Sam wasn't kidding about the warehouse. It fucking reeked. If human senses were assaulted by the odor, you could only imagine what it was doing to me.
It was just before sunset and I had settled into a shadowy corner behind some crates while ruthlessly suppressing my gag reflex. The smell was truly awful, like a dead skunk that had been baked on a pile of cigarette butts and then wrapped in a mound of week-old gym socks. Which had been used to wipe with after someone ran out of toilet paper. No wonder all three men had almost knocked me over when they met up with me after their meeting.
The amulet was warm against my chest, and I stifled a surge of envy. No nose meant that Loki couldn't smell it.
I was going to be the necklace next time.
I had to set my misery aside so I could do the tracking, but it was hard to pick up any scents with that overpowering stench. Considering that the person who shot at us at the club knew to go through water, I suspected that this location was stunk up on purpose. My sinuses hurt, my eyes were tearing up, and I had to concentrate so hard on picking up any other scents that I was getting a migraine. I picked up Sam and Bucky's scents easily. That made sense since those two were my people. I identified Zemo's scent next. But the strain of mentally pushing past that foulness to find their scents made my forehead bead with sweat. I inhaled again and felt a chunk of donut come up, which I swallowed back down along with a fair bit of bile. I was quickly regretting eating anything.
My suspicions turned into a certainty when I picked up a distinct chemical tang underlying the abysmal notes. The stench wasn't organic, someone had whipped up this assault to the olfactory senses in a lab and bombed the warehouse with it. They definitely knew me and my abilities, at least some of them. The chemical component stuck to the back of my throat, a burning alkaline taste that induced more bile that I had to swallow down. When we found Steve, he was going to owe me bigtime.
The amulet warmed up and I clutched it and whispered "No, I need to smell everything. Thanks for the thought though," when the air around me started to freshen up. Loki wasn't happy about me being in so much discomfort, but it was necessary. I wished I could take him up on the offer though. My throat was raw, like I had swallowed battery acid, and my nose was running. I was impatient for my quarry to hurry and show up so I could follow them out of here and into the fresh air.
If Steve's captors thought this disgusting stew of nauseating odors was going to stop me, they had another think coming.
Sam and Zemo were outside and Bucky was doing the patrolling this time. I had gotten inside by slipping through a window after Loki performed his stealth magic. Despite the vile miasma hovering in the air, I had picked up a few individual scents, but I wouldn't know which ones actually belonged to the contacts for the serum until Sam or Zemo pointed them out. Thanks to that shit bouquet I wasn't able to discern a lot from the odors. Not even sex, which was usually the easiest thing to pick up. Males were very musky, the more testosterone the muskier. Females, especially depending on where they were at on their monthly cycle, had a very sweet note to their muskiness. I would have to sort through what I could determine later; it was an impressive feat on its own that I was able to pick out those scents at all.
The door to the warehouse creaked open and I heard footsteps. Showtime.
"Not sure why you bothered to show up again," a voice growled. Female, slight accent. "Our answer won't change."
"Maybe I'm just curious about where your product's coming from," Sam retorted.
My stomach sank. I had only heard two sets of footsteps. Why in God's name had Sam come in alone?
I peered at Sam and his companion from a crack between two crates. The girl was short, with wild curly red hair, hazel eyes, and freckles. She was young, couldn't have been more than seventeen.
Fuck.
On the surface, the girl didn't seem to be much of a threat. She was a scrawny little thing, didn't even come up to Sam's diaphragm. But I didn't look like much either. I was 5'5", could stand to gain a little more weight, and my green eyes were big enough that I didn't even need eyeliner, giving me a distinct young look. I also dressed in clothing that was too big most of the time, a very bad habit that showed that I was so not over being assaulted repeatedly over a period of years, making myself look even younger. But the only people on the Avengers team who were stronger than me were the two Asgardians, Captain Sparklefists, and the Green Giant, and my magic could level an entire street.
I was walking proof that the more innocent appearing they were, the more you should be on guard. There was no way that Hydra, or the Power Broker, or whoever, would send this girl to collect people looking to be injected with a variation of the super soldier serum by herself if she wasn't able to hold her own. I was getting a really, really bad feeling, and I could only hope Sam didn't let his guard down.
