Of Masks and Marvels

By Bek D Corbin

Chapter Twenty Two

Okay, it was a kiss.

But it was ONLY a

I mean, what's a kiss?

Nothing, really. People kiss all the time! With the things that people do, kissing isn't all that big a thing.

So, why am I still thinking about that stupid kiss? You know that something's gotten under your skin when you think about it when you go to bed and you're still thinking about it when you wake up.

The worst thing is that I have to work tomorrow. I just know that Reyes is gonna ask about the date. I'll try to make a joke, but she won't buy it. She'll push and push and push, and finally she'll figure out that Ted kissed me. And she'll make a big deal out of it. Oh well, at least I don't have to deal with it until tomorrow.

I pulled myself out of bed and tried to put it out of my mind. I have a day off, and I don't wanna spend it worrying about what Reyes is gonna say. I put on good old fashioned jeans - there's no way that Ma would insist on a skirt for doing yardwork and messing around in the workshop - a polo shirt and my 'Maxine' wig. As I checked myself in the mirror, it struck me that it took less effort to look good as a girl than it did to stuff myself into that stupid 'fat suit', these days.

I went downstairs and found Ma making some eggs. I helped myself to some coffee, and waited for her to start in. I just knew that she was going to ask about my date. Then she'd noodge me about the details, and pick, pick, pick away until I told her about Ted kissing me. And then she'd dissect what I did and didn't do, and how I felt and didn't feel and everything. I was ready for her. I could field any question that she threw at me. But no, she didn't say anything. Oh, she talked about the weather, the kids down the street, and if I was gonna do anything about the plumbing.

Sadist.

Then Ma went onto the next safe topic: "So, what did Eli say was wrong with whatever it was that you had to have fixed?"

"I dunno, I came right back here after my - OH MY GAWD - ELI! I forgot to pick up Eli!" I skittered over to the phone, and then realized that I didn't want to make a direct call to AEGIS HQ from home, so I ran up to my room to get my AEGIS encrypted cell-phone.

It rang about a hundred times before anyone answered. "Yo, LL!" Twist chirped. "Whazzup?"

"Is E-er- Is Tech Support there?"

"Gee, Sparky, we don't really deal with over-the-phone assistance here. Y'see, we're a superhero team and-"

"Yeah, yeah, very funny, hardy-fucking-har-har. Is the guy that I brought in last night there?"

"What? You mean that you didn't come and GET him?"

"Don't start on me, Joyce, I ain't in the mood. Is - He - There?"

"Well, I dunno - I haven't seen him around."

"Is the teleportation system back up and running?"

"How would _I_ know? I never use the stupid thing!"

"Nnnnggg...I'm gonna havta come in myself, if I'm going to find out." I hung up, and went back down to the kitchen. "Ma, I gotta go to AEGIS headquarters and pick up Eli."

"I'm sure you do, dear," Ma smirked. "Anything to avoid facing why you forgot to pick him up in the first place."

I looked her straight in the eye. "Ted kissed me. Not a quick peck on the cheek, either. It was long and deep, and I enjoyed it immensely. Yes, that bothers me, and No, it won't stop me from doing it again. How's that for facing the issue?"

"Better." Ma took a deep sip of coffee. "But you still need to work on it."

At least the teleportation array was up and running in the 'target zone' that we'd been using. No one was on the control board again, something that still bugs me to no end. I mean, it _folds and spindles_ the very fabric of reality, and they leave it on autopilot! Sheesh!

I carefully wandered down the halls - there's supposed to always be at least one AEGIS member on duty at all times, but hey, we DO have lives! Then I ran into Ms. Hex. "Oh! Max! What are you doing here? Is something wrong?"

"Oh, no, I just came to pick up Tech Support."

"What? He's still here? Didn't you come back for him last night?"

Okay, I am _not_ fool enough to try to lie to a telepath - especially not one who knows my mother! "I had a date last night with Ted, remember? It got - uhm - a little serious, and I've been dealing with that, so I forgot about him.."

Amy quirked a smile at me. "Better. But you still need to work on it. Okay, but when you're done checking up on him, come find me in the situation room. I want to talk to you and 'Tech Support'."

"Is this about Missuz Baumgartner?"

Amy gave a grin that normally would have given me the willies. "Yep."

"Count me in. I'll just go get the junior member of the firm, and we'll get on it."

I went down to Bernice's workshop and looked around. No one was in sight, but I heard voices squabbling.

"I did not!"

"You did, too!"

"Did NOT!"

And refined, elevated discourse like that. A hand reached up and groped around the top of a counter for something. Then Twist appeared out of nowhere, nudged the frammitzstat that the hand was groping for off the counter, and disappeared again.

"OW! You did that on purpose!"

"I did NOT! It just fell!"

"Twist!" I yelled.

Joyce winked into existence right before me. "Oh, HI, Max! Howya doin'?"

I just gave an exasperated sigh and said, "Hey, Tech Support! How's it coming?"

Eli and Bernice poked their heads over the counter. A stormy look crept over Bernice's face when she spotted Joyce. "Twist! Have you--?"

"Oh, look at the time!" Twist blithered. "Gotta go, cookies in the oven!" And she was gone.

I looked at them. "So, is the teleportation array up and running yet?"

"We were getting some headway," Bernice growled, "but then things mysteriously started to go wrong."

"So, can you spare my man Tech here for a while?"

"How long?" Bernice glowered suspiciously.

"Can you take it from here? Ms. Hex has a project that she needs us for."

"A project?" Eli pulled his 'Tech Support' visor up. "What kind of project?"

"The Baumgartner Project."

"Baumgartner?" I could tell that Eli didn't know what I was talking about, but anything that involved siccing a superhero on anyone from the Baumgartner clan had his complete support. Mom must not have clued him in on what we were cooking up. "Oh! The Baumgartner Project! Is that finally on?"

"Hold on, hold on, HOLD ON!" Bernice fumed. "I don't care what Hex has on! This array has to get back online!"

"And you can't do it without me, can you?" Eli gloated.

"SAYS WHO, you fumblefingered wrench monkey?"

"Well, then - you shouldn't have any problems handling it alone, and I can do see what Ms. Hex wants, right?" Eli finished with a big toothy smile, clearly enjoying having her on the horns of a dilemma.

Bernice shooed him away. "Oh, go play with your little friends, I can take it from here." Then she scowled at the console, grabbed a spotwelder and dived in.

I took Eli by the shoulders and steered him out of the workshop. I gave a last glance back, and spotted Bernice's eyes peering at us over the edge of the console, just before she dived back into the bowels of the equipment bank.

When we were well out of the workshop, I nudged Eli in the ribs. "Eli's got a guuurrrlll-frieeend!"

