THE METAHUMAN TRANSFIGURATION

Description: The gang gets superpowers. It's not as cool as some of them always thought. Alternate Season 9 premiere.

Notes: A double apology owed this time, first for the unusually long period between updates here (I can plead only lack of time) and for a chapter that doesn't get quite as quickly to the real action as I wanted to (here I can only acknowledge my own predilection for all the necessary detail work to establish the scene, the sort of thing that a set designer and director takes care of before a TV show or movie hits the screen). I think people will see that next chapter will be able to launch into the big setpiece right away. For those interested in my head-casting, I see Aaron Ashmore (KILLJOYS) as Agent Anderson, and Michael Cudlitz (THE WALKING DEAD) as Sergeant Abrams. Thanks again to everyone who has left reviews and become a follower, and I hope that this chapter is still fun and entertaining to read.

(UPDATE: A belated reply to a recent guest reviewer, who asked if I really thought Emily was so evil: the answer is no, I don't, and I actually quite like Laura Spencer's portrayal of the character, but I do think Emily has a dark streak, and the thematic point of the Power Pulse is that it transforms you in a way that takes into account both your deepest nature and your state of mind at the moment you're transformed. Since I liked Lucy and wanted to bring her back, taking Emily down a dark path gave me both a dramatic antagonist and a nice complex romantic triangle to play with as well, so there was really only one way to go. For what it's worth, I don't know what her eventual fate will be yet, but it will definitely not be a simple beat-up-the-villain deal.)

Disclaimer: The author does not own THE BIG BANG THEORY or any of the characters.

- 11 -

BELLAGIO FOUNTAINS, 3600 LAS VEGAS BOULEVARD SOUTH, LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

FRIDAY, AUGUST 28, 2015, 9:16 P.M.

Earlier in the day, the group had paused for a few minutes in their stroll down the Strip to take in the famous Fountain show in front of the Bellagio, which had been all the time Sheldon needed to commit the location and its spatial coordinates to memory. The portal opened right atop the fence separating the streetside viewing platform from the artificial lake itself; the tourists who'd been loitering about waiting for the next show leapt back in shock and fear. Penny ignored them as she jumped down, glancing back at Sheldon in annoyance. "You couldn't have put us right on the sidewalk?"

"I had to guarantee putting it somewhere it wouldn't hurt someone, Penny," Sheldon defended himself, climbing down and then helping Amy down. "Las Vegas is unfortunately very heavily trafficked by pedestrians. It was either this or try to find a building rooftop." He noticed the flabbergasted, gaping tourists and waved cheerfully at them. "Good evening, hello! Don't mind us, we're just on a hostage rescue mission. We'll be out of your way well before the next show starts."

Penny wasn't sure if it was Sheldon's smile, or his words, or the sight of the others clambering down behind him from the portal, but something had clearly been the last straw; the tourists all turned and ran, though a few of the braver ones snapped pictures with their phones as they did. Then again, she thought, looking back at the portal, it might have been something else entirely. In the basement lab on the portal's far side stood Mrs. Latham, her arms folded, glaring at them. Even consumed with fear and anger as she was, Penny had to admit that glare still unnerved her.

"It was a stupid idea to leave the house at all, and this is a stupider one," she'd told Penny bluntly, "and the only reason I'm not trying to stop you is that I recognize I physically can't. But if you're going to do this, for Christ's sake make sure you don't hurt anybody, or as few people as possible. The more damage you do the less I can protect you, and I don't care how valuable you are; I will throw you to the government if you leave me no choice."

Still, at least she'd helped equip them. All of them had earpiece radios with wrist-mikes wired under their clothes, and Howard, Raj and Sheldon all wore lightweight black body-armour vests lent them from Mrs. Latham's security force; Lucy had been given one as well, after Raj had pointed out to her that if she were caught by surprise by an attacker before she could ghost out she would be in real trouble. Penny, of course, had no need for armour, and Amy had simply copied Penny's powers. Bernadette, Lucy, and Sheldon had all been given Taser pistols of their own, though only Sheldon wore his at his belt; Lucy and Bernadette had hidden theirs in small shoulder-bags. "Open carry is legal in Vegas," Howard had said, "and Tasers aren't firearms so they aren't subject to concealed-carry laws, but girls wearing guns gets attention wherever you are, believe me. This way you guys have a non-lethal method of self-defense if something goes really wrong."

"And, uh, how wrong is 'really wrong' again?" Lucy asked.

Howard sighed. "Honestly, if you have to ask, you probably really don't want to know." He himself had buckled a small cylindrical device to his belt, and was carrying a hollow metal tube in one hand and what looked like wheel-less roller skates over his shoulder; both were connected by thin black cable to the belt cylinder, as was a small control device he held in the other hand. "'Cause I gotta tell you, I'm not sure I know and I know I don't want to know. You know?"

Penny had almost wanted to laugh at Lucy's bemused look, but hadn't been able to.

With a gesture, Sheldon closed the portal and turned to the others. "All right, then. The Grand Camelot is fifteen minutes' walk that way." He pointed up the street towards a towering white obelisk of a building, lit in spotlights of blue, green and gold. "Once we get there, we'll need to survey as much of the building as we can. I propose a dual approach: Howard, Amy and Penny can survey the windows by circling the building, and Lucy can check the rooms by phasing out of the visible light spectrum."

