[Continued from The Trial of Joe Black]

[Warning: Language]

There are few places, Paulie reflects, more lonely than a private hospital room at night. Nor as claustrophobic, when you can't get out of bed.

Well, the grave, maybe. But grave occupants don't have to contend with obsessive, insomnia-inducing thoughts. (The occupants that stay put, anyway.)

In Paulie's case, those thoughts primarily consist of one word: Useless. Useless, useless, useless.

"Yeah, that's me," he whispers to himself, mostly to break the oppressive silence. "Big hero. Runs right on in to save the day.

"Don't know what I was thinkin'. Maggie's right. A guy like me should stick to what he's good at: messenger boy. 'Hey, look, guys! Here comes Little Paulie on his little bike-y. Maybe he's got a box of chocolates for us or somethin' we can munch on while we figure out how to save the world.' _That's_ what I'm good for. Runnin' errands for the Big Boys. Helpin' the heros talk to each other.

"I wish they hadn't even _found_ my legs. Then I wouldn't even have to _pretend_ like I'm worth a crap."

He sighs and rolls over to go to sleep, cursing in pain as he's reminded that he _can't_ roll over. "Useless," he mutters again.

"You don't want to be useless?"

Paulie's eyes snap wide open in alarm, despite the voice's decidedly feminine character.

He slowly rolls his head to the left, towards the door, and immediately wonders if he's dreaming. Surely there's no other explanation for a beautiful, topless woman walking into his room.

She tilts her head slightly and smiles like the shy girl across the room at a junior high dance.

"You don't want to useless?" she repeats, sauntering slowly toward the bed. "You want to be _better_?"

"Yeah," Paulie says, without really thinking. Silence just seems like a bad idea at the moment. "Uh, yeah, sure, I'd like to be 'better'. A 'better' guy wouldn't be laid up like this, right?

"So, uh, mind telling me who you _are_?"

She reaches his bedside, bare breasts swaying hypnotically as she leans over him to stroke his neck. But when the dim light plays across the massive scarification images covering every inch of her exposed skin, he wonders if this isn't, after all, a nightmare.

"Jonni," she says sweetly. "Jonni Doe."

Then he feels a sudden pinch in his neck, and his voice refuses to function any further.

And the blade pops out from beneath the nail of Jonni's index finger and she sets it to work, he really, really wishes that weren't the case.

Maggie nods to the nun at the desk familiarly. She comes in every day, sometimes on her lunch break, sometimes after work, always on her days off. On some days she leaves exuberant... the first day he stood. Yeah, he was leaning heavily on his physical therapist, but still! She had left with her heart in her mouth that day, just so thrilled for her friend she could hardly stand it. As soon as she had stepped outside the double doors that lead in Our Lady of Mercy, she had thrown back her head and shouted at the sky.

But too often she left tired, sad. Because Paulie was tired and sad. Maggie had always liked Paulie for his easy going manner, his freedom with that gorgeous smile he had, the way he was unfailingly polite to _everyone_, and his simple joie de vie. But too often, most days, in fact, he spoke slowly, listlessly. He always said thank you whenever Maggie brought in the little presents of fruit, fresh flowers, a new book or two. But she would find pieces uneaten and rotten left on the table a few days later. The books looked fresh and new as when she bought them. Only the flowers showed no signs of the disinterest Paulie had in everything else.

She didn't know why he was so depressed. She had asked him, in her blatant and tactless way, many times. Always, he said something about hating no being able to get around. Maggie knew there was something else, but she had no practice at getting others to reveal their secrets. She had never been a master of subtlety, and with great frustration, she felt that was what was needed here.

//Useless, I'm so useless,// she thought as she made her way through the sterile halls towards Paulie's room. Tucked safely inside a small bookbag were several new tapes of the latest season of "The Sopranos". She didn't actually know if Paulie liked the show, nor had she seen it herself, but the vendor on Michealmas Street had assured her they were a good gift for a bedridden friend.

She stopped at his door, pasted a warm and cheerful smile on her face, and pushed her way inside.

"Hiya, Mags!" says Paulie, setting aside the book he's reading and sitting up with a smile. "Great news! The doc says the tests she ran this morning show my legs on the mend loads faster than she expected! I'll be up and around in no time!

"Oh, and thanks for the new book, by the way," he adds, nodding to the paperback he's just set aside. "This Spade guy's right up my alley."

Maggie lets her mouth fall open in shock as she stands in the doorway. Her bookbag drops with a soft *flumph* to the floor. Automatically, she stoops to pick it up, her thoughts racing at a million miles an hour. But overlaying everything, //WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?//

On the one hand, she's ecstatic at Paulie's obviously increased mood, but on the other hand, this is weird, very weird. She stands, and slings the bag on the little table in the corner, before sitting down abruptly on the edge of the bed. Never one to pussyfoot around, she dives in immediately.

"What the heck is up with you, you big weirdo!?" She taps the edge of his book. "You haven't read a single one of these, I swear, and I every time I come in here, you looks so damn sad. I mean, this is great news... I mean, reallyreallyreally great news, but is this it? I mean, you didn't win the lottery or meet some really good looking nurse or something?"

And before he can get in an answer, Maggie throws her arms around his neck and hugs him fiercely. Briefly, but fiercely. She pulls back with suspiciously bright eyes, and manages to keep her mouth shut for a few seconds to hear the explanation.

"What??" he says, giving her his best Wise Guy "whaddya gonna do?" shrug. Then, growing serious, he adds: "Look, Maggie, I'm sorry I've been so down. All this poking and prodding and not gettin' outta bed's just been gettin' to me, y'know? But gettin' that good news today... Well, I guess it just gave me the boost I needed to snap outta it.

"And hey, who needs some nurse hangin' around when I've got _you_, right?" he adds with a sly wink.

She sighs, and rolls her eyes, easily slipping back into the role she's played for so long with this man. "Paulie-O, you, and I know this for a _fact_, say that to _all_ the girls." She scooches back to the edge of the bed, but her brilliant smile peeks out a bit as she leans over to snag her book bag again.

"Broughtcha some tapes of this tv show that's supposed to be about mobsters and stuff. But, like, mobsters from my time, not yours, kinda. I think. Anyways, it's supposed to be really good. And stuff." She glances up for a minute, and just looks at him searchingly, her brow furrowed.

//But I guess... I guess if something did happen, he'd say something. Or, if he isn't saying something, it's just not something he wants me to know. Or it isn't important. How can it not be important if it changes him like this? I bet it's a woman. Geez, way to be paranoid, Maggie.//

Still, she can't help but be somewhat troubled by this sudden change in mood. She knows, though, that if he wouldn't trust her with the real cause of his depression, his isn't going to trust her with the real cause of it lifting, either. //Or maybe everything is exactly the way he says it is, and I'm just being stupid and reading way too much into everything. Can we say door number three, ladies and gents?//

"So," she continues brightly, "Since you are doing _so_ much better, what has the PT got in store for you today? Do I get ta see ya sweat all purty for me?" she teases.

He laughs as happily as though he's sitting beside her on a picnic blanket rather than a hospital bed. "Weight machines! Can you believe it? Doc says since I'm doing so well, it's time I started pumping iron to sorta 'seal the deal'. So yeah, you getta see me sweat just like a real he-man!"

Thirty minutes later, Paulie struggles his way through his second set of ten 12-kg reps on the leg lift.

"Okay," he says to Maggie with a strained grin, forehead beaded with sweat and furrowed with pain, "so maybe not a 'he-man,' 'zactly..."

Maggie grins fondly down at him, resting her knee on the weight bench and squeezing his shoulder lightly. "Nah, maybe not, but you're doing pretty damn good for a bed-ridden Italian," she consoles him, then removes her hand and sniffs lightly at the tips of her fingers, almost unconsciously. "I got my pound of sweat, though...or is that flesh? I can never remember those kinda things, though I sure as hell ain't getting a pound of flesh from you, unless you..." she trails off suddenly, and blushes a brialliant shade of crimson, obviously realizing where _that_ line of thought could be headed far too late.

He gives her a quick sideways smirk before turning back to business.

"Well!" she adds brightly. "You're doing a heck of a lot better than you were last week, that's for sure. How many of these damn things are you supposed to do, anyways?"

"Just -- *pant* -- one more set, Mags. Then it's time hit the showers," he adds with a wink.

Later that night, a stealthy figure slips into the weight room, moonlight through the window providing the only illumination.

Without bothering to turn on the overhead lights, the figure moves to the leg lift machine. It resets the resistance to 135 kg, sits, and lifts effortlessly. Again. And again. And again. One set. Two sets. Three. Four.

The moonlight gleams eerily on the figure's Cheshire smile.

Standing in the street in front of his eponymous restaurant, Rinaldo pats the completely refurbished silver ten-speed, grinning at its owner. "Izza 'bout time you get back on this thing, eh? Ha-HA!"

"Aw, Pop, you shouldn't have!" says Paulie, beaming nonetheless. It's been two weeks since he became an _out_-patient, and to all appearances, he's been enjoying every minute of it. But it was only yesterday that his doctor cleared him to mount his beloved bike.

"Hey, you doan' tell you Pop what he no shoulda done!" laughs Rinaldo. "Now you gonna get on-a this bike, or you gonna wash dishes!"

Paulie turns to Maggie and grins. "Whaddya say, Mags? Wanna race?"

Maggie squints at the bike speculatively, her hand resting easily on the seat of her own. "I dunno, Paulie, you'll all recovered and all, so you don't got any excuses when I totally kick your ass. But you're really feeling masochistic today, I guess I could oblige you."

She swings one muscular thigh over her bike, lovingly held together in places with tape and a wish, and glances over her shoulder at him. "Well, jeez louiz, Paulie-O, what're you doing still on your feet?"

"Right behind you, Mags," Paulie laughs, mounting his own bike. "But not for long... "

Paulie's boast notwithstanding, Maggie takes an early and effortless lead, as she always has in these little contests. Paulie's success as a messenger has come from knowing his way around shawman-fashion, not from breathtaking speed. Maggie, by contrast, is Hell on Wheels.

Which makes it all the more odd when Paulie begins eating up the gap between them like a starving Pac-Man. And positively bizarre that he first pulls up beside her, grinning gleefully, then accelerates _past_ her. Accelerates, and _keeps_ accelerating. His legs pump steadily faster, pushing him farther and farther ahead of her until they are blurred columns of motion in the distance.

Maggie pumps her legs furiously in a struggle to keep up, juking her bike this way and that to cut corners and time, but while she is a hellishly fast bike rider, she's no racer, and she has the sneaking suspicion Paulie was maybe going a little faster than the human norm.

//Fuck me with a pogo stick! What the hell was that? I know they didn't put anything extra in there...did they?// Shock opens her face into three wide 'o's, mouth and eyes, but she gamely pursues, wondering if she'll be able to keep up, or if he'll just keep going and going and going... //He owes me one _hell_ of an explanation!//

Some secret part inside of her has to laugh, though. After all, he had obviously set her up, maybe to get back at her for all those times she _had_ kicked his ass, and then some.

He neither glances back nor slows as he whips around a street corner and out of Maggie's sight. Why should he? There's no real race to be had back there. The only race now is against _himself_. Beating his best every second. Every mile a new personal record. Maybe a new record, _period_. Faster. Better. Faster. Faster. _Somebody_! Faster!

The acrid warning of smoke is left curling futilely in his wake, leaving Paulie unprepared for the sudden revolt of the bike beneath him. Gears and chains give way in screeching protest of speeds they simply weren't meant to achieve, much less maintain.

With a cry, Paulie loses control and cartwheels over the handlebars to go skidding along the street. // My legs!! // his mind screams for a second, reliving its still-too-recent terror.

But no: Paulie slides to a stop by the sidewalk, peeled and bloodied at the palms and knees but otherwise intact. Despite the pain, he breathes a heavy sigh of relief.

That is, until he looks up and sees the sole witness to his little mishap.

"Paulie Cabrini," Malody smiles, "how perfectly convenient."

She flicks aside a bit of mechanical debris and kneels on the pavement. Tucking herself snugly against his side, she runs a fingertip down his forearm and purrs, "Shall I call a medic?"

As he lies there, eyes wide with dismay, Paulie's mouth seems to work around several possible replies. Then, like a mental circuit breaker being tripped, his eyes narrow slyly.

"Nah, doll-face," he replies with a wolfish grin, reaching up to run the back of his hand along her cheek. "Havin' a broad like you rubbin' her gams against me's all the first aid I need right now. But I might just need some intensive care later, IF you know what I mean..."

Maggie has always had impecable timing when it comes to her deliveries. There's a reason she has such a reputation in Angel City. But when it comes to her life, it seems that her timing is complete and utter shit. She rounds the corner with a low squeak/hiss of bike tires scraping blacktop, and has to draw up sharply to avoid running into Paulie's fallen bike. And Paulie's fallen woman...

She can't stop the soft exclamation that falls from her lips, anymore than she can halt the look of total pained shock that flashes through her pale face. "For fuck's sake!"

Her mind reels backward, like a drunkard attempting an Irish jig, and she lets one foot fall to the ground from the pedal of her bike. Her hands clench unconsciously over the tape that strops her handlebars. There's not really many ways one can interpret the scene in front of her; Paulie has obviously fallen from his bike, and his girlfriend? ex-girlfriend? -she doesn't look to exxy right now- is snuggled up nice and cozy, and he looks like he's about to kiss her...

There's a very large part of her that just wants to wail like a child, and run away crying. In fact, she has to bite down _hard_ on her lower lip to stop that part of her from taking over and embarassing her. //Not like I'm not embarassed enough already...it's been over a month, and Paulie hasn't said _anything_. It's pretty clear what his decision is regarding good old Mags the inconvenient.//

But more, she's spent the last few weeks doing her best to help her _friend_ out, and even though she's pretty sure he got better almost despite her efforts, she's owed a little something. Maybe not loyalty or devotion, or even love or any of that soppy stuff that just never seems to get passed her way, but at the very least a fucking explanation!

"What the hell was that?!" she finally manages to squeeze out, her eyes held wide and shiny, as she looks down at Paulie's bike.

Paulie turns his sly grin her way. He seems on the verge of saying something snide, when his facial muscles around his eyes and mouth twitch their way through a quick series of spasms that leave him looking more confused than clever. "Maggie...?" Then, sitting up, he follows her gaze to his bike and blinks. "Ah, crap, my _bike_..."

Eyes intent on Paulie's face, Malody backs away from his touch as if to avoid disturbing a coiled snake. "Yes, Paulie," she whispers, "What _was_ that?"

He looks up helplessly at Malody, then back to Maggie, then leans forward to rest his head in his hands, flinching back as his face touches his skinned palms.

"I'm... I'm _sorry_, Mags," he says, eyes pleading for understanding. "I kinda had some, uh, _extra_ stuff done while I was in the hospital. T'make me _better_, y'know? I was wanting to _surprise_ you, but looks like that turned out about as good as everything _else_ has, lately..."