A surge of fierce protectiveness rushed through my veins, and I curled my hand into a fist. I felt my muscles bunch up, ready to rush in and protect one of my humans. And where was that thought coming from? But it was there, having arisen from some deep, primal place, some powerful instinct that was making my nerves twang, my blood sing, and my head clear. All of a sudden, my nose was no longer running, my headache was gone, and I was able to pick out the girl's scent through the thick fog of stench laying in the warehouse. I had her, and I could leave now and follow it.
But I couldn't move. My limbs didn't want to obey, and I struggled with the thought that maybe I didn't want them to. All of my focus was now on Sam and that girl. Everything in me was resisting leaving, convinced that there was something wrong.
Loki got hot suddenly, going from zero to Fuck in less than a moment, acting like a cattleprod. I jerked and then shook my head. Blinked.
Sam could take care of himself. Bucky was right outside for backup should he need it. Zemo...I wasn't sure where Zemo was. But I had a job to do, and the guys were depending on me to do it.
"Thanks," I whispered to Loki, then slid out of the same basement level window I had used to enter the building. The night air, with the pollution, urine, mildew, and all, was a welcome breath after being in that warehouse.
I stuck in the shadows, using the Look Not At Me spell Stephen had taught me. It didn't turn me invisible; it was more subtle than that, encouraging people to direct their attention somewhere else while I might appear as nothing more than a ripple across their awareness, a slight shadow that they'd dismiss in the blink of an eye. I had used it when I planted the kitten-defurring tools in Bucky's apartment. I had also used it to hide from Bucky after he figured out those tools and the kittens I placed in his home were from me. He hadn't been upset about the prank itself, admitting it was pretty funny. He hadn't even been upset about being dumped, since it turned out he'd been planning to break things off with that harpy he went on a couple of dates with anyway. He was upset about being saddled with the cats, although I had intended to take them to a rescue. So far, he'd been able to adopt out two of them, and was trying to talk the other Avengers into taking at least one of the kittens and turning it into an Avengers Housecat. Carol and Rhodey hadn't caved, yet, but I knew they would give in any day...especially since Bucky had arrived at the mansion last week with one of the kittens bearing a pretty pink ribbon tied around its neck. It spent an hour playing around the foyer and then fell asleep purring in Thor's lap. Nat, Bruce, Sam, and Thor had already voted yes.
Bucky hadn't been able to talk me into taking one yet, but he was trying. And since he mentioned the kittens at least twice during the card game, I knew he was targeting Loki next. I needed to remember to tell Loki that if he came home with a cat one day, he was going to be in charge of the litter box.
Anyway, the spell was useful as hell and didn't require a lot of concentration or much other effort, so I used it as I followed the edge of the building towards the front, catching the redhead's scent again, and chased after the trail in silence. The charm worked well on humans, and even on dogs and horses. It didn't do so well on cats or birds, especially corvids and owls. Oddly enough, it worked okay on the Peregrine falcons that roosted in the skyscrapers in New York, having been brought in by city officials in hopes of curbing the pigeon population.
There were one or two people who paused as I passed by, and I felt them trying to concentrate and their confusion when they couldn't rationalize what they were feeling. Then they went back to their business, dismissing the feeling. It wasn't surprising. A lot of people had some level of psychic or empathic ability, with some people being more sensitive than others. The ones who were most sensitive usually wound up at Kamar Taj or similar places because they had a better ability to harness the unseen forces of the universe. Stephen had been an ultra-sensitive person before he went to Kamar Taj to train. It was why he was such a successful surgeon, and explained his eidetic memory and ability to absorb information like a sponge.
The trail was leading out of that part of town, and into the heart of Lowtown. The streets were getting more crowded. I had to concentrate hard in order not to lose the scent among the odors of car exhaust, unwashed bodies, expensive colognes and perfumes, gun powder, and fried food from street vendors. The air was started to smell like sex and booze as well. I was getting close to the clubs. I was dressed a hell of a lot more modestly than I had been at Selby's club, in a navy hoodie and leather pants (I didn't know what it was with Zemo and wanting to put me in leather, nor did I want to) but I was still thankful for the Look Not At Me spell. I couldn't take another evening of being leered at by strangers.