Lucy frowned. "Uh, by myself?"

"You'll be perfectly safe," said Sheldon impatiently.

"No, no, that's not what I meant, it's just—that's a big building." Lucy waved at it. "If I've got to try to go through every room on every floor, on my own, that's gonna take a really long time. Isn't there a way to narrow that down?"

Howard snapped his fingers. "Wait a minute. Raj, you were able to tell where Sheldon was, back at his place. What if you went with Lucy? Just keep your radar open as far as you can, you could probably sweep a whole floor in minutes."

Raj looked dubious. "I don't know, I've never used it in a big crowd before. Besides, I can't phase out like Lucy can; what if somebody spots me?"

Lucy's eyebrows went up. "Oh!" she said, looking startled. "Actually, I just remembered . . . um, let me try something. Hold on." She closed her eyes and grabbed Raj's hand, then dissolved smoothly out of existence, fading away like mist. Raj frowned at his hand, and at the oddly bunched look of the skin where an invisible hand was holding it. Then his eyes abruptly widened. Before he could say anything he too seemed to wash out, turning translucent, then transparent, then gone.

Penny gasped. Sheldon's eyebrow arched. "Fascinating," he said. "So you can expand the effect of your ability to another person being touched. I suppose that's a natural outgrowth of the basic side effect that phases your clothes along with you."

"Yeah," said Lucy, her voice coming from nowhere. "I did this by accident to the FBI agent in charge at the hospital, Page; when she grabbed me, I tried as hard as I could to get away and we wound up falling through the floor together."

"Well, that's certainly useful," came Raj's equally disembodied voice, "but there's, um, one really inconvenient side effect. I can't see a damned thing."

Amy nodded in understanding. "Yes, of course; if you're transparent to visible light, nothing reflects off your retinas so your brain gets no signals from the optic nerve." She frowned. "Lucy, how is it that you can see?"

"No idea," admitted Lucy. "But everything looks really weird to me this way, almost like a photo negative or a sniper scope, so I think I must be seeing by UV or infrared or something. The last time I turned invisible in sunlight I almost went blind. But my night vision like this is amazing." Abruptly she gave a gasp and both she and Raj flickered back into visibility; she leant over, panting, hands on her kneees. "The downside," she gulped between breaths, "is that keeping that up . . . for two people's . . . a lot more draining than for just me. We might have to take some breaks. Make that a lot of breaks," she added after a moment.

Raj rubbed her shoulder. "It's okay, Lucy. We'll take things as slow as we need to." He looked around at the rest of them. "Well? Shall we get moving?"

"I guess we better," said Penny. She swallowed. Up 'til now sheer fury had carried her through everything. Suddenly, the cold-blooded truth of it hit home: they were deliberately walking into a major confrontation with a dangerous criminal organization willing to kidnap and kill, putting at least some of their lives on the line to save someone else's, trusting in nothing but their own brains and guts and the powers they'd had for barely two days. This was not instinctive reaction to circumstance, like trashing the riot cops or saving a falling copter; this was facing danger with your eyes open and your mind clear, knowing the consequences could overshadow the rest of your life—if you survived at all.

But if I don't do this I will never see Leonard again.

The thought steadied her stomach. She drew a deep breath, then another. "Yeah. Come on, guys, let's go get our friend." She started walking, a confident, steady stride that led her past the others and down the street. Within seconds, she felt the rest falling into step with her. The seven of them moved up the street towards the Camelot, Penny in the lead, the cool breeze of the Vegas night washing over them.

"You know that if they were filming us right now this would be a perfect slo-mo power walk scene," she heard Howard mutter in an undertone to Raj.

"Oh, totally," Raj agreed. To herself, Penny had to smile.

KLAS CHANNEL 8 HELIPORT, 3199 DEBBIE REYNOLDS DRIVE, LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

9:22 P.M.

Glenn Foxworth had always hated flying, and was profoundly relieved to see that the helicopter in which he was riding was at last coming in for a landing—although the speed with which it was doing so was a little disturbing in itself. The approaching helipad was a local station's traffic copter heliport, just off the Strip; a small flotilla of black SUVs and police cars had been drawn up around its edge, with uniformed and armoured men standing around in waiting groups. Glenn could see them turning to watch their copter as it descended. The visual perspective they gave made it even clearer how fast they were moving, and Glenn swallowed.

At his side, Nick Anderson glanced over at him and clapped his hand on Glenn's shoulder. "Don't worry, Doctor, our pilots know what they're doing."

Glenn managed a thin smile. He couldn't much say he liked Anderson's affected familiarity; the blond, compactly-built agent was just too young to make that kind of avuncular bonhomie work with someone Glenn's age. He found himself missing Agent Page's straightforward formality. But Angela was still recovering in Huntington Memorial from whatever had happened to her—although based on her medical workup, Glenn had a disturbingly strong suspicion about what that was—and Anderson, with all the ambition Angela had noted of him, had been more than eager to jump into her leadership role. Glenn found himself hoping that whatever the Primaries were doing in Las Vegas, they'd had the sense to leave Bernadette behind; she was pregnant, after all.

