Chapter Nine

(Angel)

Mack's rifle blazed light at the hovering teardrop. The drone swerved, and the beam exploded into the ruins across the street. Through her scout's bird's eye video feed, Angel watched the bat-mecha launch a rocket salvo. Sixteen contrails arced towards the restaurant like smoky tentacles.

Angel grabbed Mack by his silver shoulder. "Get down!"

The blasts shook the floor. A fiery hand swatted them into kitchen cabinets. The remaining half of the building moaned as if in despair, and as Angel pulled her head free from charred particleboard and crushed cans of tomato sauce, she heard snapping timber above. The ceiling dropped; the walls crumbled. Mack wrapped his arms around her.

Hammers beat her sides. She hugged her fragile plasma bow to her chest, and it folded into the safety of her suit. Practically spooning her, Mack took the brunt of the avalanche, and though this chivalry surprised her, the gesture seemed pointless when thousands of tons of debris were raining upon her.

When the rumbling stilled, she found herself buried like a fossil. Her breaths echoed in her helmet. Her face felt stuffy. Her scout feed showed the bat-mecha only fifty meters away, its black-armored form half-obscured by dust and smoke.

"Look at that," said a voice in her ear. "Two suits at once. Either of you still alive? If so, just relax. I'll make it quick. This makes what, seven kills? Too bad the internet's down, because I'd love to--"

She cut his signal.

"What an asshole," Mack said through an encrypted channel. "You all right?"

"We need to get out of here," she said, flexing against the smashed brick and wood that seemed almost molded around her. If they were trapped, they were dead. So, they couldn't be trapped. Her light-enhanced vision cast the world in slanting, shifting gray angles. She kicked and pushed and felt Mack beside her doing the same.

Batman stepped around the wrecked Apache, his three drones circling the smoking mountain that only a minute ago was an upscale Italian joint.

We're in that, Angel thought as she struggled. Carin's in that. But she pushed the second fear away. The basement was deep down, under meters of concrete. It was probably an old bomb shelter. Her wife was safe--safer than they were, anyway.

But if they didn't survive, that would be Carin's tomb.

They dug like gophers; they wiggled like worms. Their progress was slow, but finally she caught a peek of daylight. She continued on, inching closer.

"Elf," she said. "Me and Mack's channel, is it secure?"

"The data exchange is quantum entangled. Impossible to intercept."

"Mack, do you have any drones left?" she asked.

"The one in the kitchen is dead. I still have the one in my suit. Shit, my particle beam's gone. That was my only gun."

Angel didn't reply. She had no time. "Elf, give me quick intel on that bat-mecha. What's that big arm cannon? How are its drones armed?"

Her elf spoke fast but clearly. "The 'bat-mecha' is a medium-class power suit with an enhanced armor rating. The weapon on its arm is an ion cannon capable of disabling electronic equipment--including other suits. The three drones appear to be armed with light lasers, though they may have additional weaponry."

"Can my plasma bow one-shot it?"

"That depends on where you hit."

"Show me its weak spots."

A rotating diagram appeared in her HUD. The bat-mecha really did look like something Bruce Wayne would fight in, all black and dark blue with horny ears on the head. The diagram red-circled the undersides of the arms and the inside of the elbows and knees. Three more circles marked the gap under the groin and between the legs. None of the circles were very big.

"And he can see me cloaked," she said, more to herself than to the elf.

"At least one of his drones has thermal vision. It's reasonable to suppose his suit does as well."

She was close to breaking free but slowed to give herself time to think. Her military police training dealt with arresting and detaining suspects, crowd control and crime scene security. She knew how to work as a team to clear buildings, room by room. Her firearm skills were a honed instinct. She'd been in gunfights. She'd killed people.

But none of that prepared her for this. And since Mack was almost useless without a weapon, she had only herself and a drone against Batman and his three. And no doubt he had eyes in the sky like she did. Without the element of surprise, she would lose.

However, she wasn't just a soldier. She was a hunter. Hunters hide in blinds.