Maggie's internal dialogue is going nuts at this point, but as quickly as she had staggered from hurt and confusion, she switches over to sympathy and mild aggravation. Still confused, though. Her mouth starts and she hops off her bike, flipping out the kickstand.

"Jesus jumped up, Paulie-O, but you sure know how to scare a girl half to death and then some, ya big dope! If you wanted to surprise me, well congratu-fucking-lations, this is one Maggie completely floored!" She walks over to Paulie and crouches down next to him, completely ignoring Malody, and taking one of his hands in hers.

"Gonna have to clean this mess up," she muses mostly to herself, then looks up at him with a gentle smile. "Guess I'm gonna have to learn some new tricks to beat your ass in a race, anymore, though, huh? Though why you had to do anything to make yourself _better_ is beyond me, Paulie-O. I thought you were pretty darn near perfect just the way you were."

Paulie winces at this, fervently hoping she interprets it as pain.

She bites her lower lip lightly, and flushes slightly, then adds brightly, "Want I should go get the kit?" referring to the small first aid kit she keeps strapped to her bike.

Warily watching the other two, Malody notes Maggie's blush. At least one piece of the puzzle falls into place. "You're Maggie Money-eyes. I'm Malody." She reaches across to offer her hand to Maggie and, in the process, presses herself against Paulie's chest.

Maggie's instant scowl is pretty hard to miss, her brows drawing together in an angry line, but weirdly enough, she accepts the proferred hand. Her handshake is brief and perfuctory as she tries to settle her face into a nice, neutral expression, failing miserably. "Yeah, hi. The once-a-year girl, right?" She pulls back quickly, glancing down at her shoes once more.

"How perfect are you?" Malody quizzes Paulie. "Want some help?"

Now it's Paulie's turn to blush. "Nah, I'll be fine. See?"

He holds up his right palm for their inspection, leaning -away- from Malody in the process. Already, the bleeding has slowed to a stop, and the redness has faded to a bright pink.

Maggie blinks as Paulie leans away from the rather delectable package snuggle up against him, and just as she was unable to hide her frown, she can't help but release a small smile. She's quickly distracted, however, by the state of his hand.

"Holy Mary in the tortillas! What did you get done there, Paulie-O, they put nanobots in you or somethin'? Shit, that's almost as scary as seeing Maria close up after one o' them big fights she seems to like. Wow..." Involuntarily, she reaches forward, wanting to grab his hand again, but settles for ghosting her fingers over his palm lightly.

"You _so_ owe me a coffeee and an explanation," she adds, face intent and serious.

"Yeah, I guess I do..." Paulie replies, meeting neither woman's gaze. "Help me get this mess picked up and I'll make good on that."

"Right." Intent on including herself in the invitation, Malody stands and begins collecting tiny pieces of the once-glittering bicycle. "We'll pick this up. We'll get coffee. Paulie will explain."

Paulie gives Malody a clandestine, and utterly lecherous, wink.

Maggie shoots daggers with her eyes at Malody, sending off very clear you-were-not-invited vibes, but still stoops to gather the larger pieces of the bike. "Rikki Tikki can probably fix this, you know," she comments to Paulie in a low tone. She knows she's being petty, bringing up her and Paulie's shared past, a past that Maldoy has no part in, but she can't help it. The other woman seems to bring out the worst in her. "He's a genius and a miracle worker on top of things."

"Yeah," Paulie sighs. "R.T. probably -would- be my best bet. I'll take it to him after our coffee, in fact. I don't wanna have to explain this to Pop, let alone -Ma-."

"Not at Pop's, though," he hastens to add, looking up at Maggie. "I don't like talkin' about this stuff while Ma's around." His eyes make a quick, discrete cut towards Malody.

"Yeah, okay," she agrees, "Common Grounds is just three blocks down," she adds, mentioning a hippified coffee place that she's been to with Paulie a few times.

"Common Grounds it is," Paulie agrees.

"...So, anyway, there's really not much more to tell," Paulie concludes after an extended sip of strong French roast with sugar, no cream. "I just figured, 'Hey, I'm in the hospital for bein' a useless weakling, so I might as well take care of that problem while I'm here!' And that's what those little whatchamacallits are for -- the nanobots? It's like the _rebuilt_ me. They make be better. Stronger. _Faster_."

Malody hears these words, same as Maggie. But for Malody, the medical tale holds no interest.

She hears something _else_ as well, however: Words slipping in and around Paulie's clearly vocalized statements like fog through the trees, so ephemerally soft as to pass for a product of her imagination. Certainly, _Maggie_ doesn't seem to hear them.

Afraid to look at Maggie, expecting any moment the girl will explode in a squawky, feathery outburst, Malody stares at Paulie as if transfixed. Lulled by the intimacy of his words, she almost reaches up to touch his face. But she stops short. Though she hears the words -- she _thinks_ she hears the words -- there is no evidence he is actually speaking them with his lips. And surely Maggie doesn't hear them.

Not unless she's remarkably unphased by a running commentary involving Malody, spicy oils, and hot wax, that is.

And so it goes, as Paulie and Maggie converse, that Malody squirms, fidgets and blushes to her toes. Studiously staring into her coffee, she visualizes what she hears and it snares her between bliss and outrage. And it leaves her dumbstruck.

"Stronger and faster doesn't mean better, Paulie-O," Maggie says, obviously a bit taken aback by the whole thing, gulping down her short quad espresso. "I mean, that's real cool and all... oh shit." She stops, and ruffles her fingers through her feathery hair. "I don't know what I mean. But, if that was all it took, then Cap'n Just-ass would be the fucking king of the prom, and..." she is clearly at a loss for words, and glares at Malody briefly, as though to blame her for the whole thing. Shaking her head, she turns her attention back to her friend.

"Okay, one, you are _so_ not a useless weakling. Ya know, if you gotta feel bad for not being, like, super strong and all, then I guess I better get on that whole trip, too. Because you know, me and the were-crow thing? _So_ not getting the super strength that Maggie and Momo do, I'm not even much faster. Not everybody's talents lie in that direction, ya know? What about your dad? What about your whole freakin' family, huh? I never seen no super human schticks goin' on with them!" She rolls her eyes in a clear 'Boys!' expression, and adds, "You're one of the best goddamn bike messengers in town, ya know, Paulie, and that ain't nothing to sniff at."

"Okay, two, and this is not even getting into the 'how did you pay for it?' and 'isn't that against your religion?' questions. Two is, is that why you had that big ol' mood swing and stuff? Because you decided to get a little extra work done? I mean, jeez louise! You never would tell me what got you so depressed, and then you get feeling all better, and you still don't tell me, and that's supposed to be great and all, because of some stupid nano-bots? I mean, I mean," she splutters here, her face turning an alarming shade of red, "Should I go get plastic surgery just because I don't look like her-" she points violently at Malody. "Or do I, and the millions of other girls out there like me accept maybe that ain't what it's all about? Since when did you _care_ so much about that stuff, Paulie? Huh?"

She flops backwards in her seat and sighs, covering her eyes with her hand. "Oh, shitshitshit. And you're trying to tell me this thing that you're all happy about and I'm yelling at you. Good _going_, Maggie, way to be a crappy friend. Okay, I'm sorry. Sincerely. But I like you being _you_, ya know?"

"Oh, you _do_, huh?" Paulie snaps back, his face undergoing a startling metamorphosis from hurt to rage. "Well maybe I _don't_ like 'me being me'! Howzabout _that_??" He smashes his coffee cup to the floor like an exclamation and leaps to his feet, pausing to glare at the startled patrons. "Maybe _I_ like bein' the guy who gets to do _this_...!"

Moving across the floor at alarming speed, he rips the door from its hinges, splinters it in two over his leg, and sends the pieces crashing against the wall. Before anyone works up the courage to protest -- indeed, before they can even really start to _think_ about it -- he's gone.

Maggie stares at the door with an expression of complete and utter shock. Totally unheeded, hot salty tears spill down her face, obviously unknown to the girl herself. Her mouth gapes like a dying fish, a most unnatractive look for someone with a mouth as wide as hers. "Oh... shit..." she breathes out in a strange, gaspy voice, as though just punched in the stomach.

And wordlessly, her knees are drawn up to her chest, and her head is buried underneath her arms. //I can't even go after him,// she thinks, still in shock, //I'd never catch him now with all that... stuff.// Her muffled voice drifts cracked and broken from somewhere in the region of her chest. "Why doncha go after him? Perfect opportunity, and all." Apparently she's addressing Malody.

"Yeah," Malody sighs dreamily and stirs her coffee. "Maggie, do you think tying someone to a bedpost can be a sign of affection?"

The crow girl peeks out from between her arms in wide-eyed astonishment. "What the hell are you _talkin'_ about?"

"Huh?" Malody blinks and stares hard at the girl. "Right. Right. What am I talking about."

She struggles to find the words that will make a connection. "Paulie. I'm talking about Paulie Cabrini. I'm talking about... the bee does not prey upon the blossom. And the blossom has no use for a reluctant bee. But what if Paulie isn't a bee at all? Not any more, anyway. Or, gosh -- is this possible? What if he's a predator?"

"Okay, that does sound stupid." Malody watches the coffee clerk clear away the jagged evidence of Paulie's exit. "What if Paulie's body isn't broken, but something else is?"

A loud sniff can be heard, then an irritated voice again sounds from under Maggie's arms. "Okay, gonna repeat the question: What in _the hell_ are you talking about?" She really can't focus on the babble that's coming out of Malody's mouth, and is struck with the uncomfortable feeling that's walked into the middle of a conversation that has been going on quite some time, and quite happily, without her.

Malody sighs in frustration. If she cannot talk to the girl, perhaps she can talk to the crow. //What do I know about crows?//

Malody removes a ring from her finger, a sparkling bit of twisted silver. She takes something white from her handbag, rolls it and slides it inside the ring then places the gift on the tabletop. Maggie eyes the ring curiously. Shaking herself roughly, Malody tilts back her head and barks, "Crap, Maggie! Crap! Wake up!"

Jerking herself from her chair, Malody paces around it and preaches to the ceiling with as much arm waving as she can muster. "It's not about you! And it's not about me! Get your nose out of your navel and look around. It's about Paulie. And he's in danger, I tell ya!"

Maggie gapes at Malody, her head raising from beneath her arms in shock.

Malody leans over and places her face as close to the girl as she dares. "Crap, Maggie! Danger! Wake up!"

One of the less attractive features of the Nexus underworld is the practice known as "forcebasing."

Certain substances are so completely addictive to certain species that all but the most wretched members of the species in question avoid the substances like the plague. Unfortunately, particularly unscrupulous entrepreneurs have been known to take advantage of this fact by _forcing_ members of vulnerable species to imbibe the hyper-addictive substances, thereby creating a customer for life.

Kirby is one of those human-mixed-with-somethings so common in Nexus. In his case, it's left him with charcoal grey skin and bright pink hair, but not much else. (The bad attitude is of his own design.)

Kirby is also a forcebaser, and he truly loves his work. Currently, he's pursuing his chosen vocation in a conveniently dark and disgusting alley, preparing to inject the equivalent of catnip crossed with heroin into a cowering Skrill boy he's already had the pleasure of beating into submission.

Yes, life is good for Kirby.

That is, until five metal spikes impale him from behind in a precise pattern designed to keep him alive while inflicting maximum possible pain.

As the Skrill scampers away in horror, Kirby feels himself lifted from the ground and turned to face his attacker -- a slightly swarthy young man of his own age who seems completely human, aside from the impossibly long metal blades extending from his fingertips through Kirby's torso. And the fact that he's clinging like a spider to the wall by his feet and free hand.

The young man pulls Kirby closer, grinning like Satan himself. And when the young man climbs down from the wall, still holding Kirby aloft, and sets to work on Kirby with all the care of a master vivisectionist, Kirby quickly decides that this good life of his can't end quickly enough.

Unfortunately for Kirby, it does not.

And on the ledge of the building high above, an unseen figure girlishly dangles legs crossed at the ankles, and smiles.

The sound of Maggie's palm impacting on Malody's face is flat and lacking, perhaps, the necessary drama. Her eyes narrowed to thin yellow slits, the crow girl pulls her hand back and jumps off the chair.

"If Paulie's in so much danger, then maybe you might take the time to make some fucking sense," she hisses, her too-wide lips twisted in anger. "Fuck you, Malody, and fuck your pretty face, and perfect goddamn timing. I'm outta here."

And then, to her horror and utter humiliation, the crow instincts the other woman was trying to appeal to kick in full force, and she snatches the ring off the table and shoves it in her pocket before fleeing the coffee shop.

Malody is still staring at the empty doorway five minutes later when the longhaired coffee clerk interrupts her with a worried smile. "No," she tells him, she is not expecting her friends to return. While she finishes her own coffee, she studies a page of handwritten notes that helped her find this neighborhood. She has every reason to hope the return home will be easier.

She leaves the clerk a generous tip before stepping out the door herself. The name of the shop, stencilled on the window, brings a smile to her face. As she walks down the sidewalk, she sings low and sweet:
I'll be so alone without you.
Maybe you'll be lonely too,
And blue...

[Maggie] may not have supernatural speed or reflexes or strength, but she does know the area like the back of her hand, and it's a matter of seconds before she she finds a convenient alley with a nice big Dumpster blocking half of it. She storms down it, muttering to herself continuously.

"Stupid bitch, who the hell does she think she is, talking to me like that, then acting all fucked up when I don't get her stupid goddamn bee reference. What the hell was that whole stupid 'crap' thing? What, do guys just eat it up when she spouts gibberish because she's got a nice pair of tits, I mean FUCK! What is wrong with her?"

Ducking behind the dumpster, she pulls her shirt over her head with a snarl, and her sports bra follows suit, landing at her feet. Finally, she steps out of her shorts and panties, and wads the whole mess up into an untidy ball, which she shoves into the bag she habitually wears slung under her shirt.

//But maybe she knows something you don't...// her internal voice prompts her, much to her annoyance.

"Fine," she mutters to herself. "Just fucking fine." She addresses the bag she now holds up in front of her snappishly. "Home." The bag disappears with a low pop! noise, and the girl follows suit, falling into an agitated bundle of black feathers that takes to the air with an angry squwack.

//He's probably long gone by now,// she decides as she gains some altitude, scanning the streets with keen eyes. //But the least I can do is look for him and make sure he's okay.//

Even when the house lights are full on, The Zodiac Club feels dark. Glassware clinks as black-garbed staffers restock the bar and set empty chairs on top of empty tables. At the sole occupied table, two employees huddle together over mugs of reheated coffee.

"So at least you found your way there. That's good, right?" says the blonde.

Her companion, identical except for her dark hair, pulls out a sheet of handwritten notes. "Yeah, Melanie. Thanks. It did work. But I ran into him before I got all the way to Rinaldo's. I only got about this far," and she indicates a point on the page.

"And back again. Without getting lost. This is good, Mal! You'll be able to find your way around town."

