Xolo 2

Trisha made some phone calls while she unpacked. Four outfits, four pairs of shoes, three wigs, and the red, green, and white spandex outfit she wore when in Mexico. Unlike the superheroes in comic books, the Zoo Crew tried not to name themselves after their powers, or connect themselves to their civilian identities. Yankee Poodle seen in Mexico at the same time Trisha Rittenhouse was in Mexico was just plain unacceptable. Nōchtli, however, was a rarely seen female superhero that had appeared in the Zoo Crew comic book as often as the Mexican papers.

Because they'd made her up. Sam and Allie had both had their turns pretending to be this heroine, along with Trisha. The Mexican heroes had taken to the idea and changed up their costumes and modi operandi when going up against the cartels or crossing borders for similar reasons. It helped protect their missions and their families.

For herself, the deception helped keep her access, small as it was, to the FBI and The CIA. Should she be linked to Yankee Poodle more directly, she'd start getting orders instead of information. And it wouldn't be long before they realized that her origin was directly related to Sam and try to rope him into the establishment the way Peter and Waldo were. Or Feral.

Then she set up the phone on the laptop and pulled up the alibi program. It would make phone calls for her using a very simple voice recognition and interaction program. Voice over IP in Mexico was still rather primative, so she expected the connections to be annoyingly bad. While she was stalking Mexico City in spandex, the phone records would show Trisha rather doggedly calling newspapers and government agencies trying to get info they didn't have. Her mouse was actually a disguised motion detector. Anyone broke into the room, the phone hung up and it sent a fax, justifying the phone connection.

The fax would go to a number that would send her a page.

It wasn't foolproof but it was better than simply trusting fate.

Especially since some days, they were actively fighting fate.

She opened the window and took a good look around. Two hours to dusk.

There was a taller red building right across the street. That was new. Looked empty... at least on the top floors. She stepped out of the window, her power supporting her weight and rending her relatively invisible from street level four stories down. Neither Yankee Poodle nor Nōchtli where thought to have a stealth mode by the general public. She wanted to keep it that way.

On the roof of the red building, she had a better view of the neighborhood. Not a particularly well off section, but the lack of security cameras would serve her well. There was some spray-painted tags up here, but she'd seen none at the street level when the taxi brought her from the airport. Most of these were stylized names; tags proving that they'd been here. It was almost respectful, with very little overlap. She didn't know if any of these were gang symbols. Her knowledge of Mexican Youth Culture being extremely limited.

She expected The Pig-Fly and the new Lady Quetzalcoatl would arrive early and case the joint before meeting her on the roof. They were allies, but she saw no point in letting them have the upper hand.

She threw up her hunting blind stripes, bands of energy that shadowed time, blurring any images from prying eyes on the other side of the band. It cost her very little energy and she thought of it photo-shopping reality. Yes, a high-end brand of polarized lenses set to the correct angle would easily penetrate the illusion, but then what was life with out risk? She changed on the roof top, hiding nondescript street clothes and a wig in a space under one of the rooftop HVAC units. There was always a chance she wouldn't be able to get back to her room for some reason. And if she had to walk into the hotel, it was best not to walk in as Nōchtli.

She kept an eye on the Astor's rooftop as she slipped into full body red, green, and white vertical striped outfit. It was padded, adding a little extra bounce to her breasts. Mexico liked its lady heroes to be well formed; although she suspected Robert's influence in this.

Robert had blamed the artist who'd designed her based on the vague witness reports when Sam's first undercover mission south of the border blew up in his face. It was Robert's idea to make Nōchtli female, at least in the comics. In the comics, Nōchtli had a "prickly pear" punch and whatever mumbo-jumbo was needed to advance the story. She'd been in three stories and had a cartoon cameo.

In the comics, Lady Quetzalcoatl had been a female avian police officer who merged with a pet snake when the need for justice was great (or her detective boyfriend was in danger of being killed or was about to be fired, both of which were apparently often). In real life, she was a reptile of some type. When she put on her shell amulet, she could transform into the feathered Lady Quetzalcoatl who could fly without wings, create and control little flying Queztlings from any image of a feathered serpent, and commune with the ancient deity, Quetzalcoatl. She could fight reasonable well, but she mostly relied on her little flying snakes to do her fighting for her. And, if the rumors were true, she once allowed Quetzalcoatl to leap from her body and swallow a gunman whole.

