Colin stopped the military SUV at the gate and showed his badge to the guard, who looked over at the passenger seat greedily. "Bringing donuts in today, eh?" the corporal on guard asked. "Any chance you can spare one or two?"

"Now, Corporal, you know you're not allowed to accept anything while on guard duty," Colin said disapprovingly.

"Right, sorry, Warrant Officer. Move along," the corporal said apologetically.

Shaking his head, Colin drove onto the military base, heading to the research lab that DRDC had provided them. They'd been working on pinning down how Isabella's implants did what they did for about two months now, and today some intense testing was planned.

"Hey, Phineas," he said as he entered the main meeting room for the lab. He set two boxes of donuts and one box of coffee on the table and added, "I brought Timmy's."

"Huh?" Phineas turned around and saw the donuts. "Oh, sweet. One box for Isabella and one box for the rest of us?"

"Pretty much."

"Good. She'll need them after today."

"I'll need what after today?" Isabella said, walking into the room in her workout gear. "Ooh! Thanks, Colin!" She bounced over to give him a hug. Over her shoulder, Colin saw Phineas bristle a bit. She's not my type, there.

She let him go and opened a box of donuts, pulling out a maple one and biting into it. She mumbled appreciation as she turned to the coffee and poured herself a large cup. A sip of it, black, to wash down the donut, and she smiled at him. "Perfect. So what's the plan for today, Phineas?"

Phineas smiled at her hesitantly and said, "Ferb and I got the deep-motion scanner up and working, we think. So we want to get baseline readings for you running through the scanner field with your implants off, and then a few more times at different power levels. After that..." He looked embarrassed. "We need to see how they accelerate healing, as well as how they mute pain. But to do that..."

Isabella nodded. "I'm going to need to not mute it for a bit?"

"I'm sorry," he said.

She walked over and pressed herself against him. "You'll have to make it up to me tonight."

"Hey, where are Ferb and Doc?" Colin asked, looking around.

"Ferb's getting the sensor set up. Doctor Tjinder is looking over the simulation results from yesterday's sensor data," Phineas said, holding onto Isabella gently.

The door to the room they'd dubbed the 'gymnasium' opened, and Doctor Tjinder came out, holding a tablet. "I have the simulation results from last night," he began, and paused when he saw the donuts. "May I have one?"

"Of course," Colin said. "Help yourself to the coffee as well."

"Thank you." He kept talking as he began preparing his coffee. "I believe that we are getting close with the simulation results. Between the deep mapping of the implants and the scan results that we have, I suspect we will be ready to begin animal trials early next week. I will need to go back to Toronto to set that up."

"Next week?" Phineas said. "Wow. That's awesome, Doc."

"Yes. Yes, it is," Doctor Tjinder said.

Isabella put the mouth guard in, took a deep breath, and gave Phineas a thumbs up from her position on the hospital bed. He looked at her with a guilty expression and picked up his scalpel.

This is it. The moment I was dreading ever since I realized that the bunker was gone. I'd known I'd never have to worry about being dissected for research because if I was captured, mission control would activate the Liquidator. And then there was no more mission control.

She reached over to clasp Phineas's free hand. He squeezed briefly, then carefully set her hand back on the bed.

I trust Phineas. But... Her heart was pounding, she could feel it, and the scientists who'd built her implants hadn't thought to add an easy way to calm herself. Yet another item on the long list of things she'd never get a chance to make them answer for.

"Starting the cut," Phineas said into the voice recorder. "Time is 2:17pm and 30 seconds as of my mark...mark. Cut starting now."

It barely hurt at first as it went into her leg, because the scalpel was so sharp. And then the pain caught up with her, and she ground her teeth into the mouth guard. She wasn't used to this sort of pain any more - if this happened, she could always kick in her implants to mute the pain. But they were trying to see how the mute worked, so right now, she was lying in the sensor field while Phineas deliberately caused her pain.

"Cut is complete," Phineas said. "How are you doing?"