Through all the dust and smoke, Angel's scout could barely see Batman's drones snooping around the collapsed restaurant. Even the thirty-foot bat-mecha, standing patiently with a ballistic shield folded from its left forearm, was visible only from the waist up. The street level looked so foggy it might as well have been covered in dry ice.

She switched the scout to thermal vision, and if anything, that blue and yellow landscape was even blurrier, the cloud apparently blocking most heat. There was no reason to think Batman could see any clearer, so a stealthy attack was still on the table. But she had to act fast before the air cleared.

Flying would put her too much in the open, but could she snipe behind rubble? No, to hit such a small target, she'd need to be close--close enough that Batman could spot her first. She could stay buried and dig out and shoot as he passed, but Batman might hear her movement before she readied her bow. What she needed was a convenient ambush point, something unexpected.

"Elf, where's the nearest manhole?"

Her HUD flashed the location. She worked her head and shoulders out of a mass of burned drywall, and though she couldn't see more than a few feet in any direction, she knew she needed to go thirteen meters to her right. Fortunately, Batman was still out of sight on the other side of the restaurant.

"Yeah. What are we going to do?" Mack asked. For the first time since she met him, he sounded scared.

"I'm about to climb out," she said. "When you follow, launch your drone and give me control."

"Okay, what should I do then?"

She found his unquestioning trust somehow unsettling, but it made sense. She had combat experience. She was a war hero with her own wiki page. He was counting on her as much as Carin was. But it was still annoying. She already had enough straws on her back.

"Run north, make him chase you. Talk to him, taunt him, whatever, but don't let him know I'm alive. And don't get killed."

"I'll . . . I'll try. What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to bow bag a bat-bot. Now, run!"

Cloaking herself, she pulled free and in a low, catlike crawl slinked through the chalky fog and along the rocky terrain until she came to the manhole's location. Predictably enough, it lay beneath a mound of broken concrete. She cleared away the pieces as quickly and quietly as she could. Her own scout's thermal eyes couldn't see her, and hopefully neither could Batman's.

But her scout did spot Mack's cloaked suit sprinting up 3rd Avenue. He'd released his last drone to her, and a second HUD window displayed what it saw--smoke, mostly. She hid it close to the ground.

"Running scared, little man? Don't worry. It'll all be over soon."

"Fuck you, Batman!" Mack cried. "You're too slow to catch me!"

"I doubt that, but I don't need to. I have drones."

Just as she lifted aside a slab to reveal the manhole cover, Batman began moving--walking in her direction. His three drones rose from the cloud to pursue Mack, and one shot out a bright green light. Sparks sprayed as the beam seared along Mack's armored back, dissipating his cloak field. He stumbled but then leaped to the side, crashing through a shop display window.

Angel crouched behind a pile of bricks and sent Mack's drone in a climbing flank attack. Its laser clipped one of Batman's drones, making it wobble, and she then retreated it across a rooftop. As she'd hoped, the three drones gave chase. They fired a laser volley it was unable to dodge, but though it smoked and spiraled, it still had enough life to dive behind the buildings. It wouldn't last long, but so far it was the distracting pawn she needed.

Batman was only about thirty-five meters from Angel, and she knew if it weren't for her cloak and the smokescreen, he'd be blasting her now. As she hooked her gloved fingers into the grooves and hefted the manhole cover aside, she contemplated whether she should just take the shot. She was already good with a bow; with her targeting reticule, she was Oliver Queen. On the other hand, this wouldn't be like shooting down helicopters. She'd be aiming at a small vulnerable spot, and at that range he might have time to try and dodge. If she missed, she wasn't counting on a second shot.

The manhole was a long, narrow shaft leading to a sewer. Angel used the ladder rungs to climb a few feet down and then pulled the steel cover back in place where it scraped the top of her helmet. Bracing her knees outward and pressing her back against the concrete tunnel, she held out her hand, and the spindly plasma bow butterfly-knifed from her arm.

Her combat drone's video feed somersaulted into asphalt and went static.

"Was that your last drone? I have to say, I'm disappointed, but I suppose it's my own fault. Dropping the building must have fragged most of your gear--and I'm guessing I either killed or incapacitated your friend. That's a shame. I would have enjoyed a more dynamic game of cat and mouse. And any gear I frag is gear I can't loot."

