FSE

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"That stupid little shit!" Jack snarled again, squeezing between Corona and Taura to get to the mop closet's door. Corona had pushed him and Taura into the closet as soon as the stairwell door at the end of the hall had opened--and now the three of them had to fight their way back out of the Argus Defense Systems building only to go back to their headquarters empty-handed. All because Shadow had decided to do a little hotdogging and leave him and the girls flapping in the wind.

"Easy, Jack," Corrie whispered, resting a hand on his shoulder.

"When we get out of this, I'm gonna kick her fuckin' ass!" Jack peeked into the hallway and found four more of the seven-foot-tall security robots marching straight toward them. The mechs whipped their cameras to the left, spotted him, and snapped their guns around to aim at his head. He ducked back into the closet a split-second before a hail of bullets ripped chunks out of the wall and door frame.

"Keep your mind on the job or we might not get out of this at all," Taura muttered, tapping icons and entering commands into the hard-light display floating in front of her.

Corona popped out from cover and popped off a few shots from her handgun. Three of the bullets hit the floor at the robots' feet, one zipped past them and buried itself in the stairwell door, and the fifth bounced off the nearest robot's right thigh. Corona ducked back into the closet and growled, baring her thumb-length fangs. Her tail lashed back and forth as she shoved the gun back into her holster.

"Screw this!" She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and lunged into the hallway.

"What--Corrie!" Jack reached out for her, but she was already charging the four mechs, moving so fast that she was just a blur.

The robots opened fire and Jack's heart nearly jumped into his throat.

Corona leaped into the air and twisted into a horizontal spin, and the bullets whizzed beneath her. Her feet hit the floor and she continued running without the slightest break in her stride. The robots raised their guns, trying to track onto the space she'd occupied a split-second before, and resumed firing. Their bullets zipped over her head and she dropped and plowed into their legs like a baseball player sliding into home base, knocking them all off their feet.

She leaped onto the nearest mech, clamped her hands around its head, and twisted its neck until its head had done nearly a full rotation. Metal and plastic snapped, wires ripped loose, and the head finally sheared off with a fountain of lubricants and hydraulic fluid. Its body collapsed and she stood, holding the head in her right hand. She turned to the next robot, cocked her hand back, and hurled the head point-blank into the bot's face, shattering its camera lenses and caving the front of its skull in.

Taura rushed past Jack, sprinted down the hall, and stopped in front of the two remaining mechs as they tried to pick themselves up. She raised her right leg and drove her hoof into the nearer one's head, smashing it into the floor and partially crushing it. She stomped it a few more times, turning it into a barely recognizable chunk of scrap metal.

The last surviving robot had gotten to its feet by now, but Corona whipped her left arm into its chest, knocking it over. As it fell, she followed up by ramming her right palm into its chest, sending it rocketing into the floor. The tiles under it shattered on impact.

Taura pumped a half-dozen rounds through its head, destroying its CPU and memory core, and emptied the rest of her clip into the one she'd just taken down. She popped the clip out and replaced it with a fresh one, took a deep breath and let it rush out.

Jack took a few deep breaths of his own, until his heart stopped pounding. He shook his head and walked over to the girls. He looked up at them and managed a shaky grin.

"If you two think showing off like that is gonna take my mind off what Shadow did...well, you may be right." He gave their asses a quick squeeze before continuing down the hallway. "Let's get the hell out of here."

"Oh, crap--hold on." Taura pointed at her holofield. "Looks like most of the robots are taking positions on the ground floor and the rest are covering all the other exits on every floor, including stairs leading to the roof."

Corona sighed and leaned over to look at the display. "Where the hell did all those things come from?"

"This is just marvelous." Jack turned away from the stairwell and glanced at the scrapped robots, as if expecting them to reactivate. "If we try to go through the lobby, we'll be blown into chunks of raw meat."

Corona raked her talons through her hair. A few seconds later, she raised a brow ridge. "Hmm. Okay, let's head for the roof. I've got an idea."