"Oh, shut up!" he hissed back.

Oh. So, _that's_ what's so much fun about needling men!

I got Eli to the situation room, where Amy was doing something with the computer. "Hey, Hex! You've got something on 'the Baumgartner project'?"

"'Baumgartner Project'? Hunh? Oh! Right! Well, I have the bare bones of something, but I'm going to need a little input and assistance from the both of you to make this work."

"You need someone to drive the getaway car?" Eli asked with a grin.

"Sidekicks should be seen, and not heard," Amy said primly.

"I'm a sidekick?" Eli asked puzzledly. "Does that mean that I'm gonna have to come up with corny exclamations like 'Holy Kaboozis!'?"

"Yeah," I drawled, "right after you graduate from 'Hostage 101' class."

"And you'll have to use the Sidekick's Entrance. Now, if we've gotten all that out of our systems, can we get down to the real sick twisted fun?" She double-clicked on a JPEG. "Lydia Baumgartner, nee Linden (actually Fershlicker), age 62-"

"SIXTY-TWO?" I hooted. "Wait 'til Ma hears that! She-"

"*Ahem!*" Hex cleared her throat quashingly. "Multiple juvenile convictions for petty crimes-"

"I thought that Juvenile Offenders' records were sealed," Eli said.

"Officially, yes, but a lot of departments find it useful to keep them around de facto. Mostly Joyriding and shoplifting stuff. Went to Hollywood, tried to get into pictures, didn't get very far. She was 'Bimbo #5' in a couple of 'C-list' movies-"

Eli gave a respectful whistle when Hex opened up a JPEG of an old publicity photo. <whooo!> "Missuz Baumgartner was a BABE, back in the day!"

Hex resumed "-got into some trouble - big shock - hooked up with Finlan 'Buck' Baumgartner, and they were suspected of widely varied shady doings. When oldest son Harold comes along, they slow down, and eventually settle down in a working class neighborhood around here. Dear old Buck gets sent up for Receiving Stolen Goods just after second son Kurt comes along. Apparently, Lydia sees a need for income above and beyond what Buck's Auto Parts store brings in, and she decides to sue a local department store when she takes a spill."

"Yeah," I muttered, "poor woman - always falling down or getting hurt on the property of people with deep pockets."

"During the proceedings, she forms a relationship of sorts with this man." Hex double-clicked on another icon and a picture of thickset, rather German looking man with thinning hair opened up. "Jacob Bannermann, 'King of the Out of Court Settlement'. Litigator for the firm of Cordell, Hastings & Pitt."

"Anything romantic?"

"Not from what I could tell. It's a relationship based entirely on Greed. Besides, back when Lydia was still cute enough to get a blip on his radar, ol' Jake was scared stiff of Buck."

"How do you know that?"

"I had the dubious pleasure of sitting through several sessions with both Lydia and Bannermann."

"You read their minds?" <EeeYEWwwww!> I grimaced at the thought of it.

"Tell me about it," Hex grumped.

"By the way - what ever happened to MISTER Baumgartner? We haven't seen him around the neighborhood in a few years."

"Well, a few years back, ol' Lucky Buck got involved in something sticky, emptied out the family savings account, and lit out. The best guess is that he's either in Costa Rica or a shallow grave. Or, knowing Costa Rica, both."

"Okay, Hex, thanks for the History lesson, but where is all this going?"

"Here." She opened up another JPEG. "Do you know this woman?"

Eli and I looked at a picture of a round-faced African American woman in her mid-fifties with a kind smile and smiling eyes. It looked like one of those 'Identi-kit' composites.

"Sure. That's Doreen Gorman. She lives in our neighborhood. Very active in the local Community Center, Neighborhood Watch, YMCA, Scouts, your general 'good works' type."

"Well, as I was fishing around for responses, I got a very powerful negative response to the images of this woman. What can you tell me about her?"

"You go fishing in people's minds? Can't you just find whatever it is that you're looking for?"

"Max, the human mind isn't like a filing system or a computer, with everything neatly arranged in a logical order. It's all sort of squashed in, with certain memories, images and associations stronger than others are due to their emotional charge or the frequency that they're dealt with. Besides, I couldn't let either Lydia or Bannermann know that I was probing them, so I couldn't actively provoke any associations, as I do when I don't have to be subtle. Anyway, Doreen Gorman?"

I exchanged looks with Eli. "Lessee now - the Gormans moved into our neighborhood about, oh, twenty-odd years ago. Two kids, son and a daughter. Mark, the son, went into the Air Force as a career technician, and the daughter, Phoebe, went to college, and I dunno what happened to her after that. About the time that Phoebe was in her Senior year in High School, Mister Gorman died when the truck that he was driving got forced off the road during a fight between Owlwoman and some ratsass with big energy powers."

Hex looked sort of uncomfortable about that. Well, we super-types really should remember that there are innocent bystanders when we start throwing things around.

"Anyway, probably as a way of dealing with her husband's death, Missuz Gorman started getting involved with various local 'good works' groups, and she's sort of been at it ever since."

"Any run-ins with Lydia Baumgartner?"

"Now that you mention it, there were a couple of things. Don't ask me why, but for some reason, Missuz Baumgartner got up on her high horse about some recycling collection center that Missuz Gorman was ramrodding."

Eli and I gave Hex those particulars that we could remember, and she ran a couple of searches on the web. Her searches came up with the fact that a developer, who thought that the recycling center would do the asking price of the gentrification condoplex that he was putting up across the street any good, was using Cordell, Hastings & Pitt - Bannermann's firm - as legal counsel. I looked at Hex. "So, y'think that Bannerman's using Missuz Baumgartner as sort of an 'anti-activist', someone who's local and looks good speaking in front of a board meeting, who'll shill for whoever's paying?"

"Just a second." Hex did a few more cross-checks, and come up with four more times that Missuz Baumgartner, Missuz Gorman, and the firm of Cordell, Hastings & Pitt all came up together. In each case, either Missuz Baumgartner was opposing something that Missuz Gorman was pitching, or Missuz Gorman was calling Missuz Baumgartner a stooge for developers or their ilk.

Hex leaned back. "Well, it looks Lydia has a nice little scam going for herself, and it would be even better for her if Doreen Gorman wasn't around. Though I also got a real sense of rather nasty bigotry in the images that Lydia has for Doreen."

"Wouldn't surprise me," Eli grumped. "The only reason that the Baumgartners don't join the local Ku Klux Klan is that Missuz Baumgartner doesn't want to get stuck washing their sheets."

"Well," Hex purred," then that's just perfect then."

"You're going to use Missuz Gorman to get Missuz Baumgartner?"

