Points of Intersection: Divided Sum - part 6
by Glitch Girl and Direwolf

Conference Room 2, Freedom Fortress, 2004.

"Time," explained Lord Mentor to the other members at the table, "is a surprisingly delicate thing. The scientists of the Domain have long theorized that the Chronological Flow is made up of many potential branches which are shaped by choices and events, which influence which outcome becomes the dominant Time Stream. It was believed that a traveler could go back in time and influence events in such a way as to change the course of the Time Stream but..." Mentor paused for a moment.

"But what?" asked Interceptor.

"But the resulting divergence in the Chronological Flow could have detrimental effects on the fabric of time/space. The theoretical Chronoparadox backlash could potentially wipe out the universe, as we know it. Lord Dominion, in his madness, built a Time Portal in an attempt to change events in his final days. It was used but once, and fortunately the Time Stream, while strained, remained unaltered."

"So you're saying time travel works, but it's really risky if you change something big, right?" said Volt.

"Yes, that would be a good summation."

Minute Man stood up. "In the time line we remember," he said "Lauren McKay, also known as Glitch Girl, arrived in Patriot City in 1964. She stayed in this era for a short time, and then returned to her own time with the aid of that Dominion Time Portal which was activated in this era."

"...But?" said Volt. He could tell by the way this conversation was headed that there was going to be a very big "but..." involved.

"But..." said Mentor, "There is a problem."

"What problem?" This time, it was Direwolf asking, and he didn't sound amused.

The alien leader leaned his chin on his folded hands before reluctantly continuing. "For some reason... the time portal is unable to reach the era in question due to a... a..." Mentor hunted for the words.

"Time Glitch?" offered Interceptor.

Mentor frowned. "That's one way of putting it."

Main Control Center, Freedom Fortress, 1964. Now.

Minute Man drummed his fingers on the console and looked at the pictures on the view screens thoughtfully.

"I'm not sure Mentor," he said to his companion. "It seems to be working perfectly, but the Ant tells me that he didn't do much of anything. It just started working again on its own."

"Yes, my friend. It is very strange, yet I shouldn't worry if I were you. Such things have a reasonable-"

"I need to find Direwolf," Glitch Girl announced as she marched herself into the main control center. She was still pulling on her leather jacket after a hasty costume change and was obviously agitated.

The two heroes looked up from their work at the surprise intrusion. "I'm sorry Miss-" Minute Man began.

"Look, I'm really sorry about this, but I gotta know where Direwolf is, now."

"Glitch Girl," began Mentor, "I-"

"Mentor, stay out of my head. Now is NOT a good time," she snapped, and much to Mentor's surprise, her mind suddenly slammed shut to him.

"Young Lady," Minute Man began, "if you don't-"

"Do you know where he is?" she cut in.

Minute Man was briefly taken aback by her abrupt response. In the back of his mind, he remembered that the door to the control room had been locked and only those with the proper identification could get in, which left a rather nagging question.

"Fine," she snorted. "If no one's going to tell me..."

She focused her gaze at the main view screen. As a few tiny sparks played across her skin, the picture suddenly changed to that of a map of the coast line of South Carolina with several glowing dots highlighting a specific area. A small inset blinked on with several names, quickly replaced by a second window of information that scrolled by at high speed.

"Oh crud," she muttered under her breath, "That's got to be it."

"What do you think you're doing?" Minute Man demanded. As he reached for her, a beam from one of lasers Mentor had installed for security purposes fired and scorched the floor at his feet.

"Don't." Glitch Girl said bluntly. "You can get on my case later, right now, I'm busy."

Mentor put a restraining hand on his friend's shoulder.

"Mentor, what do you think you're doing?"

"I'm sorry Minute Man, but now is not a good time to interfere."

The information on the screen was quickly replaced by a mosaic of surveillance camera shots of the interior of the Freedom Fortress. One of the shots of the hanger where the Freedom Flyers were kept enlarged to take up the entire screen. More information appeared and flowed by at high speed, then the monitor returned to normal.

"I have to go," she said and started to march out.

"Perhaps you should reconsider-" Mentor began.

Glitch Girl spun around. "Are you going to stop me?" she challenged.

Minute Man waited for some kind of signal from Mentor, but instead, the alien mentalist slowly relented.

"Good," said Glitch Girl and marched out, somehow getting the hydraulic sliding doors to slam behind her.

When she was gone, Minute Man turned slowly to his friend. "Mentor," he said evenly, "I've trusted you on many occasions, but right now I want you to tell me exactly what is going on here. Who is that woman and what did she just do to our computer?"

