Disclaimer in previous chapter. Very little furthering of the plot. : )

- . -

"Good timing," he snarled softly, dragging her within inches of his face. She leaned as far back as her tightly-gripped collar would allow her, and wondered if perhaps he was going to strangle her instead of – of –

Those poor men.

Millions Knives stared at her, a slight expression of incredulousness crossing his sharp features. Handsome, almost exactly like Vash's except the mole on his cheek was absent. But that wasn't really the difference in their faces, she decided. It was how they chose to wear them.

His grip on her coat collar tightened significantly, quite effectively and immediately cutting off her air. Her arms, still bound tightly behind her back, were useless, and despite the fact that she was nearly as tall as he was her struggling feet barely brushed the floor. Leaning away from him just increased the pressure on her windpipe. She felt her lips move in an attempt to get air, and he continued to stare at her.

So he was going to strangle her. She was going to die.

Meryl was going to be so worried when she didn't get back to the hotel room.

She wasn't sure how long she hung there, waiting for some sign from him that he was going to let go. There was neither amusement nor pity in his eyes, and at some point instinct pointed out that she needed air and just staring at him wasn't going to get it for her. Millie twisted her head from side to side in a futile effort to loosen the coat fabric, and it felt as though she were struggling against a rock face. Even throwing all her weight, his fist and arm never moved. She realized at some point, a little foggily, that useless struggling was using up her available oxygen faster, and willed her panicking brain to stop.

Think, Millie!

There was something her Big Big Sister had told her to do, if she should ever find herself in a fight with a man, particularly one that was bigger than her. It would certainly make Mr. Knives madder than he already was, but at least she was by the door, and could run –

She screwed up her face, and with the last of her strength she kicked out, aiming for his right shin.

And somehow her foot just slid by, glancing off the inside of his calf. He'd dodged, or blocked, or something –

"It's useless," he murmured to her, in an oddly gentle voice. "Do you see it, little spider?"

She felt herself kick out again, half-heartedly, and she wasn't even sure she made contact with him at all. He didn't lower her, didn't release her. With a start she realized her peripheral vision was gone, and that was why the room suddenly seemed so dark –

"This is your end," he continued, in the same tone of voice. It was penetrating, intense, it cut through the fog of her brain even as everything else grew further away. "This is the moment when you died."

He raised his left hand and suddenly she was flying through the air, and she'd seen the blade flash, and she felt pressure and release and falling, she was falling and –

And she landed. Hard. She felt herself tumbling, over and over, and it took ages for her to realize that she was actually lying quite still.

Millie gasped, choking on her own saliva and coughing and all the while fighting for air. Her throat was swollen, it felt like she couldn't get enough to breathe. Bright spots danced in front of her eyes, blinding her, and her blood roared in her ears. She barely felt the hard cement beneath her, and she spread her fingers wide in an effort to make the room stop spinning. She had to find the floor, she had to run –

She could spread her fingers.

Her arms weren't behind her. They were beside her.

Millie continued to gasp, blinking hard. She was lying on her back.

Her arms were splayed out at her sides, clinging to the floor.

The knife –

He'd cut the ropes.

She dared to pick up her head, taking deeper breaths.

He didn't kill her.

She wasn't dead.

He'd thrown her quite a distance, she thought dazedly, realizing she'd rolled almost back to the spot they'd made her kneel. They were still there, lying just level with her head.

There was blood everywhere. She'd landed nearly in it, and when she tried to sit up her hair tugged tackily at her scalp. Knives was standing close by, gaze now on the men he had killed, and she realized, belatedly, that it had been the nice voice's blood that had splashed across her face.

She hastily wiped at her face and eyes, refusing to look at her sleeves. It was their blood.

Knives had killed them.

He'd promised Vash he wouldn't kill. He'd promised –

"W-why?" Her voice rasped unfamiliarly in her ears.

His eyes, when they flickered to her, were no more animated than they had been as they'd watched her suffocating. They were cold, cold enough to make her shiver.

"To make you understand," he said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "You are powerless. Helpless. I allow you to live because I am in need of a supplicant, and I have neither the patience nor the time to train a more useful one."

He held her gaze only a moment longer before turning away disgustedly and glaring down at the body at his feet. It was the nice voice, still balanced on his knees but bent forward, face plastered grotesquely to the cement floor. She blinked back a sudden flood of tears, and balled the fabric of her sleeves into her fists.

"You promised! You promised Mr. Vash you wouldn't hurt anyone else!"

