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Clez: Well, in Bond's defence, he had drunk quite a bit, and didn't really think the man could hear him, and… OK, the man should be shot in the face for being such a -ing idiot.

Samyo: Hope it continues to meet with your approval, Sam

A Face in the Crowd

"Four queens," Skinner smiled, as he spread his cards out on the table. "Read 'em and weep, my friends." Spreading out his hands, he dragged the small pile of chips in the middle of the table towards him, grinning around at the other three.

Sawyer sighed as he slapped his cards face-down onto the table and looked around at the others. "That's it," he said, as he looked over at Skinner's rapidly-growing pile of chips. "I've had it with this whole game. I can't focus. And-" he said, looking around at the others, "it's all your fault."

Terry looked up at his friend from where he was staring at his cards. "What do you mean?" he asked Sawyer.

Sawyer sighed. "What do I mean, Terry? Look at you guys! A… cybernetic organism… whose face never changes expression, Skinner, whose eyes I can't see, and the woman who knows me so well she can tell whether I'm happy about my cards or not."

"Don't exaggerate, Tom," Mina said, looking over at her lover with a slight smile on her face. "Besides, even if I could predict your mood that well, I'd never use that advantage to beat you. You know me too well for that."

Sawyer looked briefly like he was about to reply to that in some way, but instead just sighed and looked over at Mina.

"Why do you always have to be so right?" he asked her, as he leaned in towards her slowly.

"Maybe because I love you?" Mina replied, leaning towards Sawyer herself.

Sawyer shrugged as he slightly closed his eyes. "Maybe…" he said, already imagining her soft lips on his…

"Um, can we get back to the game here?" Skinner asked, smiling slightly at his two friends' suddenly flustered expressions as they pulled away from each other. He loved doing that to them at times; letting them get just close enough to each other for it to be embarrassing, and then reminding them that there were still other people in the room apart from them. At first it had annoyed Mina and Tom, but in recent times they'd allowed it to become mere routine; just another factor of being in the League that they'd have to get used to.

"Oh, uh, right… sure thing," Sawyer said, picking up his cards again and looking at the table. "So, where were we again?"

Skinner seemed about to answer, but then someone knocked on the door to the game room.

"Come in," Terry said, glancing back at the door in question. The door opened and Jekyll and Hartdegen walked in, both looking rather pleased with themselves. Jekyll was holding a syringe filled with a greenish-brown coloured liquid, which he was holding as though it were something more delicate then it was.

"What's that?" Sawyer asked, putting down the cards and looking at the syringe.

Jekyll smiled. "Skinner's cure," he replied.

Skinner looked up at that. "What?" he said, a hopeful expression on his face.

"You heard me," Jekyll said, smiling as he held the syringe up in front of him, point up. "If this is injected into Mr Skinner, it should cancel out the serum in his blood and render his cells capable of absorbing and reflecting light once again."

"Really?" Skinner said, smiling like the cat that had gotten the proverbial cream. "Well, that's… that's great!"

"Yeah," Sawyer smiled, patting his friend on the shoulder, a slight smile on his face, "You get what you wanted, buddy." Then a thought occurred to him, and he looked back at Skinner. "You can borrow some of my stuff for the moment, OK?" he said.

Skinner blinked and looked back at his friend. "What?" he said.

"Mr Skinner, in all the time you have been with us, we have never seen you wear anything other then that black coat and hat," Mina said, looking over at the invisible man with a slight small on her face. "If you regain your visibility while you are still wearing just the coat, well…" She smirked. "I doubt you wish to be arrested as soon as you go outside the Nautilus."

"Ah," Skinner said, as Mina's point struck him. "Yeah, I see what you mean…"

He looked over at Sawyer. "Let's go," he said. "Just… nothing that's been shot at, OK?"

"Sure thing," Sawyer said, before he looked over at Jekyll. "We'll meet you in the lab soon, OK?"

"So, Doc, how'd you come up with this cure?" Skinner asked, as he sat down in the Nautilus'sscience laboratory and rolled up his sleeve. He was now dressed in a pair of brown trousers, an old, almost yellow shirt, and his own black coat was slung over the back of a chair.

"Well, I found a few samples of the Beast's blood that had gotten onto our clothes after our last fight with him," Jekyll explained, as he checked over the syringe for the last time. "It occurred to me that, if he was capable of becoming visible and invisible at will, there might be something in there that I could replicate and use for you. Hartdegen gave me a bit of a hand- some people in the future owed him a favour, as always- and, well, here we are." He picked up the syringe again and looked over at Skinner, who had finished rolling up his sleeve and was sitting there, apparently holding his arm out onto the table beside him.

Jekyll noted that, for the first time in their acquaintance, Skinner hadn't put any greasepaint on his face; there was just a space where his head would be. He was briefly surprised, but saw the point of it; if he was going to become visible again, he'd want to be able to see his face straight away, and the paint wouldn't serve any purpose on that front.

"You're sure you want to do this?" he said, as he looked over at Skinner. "I mean, if you go through with this, I can give you no guarantee you'll be able to become invisible at will like the Beast; you may just be visible for good. You will no longer be an extraordinary gentleman; you'll just be a man."

Skinner shrugged. "Eh, I never wanted this job in the first place," he said. "I'll be glad to get away from the danger."

Jekyll sighed. "Very well," he said, looking at Skinner. "Clench your fist."

Skinner rapped lightly on the table after a few seconds to show he'd done that.

Taking Skinner's arm in his hand, Jekyll felt along until he'd found the vein he was looking for.

He plunged the needle into his friend's arm.