I didn't have to enter any of the clubs. The redhead's scent led me to an alley that connected the clubs with a street full of private residences. The houses screamed that the inhabitants were well-to-do, but not quite on the level of being able to reside in Hightown. That or they preferred to stay in Lowtown since there was less of a chance the law would catch them at whatever activities kept them rich. I followed the trail to a building that I couldn't decide was a club or someone's mansion, and eventually I came within a few feet of the backdoor.
I paused, studying the building. Place like this would have some very good security. The Look Not At Me spell would help if there were any people in the building, and there were. I could hear footsteps inside, and music playing, muffled by the walls. A television was on in one room to the west. The kitchen was somewhere to the south, I could hear the appliances humming. Loki had said he could make sure cameras didn't catch me, but cameras would no doubt be the tip of the iceberg for security on digs like this. What about infrared? I wasn't worried about trip lasers, since I would be able to smell the ozone and avoid those. Dogs wouldn't be an issue either. But I didn't know a way to cover up my heat signature, carbon dioxide emissions, and what if someone accidentally bumped into me?
I was about to ask Loki if he had ideas...
...and I was just barely able to hold back what would have been a killing blow when I whirled around, grabbed the front of Zemo's coat, and slammed him into the concrete. He was lucky I recognized the caramelized sugar and cream of his scent in time. I knelt there, one hand holding him down, the other pulled back and ready to punch the daylights out of him. I panted. He had no idea how close he came to dying. You did not sneak up on me. You just didn't.
My heart pounded; my breathing didn't slow down. I knew I should let him up, but my body didn't want to obey. My fist shook as I held it back, and all I could see was red. Red, and the shadows of the beings who had held me, violating my mind, my soul, my body. All I could feel was the terror I had felt the night I had been grabbed on my way home from work, when my life as I knew it ended.
Zemo was actually scared, and no wonder. I hadn't even blinked, I knew my face was flushed, and I was trembling. I must have looked like a madwoman at that moment.
My Loki amulet warmed on my chest, sent soothing heat through my muscles and nerves. Loki was responding to my distress and was trying to calm me down so I wouldn't beat Zemo to death. There wouldn't be much beating. Zemo would be dead with one punch.
I felt a massive wave of concern from the amulet, and decisiveness. He was about to shapeshift so he could talk me down, since what he was doing wasn't working. He didn't give a damn about Zemo. He hadn't liked the Baron from the start. But he knew that the guilt would rip me to pieces if I did anything to Zemo. He didn't want me to go through that. He loved me too much.
That finally snapped me out of it. I slowly lowered my arm. "What are you doing here?" I hissed under my breath. And more importantly, how had he managed to follow me? I had been using the Look Not At Me spell. Unless...
Fuck. I hadn't looked at him closely enough. He was Sensitive...not much, only a little, just enough to be able to read people. Enough to be dangerous. And he was Sensitive enough to see through my spell. Fuck me.
Zemo's mask of indifference was back on, and he shrugged. "I followed you. I have as much invested in finding out who is behind this new serum as the rest of you do. I shall need to remember to make you aware of my presence next time. You clearly have issues."
No shit, Sherlock. The nonchalant way he stated that he simply "followed me"...shit, he didn't even realize he was Sensitive. Then again, most people who have a slight sensitivity like that don't. I wasn't about to enlighten him. "Great plan. Now I get to expend even more energy making sure neither you NOR I get caught," I snarled, finally letting him go. I wanted to take several large steps back, but then he wouldn't be able to hear me cussing him out under my breath. Now that I had gotten over my near panic attack, I was incensed.
"I can look after myself," Zemo snapped, getting up and dusting himself off. I just bet he could. My teeth were grinding together. He should not have been able to sneak up on me nor follow me without me being aware of it. I should have smelled him; I should have sensed him. Being distracted by other smells and with the task of tracking the redhead's scent was not an excuse, nor was my nose still being messed up from breathing in that concoction they used in the warehouse.
Loki sent another surge of warmth out of himself, the languid heat spreading through my chest. He was trying to calm me down, again. At the rate I was going, he was going to shift for sure. I needed to focus. "Fine. Just make yourself useful. Know anything about state-of-the-art security systems?"
He gave me a look that said "Bitch, please", and then turned to concentrate on the building. I felt him focusing, could practically hear his gears and cogs turning. Then he reached into his coat, pulled out a device, and pressed the button.
