would confuse them enough to make them take everything apart to look for the problem.

She looked at the other roofs. She changed into her winged cat form and flew across to the next one. She might as well sabotage as many of the dishes as she could. Jimmy seemed to have drawn off any guards.

Once she was done, she would round him up and see how much trouble he had drawn on himself. His wings seemed to be more maneuverable than the jet mice, so he should have outflown them and escaped. If he hadn't, she would have to break the news to his parents and she didn't want to do that.

The fact that she might have to use flying, explosion, Jimmy in the same sentence with I am sorry didn't make things easier.

She might have to deny everything and let them try to piece what happened on their own. She didn't want to take the blame for Jimmy doing something stupid and getting killed.

Of course if the situation was reversed, she knew Jimmy would clam up and say nothing.

There was no way he would stand up to her mother. He didn't have the backbone for that.

And telling her that her only daughter had been killed by mice would be something Jimmy would balk at before he tried to explain what they were doing in the first place.

Beth prowled around the other roof silently. The guards seemed to have chased after Jimmy. She reverted to her human form and inspected the controls on the dish on this roof. She duplicated her sabotage and moved on to a third roof from the video Jimmy had taken.

The third roof prompted a response. She cursed herself for not expecting it.

When Beth landed on the third roof, she sensed movement all around her. She ran for cover, leaping across the space in a bound. Purple light sliced through the air. She sank down behind an air conditioner unit as mice scurried after her with guns in paws.

Beth had some defensive bodies she could change into but she didn't think any of them would stand up to laser fire. She considered as she listened to the mice scurry closer.

She needed something that had some kind of offensive ability if she wanted to trade blows with the rodent army.

She quickly changed into a snake form with tiny legs. She pulled herself into a vent away from the approaching enemy. Now she needed to get away before they realized what she had done.

She turned a corner and coiled up. Light burned the vent metal as the mice charged behind the suppressive fire. They probably thought they could make her run as long as they were shooting at her.

Time for an ambush.

As the first mice hovered to the corner, readying to shoot in the new direction the vent had taken, a yellow mass of muscle and scales launched at them. Coils wrapped around whatever mice they could grab. Others crashed trying to get away from the lizard constrictor in the space with them.

She grabbed a rifle in her tiny hands. A claw worked the trigger as she sprayed purple light at her moving enemies. Tiny explosions and heated metal marked her effort. She squeezed with her coils until the mice she had captured stopped moving.

Beth pulled free of her dead enemies and headed for the vent opening. How many more mice were guarding the machinery? Did she want to keep battling them? What were they doing?

She hated killing them, but they had shown they had wanted to chase after her like a unit. That was unnatural. Mice just weren't that aggressive. To try to kill bigger prey was unknown.

She pulled herself on the roof, and returned to normal. Flying mice didn't attack. She wished she could carry a phone when she changed shape. Maybe she would be able to if she kept practicing. It had taken her a while to figure out clothes.

She needed to talk to Jimmy. Maybe he had figured out what the dishes were supposed to do. She had a feeling they were meant to attack the population somehow. That meant Marlowe's downtown could become a battle zone.

How many people would be hurt if the mice started shooting at anything that moved in the street?

Beth opened the control panel of the dish on the third roof. She punched holes in several of the cards and put them back in their slots. Let the thing run now.

She changed to something with better night vision and looked around the skyline. She could see two more apparatuses on roofs along the street. She had the feeling they formed a circle around City Hall.

So whatever happened would use City Hall as the center of the ring. Anyone outside the ring would get hit with whatever the dishes were supposed to do. Anyone inside the ring would be trapped, and at the mercy of the master of mice.

How much mercy would he show?

Beth didn't expect a lot since his minions had already tried to kill Jimmy and her for looking around. She doubted that would get better for people actually trying to interfere with the program.

Beth decided she had to catch up with Jimmy. It would be easier if they could use him as a decoy to help clear the last two roofs she saw. That way she could sabotage the dishes while he was drawing off the guards.

Maybe she should tell those guys at the Launchpad. Maybe they could do something to help out.

She doubted Jimmy would head home with those things on his trail. He might try to wait them out somewhere away from his parents. Maybe he would use the school.

Beth smiled. Of course, he would use the school. It was his second workshop when he could get away with it. That's where she would start looking for him.

First, she would see if those two guys were still waiting at the Launchpad. Someone had to be told in case she and Jimmy screwed things up.

Making sure someone could tell the police what was going on was a good plan in her opinion. That way when the mice made their move, someone would be able to stand up to them.

The reasons she could think of for creating a ring around City Hall were mostly bad. And why mice? They weren't the biggest workers in the world.

She didn't want to think how they got that hardware on the roofs of those buildings and hooked everything in.

Beth flew across the city, animal instincts leading her to the Launchpad. She smiled when she saw those two guys talking on the grass. They seemed to be practicing yoga. She picked a spot to land out of sight and changed back to her human form.

"It's her." The big guy straightened his jacket. "You smell burnt."

"We ran into some trouble with some mice with guns." Beth waved away the look on their faces. "Jimmy led some of them away, but I don't know what happened to him. There are some machines installed on the roofs around town. I sabotaged three of them but there were some more on the other side of City Hall."

"What do you want us to do about it?," said the big guy. He crossed his arms.

"I just needed someone to know in case something happens before I catch up with Jimmy," said Beth. "That way when things go bad, the police will know what happened afterward."

"If we help you with this, will you help us with our rescue company?" The big guy glanced at his green friend. "We want to sit down and really start this business."

"The rescue company?" Beth frowned at the two of them.

"We want to set up a business where we can save people lost in the woods," said the big guy. "I can track people, and Lars can search water ways in case they fell in a river somewhere. The two of us might not be enough of a search party."

"I'll talk to Jimmy and we'll work something out if you can get this business started." Beth nodded. "I'm going to need money in the future for school, so it might be something I can do to save up."

"Let us have the addresses of these other buildings and we'll look at them for you." He pulled out a pad and pen. "That way we can see what's there."

12

Mark Whittaker trooped into town. He frowned at the thought of the trouble he was going to be in when he got home. He needed a vehicle to help with his idea of a rescue company.

Walking was for the birds.

If they were going to help out rangers and the police, they needed to be able to move fast. That meant doing better than walking across town, or asking for a ride.

He turned to the thought of fighting mice to distract himself from the distance they had covered walking. At least Lars wasn't complaining about having to walk to get to the buildings they were supposed to look at for the girl.

He supposed the green guy had been taught to suffer without complaining. That would go with the yoga, and the karate moves. Maybe he should get Lars together with his mother and see if she could be taught not to complain so much.

He supposed his mom would see it as a frivolous waste of her time. She didn't need to change. She was practically perfect in every way.

He expected Lars to have to use a chop to the neck to shut off her complaints. He would pay to see that happen. He wouldn't tell her. That would just lead to a harangue over his ungratefulness.

He really needed this dream of his to work. He was at the edge of dealing with her massive disappointment, and wanted to move out and use his natural talents to pay his bills.

Mostly he wanted to move out. Once he got that done, he could decide for himself what to do next.

"There is the building Beth wanted us to look at for her." Lars pointed at one of the store/restaurants ahead of them. "That does look like something sinister on the roof."

"It just looks like a satellite dish to me." Mark shrugged. "We've walked this far. We should check it out to see if we're wasting our time."

"Flying mice does seem a bit farfetched." Lars looked up and down the street. "We'll know when we try to take the dish apart."

"Are you bulletproof?" Mark examined the outside of the building. The front would be locked. That didn't mean he couldn't take the door down, but he didn't want to break in and have problems with the police before he could get them as clients.

"No." Lars almost smiled with his wide mouth. "The brothers haven't taught me that yet."

"Neither am I." Mark found a ladder on the side of the building. "I guess we'll have to move fast if there are more than one of the things."

"I'll protect you to the best of my abilities," said Lars. "I have been taught to fight some by the brothers."

"Thanks." Mark jumped up but he couldn't reach the bottom rung of the ladder. "That makes me feel a hundred percent better."

Lars jumped up and grabbed the ladder. He waited for it to descend to where Mark stood in the alley.

"Showoff." Mark grabbed the bottom rung and started climbing. He tried to hide his smile, but he couldn't.

"I can jump well." Lars pulled himself up the ladder until he reached the roof. He slid to the right in the shadow of a vent shaft to let Mark get on the roof and attract more attention.

The other boy was a bigger target, and didn't seem as quiet as he was.

Besides, there might not be any mice on guard against their snooping.

"I wonder what this stuff does," said Mark. He walked toward the dish and cables. "Looks like a shield setup from Star Wars."

The boys heard jets start with a whoosh of burning fuel and air. The smell made Mark frown as he looked around. You couldn't run from an enemy you couldn't see.

A swarm of mice riding jetpacks appeared to his left. He decided that he could use the dish as cover. They couldn't shoot at him if they were supposed to protect the hardware.

Purple light plucked at his coat. He felt stings in his flesh, but kept moving toward the dish. His mom could complain about the holes in his coat if he got out of this without getting killed.

He had thought the girl had been a flake. He should have believed her.

The mice shot at him as he hid behind the dish. He noted they were coming in around the antenna to get a clear shot at him. He might have to move somewhere with better cover.

Lars leaped from behind his cover. He held his belt in his hand. He whipped it forward. The sudden distraction caused the mice to give up concentrating on Mark to avoid the cotton strap cutting the air.

Some crashed into the roof. Some crashed into each other with a bang of flame. Most regrouped to shoot at both boys with their laser rifles.

Mark grabbed the array and pulled it up from the bolts holding it to the roof. He threw the thing at the mice. The makeshift weapon passed through the swarm, dropping some of them to the gravel with a crunch.

The survivors poured light into him to keep him from repeating the maneuver. If they got rid of him, they could concentrate on the other one who didn't seem that tough.

Lars leaped across the space. He drove the mice into a panic to get away from his thin arms, and legs. Some hit the roof and exploded.

The mice hovered out of reach, pausing their attack. Then they turned and flew away from the battle. Little sparks ignited on the other suspect roof the boys were supposed to examine.

"It looks like we made them retreat." Mark pulled off his jacket. "That hurt a lot. Thanks for the assist."

"They fled." Lars hopped to the edge of the roof. "It looks like they are heading toward the lake."

"Maybe they got some kind of lair there." Mark looked at the outside of his arms, and as much of his back as he could. Burns flaked away to leave new skin underneath. He nodded. The burns would blend to his natural skin color by tomorrow. "My mom is going to kill me."

"She will understand." Lars kept an eye on the sparks as they descended. He felt they were close to the lake, on the other side away from the city.

"No, she won't." Mark brushed at the burns on his coat. "She has no time for frivolous pursuits."

"Investigating machines defended by mice?," said Lars. He didn't turn away from his vantage point.

"Frivolous." Mark shook his head at the damage. He had a burned coat, and shirt. His mother would go ballistic. He had to hide the evidence and tell his mom he had lost the coat somewhere.

"I will think of something to help you out." Lars marked the place where he thought the mice had landed. It would be different out there in the dark. "We should look at the last machine, and then go out to the lake to find where these monsters are nesting."

"We need a car of some kind." Mark walked to the ladder. The pain from the burns still hampered his movement but it would drop back to normal in a few minutes as the burns went away.

"I can't drive." Lars followed. "The brothers have decided I have to wait one more year before they will teach me."

"My mom says she will when I get a real job." Mark started down the ladder. "I'm not holding my breath waiting for that."

"Beth and Jimmy seem too young." Lars didn't point out one had wings, and the other had some kind of dragon. That would confuse the issue.

"We need someone who can drive us around to a job, but we can pay by the hour." Mark climbed down, holding to the last rung to lower the ladder to the ground.

"The brothers won't do that." Lars hopped down the last few feet to the ground. "That would defeat the purpose of their teaching."

"I'll put down driver and car as a necessity for our business." Mark pulled out his pad and wrote down those things. "We can worry about that when we get our business set up."

"We will need some place other than our homes as a company office." Lars didn't point out the brothers wouldn't allow a business on the temple grounds.

"Already have that, and the need for a license so we can make money without a problem from the town and county." Mark smiled. "We'll also need some kind of capital to get started and keep us going until we pick up our business until we actually start making money at it."

"You have certainly thought hard about this." Lars started for the mouth of the alley.

"I have wanted to move out for a long time," said Mark. "Running into you seemed like a gift from above."