"We can make that. Probably." Taura reached into the holofield and nudged the schematic of the ADS building, pulling it down until the top three floors scrolled into the window. She pointed at a set of six blips in one corner. "That's the nearest exit. If we can get past those mechs, we go through one door and we're on the roof. But then what?"

"Well, it's a work in progress." Corona shrugged. "I need to see if there are any buildings close enough before I know whether it'll actually work or not."

"I already don't like it," Jack muttered.

"I don't, either, but we'd hate the lobby option even more." Corona wrapped her wings around her shoulders like a cape and ducked through the doorway into the stairwell. "Let's go."

#

Oh, boy, here we go again. Corona eased the door open and poked her head out into the hallway, ready to lunge back out of sight at the slightest sound. She turned to the left, where the maintenance exit to the roof was, and found four mechs guarding it. The rhythmic clanking of huge metal feet around the corner told her that at least two other mechs were patrolling the halls.

One of the four at the end of the hall turned toward her.

A split-second later, the other three faced the same direction.

All of them snapped their guns up and stomped toward her.

Shit! She ducked back into the stairwell and yanked the door shut an instant before the gunfire started. "Taura?"

"Working on it." Taura's hands darted through her holofield, typing code, tapping icons, manipulating windows and objects within them, their speed increasing until they were a blur. "If I can get through at least one of their firewalls..."

Corona backed away from the door, drew her gun, and hoped she might actually manage to hit something at this range.

Jack planted himself beside her and aimed his gun at the door.

The door burst open and slammed into the wall, propelled by a kick from one of the mechs. It squeezed through and turned, bringing its guns up and pointing them at Corona and Jack.

Both of them punched three shots through its head, turning it into a mangled mess. Corona winced at the deafening blasts in the confined space of the stairwell. The robot toppled over, dropping its guns and twitching for a few seconds until its systems crashed.

A second robot stepped over the body and faced them.

She and Jack blasted away, but not before the mech got off a single shot. The impact was like a sledge hammer to the chest, knocking her backward into Taura. All the rounds she fired hit the wall behind the robot, but luckily Jack's bullets ripped through its head, dropping the robot beside the first.

Panicking, Corona slid her free hand under her vest and ran it over her chest. After finding no open wound, she sighed, slumped against the wall, and gave Jack a thumbs-up.

Some of the tension drained from his body and he turned back to the doorway as another mech appeared.

"Got it," Taura muttered.

A gun fired behind the mech, and it turned to face the new threat. A hail of bullets tore into its head and chest, and it collapsed.

More gunfire erupted outside, followed by the crash of one of the robots falling.

Then, silence.

Corona shoved a fresh clip into her gun and gripped it with both hands. She crept up to the door, took a breath, and peeked into the hallway.

One robot stood a few feet away, staring at the far wall. It didn't spin around to take a shot at her.

"Just one more thing to take care of," Taura said.

Corona glanced at her in time to see her moving controls in her holofield. She hit one last button and Corona looked back into the hallway.

The robot raised its gun to its own head and pulled the trigger until one of its bullets blew its processor apart. It fell to its knees and toppled over onto its side.

"Nice." Corona grinned and gave her a quick hug.

Taura smiled, glanced at her holofield, and pointed through the doorway. "The exit onto the roof is at the end of the hall."

Jack stepped over the fallen robots and strode to the end of the hall, keeping his gun pointed ahead.

Corona darted up to the door and turned the knob. Locked, naturally. She backed up and snapped the bolt with a kick, flinging the door open and flooding the hall with sunlight. She grinned and rushed out onto the roof.

"Alright." Jack joined her and turned to cover the door. "What's your plan? Or is it still a work in progress?"

"Hold on a sec." She ran over to the edge of the roof and looked around. All the other roofs were either too high or too far away. She turned and ran to the opposite edge--the rear of the building. A narrow alley ran behind it, and the adjacent roof looked close enough and was a couple stories lower. She grinned. "That'll do."

Jack stared at her with his mouth hanging open. "Oh, you've got to be fuckin' kidding!"

