Reitman rubbed his temples as he looked at the screens in front of him. His instruments were slowly recording a rise in energy. He expected to get calls for manifestations before too long.

He had built a reputation in the underworld as someone who wanted to deal with problems. Anyone in the know would call him when something bad started happening. And his projections predicted a whole lot of badness happening.

At least Dunn was onboard and able to look around the Persona without drawing more attention. His sensory abilities would be able to get a better view of things than Reitman's meters.

Reitman looked up at a knock on his door. He checked his watch. He didn't expect any students. Who could be there?

He went to the door and opened it. Two small giants in suits looked down at him. He stepped back to give himself some room to run. He didn't have anything on hand he could use and wished he had a pistol.

“We want you to leave the Persona alone,” said one of the giants. He balled one of his hands into a fist bigger than a ham.

“You do know the building is going to be destroyed,” said Reitman. He picked up a pen from his desk. “The readings of the area aren't that great.”

“We also want you to stop saying things like that,” said the giant.

Reitman decided it was a good thing he had a small office crammed with stuff. That seemed to be keeping the legbreakers out since only one could actually fit in the room. That was a small prize when one was all they needed to break him.

“Look, fellas,” said Reitman. “I know you think you're doing your jobs and performing a public service, but the building is going to come down. The only question is if it is preventable, and it is. Go back to your boss and tell him I can still save the place if he lets me in to look around.”

“We've been told to make an example of you,” said the giant. “I think that will be better than explaining why we would believe you if we did talk to our boss.”

“Guys, you don't want to try something like that,” said Reitman. “If anything happens to me, the people I deal with will burn his place to the ground with him in it. They're pretty extreme in their reaction to things.”

“I don't see them around,” said giant one.

“Yeah,” said giant two. “Where are they?”

“One of them is right behind you,” said Dunn. “I think you two should get out of here.”

“Another pipsqueak,” said giant one.

“I hope he isn't your best hope,” said giant two.

“Does the zoo know it lost some gorillas?,” said the voice of Kendra Parks. “You two need to clear out before I clear you out.”

“You heard the lady,” said Dunn. “If this turns into a fight, you two are going to get shipped out of here in pianos, but you will be shipped out.”

“Why do all small people think they are so tough?,” said giant one.

“Don't press this, Tiny,” said Kendra. “I gave up a day with a guy that might treat me like a star to hear why I shouldn't let the Persona fall to the ground. Don't make me think I made a mistake.”

“We should hurt all of you right now,” said giant one.

“We should hurt all of them,” said giant two.

Reitman yanked a magnetic gun from his rack. He pressed a few buttons to keep the power at low. He didn't want to make the men explode.

Giant one swung at Dunn. Reitman thought that was the target. He wasn't sure from where he stood. He flew back into his twin from some unseen force.

The second man was lifted off the ground as light as a baby. He made a sound of disbelief before he crashed into the ceiling. He hit the floor with a loud thump.

“You don't know me,” said Kendra. “That's the only reason why I am going to let you walk away. Go back to your boss and tell him that we're dead serious about something coming down on the Persona. He should warn his renters about the danger and ask them to be ready to evacuate if things drop in the pot. Now git.”

The giants picked themselves up. They grumbled their way down the hall away from Reitman's office. He put the magnetic gun back on the rack.

Dunn and Kendra stepped into the office. Dunn went to the window to watch for the giants leaving.

“What were you going to do with that?,” said Kendra. She pointed at the magnetic gun.

“I was going to make his scalp vibrate,” said Reitman. “Thanks for coming by, Kendra.”

“Tyler said you thought the Persona would be ground zero for something,” said Kendra. She was a small woman with burgundy hair and tattoos running up both arms. She had a large onyx ring on her hitting hand.

“The reports look bad from my perspective,” said Reitman. He gestured at the monitors putting down graph lines on their screens. “The energy accumulation is climbing toward something.”

“So the plan is to go in and look around for whatever is causing this?,” said Kendra. “That's a pretty bold move for you two.”

“I think we can handle that part of things,” said Reitman. “We need you to run interference with security. We don't want to deal with them on top of everything else.”

“How many other guys do you have?,” asked Kendra.

“Right now, it's only the three of us,” said Reitman.

“I don't think that's going to be enough, Orville,” said Kendra. “We're going to need at least three more guys if we want to invade the place and fight monsters on top of it.”

“I made some calls, but no one has called me back except for Tyler,” Reitman said.

“If this goes down, where do you think it will go down?,” asked Kendra.

“It'll go down on the roof,” said Tyler. “There's some kind of shadow there.”

“How do you know that?,” said Kendra.

