Finding the Way


Part Twenty-Six: New Problems


The dot of the laser pointer moved over the large wall-map of Brockton Bay. Taylor, along with her father and the other members of the Brockton Bay Protectorate and Wards, listened to the PRT major as he explained the situation.

"- moving into the Docklands now that the ABB has begun to fragment, and also setting up to consolidate their hold on Coil's old territory. Our informants say that -"

"Wait." Taylor put her hand up.

The major turned to face her. "Yes, Compass Rose?"

"So you're saying that we caused this? We're responsible for the Empire's turf grab now? Because we took out Coil and Lung and Oni Lee?"

There was a minor stir at this. The team-within-a-team composed of Compass Rose and Pathfinder had 'taken out' Lung by dropping a derelict cargo ship on him. Before that, Coil had been taken down with relatively equal ease, although not quite as dramatically. Their crowning achievement to date had been, with the help of Miss Militia, teleporting Leviathan to the Moon. The fact that the Endbringer had since disappeared from the surface of the satellite meant little in the face of the sheer magnitude of the feat.

The major cleared his throat uncomfortably. "I wasn't pointing fingers. This sort of thing happens. The balance gets upset, a new balance gets arrived at."

Danny sat up a little straighter. "But what you're saying is that the 'new balance' is that the Empire Eighty-Eight, a known white-supremacist gang, will be spreading into more neighbourhoods where they can cause problems for anyone they disapprove of. And they'll have parahuman backing while they do so. And that we're somewhat responsible for them being able to do so."

The major looked a little hunted. "Uh … yes?"

"Well, fine." Taylor's father reached into a belt pouch and pulled out a small notepad. "Let's do something about this, then."

The major frowned. "What are you talking about? Unilateral action has to be approved by the Director -"

"So go ask her." Danny finished scribbling the note, tore it from the pad and folded it twice. Without needing to be asked, Taylor put her hand in his. Where's Kaiser? she asked herself. Immediately, a picture sprang into her mind of the crime lord himself, speaking to a large group of people. She couldn't see them clearly – the only sharp image in her mind's eye was Kaiser himself – but she imagined that they were Empire Eighty-Eight rank and file. Her power also filled her in on his precise direction and bearing, to the inch.

This information went to Danny just as fast as she could think about it; he nodded and the note vanished in a puff of purple-brown smoke.

"What was that?" demanded the major. "Where did you send it? What did it say?"

Danny raised his head to look at the man. "Just fixing my messes."


"- Lung gone, the Asians are on the run," Kaiser declaimed, his well-modulated speaking voice filling the meeting hall. "Only the Merchants oppose us now, degenerates and lowlives that they are. They cannot stand up to us once we decide to push them from the city once and for all, and make no mistake, we will -"

With a tiny puff of purple-brown smoke, a square of folded paper appeared on the podium before him. With a frown, he picked it up and opened it.

STAND DOWN OR BE STOOD DOWN. YOUR CHOICE.

There was no signature, but he didn't need one; the puff of smoke had told him all that he needed to know. He paused for a long moment, rapidly working through the ramifications of the situation.

If Pathfinder and Compass Rose are paying attention to what I'm doing, then there's no way to do it without them knowing. And that's a fight I'd rather not walk into blindly.

The crowd of Empire rank and file were starting to fidget slightly; he didn't have to look around to know that to either side of him, the capes that made up the core of his organisation were looking at him curiously.

He cleared his throat. "I've just received some important information. We're going to be putting the expansion on hold for the moment, until we've sorted out a minor problem."

The reaction from the crowd was just as startled as those from the capes, although the latter hid it better. A few voices were raised, but he held up his hand and they quieted again. "That's all for the moment. We'll call on you when we need you."

It was a clear dismissal; in ones and twos, and then more and more, they began to leave the hall. Kaiser watched them go; as the last ones left, Kreig came to stand at his side.

"That was … unexpected," the older man commented dryly. "What happened?"

Silently, Kaiser handed him the note. Kreig read it, his brow furrowing, then looked up at Kaiser. "Where did you get this from?"

"It was teleported right in front of me while I was speaking," Kaiser said. "Brown and purple smoke. You know what that means."

"Pathfinder," Kreig agreed. "Shit."

