Like most large hospitals in major cities, Townsville General has a media center. It is a place for the press to work; the reporters asking questions and the TV crews filming. There is always a visiting dignitary or celebrity who needs emergency treatment, or a high-profile crime or disaster that sends dozens here for help. In short, there is always a story of some sort and usually a press conference to accompany it. The hospital employed a fully-trained surgeon, who had lost the use of a hand in an accident, to field those questions. Depressed over the loss of his career, he had taken to his new one with gusto, and soon became as adept at reading media-types as he was at reading a patient's chart. He had a good rapport with them, but also knew they were there for one thing, a thing that was not always in the best interest of the hospital's patients. A story. That often meant unwanted publicity, attention, bother. He knew when to make himself scarce, and now was one of those times. The nature of Bubbles' illness was a closely-guarded secret.

It was in this room that Sara Bellum now sat, speaking to her boss, the Mayor of Townsville. She had it to herself on this Thursday morning at just after eleven. The room had a podium at the front with an attached microphone. Behind it on the wall was the hospital logo. To either side of the logo were screens built into the wall, where slides, photos, x-rays, etc. could be displayed and their contents explained. In the center of the room were five rows of long tables with benches, similar to a small lecture hall. Telephones sat every few feet on the tabletops. Underneath were a mass of wiring and outlets for electronic equipment to be plugged in. In the back and along the sides of the room was plenty of space to set up TV cameras and lights. Sara sat in the back row.

Reasonably certain that the city was safe, for now, she hung up. She had kept the truth of the situation from the old man, not trusting his ability to understand completely, or to keep quiet about it and not send the city into a panic. She thought for a moment about just how to break the news to a dear friend in the next few minutes, someone she had known since grade school, and then dialed the number that only she knew; the one that would connect her to the Powerpuff hotline. The special phone would ring in three places: In the professor's car, which was sitting empty in the hospital lot, at the girls' house, where she hoped Buttercup and the professor hadn't arrived yet, and one more place. Pokey Oaks Kindergarten.

* * * * * * *

Matt LeBeau was a young man with a plan. Just 25 and only a year out of graduate school with a Master's in communications, he was new to Townsville. And if he had anything to say about it, he wouldn't be here long, either. No more than a few years, tops. He was bright, energetic, ambitious?and ruthless. This last quality, he believed, was essential for any reporter. Nothing should stand in the way of getting the story. And of getting to the top, which was where he was going to get, sooner rather than later. The only thing that stood in his way of doing just that was the one thing he had absolutely no control over: His looks. He was as plain as vanilla. He would be overlooked in any gathering of people, and this was a good thing for a reporter; to be able to go unnoticed and observe, unobtrusively. But that wasn't what he wanted to be. He wanted the fame and pay that went with being a TV anchorman on the nightly news, and his plainness was a huge obstacle to achieving that. His was a face that would never get noticed by the network brass, but by clawing his way to the top by being the best investigative reporter there was, he would earn his way into an anchorman's role. Once there, his face would be seen and eventually accepted by millions.

Townsville was the first step in achieving that goal. When it came time to apply for jobs, he'd searched around the country for the best place to start. Townsville had more big news stories per capita than anywhere else, thanks to its superheroine trio, and big news stories were what attracted him like bees to clover. He'd only been with KZIX for a few months but already had wormed his way into the good graces of its longtime anchor, Stanley Whitfield. LeBeau's keen instincts had landed him several scoops, scoops which he had dropped squarely into Whitfield's lap. Stanley was widely respected in the field, and was LeBeau's fast track out of Townsville. Whitfield was no fool and planned on keeping his status as number one anchor in Townsville for a long time to come yet. The arrival on the scene of a young, ambitious and more-than-competent reporter represented a threat to that, so a few good words to friends in the journalistic community and that reporter was off to a bigger city. They would never look back, and Stanley's place was secure. LeBeau knew that track record and was counting on the same happening for him.

LeBeau's internal reporter's antennae were twitching with the sense that a huge story, possibly the biggest to ever hit Townsville, was in the making. When the news broke the night before that Bubbles was in the hospital, he, along with his colleagues on the staffs of Townsville's other TV and radio stations and the print media, dashed for Townsville General. They were disappointed when there was no news conference, only a short prepared press release stating that the Powerpuff was being treated for dehydration due to the flu and was resting comfortably.

"False alarm." the others had said, and they'd all left. When he routinely checked back at the hospital's information desk the next morning, he wasn't surprised to learn that Bubbles was still a patient, but he was startled to see Professor Utonium enter the lobby with his other two daughters and the mayor's assistant, Bellum. LeBeau had been in Townsville long enough to know that the sisters were inseparable, so letting Blossom and Buttercup skip school was no big surprise, but what was Bellum doing there? Yes, she WAS a family friend, but it sent a warning flag up that this was something more serious than dehydration. Once they had passed to the hospital interior, he'd quietly walked to a couch in the waiting area, sat, and called Stanley at the station, on his cell phone. Once advised, Whitfield thanked him for the tip and suggested he hang around and try to find out more. Lebeau in turn suggested that a crew hang around the hospital entrance to see whomever else might come and go, and Whitfield agreed to do that. It was that crew that had spotted the green-eyed Powerpuff leaving the hospital with her father.