Angel plucked an arrow from her bow's attached quiver and readied her legs to spring upwards. An HUD reticule tracked Batman's movement through the shaft's dark wall. Through her scout, she saw that despite his bravado, he held his shield in a protective stance, his arm cannon outward in no-nonsense preparation. The camera zoomed in: his shoulder-mounted rocket pods looked empty. Good.

"You think you're so badass," Mack said, "murdering people and taking their stuff? Enjoy it while it lasts, motherfucker. You're going to end up a smoking wreck like that Mecha-Kong psycho."

Batman took three steps, placing him fifteen meters from the manhole. Still too far.

He laughed. "Yeah, I saw that. Kid was a moron. But I'm not like that. I chose a flexible build. Good defense, good offense. You thought you had a good build too, but let me guess: you came across your pod early, and didn't know there were others. You thought you were the only one in the world with alien power armor, so you chose the small, sneaky build because the big ones would draw too much attention. But you made the wrong call, and now you're stuck with weak armor, weak weapons and a stealth that's worthless against anyone with thermal vision--and only an idiot wouldn't pick that. Face it: your suit's easy loot. If I don't kill you for it, someone else will. Nothing personal."

His three drones returned from over the roofs and raced down the street towards where Mack took cover.

"You have incoming," Angel said just as they zipped through the shattered window. The lime light of lasers flashed through the opening.

Mack screamed in pain. "Fuck! You can have the suit! I don't want it!"

"Sorry. Someone already tried that. It doesn't work that way. My suit has an inbuilt harvester, and the tentacles wouldn't even touch the other guy's suit. Turns out suits are slaved to their pilots, and their components can't be salvaged until the pilot's dead. It's really annoying, because it means a suit has to be basically destroyed open before it can be looted. A waste, but I suppose our pointy-eared benefactors want us to kill each other."

Mack sprinted down the back alley behind the store. The three drones swerved out through the emergency exit, and one shot a beam that winged his armored thigh. Mack staggered into trash bags but immediately jumped up and kept running--now with a limp. He darted around a corner onto a street.

"Mack, I don't have a clear shot. I need him to step up a few feet." But Angel felt foolish as soon as she said the words. What did she expect him to do?

But Mack stopped running and bent forward. His hands gripped his knees, and she could hear him panting. The drones caught up and circled him on the sidewalk like stubby metal sharks.

"I give up!" Mack cried. "You win! I have no weapons. I can't outrun your drones. I'm tired . . . I'm hurting . . . just kill me and take my fucking suit!"

Batman said nothing. The drones held their fire.

"Mack, what are you doing?" Angel asked, though she had an idea. Crazy bastard.

"I don't know what your trick--"

"No trick!" Mack threw up his hands and stood defiantly. "Fuck you! Get it over with!"

But the drones simply bobbed in place as if confused. Infuriatingly, Batman still didn't budge. Angel's curled thighs began to burn, but with a thought, her Elf magic dialed down the pain.

"Collapse your suit," Batman said, "and lay the bracelet on the ground. Make this easy for me, and I promise you won't feel a thing."

Mack cradled his silver head in his silver hands, his deep, despairing breaths reverberating over the radio. "You . . . you'll make it quick, right? A laser in the brain?"

"I will," Batman said almost kindly.

"Mack, don't do this," Angel said. "This isn't going to work."

Mack fidgeted slowly. He hugged his elbows.

"Come on . . ." Batman said. His mecha remained still.

"I'm scared," Mack said.

"Then hurry up, so you can stop being scared."

"Can I . . . can I just say something before you kill me?"

Batman sighed. "Go ahead."

"It's . . . it's a confession. Something I never told anyone. It's about a woman. She was my American Lit professor, and she was more than twice my age. But she was beautiful, and she was funny. And she had those sexy little wrinkles around her mouth and eyes. They didn't really make her look old, just seasoned, you know? We hit it off, and needless to say, I aced the cl--"

"Seriously? You're telling me a story?"

"He's not taking the bait," Angel said. "I'm shooting now and hoping--"

"Fine!" Mack cried. "Be an asshole! Here's my fucking suit!"

