The Mighty Ducks and all related characters are the property of Disney. The Ten o’Clock People is the property of Stephen King. No copyright infringement is intended, no profit is being made.

This story and all original characters are the property of the author.

Warning: This story contains some violence and graphic imagery that may upset some people. Language warning. Rated PG-13/R

I swear to God, I don’t know where this came from. Right now it doesn’t fit into the timeline of my other stories and may end up starting a separate universe. So remember that while you're reading it -- this story in no way fits in with the Blood of Ancients storyline I've been working on. It stands completely on its own.

Okay, because people have asked: the line about Dive’s age? Dive is 17 in this story, he knows nothing about the Power (Blood of Ancients hasn’t happened in this story) and the fact that everyone thinks he’s nineteen is a tactful lie. I figured the odds of a minor being allowed to play professional hockey might be pretty slim, so let’s assume that they lied about that.

________

"If you screw up, it’s probably gonna get you killed."

- Stephen King’s The Ten o’Clock People

________

________

It happened for the first time just outside Captain Comics.

It was a great day, warm and bright and the ideal spring day. Hockey season was over, which wasn’t exactly a great time of the year as far as Nosedive McDrake was concerned, but the warmer weather was always welcome. That and he was looking forward to trying a little surfing and Thrash had refused to go anywhere near the ocean until the water got above freezing - pretty ridiculous in Nosedive’s opinion, but then he came from a planet of continuous winter and really wasn’t one to talk.

Yeah, well, so anyway, it was a warm day. Not late, but no longer morning, a little before noon at the latest and Dive had spent the last hour inside the comics shop going through the newest batch and setting a bunch aside so he could come back and get them later on in the week when he had more than a couple bucks on him. Then, after a good deal of small talk, gossip and general time-wasting, he’d finally left to make his way back to the Pond. Wildwing would flip if he was late to one more class.

That was when it happened.

He’d just stepped outside and was making his way to the Duckcycle, wishing he’d brought his rollerblades instead. The helmet strap was twisted around his wrist and the helmet bounced off his leg every few steps. He wasn’t paying all that much attention to where he was going: mistake number one.

A young woman, walking in the opposite direction, passed him, and the helmet banged against her hip. She made a startled sound and jumped at the contact.

"Oh, man, sorry about that," Dive began, finally paying attention to his surroundings. He gave the woman an apologetic glance… and froze.

"That’s all right," she assured him. "No harm done."

Only she didn’t say that.

It was funny, like film over film, maybe, or a ghost image on the TV superimposing one image over another. He could see the professional young woman, on the short side, dark blond hair, brown eyes, bright smile…

But then he could see the rest of it, too.

It was internal organs, was the first thought that Dive had. Like the fleshy part that you see when you cut into something. Sci-fi aliens and stuff. Wrinkled and bloated and rotted. And it was in the same place as the woman.

No. It was the woman.

Dive offered her a wan smile, knowing he probably looked more sick than apologetic and turned away, not sure what exactly he had seen, or why or how, but suddenly consumed by the feeling that he had to get out of there - now - before she/it realized there was something wrong in his reaction. Stars help him, he knew without knowing that there was something seriously wrong with everything here and he had to get out of there before he gave something away.

Give what away?

Didn’t matter, just go, get out, now! His instincts were screaming at him, even as a saner, more rational part of his mind insisted that he calm down. Freaking out and shooting the woman with a puck launcher wouldn’t do him any good. First he’d get arrested, because obviously no one else saw anything wrong with this woman, and second, he had a feeling it wouldn’t affect her much anyway. It. Whatever.

He forced himself to keep walking at the same easy pace, refusing to look back and see if she was watching him. If she wasn’t then he didn’t need to worry but if she was and he turned around it would only make her more suspicious.

He ran a shaky hand through his hair, brushing it back and away from his face before pulling on the helmet and tightening the strap beneath his chin. Moving with deliberate caution he slung one leg over the Duckcycle and started the engine. Under the guise of checking traffic, he risked a glance in the direction the woman/thing had gone. No sign of her. ‘She probably stepped into one of the stores. Or a car.’ He shook his head slightly. ‘Face it, man, you are seriously wacking out here.’

One thing was for sure. He wasn’t going to feel safe until he got back to the Pond. With a sudden surge of anger at his own incomprehensible reactions to the woman, he sped out of the mall with far more speed than legally permissible.

****

By the time he’d returned to the Pond he’d calmed down somewhat. He parked the cycle and stashed the helmet before taking the lift to the gym. It was empty, as usual this time of day. Mallory and Wildwing usually worked out in the mornings, and Grin preferred late night. Tanya and Duke avoided it whenever possible. Dive usually worked out with Wing and Mallory, occasionally with Duke, especially once his apprenticeship had begun. But when he wanted to be alone, to work things out in his head, he sometimes came here. The physical activity was pretty much rote behavior, and Dive could turn off all outside concentration and just worry about what was worrying him, without anything from the outside world interfering. It usually worked, and he hoped today would be no different.

He started right out; situps, pushups, pull-ups, running laps, lifting weights, punching bags, treadmill, stairmaster, stationary bike, the whole nine yards, his mind working over the encounter in the mall the entire time.

It wasn’t, Dive finally decided, his weird reaction to the woman that had bothered him. His line of work called for a lot of things and he’d gotten pretty good at trusting his instincts. There were some people he just had gut feelings about right from the start. Sometimes he was right, sometimes he wasn’t.

No, it wasn’t the reaction. It was the reason for the reaction - or more importantly, the lack thereof. There was no reason why he should have reacted the way he did. Why he should have seen what he did.

It was while he was doing the situps that he considered that it had actually been Chameleon, pulling one of his mindgame shapeshifting stunts, trying to freak him out. But that didn’t make any sense, because everyone else should have seen it, too and they obviously didn’t. It wasn’t the sort of thing a person could easily overlook if they were paying any sort of attention to the world around them. No, the people nearby hadn’t seen anything, which meant it couldn’t have been Chameleon.

So it was something else. Either that or Dive was seeing things, and that wasn’t a thought that brought him much reassurance. Halfway through his time on the treadmill he wondered, half serious, if the events of the last two years weren’t catching up to him, but of all the ways for him to go crazy this didn’t seem like something likely to happen. Besides, all things considered, he’d lived through worse.

So, it wasn’t Chameleon.

And he wasn’t crazy.

So what?

He reached twenty miles on the stationary bike and finally stopped. He was tired, he realized for the first time, so worn out that he wondered how he’d managed to get twenty miles in. He groaned, knowing he’d feel terrible the next day, and leaned forward to rest his head against his arms, folded over the handle of the bike.

"You’re not going to be able to move tomorrow." Wildwing’s amused, and concerned, voice pierced through the exhausted haze he’d become enveloped in. "Really, bro, you trying to drop a few pounds for swimsuit season or something?"

Nosedive didn’t bother lifting his head - didn’t honestly think he could - but he smiled tiredly and considered responding. The effort it took just to keep his thoughts together convinced him that actually speaking was temporarily beyond his abilities, so he didn’t bother.

A hand gripped his shoulder even as another one cupped the side of his face and encouraged him to raise his head. He was pretty sure he did, somewhat, anyway, because the next thing he knew Wildwing was gazing down at him with the patented big brother concern that he did so well. "Dive? Come on, stay awake long enough to get back to your room, okay?"

"Wing?" Dive surprised himself by getting that word out. Maybe he could get a few more while he was at it. "Somethin’s not right… shouldn’t be this tired." His eyes drifted shut and only Wildwing kept him from falling to the floor.

As if from far away he heard Wildwing curse as he suddenly found himself supporting Dive’s full weight. But suddenly it occurred to Dive that he could stop worrying about whatever it was he’d seen because Wildwing was here and he’d take care of whatever it was. By the time he finished the thought he was sound asleep.

****

"How bad is it, Moira?"

Moira Richardson flicked the ashes off the end of her cigarette and raised it to her mouth for a deep pull before replying. "Depends on your description of bad, I suppose," she finally said, leaning back in her chair and crossing her legs. "First of all, we were right. There are batmen in Anaheim. Not many, as of yet, but enough to cause worry."

"Do you have any numbers for us?" Cam Stevens leaned against the wall and studied the woman before him. She wasn’t young anymore, God knew he wasn’t either, but she was still an attractive woman. Tall, blonde, thin, soft in all the right places and in excellent shape, she still had the power to turn most heads when she wanted to. She looked tired though, tired in a way that had nothing to do with her age. He had known Moira for years, been married to her for almost as long. He knew he could trust her with his life, had trusted her with just that, in fact, ever since that horrible day in Boston when he’d left his former life behind him forever. But Moira had worked in Credit Assistance at The First Mercantile Bank of Boston when she’d been rudely introduced to the batmen, and she’d become a renegade resistance fighter only because there was no way she could return to her normal life. She didn’t like the running or the fighting and she hated the killing; she would like nothing better than to return to the real world. She wasn’t meant to be a killer and there were times when Cam considered putting her on the sidelines permanently. But when it came down to the bare facts, she’d held up for more than eight years and he wasn’t able to simply dismiss that.

Moira nodded. "Nothing concrete you understand. I took a little tour of the police precincts and city hall; congratulate Shawn on the faked credentials, by the way. I only spotted twelve of them the entire time.

I honestly think they haven’t settled in yet." She stubbed out her cigarette in one of the ever-present ashtrays and reached for another. "There’s still a lot of work to be done. I haven’t checked the schools yet, especially."

"Estimate?" Alanna demanded from the doorway.

"Maybe a hundred, altogether."

"Probably the smallest group we’ve found in a city this size," Cam remarked. "That little tourist town up in Washington State had more than that."

"Like I said," Moira answered. "They give all the signs of being halfway settled. For some reason, it looks like they started to move into this town, then suddenly stopped the buildup."

Cam looked at her with wide eyes. "Something that scares the batmen? Do you have any idea what it is?"

