Like Everyone Else

by Dark Mirage1

How far will people go to fit in, be liked, or be attractive? Are there any limits? Desperate to appear 'normal',mutants are risking substandard surgery, sometimes with fatal results. Alternative Universe story.This is NOT a chapter-part of a short story

2011

"Thank you all for coming. My name is Mason Eckhart, and I am head of the Genetic Security Agency. I cannot impress upon you strongly enough the need to keep what you learn here secret. To do otherwise could possibly lead to public panic, and injury or death to innocents. I urge you to carry these secrets to your graves."

I looked over my audience to assure myself that everyone was taking me seriously. If they are not serious now, they might laugh at later portions of this presentation.

"You are probably aware of Genomex as a world leader in the application of genetic engineering in plants and lower animals. These applications have benefited man, beast, and plant globally. Nearly everyone in the developed world and many in the third world has been touched by a Genomex development. That is the public history of the corporation to be found in any of the annual reports distributed to shareholders or in news releases. These claims are not exaggerated. They are true.

However, from the beginning when Genomex was founded by Dr Paul Breedlove and Dr Eleanor Singer, the company has pursued a secret agenda, sometimes in partnership with US intelligence agencies. This agenda involved the genetic manipulation of human embryos, individuals who otherwise would have been as normal as any of us."

"As well as I have been able to determine, the first successful –viable-- Genomex-engineered mutant was born in 1968. Small numbers were created in the 1970s, with great numbers in the late 1970s/early 1980s. We have records about twelve hundred created at Genomex, but many more were created elsewhere at satellite facilities with casual record-keeping. You must also understand that there is a second generation, and even a third, the progeny of the first mutants. Their traits were heritable."

Rebecca sat in the back of the meeting room, gauging the interest of the audience composed of local police chiefs and county sheriffs.

"The purpose of the program is difficult to determine. Nowhere have I read a document stating a clear purpose. Verbally, in the late 1980s, I was variously told that the program was intended to find cures for sick children to the creation of superior infantrymen. My belief is that personal curiosity was a significant motivation among the primary researchers. They wanted to see what would happen."

"A high percentage of Genomex mutants live quietly among us, carrying on their lives much like everyone else. They harm no one."

"Some mutants learn how to use their talents in criminal ways. Still others are not sane. It is the mission of the Genetic Security Agency to protect all of society from the criminal and insane mutants. We attempt the treatment of the insane. We neurologically disable permanently the special abilities of the criminals, then turn them over to law enforcement and the criminal justice system."

"Some individuals have an anomalous appearance, making any attempt to blend into ordinary society impossible. These people have lately been seeking surgical removal of features making them 'different'."

"This is the reality. These people are real. They live among us. This is not science fiction."

"Dr Angela Fontenelle will continue this presentation."

I gathered my notes, and retreated to the back of the room, opening the door to admit Angela.

"I'm nervous," she whispered as she passed me, knowing her appearance would shock the audience. However, she was a changed Angela compared to the shy woman I met years before. I took my seat beside Rebecca.

"Well?"

"They listened."

The muted conversation in the room ceased as soon as Angela swept into view. She still used a cane, but her awkward step was bolder and more certain than it had been years before. She took her place at the lectern.

"Good morning. First, to deal with the obvious. Yes, the wings are real. Yes, they work, and yes, I am a fully credentialed medical doctor. The accent is Brazilian."

"To get to business—we have been seeing cases at St Katherine's of mutants who have had obvious distinctive physical anomalies removed, ineptly and dangerously removed. We've seen these people after serious infection sets in, as you may see in these examples."

Angela then proceeded to show a sequence of photographs not for the squeamish.

"Fortunately, all of these cases had happy endings. A rigorous course of antibiotics, and in one individual, corrective surgery, leading to complete recoveries."

"Our Jane Doe was not so lucky. She staggered into our emergency room and passed out. Staff did everything possible, giving massive doses of antibiotics, but she was never conscious again, so we never had the opportunity of asking her name. Here is a view of her upper back, inflamed, healing poorly, with sloppy needlepoint. No one trained in a legitimate school did this."

"The next set of photos is here by courtesy of the medical examiner's office."

Angela removed her laser pointer from a lab coat pocket, then brought up the next photo, showing the back opened up, and the extent of the ineptitude of the work done upon her.

"This woman had wings, but not like mine. She had the wings of a bat. As you may see in this close-up view, the bones have not been entirely removed. Here, the attachments of muscles remain. This is crude, sloppy, criminal work. Combined with the likelihood of non-sterile technique and the wrong class of antibiotics, this woman developed abscesses and finally septicemia, which is what killed her."

"Someone is offering unlicensed, unskilled 'cosmetic' surgery to people desperate enough to try almost anything to appear normal and to fit in with everyone else. While I empathized with a desire not to appear peculiar, I am outraged and disgusted with whomever is performing this 'work'. They must be stopped. They are promising unhappy people a normal life, but delivering disfigurement and death."

The three of us sipped our Diet Cokes, Rebecca and I on the sofa, Angela on her living room perch. "Angela's Eyrie", her apartment on the top floor of St Katherine's, provided a quiet retreat after the question and answer session with local law enforcement.

I closed my eyes for a moment. "I could use something stronger, but I dare not with the medications Dr Prodana is feeding me."

"You did fine, Mason. You both did great." Rebecca sounded convinced.

"I hope you're right." I held the cold can up to my forehead.

"I know I'm right. I've been through enough mind-numbing meetings to know the signs of boredom and wandering attention—squirming and fidgeting. They hardly moved. Your audience was attentive."

"I think Rebecca's correct. After the meeting, when we could be approached singly, I had a lot of questions, all serious, all related to the cases. There were no remarks about my wings. They were professional and businesslike."

"I hope they can keep a secret." I was dubious.

"The existence of the Genomex mutants cannot be kept a secret forever. Too many people know. Stories have circulated for years, and not just from Proxy Blue."

"As long as I don't have to go in front of a TV camera, wings and all..."

"No, Angela...I'll do that part. The next mutant showing up with signs of a botched surgical 'improvement', I have to know, my people have to know. We have to find the source."

"That's going to be difficult. They paid in cash, probably a great deal of money. Some of them probably came by that money illegally. Even with the police involved, this will still be hard to unravel. Then, there is your old reputation as Satan's Handmaiden, undiminished in some quarters."

Angela smiled. What she said she intended humorously.

"There is truth in it, mostly among criminal mutants and fanatical bands of separatist mutants living in communities miles from the nearest dirt road. The separatists do not worry me. They are living out a hard, dangerous fantasy of separation and independence."

"If the separatists ever learned how much we know about each of their enclaves they would not be happy. We know each of them and each of their children for whom no state record of birth exists. We knew their pet dogs on sight. When they hang their laundry to dry, we study it carefully to determine if the composition of the household has changed."

Sneaky? Intrusive? Yes to both. Effective? Useful? Yes to both of those as well. I was not sure what the separatists thought they were doing, but they made a lot of babies.

"And you're not trying to shut them down?"

"No. In fact...they would be stunned at the source of nearly all the charitable cash that comes their way."

"Genomex?"

"From the beginning. No one is forcing anyone to live back in those forsaken places. No one is even suggesting that they make so many mutant babies. But if we can keep these communities going for 3-4 generations, they'll quickly produce a genetic dead end, and what I warned people about will be a lot more substantial than a theory. The theory will come to life."

"That is a nasty scheme, Mason." Rebecca looked surprised.

"In one hundred years, if the separatists are reduced to a handful of sterile individuals, then perhaps humanity can be saved. It's not as if they are unaware of the science. They reject it foolishly on an emotional basis."

"One could say they are serving a purpose," Rebecca said, suppressing a yawn.

"They don't harm anyone living as they do, and they are more benign that some 1990s fringe groups who went out into the woods and believed the federal government was out to destroy them."

"With some justification," Angela said.

"True. But I keep the feds away from the separatists. The only event to feed any paranoia they might harbor is a very rare, very lost group of hunters."

"And most all of this is known from satellite data?"

"Sending in a live agent would be too dangerous. My only fear is that hard work will wipe out the separatists before their genetics makes an example of them."

"The only way to be sure of privacy is to burrow deeply underground," Rebecca said.

"Very deeply. Deeper than you think."

"And live like a rat in hole. No thanks."

Rebecca set aside her Diet Coke and pulled the two lacquered hair sticks from her dark brown hair and stretched out on the sofa, head in Mason's lap.

"What's this?"

"I'm tired."

"Angela and I did the talking."

"Yeah, but I helped you write it. I listened intently, too. Night."

"How is the wind-room working out?" I asked Angela.

Based on the same idea as small pools producing a strong current in one direction, allowing a swimmer to swim in place against the current in a small space, Angela's wind room generated a blast of air that she could fly against, allowing her a chance to fly any time of the day or night, no matter what the weather was outside.

"It's great. In there, I never get soaked or chilled down to the skin. I don't have to worry about being seen in the middle of the day if the only time I have to fly is thirty minutes at lunch. It isn't real flying, riding the thermals, doing acrobatics, and fast dives for hunting, but it makes a big difference in keeping me fit for the real thing. I'd give you a demonstration, but you can't move."

"I dare not move."

I bent down near Rebecca's head and asked, "You aren't drooling on me, are you?"

No response.

"She must be asleep."

Angela smirked. I wouldn't answer that question."

"Angela, I've decided to install security cameras at the emergency entrance here."

Angela turned serious. "That's contrary to your original pact with the Mutant Privacy Council. The members will throw fits and claim you're moving back to the bad old days."

"One good view of the vehicle or people bringing these butchered patients could make all the difference. A license plate number would be a godsend."

"I agree with you. But how are you going to convince the council?"