Isabella waggled a hand at him to indicate 'so-so'. The cut was really starting to hurt.

"Sorry. Give it another 30 seconds." He wiped up some blood from her leg. "Then you can mute it and I'll stitch up the wound. Okay?"

She gave him a thumbs up, and he reached over to squeeze her hand again.

"Okay. Time is 2:19pm and 0 seconds as of mark...mark. Activate the mute."

Isabella turned on the pain filter implant, and felt blessed relief as the pain turned into just a bit of an itch.

"Better?" he asked.

She spat out the mouth guard. "Better."

"Good. Let me stitch you up and put a bandage on this..."

She watched him stitch up the cut. It was about three inches long, but the implants kept it so that all she felt was a bit of pressure as the needle poked her skin. He put a bit of antiseptic ointment on it, followed by a non-stick pad, and fastened it down with medical tape.

"Preparing to activate the healing implants. Time is 2:23pm and 15 seconds as of mark...mark. Activate implants."

The implants turned on, and a slight crawly sensation under her skin told her it was working. All told, this was much better than when Dr. Vargas had tested it, back when the implants had first gone in. The brass had decided that there was no good way to test how the implants handled a bullet wound short of, well, providing a bullet wound.

"Vital signs look good," Phineas said. "Still doing okay?"

"Yeah," she said.

"Great. I'm going to go take a look at the readings. Stay here for a couple minutes so we can keep scanning the healing process." He kissed her gently on the forehead, then headed into the control room.

No dissection. But I'm still stuck here. I was hoping I wouldn't end up back in a cage, and although they're being nice to me here, it's still a cage, and I'm still a lab rat.

She sighed deeply.

"I don't know if I've seen someone overcome obvious terror this well before," Colin said softly from his seat off to one side.

"What obvious terror?" Isabella asked.

"Something about this scared the hell out of you. It was obvious. And you did it anyway."

She turned her head to where he sat. "Yeah, well, I've spent most of my life not having a lot of choice in the matter."

"You must have been one heck of a soldier," he said. "Even before the implants. I'd say you could give most of the guys in CSOR a run for their money."

"Thanks," she said.

Phineas returned to the lab, flipping through the chart that had been printed. They'd tracked the healing effects of the implants, and were starting to get an idea how those worked. Hopefully, they wouldn't have to do that again.

He came to the open door, and paused. Isabella was smiling - laughing, even. He wasn't expecting that, but it made him happier. Maybe I wasn't as awful to her as I thought.

His heart sank again as he heard Colin's voice talking to her, laughing as well.

I should have been there comforting her. Instead of him.

His thoughts flashed back over the past few months. She spent a lot of time with Colin - as a soldier, he understood where she had come from better than Phineas ever could. They ran in the mornings, ate lunch together, and hung out together. She had dinner with Phineas, and spent the night with him, but...Phineas found himself wondering how long that would last.

Putting on his smile again, Phineas went in to talk to them about the results.

"General Archer?" the soldier said. "Tango One is in Toronto."

"Is he?" the general said, smiling. "Is it just him, or are any of the Romeo or Uniform phones there as well?" A bit of people-watching in the Suffield exchange had found that Romeo Two was Garcia-Shapiro and Romeo Three was Flynn; Uniform One and Two were known to be the commander and second-in-command of a Special Operations Regiment team that was protecting them. Fletcher had picked up a different security detail when in Toronto, which he seemed to be visiting every couple of weeks.

"Romeo One, Two, and Three all read as being at Suffield."

Archer thought for a moment. "Tell capture team to stand by in case any of the others join him, but Tjinder alone is not sufficient. But if any Romeo units are with him, then take them all."

"Yes, sir."

Holly sat in the park - a different one than every other time she'd done this. She tried to make sure she didn't repeat herself, and didn't ever use the prepaid phone except well away from her apartment. OpSec - operational security - wasn't her strong point, but she didn't want a stupid mistake to cause them to catch her.