"I suppose."

"Why 'suppose'? You wanted to find Paulie. You found him. What's with the gloom?"

"It didn't work out the way I hoped."

Melanie laughs, "Does it ever?"

"Probably not. But it was weird, Mel. He wasn't glad to see me. That's for sure. Well, I mean, for a minute he was and then he wasn't. And even when he was, it was not... nice."

"So? Maybe this is just not the guy for you, that's all," Melanie shrugs. "Cool enough. Don't go back there."

"I guess," Malody slumps, on the verge of tears, "but something's _weird_. I could see it in his eyes, or his voice, or something. He's changed. Sort of."

Suddenly cautious, Melanie whispers, "Do you think your nasty voice man has his hooks in Paulie?"

"No. I don't know. Maybe."

"All right. I get it," Melanie wrinkles her nose with a scowl. "Well, here's something to be sure about. You look like crud. Tired. Go to bed."

Hours later, when The Zodiac is percolating with coffee and patrons, a bongo player beats a rhythm as heavy as the burdens of a weary world. Malody stands at his side. In the tuneless monotone of a funeral director turned tour guide, she intones:

See the pyramids along the Nile.
See the sunrise from a tropic isle.
Just remember, Darling, all the while,
You belong to me.
See the ocean from a silver plane.
See the jungle when it's wet with rain.
Just remember,
'Til your home again,
You
Belong
To me.

Malody exits the basement-level club through a backdoor. It contains the one Nexus portal she can navigate with ease. She is still humming the song from the club performance as she climbs a long, damp stairwell. Once inside her own cabin, she breathes a sigh of relief and savors the cool mountain night air.

"You'll be so alone without me," she sings, reaching for a gauzy robe. "Maybe you'll be lonely, too. And blue." She is looking forward to cooking up a little something to soothe her jagged nerves just as soon as she gets out of these clingy work clothes. She hears movement behind her. "What?" She turns around, expecting to find one of the many woodland critters that frequent the cabin.

She gasps. "What are _you_ doing here?"

"Why, whaddya _think_ I'm doin' here, Mal?" says Paulie, lounging insouciantly in her favorite chair, stroking the head of the wide-eyed bunny he cradles in one arm. "I've been waiting for _you_."

He swings one leg off of the chair's arm and rises, carefully setting the rabbit on the floor before sauntering towards Malody like a lion towards cornered prey. "Isn't this what you wanted? Just you... an' me... alllll alone....?"

He grins.

"Oh, yes!" she says, happily slipping into his arms, grateful he can't see the worried look on her face. "It is. It's what I've wanted for a long time. You. In this place."

Paulie feezes and blinks.

She nuzzles her face against the side of his neck; so wonderfully familiar, this touch she has dreamt of more than known. "Other people almost never come here. Not that other people aren't nice. I'm sure they are. It's just they can be so difficult. Not like it is when it's just you and me." She stops babbling long enough to stroke his head and kiss beneath his ear. "And I've been worried about you. I heard you were hurt. And afraid you didn't want to see me any more. And things were so weird the other day when we were with Maggie."

She holds him at arm's length and studies fretfully. "Just... let me take care of you for a little while. You'll feel better." Another tiny kiss on the skin over his collar bone. "You'll see. This will be good. You'll like it here, Paulie. The mountain, the woods, the water. It's so pretty. There are a lot of things I want to show you."

"Yeah, Mal," chuckles Paulie, grin broadening. "There're -lots- of pretty things here I wanna see..."

Holding her gaze, he holds up his right index finger between their faces. With a tiny *snik!*, a 1" blade pops out from beneath his fingernail. In a single, smooth motion, he brings it down along the front of her tight black dress, the tip just chilling her skin as he slits the dress open.

An even deeper chill strikes her heart. She backs away very slowly.

"That," she says in a raspy whisper, "was not very nice."

"Yeah?" laughs Paulie, taking a step toward her. "So what? Why've _I_ always gotta be the nice guy, huh?" Blades matching the first spring from his remaining nine fingers as he advances. "And who're _you_ to tell me what's 'nice' and what's not, anyways? Aren't _you_ the one always tryin' to bust up Ma and Pop, when you're not chasin' after me or any _other_ guy you pass on the street?"

Tears well up, but Malody doesn't dare look away. There is an alien gleam in Paulie's eyes which she cannot afford to turn from, not even long enough to spot the solid thing she wants desperately to put between herself and him. Groping behind her, she finds nothing but the cabin wall.

"Well, I'm done bein' chased," he snarls. "You _caught_ me. And now you an' me, we're gonna have some _fun_. Well, _I_ am, anyway..."

"Who are you?" she whispers. "What do you want?"

Suddenly he hesitates, his face spasming. The convulsions smooth away the rage for just a moment, leaving only pain and horror in their wake.

"M-Mal," Paulie gasps out, "_r-run_!!"

"Paulie? Is it really you?"

She doesn't wait for an answer. Scooping up the trembling rabbit from the floor, she yanks the cabin door and ducks into the night. She slips into the forest, leaving the rabbit and her shredded dress on the ground at its edge.

Some time later, after the fact but before the local authorities have discovered anything amiss, another figure enters the scene. He comes cautiously, warily, moving slowly in this unfamiliar and constricting maze on the trail of a hint of a sweet iron tang he had tasted on the heavy city breeze. He bends low to examine the alley: as he sees it, it is the sour stink of garbage (rotting produce there, and the lingering ozone pinch on burnt electronics; there, the blank unpleasantness of plastic underneath meat too far gone even for the rats) over an oily path of asphalt, lorded over by walls of damp, crumbling brick (dirty mouldy earthy) and crazed by the high echoes of the life in the streets beyond. Only recently has it been splashed with the cooled blood of what had been something alive and aware enough to feel terror at its fate (sweet and acrid and sour and dead), and this is that had caught his attention and led him to this place.

Fainter, almost lost in the wash of the victim's (quarry's) eventuality, the hint of human-and-more, and pleasure -- like Her.

But not Her. This one is... different. Male. But she, too, had been here; the peculiar organic-inorganic scent with which She marks her way is mingled with His and the other's, lain along the rooftop like a thread unraveled and pointing the steps ahead.

The white wyvern hisses to himself. He is not far behind her now.

Maggie has been flying aimlessly around for the better part of three hours. She finds exactly what she expected to find: a whole lot of nothing. Or at least, nothing of interest. People, people, and more people, and no Paulie. She can't for the life of her imagine what made Malody freak out like that in Common Grounds...but then, she doesn't know Malody very well. Maybe she always acts like that. Maybe she has a thing about nanos. Maybe she couldn't handle Paulie not immediately falling under her spell. The crow girl indulges in a brief corvid snicker at the last, even though she knows it isn't true.

Now this white dragon is unusual. Not a dragony area, this, mostly human types. And it's sniffing in this alley, and in her bird form, Maggie can smell the blood, too. Not unusual, in and of itself, but this isn't a "bad" neighborhood, and the blood smells mostly human. She lights on the roof of one of the buildings, and peers over the edge, watching the dragon curiously.

Half crouched, weight on his haunches, head low to the ground, the pale wyvern does a grand impression of misplaced statuary. He stays still long enough that the casual observer might indeed begin to wonder what had gotten him spooked so, and what it could be that would spook such a thing as he. The arrival of the crow to the building above him seems not to register, nor the agoraphobic scrurryings of rats among the garbage at his feet.

But eventually, as he must, he moves.

His head comes up and looms perilously close to where the crow has chosen to watch the goings-on, but still he seems not to notice her; his attention is focused on the trail that She has left, and like a bloodhound, all else is merely scenery to be tracked around and dismissed. He follows Her from rooftop to rooftop to fire escape to sidewalk, nearly looses Her as She monkeys through scaffolds and ductwork, picks Her up again as She descends again to cat along sidewalks and alleyways crowded with a dozen cultures' refuse. Closer, closer with every length traversed, he stays on the scent as surely as if he were a scavenger on the hint of death in the air, or an ant on the colony trail, or a fish on the hook -- with and without thought of what he might do when he finds the end of the line.

Maggie follows gamely after, alighting here and there when the dragon pauses to pick up the scent. Her inner voice nags at her to leave it alone, after all, this really has nothing to do with Paulie. But she can't _find_ Paulie right now, and this is interesting.

//I'll just follow until it finds what it's looking for,// she decides.

But suddenly, it is there.

The peculiar stink of organic-inorganic has grown strong in the last few lengths, and though he cannot see Her, nor hear any sign of Her in the reverberated clangor of the city, some how he just... knows, as he had known when in the Ring that his opponents had thought to surprise him by playing dead. He stops at the mouth of the last alleyway before it spills out into a corner, and he tilts his head and listens: rats scuffle and squeak behind him, motors roar a few streets away. A few voices carouse and argue and a door shrieks protest and then closes with a definitive clang. Papers scitter across pavement on the breath of the wind and, just ahead, the electric hum of a streetlamp defines the settling darkness.

Jonni sits atop the streetlamp like a flirtatious girl on a bar stool in a 50's diner. "That was _fun_!" she enthuses, smiling delightedly down at the blind white wyvern. Then, touching her chin and gazing skyward in a parody of thoughtfulness, she adds: "But what shall we do _now_?"

Maggie studies the quarry of the dragon curiously, lighting on another rooftop, and ruffling her feathers against the wind and chill of dusk.

His head cocks toward Her at the sound of Her voice, the clouded golden eyes fixing Her position as surely as if he could see Her perched there atop the lamp post. He is still again, and he does not answer for the space of several human heartbeats.

"Now?" he asks at last, his voice a bare cold whisper above the voice of the wind. "It was you who opened the way and asked to be hunted."

Fearless, he approaches her, settling into a cat-like crouch a few yards away. Even with his belly on the chilly concrete, his head comes just higher than her perch, forcing her to look up to him if she wishes to address him directly. Those sightless eyes are still directed toward her.

"Why should I not finish the hunt this way others have been finished?"

"Good!" she cheers, clapping merrily. "You're all better!

"But I'd make you very, very sick," she adds with a sly smile, spinning in a slow, heedless circle atop the lamp post, her balance flawless.

He watches her, in his own way. In truth, he is confounded by her bizarre behavior: she something that he does not know, and cannot say how she will act or react. Such things make for a twitchy dragon. The needlepoint scales along his neck rise and fall like the feathers of an agitated bird as he considers her, so blithely twirling on the lamp post.

She wants something. That much he reads from her, but what that something is, he cannot say.

At last he takes one step, then two, backward, and lifts his head high to learn what else he may about the world around him. For the moment, Jonni seems to be forgotten.

"You smell the other one," Jonni observes, spinning to a stop facing him. It's not a question, although whether she refers to this very instant isn't clear.

Of course he hears her. He has to hear her. But he ignores her, and his nose remains in the air. Now that his original objective is done, perhaps she holds a lesser candle than she did; perhaps now, his freedom is more important to him than the teasing of an altered human.

"Should you hunt either, or none?" she adds sing-song, with a coy tilt of her head. "And what should you do when the hunt is done?"

She cartwheels off of her perch without waiting for a reply, fleeing down the street with the effortless speed and grace of a superhuman speedskater. Leaping to the roof of three-story building at the far end of the block, her hand goes up in a dainty little wave just before she drops out of sight.

Yes, he had to have heard her before: witness now how quickly he snaps to attention when he hears her move. His teeth are bared in a breathy hiss before she touches the ground, distrust and unease setting his scales on end, but before he can decide how to act upon her impertinence, she is down the block and up a building. He seems to squint in her direction, still rigid with tension -- but when she disappears, he finds something else of interest to occupy his attention, just down the street ...

Maggie watches the entire interaction curiously, then shrugs metaphorical shoulders, though it explains a bit, maybe. This dragon is hunting two people, this woman here (and what _is_ it today with super speedy people?), and someone else. But none of her business, and she still hasn't found Paulie. She takes to the air easily, flying away from the dragon.

A few miles away, Sephirra clings one-handed to the railing at the top of a fire escape ladder and scans the horizon.

"I can't see anything, but he must be close," she calls down to her companion. "Damned city interference..."

"Yeah," Zach agrees. "But not too many drags hang out around this part of town. We should pin him down real quick if we're close."

She slides down the ladders with the familiarity of one long used to climbing up and down and all over, and nods to Zach as she comes to rest beside him. "You'd think he'd leave a trail."

"Com'mon, I think it was this way," she says, motioning him onward as she starts off, herself, back toward a wider street.

"Uh, yeah," says Zach, freezing at the intersection upon seeing Death staring blindly down the street. "Guess you were right..."

She wheels around the group down the street, but is ready to move on when she hears a familiar voice. Blinking wide golden eyes, she swoops in a little lower. //What's _he_ doing here...?//

Her inner voices briefly spat with each other, but curiosity wins out, as usual, vanquishing embarrassment with a vicious left hook. After all, it's not like he's never seen her half and half form before... she spent two weeks in some backwater reality with the kid, running interference between him and an avian species whose droppings had a particularly valuable mineral contained in them... valuable on Tau Ceti 8, that is, 23 realities over.

Unable to resist the urge to show-off, just a little, she dive bombs the younger boy from about thirty feet up, shifting into her little used crow woman form about five feet from the ground, and landing with an odd liquid sound that presages her changes. She cocks her head to the side, in a manner that would imply a grin had she proper lips, and puts her hands, now brushed with her pinion feathers, on her hips.

"Mic Mac Zach! You with tall, albino, and scaly down there?" she asks, jerking her head back at the white dragon.

While Zach _has_ seen Maggie in this form before, it's been a while, and it certainly wasn't with such a dramatic entrance. Which is why his initial greeting comes out as an enthusiastic but undignified "WHOA!!"

Maggie's snigger, in this form, comes out as a sort of coughing noise, and her gold eyes gleam with bright laughter.

"Maggie...??" he asks, picking himself up off the pavement and brushing at the seat of his red parachute pants. Despite the westering sun, he slips the mirror shades hanging around his neck onto his face and dons a not-entirely-convincing cocky grin. "Hey, babe! What's with the birdy suit?"

"Oh, _long_ story. Let's just say I blew outta somewhere maybe before I shoulda... you how that goes..." she rolls her eyes, giving her avian features a briefly mad expression.

"And yeah, we're with the drag," he adds, pride coloring his words. "Well, we _were_, anyway, and we _will_ be in a minute. Long story."

"Another one!" she laughs again, scrubbing one befeathered hand through the softer feathers on her head, a gesture left over from her more human form. "Man, we gotta catch up...'cept it looks like you're in the middle of something, and I kinda am, too." Without the mobility of a human mouth, her slightly downcast expression is impossible to detect, but her voice falls briefly into a lower, softer register.

"So, ah, s'been a while, Mags!" he continues, coy as a neon bazooka. "Why dontcha let me see your 'no-feathers' face?" It's not her _face_ that his eyes watch in anticipation of the transformation, however.