"I'll invite all of them to personally witness the installation of each camera, to document the location of each camera, and when the butchers are out of business, the council can witness the removal of each camera. If any of them is electrically inclined, they are welcome to do the removal."

"That might work."

"Show them your photo album of horrors. That should deepen their understanding."

"I would hope so. Mason, what are these people doing with all of their cash? They can't just drop by their neighborhood branch bank and deposit several thousand dollars in cash every two or three days. Banks notice those patterns and report them to the police."

"They have some way around the problem, maybe a legitimate business that generates cash income, like vending machines. I also want to put GS agents here 24/7, with one here all the time. When the next amateur surgery comes through the door, I want someone here immediately, no time wasted."

"The council will go crazy."

"Have sedatives ready for them. You can put these agents in clothes making them blend in, looking like they work here. No one notices people who appear to belong."

"That's true. People in work clothes or uniforms tend to blend into the walls. This might even work with your GSA guys."

Angela's pager went off, and she checked the text message.

"We have another botched surgery downstairs."

"Dr Fontenelle, this is GS agent Delay who will be leading the team working with you. Please share with him what we know."

"She's still alive, but she's a mess. High fever, other signs of septicemia, and I won't be surprised to find her blood chemistry wrong several different ways. She's over here."

"She's just a kid," Delay said.

"Fortunately, this one is not a Jane Doe. She was carrying two different photo Ids. Miriam Harbin is thirteen years old. She carries scorpion DNA, and used to have stingers on both arms, but they've been clumsily removed. Abscesses have developed about the locus of removal."

"She's a mutant like that dreadful Templeton woman."

"From your descriptions, yes. But note her age: one of her parents bequeathed her scorpion traits, since we know of no one making Genomex type mutants in the late 1990s."

"Does she have the pheromone glands as well?"

"She may. We've been preoccupied with emergency treatment. We haven't gone over her carefully for anomalous traits. We did implant a governor to prevent any surprises."

"If you have identification, do we have also a home address? Names of parents? Phone numbers for parents?"

"I'm working on the phone numbers. The home address is in Loudonsburg. That's not the low-rent district. Someone should be looking for Miriam. This butchery did not happen this morning...Angela guesses two or three days, and doesn't think she's been home because any sane parent would have hauled her off for treatment."

"I'll talk to the Loudonsburg police to find out if they've been looking for her." Delay turned away, stepping outdoors with his cell phone where there was enough quiet for a conversation.

"Angela, I have to ask. Are you going to be able to save her? To my medically untutored eyes, she looks like a sick, sick girl with one foot on the other side."

Angela sighed. "Your perception is correct. I was told she staggered in here, collapsed into one of the waiting room chairs, then passed out and fell into the floor. I don't know everything that's wrong with her yet, so I cannot make a judgment about her chances."

"How did she get here?"

"A car pulled up into the emergency area. A man and a woman helped her out of the back seat, then aimed her for the doors. As soon as she was past the doors, the pair got back inside and drove off. People do that, then park and come inside. These people never stopped. They kept on driving."

"I hope those weren't the parents."

"Anything's possible, but people thought they looked like more kids."

Delay came back. "No one has reported Miriam Harbin missing."

"This operation did not happen yesterday," Angela said. "She's been somewhere for several days."

"The police are going to her parents' house."

That cleared up very little. The housekeeper who came twice a week answered the door, and she had no idea where Miriam was supposed to be.

Miriam's father was an air cargo pilot, presently in Singapore. Her mother was in Chicago at a business meeting, but she could not be reached immediately because her phone was turned off.

"How did life become so complicated?" Rebecca asked.

Eight hours later, Joyce Harbin hit the doors of St Katherine's like a wave, tired, irritable, and bereft of patience. Miriam Harbin had been moved to a private room. Rebecca and I sat with her for hours in case the sedatives wore off.

Mr Delay never had much of a chance to explain anything. Joyce Harbin pushed past him and stormed into Miriam's room.

"Now, who the hell are you two?"

"My name is Mason Eckhart. I run the parent company that operates St Katherine's Hospital."

Joyce Harbin became immediately suspicious. "Well, I'm Miriam's mother, and I want to know what is going on." She turned to Rebecca and barked, "Who are you?"

Rebecca pointed to me. "I'm with him."

"Tell me what Miriam's done." She sounded resigned to bad news.

"She hasn't done anything. She had an operation performed by someone unqualified, probably not a doctor at all."

"Miri had an abortion?"

"No, Mrs Harbin. Someone amputated her scorpion claws. They did a poor job of it, and your daughter is now being treated for blood poisoning."

"I'm going to have Angela paged, Mason."

"Good idea."

"She had what removed?"

"Her retractable scorpion stingers."

"I have no idea what you are babbling about."

I tried to remain calm. Joyce Harbin was either in deep denial, or just possibly, she didn't know what her daughter was.

"Miriam is the offspring of an individual whose DNA was intentionally tampered with, introducing scorpion DNA, most likely at the single-cell stage."

Joyce Harbin was completely lost now. "I have no idea what you mean. Miriam is actually my sister's daughter. Bob and I formally adopted her when she was eight. My sister was incapable of caring for her. She died of a drug overdose a few years ago."

"So, you don't know anything about Genomex mutants? They're very special people."

"She must have been taught never to allow anyone to see the stingers," Rebecca said.

"Someone should be here shortly who can explain this much better than I. Dr Fontenelle is herself a Genomex mutant. I will warn you: her appearance is unusual."

Angela's timing was flawless, entering at that moment. Joyce Harbin could not take her eyes from Angela's splendid pair of wings.

"Dr Fontenelle, there is a difficulty. Mrs Harbin had no idea Miriam is a mutant. Biologically, Miriam is her sister's daughter."

"Oh, my." Angela fluttered her wings. "I think this is a first. I will have to tell you about the Children of Genomex."

"Dr Fontenelle, we're going home. If you need anything, ask Mr Delay or his relief to help you, or send me email."

We left Angela with the confused parent.

"I do believe this is a first occurrence of a parent not knowing they were raising a mutant child."

"If you were Miriam, would you tell Joyce Harbin that you had a pair of bonus scorpion stingers?" I asked.

"Not if I could avoid it."

In the morning, email from Angela awaited me indicating that Miriam was awake and lucid, perhaps a little too lucid. I went directly to St Kats.

"Good morning, sir."

"Good morning, Mr Delay."

"She's awake and talking...a lot."

"So Angela told me."

Angela was already there, standing by the window with arms crossed in front of her.

"OOOoooo, another freak."

"Mr Eckhart and his wife sat with you for hours yesterday."

"Good morning, Dr Fontenelle."

"And to you."

"Miss Harbin, it is imperative that you tell us who performed this butchery."

"What butchery? I don't have those things on my arm anymore. I got what I wanted, they got what they wanted."

"You could have died," Angela said softly.

"I didn't. Now, I want to go home."

"Miss Harbin, this isn't just about what you want. A young woman died after some of this 'surgery'."

"I don't care. I'm like everybody else now, and I don't have to worry about anyone seeing those horrible things."

"You're wasting your time, Mr Eckhart," Angela said.

Miriam looked me in the eye, and asked, "What are you, anyway?"

"Genetically, I'm more human than you are."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Why do you think you had stingers? Because you carry scorpion DNA." I turned and left the room, and Angela followed.

"Sorry, Angela, but I had to put that miserable child in her place."

"I understand."

"I thought she would be the opening wedge in stopping the butchers. No such luck."

"Mason, it's just possible that sweet Miri has not solved her problem. Some lower animals have the ability to regenerate lost limbs."

"They could grow back..."

"I'll try to tell the mother to be watching for the appearance of stinger buds."

"Miri will not be pleased when she goes home and finds the police eager to talk to her. I wish them luck."

"And now, we just wait for another case?"

"As long as people want to be 'normal' and 'fit in', we should not be surprised what people do to attain a normal appearance."

Angela spread her wings the full width of the corridor. "Normal is overrated."

"No argument from me."

Angela called me later that day. "Mason, we have another amateur surgery here."

"I'll be over."

"No, wait, Mr Delay had an idea how to use this case to get Miri to tell us something useful. I think it's a good idea: show her what someone looks like before they are treated with contemporary medicine."

"Worth a try. But get Delay to push the wheelchair. He'll be a federal employee doing what I tell him to do. We'll meet them downstairs in emergency."

"Isn't this an odd time of day to be running laboratory tests?" Miriam asked Delay.

"The labs here never close up shop."

"I guess they can't. How long have you been doing this?"

"Doing what?"

"Working for the white-haired guy."

"Nine years."

"How can you stand it?"

"Antacids. Aspirin. Therapy."

Miriam laughed. "That doesn't sound like fun."

"It isn't about fun. It's about protecting society from out of control and criminal mutants."

"Out of control?"

"We had one a few years ago capable of throwing several square miles into power blackouts. She couldn't help herself; she was feeding on the power."

"Wow."

"Then there are those who use their talents to commit crimes."

"How many bird-women are there?"

"As far as I know, Dr Fontenelle is unique."

"And she can really fly?"

"She can fly like a falcon. I've never seen it, but Mr Eckhart says it's like watching an accomplished gymnast."

"So, there are a lot of people like me?"

"At first, we thought there were about one thousand. The actual number is turning out to be much higher."

"And we're all different in some way?"

"You all have DNA that was originally engineered for a specific purpose. You're second generation, but the DNA, once altered, will be passed on in that form."

Mr Delay pushed the wheelchair into the intensive care unit. At the last possible moment, he turned the wheelchair into the station where Mason and Angela waited.

Angela did the talking. "Miss Hardin, meet Paul Kravetz. He doesn't have a whole lot to say because he's running a 106 F temperature, and when he does try to communicate, well, he's delirious."

