"…and then he shouted something about demons and asked to be arrested," Saurial's chirpy and very cheerful voice said. "He was acting very strangely, to be honest. I mean, he threw his gun at me when he ran out of bullets! Who does that? If the bullet didn't hurt, a gun sure wasn't going to." She sounded mildly puzzled. "He was really worked up for some reason."

She shrugged while Kate stared at her with slight disbelief. The lizard-girl was one of the happiest capes she'd ever interviewed, but the contrast between that attitude and something that from her description sounded more like a scene from 'Alien' seen from the point of view of the thing hunting the humans down one by one was more than a little disturbing. The reporter nodded, a professional slight smile on her face, but inside she was hoping that she never encountered the blue-scaled girl in the dark.

Something that she suspected the gang members would wholeheartedly agree with. Possibly while whimpering and trying to hide under something.

"I see. It sounds like you were very effective, Saurial."

"I'd like to think so. I mean, Kid Win and Clockblocker were right outside along with a lot of cops, so none of them would have got very far if I'd missed any, but it was sort of a point of pride to me to do a good job. I'd only been on the scene for a few days then and I didn't want to embarrass myself or anyone else." She smiled to herself, apparently remembering the incident. "But it worked out pretty well. By now, I think it's something like about seventy E88 members, maybe fifty ABB, and a couple of dozen Merchants."

The girl frowned a little. "Actually, thinking about it, I could swear a few of those E88 guys I'd already grabbed once already. Huh. I'll have to look into that. Anyway, it's quite a lot of them. Unfortunately there are always loads more."

"This city does seem to have more than it's fair share of criminals, most of whom are violent," Kate agreed.

"I know! They're all over the place. And leaving aside the villainous capes, who to be honest don't normally go out on the street much, their cannon fodder are just irritating." She shrugged with a slight air of one who is trying one's best but finds the rest of the world to not be cooperating properly. "I'm forever tripping over them. Often doing such stupid little crimes I can't see how it's actually worth the effort. I mean, three guys holding up a convenience store that has all of forty-three dollars and change in the till? What's the point? And in that particular case they caused about a thousand dollars worth of damage and came close to killing someone. That really annoys me. They'd have made more money actually asking the guy for a job, he could do with some help."

She snickered for a moment. "The really funny thing is that they must have fired off nearly fifty dollars worth of bullets. They sprayed the ceiling with three AK-47s, and even paused to reload. That's something like a hundred and twenty shots or so. As far as I know the ammo for those things isn't all that cheap, even around here. Even if they'd gotten away, they'd have been out of pocket."

Kate actually smiled at that one. "Criminals of that type aren't known for financial acumen," she replied.

"Apparently not." Saurial shook her head in disgust. "If they were they'd find something more useful to do. Even better thought out crimes, probably. That snatch and grab stuff is so stupid. But it gives me some exercise, I guess. Pity about all the innocent people who get caught up in it."

"I'd have to agree." Kate paused for a moment, while the lizard-girl cocked her head curiously to watch her. Her mannerisms were very odd, definitely giving a distinct impression of not being entirely human, and many of her movements were much too quick and sure. She tended to move almost instantly from position to position, then stop dead and not move at all in a somewhat creepy manner. Kate could easily see why that combined with almost total darkness would put someone's nerve to the test, especially if they were engaged in a criminal enterprise.

"To change the subject a little, my information is that you are an expert in both hand to hand combat and the use of hand weapons, which you can make as required. Can you tell me a little more about that?"

"OK," Saurial smiled. "The close quarters combat is a family style, we all know it, but Kaiju doesn't really use it, for example. I mean, she's so big who's she going to practice on, except one of us?" The girl giggled a little, while Kate paled slightly, wondering how many like Kaiju there actually were out there. The idea of a pair of them practicing throws and falls was simultaneously funny and horrifying. "I'm the little one, your size, so I use it a lot. The sort of people I go after it works really well on, and is safer than a lot of things I could do. Plus it's good practice." She shrugged quickly. "And fun. Anyway, that style is very old, we developed it over the generations and have optimized it a lot for ourselves. I might try teaching it to a human at some point, it would be interesting to see how it worked on someone without a tail."

