.|. COHERENT COMICS PRESENTS ----X----------------------------------------------------------------------- '|` =====, ======== ====. ===. ======= ======= // // // )) //|| // // ===== // //===< // || //=== //=== // // // \\ //==|| // // `===== o // o // // o // || o // o ======= o Superhuman Tactical Resources and Affiliated-Field Experts original concept by Dave Van Domelen development by Marc Singer and Terrone Carpenter Issue #8, "Femmes Fatales" Part III of THE SLOW BURN by Marc Singer Copyright 1999; a Legacy House production ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Cover shows Burnout, C.J., Bathory, and Cockatrice smiling over the bodies of Dan, Jen, and Hendrick. Smoke trails from C.J.'s cigarette; frosty breath rises from Cockatrice's lips.] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lana Smith crouched in the bathroom. She pressed her hands against the moldy tiles and pushed. Nothing happened. She closed her eyes, trying to screen out the dirty floor and the broken sink and the brownish color that never quite faded from the toilet water. The smell kept pulling all those things back. She gritted her teeth and pushed. Nothing happened. She lifted her hands from the walls, tried to wipe them clean, and ghosted back into the hotel room. Labyrinthe perched on the end of one bed, trying not to touch anything. Conflicto was playing around with the television, trying to coax porn movies out of the defective cable. "Jeez, Burnout," he said. That was her new name. The name she took in the Conclave of Super-Villains. "Couldja take any longer in there? We'd just love to stay in this rathole. Why did we split from Umbrae's hotel?" "Quiet, little boy." The words were bold but her body movements told another story. She lowered her head and hid her face behind a falling wave of hair. "Did you find STRAFE? Especially Brown? Where's Brown?" "You said that was *your* job." Conflicto leaned back and appraised her. "And watch the 'little boy' cracks, Burnsie. You're not much bigger than me, especially with all this binging and purging." He rolled his gaze up and down her thin body, more attracted than he claimed to be. "Let's blow this urine-soaked popsicle stand and get back to sunny Khadam..." "Don't mention leaving again." She jabbed her left hand, intangible, into the center of his forehead. She picked up the television wires with her right. "Or next time I give you the world's most direct cable access." Conflicto bit back his next wisecrack. She turned her back on him. "We find STRAFE. And Brown. That's final." Her skinny form ghosted back through the bathroom door. Then the grunting and the retching started again. * * * * Ground agents rolled the camouflage netting off the clearing seconds before the STRAFE helicopter landed on Ellis Island. The instant the struts touched down, the side door flew open and agents Dan Tracey and Jen Kleinvogel unloaded the stretcher out to the ground crew. Dan and Jen hit the turf and ran alongside the stretcher. They were joined by Ellen Cortes, Milken, Keating...the entire STRAFE base was focused on the horribly burned body of Colonel Richard Hendrick. Dr. Cortes planted an oxygen mask on Hendrick's mouth and watched the LED numbers flashing on the small air tank. "He's alive," she pronounced. "Hang in there, chief," Keating shouted. Like most of the nonpowered field agents, Keating was a SPIRIT veteran and one of Hendrick's hand-picked men. "He can't hear you," Cortes snapped. "It's a miracle he's hanging on at all. Go clear me a path to the operating room." Keating dashed ahead, though he didn't need to...all the STRAFE personnel had already cleared out of the way. Milken dropped back beside Dan and Jen. "What about C.J.?" he said. "Is there any sign of her?" "That." Dan nodded to the blackened body. "That's her sign." The field agents gathered in the command center. One of the monitors showed the medical lab, where Cortes and her Tesla Branch people labored to save Hendrick. Other technicians were preparing painkillers, IV feeds, new skin, and a cryogenic storage tank for his brain...just in case. Jen leaned over and peered into the monitor. "Another one put in the hospital..." Tony Drake was still in Rome, recovering from the bloody New Year's Eve when Burnout shoved a bomb into his stomach. Jay Teller was still on leave, visiting him; they had both been recalled, but wouldn't arrive for many hours. That, and C.J.'s defection, meant she and Dan were the only paranormal agents left on