Angela pulled back the sheet. "Paul Kravetz is a reptilian feral. He must not have liked the scales on his feet, because some sort of skin graft was started—the scales removed, human skin added. Besides being a lousy job, gangrene has set in where his claws were clumsily hacked away. We're going to try very hard to save most of his toes."

"That's horrible."

"Mr Kravetz just wanted to fit in and be like other people, but now, he has some real problems."

"Why are you showing me all of this awful stuff? I'll have nightmares."

"Mr Kravetz may have brain damage from this fever. He may not be able to tell us anything. But you could."

"Okay."

"Where are they?" I asked.

"They aren't anywhere in particular. They're set up in a huge motor home. They never stay in the same place."

"How did you find out about them?"

"They specialize in people with odd physical features—mutants, I guess the term is—but they also work on 'normal' people, too. A buddy of mine had her chin done. She told me about them, and I set up my first appointment."

"And how did your friend find these people?"

"A friend of hers. It's all by word of mouth."

"And how do you contact them?"

"A cell phone number."

"And who were the people who delivered you here?"

"Friends of mine I stayed with. They didn't have anything to do with this. They just got scared when I got so sick. I guess they were afraid I might die on them."

"You very nearly did," Angela said.

"And where is this cell phone number now?"

"In my wallet, on a piece of yellow paper."

"Thank you, Miss Hardin."

"This is really mean, what you did to me."

"Mr Delay."

Delay wheeled Miri back to her room. I was not going to engage a 13 year old in a discussion of how mean I had been to her.

My anticipation of where the phone number might take us was short-lived. The cell number only led to a message-forwarding service. To go any deeper, I would need to bring in the police. I paid the lovely Miriam a visit.

"Dead-end Miss Harbin. The number you gave us led to a message system."

"They're not easy to find."

"How did you pay them?"

"Cash. $2500."

I would have liked to have known how a 13 year old acquired that kind of cash, but I was also sure that Miriam Harbin's explanation would be annoying and that I would be better off not knowing.

"Are you a mutant?" she asked.

"No."

"Why do you look like that?"

"Because this is the way I look."

"That hair doesn't look real."

"Nevertheless, it is."

"I know all about this place. What are you going to do to me now? Arrest me? Pod me?"

Paul Kravetz had even less charm than Miriam Hardin once he was fully lucid.

"If there are warrants for your arrest, you are a matter for the police. Unless you are insane or out of control, you are not worth the trouble and expense of podding."

Kravetz didn't believe any of it, of course. He made the mistake of trying to out-glare me, a contest I of course won.

"Nothing but lies come out of your mouth!"

"I really do not care what opinion you hold of me. I would like to find the people responsible for the attempted skin graft that failed and left you near death. They've killed one woman I know of, and there may be others—mutants like you."

"Makes it tougher for you to find us, doesn't it?"

"Mr Kravetz, unless you've broken laws or you are insane and dangerous, I'm not even interested in you. But with mutants near death showing up repeatedly on the doorstep of St Katherine's, that makes what happened to you my business." "I'm not going to help you."

I studied his face. No, he wasn't going to help me.

"These people are performing a useful service for mutants."

"Whoever is doing this is making a lot of money out of human misery, but I can tell that is no concern of yours. Tomorrow morning, you are scheduled for release. Tomorrow morning, get away from me and my hospital." I turned and began leaving.

"Don't try to follow me."

"You have no idea how disinterested I am in where you are going. All I ask is that you please remove yourself from my world."

"Kravetz wouldn't tell me anything, Angela. He's convinced I have a stasis pod prepared for him."

"You did earn yourself quite a reputation a few years back."

"Yes..."

"Do you want me to talk to him?"

"I think you'd be wasting the effort. He's stubborn and not very bright."

"I don't mind. I stick up for my friends."

"Mr Kravetz, I'm Dr Fontenelle."

"You're a feral."

"More feral than most. I'm not going to ask you to help find the murderers of a young girl who passed through here, because you've already refused to help. But I am going to tell you something before leaving."

"What's that?"

"No matter what Mason Eckhart did in the past, in setting up this hospital. He has done more for the well-being of Genomex mutants than anyone else."

"That doesn't change my mind. It's a lie anyway. This is another glossy facility hiding nightmares."

"I had no expectation of changing your mind."

I had not heard Mr Delay arrive in the doorway.

"You're a traitor to your own kind, doctor!"

"I've been standing here listening to you, and it's obvious that when it comes to Dr Fontenelle of Mason Eckhart, you don't know what you are talking about. Dr Fontenelle, you don't need to listen to this blather."

"No. I've heard enough."

"GSA lackey," Kravetz sneered.

They left the room and began making their way to the elevators. Angela could not walk nearly as fast as most people. Delay slowed his pace to walk with her.

"Don't give much thought to what that fool was saying."

"I won't. Thanks for the air support, by the way. Just the same, it still stings to have another mutant call me a traitor."

"You're nothing of the kind. I've been here awhile now. You work hard. You put in long hours. You really care about your patients. The staff here respects you."

Angela's wings fluttered. "I'm not used to hearing such compliments."

"Well, they're all true. You're no traitor. You're helping these people."

"That does take out most of the sting. Thanks. I'm not used to plain vanilla humans seeing me as other than The Bird Woman."

"I've been with the GSA for nine years. I've seen all kinds of strange, sad mutants, people who have built their lives around the miseries they suffer as being different. You're not like that. You do your job, live your life, and try to make something of whatever abilities you have. I don't have much use for any kind of people who define their lives in terms of victimhood, mutant or plain vanilla types."

"That's part of what I respect about your boss. He's been through hell, but I had to hear the stories about it from other people."

"He's difficult, but you have to respect him."

"I've always tried to be just 'Dr Fontenelle' to people, but a lot of them won't let me. That's why I like working here so much. Here I can be just Dr Fontenelle, where neither the staff nor the patients stare."

"After working with mutants for so many years, I just don't see them the way I did at first. None of us is exactly 'normal', anyway. Some of the picture perfect people turn out to have the darkest hearts. I'm sorry. I've rambled on."

"You spoke a lot of truth."

"I have to go get some sleep. The guys who will be in after me—Wilburn and Orlof—have worked for me before. They're good. If they cannot help you with something, ask me when I come back on duty. I'll do my best."

"Thanks. I know you will."

"Is that worm Kravetz discharged and off the grounds?"

"Since 10.30 AM this morning." Angela smiled.

"Good. I hope he has already developed a sore neck from glancing over his shoulder, searching for the legions of GSA who must be following him."

"You really didn't have him followed?"

"No. I want to be rid of the man. Life provides enough irritations without people like Paul Kravetz."

Angela giggled. "I'm surer he's convinced he's 'Eckhart's Most Wanted'."

"Insignificant people always have exaggeration notions of their own self importance."

"To set aside Paul Kravetz..."

"I nearly offered to buy him a bus ticket to the other side of the country."

"He's gone, Mason."

"Huzzah."

"I want to thank you for assigning Mr Delay here. He seems very dedicated."

"He is."

"And pleasant. We had a nice talk yesterday."

"Really? I don't think I've ever had a real conversation with the man."

"Anyway, Delay and the other GSA guys are working out well."

"How is Charming Miriam?"

"She continues to delight all staff fortunate enough to work in proximity to her. Even better, her mother, Charming Joyce, is making vague threats of a lawsuit against the hospital for traumatizing the Innocent Miriam."

"When we catch up with the butchers, she will probably sue them as well."

My private phone rang. Only Rebecca, Catherine, and my other children had the number. I recognized Rebecca's extension.

"Excuse me, Angela."

"Mason, can you get to a tv? Broadcast channel 11? The police are holding a news conference about the amateur surgeons."

"Angela, the police are live on tv with a news conference. Is there a tv receiving broadcast channel 11 that we could get to quickly?"

"Yeah. Follow me."

"I recognized most of the police present from jurisdictions county-wide.

"How many cases do you know about in the county?"

"Cases resulting in severe infections requiring hospitalization: 43. Less severe cases requiring some medical attention: 211."

"They've been holding out on us, Angela. The butchers have been quite active in the main population."

"Who do you think is doing this substandard work?"

"People with limited medical training, possibly with the cooperation of an MD no longer licensed. This is not one individual working out of their basement. They have most of the trappings of legitimacy."

"We've heard rumors that at least one death has occurred."

"That is true. After that, departments met together and compared notes. I would like to thank the staff of St Katherine's Hospital and the Genetic Security Agency for their help in providing us with a more complete overview."

"O Dear God." I sagged down into the nearest chair. We did not need this kind of attention from the media or the public. "It's a good thing that I do not abuse substances. Right now, I need to be somewhere else, just for a little while."

"Women take bubble baths," Angela smirked.

"Not my style."

"I didn't think so."

I need to go write some credible explanation why the GSA became involved, dancing sideways around the possibility of mutants. The wording will have to be perfect, answering today's questions as well as not making us look silly if full disclosure becomes a reality."

"You're an artist with words, Mason. What should I do with media that show up here?"

"Reinforce the rule that employees are not to speak to media. Refer all of them to me. Make sure Mr Delay knows about this televised circus."

Angela's pager went off. "We have another one in ER, but this one's different. The incisions are fresh and the patient is losing a lot of blood."

I called Delay, and told him that we were on our way down to ER. He was waiting for us. ER was packed with people from the electronic media. Blood was splashed onto the floor, but the media seemed oblivious to it.

"The people who don't need to be here need to leave. They are hindering staff. And there are more of them all the time."

"Call hospital security, Mr Delay. I might need them to get rid of these parasites. First, I'll try to be rid of them the easy way."

I climbed onto the ER counter—surprising the people who worked there—"Everyone NOT part of ER staff needs to leave NOW. You are jeopardizing the treatment of several patients."