Her own tail was lying on the floor next to the chair she was sitting in, the tip twitching back and forth as she talked.

"The weapons are interesting. I already knew all sorts of ones when I came here, like swords, spears, clubs, hammers, that sort of thing, but I've been actively researching and developing new ones and practicing with them. Like this." Suddenly she was holding a collapsible baton in each hand, which she extended with a practiced flick almost too fast to see. The weapons snapped out to full length with a solid snick noise.

"These things are cool, and really effective if you know how to use them properly. And safer than something like a warhammer." The girl twirled the one in her left hand like a cheerleader's baton while whipping the other one in a complex pattern with a sound like tearing silk. It neatly demonstrated both how fast she was and how well coordinated.

She made them go away to wherever they'd come from, then produced a throwing dagger. "Knives, they're easy. Then there's throwing darts, nets, ropes, all sorts of things like that. I was reading some interesting books on ancient Roman weapons, those guys had some really cool ideas. Pity there doesn't seem to be any good training manuals on using them, though, I've having to work it out from scratch. But that's also a lot of fun."

Kate nodded, keeping her expression neutral with some difficulty, rather than recoiling at the sheer glee with which the reptilian girl talked about lethal weaponry. "Do you also use firearms?" she asked numbly.

"No, I haven't had any need for that," Saurial smiled. "I mean, I might be able to make a gun, I guess, I haven't tried, but what's the point? I can throw a knife faster than a handgun fires a bullet, and probably more accurately than anyone except a proper marksman can shoot. It's a lot quieter as well."

"I… see," Kate finally said. "Thank you. I think that's all I need." She motioned to her cameraman, who stopped recording, then lowered the camera and just stared at Saurial. "We should be able to use most of that, I think," she added after going back over the interview. "We have about fifteen minutes of you, the same from Kaiju, then Mr Hebert and the Mayor we got around half an hour each from and another ten minutes with them both together. Not to mention all the footage outside. I might be able to get two specials out of this, rather than one."

"Glad to help," Saurial smiled. "And you'll do what Kaiju asked?"

"Of course. I keep my promises, especially to people nearly a hundred feet tall," Kate smiled. "I see no point in embarrassing the Triumvirate or any of the other people involved, there's no benefit to me or the studio and a pretty large number of downsides. I'd like to come back at some point if nothing else."

"Great." The lizard girl looked pleased. "Thank you."

"I've already deleted that section of footage, Kate," the camera operator said quietly from behind them, making both females look. He shrugged. "When someone like Kaiju asks for a favor, you say yes."

"Fair enough," she smiled. "Good call."

Turning back to Saurial, she asked curiously, "Do you know what all that was actually about?"

"No idea. Kaiju can't work it out either," Saurial sighed, looking somewhat puzzled. "It was really strange. According to her Legend was fine, Alexandria seemed confused, and Eidolon was just acting weirdly. She thinks it was probably all some sort of misunderstanding, though. Probably nothing serious."

The girl looked to the side at the clock on the cafeteria wall. "I'm going to have to go, I have someone I need to talk to, but it was nice talking to you, Kate. Good luck with your report, I'm really interested in seeing it."

She stood up, holding out her hand, which Kate shook after also rising. She thought the sensation of fine scales on her skin was odd but not unpleasant. "It should be broadcast in about two weeks, perhaps a little less," Kate replied, releasing her hand. "It depends on the editing and the schedule, but I'll make sure Mr Hebert gets advance notice of it. I'll ask if I can send him a DVD before it airs."

"Thanks, that would be cool. This was fun. See you guys around, maybe," Saurial replied with a smile, nodding to both engineers, then turning. She headed for the exit, calling greetings to the various DWU members who had been sitting around watching from out of shot and being remarkably polite and quiet. Now the interview was over they were beginning to talk, though.