"Oh, tch!" she snorts, reaching up to smack him on the back of the head. "You are _such_ a lech, Zach! You know damn well I ain't got no clothes. Geez, teenage boys and their goddamn hormones," she complains, as as if she herself were so much older. She rolls her eyes again, an expression well known to the younger boy, and changes the subject quickly.

"Can't blame a guy for tryin'," he smirks.

"So you guys hunting down the chick on the lightpost, too?"

Zach twiches at this. "Uh... kinda-sorta. More like the _drag's_ following her and we're following the drag.

"Oh! Duh!" Zach exclaims, smacking himself on the forehead. "Maggie, this is, uh, Beth Shahar. She's from a sci-solid reality, same as the drag. Her ship cratered in Mariville" -- he grins at his own pun in reference to the medieval French lunar colony -- "and Baron DuCompte hired me to help her find her friends. Beth, this is Pretty Maggie Money-eyes. I don't guess you have shapeshifters back home, huh, Beth? Well, Maggie here doesn't always look like a bird.

"Me an' Maggie go waaay back," he adds, putting an arm around Maggie's feathery shoulders and giving Beth a knowing wink.

Maggie snorts, and elbows Zach solidly in the ribs. "Yah, I knew you when you were a snot-nosed little kid. Funny, you haven't changed much." She then dips her head politely to the older woman. "Hey, Beth, folks mostly just call me Maggie. So is the dragon connected to you finding your friends and stuff?"

'Beth' had been watching the whole proceedings with a look of blank amusement on her face -- after she'd recovered from the initial shock of a crow turning into a feathered woman; thereafter it had been akin to watching the proverbial tennis match. Point to the werecrow; 15-love.

"Pleased to meet you, Maggie," she rejoins, an amiable smile lighting her dark skin. "Actually, no; the first part's done. It's just the Old Man now. I'm the responsible party," she explains, motioning down the street to the place where the white wyvern -- was?

//Oh, damn.//

She adds, turning to Zach, "I wish I could help you folks meself, but I'm actually on the hunt for someone else... remember Paulie Cabrini? I don't suppose you folks have seen him around anywhere? I seem to have misplaced him."

It's Zach's answer, as Sephirra wouldn't know him from Adam, and is far too concerned anyway with where the dragon has disappeared to now. Her smile has faded, and she seems to have forgotten that she's supposed to be being polite as she stands on her tiptoes to peer down the visible streets and alleyways for any flash of bone-white.

"Oh, Paulie," says Zach, suddenly looking like a child struggling to be polite in the face of Christmas socks. "Nah, haven't seen him. Why? What's the haps with him?"

"Long story," Maggie replies with a sigh. "_Really_ long story, that starts out with an even longer one...shit, I have no idea where to begin. 'Cause I don't know if you ever even _met_ Joe, and..." she glances up to see Beth staring in consternation down the street.

"Looks like big, white, and scaly went AWOL again," she remarks, and smiles at Zach, a genuinely warm smile, and wraps an arm around his shoulder in a quick hug. "Seriously, I do have to get out of here to check on this stuff and all, but you _have_ to call me, Zachariacon, huh? I missed your dumb ass, and maybe once I get a handle on what's going on with my shit, I can help you folks out? You got the portable phone number, right? It's back at the pad right now, but I'm gonna grab it pretty quick."

"Yeah, that'd be excellent!" Zach agrees, with a shade more enthusiasm than "cool" will allow. "We could get together and talk about it over coffee... or somethin'..." he finishes lamely, mentally rolling his eyes and cursing himself. // Zach, you are SUCH a dweeb... //

Maggie does not have the ability to flash a briliiant smile at her friend in this form, but her eyes do crinkle up, and her tone is both warm and grateful. "Okay, I've had enough coffee for about two lifetimes today, but we definitely got to get together. When I get some more clothes, too!" she adds with a cawing laugh.

"Okay, see you soon, hopefully!" With a last squeeze and a wave, Maggie flashes back into her full crow form. Flapping her wings heavily, she takes to the air again, circling twice before heading off.

He watches her go with a quiet little sigh. Then he resolutely shoves his hands into two of his many pockets and turns back to Sephirra. "Okay!" he says, suddenly all business. "So any idea where the drak went?"

She wakes up moaning.

Bruce rumbles softly, "It's okay. You're having a nightmare. Just a dream, Malody."

When he rolls over to sleep again, she slips out to sit in the door of the cave. Looking over the top of the forest, she shivers. "Just a dream." What had it been? Her house, the house she had grown up in, or something like it. A monster outside bellowing and bashing to get in. Swallowing panic, she dashed through the rooms checking on each of her brothers, now strangely infantile, all sleeping soundly in their beds. She roused her reluctant father. He followed her, looking on without a word, his face stern but passionless. Finally he spoke,"There's nothing to be done."

She barely quelled the urge to throw herself on him in a fury of fear and anger. "Do something!" she cried. She turned her back on her father and methodically checked every window, every door. How many were there? What had she overlooked?

Finally she found it -- the door with no latch. It was iron, bent and rusted and the beast outside was there. As his ragged, stinking muzzle pressed in, she pushed to keep him out. There was no bar for the door and no way to look for one. Throwing herself against the door, she managed to fling the beast back. He would only come again. She slipped outside to face the dark. Her father followed. "What is the use?" he said, not caring if she heard him.

While her father stood watching, the thing dove at her from the darkness. It was an ravenous wild dog, a wolf larger than herself. As its fangs and slavering mouth filled her vision, she tried to fend it away but its pestilential fur and iron bones pressed on her. She gripped it by its jaws, at the joint where a hundred fangs hinged, and the thing roared into her face with suffocating breath. So she had woken up. Or Bruce had wakened her.

She knows her last visit with Paulie had set this dream in motion. Oddly, though, it wasn't the physical threat that had disturbed her. Shedding her own blood wasn't what scared Malody. It was the words. The accusations. "The one always tryin' to bust up Ma and Pop, when you're not chasin' after me or any _other_ guy you pass on the street." Even in her own mind she avoids putting a name to it. But she knows what he was calling her. And all the good intentions in the world won't clean this up.

She takes a shuddering breath of cool night air and looks down onto the roof of her distant cottage. In the past few days she had seen Benito, from the club in Nexus, come and go twice. He had walked outside the cottage and called her name but she hadn't answered him. When she saw him the second time, she knew Paulie must have left the cabin. She would have to go home soon.

But not tonight. Tonight she would stay here, in the cave, with Bruce. She creeps back inside and curls up against him. He, a great brown bear, responds to the pressure of her backside by rolling toward her and wrapping himself around her. She sleeps that way, curled into a ball enclosed in bear fur, bear muscle and bear claws. And she loves the bear for the sound of his gentle snoring.

After retrieving her clothes and bike, Maggie wages an internal battle with herself about the portable phone. The thing is worth and arm and a leg, and pricier arms and legs than she's got at that. Besides, it isn't really hers, she could never afford something so dear as a phone that works in over 50% of the realities in Angel City, but she justifies to herself that she could be called for an emergency job at any time...

The ride back to the Cabrini's is somewhat anti-climactic: no long lost friends, mysterious dragons, or floating women encountered. She automatically scans for Paulie's bike when she pulls up to the restaraunt, before remembering it was totalled a few hours ago. Sighing heavy, she leans her wheels up against the wall and ducks inside, looking for one of the Cabrini's, any one at this point.

It's still a little early for the daily Rinaldo's dinner rush, which is why Rinaldo himself isn't at the top of the stairs to greet her on her way down to the restaurant.

All's quiet inside, as well. The tables are set and ready, but the customers to fill them have yet to arrive. Behind the bar, a surprisingly dignified portrait of Angel Travino keeps watch over the empty dining room with stern oil-pigment eyes, a single red rose resting at the base of the ornate gilded frame.

Maggie nods her head briefly to the portrait, as she always does.

Sofia abruptly bustles into the room with a tray full of wine glasses. She gasps in surprise as she sees Maggie, just managing to steady her chiming burden.

"Ah! Maggie!" she laughs. "I no hear you come in!"

"Oh, sh-I mean, shoot, sorry Sofia." She grins sheepishly. "Didn't want to bug nobody."

"Paulie!" she calls over her shoulder, "Maggie is here!"

Paulie Cabrini saunters into the open doorway to the kitchen. Seeing Maggie, he gives her a small wave and a rueful smile. "Hiya, Mags," he says. "Wanna go for a little walk?"

Maggie sighs, and nods slowly, her lips quirked in a 'what are ya gonna do?' kind of way. "Yeah, I think maybe that would be a really good idea."

"Guess I owe you an apology, huh, Mags?" he says, once they're far enough down the street to be comfortably out of earshot of Sofia -- which is very far indeed. "I know I acted like a scumbag today. In fact, I've been treating you pretty crappy for a while now, haven't I?" He shakes his head. "You deserve a lot better than that."

Maggie shakes her head violently. "Oh, no, Paulie..." she not sure where to start. "Okay, first of all, it should be me apologizing to you. I mean, you had this big news and all, and I was just being totally bitchy... and you've been _sick_ lately, and you lost a family friend and... and everything! It's okay, really." She falls silent, glancing at her friend out of the corner of her eye anxiously. "But, uh, thanks."

He turns down a narrow side street that leads out of Rinaldo's reality and into a small, secluded park, the wall of buildings on all four sides making it look like a greenery-filled pit. A single wrought iron park bench sulks by the pebbly path that leads to the lonely-looking gazebo in the near distance.

"But I'm gonna start making it up to you!" he declares, stopping and turning to face her with a warm smile. "Starting right _now_. You remember how I said we'd talk when the trial was done? Well, it's been done for a while now, and maybe it just took me a while to wise up, but..."

He holds out his hand to her.

"...I _did_ wise up. You're the one, Mags."

She blinks once. Then twice, three times. She's as able to resist to pull of his outstretched hand as a plant is able to turn from the sun; her hand sneaks into his almost shyly as her mind attempts to catch up to events.

"This... uh... oh." It seems so unlike Paulie, to be serious like this, but then she's never seen him in this situation...and hasn't he had reason, lately? Her mind unhelpfully pops up with several responses that have more to do with humor than anything appropriate, as her eyes drink in his face.

"Wow, you, uh... wow. Really? Wow." Incrementally, her hand tightens in his and her heart triphammers madly, her mouth entirely refusing to cooperate with her desperate need to say something smooth/funny/romantic.

"Um," she concludes with aplomb.

His hand tightens around hers as well.

Painfully so.

"Yup!" he says breezily, grinning like a lunatic. "Thought it might be Malody, but who was I kiddin'? _You_ were always the one with the smarts, right, Mags?"

Maggie frowns at the sudden change, cocking her head to the side in confusion.

Metal cables from the tips of his fingers, obscenely warm, silently twine themselves around her hand. He raises his free hand to the side of his head, and blades spring from beneath his fingernails.

"Don't you feel luuuuuuuucky, Mags...?" he asks her merrily, waggling the bladed fingers in a perversely dainty wave.

The change is instinctive, as Maggie blinks for one moment as a girl, the next as a crow, leaving Paulie with a tentacle full of baggy sweater and a handful of loose pinion feathers. The internal dialogue stills in the girl's head for a moment as she takes to the air, only intent on _getting away_. Whatever the hell is going on with Paulie frightens her badly, and the crow part of her can smell a predator a mile away.

But the Maggie part of her kicks in fast enough, and she shifts back down to naked girl when she's managed to get far enough away from him, and keeping in mind that he moves _much_ faster than her, she perches atop one of the buildings framing the alleyway.

"Heeeey, lookin' gooood, Maggie," he chuckles, eyeing her bare skin. "That'll save me some time, even..."

"Paulie, what's wrong with you?" she calls down to him in a somewhat quavery voice.

Paulie makes a running leap to the top of the building across the alley from her, landing with an exuberant pirouette. "Whaddya _mean_, Mags?" he laughs to the heavens. "Ain't this what you _wanted_?? I'm all yours now! And _you_?" He freezes in mid-spin to face her, grinning ferally.

"You're all _mine_."

He springs across the alley.

Half and half form seems safest as she switches to it, springing away from him as quickly as he moves towards her, jumping across to the opposite building again and spreading her wings. While she isn't much stronger in this form, her bones are hollow, and she can fly, with some effort, making the jump much easier. She wonders why the way he moves seems so familiar.

Her mind skitters quickly as she glances back to see if he's following her. As a long-term resident of Nexus, she's quite familiar with things like possession, shape changing, and personality changing spells/technology. It's clear to her _one_ of these must be at work here; it is simply ridiculous to think that Paulie has simply turned into some sort of crazy cyborg all on his own.

"Fat chance," she snaps out, thinking that the second option is most likely... and would explain alot: the strange moods today, the bizarre new powers. Someone has either kidnapped Paulie, or... but she can't allow her mind to go there, not now.

"Who the hell are you, and what have you done with Paulie, you fucking prick?" she snarls at the stranger wearing Paulie's face. She's was frightened before, but she feels the dangerous heat of fury washing through, as she thinks how this person has fooled her, effectively ruining for her any chance she might have of the real Paulie confessing any affection he migth have. She'll always have that terrifying, hurtful memory lurking.

She blinks in sudden realization...the Cabrinis probably don't know! She's torn... she wants to lose this asshole and warn them, but she has to find out exactly what's happened first.

His sneer promises a cruel reply, when suddenly he freezes. His head cocks to one side. His eyes narrow, and his nostrils flare everso slightly.

*thump*... *thump*... *thump*...

Then his grin returns like a movie paused and resumed. "Sorry, sweet-cheeks!" he calls. "Your candy'll have to wait!

"Catch you later..." he promises with a wink, hopping to the edge of the roof and crouching like a gargoyle. Then he drops to the alley below, and is gone.

"Where the hell did he go?" Maggie wonders out loud, not knowing how anyone could move so fast. But her mind is in action mode now, and she hops down from the roof quickly, scooping up her clothing where it lies in the street, thanking various dieties for small favors - her borrowed phone is down there, and if she loses it, she's not only out of a job, but she'll be blacklisted from her chose career, most likely.

//I don't even know why I bother changing back, some days,// she grouches to herself, debating whether to go back to human, and deciding she has to if she wants to talk to the Cabrinis. She's getting tired, very tired, from all the changes, but she knows she has no time to rest now. Pulling her clothes back on, she heads back to Rinaldo's at a sprint.

/Okay, step one, tell the Cabrinis. Step two, get into Paulie's, get some hair or something, do a locator spell. Step three, pick up Maria, Momo...maybe Nate? And get Paulie, or this other person, whoever the spell finds.// She frowns. She really wants to find Paulie, but if this imposter has been staying at his place, his/her hair, skin, etc. will be there, and she's not sure the spell will work. It's really hard to do with strangers. Of course, Paulie hasn't been out of the hospital long, so most of the stuff in his room should still be _his_.

She pulls herself up at the door to Rinaldo's, panting slightly, then opens to door, immediately running for the kitchen. "Sofia! Rinaldo! Hey!"