duty. STRAFE still had a dozen non-powered field agents on Ellis Island, and they were listening to Dan intently. Dan leaned back against a console and said, "Here's the story. Colonel Hendrick was investigating the murders of several New York paragangers. He discovered the murderer was our colleague C.J. Brown..." "Knew we couldn't trust her," grumbled Sullivan, a ruddy-faced man whose muscles strained against his black commando outfit. "...who has been possessed by an enemy psi named Tyra Dumont," Dan finished. "The late Tyra Dumont. Fortunately, Colonel Hendrick transmitted his casebook to me before she attacked him." He held his pocket computer aloft for them all to see. "Lieutenant Kleinvogel and I found him..." ...The Tombs was on fire. The late-night skeleton crew was still oblivious, stunned by Tyra Dumont's mental domination, as the STRAFE agents ran through the burning halls. They found Hendrick down in the holding cells, across from two dead cyborgs, flailing, screaming... "...but Dumont had already gone. Hendrick deduced, accurately, that Dumont was taking revenge on anyone she held responsible for the death of her original body. Now that her new body is exposed, she's probably going to try to kill all the remaining paragangers on her list in one explosion of violence. And we're going to be there waiting for her." Keating paused from his task of strapping on new guns and looked at his fellow agents. "Let's do this one for the chief." "Hold on," Dan said. "I consider C.J. to be almost as much a victim in this as Hendrick. She's to be captured alive...and remember, there's a dangerous psionic in there. She can easily grab other puppets; signs of possession are a constant humming, and possibly increased appetite to maintain the psionic link. Dumont also has access to C.J.'s fire control powers. She still can't create flames, so don't give her any to work with. Non-combustive weapons only." "You think she'll come in if we ask her nicely?" Keating sneered. With Hendrick down, Dan was the ranking agent on Ellis, but he sensed the other men lining up behind Keating. They were taking Hendrick's burning as the most personal kind of attack. Dan decided to shift tactics; any further reminders of his authority would only play into Keating's maverick- cop-sassing-the-captain fantasy. "Do you think you're better than the Colonel?" Dan growled. "What?" "I said, do you think you're better than the Colonel? Because the Colonel went up against her alone and she put him on a stretcher. She'll put you in the morgue, Keating...unless you're better than the Colonel. So are you? Or are you following orders?" Keating clearly wanted to say something back, but that would only make him look worse to the other agents. Dan said, "I thought not. Okay, we're forming three squads. Rohe." The woman snapped to attention. "Take a couple agents and guard the island. Use Stockard." The company anchor could suppress paranormal abilities; he was on the island guarding Burnout's baby, and Hendrick had thought Burnout was another Dumont puppet. "Sullivan. Build a combat team and scout out Bathory and Cockatrice...they'll almost certainly be the last names on Dumont's list. Keating and Milken. You're with Jen and me." He only let his mask of stern confidence drop after he'd turned to look at the med-lab monitor. "We're a little shorthanded." * * * * The grunting ended with a sustained, painful cry. The thin bathroom door couldn't hide the stench of bowels and vomit. Conflicto had just about decided to leave the flophouse when Burnout ghosted through the wall. She looked even paler and more emaciated than before, if that was possible. "Bathory!" she said. "We need to find Bathory!" "Whoa...we're gonna pick a fight with Bathory?" "No," she said, "*they* are." * * * * It was only three o'clock in the morning, and they were already running out of names. The STRAFE helicopter was going to drop Dan's squad at the Bowery for a run on Supernaut, the last of the Cyber-Nostra Rangers, until they caught the police report. Supernaut had been found in Sister Christian's cathedral-cum- vice den, impaled partway through a stained glass window. Apparently, his cybernetics had melted and flowed over the picture of Mister Right, while his onboard speakers blared a final chord. Then the squad hit Greenwich Village, but nobody could tell them where to find Paul Marko and the Fifth Avenue Snakeaters, their erstwhile partners in a treaty C.J. had hated. Washington Square Park was already being