Kate watched the end of Saurial's tail disappear out the door, then shivered.

"Holy shit, I wouldn't want to run into her in a dark place," she muttered.

"Neither would I," the sound man said, his voice a little faint. "How can someone so happy be so horrifying?"

"Lots of practice and inborn skill," the camera operator answered, although he was also staring after the humanoid lizard.

Deciding that she needed a cup of coffee before they left, just to settle her nerves, Kate got up and headed to the coffee machine, going back over the interview in her head and working where to fit it into her report.

Pulling up at the DWU gate, Amy smiled at the guard who came over to her window. "Hello, Panacea. New car?" he said, returning the smile.

"Yes, thanks, Mike, it's my first one," she replied happily, stroking the steering wheel possessively. He looked amused.

"The first one is always one you remember," he noted with a slight laugh in his voice. "Mine was an old Mustang my dad and me rebuilt from a pile of rust. Took two years. But I had it for another ten, met my wife as a result of it, and sold it for a fortune. Good memories." Taking a step back, he inspected the vehicle, nodding in approval. "Good solid trucks, these, they last practically forever and will go anywhere. Nice color as well."

"I sure like it," she admitted. "Is Saurial around? Or Raptaur?"

"Saurial was giving an interview to that TV crew that's been hanging around all day, they just left, so I guess she's probably in the BBFO office."

"Thanks."

"No problem." He waved to the other man, who opened the barrier. "Take care, Panacea."

"Amy, Mike, call me Amy."

"Fine by me," he chuckled. "Amy. Say hi to Saurial for us."

"I will," she promised, as she gave the truck some gas, moving off with a throaty rumble that she thought was very nice. Heading slowly around the Admin building and down the side of the complex, her headlights turning the evening dark into daylight, she turned into the side yard and parked, climbing down from the vehicle. After she locked it she headed over to the door of Taylor's building, tapping on it. It opened almost immediately, Lisa peering out at her, then calling back over her shoulder, "You were right, it's Amy."

"Told you," Taylor's Saurial voice came back, sounding satisfied. "I remember engine sounds."

"I couldn't hear anything at all from inside," Lisa remarked, holding the door open for the other girl, then closing it behind her.

"You don't have Varga ears," Taylor smirked.

Amused, Amy headed for the table, dropping into a chair and putting her feet up, tossing her keys up and down in her hand while grinning.

"Enjoying your big blue truck?" Taylor asked. She seemed amused.

"Very much, thanks. It's fun to drive and goes over all the potholes out there like they were normal road surface."

Taylor frowned a little. "I should probably do something about the roads around here at some point," she mumbled, "they're awful." More loudly, she added, "I'm glad it's working out. Why are you back from the hospital so early? It's only about half past six or so."

"I've healed everyone who needs it and your various forms have put the criminals so far off their game most of them are on holiday, so there's hardly any violent crime at the moment, which means hardly any trauma patients. Basically I got kicked out and told to come back when I was needed for something more serious than a cold." Amy snickered as Taylor looked surprised, glancing at Lisa who had sat down and was listening curiously.

"Really? Wow. I didn't think I'd had that much effect. That's pretty impressive, but a little scary."

"So are you," Lisa grinned. "Mind you, Kaiju is fucking terrifying. I'm not surprised that the E88 and the rest are keeping a low profile. They're probably trying to work out whether they should move."

Appearing somewhat proud, Taylor took a seated bow, making the other two girls both laugh for a moment. "You're too kind."

"I know."

"And too smug."

"It's a gift."

"And a curse?"

"No, just a gift."

Amy watched the byplay, then shook her head in amusement. "I can see you two are a good match for each other." Both the others exchanged a glance, then nodded.

"So what's happened here today?" Amy asked curiously. "I saw you made those filter things you were talking about. They're a lot bigger than I realized they'd be. And the entire yard surface looks new."