Rinaldo, straightening his bow tie as he prepares to take up his self-appointed dinnertime post as Meeter and Greeter, barely avoids colliding with Maggie at the kitchen door. (Or, considering their relative bulks and reflexes, _she_ avoids colliding with _him_.)

"Hey, Maggie! Where you goin' in such-a big hurry, eh?"

*thump*... *thump*... *thump*...

The child bounces her red rubber ball as she strolls down the sidewalk, heedless of the deepening dusk. No more than ten, she wears rolled-up blue jeans and a deep pink "Tom & Jerry" T-shirt. Her blond curls bob in time to the little nonsense song she sings to herself -- something about Mother and flowers.

Paulie Cabrini looks down at her from two stories up, clinging inverted to the filthy brick wall. As she draws close, his muscles -- and parts of him that are no longer muscles -- tense imperceptibly.

And he grins.

"Oh shit, Mr. Cabrini, it's really bad," Maggie blurts out, flapping her hands by her face in agitation. "I...oh man, oh man, okay..." she pauses for a second to catch her breath, and then lowers her voice, suddenly realizing it may not be best to blurt this out in front of all and sundry. Or to draw Sofia's attention.

"Um, okay, so I was out talking with Paulie, you know, and we were walking, and then he was all of a sudden like, 'Hey I really like you, Maggie' and then these tentacles come out of his arm and he grabs me and all and then these _blades_ come out of his fucking fingers, and he starts spouting off this 'You're mine!' bullshit like some bad tv villian who licks their knife and shit, and so I turned into a bird and flew away, but he was like, jumping up these several story buildings and shit! And I knew he was gonna come after my ass, but then he stopped, and said some mysterious crap and took off, like way faster than I could see, and I don't think it was really Paulie, you know?"

All of this is hissed out in a harsh whisper; she pauses for breath and then bursts into speech again. "And earlier today we were in a race, and he kicked my sorry ass and he _never_ does that, and he said he got all these fucking nanobots, and I was like, 'How the fuck didja pay for all of that?' and he never answered and now it makes sense because Paulie's been replaced by some psycho and I need to go to his place to get some stuff and find out where the real Paulie is, but I wanted to warn you guys in case he comes back here and maybe see if you have any idea what the hell happened."

She stops, finally.

Rinaldo takes all of this in with surprising equanimity, although the deep worry is as plain as it is out of place on his round face. After making certain that she hasn't been hurt, he puts a fatherly arm around Maggie's shoulders.

"Sofia an' me, we doan' give Paulie no money for no robots or nothing," he tells her thoughtfully. "He doan' _ask_ us," he hastens to add. "He wanna be all strong and fast, all he gotta _do_ is ask, eh? An' Paulie, he doan' make so much money on his bike to buy stuff like-a that onna his own."

Maggie nods. "Yeah, I kinda figured which is why I thought it's probably not him."

"I gonna give you a key to Paulie's place," he says, looking down at her soberly. "You go do what you gotta do. Rinaldo, he gonna check on things, too. Try to call Joe, mebbe some other guys. You doan' worry -- we gonna get this thing figured out, eh?" He gives her shoulders a squeeze.

Maggie takes a deep breath, visibly calming herself, then nods decisively. "Right. You're right, we're going to get this figured out." //If Paulie's _dad_ can not freak, then I sure as hell can keep it under control, too,// she thinks to herself fiercely as she's waiting for Rinaldo to retrieve the key. //Well, at least I won't have to try to pick the lock...//

Taking the proffered key, she sweeps the older man into a quick hug. "Thanks a bunch, Mr. Cabrini. You can count on me, promise." She shoots a glance back to the kitchen then pockets the key. "Okay, I'm off like a dirty shirt... we'll keep you updated!" With that, she takes off, to gather some friends.

Maria is easy enough to find; she's always hanging around Burkett's place these days, and while Maggie is of two minds about the older man, the coyote girl is not. She agrees to come along readily enough however, declaring firmly, "Can take care of himself for a day." Surprisingly, this does not appear to be a joke.

Momo is a bit more difficult to track down, and it takes several phones calls and some fast talking on Maggie's part to find him in one of the Interzone marketplaces, trying to talk a merchant out of a pair of enchanted earrings, gleaming gold hoops that look quite unassuming. He is dragged off by the two girls, protesting loudly, but when the situation is exclaimed, he moves faster than either of them. "Your guy, Maggie," he tells her seriously, "And I'm there. Don't worry, we'll nail this sucker to the wall."

Nate, a 6"7' mamba snake boy that lives off Rikki Tikki's bike shop, is another easy find. His black, scaly skin glistens dully under his cascade of braids, and he grins beatifically at Maggie when she asks for his help. He moves faster than anyone she's ever seen, and she figures she can use that right now, in case they run into the faux Paulie. "Okay, sure," he answers in that soft, breathy voice of his, and something inside her aches at how young his face looks, not more than 15 or so.

Some rather nasty hair caught in the drain in Paulie's apartment serves as the locus for the spell, and three pairs of eyes watch in interest - two sets of brown and one of black - as Maggie mutters hectically over the nappy snarl of hair, soap scum, and her own blood. As the spell curls into place, the hairball melts into her hand, leaving a strange pattern of black tangles etched into her palm. It throbs painfully, and she gasps at the sensation.

"Okay, let's do this," she says.

Paulie rises from the midst of the steaming, shredded carcass like a new life form freshly spawned from a ruddy alien swamp. With a small scowl, he yanks free the end of the wrinkly fanged proboscis still fastened onto his arm, casting the leathery appendage aside. He ignores the resultant gout of blood, which slows and seals over as quickly as have the rest of his wounds.

The red rubber ball leaves a series of wet red smacks as he dribbles it down the street, whistling to himself.

It doesn't take long for the four to find Paulie; the neighborhood is one of the rattier, more patchwork of places, buildings and pieces of the street from too many different realities to count, all meshing poorly. The streets here are slick with rain, and mud from the lower tech sections oozes out onto the cobbles and asphalt of others.

It's Maggie that spots him first, soaring above the others in her half and half form. Her hand thrbos with a searing pain, and she knows he's near. And then she spots him, two blocks down, perched on the corner of a building like some fleshly gargoyle.

//Oh, shit. Not an imposter at all...// She doesn't know whether to be glad - that her friend isn't dead - or desperately unhappy. //How the hell do you stop someone you don't really want to hurt. And what the hell happened to him? Is he possessed? Under a spell? Brainwashed? What?//

But first they need to get ahold of this strange new Paulie, before they can get him to someone who might know what to do, be able to figure out what's wrong. Maggie swoops down, landing lightly next to Maria, who, along with Momo have shifted to their in-between forms. While Maria's proportions remain similiar to her human form, albeit with longer limbs, Momo is much taller as a half-wolf, though he hunches over some. His pelt is a shaggy brown-grey with gleaming gold eyes.

"Okay, two things," Maggie addresses the others. "One, um, turns out fraky Paulie is not a fake Paulie. He's the real thing. Two, he's sitting on top of a three story building about two blocks down." She sighs, scratching her fingers through her feathers in frustration. "Jesus, I'm no good at this shit. Um, can you guys get ahold of him without hurting him too bad?"

Maria smiles, exposing her gleaming set of sharp teeth. "Yes, Maggie," she growls. "Will be okay. Windows in building?"

Maggie nods uneasily, glancing over her shoulder at the building in question. "Yeah, windows."

"We climb them." Momo nods agreement.

"Yeah, don't worry Maggie. Maybe be in the air, call interference, huh? And Nate, you can't really get up the building...stay on the ground. Let's go for a knockout blow, sound good, Maria?" The coyote girl nods, sniffing the air with her eyes half closed.

"Blood," she whispers. "Smell?" Momo lifts his snout, and Maggie sucks in some air as well. Nate darts his forked tongue out.

"A lot of it," the snake agrees softly.

"Okay, let's go," Maggie decides sharply, taking to the air. She doesn't want to think about what the blood means. It doesn't matter now anyway.

She keeps her distance, so as not to alert Paulie, but the man suddenly stands, shading his eyes and looking up at her in the falling gloom of twilight. Her crow eyes can clearly see the wolfish grin that lights his handsome features.

"Fee fi fo fum! I smell the blood of a fucking tease! You've come back to me, Maggie! Wanna kiss and make up?" His voice is jeering, and he spreads his arms wide as if in welcome, pursing his lips playfully at her.

"Fuck you," she caws down at him, hoping desperately he doesn't notice the two canids pulling themselves up the old building. "I ain't into the whole psycho thing... it's been done to death."

"Oh, but sweetie, I can make it so gooood..." he croons to her as Maria and Momo land on the rooftop. He spins to face them, and starts laughing. "Oh, no fair, three against one, you didn't tell me this was gonna be a party, Mags."

As the two close in, he darts between them, impossibly fast, and leaps to land lightly on the building next to them. The two canids follow, less gracefully, snarling, and Paulie leads them on an eerie chase over the roof-tops, Maggie circling overhead in distress.

"Really, it's been fun, kids, but I think it's time for you to say goodnight," Paulie decides finally, turning swiftly on one heel. With a bombastic wave of his hand, a thick tentacle shoots out to knock Maria head over heels, nearly off the building. She hangs on by one clawed hand as Momo rushes in, arms spread. Paulie just shakes his head in disappointment, a long spear forming from the other arm to puncture the werewolf neatly through the stomach. The Egyptian coughs some blood, but pulls off the spear and keeps coming as Maria hauls herself back up onto the building.

They circle Paulie warily, crouched low, and he stands perfectly still, watching them in thinly veiled amusement. He hums a jaunty tune under his breath as they close in, noting idly that Maggie lands on the edge of the building, still a ways from the conflict.

The two canids collapse in suddenly on their target, but he's ready for them. He leaps from between them, and heads straight for Maggie, who stares in shock and doesn't move nearly fast enough. He's learned from last time: this time no less thatn eight tentacles shoot out, wrapping her throat, arms, legs and torso securely, ready to collapse in if she changes.

"Help!" she gurgles out, golden eyes wide as he tightens the tentacles in a territorial manner.

"My little birdie," he sings softly to her, wrapping her thighs lasciviously, and slithering around her breasts. "Such a sweet little piece of meat you grew up into."

She gasps for breath, black feathers flying around her as she struggles to free herself. And suddenly Momo and Maria are there, slashing and pulling at the tentacles to free their friend. Paulie snarls at the interruption, spikes shooting from the tentacles to stab viciously at the interlopers. Maria howls and Momo lets out a low growl, but both continue to pull Maggie away, leaving her battered and bruised.

As Maria jumps lightly off the building, Maggie carried in her arms, Momo aims a heavy punch at Paulie's head. It's the kind of punch that would take the head off a normal person, but his reassurances to his friend that he wouldn't hurt her guy went out the window when he saw what this so-called stand up guy was doing to her. Paulie simply takes the blow, rocking his head back a bit and grinning with bloody teeth at the werewolf.

"Out of here!" Maria howls up at Momo, "Now!" The two leap from the building, carrying Maggie away, and Nate runs after them, keeping up easily, glancing over his shoulder. Paulie simply watches them go with a half smile.

Once she determines that the group is a safe distance away, meaning two realities over, Maria slows, finally heeding Maggie's complaints, and places the crow girl gently on her taloned feet.

"I'm okay, I'm okay, jeez louise," Maggie mutters, but her fingers stroke gingerly at the welts around her neck.

"Don't heal fast, Maggie," the coyote chides her. "Be carefuller." Her own wounds have already closed up, leaving matted blood on her fur but little else. Momo is a bit slower to heal, but he's still clearly on the mend, only the faintest of scabs where Paulie's spikes dug in.

"Well, that was a total wash," Maggie sighs, looking up at the sky, clouds reflecting back the orange light of the city.

"Nah," Momo disagrees cheerfully. "We figured out Paulie's not kidnapped or whatever, right?"

"True... but what the heck are we gonna do about the whole slice and dice thing? You guys are pretty tough and all, but how are you gonna hold on to him for long enough to get him anywhere? And where in the nine hells are we gonna take him?"

All fall silent, thinking, when Nate breaks in softly. "We, you know he's either got to be possessed, under a spell, or brainwashed, right?" Maggie nods slowly. "So what we really need in a telepath, huh? Someone who can tell what's going on in his head, so we know how to make him better."

"You're genius, Nate!" Maggie crows in delight, pulling the lanky snake-boy into a quick hug. "A teep, perfect...but how the hell are we gonna keep him still long enough for that?"

"Well, since we're going the psychic route, how about a teek for the other half? Get a powerful enough one, bet they could reign him in." Momo tilts his head to the side as he offers this suggestion, and Maggie claps her hands together in a dull thump of feathers.

"God almighty, what would I do without you guys? That's exactly what we need... I just gotta think..." She rubs her fingers under her beak thoughtfully, eyeing Maria. "I don't suppose you have any suggestions?"

"Not know so many people," Maria points out dryly. "Too busy saving your butt." The crow girl chuckles.

"Yeah, you right. Oh! I know! But...uh. Oh. She doesn't like you much, Maria. Um."

"Midge?" Maria asks, wincing.

"Yeah, Midge and Vic would be exactly what we need. I mean, he can even do an exorcism if it turns out to be a possession. But..." Maggie trails off.

"But I try eat her. Okay. Stay here, keep eye open, you get them. Okay?"

"Okay, Mari-eea. Maybe Nate should stay with oyu, Momo comes with me?" Maggie smiles up at her werewolf friend, who nods. Maria simply settles onto the sidewalk to wait, Nathan standing behind her patiently.

The man who opens the door to Momo and Maggie looks like something out of an old black and white horror movie. Looking to be in about his early forties, Viktor (pronounced Wick-tor, thank you very much) is possessed of a pale skin tone that Dracula himself would envy, along with a truly astonishing widow's peak. His slicked-back ebon hair just skims the collar of his suit, which looks like something a priest and an undertaker might come up with, if forced to collaborate in a room with one 15 watt lightbulb.

Dominating his rather morose looking face is a massive hooked nose a set of heavy arched brows. His deep-set eyes, however, are a startling warm brown, and glitter avidly while regarding the young werewolf and crow girl.

"Margaret," Viktor greets the girl, opening the door to usher the two in. As the his sleeve pulls away slightly from his wrist, strange markings can be seen embedded in the skin, whorls and ripples that seems formed by the flesh itself.

"It's Maggie, Vic," she correct automatically. "And this is Momo."

"Yes, I see," Viktor says in his hollow baritone. "And it's Viktor, Margaret. Pleased to meet you, Momo."

"Yeah, touche," Maggie mutters as Momo shakes hands politely with the older man. "Look, is Midge around?"

"Of course, where would she go?" Viktor asks, cocking one expressive eyebrow. As he turns his back on the pair to lead them further into the cramped apartment, a strange flutter can be seen on the sides of his neck, under the hair... like slits cut into the skin there, or gills.