reclaimed by a jubilant Onyx Eye Brotherhood Association. They tried midtown next, and found a pack of Snow Leopards dead at the foot of the World Building. It looked like it had been a long drop. Their first real lead came with the reports of fires in Central Park. That wasn't new ...the park had been one of the first areas to fall to paragangers...but these fires were large and strangely well-behaved. Dan, Jen, Milken, and Keating hopped into their unmarked car and ran every red light on Madison. "We keep missing her," Dan said. His knuckles were white from his grip on the steering wheel. "If only Hendrick hadn't gone after her alone... I was investigating the murders, too." Keating leaned over from the back seat. "Angry because he beat you to her?" he asked. "Because he didn't trust us," Dan said. Keating shrugged. "Obviously, he couldn't trust *one* of you." They screeched to a halt near the art museum. Paragangers ran out of the park as they ran in it...neither side stopped for the other. The STRAFE agents pushed through a stand of trees, dropped down a granite outcropping, and arrived at the party. "That's Sarah Kimball, the muscle," Dan said, pointing to a woman fused into a tree, "and this would be Tristan Mann, the teleporter," he added, stepping over a headless body. The party had been centered around a loose circle of rocks which contained a large pit fire. It must have been a barbecue; the grass around the circle was littered with thawing carcasses of cows and pigs. More Snakeater bodies lay scattered among them. Paul Marko was stuck half- shifted into lizard form, burning with a hideous stench in the middle of the circle. He had been stuck on a spit. "So much for the treaty," Milken quipped. He pulled out his cell-phone and hit the speed-dial. "Only one target left, really. I'll tell Sullivan to expect us uptown." He waited with the receiver to his ear; the firelight showed his face growing more and more anxious. Milken lowered the phone and said, "He's not answering." * * * * "Tell me where your base is, god damn it!" Burnout heaved Sullivan over the railing. It looked strange, the little woman tossing the huge man around; she did it by partially ghosting him, nullifying most of his mass. His full weight returned when he hung off the brownstone's fire escape, with only Burnout's two pipe-cleaner arms to keep him from falling. The alley beneath him was filled with dead bodies. Sullivan's squad had been fighting some Snow Leopards, and winning, when the three Conclavers showed up. He'd called for back-up but Labyrinthe beamed the radio waves into space, watching indifferently as Conflicto finished off his men. Sullivan still wasn't frightened. "You can go to hell, lady. The fall doesn't scare me." "It isn't the fall that'll kill you. It's the waiting." She ghosted half of her fingers, leaving Sullivan hanging by only two from each hand. Burnout jerked under the strain and almost dropped him. "Now this is the Burnout we know and fear," Conflicto joked. "You're getting off easy, pal. She could be phasing nasty things into your digestive tract. Like these White Castle burgers." He frowned and tossed the bag off the fire escape, bouncing it onto Sullivan's head. Burnout ghosted him, but only barely, so the bag fell through him with a dangerous slowness. "*Talk*," she hissed. Sullivan smiled, suddenly freed from all fear. "Never." "Even 'never' can end," she said, "after you hit the pavement and stick halfway in." She ghosted herself, so the fire escape no longer supported her, and they both fell. Conflicto issued a burst of high-pitched laughter. He stopped when a dark blur shot into the alley, flying right past the falling figures. It snatched Sullivan out of Burnout's grip and rose above roof level, where the moonlight illuminated it: Jen Kleinvogel. Dan Tracey, Milken, and Keating appeared on the roof of the opposite brownstone, firing down at the Conclavers. The bullets passed harmlessly through Burnout. Labyrinthe constructed a warp field that kept him and Conflicto from getting gunned down, but they were still effectively pinned by the hail of bullets richocheting off the metal railings and ladders around them. "Merde!" the mage hissed. "C'mon, Labby," Conflicto whined, "the two of us alone can whup these guys into next Monday!" "It's not that," Labyrinthe said. "We have company." A dozen shadows detached themselves from the walls and corners of the brownstones around them. Tall and graceful, with humanoid bodies and feline