"Cam, I don’t know if they’re scared or-"

"Actually," Alanna interjected calmly, "we might have an answer to that. About a year ago a rather unusual group of individuals immigrated to Anaheim. Do you remember hearing about it?"

"The aliens," Moira replied. "Didn’t they take over the local hockey team or something? I remember the NHL was up in arms over it for a while."

"Exactly," Alanna confirmed. "They call themselves The Mighty Ducks. According to our information, the batmen stopped their buildup in Anaheim seventeen months ago. That coincides precisely with the arrival of the aliens. We believe that the batmen are waiting to see what sort of threat these aliens present."

Cam was never sure whether or not to be amused by Alanna’s steady, precise manner. She had been fighting the batmen for twice as long as he and Moira, despite being years younger than either of them. He supposed she had earned the right to be serious. "Could these aliens pose a threat to the batmen? Should we consider approaching them?"

"We’ve been putting it off," Alanna admitted. "They were as much an unknown for us as the batmen. We wanted more time to observe them."

"Something’s changed?" Cam asked, already resigned to the knowledge that it had. Alanna had that tone to her voice.

"Early this morning one of my men - you remember Tomas Andreiovich? - spotted a new batman this morning. He was following her, hoping to get a clue to who she was, when she literally bumped into one of the aliens at the Anaheim Mall. She didn’t so much as blink, according to Tomas, but the alien came within a hairsbreadth of a heart attack. Tomas thinks he saw her for what she was."

"The aliens see the batmen?" Cam asked. "They’ve been here for a year, Alanna. Why haven’t we seen any sign before this?"

"There aren’t that many of them in Anaheim," Alanna reminded him. "Moira herself has backed us up on that. And they aren’t exactly on the best of terms with the police. It could be that they’ve just never encountered one before."

Cam found that unlikely and said so. "They’ve been all over the country, Alanna. They are national sports players, remember?"

Alanna shrugged. "Then maybe the one at the Mall was like us. Ten o’clock."

"No way," Cam objected. "He’s a professional athlete. He’s probably never touched a cigarette in his life."

"Assuming they even have them on the planet he’s from," Moira added.

Alanna exhaled exasperatedly. "What matters at this point is that he saw it. Frankly, I don’t care how, or why or how often. If this is real, and not just a fluke, it may explain why the batmen have been holding off."

"We’re overlooking one very simple possibility," Moira interjected quietly. "What if he just doesn’t like humans? Maybe that’s why he reacted so badly to touching her."

Neither Alanna nor Cam could counter that. "Regardless, I want to assign people to watch these aliens full time to see what the deal is. One way or another, we need to understand this if we’re going to keep up with the batmen. I’ll assign people tonight. Has either of you heard from Brandon lately?"

****

It was fairly late the next morning when Dive finally awoke. He blinked at the clock and groaned, turning to bury his head back in the pillow.

It was almost ten, he realized with amazement. And it couldn’t have been more than four at the latest when he crashed in the gym. Stars, he’d been asleep for almost eighteen hours. He hadn’t worked himself that hard. It was the same routine he did every time he needed time away to think.

One thing was for sure, he wasn’t going to get anything solved lying in bed. His body rebelled at the thought of moving, but something was wrong and Dive wanted to find out what and why.

And he wanted to tell Wildwing about what he’d seen.

Without too much effort he managed to stand and make his way to the doorway. The hall was empty - good thing, because he suspected he looked terrible. A quick shower helped wake him up and worked some of the lingering stiffness out of his muscles. He let the water run long after he’d rinsed the soap and shampoo away, enjoying the relaxing feeling of the hot water and steam.

Finally, though, he turned off the water and toweled off, dressed quickly in jeans and an oversized t-shirt and ventured out into the hallway, feeling distinctly more presentable.

About halfway to the main room, he realized he was starving and changed course toward the kitchen. Duke and Mallory were both already there and they each looked up in surprise upon seeing him. "Well, well," Duke smirked. "It awakens."

Dive snorted. "Whatever."

"What happened?" Mallory asked, turning in her seat to watch him as he walked by. "All Wildwing said was that you collapsed in the gym."

"I don’t know," Dive said absently. He pulled the refrigerator door open and studied the contents. "Must’ve worn myself out, I guess."

"Uh-huh." Duke said skeptically.

Dive shrugged, not really believing it himself. "I did skip lunch yesterday."

"Uh-huh."

"Where did the last of the V8 go?"

Mallory grimaced. "How can you drink that stuff? It’s a tomato in a can!"

"I know, and it really isn’t that good," Dive replied off-handedly. "But it drives Wing nuts trying to figure out who keeps drinking it."

Duke scowled. "Rance used to do the same thing to me. Well, not with V8, but you get the point."

Mallory grinned at him. "Thank the stars I was the youngest."

Duke tossed a napkin at her. "You’re all the same. I pity Alex."

Dive gave up on finding anything appealing and settled for a bottle of Very Fine Fruit Punch and a bag of grapes then took a seat at the table. "Speaking of pain in the butt older siblings-"

"Hey!" Duke protested.

"-where’s mine?"

Mallory reached over and snatched a handful of grapes. "Still asleep probably. You had us pretty worried, you know."

Duke agreed. "Tanya checked you out and couldn’t find anything wrong. The only thing she could think of was exhaustion, but there weren’t any signs of that, either. Besides, I know for a fact you got at least thirteen hours of sleep that night," he added.

With a grimace, Dive finished off the last of his drink and pushed the grapes toward Mallory. "Gonna go wake him up, then."

Duke caught the sleeve of his shirt as he stood. "Hey, hey. Hold up, kid. After what happened yesterday, shouldn’t you grab something a little more substantial for breakfast?"

Dive shook his head. "I’m fine, Duke," he said, carefully removing Duke’s hand from his arm and standing. "I don’t know what happened yesterday, but I’m fine now. Chill, okay? Besides, if there’s anything worth worrying about, Wing’ll do it for you."

Mallory laughed into her tea.

Duke sighed and waved his hand dismissively. "Go away. I’m giving up. Go torment your brother. But if you pass out, you’d better tell him it was your fault."

****

There was no answer from Wing when Dive knocked, so he palmed open the door and poked his head in to see if Wing was still there. "Wing?"

Wildwing sat at the edge of his bed, dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, toweling his hair dry. He looked up and smiled at his brother. "Hey, welcome back. You feeling better?"

Dive shrugged and entered the room all the way, the door sliding shut behind him. "I guess. I’m not really sure what happened in the first place."

"Looks like you worked yourself into exhaustion." Wildwing draped the towel over the chair by his desk. "How long were you in the gym, anyway?"

"A couple hours, I guess. I don’t think that’s the problem, though." Dive snagged the chair, dropped the towel on the floor and swung the chair around to sit backwards, his arms resting over the back of the chair.

Wildwing aimed a pointed glance at the towel, and shook his head when Dive ignored him. "What was the problem? There something you’re not telling me here, bro?"

"Sorta, yeah. Something kinda happened while I was at the mall yesterday."

Wildwing walked to his closet and grabbed a pair of sneakers. "What kind of something?" He paused and examined his brother with a steady gaze. "Is there something you’re not telling me?"

"Yeah, I guess. I mean…" He growled, exasperated at his own inarticulateness. "I was leaving Captain Comics when I accidentally bumped into this lady. Only when I turned around to apologize it wasn’t a lady, it was - it was something else. Something gross, Wild, like nothing I’ve seen before. Made the Saurians look pretty. And I can’t even explain it because as far as I know I’m the only one who saw it." He shook his head and spread his hands. "No one else even blinked. I’m standing there, wondering if I’ve got enough breath left to scream, and they all just keep on walking like there’s nothing wrong."

Wildwing sat at the edge of the bed, facing his brother. "Dive, don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but you were pretty out of it yesterday. Is it possible it was just a hallucination?"

"I though of that myself," Dive admitted shakily. "But I was feeling fine all day. It wasn’t until after I saw that thing that I started feeling wrong."

"Wrong how?" Wildwing demanded. One hand urged Dive’s head up as Wildwing visually checked him over, searching for signs of illness or injury. Dive suffered the examination in patience, secretly enjoying being fussed over and knowing Wildwing needed to fuss every now and then.

"I don’t know. I was tired. I could barely think straight. By the time you found me it was like everything just refused to work the way I told it to. I- It scared the hell out of me and I don’t even know why." Dive stopped himself for a minute, not likely the beseeching tone his voice had taken. For a moment neither said anything as Dive collected his thoughts. "I’ve seen some pretty bad things, Wing, especially in the mines, and I admit to being a basket case after some of the worst. But nothing like this. Okay," he said angrily, "so what I saw was one ugly son of a bitch, but so what? Why the hell did I freak out like that?"

"You want us to find out?" Wildwing asked softly.

Dive took a deep breath. "Yeah, yeah, I do. I want to know what happened yesterday, what it was I saw."

"Then we will," Wildwing said simply. "Now come on. I bet you haven’t had breakfast yet, have you? You know, you’re not going to do yourself any favors if you pass out again." With a look of amused tolerance, Dive allowed himself to be pulled from the room. Things were going to get fixed now. He could stop worrying for a while.

****

Despite Wildwing’s assurance and the others’ intentions to find out exactly what it was that had happened that day, they found nothing. As weeks passed and they became involved in other problems, the event gradually faded from memory.

Mallory and Tanya were on monitor duty, much to their dissatisfaction. Monitor duty was considered to be only slightly less mind-numbingly dull than kitchen duty. Only the presence of computer games made it even slightly bearable.

The two women were involved in a heated discussion, comparing the various assets of Harrison Ford and Matt Damon when the intercom signaled a visitor. Tanya broke away from the discussion with a final comment about Mallory’s bad taste in men, and checked the monitors. "Looks like we have some visitors," she commented. Mallory leaned over her shoulder. "Who is it?"

Tanya frowned. "Looks like salesmen."

"Or Jehovah’s Witnesses," Mallory said with a devilish grin. "Can we drop water balloons on them?"