LeBeau had considered it routine, and only proper technique, to check back at the hospital in person, and he wondered why none of the 'competition had done the same. The reason for that was, he hadn't been around Townsville long enough to understand the dynamic that existed between the city and its heroes. The other reporters had, and were a part of it themselves. To them, it seemed impossible that something really serious would ever happen to one of the girls and were treating this as routine. They had accepted the short press release on its face. What LeBeau didn't know was that each of his colleagues covering the story HAD called the hospital, only to be told that Bubbles was still 'resting comfortably'. It wasn?t anything big. They would check back by phone again later in the day, if the more likely event of Bubbles showing up with her sisters at a crime or disaster didn't come first.

LeBeau had learned that being unremarkable in appearance had a benefit: Nobody noticed you. And he had also learned that the secret in staying unnoticed was in the way you behaved. Crooks, especially, got away with things because they acted like they belonged where they weren't supposed to be. Put your average citizen in that situation and they LOOKED guilty. They gave themselves away. LeBeau had practiced this art and was able to go just about anywhere by acting as though he belonged there. He'd spent the morning casing the hospital, walking its hallways and observing details most would miss. He'd not been challenged once. In his pale blue cotton shirt, narrow dark blue tie and chinos, he looked exceedingly ordinary. One interesting thing of note to him was where the janitors' supply closets were. There was, of course, the large central supply area which served as the base for the hospital's maintenance, but scattered throughout the building were small cubbyholes with doors, that were large enough to fill, empty and rinse a mop bucket from a sink inside. They were also large enough to change clothes in, and Lebeau had found several with janitor's coveralls hanging on hooks. From time to time, he would step into a men's room and jot down notes.

He had tried to find out the location of Bubbles room but that was not being disclosed. After an hour of walking every regular patient wing, he'd seen nothing to indicate the presence of any of the group he was looking for. That meant, most likely, they were all in one of the pediatric wings for seriously ill children. These areas, while not as restricted as the Intensive Care units, did have more nurses running around, so a bit more caution was required. He returned to the lobby and stopped into the adjacent gift shop. He bought the cheapest stuffed animal he found there and took it with him back to take the elevator to the second-floor pediatric wing. He didn't relish the thought of having to check all fourteen floors, but he caught a break. At just a few minutes after nine, he was halfway between the two nurses' stations of his first stop when he heard a doctor being paged, a Dr. Waldman. Half a minute later, he was nearly run over by two men, both in doctor's white coats, who suddenly approached from the main, interior station. One of the men he recognized as Professor Utonium. Unseen, he stayed behind them. They turned the bend at the second station. Pretending to look down at the toy in his hand as he passed the station, he saw what he'd been hoping to see: Above the door to a room on the right hand side, a light was lit, and outside stood Utonium, looking up at the light. LeBeau was too far away to read the man's look. Approaching him was Bellum and behind her was the red-haired Powerpuff, Blossom, standing on the floor with her arms wrapped around the green-clad Buttercup. They all appeared to be quite distraught.

He looked at the number on the door of the room he was nearest and mentally counted down to where they stood. Now knowing where Bubbles was, LeBeau quietly backed away, repeating the name 'Waldman' to himself. He didn't know if the name matched this doctor, but he would in a matter of minutes. Unnoticed, he left the stuffed toy at the nurses' station on the way out. Down the stairs to the first floor and back out to the waiting area and the hospital directory. It was an interactive video display, where you could select a physician's name from an alphabetically arranged list, and the selected doctor's picture and a brief bio would come up on the screen. He selected the name 'Waldman'.

"Bingo!" The name matched the face he'd just seen. Then he did a double-take. "Oncology?! Holy smokes!"

Without bothering to walk over to the couches, he whipped out his cell phone and punched in Whitfield's number. "Stanley, you sitting down? This is huge, Stanley. She's being seen by an oncologist, name's Adam Waldman. That's right, oncologist, no joke."

Whitfield told him that he would try to confirm it after giving LeBeau ten minutes, and that he would be standing by with a crew. He asked LeBeau to keep observing. LeBeau hung up and returned his attention to the video display. He punched in the name, 'Johns', for Dr. Timothy Johns, the hospital's Director of Information, officially. He was the one who dealt with the press. LeBeau pressed the keypad that showed the location on a map of Johns' second-floor office, and took off in that direction.