The helicopter landed with a thump. Anderson had already undone his seatbelt, and had the door open and was outside and onto the ground before Glenn could finish unbuckling himself. He grabbed his briefcase and hurried after Anderson, catching up as the younger man was beckoning the gathered officers into a circle. "Thank you all for volunteering!" he shouted over the noise of the copter's decelerating rotors. "Has everybody received their preliminary briefing packages? Had a chance to review them? Any questions?"

One of the riot-armoured officers, a big man with a rusty brush-cut and a bristling mustache, raised his hand. "Yeah, I got a question, Agent Anderson," he rumbled, without waiting to be acknowledged. "If these people can personally take down helicopters in flight with their bare hands, exactly how are we expected to be able to take them in? And if the FBI's known all this time where they were, why haven't you gone in and got 'em yourselves?"

Anderson nodded calmly, as if he'd expected no less; but Glenn caught the flash of anger in the younger man's eyes. "Good questions, Officer—what's your name? Abrams? Sergeant Abrams. To answer your second question first, the problem is that until today, our targets were on the private property of a politically connected individual, which made obtaining warrants problematic." That got a round of grumbling and muttering, but none of it hostile. Glenn guessed most of the men here had encountered that problem before. "And as you know from your briefing, we are all but certain that at least one individual in the target group possess the metahuman ability to travel instantaneously from one location to another. We only became aware that the group had travelled here, into public space, a few hours ago, thanks to a lucky computer search."

Glenn barely repressed a snort. That was technically true, but glossed over a great deal of the bureaucracy involved. Following Page's disappearance, Anderson had ordered the strike helicopters after the Latham Industries flight on Thursday night when the Los Robles surveillance team had reported its landing; he'd also had to personally debrief the copters' crews after Carmichaels and Fowler had forced them down (and that had taken a few rewatches of the video before Glenn quite believed it). He'd then spent nearly all day today trying to obtain a warrant for the Latham property on Orlando Road, only to be blocked by orders from almost the very top of the FBI chain of command; Anderson had speculated to Glenn, fuming all the while, that the real obstacles were a couple of Congress-critters on key appropriations committees, people who had been in Latham Industries' pocket from before Leonard Latham's death. Glenn had pointed out that from one viewpoint this was a good sign—Anderson was now working on things big enough to have a political dimension—but he could appreciate the frustration.

Fortunately, thanks to the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994, all U.S. telecommunications providers were required to install data packet capture technology that enabled the monitoring of their broadband internet and VoIP traffic. Far too much data moved online for a comprehensive general analysis, but computer-sifting allowed the retrieval of messages featuring specified keywords; the more specific and unusual the keyword, and the more focused the area of servers targeted, the likelier one was to find useful information quickly. After confirming the fugitive Primaries had gone to ground at Laura Latham's mansion, Anderson had put in place a search protocol on their names isolated to the ISP servers in proximity to Orlando Road. It had taken mere minutes to spot the names "L. Hofstadter" and "P. Carmichaels" in an online booking request for a Vegas wedding chapel off the Strip, and the FBI's surveillance data-crunching computers had sent a report to Anderson's secure inbox within half an hour of the original booking. Unfortunately, because Anderson had spent all day on the phone fruitlessly chasing his warrant, the report had sat unread in that secure inbox until well after three in the afternoon, which only confirmed Glenn's private conviction: All the computer-enhanced information efficiency in the world couldn't give someone more than two eyes or give them more than sixty minutes in an hour.

"We know that only one, or at most two, of our target group are wholly immune to physical weaponry," Anderson went on. "For Carmichaels and Fowler, use of tear gas, flash-bangs and stun gas grenades are authorized. For the rest of them, the Tasers and tranquilizer pistols you've been issued should suffice. You are not considered to be under force-escalation restrictions for these targets, and warning requirements have been waived; if you get a chance to nab someone in isolation or from behind, do so. Use of deadly force is authorized if your own lives, a colleague's life or a bystander's life appears to be in jeopardy."

Glenn stiffened. That was new, and not something Page would have ordered. He was professional enough not to challenge a leader's orders in front of his subordinates, but it took far more willpower than he'd expected to stay silent.

Abrams evidently didn't share Glenn's qualms. "Agent Anderson," he rumbled, "it occurs to me you may have been misled by all the weapons and the armour," he gestured around at himself and the other SWAT officers, "but our team specializes in saving lives. One of our top priorities is to avoid collateral damage. If these people are so dangerous, why are we going after them right in the middle of a major urban population centre?"

Anderson sighed. Then he walked straight up to Abrams and glared right into his eyes. "It occurs to me, Sergeant Abrams," he gritted, "that you may not have been paying attention—either to me, or to what's been happening across the world, or both. We are going after these people here because this is literally the only opportunity we have. We are going after them here because we can't afford not to have them under control. Most of all, we are going after them because if we don't someone else will. Now. Are you going to make the problem they present worse, or are you going to be part of the solution?"