"Mallory," Tanya threatened. "I’ll have Wildwing bench you if you even think of it. We have enough religious zealots thinking we’re demons from Hell without you intentionally alienating anyone. Stay here and watch the monitors, would you? I’ll go see what they want."

Mallory nodded and settled back in her chair, glad Tanya had volunteered to handle the visitors. Mallory was not a people person on her best days and right now she was in too good a mood to deal with salesmen, or city inspectors or whatever they were.

She turned her attention to the other monitors, more or less ignoring the new arrivals, convinced Tanya had the matter in hand. Almost accidentally she glanced at the monitor covering the front entrance. There was no one there. ‘She handled that quickly,’ Mallory thought. She keyed her comm unit. "Hey, Tanya, who was at the door?"

Silence.

"Tanya?"

Still no reply.

Mallory hit a control on Drake One, pulling up the security schematics. The main entrance remained unsecured. There was no way Tanya would leave without resecuring the locks. Mallory hadn’t actually seen anything go awry, but she had enough evidence. Without hesitation she triggered the alarm. As always the red lights and alarm caused her to flinch.

"Hate that thing," she muttered. "As soon as this is over I’m going to get Tanya to rewire that damned thing. Gonna burst my eardrums one of these days." With quick, sure movements, she issued the security commands to the rest of the Pond and began the lock down. They couldn’t afford to let anything into the Ready Room, or at Drake One.

Over the screeching of the alarms, she heard a scream, and everything changed.

On one of the monitors she saw Duke laying on the floor, crimson spreading across the floor beneath him. There was no sign of anyone around him. Mallory began to feel seriously threatened. "Oh, hell. They took out Duke already? I didn’t see a thing." The idea that something had already taken out Tanya and Duke was horrifying. Duke was a master fighter, the best and most experienced of them all. If he’d already fallen…

"They took him by surprise," Mallory told herself firmly. "Both of them. That’s all."

But if Tanya and Duke were already out of the picture… Dive wasn’t here. And if Mallory remained secured in the Ready Room then that would leave Wildwing and Grin alone.

"Damnit," Mallory cursed. With abrupt movements she triggered a distress signal that would automatically trigger on Dive’s comm signal. Dive would know that something was wrong. Mallory could only hope that it meant he’d come in with both eyes open and a good deal of back-up. Knowing Dive as well as she did, it probably wouldn’t make any difference.

Using the monitors, she checked the hallway outside the Ready Room, then unlocked the door. As it began to slide open, she reissued the lock command. Grabbing her puck launcher Mallory dove for the door and slipped out just as the door slammed shut and locked. She stood with her back against the wall, listening.

Nothing but silence.

But not for long.

****

Wildwing was halfway through the sixth chapter of The Valley of Fear when the alarm sounded. His first thought was that Tanya absolutely had to replace that alarm. His second thought, following instantly on the heels of the first, was that something had gone seriously wrong and he had to get to his teammates.

He grabbed his puck launcher from the bottom shelf of his bedside table, where he had taken to keeping it after the Saurians had broken in for the second time. Figuring that if the Saurians took them unprepared one more time he’d have to commit suicide rather than live with the shame, he’d made some changes in security. Keeping the puck launchers nearby in case of a sudden emergency, was one of the changes he’d insisted upon.

He palmed the door open and stepped out of his quarters and into the hallway quickly, puck launcher held ready. The hall was empty. He broke into a slow jog, heading toward the Ready Room. He approached a corner and slowed, listening for the sounds of footsteps approaching from the other direction. He didn’t hear anything and was about to go around when a human woman jumped out from behind the corner.

Wildwing froze, puck launcher raised defensively. The woman was a bit on the short side, slim, with blond hair and dark eyes. Physically, she should present no threat to him, especially since she was unarmed. So why did he have the nasty feeling that this was going to be very, very, bad? The woman sniffed the air, then lowered to the ground until she was crouched on all fours. Wildwing watched warily, confused by her actions. Was she actually growling at him? Great, he thought dismally, we've been invaded by an escapee from the psycho ward.

"Which one are you?"

"Excuse me?" Wildwing replied as courteously as he could under the circumstances.

"Which one are you?" She bared her teeth at him. "Your name, creature."

"Creature?" Wildwing repeated, a little offended. "Lady, anyone who's walking around on all fours and growling at people is not in a position to be calling names." Yeah, Wing, he chastised himself, make her mad. And you wonder where Dive gets it from?

The growl deepened and her eyes flashed. "Your name!" Her voice was thunderous, and not at all feminine.

Deciding it really couldn't do any harm, he told her. "Wildwing."

"Wildwing?" she repeated.

While Wildwing tried to figure out how she could hiss a word with no 's' in it, she slowly began to approach.

"Huh-uh," Wildwing said firmly. "No way. Back up."

"Where is the other one?"

"Other one?" Wildwing echoed. He was beginning to feel like the damn giant hamburger at the fast food drive up window, forever repeating things, and was getting very fed up with being out of the loop. "What other one?"

"The one like you," she replied. Her voice was back to the way it had first been, soft, feminine, human. "I've met him before. He saw me, and I knew he would be a threat to us. It took us much time and effort to realize a way into your base. In the end, it turned out much easier than we had planned." She smiled up at him, appearing more dangerous now than she had with all her growling and hissing. "We have learned that you do not see us as he does."

"See you?" Wildwing repeated, a horrified realization settling into the pit of his stomach. His conversation with Dive from weeks before ran through his mind in the seconds it took the woman to make her next statement.

"We did not find him here. We questioned the others," she added, almost as an afterthought, "but they either did not know, or won't say. We had chosen to wait here for his return when I sensed you." She stretched, like a cat about to pounce, and Wildwing took an involuntary step back. "You are similar, yet not the same. Your scent was enough to catch my attention. Where is the one like you?"

"I haven't got a clue what you're talking about."

With a ferocious screech, she lunged at him. Wildwing fired instantly, and he saw her jerk as each shot struck her, but she didn't fall. Instead, she crashed into him, slamming him to the floor. "Where is he?!" she screeched in his face. "You know! Tell me and I will spare you!"

Wildwing had kept a hold of his puck launcher and pressed it against her side. "No way," he growled. He fired once, point blank range.

She screamed, in pain this time, and Wildwing was able to shove her away. He rolled away from her and stood quickly, seeing her already standing a few feet away. "I am willing to be merciful," she spat at him, "but even I have my limits. I know your type. You are like these humans. Weak. You allow yourself to be swayed by your emotions instead of by the call of survival." The look in her eyes as she gazed at him was both contempt and disgust. "You seek to protect your clanmate for what? He is smaller, younger, weaker. Your survival will do more to aid the prosperity of the clan than his. You are not a threat to us. Give him to us and I will allow you to live."

Wildwing laughed in her face. "You're threatening my family. I am now very much a threat to you."

The woman made a gesture that almost could have been a shrug. "Your weakness will destroy you."

"So be it."

She grinned at him, and for the first time, Wildwing realized that she had fangs.

"So be it."

****

Dive was halfway through a tournament round of Space Mashers when a loud electronic beeping started from his comm unit. He flinched at the sound, wishing once again that Tanya could have made the thing a little less obnoxious. Cursing softly, he abandoned the game and checked his comm, switching off the alarm. His eyes widened, ignoring the victory cheer from his opponent as Dive’s ship was blown to pieces by the alien mothercraft.

Thrash appeared at his shoulder. "Man, why’d you duck out like that? You were winning!"

"Trouble," Dive said tersely. "The distress signal on my comm went off. The others need me. I gotta get outta here."

After a year of being friends, Thrash knew how to react. "You left your bike at Captain Comics. Come on, I’ll drive."

Dive didn’t object, instead he followed his friend through the thickly packed arcade. "We need to get to the Pond," he told Thrash as the raced out of the building and into the warm spring air. Thrash’s car was the usual ten-years-old-works-good-enough-even-if-it-does-look-like-a-school-science-experiment-in-rust-formation that was pretty much the usual for teenagers. It didn’t look like much, but it got him where he was going. Most of the time. Thrash put most of his paychecks into repairing the engine, and as a result, it worked a lot better than you’d expect. As they neared the car, Dive took the keys that Thrash silently held out, and jumped into the driver’s seat. Thrash had barely closed the door on the passenger’s side when Dive hit the gas and took off.

Dive didn’t glance at Thrash, keeping his attention on the road instead. He skimmed through yellow stoplights at the last second, took corners as fast as he could without skidding out of control, and generally broke almost every traffic law in the books. Thrash’s occasional shouts of "Look out!" and "Cops!" and "Mookie’s gonna be pissed if you get us killed!" were an oddly appropriate backdrop. If he hadn’t been worried about what was going on back at the Pond to inspire the distress call, Dive might have been enjoying the ride.

It took less than fifteen minutes to get to the Pond and Dive cursed himself the entire second of the way for leaving his duckcycle at the comics shop. On the cycle he could have cut the time in half - but the comic shop was in the other direction and would have taken more time than it was worth to go get it. He’d done all he could. He just had to pray that whatever it was, it wasn’t too serious, and that the others were still holding their own. He pulled to a screeching stop just outside the main entrance and jumped out of the car. "Get out of here," he told Thrash. "And if you don’t hear from me in the next hour, give Klegghorn a call. He’ll know what to do. Now go."

Thrash slid over into the driver’s seat and put the car in gear. "Be careful," he called out the window as he started off.

Dive watched him go until he was sure he wouldn’t encounter any trouble, then turned to the Pond. The main entrance was wide open, which boded poorly for what he would find inside. Fifteen minutes was a long time in battle. Anything could happen, but as long as the Ready Room remained under their control, the Pond should have been sealed up tight. And since Drake One was such a source of power, any of his teammates would do whatever it took to keep it out of enemy hands.

There was a pain in his stomach. If the Ready Room had fallen…His teammates had fallen.