No one even looked up. I glanced about, looking for a suitable place to unload a few rounds. I chose a linen closet, and fired three rounds.

Ah, blessed silence.

"If you are not ER staff, leave now. Your presence is compromising care of patients."

"And who the hell are you to tell us what we should do?"

"I run the company that operates St Katherine's, which, by the way, is a private hospital. You're not only endangering lives, you're trespassing. The doors are directly behind you."

They began to leave by twos and threes, not quickly enough for me, but they were leaving. I descended from my perch. Delay actually smiled.

"Nicely done, sir."

"Thank you."

A Dr Curry whom I knew slightly came up to me. "We're moving this kid to surgery. A quick repair of the damage done is his only chance."

"What were they trying to do to him?"

"Remove rudimentary horns."

"A cervine?"

"Maybe. There are many horned species."

"Mr Delay. Organize hospital security to persuade all the media types that there is nothing to see here, and that anyone recorded slowing a patient through the door will be prosecuted."

"With pleasure." He was still smiling.

Later that day, I related the day's excitement to Rebecca.

"How sad, Mason."

"What? Crowd control?"

"The way you were forced to kill a linen closet."

Rebecca could say these things without a hint or suggestion of a smile.

"Will there be memorial services?" she continued.

I rolled my eyes at her.

"I received a combination of condemnation and praise for kill the linen closet. I only had Delay with me. Other GSA would have had to come from Genomex, and hospital security doesn't do much more than make certain particular doors are locked and that fire extinguishers are in place—not that they're properly charged, just that they're in place.

"You're never going to live this down...but you did the right thing. Pain and anguish should not be a source of entertainment, contrary to attitudes among the media."

"Verminous parasites."

"And that's on a good day."

"Angela said something puzzling to me today."

"Yes?"

"What do you think of agent Delay—the guy who always looks like his feet hurt?"

"I don't think it's his feet that hurt. I think he is intimidated by you."

"Well, I try."

"And you do well."

"Any other thoughts about him?"

"Personally, he's probably harmless. Probably keeps his houseplants watered. He'd be much improved with a personality transplant."

"Angela described him today as...'pleasant'."

"Pleasant? Oh."

"What does that look mean?"

"Did she say anything else?"

"She thanked me for assigning him."

"Umm..."

I rolled my eyes at her again. She was having a lot of fun with me."

"Mason, you must understand that for a truly authoritative translation from WomanSpeak to English, a careful scholar would expect much more text, to place everything in context, to miss none of the inevitable nuances of womanly communication."

"And to summarize your translation succinctly, you would say?"

"I think Angela likes him."

The possibility had never occurred to me. "Oh."

"Any idea what Mr Delay thinks of Angela?"

"None."

"Begin taking careful notes."

"What mysterious creatures we are."

"Mason, if Angela coos anymore about Delay, the kindest thing you could do is pull him out of there and re-assign him 1500 miles away. Angela's been hurt enough. I'd like to see her spared more of the same."

"That's harsh."

"It's realistic. Angela does not need to be kicked around. Protect her."

"I have to wonder if Angela would appreciate such protection?"

"Not if she finds out about it. With any luck it will all just go away, as if she ate something that disagreed with her."

Fortunately, none of the media pests had captured me in digital clarity slaying the linen closet, or even standing on the countertop. I hoped all of the pests with cameras had suffered verbal thrashings from their supervisors for this lapse among newshounds.

The more I reflected upon the Battle of ER, the more pleased I became since the media had handed me perfect justification to change policy excluding all of them from the ER, save for those who had prior written permission from me. [Which would be exactly none of them.]

I composed a pithy press release establishing this policy, and expressing my shock and disappointment at their lack of concern for the well-being of patients requiring emergency care. I knew perfectly well that the media had no qualms about jeopardizing urgently needed care. News had for some years abandoned journalism for infotainment. 'If it bleeds, it leads.' Like a lot of people I ignored electronic media, and was determined that St Kats would not provided 15 seconds of sensational images.

Clearing the parasites of the press out of the ER made no difference for the young corvine. He died in surgery.

"When his DNA was originally cut and pasted with that of a whitetail deer, mixed in was some coding affecting location of blood vessels. Our amateurs, whoever they are, do know human anatomy. They aren't cutting randomly. The cervine's slightly altered anatomy also slowed down our surgeons, but I'm told his chances were never too good." Angela sighed. "These people are leaving a trail of death."

"That trail might be longer than we know," Delay offered.

"How so?"

"All their disasters might not be reaching area hospitals. They could be dumping bodies. Since we know they're using a motor home, they could be driving to campgrounds some distance away. No one would question the appearance of a motor home in a campground."

"Perfectly plausible."

"If any of these people have formal medical training, I don't know how they sleep at night," Delay said.

"There are people in this world willing to do almost any terrible act for the right amount of money. Human character can be disappointing." How well I knew.

"Just difficult for me to imagine, sir."

"That's why we are the good guys."

"Dr Fontenelle and I are ordering out lunch. Do you want anything?"

"Lunch? No, thank you. I have to get back to Genomex. I have an appointment in 35 minutes. How is the assignment working? Is there anything you need that I can get for you?"

"No, sir."

"Tell me if you think of anything."

"Will do."

Rowland Caldwell Delay, for the first time in the years he had worked for me, did not look as if his shoes were too small or his stomach sour.

"Using a motor home for this kind of operation is ingenious. The neighbors don't become suspicious, and the local police won't see it in one place long enough to wonder if it's a drug lab."

"We've searched BMV records for motor homes belonging to doctors or anyone involved in medicine. To date, everyone looks clean."

"Were I to set up this kind of thing, I would form a corporation in another state and register the vehicle to that corporation. Or something similar; I would not want the vehicle in any local, searchable database. But that's me; these butchers so far have conducted themselves with arrogance, taking in the cash and dumping their problems on the doorsteps of local hospitals."

"I am surprised that their 'problems' have not told us more. They are protecting these people."

"I am and I'm not. This society elevates physical beauty to the point of obsession. Anyone unlovely, or worse, anyone with an anomalous appearance is not only made to feel inferior and socially undesirable, but they tend to be paid less and promoted less often. The pressure to 'fit in' is not just emotional; it's financial. The butchers are in fact perceived as providing services of great value."

"I've started to think that a thorough search of the details might not lead us to these people. We might need to be lucky."

"I tend to agree. Searching for a single motor home may be worthless. They could have several motor homes, they could be leasing them, or even renting different models for short time periods."

"We may need to get lucky, or possibly, need to send them a 'patient'."

"Are any of the departments seriously considering that plan?"

"Yes, but they're being closed-mouthed about it. An operation like that is easily compromised when too many people know what you are doing."

After the detective left, I was suddenly struck by the fact of Angela ordering lunch. That implied cooked food or salad greens, not cubes of very fresh, very raw meat almost still twitching. I was unsure whether to be alarmed or amused. Angela was altering her choices in food so she could eat lunch with Delay.

Watching Angela consume what she liked required first that one like Angela, and understood the balance of human and falcon. Unless threatened, Angela was a gentle person, not what one would expect from someone carrying DNA from a predatory bird.

I knew her eating habits and found them disgusting, though I never told her. After Angela invested emotions and trust in Delay, how would she cope if he expressed deep, intense disgust after seeing her eat raw meat, and perhaps called her a barbarian or savage? Was Delay smart enough, and human enough, to understand that Angela's 'birdness' went well beyond her gorgeous wings?

Even if Delay was sharp enough to understand these things, and could tolerate the sight of Angela tearing into raw meat, could he understand the damage Frank Thorne had done to her? Damage that might not have a chance of repair? A person can handle only a finite quantity and intensity of hurt and damage. We are not infinitely resilient.

Hurting Angela could happen so easily, without any intention of harming her. She always had confidence in her professional abilities, and was now establishing confidence in being respected by 'plain vanilla' people. The Angela I first met in 2007 would never have considered delivering a presentation to a room full of 'plain vanilla' police chiefs, even dealing with a subject that she was highly proficient.

How would Angela introduce Delay –or anyone—to her brood of falcons, now living wild?

I found myself cursing Paul Breedlove's memory for the pain he had brought to thousands of people...including me.

"You know I cannot allow this." Maybe if I became my most serious self I could convince these two how unwise a plan they had proposed.

"Why can't I at least do the first part, the initial interview?"

"If I had a GS agent with a physical anomaly some might wish undone, I would have done that, Dr Fontenelle."

"Here's your perfect opportunity."

"Sending you in to chat with them? Why not? One, because you are not GSA, and two, because you are valuable to St Katherine's in your present capacity."

"Sir, I have to admit to encouraging Angela to present this idea."

"Why ever did you encourage such foolhardiness?"

"So that you would tell her, plainly, what an unwise idea it is. Sending non-GSA into the field has consistently failed."

"Not just failed, but failed catastrophically."

Clearly, Angela was angry. She was glaring at the floor, and flexing her wings almost imperceptibly. Delay looked relieved, like a man just told he did not require five root canals.

I spoke next as if to both of them, but I had Angela in mind.

"Initiative is a good thing. If it comes to sending someone inside, you will be on the planning team."

"I'm uniquely suited for this particular mission. If I get a glance at their working areas, I'll probably be able to tell you who their suppliers are. I can tell you far more than an agent given a day or so to familiarize themselves with brands and supply houses."

"And they'd also be trained to protect themselves if something went wrong."

Angela raised a taloned foot and flexed the talons at desktop level. "Having these...is not unlike having a fistful of knives."

Angela's talons were frightening.

"I wouldn't want to go up against you, Angela. I'm just thinking of you in the confined space of a motor home. You need room to maneuver."

"As long as I've had use of these, no one has ever been able to coerce me into doing anything I didn't want to do."

