"You forget," Angelo said, still grinning, "these days, all you have to do is have an earpiece in your ear...like this one...and you can talk to thin air as much as you like.  Of course, if my truck started talking back..."

Seeing the entrance of the Mariscal Sucre International Airport, he pulled in and followed the signs to the General Aviation hangars.  It took a few minutes to locate the right hangar, but eventually he pulled up in front of it and parked.  He picked up the briefcase and entered the small office.  Like everything about this airport, the building was new, but he could see by the...décor...that it hadn't taken this proprietor long to give the place decidedly lived-in look.

* "Good afternoon, sir," he said to the almost rail-thin man at the desk who appeared to be locked in battle with an office computer.  The man didn't look up.  "Mr Ramirez?" Angelo said a little louder.

Reluctantly, the man pulled his gaze up from the screen.  "Yes?" he asked in a surly tone.

"My name's Angelo Devarga.  I understand my assistant spoke to you about the purchase of the Piper you have for sale."

Mr. Ramirez's face brightened considerably.  "Oh yes, Mr. Devarga, it's a pleasure to meet you," he said, extending a hand somewhat stained with engine grease.

Angelo shook his hand.  "Sean tells me the details have all been arranged, it's just a matter of signing the paperwork, then I'll want to have a look over the aircraft before I hand the money over."

"Of course sir," Mr. Ramirez said, wearing a smile that Angelo could swear had dollar signs on it, "but I assure you that my plane is in excellent condition."

"Of course," Angelo replied, cynically.  Taking care  of the ownership papers was tedious but eventually, he was led out to the hangar floor.  The Piper Saratoga he had just purchased was parked out of the way.  He briefly walked around it, basically making sure all the parts were there and that the tires were in serviceable condition.  He heaved a sign intended to show resignation and said, "It will do, I suppose."  Back in the office, he handed over the briefcase and placed his final signature that certified his ownership.  Then, relieved to be out of the aircraft mechanic's presence, he climbed into the Land Cruiser and pulled it into the hangar.  Finally, he stepped out of the vehicle and looked around carefully before he said, "All clear.  Let's get outa here."

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
*Translated from Spanish

---

This message was last edited by the player at 18:53, Fri 06 Dec 2013.

The landcruiser's skin rippled as the vehicle began to fold in upon itself.  Within moments the vehicle was gone and Sean was rising from his hands and knees.  He brushed off his pantlegs and looked around the hangar.  "Very serviceable." He checked the plane over, started it up and attached two leads to its spark plug wires.  After analysing the readout for a minute he nodded.  "The engine's old, but seems to be in good repair.  This plane should get us to where we need to go.  Shall we?"  He got into the pilot's seat and fastened his safetly belt.  As soon as Dragon was aboard he began the take off protocols.  Minutes later he they were airborn, heading towards whatever it was that they were going to find out.

The Piper Saratoga rolled to a stop toward the end of the rough grass strip.  The grass stains on the prop ends and undercarriage was a testament to how long ago it had been last maintained.  That served as an advantage in hiding the plane, which Angelo accomplished by the simple expedient of picking it up and tucking it beneath the canopy, covered in local vegetation.  He then shifted his eufiber into his dragon scale “fighting suit” and adjusted the color for the local greenery.

“Are you ready to...” he began, but as he started to turn toward Sean, there was the sound of flapping wings.  Sean had exchanged his human form for that of a large parrot ubiquitous in this stretch of jungle.  “...go?”   Dragón shook his head and set off into the jungle.

Then a voice came over his comm earpiece.  “Yes,” Wheelman replied blandly.

“Showoff,”  Dragón griped, but with a grin on his face.

Over the next few minutes, he learned to coordinate his movements and their trail security with his shape-shifting counterpart.  In fact, it was Wheelman spotting them from the air that allowed them to avoid two foot patrols on the way in.  As far as they were able to tell, they were baselines armed with high-powered small arms, so  Dragón was content to pass them by on the theory it would be easier to take them down in a running fight on the way out that take them out quietly enough not to raise the alarm on the way in.