"Wing…"

****

As he made his way through the hallways and corridors he found only silence and destruction. Every room he passed looked as if it had been systematically torn to shreds: furniture overturned, cushions ripped, the stuffing spread across the floor; glasses and dishes shattered into a million glittering pieces, making his footsteps crunch as he walked; papers were torn and ripped into shreds. It looked like someone had intentionally and purposefully tried to destroy everything they owned. It made Dive’s heart ache and he hoped that whoever had done this, they hadn’t found their way to their private quarters downstairs. Furniture could be replaced - rather easily considering how much they made off games and promotions - but his room held photos, letters, knickknacks and souvenirs; a hundred things dear to him that couldn’t be replaced. And the people they reminded him of couldn’t be, either.

Come on, Wing. Where are you?

He headed straight for the Ready Room, knowing that if any of his teammates were still standing, they’d be there, guarding Drake One and trying to use the security system to keep things under control. Though, from what he’d seen so far, the security systems hadn’t done much good. Hadn’t even been triggered. Stars, what happened? How did the attackers get inside without triggering the system?

The Ready Room was locked from the inside and as silent as a tomb.

Dive paused outside the door, hesitating for an instant. He checked around the corner of each end of the hallway, keeping an eye out behind him. His instincts didn’t say he was being watched, but there was no sense in taking chances. Finally, convinced that he was alone, he punched his password into the panel beside the door. He stepped to the side, bracing himself against the wall to one side of the door as the light flashed from red to blue.

Nothing happened. No shots were fired, no one came charging at him. He heaved a sigh of relief and stepped through the door.

What he saw froze his blood in his veins, and caught his breath in his throat. "No. Nononononono."

The room was in the same state of disarray as the rest of the Pond, but that was nothing compared to the scene that Dive found himself staring at. One wall along the far side of the room was dripping red with blood, and Dive could see the words they formed. As if someone had been cut open, and their blood used to write the macabre message.

We know you little one. You know us. No more disguises.

Dive staggered out of the room and locked the door securely shut behind him before resting with his back against the wall, his heart pounding and his stomach churning. "Great Mother… Stars, what the hell happened here?" There was so much blood. He shuddered and slowly slid down the wall until he could rest his head against his knees. "Where are you guys? What happened?"

A fierce shaking seized him and he held himself still until it passed. "Not now," he whispered. "Forget it. You don’t have the time for this. Just get up and start looking. For all you know one of your friends is bleeding to death while you sit here and act like a baby." That thought was sufficient to scare him into action. He pushed himself to his feet and he turned to face the door once again. He didn’t want to go in there and face that horrible message again, but he had to. With Drake One he could determine in seconds what a manual search would take as much as an hour to tell him. "Just do it," he said mockingly, triggering the door open once again.

This time he avoided the far wall, seeing the red, but not enough to see the words it made. He made his way to Drake One and immediately started up a search for lifesigns. The smell of blood was overwhelming, and he silently urged the machine to work faster.

Forty two seconds after he’d walked into the room for the second time, he had his answer. No life signs in the building. No signals from his teammates comms, either. He switched to external and checked again.

There. Five comm signals, all in the same place. That didn’t mean much, really, the comms would still signal even if their wearers were dead, but at least he knew where they were now. He tried to ignore the niggling voice in the back of his head that said it was rather simple to remove the comms from their wearers as he hurriedly downloaded the location to his wrist comm.

Then he couldn’t take it any more and he ran from the room.

****

Brandon Pearson flicked the ashes off his cigarette and raised one hand to shade his eyes from the sun. He hated this part. Telling someone about the batmen was always harder than the actual fighting. Maybe because he could see the terror and fear in their eyes as they realized that they could never be safe again, that they had been hunted for years without ever knowing it. Maybe it was because it brought back memories of how he learned, and the price he had paid for that knowledge.

Maybe he just didn’t like being stared at like some kind of idiot.

With a sigh, he dropped his cigarette to the ground, crushing it beneath the toe of his sneaker. Any second now…

As if on cue the boy burst through the doors of the Pond staggering out into the sun-filled parking lot and dropping to his knees, his arms wrapped around his stomach. Brandon closed his eyes sadly, knowing what the boy must have found inside. He’d seen it dozens of times, and would see it dozens more; the pain of losing your entire family at once.

Slowly he started forward, crossing the empty parking lot until he stood only a few feet from the boy huddled into himself. He made no move to disguise his approach, but the boy never once looked up.

He stood there for a long moment, willing to allow the poor kid a few minutes to try and get a grip of what had happened. He wished he could make it better, or at least give the kid some privacy, but right now that just wouldn’t be a good idea. Not while the batmen were still around and hunting. Not while the kid was vulnerable. He needed protection right now, and Brandon was the only one who could give it to him.

After several long moments, he finally glanced up, blue eyes skewering Brandon with all the weight of the emotions behind them. The boy was still strong enough to be resilient, then. At least he didn’t seem in any hurry to die. "Hey, kid."

"Don’t call me kid." The head lifted defiantly, eyes never leaving Brandon’s. "Who are you?"

"My name is Brandon Pearson. I’m here to help you."

His expression clearly showed what he thought of that and Brandon winced. Not the trusting sort, was he? "I was sent to protect you."

"Protect me?" he repeated hollowly. "Where the hell were you twenty minutes ago?"

"With you." Brandon sighed and wished for a cigarette. "We knew they’d go after you, so we thought as long as you were under our protection you’d be fine. It was probably foolish of us not to realize they’d go after your friends once they realized we were on to them."

"Who, exactly, are ‘we?’ "That was the clincher. How to explain himself? Brandon still had trouble finding a way to make his story believable. Best start with the boy himself. "You can see them, can’t you?"

The boy stiffened, and the already wary eyes became guarded. "See who?"

"Not who. What." Brandon grimaced and squatted down, bracing his arms against his knees. "Ugly SOBs. Look like something out of a late night sci-fi thriller."

"I don’t know what you’re talking about.""Yes you do," Brandon said knowingly, realizing he was probably pissing the kid off to no end, but not caring. They had to get out of here fast, and that meant getting this poor kid to believe him now. "Those of us cursed with the ability to see them, call them batmen."

"See them?" If nothing else the kid looked willing to hear the rest of his story.

"Yeah. And it’s a pretty sight, isn’t it?" Brandon looked around nervously. "Listen, kid-"

"Call me Dive."

"Dive. We have to get out of here now. The batmen went after your friends to get at you and they’re not going to stop at this. We have to get you out of here to someplace you’ll be safe. At least until you know the whole story and can make your own decision about where you go next." Brandon stood and held out a hand to Dive.

Dive hesitated, then stood, accepting the hand Brandon offered. "They took my friends. I have to find them."

Brandon hesitated but knew he had to say it. "Dive, the batmen don’t take prisoners."

"I haven’t seen their bodies yet. I won’t give up until I do."

Stubborn and defiant. One and the same, in this case. "All right. Come with me. We’ll get you looked at, checked over. We’ll tell you about the batmen. And then I’ll help you find your friends. I promise."

Dive nodded his agreement of the deal and Brandon started walking, indicating for Dive to follow him. "My car’s over here." It took a moment for the realization that Dive wasn’t following to sink in, and when it did he turned. The boy stood still, staring into the distance, a look on his face that Brandon didn’t quite understand and really didn’t like. "Dive? What is it?"

A frown flickered across the young face, then was gone, replaced an expression of concentration so intense it was intimidating. "It… Those… Batmen. They’re here."

"Shit," Brandon breathed. "Where? I don’t see anyone." He swept the parking lot with a quick gaze, seeing no one, and nothing to hide behind.

He only shook his head and backed up a step, his every move guarded and wary. "Let’s just get to your car, all right? I don’t feel so great right now. I don’t want to deal with these things. Not… now." He shivered.

"All right." Brandon cast one last nervous glance around him, then wrapped a steady hand around Dive’s arm. "Let’s get out of here, kid, before they get tired of watching and decide to do something."

He met Brandon’s eyes, looking tired and scared, and nodded. "I want the whole story."

"You’ll get it," Brandon promised.

Dive started moving, walking toward the car while still keeping his eyes open for trouble. "Then I want to know how to kill these things."

****

The room was dark and silent, lit only by the soft glow of the computer on the desk. The windows were shut and bolted, thick curtains covering them until not a sliver of light made it through into the room. The computer provided enough light to navigate by, but that was all. At the desk, Alanna Luis sat hunched forward, her elbows resting on the table as she stared at the flashing lights of the screensaver. She was waiting.There was a knock on the door. Her eyes flickered to it, but other than that she showed no indication of hearing. "Enter."

A middle-aged man stepped into the room. "Pearson’s back. He brought the kid with him." He didn’t say anything more than that. They both knew what it meant.

"I’ll be right there."

He nodded and stepped back out of the room, closing the door lightly behind him. Alanna fixed her eyes on the screensaver once again before abruptly standing. She reached for her coat where it lay across the back of the chair and shrugged it on, suddenly cold. Casting one wistful stare at the darkened window she slowly made her way across the room. Time to meet the newbie.

Pearson and the boy sat in a small waiting room, Pearson calm and sympathetic, the kid tired and scared and angry. He looked like he was fighting with his own mind, probably remembering things he’d be better off forgetting. "Brandon." He smiled at her slightly, then turned his gaze back to the boy. Alanna followed his gaze, examining the person she’d seen only in pictures before this. The information they had on him was vague, the typical famous celebrity press release stuff. Nothing more than a name and an age - he was supposedly nineteen, but to look at him Alanna would swear that was a tactful lie - and some trivia information. He was five foot eight, with blond hair and blue eyes and a kind of look about him that made her think he smiled a lot. Now, as he sat in the chair before her, arms folded tight across his stomach, eyes hooded and wary, and so very haunted, he looked very much alone. Alanna felt a flash of pity for him; he looked like a child who’s just been told that Santa Claus was dead. Or worse. Deciding to bite the bullet and get it over with, she stepped up to him and held out a hand. "Nosedive McDrake? My name is Alanna Luis."

He looked up and accepted the hand, shaking it because it was expected, not because he was particularly pleased to meet her. She refused to take offense, after all, under the circumstances she wasn’t all that happy to meet him either. "We have quite a bit to tell you."