I slapped my hands over my ears. The frequency was at a pitch that normal humans wouldn't hear, but to me it was as loud as a gunshot. I doubled over, squeezing my eyes shut, my head feeling like it was going to split in half. It was over in a second, but it felt a lot longer to me.
I managed to keep my voice to a harsh whisper. Only just. "What the fuck?!" The imprecation came out sounding like the chitterings of a mad squirrel when I said it while trying to stay quiet.
Zemo held up the device so I could see. "EMP," he stated smugly.
"You could have warned me!" I pulled my hands away to find them dotted with blood. Damn pulse had blown out my eardrums. Loki was heating up like a brand on my chest. Loki's anger was mild compared to how I was feeling at the moment. All the lights in the house were out, all the electronics shut down, and I heard hurried footsteps. "Shit." I yanked Zemo into the shadows with me, extending my spell to cover both of us as the door banged open and several people poured out.
I narrowed my eyes. There was a woman, and the rest were men. That wasn't what was bugging me. There was something off about their scents. Familiar off. The damn stink bomb was finally wearing off, but my nose was still a little off kilter. It didn't help that the stuff was in my clothes, my hair, my skin. I was going to need a long shower after this was done. I waited until all the people who came out of the house were out of earshot before I ran for the door, yanked it open, and slipped in. Zemo came in behind me right as a backup generator kicked in and the lights came back on.
I locked onto the redhead's trail and followed it down a hall, around a corner, and to a door that I wedged open to reveal a broom closet. Since I heard footsteps, I hurried inside. Zemo squeezed in with me, and the two of us were crammed together in a very tight space in complete darkness.
I summoned one of my light balls and arched a brow. "I hope for your sake that's a broom handle poking me."
"Do not flatter yourself," Zemo scoffed. "Are you certain your quarry was here?"
I jerked my head towards a back wall. "Her scent continues through that. And I smell a breeze coming from the corners. The air coming through is sterile. It reminds me of a hospital."
Zemo nodded, as though he was expecting me to say that there was something behind the wall. "Now what?"
"I thought I would just break through the wall like the Kool-Aid man and ask whatever lab techs are working down there what they were up to."
Zemo just stared at me with no change in his facial expression. Damn, not even an eyeroll. "We need to find the switch."
He went to work, conducting his search while bending, jostling, and getting way more familiar than I would have preferred while trying to get around me. I had to grit my teeth and ball my hands into fists so tight my nails bit into my palms. By the time he came across a dustpan that turned out to actually be the lever, I was barely breathing and on the verge of a full-fledge panic attack. Loki again did his thing to soothe me. It helped, because it would have been hard to yank myself from the edge again so soon after I had to do so outside.
It was a huge relief when Zemo pushed the wall open. I managed not to knock him down in my haste to get out of that claustrophobic hell.
The wall closed behind us, shutting out the smells of Pine-Sol, ammonia, bleach, and other cleaning chemicals from the closet. The corridor was sterile, the air cleaner than most hospitals I've been in. It was more like Bruce's lab than it was a medical facility, and the redhead's scent came through stronger as a result. I inhaled, smelling that wrongness even more clearly. As I walked down the hall, making sure to keep Zemo close so he'd be cloaked by the charm, I was picking up more scents, those of the people who came outside when Zemo's EMP hit, and they were touched by that wrongness as well.
It was right on the tip of my tongue, what that wrongness was, because I knew it. A scent that wasn't a scent, kind of like the air right before it ra-
I froze. Oh God. I was a goddamn idiot. "Shit," I muttered. "Mother fucking pussbucket ass-raping fuck."
I hadn't seen Steve in seven months, and Bucky I spent so much time with that I had become nose blind to it, but that wrongness was the reason I tried to kill both of those men multiple times during the first week I was on this Earth, because it had made me see them as predators whom I needed to protect myself from. I hadn't been at my most rational at the time.
"What is it?" Zemo asked, alarmed.
"She's a super soldier." No wonder my alarm bells had been clanging when I laid eyes on her. And Sam was alone with her in that warehouse! "They're all super soldiers."
I didn't pay attention to Zemo, though I caught the hitch in his breath at my words. Oh God, Sam was in a warehouse arguing with a super soldier. The two men who were guarding the front of the warehouse were probably super soldiers as well. Bucky was patrolling the area, but if that girl got pissed off when he was too far to go to his aid...