heads, the shadows quickly scaled the walls. Conflicto did a double-take, more for Labyrinthe's benefit than any real need. "Snow Leopards!" "Not just the Snow Leopards, little boy." Even at a low purr, the deep, feminine voice somehow cut through the STRAFE gunfire. "Their royalty." The second woman was less careful about hiding her location. She strolled across the entrance to the alleyway, proudly showing off her tight winter suit: white leather with ermine trim and a sled-driver's whip coiled tautly around one arm. She looked like Jack London's wet dream. "What a lovely surprise, Bathory," she said, her breath forming a cloud of frost. "We come out to meet the Combine's killers, and find the bastards who kidnapped me." Cockatrice fluttered her eyelashes, and the fire escape turned to ice. Labryinthe and Conflicto weren't on it. They'd jumped off a second before, landing hard on a pile of garbage in the dumpster beneath them. The STRAFE agents leaned over the ledge of the building. Milken and Keating still tried to plug the Conclavers while Dan laid down suppressive fire to hold back the rising ranks of Snow Leopard shapeshifters. Jen dropped Sullivan on the STRAFE rooftop and plunged back into the alley, trying to dive-bomb Burnout. Conflicto could still see her from inside the dumpster; the air's coefficient of friction skyrocketed, slowing Jen's dive to a crawl. Conflicto chuckled, until he saw the dumpster turn to ice around him. Labyrinthe grabbed him by his costume's garish collar. "Let's go." The dumpster realigned itself around them, so that its open lid was on the side and led out to the rooftop behind the STRAFE agents. They dove through just as Snow Leopard claws shattered the brittle dumpster. Dan picked up a slight breaking noise behind him and turned just as Conflicto and Labyrinthe teleported onto the roof. He spun and fired, sending them ducking behind a ventilator tower for cover. "I don't like this," Dan shouted into his wire-microphone. "Where's C.J.?" "She's got Smith doing her dirty work for her," Keating said. He leaned over the ledge and fired another shot, nailing a wereleopard in the throat. "But Tracey's right," Milken argued, "if everyone else is here, where's she..." He screamed and recoiled from the ledge. He dropped his suddenly- cold gun to the tarmac, where it shattered into a thousand shards of ice. "This is a trap," Dan said. "For all of us. Jen, get us out of here!" Jen reversed the direction of her anti-gravity field, squeezing her up and out of Conflicto's high-friction blockade like a seed from a grape. She buzzed the roof, lowering her arms. Milken and Sullivan grabbed on and she pulled them across the street. Dan and Keating stood back to back, firing. Sooner or later, the Conclavers would teleport around them, or one of them would have to reload.... Dan dropped his gun, spun around, and grabbed Keating. Keating kept firing behind him at Snow Leopards until Dan barked, "Knock it off or you'll hit one of us!" Dan ran for the edge of the roof, pushing Keating ahead of him. Both the Snow Leopards and Conclavers were chasing them now. Ahead were a thin television antenna, a ledge, and a five-story drop. Dan leaned into his wire-mike and whispered, "Ready for pickup in three, Jen." Wereleopards snarled behind them. Dan shifted Keating under his left arm, grabbed the antenna with his right, and jumped off the building. The antenna bent under their weight, about to the level of the ledge. At precisely the moment when it couldn't budge any further, Dan shifted his weight and his grip, using the tension in the antenna and the sudden change of balance to slingshot them back upwards. The antenna snapped him and Keating up into the air. Where an unburdened Jen Kleinvogel swept them up and carried them across the street. In less than a second she dove below roof level and the STRAFE agents were gone. The Conclavers and Snow Leopards stood on the roof watching them. "Wow," Conflicto said. Then they remembered they were still standing next to each other. * * * * They dropped Sullivan off at a medical clinic. It was legit, not an underworld hospital or a cybernetic chop-shop. Sullivan would be perfectly safe as long as he didn't flash his badge: the doctors, who routinely bought black-market drugs and supplies that the Combine would no longer ship into Manhattan, might panic and bolt while he bled on the operating table. The other STRAFE agents took the opportunity to catch their breath, sitting on a bench outside the