The story they told was fantastic; how a small group of smokers had slowly come to realize that they were able to see what they eventually came to call the batmen. They all fit a certain pattern: men and women who’d tried to quit, then slowly started to return to smoking. How they’d begun to search each other out and discovered that they weren’t crazy, that what they saw was real. And, most importantly, how they’d realized that the batmen were a danger.

"People disappeared," Brandon said quietly. "I’d notice every now and then, that someone at the bank would be acting strangely, then suddenly be gone. How the number of missing children, domestic abuses, rapes, assaults, and homicides climbed drastically. It seemed like a plague of society at first, like humanity was sending itself straight to hell."

"It wasn’t until after I began seeing them," Alanna continued, "that I put the batmen together with all the horrible things that were happening. But it wasn’t until I was fourteen, and I saw a batman in a policeman’s uniform leaning over the body of a dead little girl that it really sank in. He saw me, and that’s when I started running. I've been running for the last fifteen years."

"The batmen in Boston were subtle," Brandon said quietly. "As subtle as batmen get. There was nothing obvious, no public displays like there are in some other cities. I thought my friend Duke - another one of us - was crazy when he tried to tell me about them. It wasn’t until a meeting of the Ten o’Clock people that night that I saw the total brutality that they were capable of. Probably half the Ten o’Clock people in Boston were there that night. Our de facto leader had gathered us together to announce a truce between us and the batmen." His expression was bitter as he toyed with the cigarette in his right hand. "They slaughtered everyone in the room except myself and two others.

"The three of us escaped Boston alive, and started running. We’d meet up with others like us and warn them of what had happened, help them fight. After a couple years there became a full-fledged underground resistance against the batmen, comprised almost solely of ten o’clock people.

"Almost?" Dive asked.

"There are others. People who believe what we see." Brandon shrugged. "Some of them join because family members, spouses or loved ones are ten o’clock people and they believe what they say. Others have seen the brutality and are willing to fight it even if they can’t see it."

Alanna nodded. "They are the exception though. Ninety-nine per cent of the resistance is made up of the ten o’clock people. There are few others. And no one but the ten o’clock people can see the batmen."

"That’s what originally brought you to our attention," Brandon continued. "We were watching the batman you bumped into at the mall and we saw your reaction to it." He watched the boy curiously. "Everything we know about you says you’ve never smoked a day in your life."

"Not once," Dive agreed.

Alanna crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. "So how do you see them?" she asked coldly.

Dive threw a disinterested glance in her direction. "Maybe I’m psychic," he scoffed. "Frankly, I think you’re both nuts."

Brandon visibly bit back a sigh. "Alanna. Shut up. We’re not here to give him the third degree. And kid-"

"Do not call me that again." Dive bit the words out one by one.

"Dive," Brandon said hastily, startled by the anger in Dive’s voice. "You know we’re telling you the truth." Seeing the increasing skepticism in the boys eyes he relented. "You know the batmen are real at least."

"I know I saw something. Once. That doesn’t prove much," Dive said flatly. "For all I know I got a little too much sun that day."

Alanna stood abruptly. "Then how do you explain what happened to your friends?"

"That’s a good question," Dive pierced her with a hard, steady gaze. "Any suggestions?"

"If we can prove it to you," Brandon said softly. "If we can show you another batman and prove they’re real, will you believe us then?"

With a slow nod, Dive agreed. "If you can show them to me."

Brandon reached for the door. "Should be easy enough. Grab your coat, ki- Dive. Were going to City Hall."

"Brandon!" Alanna sounded shocked. The older man just shrugged. "We may need him as much as he needs us, Alanna. If this is what it takes to get him on our side, then it’s not all that much to ask, is it?" He stepped out the door and looked back at her. "You coming?"

****

Less than two hours later, Dive was convinced.

They’d entered City Hall with the cover story of wanting to build an addition onto the Pond, with Brandon and Alanna acting as lawyers working for the Mighty Ducks. They were shunted from one city employee to another until they struck gold.

Just like at the Pond, Dive sensed it before he saw it. They were standing at a counter, waiting for someone to wait on them when he felt a tingling, like spiders running up the back of his neck, and he tensed up. The batman approached them, dressed in a business suit and wearing wire rimmed glasses. Beyond that… Dive tried not to gag at the impression of wet, twisting intestines. He held himself while Brandon and Alanna asked a few questions and excused themselves. "Convinced?" Brandon asked as they walked away.

"I am," Dive returned quietly. He clenched his left fist absently, resisting the urge to check his watch. Two precious hours had been lost, hours in which his friends were prisoners of these batmen, but it had been necessary. Too much was at risk for him to take these two strangers at their word. Especially such an unbelievable word as all this. But now he knew that it wasn’t some random hallucination. "We’ll go into whether I believe the rest of it or not later, but I’m convinced the batmen are real."

Alanna looked around her, more than slightly worried as they stepped out of the courthouse. "We need to get you off the streets. If they went after you in your own home, the entire population must know about you. That one in there probably knew exactly who you were the second it saw you. They’ll be after us as soon as we’re out of a public place. Let’s head back to headquarters."

Dive smiled grimly. "I’m going after my friends."

Alanna’s tone was flat refusal. "You must be joking. They’ll kill you. I won’t allow it."

"It would defeat both our purposes if you made me fight you," Dive replied sharply as they reached Brandon’s car. "I told Brandon and I’ll tell you. There is no way I’m leaving my friends there. Now that I know what’s going on-" he paused and looked behind him warily. "They’re coming."

"How can you know that?" Alanna asked, looking around the parking lot. "I don’t see any."

"I don’t know," Dive said slowly, one had slowly reaching for his puck launcher as he felt the batmen coming closer. "I don’t know how I can see them at all. Just get in the car." He pulled his door open and ducked inside closing it behind him and seeing Brandon and Alanna do the same. Brandon pushed the key in the ignition and started the engine.

The prickling sensation on the back of Dive’s neck grew as he scanned the parking lot, trying to see where the batman - batmen - would be approaching from. Then he spotted it - a mass of brown skin and tentacles inside a pair of jeans and t-shirt. And on the other side of the lot, another one, wearing a sundress. "They’re here!"

Brandon looked up for one moment and cursed. "Hold on-" There was an echoing thud and the top of the car caved in slightly. "Oh, fu-"

"Drive!" Alanna shouted. "Get us out of here!"

Brandon threw the car into gear and slammed his foot down on the gas pedal, sending the car shooting forward and out of the lot, leaving the other two batmen behind. The one on top of the car held on tenaciously, pounding at the roof, causing it to cave in slowly but surely directly over Dive’s head. He slid down in his seat. There was a brief moment of silence, then another fierce slam, and this time claws showed through the roof of the car.

Alanna watched in alarm. "This is wrong!" she insisted. "They’re never this bold in public!"

"Tell it that!" Dive shouted.

Brandon sent the car into an abrupt turn, nearly going up on two wheels. "There’s a gun in the glove compartment. Get it out and give it to Alanna."

Doing his best to ignore another brutal attack on the thin metal roof, Dive leaned forward and unlatched the glove compartment, finding a revolver inside and carefully handing it over the seat to Alanna. She took it and clicked off the safety. "Get down, Dive."

"I’m as down as I’m getting without going through the floor," he replied tersely. Alanna took aim and fired three shots through the roof of the car. Dive flinched as he heard an enraged scream from above, but the batman remained where it was. Another harsh pounding, and another sight of sharp claws.

"Any ideas on how to lose this thing?" Dive asked, pressing farther down into his seat and pulling his puck launcher free. "I mean, you can hurt them, right? They’re not immortal or anything."

"Believe me," Brandon said grimly. "They can die."

"Good." In one fluid move, Dive pushed himself up and out the window. He heard Alanna shout as he gripped the edge of the roof and held himself half in/half out of the car. The batman took one look at him and screamed, lashing out with the same claws that had just pierced the roof of the car. Forcing himself not to flinch, Dive aimed and fired. The shot hit the batman head on at point blank range throwing it backwards and off the car, but at the last minute it gripped the side of the car and held on. With a curse, Dive slid back inside - just in time for his ears to ring with the thundering report as Alanna fired the revolver. The batman fell away from the car and throw the rear window, Dive saw it hit the ground and roll, only to jump back up and chase after the car. He held his breath, but the car was moving too quickly and the batman fell behind. With a heavy sigh, he slumped in his seat and closed his eyes, one hand pressed against a sudden ache in his stomach.

"Still want to take these things on yourself?" Alanna asked quietly.

"No," Dive replied, equally quietly. "But I have to."

****

"You know," Nosedive said suddenly, "I don’t think you ever told me why you call yourselves the ten o’clock people."

Alanna looked up at him with an expression of disbelief. "You think of this now?!" she hissed.

The three of them lay in the high grass outside a small farmhouse on the outskirts of a small town called Orange Grove, which, as far as Dive could tell, had neither oranges, nor groves, but did have three bars and a motel that would be far better suited as an experimental breeding ground for roaches. Human or insect variety. The farmhouse, only about ten meters away, was where the comm signals of his five teammates had been located. With luck by the end of the night, his teammates would be back in the Pond where they belonged. He firmly refused to think about any other alternative.

Brandon leaned over. "Ten o’clock is when most smokers take their coffee breaks and catch a quick morning smoke," he whispered, almost silently. "It’s a stupid nickname I came up with once, and it sorta stuck."

Dive nodded, curiosity satisfied, and turned his full attention back to the farmhouse.

It had taken a lot of talking before Alanna had consented to let him go after his teammates, and Dive knew that the main reason she’d given in was the knowledge that technically, there was no real way she could stop him. He’d gambled on the idea that she’d rather keep him in sight rather than let him run off on his own, even if it meant taking on a group of prepared batmen. He'd gambled right, and now he was only a few meters away from the location his teammates were being held in. Or their commbadges at least... Nosedive resolutely pushed that thought out of his mind, refusing to give it any weight. His friends were in there. They had to be. You hear that, Wing?