For all of Sam's impressive skills, he was still an ordinary human. He might be able to handle one super soldier. But there might be three there.
I clutched Loki in a hand that remained surprisingly steady. "Need to warn them," I whispered.
"How do you propose we do that?" Zemo asked with a slight edge to his voice.
"Shut up. My spell only does so much, and if we get caught, you're fucked." I wasn't worried about myself. From my training sessions with both Steve and Bucky, I knew I was more than a match for a super soldier, even more than one of them. Zemo would get his ass handed to him, and given his tendency to wander off on his own, there was no guarantee that I would be there to protect him.
We had Loki as well, but I knew Loki wouldn't lift a finger to aid Zemo even if I asked him. He would be more inclined to stay by my side so he could skin any super soldier who dared lay a finger on me.
"Such lack of faith in my abilities," he murmured, but he quieted down. I moved on, hoping Loki had sent a projection of himself to Bucky by now to warn him that Sam was dealing with super soldiers.
The redhead's scent and the others went around another corner, this one smelling a lot more antiseptic. I picked up a mishmash of chemicals, and could hear the ticking of lab equipment. There was the clinking of beakers against test tubes coming from one lab down the hall. Someone was working.
I started to follow the sounds, but when I passed by an opening in the wall that served as the entrance to another corridor, I stopped. My heart pounded as I slowly turned my head to look down this new hall. I abandoned the sounds, which even Zemo could hear by now, and followed my buzzing instincts.
Sleep, heavy sleep, but under that was pain. Also, even though they were asleep, there was an awareness that things were not as they should be, that they were not where they should be.
I caught the scents of the two super soldiers guarding the room just in time. I was about to approach the right branch of the T the corridor ended in. I plastered my back against the wall, breathing in their scents and listening to their heartbeats and breathing. I could hear the beeping of medical equipment in the room they were guarding. A heart monitor. There was a breathing machine pumping oxygen into someone's lungs. Whoever it was had a catheter in, I could smell urine. Drugs, their alkaline tang making my tongue feel sticky. And under all of it...
That final scent decided me. I looked around for the camera, and found it. Concentrating as best I could so that my magic wouldn't get out of control, I took my steadily growing anger out on the expensive equipment. I sent out another pulse of magic to take out any other monitoring equipment, as well as the cellphones and radios the guards had on them.
One of them swore and ran in front of me. I lowered myself, kicked my foot out, and tripped him. By now, there wasn't a word for how I was feeling. My mind had gone to another place, where I was observing these fools coldly, with calculation. He started to get up, and I grabbed the back of his head and slammed it into the floor.
Before the other guard could raise the alarm, I flung my hand out and he flew down the corridor and landed with a loud, satisfying crunch. I wanted to go after him, make sure he was down, but my priority was...
I slid into the room, quietly closing the door behind me. I placed a lot of shielding around the room. A sound bubble, a regular shield, and a modified Look Not At Me charm. The hospital bed in the middle of the room took up most of the space, and I could just barely make out the body under all the tubes, wires, and IVs covering the bed.
I ran over, grabbed the man's hand, and took a deep breath. The scent was Bazooka Joe bubblegum.
"Steve," I whispered in horror.
He had been intubated, and little wonder. Judging from the number of drugs I could smell, he was probably unable to breathe on his own by now. I looked at the IVs. Most of them were drugs, but I saw one that was lower than his body, attached to tubing. It was red, and I knew it was collecting his blood.
Cold rage was slowly replacing horror. I clasped my fingers, wringing my hands as I looked around, unsure of where to start first. I had to get him out of here, had to make sure he was going to be alright, had to...
"Pet." Loki grabbed my shoulders. "Shhh...it's alright. You found him, Pet. You found Steve. He'll be alright. We will get him out of here. Look at me, Pet."
It took effort, but I obeyed. Loki was acting like I was getting out of control, but I really wasn't. I felt an eerie calm descend upon myself, a clarity that I had never really known before. "We need to get him unhooked from these machines." I wasn't sure how to do that without hurting him though. He had all those IVs, and then there was the feeding tube and the respirator. I didn't have any medical training, so I could do damage.
"We will. You take care of the needles; I will deal with the rest." He leaned in to kiss my forehead, squeezing my hand as he did. "I also warned Barnes about the super soldiers. He was on his way to back Wilson up when I left."