"No! Mack don't--"

Through her scout drone Angel watched Mack's silver plates fold away to reveal the white chef clothes he wore beneath. Trembling, he unclasped the bracelet and held it out as if it were an offering. One of the drones hovered before his face. Mack clenched shut his eyes.

"Finally," Batman said. "And you took the Elf option too? That's just wrong. A loser like you doesn't deserve that honor." Batman took one step, two steps, three steps . . .

Angel kicked against the ladder rung, and the steel cover clanged away as she rose from the hole like a jack-in-the-box. Ten meters away, the Bat-mecha was already turning in her direction. She pulled back on the bow's ghostly string; the arrowhead ignited into a tiny sun. She lined her reticule and released.

She nearly missed. Nearly. Batman had enough time to uselessly raise his shield before the arrow clipped the back of his left knee. The white hot heat wasn't enough to amputate, but the joint burst into orange slag. The leg buckled, and the mecha waved its arms in panic before toppling into the Chase bank across the street.

The many-storied building shuddered from the impact, and a whole section of wall caved in. Bricks and glass rained on top of the crippled giant, half burying it in debris.

Angel notched another arrow and drew until the head lit up. While the bat-mecha was maimed, it was still armed and armored. She had four shots left.

"You sneaky shit! I'll make it slow! You'll beg to die!" The bat-mecha used the shield on its left arm as a crutch to push itself up. Its pointy-eared demon face glared at Angel with slanted red eyes. It raised its arm cannon, and the weapon crackled with blue energy. Angel let her arrow fly.

It slid where she wanted--right up the barrel. The cannon disappeared in a mini-nova which seared the surrounding asphalt and masonry and shattered the bank's windows. Electricity writhed along the bat-mecha like magic eels.

When those faded, the mecha was sitting on its ass, as still as a statue. Its right arm was gone at the elbow, the red glowing stump pointed at Angel. The light had gone from its eyes. Angel waited. It didn't move.

"The suit is disabled," her elf said.

"For how long?"

"At least several minutes. Probably over an hour."

Angel checked her scout's feed. Apparently in standby, Batman's three drones still circled where Mack had stood. But Mack was nowhere in sight.

"You okay, Mack?"

There was an uncomfortable pause, but she felt relief when his silver suited figure limped from a shattered shop window.

"Yeah," he said and laughed. "I ran and hid. Man, I didn't think I was getting out of that one!"

"That makes two of us," Angel said. "What the fuck were you thinking?"

"Batman wanted my suit intact, so I figured he wouldn't shoot me if he thought I'd give it up."

She wanted to ask him about his MILF girlfriend, but instead she said, "That's a hell of a gamble, Mack."

"Like I told him: I couldn't outrun them, and I had no weapons. This way, at least, I could buy you time. And it worked, didn't it? That was awesome, by the way. I saw it through my scout. I take it he's dead?"

Angel pulled herself out of the manhole and notched her third arrow. "If he's not, he's about to be."

"Fuckin A!"

Angel stalked across the rubble for a better shot, her heavy boots crunching over glass and gravel. Batman, if he was alive in there, was helpless and probably blubbering in the dark. She didn't feel sorry for him, but as many people as she'd killed, this was her first execution.

She paused, mulling the act for significance. But this precipice didn't seem very high nor the slope very steep. She would lose no sleep over the likes of him.

Her arrow struck the armpit. She had enough time to see the plasma point plunge deep into the weak armor before a blast of light and heat knocked her on her back.

Time passed. Angel opened her eyes. She was lying on the ground, staring at the smoky sky as grit drizzled on her like BBs. Her HUD flashed reports of minor damage to her ventral armor. Mack was shouting something.

". . . Angel! Angel! Are you all right? Angel!"

Angel climbed wobbling to her feet. She brushed dust off her suit.

Her thoughts flittered back to that long-ago ambush outside Abu Ghraib. Private Ander's mangled face drifted through her mind, melding dreamlike with the bomb-blasted ruin that had been Carin.

Carin . . . Carin . . . Her brain fiddled with that thread.