She hadn't had much useful information to send recently, but the mayor had finally purchased another slave girl, and Holly couldn't bear to watch how he was mistreating the young woman. He was far too pleased with himself about it. The slave, a young woman of Egyptian descent named Sara, had previously been owned by the same studio that had used Ginger for gang-rape propaganda films, and the mayor had long been a fan of her. When her films' popularity had declined, the mayor had offered to buy her. She had been pleased with her new situation when she'd first gotten to Danville, but had soon realized that it wasn't much of an improvement.

Holly typed in an email to the address she'd been given.

What info do you need to escort the mayor's latest acquisition away?

A moment later, a reply came back.

His schedule would be the most useful info.

She had guessed as much, and inserted the memory card she'd copied it to into the phone.

Attached.

The reply took a minute or so longer this time.

Thank you. We can't warn you when things will happen, but keep your eyes open.

With a satisfied smile, Holly turned the phone off and started to walk back home.

He does it to everyone, Vanessa had told him. It's just the way he shows how important he is. Ferb sighed and looked at Director Blanchard's secretary, who blithely typed away on her computer as if he weren't there. The director was ten minutes late for their meeting again, but at least Ferb knew what to expect this time, and had brought his tablet.

Unfortunately, it didn't help much. He couldn't concentrate on his book while he was waiting for the director to call him in. So, he sat and stared at the page unseeing while the director made him wait.

"Mr. Fletcher?" the secretary said.

"Yes?" Ferb said, looking up.

"He's ready for you now," she said.

Ferb nodded to her and walked through the door into Director Blanchard's office. The director stood to reach across and shake his hand, as usual. "Fletcher, good to see you. You said you had progress to report, what's up? This had better not be just an excuse to come out here for Valentine's Day tomorrow. I know you've been spending a lot of time with the lovely Ms. Doofenshmirtz."

"Not at all. I have a working tumbler shield," Ferb said.

The director sat back in his chair, his eyebrows going up. "Really? What scale have you tested at?"

"Shoebox size device, shield was about a meter square," Ferb said. "But it should scale up cleanly. I have video."

"Show me," the director said.

Ferb switched his tablet to the video app, and set it on the desk. "Here's a standard tumbler projectile going through a brick wall," Ferb said, and the video showed a side view of a brick wall. One one side, a table held a small box. On the screen, Ferb picked it up and flipped a switch on the side, causing it to make a humming sound. He weighed the box in his hand, and as it moved, the field warbled in the characteristic sounds of a tumbler field compensating for motion. Finally, after a moment, he tossed it at the wall. The warbling intensified, and then as the box was about to hit the wall, it vanished, only to reappear on the far side of the wall with the warbling sound gone.

"Okay, yeah, standard tumbler. So, let's see with the shield in place."

Ferb switched to another video. "This one has a tumbler shield a foot in front of the brick wall." Again, the side view of the wall, and a small box on the table. Ferb picked up a corded switch from the floor and flipped it, and a slight silent shimmer appeared in the air in front of the wall. He turned on the box, which hummed again, and then tossed it toward the wall. It warbled as it went, until it hit the shimmer, at which point it abruptly vanished.

"Does it reappear?" the director asked with a smile on his face.

"No. The field is disrupted and it drops into its first dimension permanently."

"Very nice. How quickly can you scale it up to protect a building? How about a city? Or the entire border?"

"A building, maybe a week. A city...actually, I suspect a week will get that as well. The entire border will be trickier. How high?"

"Cruise missile height, not ballistic missile height."

"Okay. We can probably start it up within a month or two. The hard part will be keeping the Americans from knowing what's going on."

"I don't know that we can protect the whole border yet, but I'm trying to figure out the scale." The director smiled slyly. "The tumbler bomb really isn't that great, you know."

"I'm aware. The psychological effect is greater than the actual damage. We got a lucky hit on Cheyenne Mountain, and suddenly everyone was terrified of our superbomb. But we need to protect more rather than less, because one tumbler bomb hits a major city and the population will have kittens, even if it doesn't kill anyone."