"Nope."

"You're seriously gonna do a Jackie Chan off the roof?"

"And onto the one next door. Yeah."

Taura took one last look at her holofield before taking her omnitool from her pocket, switching it to standby mode, and putting it away. "More security mechs are coming up the stairs. If we're going to do this, we need to do it now."

"Think you can make that jump?" Corona pointed a thumb over her shoulder.

Taura ran to the edge and looked at the gap between the buildings. "Yeah."

"Okay, care to give Jack a lift while I cover you?"

Taura hesitated, clearly not wanting to leave her here. She nodded and crouched in front of Jack. "Climb on."

Jack turned to stare at Corona. She shrugged.

"She can't carry both of us at once. Go on, I'll be right behind you."

Jack stared at her for another second, grumbled, and shoved his gun into his holster. He locked his arms and legs around Taura and she stood. She dashed over to the far edge to give herself a running start.

Corona moved closer to the door to keep them out of her line of fire. "I love you! Now, go!"

"I love you!" Jack shouted.

Taura burst into a full-on sprint, charging past her, toward the alley. Corona took a quick glance to the left and caught Taura leaping across the alley and dropping out of sight. Corona waited, listening, heart pounding, hoping desperately that she wasn't about to hear a thud on the pavement twenty floors below.

What she heard a few seconds later was a much closer thump, grunts and bodies rolling to a stop.

She let out a relieved sigh, holstered her gun, turned and ran. She bolted across the roof, braced her right foot on the edge, and launched herself across the gap. She had just enough time to think, Oh, fuck, that's a lot wider than it looked.

Her feet hit the roof and she threw herself forward, tucked her shoulder, and rolled. She skidded to a stop and lay there for a few seconds, staring up into the sky and gasping. She turned over, looked around, and found Taura helping Jack to his feet. They turned to stare at her, and she burst out laughing.

"I'll be damned, that actually worked!"

Jack's mouth flopped open again. He turned, frowned up at the ADS building's roof, and shook his head slowly. "Well, fuck me."

"Later." Taura grinned and gave his shoulder a playful swat before walking to the edge and looking down. She pointed. "There's a fire escape."

"I hope it's attached to the wall a lot more solidly than the last one we used." Corona clasped their hands and led them over to the fire escape. "Come on. Let's get back to the office."

"You better hope Shadow's not there," Jack grumbled. "If she is, I'm gonna punch her in the neck ten or twelve times."

#

"Jack, I can explain." Shadow pushed her chair back and braced her hands against the edge of the conference table.

Uh-oh. Taura reached out for Jack's arm, but wasn't fast enough to catch him before he stormed across the briefing room.

"Jack," Corona said, rushing after him. "Just calm down."

"Explain what?" Jack lunged at Shadow, stopping only when the team's leader, Machiko Ericson, planted herself in his path. "Explain why you used us as cannon fodder, pulled our objective out of there, and left us hanging? Yeah, go ahead, explain! I'd fucking love to hear that!"

"Jack, please..." Shadow stood and backed up against the wall.

"Sit down, Jack." Machiko braced her hand against Jack's chest to prevent him from taking another step. "We'll talk about this."

Jack swatted her hand away. "There's nothing to talk about. That stupid twat screwed us!" He pointed at Corona and Taura. "She could've gotten them killed!"

"Jack." Machiko's voice took on its sub-zero tone, and Taura swore the room temperature dropped ten degrees. "Sit the fuck down. Now."

He glowered at her for several seconds, grumbled, and threw himself into the nearest chair.

Machiko turned back to Shadow and placed a hand on her shoulder. "You gonna be okay?"

Tears streamed down Shadow's cheeks. She wiped them away, shrugged, and took a seat well out of Jack's reach. She wrapped her wings around her shoulders, stared at her hands, and continued weeping silently.

Aww. Taura sighed and took the chair beside Jack. She reached out and took his hand, to try to calm him down as well as to hold him back if he tried to take a swing at Shadow.

Corona crouched behind Jack, rubbed his shoulders and wrapped her wings around him.

