"Who the hell, why the hell, and where the hell?"

Coraline, after more than a little arguing, was riding shotgun in the van and was caught up in venting her explosive anger. Wybie had the wheel, and was gingerly directing the van through largely empty streets while keeping one ear on her tirade. Maria sat behind them, drumming her fingers on the frame of the empty window repetitively and looking at the passing outside.

"Why the hell would someone take these items? These specific items? How would they even know what they were? This doesn't make any goddam sense."

"A fluke? Maybe? It's just …" started Wybie to no avail before he was cut off by the rising tide of anger from Coraline.

"They took hardly anything apart from those! That's a pretty inconvenient fluke, don't you think? Who would know about them? Why the hell would they even take them? What could you do with one?"

One of her hands rested on her shotgun case, propped up against her chair, the end resting on the floor. It hadn't been disturbed from where she'd left it in the complex, but the only ammo left was that which had been left in the case. All their ferroshot had gone missing, along with every scrap of shot for Wybie and Maria's pistols.

She hated what had happened. And she hated the feeling of not being able to do anything about it. If this was Skirving's work, then he'd placed himself behind a legal barrier that would take too long for them to overcome.

Granted, they'd just broken into government offices. Legality wasn't their foremost concern. But they didn't have the first idea of what they could do about getting the Eroder and the binder back. They had no idea where they could have been taken, or why Skirving would want them.

Assuming it was even Skirving. In fact, now Coraline thought about it, he'd be at the Egg Rolling on the White House lawn today, along with most of the government.

Well, they did say it was best to let children know about monsters as soon as possible, but inflicting Skirving on them was probably going a little too far. But whatever was happening, it was indecipherable to Coraline's mind, and a feeling of futile anger stole over her.

It wasn't any fun, that kind of anger. There wasn't anything it could be properly directed at, not when the source of your troubles was as intangible as smoke. All she could do was try and turn it into questions to bounce off Wybie and Maria, for all they could know or guess.

She spat despairing venom and answerless questions, Wybie rummaged for half-guessed, half-imagined answers, and Maria kept on looking out the window. Her mind had drifted away with the finger-tapping, and she was lost in her own thoughts.

A part of Maria kept on noting the outside world as they drove, and as they turned into a street that was all but deserted, she observed that another vehicle had turned with them, keeping just behind them.

It pulled to their side, presumably to overtake them, and Maria saw that it was an electric motorcycle. The driver wore plain black-and-grey biker leathers, with their face totally obscured by a helmet. They glanced around at the van as they swerved around to its right, and Maria saw them raise their hand, presumably to gesture to Wybie.

Then some part of Maria's mind clicked, and she realised that she'd seen the bike before around the city. In fact, she'd seen it quite a few times.

In fact, she'd only started seeing it around in the last few days.

And then she realised that the biker wasn't gesturing at the van, but at something past the van. And she saw the bulge of a holster at the biker's waist.

On reflex, she lunged forward from the back, throwing herself down as she dived, and grabbed at Coraline and Wybie as she did so.

"Get down!" she screamed, and before they could respond, their heads thunked together as they were abruptly pulled down.

And then the window next to Coraline exploded inwards.

Coraline, even as her head pulsed with numb fireworks from where her skull had met Wybie's, still had enough presence of mind to realise that the window was shedding composite-glass shards over her in a torrent, and that a bullet whistling through had done the same to the back left window, only directing the shards out the way.

It took a second for the retort of the bullet to hit her ears, by which time she glimpsed who had shot at them from outside.

A man in a balaclava and a silicon scale vest, made badly concealed by a long jacket, had stepped out from behind a parked car, and stood further down the street with a rifle trained on the van. They saw they had missed, and fired again, this time in a short burst at the middle of the van. Coraline pulled forward as hard as she could before the bullets tore through her seat, ripping chunks of upholstery out in a storm of soft edges. Maria had thrown herself to behind Wybie, and missed the spray of unstopped bullets.

The van swerved wildly as Wybie, suddenly appreciating what was going on, panicked ever so slightly.

"Drive!" screamed Coraline into his ear. She grabbed for her shotgun case, fumbling with the clasps, cursing a storm as she did, her mind too gone to shock to do anything but fight back.

The biker kept pace with the van, and kept their right hand on the bike while pulling out their pistol with their left. They held themselves awkwardly, forced to fire the waving gun past the length of their body, and their first shot produced only a loud noise and a burst of broken concrete from the road.

Their second shot smashed through Wybie's window, sending another shower of glass into the van. This whistled past the tip of Wybie's nose, just over Coraline's ducked head, and punched into another parked car.

The situation, a small part of Coraline's mind considered, was hectic enough as it was without a car alarm offering up its skirl as a backing chorus.