"It's abundantly clear that they can locate anyone or anything they want," Kaiser pointed out. "And that they can teleport people along with them. I, for one, do not want to wake up from a sound sleep in a jail cell."

"That might be a little blatant for the PRT," Kreig mused. "Stomping all over us like that comes perilously close to breaking the unwritten rules."

"Which anyone with enough power does anyway," Kaiser snapped. "That's why they're unwritten. People only stick to them when it looks like the consequences for breaking them aren't worth the benefits."

The other capes had approached; Menja stepped forward. "What happened? Why did you stop?"

Behind his metal faceplate, Kaiser grimaced. "I got a warning, from Pathfinder. Stand down or be stood down. That's a direct quote, by the way."

"What?" Fenja's voice was outraged. "He can't give you orders like that, can he?"

Kaiser took a deep breath. "An order not backed by force is merely a suggestion. This order is most definitely backed by force. If you doubt that, I suggest you brush up on what happened to Lung, to Crawler, to the rest of the Nine. To Leviathan." He gave her a level stare. "In short? Yes, he can give me orders like that."

"So that's it?" Hookwolf stomped forward into the circle that was forming. "You're just going to roll over and show your belly to the Protectorate? To the superheroes? Because that's not the Kaiser I know."

"Of course not," Kaiser said impatiently. "But it's stupid to defy someone who can trump your every move, who can find you wherever you go. So we hold off on all provocative action until we can do what any reasonable man does when faced with such an insurmountable obstacle."

Kreig smiled slowly. "Remove it."

Kaiser nodded in reply. "By any means necessary."


"Seriously. Pathfinder. No." Emily Piggot resisted the impulse to try to tear her own hair out. It wasn't hard; the impulse to try to throttle the cape in front of her was somewhat stronger, and she was managing to hold that one in check. So far. "What were you thinking?"

"That unless I did something, and fast, the Empire Eighty-Eight would have caused a lot of trouble, maybe even killed people. So I nipped it in the bud."

Pathfinder's voice was calm and reasonable, almost as if what he was saying made sense. Which it did, to a certain point. That point being where he threatened the head of a major parahuman gang. Piggot wanted to swear. He still doesn't know what he's done.

"Are you aware that you may have caused a whole new series of problems for us?" She was quite proud of the way she didn't scream the words at him.

The helmet hid most of his face, but his puzzled tone came through quite clearly. "Ma'am, I thought I solved the problem."

Stress: the feeling you get when you have to refrain from throttling some idiot who desperately deserves it. Piggot knew exactly how that felt. "Pathfinder. You may have stopped the Empire Eighty-Eight from acting now, but Kaiser is a proud man and a powerful one. He is also known to be vindictive from time to time. He will almost certainly not forget this. Nor will he wait tamely for the next time you are 'forced' to deliver another threatening note. If I know the man – and I've been studying his dossier on a monthly basis since I started as Director – he will be making plans and taking steps of his own. Plans and steps which will not go well for you or your daughter."

"Wait, you mean he'd come after us?" That was Compass Rose; she had to admit, the girl was quick on the uptake. "Don't the unwritten rules -" Well, mostly quick on the uptake.

Emily made a slashing motion with her hand. "Stop right there. Whatever the Wards have been telling you, the 'unwritten rules' are more unwritten than rules. They're a loose set of agreements that are only honoured when it's obvious that to break them will cause trouble for the person doing the breaking. In any case, they don't apply here, unless he attacks you at home."

"So this is something we need to be worried about." Finally, Pathfinder was getting it.

"Yes. This is something we need to be worried about." Emily hardly had to use any sarcasm; she could see that he got it.

"So what do we do?" Compass Rose sounded concerned. Good. She's seeing sense. "Maybe we should hit the Empire first? Like we did with the Nine?" Whoops, spoke too soon.

Director Piggot sighed, and tried hard not to roll her eyes. It wasn't easy. "Okay. To start with, we can't use the same level of force on the Empire that we could on the Nine. They all had kill orders. Kaiser's gang doesn't. Second, if we started targeting them pre-emptively, word would almost certainly get out in the villain community. This would almost certainly be seen as a breakage of the unwritten rules – that is, targeting a gang to take them totally out of the picture – and might just trigger retaliation from all the other gangs. How do you feel about all-out war in this city?"

"Okay." That was Pathfinder. "What do we do?"

