“I'm not! I really am going with somebody!”

“Then I guess I'll see you there, since I'm going, too,” replied Melissa C. coolly.

A subtle challenge, which Lawrence rose to. “Yeah, I guess you will.”

She stared at him for a moment, watching his eyes and face for any sign that he was bluffing. He did not flinch. “Who is she? I'm trying to picture the kind of person whose league you'd be in but I just can't.”

“Oh, you can. You actually know her, she's a cheerleader,” he bragged. “Does the name...Lindsey Ericson mean anything to you?”

“Lindsey?!” shouted Melissa C. “You've got a date with Lindsey?! What the hell? What was she thinking?”

Then, she understood. She gave Lawrence an “oh, how precious” laugh and leaned back in her chair. “Ah, so that's it. Lawrence, don't you get it? She was making fun of you. She wanted to see if you're actually dumb enough to believe her. You're going to show up at Harvest and she'll be dancing with some guy from the football team. Then they're both going to laugh at you. I hate to break it to you but that's just the way it is.”

“No, I'm pretty sure she was bringing a football guy but he canceled on her at the last minute. She was really freaking out. Me being the nice guy that I am, I volunteered to step in.”

Melissa C. couldn't believe it. First that reprehensible Chase was taking a scary kid, and now Lindsey was taking a nerd. What the heck had happened to that squad while she was gone?

“Anyways, the point is, I've finally become accepted among the same cheerleaders who shunned me, and it's only a matter of time before me and Lindsey are making out on the reg, so I don't need to get revenge on them anymore. We can call this whole thing off now, Agent Stevens. Melissa C. doesn't have to fight anymore.”

“What? That's what this is all about? That's why you saved my life?” asked Melissa C., annoyed.

Stevens rushed to pacify her. “That, er, isn't why at all,” he answered. He looked at Lawrence. “Kid, it's not that simple. We're not calling anything off. You got what you wanted, and that's great, but Melissa and I still have unfinished work to do.”

“Not anymore, you don't,” said a firm, female voice. It was coming from behind them, from the staircase. “Hands up, and turn around slowly.”

So the three of them put their hands up and turned around slowly. There was Lara, gracefully descending the last two steps into the room, and there was her gun, menacing itself upon Stevens.

“Melissa! It really is you!” She exhaled, her voice shaking. “Are you alright?”

“Caitlin's mom?” asked Melissa C., astonished. “What are you doing here?”

“I came looking for you. Are you hurt? Your parents are worried sick about you.” She gave Stevens a withering look. “I don't know what this is all about, but you just stay right there and keep your hands up. Melissa, go upstairs and get some more cops down here.”

Stevens did not seem concerned as he obligingly kept his hands up. “You're a fool, Boyd. I gave you a warning. I gave you a chance to walk away from this. Not because I had to, but because I felt you deserved it. Now, however, you've seen too much. You're not going to get another chance.” He looked at the cyborg calmly. “Kill her, Melissa.”

“What?!” Melissa exclaimed.

“Whoa, wait, hold on. Kill her?!” exclaimed Lawrence.

“She's trying to impede your progress, Melissa. She wants to stop you,” explained Stevens. Melissa looked confused again. “She's no different from your so-called friends on the squad. She wants Chase to win. She wants Chase to keep hunting and killing. Best to kill her so she can't interfere anymore.”

Melissa grabbed her head and growled in what could almost have been pain. “But...but she's...she's Caitlin's mom...my friend's mom...I can't do that...”

“Exactly. She probably recruited Caitlin. That's how Chase got to your squad.” Something came to him. “Maybe if you kill her, Caitlin will be free. Better try it.”

A war waged in Melissa's head. Pressure was building up in her skull almost visibly. “Nnnn...Rrrr...I can't...I...” Her eyes closed and her voice became a low, pained whine. Then she exploded. Her eyes snapped open and she pointed a threatening finger at the man in black. “NO! I'm not going to kill her, you little weasel, so shut the hell up! That's my friend's mom! She's not helping Chase! She would never do that!”

“What the hell are you two talking about?” asked Lara, totally lost.

Agent Stevens frowned. It looked like he'd lost this battle. He hated to give ground, but he had no time to mount a counterattack. “Fine. Just lock her up then.” He nodded at an old wire jail cell. “Throw her in and let's get out of here.”

This was acceptable to Melissa C. She walked over to the police officer without fear. She knew the woman would never shoot at her, and that even if she did, the bullets would do nothing to harm her. Lara was shocked at the teen's strength as she picked her up, and by the time it occurred to her to resist she had already been thrown in the cell and the door locked.

“Melissa!” she exclaimed, lacing her fingers around one of the chain-link walls and giving it a good rattle. “What are you doing? I'm trying to help you!” There was no anger in her voice, only confusion. She looked around for her gun, then saw it on the other side of the links. She must have dropped it in surprise.

“I'm sorry, Ms. Boyd. I know you are. But there's something I have to do, and I can't let you get in my way.”

Lawrence decided it was time to speak up. “W-wait just a second,” he told Stevens. “You said we were fighting a criminal! You said the work we were doing was for national security!”

