"I take time thinking about what I'm gonna have to do
what it takes, how it is and when I'm gonna light the fuse
all this push and shoving in the end all amounts to nothing
I'll never get a second chance looking me in the face"

"Up For It", by Henry Rollins

I love my Nana, but sometimes I wonder….

I had Hoho contact the fixer—Zak was his name. It's my first time running in the shadows, so I figured that it was wise to let an experienced hand lead. Acid Queen stepped off for a moment to access a public Matrix terminal. "I'll meet you later. You have one hour."

"Talk to me." The voice on the other end was gravelly and sounded like too much booze and cheap cigs. The face that matched it wasn't much better off. This was the guy Nana used to work with? I made a "yeegh" face as I stood off to the side.

"Argent sent me." Hoho was pretty to the point. "Said she'd contact you to let you know."

"I think you have the wrong number." Zak started reaching for the "off" button on his comm when Hoho grabbed me and shoved me in front of the public comm.

"This more like what you were expecting?" I flashed the fixer a winning smile. Hey, what did you expect me to do?

Zak laughed and nodded, a raspy gravelly laugh that really got on my nerves. "I've got a razorboy and a wiz set to meet with you—Mauer and Firestorm. They've worked with Argent before, so they're cool." The old fixer nodded a bit before continuing. "They'll be at the Riverwalk at midnight."

Hoho nodded and killed the link. He looked at me and said "Back to your doss, I guess."

The ride home was quick. I got in the door, and damn near fell over when I saw the giant wasp hovering in my living room.

Actually, it wasn't a wasp—it was a wasp spirit. BIG difference—you can't get rid of spirits with a can of hairspray, and regular wasps don't have claws that can rip you to shreds.

"Get down!"

I dodged to the side when I heard Hoho's voice behind me and rolled just out of the way of a swipe from the spirit. I leapt to my feet and grabbed the only thing within reach—an old hockey stick that I had leaning up against my bookshelf. Hoho let loose with a bolt of mana from one hand while holding a fetish in the other. The fetish crumbled as the spell went off, and the spirit staggered for a moment. I concentrated a moment, focusing myself like I used to before a game. I felt a rush of speed and strength as I brought the stick up and then down on the back of the spirit's neck. I heard a resounding crunch, and the spirit crumbled to the floor and vanished as its neck snapped.

"Be careful. Where there's one there's bound to be more." Hoho stepped through the door as a loud buzz and the smell of ozone coming from back by my bedroom heralded the arrival of another spirit.

Before Hoho could react I spun around and rolled to face the oncoming bug, coming up to crosscheck it under the jaw as I kicked out. I felt a burn in my leg as its stinger tore through my jeans and made a nice gash in my leg, followed by a wet crunch as I kicked the spirit in the midsection and dented its carapace. It swiped at me with its claws and grappled my stick, trying to sting me again. I kicked the stinger out of the way and swung the stick—and the spirit—around as Hoho let fly with another mana bolt. The spirit shrieked as it was torn apart by the blast of magical energy, and I semiconsciously leapt to one side in case Hoho let fly with another one.

I shuddered slightly as the burn in my leg intensified and started spreading. I tried to fight the effects of the venom, tried to stifle the shakes as I broke out in a sweat. I dropped the stick on the floor, and felt Hoho's hands on my shoulders. I felt the room spinning and saw my vision start to fade as I slumped to the floor, then I felt the blackness being driven back as Hoho cast a detox spell on me.

"You're going to be OK," Hoho said quietly. "I don't think there'll be any more."

I sat up against the wall and picked my stick up off the floor. It was an antique, one of the old graphite-reinforced ones that Granddad used when he played. I carefully looked it over for breaks and found none, then put it back up by the bookshelf and looked back at Hoho. "Mind if I rest here a while?"

Hoho chuckled and patted me on the shoulder. "It's your doss. I'll go get your kit." He got up and went back into the spare bedroom. I checked my leg out. My leg was bleeding a bit from the gash made by the stinger, but I'd live. I heard the sounds of somebody rummaging around in the closet, and Hoho came out lugging my old gear bag. I hadn't seen it in over a year. I wasn't sure I wanted to see it again, but Hoho and I both knew that I'd need it.