Abrams met him glare for glare, jaw working. Glenn could read the dynamics as if they'd been drawn on the air: a seasoned officer resenting taking orders from a younger, far less-experienced man, and an FBI agent at that, but balked by the twin undeniable realities that first, the FBI, at least for now, did have jurisdiction, and second, Abrams had no grounds to challenge Anderson's assessment, however little he liked it. On any other day Glenn would have bet on Abrams' professionalism to move past the confrontation gracefully . . . but for all he knew, Abrams had seen things of his own in the past two days, or lost someone. Everything was moving too fast, Glenn thought; everyone was scrambling in panic to adapt to an impossibly changed world, and panicking people became unpredictable. He wondered if he should attempt to intervene, then reluctantly decided against it. However diplomatic he tried to be, he would be a civilian attempting to interfere: no law enforcement officer ever took that kindly.

The confrontation broke with a start on both sides as Anderson's cell phone went off. The younger man hissed under his breath and grabbed it, while Abrams turned away with a grimace that could have been either self-disgust or contempt. "Anderson," said the FBI agent. "Go ahead." His eyebrows shot up. "Wait—what did these people say they saw?" He listened a moment longer, then hung up without responding and looked around at the crowd. "Ladies and gentlemen," he announced, raising his voice. "We've just received confirmation that our Primaries have been sighted on the Strip itself, emerging from what was described as 'a doorway in the air' right in front of the Bellagio Fountains and headed north. We are going to get them. Now."

However young or inexperienced Anderson might be, he had, at least, mastered the trick of giving orders as if he expected them to be obeyed—something he had probably learned from Page, Glenn thought suddenly. And it worked. Whether in suits, uniforms or riot gear, the gathered officers began dispersing to their vehicles. Anderson motioned for Glenn to follow and got into one of the SUVs; a young woman in LVPD police blues sat in the driver's seat, looking over her shoulder at them as they buckled in. "North on the Strip, Agent Anderson?" she asked.

"North on the Strip," Anderson confirmed. "Your name, ma'am?"

"Officer Davies," said the young woman.

"Okay, Officer Davies," said Anderson. "You know me, the tall gentleman in the back is Dr. Glenn Foxworth. We'll be trying a peaceful approach first. So no sirens, no chases, no calling attention to ourselves. Just head north until we see our targets, and then . . . ." Anderson paused. "Then we'll see what we'll see."

He said it confidently and firmly enough that Davies seemed to take it as a solid plan. But Glenn suddenly felt very alarmed. Anderson was improvising as much as anybody else, he realized. God, Bernie, he thought. I really hope you and that husband of yours did the sensible thing and stayed home. Yet he was sinkingly afraid he already knew the answer to that question.

One by one, the SUVs, police cruisers and the two armoured SWAT vans rolled out of the helipad's parking lot and into the Vegas traffic, headed towards the Strip.

THE GRAND CAMELOT HOTEL, 3050 SOUTH LAS VEGAS BOULEVARD

9:31 P.M.

Lucy had to admit that of all the things one might have seen in the Grand Camelot's lobby, the sight that greeted her when she first walked through the big revolving doors wasn't it. She froze, staring, her mouth open. Raj, whose arm was linked with hers, took a second longer to see it; when he did, the flabbergasted surprise that burst off him felt like a smack of cold water in the face. She physically staggered, almost falling over until he caught himself and her and bore her up. "Raj," she gulped. "Is this what I think it is?"

Raj pointed to the big electronic display sign on one wall. "I think it's exactly what you think it is, Lucy," he groaned. "Of all the things to walk into . . . ." He held his head, grimacing. "Oh, God, and it feels just as bad as it looks . . . ."

"Guys, what're you doing? Come on, we've got to—!" Penny stopped dead beside them, her jaw falling open. "Oh, fuck me," she said. "Or rather, don't, please," she added as, one by one, the others came through the door and halted in similar shock.

Above an archway built in front of the main entrance, there stretched a picture of a scantily-clad blonde young woman in red lipstick, lying on her side and pouting sexily at the viewer. Scattered about the lobby, standing ad banners showed similar pictures, captioned by absurd names and all blazoned with the logos of production companies and publishers. Beyond the hotel's check-in desk, a large crowd swirled around a row of registration booths, most of them men but some of them—the ones circulating through the crowd as if working it—women wearing heavy makeup and lingerie-type outfits usually only found in fantasies or Victoria's Secret commercials. More underdressed people, this time men and women both, sat in the lobby's lounging area, chatting amicably. Amy adjusted her glasses and read the electronic display sign, her eyebrows high. "The 43rd Annual Adult Entertainment Expo Welcomes Performers, Producers, and Patrons from Around the World," she said.

"Oh, good Lord," Sheldon gulped. He averted his eyes blushingly from a tall black girl in a leopard-print bikini who walked by, and who gave him a come-hither smirk as she did. "I should have brought my face mask. God only knows the pathogens that run wildfire through communities like this."

Howard looked around with a raised eyebrow. "You know, the irony is, four or five years ago I'd probably have known this was happening and researched it for a possible vacation spot," he said. "This is what I get for unsubscribing from those RSS feeds. Bet you never thought you'd regret civilizing me, huh, honeypants?" he added to Bernadette with a grin.