"Well, I'm flexing my talons. I won't allow it, not as head of the GSA, and not as your friend."

"That sounds final." Delay was doing a poor job of disguising his relief.

Angela flashed feral eyes at me. I glared back. This was beginning to have the same feeling as dealing with a willful child.

Why does everyone think they can stroll right into the tasks of a GS agent? I'm going to have to give thought to enhancing the status of my agents.

The truth was that I would not consider sending in a seasoned agent knowing as little as we did at present about the organization and people.

Delay stood up. "Thank you for listening, and for your time."

"Keep thinking, Mr Delay. There are ruses to be employed against these swine not risking one of the best doctors at St Kats."

"I blame myself entirely," I said upon entering our quarters.

Rebecca was reading by the one and only window. She turned around to face me, setting aside her book.

"Okay. I'm curious. Are you going to come sit with me and confess, or will there be more drama?"

[Not that Rebecca was incapable of considerable drama.]

I came and sat beside her. "I blame myself..."

"Yes, I heard that part."

"I will admit that when I assigned Mr Delay to St Kats, I did so with full confidence in his abilities, and because of my own hidden agenda."

"You? An ulterior motive? A secretive scheme? This is shocking! I will have to tell Samihah later."

"Mr Delay always seems so grimly serious. That isn't just for my benefit, either. He's formal and grim with everyone. I thought that removing him temporarily from the GSA milieu would get him out among other kinds of people. I thought he might even meet girls."

"Now, you have shocked me."

"Don't go spreading it around."

"I'm not sure Dr Varady would believe it."

"Well, Delay appears to have noticed that Angela is a girl."

"Well, she is a girl. Maybe Delay does not require a personality transplant as badly as I thought. Mason, they're adults. I don't want Angela hurt, but they're adults. It doesn't matter that they both work for you."

I closed my eyes and leaned back, briefly fantasizing along Dickensian lines of employee-employer relationships. "All too true. I do not know what to do."

"There isn't anything you can do, legally or ethically. And you might not need to do anything."

"Meaning?"

"If you're hurt enough and scared enough, there are some places you will never be tempted to go again. That could be the case for Angela."

Pamela Fries

Eckhart did me a real favor in 2007 when he purged Genomex of everyone except Dr Varady and one of the chemists. I can't blame him for the purge; everybody in the GSA knew there were people among us with two masters. We just couldn't ferret out who they were.

During the months Ken Harrison ran the site I'm sure he entrenched a number of his own people. There were so many stories about Harrison and his girlfriend Thomason. If don't think they were all the creations of imaginative (or spiteful) GSA.

The moment I heard Eckhart showed up with his assault crew, I was relieved. Working for Ken Harrison was strange. Then, I panicked when I realized I was going to be out of a job. There just isn't much demand for thermals in the marketplace.

That evening, I got together with my old GSA buddy Kendra McEvoy, and asked her what she was going to do.

"I have no idea, but with all of those anomalies loose in the world, there must be a way of connecting to their wallets and providing products or services most every mutant should have."

Kendra was so practical.

About then, there was a knock on Kendra's door. Kendra opened it, and welcomed Karen Bell to the hen party.

"Hey, I heard Mr Creepy swooped back in today and handed out pink slips to everybody."

"It's true," I said.

"Darn. And I so liked the idea of him chilling permanently."

"We've been trying to come up with a business plan for making money from Genomex mutants. There has to be a way."

"Does it have to be legal?" Karen giggled.

"No," Kendra answered.

"What if we provided a service, a service that allowed mutants to live more openly, more 'normally'?" I proposed.

"Well, most of them can do that now. It's a matter of self control and not giving themselves away," Kendra said.

"What about the obvious ones? What if we could eliminate the tell-tale...scales, claws, appendages?" I think even at that moment I knew I had found the idea that would change my life.

Karen stayed until nearly 11, then had to leave because she had a job counting beans downtown. Kendra and I stayed up all night working out a business plan. That afternoon, Karen stopped by after work to go over our initial numbers.

"Girls, this is wicked, but it works. Where are you going to find the people to do the cutting and pasting?"

Kendra smirked. "No problem. We have contacts hiding beneath society's rocks."

Which was true.

"Our question is whether or not you want to do our books for us."

"Of course I do. But I have a suggestion: if business is as good as I think it will be, we need to acquire a legitimate business, something cash intensive, like vending machines, through which to launder our money, some of it, anyway.

That's how we launched Bafam LLC (Bell, Fries, McEvoy), owners of an incredibly successful chain of Laundromats called "Mom's". What we had really done was start out with one rental RV, a semi-sober surgeon who was no longer licensed, and Kendra playing nurse (she has a strong stomach).

The money rolled in. We had to keep setting up more of the Laundromats to cover the volume of cash flowing our way.

The laundromats were almost too good. Bright, airy, cheerful, and clean, they attracted not only a loyal clientele, but the attention of Money Making Woman, a magazine devoted to telling tales of women entrepreneurs. We politely declined their request for an interview.

The mistake a lot of otherwise smart criminals make is that they choose to live flamboyantly, well beyond the means of their reported income. We were too smart for this. Karen sat us all down one evening and showed how we could stay in the mutant and 'plain vanilla' human 'plastic surgery' business for 10, 15 years at the most. If we lived modestly, saving almost everything legally and illegally earned, while she invested in a wide variety of things, at the end of our business 'life' we could sell the laundromats, move somewhere without an extradition treaty, and live comfortably every after.

That sounded good to me.

Most of 'our' surgeries were highly successful and the clientele sent their friends to us. That's how the business grew so quickly. There were mistakes and complications, however, and those upset me at first until I told myself that these people had been monstrous looking before ever coming to us.

We were always careful about the people we accepted as patients. At some point during the screening interview, one of us attached a small transmitter to the potential patient. Then they were followed to determine if their destination made sense compared to the information they had given us about themselves. When it didn't, we would have nothing to do with the 'patient'. We missed out on some money that way, but doing what was prudent was more important than a few more thousand dollars.

We leased the motor homes on a monthly basis, but a unit would not be on the street all of that time. Most of the time it would be parked out of public view.

The motor homes were always sent back cleaner than they had been received. Leaving a single drop of blood could lead to disaster, possibly proving a link between a 'patient' and us. We did not want that.

Life was good. The three of us were making a lot of money. Everyone involved did well.

No one who paid any attention to the way I lived would have guessed that my annual income suddenly soared well up into six figures. I drove the same car, wore the same clothes, doing nothing to draw attention to my sudden good fortune.

The best place to hide anything is in plain sight. I was proud of myself for writing the business plan and making everything work smoothly. I took great care to keep fine-tuning the business and to stay just ahead of any law enforcement agency that might be looking for us. For example, in the second year we parked the motor homes in different jurisdictions every time, rotating in no particular pattern. We especially favored unincorporated areas that did not have their own police departments, relying upon thinly spread county sheriff's departments. And who would question the presence of a motor home in a campground?

Every two weeks, Karen gave us an update on how each of us was doing financially. I was way ahead of plan by 2011. It was time to start looking for a faraway place to retire. I began making plans.

The last person on earth I ever expected to act on behalf of mutants was Mason Eckhart. I had heard the story about his change of policy, but not one of us believed it. Remember, we had all worked for him, and knew how he operated.

Or we thought we did. Stories began reaching us that the GSA was asking questions about freelance surgeries.

"Are you sure that Eckhart isn't upset because someone is making it easier for mutants to go unnoticed?" Kendra asked.

"No, this is all filtering through with emphasis upon who is responsible for our 'problems', not our successes," I answered.

"I don't understand what he is up to."

"Eckhart's a puzzle. Remember when we heard the stories that he was married? I'm not sure he is understandable. Or that I want to understand him."

"What we need to keep in mind is that this man is ruthless once he locks onto a goal. If finding us becomes Eckhart's goal, then the smartest thing for us to do might be to shut down things for a while. We could actually spend time managing the laundromats." Karen was serious. Her suggestion was drastic, but it made a lot of sense.

Mason

Sending Angela as a prospective patient was fraught with risks, but sending someone in as prospective patient was a good idea.

I had three candidates training to penetrate the butchers' outer ring, studying past cases and whatever pattern could be discerned. I made these plans thinking the investigation would continue for some time, and even after arrests were made, the legal battles would continue in the courts for years. I wanted to send evidence to courtrooms that would effectively convict these people.

I was working on plans to upgrade security for the entire Genomex complex since there were worrisome gaps in security. The Mutant Mafia was becoming well-armed and ever more aggressive. I felt obligated to protect my employees and Genomex technology.

My assistant interrupted me with word that Mr Delay insisted upon seeing me with an emergency.

"Sir, Dr Fontenelle is on her way to interview with people she thinks are responsible for the butchery."

"Why didn't you stop her?"

"I didn't know she was going to do this. She left a handwritten message."

"How did she find out where these people were?"

"She asked Ms Aster."

"And Ms Aster told her?"

"Yes."

"And you know this because?"

"Angela told me."

"Well, now we have to ride to her rescue. We'll take two-thirds of whatever GSA are on site, and call in the next shift early so someone is minding the store."

Angela's nature had the capacity for sudden, impulsive actions, a trait useful in a predatory falcon. I was angry with her for taking such a chance, and then requiring me to put agents at risk. But the closer we were to the meeting place, the more my anger metamorphosed into worry and concern.

"Assuming Dr Fontenelle comes out of this adventure unharmed, I am going to have a talk with her about the perils of freelancing. I ask also that you exercise whatever influence you possess with her, and drive home the same thought."

"I will do my best, sir."

Angela's 'interview' was on a heavily traveled commercial street, in plain sight in a parked car. We easily spotted her falcon wings and her car.

"Duck down, sir."

I did this. There are times when a distinctive appearance is a disadvantage.