Lars nodded. Destiny moved in interesting ways, and he could feel it tugging at his sleeve. The mice could be natural, but whatever was behind them was like him. He could feel it in his bones. And this force had to be opposed. It had shown it didn't want any interference from the people in the city.

What would have happened if a normal person had gone on the roof to look for something wrong with the air conditioning, or electrical system? Judging by the results, they would have been killed by the combined laser power of the mice.

Mark seemed to have shrugged off the burning effect used against him. Someone else would not have been able to do that.

"This looks like the last place," said Mark. He pointed up at the roof. "Looking things over should be a breeze without the mice around to shoot at us."

"Do we look for this lair after we inspect the dish?" Lars paused at the front of the building. The lobby looked closed and locked to him. He inspected the doors and saw the bar was thrown to keep people out.

"Looks like we're going to have to use the gym." Mark pointed at the building next to the one they wanted. "Maybe we can get to the roof from there."

"We'd have to break down the door to get upstairs." Lars headed for the gym.

"I can totally do that," said Mark. "It wouldn't be hard at all."

The boys walked through the gym, waving at a trainer working on helping some fat guy trying to lift a bar with too much weight on it. They entered the stairwell and headed up. They found the roof access and stepped outside.

"I'll go first," said Lars. He took a running start and easily cleared the gap between the two buildings.

Mark lumbered forward and jumped at the other building. He realized that he wasn't going to land on the other roof and stretched out his hands to grab the brick face. He held on, keeping from falling to the alley floor with his grip. He climbed up and pulled himself over the edge of the roof.

"Let's look at this thing," said Mark, dusting off his hands.

13

Beth landed on the school roof. She waited before moving. She didn't want any more trouble.

Having to kill those mice, and getting shot at, wasn't on her things to do. If Jimmy was okay, she planned to punch him in the nose for the trouble he had caused. He was supposed to stay out of trouble, not lead a lot of miniature air aces around the city.

What was going on downtown? What were they going to do about it? What was up with those mice?

Beth didn't see anything around. She dropped off the roof and landed lightly by the breezeway. She changed form, scenting the air. Jimmy's wings had been in the area. She decided that he would try the shop classrooms first.

He had taken some hits on his wings. He would want to fix them without his folks knowing he was out flying around. He didn't dare tell them about the mice. That would add on a layer of you're not allowed to fly anymore.

And she felt that he would rather die than give up his dream now that he had made it work.

Her mom would want her checked out if she knew about the shapechanging. That was why she kept her power to herself.

Beth rationalized it with the thought that kids kept secrets from their parents all the time. She was totally normal about that.

Beth walked into the building, heading down the hall toward the shop classes.

She paused at some thumpings coming down the hall from the gym. She decided that she would look into that after checking the shops. She thought that Jimmy had more sense than flying inside the gym and banging into stuff.

She smiled.

She might be expecting too much from him.

She spotted Jimmy standing by a work table. He had his wings spread out in front of him. She smiled. At least he was that predictable.

"What are you doing here?" Beth smiled at him jumping. "The school is off limits to kids when the teachers are gone."

"I'm fixing the holes in my wings," said Jimmy. He gestured at some plastic strips and glue on the table. "It's something temporary until I get back to my shop."

"I asked those two guys from the woods to check into the rest of the dishes." Beth shrugged. "I don't know if they did it."

"Those dishes are projectors of some kind." Jimmy ran his hand over a damaged feather. "I guess the mice were guards to keep snoopers away."

"So what do we do about it?," asked Beth. She crossed her arms.

"Nothing," said Jimmy. "It's not my problem."

"Those guys want to set up a company finding people." Beth looked at the vanes. "They want me to help them."

"That sounds good." Jimmy took one of the feathers off of its holder. He replaced it with one of the strips of plastic he had shaped. "You can use the money to go to school."

"You sure you don't want in on this?" Beth doubted he wanted to work for money. He was smart enough to get by on scholarships at any college he wanted.

"I'm not much of a hero, Beth." Jimmy rubbed his wings down. "You need someone fearless and a little stupid to go into danger."

"We're just looking for people lost in the woods." Beth had seen he was brave enough when he wanted to be. "You're the one that started this thing with the rodents."

"I didn't start anything." Jimmy grimaced at her. "They came at me shooting. I lucked out that they only hit my wings and nothing important like my jet."

"I killed some of them, and I asked those boys to check the other spots where I saw a dish," said Beth. "I have to check on them to make sure they weren't hurt."

"That's our next move," said Jimmy. "We need to take care of those dishes before someone turns them on."

"I already broke two." Beth smiled at his expression. "That was easy."

"Really?" Jimmy pulled on his wings. "How did you do that?"

"By using my brain instead of my legs." Beth pointed at her head. "If the other boys wreck the ones I didn't get to because I was chasing you, then things should be okay."

"All right." Jimmy pulled down his visor. "We can check on them if the wings will hold me. I'll have to make real repairs in my shop over the next few days."

"What do you think about these mice?," said Beth. "Jet packs and lasers seem a bit much to me."

"The dishes bother me more." Jimmy checked his power links. Everything came back normal. He was ready to go.

"Who do you think is behind them?," asked Beth.

"I don't know." Jimmy shrugged. "It could be anyone. I'm not going to try to find out either. That's a fast way to get hurt in my opinion."

"That doesn't sound like the fearless guy I know who stood up to the football team yesterday." Beth imitated a chicken for a few seconds to express her disapproval.

"The football team didn't try to kill me." Jimmy edged to the door. "I kind of want to avoid that."

Beth shook her head as she followed him out in the hall. The thumping came to them as they paused in which direction they should be taking.

Beth crept toward the sound. Her natural weapons should be enough to protect her from any normal person. Jimmy would be on his own if there was trouble.

She pushed on the door gently so she wouldn't alert anyone inside that she was snooping. If there was problems, she could duck back and escape the building without a problem.

Tim Bucket threw baseballs at the gym wall. A trashcan held the balls at his feet. He picked a ball up and threw it at the wall. The ball danced in the air before it hit the wall on the paper target on the other side of the gym.

Beth decided that she could back away from this practice. He didn't seem to need anyone to show him how to do what he was doing.

"What's going on?." Jimmy crowded against her back. "I told you he was superhuman."

Tim heard his exclamation. He turned and threw a baseball at the door. Beth dropped back, kicking the door closed. The door banged from the impact.

"Run." Beth took off down the hall. "Run!"

Jimmy fired his jets. He winged down the hall after her. Now that they knew Tim's secret, he had to kill them to keep it.

Why had he let Beth indulge her curiosity instead of just leaving? He should have known trouble would follow. He couldn't go to school anymore. Tim would be waiting to assassinate him over this.

First the mice, then the former star pitcher. Could this night get any worse? Did he want to know?

Coach Reilly appeared in the hall. He caught Beth by the collar, and hooked an arm around Jimmy. The jet started redlining as it tried to keep going forward.

"Turn that thing off, Harmon!" The coach's voice pierced the noise of the jet. "Or I'll turn it off for you."

Jimmy cut the jet and sank to the ground. Coach Reilly had a reputation around the school. And here he was in the man's clutches.

"So why are you two here at the school so late, and what's with the get-up, Harmon?" Reilly dropped his prisoners on the floor. "The explanation will be good."

"I just had to make use of the shop for my project." Jimmy spread his wings. "I had some minor damage to fix."

"So the two of you broke into the school to fix your science project?" Reilly crossed his arms. "What happened to it?"

"Some mice shot them up." Beth shrugged at the look she got. "They had some laser guns."

"Really?" Reilly gave them both the glare. "It sounds like a fancy lie."

"I'm telling you the truth." Beth frowned at him. "I didn't get shot."

"Let's go to my office and talk about this." Reilly gestured with his hands. "If either one of you tries to take off on me, I will show you why that's a bad idea."

"Do we really have to do that?" Jimmy and Beth shared a look. "Can't we just write a paper to give you tomorrow."

"Either we go to my office and hash it out, or I just call the police." Reilly pointed toward the gym. "I'm sure being vandals and stealers of public property will be all right on your permanent record."

Beth shrugged and walked toward the gym. She thought she could easily overcome the Coach. He looked like he had let the years catch up with him. The problem was what did she do after she made her escape.

The trio walked into the gym. Tim shook his head at the younger kids. Beth waved back.

"I knew you were a superhuman." Jimmy placed his hands on his hips.

"I knew you were a dork." Tim picked up a towel and wiped his face. "Thanks for proving me right."

"He's right," said Beth. "You are a dork."

"Whose side are you on?" Jimmy frowned at her.

"Keep going." Reilly shook his head. "We'll hash out your dorkiness with the rest of this, Harmon."

Jimmy frowned at the larger man. He decided not to try to run for it. The coach tended to slam his football guys around at practice. There was no telling what he would do to the boy.

The group crossed the gym in silence.

14

Narf the mouse growled as he considered his next move. His plan had been ruined before it could begin by those kids. He hadn't expected someone to come out of nowhere and wreck his machinery.

He had directed his guards to fall back to a secondary position while he considered what he should do.

He had asked one of his mice minions to keep an eye on the two boys that had arrived on the roof. They were obviously lake babies. One was green, so maybe an altered frog, or toad.

He had lost the flier and the shapechanging monster. He expected the four knew each other, so if he kept his eye on one of them, the rest would give him something to work with so he could get rid of them.

He had decided on ruling Marlowe. He wasn't going to change his mind because some human brats had got in his way.

He was going to do what he could to learn about this new enemy, track them down, and get rid of them before they got in the way again. Then he would restart his plan with modifications in case any of the Strangers knew what was going on.

He couldn't let the adults get on his trail while he trying to ensure his master plan worked out. He wasn't ready to take them on, and his losses had to be replaced before he tried to field an army.

A few hours on one night, and everything was ruined. He had worked so hard on his plan. Stupid humans.

His spy reported in that the last dish had been destroyed by the bigger human boy. He winced, but knew there was nothing he could do about it at the moment. They had come out of nowhere and surprised him.

If he wanted his revenge, he would have to return the favor.

The first thing he needed to do was find out who these meddlers were, and then he could figure out how the best way to kill them. No one noticed mice, so that first part should be easy.

Then he had to deal with them in a way no one would know what had happened while he was putting the second part of his plan. The adult Strangers had to be taken care of next before he could implement his dish plan. Then he could repair and rebuild his machinery to drive the humans out of Marlowe without outside interference.

Then he would have to build his army to hold his new territory against any threat from the outside world.

He had been gathering data about the world's superhuman population on the chance they would interfere. He felt like he was ready for them with his hidden weapons. His shield should keep the majority out with its presence.

These kids had ruined all that while he was still setting up.

Narf checked with his spy. The mouse reported that the two boys had decided to split up now that the damage was done. He ordered it to follow the bigger boy. Once he knew who that one was, he could put in surveillance and find the others.

Once he knew who they were, the rest should be easy. Then he could move forward again.

He hated that he had lost so many of his minions to his enemies. They probably didn't know who he was yet. He had to make sure they never found out before he killed them.

How did other villains accomplish their goals with so many obstacles around? His research said the lower profile villains avoided heroes like the plague. He considered that as he waited for his reports from his spy.

Maybe he should keep a watch and try to rebuild his plan. That would mean stepping back and trying to avoid a confrontation. He considered it as a path to success.

Once either group knew he was in action, they were bound to try to interfere. He would have to deal with them if he wanted to create his sanctuary. It was better to get rid of them first before they became aware he was moving.

That meant finding out who his new enemies were and getting rid of them in their sleep. His mice assassins could handle that.

Narf looked at his plans. He had to get his towers back into play on the roofs. That meant he had to get the parts for the things before he could rebuild them. He would also have to change roofs to avoid interference while he was trying to rebuild.

He checked his calculations and maps of the city. He could move each device several roofs to the right to generate the same effect. He needed to see the roofs in question.

He activated a squad of spies and surveyors. He handed them the mission. They flew off on jet flames to carry out his wishes.

The big human seemed to be headed to a small area of houses. His spy trailed behind him on the ground. The jets were too obvious, and the human was moving slow enough that he could be kept up with by a faster pursuer.

Narf ordered his spy to forage near the house, but keep the human within sight if he left.

He ordered more spies to assemble around the house in question. The big human was to be watched until the other three met up with him. Then they should branch off and follow the other humans back to their domiciles.

Then he could start putting together a set of careful assassinations to clear the way for his scheme to get started.

Once the younger meddlers were gone, he could kill the Strangers since he had already identified most of them, and knew a lot of their weak points.