"They key to any good Con Game is to hook your pigeon at the emotional level, not the intellectual level. We're going to appeal to Lydia's vanity, greed, spite and bigotry. Well, we have the bait; now we need the hook. Let's see what the busy Mrs. Gorman is up to." Hex ran another quick search on the Net, looking up the local affairs calendar. Then she slammed her fists into the keyboard. "Oh, Hell. This is getting us nowhere. I really didn't want to do this, but it looks like I'm going to have to call out the Heavy Artillery."

Hex's eyes squinted harshly.

"Max, I'm going to have to call your mother."

Young Jessie Sileski carefully finished gluing the servos onto the plastic pick-up truck. If her plans and calculations were right, when the glue dried, she's have a functioning remote controlled pickup truck. Not that having a R/C truck was all that big, but how many kids could say that they built theirs from scratch? And if it didn't work right, immediately? Well, fiddling with it until it did work right was half the fun, anyway.

Then she heard her mother's voice from downstairs. "JESS-seeee! Phone call for you! Pick it up!"

"Thanks, Mom!" she yelled back through the open door. She closed the door and picked up the phone. "H'lo?"

A familiar voice told her, "Stand back from the phone."

Semi reflexively, Jesse put the receiver down and stepped back. There was a sort of blurring in mid-air, as if the very air was twisting in on itself. The blur resolved itself into a tall, lithe, black and gray form, and suddenly Lady Lightning was standing there, right in front of her!

Lady Lightning grinned and said, "Hi, Jessie!"

Jessie goggled at me and said, "_whoa_" in a low reverent tone. Then her eyes popped open wide and she said, "OhwhaowhowdidyouDOthat? ThatissokewlIcan'tbelieveyoudidthat!"

"Well, the AEGIS teleportation system was down for a while, and we just got it up and running again. I thought that I'd test it and check in with you at the same time. Besides, this is safer than crawling in your window - not to mention more dignified."

"You have a teleporter? Like on Star Trek?"

"Well, not exactly like the ones on Star Trek - for instance, it doesn't work by disassembling your atoms, beaming them somewhere and re-assembling them - which, if I may say so, is one of the dumbest things that I've ever heard of, that didn't involve Money, Romance, or Religion - it works by warping the fabric of space, which is only ridiculous."

"How does it work?" she asked, her eyes aglitter. Oh Yeah - she's gonna grow up to be a Tech-Geek, I can tell it.

"Long, involved story, and I don't really know all the details. Besides, if you knew, how would you keep from telling your friends about it? At the very best, they'll think that you're yanking their chain-"

"And at the worst, I' settin' myself up for bad shit to happen," she finished.

"I'm glad to hear that you understand that. So, onto nicer topics - Good work on your last soccer game! You really hauled butt out there!"

"Thanks! You went to my game? I didn't see you!"

"Well, of course not! I kept a discrete distance. After all, an adult superheroine, keeping tabs on a PeeWee League soccer team? People would start to talk!" I looked over at her worktable. "So, whatcha workin' on?"

"Well, my inductive device activator was a washout - there's no way to pick an' choose a particular circuit in an array."

"Good, good, you figured that out nicely."

"You knew that?"

"Sure! But half the fun of goofing around with tech-gadgets is figuring stuff out for yourself. What're you working on now?"

Jessie bounded over to her worktable. "Remote control pickup truck!"

"Oh? What kit?"

"Kit?" Jessie gave a dismissive razzing sound. "From scratch!"

"Good Girl!" From there, we spent several very enjoyable minutes geeking out over her schematics. I pointed out a couple of design conflicts, to keep her from getting TOO frustrated, and nudged her toward cleaning up her design and make it simpler. Even so, it'll probably spend a lot of time doing doughnuts.

We were enjoying a really good geek-out, when Jessie seemed to remember something. "Lady Lightning?"

"Yeah?" I looked up from the innards of Jessie's homemade remote control.

"You deal with bad guys a lot, right?"

A flip comment died on my lips when I saw the expression on her face. "Yeah, sort of. You got problems?"

"No, not me. I got a friend, and there's this bully giving him problems."

Oh, the old 'I got a friend' schtick. "Oh? What sort of problems?"

"Well, there are these three guys, and they keep pickin' on him. They gang up on him, and push him around, and call him a sissy and stuff."

"Do they actually hit him?"

"Yeah, especially this one guy, he really gets on Lionel's case."

"Lionel? That's your friend's name?"

"Yeah, he's in my class at school."

"And why are you so concerned about him?" I gave her a knowing smirk, and enjoyed seeing her blush.

"Hey, he's a nice guy! Those assholes got no reason to always be jumping on Lionel's case!"

"Good for you, kid! Now, give me the pertinents."

"Pertinents?"

"The details! What is Lionel like, what the bullies like, what do they do, how often do they do it, like that." With a little prompting, Jessie gave me what details she had: there were three boys who were picking on her friend. They were all Anglos, so it wasn't a racial matter (Thank God!). There was one of them that was always the instigator, while the other two basically egged him on and backed him up. Ripper, the instigator, seemed to have a bag of reasons for picking on Lionel, and would dig around to find a reason to get angry, if Lionel managed to duck his first attempt. Ripper was getting worse - according to Jessie, his two buddies had had to pull him off of Lionel the last time that he'd jumped the poor kid.

I chewed on it for a while. "Okay, Jess, I'm no expert on bullying or kid politics, but I have noticed this - there tend to be four kinds of bullies: Hard-nosed bullies, Immature bullies, Wiseass bullies, and Toxic bullies. At least that's the way that _I_ break it down. Now, Hard-nosed bullies aren't that bad; they push people around to see if they'll push back. If you stand up to them and show them that you have some real guts, they'll respect you for it. Once you manage to prove yourself to them, your average Hard-nosed type is actually a pretty right guy. None of these guys sounds like a hardnose.

"Immature bullies are basically just mean kids being mean kids, picking on others just because they think that it's fun. Sock 'em in the nose, and they get the idea. Again, I don't think that your bullies are this type.

"Wiseass bullies are the bozos who are into bullying as a game. Believe me, I've had my problems with them in the past. The thing about Wiseass bullies is that they have this whole big bag of tricks that have been passed down from bully to bully and have been perfected by years of practice. They have their alibis and excuses all lined up, and they know exactly when, where and how to jump you. Standing up to them is a waste of time, 'cause they'll just switch to a different bag of tricks. Ripper's two buddies strike me as Wise-asses. There are only two ways of dealing with Wiseass bullies: you can humiliate them or you can get them back on your terms. If you can drum into their heads that dumping on you will only cause them problems, they'll find someone else who's more fun to mess with.