Agent Stevens couldn't be bothered to remember what he may or may not have said to this child in order to get him to fall in line. He decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. “Yes? And?”

Lawrence gestured with annoyance at Lara. “She doesn't look like a criminal to me! She looks like one of the good guys! You were gonna have Melissa C. kill a cop! You didn't even care! How do I know the girl who Melissa C.'s hunting isn't also a good guy? What exactly is going on here? I think it's time you told me!”

Melissa C. looked annoyed. “Look, dork. You got your stupid date. Just be happy with it and let the adults do their business.”

The agent added, “I don't owe you an explanation, kid. You're lucky we're still keeping you around. You've done your part, you've weaponized Melissa. We don't need you anymore.”

Too late, Lawrence sensed that all control of the situation had left him. There was only one thing he could do to wrest any of it back. “Hmph, we'll see about that!” said Lawrence, dashing to the control panel. “I activated her, you know! I'd be a fool if I didn't design a way to deactivate her!”

This was worthy of Agent Stevens' full attention. “Melissa!” he shouted, but she was already on him, yanking him away from the console and hefting him over one shoulder. She threw him in the same cell as Lara, and locked the both of them in together.

“Excellent. Now nothing can stand in my way,” remarked Melissa C.

“You'd best get some rest, Melissa. The mechanical half of you is all charged up, but the human half still needs sleep. You've got a big day tomorrow.”

Her wavy brown locks shimmered as she gave her head an earnest shake. “There's no way I'm going to be able to sleep tonight. I'm way too excited. Besides, I still need to pick up my dress. I think I'm gonna go fly around for a while.”

“Go ahead. I'm going to head home.”

Melissa flew out the window. Agent Stevens watched her go with a smile, but made no move to leave.

The soles of Lawrence's sneakers found the cement floor, and he pushed himself up into a standing position. “You were lying before, weren't you?” he asked. “The government has no idea you're here. You're totally rogue.”

Stevens laughed as he turned towards them. “You're a smart kid, Lawrence, but you're wrong again. I haven't gone completely rogue. My bosses do know I'm here. It's just...they don't know exactly what I'm doing here. How much do you know about Chase, anyway?”

The nerd approached the wire barrier. “Not much. Just that you and Melissa want to kill her. I thought she was some kind of bad guy, but now you have me doubting that.”

“Oh, she is certainly what you'd call a bad guy. Sparing you the gruesome details, she has quite a bit of blood on her hands.” He put a hand on the side of the cage and leaned forward at him. “That sniper your whole town thinks she stopped? She killed a lot more than just him that night. When the number came across our desks, we thought it was a typo. Not an easy thing to do, covering that up, but we managed,”

“Then, we started connecting her to other crimes in the area, and a whole lot started falling into place. It soon became obvious that the situation out here called for government intervention.” After a pensive pause, he continued, turning away and slipping his hands into the pockets of his suit jacket. “Of course, I thought that meant killing her. A covert task force designed to deal with her threat and eliminate it. But no. Those soulless bastards up above looked at what she was doing, and God help us all, they were impressed. They were amazed by the amount of death and destruction a mere teenage girl could whip up. The plan became locating the target...and capturing her alive. For research purposes.”

A scowl. “This...disgusted me, to a level which might surprise you. Oh, I'm sure they would have dissected her eventually, but who knows how long that could take? I wanted justice, and I wanted it as soon as possible.”

Lawrence had always thought Stevens was in his mid thirties, at the oldest. But here, in this light, wearing these thoughts on his face, he couldn't be any younger than forty-five. “The first case I ever worked for the feds was a serial killer. We never caught the guy. He just stopped. I don't know if he died of natural causes or just got bored, but the fact that we were never able to close that case always stuck with me. And now, here we were, with a potentially even worse and more prolific killer right in our clutches, and they wanted me to sit back and let her go again? It wasn't happening. I jumped on this case, demanded to be put on it, to make sure she got what was coming to her.”

“They'll fire you when they find out,” said Lara. “You're not going to get away with this with your career intact.”

This seemed to amuse him. “I was worried about that, too. But then I thought of...” he nodded at the window Melissa C. had flown out of. “...her. I realized that if I couldn't give them the killing machine they wanted, I could always give them the killing machine I devised to kill the killing machine. Why wouldn't they want the superior model? Sure, I went off my bosses' script just a wee bit. But once I hand her over, I think they'll forget all about Chase. They might even go ahead and promote me.”

Lawrence was horrified. “You're...you're just using her!”

“It's nothing personal. I used you the same way.”

The boy had not fully realized how helpless he was until right then, when the urge to help someone rose and he could not act upon it. He looked up at Stevens in desperation. “You can't! You can't put her through more hardship!” he argued. “She...she thinks when she's done with this, she'll get her normal life back!”

But Stevens was already walking towards the stairs. “That sounds like her problem to me.” He put his foot on the bottom step and a hand on the railing, before throwing them a final glance. “Well, I'll see you two later. I'd better get some shuteye. Like I told Melissa—big day tomorrow.”