Narf rubbed his whiskers as he tried to think of any flaws that he needed to pay careful attention to before he got started.

The surveyors called to tell him they had planted cameras over the area so their master could see everything with his own eyes. He winced at the destruction of his plan he was shown.

The big human had to die for this interruption.

He added that to his list of things he wanted done. It would give him satisfaction to rub his success in the imbecile's face before he was killed by the mouse legionnaires.

He sent instructions to the surveyors on what he wanted. He asked them to check the damage to see if anything could be salvaged. That would speed up the rebuilding process.

He also sent them the spots he calculated would be just as effective for his plan on the other buildings.

He didn't know how long it would take, but he resisted the urge to flood the area with his minions. He didn't want to be noticed more than he had already been. The last thing he wanted was humans showing up at his warren to try to flush him out.

If they did, he had his buster bunnies ready to deploy and protect his headquarters from the human threat. Many humans would feel the bite of the rodents. Then he would fade away to start over somewhere else and try to build his kingdom.

His ark sat fueled and ready for flight if he had to flee with his minions.

The surveyors went over the wrecked equipment. They sent him reports as they worked through the machinery. He was not confident in salvaging most of it.

He closed his eyes as he listened to his minions doing their work. His mental power was almost as good as a camera since he could detect the feeling and the vision from his minions.

He felt the sun coming up above the horizon. He ordered the mice to take cover and make sure they ate enough to carry out his plans.

He had plenty of time to carry out his plans. He didn't need to work his servants to death if there was no danger to him, them, or his plans. The ones he had lost left a sour taste since he could have ordered them to fall back and cover each other.

He checked on the spy at the big human's house. The boy remained inside and out of sight. The spy had set up a post at the edge of a window within sight of the door. He could keep the front covered for as long as it took.

The other spies were in route. They would secure points around the house to make sure he was in sight until orders came to do something.

Narf decided he would have to use heavy munitions on this human. He had taken the small laser rifle fire and came out unscathed. Let him walk off something that could wreck a bunker.

If the attempt was unsuccessful, he would know he had to gauge the upper limit on the damage he wanted to inflict.

He was willing to keep trying until he had a weapon with a big enough caliber to blow up that giant offspring.

That would make his day after the setback he had experienced.

15

Coach Chad Reilly looked at his two troublemaking students from behind his desk off the school's gym. They looked back with expressions of embarrassment and defiance. Tim Bucket stood by the door, arms crossed as he watched things. He seemed to be trying to hide a smile.

"Now, let's start at the top." Reilly tapped his desk. "Why the wings, Harmon?"

"So I could fly around like a bird." Jimmy Harmon spread the wings out. "I had to replace some of the vanes with help from the shop classes, but they should still work."

"So the two of you broke into the school to replace parts for wings?" Reilly laced his fingers together and placed his hands on his desk.

"I just broke in to make sure Jimmy hadn't hurt himself, or been hurt by the flying mice." Beth Duquesne smiled. "They were messing him up for a minute there."

"They were not." Jimmy gave her a chagrined look as he sat forward. "I got a lot of them to crash."

"So you lost a fight with some mice, Harmon?" Reilly's question broke into the ensuing bickering.

"These were killer mice with ray guns and jet packs." Jimmy spread out his wings so they could see the vanes with marks that he hadn't replaced. "They came at me like a flying army. I had to ditch to get out of there. I crashed some of them first."

"I took down any of them that came at me." Beth gave him a grin. "You should learn how to fight."

"Let's go back to the flying mice." Reilly rubbed his chin. "Where were they, and how did you find them?"

"I found them by accident." Jimmy shrugged. "I was looking for something else."

Reilly made a go on gesture with his hand.

"I saw some dishes being set up on some roofs downtown when I was making my first test flight," said Jimmy. "I decided to go back and take a look at them. The mice came at me when I started looking around."

"So you have no idea what you stumbled into?" Reilly pulled out his cell. "The mice might still be there if they went back to guard duty and didn't run off."

"I just thought that it was some kind of communication relay." Jimmy shrugged. "I didn't see anything that looked strange to me."

"You probably weren't supposed to." Reilly stood and headed for the door. "Does anybody else know about this?"

"Mark and Lars," said Beth. "I asked them to look at the dishes we hadn't wrecked yet."

"Mark and Lars?" Reilly paused at the door. "Do they go here?"

"I don't think so." Beth shrugged. "I met them while jogging."

"Stay here." Reilly stepped out in the hall. "I'm going to see if I can get someone to look at your mouse army."

"Tell them to be careful." Jimmy spread one wing. "They don't want to be shot full of holes."

"I'll pass that along." Reilly called someone as he walked away from the office.

"What's going on, Tim?" Beth gestured at the gym around them.

"I was practicing my pitching." Tim frowned at his younger classmates. "I thought I told you two to stay out of trouble."

"I knew you were superhuman." Jimmy waved a hand. "No wonder you quit the baseball team."

"I wouldn't be saying that out loud if I were you." Tim's face took on a hawkish expression. "I work for a bunch of Men in Black now. They love to erase people's brains."

"You're kidding." Jimmy glanced at Beth. She seemed bored. He felt a little panicky. Maybe he should get out of the office before Reilly came back and go home to get his files and flee somewhere.

"No," said Tim. "And even if I was, I would want you to shut up."

"He's got a point, Jimmy." Beth looked at her fingernails. "No one wants their secrets shouted everywhere. What do you think is going to happen when Coach Reilly calls your parents to let them know about us breaking in like this."

"He wouldn't do that." Jimmy looked at his companions. "I can't let them know about this. I will be grounded."

"Have you met Coach Reilly?," asked Tim. "I'm surprised he hasn't called the cops already."

"Calm down." Beth crossed her arms. "The coach isn't going to call the cops on us for trespassing. He's Tim's handler. He'll probably offer some kind of deal. If you shut up about Tim, he won't press charges and have your memory erased."

"I wouldn't count on that," said Tim. "It's something to hope will happen."

Reilly returned. He seemed even less happy than when he had left. His call seemed to have been bad news for him.

"Take these two home, Bucket," said Reilly. "Make sure they don't get into trouble on the way. The Project is sending Alywin down to talk to them in the morning."

"What does that mean?," asked Beth. "Who's Alywin?"

"She's the one in charge of wiping brains." Reilly waved them out of the office. "Don't leave town. She gets cranky if she has to hunt people down. And you don't want to see her cranky."

"I need my brain." Jimmy frowned at him. "It's my best feature."

"You should have thought of that before you got involved in a classified operation." Reilly settled behind his desk. "She'll be gentle when she gives you the needle."

"He's kidding you, Jimmy." Beth stood. "You should not do that."

"It's the only way that I have to have fun." The coach almost smiled. "After all, I still have papers to grade and a baseball team without a pitcher."

"It's still mean." Beth shook her head. "And you're not funny. At least be funny when you're mean. That kind of takes the sting out of it."

"I'll take that under consideration." Reilly waved at them. "Go ahead. Remember. Not a word to anybody else until we get this sorted out."

"What about Mark and Lars?" Beth made a wait gesture to Jimmy. "We don't have any way to talk to them. I didn't get their phone number."

"Aylwin will deal with that when she gets here." Reilly's expression said it wasn't his problem. "Go ahead. You're going to have a long day tomorrow."

"Come on." Tim held out a hand. "Let's go."

"Does the school know about this?" Jimmy led the way out of the room. "Secret agents at school. It's straight out of a comic book."

"The response will be too if you keep talking." Tim fell in behind the other two. "This is supposed to be secret."

"Like your wings." Beth shook her head. "You always get the big head when you're right about something."

"Not always." Jimmy glared at her.

"Always with a latte on top." Beth glared right back at him. "If I get my brain erased, I will punch you in the noggin."

"How are you going to hold me responsible for something when you won't know what it is because it won't be there in your head?" Jimmy paused at the thought.

"Because it won't be there anymore, I will blame you because of the things you have already done." Beth slapped a fist in her other hand. "Then I punch you out of general principles."

"I guess that's fair enough." Jimmy shrugged.

"Are you two dating?" Tim pushed open the door to the gym to let them out in the hall.

"No." Jimmy looked confused. "Why?"

"You should be." Tim led the way down the hall. "You already sound like you are."

"What's that supposed to mean?," Jimmy followed. He thought he should build a way to retract his wings. They tended to drag to the ground unless he held his arms up.

"He says we should be dating because we already sound like your parents." Beth made a blowing noise through her nose.

"No, we don't." Jimmy put the wing problem aside as he considered this new information. "Do we?"

"I don't think so," said Beth. "Your dad doesn't cause near as many problems as you do."

"I don't think that's fair." Jimmy made a face. "I didn't get us involved with secret agents."

"Flying mice with ray guns, Jimmy." Beth shook her head. "Flying mice with ray guns."

"I didn't make them," said Jimmy. "They were already there when I flew by."

"Let's go, you two." Tim pointed to his dad's car in the lot. "I'll take you home and then you can explain everything to your parents."

"I don't think I can explain any of this." Jimmy frowned as they walked to the car. "How do you explain something like flying mice?"

"I think you'll have a harder time explaining that you built a set of flying wings and tried them out without any thought of safety precautions." Beth smiled at him.

"That's not going to be good." Jimmy climbed in the back seat of the car, folding his wings across his body.

"It'll be fine." Beth climbed into the front passenger seat. "How did you explain about your mysterious super power to your dad, Tim?"

"I didn't have to." Tim got behind the wheel. He had just got his license. He pulled his belt on. "He was there when we went to fight the giant turtle."

"You were there?" Jimmy sat forward. "Nobody knows what happened to the turtle. What did you guys do with it?"

"The Project has a place they keep monsters." Tim shrugged. "They didn't tell me where it is, and I didn't ask."

"That must be neat." Beth rubbed her hands together. "Maybe I could get my vet license and go to work there. They must need vets, right?"

"I don't know." Tim drove out of the lot. "Maybe that's something you should talk to Aylwin about when she gets here."

"I could work on giant monsters." Beth grinned. "That would be so great."

"We have to deal with our current problem first." Tim hated to put a damper on her future plans. "You won't be able to work on anything if we don't deal with this mouse thing."

16

Mark Whittaker couldn't shake the feeling he was being watched. He checked his surroundings before entering his house. He was glad his mother wasn't home. That let him avoid a lot of questions about what he was doing and how was he wrecking his life now.

He needed to talk to the rest of the guys about the mice. He doubted they had got rid of all of them. And they didn't know what had made them super intelligent, but thought that the polluted lake was the reason.

Ever since that giant turtle had rampaged toward town, anything strange happening was put down as another effect of the water. No one believed the water was clear. Signs warning to swim or fish at your own risk dotted the shore now.

He expected that his own abilities and Lars's green skin were from exposure to the water. Maybe their parents had swam in the lake, or drank the water, without realizing what was going to happen to their children.

The one time he had asked his mother about his father, she had scolded him for being ungrateful. He didn't want to go through that again.

He was not surprised by his father vanishing in the years since.

He would have done the same thing if he had the money.

He couldn't worry about any of that now. He had to get in touch with Lars and Beth and see if the rescue company was still viable. They had wrecked someone's property. He doubted they were going to be left alone after their vandalism.

If he was trying to carry out some scheme, and some kids wrecked it, he would be looking to get even for that.

Mark wondered if he was worrying too much. There was no way for the mice to track them down except by following them. He would have heard one doing that. Their jets weren't that quiet.

He could go looking for the others. Maybe that would be better than waiting for his mom to come home and tell him to quit being frivolous.

He sometimes thought she didn't know the meaning of the word, or was misusing it on purpose. He really wanted this rescue idea to work.

Mark decided he could retrace his steps to the Launchpad and then try to track the others down. He would be out all night, but he should be okay as long as he got back before dawn. If he could do that, he wouldn't have to listen to his mother complain about everything.

Maybe he could live out there in the woods until he could get everything for his idea ready. It would be great to be able to do anything he wanted without waiting for someone to nag him about things he didn't need to worry about until he was older.

His mother wanted him to give up on everything and do what he could to get a job and give her the money. He wasn't about to do that. Living on his own would help put an end to that.

He might even be able to learn how to drive and get a car without having her trying to stop him. He didn't plan to walk around for all of his life. Being able to drive would enable him to do things he couldn't do now because the bus stopped running at night while he was at the mall after school, or reading at the library.

It would be nice not to have defend every decision in the light of how much money it cost them to do something.