"How about that explanation?" He raised an eyebrow and stared at Shadow. "I'm on the edge of my goddamned seat."

Shadow sobbed and raked her talons through her hair. She took several deep breaths and managed to pull herself together. "I met Arthur Winslow about two weeks ago, when I slipped into one of the ADS offices to pull some files from their computers. He just stumbled onto me and I had to talk my way out of it so he wouldn't alert security."

"Uh-huh. Looks like you talked your way out of it, alright--and into his bed."

"My bed, actually. Yeah, we hit it off." She shrugged. "That's how you found out that he was trapped in his office; he called me for help."

Machiko leaned forward, gazed at her, and said, "I did tell you to sit this one out. Your emotional connection to him clouded your judgment."

"I couldn't leave him there when his company's own mechs were trying to kill him."

"Jack and the girls would've gotten him out in one piece," Machiko said. "You'd already done your part."

Shadow opened her mouth, turned and frowned at her. "Done my part?"

"A separate investigation led us to ADS. We needed the files you went in to get, and we also needed someone inside the company to keep feeding us information. So I made sure you slipped into that office when Winslow was there."

"You set me up." Shadow stared at Machiko with her mouth hanging open.

"Being used is no fun at all, is it?" Machiko raised a brow ridge. "Point taken, I hope?"

"You..." Shadow's glowing cyan eyes brightened and the tip of her tail lashed.

"The thing is, when I use someone, I don't put their lives at risk. Well, not usually. What you did could've gotten three of my agents killed."

"I'm sorry. I really am. I wasn't thinking." Shadow wiped more tears away and continued scowling at Machiko. "But how did you know Arthur would even go for me?"

"We had just enough info on him to know that he's got an anthro fetish. And since you're so into humans, I figured the odds were pretty good that one of you would make a play for the other. Once you two hooked up, we contacted him, and he kept passing information to you in exchange for us not telling his wife about his relationship with you."

"Wife?" Shadow's jaw dropped again. "He's fucking married?"

Taura winced. Aw, hell.

"That matters to you?" Jack glanced at the ceiling and shook his head.

Shadow leaned forward and jabbed a talon at him. "I don't touch married guys. Personal rule of mine. I just don't go there."

Corona cleared her throat. "This is all very interesting, but can we get back on topic? What's going on with Winslow? Why was he under siege? Did he find out something worth killing him over?"

Machiko opened her mouth, looked at Jack, and sighed. "Actually, I think we'll put a pin in this. There's a few things we still need to clarify with Winslow, and I need you all to clear your heads before we proceed." She pushed her chair back, stood, and tugged on her maroon suit jacket. "We'll get back to this in the morning--be sure you've put this behind you and you're ready to do your job when you come in."

"Fine." Jack stood and stormed out the door.

Taura and Corona exchanged a glance. Taura sighed and placed her hand on Corona's arm.

"Let's go home."

#

"Oh, look, we've been Rule 34'd." Otto stared at the image on his scrolltop's transparent screen and arched an eyebrow.

"Of course we have." Shakira, seated beside him on the couch, sighed and rolled her eyes. "Do I even want to know what it is?"

"Just a sketch of me ejaculating." Otto shrugged and picked another link at random. "Make that two. This one's in full color, though." He raised his eyebrow again. "I really hope I don't make faces like that when I shoot my load."

"That's disgusting. People are drawing child porn." She turned to face one of the wall-mounted cameras. "Child porn. You assholes should be arrested."

"I'm almost fourteen. Not exactly a little kid. Besides, I guess I bring a lot of this on myself because I spend so much time talking about jerking off."

"They're the ones who decided to draw it." She shuddered and kept her eyes aimed at her stainless steel laptop's screen.

Otto shrugged again and jumped to another directory. He tapped another thumbnail at random and grinned when it filled his browser window. "Ah, that's more like it."

Shakira slumped forward very slightly. "I'd say I don't want to know, but you'd probably just tell me anyway."