Mentor didn't answer him at first; he'd touched her mind long enough to know what had her so worked up, and at the moment, he was afraid that she was right.

The world exploded in a swirl of silver bubbles that streamed upwards as Direwolf fell through the water column. He was sinking like a rock, which was about what he expected, considering his density. But he hadn't counted on going down quite so quickly. Already, the surface was contracting into a small silver disk and everything had taken on a blue gray cast and burring himself in the sea floor didn't seem like a good idea. Direwolf decided he needed to slow his descent. Devon had told him how to add some air to the inflatable vest he was wearing. He took the regulator from his mouth and blew into the vests inflation tube. It took several tries but his descent slowed. It was nearly dark around him so he touched off the first flare.

The flare ignited with a hiss like a huge snake and produced a globe of sodium yellow light around Direwolf as he descended. Everything beyond the light was midnight black. Two shapes arrowed into the light and Jason nearly panicked before he recognized Man-o-war and Sea Urchin. Here in the water, he saw how graceful they truly were, moving like ballet dancers that could fly.

"Just relax and don't fight the water," Man-o-war advised. The changes wrought on his body by the infusion of Energy X had left him able to talk underwater. Sea Urchin smiled mischievously and swam playful circles around Direwolf as he sank.

Guided by the two aquatic heroes, Direwolf touched down on the sea floor in a cloud is sediment that the current slowly dissipated. The cold was seeping into Direwolf's body making his muscles ache so he triggered one of the chemical heat packs then took a good look around. The sea floor was a plane of mud and sand with only a few large crabs picking over the bottom. But a dark shape loomed at the edge of the light. Jason trudged towards it and long cylindrical form of a sunken submarine emerged from the black water.

"Aye, Lad, that's her, the USN Sculpin. The name's on the bow." Man-o-war peeled off to the right while Sea Urchin turned left. By the time Jason had reached the side of the sunken boat, they were both back. "No sign of what sunk her."

Jason pointed to the conning tower that leaned out over him.

"We could, but the forward hatch is a better bet. Give the lubber a hand, will you Merry?"

"Sure thing Man-o-war!" The blue-skinned girl grabbed Direwolf's shoulder. With her help, he made it up to the tilting deck of the sub. Man-o-war was already there examining the hatch way.

"Looks to be in working order!" He braced himself against the deck and turned the wheel. It creaked into motion. "Easier than trying to crawl in through a torpedo tube."

Jason lit another flare while Man-o-war swung up the thick metal hatch. Sea Urchin was though it before either of the men could stop her.

"Blasted head strong girl," Man-o-war growled. Jason lowered himself through the hatchway, mindful of the tanks strapped to his back. He found himself in a narrow corridor with watertight doors leading off it. Some of the doors were open and Sea Urchin was peeking into the rooms. Jason noticed a tangle of human bones in the corridor, mute testimony of the men who never left the Sculpin.

"The torpedo room should be well forward," Man-o-war said.

"Then let's go!" Merry piped, darting forward.

Jason pulled himself along with his hands. The corridor had a collection of cables and pipes running along the ceiling that was now a tilted wall, giving plenty of handholds. It was easier than swimming or trying to walk on the tilted deck. They passed a couple of large, watertight doors that hung open.

"Looks like that's what sunk her," Man-o-war suggested. "Water started coming in the bow and the inner doors weren't secured. I'll bet some fool opened the inner door of an open torpedo tube when the outer door was open...."

The final door was hanging half ajar. Sea Urchin pushed it wide open and then swam through with a giggle. Direwolf pulled himself through into the torpedo room.

By the harsh yellow glare of the bubbling torch, Jason got a good look at the room. Long metal racks stretched the length of the room, each one holding a set of strapped down torpedoes in cradles. Chain cranes hung at odd angles from the tilted ceiling, once used to move the weapons from the racks to the dogged hatches that led to the torpedo tubes. It looked like Man-o-war's suspicion was correct; one of the torpedo tube's inner hatches was wide open. There were two long wooded crates on the floor that obviously had held something roughly the size and shape of torpedoes. Both were empty. More bones littered the deck.

Direwolf has just cleared the torpedo room hatch when he caught a flicker of movement amid the shadows by the weapons racks. His danger sense suddenly kicked in as well.

What emerged looked like a jellyfish crossed with a junk pile.