emergency room. "So Brown wasn't there," Keating said. "I don't get it. She kept moving uptown. Everything pointed to Bathory and Cockatrice being last on her list." "Exactly," Dan said. "She wanted us out of the way. The question is, why?" "So she could leave the island?" Jen suggested. "Then she could just hook up with Labyrinthe and be in Madagascar. The Conclave was as surprised by that fight as we were." He tapped his chin lightly. "So what could she want that has nothing to do with the Conclave?" Jen straightened her spine, practically shot off the bench. "The baby. Burnout's baby. C.J. was giving him a lot of attention. Hendrick even mentioned it in his casebook..." Milken completed Jen's reaction for her, standing straight up with the sick realization forming a knot in his stomach. "She knows all our security." He stared at the hospital gurneys as if seeing ghosts...not of those already dead, but those who soon would be. "We've got to get to Ellis." They jumped into the first ambulance they saw and hit the sirens. * * * * "Okay," Labyrinthe pouted, "this is getting ridiculous." Another Snow Leopard slid past him, skidding across the rooftop and over the ledge. Its howls reverberated for a second, then ended abruptly. "I can't find Burnout anywhere," the mage said. "Then screw her!" Conflicto tried to pretend nothing was wrong, but his snappy patter had taken a turn for the coarse and sweat was pouring down his forehead. He had fought most of the battle on the smashed, devastated rooftop while Labyrinthe searched for their ally. The deciding factor came when the entire building under them started turning into ice. "I have decided you are correct," Labyrinthe announced. Conflicto increased their friction so they wouldn't slip as the icy tenement crumbled underneath them, while Labyrinthe opened a portal. "Next stop, sunny Khadam." They jumped through. "And when _la folle_ wants to leave, she can damn well telephone us." The commandeered ambulance pulled up to the docks near Battery Park. The STRAFE agents jumped out and searched for a suitable boat. None of them saw the skinny female form that dropped down from the underside of the ambulance. * * * * "She must have gone after the communications first," Keating said as he worked the outboard motor. "Even the national office couldn't raise Ellis. No way to get a copter." "I wonder if they know she's there," Milken said. "Or if she's..." "Assume we have no help," Dan said coldly. "She's had quite a head start. Run straight for the nursery. And Keating," Dan cautioned, "we're taking her *alive*." "If possible," he grumbled. He didn't sound like a believer. The boat pulled up to the Ellis Island mooring dock. They didn't bother circling around to the camouflaged boat pen, they just used the abandoned ferry dock and hopped up on the pier. They ran faster once they heard the screaming. * * * * Another pillar of flame rolled into the nursery. The cohesion and control of the flames disappeared once they entered the room, thanks to Stephen Stockard, the STRAFE agent with the little anchor stencilled on his badge; but the flames themselves didn't. "That flamethrower is going to kill the kid, too!" Stockard shouted. "Christ, shut up," whispered Rohe. She was the only other STRAFE agent in the nursery...possibly the only other living one on the island. "Maybe she *wants* to kill the kid." Stockard wrinkled his handsome features in displeasure. "Maybe she will either way, if we don't do something." The flames were designed to die instantly without their fuel, but they were starting to catch on bits of wood and cloth in the nursery. The infant Carl Smith could sense the heat and smoke and was crying furiously. "Look, Brown is possessed by a psionic, right? If I can catch her in my anchor effect, I'll nullify the psi and free her. I can save her *and* the kid." Rohe tapped her earphone and shrugged. "I'm still not raising any back-up. How do you want to do this?" "Cover me." He rolled out from behind the playpen and dragged himself furiously on his elbows and knees to the door. Rohe popped above the cradle and fired several shots through the nursery door, sending baby Carl into an even louder crying fit. The flames stopped and Stockard ran through the door, aiming his gun at their attacker. He shouted, "Free...!" He didn't bother finishing. The flamethrower was in the hands of Agent Johnson, who hummed some happy tune. "The Andy Griffith Show," perhaps. He blinked and stumbled as Stockard's anchor