Knives extended a long, graceful leg and kicked the body upright, letting it tip backwards before crouching beside it. He didn't respond, distastefully reaching into the man's jacket. His hand jerked suddenly, and she heard a cloth cord snap. Whatever the object was, it was completely enclosed in his palm, and he stared at it unblinkingly for a moment. Then he continued searching the man's clothing.

Millie dared to sit up straighter, tentatively rubbing her chafed throat. She was sure it would be bruised, but she could probably cover it with her shirt collar and tie. Swallowing was painful but possible, and it was getting easier by the minute.

"You didn't have to kill him." She didn't even see a weapon on the body. No gun. It wasn't as if he could have hurt Mr. Knives. Could have fought back.

His eyes flashed, and his smile held everything but mirth. "I killed him because of your ineffective struggles."

She watched him straighten, and he held up a pen –

No. Not a pen. It was . . . something else. Narrow, sheathed in a bright, shiny silver metal, about eight iches long. It looked menacing between his fingers, as though it wasn't comfortable with his touch.

"Give me your arm," he instructed, watching her with those pale blue eyes.

Why would he . . . ? Millie tried to quiet her breathing a little, and stared a little harder at the object.

It wasn't a pen at all. It was a syringe.

But it wasn't like any syringe she'd ever seen. They had been glass, with a large needle and lines etched on the sides to measure the drugs inside. This was . . . almost beautiful. The needle cover was almost as narrow as most of the bores of the needles she'd seen, and as he rotated it, she could see that it was not quite full of a clear fluid.

Perhaps it was the drug he'd used to incapacitate her in town?

Knives started towards her, and Millie found herself unconsciously scooting away.

"I would have been satisfied to hear more information, but your pitiful attempt at escape would have led to my discovery. His blood is on your hands. And everywhere else," he added with a note of disgust. For the first time, his eyes reflected some kind of emotion.

"I told you to give me your arm."

Each stride he took was equivalent to three of her scoots, but it didn't matter how little time the movement was gaining her. Did he know what was in that syringe? Or was he testing it on her? What if it was -

His next stride planted his foot firmly on the tail of her coat as it trailed between her heels, effectively stopping her retreat.

"I won't keep repeating myself, spider."

Millie could only stare up at him. She was shaking so badly she wouldn't have been able to pull her arm out of her sleeve even if she'd wanted to.

He moved so quickly. Like Mr. Vash when she'd accidentally knocked a glass from the bar once. He was towering above her and then his hand was clamped around her jaw, forcing her head back. She yelped, reflexively trying to push him away, but the grip on her face was unbreakable. She felt a crushing weight on her chest, pinning her down, and with a jarring sting she realized the needle was in her already bruised neck.

Millie whimpered as the drug burned into her skin, and then she was released with a rough shake. He straightened, tossing the used syringe aside and glaring down at her.

"When did you first see these humans?"

She almost couldn't bring herself to look at him. His shove had pushed her onto her back, and she rolled carefully to her side, lightly brushing the spot he'd injected. Her skin felt hot to the touch, but the burn was dissipating.

What if it was . . .?

"I-I've never seen them before," she heard herself whisper. "One of them was working in the post office, and I went to send my letter –"

"Before then," he snapped. "They were following you, idiot. Didn't you notice them?"

His voice seemed to echo oddly. It didn't fit the room at all.

"No." Her voice was echoing very differently from his. It sounded like she was in a closet, and he was in a huge concert hall. "He wasn't at the post office in Collins. There was a girl working there."

The girl had been very nice, but a little harried. It had been a Friday, so all the business-class mail had been coming in and she'd been one man down, trying to get it all sorted herself. She'd accepted it with a smile, though, staring at the thick envelope curiously, and she'd had to stretch to get it to the bin for Sweetwater. Her uniform had been a lot like the Bernardelli one, she remembered thinking, with the started white button-down shirt. Only hers didn't include a tie, and the top button was undone to make it cooler. She'd remembered wishing sometimes that the Chief would let them blouse out the shirts like that, but then it occurred to her that her Big Little Sister would call that unprofessional –

Millie started back when she realized that Knives was still so close to her. He was very close, closer than she remembered, and he was touching her –

No. He was hurting her.

She tried to pull back, but he wouldn't let her. He crushed her head between his hands, like he was trying to squish her face into a smaller shape, and his icy blue eyes were stabbing into hers.

"S-stop," she heard herself say in the closet. But he was too far away to hear her.