It would be nice to just have an ice cream cone without hearing that a dollar was too much for such a thing.

Mark let himself out of the house. Even if he missed Beth and Jimmy, he could track them down to where they lived. He doubted they had a lot of restrictions on them.

He headed into the woods. He sniffed the air. The aroma reaching him felt familiar. He put it aside. He would remember what made that smell eventually.

He lumbered through the trees, heading for where he had met Lars first. He could turn and trace the path back to Launchpad from there a lot easier than randomly trying to pick up everyone else's scents while walking around in the dark.

Those dishes and flying mice were strange. How many villains used trained animals to do what they had to do? Did PETA know about that? Where was the ASPCA?

That might be a secondary job for his business. He could rescue supervillain's animals and hold them until they could be given loving homes away from the bad influence.

The extra money could pay for the Porsche he was going to learn how to drive.

A car would be great to drive around in to get to places where he didn't want to walk, but without a job it was meaningless. He couldn't afford payments, insurance, and he didn't want his mom complaining about how he was never home to help her.

He needed his idea to take off so fast he could move away without worrying about the expense, or how much his mom disapproved. That would solve part of his problem. The other part would have to worry about itself once he was set and ready to go.

If Lars was onboard, searching the lake could be handled easily without the extensive effort normal divers had.

And he was sure his own ability to sniff things out would allow them find lost hikers faster than any bloodhound.

He just needed a chance to prove himself.

He paused under a tree. He caught a whiff and knew where he had smelled that smell before. It was the smell of the burning jets from the mice. At least one of them was around.

He shouldn't have come out in the woods. He cautiously tried to look around for the miniature menace. He had the feeling he was being spied on, and what was wanted was his new friends.

He didn't have any way to call them to warn them about this spying effort. What should he do?

He decided to cut back toward the lake. It was a longer walk, but he didn't want to go near the clearing now. Beth and Jimmy might be waiting there for him, but once the spy knew where they meet, it would bring friends to follow the others.

That was what he would do.

He should have asked for a phone number from one of them before he wrecked the dishes with Lars. He knew Lars didn't have a phone. He was a warrior monk.

He drifted from tree to tree as he thought about what he could do. He glanced around as he paused by a bush. He spotted a spark in the air, landing in a tree overhead. He smiled as he walked on.

Only one of the mice was following him.

How did he lose the beast and try to find the others?

He decided to walk around the lake. Maybe something would present itself when he got to the other side. He knew there were some abandoned cabins around. They had been cleared when the government had sealed the lake off for cleaning.

Maybe he could use one of them for a trap. If he could catch his follower, maybe they could trace the mouse back to its master.

Then they could put a stop to all this trouble.

He didn't know what those machines he wrecked did, but he did know the mice had ruined his jacket and caused him trouble with his mom when she found out. That made them bad guys even if they were trying to create a utopia for mice.

Anything that got him in trouble with his mom was bad in his opinion.

He spotted a cabin on a gravel drive ahead. A sign told him to stay out because the government had relocated the owners because of environmental hazards. He headed for the front door. He looked around for any containers as he went.

He stepped on the flat porch and tried the door. He paused for a second when he realized it was locked. He pushed on the knob. The lock tore loose from the frame to let him in.

He stepped inside and closed the door. The mouse hadn't followed him inside the building. Now he had to wait to see what it would do.

Mark waited near the door. He didn't see the mouse, but he was sure it was still out there. It was probably waiting for him to get going again.

How long would it wait before it investigated the place to make sure he was still inside?

How long could he wait before he had to move on?

He definitely had to get home. His mom would be home and wanting answers. He doubted flying mice would be credited as a good reason to be out.

He didn't know if it was a bad thing that he didn't have a car now. He wouldn't have spotted the follower inside one. It was a mixed blessing.

How did he lure the mouse to see what he was doing? Could he leave it out there, and go out the back? Would it stay out there, waiting for him to come out the front so it could keep following him? Did it know about his house?

He figured that it knew about his house and who he was. It must have followed him from the roofs. Were the others marked? How did he warn them?

If he had a computer, he might be able to search for them on Facebook.

He checked the view from the windows. He didn't see any sparks to show where the flying mouse could be. He decided that there was only one. He would have to warn his mom at the very least. She wouldn't like it, but he had to do something. He didn't want her to get hurt if they attacked his house.

And he didn't have doubts they would attack his house now that they knew where he lived.

The only reason he could think they were waiting was because they didn't know anything about the others. That meant he had to avoid the Launchpad at all costs until they figured out how to deal with the mouse following him.

He couldn't lead the bad guy back to his new friends. That would be right out of a movie where the sidekick gets killed for not checking his backtrail.

Mark wanted to be better than that. He was the hero, not a sidekick.

He dreaded having to tell his mother about this. She would flip over mice ready to shoot up the house, and the vandalism he had caused smashing the dishes.

Mark wondered what would happen if he went out of the back of the cabin and made his way back home. What would the mouse do? Would it wait, and then go back to his house when he didn't come out? Or would it try to get inside the cabin to check on him after a bit, then go back to the house? Would it report failure and return to base.

He supposed it would eventually track back to his house if it knew how to navigate. He should go and hope it didn't catch up to him while he was still out in the open. There was no telling when it would be told to try to kill him.

Mark made his way to the back of the cabin, ignoring the smells of disuse that crept around the edges. He unlocked the door and stepped on the back porch. He couldn't smell the burning fuel so maybe the creature hadn't circled the cabin to prevent being lost.

He headed into the trees, trying to use shadows as cover.

17

Jimmy Harmon walked down the driveway, along the side of his house. He looked up and saw the lights were on, but neither of his parents seemed to be looking out the windows. He headed straight for his work shop. He had to get out of his wings before he was spotted.

How did he track down the mice? He needed an idea to do that. He had a feeling that they had made an enemy that wouldn't like a flying boy telling what he saw.

How did he explain the secret agents part of this to his parents? That would mean explaining putting the wings together without telling them. It meant explaining some of the deception he had engaged in to get things done.

He did not want to face the future. He predicted too much trouble for him personally.

He didn't know what Beth was going to do. Her powers hadn't come up, but working on monsters would be great for a vet. He could see her moving to some secret zoo.

What would he do if she did move away? She was his best friend. If she left, what would happen to him? Did he want to deal with secret agents?

How did he get out of this? Should he try to run away? The government had a long reach. Where could he go they couldn't grab him back? What could he do?

He climbed out of his suit. At least he knew the thing worked. He might be able to mass produce the thing. He could hand the suits to kids who wanted to surf the sky.

He hung the suit up in its closet. He had to deal with this Alywin in the morning. He had to think about what he could do to get out of talking to the agent.

Maybe he could pretend to be sick and then fly off to start a new life somewhere else. Let the coach catch him then.

That would leave Beth to cover for him, but he was almost willing to risk her wrath to get out of the pickle he was in.

He definitely didn't want to face his parents about what he had put together in the workshop. They would take away his privileges over this. He needed to duck this agent and get out on his own as fast as he could.

How did he take his wings with him? He couldn't leave them behind. The government would make more after they took the set apart.

How did he avoid that so he could keep flying without having someone on his tail for the rest of his life?

He froze at the knock on his shed door. He looked around the room. Everything was hidden. Maybe it was Beth showing up to give him a lecture on how he should help the government out with their hidden agenda.

He cracked the door. He exhaled a breath of relief. It was just the big guy standing outside.

"Can we talk?" The big guy scanned his surroundings. "I have a problem."

"My parents can't see you." Jimmy waved the guy into his lab. "I'm in a lot of trouble right now. How did things go with the other dishes?"

"They're down for the moment." The big guy looked around the room. "I think one of the mice followed me home."

"One of them followed you to your house?" Jimmy rubbed his face. "That's not good."

"I left him in the woods." The big guy pulled up a seat and settled like a rock. "I think he was trying to follow me so he could find out who you and Beth are."

"I ran into the coach at my school." Jimmy turned on his monitors. "He's calling in some kind of government agency to deal with things. I'm supposed to be grounded."

"You have to be kidding me." Mark shook his head. "Those mice are getting ready for another move, man. They already know where I live. All they have to do is wreck the place to get me in trouble with my mom."

"Right now, Beth and I are in trouble with the government, and I will be in trouble with my parents when they know I was flying around like a superhero, instead of trying to get into a college somewhere." Jimmy looked at a monitor for the outside. He didn't see any blue trails of sparks in the air. "Any thoughts about that?"

"Not really." Mark shrugged. "There has to be a way out of this for all of us."

"Maybe we can get out of everything if we play dumb." Jimmy rubbed his face. "All I wanted was to be able to fly."

"Playing dumb is too late now." Mark stood. "The brains of this is going to come after us now. We wrecked his plans. He won't let us stay out here to keep wrecking them. He is trying to find us and stop us first."

"You're saying we should find him first and see if we can stop this." Jimmy looked at his closet space. He had to recharge the wings if he wanted to do anything else with them. "Maybe that will get us off the hook with the government."

"I don't see why it wouldn't." Mark grinned. "It might even get us jobs working for the government. Steady pay for steady work sounds like a good plan to me."

"Being heroic can get you killed." Jimmy thought about the holes in his wings. He could have crashed and burned if they had hit something vital.

"It can also get you in the history books." Mark held up his hands as if showing a sign. "Jimmy, the world's fastest flying man."

"We both know that won't happen." Jimmy smiled at the thought. "Anything we do will be classified."

"But it will be worth it." Mark smiled back.

"If they are watching your house, how will we get around that?" Jimmy thought about the problem. "They'll definitely try to follow you now that you have slipped them."

"I'll think of something." Mark shrugged again. "I think I can use that if they have to go back to home base."

"Following their scent trail?" Jimmy nodded. "It might work. We just need something to mark them if your nose is up to it."

"I found you, didn't I?," said Mark. "That fuel they use is distinctive. If there is a recent trail close to the ground, I can find it and follow it."

Jimmy nodded. The big guy had shown that he could track through the woods when they had met on the Launchpad.

"The question is will they lead me to their lair, or try to ditch me?" Mark looked at the monitor. "If the brain behind this is smart, he will try to ditch me in some kind of trap."

"I don't know how much trouble Beth and I are in yet." Jimmy closed his eyes. "Maybe we can work something out with the guy we're supposed to meet."

"All right." Mark nodded. "Maybe you can work out a job for us so we can get paid to get rid of these mice."

"I'll see what I can do." Jimmy groaned. "Forget I said anything about meeting government agents. It's supposed to be secret."

"Mum's the word." Mark smiled. His teeth were a little bigger and sharper looking than teeth should be.

"Okay, I need to sneak into the house, and hope to get pass my parents." Jimmy looked around. Everything was shut down. "You can stay here for the night if you don't want to go home."

"Naw." Mark shook his head. "If I don't get home, my mom will ground me. As it is, I'm going to have to explain this in a way that doesn't sound like what it sounds."

"I'm in the same boat." Jimmy nodded. "I created a flying machine, took up flying, and got shot at by mice. How was your day, Mom and Dad?"

"Let me sneak out of here before you try to get inside." Mark went to the door. "I don't want to explain what I am doing hanging around."

"Right." Jimmy opened the door for him. "Watch out for the neighbor's dog."

"I got it." Mark vanished into the dark of the yard.

Jimmy waited for five minutes before he closed his shop down and headed for his house. He fished out his key so he could enter through the back door. He might be able to sneak up to his room if he was lucky.

He let himself in. A small light was on in the dining room. He skulked to the stairs leading upstairs. Now all he had to do was avoid the squeaking stair, and make it to his room. He didn't want a confrontation and a lecture.

He hoped he could get through his meeting with the secret agent with his brain intact. He loved it the way it was. He didn't want to lose it because he was too young to fly.

He didn't want to think what would happen if they found out about Beth's super power. They would want to use her as a spy and/or assassin. He vowed not to say anything about her.

Maybe they could wrangle her on the job training as a vet for this Monster Island place. She would love that.

He wouldn't.

He stepped over the stool pigeon step and crept to his bedroom. He gently opened the door and slipped inside.

Jimmy took his clothes and put them in his laundry hamper. He laid down on his bed and thought about tomorrow. He could only see a crash and burn.

He had two problems. The mice king and his dishes seemed to be the more dangerous. The government had longer consequences and a risk of exposure to his parents. He had to solve both of them and he didn't have a clue how.

Maybe Beth would have something, if she didn't flip to the other side for a chance to work on giant turtles.