"Now, 'Toxic' bullies are a real problem. 'Toxic' bullies pick on other kids 'cause they themselves have some sort of problem, and they gotta vent on someone. The problem might be that their parents are having problems, or that they're overweight or stutter or have skin problems or something like that. Or, it might be that they're being abused themselves somehow, and picking on other kids the only way that they know how to deal with it. And it goes downhill into some really nasty territory from there. The kind of stuff that I'm not really comfortable talking to you about.

"Ripper strikes me as a 'Toxic' bully. Okay, I've never met the kid, but this is my off-the-cuff reading of what you're telling me. Does 'Ripper' only pick on Lionel, or does he have a select bunch of kids that he victimizes and Lionel's just his 'favorite', or what?"

"Well, Ripper does act like a real butthead to most people, but he only really gets nasty to Lionel."

"Thought so. There's something about Lionel that sets Ripper off. Does Ripper pick on Lionel by himself occasionally, or does he always have his two buddies with him when he does it?"

"Oh, he always has Gene and Carter there, backing him up."

"I thought so. Gene and Carter never start it by themselves, they just hang around and get off on Ripper ripping into Lionel, right?" Jessie nodded vigorously. I gave a gusty sigh. "Man, this is a problem, Jessie. I mean, I can't just swoop down and give Ripper a good talking to. Besides people only seeing a big bad superhero 'picking' on a kid, it wouldn't do any good. Neither would you or Lionel beating him up. Y'see, if he has going on what I think he has going on, Ripper probably thinks of himself as the real victim here. He blames your friend Lionel for his problems, and he's taking it out on him."

"But why? Lionel didn't do anything to Ripper!"

"When I say that Ripper 'blames' Lionel, I don't mean that Ripper has a logical, rational reason for blaming him, I mean that Ripper feels that Lionel's to blame. He might not even think of it in terms of Lionel being to blame for whatever his problem is; he just knows that if he doesn't lash out at someone, he's gonna bust, and Lionel looks good for it."

"But why?" Jessie asked, almost crying.

"I don't know! I don't know what Ripper's story is, but I think it's a very good idea if you don't get involved in this. If Ripper gets threatened by you 'poking your nose in his business', he could shift his antagonism from Lionel to you. And from what you tell me, Ripper's getting worse, so that could be very dangerous for you."

"Well, isn't there anything that I can do?"

"Two things: First, you can tell a teacher or someone at school that you think Ripper is having some kind of problems. Not that he's picking on Lionel, but that he has problems. If a teacher faces him down about bullying, he'll just feel threatened, tell himself that the world is out to get him, and only get worse. But, if someone comes to him offering comfort, there's a chance. Not a good chance, but a chance.

"Secondly, you can split up the team of Ripper, Gene and Carter. As I see it, Gene and Carter are there, backing Ripper up, letting him feel that what he's doing is okay, and they make him feel safe and secure in doing it. If they weren't there, he wouldn't be so quick to jump on your friend Lionel, and he certainly wouldn't get as violent. Y'see, while Gene and Carter are there, besides his own anger, Ripper probably has this sense that he has to live up to what they expect of him. If you somehow separate those two from Ripper, he'll still have whatever his problem is, but it won't be a certainty that it'll come roaring down on Lionel's head."

"But that won't work!" Jessie blurted out. "Can't you just, y'know, go put a scare into him? Make him keep away from Lionel?"

I draped an arm over Jessie's shoulder. "Jess, guys like Ripper already think that the whole world is out to get him. If I dropped the hammer on him, then he'd know for a fact that it was. He'd probably go off the deep end. Besides, superheroes picking on kids is tacky."

Jessie gave a sorrowful sigh and leaned in against me. "Hey, Jess - if problems like this were easy, then they wouldn't be problems. The only thing that I can think of, is to focus on your buddy Lionel. He's GOT to feel pretty bad about all of this. Maybe if you just let him know that you're on his side, that might help. Some."

Jessie looked up at me. "Hey, Kiddo - it's something. You'd be amazed at how much a little something like that can mean. By the way, I'm really impressed. Most kids just shrug their shoulders and say 'Better him than me'." Ooogg, this was getting too maudlin. I didn't come here to bum Jessie out. Oh, well- "So, ah - this Lionel kid. You like him?"

I was rewarded by a pre-teen squeal of denial.

Thursday was back to work, even if Eli was still on his 'weekend'. Reyes usually didn't go out in the NewsLemon on Thursdays, since I wasn't a cameraman, and she didn't want to explain my 'sudden disappearances' to a fill-in camera-dog. Even so, she managed to corner me while I was out checking the studio links to the external antennas.

"So, how did the second date go?" she asked with all the false innocence of an alderman explaining his all-expenses paid membership to an exclusive country club.

I looked her straight in the eye. "Ted kissed me. Not a quick peck on the cheek, either. It was long and deep, and I enjoyed it immensely. Yes, that bothers me, and No, it won't stop me from doing it again. How's that for facing the issue?"

"Better. But you still need to work on it."

Going on toward evening, Reyes and I were surprised when Eli showed up. "Hey, Bro! What are you doing here? You know that non-weekend weekends are sacred!"

"Yeah, well, this is an emergency. Saddle up, people, I have a lead that may lead to the arrest of one of the vilest, most despicable criminal organizations in the city! Let's roll!"

Once we were out on the road, Reyes turned to Eli. "So. What's the big scoop, Jimmy Olsen? You pick up wind of a big strike that AEGIS is planning?" She spared a withering glance at me, because she knew that I'd never let her in on anything like that.

"Ah, something like that."

"Ah-HAH! Please, please tell me that they've got She-Devil cornered!" Her eyes sparkled with the thought of video cheesecake.

"Nope. The Baumgartner mob is going down."

"The Baumgartner Mob?" Reyes echoed in disbelief.

"Ohh YASSSS!" I hissed. "Man, that was quick! I guess Ma knew just what Hex wanted."

"What?" Reyes blurted, "You brought your MOTHER in on this? Your Mother gets to go to AEGIS headquarters, but _I Don't_?"

Eli started to say something snarky, but I shushed him. "Ma and Hex have met, and do you really want AEGIS to know about our relationship?"

"Ah, no--- but couldn't you sort of bring me in as, y'know, 'Control' or something? I could whip up a costume, a clinging little something--"

"Ev'rybuddy wants t'get in on the act!" I gusted in my best Jimmy Durante voice. "Reyes, I'm absolutely sure that Hex knows all about Eli and me, and I have my suspicions about her knowing about you. But she ain't sayin' nothing. As long as I don't push things too far, I don't think she'll say anything. We have sort of an understanding. I think that will change, if I bring a reporter into AEGIS HQ under false pretenses."