Half-buried in bricks, the bat-mecha was a headless, armless torso smoking from a hole in its side. The explosion (What had it been? Fuel? Munitions?) had collapsed the bank's front walls, leaving the building with that gutted, post-apocalyptic look that seemed so the rage now. Metal fragments lay strewn around, one of them a beach ball-sized chunk bulging from a concrete pile. It was the mecha's head.

Her HUD told her she had three new drones under her control. Thumbnail feeds displayed what they saw.

"Angel? Angel? Come on, say something!" Mack was limping towards her down the dusty, wrecked street. He stooped to pick up her bow. It must have been blown from her hands.

"I'm all right. Just a little woozy." She shook her head, testing herself.

"The hydranites are repairing your concussion," her elf told her. "In the meantime, you should retrieve your wife."

Angel's blood froze. "Carin!" she shouted. "Mack! Help me get Carin!"

"On my way!"

"She's probably still alive," the elf said casually.

Angel was already scrambling through the restaurant's smoking ruins. Her elf told her where the stairway laid, and together she and Mack clawed into the mountain of charred wood and brick.

***

"It's all right, baby. You're safe now."

Carin shivered in Angel's arms. Her bare legs trembled. Her dirty feet paced restlessly in place on the broken pavement. Angel kissed her and stroked her bald head.

Carin was only wearing a button-up shirt and panties--far too little for this gray autumn morning. She clung to Angel, and while Angel hugged her back, she was careful not to press too hard. She'd rolled back her helmet but still wore her suit.

Its increased strength came in handy for clearing rubble. Mack and her couldn't fling cars, but concrete slabs weighing hundreds of pound weren't much trouble. It took only ten minutes to dig Carin free, but Angel spent every second fearing she would once again find her wife's lifeless body.

But her elf's estimates were right. The basement's bomb-shelter walls had cracked but held, and the air would have lasted a day or more. Though shaken, Carin was safe.

The three now stood in the street beside the collapsed restaurant. The dust and smoke stung Angel's eyes, but a gentle breeze was gradually clearing the air.

"Wh . . . what happened? Who was b-bombing us?" Carin asked.

"Just some asshole," Angel said. "But don't worry. I blew him up good."

". . . b-blew him up good," Carin mumbled, as if trying the words to see if they made sense. Her purple eyes boggled at the destruction around her.

Angel had to remind herself this was new for Carin. Her resurrected brain didn't remember the falling pods on the news or the insanity at the hospital. As far as she knew, she woke up to a world gone mad.

"Let's head west, Mack" Angel said. "If we get through Jersey City and Newark, we'll be in open suburbia. Less people, less problems."

Mack scratched at his shaggy brown hair, streaked white now from dust. "What about the Hudson? And the Hackensack?"

Good questions. Angel had no idea. "We'll cross those when we come to them."

"B-but my parents!" Carin said. "We c-can't just leave them here!"

Angel groaned. A harsh, hard-boiled part of her wanted to tell Carin they had themselves to worry about, that her folks had probably either evacuated or were already dead. But if Carin's mother was slowly dying in her collapsed apartment, Angel didn't want that on her conscience. Still, Brooklyn was deeper into the city.

"Shit. All right, baby. I'm sure they're fine, but we'll fly our scouts for a look. If they need help, we'll find a way. I promise."

Carin nodded, her face etched with worry.

Angel decided to change the subject. "Anyway, we need a new place to hole up. We can't stay here--that basement's so banged up it might cave on us--but I'm sure we'll find a subway tunnel or something. And baby, you, uh, need some pants. Shoes too. And maybe a bra. It's chilly out here, and you got Mack staring."

"Hey! I'm not! Honest!" he lied.

Her shirt was baggy enough that they weren't that noticeable, but Carin still squirmed and folded her arms over her chest. The dust and grime on her face hid her adorable blush, but Angel knew it was there. She cuddled her close.

The pointed tips of Mack's ears turned red, which looked pretty silly. He gestured behind him with a silver thumb. "I was chased through a fancy clothes store. Lasers shot up the place, but I don't think it was too badly burned."

Angel clapped her hands once. "Okay, then. Who's for some end of the world shopping? One hundred percent off! All shit must go!"

