Magenta stared at Roma. "Good God," she said, "she's the spitting image of Mandy." Mandy had been Magenta's sister, Indigo, who had died during the Rikti War.

She moved down the beds in the infirmary. The man in the next bed, Hadrian, had been a silicate-morph; he could turn to rock. But, while he was tough, he was not indestructible, and when he'd hit the statue, his arms had broken, and his torso had cracked. She turned to Dr. Science. "Will he ever recover?"

Dr. Science was on the other side of the room, giving Black Death a cast for her arm. He talked to Magenta while he worked. "I don't know. We might be able to fix him up if he changed back, but he may very well die if he does. In the meantime, we'll just do the best we can with nanobots and cement."

She came down the aisle, to where Iron Eagle was filling out clipboards. "So, what's the status?" she said.

"Haida will be spending some time in Cygnus," he said. "Ascorbic will be fine, once the spell clears up. His acid-proof skin saved his life. And we managed to pick up a few prisoners, as well." He gestured around the room, taking in Roma, Hadrian, Octavia, Tarquinius, and Jove Maximus. "The last guy, the one they called Petronius, his internal when we got him in. He's in Cygnus Hospital now. He'll be back once he's stabilised. And the third woman, Valerian, I think, she made a run for it. Who knows when she'll turn up again."

Magenta's gaze fell on Jove Maximus. But for the tan, and the clothes, he was the double of Tyr, Norse god of Justice, the protector of the city of Defiville, Michigan. She thought about calling Tyr, getting his opinion on the doubles. Then she went over the list of patients again. "Wait. There was that other dude. Asmodeus. Where's he?"

"Dead," said Iron Eagle, with a look of sadness and embarrassment on his face. "Abijah went a little nuts on him. Owl-Man's going over the body in the other room, to be certain that he didn't have a curse on him, like against the person who killed him, or something like that."

The doors of the infirmary opened, and in came Red Beth, Solenoid, and Caliburn, carrying Winter. Behind them came Appotomax, who was carrying the body of a kid about their age. Iron Eagle feared the worst, until he saw that the kid and Winter were both breathing. They laid the bodies down in a set of beds near the back, and Dr. Science came over to give a diagnosis.

"The boy, as best I can tell, was hit by a car, or a falling girder. How'd you meet him, by the way?"

"He took on Hadrian," said Solenoid, in a small voice.

It took Dr. Science a second to work this out, but then realization dawned. "Ah. So Fridge is a bimorph. Interesting." He made a note, moved on to Winter, and went over him. "He's in bad shape," he said, eventually. "His spell-casting took a toll on his physical self. He's going nowhere, not with this and Zeitgeist's attack and the Spanish 'flu. And now that he's here, where in creation are the rest of my patients? I'm glad we have the beds now, but we need to find them."

"I don't know where they are," said Winter, "and if I did, I certainly wouldn't tell you."

" But you have to help us find them. Who knows what they'll do, in Paragon City. They could hurt themselves!"

"Give it up Beth," said Mel, from the next bed. "You'll have to find them without him."

Winter laughed, his breath rasping through his mouth. "Find them? Who? You, sir knight," he pointed to Iron Eagle, "with your fantastical electrical fireworks? You, master boffin," he pointed to Dr. Science, "with your test-tubes and your fancy vocabulary? Or perhaps you children," he pointed to the Remedials, "once Timmy the dog here," he pointed at Mel, "has recovered? No. You may have met them, you know what they're called but you don't know who they are. You don't know how they think."

The five of them went quiet. Iron Eagle looked around the inside of the visor. What Winter had said had really reminded him that he hadn't upgraded his armour since he had first become Iron Eagle. Well, except for the –

- communications suite…

"Yeah, we may not know how they think," he said, as he opened the mobile phone feature, and selected the 'Favourites' list. "But I know some people who might."