The sand smelled slightly different in Collins because of the enormous aquifers that ran beneath the bedrock. She remembered thinking it was so odd that the smell was probably humidity, and it would have been everywhere on Earth. Meryl had told her she was crazy, and the sand smelled just the same as everywhere else.

The envelope felt fat between her fingers, and she smiled as she caught the teller's eye.

"Hi! I need to mail this letter to Sweetwater – can I do that here?"

"Just a second –" The haphazard stack of parcels the girl was trying to handle tipped dangerously, and her dark blue eyes narrowed as though she were threatening the mail in her head. "Argh!" she finally declared, letting go and yanking a mail sack out of a pile as quickly as she could. The parcel tower tipped, but she got the canvas sack opened just in time, and they poured in with a little puff of dust.

"Good timing!" Millie chirped, and the girl flashed her a smile that seemed rare on her serious face. She flicked at her hair, was sticking wetly to her sweating neck, and Millie noticed her uniform wasn't far from the Bernardelli standard. Her white button-down shirt was probably made by the same uniform company, although it looked much cooler and more casual without the red tie and the fact that the top three buttons were unfastened. It didn't expose anything it shouldn't, and actually made the apparel seem stylish.

Millie continued smiling as she imagined her Big Little Sister in the kitchen, hands on her hips.

"You can't dress like that and look professional! When you're at work you should be working," she'd admonished, gesturing at Millie's shirt. "You need to iron that shirt, and make sure it's always tucked in!"

"Thanks! I get a lot of practice," the teller admitted, making a face as she hefted the now-full sack to the ground. Then she dusted off her hands and held one out through the bars. "Sweetwater? We can do that. Probably take about four days, unless you wanted to express it?"

"Oh, no thank you, that won't be necessary!" she'd laughed a little too loudly, shaking both her head and her hands. "Regular post will be just fine."

She wasn't sure what Knives would do if a human messenger required him to sign for it. Or if there was a sticker on it other than a stamp. She didn't want to give him any reason to distrust her, not when everything was going so well.

The girl gave her an odd look, but smiled at her bright expression. "Okay. I'll make sure it goes out tonight." She remained on the stool, stretching for a far, very small box. She had to wedge her feet under the counter in front of her to prevent the stool from tipping, and the open collar stretched. A dark strap of something – oh, she was wearing a pendant on a cord. Millie caught a glimpse of a brass corner before she politely averted her eyes, watching the envelope tip just from the girl's outstretched fingertips into the recycled Dim Jim box that was clumsily marked out and replaced with the word "SweetWater."

Millie gasped as the images disappeared, and she was staring at Mr. Knives again.

The cold anger in his eyes was fading, and his face was frowning. She shook her head slightly, trying to shake off his hands, and he tightened his grip on her face with an irritated shake.

"Be still," he commanded, and his voice swelled in her head like a too-near sand steamer whistle.

And then he hurt her again.

She heard a voice in another closet cry out, but she didn't know where they were and she couldn't get to them. She was sitting next to Meryl, being jostled like the other passengers and watching Collins fade into the horizon and –

The hotel clerk handed her a key. "You'll be staying in room 104, it's just to the right of the stairs." She tried not to look too crestfallen when Meryl snatched it out of her hand –

"I'm sorry to hear that, sir, but you can understand our position." Meryl was on a roll, seated and smiling but with that edge to her voice. Millie sat back and tried to look tough and supportive. "While we do insure against acts of Nature and Vash the Stampede has been accepted as the first humanoid disaster, we do not insure businesses that do not adhere to strict maintenance regulations from sandstorms, either. If you choose not to take these standard precautions, your policy will not cover damage done to your Plant by –"

"I don't care, Millie!" The snapping was nothing new, and Millie ignored it. "Of course you do! Vash is two cities behind us! He's asked us not to make him out as such a dangerous man –"

With a supreme effort, Millie forced her eyes closed, and the hotel room faded back to concrete and crates.

She felt herself gasping, as though he'd been choking her again, and her head felt like lead. She pried her eyes open with effort, and tried to focus on the Plant in front of her. He was swimming in and out of focus, and he looked –

Surprised?

Then he released her, and she was falling again-

- . -

Meryl stared at the sunlight crawling across the floor, watching its slow progress towards afternoon. It had encountered the lighter some time ago, and the play of reflected light on the walls to her right seemed to shift faster than the sunlight as it crept across the coffee table.

She never would have left it.

She never would have gotten on the sand steamer without it.

Even though she'd been on the scene within an hour of the crime, she'd found no clues. She'd looked all over town for anything suspicious and found nothing. She'd even tried to buy information, without success.