Carin managed a feeble smile. It was something.

This length of 3rd Avenue resembled a cross between a rock quarry and a junkyard. Among the rubble, vehicles laid smashed or scattered. Broken glass from a thousand windows blanketed the ground like crystal snow. Angel carried Carin as they moved.

A half kilometer ahead, a handful of figures rushed out of a convenience store, their arms full of loot. A couple pushed shopping carts loaded to overflowing. Angel doubted they would be trouble, but she kept Batman's three drones hovering a few meters nearby. Higher up, her and Mack's scouts gave surveillance on the surrounding area, and though Angel wasn't wearing her visor, her Elf would warn her if it detected any hostiles. She hoped they didn't get into any mecha fights for a while. Mack had lost his rifle, and it would take a few hours for her bent bow to self-repair.

Also, she just needed a break.

Carin twisted in Angel's arms, craning her head.

"Is that . . . ?" Carin asked. With catlike intensity, she fixed her eyes on the wrecked mecha across the street. Coated in chalky dust, one could easy mistake it for a dismembered statue.

"Yeah, that's the Bat-bot," Angel said.

Carin's gaze hadn't wavered. "The Bat-bot?"

"You should have seen it with its head on," Angel said. "It's right there, actually, lying on its side. You see? Pointy-ears, scary face: 'I'm Batman!' Hey, wouldn't it'd be cool to mount it above the fireplace, right next to my white-tailed buck? But I can't take all the credit. I couldn't have done it without Mack here. He did good. He got Batman to . . . hey, babe, where're you . . . ?"

Carin had rolled out of Angel's grip and was hopscotching through the rubble towards the fallen machine. Her careful little jumps were spaced to avoid the worst of the glass, but she was weak and uncoordinated. A misstep slid her into a patch of toothy shards. Carin cried out and grabbed her bleeding foot, but amazingly hobbled onward.

Angel and Mack were already chasing her.

"Baby? It's scrap! There's nothing worth seeing!"

"You're wr-wrong!" Carin cried. "I know this! I understand th-this!"

Angel felt a sinking in her gut. "Understand what? What's going on?"

Carin climbed into the brick pile and onto the bat-mecha's giant thigh. Standing on her good foot, she stretched on her tiptoes and touched a spot on the mecha's armored belly. A small iris opened, revealing inside a palm-sized panel of glowing blue gel.

"Come down, baby! Don't--"

But Carin's fingers were already submerged in the goop. The bat-mecha groaned and shuddered, and with a tired hiss, a hatch in the middle of its scarred chest hinged upwards. Oven-hot fumes belched out, and Angel was struck with the coppery, charcoal stench of roasted flesh.

Carin gurgled and fell from the thigh into Angel's arms. Vomited pasta ran down her shirt. Mack's silver helmet unfolded protectively across his face.

Angel kept her own lunch down, but the smell stirred memories she had to beat down. She held her breath and looked up into the smoldering cockpit, the last of its smoke writhing into the cool air. There in the melted seat sat Batman, though 'Skeletor' would be a more appropriate name now.

Carin tried to pull out of Angel's bridal carry, but Angel held her tight. Carin wiped the throw up from her mouth. Her lavender eyes gazed wild. She croaked with animal desperation.

"L-let me go, Angie! P-please! I can't explain it, but s-something woke up inside me. Th-there's parts in there. Parts we need. I-I have to c-check!"

Angel stared at Carin but spoke to her elf. Dread nearly strangled her words. "What . . . what did you do to my wife?"

"Neither you nor Mack had a scavenger drone," her elf said through her suit's speakers, "so we implanted procedural memory into her hippocampus and basal ganglia."

"You . . . you put elf shit in her brain!"

"Our programming forbids imparting engineering knowledge directly to pilots. Through Carin, we were able to effectively bypass this restriction."

"Angie . . ." Carin said.

"And we were repairing these regions anyway," Mack's elf added, its huskier female voice nearly apologetic. "The augmentation was not any more intrusive than it already would have been."

"You and Mack needed a mechanic," Angel's elf continued, "so we made you one."