Finally, after several hours of creeping through the jungle, Wheelman spotted the compound up ahead.   Dragón began causing his eufiber to actively mimic the background as he slipped forward until he could see the ten foot tall, razor-wire topped chain link fence.  He knelt in the brush and pulled out his tablet, patching in to Wheelman's aerial view.  He quickly filed away a couple of screen captures for later reference and began scanning the area ahead of him, looking for the defenses.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Sorry this took so long, I had...stuff.  Now I'm left with the conundrum of how to describe the compound without being tedious.

---

Sean made what he hoped was a convincing show of grooming his polyester feathers with his carbon fiber beak as he perched on a branch of a large sandbox tree on the edge of the kill zone around the razor wire fence. The compound itself was covered with grass, but lacked trees of any sort.  The buildings were more like barrow mounds than free standing structures.  Small oblong hillocks with entrances and the occasional window.  Stacks protruding from the top were seemingly for air exchange.  With a very faint click he switched his eyes over to thermal.  No unusual heat signatures off the buildings.  Ten men above ground, five buildings, almost no cover.  No way to tell who was a nova and who wasn't. Fascinating.
"Colonel, they've either given their nova forces assault rifles to disguise them, or they aren't above ground.   Hacking into their comms now.  Just a minute." He spread his left wing and made a show of grooming the feathers in his armpit, coincidentally  extending one of his antennas. Their comm system was quite well encrypted, and if he hadn't had access to Dr. Alinsky's latest decryption algorithms they might have been formidable indeed.  As it was he was listening in on their radio chatter within a few minutes.  He patched Dragon in via his Alinskytech headset.  "Let me know if you want me to reposition to get a different view of the compound, Colonel."

"Be careful up there," Dragón whispered, "I can see motion sensing camera traps on some of the trees down here, I wouldn't bet against there being some up there as well."  He listened in on the comm chatter for a few minutes.  Pretty standard guard and patrol exchanges in Spanish, keeping in touch with the jungle patrols and the guard posts.  "I can't see any sign of novas yet either.  They're likely to be posted somewhere out of sight.  Intruders get tangled up with the patrols or guard towers, get focused on a firefight with them, then get jumped by the novas."

He looked over the shots of the compound again.  "I'd like to have you make a pass over the compound.  Don't get too low, maybe ten meters.  Run a detailed thermal scan from every angle as you pass.  If I'm right, you'll see slightly elevated heat from the vent pipes.  And if they're lazy, you'll see heat from under a patch of grass and leaf litter somewhere inside the compound or in the kill zone.  If they're on their game, you'll find a more subtle pattern of heat spread around...like through pipes in that same area.  If they're running a nova lab, there's got to be more than what would fit under those little roofs, and they will definitely need power in some form, and power means heat.

"I want to make a circuit around the area, see if I can find any of their rabbit holes."  He had hoped to be able to get a little more about their operation, but it was more important to get back with what they had than to run too much risk trying to get all they wanted.  Let's see what I can turn up on the ground here, he thought.

"Understood." after finishing his grooming, and with a raucous croak, Sean dropped off his branch, wings spread. He flew languidly over the compound in a rough spiral. Recon done he sailed off into the trees on the far side of the compound. "You were right, Colonel, there's a hotspot directly in the center of the compound, they've tried to mitigate it with a diffusion system of some kind but they're definitely doing something here requiring quite a bit of juice." An uptick in the radio chatter announced the imminent arrival of a helicopter from the capital. " Colonel, did you catch that, we've got an incoming VIP of some kind, ETA ten minutes."

Dragón was about halfway around the compound doing his search when he got Wheelman's radio call.  He had turned up a couple of things that might be worth following up on after dark, but now the rest of his search would have to wait.

"If we've got an incoming helo," he whispered, "we need to ease back a little bit since they're probably going to do a security sweep before their VIP lands.  We can creep back up once he's landed."  An incoming VIP definitely had his curiosity piqued.  Who was he?  What brought him here?  And most importantly, was he valuable enough to want to run the risk of scooping him up?

He honed in on the rush of voices on the radio, hoping for anything useful.  Suddenly, he caught it amidst a flurry of radio calls - "Teniente Coronel Gutierrez" and "Inspección."  A slow grin crept onto his face.