"It is, I did that after I made the filtration units. They're working really well, the water coming out is almost pure. The ship should be pumped out by the end of tomorrow at the latest." Taylor looked satisfied with the results of the day. "Other than that it was business as usual. Oh, there was the little matter of Eidolon attacking me without any reason, but aside from that the whole afternoon was nothing special."

Amy blinked.

Then looked at Lisa, who was wearing a very peculiar smile.

Then looked back at Taylor, who was just sitting there looking back, her scaly face expressing nothing.

She blinked again.

"Eidolon?"

"Yep."

"Attacked you?"

"Yep."

"Out of the blue?"

"Yep."

"What the fuck?"

Taylor shrugged. "He just hauled off and shot me in the back of the head with some weird electrical beam thing. While I was walking away, even."

Feeling light-headed, Amy blinked several more times, trying to wrap her head around something she had not expected to hear. Eventually she asked in a faint voice, "What did you do?"

"Gassed him with pure nitrogen and handed him to his friends."

"Friends?"

"The rest of the Triumvirate. They were here too."

By this point, Amy had decided that blinking in shock wasn't cutting it, and resorted to gaping a little.

Eventually she recovered enough to say, in a rather confused voice, "I think you'd better start at the beginning. I can't see how we got from filtration towers to a gassed Eidolon, if I'm being completely honest with you."

"We're not entirely sure either," Lisa said with a frown. "It was extremely peculiar."

"OK. I was just in the middle of resurfacing the yard out there, when I heard them talking a few hundred yards away..." Taylor began a very odd story, which Amy listened to intently, only barely noticing when Danny came in half way through and sat next to her.

When the door to Colin's lab opened to reveal Dragon on the other side, Paul took one step inside then stopped, inspecting her, then the other man who was looking at him with an odd expression. Both of them somehow expressed a certain degree of tension. Resuming walking, he entered the room fully, hearing the door slide shut behind him with a faint hum, then lock with a very solid if low-key clunk.

"What's going on? You both look like something horrible has happened."

"I wouldn't call it horrible, precisely, but very, very peculiar would be a fair assessment," Dragon's synthetic but extremely expressive voice said. He inspected her again. Even through the reptilian-themed power armor she never removed, he could practically feel the woman's worry.

Moving to a seat at the work table which was half-buried in arcane technology already, only a day or so after their report writing session, he put his hands on the table and leaned back. Feeling a certain amount of concern, he looked at them both. "Tell me," he said.

"I think we need to show you the data and let you draw your own conclusions," Colin replied, sounding like he was also both confused and worried. "I don't want to bias your thought processes."

"All right. Show me, then."

Turning to his keyboard, the Tinker poked a few keys. A projector on the ceiling sprang to life, producing a very high resolution image on the wall at the end of the room. Paul turned to look at it. "First, this," Colin said, accompanied by a few more keystrokes. An image of a 3D globe appeared, Australia centered on it. To the lower left, several hundred miles from the coast and in very deep water, an indicator appeared, colored bright red. It had a small label reading 'Leviathan' attached to it.

Paul recognized the output of Dragon's Endbringer monitoring system. He leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table, watching as the dot moved in what looked like a random pattern a small amount, more or less circling a specific point. Checking the timestamp at the top right of the image he saw it was a recording, not a live feed, from a few hours ago. "How long has he been there?" he asked curiously.

"Since the seventh of last month," Dragon replied, leaning on the wall behind him and also watching the image.

"Really? That's unusual, isn't it? I thought he normally wandered around over a vast area when he wasn't on an attack run."

"He does." Colin's voice was flat.

Glancing at the other man for a moment, Paul went back to the display. Suddenly, the dot started moving south and west a little erratically, essentially down towards the west coast of Antarctica at an angle. He checked the data again, seeing that the Endbringer had moved surprisingly slowly. "Where's he going?" he asked, worried.