Words smeared in fresh blood on the Ready Room wall danced through his mind.

"What do we do from here?" Dive demanded. "We've got this place as cased as it's going to get - we've been watching them coming and going for stars know how long."

Alanna shook her head. "We don't dare make a move until we know every detail for sure." She checked her watch. "And we certainly don't attack this place without sufficient backup. The three of us are not going to be able to deal with the number of batmen in there."

"It's been almost twenty hours," Dive grated. "Do you know what could have happened to them in twenty hours?"

"Yes," Alanna said flatly. "Want me to spell it out for you?"

He gave her a cold glance. "I don't think that'll be necessary, thank you, Ms. Luis. My point is, we can't afford to sit around waiting to see what happens."

"We can't afford to die, either," she said, turning back to the farmhouse. "We wait till our back-up gets here."It was the same conversation they'd had three times already in the twenty minutes since they arrived in Orange Grove. Every time, Dive tried to urge the two Ten o' Clock People into moving in, or at least letting him go in alone, and each time Alanna refused to move until their back-up arrived. Back-up, taking the form of nearly thirty armed men and women, Ten o' Clock People, each and every one of them, was late arriving.

Alanna was getting nervous. She wasn't showing it much, but she was. Brandon looked like he really needed a cigarette.

Dive had the horrible suspicion that back-up wasn't going to be coming.

And something else...He'd noticed it after the run in with the batmen at City Hall, on the way home, when they were all trying to breathe and calm down. It was a burning in his gut, one that had been there for a while, but he hadn't really paid much attention to -- it could have been anything: stress, fear, anxiety... he had a ton of each pressing down on him. But as they made their plans, and followed the coordinates Dive had downloaded from Drake One before leaving the Pond, he'd noticed it slowly growing. Now it was taking everything he had to stay focused on the house and the batmen going in and out of it, and not the pain in his abdomen. He felt as if something sharp was tearing into him with every movement he made. Even breathing was beginning to hurt. He honestly didn't know if he could go into battle like this. I have to though... Alanna's back-up isn't coming. I don't know how I know, but I do. He shuddered slightly, rubbing his stomach gently. Something's wrong. Something's really wrong here.

"They know we're coming."

Alanna and Brandon looked at him like he was crazy. "They know me..." he said slowly. "The message at the Pond basically said I couldn't hide from them anymore. And you're back-up is running how late? Almost half an hour now. They knew we were coming. They let me get close, and took out the back-up." He shook a little. "They 're waiting. It doesn't matter if we go in now or later. We could march in the front door with tubas if we wanted to and it wouldn't make any difference. They already know we're here."

"You're getting paranoid," Alanna said dismissively, but Dive saw her gaze flicker to meet Brandon's for an instant. "There's no way they could know we're here."

"They've done it before..." Brandon said softly.

Alanna shook her head. "There've been traitors, sure, who've given away our plans, our positions before, but no one knew about this mission. We didn't even know until just before we left."

"Someone in the back-up, maybe?" Brandon pushed. "They had a bit more time to get ready. It would've been easy to grab a phone and make a call."

"My people are trustworthy!"

"We all think that until someone turns!"

"Shut up!" Dive hissed. "I never said someone turned on us, just that they knew I was here." He hesitated. "I sense them, right? You two say you can see them, but I can feel them coming before they're ever in sight. What if they can sense me, too?"

"There's no support for that," Alanna said softly. "They've never shown any sort of psychic abilities before."

"If they could, we'd all be dead," Brandon said flatly.

"So maybe they don't sense me. But they sure as hell know we're coming tonight."

Alanna bit her lip. "He's right about one thing, Brandon. Our back-up isn't coming. It's almost a half hour since they were supposed to be here."

"Pray they got a flat tire," Brandon murmured.

"We have to back down," Alanna said, her expression one of resignation. "There's no way we can go in there if they're expecting us."

Dive's fist clenched so tightly he could feel his nails cutting into his palms. "I'm not leaving my friends," he said. "I keep saying this and you guys keep not getting it. I'm not leaving them. I don't care if they know I'm coming. It doesn't matter in the long run because I'm still going in there."

"I can't allow it," Alanna objected. "It's too dangerous. They'll kill you the second you set foot inside that house."

"Dive," Brandon said sympathetically, "the odds that they've kept your friends alive this long... The batmen don't take prisoners."

"From everything I've heard, they don't leave calling cards, either," Dive shot back, "and that's exactly what that message back at the Pond was." The burning in his stomach flared in remembrance and he gritted his teeth. "I know they're alive. I'd know if they weren't. If he weren't..." The pain soothed itself for a moment. Dive would know if Wing was dead. There was no way he couldn't know.

He met Alanna and Brandon's gaze. "I won't leave them. I don't care if you turn back -- I don't blame you if you do -- but I can't." Before either one of them could say a word, he pushed himself up and took off running toward the farmhouse.He stayed in the shadows, avoided any patches of light falling from the open windows, but the fact remained that the house was in the middle of an open area, and it was a clear night with a bright crescent moon. If anyone looked out the window at just the right moment, they'd see him. Assuming they didn't already know he was there.

He reached the farmhouse in just a few moments. Pausing for a moment, he leaned against the side of the building, catching his breath and willing the stabbing pain in his gut to subside. Running hadn't necessarily made it worse, but he was more aware of it then ever. He gritted his teeth and willed it to the back of his mind. He heard footsteps approaching and looked up to see Alanna and Brandon moving stealthily toward him. Alanna graced him with a fierce glare. "You're hurting," she said accusingly. "When the hell did that happen?"

Dive shrugged, not avoiding the question, but because he honestly didn't know. "It's not going to interfere."

"You can't see the look on your face," Alanna scoffed.

"It's too late to turn back now," Brandon said flatly. He surveyed them both quickly. Dive knew what he was seeing. Alanna, dark hair pulled away from her face, wearing jeans and a long sleeved black t-shirt. Dive knew there were five different weapons hidden on her. She looked young in the moonlight, like the kid she'd never really been. Dive himself, wearing his usual Mighty Ducks uniform, half hunched over in pain, and probably looking like death warmed over for more than one reason. Brandon, for his part, looked like Dive expected a commando to look -- tired, grouchy and grizzled. Brandon was armed to the teeth as well.

Brandon just shook his head. "If we're going to do this, we better do it." He spared Dive a brief glance. "Time's running out."

"If it hasn't already," Alanna muttered under her breath. "All right. We go in the front door, fast and quiet." She grinned darkly. "If they're expecting us, we can at least make ourselves a little unpredictable."

Dive grinned at her.

They made their way to the front of the house, a single line of shadows in the moonlight. Alanna led the way, taking the porch steps two at a time and crouching beside the front door. Dive took a position on the other side, while Brandon pulled his gun from a shoulder holster, and flashed three fingers at them, then two, then one. He pulled the screen door open and rushed inside, weapon at the ready. Alanna, then Dive, followed him in, ready for anything.

They found an empty foyer.

Alanna made a face and gestured them on ahead.

They moved silently down the foyer, checking each room as they came to it. Alanna gestured to Dive, tapping her wrist. He nodded, and used his commbadge to search for his teammates' badges. There was a brief moment, then he nodded and pointed down at the floor. The signal was coming from downstairs. A basement or cellar. Or a sub-level even. Dive realized just how little he knew about these batmen. Did they have the technological knowledge to have a setup like they did at the Pond? He frowned, trying to concentrate, but the pain in his stomach was combining with the fluttering static crowding the back of his mind - static that he recognized in some inate way as his perception of dozens of the batmen, surrounding them - and making it hard to think.

Alanna drew up close. "Start looking for stairs," she whispered, so softly he could barely hear her. "Some way downstairs."

"That won't be necessary."

Dive jumped and the three of them turned as one, weapons aimed and ready.

A batman, wearing the form of a young woman stood down the foyer. Dive recognized her instantly. It was the same batman that he'd seen outside Captain Comics several weeks ago; back when it had all started. The human form smiled at him, while the batman beneath grimaced in a horrible show of teeth. "It's good to see you again, little one. We'd hoped you would accept our invitation."

"Not much of an invitation," Dive replied harshly. She waved one hand dismissively. "We each have our own way of doing things. Now, do you want to know why we asked you here?"

Dive nodded slowly. "What's this all about?" he asked warily.

"You, of course. It's all about you." She stepped forward. "You saw me that day, when you shouldn't have been able to. None of your other teammates can see us - we've tested them, but they never react to us as anything other than human beings." She smiled slightly. "They are unhappy with us, but they do not show any sign of seeing us as you or Mr. Pearson and Ms. Luis do." Behind him, Alanna and Brandon reacted to that statement. She grinned at them. "As you can understand, we were most interested in discovering what it was about you in particular that allowed you to see us. You do no suffer from the so-called Ten o' Clock People's particular vice, and if your teammates do not share the ability, it is not something inherent to your race. If it is an ability that developed independently, then we must learn what it is. Therefore, we had to find a way to bring you to us. You understand, of course?"

"I'm here. What do you want now?" Dive asked. She pointed past him to Alanna and Luis. "We will allow your two companions safe passage out of the city if you agree to remain here."

"Like hell," Alanna spat.

"My teammates?" Dive pressed.

The batman regarded him seriously. "All but one will be returned."

"All but one?" Dive asked seriously.

"The one like you. Your brother. He will remain."

"Forget it."

"You will be buying the safety of the other four members of your team," she reminded him. "Not to mentioned these two."

"And all I have to do," Dive scoffed, "is sell my soul and my brother's along with it."

She laughed. "Nothing so dramatic. We need to know why it is you can see us, little one. And if any of your teammates are going to gain the ability, your brother is the most likely. If he can't see us, he's safe. After all, if he can't tell the difference between us and any other human, what threat could he pose?"

"And me?" Dive prodded."You... are another story entirely." The gaze she leveled on him was intense. "You're more of a threat than these Ten o' Clock People. You have more power and influence than normal humans. You could prove a formidable opponent to us, now that you've been warned of our existence."