"Maybe we could arrange for Lieutenant Colonel Gutierrez to have a little 'helicopter accident' on the way back from his inspection," he whispered into his radio.  "Thoughts?"

"It would indeed be a crying shame, especially if said helicopter accident was accompanied by some sort of EMP, thus rendering all their communications equipment worthless.  That will be draining, but it should be worth it. Capture the VIP, then call in Gamma Team to mop this place up so they don't cut chute and hide their operation somewhere else. Get the data and the assets. I assume that this individual won't be coming in in a single unescorted helicopter without some kind of protection. Probably a nova or two. Either Elite, or a hired thug, or Colombian military. I've trained for this kind of Op, but I will require assistance to deal with any security forces. Maintaining this form, plus disabling their electronics and helicopter, then ensuring said helicopter doesn't crash and kill our VIP will be draining. I trust I can count on you to neutralize his protection."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Dragón said, "the reason I want to nab this officer is to give ourselves some intel on what they've accomplished and what we'd be facing when we did raid this place.  I mean, if this Gutierrez is clued in enough to be able to conduct an inspection he should provide some enlightening conversation."  He spent the next minute or so putting himself in the position of the FARC and deciding what sort of security they might have set up.

"My guess is that he'll be in an armed chopper," he said when he had played all the variables through his mind, "some kind of heavy door guns would be the most flexible.  Those will be manned by regular soldiers.  The pilot will also likely be baseline.  For the colonel's personal security, the likelihood is that if they have a particularly strong nova available, there will be just the one.  Otherwise, there will likely be a pair of elites, fliers.  The kind of people DeVries won't hire.  Not because they aren't good enough, but because they are unstable or unreliable in some way."

Then he turned his mind to the attack.  "We'll want to shadow the chopper discreetly until it's out of line of sight from the compound.  If they're high enough up, the pilot should be able to go into an auto-rotation descent when the chopper's power is cut.  I'd like you to make your EMP as small as possible.  Directed would be even better so they don't know why the chopper crashed.  Then I can go in and draw the attention of the security while you make sure the VIP makes it to the ground alive.  We can play it by ear after that."

" Unfortunately, I don't have the precision required to just target certain systems with an EMP to knock out their comms and their ciontrols without cooking the whole works.  I can take control of the helicopter, blow out the engines, or just shut things down for no apparent reason, but they will still have comms.  I also probably can't take out the helicopter controls and their door guns, sadly, so you may or may not have to contend with them as you draw the attention of their nova assets.  Once you've distracted them, I can snatch the VIP and exfil easily enough.  Grab, shapeshift, leave.  Or grab, shapeshift into a combat form with him in my torso, and then aid you in eliminating the security.  Make the call."

"Cooking the whole works is sorta what I had in mind," Dragón said.  "With the electrical systems out, the pilot should still have enough control to autorotate down."

"Easily doable.  I'l continue hacking their computer system until the helicopter is set to depart, unless something interesting happens in the interim of course." True to his word, Sean continued worming his way through their computer system.  Careless of them to connect everything to the net.  Of course, they were connected to the net via a secure uplink to one of Colombia Telecom's satellites, and said satellite was seemingly massively firewalled, but for them to rely on that, and a few simple firewalls and antivirus precautions told him that they were dealing with men that still conceived of combat as it had been fought decades ago, men that hadn't changed with the times and were probably close to retirement.  Maybe they were experimenting with these children to try to come up with a way to guarantee eruption, thus staving off their demise.
Minutes later the helicopter arrived.  As the Colonel had predicted there were soldiers on door guns, 50 cal, and two men that could only be novas. One of them had the tell tale glow of a being that couldn't quite contain all the energy coursing through him.  The other was freakishly overmuscled. He might be a Mighthead, but they were usually too unpredictable to be of much use in a delicate situation (like fighting in a helicopter) and he wouldn't be much use unless he could get his hands on his opponents.  Sean did a facial recognition search for known novas.  Soon data was streaming into his system and onto the Colonel's headset.