Reyes grumped at that, but didn't push it. Good. I need a place where Reyes can't get at me.

"So, what's this 'Baumgartner Mob' thing, anyway? I've never heard of any 'Baumgartner Mob'."

Eli filled Reyes in on the Baumgartners and their long family history of goonery. Then we picked up Ma.

Ma?

"Ma?" I boggled. "What are YOU doing here?"

"What? After all these years, you don't think that I want to be there when that bitch Lydia Baumgartner goes down?"

"Hold it, hold it, HOLD IT!" Reyes yelled, "Okay, will somebody please tell me what's going down here?"

Ma settled herself in. "Well, it's like this - thanks to a few odd hints that I may or may not have dropped in Lisa Magillacutty's hearing, Ms. Hex tells me that Lydia is firmly convinced that Doreen Gorman and I are partners in a hot car 'laundering' scheme that involves that 'used cars for charity' that Doreen is running."

"It's this deal where you donate a car or truck that you don't want anymore to this charity," Eli explained to Reyes. "They get to resell the car, and you get full Blue Book value listed for your donation for tax write-offs."

"Ms. Hex informs me that Lydia thinks that Doreen is acting as a front for car thieves, and that I rubber stamp the paperwork, no matter how bogus is it, giving the cars a perfect paper trail."

"Yeah," Reyes said, "but the cars that they donate to those things are always junkers, so where's the profit?"

"They're supposedly not stealing the cars from the charity, Ilena," Ma answered. "They're supposed to be stealing high end cars off the street and just using the charity as a screen."

The NewsLemon drove past a vacant lot where several rather shabby looking cars were parked. "Now, this is where the cars that were donated to Doreen's charity are kept. By a strange coincidence, this is where the Valet Parking for a luncheon for the Mayor, several City Councilors, the Chief of Police, and several other notables is going to be parking as well. Lydia Baumgartner thinks that the transfer of all the 'donated cars' is going down today, and that the car thieves will be adding the stolen cars to the donated cars at the very last minute. BUT, the location of the donated cars got changed at the very last minute, so neither she nor her boys knows where the cars are."

"They can't be happy about that," Reyes smirked.

"I rather doubt that as well," Ma smirked back. "Even as we speak, Ms. Hex is leading the Baumgartner's uncertified tow truck on a merry chase as they try to find this lot without getting spotted." A shiny new BMW drove onto the lot, parked, and a kid in a red parking valet's vest got out. "That would be the first of the attendees at that luncheon that I was talking about. When the last of the attendees gets parked, Maxine, you will call Ms. Hex and give her the go-ahead to lead the Baumgartners here."

"And Eli and I film the Baumgartner boys while they hijack the Mayor's car," Reyes finished with an evil smile.

"N-n-n-No," Ma corrected her. "What good would THAT do? We'd have proof that one or two of the Baumgartner boys was involved. So what? Everyone knows that they're crooked. No, that's only the beginning. When the Baumgartner tow truck hauls off the first of the cars, Maxine will carefully follow it to the Baumgartner's 'chop shop' or wherever. She will also make sure one way or another that the shop can only chop up so many cars. When the LAST of the cars is delivered, Ms. Hex has figured out a way to lure the Baumgartner boys and their tow truck way out into the boonies, where she'll strand them and make sure that they can't call for help. Once that is done, I'll make a discrete phone call to Jake Bannermann."

"Bannermann is the Baumgartner's lawyer and semi-partner," I explained to Reyes.

"I will drop to Bannermann that somehow somebody made the _hideous_ mistake of stealing the Mayor's car!"

Reyes cocked an eyebrow. "And why would Bannermann be involved in this?"

"Well, research turns up that Jake Bannermann just happens to own two auto repair shops and a junkyard."

Reyes grinned evilly. "So, if they're found or even spotted on his property, Bannermann's up shit creek!"

"Yes, from that point on, Jake and Lydia will keep running into one piece of technical difficulty after another - courtesy of Ms. Hex and Maxine - and since I'll make a point of making sure that Jake gets the idea that it's of the utmost importance that he get those cars back to the parking lot ASAP-"

"When Bannermann shows up to drive the cars back, THAT'S when Eli and I show up!"

"Well, it would be nice if you made a point of getting shots of Lydia at the wheel."

"How can you be sure that he'll call Lydia? Wouldn't he just go there and do it himself, without wasting time calling around for her?"

"Ms. Hex informs me that Lydia, in the best tradition of 'criminal masterminds', has arranged that while this crime is going down, she will be establishing an alibi for herself by having lunch with her lawyer. Which by coincidence, will be at exactly the same restaurant where the Mayor's luncheon is being held."

Reyes nodded. "Very nice. But you DO realize that, technically, this is Entrapment?"

"Don't be ridiculous!" Ma sniffed, offended. "Entrapment involves asking, ordering or otherwise causing a person to commit a criminal act that they otherwise wouldn't do. All that we're doing here is making Lydia and her cronies aware of an illegal opportunity. They don't have to break the law. But, given their nature, they will."

About an hour later, a valet dropped off the last of the cars and went back to the restaurant. Five minutes later, a woman in a totally bogus red wig (I mean, who does Hex think she's kidding?) dropped off a glitzy looking car and walked off. The second that she rounded the corner, my AEGIS cell phone rang. It was Hex. "Okay, Max, you're on! Follow them and let us know exactly where they take the cars."

"And what are you going to be doing?"

"Oh, This and That. Nothing illegal, but nothing that you have to know about, either."

I looked at Ma. "Ah, y'know, there's not really enough room for me to change in here with four of us."

Eli beamed, "Not to worry, Max! Hit 4-4-4 on your AEGIS cell phone!"

I did so and the world went blurry for a second, and there was this really weird feeling over most of my body. When it all cleared itself out, I was wearing my 'Lady Lightning' costume.

"Congratulations, Max!" Eli grinned. "You're all hooked up to the AEGIS instant change system! Bernice and I got the system up and running, and I put your costume on an exchange form this morning!"

"You coulda told me that before I put my costume on under my clothes this morning!"

"Eli," Mom worried, "what are the AEGIS members going to think, if they see Maxine's 'fat suit' and false beard on the form?"

"Not a problem - all the arrays are in enclosed booths. After all, the clothes that they were in, before they went into action, is only the hero's business, isn't it?"

With that, I exited the NewsLemon and found a place on a rooftop that had a good view of all the major streets. A few minutes later, a tow truck saying 'Sutter Auto Towing and Repairs' drove onto the lot. Sutter Towing and Repairs was a real company, with a fleet of at least eight trucks, but that rig didn't belong to them. The Baumgartners used it in several of their scams.