effect enveloped him. Stockard looked for C.J. Brown, but it was too late. Standing far down the hall, wrapped in a red leather trenchcoat, C.J. smiled and shot him five times with a perfectly ordinary gun. Stockard spun in midair before he slammed into the wall, and then the floor. Above him, Johnson was priming the flamethrower once again. The last thing Stephen Stockard heard was "The Andy Griffith Show," hummed merrily in two different keys. * * * * Dan's squad found the support staff blockaded inside the medical lab. Some of the technicians were still operating on Hendrick. Dr. Cortes was trying to assemble a radio out of spare parts. "I think she went to the nursery," Cortes shouted from behind the upturned gurneys. They didn't really need to check the nursery, once they saw the charrred body lying outside the door. "Stockard," Jen said, with sympathy. "He got one hell of a babysitting gig." Keating ducked his head inside the nursery. "Empty. The kid's gone." "She'll try to leave the island," Dan said. "Jen, Milken, take the helicopter. Keating, you and I will check the boat pen." Keating angrily worked the slide on his automatic pistol. "But she'll take the copter...!" "That's an order. Stay in radio contact, people! *Move*!" * * * * When Jen and Milken reached the clearing, the camouflage netting was burning and the helicopter had just taken off. The side door slid open and a woman leaned out. "C.J.," Milken shouted, "you've got to fight her!" Jen tackled Milken and they both rolled out of the way as a wild burst of flame lanced into the spot where he'd been standing. "I don't think she's listening," Jen said. She left Milken huffing on the ground and she rocketed into the sky. C.J. fired twice more, but Jen easily slipped around the ragged jets of burning fuel. She pulled up under the helicopter, gambling that C.J. couldn't spot her down there and wouldn't risk hitting the fuel tanks. "Dumont," Jen muttered. "It's *Dumont*." "What was that?" Milken said over her headset. "Just reminding myself. You better take cover." She and the helicopter had both cleared Ellis Island and were racing toward Manhattan, but with C.J.'s powers involved Jen really didn't know how this was going to go down. She flew up the right side of the helicopter, opposite the side Dumont was firing from. Jen cut a wide berth around the spinning rotors, sliding across the top of the copter. Then she spun down and back through the open side door, increasing her gravity field and directing it laterally to slam C.J. with all of her might. Only it wasn't C.J. It was Agent Rohe, carrying C.J.'s flamethrower. Rohe was slammed against the far wall of the helicopter, with a broken nose and blood pouring down her face, but she was laughing. So was the copter's pilot, Agent Johnson. Jen glanced and saw the bright red numbers blinking on the timing device sitting in the cockpit. * * * * When they'd gotten Jen's and Milken's message, Agent Keating wanted to turn around and dash for the airfield. Now he was glad Dan hadn't let him. They were heading for the only remaining escape route. To conceal its presence in New York, STRAFE kept its boats hidden in an underground pen. The pen had once been a sewer main, until the Tesla Branch converted it and renovated the underground passageways that led to it. Dan and Keating crept through those passageways, guns drawn, lights out. The only noise was a steady dripping off the mossy rock walls...and, as they drew closer to the boat pen, the steady lapping of waves echoing off cave walls. And a woman, humming a lullaby. Dan paused at the door to peer through the tiny porthole. He spotted C.J. untying the fastest microfoil speedboat. Carl Smith, tucked into a carrying chair, watched peacefully. Dan touched the circular door handle with one finger and spun it gently. Slowly. But hopefully not so slowly that it would emit a rusty creak... The handle stopped turning and the door popped open. "Okay," Dan whispered. "We're taking her on three. One..." Keating kicked the door open and burst into the boat pen. He swung his gun up at C.J.'s chest and screamed, "This is for the chief, you murderous bitch!" Dan tackled Keating. He was too late. Keating pulled the trigger. If he had been using a tranq-dart pistol like Dan's, one that worked on compressed air, he might have gotten her. But Keating's gun needed to spark the powder in order to fire. And Carol Jackson Brown's body controlled fire. The gun misfired and blew back in Keating's face. A piece