"Now," Dragón said quietly, "we wait."  He settled more comfortably into his place of concealment.  From where he sat, he could make out the area just around the helicopter.  The pilot, door gunners, and the two novas had been left there while the inspection was conducted.

"Apparently, the bodyguards don't have clearance to see inside the lab," he remarked into the comm.  The two soldiers were standing together on one side of the chopper, smoking.  The energy user, whom he had dubbed "Sparky" because there was a constant aura of blue-white lightning flicking around him, was predictably fidgety.  He paced back and forth and appeared to occasionally be muttering to himself.  The other one, dubbed "Lumpy" because his muscles had bulges on the bulges, seemed to have a need for others around to be impressed.  He flexed and stumped back and forth near the soldiers, powdered a rock in his fist, and for a grand finale, hovered into the air on a wavering column that looked like heat haze.  The two soldiers looked suitably nervous and went back to their smokes.  The sound of Lumpy's raucous, confident laughter trickled faintly into the jungle.

"Oh yeah," Dragón said sarcastically, "these two are real winners."

After about an hour, word came over the enemy comm that Gutierrez and his guest were ready to depart.  "His guest?" Dragón asked quietly, "This should be interesting.  Think you can keep track of two birds?"

"It shouldn't be overly challenging, although it may require me to dedicate more resources to acquisition, thus leaving me with fewer to dedicate to either escape or combat.." Soon the Colonel and his guest, a short, rotund North-East Asian woman were being escorted out of the bunker by a squad of soldiers.  Directly behind the squad, a  woman in a white lab coat was pushing a pitifully small child in a wheel chair.  Tubes were attached to the poor thing's shaved skull and lead to a canister of strange milky fluid attached to the back of the chair.  The woman in the lab coat was obviously distressed, angry even, and was glaring daggers at the Asian woman's back.  Sean's background facial recognition software soon identified the Asian as a Doctor Hirome Akada, a Brazilian of Japanese descent that had worked for the Sao Paulo Rashoud center.  She had vanished from the facility, and soon afterwards his records indicated that an arrest warrant had gone out via Interpol for her.  Crimes included industrial espionage, aiding and abetting terrorists and medical malpractice. A strange assortment of crimes.
Neither the woman in the lab coat, of indeterminate ancestry, nor the child in the chair were in interpol or Devries' files.
Wheelman forwarded the data on Doctor Akada to Dragon.  "Seeminly, Colonel, there are three individuals that we will need to extract. One of whom has unknown medical requirements.  Although they seem to be able to survive a 3 hour helicopter trip without dedicated medical staff."

Dragón watched the strange procession approach the helicopter, which was spooling up for takeoff.  They stirred a mixture of emotions in him, from pity for the child to outrage that these people could do this to anyone, especially such a small child.  Drawing in a deep breath, he balled up all the tension inside him, then blew it away as he exhaled.  Now was not the time to let emotion dictate his actions.

"Roger that, Wheelman," he said, acknowledging Sean's report, "you'll just have to find a way to ease that chopper to the ground after you short out its systems.  We'll try to time it so that there's open ground nearby so you won't have to deal with thick canopy or swampy ground."

The helicopter finally lifted off, leaving the lab-coated woman standing aside and watching it go.  She was still angry, but at the same time, she looked genuinely concerned for the little girl's safety.  He tried to keep his own concerns in check as he set off, drifting along under the trees, pacing the helicopter northward.  As he flew, he strengthened his body with quantum energy and activated his force field.  His superhuman agility allowed him to weave almost casually through the dense jungle.  In his mind's eye, he could envision a green parrot flashing through the foliage at speeds no sane parrot ever dared dream of.

Their path wasn't going to take them directly over cleared land before they reached civilization, but they would be passing near a suitable spot.  “Wheelman, there's a fair sized patch of logged land just over a mile to the northwest.  If the pilot doesn't pick up on it on his own, you may to give his tail a little nudge.  Standby...on my mark.  Three...two...one...mark!”

Dragón shot upward at his top speed, breezing past the left side of the helicopter in full view, banking around in front of it and headed down the right.  The right side door-gunner opened fire, his .50 caliber chattering, but the stream of tracers passed behind Dragón's feet.  Within seconds, “Lumpy” and “Sparky” were out of the chopper and coming at him, Sparky trying for a high-speed arcing pass while Lumpy barreled straight toward him.  As soon as he had both novas' full attention, Sean was free to slip in and clamp himself to the underside of the chopper.