Sure enough, Kurt and Silas Baumgartner and their sleazy buddies Luke and Steve climbed out. Steve did something with a black box, and one by one, all of the cars flashed their lights to show that they'd turned off their alarm systems. My guess is that the box was a device that ran through the entire spectrum of frequencies and signals to match the alarms' turn off key. I wondered if that would qualify as a 'burglary tool', if they got busted with it on them. It took them longer than you might think, because every so often one car's 'turn off' signal would also be another car's 'set alarm' signal, and they'd have to re-do it on a tighter beam. When that was done, they started to hook up the cars into a rather long train for a tow truck, and hauled three of them off.

"I'm off!" I carefully followed them, keeping to the rooftops as much as I could. The truck went into 'Hyatt Auto Repair'. Kurt, Silas, Luke and Steve got out and unhooked the cars. There was no one there - I guess Bannermann didn't want anyone who could connect the Baumgartners with those cars being at that garage; lawyers think like that - so when they went back for more cars, I went inside and had a little fun messing with the equipment. When the chop shop mechanics came to start dismantling the cars, they'd have a few problems in that department.

Then I called in the location and told them not to worry about the cars getting chopped. "Good work, Max," Hex called back, "now, you can take it easy and keep an eye on your reporter friend. I'll take care of things from here."

I flew back to where the NewsLemon was parked, and changed back to my civvies. I watched along with Eli, Ma and Reyes as the Baumgartners hauled the cars off in trains of two or three, depending on traffic.

Then, as Steve and Luke were hooking up what looked to be their last haul, I got another call on my AEGIS phone. "Max! This is Hex! We got a problem!"

"What's the matter?"

"The Goblin King just showed up on Jeweler's Row!"

"The Who?"

"The Goblin King! He's a regular opponent of mine! He pops into town every few years or so, and makes a complete nuisance of himself."

"Well, call one of the others, and see if he'll accept a substitute! Hell, there's no law that says that superheroes can't share a colorful villain!"

"You don't understand! He's a powerful psychic, specializing in mental illusions. I'm one of the few people that have been able to handle him in the past. Also, he has sort of a thing about me; if I don't show up, he's really going to kick up a fuss, and people will wonder why I didn't."

"So? Go deal with him, then! I can handle the Baumgartners from here."

"You don't understand, Max - My plan for this requires that I do some things that you can't do. You're going to have to go deal with the Goblin King and slow him down until I can get there."

"Shit! I don't have any particular defense against Psionics! Do you have any kind of artificial psychic shielding at AEGIS?"

"Yeah, I have some Theta-wave blockers built into the lining of my costume's hood. Maybe Bernice can rig you up something-"

"No time! I have an idea!" I switched her off and called AEGIS directly. "Bernice! This is Max! I don't have time for questions, so just listen - I want you to switch the directory listings on the costume changer for my costume and Ms. Hex's. Then I want you to arrange a double-bounce for me to Jeweler's Row."

I could hear Bernice's bafflement over the phone. "Welll... Okay..." I heard a hailstorm of clicks and then "Go for it."

I hit 4-4-4 on my cell phone and that weird blurring happened again. Only this time, instead of my 'Lady Lightning' costume, it was Amy's 'Ms. Hex' outfit. Oh, by the way - Amy wears shoes that are at least a size smaller than the ones I wear. Restraining a yelp at suddenly having my feet squeezed in a vice, I checked the rest of the outfit. "Man, I hope I don't split this suit open!" I hefted the 'jewel' topped 'staff' that Hex carries. I figured that it was a 1 & º inch shaft of tool steel, with a corrosive proof annealing. Not bad, I should be able to do a few things with that, without blowing my cover.

I turned to my crew. "So, how do I look?"

"Not bad," Reyes said, "but it needs-" She reached into her purse, pulled out some lipstick and smeared some on me. "There! Go get 'em, Tiger!"

We were parked near a payphone with a landline, so that it would be handy, just in case Hex had to pop in, in an emergency. So, I didn't have to go wandering around dressed as Ms. Hex, looking for a landline.

Even so, I wasn't exactly used to it when I suddenly materialized in a jewelry store with a very surprised clerk gaping at me. Then I heard a deep voice roar, "Where IS it? Where is the Eye of Mab?"

Well, that was a definite clue as to where my target de jour was! I sat sidesaddle on the staff, the way that Amy does when she wants to use it as a 'broom', and magnetically levitated it through the door.

Jeweler's Row is about three or four blocks of jewelry stores and diamond exchanges. I saw three guys in outfits that combined a rather baroque grotesque theme with what I suspected was very effective body armor, carrying things that might be weapons - of some kind. "Looks like his hideous highness is doing a door-to-door search for the Eye of Mab, whatever the hell THAT is," I said more or less to myself.

[Y'got me there, L.L.] I heard Bernice suddenly say in my ear. [I do hard sciences, not cultural anthropology.]

"Bernice?"

[Yeah, I figured that you could use a little information on this guy. By the way, why are you wearing Ms. Hex's outfit?]

"I figured that since this Goblin King is a psychic and so is Hex, if he thinks that I'm her, then he'll try something subtle to get past her mental defenses, instead of just mentally swatting me like a fly."

[It's a theory. Anyway - The Goblin King is one of Hex's regular sparring partners. He's been working mostly in Europe since his last set-to with her, and this is his first Stateside caper since you showed up on the scene.]

"Yeah, yeah, that's nice, but I could use some useful information - what are his powers? How many goons does he have? What kind of weapons do they carry? What's his M.O.?"

[Well, as you know, he's a psychic. Most of his stuff is mental illusions and stuff like that. Really nasty ones, too, even Hex gets fooled on a regular basis. The computer doesn't say how many henchgoons he's got, but Hex's report on him - by the way, we're still waiting for you to write up notes on your fights-]

"Bernice, later - I'm almost in combat, here!"

[Oh! Right, right! Anyway, he goes around looking for gems that he claims are magical artifacts and stealing them. Mind you, he doesn't mind sweeping up lesser gems - or at least his goons do, to defray expenses, I imagine.]

The goons had spotted me and were opening fire with their weapons. On the off chance that they were firing bullets, I set up a magnetic repulsion field as I barreled at them.

Or him, should I say. I passed right through two of them, and plowed right into the third one. As I clocked the goon in his helmeted noggin, Bernice kept updating me. [For some reason, he's got sort of a crush on Hex. Every time he comes into town, he tries something to try and get her to join him in criminal bliss.]

"I take it that we aren't talking about flowers and chocolates."

[More like psychic coercion, dressed up with flowery language. Don't ask me why.]