"Excellent. Get me cost estimates to protect, say, the 10 largest Canadian cities within 100 miles of the border. Does the field need to be on all the time?"

"I don't think so. Tumbler bombs make noise due to the tumbling, so I think we can detect them coming and activate the shield as needed. It doesn't affect anything that isn't using a quantum tumbler, though, so if we do need to leave it on it isn't a problem."

"Okay." The director steepled his fingers, giving Ferb a smile. "Good job, Fletcher. Go have a nice dinner with Ms. Doofenshmirtz."

"I intend to, sir."

At least now they're testing on actual animals now, Isabella thought as she came back from lunch with Colin, each of them carrying a sandwich for the researchers. Phineas and Doc had been heads-down all day working with the first test subjects, a pair of rabbits named Bugs and Roger that had been given muscle implants. Because there was no way to train the rabbits to switch them on or off, they'd been forced to leave the implants on all the time. As she'd left for lunch, they'd been trying to figure out how to keep Roger still long enough to replace the sensors that had fallen off on his third hop, which had been at least five feet off the ground.

She opened the lab building's back door, and paused as Phineas shouted, "NO!" A grey-and-white blur leapt over her, shooting out into the snow-covered prairie. She recognized it as Bugs, as Roger was pure white.

"Catch it!" Doc said, panting as he ran toward the door.

Isabella tossed her sandwich to Colin as her implants came up to full speed. She turned and saw the rabbit hopping away as quickly as it could. It was at least as fast as she was, so catching it was going to be tricky, but she took off at a run anyway. She could feel herself warming up as she ran, so she unzipped her jacket and dropped it, and was glad that she had taken to wearing jeans and sneakers around the base most of the time, instead of the dresses and heels she'd worn while working for Phineas.

The rabbit was getting further and further away from her, and she cursed under her breath. Why the fuck did those idiots upgrade a rabbit? Upgrade something slow. Something that can't get away so easily. Fuckheads. Her only hope was to wear it down - hopefully that wouldn't take long, since its lungs hadn't been enhanced to improve oxygen intake yet.

A revving engine came up behind her, passing well to her right; she saw it was one of the military SUVs, being driven by Colin, with Phineas in the passenger seat. The rabbit angled away from the SUV, and she shouted, "Cut it off!"

The SUV picked up speed, bouncing across the thin layer of snow as it swung wide around the rabbit and then crossed its path. The rabbit tried to turn and instead started sliding, feet paddling frantically for purchase.

"Gotcha!" Isabella shouted as she dove for it, but just before it came into her grasp, the rabbit caught traction and leapt away. She hit the snow and slid, face first, picking up a mouthful of dirty snow and soaking herself before she came to a stop. Glaring at the SUV, which was starting to move again, she turned and saw the rabbit moving more slowly away from them, looking for cover.

She ran after it again, and it picked up its pace as it ran at an angle away from both her and the SUV. It ran through some low bushes that she had to circle, gaining more of a lead. The SUV came racing up alongside, and the rabbit angled away from it, back toward the lab buildings. Doctor Tjinder came out of the lab with a large butterfly net, trotting out towards them. Isabella angled over so that she and the SUV were both behind the rabbit, driving it back toward the building.

"Ha!" Doc shouted, swinging the net, but the rabbit was too fast. It leapt aside, running along the side of the building until it came to a large black sedan, which it hid underneath. Isabella knelt to see it under there, panting with exertion, but it was too far under to reach. I understand how you feel, rabbit, but we can't let you get away. Better you than me.

The SUV came to a stop nearby, and Colin and Phineas clambered out. "Now what?" Colin asked, a smirk on his face. Isabella gave him her best don't you even start glare, which just made him smirk more.

"Can you lift the car?" Doc asked.

Isabella shook her head. "The implants make me strong, but not that strong. Think Captain America, not Hulk."

"Can we block it in and force it out just one path?" Phineas asked.

"That makes sense. Anyone know whose car this is?" Colin said. Everybody shook their heads negatively.