Dragón guaged the two novas' speeds.  Sparky was fast.  If he decided to bolt, Dragón would not be able to catch him, marking him as the first target.  Lumpy, on the other hand, was slow.  He'd have to wait for the big lummox if he wanted to keep his attention off of Sean.  Sparky zipped past, unleashing a torrent of electrical energy, which splashed harmlessly over Dragón's force field.  Dragón was about line up an intercept course for Sparky's next pass when Lumpy clapped his hands together with tremendous force, unleashing a shockwave that tumbled him backward for a second or two.

“That could get annoying,” he muttered.

While Sean was hacking the base's computers he lazily winged his way towards the helicopter's return path and settled on a branch roughly a kilometer from the base along their presumed return route. No sense giving them a head start. When he heard the chopper spooling up he ceased putting back doors in the base's security and finalized his worm that would start uploading the base's archives to Dr Alinsky's servers during off peak hours. He also started shifting his internal components, and increased in size until he was roughly 70kg with a 15 foot wingspan. Inside, he formed a reasonably long iron bar, wrapped tightly with copper wire, that was connected to a capacitor that itself was connected to the generator that gave him power.  His wingspan would have been a serious hindrance in the thick foliage, so he created three vents that would give him propulsion. As the chopper passed above him Sean paced it beneath the canopy, wings partially furled, and used only to steer.  He careened through the foliage at over 200kph, the split second decisions and perfect accuracy required didn't give him the rush it would have had he been meat, as he didn't produce endorphins in this form, and even if he had, endorphins didn't work on silicon chips and carbon filaments.
Once the chopper was almost over the designated crash zone Sean moved into position 15 feet beneath it. On the Colonel's signal Sean gained altitude until the feathers on his back were touching the helicopter and unleashed the EMP. The effect was immediate and dramatic, if totally silent.  The helicopter immediately lost power and all but the most rudimentary control, the turbine engine whirred to a stop and the pilot, true to the Colonel's prediction, attempted to perform an emergency landing in the clearing below, and without Sean's support he might have even pulled it off.  As it was, with Sean guiding it down it was a remarkably soft landing.  No sooner had the skids touched down than the alarmingly large parrot exited the underside, and entered the passenger compartment.  The soldiers never stood a chance, viciously sharp claws and beak, combined with wings that could strike with a force that could crumple steel made short work of the unfortunate men.  The Lt. Colonel, in a remarkable display of both coolness under fire and bravery, emptied his pistol into the monster that had attacked his chopper.  Ignoring him, the hell parrot neatly snipped the restraints holding the wheelchair bound child's chair and then incorporated the child into a compartment in its body that opened to accommodate the child, chair and all.  That finished, the bird turned on the now frantic officer, a wing strike to the temple rendered him unconscious, and another silenced the now frantically screaming Dr Akada. Sean's bloody claws grasped them both securely around the torso.  Mere seconds after the helicopter had touched down, the blood spattered parrot was winging its way away from the clearing.  "Colonel," Sean said over their hardened communications system, "I've acquired both assets and am making my escape.  I'll need to take a bit of time to shift into a form that can accommodate the child and chair, as well as the doctor and Lt. Colonel.  Kindly disable the rest of their security so that I can land to do so."
This message was last edited by the player at 01:50, Tue 24 Dec 2013.

Shadow Walker was lying beside a river that did not exist, pondering the fact of his death.  He couldn't feel too strongly about it as the echo of his existence slowly quieted, ripples in the water growing ever smaller, ever more subtle.  His only disappointment was that he would not be able to return to the distant shore of his home...

---

Walker was a marine before he was recruited by the agency, and as the world drew to a close his first training held firm.  He was a rock for his family, holding them calmly as the world died.  They shut their eyes, his strength and their faith making them believe that somehow the world would still be there when they reopened them.