"Nothing." Emily's voice was definite. "You do absolutely nothing. Take a leave of absence from the team. Go home. Be normal people for a while. Don't do any teleporting in public."

Pathfinder seemed to consider that. "What do you think Kaiser is likely to do?"

"I'm going to be frank here. You can not act on what I'm going to say, given that it's my personal opinion." Piggot waited until both of them nodded. "He'd probably target you, Pathfinder, given that you're the Mover. Afterward, Compass Rose may be targeted or left alone. But he won't do it as a frontal assault, he won't do it blatantly and whatever attempt is made won't have any sort of direct connection with the Empire Eighty-Eight. Because he's a proud man but not a stupid one."

"So we just wait till the attempt is made?" Compass Rose's voice was bitter.

"No." Emily shook her head. "In a few days, I'll start trying to get a message to him. Pass on word that you exceeded your authority in doing that, and that you've been disciplined. That it won't happen again."

"What?" Pathfinder's voice was incredulous. "You're going to apologise to him?"

"To head off cape war in my city, or the murder of two of my capes – yes. Most definitely." Emily's tone was flat. "I won't enjoy it, and he'll almost certainly milk it for all it's worth, but it's the best outcome I can think of. Unless he does something stupid and gets himself captured. But I can't see that happening."

"We could capture him." Pathfinder's voice was hopeful. "If he's not there to give the order -"

"- then someone else will. The Empire Eighty-Eight is filled with parahumans who are violent, powerful, unstable or all three. These are people one treats with kid gloves, unless we've got a really good reason to go all-out on them."

"Or unless we can capture them all so that word never gets out that it was us." Compass Rose sounded hopeful.

Emily grimaced. "That sounds great, right up until we try to figure out how to do it. No. You have your orders. Go home."

Pathfinder rose and took his daughter's hand. "Ma'am."

Emily nodded, but purple-brown smoke billowed before she had halfway completed the motion. When it cleared, her visitors were gone. Closing her eyes, she rubbed them with forefinger and thumb. One more crisis. Always one more crisis.


The moment Danny and Taylor appeared in the living room, Danny released her hand. Wrenching his helmet from his head, he threw it at the wall. It bounced back and landed on the floor, rolling to a stop not far from his feet. Taking two steps, he kicked it as hard as he could; it bounced off of the wall again, then ricocheted into the kitchen.

"Wow, Dad."

Those two words pulled him almost all the way out of his rage. He turned to see Taylor, who had removed her own helmet but was turning it over and over in her hands. "What?"

She shook her head. "I … guess I'm not the only one who thinks we just got railroaded, huh?"

"Railroaded?" He almost growled the word. "We just got sidelined. Just because we utilised a non-standard approach. And now she's gonna be apologising to that scumbag Kaiser for giving him fair warning."

Walking into the kitchen, she picked up his helmet and used her sleeve to buff away the mark his boot had left behind. She placed both helmets on the table and went to the fridge; pulling out a jug of fruit juice, she poured a glass for each of them. He watched her every move, taking the glass when it was offered to him. They drank in silence. After she finished hers, Taylor put the glass on the sink and looked at him.

"So what are we gonna do?"

He showed his teeth in what could charitably be called a smile. "We make a plan. We make our preparations. And then we act."


Three Days Later


"Why, Director, I'm surprised at you." Kaiser was enjoying himself immensely. "Members of the Protectorate and the Wards acting out of turn? And you're admitting it? Tut tut, Director. For all you know, I could be recording this conversation. Do you have any idea of the damage it could do your cause if this happened to leak out to the media?"

"That doesn't matter." If Piggot's teeth were not already grinding together hard enough to pulverise diamond, Kaiser was prepared to eat his own metal bodysuit. "I just need your agreement to not come after Pathfinder and Compass Rose."

"But it's not as simple as that, Director," Kaiser purred. "They threatened me, in front of my people. And not face to face either. A note, delivered by untraceable means. That's more than a little insulting, you have to admit."

"They've been disciplined." Each word was delivered as though they were teeth being pulled. "It won't happen again. Of that I can assure you."

"Oh, I'm not sure if I can trust your assurances," he replied, pouring himself a glass of wine. "After all, they broke your rules once. How can I be certain they won't go off the reservation again? No, I'm going to have to speak to them face to face. Only then can I be sure that they won't act out of turn."

"Out of the question."