"Tell me what you saw."

"She's in a car with two women—at least, they look like women."

"We'll need pictures." I directed two of the cars following us to take pictures of the occupants of the car, which they could do without seeming to point a camera. They then circled the block and parked behind and in front of Angela.

Two women emerged from Angela's car, one entering a parking garage and the other a 22-story office building.

Delay reached for his door handle.

"No."

"Why not?"

"If these people are as smart as I think, they have confederates watching for anyone to follow. Angela's taken a huge risk; we cannot let it be for naught."

"What now?"

"We follow Angela. If she returns to St Kats, we confront her there. If she's going somewhere else, we call her on her phone and tell her to pull over. Drive on, Mr Delay."

Angela appeared to be going back to St Kats. We discovered the cause of her slight detour when she pulled into the parking lot of a large supermarket.

"I think I'll go shopping—alone. Inform the other troops."

Angela had thrown an ill-fitting raincoat over herself to hide her wings. I had a good idea where I would find her, which was part of why I left behind Mr Delay. When I caught up with her, she was tossing a second package of lamb cut up for stewing into her cart, and moving on to study the beef section. I glided up next to her. She thought of herself as a hyper-alert human and I wanted her to know she was vulnerable. I wanted to startle and scare her.

"You have to wonder how much of these prices the farmer ever receives."

She visibly jumped and her wings flexed for flying beneath the ugly raincoat.

"Mason."

"I know where you've been."

"Are you going to arrest me?"

"Arrest you? For what? Keep shopping, Angela."

She selected several packages of thinly sliced beef. "Rowland betrayed me." She sounded angry and disappointed.

"He came to me, yes. But that was his duty, and also the proper thing to do on a personal level. If you asked him to act contrary to his sworn duty, or outside the bounds of human decency, you asked too much. Mr Delay acted in your interest."

She pondered the merits of a large roast. What would she do with a cut of beef like that? Tear it apart with her teeth? This was not something I wanted to see.

"Why do I feel betrayed?"

"A misplaced sense of what friendship and loyalty should provide. I would have done the same thing. I am sure Rebecca would have done the same, even without asking her."

"I'm angry."

"Mr Delay does not deserve your anger. The butchers we're tracking deserve your anger."

"That's enough meat." She turned her cart and headed for the check-out stands. "Why are you defending Rowland so adamantly?"

"Because Rowland deserves every word of it."

"Logically, everything you've said makes good sense, but emotionally, part of me is screaming that these greedy monsters must be stopped."

"And so they shall be stopped. But please, Angela, not at the cost of one of my best doctors."

"I learned some interesting stuff back there."

"I'm sure you did. After you've put away your groceries, after I've had lunch and calmed down from a stressful morning, the three of us will sit down in my office and extract every possible datum from your adventure, whether it seems useful or not. I hope we stand closer to arrests at day's end than we did yesterday. I'll tell Mr Delay about the meeting."

I then stalked off, leaving Angela with her meat-cart in the checkout line.

Rebecca set aside her bowl of mango slices when I began telling her about the events of the morning.

"Those people probably would have killed her then and there if they suspected she worked for you. They don't care about anything except the money." Rebecca was horrified at the chance Angela had taken.

"Angela knows all of that. She's frustrated with progress to date."

"So am I, but not enough to take a risk like that. I think I'm going to have to talk to her."

"She was deeply angered with Delay. I tried to deflect and defuse that anger. She said she felt betrayed."

"Poor Mr Delay."

"Whom she now refers to as 'Rowland'."

"Hmm. Interesting."

"He now calls her 'Angela'."

"More interesting still. I do need to talk to her. Rowland and Angela. Angela and Rowland. Sigh. Heavy sigh."

"Heavy sigh?"

"O, yes! Courtship."

"Courtship?"

"Yes. What Angela and Rowland are doing."

"And you are making a point of this because?"

She picked up her bowl of mango slices. "Humor, Mason. These amateur surgeons have invaded my dreams. The people responsible deserve far worse than whatever punishment they receive in the courts."

Delay was reviewing the images collected earlier, running them through the projection system in my office when I entered.

"Are any of those images usable?"

"Quite a few of them, sir."

I saw something I did not quite believe at first. "Go back about a half-dozen images and advance slowly." This he did. When we reached the image of interest, I was sure even without a closer look. "Stop."

"What is it, Mason?"

"I know that woman," I replied. "She once worked for me."

"GSA?" Delay asked.

"Yes. Did she call herself anything, Angela?"

"Kristen."

"Her name is Kendra McEvoy. Do you recognize her, Mr Delay? I am not sure your paths would have crossed here or not."

"Sorry, sir, she's still not familiar to me."

"I'll never forget her. The woman tried to manipulate me."

"With any success?" Angela asked.

"More than I would like to admit. She is unprincipled and ruthless. Yes, I can imagine Kendra McEvoy involved in this horror."

"I've seen only one person capable of manipulating you, and only because you both understand she has the best in mind for you. This Kendra-creep must be quite a character."

"O, she is. You would not want to encounter her in a dark place." The memories were not pleasant ones.

"The other woman did most of the talking, but I believe Kendra was in charge, based upon what she did say. She sat in the back and watched me very carefully, not listened to what I said as much as how I said it."

"GSA training," Delay said.

"Anything we do will require keeping that in mind. She knows our methods."

"How high in the organization was she?"

"In 2007, she had the position that later became yours. She was not low-level. Other former GSA could be working with her. They would know a great deal about mutants."

"What a mess," Delay said.

"Yes, but what a data point."

"Did Kendra have any background in medicine," Angela asked. "The woman who did most of the talking impressed me as being a medical person."

"She had no such training that I was aware of." I reflected upon the implications some more. "We've been careful in recruitment and hiring, but there is a remote chance McEvoy or her hypothetical partners in crime have connections to the GSA now. The connection may be a perfectly innocent one for the current agent, who may be relating unclassified material without realizing its usefulness, such as the tidbit that the GSA fleet is now comprised of vehicles besides black SUVs."

It was only a small thing, but so much could turn upon the use, abuse, misuse or neglect of small details. This was becoming complicated quickly.

I had not thought of Kendra McEvoy in years.

Even now, why is it so difficult for you to admit to yourself that Kendra McEvoy's touch had not been entirely unwelcome and distasteful? No one else will ever know.

"Could you excuse me for a moment?"

Angela and Rowland offered their obligatory consents. I picked up my phone, turned about in my chair to face Podding Operations, and ordered Rebecca a large offering of miniature carnations. [By now, she was growing a large patch of carnations of all types and zillions of dianthus on an obscure patch of Genomex property, but that was not the point...]

Angela was smiling softly when I turned around to re-join the meeting. "That's so sweet."

Rowland took careful mental note of what had just transpired. Perhaps I should give him my florist's phone number and save him some trouble?

A text message from my assistant appeared on my left monitor. 'Your 3 PM appointment is here.'

"I have someone waiting outside. Mr Delay, could you continue debriefing and take thorough notes?"

"Yes, sir."

"Find a meeting room not being used here. St Kats was set up as a hospital, and I would not consider the rooms there secure, not the way Genomex is secure."

They rose and left. I wondered if Delay had a family somewhere to bring Angela home to, and what the legendary Special Agent Lew Erskine would think of the fabulous falcon-woman.

"I have a surprise for you both," Angela had recorded on our answering machine. "Please stop by any time after work."

I couldn't resist that. We had no idea what Angela was talking about.

Angela's wings were partly spread when she opened her door. "I'm so glad you're both here! I was surprised myself—I had no warning!" She turned, and half-walked, half-fluttered to the open balcony doors. "Look who's here!"

A furious beating of wings followed, with ten adult falcons flying around us in tight circles, all the while greeting us with 'skrawk skrawk SKRAWK SKRAWK!" They were glad to see us.

After a few minutes, they settled down, perching all around and on me. One grand adult settled onto my shoulder, taking great care not to sink a talon into me. We turned to face one another. The bird's eyes glowed amber. "SKRAWK!"

"They never forgot you, Mason."

They certainly had not.

"Is this a visit, or have they decided to become urban falcons? There are such."

"I have no idea, Rebecca."

"They've grown. And they look tough."

Rebecca was right.

"When did they arrive?"

"Late morning. I found them here when I came in to put away my meat. But now, I'm going to have to go back to the grocery with guests in the house!"

You're going to be cleaning out the meat counter feeding your voracious brood.

"They're so beautiful, Angela."

"Thank you."

"Have you gone flying with them yet?" Rebecca asked.

"No. I was waiting for you two."

"Go ahead if you wish. We'll understand. I just wish I could go with you."

"But you're afraid of heights," I said.

"I probably wouldn't be if I could fly."

"Go ahead, Angela," I said.

There was a thunderous beating of wings as the entire flock—Angela included—took off together through the open balcony door, briefly silhouetted against the sunset. Then all was silent.

"I need to ask her how they do that—how they all take off together. I really do wish I could go with them."

I could see Angela in the distance. Rebecca was terrified of heights and could not bring herself to closely approach the open doors. "I wonder what brought them back?" she mused.

"I'll guess. They sensed the distress of their egg-mother in recent days. They have demonstrated sensitivity to our emotions."

"That makes as much sense to me as anything else."

"I feel as if I'm intruding into something personal and private. Let's leave Angela a note, and allow her to spend the evening becoming re-acquainted with her children."

"Good idea."

"I wonder if Delay knows about the falcons? They would require a lot of explaining."

"He's surprised me so far. He may just surprise me in accepting the falcons as well. I finished my note, and left it attached to Angela's perch.

There was a knock at Angela's door. I opened it and was surprised but not too surprised to find Delay standing there. What did surprise me was the aromatic box of pizza he was carrying.

"Good evening, Mr Delay."