Direwolf got a good look at the thing as it drifted through the still water. It had a plastic bag for a float and a web of wires to hold the bag to a cluster of mechanical components hanging underneath it. A red tinted lens hung in the center of the cluster swinging back and forth, and cables trailed from below. Two of the cables were coiled, like phone cords, and ended in dart-tipped tubes. The red lens focused on Direwolf and Sea Urchin. The two cables lashed through the water.

He saw the cable coming at him and tried to move aside. The water hampered him, dragging on his arms and legs. The dart struck, piercing his hardened skin. The impact drove the plunger on the tube mounted on the dart, forcing a viscous yellow liquid into his body. It felt like the world's largest wasp had just stung him in the chest. But his metabolism countered the toxin and the constricted feeling in his chest faded into nothing more than warmth.

Direwolf wasn't willing to see if the construct had a back up attack. He grabbed the cable, pulled the thing towards him and shattered it with his fist. Then he turned to help Sea Urchin.

Whatever the syringes had been loaded with, it had hit the young girl hard. Her face was blotchy and congested, her eyes unseeing and she clutched at her throat. By the look of her, she was near convulsing as well.

Man-o-war was rushing past him, heading for Merry in a near panic. Jason saw at once what had to be done. He grabbed the stricken girl and pointed to the ceiling. Thankfully, Man-o-war understood, he gestured at the ceiling and a powerful water jet surged through the flooded compartment. It stuck the cargo hatch and blew it open. Jason made sure he was under the open hatchway, dropped his flare and yanked on the emergency inflation tab of his vest. He just had time to fold both arms around Sea Urchin as the vest inflated. He rocketed up into darkness.

Since the ceiling was tilted, he slightly misjudged his exit and smacked the hatchway with his shoulder on the way up. It hurt but didn't break his grip.

Then the real pain began.

As Jason rose, his joints began to ache. The ache turned into twisting agony as it felt like every joint was pulling itself apart. Then he felt blood burst from his nose and ears. His vision went next and he could feel the tearing sensation start in his chest. He knew what was happening. The helium and oxygen he had been breathing under five hundred feet of pressure was bubbling out of his tissue as the pressure released. His blood was acting like a bottle of shaken beer when the cap came off. The frothing was tearing his body apart from inside. It was like when Kraken hit him with the sonic attack, but it didn't let up. Instead, the higher he rose the worse the agony became.

But he couldn't slow down or stop. Any delay could be fatal to Sea Urchin. So he kept a grip on her as he rose towards the silver disk above that he couldn't see, trailing a cloud of his own blood.

Onboard the ship, Devon watched the water and tried to ignore the rolling motion under his feet. He doubted there was anything left in his stomach to throw up but wasn't eager to find out.

"Dry land," He muttered. "Dry land is very good."

He was trying to decide if sipping water would help settle his stomach when Direwolf breached the surface. He could tell at once that his friend was in trouble; the spreading red stain and the limp form in his arms was plenty of proof.

"HELP!" Devon shouted. Seasickness forgotten, he grabbed a life ring and dove over the side. Direwolf was close by, choking for breath around his respirator so Devon was there in a matter of moments, the line from the life ring trailing behind. As he reached them, another form surfaced. It was Man-o-war.

"Hang on lad!" Man-o-war shouted as he grabbed hold of Direwolf, Sea Urchin and Devon. Devon had long enough to toss a loop of rope around them all and pull it tight as Man-o-war flew up from the waves to the fantail of the Houston Belle.

Skip was already there, a canvas bag marked with a large red cross over his shoulder. The captain and at least a half dozen crewmen were there as well.

"What happened?" Skip shouted as Man-o-war landed.

Devon quickly unwound the rope and helped get Direwolf and Sea Urchin spread out on the deck. He pulled the regulator out of Jason's mouth and Jason coughed up blood and chunks of tissue.

"Some kind of devilish machine attacked them. Looked like it injected something!" Man-o-war's voice had taken on a deep Scots burr.

"Felt...like.... giant...wasp," Direwolf choked.

This was the first time Devon had ever seen injures on this scale. Jason's face was mottled purple and red as if massively bruised. His eyes were just red. Blood pooled under his head, leaking in slushy steams from his nostrils and ears. His arms and legs where twisted into painfully odd angles. He coughed again, spitting out a fist sized clot of something and fell back unconscious. Devon felt his stomach try to climb up his throat and looked away in horror.

Meanwhile, Skip was examining Sea Urchin. She was trying to breathe and not having much luck. Skip could tell that she was going to suffocate soon unless someone helped her. But no one seemed to know what to do. Her face was darkening as her eyes bulged and the only sounds she was making were small, strangled gasps. Then he realized what Jason had choked out. It made sense.