"Take a long look at Hex some time - she may not be in Power Woman's league, but then, who is? Okay, how many goons does he have working for him?" With that, I lowered the number by one, when I split the goon's helmet open, knocking him for a loop. "Interesting. This goon has filters in his eyepieces and 'Wolf Ears' {Author's Note: Sound suppressing Earphones with radio speakers built in} built into his helmet."

[That doesn't make any sense - those things shouldn't be able to filter out mental illusions.]

"Right - that IS weird. So, again - how many goons?"

[It's not that easy - one of his favorite tricks is to create mental illusions of legions of henchmen. But there are at least four real, live, armed goons. According to our records, they wear Grade 3 personal armor and carry MilSpec weaponry. A mixture of assault rifles, grenade launchers and the occasional flamethrower. But I doubt they'd use the latter two in such close quarters.]

"Okay, I'm about to go in - it's about to get really busy, so one last question: How does this guy keep getting out of jail?"

[He doesn't - He keeps getting away. Hex usually manages to drive him off before he gets what he wants, but he's very slippery.]

"'Drive him away'? That doesn't work. A criminal who keeps failing either quits or can't find henchmen to work with him. But this guy not only has what sounds like professional henchmen to work for him, but he can afford to arm them with expensive armor and weapons. I smell a rat." I looked toward the door and then remembered something. "Oh yeah, does Hex carry anything like Flash Grenades or Smoke Bombs or anything?"

[Sorry - Hex doesn't believe in slowing herself down with gimmicks.]

"Frack! Oh well - Here goes." I threw myself into the store-

-And found myself facing about a thousand armed and armored goons, standing in a sea of fire.

Okay, from what Bernice told me, the 'sea of fire' and the vast majority of these guys are pure mindfuck, mental illusions, and they only worry me because there are real goons hiding in among them. The real goons worry me only slightly, because from what Bernice told me, the weapons that they'd be packing that worry me - the grenade launchers and flame-throwers - they wouldn't use in such close quarters. No, what really worries me is all the innocent bystanders who currently look like armed and dangerous thugs. If I just lay out at everything, hoping to hit goons, I'll hit and probably kill the bystanders. Now, THAT really worries me. And if I do that, it'll look like Ms. Hex was to blame, and Amy will hold it against me. And that scares me right down to my socks.

The army of goons, real and phantasmal, adjusted themselves to cover me. Then a deep voice with a really annoying 'echo chamber' effect boomed out, "Well, Enchantress, once again you are drawn to me like a moth to a flame. You cannot resist that which draws you to me, so why do you persist in your denial of your fate? Come, join me!"

The diatribe came from the one guy in the place that didn't look like he'd come off of an assemby line. Like the goons, he wore heavily 'jeweled' 'hauberk' and a helmet with a grotesque face mask, but his 'hauberk' was heavily gilded and his helmet was much more elaborate, with a golden and bejeweled 'crown'. He struck a pose and started blithering again.

Okay, I have a problem - now, obviously the reason this guy isn't telling his goons to open fire is that I'd be able tell which one was which from the feel of the direction of the incoming bullets, so he's concentrating on psychic combat while his men get into position. The reason he isn't just psychically grinding me into the pavement is that he thinks that I'm Ms. Hex, and he's trying to weasel around her superior psychic defenses. The jabber is just a purely psychological element to his attack. My problem is, as you may have noticed, I tend to have a rather - well, glib, conversational style in combat. Okay, I admit it, I read too many Spiderman comics when I was younger. Ms. Hex has a similar style, though she tends more toward sarcasm and subtle wit, as opposed to my wisecracks. So, as 'Ms. Hex', I should be giving Gobby up there a hard time. But, I can't mimic Amy's voice very well, and if Gobby is as fixated on her as he makes out, he'd spot the difference as soon as I opened my mouth. And then he'd roast me in fire that only existed in my mind. Besides, I was having a hard time keeping an attack of Gilbert & Sullivan down (It is, it is, a glorious thing, to be be a Goblin King!)

Gobby held up an emerald the size of a pigeon's egg, set in a silver necklace. "Behold the Eye of Mab, Queen of the Darkling Fae! With its mystic power, I shall finally bend you to my will and-" Blither, blither, blither--

[By the way, L.L.] Bernice interrupted my train of thought, [Gee Kay is usually looking for some piece of jewelry that he claims is some sort of power amplifier, but after Hex chases him off, it usually turns out to be some cheap piece of paste. He's whacko.]

"Not now, Bernice, I'm working!" I sub-vocalized into my microphone. <Memo to Self: Never use Bernice for Tactic Ops again.>

Okay, obviously the first thing I need to do is get rid of Gobby's henchgoons. But how do I trust my own senses? Even as it was, I could feel the flames and hear their crackling, and I KNEW they weren't really there. While he thinks that he can't just reach in and burn my brain, he can obviously confuse my senses to the point where I'm more of a danger to myself that I am to them.

Hold it - MY senses. Gee Kay can only affect those senses that he knows about. _I_ have a radar sense, which he doesn't know about, and so he can't be mentally confusing. Also, he could confuse my sight and hearing, but how could he know which images to use, to confuse my radar?

"Dammit, woman! Why don't you SAY anything?" Apparently, Gobby doesn't like the silent treatment.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on my radar. Okay, this should completely shut out the sight of the flames, but I could still hear them - but not feel them. Hmmm...

My radar isn't very precise, but it should be able to immediately filter out the total phantasms, and show me at least the ones that were real and alive by their bioelectric fields. So, how do I tell the goons from the bystanders?

Simple! I almost slapped myself in the head. The Goons would be the only ones standing - the bystanders would almost immediately crouch down close to the floor - and they'd be the ones with guns!

Yep, there were four of them standing. Their assault rifles stood out like flames. The goons were standing in an almost perfect square around me, and they had me completely surrounded. Hold on - there's something about those 'hauberks'---

They're electronic. They have functioning electronic circuitry running through them. And, if memory serves correctly, about half of it runs through those god-awful gaudy 'jewels', which, now that I think of it, are clustered in groups of three, in sets of red, blue and green.

They're fucking hologram projectors! The uncanny sunuvabitch is cheating! He's adding 3-D images to his mental illusions, to help them along. Not only would Ms. Hex's wrap-around sunglasses not filter out the illusions, they diminish her fine detail enough that she wouldn't pick up any fuzzing! And that's only half of the circuitry in those vests - he's got the visual part covered, what do you want to bet that he's got the audial part down as well? Maybe some subliminal messaging thrown in for good measure? And the reason those goons are standing in that square formation is that they're forming a perfect acoustic configuration for this Audio-Visual 'stereo'.