"Hope it isn't anyone important." Phineas said. "Colin, how about you and Doc go back and grab a couple rolls of plastic sheeting?" Colin nodded and trotted back to the lab.

"What's the plan?" Isabella asked, her breath calming as the world returned to normal speed. She rubbed her arms; she was a bit chilly now, melting snow and sweat cooling her down uncomfortably as her wet clothing stuck to her in awkward places.

"We wrap the car in plastic down to the ground so the rabbit can't get out, then cut a hole somewhere we can wait. Then we startle it, so it runs out the hole, and we catch it." He paused. "Are you cold? Your jacket's in the truck. We picked it up on the way past. Colin's idea."

"Yes, please." She walked over to the SUV and retrieved her jacket, returning to the sedan just as Colin and Doc arrived with two large rolls of thick plastic.

"Okay, let's wrap the car first," Phineas said. "Isabella, you wait by the front in case it gets spooked too early."

Isabella knelt down in front of the car, looking at the rabbit underneath. It was sniffing around cautiously, but didn't look ready to run.

Phineas put a roll on one side of the car, and with Doc holding one end in place, started unrolling a sheet of plastic around it. The rabbit looked around suspiciously, but didn't start to run.

The plastic reached all around the car, hiding the rabbit from view, and Phineas started on a second layer, and then a third. "Okay, I think he's stuck in there for now. So, where do we set the trap?"

"How about right here?" Isabella asked. "We can cut the hole and I can catch him as he comes out."

"Are you sure?" Doc asked suspiciously.

"His legs are fast, but he won't be able to get a good run going until he's all the way out. I'll get him."

Phineas smiled at her. "Sounds good. So, we cut a hole here," he gestured with his multitool, "and then all go to the other end and scream."

He knelt down at the front of the car, cutting holes in the plastic sheets. He looked in through the hole, and said, "He's still in there. You ready, Isabella?"

"Ready," she said.

"Okay." He took Colin and Doc behind the car, where, on the count of three, they all shouted.

Nothing happened. Isabella peeked in the hole, and found Bugs curled in upon itself, trying to hide. "He's not moving," she said.

"Damn," Phineas said. "Okay. Any other bright ideas?"

"It thinks that it is safe underneath there," Doc said.

"Well, it is," Colin said.

"Then we need to convince it that it is not," Doc said. "What do we have handy?"

"There's a first-aid kit and a safety kit in the truck," Colin said.

"Flares?" Phineas asked. "Could we smoke it out?"

"That might work," Doc said, nodding.

"I dunno if it's such a good idea..." Colin said.

"It'll be fine," Phineas said. "I'll go grab one." He trotted over to the SUV, opening the back. After rooting around for a moment, he came out with a road flare. "Here we go." He lit the flare, then lifted the plastic just enough to slide it under the car. Smoke seeped out of the edges of the plastic.

"Whole car's going to smell like smoke after this," Colin said, standing back, as if distance would separate him from responsibility.

A grey-and-white blur shot out from the hole, and Isabella snatched it up as it passed by. She lifted Bugs up triumphantly, holding his pedaling feet away from her. "Got him!"

"Awesome!" Phineas said. "Good job, everyone!"

"What the hell are you doing to my car?" Doctor Jacobi shouted from the door of the lab.

"I'll just go take our fugitive rabbit back while you straighten this out," Isabella said. "And then, I need a warm shower."

"Sit," Lieutenant Colonel Scott, the base commander, said, glaring at Phineas. Phineas sat in the offered seat.

The commander flipped through a folder on his desk, his eyes icy. Phineas took the moment to glance around the room. It was sparsely decorated, with an overstuffed bookshelf on one wall and file folders covering most of the rest.

He looked at the commander, who was still looking through the folder. He was tall and stocky, with thinning black hair that was starting to turn grey. He looked up at Phineas, glaring, then looked back at the folder. Finally, he sighed and sat back.

"What the fuck, Flynn?" he asked.