Without saying anything in response to his question, Colin just hit a key. A yellow line extended from the red trace the Endbringer was leaving, moving in a dead straight line much faster, the globe rotating under it. The line missed the Antarctic coast, entered the South Atlantic, tracked steadily north again with a westward component as well, and finally terminated on the Eastern seaboard of the Continental US. The image zoomed in on a very familiar bay.

"Fuck me," Paul squeaked in shock.

"That was basically our reaction," Dragon commented with black humor in her voice.

He stared as the process rewound, leaving the yellow line in place, to go back to Leviathan. The Endbringer kept moving as the timestamp in the corner incremented, the recording being played at several times normal speed, until he abruptly stopped. A moment later he began tracking back and forth over a small area, looking entirely random again.

"He stopped."

"Keep watching."

The dot started moving again, on the same bearing. A little while later it stopped again a few miles further. This time there was a short pause before it reversed course, heading a hundred and eighty degrees from its original path until it ended up right back where it had started from.

"That is… very, very peculiar," he finally said. "As you mentioned."

"That's not the very, very peculiar part," Dragon said quietly. "That's just the very peculiar part."

The image shrunk into the lower left quarter of the display, while text window the same size took up the equivalent position on the right side. The top half of the screen was filled with a video window that showed a very familiar scene once more, one he'd seen only a few hours ago.

Staring at the footage of him and his two colleagues, a still frame obviously caught on a cell phone by one of the dock workers, he frowned. "And the point of this is?"

"Watch. This is where the second 'very' comes into play." Dragon now sounded worried. He heard a key click again over at Colin's keyboard, but didn't look away. The three windows immediately animated, this time running in real time and clearly carefully synchronized. The text display was a second by second list of coordinates of Leviathan apparently extracted from the tracking display next to it he realized.

Paul watched in amazement as the Endbringer started moving just over a second before David had more or less challenged Kaiju after her unnerving demonstration. It stopped again as Rebecca started shouting at him. When his friend approached the giant cape for the second time, it started again, and then the video went into a blank spot for just under two minutes. Around two thirds of the way through this blank section the creature stopped again, then went back on itself.

"Play it again," he requested in a numb voice, watching the screen so intently he could almost feel his eyeballs dry out. Without comment Colin did as asked.

After the second run through, he exhaled softly and said, "Shit."

"What happened during the missing segment?" Colin asked. He sounded curious, but worried.

"Eidolon launched an unprovoked attack on Kaiju," he replied heavily.

"WHAT?" both Tinkers yelped with remarkably similar shock, and at exactly the same time.

He sighed. "It's complicated. But it ended up with her walking away and him getting her in the back of the head with a powerful electrical beam."

"Was she harmed?" Dragon asked urgently.

"She hardly noticed, in fact," he said, shaking his head. "Just scratched her head a little, and I think that was more in surprise than anything else. Whatever else she is, tough doesn't even begin to describe it."

"Then what did she do?"

"She came back and asked him, remarkably politely at that, basically what the hell he thought he was doing. He practically dared her to do something about it. She did. When he recovered, we left." Leaning back in his chair feeling ill, Paul shook his head, while the others looked at each other. "Jesus, what the hell does this mean?"

"Can you explain what we're looking at, and fill in the missing parts, sir?" Colin asked, coming over to the table and pulling out a chair. Dragon sat down on the other side, both of them looking expectantly at him.

"All right. We arrived essentially wanting just to observe Kaiju at work, then talk for a while..." he began, glancing occasionally at the now-static image on the projected screen and wondering why his stomach felt like it was full of lead shot.

He had a horrible feeling that when they figured this out, he wasn't going to like the answer.

"Did you get me a sample?" Doctor Mother looked expectant.

"No, I did not. We came this close to having more blood spilled than I like to imagine, but I have a feeling that none of it would be Kaiju's," Rebecca replied, holding her thumb and forefinger about an eighth of an inch apart. "Don't ask. David is in the next room. I want him checked very thoroughly for any form of Master effect you can think of. Then do it again. Check for drugs, hypnosis, hell, check him for worms, I don't care. Everything you can think of that might cause a behavioral change with an emphasis on anger and aggression. Just find out if there's anything wrong with him."