"If you were civilized you wouldn't call me honeypants," Bernadette growled. "Come on, we're only gonna draw attention if we stay here much longer. There's security staff everywhere, look." She nodded to the check-in counter, where two men in blue blazers—both carrying walkie-talkies and both, Lucy saw, with the telltale bulges at waist or lapel that indicated hidden holsters—were confronting a balding man in a loud Hawaiian-print shirt; their glower portended nothing good for their target. More similarly-uniformed men moved through the crowd. "Raj, Lucy, you go find an elevator and start sweeping the floors, going up. Penny, Howie, Amy, you go outside and start circling—work your way down from the top. Sheldon and I will stick down here and coordinate." She went to Sheldon and hooked her arm through his; Sheldon looked down at her with alarm. "Come on, honey, we're newlyweds having a drink or two in the bar if anybody asks. That should keep any, uh, let's say 'professionals' off our back."

"Not as many as you think," Howard warned her.

"Howie, I love you, but I really don't need any more reminders of your familiarity with this kind of thing. Now get going." Bernadette slapped Howard on the shoulder and bore Sheldon off towards one end of the lobby, following the signs pointing to the Avalon Bar; the look of alarm on Sheldon's face only deepened. Amy watched them go with a distressed look.

Penny cleared her throat. "Well, come on, guys, if we're doing this let's do it."

Raj and Howard exchanged glances, then both nodded, as if bolstering themselves. "You're right," said Raj. "Absolutely." He turned to Lucy, extending his arm. "Shall we, milady?"

"Let's," said Lucy, managing a lopsided smile. She took his arm and pressed herself against his side as Penny, Amy and Howard disappeared back outside.

The two of them made their way through the chaos, carefully steering wide of the blue-blazered security personnel. Eventually, they wound up standing before the elevators amid a sizeable crowd. Raj cleared his throat and leaned over. "Heads up," he murmured in Lucy's ear. "I'm going to try dropping my shields a bit, and see what happens. If I fall over, just tell people I'm drunk."

"Okay," Lucy whispered back, just barely repressing a shiver at the feel of Raj's breath. Maybe it was the fact she was already as terrified as she thought she could be, maybe it was some lingering aftereffect from last night's empathy-assisted makeout session, or maybe all the tawdry erotica on display in the hotel lobby had unexpectedly gotten to her, but for some reason her libido seemed to have kicked in more strongly than she could remember it having done in years. She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, forcing herself to a semblance of calm, trying very hard to ignore that internal tingling ache.

And then it hit her: Raj could feel what others felt. She turned to grab him and cry No, wait! only to find he was already staring down at her in wide-eyed surprise. Their faces were ridiculously close together. Before she realized what she was doing she'd slid her arms around him, pulled his head down and kissed him again, as hungrily as she'd done last night; but this time the passion was all her own. Raj's arousal, triggered and feedback-magnified, spun into hers, and she found herself stumbling back against the wall as his hands slid over her, pulling him hard against herself, her mouth open wide and one leg lifting to wrap around his hips—

The bing of the elevator arriving startled her, breaking the fever. She and Raj broke apart, panting, and then she drew in a horrified gasp. All around them, everybody in the group waiting for the elevators had started making out with each other, without regard to sex or relationship or age. Unable to help herself, Lucy screamed. The sound shattered the spell; suddenly the gasps and moans and encouraging cries turned into yells of fury, panic and horror as people flung themselves apart. Fists flew; blows were struck; blood spattered from flattened noses. Beyond the elevator vestibule, Lucy saw the blue-blazered guards forcing their way through the bewildered crowd towards them. "Come on!" she yelled at the flabbergasted Raj, dragging them into the elevator. The doors rolled closed bare seconds before the foremost guard caught up to them. Lucy stabbed the button for the topmost floor, then fell back against the back wall, still panting. Raj looked as if he'd just been walloped about the head several times with a gigantic padded hammer.

Eventually, as the elevator rose, he swallowed and looked at her. "Okay," he said. "Was that you or was that me?"

"I think . . . it was both of us," said Lucy. "I take it back, by the way. Now I know why normal people don't do that all the time. Is it always like that?"

"I . . . don't know what it's like, when—this—is involved." Raj touched his temple, looking more somber than she'd ever seen him. "Maybe . . . maybe we shouldn't push this. For that matter—maybe we shouldn't risk this at all."

Lucy swallowed and summoned all her courage, not looking away. "Not pushing is good," she said. "But I'm not ready to quit yet." She took his hand. "I trust you, Raj. Whatever you can do with your brain, I trust you."

He stared at her with an expression she'd never seen before, but she imagined it must look something like how he'd look if he were to suddenly see a supernova, or a new planet or asteroid. "You do," he almost whispered. "Don't you." He smiled at her. Helplessly, she returned it.

A second later she remembered, and jerked upright. "Oh! Leonard! Quick, Raj, start scanning!"

"Oh, right! Right. Krishna help me." He closed his eyes, then opened one in a squint. "And can you do me a favour and think about anything except me? Blue-eyed polar bears, whatever." He grinned, winked at her with the open eye, and closed it again. Lucy almost didn't recognize the urge that rose up, before she realized that she wanted to giggle.

LAS VEGAS STRIP

9:40 P.M.