I grinned at the Goblin King as he continued haranging me. He didn't know it, but he was playing in MY ballpark, now.

But if I wanted to keep that advantage, I couldn't let him in on it, so I'd have to play it like Ms. Hex would. I prefer a close-up and personal combat style, but Amy's style is more to stand back and let her PK and mental illusions do the work. I held up the steel staff and charged it with electricity. I held it up before me as if in a formal declaration of war.

"Well? What IS it, Woman? Dammit, Talk To Me!" Oh, men get all upset over the least little thing, don't they? He wanted a battle of words, probably so that he could use that connection to slip something past my defenses.

Then I sent the staff spinning around the room, carrying it along with my electromagnetism. I knocked one, then the next, the next, and then the last goon, off their feet, completely destroying their carefully arranged stereo hook up. Suddenly, the whole hellish set-up didn't look anywhere as nasty.

As Gobby was dealing with the fact that I'd just completely re-written the rules of combat that he'd finessed onto Amy, I took the advantage. I magnetically 'jumped' from the center of the floor up to the landing where he was standing and grabbed him by the helmet. Then I jumped over his head, keeping a firm hold on that helmet, and threw him face-first onto the floor.

The sea of fire and the vast majority of the 'goon's disappeared. I reached under the back of the helmet and found the array of wires that led down the back from the helmet to the rest of his rig and yanked them. Then I wrestled his helmet off, and 'tasered' him into unconscousness. Okay, I gave him a quick tap upside the head with that staff, just to be sure.

After that, taking care of the goons wasn't that big a deal. They were totally spooked by the way that I'd upset their scam, and after I crowbarred one of them to submission, the others gave up without a fight.

The innocent bystanders got the heck out of there as quickly as they could. The Cops filed in just as quickly to take care of the goons and slap a psionic scrambler on the Goblin King. Once that was done, I used the jewelry store's phone to teleport out.

"So, how did Miss Hex take your bagging her 'arch-nemesis' when she couldn't?" Reyes asked as we settled in to watch her tape of her segment covering Missuz Baumgartner's arrest.

"Well, actually, she's rather embarrassed."

"Why?" Ma asked. "After all, you DID have the advantage of surprising him with powers that he wasn't expecting."

"Oh, that's not what she's embarrassed about. She's embarrassed that he's been playing her like a fiddle for years."

"You mean that Hi-Fi set-up that you were talking about?" Eli asked.

"Oh, there's more to it than that, li'l bro. There was the whole 'Arch-Enemy' bag. Y'see, the reason 'the Goblin King' kept coming to town, where a superheroine who was supposed to be able to defeat him time and again operated, was that she hadn't really been beating him."

Reyes blinked. "But - she was always keeping him from stealing what he wanted."

I grinned. "NO - she kept him from stealing what he SAID that he wanted to steal. Actually, it turns out that he was getting away with what he really wanted, every time."

I was greeted by blank stares of non-comprehension. "Okay, let's start from scratch. First, we have the Goblin King, showing up and daring Ms. Hex to stop him or doing some bozo 'theme crime', right? Oh, Come ON! What criminal in their right mind tells the Cops what he's going to do? But, a smart criminal would do just that, if he knew that the Cops would sic on him a superheroine that he knew that he could beat.

"Y'see, that's the whole thing! Ms. Hex never caught him! Ol' Gobby had the psychological jump on her from the word 'Go'! His whole 'I'm going to seduce you with the dark glamour of Evil' schtick was to get Hex to focus on not 'being seduced' and not stop to think that what he was doing as stupid! Then she'd pull something, and he'd go 'Curses! Foiled Again!', and Exit, Stage Right. Having already done exactly what he wanted to do."

Reyes looked at me doubtfully. "You mean those bags of minor jewelry that his goons ripped off? But what good are those? They'd barely cover the costs of the operations, without the major stones that the Goblin King was targeting."

I grinned evilly. "Exactly. They covered the costs of the operations. Here's the kicker - according to Lieutenant Heszcheck, Gee Kay is really Emile Voorlinger, an Antwerp jewelry broker who specializes in handling major stones. Y'see, he'd use his mental illusions to peddle imitations and inferior stones to various dealers abroad, and then he'd use them again to confuse the paper trail. When he had enough bogus stuff floating around, he'd arrange for them - and more importantly the text documentation - to be concentrated in one place, preferably a place where he knew that either the police or the local superheroes weren't up to actually capturing him. Then he'd trot out his 'Goblin King' act, make these really dramatic raids, and he'd destroy the evidence."

"Destroy the evidence? How?"

"Well, as I said, he'd arranged that all of his bogus stones to be in a single shipment - sometimes, he'd even buy them back, insure them heavily and then pull this. While he was doing his 'hunt for a gem of magical power' routine, he'd use the sound system built into his suit to emit a resonant frequency that turned the cheap quartz into powder, which he'd sweep into all the broken glass. Of course, all of this requires that he have an opponent who would allow him to stand still in the right place while he was doing this.

"That's why he picked Hex as his 'Arch-Nemesis'; he had a pretty good idea of what she'd do in a fight. Her and a handful of chosen pigeons in Europe."

But Reyes wasn't buying it. "Hold on - if this Voorlinder guy is so slick, why go through all that rigmarole to destroy the evidence? Why not just steal it, nice and simple? And how did Heszcheck figure all of this out so quickly?"

"Well, the same basic answer to both questions - his henchmen. Voorlinder wanted his goons to think that he was some sort of delusional nutcase who'd let them keep the good stuff while he took junk. After all, he could never trust them to not get caught on their own time and roll over on him. Crooks will be crooks, and even other crooks know better than to trust them.

"Which leads to our next answer: one of Voorlinder's thugs found out about him - it seems that he was looking for a fence for those hot diamonds and recognized his voice. He figured out the rest, and was planning on blackmailing Voorlinder when 'the Goblin King' retired. But since that little secret isn't a secret anymore, the thug decided to try and deal for a break on reduced charges."

Ma wanted to get on with watching the video. "Well, it's very nice of you to let Ms. Hex keep the credit. But then, she's handing you a 'scoop', isn't she? And speaking of that?" She raised an inquiring eyebrow at Reyes.

"Right. Here's what will be playing tomorrow morning." Reyes slipped the DVD in our player.

'Tonight, an unlikely group of car thieves had what they THOUGHT was a major score - a group of cars donated to a local charity. What they didn't know was that the cars they were ripping off belonged to the Mayor and several important civic officials-"

I've said it before - being able to make your mother smile is one of life's great joys. And watching the expression of the woman who had given her so much grief over the years, as she realized that she'd been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, Ma smiled.

Continuted in Part 23...