The Pig-Fly had his own comic in Mexico, so Robert sort of ignored him in the Zoo Crew comics. He would cite legal reasons, but generally it was best to ignore Pig-Fly. Sure, in a fight, it was great to have him watching your back. But, afterwards, he was incredibly draining, nasty, sexually explicit, and boastful. He was a stereo-typical Pig full of the worst form of machismo.

Still, she was grateful that he'd be there to introduce her to the new Lady Quetzal. And his power to become insect size and even smaller might be better suited to the intelligence gathering she had in mind.

"Oh, my little Prickly-Pear, I had hope you would have shaved for me," a tiny, tiny little voice said, almost as if her thoughts had summoned him. "Like you had last time."

Trisha slapped her forehead and howled a sigh in despair as she looked down to see Pig-Fly enlarging before her eyes. He wore a yellow aviator leather helmet with goggles that matched his yellow shorts with a too tight blue spandex v-neck between them. The v neck was opened to his sternum, showing off his shaved and muscular brown chest to good effect. He wore a cape of transparent vinyl, scalloped to suggest wings. It was the most ridiculous outfit she'd ever scene and she ran with an Eagle that pretended to be a Duck in a wetsuit pretending to be a supersonic reptile that was supposed to have an Origin and ended up with a GSW instead.

"Zooman, how long have you been here?"

"Long enough to see the color of your panties, Trish. You mustn't let your inhibitions get in our way, dear. You know voyeurism is my thing and I know you like it."

"Let's agree to disagree," she snapped, reminding herself that he'd saved her life at least twice and Allie's at least once. "Listen, I'm sorry to hear about Lady Quetzalcoatl. How did she go?"

"She went bravely..." He said, seriously, his playfulness suddenly put aside. "She gave herself to save this little mayate. She literally bargained with death and... I cannot describe what happened, although I witnessed it. She simply left us..."

Trisha wasn't certain she knew mayate meant, but she got a sense of it from Pig-Fly's tone of voice.

"I wish I could have gone to her funeral." Trisha said truthfully.

"There was no funeral Trisha. When I say she went... I mean that literally. There was no body. Her civilian identity is simply listed as a missing person. Her family is in terrible torment and pain."

"Can't you tell them?"

"This is a crazy world. Death is no longer permanent. Not always. People come back. Lady may yet come back." Trisha could only nod. Where she and Sam had fallen had been very much like a death. And they'd come back. Four years before their accident, but yes, they'd come back.

"The Queztling said there was another."

"Oh, yes... Since Weird War Two, there's always been a host to the Serpent God. I think there's been six or seven hosts. Mostly birds, some reptiles... all females..."

"Please tell me you don't have her strunk down and in your pocket."

He laughed. She could hear a bitterness in his voice. "No, no... although that was a thought." He walked to the stairwell. "Stupid mayate hasn't figured out her to fly yet."

Pig-Fly opened the door, which obviously was locked on the inside and revealed a short dog – hairless, dark brown skin, even darker than Zooman's, and with black hair so thin, it was practically transparent between his ears. He was dressed in street clothes, in a neon red shirt advertising sneakers made in Mexico. He wore the same sliced conch shell necklace that Lady Quetzalcoatl had worn. The eyes were brown and huge and they looked rather annoyed at the Porcine hero.

"I don't understand," Trisha said, not sure what to say to the unexpected boy in the doorway.

"Go ahead," he snapped, his Norte Americante accent making it obvious that Spanish wasn't his native tongue. "I know you want to say it."

Pig-Fly made a flourish. "Meet the new Lady Quetzalcoatl. She may not be a Reptile but at least she's a Pato."

"Pato means Duck in Spanish," the young dog said in English to Trisha, although she hadn't needed an explanation. She knew exactly what Pato meant. Both ways.

So she simply nodded.