"What's going on?"

"I have no fucking idea, which is what worries me," the brunette woman growled. "I have to get back, but do whatever you need to and find out if he's in command of his faculties. I'll be back some time tomorrow evening, Eastern time. I want to know what the hell is going on with the man when I do."

Doctor Mother looked confused, but nodded.

"See if you can get me a sample," she said.

Rebecca sighed, then snapped, "Door to five thousand feet above PRT ENE building," before walking through the portal that immediately opened next to her. It closed, leaving a confused woman staring at where it had been. After a few seconds, she shook her head, then went to find David and do unnatural things to him whether he liked it or not.

"Well, that's a little strange," Amy commented in an odd tone of voice, as the video from Taylor's head camera finished playing on the laptop that Taylor's father had brought in with him.

"You might say that, yes," she replied, unplugging the camera USB cable. "I was certainly a bit puzzled at the time. Any ideas?"

"Not really. He was exhibiting all the signs of someone full of adrenaline and cortisol, though. Stressed, keyed up for either fighting or dodging. Full on fight or flight reflex with an emphasis on fight." Amy looked around at them. "Like he was in the middle of combat."

"He actually wanted to be in the middle of combat," Lisa commented. "As far as my power could tell."

"That's… I don't know what that is," the healer said after a reflective silence. "Other than probably not good."

"I certainly couldn't see or hear anything you said or did that would have resulted in such behavior, Taylor," her father remarked.

"Neither could I," she replied. "I've gone over and over it in my head, and talked it over with Varga. He can't work it out either."

"The entire affair is both puzzling and concerning, Danny," the demon said through her. "I must confess I can't determine any plausible reason for Eidolon to react so aggressively. But he was like that from the moment of initial contact and became more worked up the longer the encounter went on. Neither of his companions seemed able to understand it either. Legend said as much, and one could see it in Alexandria from the way she was behaving."

"Your joke with his name was awful, Mr Foot is a lot funnier, but that seems an overreaction to a nickname," Amy mused. Taylor shrugged.

"I guess, but like Varga says, he was acting weird before I called him Grassman. Which I sort of like."

"More like Assman for a lot of that," Lisa quipped, making them all groan.

"You're worse than she is," Amy sighed. The blonde just looked amused.

"Was there anything at all that you can think of about that encounter that stood out as odd, other than Eidolon's behavior?" Taylor's father asked thoughtfully, looking at her with his hands folded on the table. She thought back to the events of earlier that afternoon.

"The only thing I can think of was the scent," she eventually replied, noticing that Lisa looked at her intently at that.

"Scent?"

"Yes. It's weird, actually. His scent had something very strange sort of under it, it's difficult to explain in words. But it was clearly there. The odd part is that Alexandria also had the same sort of undertone in her scent, and so did Legend. His was the faintest, then Alexandria, then Eidolon, who was pretty strong by comparison."

"Is it something they were exposed to at the same time?" her father asked. "I mean, surely any group of people who spend some time together in the same place will end up having scents in common, at least to your senses."

"It wasn't that sort of scent. It was… part of them, I guess, is the best way to put it. Something that was given off by their bodies, not a trace from something they touched." Taylor shrugged. "I'm sorry, but you'll have to take my word for it."

"She's correct, Danny, it was inherent, not an externally acquired scent," the Varga added.

"Have you smelled it before? Either of you?" She looked at Lisa who seemed slightly relieved for some reason, but intensely curious at the same time.

"Varga hasn't, but I have a vague idea that I might have run across it now that I've been concentrating on it," she said with a frown. "Really, really faintly, so faintly I didn't really notice at the time, but scents are weird. You tend to remember them without being able to remember where you encountered them sometimes."

"Can you recall where?" Amy asked, looking fascinated. "Or when?"

"It was recently," she mumbled, thinking hard. "Very recently."