There were no leads to follow. And she couldn't simply wait. Unlike Vash, who left a trail of destruction but usually little of his own blood, the next time she heard a stranger talk about Millie it would be in reference to the dead body found desiccated in the desert just outside of town.

She couldn't wait for word.

New Phoenix was an older city. There were all kinds of nooks and crannies fugitives could hole themselves up in. And all the ones that did would have taken the lockbox from the post office. Since the teller obviously had a key to the back room, the most likely scenario involved putting a gun to Millie's head, demanding the lockbox, then killing both Millie and the teller. And there wasn't any blood.

There wasn't anything at all. Nothing but Wolfwood's lighter.

Someone had been after Millie. Or maybe the teller. Or maybe on her way back she'd witnessed something she shouldn't have –

Which meant she was already dead, and it was just a matter of time until her body turned up.

Meryl stared imploringly at the lighter. She remembered the conversation like it had been hours ago.

"Thanks." Vash looked significantly more relaxed than he had when they'd first charged in, but then again, Knives appeared to be unconscious instead of screaming that he was going to kill him. She could see why one put him more at ease than the other.

She just nodded, gathering up the breakfast dishes that Millie hadn't managed. They'd broken things up into smaller plates since they hadn't been sure how much Knives could eat. One of his wounds was in his stomach, and she wasn't sure he could take solid food at all. All the food was gone; whether it had been too much for Knives and Vash had simply helped himself, it was impossible to tell. They'd have to remember to keep serving things this way, though.

At least until Knives could actually sit up and eat. Then it might be best to put that sixth bullethole in his forehead.

Meryl mentally swiped at herself for the thought, hiding it with a bright smile. But Vash wasn't looking at her; his eyes were following the sounds of Millie trotting down the hall, and they were infinitely sad.

She found herself pausing, just watching him. Some part of her had hoped she'd never see that emotion in his eyes ever again. This was supposed to be the end of his suffering. He had beaten Knives. It looked like he really had expected that this one act would solve all his problems, but it was becoming more readily apparent that he'd realized his mistake.

"I couldn't carry both of them," he admitted quietly, and the eyes shifted to her. They were still unspeakably sad.

Both of . . . ?

"I know she wanted to keep it, but it's buried in the desert now," he continued miserably. "We burned all the plants. We destroyed all of it."

She froze, unsure of what to do, and the barest smile graced his features. It didn't touch above his nostrils.

Wolfwood's cross. He was talking about Nicholas' cross.

"Did it help you?" she asked, honestly surprised to hear her own voice. Had she just said something that stupid out loud?

And oddly, the smile crawled all the way up to his eyes. Almost.

"It did, actually." There was a little life in his voice. "Although Wolfwood had to point out that it was right next to me."

Meryl just stood there, two bowls and two glasses held in her arms, and he slouched in the reading chair, his feet propped up on Knives' bed. He was looking through her, now, and that was familiar too.

"I could have sworn he was really there. Maybe . . ." He let it trail off, and she watched him carefully assemble his mask again.

"He didn't have to call me such a mean name, either," he quipped, his eyebrows wrinkling in mock aggravation, and she sighed on cue.

Now she wished that perverted, heart-breaker of a preacher would talk to her, like he'd talked to Vash.

"You were in love with her," she growled at the lighter. "Tell me what I'm supposed to do!"

The reflected light winked at her.

Just like that asshole would have done.

Meryl dropped her head to the back of the couch and contemplated sleeping. She had been awake now for over twenty hours, and short of waiting in the hotel room for Millie to miraculously escape her situation and come bouncing back in, she couldn't think of anything else to do. Every different type of city paper lay in her lap, on the coffee table, even on the floor as she'd searched the obituaries, the local news, the weather, for any indication of anything unusual.

No sudden raises or lowerings of crime, or at least nothing that couldn't be traced back to stress regarding the impending Plant project. No gangs had been terrorizing the city, it was too big for that –

Meryl blinked. Was it really that simple?

But no. If there were townsfolk that believed kidnapping them would stop the Plant switchover then they had every chance in the world to kidnap her last night, too. She'd been wandering all over the city making all kinds of fuss. Even Millie could have found her last night, if she'd been looking.

"Aauurrgggh!"

She swiped the newspapers off her lap in irritation, rubbing her eyes until the spots almost blinded her. She needed to either sleep, or to do something. This sitting around waiting was driving her crazy!