"In other words," Dive said quietly. "I don't leave here alive."

She shrugged. "Not necessarily. Odds are you'll be kept alive until we discover why you can see us, and whether any of your teammates are likely to develop the same ability."

That sounded even worse to Dive, but the alternative... "All right."

"Why am I not surprised?" Alanna sighed. "Nosedive, don't be an idiot. Do you have any idea what they'll do to you?"

"Tear me inside out and fuck me over?" Dive replied calmly. "Yeah, I have a pretty good idea. Exactly what they'll do to my friends if I don't go along with this."

"They may already be dead."

"They're alive," the batman interjected. "My word on it."

"Show me," Dive demanded. "Where are they?"

The batman stepped back. "Follow me."

"So what should we call you?" Dive asked conversationally, forcing his nervousness down as he started down the hallway, ignoring Alanna and Brandon's objections. "If I'm going to be stuck with you for a while, it'll be nice having something to call you besides 'the slimy bag of intestines.'"

Alanna choked.

The batman didn't blink. "Amongst humans, I'm known as Helen Guthrie. Feel free to call me that."

"Helen," Dive said experimentally. "Pretty name. Doesn't suit you at all."

Helen chuckled. "Spirited, aren't you? These next few months should be interesting." She led them into one of the rooms off the foyer, and through another door at the back of the room. Stairs descended down into darkness. "This way."

The stairs stopped at another door, one with a keypad beside it. Helen keyed in a code - Dive heard six beeps - and the door swung open inward. Helen stepped in and to the side. "I'm sure you'd like to speak with them privately to discuss the situation."

Dive nodded. "Alanna, Brandon, you stay here." He stepped forward into the room. "Dive," Brandon called after him. "Think about what you're doing!"

It was a sub-level, Dive realized quickly. The basement itself disappeared into shadows not more than a few feet beyond the foot of the steps. A corridor had been dug into the wall at the far end of the basement. It was the only other exit he could see. He didn't pause before entering.

Two batmen stood a few feet further in, one hiding behind the form of an elderly man, the other appearing on the surface to be a woman in her thirties. The old man started down the hall, clearly intending for Dive to follow him. He did, the second batman falling into step behind him.

The ache in his stomach chose that moment to flare with a new burst of pain. He wasn't able to fight back a wince, as he brought one hand up to press against his abdomen tightly. It hurt, by the stars.

Neither of the batmen seemed to notice, and if they did, they didn't seem to care. The leader simply came to a stop a few meters further along, and reached out to hit a keypad on the wall. A section of the wall slid away and led into a dark room. "Your friends are here," the woman spoke from behind him. "You may see them. When you've made your decision, simply press the comm panel on the inside wall and we'll let you out."

The room was dark and slightly colder than the corridor had been. It would be chilly by human standards, but it was just about right for a Puckworlder. Dive ran a hand threw his hair, wincing as the movement caused the pain in his stomach to start complaining again. Behind him, the door slid closed, leaving what looked like a seamless wall. Definitely more technologically advanced than the humans. He took another step into the room, and waited for his eyes to adjust.

It was his friends, all five of them, more or less in one piece. They all appeared to be asleep - Tanya and Mallory were curled up in the far corner, Grin was leaning against the wall to Dive's right, and Duke sat braced against the far wall, head back. Wildwing was laying on his back on the floor beside Duke, covered with Duke's trenchcoat. Dive opened his mouth to call out to them, when the pain burst into a new level of agony, forcing the breath from his lungs and very nearly driving him to his knees. He stumbled, his hands pressed tight against his stomach, and forced the breath back into his lungs. Duke stirred slightly, but didn't awaken.

Breathing harshly, Dive steadied himself, and took another step into the room. His eyes scanned each of his teammates before settling on his brother. His unmoving, pale, older brother.

The pain flared again, and Dive had a sudden horrifying realization of where the blood in the Ready Room had come from.

He walked forward, past Grin, ignoring the stirring the others made as they slowly woke and became aware of his presence, until he came to Wildwing's side and slowly sank to his knees. Reaching out, he pulled the coat back. He shuddered as he saw the blood-soaked bandages wrapped around Wildwing's abdomen -- in exactly the same place as the pain that had been plaguing Dive since his friends disappeared. "Wing..." He closed his eyes and gripped his brother's hand tightly in one of his own.

"Nosedive?" the others were on their feet now and Mallory came to kneel beside him. "How did you get here? Are you all right?"

He nodded, not tearing his eyes away from his brother. "I'm all right. The rest... it's a long story, Mal. Just follow my lead, all right? There's no time to explain what's going on." He squeezed Wing's hand tightly, hoping his brother could sense that he was there, then released it and stood, none too steadily, and walked back to the entrance. They comm panel was just where the batman had said it would be, and he pressed it.

The wall slid open, and the two batmen stood there. "You've made your decision?" the first one asked.

Dive nodded. "Yeah." He turned to his teammates. "Don't trust them. Not for a second. If a chance comes to get away, take it." He swallowed. "There are two humans out there, Alanna Luis and Brandon Pearson. They'll help you. All right?"

"Dive, what's going on here?" Duke demanded.

He shook his head. "Sorry to get you all mixed up in this."

"Dive!"

The second batman, the one in the form of a woman, stepped forward. "Come with us," she said calmly. "Now."

"Do it," Dive whispered. "Go."

"What the hell is going on?" Mallory demanded.

"Dive-" Tanya started.

"Go." Dive grated. "Hurry. Before they change their minds. Leave Wildwing to me." He waved at them sharply. "Hurry. Follow them."

They hesitated for a long moment, until Duke caught Dive's eye. He watched him for a long moment, until he saw what he needed to and nodded once, sadly. "You'll be all right, kid?"

Dive nodded once, not trusting himself to do more than that.

Duke looked torn, but he nodded, once. "You know what you're doing?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Let's go, guys. Follow our hosts."

"But, Dive-" Tanya objected. "And Wildwing. He shouldn't be moved."

"He'll be all right," Dive promised. "I'll take care of him. Gotta trust me on this one, Taunny." He swallowed. "And you gotta get out of here before they change their minds. Get out of here and forget any of it ever happened."

Grin regarded him with an expression he didn't want to recognize. "You are hidden strength, Nosedive. More so than even you realize, I believe." He placed a hand on Dive's shoulder. "Persevere, my friend."

Mallory was frowning. "We can't be doing what I think we're doing!"

"Yes we are," Duke said harshly. He didn't look any happier with it. "And we're doing it now, before it's all hopeless." He gestured sharply. "Come on. He bought us this much, we have to take it. Otherwise, it'll be meaningless."

Thank you, Duke...

Mallory seemed to slump and she looked away.

"We're not going to forget this, kid," Duke said softly. "Not a chance in hell."

"Pretend?" Dive pleaded softly.

"I'll see you again. You hear me, kid? If I find out you've bailed on us..." Duke didn't finish, but he did pull Dive into a quick hug. "These friends of yours will tell us what the hell this has been all about? Why you're doing this?"

"Something like that, I suppose. Who knows? They seem like a strange bunch." Dive tried out his usual cocky grin. "I hope they drive you as crazy as they drove me."

"You take care of that brother of yours, huh? He's gonna need to be strong enough to kill me when he finds out I let you do this."

"I'm really not giving you much choice here, Duke," Dive grinned. "Yeah," Duke scoffed. "Like he'll see it that way."

"Get outta here," Dive repeated. "Before they change their minds." Or I do. I don't want to do this...

Duke seemed to realize it. "All right." He squeezed Dive's shoulder. "I won't forget this, kid."

The batmen ushered them out the door and it slid back into place behind them.

Nosedive closed his eyes, then turned back to Wildwing.

****

Duke remained silent as they were ushered down a corridor, into a basement type area, up some stairs and finally into a living room. Mallory walked at his side, grim and silent, while Tanya and Grin followed a few paces behind, sorrowful and stoic, respectively. Three more people waited in the living room - two women and a man.

The older of the two women, a fairly young blond women in a business casual suit, stood near the doorway. A good distance away, and watching her warily, was the second woman, this one dark, and dressed in jeans and a black shirt, and the man, who appeared to be in his early forties. There was a tangible air of tension in the room. These were not people who got along well at all. In fact, judging by the number of hidden weapons Duke could spot on the three, he doubted they got along with pretty much anyone.

They looked up as Duke and the rest entered - the blond smiling, the other two looking furious. "I take it the little one agreed to our trade?" the blond asked calmly. The old man who'd escorted them nodded once briefly. "Excellent." She turned to Duke. "Mr. l'Orange, I trust you and your teammates will be able to find your way home. Our business is now concluded."

Duke shook his head. "Wait a minute!" he objected. "This isn't over! Not even close! We're not leaving until you bring Dive and Wildwing up here!"

"I'm afraid that wasn't part of the deal," she said calmly. "Now, it's time for you to go." She turned an nodded to the two humans. "Ms. Luis, Mr. Pearson-"The ones Dive mentioned?"-thank you for bringing our little one here. I guarantee you, you will be able to leave unharmed." Her expression hardened briefly. "I suggest you do so immediately. As I've said already. Our business is concluded.

Duke’s expression hardened. Bringing him here? Had these two humans led Dive into this trap?

The dark-haired woman, Luis, the other woman had called her, took a step forward, her expression angry, but the man caught her arm and gripped it so tightly that she winced. "Listen, Guthrie, or whoever the hell you are, this isn’t over."

"I sincerely doubt that it is," she said smoothly. "Now, if you please..." she raised a hand and gestured toward the doorway. "Mr. l’Orange, I do apologize for the inconvenience we’ve caused you and your group. You are free to go any time you please. I doubt we’ll see one another again."

"What about our friends?" Duke asked softly. "Do they get the same deal?"

"Mr. McDrake and I have come to a separate agreement," Guthrie said smoothly. "It is between he and I. It no longer concerns you."