"Sorry. An animal research subject got loose and we were trying to get it out from under the car."

"So you wrapped the car in plastic and lit a flare under it? Do you realize how lucky you are the car didn't go up?"

"Well, we stayed away from the gas tank, so unless there was a vapor leak that..." He saw the general's glare at him, and stopped.

"Did you consider, say, poking it with a stick to get it to move?"

"That..." Phineas paused for a moment. "That may have been a better idea, yes."

"Look, I don't ask much of you. You're working on stuff that I'm not even cleared to know about. All I ask is that you not make waves. Jacobi was already pissed about losing half his lab space to your brother, and now this."

"I'll cover the cleaning bill personally," Phineas said.

"A good start," the general said.

"Write an apology to Doctor Jacobi?"

"Please."

"I wish to make it clear that Warrant Officer Park had no part in this, and tried to tell us not to. It's not his fault."

"Understood," the general said. "Now, to make something else clear: you may not be under my chain of command, but this is my base and you play by my rules. Capisce?"

"Yes, General."

"I'm glad we had this talk. Let's never have one like it again."

"You wanted to see me, sir?" Colin asked, stepping into Captain Desjardins's temporary office.

"Sit, Park," the captain said, flipping through some paperwork. Colin sat, stretching out and waiting. He was expecting to get the riot act read to him for yesterday's clusterfuck with the rabbit.

The captain sighed, then looked up at him. "You did well yesterday with the rabbit, all things considered."

"Thank you, sir." Huh?

"Jacobi's pissed, but not at you. Flynn's being briefed on proper procedures."

"Will he listen?"

The captain blew out a half-laugh, shaking his head. "One would not expect it. That's not why I called you in today, though."

"Sir?"

The captain picked up a folder and sat back. "We're at a point where we need to select the first candidate for Obelisk upgrades. Do you have any suggestions?"

"Do we have selection criteria?"

"We've seen everyone sparring with Ms. Garcia-Shapiro, so - how quickly they adapt. Loyalty. Ability to get along with the researchers. Willingness to volunteer for a treatment that may be fatal or crippling if it doesn't work as well as we hope."

Colin paused, trying to decide if he wanted to say the words that were forming in the back of his head.

Hell with it. "I volunteer, sir."

The captain grinned. "Well, that makes life simpler."

Isabella walked up behind where Phineas sat. He'd left the room shortly after Colin had informed him that he'd volunteered to be the first Canadian to get Obelisk upgrades, and Isabella hadn't been able to follow for a few minutes. She'd found him, eventually, sitting in the break room of the lab.

"What's up?" she asked quietly.

"Nothing," he said, not moving.

She sat down next to him. His eyes were red-rimmed, and he avoided looking at her.

"I don't believe you," she said. "Really, what's wrong?"

He paused and took a deep breath. "You and Colin are so close..."

"He's a really good friend," Isabella said warily.

"If you want to make it more than that...I just want you to be happy. If you'd be happier with him...I get it, he's..."

She tried to stifle a laugh, and failed. "Seriously?"

He looked up at her. "I can tell. You two are so close. You do so much together, and..." He swallowed. "And now he's going to have implants like yours. He'll be the only other person who can really understand you."

She took his hand. "Yes. We're good friends. But that's it."

"I understand if you want to make it more than that."

"I don't, for two reasons," Isabella said.

"Oh?" Phineas said, with more enthusiasm than he'd had for a while.

"First, I am madly in love with you, and have no desire to trade you in for anyone, whether they have implants or not."

"Oh," Phineas said, a smile crossing his face.

"And second, I guess you didn't realize - you aren't his type, but Colin's more likely to be interested in you than me. He's gay."

Phineas blinked. "What?"

"You didn't know?"

"I guess not."

She leaned over to give him a kiss. "Feeling better?"

"Much."

"Okay. Full disclosure time, Colin," Phineas said, feeling much better after talking with Isabella earlier. "We think we have a working solution. The nanobot implantation wrappers have worked really well in the animal tests. But we need to make sure you know what you're getting into."