The rest of her mind was split between raging at the stubborn clasps on the shotgun case and keeping track of the gunman at the side of the road, whom they were now nearing at an alarming speed. He still had his weapon raised, and Coraline threw herself to the left again, as did Maria, when the next burst of bullets hit and reduced Coraline's seat to smaller shreds.

The distance between them and the gunman was shrinking rapidly even as Coraline thought. They'd been too lucky, too, too lucky so far. If he got in one accurate shot…

Goddam clasps.

Giving up, she grabbed the case with both hands and held it braced, one hand supporting its weight from below, the other placed at one end. She angled the other end at the window, and mentally prepared herself to go through with what was likely her stupidest plan yet.

Though it did, at least, rely on timing. And timing was always something she'd been good at.

The gunman pulled the gun, frustrated by his past failure and likewise adopting a new strategy. His gun spat out another hail of bullets, aimed at the van's front tire. Several of them hit home, and tore into the tire with the sound of rubber sheets being ripped open by a chainsaw, suddenly sending the van into another nigh-uncontrolled swerve. The gunman stepped briskly forward, his gun still raised, ready to be emptied into the slowed van at point-blank range.

He stepped right next to the window and prepared to angle his gun straight at the passenger riding shotgun, which was the exact moment at which the shotgun case was rammed right up into his jaw.

He was knocked right back, stunned and spitting blood, and collided with the parked car behind him. He sprawled to the ground in an ungainly heap, the gun clattering from his grasp to the ground, leaving him helpless to do anything except have a nice lie-down and a gurgle.

Satisfied that he was out of the fight, Coraline turned to Wybie's side, the case still in her grasp. The biker was still easily keeping pace with the van, and loosed a muffled curse when they saw their colleague knocked cold. They pulled back slightly while maintaining a steady rate of fire, the mercifully-low-powered bullets sparking off the van's roof or whistling just past the frantically flailing Wybie. Blood ran down his sleeve from where one lucky bullet had grazed his elbow.

Thinking wildly, he twisted the wheel to the left, turning the van towards the biker in a desperate attempt to ram them, who casually pulled back as the van swerved, keeping themselves a few feet away. They aimed their pistol again, and tossed it to one side when it clicked empty. They grabbed for another one at their side, their concentration slipping slightly.

With one more heave at the wheel and a sharp jab at the accelerator, Wybie drove the van right at the motorcycle's side. The driver looked up with hardly a second to spare, and threw the bike's momentum and their own weight to the right, intending to skirt the edge of the van.

Instead, what happened was that Wybie grabbed out from the window with one arm and seized the hand which held the bike's handlebars, tugging it free of its grasp with all his strength. The biker, caught off balance and bereft of a grip, flailed and fell, pitching off the side of their bike onto the sidewalk, their helmet bashing against the edge with a loud crack and a startled yell. The bike wobbled on gamely for a few feet before colliding with another parked car in a shower of metal fragments, eliciting yet another wail from its alarm.

Wybie gunned the van's accelerator for what wasn't the first time, and tore off down the street as fast as the engine would allow. Coraline looked in the rear-view mirror, checking for pursuit.

There was none, and they vanished further into the city the first chance they got, leaving the caterwauling car alarm and the gunshot echoes behind them, leaving the screech of the torn tire in their wake.

"What the hell was THAT?"

Now it was Wybie's turn to yell.

Allowing for a few minutes for shock to kick in for Coraline, Maria, and Wybie; which manifested respectively as a completely flat tone, fervent thanks to God, and hysterical yelling, this could hardly be blamed.

"Why were people trying to KILL US?"

"I don't know. Let me think."

"…tentationem. Sed libera nos a malo. Dispersit, dedit…"

The smashed windows and bullet holes in the side had gotten more than a few funny looks, but luckily no investigation. It had been the work of a few moments, once they were on the city outskirts, to haul out the spare tire and apply a bandage to Wybie's elbow. After that, shock had gently kicked in.

"Funny. We're not used to anything other than a psychephage trying to kill us," said Coraline. "That would explain why we're a bit on edge."

"That's because I'm used to psychephages trying to kill us! They're normal, it's what they do. Why are people trying to kill us?"

"Just one thing," said Coraline, her voice still even, cutting him off as she hunted for her phone in her coat pockets. "Catch your breath. I have to … to …" Her hand stopped on something hard, and a short probing around the region revealed a bullet hole in the coat. She rummaged, and drew out a small bullet that had been fired from the biker's pistol, the tip flattened against the chainmail lining of her coat. Whatever had made it lose its momentum had saved her. Barely.

It was then that she noticed the ache that had spread itself all the way up one side, the ache of a huge bruise.

She stared at the bullet in silence for a few seconds, before dropping it carefully into her pocket. Reaching into another pocket, she unearthed the undamaged phone and called Sayid's number.

