Been a little busy with my work. But here it is! Read on and see what happens!

How was this not surprising to me?

I was familiar with the tycoon's ways. I knew what they'd put their signature to, just because they could. It didn't surprise me that he would go into a group that basically advocated killing young babies. Killing children.

To the others, though, it was like a bomb had been dropped in the middle of the Hangar.

I heard shocked shouts from Billy and Amy. Amos stood up and muttered under his breath, "Still?" Courtney blanched and passed out in Billy's arms. My sister was such a dramatic one. Sonic swore in every language contained in his Lingua's bank. Imira actually jumped up and punched one of the old computers, breaking its monitor. She was more likely to hit things than yell when she was upset.

"What the Void?" Knuckles sputtered. His hands were ablaze, as tended to happen when he got angry. "Does Fairview know about this?"

"Either it wasn't a concern for the school, or he covered it up really well," I responded.

"So that's a no."

"It's an I don't know whether they do or not, that's what it is!"

Tails scowled at the Holo. I could tell he didn't like this development any more than his fellow avatars did. Not that I blamed him. Avatars are extremely protective of human life – any human life. They hold it under their guard, and for a human to kill another human was probably the most infuriating and inexcusable thing in the world – partly because there wasn't much they could do about it (again, that protecting-all-humans thing), partly because it made the murderer that much more of a monster.

"Hold up," I said, remembering something Amos had said that puzzled me. "Amos, you said 'Still?' As in, you ran into it before?"

"My mama," he said softly. I could tell the subject made him uncomfortable. "She only backed out of it a few months before I was born. But he stayed on – heck, he led the darned thing."

I was hardly surprised by this news. If Rich didn't regard the homeless as worth saving, he probably regarded certain infants in the same light. And then there was Vinny Lee's expression, growing more furious with each mention of Rich's crimes. However, I didn't want to grill her right now. I was afraid I wouldn't like what I'd hear.

I also couldn't blame Amos for not mentioning it before. Some judgmental people wouldn't be too psyched about hanging with someone associated with pro-choice. However, I wasn't one of those people. I wanted him to know that. Imira, though, surprised me.

"If your momma backed out of the group that long ago –" Imira paused. "If she's kept up a good enough track record since then, it's not on you."

"I suppose you're right," Amos said in reply. He sounded slightly cheered by Imira's assertion. "She did get herself on the school board, too."

"Didn't you already say that?"

"Thing is, she's been on the school board for longer than that. She only joined up last year. Talked her way in, and they were so glad to have a bright woman like her they didn't even care about her background. She drafted up that all-inclusive enrollment thing as soon as she got in. At least, it would give me a chance to get in."

That made total Darvosky sense. I hadn't met Amos' mom, but she sounded like a pretty smart woman from what I had heard about her. She would've rigged the system up if she had to – just like my own mom.

I remembered how quiet Vinny Lee had been. I was afraid she'd switched to male at first, but she would have let us know, real fast, if she had. More likely something tragic had happened. Something even she couldn't just shake off.

"What happened with you?" I asked her at last.

Vinny Lee hung her head and laced her fingers together. "Bruce was caught in the cocina," she said faintly. "In the worst part of the fire. His mama rushed in to save him. Neither of them survived it, I'm afraid."

I felt as though I'd been stabbed in the gut with a kitchen knife. Selene and Bruce… dead. The girl who'd given Vinny Lee a camcorder, whom Vinny Lee had tried to comfort with an Ojo de Dreamcatcher necklace, was gone, had been killed trying to protect her child. If I had hated Richard before, I positively wanted to kill him now.

Imira yelled some choice words. I was afraid she'd punch another computer monitor. Not that I would have stopped her, either. Two casualties. Two people whose lives had gone up in flames. Any lives lost over none was too many for me. Someone was going to pay, and that someone was Richard.

Olga screamed something in Ukrainian – possibly calling down a curse on Richard Camford's name, although I couldn't tell. I wasn't Sonic, with the ability to understand a language upon hearing it. I had to guess. But her tone suggested she wasn't too happy.

I turned to Billy. He looked even more angry.

"What did you mean?" I asked. "When you said he wasn't going to win this? And not just the reason you gave back there."

"The mayor's running for the Senate," Billy said in response. Geez, how much gossip did he pick up? "Or at least campaigning for it. He's trying to ensure race and diversity boundaries for the sake of the Democrats. His party."

"Typical Donkeyheads," Amos muttered under his breath. He'd made it clear once – several times – that he didn't endorse what they did, unlike the rest of the folks in his demographic. He then asked in a louder voice, "How does that help us?"

"Think about it." Billy was running his mouth now. "Two homeless people were killed in that fire. Manslaughter if he hadn't meant to kill them. But if a baby was killed in that fire… no one with any sense is going to ignore that. Did you tell the cops about that, Vinny Lee?"

She nodded and pulled out the camcorder. I was hardly surprised she'd brought it along. I suspected she was looking into finding a use for it. I knew she'd make sure to fulfill Selene's last wish to her, but I wasn't sure exactly how she'd do it. She had a lot of different uses for little things like yarn and pop tabs.

"On top of that…" Billy faltered. "There's me, and then a gender non-conforming Hispanic-Indigenous girl, a part-Black Muslim –" Imira flinched at the descriptor – "a Jew, and a non-American. And five of the key witnesses are female."

That didn't seem like much of a reason – but then I realized how that would look for the Dems. Seven major diversity kegs, caught in that blaze. On top of the media scrutiny I already faced, it would look pretty bad for them if they didn't do something about it.

"What do you think they'll do?" Courtney asked.

"More like what'll we do," Amy said. "Dinner. You're probably skipping yours."

No arguments there. I like taking action against baddies, but I liked food as well.

We settled on chicken nuggets. I had to hand it to Amy, she was a pretty good cook. She even made accommodations for our Muslim and Jewish members, which they were grateful for. We could never ask what was in it, because we trusted Amy could make it to our needs. Helps when the empath is as skilled in the kitchen as she was on the field.

"Wow," Billy said. "This is even better than what we get in surplus."

"Yeah, Amy's amazing," Sonic said with a smile in her direction, causing her to blush.

Knuckles seemed to be devouring his nuggets at a mass pace. At least he had an excuse with his fast-burning metabolism. "You didn't sound surprised about what Billy said," he told me after finishing a large bite. "Why not, DJ?"

I shrugged. "I guess I'm a little too familiar with Democrat party priorities. They have a monopoly on the Cali government, remember?"

Knuckles smacked his forehead. "Oh. Clean forgot."

"You know, I'm usually the one who forgets things, Hothead," Sonic responded, using the nickname he'd adopted when the echidna got his fire powers. "And it sounds like there's another component to it."

"Yes," I said. "My mom."

Courtney frowned, dropping her fork. "Oh, yeah. She'll blow her stack when she gets wind of it."

"What now?" Amos asked. Unfortunately, he'd stuffed his mouth with nugget, so it sounded like, "Mmm hm?"

"Dude," Imira scolded him.

Amos swallowed. "Sorry. What makes you so convinced she'll make a difference?"

"My mom is a little like yours," I said. "And very protective of her children."

"What if they come to harm?" Olga asked. "How is she then?"

I remembered every time she'd lashed out at the paparazzi taking my picture when I didn't ask for it. I remembered her yanking me out of school when I was being bullied, yanking us out of Loss of Angels when Dad died. Thinking of those things, I had no trouble coming up with a one-word answer to Olga's question:

"Ruthless."

And what's Liz Jorgman going to say? Not spoiling. Verse for the update: 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. Stay tuned!