The scattered papers rustled softly to the floor, settling with the hiss of not-quite-paper to add to the mess already peppered around her feet. The paper proclaiming "Death of Suns Imminent?" was the last to fall, and rather spitefully brushed against a strip of her exposed leg, lightly slicing her skin.

She flinched back with a hiss, and her retreating foot cracked against the leg of the coffee table. Meryl gritted her teeth to prevent swearing again, watching as even more papers and the lighter toppled off the table.

Great. A real mess to go with the symbolic one.

Meryl rubbed her aching foot, glaring down at the papers until she found the lighter. It had landed on top of an image of a bulb, almost directly in the middle as though it wanted nothing better than to light something up.

Meryl almost smiled. She wondered if the device missed his constant lighting up as much as Millie probably did.

Oh, Millie. Please don't be dead.

That lighter brought back so many memories of bars, for her. That was when she saw it, more often than not on the end of an entire pack of chain-smoked cigarettes. Less frequently it could be found in the middle of the table, surrounded by double dollars in a poker or chess pool. It was most at home in the hands of someone sometimes too drunk to accurately light the crumpled sticks of near-paper and almost-tobacco.

Or someone who was just acting too drunk.

Funny how Wolfwood always seemed to be blonde when she thought about it like that.

For a while, she'd really hated him for what he'd done to Millie. He could have had any woman he wanted, and just like he acted drunk, he could have acted indecisive, vulnerable. He could have just manipulated her between the sheets because he knew it was his last chance before his own partner shot him down in the street.

She thought of Millie and her yellow pajamas, curled up on top of his bed, clutching her knees to her chest and crying that she wasn't going to move, that he told her to wait for him.

Told her he'd be back.

Lied as easily as he'd lied about everything else.

But he hadn't come back. Not really.

He'd turned right back around and snuck away in the night without having the guts to tell her himself that he'd sold his soul to his brother to save a few humans trapped on a sandy rock, and it was just better for everyone if he lived what promised to be a very violent life next to the murdering maniac that had hired Wolfwood to kill him –

She frowned at her thoughts.

Funny how ranting about Wolfwood's shortcomings always brought her back to his.

She released her still-throbbing foot after a few moments, taking a few deep breaths to gather her composure. Millie was many things, but dead wasn't one of them. If she could get out of the mess she was in, she would. But until then, she needed help.

And the one person Meryl could trust to find trouble, no matter how well hidden, was Vash the Stampede.

Dammit.

She leaned over, snatching up the lighter and catching the word 'Collins' under the bulb image. Of course. Collins was the next town to get the solar plant installed, the fifth city to be approached for the project. As far as she knew, the Plant was still there, though the pre-production would have finished so it was only a matter of time before Vash was there to extract the Plant.

If she could catch him before then –

But Millie had said in her letter that Vash was two cities behind them. That would put him in Warrens.

Of course, he'd sent that letter days ago. And he certainly wasn't in New Phoenix, so –

Meryl left the papers where they were, pocketing the lighter and heading for her shoes. She was completely packed and out the door in less than ten minutes, and one of the papers fluttered a listless goodbye as the door slammed behind her.

The one person, in all the world, she was forbidden from asking for help.

She was forbidden from talking to him at all.

Meryl bought the ticket in a daze, waiting for the bus without noticing the sweat running down her back.

Nothing had shocked her quite like that morning. Having Millie, of all people, crying while telling her in the strangest, steady voice that they'd reached a compromise. Knives agreed not to wipe out the human race, and in return Vash was going to use his influence to negotiate freedom for the Plants.

And they weren't allowed to have any personal contact with him. Just letters.

And just from Millie.

Apparently Knives had made this stipulation in person. She'd never forget the look on Millie's face as she'd repeated it. Like she was remembering how someone else's lips looked when they were saying the words.

No personal contact.

What would Knives do, if he found out?

She doubted he would care Millie was missing. She doubted Vash would be allowed to help her even look, Knives had him on such a short leash. The way Millie made it sound, Knives spent all his time cultivating flowers and playing games with his newly freed and happy Plant sisters, but when she tried to match it up to the man that had made his brother –

Made his brother into Vash.

It just didn't work.

She wasn't supposed to care, dammit.

What if Vash didn't offer to help? What if he refused outright? What if he wouldn't even speak to her?

What if she couldn't speak to him?

- . -

Beep.

John pried an eye open and stared at the board. Green lights blinked back innocently.

He let it close again.

Silence.