They waited, until it suddenly came to her. She lifted her head and stared at Amy. "I was with you! Now I remember. It was when we stopped at Fugly's and played that joke on Assault and Battery."

"Oh." Amy looked confused again. "Where was it coming from?"

"I think it was Battery," she replied slowly. "I wasn't looking for it so I can't be completely certain, and it was incredibly faint even for me, but I have a strong feeling it was her."

"I believe you are right, Brain," the Varga commented out loud through her.

"What does that mean, though?" she asked, mostly to herself. "What do Alexandria, Legend, Eidolon, and Battery all have in common? Or, have in common that other capes don't?"

"You're sure that no one else smells like this mystery scent?" her father asked.

"No one I've encountered so far, no," she replied. "But I haven't met that many capes so far, really. The Wards, Armsmaster, Dragon, those two, these two here plus Lisa's friends, Über and Leet, Hookwolf, Coil… That's not even half the capes in the city, never mind anywhere else. But none of them have that scent that I can recall except Battery. I'm sure the rest of them definitely don't, except maybe Coil. He's a possibility but it's so faint I'd have to be next to him to pick it up and so far that hasn't happened."

"I hope you'll have the chance to be very close to him soon," Lisa smirked with a dark tone in her voice, which made the others smile.

"I expect that will happen," she replied.

"Next time you see Battery confirm that scent," her father suggested, "and stay alert for it from other Parahumans. It may mean something, it may not. But if Eidolon really does have it the strongest, it's possible it's connected in some way to what happened earlier."

"I'll make sure I do," she promised. "Even though I have no idea what it means."

All five of them discussed the oddity of the encounter for another half hour, but couldn't reach any real conclusions because there simply wasn't enough information to go on. The Varga seemed very thoughtful, like he was working on a problem he had a vague idea about but nothing more, so she left him to it, not wanting to disturb him.

Eventually, her father looked at his watch. "Half past seven. I need to finish some work in the office then head home. Will you be coming back soon, Taylor?"

"Soonish, I think, but I want to talk to Amy and Lisa some more," she replied, hopping up and hugging him for a moment. It was a nice change to be able to act naturally without worrying about someone seeing Saurial doing something that might lead them to the right conclusions. Returning the hug, he released her then ruffled her head plumage, making her yelp in surprise.

"Hey!" she said indignantly, raking the feathers into order with both hands.

"See you later," he grinned. "Lisa, Amy, it was nice to see you again. Nice truck, by the way, Amy."

"It's good, isn't it?" she smiled back.

"A good choice. I had one a little like that a long time ago, but nothing like as good condition. Look after it. Right then, I'll be on my way. Try not to disturb the underlying fabric of reality too much, please." Looking amused he headed for the door having retrieved the laptop.

Taylor watched as the door closed, then turned to the other two. She sat again, turning to Amy. "I told Lisa about the Symbiote," she admitted, Amy appearing a little surprised. "Her power would have figured it out sooner or later and she's promised to keep silent about it, and you."

"You'd better," Amy said in a low voice, fixing the blonde, who now seemed uncomfortable, with a hard gaze. "Like Taylor, I take my private life seriously. But I'm not as nice."

Taylor smiled, putting her hand on her friend's shoulder. "She's really not. But she's nice enough for now."

Lisa shuddered. "I have some very unpleasant ideas suddenly going through my mind about what you can do, Amy," she replied in a worried tone. "Believe me, no one is going to hear a thing from me about any of this. I've learned more than I wanted to in the last few days about how some information definitely does not want to be free."

"Good," Amy replied, abruptly smiling. "In that case, want to see something cool?"

Lisa blinked a couple of times, then smiled widely.

"Always."

"Come and have a look at this," Amy said, jumping to her feet and going to unlock her workroom. Taylor walked to the door and made sure it was locked. When she was on the way back, Lisa had followed Amy inside the room. There was a short pause.

"Wow! I want one!"

Taylor chuckled, reverted to her base form, then joined them in the little room of abominations.