~Midge?~

Momo holds his hands to his head at the powerful sending. "I guess Viktor is the telepath, huh?" he asks Maggie, and she nods.

"Yeah, Midge can't... well, she can't talk with us. You'll see."

~Yes, I'm here, Viktor. Ah, and the little crow girl. Where's your dog?~ Midge's mental voice is a pleasant soprano, sweet and lilting.

"He's translating for her," Maggie says in a quiet aside to Momo. "Hi Midge. Nope, Maria ain't here. I needed to ask you a favor."

Viktor gestures at the small loveseat crammed in the corner of the living room, and Maggie and Momo sit awkwardly, Momo peering around for Midge. Instead, all he can see are piles of mouldy books everywhere, and several small terrariums with open tops perched on all the clutter.

Suddenly a small bug buzzes towards the pair, and lands on Momo's snout. It looks like a skinny, black hornet, but with three sets of lomg wings, like those of dragonflies. "Momo, this is Midge," Maggie introduces them, the werewolf crossing his eyes to keep the little insect in sight.

Maria absently scratches behind her ears as she waits, but Nate paces restlessly behind her, frustrated by the lack of action. "Man, I wish there was something more we could do," he mutters.

"Get brick wall, moves," Maria suggests with a laughing snort.

"What?" the snake asks in consternation. He still hasn't quite gotten the hang of Maria's broken English.

"Brick wall. Can't cut through. Moving, though. Ha." Maria yawns unconcernedly, and starts picking through her hair.

"A moving... oh, jeez! I can't believe I forgot about... I'll be right back, Maria, don't go anywhere!" With no other explanation, Nate runs off at incredible speeds, leaving the coyote to stare after him in surprise.

By the time Maggie and Momo arrive back, Maria has been thoroughly soaked by the rain. Her reddish-grey pelt clumps thickly, and water drips in sparkling rivulets from her ears. As soon as Midge sees her, she begins a furious buzzing, and Viktor translates gamely.

~Maggie! You didn't say she'd be here! Keep that dog away from me!~

Maria watches the darting insect in mild interest, but does not rise from her position on the sidewalk. Maggie cuts in hurriedly. "Midge, don't worry, chill! Maria's good, we need her, and she isn't going to try and eat you. She's very sorry for last time, aren't you, Maria?"

Maria nods but says nothing. It's clear she's not overly fond of the telekinetic bug, and she goes back to scratching behind her ear, feigning boredom.

"Where's Nate, anyways?" Momo asks, frowning.

"Went to get wall," Maria explains, shrugging. "Don't ask."

"Uh... okay." The young werewolf scratches his head, but decides not to worry about it.

"Okay, so here's the deal-" Maggie begins, rubbing her thumb restlessly across the throb that marks her Paulie marker. The arrival of a panting snake-boy and someone else interrupts, however, and the crow looks up in annoyance, and then in dawning excitement. "A troll! of course, how perfect!"

Nate grins, exposing his pale gums, and looks down shyly at the ground. "Yeah, I thought she might be," he begins, then gestures at the eight foot tall hulking shape behind him. "Guys, this is Chalcopyrite, she's a troll, like Maggie says, from this reality called the Discworld."

The troll rumbles from behind him, "You can call me Chal." She seems to be formed of solid rock, craggy and rough, not like a statue. Her proportions are massive, enormous shoulders and thick arms and legs, and the majority of her, from what can be seen, seems to be formed of a green stone veined with white and some pink streaks. Her eyes are black, and instead of hair, she's got a crop of blackish-brown crystals that spike out from her rough-hewn head. The only indication that she's female are the bumps on her chest, covered over by what looks like a tank-top. Her heavy canvas cargo pants hang loose on her hips, and her bare feet scrape noisily across the concrete.

"Great! This should go way better than last-"

Once again, Maggie is interrupted, but this time by the soft *thump* of feet as a body lands gracefully crouching in their midst. Paulie stands, smiling ferally at the shock of those surrounding him.

"Well, hello, boys and girls," he purrs. "Starting things without me?"

Maggie has time for a brief "oh shit!" before all hell breaks loose. First, Paulie spins, a graceful piroutte that Maggie seems to be seeing in slow motion. So lsow, everyone is so slow! And she can't move, everything is molasses, and isn't that the stupidest cliche to be thinking while tentacles are shooting out of her would-be-boyfriend like streamers at a New Year's party?

Nate gets the first one in the stomach, and he sags, coughing out a terrifying gout of blood, far too much blood. The next few head for Maria and Momo, and Maria, _she's_ not stuck, ducking under the one aimed at her head, and only gets a hole in her thigh that doesn't stop her lunge at her attcker. Momo barely avoids a strike for his throat, taking a heavy hit in the shoulder that introduces the sickening crack of bone to the scene.

Maggie watches with a strange detachment as a few of the tentacles bounce off Chal, who's moving even slower than the crow girl, raising her arm reflexively as she starts forward. But Paulie, never one to waste resources, whips those deadly ropes around to try and lash around Viktor. Maggie wonders if he can even see Midge, wonders if he's got x-ray vision or something else now, along with the nastily mutable appendages.

She watches his face twist with frustration as he hits the invisible bubble around the priest, who's gaping in shock at the scene. She probably should have briefed them better _before_ getting here, and _damn_, but her wings hurt! Why is that? Oh, each one has got an inch-thick tentacle speared through them, and she can't fly anymore, she's stuck on the ground with this monster, and is it time to panic yet?

More holes appear in Momo and Maria, but they keep moving in, grimly determined. Blood mats both their coats, and Chal isn't far behind, moving slowly, but undeterred by Paulie's attacks. Viktor is still just standing there, but he's subject to mere human reaction time, isn't he? What about Midge?

As soon as the were-canines get close enough to grab Paulie, he stops with the tentacles, and turns into the human salad-shooter, chopping and spinning, and his arms are moving too fast to see, and those _blades_ are out again, too long, too deadly, and there's goes Momo's _hand_, Jesus! But Maria gets ahold of one arm, and Momo's got a leg, and they snarl twin expressions of pain, and there's blood _everywhere_, on their teeth, and bubbling at their noses and the corners of their mouths, and finally Chal is there, and she gets a good hold with those enormous hands around the monsters middle.

Funny, Paulie doesn't talk much when he's really fighting. Gone are the deadly, perverse quips and snide observations. Instead, a look of blank intensity has come over his face, and if anything convinces Maggie he's possessed this is it. Paulie _never_ looks like that, has never had such a business-like expression on his face in his life.

"Back off," the troll snarls, but the two weres are hanging on like grim death, and she has to try again. "I'm fine, get back! Help the kids!"

//I'm not a kid!// Maggie thinks indignantly, noting somewhere far away that something hot and sticky is pouring down her back. Are the tentacles gone? Seem to be, just two gaping holes left where they used to be.

Maria and Momo stumble away, leaving Paulie's arms free. He only makes a few swipes with his blades before realizing this attack is useless, and switches to pounding on the mountain troll. She flinches at one of his stronger strikes which sends a fine spiderwork of cracks hissing down her shoulder, but still hangs on.

And finally, _finally_ Midge must be moving in, because suddenly Paulie's arms are held above his head in an invisible iron grip. Never one to rely solely on his arms, Paulie instead chooses to shoot out more tentacles to spear and Momo and Maggie, to cause as much damage as possible. A high buzz of frustration can be heard as these tentacles are wrapped in more invisble strongs of force, and slowly the small insect manages to contain Paulie in a hissing, sleeting bubble, transparent but still visible somehow.

~Now what, Maggie?~ Viktor asks in her head, and she wants to answer, really she does, but decides instead that maybe a nice trip to the pavement is in order.

//I am not going to faint, I am _not_ going to faint,// Maggie repeats to herself as she blinks her eyes wide open, wincing a little at the cold rain that lands in them. "I..." she opens her mouth to speak, and realizes there is no sound coming out. Clearing her throat, she tries again.

"Is Momo okay to walk... can he-?"

"Yeah, I'm good, Maggie," Momo answers, his voice a bit strained. She tips her head to look at Nate, collapsed on the pavement, the over at the werewolf. He looks in pretty bad shape...but he's still standing, and slowly his wounds are closing up. She stares in fascination for a moment, then shakes her head to clear it.

"Take Nate to the nearest hospital, okay? Is he...?" Her voice cracks on the question, and she's not sure she wants to hear the answer. A yowl answers her from behind Midge's shield.

"Yeah, did I kill him? Gut shots aren't usually fatal, more's the pity..." Paulie's voice grates in her ears, and she closes her eyes.

~He's still alive,~ Viktor reassures her, and she can hear movement... Momo gathering up the gasping snake boy, and taking off at a run.

"You," she snarls out, suddenly angry beyond belief, even past the blood loss and pain. "You stupid son of a bitch. We are going to get your ass _out_ of there, and get Paulie back."

Her only answer is laughter, and Chal has to readjust her grip on the wriggling man, but he doesn't break loose. She opens her eyes to glare past the shield. "Viktor... do it. Now."

The older man simply nods, walking up to the edge of the shield and resting his hands lightly on it. A tentacle shoots out, aimed for his head, but skitters off, and Paulie yowls in frustration, like wounded cat. Viktor closes his eyes, and the strange fluttering things like gills on his neck flare open suddenly as he pushes in to Paulie's mind.

And into the Storm.

It is a tempest of pure information. Incomprehensible thoughts spark to unfathomable conclusions, a hail of cold calculations in a hurricane of mad logic that singes Viktor's mind with its frost and rips at his sanity with its fury. And if one concept gets through to Victor -- through sheer repetition, if nothing else -- it is this: _multiplication_.

But the storm is finite. Pushing out to its fringes, Viktor finds the debris of saner thoughts whipped aloft and shredded by the intruding chaos. Thoughts of Maggie and Malody predominate, turned this way and that like pretty trinkets in the hands of a disturbed child, although whirring fragments of friends, places, and random, meaningless details of a young life flash by as well.

Now Viktor comes to the very edge of the turmoil, and the frontier of coherence. Cast into sharp relief by sedate memories, Viktor sees in the tendrils of the fury not a storm, but a _swarm_.

And then, he is elsewhere.

It is a vacant lot not far from Rinaldo's, as Maggie could easily tell him -- a place where, in years past, a young Paulie Cabrini built a bike ramp and mastered the art of the jump and the wheelie. It's a peaceful place, this lot, despite the dirt and weeds and inner-city detritus.

No, not peaceful... _static_. Horribly, horribly _static_. There is no life here, no movement. It is a moment frozen in time by a remorseless iron grip.

No movement? Not quite so. For there, near the quaint little mound of dirt that he called a "ramp", lies Paulie -- Paulie as he was when this was his favorite place in the whole, wide world.

Whether it is _still_ his favorite place is difficult to say, for his expression as he stares at the sky shifts continuously from ecstasy to catatonia to unimaginable horror.

The insects, like flies crossed with ants and dipped in silver, march up to his body in an orderly line stretching across the lot and around the corner out of sight, covering all of him save his head. And though it's difficult to tell due to their mass, they seem to feed.

Viktor watches all of this somewhat impassively, walking slowly over to examine the boy, crouching down to poke at him lightly. His dark eyes blink slowly as he takes in the insects, but he is careful not to touch them. Shaking his head, and exhaling sadly, he closes his eyes, and is once again out in the physical world.

Maggie is staring at him intently, her wide eyes almost not blinking, red at the corners. He doesn't want to tell her, but he supposes he has two... clearly she is close to this young man, no, almost still a boy, isn't he?

"What is it, Vick?" the crow girl whispers, barely audible, but he does not need to hear her to understand.

"It is... very bad. Something is physically attacking him..." Viktor runs his hands lightly down the sides of his neck, smoothing down the flaps of skin there, covering the faint glitter of his other eyes.

"Physically? But..." Maggie looks at Paulie, no longer snarling but grinning now, slyly, as he eyes the older man. "I don't understand."

"The thing that is taking him over is not a demon...or not the way you would understand it. It is not psychic possession either, though perhaps it will give you some comfort to know that he hasn't simply gone mad." Viktor watches the girl painfully as she furrows her brow, clenching her fists at her side.

"Tell me."

"It is something that has gotten physically into his brain, something that is changing the synapses and chemicals inside his head..." Viktor shrugs, not quite sure how to explain. He is no brain surgeon, and while he has a good rudimentary knowledge of how the brain works, he's not sure he can explain it to a lay person.

"But... then... a doctor can fix it, right?" Maggie asks carefully. "He can be put back, right? Just change the chemicals back?"

"It's not that simple, child," Viktor explains. "The chemicals in our head, the way our neurons and synapses are arranged... these things determine a good deal of our personalities. This... thing... whatever it is, is literally changing the boy's personality, his sense of self, his memories. Some things have already been lost, possibly irreparably. More will be as this thing continues... I'm not sure there's any way to 'change it back' as you say."

"But..." Maggie stops, her face slack with shock. "But... Vick!" Her voice is hoarse, desperate. "Can't you stop it? You can, can't you? Please!"

He shakes his head at her sadly, wishing there was some way he could gentle this blow. "I can slow it down, a little... but only for a little while. I can't stop it, and I can't reverse it. It is beyond me."

"But he won't... there won't be any more... Paulie?" She's broken now, not looking at him, staring at the air in front of her sightlessly. No tears, her eyes are dry and fractured, reflecting the light through mental agony.

"If this thing accomplishes what it is trying to do, yes... but Margaret, I'm not the be-all-end-all here... there are doctors, maybe, who can do something... medicines, or little machines..."

"I don't..." she stops, her beak working, but nothing coming out. But Maria suddenly crouches down next to her, placing one blood caked hand on her shoulder.

"Maggie!" the coyote girl barks urgently. When the other girl doesn't respond, she shakes her, hard. Maggie turns her head, mouth agape. "Maggie! Little machines! You said... they put the little machines in him?"

"Little..." She blinks, trying to comprehend, then... "Nanobots! The nanobots!" Viktor watches in surprise as horrified desperation turns to something else, something that brings the badly injured girl surging to her feet. "The hospital...we have to get him back there! They can tell us... maybe they can fix it!" She spreads her wings, then staggers with a wave of dizziness as blood sprays from her wounds.

"Shit... Midge? Can you carry him with us?"

~Yes, Maggie, but shouldn't we get the troll out of there?~

"Yeah, okay, but hurry..." she lists sideways, and Maria shakes her head, and scoops her friend up into her arms. "Maria," the crow protests, but the coyote simply stares down at her. "Yeah, okay, you're right... just... okay."

Viktor watches as the insect carefully disentangles the troll woman from the boy being eaten up. It is a tedious process, but he can feel the strange song that always accompanies Midge's powers...she is purposefully being slow, so as to allow no bit of the boy free. Maggie chatters impatiently, but finally the group is ready to go.