What would he do if she did?

18

Jimmy Harmon met Beth at the bus stop. He ran his fingers through his hair. He wondered what the government would do to them. He didn't want to be a flying spy.

"I talked to Mark last night." He kept his voice down. He didn't want the other kids at the stop to hear what he had to say. "One of the mice followed him home."

"Is he okay?" Beth thought the bigger boy could take a lot of damage. She didn't want him shredded because he was helping them out.

"He seemed okay," said Jimmy. "He's for this government thing. He wants the money to move out of the house and live on his own."

"We should have went back to check on him and Lars." Beth crossed her arms. "Are we keeping them a secret?"

"Mark wants in." Jimmy shrugged. "He sees it as a job he can do to move out. He acts like his mom is a monster."

"So we talk to this person, and suggest that Mark wants to work for them more than we do," said Beth. "I like that."

"What about the vet school?" Jimmy spotted the yellow bus coming down to where they waited at the head of the cul-de-sac. "Won't this put your own plans on hold? They'll give you money to get through school."

"I don't know." Beth picked up her bag. "I don't want the government knowing what I can do. I would rather sign a non-disclosure agreement and opt out."

"So would I," said Jimmy. "I don't think I'm going to get that choice. They will probably want to take my wings from me."

"Don't run away." Beth gave him a look. "You wouldn't last ten minutes on your own."

"I think that I can." Jimmy glared at her. "How hard can it be?"

"A bunch of people run away all the time." Beth waited for the bus to stop to pick them up. "Most of them are found in a ditch somewhere. Let's hear what the spook has to say before we take off."

"What's this we stuff?" Jimmy frowned at her. He could take care of himself. He had the brains, he had the skills. He didn't need a nursemaid.

"If the deal is bad, I'm not staying around on my own, goob." Beth shook her head at him.

The bus driver hit the lever to open the door for them. She smiled slightly at the pair. The look conveyed the thought they were a cute couple.

"Do you think we can just not take a deal at all?" Jimmy waited for Beth to find a seat before settling in beside her.

"Doubt it." Beth looked out the window. "Let's see what this agent has to say about your wings before we go into panic mode."

"They'll probably want me to give them up." Jimmy pushed back against his seat. He pulled out a notebook and started reading his notes from the day before. He still had tests if he didn't go to work for the government.

The rest of the bus ride passed in silence. The two separated to go to their classes. Usually they met on the way back to the bus ramp to leave school. Jimmy had no idea what they would do if they did have to talk to a government agent.

Tim Bucket appeared to talk to Jimmy when he was at his locker between third and fourth periods. The older boy didn't seem that concerned about what could happen to him and Beth.

"Coach Reilly says he wants you and Beth to meet him and Aylwin in the gym after school." Tim watched the traffic around the locker. "She supposed to be your case officer at the moment."

"Case officer?" Jimmy didn't like that at all. "What does that mean?"

"I guess it's someone who tries to keep you from getting killed by mice." Tim walked away.

"Someone to stop you getting killed by mice." Jimmy made sure to keep his mockery beneath his breath. Tim Bucket threw a three hundred pound jerk through the air without effort. He didn't want to know how far Tim could throw a skinny guy like him.

The thought of flying without his wings paled beside the thought of the landing.

Jimmy spent the rest of the day half-listening to his teachers about subjects he couldn't focus on. He heard the last bell and couldn't remember what it meant. He watched as everyone else left the class with a clatter of chairs and books.

"Jimmy?," said Mrs. Haumon. "Class is over."

"I'm sorry." Jimmy started packing his things. Maybe he could duck the meeting and get on the bus and head home.

"Is something wrong?" Mrs. Haumon looked up from the papers on her desk. She brushed a thread of gray hair from her face.

"I have a meeting with Coach Reilly." Jimmy checked to make sure he had everything. "I'm not looking forward to it."

"It'll be fine." Mrs. Haumon smiled. "Chad has this rough exterior, but inside he is as soft as a noodle."

Jimmy paused. He squinted at his teacher. He could almost believe her. Then he gave it a second thought. Of course, Coach Reilly was nice to other teachers. He couldn't push them around and make them do push-ups until their arms fell off. He couldn't believe she was using his given name.

His mind veered away from the thought of two of the teachers dating like people.

That was something he didn't want to think about.

"Thanks for the encouragement." Jimmy slung his bag over a shoulder. He marched for the door. He didn't dare look her in the eye as long as he thought she was dating the coach. It would be welcoming madness and grief.

Jimmy made it to the hall. He turned to walk down to the gym. He didn't want to be called over the public announcement system. That would be embarrassing as far as he was concerned.

He found Beth heading his direction when he turned the corner to walk down to the gym. She looked like he felt.

"I say we get on the bus and go home," said Jimmy. "Then we can run away and live under new identities."

"No." Beth rolled her eyes as she led the way down the hall. "That's what Reilly expects us to do. We have to go in that gym and lie like rugs."

"There's no way we can tell a lie that big." Jimmy shook his head. "They'll come down on us like hammers."

"You got a plan?," asked Beth. She looked over her shoulder.

"I told you my plan." Jimmy rubbed his face. "Running away is good."

"I'm not big on running away from the government." Beth's eyes glowed when she glanced his way. "I would rather sue."

"Sue for what?" Jimmy paused in confusion. "We're facing criminal charges maybe. Why are we meeting this Aylwin?"

"Because Coach Reilly said we should." Beth paused to match him. "What now?"

"I think this is where we get our brains sucked out of our skulls." Jimmy looked around. "I'll see you around."

"If you run, James Harmon, I will hunt you down and rip your chicken heart out of your chest and show it to you before I drop you in the lake." Beth drew herself up straighter to lend herself more of an imposing stance. "Let's go. You're my meat shield."

Jimmy definitely wanted to run then. He took a step in the opposite direction. A growl stopped him. He fell in beside Beth and walked toward the hall leading to the gym. He didn't want to give her an excuse to follow through on her threat. He didn't think she was joking, and he didn't want to find out.

He liked his chicken heart right where it was.

They walked along the hall in silence. Beth paused by the trophy case next to the gym door. She tapped the glass with a finger before she pushed through to the gym proper. Jimmy held out an arm to keep the door from shutting in his face.

Tim Bucket threw basketballs from half court. The balls swished through the hoop, barely stirring the net. He nodded at the two as he picked up another ball and shot it after a bounce.

"Ever miss?" Beth stood with her arms crossed just inside the door.

"Not anymore." Tim grabbed another ball and put it through the hoop. "And that's the end of your sports career."

"Tell me about it." Beth nodded. Powered sports weren't big, and no one wanted a powered person on a normal team. That would be the equivalent of cheating.

"Kids." Reilly stepped out of the door leading to his office and the boys' locker room. "Let's have our meeting so you can go home."

The trio walked to the door. Reilly held it open for them before letting it close when they were through. They all walked into his cramped office. A slender woman with white hair sat behind the coach's desk. The black suit, tie, and sunglasses she wore set off a few alarm bells for Jimmy and Beth.

The Coach's bulk prevented him from running out the door.

"I'm Agent Aylwin." She motioned for the pair to sit in the visitor's chairs. "Coach Reilly said you had an adventure last night."

"I wouldn't call it that." Jimmy sat down, keeping his bag on his lap. "Mostly it was a bad experience."

"Some of our techs are going over what you reported," said Alywin. "They think it looks like generators for force fields."

"Force fields?," Jimmy frowned. "Why would mice want to set up force fields?"

"Let's start with how you two got involved in this." Aylwin seemed to have two expressions. Neither seemed friendly to Jimmy. "Then we can start thinking about how to get you two out of the situation and dealing with it."

Jimmy told her how he had been testing his wings, the sighting of the mice in operation, the meeting with the other two boys, the investigation, getting shot at by the flying mice, discovering Tim's super power, going home, and meeting with Mark before going to bed. He put in that Mark wanted to be a paid hero, but left out all mention of Beth's powers.

"These mice followed your friend home?," said Aylwin. "What did he plan to do?"

"He said he could track them down to their source." Jimmy didn't know if that was true but figured it was since the boy had tracked him down to his house. "We're supposed to meet tonight to decide what we were going to do about this."

"I would like to meet this Mark, and the Toadmaster." Aylwin stood. "Then you four will be out of this. I'll have someone look into this mouse problem and solve it without you."

"That's fine with me." Jimmy stood. "Heroics are for the birds."

"Mark wants a chance." Beth also stood, but not in preparation for leaving. "Will you give it to him?"

"That's not my department." Aylwin almost smiled. "I'm a liaison with the Strangers, and I decide if my agency should invest resources in a given area. I can put his name in for testing, but it's not up to me whether he gets a job with us, or is put on a team that we work with."

"He needs the money." Beth glared at the older woman. "He wants to set up his own rescue service."

"It's not my department." Aylwin shrugged. "I can ask around, but the agency won't set up a private company for an outsider."

"Then I guess we're done here." Beth started for the door. "Take it easy."

"I guess it was okay meeting you." Jimmy followed his friend out the door. At least they hadn't asked him for his wings. That would have been a hard refusal on his part.

He was the only one touching his wings.

19

Beth led the way down the hall. Jimmy trailed behind her with his head down. What were they supposed to do now? Mark had to be told that the government wanted to talk to him, but not about a job.

How did they find him to let him know?

"The buses are gone," Tim Bucket called as he jogged to catch up with them. "I'll give you two a ride home."

"Give Jimmy a ride home." Beth handed him her bag. "I have to do some things."

"Okay." Tim looked down at the bag in his hands. "What do you want me to do with this?"

"Just leave it at Jimmy's." Beth started for the nearest exit. "I'll pick it up later."

"Come on." Jimmy waved a hand. "She's probably mad your agent turned down Mark before she talked to him."

Beth walked away from the school. She glanced back once. Jimmy and Timmy were headed toward the parking lot. She reached the sidewalk and turned. She had to change clothes and then change bodies before they circled the block.

She could find Mark easily. She could do the same thing he did. Her animal powers allowed that.

Being able to fly meant she could travel as fast as car if she wanted. And she didn't have to explain things to Superboy.

She would have loved to work with real monsters. That would have been neat to study them up close.

She frowned as she found a house surrounded by trees and bushes. It needed someone to come in and prune all the greenery away in her opinion. Until then, she could use it as cover if she hurried.

She ducked down in the bushes. She had her leotard on under her skirt and shirt. She concentrated and became a mouse with horns. She stepped out of the pile of clothes. Then she became human again. She folded her discarded clothes and tied her shoes together by their laces. Now she had to hide her things until she came back for them.

She wished she had a plastic bag to put them in. Then all she had to do was bury them. She looked around for a solution to her problem. If she could hide them, she could get them back later after she explained the situation to Mark.

She spotted a fake rock put in the yard as a decoration. Plants had grown up around it. She lifted the rock up and saw the ground under it was moist and bare of grass. She placed her shoes down, then slid her clothes through the laces. She lowered the plastic ornament over her things.

If they went missing, she would have to explain what happened to them. She would deal with that when she had to do it.

Her mother wouldn't understand, but if she got back and got her clothes back, there shouldn't be a problem about it. Maybe she needed caches all over the city to keep clothes in while she was doing her run.

Beth changed into a bird with a dog head. She headed into the sky. Finding Mark could be easy if he had left enough of his scent at the Launchpad. Then she could trace it back to where he lived. She should have gotten his phone number.

Beth landed in a tree off to one side of the clearing Jimmy used for his experiments. Before building wings, he had shot homemade rockets from there to test his jet designs. She sniffed the air and located several trails to indicate Mark's movements. One of them came from the direction of Jimmy's house.

She followed that scent, flitting from limb to limb. When it left the trees, she turned into a more houndish form with monkey hands and feet to walk on. She paused down the street from a nondescript house that seemed to be the endpoint for her trail. She shrank into a smaller form to locate the spy.

She found the mouse on station next to a window. She turned into a cat with corgi features. She snuck up behind it. It turned, freezing at the sight of a natural enemy. Then it went for the rifle hooked to its jet pack. A paw knocked it to the ground. The jet and rifle were pulled loose from the struggling mouse. A human hand closed around the beast, making sure that it couldn't bite in retaliation.

Beth knocked on the window. She looked around. She needed to think of a way to take her shoes with her when she changed. She didn't like standing in the grass on her bare feet.

Mark opened the window. He looked around for anyone else outside. He waved for her to climb inside the window. She handed him the captured spy. He took the mouse and looked around his room. He dumped out a pencil box. He placed the mouse inside of it and closed the blue plastic lid.