"Well, I'm sorry, but our negotiations are going to have to start from that point." He sniffed at the wine, savouring the bouquet. "If you're going to stick on something so simple, I'm afraid we're going to be at an impasse."

"Kaiser -"

"Sorry, no. My patience is at an end. Call me again tomorrow and maybe we can work something out." He hung up on her, then spun his chair around to face the office window. That was fun.

Sipping at the wine, he leaned back in the chair and surveyed the city skyline. He would negotiate with Piggot, of course. But the preparations for the assassination of Pathfinder would go ahead anyway.

The man was too dangerous to let live, no matter what 'agreement' he reached with the Director of the PRT. Of course, he would claim innocence and pretend to be shocked. Perhaps she would even believe him. She would certainly be unable to prove otherwise.

Getting up from the chair, he took two steps to the window and looked out over the Brockton Bay cityscape. With the ABB reduced to non-powered members, many of whom were slipping away even now, the only other gang in the city were the Merchants. If one used the term loosely, that is. He did not see them standing up long before the massed might of the Empire Eighty-Eight.

"Like a combine harvester," he murmured, turning away from the window.

Purple-brown smoke billowed from behind him; he reacted instantly, steel spikes shooting up from the floor, impaling the figure within the cloud. It was transfixed a dozen times over; he turned almost lazily, placing the glass on the desk as he did so. "You honestly didn't think I didn't expect you to make a move on me, did you?"

More spikes formed a cage about the impaled figure, on the faint off-chance that Pathfinder was still alive in there. The blood will be a problem to get out of the carpet.

He was only just beginning to realise that there was no blood, because the clearing smoke was revealing the figure to be a mannequin, when the stun-gun prods dug into his back from behind. Current flowed; he convulsed as he fell to the floor. Dimly, he saw the tall figure of Pathfinder standing over him.

"Yup."


Emily Piggot rubbed her eyes. It had been a long day, made longer by the fruitless discussion with Kaiser. The man was playing with her, a situation that made her want to shoot something, but she could not work out any other way within the regulations to get what she needed.

"At least Pathfinder and Compass Rose are doing what they're told," she murmured. The thought of those two going off on their own was a terrifying one, the scale of the terror depending on how independent they decided to be.

The fact that the Brockton Bay villains were held in check by a delicate balancing act was something that she didn't expect many people to know; for the last ten years, she had orchestrated that act for every day she had been Director. Pathfinder's blatant action had threatened to overturn that balance in one fell swoop. There was nothing, really, stopping the villains from storming the PRT building and massacring everyone they found there. She just had to make not doing it seem more attractive than doing it.

Director Piggot hated capes. She hated villainous capes even more than she hated rogues, and she hated rogues more than she hated heroes. Some heroes were almost likeable, but the fact remained that they were all parahumans, and parahumans were ultimately impossible to police. They couldn't be disarmed and it was her experience that they all had psychological problems.

But the day-to-day problems of managing the group of unstable children with heavy weaponry paled before the issue that she was facing now; Kaiser had a beef with Pathfinder and Compass Rose, the two parahumans who had put Leviathan on the Moon. She didn't like them, but she had to respect them for that astounding feat. And to lose them – and the potential life-saving uses of their power – to a gang boss with a vendetta was something she was not prepared to face lightly.

Purple-brown smoke billowed behind her office chair. She looked around, startled, to see Pathfinder and Compass Rose standing there.

"What the hell are you doing here?" she demanded. "You're off duty!"

"We put ourselves back on duty," Pathfinder stated. "How are talks going with Kaiser? Badly?"

"It's too early to say yet -" Piggot hedged.

"Badly," he confirmed, nodding his head. "Well, it's your lucky day. We're here to fix that particular problem. And some other potential ones."

She stared at him. "What are you talking about? If you're asking for permission to do something else foolhardy and ill-advised, I'm telling you now -"

Compass Rose cleared her throat. "Director, we're not asking. We're telling. This is going to happen. And guess what; you get to watch."

Pathfinder reached out and placed his hand on her shoulder. She had time for a startled "Don't you dare -" before purple-brown smoke filled her sight. Slowly, it cleared. Not very much to her surprise, she was no longer in her office. Her chair, however, still supported her weight.

"What the hell?" she muttered. "Where are we?"