It's an odd group that troops into the halls of Our Lady of Mercy: a bloodsoaked half-coyote carrying a crow girl with crippled wings, a cracked and grimacing troll woman, a scowling undertaker-looking fellow with a bug perched on his nose, and a floating man who snarls at anyone who dares to look at him. The crow struggles out of the coyote's arms, slapping at the other girl's hands feebly with an irritated, "Let go, Maria!"

She is released with a long suffering sigh from the canine, and the triage counter is littered with black feathers as the girl leans heavily on it for support and begins her rapid fire explanation.

"Hey! Look, this guy in the air is Paulie Cabrini, and you had him here just a little while ago and did some surgeries and now he's infected with bad brain mutating stuff like nanobots or something and you better damn well fix him or his dad is going to sue, and his dad knows some really good lawyers and do you usually go around turning people in mush-brained psycho murderers?"

The man behind the desk scoots backwards violently, his chair sliding back into the wall with a thump, the antlers made of what looks like ice smacking into into the cheery corkboard behind him with a little tinkling noise.

"Uh... l-let me get someone who c-can help you," the man stutters, panicked, and he flees the ER with a muttered, "My first goddamn day!"

The person answering the orderly's plea for help is a prim doctor whose features speak of a radically mixed human ancestery -- Asian and African, at the very least. She doesn't insult the group with a smile, nor does she use the electronic clipboard she carries as an excuse for breaking eye contact with them. Her gaze takes in Paulie, and her mouth forms a brief, tight line before she speaks.

"I am Dr. Sheehan," she announces in a voice that suggests a customary warmth toned down for the occassion. "I am Mr. Cabrini's physician. Could someone please tell me what this is all about?"

Maggie takes in the doctor, a woman she had seen several times before in Paulie's room, and lets out a quiet breath of relief. Dr. Sheehan had always seemed very business-like, very competent to her before. She's glad someone like that is here, an authority figure. She's been running with this pretty much on her own so far, with the help of her friends, and while Maggie is a fiercely independent young woman, this entire situation has been overwhelming, huge.

Somewhat to her dismay, her inner voice thanks the gods that a "grown-up" has gotten involved.

"Okay, so you know Paulie's specs and all, right?" she begins, grunting a little as Maria lodges a furry shoulder under her arm to help her remain standing. "Well, after he got out of the hospital... well, earlier today, actually, he was racing me on my bike, and he was going really fast, like way faster than a human norm like him should be able to, and then he wiped out and all, but everything healed up really fast! So he says you guys put in nanobots to make this stuff work, right? Which sounded kinda fishy to me, 'cause aren't those things expensive?"

Dr. Sheehan waits patiently for her to continue.

She takes a deep breath, fueling herself up to continue, "So then we had this argument, and he stormed off, and I found him again later, and he was acting all weird and stuff...like not like Paulie, but like some old weirdo lecher and stuff, and then these tentacles shot outta him, and he tried to grab me! So I freaked out and flew the coop, and then I found him again later with everybody and he started, you know, cutting them up and stuff! And he was still talking all weird and stuff, and I know this is the real Paulie because of my hand and Viktor says he's still in there but all screwed up and a little boy and-" She stops as she feels a slightly clammy hand on her shoulder, and takes a few more breaths, realizing she's sort of babbling incoherently now.

"What Margaret means to say," Viktor explains in his Bela Lugosi accent, "Is that I am a mind reader, and I attemtped to determine the problem. It seems that some sort of invading cells or powers are physically changing the structure of this young man's brain, effectively erasing his personality. Since he claimed to have had some such cells placed in his body here, we thought that you might be the best people to help us." Maggie nods in agreement, giving Viktor a shaky smile in thanks.

"Yeah, he's all psycho and freaky now, and we can't let him go or he'll keep cutting people up and stuff..." She glances back to Paulie, now hanging limp in Midge's field.

Dr. Sheehan scowls and nods. "Your suspicion is well placed, Miss Money-eyes. We certainly did _not_ introduce nanites into Mr. Cabrini's system. And even if we _had_ done so, it wouldn't have been for the purposes of elective augmentation. We aren't that sort of hospital." She says "that sort" the way a chef at a five-star restaurant might refer to a McDonald's.

Maggie nods silently, watching Paulie with an open expression of distress.

She peers at Paulie through narrowed eyes, as if straining to see the strange contagion within him. "If you would please continue to keep him restrained, I'd like to get him into the operating room immediately."

"Oh...uh..." Maggie looks over at Viktor, and raises her eyebrows.

~I can hold him for awhile longer,~ Midge assures her in her serene chiming voice. ~But not forever, so please hurry!~

Minutes later, Paulie lies on a table within a sealed operating room reserved for patients posing a potential risk to surgeons, for whatever reason: radioactivity, negative luck auras, caustic bodily fluids, or, as in this case, simple violence. Dr. Sheehan watches via monitors from a non-adjacent control room, manipulating the various robotic instruments that hover over Paulie's body, dipping now and again like storks into a pond. The restraints are engaged, but mostly out of procedural concerns -- based upon the testimony she's heard, Dr. Sheehan has no faith in their strength, should the massive doses of neurosedatives being continuously administered fail.

When she enters the waiting room, her face is grave.

"I know doctors aren't supposed to say this sort of thing, but frankly, I've never seen anything quite like this.

"I've managed to isolate at least some of the infecting nanites. From what I've seen, they produce nearly continuous changes in the physiology of their 'host' while continuously evolving themselves. Already, Mr. Cabrini's bone structure has been completely replaced with some form of dense metal I've yet to identify, and his musculature has been enhanced to a remarkable degree to compensate. His brain has been -- _is_ being -- altered in ways I can't quite fathom. Most troubling, though, are the changes taking place at a genetic level. I don't yet know what they portend, and I fear I could spend a career finding out.

"Fundamentally, the situation is this: I can slow the nanites' progress through a combination of sub-zero stasis and electromagnetic interference. I might even be able to _destroy_ them with a sufficiently powerful EMG pulse. But the problem is that the nanites have so pervaded Mr. Cabrini's system that they are a good part of what's keeping him going. Destroy the nanites, and we would in all likelihood destroy Mr. Cabrini.

"Moreover, the nanites are, ironically, the best hope we have for reversing the damage. While I can't guarantee that this is the case here, many nanites store in their memory what they've changed. But to take advantage of that would require control of the nanites. And that is simply beyond my capabilities. I'm... very sorry."

Maggie wants to cry. Honestly she does... she wants to collapse and break down into tears, wailing to an unseen god at the unfairness of it all. But she's _tired_ of crying, she's tired of freaking out, and she absolutely refuses to allow herself the luxury of it now. So this person in authority has failed her...so fucking what? So she's been running all day to try and fix whatever-the-hell-it-is that's going on, who cares?

She can't _afford_ to stop now, and Paulie can't afford for her to, and she's going run her head up against a brickwall for _months_ if that's what it takes. There is simply no option for her to stop now, take a break. She ignores Maria's and Momo's worried looks (the werewolf showed up a half an hour ago, reporting that Nate was in bad shape, but would make it through, most likely), and firms her mouth into a thin line to stop her lips from trembling... blinks her eyes to stop her tears from flowing over. No _time_.

"If you can't help me, who can?" she asks. Her voice is cracked and blunt as she fixes Dr. Sheehan with a look that says, 'I'll sell my soul for him. Who do I sell it to?'

"Maggie," the doctor sighs, eyes brimming with sympathy, "If I knew that, I would have called in that person myself before coming out here to speak with you. But that doesn't mean that person doesn't exist.

"Ideally, I'd say that you need to find the person who did this to Mr. Cabrini. Failing that, some form of 'weird' or 'mad' scientist might be the best option. I dislike dealing with such individuals, but they have been known to produce remarkable results at times. You could also attempt to find the reality of origin of the nanites, but there's no way of knowing how long that would take, nor what you might learn once you got there.

"In any event, I will help you in any way I can." She scowls. "I do not like people tampering with my patients."

Maggie nods distractedly, her mind working furiously... mad scientists, mad scientists... she knows a few types, but not really anyone who would be powerful enough... how could she...?

"HEY!" she exclaims suddenly, her head snapping up like a gunshot. "Hey! Do you guys have security cameras or stuff like that in the rooms? Or in the halls?" Her hands flutter in the air excitedly. "Because there was this one time... I mean, he was really depressed for awhile, right? And then one day, totally with no warning, he felt fine! So I bet something happened between the two times I saw him, and I was going to see him every day!"

Dr. Sheehan's brow furrows as she ponders this news. "Strange. I don't recall noticing any change in his behavior at all... But no stranger than this entire situation, of course.

"Our security sensors never went off during Mr. Cabrini's stay, so no one has reviewed the video records. Fortunately, I don't think the records from that time frame would have been erased as yet. It certainly couldn't hurt to look at the record covering the 24-hour period in question."

The record has _not_ been erased, as it happens. It clearly shows a young topless and elaborately scarified female human -- who Maggie last saw talking to a white dragon from atop a light pole -- entering Paulie's room late at night. She exchanges a few words with the surprised young man, then moves to his bedside. Her hand goes to his neck, and he ceases all movement. Then a blade appears from the tip of her index finger, and she sets about slitting and peeling back Paulie's flesh at various points along his body. Her fingers dig about inside those incisions like a child seeking the prize buried deep within a cereal box, but she shows no disappointment when they come out empty. Instead, she simply whispers a few more words into Paulie's ear -- his horror-wide eyes showing no comprehension -- kisses his cheek, and leaves the room. Paulie's wounds rapidly seal themselves, leaving not the slightest mark.

"Shit!" Maggie exclaims, rocking back in her chair. Maria looks over at her in askance, and she waves her hand rapidly. "I _know_ that chick! I saw here... hell, earlier today! When Zack... oh man, I gotta call Zack!"

Minutes later, Paulie's eyes snap shut and his head droops to one side, apparently in sleep. He doesn't stir again until a nurse awakens him for breakfast the following morning.

"Thanks, Dr. Sheehan!" the crow girl exclaims after viewing the entire tape. "We'll be back... well, as soon as we can be... keep him from getting any worse, 'kay?"

Not waiting for answer, Maggie dashes out the door with her coyote friend hot on her heels. Her sneakers squeal alarmingly on the hospital's linoleum floors, as Maggie is stuck in her human form for the foreseeable future. Though her wings are no longer bleeding, they are useless, maybe crippled. As a human, this translates to heavy bandaging across her shoulderblades, with the likelihood of severe scarring.

Once out of the building, Maggie hauls out her big portable phone. As she dials Zack's number, she explains somewhat breathlesslt to Maria. "Zack... you remember Zack, right? Mouthy kid, cute grin? I saw him earlier... he was going after that chick we saw in the video with some other people, and she was talking to this drag-hello? Zack? It's Maggie... quick, where are you? And have you found that woman you were goin' after?"

"Wha-?" Zach sputters. "Maggie? We're still in Angel City. At..." A brief pause. "...6th and Wrenhaven. But, ah, we weren't really after _Jonni_. We're after the _drag_. The _drag's_ after _Jonni_. And we've seen el zippo of either one of'em for a while now. Why? Whazzup?"

"Shit, can't hardly explain," Maggie answers a bit breathlessly, as she runs down the steps towards her bike, phone cradled between her shoulder and ear, and waving for Maria to follow her. She swings onto her bike and continues. "It's... that woman, Jonni?... she did something to Paulie somehow and we have to find her to get her to stop whatever the hell it is... look, I'm heading over there... give me, like ten minutes, okay?" She hangs up abruptly, getting her bike going as Maria lopes easily behind her.

"He's with this group of other folks, and they're chasing this dragon that this woman was around...man! You know, there's never a coincidence like a Nexus coincidence..." She gets up to speed, concentrating on the road in front of her.

Exactly eleven minutes and thirty eight seconds later she screeches to a halt near Zach, bent over her handlebars and breathing heavily. Without preamble, she shoots a question out at her friend.

"So look, Zach, can that Jonni person infect people by cutting them up and turn them into raving psychos?"

"Hey, Maggie!" Zach beams. Then he notes the figure loping up behind Maggie, and his smile turns shaky. "Oh. Uh, hiya, Maria!" He gives her a little wave while shuffling an unconcious half-step back.

Maria smiles at him somewhat toothily, waving one furred hand.

Remembering the question at hand, he turns back to Maggie. "Uh, I dunno," he says, glancing at Sephirra for support. "We don't really know _what_ all she can do, other than fight like Hell and do some mystic rune-y stuff, sorta like Baron DuCompte. She was workin' with the Mechs when the Birds caught her." He flushes slightly. "The Tshaunteri, I mean. Little alien owl guys. They're new here. Real high-tech dudes. Know that big metal ball that showed up on the top deck of Babel a while back? That's, like, their ship. ANYway, we were -- _they_ were checkin' Jonni out, and put Seph's drag in with her to see what she'd do. That's when she busted out, and she told the drag to 'hunt' her. Dunno what's up with _that_, but we've been chasin'em ever since."

Maggie listens intently, nodding throughout, then shaking her head at the end. "Well, damn, if she _is_ anything like what's going on with Paulie, she's got these nanobots or nanites or something in her so she can make blades, or claws, or tentacles and stuff. Sounds right up these Tshaunteri's alley. She got into the hospital and infected him somehow, though _why_ she would pull that shit, I have no idea. Crapola."

"So you've lost the dragon again?"

"The dragon lost us," Sephirra comments wryly, looking up at last from fiddling with the device mounted on one gloved forearm. "How he moves so fast in a place like this is beyond me... and all of this metal and height is interfering with the tracker." She gives the instrument a disgusted look and shakes her head. "Nothing I can do to it's gonna make any difference, unless the gods of technology smile down."

"Not impossible, but I don't know how to get ahold of them," Maggie comments in complete seriousness.

"But listen: if you come across her, be warned -- she's not playing with a full deck. The Tshaunteri asked me to talk to her first because they thought that somehow I'd be able to direct her 'feral' personality." Her tone of voice makes it quite clear what she thinks of the birds' psychoanalysis. "She's... like a child, almost. The world revolves around her wants and needs. She's smart, but she doesn't have the wisdom to temper it."

Maggie raises her eyebrows as Maria starts to circle the group slowly, sniffing at nothing in particular. "I was kinda hoping we could stick with you guys." She glances over at Zach questioningly. "I mean, we got no leads on this lady whatsoever, and if the dragon you're after is going after _her_, well, it's the best hope we got."

"Sure! That'd be... that'd be great..." says Paulie, doing his best to focus on the conversation while keeping a wary eye on Maria.

She glances up longingly at the sky. "That white dragon would stand out a treat here, if I could still fly..."

"Waitaminute," says Paulie, Maria suddenly forgotten. "Since when can't you _fly_?"

She sighs. "Since a few hours ago. Wings are crippled. Don't know for how long." She tugs down her over-sized sweatshirt to briefly reveal bandages heavily swathing her shoulder blades. "Long story." She glances up at the sky again, then over to Zach. "Thanks for letting us tag along."

An unobtrusive 'blip' startles the trainer, and she looks at the glove in surprise.