"My mom is napping in her room." Mark whispered as he looked in the direction of mother. "What are you doing here?"

"We had the meet with the spook." Beth kept her own voice down. "She won't give us a chance. I asked about setting you up as a rescue guy. Not her department. She wants to meet you and Lars to tell you to stay away from the mice while she and her fellow spooks handle the problem."

"You're not going to do that." Mark knew the look. His mother had the same face when she decided that something was too frivolous for him to get, or do.

"No." Beth almost smiled. "Capturing your spy gave me an idea. I want you to find Lars and meet me at Jimmy's. I have a plan if Jimmy can do what I want."

"All right." Mark nodded. He paused. Putting his life on the line for nothing was the most frivolous thing he ever considered in his experience. "I think I can find him, but neither one of us have a car to get around fast."

"Do you have a phone?" Beth decided that if he didn't, she would get him one if they kept on as masked heroes.

"No." Mark frowned. "It's frivolous."

"This is my number." Beth gave him the number to her phone. "As soon as you talk to Lars, call me. Borrow a phone from someone. I'll arrange a pick-up for you. Jimmy has my phone right now. I couldn't carry it with me while I looked for you. Hopefully, Jimmy will have things set where we can work on our problem. Let me have the mouse. I need it for what I am going to do."

Mark handed her the box. She nodded as the mouse scurried inside the container.

"If I can't call you, where do you want to meet?" Mark figured that was a good precaution.

"The Launchpad." Beth shrugged. "We all know where it is, and it's close to Jimmy's."

"Got it." Mark nodded. He listened to the house. He grabbed a windbreaker from the hook over his closet door and slipped it on. He dropped out of the window. "Let's get this done. Did she really say not her department?"

"Twice." Beth started walking, box in her hands. "She did say you could go in and get tested and maybe they would give you a job."

"That sounds marvelous." Mark turned to close his window. When he turned back, Beth was gone. He paused. "Okay, that was freaky."

Beth flew back to where she left her clothes. This form was the perfect body for what she needed at the minute. She wondered if the mouse was giving her position away with the cybernetics she thought was inside it. She couldn't help that. She had to get help and the only one who could was Jimmy.

If the mouse had a tracking device built in, maybe he could trace it back to the source of the mice.

Beth found the house where she had left her belongings. She squeezed through the trees and lifted the fake rock. Her things were still there. She gathered them up and took to the air again.

If Jimmy couldn't help with the mouse, maybe there was someone else they could call on for help. She racked her brain for the name of someone who knew anything about altered animals. She gave it up with the decision that Google could help her when she landed at the shed.

She landed on the roof of the shed and looked around. No one seemed to be around. She changed back to her human form, and pulled on her clothes and shoes over her tights. She decided to give Mark some more time before she got worried about whether he had tracked Lars down. Flying across town had to be much faster than just walking.

She grabbed the mouse box and walked around to the shed door. If Jimmy was inside, they could start on her plan. If he wasn't, she would check to see if he was in the big house.

"Come in." Jimmy called out.

Beth walked into the lab.

"I need you to look at this mouse, Jimmy." She handed over the box. "I think it might be connected to the boss of mice."

"The boss of mice?" Jimmy opened the box a little and stared at the mouse. It stared back at him. "It's got a camera on its head."

"That's what I thought when I saw it too." Beth took the mouse out of the box and held it in her hand. "Can you trace the signal?"

"I guess so." Jimmy frowned as he looked around. "Here, put him in this beaker."

Beth dropped the mouse inside the glass container. He scrabbled at the sides with his tiny claws.

"Do you have any treats for him?," said Beth. "That might keep him calm."

"I think we have some cheese up in the kitchen." Jimmy slid open a cabinet. He pulled out something that looked like a radio. "Tell Mom I need a snack."

Beth jogged to the house. She hoped she hadn't exposed their identities to the king mouse. She reached the back door and knocked. She hoped the sketchy plan she put in motion would work out.

She decided that was a lot of hope involved in what they were trying to do.

"Hello, Beth." Mr. Harmon opened the door. "What's going on?"

"Jimmy asked me to get him some cheese from the refrigerator." Beth put on her cheery face. "He's doing some kind of experiment that needs it."

"No problem." Mr. Harmon led the way to the fridge. He opened the door and picked out a couple of slices of cheese. "Here you go."

"Thanks, Mr. Harmon." Beth took the cheese with a smile.

"Do you know what the experiment is about?" Mr. Harmon frowned at the shed through the back window.

"Nope." Beth jogged out of the back door and back to the shed. She entered the shed and unwrapped the slices of cheese. She placed the transparent sheets on a desk. She folded the cheese and dropped it inside the beaker with the mouse. He sniffed it before tasting a small piece.

"I think I got a signal." Jimmy twisted the dials on his machine. "I need to take this and track down another line to triangulate the source."

"So you can get a fix on the mice?" Beth smiled. Maybe her scheme wasn't so crazy after all.

"It'll take a while." Jimmy nodded. "Keep an eye on him while I change. It looks like we're going to have to fly around to figure out where we need to go."

Beth picked up the beaker. The mouse looked up at her. She knew he was a spy for the bad guy, but he was cute. Maybe they could keep him after they took the camera off of him.

Maybe they could use him as their spy.

20

Mark Whittaker made his way through the stands of trees around the Launchpad clearing. His nose picked out a trail for him. Lars's scent stood out from the rest of the grass and foliage, wandering animals, and the rare person. He tracked it back to the lake, then paused to take in which way he should go.

He sniffed the air and picked the right. He figured Lars had either swam the lake, or walked around it to get to where he had to go. The scent markers were stronger to the right.

Mark worked his way along the lake, skirting the do not swim signs, and danger: do not drink the water signs. His nose pointed him to a walled place surrounded by trees. A small Buddha sat by the main gate. It waved at anyone passing on this dirt road to head north of the city.

Mark smiled. It seemed that this could be the place. It seemed odd that Buddhist monks would settle in Minnesota, but everyone had to be somewhere sometime.

He walked to the gate. He didn't see a bell button, or a knocker. He frowned. How was he supposed to tell them he was outside and needed to talk to Lars about the mice?

He pushed on the gate. It swung open. He smiled. That was a simple answer to his problem.

He followed his nose. His stomach rumbled at the cooking traces wafting through the air. He should have made himself a sandwich before leaving to track Lars down. His inner self's grumbling reminded him of that error as he walked forward.

He promised it he would get something to eat as soon as dealt with the mice army.

He paused when he reached the central building of the place. The cooking smell drifted from behind the converted house. Should he keep following his nose, or knock on the door? He decided that knocking might be the way to go in this case.

If no one came to the door, he could investigate the rest of the place.

Mark banged on the front door with a fist. He paused to listen. He didn't want to keep banging if someone was already on the way.

"Hello?" The speaker revealed by the open door was an Asian, smaller and thinner than Mark, and had shaved his head bald. He looked up at the big teenager with a quizzical expression.

"How you doing?," said Mark. He smiled to show how harmless he was. The doorman stepped back, raising one hand on guard. "I would like to speak to Brother Lars. I need his help."

"You know Brother Lars?" The door man didn't try to hide his disbelief.

"He's green," said Mark. He wasn't sure how deep he wanted to go as a descriptor. He didn't want a fight with someone who carried himself with the authority of having trained in something, and stood ready to use it.

"Please wait here." The door man shut the door in Mark's face.

Mark looked at the grounds while he waited. He approved of the various scents drifting to him lazily. He could spend hours in place just sniffing the air.

The door opened. Lars stuck his head out to look at his visitor. He wore a contemplative expression on his face.

"The others have found some way to find the mice army." Lars nodded at the look on his new friend's face. "And they want us to help them out."

"Exactly." Mark smiled. "I need to call Beth if you're in. Can I borrow a phone?"

"Yes." Lars stepped out of the way so that the huge teen could walk into the hall. A small stick burned in a decorated stone urn beside a phone plugged into the wall. It had a dial on the front which took Mark a minute to figure out.

He dialed Beth's number by using the end of his finger on the tops of the holes in the dial. He smiled when the phone buzzed in his ear to tell him his call was going through.

"This is Beth." Beth sounded bored. "What's up?"

"Lars is going to help us." Mark nodded. "Do you have anything for us?"

"Jimmy is tracing the signal from the captured mouse." Beth sounded calm over the phone. "He's hoping to triangulate the line so we know where the bad guys are."

"I got that." Mark cursed not having a car. That would have been something useful in the fight against mutant menaces.

"I don't know where the lines are going to cross," said Beth. "Where are you?"

"I tracked Lars to a fenced place by the lake." Mark considered how far he had to walk. "It's on the other side from the woods."

"I'm coming to pick you up." Beth huffed. "I'm going to send a message to Jimmy so he will call when he figures out where the signal is coming from."

"How are you coming to pick us up?" Mark didn't think she could drive. Was he wrong about that?

"Don't worry about that," said Beth. "Just go outside so I can see you and not go to the wrong house."

"This phone is attached to the wall, so I won't be able to talk to you." Mark turned over the implication of being picked up far out from the city's bus system. What could Beth do?

"Don't worry about that," said Beth. "As soon as you hang up, I'll be on my way to where you are."

"See you then." Mark put the earpiece on the cradle. He scratched his long nose. He wondered if he wanted to see how Beth planned to pick them up. "She said we should wait outside for her to come pick us up."

"I think she has a dragon that she can use." Lars led the way from the foyer. "I saw it once. She didn't want to tell how she knew it."

"That makes sense." Mark clumped through the converted house. "A dragon is something we can use to clean house."

"I think it would be overkill." Lars smiled. "We are only dealing with mice."

"These are some mean mice, my friend." Mark smiled. "A dragon doesn't seem that much when your enemy is like a swarm of yellowjackets and you can't fly."

"You have me there." Lars stepped outside, walking down to the middle of the gardens cultivated by the brothers. He shrugged in his shirt, pulling it down under the tied belt he wore.

Mark joined him, sniffing the air. The scents drifting around them tickled his nose. He snorted quietly.

The beating of wings drew their attention to the sky. A large shape descended toward them, eclipsing the setting sun. Mark hoped it was friendly just before it set down in the garden with a flap of its bat wings.

"A dragon." Lars didn't bother to raise his hands to guard. Something that big would chomp him in half before he could do anything.

"Bigger than I thought." Mark looked around. No one else was in the garden to help them deal with the dragon.

"Come on." Beth's voice came out of the large cat-like face of the thing. "Climb on my back. We have to get going."

"Beth?" Mark walked closer to the huge animal in front of him.

"Yeah." Beth nodded. "Let's go. Jimmy says the signal is moving. We have to head it off and find out how to stop the horde."

"What do you mean it's moving?" Mark didn't see any way to climb on her back gently. He should have asked his mother for a bike so he would have had some kind of experience of riding something. He knew the answer would have been it was too frivolous, but it would have been something to try.

"Jimmy says the signal is moving." She wrapped a claw around Mark and tossed him into the air. "We're going to have to move fast."

Lars bounded to a shoulder, settling ahead of the wings already spreading out around him. He leaned forward as the snake-like body leaped into the air on its short legs. He helped Mark to a seat as the transformed Beth flew under the bigger boy.

She headed toward the city, flapping her wings to climb, gliding when she reached a height she liked. A blue spark in the distance indicated Jimmy riding the air on his artificial wings.

She climbed for height, then swooped down to catch up to her flying friend. Yellow eyes searched the air for threats. How long could they trace the signal before the mouse king decided to express his displeasure at their interference?

She doubted it would take long. He obviously didn't like witnesses or meddlers. They were both at this point.

Mark sniffed the air. A familiar taint pushed against his nose. He nodded. They were on the right track. The mouse fuel was in the air.

"Get ready." Mark leaned forward to make himself heard by Lars and Beth. "I can smell that jet fuel in the air. They might be getting ready for a charge."

"Great." Beth made a beeline through the darkening sky. She had to catch up with Jimmy. He was a sitting duck if a majority of the things decided to wipe him out.

A truck hauling a trailer slowed on the road ahead. The back doors opened slowly. Blue dots floated in the air inside the darkened trailer.

"Here we go." Mark nodded. "It's show time."

The top of the trailer peeled back to reveal squat monstrosities of metal and plastic. Lasers were mounted on the arms where hands would be on a human. Radar dishes resembled ears on the square heads. Small missile launchers were visible in the chest area.