"Good evening, sir." He looked worried. He hadn't expected to find anyone here. He looked about for Angela.

"Angela is outside stretching her wings. She should be back shortly. Rebecca and I stopped by for just a moment."

At that instant, Angela and her brood returned with a great thrumming of wings, perching everywhere. One perched on me, (I could not be sure, but I believe this was always the same bird, the First Hatchling.) landing lightly on my left shoulder. Then he leaned over towards Delay, flashed amber eyes, and uttered a single piercing "SKRAWK!". I have no idea if it was a warning, a greeting, or a comment on the weather. I'm not sure Angela knew, either.

Angela glanced at the watch. "Rowland, I'm sorry, the falcons came home and I lost track of time."

"I just got here. I haven't been waiting. Really."

"Good to see the falcons again," I said. "We should do a picnic this weekend."

The falcon on my shoulder "skrawked" softly and flapped the short distance to Angela's shoulder.

"I think that might be falcon-approval, Angela." Rebecca laughed.

"We'll talk about it tomorrow." Angela smiled but her wings were constantly in motion, betraying her nervousness.

"I need to explain the falcons to you, Rowland. They are housebroken, by the way."

"Friends of yours?" Delay asked.

"Well, more than that. Family."

"We must be going. We have to get to a movie."

Rebecca and I left in time to spare Angela an audience for what would have to be a difficult tale to tell.

Entering the elevator, Rebecca said, "We're going to a movie, Mason? Which one?"

"I have no idea but we'd better find one quickly in case someone asks tomorrow. I'm trying to recall whether Delay ever served with Thorne. I can't sort it out. But, he would have known the name of 'Thorne'. Thorne earned himself quite a reputation."

"I don't envy what Angela's doing."

"Neither do I."

"Angela just called me in tears. Mason, we have to get over to St Kats immediately." Rebecca had her car key in her hand when we met outside.

We found Angela in her office, blinds drawn against the bright morning light.

"What happened?" Rebecca asked.

"I thought I had seen everything. This morning, two horrible cases came in, something I never imagined."

Angela was not a weepy woman. She was strong and resourceful. Whatever precipitated her tears had to be serious.

"Tell us, Angela."

"Two little girls, twins, maybe 6-7 years old. Perfect angelic faces, carefully dressed in matching pink dresses. Both mutants, some kind of fish or amphibian admixture."

"What happened to them?"

"Someone didn't want their differences to show. Their fingers and toes had been webbed, and they had functional gills. They also had a suggestion of scales and a hint of dorsal fin. Someone sloppily cut their webs open and sewed up the gill slits. Messy, messy work."

"And?" I asked. I knew the rest would be ugly.

"They both had incredible infections. We did everything we could, but one was too far gone and weak. If she had come through the door twelve hours earlier, we might have been able to save her."

"I'm sure you did everything possible." My words sounded empty as I spoke them, but Angela needed to hear this from someone.

"Those butchers are slicing up children. Aside from a slight hint of the amphibian, both girls seemed to be otherwise healthy and normal. Why would anyone put their own vanity and notion of what is attractive ahead of being content with healthy children.

"In some convoluted way, they might believe they were performing a great kindness to spare the girls later pain," I offered. "I don't agree with that, but as a society we place an incredibly high value on physical perfection."

"Can we see the with me." She removed something that glittered from a lab coat pocket. "They were both wearing one of these."

She gave the lockets to Rebecca, who carefully separated the gold chains, and examined the lockets. One was engraved with a script L and the other with a script M. She opened one. "With love, Grandma". She closed it. "This is not junk."

"Someone out there loved these little girls," Angela said, fighting her tears.

"I assume they had no other identification?"

"None."

We found the survivor fast asleep, surrounded by the invasive high tech of heroic medicine. I pushed aside my own days dependent upon heroic medicine. Angela had not exaggerated. Sweet, symmetrical features were apparent despite the tubing. Her coffee and cream skin was smooth and perfect. Her black hair was carefully braided into cornrows with beading. Both hands were bandaged.

"This is obscene," Rebecca said.

"Is she going to live, Angela?"

"Yes. But she will have scarring about the neck, and her hands might not look quite right. She would require several surgeries to repair the inept work already done."

"Someone's going to be looking for these girls, a relative, a neighbor, someone. Someone will notice they just aren't around, and start asking questions." Rebecca was correct, but days could go by first.

"Where is Mr Delay?"

"He went to review the video records. I'm not hopeful. The light was poor."

"The images can be carefully processed if we find anything of potential value. When she wakes up, she might be able to tell us valuable things."

"I don't recall being this angry before," Angela said.

"Channel your anger. Harness it." I did not know if she could, but I found the approach valuable.

Had I known what Angela was planning, I am not certain what I could have done, but I would have done everything and anything to stop her.

An hour later, Mr Delay came to my office, and shared the most useful images before transmitting them to other agencies. They showed a woman in jeans and t-shirt guiding both little girls up to and through the sliding doors of the emergency entrance. She stood watching them for a few moments, then walked briskly back to her recent model Volvo, and drove away.

"Do we have any portion of the plate number?"

"Only the first two letter, LV."

"A beginning. We should have recording gear ready to preserve whatever the surviving girl says. Someone should be with her to keep well-meaning staff from contaminating her memories."

"I want to do that job myself, sir."

"Very good."

Delay once again displayed his pinched-feet and sour stomach expression. I wondered how the pizza fest of the previous evening had done, falcon brood in attendance. But I could not ask.

Finding the Volvo and its owner required going through a national database, since it carried plates from another state. The local police went to the address, which turned out to be a house with a 3-car garage on a street of plush homes. No one answered the doorbell. A search of the exterior doors found one unlocked. No one answered the police as they entered, either.

Everything was tidy, in perfect order, except for the dead young woman they found in the master bedroom with an empty bottle of a prescription drug nearby. She had left a suicide note on the table beside the bed:

Forgive me, Laura and Melinda. I thought I was doing the best for you. Forgive me, Peter. I've destroyed everything.

Peter Niall had left for Houston a few days before. He believed the wife and daughters were across town visiting an aunt, and so thought nothing of reaching the answering machine every time he called.

He knew his wife was a mutant, but that had never been an issue. He was not disturbed by the appearance of their daughters, who had inherited their mother's characteristics.

I knew that much after talking to Mr Niall in Houston. Eight hours later, he was at St Kats, looking in on his surviving daughter.

The next morning, I returned to St Kats after Angela called and told me Mr Liall was back.

"That's Lindy. When she was four and a half, she tripped and scraped her leg on a landscaping rock. The scar on her left knee was about the only way we could tell them apart."

"Mr Niall, you knew your wife was a Genomex mutant."

"I knew, but it hardly mattered. The novelty wears off quickly."

"Did she talk about surgery for your daughters?"

"No. She talked about surgery for herself, but we agreed to put that off."

"Mr Niall, there is a group operating in this area offering cheap 'plastic surgery', including everything from minor changes to major body modification. They are either inept surgeons or amateurs. The consequences of their 'work' show up here, and at other local hospitals. Anything you can remember that might help the police find these predators, let someone know."

"I don't want anyone talking to Melinda. She's been through enough, and she'll have to go through losing her sister and mother shortly—I haven't told her about them. I want her to forget as much of this as possible. Keep away from her. How is my baby doing, doctor?" Niall turned away from me to Angela.

"Melinda is doing well. She will need serious antibiotics for a while, but she is otherwise healthy and strong."

"My mother is coming from Pittsburgh to help take care of her."

"That's great," Angela said.

"Is she the 'Grandma' of the lockets?" I asked.

Niall nodded. She gave the girls those last Christmas. Neither of them would take them off."

"They are safely locked up. At some time, someone representing all of the local police departments will want to talk to Melinda. It's unavoidable, but we will only put her through it once."

"I really do not want anyone talking to her." Niall was crossing over into anger.

"These people have killed before. They will kill again. They will do this to other peoples' babies." I had pushed too hard, but if he was not letting anyone question his daughter, I was going to burden him with guilt.

"Someone is making a lot of money doing back-room surgery," Angela began. "A lot of their botched work comes here. I've seen every case that came to St Kats."

"Why would anyone go to barbarians?"

"People want to fit in. They want to be liked. The more 'normal' your appearance and the more 'pleasing' your appearance, the easier it is to be accepted and liked. We live in a culture steeped in vanity."

Later, I talked to Angela in her office.

"How is anyone going to be able to stop these monsters? Their survivors won't talk."

"They are clever, efficient, and they are providing a service wanted badly by desperate people. I don't have a glib answer for you, Angela."

"I feel useless."

"Nonsense. Your usefulness is visible all around you."

"Even with the best people and the best equipment, I'm losing patients."

"You cannot blame yourself. They were very sick people when they arrived. Contemporary medicine is good, but it is not magic. Remember that you have saved some terribly ill people."

"Why do people like these monsters exist, Mason?"

"Why? That's a question I have no answer for. I can tell you how such people exist: they have no conscience and think of the world only in terms of themselves."

"How can they be that way?"

"Theories abound, but nobody really knows. You should talk to Dr Varady. Many agencies are working on this. These people will make a mistake or make the wrong enemy. They may even turn on each other."

"Pleasant thought."

"Angela, go home, spend time with your flock, and get some sleep."

"That sounds like an order."

"That's because it is."

Angela smiled.

"I'm going to look in on Melinda Niall. Care to come along? When we're done, I'm taking you to an elevator and make sure you go home."

We found her sitting up in bed, alert, and talking to her father. A penguin stuffed animal and several storybooks were spread out in front of her.

"Good afternoon, Mr Niall. I just stopped by to see how Melinda was doing."

"She feels much better...I'm afraid I was rude to you yesterday. I apologize. Just allow Melinda a few days of peace."