"Well... miracles do happen.

...I'm getting south-southwest at about 2.4 kilometers. It's wobbling, but it's there."

"Northeast, 1.73 clicks."

"You're _sure_? I am _not_ getting lost again in this fucking insane asylum."

"Yes, goddammit, I'm... What th-?? Ah, _shit_!"

"What??"

"Something's interfering with the tracking signal. Looks like someone else is using one on the same frequency, and they just kicked it up a few notches. Probably to expand their range or cut through the ground clutter."

"So you can't see her now?"

"No."

"_Shit_. So what _now_?"

"Well, I can't find _her_, but I can find _them_."

"'Them' who?"

"The ones using that other tracking signal. We'll find them and get them to turn the damn thing _off_."

"And if they _won't_?"

"Well, then we'll just have to find some way to get them to listen to listen to reason, then, won't we?"

[Maggie] seems about to say something more when Maria suddenly lifts her head, sniffing the air, the moving rapidly between the group and a side street. "Maggie!" she barks in warning. "Two coming in, nervous, maybe dangerous. Human type... with machines. Small machines." She drops into a ready crouch, eyes gleaming as she scans the direction of the newcomers.

"Huh?? What??" yelps Zach. He unzips a pocket on the right leg of his parachute pants and follows Maria's gaze.

Two men appear at the mouth the side street. Both wear white jumpsuits with blue insignia on the chest and shoulders -- a red "D" with some sort of spacecraft passing through it over a starfield. Their cafe au lait skin suggests a mixed Earth heritage of some sort, but their features and builds -- both almost painfully perfect -- speak of genetics perhaps not left to chance. If so, their sweat-beaded brows and agitated mannerisms show none of the confidence perfection ought to engender.

Their eyes dart nervously over the group, lingering on Maria. They consult a small device held by one of the pair, look at the group again, and share a hasty, heated conference. Finally, one of the two -- the one holding the device -- walks up to the group with a rictus of a smile on his face. His companion hangs back at the mouth of the side street, glancing about at nothing in particular with one hand in a side pocket of his jumpsuit.

"Hi! Hi there!" says the first man, giving the group a stiff wave. "Uh... My name's John. Dr. John Smith. My friend back there is Dr. William Johnson. We're... new here. I know this is going to sound odd, but, well, we're looking for a lost person right now, and it's very important that we find her. The person, I mean. And we've got this tracker here..." -- he holds up his device, looking like some variation on the one held by Seph -- "...but it looks like you've got one, too, using the same signal. And the thing is, your tracker's blocking the signal on ours. So it'd be a _really_ big help if you could shut yours down for a while until we can find this person before she hur- before she gets hurt."

Sephirra had greeted the pair with an air of impatience; having gotten a signal, she is uneager to lose it again. Shakey as it was, who knew when she might find it and its requisite white wyvern again?

One of Sephirra's eyebrows rises during the speech, and she's just about to protest when...

"You've _gotta_ be kiddin' me," groans Zach. "Okay, 'Doc Smith'... how long are you talkin', here?"

Dr. Smith's smile falters momentarily. "Oh, not long. Maybe... three hours?"

Maggie pipes up immediately. "Three hours?! No way, no say! We need to find this-" she cuts herself off suddenly, then frowns, putting pieces together. "Hey! Who're you looking for? Hurts somebody? Are you looking for this Jonni Doe chick?"

Dr. Smith jumps visibly at the name. "Jonni?? No!" he glances back at his wide-eyed companion, who shrugs helplessly. "Well, I mean, _yes_," he amends, turning back to Maggie. "Sorry, I just didn't expect anyone here to know that na- _Wait_. _You_ know Jonni?" He takes a step toward her, then remembers Maria's presence and freezes.

In the background, Dr. Johnson fidgits uncomfortably.

"Ah, you've encountered her, then?" Dr. Smith continues, forcing his smile back into place. "How... How is she? Hasn't gotten into any trouble, has she?"

Maria lets out a low growl that seems to be almost entirely unconscious.

"Besides let loose an 18-meter dragon on the city?" Sephirra had been surprised at how unsurprised she had been to learn that they were chasing the woman who had freed the dragon. She uncrosses her arms and draws herself to her full height as she ticks off points on her fingers. "Wrecked Tshaunteri mechs, put a hole in their ship, left a few 'writings on the walls,' and led us all on a merry goose chase, all in addition to whatever else she's had time to squeeze in with these other folks," she growls, nodding toward Maggie and the coyote-woman. "She seems to be having the time of her life."

Dr. Smith listens to this litany with alternating amazement and confusion.

Zach blinks and turns to Maggie as well. "Yeah, Maggie. Come to think of it, what'd this Jonni chick do to _you_ guys, anyway?"

"Oh, man." Maggie takes a deep breath, and launches into her nth retelling, but with the added information from the hospital. "So, okay, Paulie was in the hosptial for his busted up legs, right? And then this chick sneaks in in the middle of the night and does a hack and slash number on him while he's sleeping or something, or at least that's what it looked like on these tapes we got from the doctor. So, yeah. So she slashes him up, and then leaves, but you couldn't tell in the morning, except he came out all happy when he was depressed and stuff before, and now he's like on top of the fucking world and all 'Oh, yeah, I'm fine, sorry I've been such an ass!' except I don't think Paulie ever says ass, you know?"

Deep breath. "So I don't even know that happened until today, because I was all stupid and thinking he was just doing better or some shit, and then today we had this bike race, and you know me on a bike, Zach, I totally rock, but he was way fast, like faster than humanly possible kinda stuff and then he wiped out, but he healed up all quick, and said it was these nanobots that got put in him. Except they didn't put any of that crap in him, just fixed his legs...and then he ran off, and when I found him again he went all psycho on me, like totally movie-freaky kinda thing, and he shot out all this nasty crap, like tentacles and blades and shit, and man! He was totally fast! It sucked, and I had to get my ass outta Dodge, you know? So I did, and then went back a couple of times with lots of different people, and the last time with Vic, you remember Vic, Zach? Bela Lugosi wannabe with the funky eyes in his neck?"

Zach nods dumbly, doing his best to keep up with Maggie's stream-of-conciousness tale.

"Okay, so he says there something in Paulies _brain_ that's changing the shape of it and like obliterating hispersonality, and overwriting it or something! And the doctor's don't know how to stop it, and all they know is we gotta talk to this Doe chikcy, because she probably did it, the fucking bitch."

"Whoa," Zach observes.

A flicker of panic flares in the corners of Dr. Smith's eyes.

Long pause, then she turns to the "doctors". "So what's your deal with her, huh?"

Dr. Smith glances back at Dr. Johnson, who is now approaching the group as well -- slowly, as one might approach a dangerous animal. Dr. Johnson shrugs and nods.

Dr. Smith turns back and clears his throat. "Ah... well," he begins shakily, "I suppose you'd say that we _made_ Jonni.

"We're from what I believe you call an 'Earth variant'. My associate and I worked for Military R&D there, Human Resources Division. We received Jonni as a mindwiped test subject from Law Enforcement -- perfectly legal, I assure you. We had no idea who she was. We never did with that kind of subject.

"Our goal was to create an individual capable of a full range of military and espionage activities, from security to infiltration and assassination, with the maximum independence and adaptability. To that end, we enhanced her with the very latest in biomods and cyberwear, then introduced into her system an experimental strain of nanite capable of evolving both itself and the pre-existing enhancements as the situation warranted. Naturally, any damage to the body or its enhancements would be repaired by the nanites as well.

"Moreover, this strain of nanite was designed to enhance her thought processes, identifying both the greatest threat at any given time and the means to eliminate it. In essence, she would become an advanced A.I. merged seamlessly with a living intelligence."

Dr. Smith clears his throat again and scans the street around them like a mouse searching for the local cat.

"Unfortunately," he continues, "you might say that we did too good of a job. She analyzed and adapted her way right out of our facility, disabling every security asset that got in her way.

"To make a painfully long story short, every attempt at recapturing Jonni failed. And she soon made it perfectly clear that she could come for the two of us any time she liked. So, we decided to put the greatest amount of distance between ourselves and Jonni that we possibly could. We fell in with a group of radicals aiming to steal a colony ship and flee the planet. They succeeded, but we quickly learned that Jonni was aboard as well.

"Yet she didn't come after us. In fact, she actually _reactived_ a tracking implant that she'd previously disabled. We still don't understand why, and probably never will -- her thought processes aren't even remotely human anymore.

"And then, while we were still debating what to _do_ with this information, the ship encountered some sort of quantum distortion. And Jonni... simply _left_ the ship.

"At first, we thought she'd just deactivated her tracking implant again, or maybe that -- we should be so lucky! -- she'd been completely destroyed somehow. After a while, we decided that we just couldn't deal with sending the rest of the long trip not knowing when and if she was going to pop up, so we followed her to the last location we had for her in the ship."

"That's when we found out that we didn't know the _meaning_ of 'quantum distortion,'" Dr. Johnson suddenly chimes in. "We just walked through a hatch -- just a plain fucking hatch! -- and we were _here_. Well, not _here_, but..." -- he takes in their surroundings with a sweep of his arm -- "_here_. This... Nexus place. And not long after we did, there was her signal again. It's been intermittent ever since."

"So why the Hell are you still _following_ her?" demands Zach. "You've got, like, _forever_ to hide in now!"

Dr. Smith shrugs. "Fatalism, maybe." He looks at the tracker in his unsteady hand. "We can't get home the way we came on our own. We're hoping she might have the answer. Or maybe it's just a sick obsession now. Or... maybe habit."

"Of course, that still doesn't tell us anything about what she did to your Paulie," adds Dr. Johnson, glancing nervously at Maria. "Whatever she did to him _wasn't_ part of her original design. That means she's most likely reacting to a perceived threat."

"Perceived threat!" Maggie throws her hands up in the air in frustration. She had hoped, when she found out these two were after Jonni, that they might have some answers. But they only had an explanation for her background, no solutions, no nothing. Just a pretty story to go with this bitch who ran into Paulie's head and fucked everything up. "Paulie's a goddamned BIKE MESSENGER! What kind of threat is that? Or is making random psychos part of some grand scheme to build an army and take over? Fuck!"

She looks half mad, pacing wildly in a ten foot block of street. Maria watches her awarily, but makes no move to stop her. The crow girl turns on her heel and fixes the "doctors" with her wrathful yellow eyes. "Right, here's what we're going to do. You're going to track her ass down, and take me with you. And then you're going to tell her to fucking fix Paulie, or, or... hell, I don't know, but something really fucking bad is going to happen!"

The doctors stare at her as though Maggie _is_ mad, and not just half. Zach looks as though he's tempted to agree.

"Whoa, whoa, _whoa_!" cries Dr. Johnson, holding up his hands. "How do you suggest we do _that_?? How is your tagging along going to make catching _up_ to her any easier, let alone help us _make_ her do _anything_??"

"Look, I think you're missing the point, here," adds Smith, eyes cutting nervously between Maggie and Maria. "If you want to chase after Jonni with us, fine, but I was just about to suggest us taking a look at this Paulie. It could benefit _both_ of us. Maybe we can help him, and maybe what she _did_ to him will give us some idea of what she's planning, and what she's become."

Maggie grits her teeth and makes a truly awful grimace, pointing her face at the sky. "We don't... have... time! ARRRGH! Fine! Whatever! Just... just hurry, dammit!" She stops, then frowns as Maria looks at her questioning. "What?!"

Pausing, she scowls some more, and then takes off towards the hospital. "Okay, come on then!"

Dr. Johnson reluctantly agrees to stick with Zach and Seph in their pursuit of Death and (by association) Jonni Doe. Dr. Smith returns to the hospital with Maggie and Maria.

At first, Dr. Sheehan looks askance at the idea of giving two complete strangers access to her most advanced equipment. However, Dr. Smith's assessment of the situation -- including details at which Dr. Sheehan never could have guessed, let alone discovered -- brings her to quickly relent.

Not nearly so quick is Dr. Smith's diagnosis. He isolates the nanites out of a blood sample with little effort, but analyzing their programming takes considerably longer. It is, in fact, 10 hours later and early in the morning when he enters the waiting room, looking bedraggled and not a little trepidatious.

Maria snores gently curled up on the floor in her coyote form, but Maggie sits stock still, wide awake. When the doctor comes in, she looks up, and her joints all pop simulataneously, pulling a wince out of her. Dark circles are beginning to form under her eyes, and the feather-hair on her head is ragged, clumped.

"Okay, here's the situation. The nanites have deleted and replaced a good portion of Paulie's brain matter, taking his personality along with it. _But!_ But. I _think_ I can reprogram the nanites in the sample to reverse the process and re-insert them into Paulie's system as a "virus", so to speak. The good news is that they do seem to have stored all of the information they deleted. They've evolved quite a bit since we put them in Jonni, if they can even be considered the same organism now, and their memory capacity seems to have been one major improvement."

A smile crests through the exhaustion in Maggie's face, an expression of relief more than anything else, like all the msucles relaxing.

"The bad news is that even if this works, I anticipate Paulie slipping into a coma of indeterminate length while the process runs its course. It will be like an extended 'reboot' of a computer. And there will be no way of knowing how well the procedure has worked until he wakes up. Assuming that he does."

The smile falters, shudders, and breaks, leaving the crow girl looking bereft and utterly lost. "It might not... work... then," she says, and her voice is hoarse. "It's not- You'll have to talk to his parents. It's... it's their decision to make." Her pale eyes fall to the floor again, defeated.

"Oh, don't get me wrong," he explains. "There's a _very_ good chance that this will work. But I can't guarantee you anything, and I'm not going to lie to you about that. You're a big girl, and you deserve the truth."

Maggies sighs. "Why do people always say that when they still consider you a child, but they have to impart bad news?"

"As far as Paulie's parents go, I'll have Dr. Sheehan do the honors, unless you'd like to ask them yourself. But honestly? I don't see what choice they have. The only other option is Paulie staying like he is. And that's not really Paulie at all, anyway."

"But, uh, there is one other issue," he continues, clearing his throat. "When you encountered Paulie in his altered state, did he seem particularly... well, _sexually_ agressive?"

She shrugs tiredly. "Yeah. Why?"

"Just a theory. Jonni's actions seem almost like a form of reproduction. I'm wondering if she gave Paulie the same drive, and whether his too-human brain was just doing the best it could to interpret that drive. If so, things could have gone _much_ worse for you."

She snorts a humorless laugh. "Yeah, I guess so. I could have ended up pregnant and tied up somewhere, instead of in here feeling like shit." She sighs, and throws out, "So maybe she did it to other people, too, huh? If she really is trying to reproduce."

Smith sighs. "Honestly? Where Jonni's concerned, any theory might as well be a guess. But it's certainly possible." He gives her a shallow physician's smile. "Well... I suppose I'd better go talk to Paulie's parents now. Take care of yourself, okay?"

[Continued in The Nexus Christmas Special IV!]

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