Penny, Howard and Amy had snuck into an alleyway to take off, not wanting to draw any more attention than was unavoidable. The skates had worked brilliantly, feeling just like powering up a ramp at the roller rink, and for about the first thirty feet or so of the ascent Howard had been thinking nothing but the giddy refrain This is so cool, this is so cool, this is so cool! Then he'd made the mistake of looking down to see the Strip falling away. His stomach had immediately turned itself inside out, but it was too late to stop; the only thing he could do was lean forward, the counter-grav skates' thrust set to maximum, and continue spiraling upwards around the Grand Camelot, muttering to himself like a prayer: "This was a mistake, this was a mistake, ho my freakin' God this was one huge meshuge ferkakte mistake . . . !"

"How you doing, Howard?"

"Aaaahhh!" Amy's voice, seemingly out of nowhere, startled him so badly he lost his balance; his feet shot out from under him and he dropped like the tur-briske-fil that had accidentally slid off his mother's Thanksgiving platter when he was twelve. A dozen floors of the Grand Camelot flashed by in his upside-down vision, and the only other thing he could see as the neon-lit Strip hurtled upwards towards him was the spectacle of that overstuffed bird hitting the linoleum and bursting like a wet paper bag filled with offal . . . .

Something seized him, spun him about like a Saint-Bernard with a kitten and straightened him back upright. He and Amy shot skyward together, her arms wrapped around him. Abruptly he tuned in on her shouts: ". . . turn down the power! Howard?! What's the control to turn these things down—?!" Shaking as if he'd been Tased—and everything in him burned stingingly with the sheer force of his terror, almost as if he had been—Howard fumbled for the control that had fallen out of his hand, got his fingers back around it and slid the dial back by half. Their ascent stopped.

Penny spiraled down out of the air towards them and pulled up with the grace of a synchronized swimmer, her arms folded and her expression annoyed. She looked as if she would have tapped her foot impatiently had there been anything to tap on. "Howard? You okay?"

Howard swallowed, knowing very well he was not and knowing he had only a few seconds to explain why. "Amy," he said weakly, "if you could please turn me around and hold me still, just for a minute or so . . . ."

Something in his pallor, or the cold sweat on his forehead, must have warned Amy. Her eyebrows rose in comprehension. "Oh. Penny, one minute please." She shifted around behind Howard, put one arm around his chest and the other around his waist, and tilted him forward. "It's okay, Howard. Go ahead."

"Thank you," said Howard, and lost most of the amazing dinner they'd had a few hours ago. Penny made a noise of mixed sympathy and disgust and turned away. Amy held him patiently until the spasms had passed, then leaned past him and shouted down at the ground far below, "Gardez l'eau!"

"Garday-what?" said Penny.

"'Gardez l'eau'," Amy repeated. "French for 'watch out for the water!' It's what mediaeval Parisian burghers used to shout when they were throwing the contents of their chamber pots out the window, back before modern plumbing made such warnings superfluous."

"Oh. Yeah." Penny looked down at the Strip and grimaced. "I guess some poor schmuck really did just get the worst rain shower in history, didn't he?"

Howard scrubbed his face and mouth clean on the sleeve of his shirt and shuddered in a few deep breaths. "Okay. Okay, I think I've got it, Amy. Thanks."

"Any time." Amy smiled and let him go. "Penny did the same for me. I believe they call this 'paying it forward'."

"Tell me about it." At half-power, Howard was able to hover, and made a few tentative skating moves, sliding forward and then coming around in a slow turn. It was coming back to him now. "They never showed Robert Downey Jr. throwing up in the Iron Man movies."

"You watched the wrong Robert Downey Jr. movies," Penny told him. "You should try watching Less Than Zero sometime. Or, you know what, don't. Not a fun flick." She glanced down at the Grand Camelot; their ascent had taken them so high they were now well above its topmost spire. "Okay, guys, we're gonna check each floor, one by one. If you can get the windows open from the outside, great, if not, just remember the floor number, and . . . ." She trailed off, suddenly looking dismayed. Howard followed her realization a second later, and groaned, covering his face with his hand.

Amy frowned at them. "What's the problem?"

"We didn't think this through," said Howard, and waved at the building. "Anybody bother to count the number of floors? How are we going to know which floor is which from the outside?"

Amy blinked. "Well, from the outside, probably not. But luckily we don't have to." She lifted her wrist to her mouth and pressed the button on the mike control. "Raj? This is Amy, come in. Raj, can you hear me? Raj?"

There was a moment's pause; then Raj's voice crackled in their earpieces. "Amy? We're in the elevator, going up. Passing the twentieth floor, and I haven't sensed anything that feels like Leonard." A beat. "I, uh, I should probably mention that we caused a bit of a commotion on the ground floor. Completely by accident, but, um, it may have made their security guys a little more alert."

Howard brought his mike to his mouth. "A 'bit of a commotion'? Really? Do we even wanna know?"

"Let's wait until it's a funny story we can tell in a bar next year," said Raj. "If you don't mind."

"Raj," said Amy, "does the elevator panel say how many floors there are in the building?"

"Um . . . yes it does. Thirty-four."

Penny nodded in satisfaction. "Okay. Well, guys, don't lose count." Before Howard or Amy could say anything she whirled away and dove towards the building, moving as easily as if she'd flown all her life. Amy stared after her with an admiring look on her face, then followed. Howard had to admit he knew how she felt. He swallowed, dialed his skates' power down to just below hover-strength and began to skate downwards, feeling like he was skiing on air. It took a great deal of skill not to look down between his feet or think about just how high up he was.