"Okay, shoot," Colin said, sitting back.

"First off," Doc said, "there is no guarantee that this will work. If it does not, it may weaken or cripple you."

"It may even be fatal," Phineas said.

"We lost two of the Dewdrop team to early test implants," Isabella said. "Although one of those was a failure of the security system, and the Liquidator tripped."

"Yeah, we aren't including any of that. First up is the leg-muscle implants. That way, if something goes wrong, you can still have a reasonable life."

"In a wheelchair," Doc added.

"How likely do you think that is?" Colin asked.

"I don't think it's likely at all," Phineas said. "I'm pretty sure we've got it down. But I can't say it's a zero percent chance."

Phineas watched as Colin pondered for a moment. Finally, he sat up, nodding. "I'm in."

Holly woke to her cell phone ringing, a number she didn't recognize. The clock on it read 2:17 am. She considered leaving it, but decided it just might be work-related, so she had better answer it.

"H'lo?" she mumbled into the phone.

The woman on the other end of the line said, "Ms. Washington? This is Sergeant Stevens of the Danville Police Department. There's been an incident involving the Mayor, and he's asking for you to meet him here at Danville Medical Center."

"An incident? Is he alright?" Holly asked, suddenly more awake. She sat up, the blanket falling away from her.

"He's shaken but uninjured. Come find me here, I'd prefer not to give more details over the phone."

"I understand. I'll be there in ten minutes."

"See you then."

Holly hung up the phone and threw on some clothes, grabbing her car keys as she rushed out the door.

Last time I got a call like this was when they liberated Mitsuko, his last slave, she thought as she drove to the hospital. I wonder...

I hope they don't know that I leaked his schedule.

She pulled up to the hospital, found a parking place, and trotted in through the emergency room doors. The woman at the desk looked up at her. "Yes?"

"I'm the mayor's assistant, I was told he was here?"

"Ah, yes. Just a second." The woman picked up her phone and punched a few keys. "The mayor's assistant is here." She paused, listening. "Okay. Thanks, Martha." She hung up and looked at Holly. "He's in room 317. Through those doors, up the elevator to 3, and the nurse there will give you directions."

Holly thanked her and went up to the third floor, where Sergeant Stevens was waiting by the elevator. "Ms. Washington?" she asked.

"Yes. How is he? What happened?"

The sergeant looked around, then said, "Follow me."

Holly followed the sergeant to the room next to the mayor's, which was empty. "You are aware that the mayor has been attacked before over his slavery convictions," the sergeant stated.

"Yes. I assume that's what happened again?"

"Yes. He was leaving a party with his slave - Sara?"

Holly nodded confirmation.

"Okay. They were leaving a party, and were attacked. The attackers have military connections of some sort, they were using an experimental new knockout weapon. He was hit, and when he woke up..." Sergeant Stevens took a deep breath and seemed to be fighting to hide a grin. "Here, I'd better show you." She pulled out a phone, poked at the screen for a moment, and showed Holly a picture. The mayor was being lifted out of a large garbage bin. He had been chained up and painted a bright shade of pink all over his naked body. Holly suppressed her laughter, and the two of them looked away from each other briefly until they composed themselves.

"What happened to Sara?"

"Missing. Her collar isn't responding to location requests. It's believed to have been disabled."

"So, probably halfway to Canada or Mexico by now."

The sergeant's smile flickered again. "Likely, yes."

Good. Hopefully you make it, Sara.

Colin pushed himself along the corridor in the wheelchair he'd been given. The nanoinjections had been done that morning, and his legs were rebuilding themselves; unfortunately, that meant that, for the moment, he couldn't walk.

Isabella strolled along next to him. She'd offered to push, but he'd said he needed to do this for himself, at least for a little bit.

"How long does this part last?" he asked again. He was sure he'd asked this one several times before.

She laughed softly. "A couple days." She paused. "You think this is annoying, wait until they do the arms. And the lungs have to be done in stages so you don't suffocate."