Walker kept his eyes open, and watched Earth die, his hopes and dreams meaningless, powerless to fight back against a force impossibly beyond him.  Walker was a pragmatic man, not prone to fantasy, but in those final moments of fear and hopelessness his mind wandered.  Could it have turned out differently?

And Walker erupted.  All of him.

---

"I'm not coming back from this one, am I?" He said to no one in particular, unconcerned for once about the effect his voice would have on the stream.  He knew, of course, that he couldn't be there to see the fruit of his actions.  Still, it rankled.  Was he to lead humanity toward a promised land he would never get to see, or would it all be for naught?  Brings new meaning to Moses's story...

---

Pastor Walker's voice boomed out, calling to his congregation. "...And imagine what he must have felt, as he looked out over the land promised to his people, his own way barred because of his own carelessness.  How many of us have felt this..."  Walker paused, his vibrant voice stilled in mid-sentence, worrying his congregation.

The universe had revealed itself, an infinite string of possibilities, his own life played out in endless variety, merged into a perfect, singular point.

Shadows of memories that were and were not his own danced in his mind's eye as he disappeared.

---

"I worked toward this for so long, yet I can barely remember the feeling of them in my arms..."  Walker was no longer a man.  Merging with his infinite selves left him distorted, confused.  Only by shedding the weight of infinity and falling into one of his discrete forms in a given world could he see himself, but in doing so he lost sight of the larger pattern, and his own memories were hopelessly blended with those of his other selves.

As he thought idly, shocked realization bloomed.  Now, at the end, he could see it all clearly.  As his being merged with the water, as his consciousness bled out, he could see his place in the greater pattern even as he remembered his family.  Families.  All the loves and hates of his many lives, and the future they might have if he succeeded.

Walker smiled.  A bearable punishment, softened with a beautiful gift.  The empty echo of a man that no longer existed boomed out in the place between places.  "Ha, Moses indeed!  It is as it must be.  Let it begin..."  The last was a whisper, tumbling into the flow of the river, streaming out of possibility into reality along with the last vestiges of Daniel Walker.

---

"...Let it begin..."

It was a voice in their minds, bringing forth a memory long hidden.  A night lost, a night that never was.  And with memory came a piece of a man they never truly knew, quantum energy imprinted with the signature of a thousand words and endless lifetimes.  A tool to use in the battle for the future.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Your characters remember the surreal dream sequence that occurred at the beginning of full circle.  New characters were there too, one of the several unnamed characters that were in the background but nonetheless deemed "important" to the timeline.  Along with this memory comes a surge, a gift of Shadow Walkers power.  I'll post what you get over in XP... Edit: when I get home to my books.

---

This message was last edited by the player at 21:50, Wed 25 Dec 2013.

Dragón centered himself to steady his balance against Lumpy's shockwaves and started in an arcing path around the over-muscled nova.  Sparky lanced toward Dragón and with a defiant shout let loose a concentrated blast of electrical energy.  It battered its way through his force field and poured into the eufiber on his chest.  It did no damage but Dragón could feel the heat of it on his skin.

“Right,” he said under his breath, “that's enough out of you.”  As Sparky turned and arced away, Dragón shot toward him.  He drove a heel into the back of his head sending a pulse of force field energy through it.  Sparky was blasted forward, his head snapped down, and he began a ragdoll tumble toward the ground.

Lumpy clapped his hands together again, but this time, the shockwave splashed across  Dragón's force field who was able to roll his body to let the wave of kinetic energy wash around him.  Lumpy's agility and speed were well above any baseline's, but his technique was raw and fueled by anger and machismo.   Dragón's agility and speed were much greater and, using Qi Meng, he was able to turn the over-muscled brawler's strength against him and counter attack, striking pressure points which disabled Lumpy's limbs one after another.