Pathfinder reached out and slapped a rusty riveted metal bulkhead. The floor and ceiling were made of the same material. It gave a hollow ringing sound. "You'll see," he told her.

Along three of the four walls were large cylinders, each marked COMPRESSED AIR. DO NOT PUNCTURE. Set into the one empty wall was a submarine-type door with a wheel in the middle. Turning toward it, he spun the wheel until it clunked to a stop; with a heave, he opened the door. With a slight bow, he gestured for the Director to precede him.

Many things could be said about Emily Piggot; being a coward was not one of them. Ignoring the ache in her calves, she stepped over the threshold and advanced into the room beyond. It was poorly lit, with large fluorescent lamps powered by car batteries, but she could make out details quite well.

Four large chairs dominated the room, each with an occupant. More to the point, the occupants were secured into the chairs with metal clamps; they also had bags over their heads. Opposite the chairs was a large window composed of some thick glass or perspex. Outside …

"Christ," she muttered. "We're underwater."

"What?" called out one of the seated men, his voice muffled by the bag. "Who's that?"

That sparked a series of responses from the other men, until Pathfinder shouted, "Shut up!" His voice rang through the metal enclosure; Piggot's ears briefly hurt. The men shut up.

"To be precise, we are half a mile under the Atlantic Ocean," Pathfinder informed her. "If that window gave way, we would be smashed to a pulp before we ever drowned. So if I have to leave anyone here, you can be sure that they would be hard put to get out alive."

As he spoke, he walked down the line of men, pulling bags off of heads. One he left on; Piggot saw that there was a drawstring holding it in place. She recognised those who were now free to look around; Uber and L33t, and Accord from Boston.

"Who's that?" she asked, pointing at the last man; even as she voiced the question, she had a feeling that she knew already. A clatter from behind her alerted her to the fact that Compass Rose had lugged the office chair through the door; with just a little relief, she sank into it.

"Kaiser," Pathfinder told her, confirming her suspicion. "He gets to keep the bag on, because he has a line-of-sight power. If he can't see us, he can't attack us."

"Is that you, Pathfinder?" called Kaiser from within the bag. "Isn't this just a little puerile? And Director Piggot; I'm surprised you're condoning this."

"She's not," Pathfinder replied before Emily could think of an answer. "She's just along for the ride. A witness, so to speak. I've just brought you all here to say something. Then you can go home again, unscathed."

"Then would you kindly get on with it?" Accord snapped. "I do not appreciate having my time interrupted like this."

"I'd apologise for the inconvenience," Pathfinder addressed them all, "but you're villains. You are, by definition, inconvenient to everyone around you. So I'll make it short. Three of you are Brockton Bay villains. You will leave the city as soon as you can. Accord, you're based in Boston. Don't ever come to Brockton Bay. I'm declaring this city off-limits to supervillains." He paused, looking them over. "Does anyone have any trouble understanding that?"

"You can't just unilaterally make us go away," Kaiser snapped.

"I can and I will," Pathfinder retorted. "This is your first, last and only warning. If, after forty-eight hours, I find any one of you, or your minions, within the borders of Brockton Bay, I will disappear you. You saw what we did to Leviathan. Do not imagine that I will hesitate to do something similar to any one of you. Now, one last time; does anyone not understand this?"

"I understand completely," Accord stated. "I had no intention of moving here in any case. Now, return me from where you abducted me."

"Certainly." Pathfinder and Compass Rose approached the restrained villain. Purple-brown smoke filled the area; moments later, they stepped out of the cloud. Emily saw that the chair was now empty.

"Did you -" she began.

"He's back in Boston," Pathfinder assured her. "Safe and sound."

"Director Piggot!" It was Kaiser again. "I cannot believe that you are condoning this travesty of human rights violations! We are being restrained against our will, here! Without even the benefit of trial, or haebus corpus!"

"Don't push me," warned Pathfinder.

"So what, you'll throw us into the Birdcage?" sneered Kaiser.

"No." Pathfinder's voice was cold. "I won't." There was a chilling silence following that statement, then he went on. "All right then. Uber, L33t. Do you understand the terms as I have given them?"

The Tinker, white-faced and shaking, nodded. His partner regarded Pathfinder for a moment. His voice was deep and resonant as he replied. "I'll speak for us both. Yes."