"It's a drawing of us having sex. Really well-done, too. The artist didn't make your skin quite dark enough, but other than that, I have no complaints." He grinned and saved the picture.

"Jesus." Shakira took off her glasses and rubbed her hands over her face. "Christ!"

Otto chuckled, moved on to the next file--and grimaced. "Gyaaah! This guy drew both of us all huge and blubbery. Looks like two bags of wet laundry slapping together."

Shakira groaned and facepalmed. "Kill me."

"Come on, we're on a reality show that's being streamed online. Don't tell me you didn't expect stuff like this to happen."

"I didn't. But maybe I should've." She drew her finger idly across her computer's touchpad, leaned forward and frowned, and clicked a link. She shook her head and sneered. "Great. There's an Otto/Shakira shipping thread on the show's message board."

"Ha! I've been expecting something like that to appear." He grinned and opened the message board in a new tab. "I am so bookmarking that one."

Shakira shook her head, closed the browser, and brought up a list of games stored in one of her online accounts. "People are gonna see that crap and think we're really doing it."

"Well, if we ever did, it'd be the best thing that'd ever happened to me."

She narrowed her eyes and flicked a glance at him. He raised his hands.

"I'm just sayin'." The front door opened and he turned, thankful for the distraction. Thoughts of himself and Shakira going at it had begun having a predictable effect on his body, so the sooner something prevented her from noticing the tent-pole, the better.

Jack burst into the room, followed by Corona and Taura.

"Uh-oh," Otto said. "You look like someone pissed in your pool."

Jack grumbled and strode into the dining room, made a sharp right turn and clomped up the stairs.

"It's a work-related thing," Corona said with a sigh. She glanced at her watch. "At least we didn't miss dinner. No need to rush it, though. Taura and I are gonna see if we can cheer Jack up." She grinned and wiggled her brow ridges. "With dessert."

Taura smiled, looked at the floor, and cleared her throat softly. "So, um, if you'll excuse us..." She followed Corona up the stairs.

Oh, boy. Gonna have a ramrod all night, now that I have that image in my head. Otto glanced at Shakira, tried to adjust the front of his pants without being too obvious about it, and stared at his screen. He switched back to another tab and checked his private messages.

His jaw dropped when he opened the first new one and began reading. Okay, that one is pretty much instant Boner-B-Gone.

"What's wrong?" Shakira took a deep breath. "Then again, if it freaks you out, hearing about it will probably destroy my brain."

At that moment, one of their housemates, Dale the Hick, sauntered into the room with a can of beer in one hand, plopped onto the armchair across from the couch, and leaned over to grab the remote from the coffee table.

"Eh." Otto waved a hand at the message on his screen. "Some dirty old man just PM'd me. Said he wants me to come on his face."

Dale barked out a laugh. "Are you serious?"

"Sadly, yes."

"If that's the kind of audience we're attracting," Shakira muttered, "I'm starting to have second thoughts about doing this show."

"Guess I picked the perfect time to walk in." Dale kept laughing, took off his yellow Papé hat, and put it right back on at a slightly different angle. "That's pretty fucked-up."

"No kidding." Otto deleted the message and blocked the sender. "Seriously, you don't want me coming on your face. You'd drown."

Shakira stopped moving. After a solid five seconds, she placed her laptop on the cushion beside her, stood and walked slowly to the window, and contemplated the sunset while covering her mouth with one hand and shaking her head slowly. Her face took on a sort of disconnected, distantly horrified expression, as if she were on the verge of falling into a fugue.

"Shit, kid!" Dale laughed again. "You scared her off!"

"She's out of my league, anyway. I'm not giving up; I just don't have any illusions about my chances."

Dale snorted. "You're life is gonna be pretty sad if some fat chick is out of your league. You gotta have some standards, kid!"

Shakira whirled around and glared at him.

Otto's mouth fell open again. You fucking hillbilly_!_ He reigned himself in and somehow managed to relax his clenched fist. "That's a good one, coming from a guy who spends every night of his pathetic existence getting drunk, watching hermaphrodite porn, and fuckin' a jar of microwaved peanut butter."