"Machine Mickey Mice." Mark covered his mouth with his hand. "We're fighting Mickey Mouse's uglier brothers. I can't believe this."

21

Jimmy Harmon would have run from the opposition exposing its numbers to him. The only reason he stayed was Beth trying to catch up to him and the truck in front of him. He couldn't run with her ready to rip out his chicken heart.

He had to do something desperate.

He looked down at his signal receiver in his hands. He had built it out of scrap for a science fair. It had helped him fine-tune his wings when the computer models hadn't. It had to do one more thing for him.

He threw the receiver at the jet mice rushing him from the back of the truck. He didn't think he would hit any of them. He just wanted room to run. If they followed him, that would be less for Beth and the others to deal with on top of the three mechs rising from the back of the truck.

The equipment box flew through the air on a less than perfect arc. It caught some of the mice as they scattered from the projectile. He didn't look to see how many were down. He turned right from the truck and flew away.

He knew the mastermind wouldn't let him get free if the enemy could help it. He had already tracked Mark down. As soon as Mark led him to the rest of them, it would have been game over. Now the jet mice had to chase him to make sure he crashed. He just had to fly better than them to make his getaway, or cause them to crash.

Jimmy glanced over his shoulder. He frowned at the small horde chasing after him. He needed to lose them somehow.

He eyed the battlefield as he roared at full throttle across the sky. The truck had picked a road that linked to other roads leading it around Marlowe, without hooking up to the highway at any place. The current area was semi-wooded with small farms and family houses spreading out. The only bystanders he had to worry about were traffic on the road while he dodged the mice.

Maybe some cows and other domestic animals if he flew low enough around the farms could be a problem if he didn't watch out for them.

The mice started shooting at him as he decided to use the trees as cover. He dodged around the trunks, flying under the lowest branches so he didn't have to block with his winged arms. The last thing he wanted was to rip out some of the vanes and ground himself.

The mice swarmed around the trees, firing as they went. Purple light flashed by. A couple scored marks along Jimmy's wings as he fled. Small fires started on leaves and pine needles from misses.

Jimmy tried to think of a way to dump the mice. He didn't have any means to shoot back, and thought turning and charging them would allow them to fill him full of holes.

His parents wouldn't like that.

He didn't think that much of the idea either.

Jimmy decided to take the jet mice back to the mobile battlefield. The truck was still moving. The three machine mice had started shooting at Beth and the others. Maybe he could use things to his advantage.

He aimed for the three metal mice. One of them turned to shoot at him with the same type of lasers the smaller ones used. He dodged as best he could. Smoke lit up from one of his wings from a hit. He could feel a loss of control. He gritted his teeth. He couldn't crash now.

At least some of his pursuit had gone up in balls of flame from the barrage. That was something.

Mark came out of nowhere and flung the machine to the road. He had burns on his arms and legs from trying to get close to the robots. The thing hit the road in a crash of metal. An explosion lifted it up in a bounce. Then it crashed down on its back and burned in place.

Jimmy swerved to avoid a swinging arm. At least two of the jet mice crashed into that metal mouse. The robot tipped backwards from the impact. A webbed hand grabbed hold and helped it over the wall of the trailer. It bounced but didn't blow up like the first one had.

The third one fired rockets from its chest launchers at Mark as Jimmy kept going. He couldn't turn on a dime to help out, and he still had his own problems to deal with at the moment. There just weren't as many now.

He headed for the downed mouse. It was trying to get back on its metal feet so it could start shooting at him and his friends again. And he had the rest of the tiny mice behind him. An explosion marked the rockets hitting something and blowing up. He hoped it wasn't any of his friends as he tried to decide what he wanted to do.

He decided to try to knock the robot down. If he could keep it out of the fight, it would buy time for Beth to come back and deal with it. Maybe he could get it to shoot itself if he was lucky enough.

Violet light forming a net around him changed his plans. He swerved right away from the robot. Lasers dug into the machine. Its return fire struck the chasing jet mice. Some of the bolts hit the rocket launchers in the chest and something caught fire.

The winged hero decided that he should clear the area. Fire next to explosives couldn't be good in his opinion.

Jimmy turned right again. The swarm was caught trying to turn with him while not crashing into their big brother. Some of them didn't execute the turnaround fast enough and slammed into the smoking machine.

He headed back to the truck. There was one more monster he needed to help beat. Then they could stop the truck and see if there was anything that would lead to the mastermind behind everything.

The large creature that used to be Beth had the last robot in its clutches. It smashed the robot against the truck cab. The thing bent under the abuse as the roof came off the truck.

A robot arm drove the truck along. A small screen showed the programmed route so the vehicle stayed on the same roads until orders came in for it to change direction.

"Let's shut this down," said Mark. "Then we can decide what to do about this."

"I totally agree." Lars kept an eye out for danger. "We have wrecked parts of the road and surrounding neighborhood. We need to stop this truck, and then check to make sure no one was hurt in the fighting."

"Let me see what I can do." Jimmy dropped in the passenger seat. He picked up the screen. He noted a stylus and realized the thing was touch programmable. He pulled the stylus out of its holder. He tapped the screen. Buttons appeared.

He touched the power button. The engine turned off. The truck rolled to a stop.

Jimmy ran the stylus over the screen. He noted that a list of locations popped up with some careful searching. He put them on the map. Most were in the tight circle the truck drove in. One stood alone on side of the lake away from the city.

Was that where the mouse king hid?

He had hoped to find something else to help them. What was he missing? This was the base for the spies, but maybe it was also a relay station for the signal. Did the mouse king know they stopped the truck?

He must know his guys had been put down.

What would he do to cover his tracks?

Why was a number countdown running on the map screen?

"We have to get out of here!" Jimmy jumped into the air. He grabbed Lars by the waist and took him along as he headed straight up from the rig.

Beth grabbed Mark with a claw and followed with flaps of her big wings. She decided to turn the climb into a diagonal flight path instead of trying to claw her way straight up with the huge weight in her grasp.

The truck and trailer turned into fireballs as they fled from it. Debris flew from the blast, but none of it came close to where they flew in the sky.

"That was close." Mark grinned his shark grin. "Thanks for the save."

"It looks like we solved something," Beth grumbled. "We don't know if we stopped things."

"There was a map coordinate on the truck's system." Jimmy handed Lars off so he could fly smoother. "I'm going to check it out. I'll let you guys know what I find."

"Don't do it, Jimmy." Beth placed Lars and Mark on her back. "It has to be defended against the likes of us."

"Don't worry." He told the GPS in his helmet the numbers. A small arrow appeared. "I'm not going to do anything stupid. Besides we should get out of here before the police, or Aylwin's goon squad, show up."

"Let us get a look at this place." Mark looked at the other three to hear him out. "Then we can decide how we should take the place down. Maybe we can call the government in and let them do the hard work for us."

"I agree with Mark," said Lars. "I think we have caused enough destruction for the day."

"I think they are right." Beth grumbled from the bigger body she wore. "We shouldn't just fly into another dangerous situation just because we can. We should look at it from a distance."

"So we should look at it from a distance?," said Jimmy. He nodded in agreement. "The map says the spot is north of the lake. I'll lead the way and land far enough away radar won't pick us up. We'll have to fly low to try to stay under anything pointed at the sky."

"Cameras will probably be everywhere." Mark smiled. "This guys is smart despite using mice as his enforcers. He probably saw us taking his guys down. He'll be waiting for us. I can feel it."

"So we're on the same page?," Beth asked.

"I think so." Mark stared at Jimmy.

"All right." Jimmy nodded. "I won't do anything to get killed like doing a fly by."

"Lead the way." Beth flapped her wings and leaped into the air. "I'll be right behind you."

The two flew through the sky. Jimmy kept his speed down as he led the way. He felt he could leave Beth behind but knew it was a bad idea. She would get even with him. He knew that from past experience.

Lake Marlowe glittered below them as they soared along.

22

Jimmy landed in a the shadow of some bushes. He looked around, letting his helmet evaluate the air for him. It seemed too hot.

Why was it too hot? He figured something was letting exhaust in the air. It had to be something big.

Beth dropped down beside him. She returned to normal long enough to drop Lars and Mark to the ground. Then she became a lizard with a cat-like body and horns.

"We have a lot of infrared and ultraviolet." Beth's form chirped. "The detectors form a net around that house. I can't see anything near the walls."

"I don't smell any of the local animals coming close." Mark sniffed the air. "But there is the fuel smell in the air."

"So this is the bad guy base." Lars looked around. "The monastery is to the south. We could retreat there to figure out a way through the net."

"I don't think we can." Jimmy pointed. "I think we're on camera. If we head to the monastery, we'll be putting the brothers in danger."

"We better make a decision soon." Mark looked around. "If they come at us here, Beth is the only one who can get away before the jet mice chew us up with their laser guns."

"I can get in and shut the net down." Beth flicked her tongue out. "Do we go in, or run away?"

"We have to go in." Jimmy shook his head. "If we don't, the mice king will come after us. We have to do something about him. If you can open the way for us, we'll go in and see what we can do to put a stop to things."

"All right." Beth changed shape and vanished into the grass. "I'll give you some kind of signal when the net is down."

Jimmy triggered the cell in his helmet. He dialed the school number and routed his call to the gym. He left a message for the coach to find in case they didn't make it out alive. At least the government would be able to act on what they had found.

A burst of light blew out a window. Part of the porch caught fire. A shower of sparks danced from the fire.

"I think that's the signal." Mark charged forward. He smiled when nothing popped out of the ground and started shooting at him.

Lars bounded across the ground. He covered ten feet with every hop. He passed Mark easily and reached the porch first.

Jimmy triggered his wings and took to the air. He flew by Mark and landed with a puff of air next to Lars. He folded his wings to keep them from fowling.

Lars tried the door. The knob didn't move. He went to the broken window. He shook his head.

"Something is blocking the room from being entered." Lars stepped back next to the wall. "I think the front room has been altered into some kind of engine room."

"We have to get inside to help Beth." Jimmy peeked inside the hole. "Do you think you can get inside the narrow space?"

"I think I can." Lars frowned. "I don't think I can open a way for you and Mark."

"Get in there and see if you can break something." Jimmy ducked as sparks leaped out of the window. "We need to shut this down."

The house started shaking. The boys looked at each other. This couldn't be good. Mark receded from their point of view.

"What's going on?," asked Lars. He grabbed the porch railing to keep from falling from his spot.

"I think something is lifting the house." Jimmy went to the edge of the porch and looked at the ground. "This thing has legs."

"You're kidding me." Lars closed his eyes. "How do we stop it?"

Jimmy watched as arms and hands unfolded from the sides of the house. He covered his face with a hand. They were standing on a porch of a transforming robot. How were they going to stop that?

He doubted they could handle a giant robot.

"See if you can get inside and break stuff." Jimmy took a breath. "I'm going to try to keep it distracted until you can take things apart."

"I don't think that's a good idea right now." Lars shook his head. "I think we should get some help from somewhere."

"I don't think that help is on the way." Jimmy looked at the hand rising on one side. Barrels of light gleamed as they pointed at him. "Go!"

Jimmy triggered his wings and jet. He spun out of control for a moment as he leaped from the porch. He didn't like the way the laser cannons turned to follow his erratic flight. Violet light flew like lightning as he spun through the air.

Lars looked around. He was alone, and the other hand of the house robot was lifting to take aim at the other two boys. He didn't see a way to stop it. Maybe he could block the barrel with something if he was lucky.

What did he have to work with on the wooden porch? He wondered what a piece of wood would do. He stepped to give himself room to kick one of the rails holding the roof of the porch up. He kicked the wood column at the base, tearing it away from the nails holding it in place. He jumped up and kicked the top. The square pillar leaned out of place, held up by being nailed to the rails that formed a picket around the porch. One shove freed the makeshift staff from its holders.

The other hand lifted to shoot at Mark lumbering towards the house. Lars acted on instinct and jammed the staff he had created into a hole in the end of the closet finger. He hopped back out of the way.

The finger exploded when the weapon fired. Lars wondered if he was still standing too close as that arm froze in place. He decided he should go.

Lars hopped off the porch. He landed lightly on the ground and ran away from the house on legs. He passed Mark and kept going.

Mark slid to a stop. What did his friend know that he didn't? He decided to ask that question face to face if he could keep up.

The left hand of the robot ejected flames in the air as the arm shook. The arm came apart in a blast of heat and light. Fire and smoke roiled the air from the open shoulder socket. The front of the disguise flew through the air on the wings of the blast.