“I took a look at the place before I picked you up,” said Tyler. “There's a big bird shadow up there. There was something else there, but I couldn't make it out with that other imposing itself. This might not be a full on rip, but if something as big as what I saw manifests up there, part of the building is going to come down into the street. Any civilians will be killed.”

“So if we could figure out what's going on with the roof, we can fix things,” said Kendra. “I like that. It's a simple job with a simple goal.”

“The problem is the Persona security staff who don't want to let us in and don't want us looking into this,” said Reitman.

“So more of those goons we just ran out of here,” said Kendra. “I think we can handle them, and your bird, but I would like to have more hands on deck.”

“So would I,” said Reitman. “One bad move and we're in trouble on all sides.”

“The second spark I saw could be a problem,” said Dunn. He kept his place by the window. “There might be something there willing to use the bird to do something to the people in the building. We might be looking at a massacre.”

“So we might have to split our force?,” said Reitman. “We need a way to clear the building so we can do what we have to do.”

“There's nothing we can do unless you want to go floor to floor, room to room,” said Kendra. “It would be easier to pull the fire alarm, and going in after that.”

“I like that,” said Reitman. “The problem will be security trying to keep us out.”

“We'll have to handle them with whomever we can get to help us,” said Kendra. “The three of us don't want to have to fight our way through security and then try to get rid of whatever ghost is going to pop out of the spirit world.”

“All right,” said Reitman. “We get some more guys, pull the fire alarm, and then start searching the building. One team will deal with the security guys, the others will look for the reason for the rip and get rid of it.”

“Security will know it was us,” said Dunn. “They'll know it was you anyway, Reitman.”

“I don't see any way to avoid that,” said Reitman. “I shouldn't have left my card. I thought I was impressing the guy with how dangerous this could be for them.”

“You impressed somebody, because your friends haven't left the lot,” said Dunn. “They might be waiting on you to leave, or for more goons to help handle Kendra.”

“I would like to see them try to handle me,” said Kendra.

She went to the window and looked outside. She frowned as she glared down at the parking lot.

“They were going to make an example of us, but it looks like we're going to have to make examples out of them,” said Kendra. She flexed her hands. Her knuckles crackled.

“Do we really want to hurt these guys?,” said Reitman. “They're just stupid tools.”

“We're going to make them smart tools,” said Kendra.

Reitman rubbed his face. The last thing he wanted was to put a couple of guys in the hospital. On the other hand, he couldn't let these guys get in the way.

“Let's go down and get the van and drive away,” said Reitman. “We can lure them away from my office so we can think of some way to get them off our backs while we work.”

“All right,” said Kendra. “Let's do that. Then we can work on the real problem.”

“Go ahead down to the van,” said Reitman. “I have to set the security system. I don't want to give those guys a free shot at my gear while we're trying to lead them away from here.”

“Yeah,” said Kendra. “These guys look like vandals to me.”

“That's why I'm going to set the security system,” said Reitman. “Maybe that will teach them something we can't if they do break in.”

Tyler and Kendra went to the door. They checked the hall before they stepped out.

Reitman pulled on his coat. He took one of the magnetic guns and pointed the end at the door. He placed a laser pointer to point at the door. He went to the door and pushed in the activation code in the key pad on the wall next to it.

Anyone coming in would get a shock. It shouldn't kill them, but things happened.

Reitman closed the door and headed down to the van. His standard equipment rested in lock boxes for him to use. Taking a drive might clear his head so he could figure out how to get into the Persona without burning a door down.

Maybe he could drop Tyler and Kendra off so they could get into the building without attracting attention. Tyler had his pen knife that could open a locked door. That would be something to use.

Kendra had her gorilla strength that would be great in case they ran into someone who didn't want them around.

All he had was his equipment. If the thing they were looking at was too big, his equipment wouldn't do anything without a ton of modifications.

There wouldn't be a lot he could do if the thing sat down on the roof of the skyscraper. Most of his parts wouldn't handle anything bigger than a massed ten. Anything bigger would require that he find a way to run more energy through the magnetic guns to push the spirit mass out of reality and back where it belonged.

He doubted he could do anything like that under fire.

Tyler would have to pick up the heavy lifting.

It wouldn't be the first time that they had went into a job undergunned and outnumbered. Things always went bad for them when they did that.

Reitman walked down to where his van waited. He didn't want to have a problem too big for them to handle, but he knew that was what he was looking at. He needed to break things down into something manageable so they didn't get killed.

The first thing they had to handle was the two goons staring at him as he crossed the parking lot to his van. He got behind the wheel and started the engine. He was glad they hadn't decided to put a bomb on board to deal with him.

“Where are we going?,” asked Kendra.

“I thought we could get some food and take a look at some of the other buildings in the area,” said Reitman. “That might give us some clue on how to deal with things.”

“The goons?,” asked Kendra.

“Those too,” said Reitman.