"But-"

"Our need for you has ended," Guthrie said flatly. "Leave now before we decide it would be far simpler to eliminate you. It is only your celebrity that has kept you alive this long, but that is a hindrance that can be worked around. The door is that way. I am sure you are all competent enough to take advantage of what remains of my generosity."

Pearson slowly backed toward the doorway, pulling Luis along with him. He gave Duke a considering look, then tilted his head to the side, his expression encouraging the Puckworlder to come as well. "I won’t let this lie, Guthrie. That boy was under my protection."

"And you did an excellent job of keeping him safe. He looks to be in nearly perfect condition. Goodbye, Mr. Pearson."

"We’re going with him," Duke said quietly. "Come on, gang. We can’t do anything if she kills us, and Dive and Wing won’t have anyone to come back for them."

Mallory looked ready to rebel, but only gritted her teeth, looked away and nodded once. Tanya was watching him with an expression of sadness; she was sure that they were leaving Wildwing and Nosedive behind to die, he could tell. Grin, for his part, was giving Duke an understanding look, but behind that there was anger, a rare emotion in Grin. He must feel as helpless as I do. It was no consolation.

He forced himself to move, to take that first step to join Pearson and Luis in the doorway. Each step got slowly easier, until the next thing he knew, he was outside, standing in knee-high grass and looking back at the illuminated little farmhouse that had been their prison for the last day.

Pearson had taken a hand-held radio from his pocket and was standing off to one side, quietly trying to raise someone named Cam. Luis stood with her hands clenched, her face a mask of anger. "Who are you?" Duke asked tiredly.

"I’m Alanna Luis. He’s Brandon Pearson," she jerked a thumb over her shoulder at her partner. "And you probably don’t believe this, but we are on your side."

Mallory snorted. "I’ll believe that when I believe Saurians can fly. That woman in there said you brought Dive to her."

"We did," Pearson said sadly, looking over to them for a moment. "We were assigned to protect him, and instead we let him walk directly into their hands."

"We tried to stop him," Alanna objected, but her voice held no real strength behind it. "We tried to talk him out of it, we showed him how dangerous they were, explained that they almost never take prisoners. We tried to get him to stay out of this. He didn’t listen. Just took off on his own when we said we wouldn’t go, forced us to follow him in. We tried, Brandon. Damn kid just wouldn’t listen."

"Yeah," Tanya said shakily. "That sounds like him all right."

Her voice was tight, too high pitched. She was crying, Duke realized helplessly.

"The batmen would have gotten him eventually, even if we’d locked him up and sat on him for good measure," Alanna continued. "You heard her in there, Brandon. She knew more than she should have."

"Batmen?" Due echoed as Brandon nodded grimly.

"Our entire organization is at risk," Brandon said seriously. "And this isn’t going to help."

"They know our names, they know we’re Ten o’Clock," Alanna said tightly. "There has to be a traitor. There’s no other way."

"Ten o’Clock?" Duke repeated. "What is this?"

Brandon shook his head and looked away. Alanna shrugged and slowly started walking again, away from the farmhouse and toward the road. "It’s a long story, Mr. l’Orange. If you want to hear it – if you’re really sure you want to become a part of all this – come with us. We’ll explain it all once we get back to LA."

Duke gave the others a quick glance, saw the silent agreement in each of their eyes. "We’re in."

Behind them, he heard Brandon laugh shortly. "Getting in’s the easy part," the human man said. "It’s getting out again that people have problems with."

****

No one knew exactly when it began, Alanna explained, but it was at least the last ten or fifteen years. At least.

"They’re called the batmen. That’s what we call them anyway." Alanna sat back in the thickly padded chair of the private Amtrak compartment they were taking back to Anaheim. "There have been other names for them, from different resistance groups in different parts of the world, but batmen seems to be the one that sticks the most.

"In the beginning they were the oddity. Who knows where the first one came from, how it got here or what it did – back then, in the beginning, any talk of batmen was ignored as the ravings of lunatics and the mentally handicapped. It wasn’t until the late 1980s that anyone started listening.

"The only ones who can see the batmen are people like Brandon and me," she gestured vaguely between the two of them. "We call ourselves the Ten o’Clock people – it’s something Brandon came up with. You can ask him what it means later. The long and short of it is, we’re all smokers."

Mallory and Duke exchanged a confused glance, not seeing what this had to do with anything. Alanna noticed and smiled. "It’ll start making sense soon," she told them. "Or not. Depends on how open-minded you are." She settled back again. "Ten o’Clockers all have the same thing in common – we’re all serious smokers who reformed, more-or-less, to part-time smokers. The batmen, now... they’re something else entirely. No one really knows what they are, or where they came from. To be honest, we don’t know if they even look like what we see them as."

"They look normal enough to me," Duke said. "They were stronger than I’d expect from humans, especially that one old man they had guarding us, but aside from that..."

"You don’t see what we see," Alanna told him. "When we see a batman we see... rotting flesh, intestines, tentacles. Skin that moves on top of the bones. As if a corpse had been turned inside out." She shrugged. "That’s not entirely accurate. There are some real poets in the Ten o’Clock People, one of them can describe it better if you want. The point is, while everyone else in the world sees a normal human being, we see something more than that. If we look, some of us can still see the human being the batman is pretending to be, but for most of us, once we reach the point where we gain the ability to see them, that’s all we see.

"They’re dangerous, as you probably figured out for yourselves. They’re strong, and intelligent and very, very cruel. Violent and bloodthirsty. It probably took everything they had to let us leave with all our internal organs still in place. The common theory is that they’re aliens, come here to take over from the inside out. All the batmen are in positions of power – you’d have a heart attack is you knew some of the people they’d gotten to. Or the people they are. That’s something else we don’t know. These people who appear as batmen, are they people who were taken over by the batmen entities? Or are they the batmen themselves? Was Helen Guthrie ever a real woman, a real human? Was she taken over by aliens? Or did she start out the way we all do, then become something else, something so horrible that the only way my mind can translate it is as a mass of twisting flesh?" Alanna smiled grimly at their horrified faces. "You see our problem."

"What do you do?" Tanya asked. "You Ten o’Clock People. What do you do?"

"We fight them," Alanna said simply. "However we can. Mostly, we watch and try to understand what it is they’re doing. We stop them from killing whenever we can, we try to undo what damage they do. It will take a lot to stop them entirely, though," she added softly. "They’re growing in number, and the Ten o’Clock People aren’t. We’re being killed off. Slowly, but surely."

"The batmen?" Mallory asked.

"Yes," Alanna confirmed. "And anti-smoking sentiment contributes to it as well. Fewer new smokers, fewer people who eventually become one of us. Once we’re gone, who will be left that can watch them, fight them?"

"How are you sure that they’re dangerous?" Duke pressed. "I mean, so they look like death warmed over. That’s not reason enough to hunt them down."

"When you’ve seen one of them murder a little girl and eat her corpse," Alanna said harshly, "it becomes easier to understand why they have to be stopped. They kill without mercy and without concern."

"Eat?" Tanya echoed.

"Someone has to notice if it’s as bad as you say," Mallory objected.

"Of course. Everyone notices. What you don’t understand is that the batmen are in positions of power. Politicians. Bankers. Lawyers. Scientists. These things have insinuated themselves into our society to the point where it’s almost impossible not to notice the effect they’ve been having. Take a look at the news sometime and you’ll see their mark. But they’re the ones who control the ways things work – they control the law, the economy, the government. Maybe not totally, not yet, but they’re getting there. So even if someone notices what’ll happen? They’ll report it to the batmen. I wonder how many Ten o’Clock People died because they were naive enough to go to the police. How many normal people did the same thing and were found a few days later, floating face down in a lake somewhere?"

"I don’t like the way this is sounding," Duke said. "What do we have to do with it?"

"Not you," Brandon spoke up. "The kid. Nosedive. He can see them."

"How?" Mallory demanded. "He doesn’t smoke! Certainly not enough to have fit the pattern you’re talking about."

"We don’t know," Alanna said. "Neither does Dive. Neither do the batmen, and that’s how the problem started for you guys. When Dive ran into one of the batmen a few weeks ago, she realized he saw her, and they realized he may be a threat. They couldn’t get him easily – if he could see them coming he could fight back, draw attention to them. So they took you five instead, intending to use you as hostages to his good behavior."

Brandon folded his arms across his chest. "He sacrifices himself to them so they can figure out what makes him tick, and they let you guys go."

"Except Wildwing," Tanya said softly. "Because if any one of us had the same ability Dive did, it would be Wildwing. They have the same genes, the same blood. If it was inherited, Wildwing is the most likely of us all to share it."

"Exactly," Alanna confirmed.

"Where does this leave us?" Mallory asked. "We can’t abandon them. We have to go back for them."

Duke nodded in agreement, even as Alanna shook her head. "It may be stupid," he said mildly, watching the expression on her face, "but we won’t abandon our friends to the kind of beings you’re describing."

"You won’t stand a chance on your own," Alanna said flatly.

"We’ve done some pretty tough stuff before," Mallory told her.

"These things are deadly. They’ll kill you and eat you as soon as look at you."

"We’ll give them indigestion," Mallory shot back.

Alanna shook her head and gave them a hopeless look. "You don’t stand a chance on your own!"

"You don’t," Brandon echoed her. "Not on your own."

Duke heard the note in his voice and looked at him. "What are you proposing?"

Alanna frowned. "Brandon..."

"Help us," Brandon said. "You have technology we don’t which could be invaluable in tracking the batmen down. And once we’re prepared for it, I swear to you, we’ll help you go back for your friends."

"They may not live that long," Alanna said flatly. "Nosedive is a threat. And Wildwing’s as good as dead whether he can see them or not – no matter what they promised him, they’ll kill anyone who seems a danger to them."

"We’ll go in anyway," Duke said. "As long as there’s any sort of chance at all that they’re still alive. Any."

"Agreed," Brandon said, offering his hand. "Partners?"

Duke took his hand. "Partners."

"We’ll get them back," Brandon said solemnly.

"Or we’ll take down every batman we can find in vengeance."