Jimmy felt the wind behind him and opened up the throttle of his jet. He didn't look back as the wave caught up with him and sent him spinning through the air. He tried for a turn before crashing into the ground. He didn't try to climb, or dive, since he didn't know which way was up.

He wasn't going to blow himself up by diving headfirst into dirt at high speed.

Jimmy twisted and righted himself as he came out of his turn. He hadn't thought Lars could wreck anything from the outside, but the green boy had done a job on the robot with one simple move.

He hoped Beth hadn't been hurt in the backlash. He needed to get her out of the thing. How did he do it?

If she was okay, he knew she could get out of the mess on her own. Her power should let her do that.

He executed another turn to loop around the robot. Maybe he could do something with the hole in it.

The laser hand shot bolts out but it didn't seem able to aim properly. He didn't question the luck. He swept around to get at the burning wound.

The body of the robot rotated. He saw the metal hand sweeping down to crush him. He pulled up. He took a glancing blow that sent him looping into the ground. He laid there and tried to catch his breath. Critical alerts from his helmet told him he wasn't flying out of this mess when he could get to his feet.

He wondered why he couldn't feel anything. He decided that maybe he couldn't get to his feet. He spotted the hand pointing its laser fingers at him. He tried to move, but everything felt distant and disconnected.

This is where I die. All I wanted to do is fly. Now I'm going to die because of a house robot.

This is a stupid way to die.

A rock the size of a car crashed into the robot. That rocked it back so its shot missed Jimmy. His helmet filtered out the burning deaths of the various plants around him.

"You took a hit, buddy." Mark appeared in Jimmy's view. "Let's see if we can get you out of here."

Another rock barreled across the sky as Mark picked Jimmy up and slung him over his shoulder. He ambled away from the staggering robot.

Jimmy felt pain shooting up his spine as he bounced along. He gritted his teeth to avoid yelling at his rescuer for jostling him.

Tim Bucket and Lars stood next to a pile of small rocks. Tim wore a costume that resembled a baseball catcher's uniform. A T was painted on the front of the chest protector he wore.

"I thought we told you to not do something like this, genius." Tim put his hand on another rock. He pitched it at one of the robot's legs, knocking the support away.

"Beth's inside." Jimmy smiled as pain shot through him with every word. "Have to get her out."

"Idiot." Tim shook his head. He touched a mike button built into his helmet. "Wing boy says his girlfriend is in the robot."

"She is going to kick your butt if she hears you saying stuff like that." Mark smiled at the newcomer.

"I have to agree." Lars shook his head.

"Not my girlfriend." Jimmy managed the words through the pain.

A figure in gray swooped down, landing on two feet with a hard thump. He gently dropped a girl slightly older than the boys on the ground. She wore her dark hair in braids and army fatigues. She grimaced at the house robot trying to regain its balance.

"What do you think, Thia?," said Coach Reilly. His shape was a silhouette except for the white E on one side of his chest.

"Piece of cake, E." She raised her hands. A rifle with too many barrels appeared as she sighted through the screen on top.

"One of us is inside." Mark stepped in the way of the gun. "We don't want her hurt."

"I got it, big boy." She looked up from the screen. "Step out of the way so I can do what I got to do."

Mark reluctantly stepped out of the way. His face said he didn't like the thought of munitions being used when they didn't know where Beth was in the robot. The giant rocks had been enough of a risk.

A crippled Jimmy was bad enough. He shouldn't have let them keep going when it became obvious the mice were dangerous. He should have told their parents and let things fall where they did.

Now he might be out of two new friends.

Thia pulled the trigger on her rifle. The barrels spun and then buzzed. She raised the rifle to inspect her work. The robot stood on one leg. Then it fell over.

"EMP gun." Jimmy smiled under his mask. "Why didn't I think of that?"

"We need to get him to a medic." Reilly grimaced as he watched the robot. It burned in place from the earlier fire. "And we need to get Beth out of that thing."

"Go ahead." Thia let the rifle vanish as she dropped her arms. "I think we can handle the rest from here."

"Thia's right." Tim grabbed a baseball from a bag hanging from his hip. "If they can't get out of that wreck to escape, we might have to open it up for them."

"Come on, Harmon." Reilly picked Jimmy up. "I got someone who can fix you right up."

He floated gently into the air and vanished to the south, toward the lake.

The four strangers walked to where the robot laid on the ground. A puff of smoke revealed a turtle chihuahua holding a mouse in its hooked jaws leaping from the hole where the left arm used to be.

"Put me down, you imbecile," said the mouse. "Things can't end this way."

"Man, are you wrong." Mark took the mouse in a big hand. "It looks like it's the big house for you, my friend."

Epilogue

Jimmy Harmon flexed his arms, twisting his upper body. He still felt sore. He had been told that might not go away. There was only so much they could do with their miracle machine. As long as he could fly, he would put that down to a win.

Mr. Dorfman didn't quite know how the machine worked, but he had it stashed in his hat. When Coach Reilly had carried him in, they were afraid he might be dying.

Three weeks after stopping the mouse king, he was ready to fly again.

"Ready to go?," said Mark Whittaker in his radio.

"Sure thing, Mark." Jimmy spread his wings. "Have you got the search grid yet?"

"Not really." Mark sounded comfortable wherever he was. "I just got something with the scent. Lars and I are about to start north of where Katy was last seen."

"Right." Jimmy launched into the air. "I heading north right now. I should be over the search area in a couple of minutes."

"Just look for the choppers." Mark cut the line.

Jimmy headed toward where they had confronted the mouse king. Medevah National Park was north of the crater where the disguised house had burst out of the ground and nearly killed him. It was a good thing he had left Coach Reilly that message, or he would be dead instead of sore.

Jimmy reached the invisible border of the park marked by his mapping app in his helmet. He noted the helicopters and the way they circled the park in the hopes of seeing one little girl in the middle of all that green. Search parties on the ground were also beating the bushes.

Jimmy doubted they could do much to add to the effort, but Mark and Beth had insisted. They had proven they could protect the city, and Beth had basically declared she would do whatever she needed to do to keep acting. Agent Aylwin and Coach Reilly had agreed to give them some leeway. Mr. Dorfman had already told Jimmy to call him before doing anything else stupid.

Mrs. Dorfman had given him some cookies to take with him when he went home.

"Can you hear me, Jimmy?" Beth's voice sounded clear over his rig. He wondered if she had mastered using the radio while wearing one of her forms.

"Loud and clear, Beth." Jimmy circled, eyes peeled. He didn't see her through the trees.

"You're flying at my three o'clock." She still didn't make herself visible. "See if you can keep flying north, following the closest stream."

"Sure." Jimmy lined up with north and flew away. If Beth wanted to keep up on the ground, there should be something she could turn herself into to do the job.

She might be following the scent like Mark would be doing. Their respective powers made them the group's best trackers.

He didn't begrudge them that. He was still the fastest flier with his wings.

Mark had grinned like a bear trap when Aylwin helped him start his small rescue company. He had already made plans to move out of his mother's house and find somewhere else to live.

His mother had tried to get the group to point out how things could go wrong for him. Jimmy had simply said if things went bad, then they would pull together to make them right.

Beth and Lars had said nothing. Beth had been too mad. Lars had taken the position that he could only make things worse.

The brothers gave Lars permission to help out. He promised the monastery his part of the money for upkeep and general assistance for the monks.

Jimmy followed the stream. He had no clue why the lost girl would follow it upstream, but if she did, she might have gotten confused which way she should go. Not everyone knew that you should follow water downstream if you were lost.

He hadn't known before the lecture from Mark on woods survival and being lost.

"This is Mark." The big guy seemed happy enough over the radio. "Lars and I are starting from where the mother says she lost Katy. The trail looks good heading north."

"I'm north of that spot and have lost the trail close to a stream." Beth sounded unhappy over the radio. "I'm trying to find the trail again."

"Nothing to report." Jimmy landed at the top of a tree. He grabbed the trunk to steady himself. He looked around, letting his helmet do the work for him.

Various filters kicked in, excluding things while enhancing others. Finally it showed a fading hot trail on the ground. It didn't look right for an animal, but it could be right for a little girl.

"I have possible footprints where I am." Jimmy wondered how he could send his location to the others. That was something he had never thought of when putting the wings and helmet together. He checked his map and found he had latitude and longitude numbers. He smiled. "This is where I am. Is anybody else supposed to be up this far?"

He hoped that the search party hadn't sent scouts up for him to stumble over. It would be embarrassing to get excited over a fire fighter, or ranger, ahead of the pack.

"That's a negative for the search party, Jimmy," said Mark. "It might be a hunter, but none of the searchers have covered that much area yet."

"I'll follow these prints as far as I can." Jimmy stooped to try to get a better look. "If they don't check out, I'll let you know."

"All right." Mark huffed slightly. "Lars and I are still coming north on foot. I don't know how long we'll take to get to the end of the trail."

"Take your time." Jimmy launched into the air. He spread his wings as he drifted just above the treetops. He spotted movement ahead. This might be the end of the search.

He spotted the girl and smiled. He landed and folded his wings.

"Katy Lenz?" He hoped he wasn't scaring her. He hadn't thought about what his suit and wings would look like to a kid. "Everybody is searching for you."

"Who are you?," the girl said. She looked at the stream. She edged that way.

"I'm the Shrike." Jimmy felt silly having to give a code name to the little girl. "I'm working with the rangers to find you."

"I'm heading home." Katy shook her head at him. "I don't need you, or rangers."

"You need something." Jimmy pointed downstream. "That way is the lake, and the city beyond that. The way you're going leads to Canada."

"That way leads to the lake?" Katy looked downstream. The water babbled along beside her. "I must have gotten turned around by the bear."

"Bear?," said Jimmy. "What bear?"

"That bear." Katy pointed behind him.

He turned slowly. A bear stood at the trees. It glared at the two intruders in its domain. It growled as it stood on its back legs.

If it charged, Jimmy didn't know if he could get in the air fast enough to avoid its claws. He might be ripped up by those large talons.

"All right." Jimmy started backing away slowly. He opened his arms to spread his wings out in case he had to fly. "My friends are looking for you downstream. If the bear charges, jump in the water and float down to them."

"Okay," said Katy. She backed along the edge of the stream.

Jimmy backed away from the bear as slowly as he dared. He had to keep looking over his shoulder to keep from tripping. If he fell, that might be an incentive for a charge.

The bear advanced on the winged boy. It snuffled the air as it came. He prepared to fire his jet and take to the sky. He doubted his system would work if he had to carry Katy in his arms. It would force him to spin as he went which might cause a crash.

If they went down, the bear could maul the both of them at its leisure. One bite would kill Katy. He might last a little longer thanks to his suit. He had padded it to help survive a crash. It might help against bears.

He hoped it would help against bears. He didn't want to go home without body parts.

"I think it's going to charge," said Katy. "I think it will."

"Just keep going." Jimmy didn't want to leave her if he had to take off. The bear would chase her down in the water. She wouldn't make a good meal for it.

A large figure dropped down from the sky. It grinned at the bear, raising its arms. It laughed loudly.

"Take off," said Mark. "I can hold Winnie the Pooh off until you two get clear."

"I will be happy to assist." Lars landed lightly beside the wider boy. "I know some things that can be used against bears."

"All right," said Jimmy. "So the four of us are going to get mauled. At least Beth won't see this mess."

"Who do you think dropped us off?," asked Mark. "She flew down and picked us up and brought us up here to help you with your footprints."

"Only now we are helping you with your bear," said Lars.

A winged horse with a horn growing out of its snout flapped to a landing next to Katy. It stomped a hoof on touchdown.

"Someone put her on my back," said Beth. "I'll take her back to the rangers."

The bear stood up and looked confused. The spread of targets made it pause. Which should it attack first?

Jimmy ran over and grabbed the little girl by the waist. He hefted her to a seat on the alicorn's back with a heave.

"Hold on, Katy." Beth flapped her wings and took to the air. The little girl clung to her neck.

"I think we can take off now." Jimmy spread his wings once more. "Our job is done."

He fired his jet and followed Beth into the sky.

"Go ahead, Lars." Mark gestured at the other boy with a hand. "I can handle this if it goes bad."

Lars dove into the stream. He swam with the current, vanishing from sight.

The bear looked at Mark one more time. It turned around and shambled away.

Mark smiled. He turned and walked the other way.

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