"Morning, Ms Jones," came the yawned response from his end. "I thought today wasn't a working day for…"

"Sayid, are you staying home today?"

"Um, I was just going to stay in my flat and get in some quality time with the dissertation. Why?"

"Good. Stay there. Don't answer to anyone. If someone you don't know comes asking for you, stay away from them. If they claim to be someone you know, make damn sure at a distance. If you feel in the slightest bit uneasy, call campus secu … no, the police. Call the police."

"I … what?"

"Long story. The department's being closed down. And it's been burgled."

"What?"

"And two people have just tried to kill us."

"What?"

"Call you later." Coraline hung up and switched off the phone.

"Is he alright?" asked Maria, breaking off from something in Latin.

"He's alright. I've told him not to talk to strangers, because that's a lesson always worth learning." Coraline reached down to touch the bullet in her pocket, and winced as the effort made the pain of her bruise flare up. Suddenly suspicious of delayed reactions, she quickly felt that side of her and was relieved to feel nothing wet.

Attempts on one's life were marvellous things. They put problems into perspective. Coraline could hardly remember what she'd been worrying about, her mind overtaken and hammered to a near-repilica of tranquillity, drawing out cold rationality from chaos.

"Could … could that have been a random attack?" asked Wybie from beside her. "I know that with what's been happening, it seems like it could have been part of whatever's going on, but … it could have just been a robbery of sorts."

"No," said Maria. "The driver signalled to the gunman. That had been set up; they'd been waiting for us. It wasn't a spur-of-the-moment attack."

"That, and robberies with assault rifles are pretty thin on the ground," said Coraline dryly.

"Then we're being targeted," said Wybie. He leaned back in the seat with a sharp sigh. "We have to get out. We have to stay low."

"What?" asked Coraline.

"If they're trying to kill us, whoever's planning this, then they're not fooling around. I don't … I just don't want to see you hurt, or killed. Either of you hurt over this. They're playing for keeps. We have to keep our heads down."

There was a moment's silence. Then Coraline said "If they're taking things that far, then they're planning something big, like you said. Something serious." She got no answer, and continued. "Serious enough to be stopped."

"And I agree, but how? We don't even know who they are, or what they're planning, or why anything. All we know is what they're capable of. And we probably don't even know the full extent of that."

"They wanted to kill us," said Coraline. "They failed. They don't know what we're capable of, either."

"Look at us, look at us right now. What are we capable of?"

"Anything, for god's sake." Coraline's eyes flared. "We're a mad scientist, an obsessive detective, and a gunslinger with anger management issues, and between us we probably constitute a whole sane person. We fight the hell out of problems all the time. That's our job. We've gone in blind before. We've been ambushed, we've been caught off guard, we've won by the skin of our teeth more times than not. And that hasn't stopped us."

"At least we had …" started Wybie before he was furiously cut off.

"Whoever planned that, they wanted us out of the picture. I'm not giving them what they want. Protecting us isn't the issue. Who the hell's going to protect them?"

Wybie didn't answer at once, keeping his gaze forward and on the road. "I want the Eroder back. I can't replicate it with what we had left," he said reluctantly, and at length. "But it's no use talking like this if we still know nothing about who we're fighting."

"We know some things," said Maria quietly, and the other two turned, interested. She continued. "We know that they've got the resources to send hitmen after us. And we know that they know about us…"

"Yeah, that's kind of a given…" started Coraline, but found it her turn to be sharply cut off.

"No, listen. Narrow the scope. Who knows about us? And this'll probably be something they've hidden, but who could be so invested in us? No, narrow it down further. Who could know? Who could know about the binder and the Eroder and our success with Tripod?"

"Well…" Wybie frowned as he thought. "You … you'd have to be a part of the department … or you could apply pressure on someone in the department … or you could have some sort of unnoticed surveillance…"

"Son of a bitch, the spy," said Coraline. "They put it there. That was their work."

"But we saw that. We got rid of it," said Wybie.

"And I'll bet you several of my vitalmost organs that they had a feed to the spy that let them know if it had been deactivated. And I'll bet the rest that they put another one right in as soon as they could."

"But when would they have had the chance? They'd have had to have a chance to slip it inside the building."

"So," said Maria, kneading her chin with her knuckles, "Someone who would have access to that kind of equipment. Someone who knows about our work and has taken an interest in it, unobtrusively or otherwise. Someone who has the resources to send assassins. Someone who had access to the building after we'd deactivated …"

"Double son of a bitch," said Coraline, realising before Maria had finished speaking.

"What? Do you think you know who it is?" said Maria, looking up.

"Triple son of a bitch with cherries on top. Yes, yes I do."

"Then who is it?" asked Wybie.

Coraline said, and explained as calmly as she could.

Maria nearly swore, and Wybie nearly steered the van into a lamppost.