I slowly got up and took the bag from him, and hefted it. I knew that everything was still in there, just the way I had it when I came back from Ottawa. Sticks, pads, skates, everything—except, of course, a jersey. "Let's go." I sighed deeply and took one last look at my apartment before I turned off the lights and closed the door. I'd sent a message to work to put in for my vacation time, so I wasn't worried too much. About work, anyway. If the bugs were involved in this, then that was a completely different story.

Acid Queen was waiting for us outside in a beat-up old van that used to have the DocWagon logo on the side. "You're late," she said as we stowed my gear bag in the back of the converted ambulance and climbed in.

"We got in a fight." Hoho snorted as he said it. "A meatspace fight, not a virtual fight."

Acid Queen shrugged. "A fight's a fight—matrix or meat, the loser's still dead." She started the van and put it in gear. She looked down at my leg and said "You be OK, greenie?"

"He'll be fine," Hoho said. "Drive."

Acid Queen shrugged again and pulled out. "You're the boss."

We met with the remaining team members at the Riverwalk. The Riverwalk is a place down by the Mississippi River that's done up all nice and touristy. It's a good place to meet people, as there are cafes and shops and little parks. Mauer and Firestorm were waiting for us at the section in front of the Ares Center, holding hands and leaning over the railing to watch pleasure boats cruise by on the river. They were a matched set—a street samurai and a combat mage. Jeans, matching black Maria Mercurial (does anyone ever listen to her anymore?) t-shirts, combat boots, and dark longcoats. They looked strange, matching the way they did, but if Nana trusted them then I figured I could trust them.

Mauer, the street sam, was a huge human. Not troll-size, mind you. Just a big beefy mass of chipped-out muscle with a rugged square jaw and deep-set sky-blue eyes. He wore his dark hair cropped fairly close, and had a semi-permanent five o'clock shadow. His voice was deep and slightly rumbly. Mauer is German for "Wall"—and he was a wall, all right.

Firestorm, the mage, was far more pleasant to look at. She was human too—tall and lithe, with flaming red hair and bright green eyes. She spoke with a slight lilt to her voice, sounded faintly Celtic. She put her hand out when we introduced ourselves. "It's a pleasure to meet you." She smiled a very pretty smile and said "You look a chip off the old block, Casey. You have your grandmother's eyes."

I smiled a bit and blushed. "Thank you."

Hoho coughed slightly behind me. "Our ride's waiting. We should get this show on the road as soon as we can."

Acid Queen pulled the van over in front of the White Castle and turned the engine off. "OK, here's what we have." She pulled out a datachip and slotted it into a jack attached to the dashboard of the van. "I did a lil' poking around while you two," she looked at me and Hoho, "were off having your fun. The individuals that pulled off that job did a really wiz job—the logs at Hydro Canada showed a momentary dip in the power grid around the site of the theft, which took care of the mundane security systems." She pulled out a small keyboard and punched up a couple of keys. "The magical defenses were another matter entirely—apparently they were overwhelmed by a massive assault." She looked at all of us and shook her head a bit. "At least, that's according to what gossip I could pick up on a couple of the wiznets."

A small map of North America came up, overlaid by a grid. The view centered somewhat south of us and started to zoom in as the decker continued speaking. "According to rumor, legend, and a few favors I called in, there's been a large upsurge of magical activity in a large Metroplex a lil' southeastish of here. If the info that's been given to me is correct, it would seem that some old friends have decided that they want to come out and play again, and they're planning to use your little bauble as a focus in the middle of their new playpen." She looked at me with a curious expression on her face, a slight twinkle in her perpetually bloodshot, red-rimmed eyes as the map started to track over the continent and zoom in. "Is that thing really a solid hunk of silver, kid? I bet mages would just kill to get their hands on it."

Mauer groaned. Firestorm groaned. Hoho just said "oh drek…" and put a hand to his face as he stared at the screen. I felt sick as the view settled in on a city on the shores of Lake Michigan.

Chicago.

Now I know why Granddad didn't want me to go, why those wasp spirits attacked me in my apartment—we were going to be facing the bugs.