When we entered his office, Detective Walker had a phone glued to his ear. He help up his hand for us to be silent. Since that was the case, I killed the time by looking around his office.

'Office' was too kind a word, in this cowboy's humble opinion. The room looked more like a broom closet. An old desk with dents and scratches and cigarette burns took up most of the room. The black phone Walker used looked like one that Hank might have used back in the 1950s. On the wall behind him was a picture of a young woman with short, shoulder-length red hair and bright green eyes.

Pretty cute, actually.

"You know what, Holly?" Walker, red-faced, all but screamed into the receiver. "I just don't give a flying damn! There's not way in hell I'm paying that much money for a dress you're gonna where once! We are poor! P double O f'n R!"

He listened.

"Let me tell you what's gonna happen if I buy this dress for ya: I'm gonna have to use up all our savings and I won't be able to send you to college. So you'll go to some beauty school but you'll stop by an IHOPs one night, meet some greasy-haired guy there and fall madly in love. So you'll drop out of beauty school and marry the ass clown. Then, before you know it, you're gonna be living in a trailer park somewhere in Alabama and pop out three cross-eyed, buck-toothed kids that are liable to marry each other. Now: Do you really want the dress?"

In less than a second-

"Damn it! Fine! THROW AWAY YOUR FUTURE! I DON' FRICKIN' CARE!"

CLANK!

He slammed down the phone.

Robin peered at the grizzled detective.

"Something wrong?"

"Sure is, Bird Boy. It's called being a father." He leaned back, sighed and lit a cigarette.

I fidgeted. Noir noticed and smirked at me.

"I think this building has a no smoking policy." Robin commented.

"Yeah, well, this is my office and it don't have that policy. You can tell the commissioner to kiss my ass."

"I'll be sure to pass that along, detective."

Walker grunted sourly and exhaled smoke out of his nose and down his mustache.

"So...I'm guessin' you're here about the ice chick."

"Fraust." Robin nodded. "I assume you know of how she escaped? The hologram?"

Walker nodded.

"Hardcore computer shit there, kiddos."

"Not really." Robin disagreed. "It wasn't professional. It looked like a hack job."

"I'd say making a frickin' hologram in a high security cell is pretty professional."

Robin allowed himself the smallest of smiles.

"You're never had Mad Mod as a school teacher."

"Huh...sounds kinky."

I couldn't help it: I laughed. I regained control of myself when Robin glared at me.

Noir snickered silently at me.

"So..." I finally piped up. "How do we track the girl down to bring her back?"

"Pretty simple, really." Walker said. "The people here aren't total dumbasses. All the metahumans we get our fitted with a steel bracelet that has a tracking beacon in it. All you gotta do is track down the frequency."

Robin popped open his communicator.

"What's the frequency?"

"Two seven zero point nine six."

I saluted.

"Thanks, colonel."

Walker squinted at me.

"It's Detective."

I shrugged.

Noir's fingers cut through the air.

"What did he say?" Robin asked me.

"He asked if you wanted him to go get the other Titans."

Robin shook his head.

"We need them to stay here and guard the city. The three of us should be able to handle it." He paused. "Consider this an opportunity to prove yourselves as Titans."

Noir and I looked at each other, rubbing the backs of our necks.

TTTTTTTTTT

VR-VROOM!

FWOOSH!

A red motorcycle, a chrome Harley and a blur of black smoke rocketed down and along the road. We were quite a ways from the city and forest surrounded the small byway. I felt much more at home. Robin looked over at me and jerked his thumb over to the side. We slowed down and turned off onto a tiny dirt road. Robin and I coasted our bikes to a stop and Noir skidded in beside us.

I looked over at him.

"I still can't believe you kicked me."

'Get over it.'

Meanwhile, Robin had dismounted and was looking around. He periodically looked down at his blinking Titan communicator.

"What's the deal?"

Robin closed the communicator and put it back in his belt.

"The frequency is here."

I looked around and saw nothing.

"I kinda figured that would mean Fraust would be here, too."

"...or simply the beacon." Robin knelt down, wiped away some dirt and picked up the aforesaid item.

"Well...that was a smart move on her part."

"Maybe not." Robin tossed the contraption at me. "Look at it. What do you see?"

"Um...?"

"The clasping mechanism is overloaded."

"...I was just about to say that."

"But how would she do it?" Robin ignored me. "She's an ice elemental so..." He thought. "Are we sure Polaar is still in custody."

Noir signed.

"Yup." I shorthanded it.

Robin's brow creased again while I cringed. If he thought anymore, he was going to give me a headache.

"It doesn't really matter how she got it off, right? Now we just gotta track her down."

"How? The frequency is useless."

I winked at him.

"I know the forest like the plot of every Clint Eastwood film." I stopped. "It kinda helps they're all basically the same but...anyway. I'm the finest deer hunter south of the Mason-Dixon line. I can track her."

Noir signed.

I groaned.

"No, as a matter of fact, I didn't kill Bambi's mother!"