Unfortunately, he underestimated the brawler's recovery speed.  As  Dragón lined up for a knockout blow, he was blindsided by a thunderous right hand.  His head ringing, he drifted backwards, deflecting more haymakers by pure instinct.  Suddenly, he felt his throat in a vise-like grip as Lumpy was able to bring both hands up.  Though he was barely able to draw breath and he could feel the blood pushing against the back of his eyes, he didn't allow himself to lose his calm.  The elite, roaring and cursing as he tried to strangle him, had given Dragón the opportunity he needed.  With a surge of qi and a pulse of force field energy, he unleashed a devastating “one-inch punch.”  There was a sharp crack of quantum strengthened bone and Lumpy was hurled several yards backwards, curling into a fetal position with his arms folded across his chest.  Dragón, sucking in breath and fighting to clear his blurred vision, arced up and drove both feet down onto his opponent's head like a pile driver.  Lumpy was launched down through the canopy and hit the ground with an audible thud.

As soon as his HUD showed both mercs were down, The giant parrot began to ripple and stretch. Soon where a bird had once stood there was instead a compact sleek 4 seat flying wing. The child in his wheelchair, Sean thought it was a he, was securely strapped in place. The two other guests of honor were even more securely strapped in, arms, legs, torso and head all were encased in the same sort of sleek metal that composed the hull. The pilot's seat was both vacant and quite comfortable looking. "Colonel, we're ready to depart whenever you are ready we can go. Any suggestions on a destination?"

Dragón took a moment to clear the cobwebs after the fight was over.  His sore neck was a reminder that there was still room for improvement in his combat technique and tactics.

He flew over to where Wheelman was...parked?  "Did you want to head back to the plane and take that out of the country or just make a dash for it?"

"I'd suggest leaving the plane where it is and leave from here. I can follow the river 3k to the north until we're well clear then go atmospheric and have us back in the US within four hours. There is the problem that might arise from our kidnapping an officer from a foreign country and illegally bringing him into the country. Also, the international kidnapping. Does our organization have facilities equipped to hold and extract information from prisoners? There's also going to be the need for medical personnel for the child."

"I'm going to call ahead and at least give HQ a head's up," Dragón said.

Switching his comm to a secure satellite band, he sent a message to Phantasm.  "Bonita?  Wheelman and I just wrapped up our little intel-fishing trip.  We've managed to land a couple of unexpected whoppers.  We picked up a FARC officer, one Lieutenant Colonel Gutierrez, a scientist (name as yet unknown), and one of their test subjects, who may need some medical attention.  Anyplace in particular you want these folks delivered?"

Phantasm was in the middle of countering a computer security breach when Angelo called in.  While computer hacking wasn't normally the action packed lifestyle depicted in movies, the speed of the opnet combined with the intellect and diverse power suites of nova hackers made it something close.  The recent increased frequency of the attacks made things even worse.

Dividing off a small stream of consciousness to deal with the call, Phantasm replied in a distracted and mildly irritated voice.  "I'd pop open a portal for you and just take you here, but I'm busy.  We have a cabin just south of the Mexico/Arizona border that might work though.  Private, off the grid, mountains provide some cover.  You'll need to hike it once you get close though, a plane would break cover and cars won't deal with the terrain.  Once you settle in give me another call and hopefully I'll be able to come get you."

Phantasm spared a moment to contemplate how her life had changed over the years.  Neglected kid, nova immersed in pop culture and action, soul eating monster, now "operator" for a vigilante movement.  Weird.

Dragón had his mouth open to add a friendly greeting when Phantasm clicked onto the line in answer to his message.  Hearing her tone, he closed it again.  He took a moment, absorbing her message.  I wonder if she heard the part about possible medical attention?  He decided to run with what he had and do the best he could, hoping they could be 'ported to a larger facility fairly soon.

"I have a destination for us," Dragón said, giving Wheelman the coordinates Phantasm had given him.  "I hope you can shift into something that can carry people up a mountain trail.  What kind of medical training do you have?  We may have to keep everybody healthy for a bit before we get back to a regular base."

"It shouldn't be a problem to assume a form that can take these people along the trail, I could even go human form and carry the child while you put our guests over your shoulders.  Failing that, i can assume a large quadrupedal form with them in compartments inside.  Once we arrive at the safe house, I can assume the shape of an integrated medical suite, I've downloaded the technical specifications now, but I will be no help in actually taking care of these people, I have no medical training.  If the conspiracy is unable to provide medical aid, I would suggest I use my contacts to find someone that can help us, this child must be saved, he is the priority."