"You had just received terrible news. No apology needed."

"This whole hospital is set up for people like Helene, isn't it?" he asked Angela.

"Yes. We don't turn away emergency cases involving what we call 'plain vanilla' people, but if they are going to require a long stay, we transfer them to another hospital. Genomex mutants can come here and be taken seriously no matter what sort of unusual symptoms they describe. It is a unique facility. I have been here since the beginning, well, before. I helped with some of the design work."

"How long has it been here?"

"A little more than two years."

Niall turned to me. "What do you do here?"

"I'm in charge of the people who run the hospital day-to-day. I am also head of Genomex."

Peter Niall's expression darkened. I offered an explanation before he could make an accusation. "Genomex is acting as the 'clean-up' crew to alleviate or eliminate the problems left behind by my predecessors."

"There are some awful stories about that place."

"And many of them are true. Mr Niall, I don't want to take up your time with your daughter. I'm glad to see you looking better, Melinda."

I was ready to quit for the day myself. I craved a quiet evening with no distractions. A new biography of Grant had been delivered days ago, and I had not had time to do more than remove it from the box. I got my wish for that quiet evening, the last one I would know for a while.

I woke the next morning with unusual optimism. We –the law enforcement agencies tracking the 'surgeons'-- were accumulating more and more bits of data, and fitting those pieces together like a puzzle. Nothing was so small that we ignored it. Finding a former GS agent involved was a breakthrough, hinting at the nature of the balance of the gang.

I had agents hard at work locating all past GSA. That could be highly useful. I reviewed some of the more intriguing files personally.

Angela's email came through at 10.17 AM. She had posted it at 8 AM, but opted for delayed delivery.

Mason,

I am sorry. I cannot keep my promise of not trying to be a field agent. After talking to Mr Niall yesterday about his daughter Laura and wife Helene, I had to do something.

By the time you receive this, I will be at my second interview. You won't be able to stop me because I'll already be there.

I do promise to be careful.

Rowland had NOTHING to do with this decision. I said nothing to him about my plan, because I think he would have talked me out of it. I have copied this message to him.

--Angela

Predictably, Rowland Caldwell Delay appeared in my office a few minutes later, looking distressed.

"Sir, you've read your email?"

"Yes. Rarely have I felt so miserably helpless. Angela is out there with the barbarians and we cannot do a thing to protect her."

"That's not quite true."

"How so, Mr Delay?"

"Angela was so upset yesterday about the butchery of the twins that I thought she might do something impulsive. I felt terrible when I did it, but last night I clipped a transmitter to her feathers. We can track her, sir."

"Nicely done. I think for this we'll travel light and fast. Pick three more agents. Meet me at the front door with an SUV."

"On my way, sir."

I picked up my phone to tell Rebecca what had happened, but she did not answer her extension. I left a message about Angela, and asked her to feed the falcons if I did not return with their egg-mother by 5 PM.

Mr Delay's transmitter worked the way it was supposed to; 45 minutes later we sighted a huge white motor home on the fringe of a Wal-Mart parking lot.

"I'm not sure what municipality we're in, Mr Delay, but get on the phone, find out, and call in more troops."

The best-laid plans...well, this was one of them. In the next moment, Angela fluttered through the motor home door, wings flapping frantically, but something was wrong. She could not get into the air. Three women came running after her, seizing both arms, then dragging her back towards the door.

I don't think I told anyone to do anything. The sight of one of our own in peril prompted the obvious and only course of action. We were on top of them in seconds, then everything went suddenly wrong. One of the women reached out and grasped Mr Delay; he fell to the pavement moments later. Distracted by this inexplicable sight, a second woman had plenty of time to aim and fire her automatic. At such close range, she could not miss. Blood was everywhere. Angela twisted around to see what had happened, then screamed.

The woman who had done the killing was Kendra McEvoy. The one who had done something to Mr Delay walked up to me, in no great hurry.

"Time to go, Mr Eckhart. She was familiar; she grasped my left arm and pushed up my sleeve, exposing more of my arm. I felt sudden cold, cold of the deep and bottomless type I had known in stasis. Then I blacked out. I may have collapsed the same way Delay had done.

"O Dear God." Rebecca sat down in a task chair and set aside the wrenches she had been using.

"I'm sorry, Dr Steyn. I was out cold, literally. That woman could raise or lower the temperature of an object or person by touching them and willing a temperature change to happen. When I was conscious again, a paramedic was kneeling next to me with nearly a dozen police cars surrounding us and the three dead agents lying in pools of their own blood. Two of them died instantly. The other survived the trip to the hospital, but died in emergency surgery. The motor home was gone, and Mr Eckhart wasn't there. I assume he and Angela were taken hostage."

Dr Steyn closed her eyes and sagged forward in her chair. "What do we do now?"

"Hunt for the motor home and hope that they are inside."

She glanced at her watch. "Mason left a message for me to feed the falcons if he was not back with Angela by 5 PM. I'm going to go feed them now. Could you come along and help?"

"Sure."

"Have you seen them eat?"

"No."

"Then, I'll warn you. It is not a pretty sight. Mason and I fed them when they were bird babies. Keep in mind that they are carnivorous predators, not seed eating pets. They are what they are, and you must accept their dietary habits, or else have nothing to do with them."

"I've imagined what they must be like. I've seen the contents of Angela's refrigerator."

"Good." She slid down from the task chair, and crossed the lab to a fume hood, picking up two sets of tongs. "We'll be glad we brought these. They save wear and tear on the fingers."

Rebecca kept her falconer's glove in the trunk of her car, thinking that someday Angela's brood would return, and she would be glad she kept it.

The falcons seemed not surprised at all that Rebecca and Delay showed up instead of their egg-mother. They made a few questioning "skrawks", as if inquiring about Angela's absence.

"I hope you have a strong stomach," Rebecca said as she placed a dish with beef cut for stewing into the microwave. "They prefer their meat warm—body temperature."

"I would expect that."

"Good. They are incredibly beautiful, graceful creatures, but their dietary preferences disgust a lot of people."

"Will we be mobbed?"

"In that respect they are like well-mannered human children. They'll perch together quietly, and wait to be fed in turn."

Mr Delay surprised Rebecca by not showing any sign of repulsion. "Do you think they know something is wrong?"

"They might. They look like falcons, but they are much more than that. Their parentage, after all, is 75 % human. It's easy to forget that."

"Angela told me all about them."

When they had finished distributing dinner, Rebecca picked up her glove, and drew it on. "I want to try something. Don't laugh."

"Anything you can think to do that might help find Angela and Mr Eckhart...I'm not going to laugh."

Rebecca turned to the largest, strongest, and most elegant of the falcons. "I think you're the First Hatchling, the flock leader. I must tell you something about your egg-mother. She is in danger." Rebecca stretched out her gloved arm.

The great bird flapped the short distance to Rebecca's arm, seizing onto the thick leather with wicked, sharp talons. His eyes glowed amber for a few moments. "Your egg-mother Angela, and Mason, who raised you from an egg, are now captives of people who may kill them both."

The falcon's eyes glowed amber and angry at this.

"Will you and your egg-sibs help us find them and free them? We cannot fly. You would have to pace yourselves so that we could follow you on the ground."

The entire flock fluttered their wings at this.

"I think they're going to help, Mr Delay. Could you open the balcony door for them?"

Rebecca closed her eyes, visualized what her car looked like, and where it was parked. "Meet us there," she said to the First Hatchling.

The bird's eyes glowed briefly with amber understanding until Delay had the balcony door fully open. As one, the flock rose and fluttered out to the balcony railing, perching all along it.

"This is crazy," Delay said.

"This is real. We're going on a hunt. There is not a moment to be lost."

Mason

Since 1992, I have wakened every morning at Genomex, save for perhaps a half-dozen mornings. Becoming conscious and aware in a place not of my choosing that I did not recognize was alarming. I was on a narrow cot facing a concrete block wall. I turned, and saw Angela seated on the same kind of cot across the grey, gloomy room.

"What is this place?"

"Do you remember what happened?"

"The last thing I recall is seeing out of the motor home...then we all ran from the SUV to save you. I don't know the rest." That my memory suffered from such a lapse disturbed me.

"Not remembering could be a good thing. I think the harpies now holding us killed everyone with you. They were all down on the pavement. There was a lot of blood."

Angela believes Delay is dead.

"Who are these 'harpies'?"

"The gang running plastic-surgery-on-the-cheap. They're all women."

"Women are not exempt from evil. What happened to you?'

"I showed up for the second interview, the one where they show you their facilities. Things were going well until in strolled lovely Miriam the Scorpion Girl. As I guessed, her claws had begun to regenerate. She whined about this to one of the other interviewers."

"Then she noticed you."

"'You're the bird-doctor from that hospital full of freaks!'. Two of the interviewers threw me to the floor and sat on me until they could bind my feet and hands. I was afraid they would crush my bones. 'Well, what do we do with her now?' 'I know,' one of them said. 'My grandmother used to keep birds. She showed me how to keep them from flying away.'"

Angela began sobbing.

"What did they do to you?"

She closed her eyes. "They hacked off my primary flight feathers. Clipped my wings. Mason, I can't fly." She stretched out her right wing, showing its shortened, ragged edge.

"They will grow back."

"Yes, but that will take a long time."

"What is this place?"

"A secret room. Secret living quarters hidden behind a bank of dryers at a laundromat. The harpies have laundromats as a side business."

"That's bizarre, but it makes sense...a business that generates untraceable cash."

"Mason, did you tell Delay to put that transmitter on me?"

"No. He did that on his own. That's how we found you so easily."

"That transmitter is long since smashed and destroyed. Mason, no one knows where we are."

"What about your flock."

"The balcony door is closed. They cannot get outside."