* * * * * * *

Dr. Timothy Johns, a man of 47, stood and stretched his short frame, running his nerve-damaged left hand through his graying blonde hair. He no longer practiced medicine but he still wore a white coat, open today over his white shirt, maroon tie and grey slacks. He sighed and sat once more in his office, not at all looking forward to the task at hand. He was charged with preparing a statement with what little information he'd been given. He'd been apprised of the seriousness of the situation with Bubbles, but things were happening so rapidly he didn't know how serious. But even with what he had, he could see that it was going to be the most unpleasant experience he would have in this job. It was inconceivable, what he was looking at. But there had been no pressure from the media at all. That was about to change. The phone on his desk rang and he picked it up.

"Johns. Oh, hello, Stanley."

"Tim, when were you going to break this to us?"

Uh, oh. Someone knew, but how?

"Break what, Stanley?"

"About a patient of yours that's being seen by a pediatric cancer specialist."

Yep, Stanley knew, all right.

"Stan, if you're referring to Bubbles, yes, she was seen by an oncologist, but all I can tell you is that she is still undergoing tests and I can't confirm or deny any other aspects of her stay here."

"What's her condition?"

"Unchanged from last night. She's resting comfortably." Which was technically still true. Patients in a coma usually showed no outward signs of physical distress.

"All right, Tim, but if there's anything more to this, we and the people have a right to know."

"Yeah, but no one's interests are served if this place is crawling with reporters. Except yours." Johns wanted to say but didn't. "Don?t worry, Stan, you'll be the first to know."

He hung up. That was one way of controlling the media frenzy. Feed one source, who would prefer to get the scoop and keep that info from his colleagues. Once Whitfield ran with something, the rest would descend on Townsville General like a pack of hungry wolves, but for now, he would have some time to prepare. But if Whitfield knew what he did, something, or someone, was afoot here inside the hospital. He picked up the phone and dialed hospital security.

* * * * * * *

Fortunately for LeBeau, Johns' office had a clear vertical pane of glass alongside the door with the doctor's name and title on it. He casually sipped from a drinking fountain across the hall, then stopped to tie each of his shoes, all the while keeping an eye Johns, who was on the phone with someone. LeBeau guessed that it was Whitfield, judging from the annoyed expression on Johns' face. Then he saw the man hang up, and with a determined look, pick up the receiver again and punch four numbers. Four numbers. An in-house call. Security. Lebeau quickly looked both ways, saw no one, and rapidly made his way to the staircase that led down to the first floor. He knew that when he got there, the hallway to the left made a T with another, and that the hallway that was the right branch of that T intersected with the one where the security office was located. He made his way to the T and looked down that right turn, knowing that if he saw no one, whatever detail had been sent was off to another part of the hospital. But if they came into view as they rushed through the intersection, that meant they were headed in the direction of the pediatric wing. Sure enough, three men in blue shirts and black pants trimmed in gold zipped by. Three, he guessed, meant one at each of the two entrances to the wing, and a third to be stationed outside Bubbles' room. No matter, he wasn't going back there anyway. His next stop was the media center, to observe. Perhaps Stanley's call would spur some activity there, in the form of setting up for a press conference.

He'd passed by the door to the room twice already during his earlier rounds of the facility, and both times the door had been open and the lights turned off. Now, as he approached, he could see the door was closed and a sliver of light came through the crack at the bottom. He recognized the voice of Sara Bellum coming from inside. Carefully, he turned the handle, and found the door to be locked from the inside. He knew there was a janitor's closet just around the corner so he went to it, and luckily, this one had a set of coveralls and even better, the mop bucket was already full. He threw the clothes on over his own and found they fit his smallish 5' 7" rather nicely. He rolled the bucket over to just outside the medai room and began a slow mop while trying to listen in through the closed door.

"Yes, Mayor. Black, three sugars...yes, I'm sure'no, cream and NO sugar is how I drink it!"

LeBeau grinned. How did the guy keep getting elected time after time?

"Yes, Mayor, I'll be sure to tell her. 'Bye."

He stiffened, ready to move if he heard her walking to the door. Instead, he heard a loud sigh and a pause.

"Hello, Jennifer? It's Sara..."

He had no idea who Jennifer was. Probably someone else in the office she was telling to keep an eye on the old goat.

"Jen, I know you can't do anything until school lets out, but get here as soon as you can..."

"Jennifer...yeah, Jennifer Keane, that's their kindergarten teacher..."

He listened, stunned, while Sara quickly and as best she could without breaking down, explained the gravity of the situation. He heard the woman's voice catch a few times. The shock of what he was hearing caused him to jerk and his foot kicked the mop pail, splashing water onto the floor. He saw a head poke out of a door down the hall and jumped to cleaning up the water.

He heard, "I'm sorry, Jen, I forgot about the kids..." Then he heard her say goodbye. He took the bucket back to the closet, went inside and closed the door. He flipped the light switch on, got out of the janitor's clothes and pulled his cell phone out of his shirt pocket. Thinking better of it, he shoved it back in his pocket and exited the closet, checking both ways first. He went straight down to the cafeteria, knowing there'd be enough background noise so he wouldn't be overheard.

"Stan, this is LeBeau...you'd better get down here..." He glanced at his watch. It was five after eleven.