"Oh, God. How did you survive?"

"Well, we got them over a longer period. It took a year or so between the first ones and the last." She paused, and said, "It's not like I get away with this entirely either. Phineas offered to replace my current implants with ones that can't kill me."

"Wait, you mean the kill switch is still there?"

"Not really. Phineas cut the wire to the antenna. But theoretically, if somebody got close enough with a powerful enough transmitter, it'd work."

"Oh. How...doesn't it bother you?"

She shrugged. "I've been living with the knowledge that somebody could push a button and choke me to death for, like, five years now. The past couple months is the first time it's had to be somebody close enough that I could punch them before I go."

Colin laughed. "Point."

She paused. "I will say, the point where the security nodes get removed...it's kind of terrifying, to be honest."

"Because if he got it wrong..."

"If it's wrong, I die."

"Okay, try to stand," Phineas said. Doc stood back, watching his displays, as Isabella waited behind the wheelchair to catch him if needed.

Colin gripped the arms, and pushed himself up. His legs felt odd, kind of numb, but seemed to be responding normally.

He stood, equilibrium returning quickly. He tried lifting his left leg, balancing on his right foot, then put both feet down and tried to jump a bit. His left leg gave out as he landed, and suddenly Isabella was catching him by the armpits, holding him up.

"You don't look like you should be able to lift me, you know," he said as he reached back and steadied himself.

"Yep," she said, letting go as he braced himself. "You want to arm wrestle again?"

"Nope," he said. "Learned that lesson once. Losing's not my thing." He let go of the wheelchair again. His legs felt steadier this time, as he learned how they reacted. "I'll be up for a rematch after they do my arms, though."

"Hah," she said. "Of course."

He tried to balance on his left leg this time, and it held. "Okay, I think I'm getting the hang of this." He squatted down, then jumped up, landing back on his feet. "So how do I turn these things on?"

Doc looked embarrassed, and Phineas shrugged. "It's...complicated," he said.

"If it's complicated, how can she turn them off and on so quickly?" Colin asked.

"Practice," Isabella said. "For now...hm. Let me try to put it into words." She pondered for a moment as Colin practiced walking around the room. "Okay. Try this. Can you feel your tailbone?"

"...No?"

"Um. Okay. Can you squeeze like you're trying to pee, and you want to stop it suddenly?"

Colin thought about it for a moment, and clenched a bit. "Okay, that I can find."

"Here, let me see," she said, stepping forward. She pressed on his back, following it down just below the waistband of his shorts. "Here. Can you feel this?"

"Well, yeah. That's weird. It's like there's a little knot there."

"Right. Try to clench right there."

"Right there? But..." Suddenly, he felt his legs bursting with energy. "Whoa."

"Careful," she said, pulling her hand back. "Take small steps to start with."

He took a step forward, and accidentally leapt a couple feet. He tried to catch himself, but his leg swung forward faster than expected, sliding out from underneath himself. He was falling, his legs flailing, and again he felt Isabella catch him under the armpits, holding him up.

"Steady. Get your legs under you," she said.

"Excellent," Doc said, looking at his screens. "We are getting very good readings from this."

"Thanks," Colin said dryly. "Glad to be of service." He slowly moved his legs, standing up on them again. "How did you do at this stage?"

"I fell on my ass, actually," Isabella said. "You will too. One of the fundamental things about how you walk and move just changed, and it'll take time to figure it out."

"Can you try turning them off again?" Phineas asked.

Colin focused on his lower back again. He tried to squeeze it again, but it was already tight. "It's tight already."

"Try to release it," Isabella said.

He thought about the knot there, and letting it loose. He felt the energy drain out of his legs, and he could again stand on them normally. He tried taking a step forward, and it worked as expected.

"I see lots of practice in your future," Phineas said.

"No kidding," Colin said. His stomach growled. "Hey, when's lunch? I am starving."

Isabella laughed. "Welcome to my life."