I nodded. That was one worry out of the way. I pulled open some of the cabinets above the bed, and found a pack of butterfly bandages. I got to work carefully pulling out the IVs in his arms, hands, ankles, and along his clavicle. I grabbed the blood collection bag and used magic to hold it in the air, letting gravity do the work of returning some of Steve's blood to him as Loki removed the intubation and the feeding tube with care, and removed the catheter after glaring at me when I started to go for it.
For fuck's sake, now was not the time to get jealous over me touching another man's dick. I plucked the electrodes off his chest and other areas, and double checked to make sure he was unhooked from everything.
I finally got a good look at Steve. He was ashen pale, his lips drained of color, his eyes sunk into the sockets, his cheeks hallowed out. Some of his muscle had atrophied, and his chest rattled with every soft breath. I could just barely hear his heart. I wasn't sure even teleporting him was a good idea. He seemed so fragile, which was not a word I ever thought to associate with Steve.
I grabbed a blanket I had also found in the cupboards and covered him up. His skin was cold and clammy. He needed medical attention in the worst way.
"I could take him to a hospital," Loki said.
I closed my eyes. We were in Madripoor, and worse we were in Lowtown. The closest hospital would be owned by the Power Broker. In this city, the Power Broker was God, much like the Kingpin had been in Hell's Kitchen. They would have their fingers in everything, including the medical community in Madripoor, where there was already some distinct anti-American sentiment brewing. Steve was very recognizable, someone would realize who he was and do their best to send him back here and we'd end up at war with all of Lowtown, if we weren't already. Steve wouldn't be safe. "No hospital."
"Pet, he needs something. I have some healing ability, but I can already tell you it will not be nearly enough to save him. He needs..."
I knew what he needed, damn it. He needed a miracle.
Something cool crawled across my hand, twirled around my fingers. I opened my eyes and looked down.
I had managed to call the blue flames once, completely by accident. I had used them to kill a demon some asshole set loose in New Asgard. I hadn't been able to conjure them again, no matter how hard I tried.
But now they were wreathing my hand, and spreading along Steve's chest.
"No!" I cried. I was killing him!
The blue flames spread further out, a line of flame dancing up to travel towards his feet while another line traveled towards his head. I jerked my hand back. "No, no, no..."
I flung out my hands, hoping to use magic to smother the fire. It wasn't working. "Loki, quick, I don't know what I did, but we need to stop-" I shouted.
I was frantic, looking around for a fire extinguisher, anything, but Loki grabbed me. "Shhh..Pet. It's alright, look."
Steve was fully engulfed in blue fire by now, and my head pounded as I watched it consume...nothing.
The flames danced along his flesh, licking his skin, his eyelashes, his hair. As I watched, I could hear his heart pick up, and his breathing even out. The disturbing rattle in his chest was vanishing, and he didn't smell sick or near-death.
The flames died, and I was looking at a Steve who wasn't one hundred percent, but he looked a hell of a lot better than he had before. "Wha-fuckâhow...what, how..."
I looked at Loki, but he looked as flabbergasted as I was. He saw he staring at him and shook his head slightly. "I don't know, Pet. But just as I had no complaints the last time you did that, I have none this time."
That made one of us. I didn't know I could do that!
"We should go. Someone will discover those guards you put down at any moment."
And on cue an alarm blared throughout the complex. I shook off my shock, tucked the blanket around Steve tightly, and held onto him. "Get us out of here."
We landed in Bucky's room back at our hotel suite. Since it was in Hightown, that meant Steve was a little safer here. They'd be tearing Lowtown apart looking for him. We wouldn't be able to stay for long though.
"I will go inform Barnes and Wilson of what has happened. You are in no condition to return with me."
Now that Loki mentioned it, he was right. I hadn't really registered the vertigo through my shock, but now it smacked me in the face with my adrenaline wearing down. I also felt weak, hollowed out. I made it to the chair beside the window before I fell on my ass. "Someone should be here in case Steve wakes up anyway, so he doesn't panic. Go, we'll be fine."
He walked over to me, bracing my face in his hands and kissing me on the forehead again. Then he vanished, and I was left staring at Steve, still wrapped up in the blanket like a Caprito, laying on Bucky's bed. My head pounded, and I felt like someone had taken an ice cream scoop and scraped me out from the inside completely.
What the hell had I done, and how?