The three of them circled the building. The hotel's roof was an open-air, glass-walled plaza full of tables, one end of which was roofed over and set up as an event hall or stage; uniformed staff bustled around it, evidently getting something set up or torn down—Howard couldn't tell from this distance. None of the staff looked up, or noticed the three flyers. Behind the event hall, a giant steel sculpture of a sword, point up, towered another four or five stories into the night. The windows just below the roof were double normal height, and inside was another event hall, this one populated by a large crowd and alive with lights; the music was so loud they could hear it even outside. Below that were the largest, most richly-appointed suites, only a few of which seemed to be occupied. Then came two levels of slightly less rich rooms, then what looked like ordinary suites, floor after floor after floor of them, some with balconies, some not, most occupied, a few dark . . . . In one suite, a towheaded little girl in glasses was gazing out the window with a bored look; when she saw Howard skate by, she stiffened, her mouth falling open in awe. Howard grinned at her, waved, and skated on. Okay; that had kinda sorta been worth it.

"Howard? It's Raj," came Raj's voice through his earpiece. "We just got sent back down from the Shalott Hall, up on the top floor, where there's some big shindig going on for the convention. I, uh . . . I haven't sensed anything that felt like Leonard." Though Raj was clearly fighting to keep his voice calm, Howard could hear the dread in his friend's words. "We'll make another pass, but I don't know if this is going to work."

Howard skated to a stop, dialing up to hover mode, and frowned at the hotel. "Are you sure? You were able to pick all of us out dead on, back at Sheldon's mom's place. Are you sensing anything?" Amy and Penny pulled up near him, listening intently.

"Yes! Yes, absolutely; I can tell there's whole bunches of people on each floor, but finding a single person's like . . . it's like walking through a music store where they're playing twenty to thirty songs at once; all you hear is just this general din. I might have to get a lot closer before I could pick Leonard out clearly."

"That's assuming he's actually here, of course," said Amy grimly. "Or that he hasn't been sedated into unconsciousness, or even just asleep any deeper than REM-stage; both of those would mean he wasn't giving off any emotions for Raj to pick up."

Penny groaned and pressed her fists against her forehead. "Oh, God, don't do this to me, Ames! There's got to be a way to find him! I mean, where else could he be? Do these guys have, like, secret CIA-type rendition warehouses somewhere or what?"

Howard shook his head. "Thing about organized crime, it's like what Ben Kingsley said in Sneakers: 'Don't kid yourself. It's not that organized.'" More for the need to do something than with any plan in mind, he skated into a wide arc, sweeping around in mid-air to size the hotel up from ground to top. "From what Donny said this whole thing was put together extremely last-minute. They'll go the place they have the best control, and that's here. They've probably got plenty of spare rooms, they'd want to keep him . . . isolated . . . ." He trailed off, staring at the hotel, and swallowed. His heartbeat stuttered for a second; he winced, clutching his chest. He hadn't had that arrhythmia in a long time.

Penny stared at him. "Howard?"

Howard triggered his mike. "Raj," he said, "go back down to—shit, I lost count—about halfway up, maybe the fifteenth or sixteenth floor. Open up. Don't look for floors where there's noise. Look for floors that feel completely empty, or with only a few people." He beckoned Penny and Amy closer and pointed at the hotel. "Because there are three floors in a row here where every single window is dark, and on the side facing the Strip, too. And what are the odds that in the middle of a major convention, the hotel is going to keep three of its floors completely empty unless there's a reason nobody's allowed there?"

Penny's mouth fell open, then shut with a snap. "Be right back!" she said, and burst into rocketing motion, flashing away so fast the slipstream almost knocked Howard off balance again. Quick as a blur, she circled the hotel, shot back towards them and pulled up, nearly crashing into Amy. She shook her head as if the quick deceleration had made her dizzy. "There's one lit window!" she shouted into her mike; Howard and Amy winced from the volume. "On the north side, middle floor! Let's go!"

Bernadette's voice came over the earpiece. "Amy, Penny, be careful! There's gotta be guards, right? Wait for Raj to get more information about the people on the floor!"

"Uh, that may be more difficult than we thought," Raj's voice came back.

Penny frowned. "What? Why?"

"Because the elevators have been blocked off from floors sixteen, seventeen and eighteen," said Lucy. "You can't request those floors unless you have a keycard. Which kinda makes sense if you think about it. We're gonna have to get off at fifteen and go up the fire escape stairs. But that's where going ghost comes in, right?"

Penny's jaw clenched, as did her fists; it was clearly taking all her effort not simply to zip back around the building, find that sole lighted window and throw herself through it. Howard held up his hand and hit his mike again. "Raj, Lucy—Penny, Amy and I are going to take up position outside this window, it's on the north side of the building. If we stay out of direct light, we might be able to see who's in there. If not, we'll be ready to go in if you signal us." Penny gave him a look of naked gratitude, and suddenly Howard found himself feeling something he hadn't felt around women in years: Awkward.