Shakira burst out laughing and slumped against the window sill.

Dale stared at Otto, his face going kind of slack, as if part of his brain had shorted out.

Otto placed his scrolltop beside Shakira's computer, leaned forward, and braced his hands on the coffee table.

"I do have standards, you prick. That's why I don't settle for some skank who gets passed around like a bong at a frat party." He picked up his scrolltop, retracted the screen and keyboard into its cylindrical body, and stood. "Unlike some people I know." He slipped the scrolltop into his duffel bag and slung it over his shoulder. "I need to clear my head. Think I'll go for a walk. Care to join me, Shakira?"

"Now that you mention it, I could use some time away from here." She returned to the couch and powered down her laptop.

"Cool." Otto headed for the door, turning to glance at Dale as he reached for the knob. "Try not to dribble chew-juice on the carpet while we're gone."

#

"There she is." Ramirez motioned with her coffee cup at the woman who'd just walked over from the old minivan in the parking lot. "In the blue shirt and jeans." She kept her voice low, just loud enough for Hiro to hear her over the murmur of conversations around them.

Hiro looked over his shoulder and quickly back to his own cup. "The one heading for the counter?"

"Yep." Ramirez shifted her weight and grumbled. "About time, too." The plastic chairs outside this coffee stand had been comfortable enough for the first half hour or so, but after sitting here for nearly four times as long, her ass was practically turning into a chunk of wood.

"Yeah. I've had way too much coffee." He clamped the straw in his beak, finished his mocha, and sighed. "I don't think my bladder's ever been this full before. Granted, my entire lifespan so far has been less than a month, but still..."

Ramirez kept her eyes on their target and tried not to wince at Hiro's mention of his age. Given what had happened between them the night they'd met, and her inability to stay away from him since then--

Keep your mind on the goddamned job. She knocked back the rest of her espresso and watched the woman pay for her coffee and turn to leave. Ramirez pushed her chair back, only then noticing that she and Hiro had been holding hands. She frowned. How long were...oh, hell, don't think about it. She pulled her hand away, reached into her denim jacket's inner pocket, and took out her badge.

"Keep an eye out for anyone following her. I'll try to make contact."

"Sure." Hiro turned to face the street, leaned back, rested his hands on his lap and laced his talons together.

Ramirez walked toward the woman, trying to look casual as she dropped her empty cup into the nearby trash can. "Are you Yolanda Hughes?"

The woman snapped her head around and locked a near-panicked stare onto Ramirez.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you." Ramirez held up her ID. "I'm Lola Ramirez. I work for the Justice Foundation."

"The what? Never heard of it." She quickened her pace.

"It's new. It's sort of a special investigations company. We mostly do freelance work, but we also handle police and government contracts here and there."

Hughes increased her speed even more, almost jogging toward her van.

"I'm not here to give you any trouble, Ms. Hughes. I was just hoping you could answer a few questions."

"About what?" Hughes paused with her hand on the van's door handle and gazed at Ramirez with narrowed eyes.

"Well, it might be kind of awkward to talk about. Could we discuss this in private?"

"No. Right here, right now--in public."

"Okay." Ramirez sighed. "Four months ago, you reported having a weird blackout. Everything went all fuzzy and you couldn't control yourself. You picked up a guy--an anthro--seemingly at random, and you took him home and had sex with him. You couldn't stop it no matter how hard you tried. The police told you that they'd look into it, but they never did. The case was closed. And instead of pursuing the matter further, you've let it drop."

All the color drained from Hughes's face and her expression shifted immediately from suspicion to shock. Ramirez shook her head.

"Take it easy. The reason I'm investigating this is because..." She blushed and flicked a glance at Hiro. "Well, the same thing happened to me a few weeks ago."

A hint of suspicion returned to Hughes's face. Ramirez nodded toward Hiro. She didn't want to get into this out here, where she could be overheard by anyone nearby, but right now it looked like the quickest way to gain this woman's trust was to simply let it rip.