"That makes sense, and screw it for making sense," he said, once he had calmed down. "I offered the bastard coffee."

"He fits," said Maria. "But now what do we do? Like Wybie was getting at, what can we do?"

"I'll tell you what we can do," said Coraline, her fury masked by the same simmering calmness. "We're going to drive up to him. And we're going to knock on his front door, get invited in, and we'll have a civilised discussion."

"You know what I've always liked about us? We can always tell when the other one is joking," said Wybie.

A moment passed, expectant and awkward. Past the van, the city was alive, more so than usual. People were celebrating Easter and April Fool's Day alike, rolling eggs in their lawns on in their homes, filling some streets and more than a few city parks. In the distance, too far to be discerned from the van, the White House rose amongst a celebrating throng, the wide green expanse of the Ellipse running around it.

"You are joking, right?"

"Hand over the wheel, Why-Were-You-Born."

Even in built-up states like Maryland, a few secluded, wild areas remained. Some of them existed by chance, ignored by human expansion and thus far undisturbed. And others yet had been created by choice, acts of preservation for preservation's sake, or for recreation, or for keeping things relatively concealed.

One of those relatively concealed things was a military base in the southern part of the state that no-one really knew about, or much cared about if they did. It was relatively small and non-descript, staffed by a small garrison and only really acting as an elaborate token of security for the office-holder who had cause to work there.

The sun was high and bright in the sky by the time the battered van pulled up before the base's steel gates, and cast deep shadows in the ground from the rising structures.

"Coraline Jones, Department of the Supernatural," said Coraline, leaning out of the car and offering up her ID card to the perplexed young soldier on duty. "We're here to see the current occupant."

"Uh," he said by way of elaborate response, looking hesitantly over the card. He knew little about the Department of the Supernatural, save that it existed and was staffed by a bunch of goofballs, and knew littler about the recent political manoeuvring in Washington. The protocol of this escaped him as well, so he settled on some sort of compromise.

"I can phone ahead," he said, handing the card back. "You folks can get out of the van and come past the gate. It's alarmed, so watch out."

They got out the van, Coraline annoyed at having to leave the shotgun, and trundled on past the security gate. Wybie and Maria passed without incident, but the gate chirped at Coraline, drawing a suspicious look from the guards at the entrance.

Coraline paused, checked around herself, and realised the problem and shrugged off her chainmail-lined trenchcoat (with mixed feelings; she disliked losing the protection, but there was such a thing as too sunny a day). She stepped past, holding the coat behind her, and the rest of her brought no alarm from the gate.

"He's invited you all on up into the main building," said the young soldier, putting down the phone. "I'll take your coat, ma'am."

"How gentlemanly," said Coraline, handing it over and smirking as his eyes bulged with shock. "Keep it safe and sound."

They were directed up into the main building, a concrete-and-steel block that rose for a few stories up, the roof flat and supporting a black gunship. Wybie glanced up at it, and then lost sight of it as they entered the building.

They walked up several flights of stairs in a maze of corridors lined with small doors, nodded at every so often by soldiers. Eventually they found the office they needed, and Maria knocked. A voice invited them in, and they entered, Maria at the centre, flanked by Coraline and Wybie. They nodded briefly to each other before opening the door.

The room they entered was a wide and open office, flanked by unadornished shelves and towers of drawers, with two powerfully-built and heavily-armed guards standing by the entrance. Before them, a long wooden desk sat in the room's centre, behind which a man sat. Behind him in turn, several boxes sat stacked below a shuttered window.

He looked up as they entered, and stood, as if to greet them. They closed the door behind them.

"This is an unexpected visit, Ms…" he started, his hand dipping briefly to something at his side.

They didn't give him time to finish before acting.

In one smooth movement, born of endless practising and sparring, Coraline swept around to the guard at her side and shoved her hand up at his neck, driving her fingers into a key pressure point and heaving him backwards into the wall. Several brief seconds of pressure were all it took for the off-guard guard to lose consciousness; he slumped to the floor before he had even properly registered what had happened. Coraline reached out with her other hand and snagged the pistol from the holster on his belt, flipping it back to Maria who caught it almost by chance.

Wybie lacked Coraline's skill, but made up for it with sheer strength and power. He simply turned and punched out the guard on his side, catching him between the chinstrap and the base of his helmet. The guard fell like a rock.

The man behind the desk almost finished the move towards his own weapon, but there was an audible click and a hissed "No," from Maria's weapon and Maria herself. He paused, and slowly let his hands fall to his side.

There was a brief moment as Coraline made sure her guard subsided to the ground with as little noise as possible. She stooped to pick up his rifle, and turned to face the man behind the desk.

James Malinois, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, regarded the three with a blank, impassive gaze.

"Mr Malinois," said Coraline, between gritted teeth, "We need to have a talk."