of shrapnel shot through his eye; he was dead before he knew what happened. Dan fell to the metal grille walkway as Keating's body tumbled into the water. C.J. raised her own handguns and laughed. She was framed against the open archway that led to the Upper Bay and freedom. At that moment, an explosion lit the sky and water behind her a vivid orange. "That would be your friends dying," C.J. informed him. She had him dead to rights, with her guns trained on him while he sprawled face-down on the damp grille, but Dan figured he could flip into the water faster than she could adjust... Then Burnout ghosted down through the curved ceiling of the sewer main. Dan estimated he had less than thirty seconds to live. Until C.J. screamed, "You!" and kicked the microfoil into full throttle. The boat reared up and charged out the archway. Burnout tumbled into the boat as it passed under her. C.J. fired at Burnout, but the shot passed through her and knocked a hole in the windshield. Dan watched in astonishment for a half-second, then hopped into the nearest boat and chased after them. Burnout grabbed the chair that held her child and jumped overboard. The waify girl didn't look like a strong swimmer, and she struggled to keep the chair and the screaming baby above water. C.J. spun her microfoil sideways and looked like she was thinking about circling around to catch Burnout. Then she saw Dan gunning his boat towards her. C.J. laughed and throttled her boat, cruising up the Hudson River. Dan steered with one hand and raised his gun with the other. Aiming over the bouncing waves would be difficult... Then Jen's voice cut in over his headset. "Dan, she planted bombs! Evac at seven o'clock!" He looked back over his left shoulder and saw Jen's dark blur racing towards him. He held up a hand and she plucked him out of the boat; seconds later, it exploded. The ball of flame was smaller than its partner on the other side of Ellis Island, but an impressive gout of flame and debris also shot out of the sewer main. "I got Rohe and Johnson out," Jen said, "but the copter's trashed. I'm the only one who can chase Dumont." She looked to Dan, expecting the order. Dan looked down at the multiple explosions, the burning buildings, and the dead agents. "We cut our losses," he sighed. "We let C.J. go. And we catch the puppet we *can* catch." * * * * The STRAFE agents...what few remained...gathered on the thin, oil- splattered strip of beach near the boat pen. A few of them monitored Agents Johnson and Rohe, making sure they stayed heavily tranquilized. Dr. Cortes manned the jury-rigged radio, trying frantically to reach anyone. Dawn broke from the other side of the island. Milken walked up the beach to the sewer main. A fire still raged inside the boat pen, burning on a layer of gasoline and oil and sending vile smoke pouring out of the archway. This was the closest they could approach. "I'm sorry about Keating," Dan said. "Kane," Milken answered. "Roger Kane was his name. And on this mission...he should have been Olmstead." "Olmstead? The landscape architect?" "And I'm Mulholland." He took off his hat and, with a toss of the forearm, snapped it into the burning oil. "What a shitty fucking epitaph." Then all the agents snapped to attention and focused on the water. A thin, bedraggled figure was dog-paddling her way up the surf. Jen Kleinvogel hovered above her, shepherding her; she'd already plucked Carl away from her grasp. The girl crawled ashore and coughed for breath. When she looked up, she found herself staring into the barrels of a dozen guns. "Burnout of the Conclave of Super-Villains," Agent Mulholland hissed, "you are under arrest." "Lana Smith," she gasped. "My name is Lana Smith." * * * * The body of Carol Jackson Brown walked the streets of New York, stoking the barrels of burning trash that lit the night. The mind of Tyra Dumont watched the chaos, admiring the flames that chased off the wretched and the weak. "Burnout," she purred. "My name is Burnout." THE END =========================================================================== Next Issue: Tony and Teller return, and Tony doesn't like his new partner. The Slow Burn is over...the Bonfire has just begun. =========================================================================== Notes: Bathory and Paul Marko created by Matt Rossi. Lana Smith, Conflicto, Labyrinthe, Cockatrice, and Tyra Dumont/Mr. Strings created by Tony Pi. STRAFE #8 written by and Copyright 1999 Marc Singer. A Legacy House production.