"See that dragon-lookin' kid over there? That's the one I...ended up in bed with."

Hiro waved at her, and she smiled and waved back.

"Uh-huh," Hughes muttered.

"The same thing was done to both of us. We were just going about our own business in separate parts of the city. Then someone slipped up behind me--I know I saw him, but when he looked into my eyes, everything turned all foggy. It was like my brain was wrapped in damp cotton. My body kept moving on its own while my mind watched, helpless, beating its fist against the unbreakable glass between it and my body."

Hughes continued staring at her, mouth and eyes opening wider as the seconds passed. Mixed in with the surprise was more than a hint of recognition.

"Rings a bell, doesn't it?"

Hughes nodded slowly. "My husband didn't believe me. Neither did anyone else. But my husband...that was the worst part. When he found out, he--he left." She looked away and pressed her lips together.

"I'm sorry." Ramirez sighed. "Whoever did this to us, however he did it...it didn't ruin any relationships for me, but it did cost me my job. I was an NCPD detective, but I got tossed out when the higher-ups found out about me and Hiro. Naturally, Internal Affairs didn't believe me." She closed her mouth before she could go any farther. The fact that Hiro was underage could still cause all kinds of trouble for her; the last thing she needed was to make it even worse by bringing it up where any passerby could hear it.

Hughes's jaw dropped again. Ramirez shrugged and took a quick look around to see if anyone had stopped to listen in.

"It probably wasn't as bad for Hiro. He just got laid. But everything leading up to that--being totally helpless and unable to control his own body, walking off somewhere and waiting for me to pick him up, having no idea where he was going or what was happening to him--had to be terrifying. Especially for someone so young." She looked back at Hiro and smiled again. It was almost a reflex. Which brought up another question. "Say...do you still feel an attachment to the guy you did it with?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, like, a residual effect of whatever mental manipulation was used on us. Do you still feel affection for the guy you got thrown together with?"

"No!" Hughes stared at her and shook her head. "Are you nuts?" She shuddered and rubbed her arms. "He was a lot bigger and stronger than I am. Being pinned under him, with those huge, sharp teeth in my face, while he--" She shook herself again. "And this whole thing ruined my marriage."

"Oh. Sorry. I just thought it might've created some sort of link, or something. Thought it might explain why I'm so--" She cut herself off and shook her head. "Well, why did you drop it? Did someone try to intimidate you?"

Hughes shook her head quickly. "If someone can force your body to do something you'd never do, then who knows what else they can do to you?"

"This bastard ruined your family. Help me put him away before he does it to someone else."

"I can't! I just want to move on." Hughes turned back to her van.

"Don't you want to bring this guy to justice?"

"Don't you get it? You know what this bastard can do. If I push this, he'll hurt my son or my parents or my friends--maybe even kill them. It's not worth it." Hughes waved her off and got into her van. "Just leave it alone. Leave me alone."

Hughes started the engine and launched out of the parking lot. Ramirez stared at the van as it receded into the distance, shook her head, and trudged back to her table.

"You gonna be okay?" Hiro placed his hand over hers.

"I guess I should be used to striking out by now."

"Don't lose hope. We haven't spoken with all the victims yet. We could still get lucky."

"Maybe. It's just that this bastard is out there somewhere, probably assaulting other people right now. And there's no way to know when he'll escalate to something even worse than standing there and jerking off while watching his victims screwing."

Hiro nodded and gazed off in the direction Hughes's van had gone. "You know, she was right about one thing. Our perp could've done something far worse to us. We were actually kind of lucky."

"Can't argue with that." Ramirez shuddered. He could've made us rob a bank and give him all the money, or kill someone, or even commit suicide. "But that's why he has to be stopped. Sooner or later, the twisted shit he's been doing won't be enough to get his rocks off."

"I'm not sure what else to do."

She took a deep breath and rubbed her hands over her face. "Shit. I need to stop this son of a bitch, but obsessing over it will just make things worse." She nodded over her shoulder at her car. "Come on, let's go home."