Mack raised his hands. "Angel, I swear, I didn't know."

Angel's head throbbed with outrage. She wanted to collapse the suits and smash the bracelets to powder, destroy these alien 'gifts'. But Mack wouldn't go for that, and she didn't blame him. In this crazy new world, they needed this edge. But should she demand they reverse their rewiring? Could she trust them to?

A hand caressed Angel's cheek.

"It's all r-right," Carin said. "I don't understand everything th-that's happened, but the physics, they're . . . they're shining, elegant, like d-d-diamond poetry. I didn't ask f-for this, but I'm glad it's a part of m-me."

"Now I'm a little jealous," Mack said. "I wouldn't mind knowing the secrets of the universe."

"You wouldn't," Angel said through gritted teeth. "You overhauled your brain. But you chose to. That was your choice. Carin wasn't given one!"

"B-but I don't mind, Angie. R-really, I don't."

"Baby, you . . . you don't know what you're saying. They messed with your mind!"

"And they brought me back to l-life. It's okay. Please, let it g-go."

Angel opened her mouth, but she knew this wasn't the time to vent. They had bigger worries now--like escaping New York. She closed her eyes, took a long deep breath, and exhaled. The anger didn't empty out, but it did deflate a little.

Gently, she rubbed Carin's smooth scalp. "You always did like this science fiction stuff . . . . But I'm still pissed at you elves. You should have asked first!"

"Next time, we will," Mack's elf said.

***

In an ordinary world, Carin's foot would've needed at least a couple of dozen stitches. But all Angel had to do was rub her hand over her sole and heel and little toes, and within a minute or so the gory jigsaw sealed and faded as if it were never there. The half-dried blood on her skin may as well have belonged to someone else.

Since only Carin had the magic know-how to root through the wreckage, she needed to be the one to search the cockpit. She and Angel climbed on the bat-mecha's thigh, and Angel propped her up in a one hand lift, her arm raised above her head while Carin sat in her gloved palm. This gave Angel a nice panty shot, and she was tempted to have some fun with her thumb. But not while Mack was watching, and not while Carin was face to face with Mr. Crispy.

At first, being so close to Batman's charred corpse made Carin dry heave, but after they tore free one of her sleeves and she tied it like a bandanna around mouth and nose, she was able to squeamishly work around the man-shaped mass of blackened meat and bone.

"He is dead, right?" Mack asked. "His hydrananites aren't going to rez him into a zombie?"

Angel felt Carin squirm through her hand. "Eek! D-don't say that! I don't even w-want to think about him moving!"

"Sixth degree burns cover one hundred percent of his body," Mack's elf said. "His central nervous system is carbon ash. He is dead. Permanently."

"Good to know," Carin said.

"Baby, I know this is got to be nasty. Let me climb in there and scoop out his barbecued ass."

"N-no, Angie, that's all right. I d-don't think it'll help the smell, and he's--ew!--melted into the s-seat. I'm almost done anyway."

Clawing her feet against the armored belly, Carin rummaged deeper into the cockpit. After a few moments, she tossed a small metal object over her shoulder, and Angel caught it in her free hand. It looked like a silver Rubik's cube and glowed with faint ultraviolet radiance. As she wondered what to do with it, the cube flattened paper thin and disappeared up her armored wrist. Her elf chimed that it was now in her 'inventory.'

"Th-there's so many good parts in h-here, and most of them are ruined," Carin said. "You 'blew him up good' . . . but did you have to blow him up this good?"

Angel grinned. Months of chemo had left her wife depressed and exhausted. After Elf Day, she'd only been confused or frightened. But this was good stuff. It seemed forever since Carin made a funny.

"You know me, baby. I'm just awesome like that. I'll try to restrain myself next time."

But those last two words snagged in her head and spoiled the moment. How many 'next times' would there be? How long before their luck ran out and others cracked jokes over her own smoking remains? She met bottle green Mack's eyes and saw he was thinking the same thing.

"I just I hope the Elves are enjoying the show," he said bitterly.

***

Chapter Ten will go back to Linda's story. Next, I'm going to work on another update to my quest, and after that I'll post another chapter of Weaver and Jinx.