They circled around the building together, moving slowly to keep from drawing the attention of anybody on the ground, and held position opposite the lighted window Penny had found, some ten to twelve yards out. The ground below them was occupied by the hotel's parking area; even at this late hour, cars and pedestrians still moved in and out of the lot. Howard envied Penny and Amy their ability to hover absolutely immobile in mid-air—he still hadn't got the knack of balancing perfectly dead centre on the skates, and had to keep pushing back and forth with small movements to stay where he was, as if climbing an invisible StairMaster. All it would take was one person looking up, with enough alertness to catch the movement and enough curiosity to wonder what it was, to give them away . . . but every time Howard glanced downward (for the bare half-second at a time he dared) not a single person did. They only stared at the ground, their phones, the cars around them or the people walking with them. Howard wasn't sure whether to feel relieved or indignant about that.

Amy squinted at the window, scowled, took off her glasses and polished them on her cardigan, then put them on and tried again, to no avail. "Can you see anything in there?" she said to Penny.

"Not without getting closer," said Penny, sounding annoyed. "It looks like somebody's in the bed, but that's as much as I can make out; the light's just on in the bathroom. Man, why couldn't I have gotten the super-vision and hearing, too? Or the laser vision. That would've been cool."

"Yeah, you could tip the cows and barbecue them simultaneously," Howard needled her.

Penny glowered at him. "Howard, you don't want your kid to grow up without a father, do you?"

"Empty threats, honey." Howard stretched out his arms with affected casualness. "I've got a wife who can avenge me by making her own bioweapons. You wanna find out if your invulnerability extends to flesh-eating disease?"

"Oh!" said Amy, sounding surprised. "Is this an example of that casual banter under fire I keep seeing so much of in media? You know, where the heroes trade jokes or insults to distract themselves from their own overwhelming terror, grief or anger?"

Howard and Penny exchanged disgruntled looks. "Well, it was," Howard muttered.

GRAND CAMELOT HOTEL, 17TH FLOOR

9:45 P.M.

The experience of sliding through a closed, solid metal fire escape door, Lucy's arm around his waist, to get onto the Camelot's sixteenth story was like nothing Raj had ever felt: it hadn't actually been painful but it had felt superbly unpleasant, as if a solid sheet of pins and needles had swept through his entire body. It had felt no better the second time when they entered the seventeenth floor. He had to take a few seconds and shudder, bent over with his hands on his knees, before he could get his equilibrium back. He looked up at Lucy. "Vishnu's bowels. How did you ever get used to this?"

Lucy shrugged awkwardly. "I dunno; it felt pretty bad the first couple of times, but after a while I just got used to it. Maybe I'm not doing it right when I do it with someone else . . . ." He felt her sudden hot flush of embarrassment, and something else, as they simultaneously realized the inadvertent innuendo. She pushed him away by one shoulder. "Raj, stop that!" Despite the indignant tone she couldn't conceal her grin.

"Me? You're the one making the dirty jokes, my lady." Raj managed a smile, then took a few deep breaths and forced himself to straighten up. "Okay. Floor sixteen down, and empty; let's see if there's anyone here . . . ."

He closed his eyes and cast out with his mind, a sensation that, to him, felt like a collapsible radar dish opening up. Lucy's nervousness was a sparkling tonic by his side, but other than her, the dead silence of empty room after empty room was all that met his mind as his senses fanned further and further out. The floor below had felt much the same way. In principle, he supposed, there was no reason he couldn't simply stretch that perception out in all directions, upwards and well as downwards, but the simple act of thinking of it as "a floor at a time" seemed to define the area he sensed—

His mind smacked into something with a feeling like he'd accidentally backhanded a brick wall: the mental presence was heavy, dispassionately cold, and rigid as stone under a shallow layer of amicability. The impact actually hurt. For a moment Raj almost lost control—he could feel his field of perception wobble like a glass tumbler knocked to a table edge—but Lucy grabbed his arm, and the pressure brought him back to himself. He narrowed his focus. Just adjacent to the stone-souled mind was a second presence, this one crackling and stinging with jitters, resentment and fear. Raj took a deep breath and tried to clear his mind, stretching out even further, thinking of nothing but the deep dark between stars, the utter silence.

And in that silence, a short distance beyond the stony soul and the stinging one, there was a faint warmth, barely perceptible, yet somehow instantly recognizeable.

Raj drew breath to yell in triumph, only for it to be muffled by the slap of Lucy's palm against his mouth; he caught her hand with his and gulped the shout back, nodding frantically to her. Lucy brought her mike to her mouth. "Guys!" she hissed. "Raj says it's him! It's Leonard! He's on the seventeenth floor!"

"GOTCHA, you sons of BITCHES!" Penny's shriek came through the radio earpieces like an icepick straight through their eardrums. Lucy screamed and clapped one hand to her ear, and before he could catch himself Raj had ripped his own earpiece out with a bellow of pain. Then they both froze in horror. For a few ringing, appalled seconds they stared at each other, their cries seeming to hang in the dead silent air of the corridors.

Footsteps began pounding the carpet, growing steadily closer and louder.

Raj gulped and hit his mike. "Guys, I think we just distracted the people guarding Leonard. This would be a good chance for you to get him out of there, but . . . if someone could, um, help us? Anyone?

"Please?"

At the end of the corridor, two men, one brawny, one skinny, sprinted into view. Both held drawn guns, aimed upwards. One pointed at them and yelled. The gun muzzles came down, and the men pounded towards them, the gun muzzles seeming to yawn in terrifying blackness as they neared.