"Good." Pathfinder took each of them by the shoulder; Compass Rose stood next to him, her hands over his. Piggot watched them disappear and then reappear almost on the instant. They're getting better at this.

Then Pathfinder addressed Kaiser. "One more time. Do you agree with the terms as given – that is, be out of town in forty-eight hours? If you refuse to answer, I'm going to assume that you mean to kill us. Which means I'll be perfectly justified in leaving you here to meet your end with nobody the wiser except a bunch of people who have no idea where to find you, and remarkably little motive to do so."

Kaiser was silent for a long moment. "You wouldn't."

"I would."

"It would mean cape war. You will be targeted when everyone else realises that I've disappeared. Brockton Bay would be a war zone."

"I can always bring more people down here," Pathfinder pointed out. "I don't have to take them back."

"The Empire Eighty-Eight would seek revenge. They would realise that you're the one who took me."

"You aren't listening!" shouted Pathfinder. "I do not care about the welfare of villains! You've got the population scared into compliance! Well, enough! It's time for you to be scared! There are many, many places in the world where I can go, but nobody can return from!"

When Kaiser spoke next, his voice was once more smooth, his manner calculating. "Director Piggot, are you honestly going to stand here and let this man threaten me?"

"Gotta love it when a villain hides behind the law," remarked Compass Rose before the Director could respond. She turned to Pathfinder. "He's not gonna give in."

He nodded. "Looks like it."

Piggot looked from one to the other. "You aren't going to -"

"We're going to do nothing to him," Pathfinder told her. "He hasn't given you anything, has he?"

Mutely, she shook her head.

"That's because he thinks he can win." Pathfinder looked at the villain. "He thinks he'll get loose and have his chance at revenge."

"You can't leave me here." Amazingly, the villain's voice was still smooth, assured. "It's murder."

Pathfinder took Compass Rose's hand. His other hand rested on Director Piggot's shoulder. "The other guys knew when to quit. You don't."

Purple-brown smoke billowed, and Piggot was sitting in her office once more. She looked around at Pathfinder. "What are you going to do with him?"

"Check back occasionally over the next day or so," he told her. "If he's willing to play ball, he gets to come home. Otherwise … nope. I don't intend to let anyone target Taylor. Ever."

"So what about me?" the Director asked.

The two looked at one another, then back at her. She got the impression that a great deal of silent communication had passed between them. "What about you?" asked Pathfinder.

"I'm a witness to what you just did. Intimidation, perhaps extortion. Maybe murder, if you leave Kaiser down there. Are you going to disappear me as well?"

"Don't see why I should," Pathfinder decided. "Sure, you could tell people. But that's more likely to start that cape war you're so scared of. In fact, it's in your best interests to squash the story every time it crops up."

She grimaced. He was right; she hated to admit it, but he was indeed right. And although he hadn't actually mentioned it, they both knew that he had just made her life easier by about a factor of ten. "Fine then," she snapped. "I'll keep your dirty little secret." She stood and faced him. "But the both of you are fired from the Protectorate as of right now. I can't have loose cannons working for us."

He didn't seem overly fazed. "We can call it 'leave of absence' or something for the papers," he agreed. "Don't worry, we aren't about to go villain."

"Wasn't that what you just did?" she asked tartly. "You just broke the law in a dozen ways."

He grinned at her. "Well, not publicly," he amended. He took Compass Rose's hand and they disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

Director Piggot was left staring as it dissipated. Christ, she thought. What do I do now?


Twenty-Four Hours Later

"Do you understand the terms as I have outlined them?"

Kreig nodded, looking at the screen with its attached camera. "I understand totally, and I agree with them. The Empire Eighty-Eight will give you no further trouble."

Two chairs down, Kaiser struggled against his bonds and screamed invective. His bag only slightly muffled his voice as he did so. "Kreig, get me out of here! That's an order!"

Kreig turned his head to look at where Kaiser was sitting. "I would if I could, but when it comes to a choice between you and my survival, I pick myself. Sorry."

Purple-brown smoke billowed behind him, and he was teleported away.


Twenty-four hours after that, under the leadership of Kreig, the Empire Eighty-Eight quietly left town. They were the last to go. The mysterious disappearance of Kaiser and, in an unrelated matter, Max Anders, was never solved.

Or at least, those who knew the truth never spoke out about it.


End of Part Twenty-Six