He wished the chairs were bigger. He knew he was bigger than most people, and he was less willingly mobile than most of them. It took a lot of energy to move him around, and he preferred not to waste it. Nothing was nicer than remaining perfectly still, even if one was wide awake. It was hard to do, and helped him clear his mind.

Focus was needed on this job. They were experimenting with extremely 'primitive' technology and extremely 'advanced' technology, and making them work together almost seamlessly. Considering the engineers that had designed the Plant structures had never intended their use with solar power, the fact that it worked at all was probably nothing short of a miracle.

And in his experience, miracles needed pretty close monitoring.

Although, the more he thought about it, the more it seemed to make sense. Plants made bulbs glow. It was a yellow color, not a white color, so it wasn't unlike the sun. And that light, at least most of it, was absorbed by the bulb and sent to the generations where water, food, or goods were produced. Of course, Plants gave off many other kinds of energy. Kinetic, magnetic, electric, even kinds that physics didn't have any way to explain.

Funny how they could collect it but not explain it.

The control room had an excellent view of the bulb, and he stared at it. The first one they'd left intact. Elizabeth hadn't been happy about that, but there'd been no reason to dismantle this one. It was unlikely that the Plants Vash freed would ever wind up back in those bulbs, but that was obviously what she was thinking. That someday, if they left bulbs intact, someone would try to fill them again.

And after seeing what he saw in Warrens, he was behind her one hundred percent.

It wasn't necessarily anyone's fault. The bulbs didn't make it easy to see what was inside. There were two of 'em in there, and all you usually saw was a shape, and sometimes an arm or leg or –

Or something else.

He'd never put it together in his head that Plants were really alive. They weren't portrayed that way in the books, in the classes –

But there was no damn doubt that the thing that gunman'd been carrying in that brown blanket of his was as alive as his little boy.

She'd had eyes, screwed up against the already dimmed maintenance lights. Eyebrows, cheekbones, a small, bow-shaped mouth that was stretched thin in pain.

She might not have known what was going on, but she sure as hell knew it had hurt.

Wasn't a doubt it was a she, either.

Wasn't a doubt she was alive.

Made you want to break every damn bulb you saw, thinking about that fragile, feathered woman in the brown blanket.

And the look on Vash's face . . . it was an odd line of work for a gunman to be in, John supposed, but it was a damn good one. They had the suns, might as well use 'em for something other than sunburn.

They really needed to figure out a way to get that energy to concentrate itself enough to produce simple goods, though. The basic foodstuffs problem was solved, but it would be nice if they could produce leather, chain, tires. It just took a concentrated burst that they couldn't quite maintain –

Beep.

He pried his eyes open again, watching the green lights.

Once was a glitch. Twice was a problem.

John finally picked up his head, glancing to his right at another array. They, too, showed green where the lights actually indicated activity at all. Above him, the monitors all reflected back expected power levels –

Except that one.

It was green, but borderline, and he sat and stared at it. And stared.

And stared.

It flickered into yellow for a moment, then back into green.

Beep.

But that was impossible . . .

John moved with a speed that would have visibly startled Elizabeth, up and across the room before his chair cushion had the time to suck air back into itself. That monitor was the power concentration in the backup battery, and it should have been about half-way charged. Not discharging.

He glared out the window, staring at the small maintenance shed beneath the main bulb. It had been placed there specifically to feed energy back into the bulb during a Last Run, but they'd converted it along with everything else. The door was closed and he could see the tiny speck that represented the padlock.

So if it was still locked . . . but they'd been all over that thing last night trying to get it up when the coupling had blown.

He reached above his head, flicking a toggle without even looking to make sure it was the right one. "Josh? You down on ground?"

He flicked it back, watching. It didn't take long for an overalled back to slouch its way out of the shade of the bulb and hit the comm. box.

"Yeah. Whaddaya want."

"Check on the backup battery. It's discharging."

He could see the small shape of Josh Walters staring up at the control booth.

"The hell it is."

John frowned and flicked the switch. "Check it."

Josh turned away from the comm. box, shaking his head, and after his first step the shed went up in massive, silent blue flames.

John just stared as the alarms started clanging, watching the Josh-shape jump back. Once he was certain it was still moving and generally alive, he flicked the switch next to the one he'd used previously.

"All personnel, explosion in backup battery shed. All hands, report in fire gear."

What the hell was going on?

- . -

Author's Notes: I promise significant plot updates in the next chapter. Really.

And Inkydoo and Alaena? You have no idea how much your fb made me grin! I really appreciate your comments, and let me know if you remember where that typo was.