He dug into his bag. The bag had started out as an army surplus medics kit from the Korean War. He had modified the contents on the expectation that he might need to treat Jason. But now he had a new patient.

He pulled out a long syringe and vial of liquid. With surprisingly deft hands, he filled the syringe. "Hold her steady."

"What do you think you're doing?" Man-o-war growled.

"Saving her life." Skip injected the contents of the syringe and discovered Sea Urchin's skin was a lot easier to get through then Direwolf's. "It's an antihistamine. She's in gone into anaphylactic shock from some sort of massive dose of histamine poisoning from what ever she and Direwolf were hit with."

The drug was working; he could see the dark color receding from her face. But it was too slow, her airway was still blocked.

Skip reached back into his bag. "Ok, Man-o-war, I need you to hold her head very steady. And you two sailors, hold her arms, she might fight this!"

He took out a scalpel and another syringe.

"Ye gods! What are you doing, boy!"

"It's called a tracheotomy. And ether help me or watch her die!" Skip looked fiercely at Man-o-war. "It's the only thing that will give time for the antihistamine to work. Now hold her head very still!"

Man-o-war gripped his young companion's head in his webbed hands. A sailor grabbed each of her arms and pinned her on the deck. Skip bent down and pressed the scalpel to the hollow of her slender neck. He felt sweat burning his eyes but didn't pause to wipe it away. She'd stopped breathing though her chest was still moving spastically. There wasn't time to hesitate.

The blade cut. Dark bluish green blood welled up around the bright steel blade and Merry twitched, instinctively trying to shy away from the knife. That was a good sign, at least she wasn't dead. He made a small incision then dropped the knife and used the syringe barrel as a breathing tube. Once it was set, he cleared the blood away and taped the tube in place, sealing it around her skin with another layer of tape. She lay still, unbreathing.

"Come on and live!" Skip snarled. He gently pressed his lips to the barrel and puffed air. She gasped and drew a breath instinctively, the air whistling through the improvised tube. She exhaled and took another. The dark mottling began to drain from her face.

Shaking as if he had just run a mile, Skip sat back in near shock. "She's going to live. Once we know the histamine is gone, we can remove the tube and stitch the incision."

A heavy hand settled on his shoulder. He looked up into Man-o-war's dark blue face.

"Now that was work worthy of a hero," Man-o-war said.

"Uh, guys..." Devon said. "I think Direwolf's in bad shape."

Skip moved over to Jason and saw the damage caused by the uncontrolled ascent. It was too late for a decompression chamber.

"Sweet mother of God!" Man-o-war murmured. "Is he still alive?"

"I can't tell," Devon pronounced.

Glitch Girl kept her arms folded over he chest and watched the controls of the Freedom Flyer. The autopilot was doing a fine job of controlling the craft and she didn't want to risk touching something she shouldn't just in case. She felt more focused than she had in days, and the concentration kept her Glitch Aura safely under control through the flight. It had been quiet since she left the Freedom Fortress and apparently no one was following her. At least, not so far.

That left her alone with her thoughts as the sparkling blue of the Atlantic Ocean slipped by below her.

"It almost makes sense," she thought as she stared unseeing at the jet craft's controls. "Giving us vague warnings about time travel but never actually saying why... They knew what was going to happen but they couldn't tell me because... Crud, I hate this stupid, barely computerized, technologically antique timeline! It's so electrically dead I almost feel like I'm deaf. It's that key detail they never said, the one that makes this whole mess clear... What didn't they want to tell me?"

The empty sea and sky offered no answers.

"I wonder... Rest of my life... How long is that going to be?"

A warbling alarm from the control panel broke her revere. It was the autopilot letting her know she was within a kilometer of her target.

She gripped the control yoke. "Ok, McKay, you can handle this; I know there is a safety override on this thing. Just like playing a flight sim."

Of course, she'd never been very good at flight sims. It was figuring out air currents and gravity coefficients... the few times she did play, she tended to inadvertently cheat.

Below her, the sea was a blue expanse with a few scattered white caps. Ahead, she spotted the gray bulk of a large freighter. She knew it had to be The Houston Belle. She eased the control yoke forward and the ship responded, swooping low as it slowed down. She was in luck; most of the fore deck was clear though she saw a cluster of people, including the dark blue form of Man-o-war, clustered by the fantail.

Mentor had assured that the Freedom Flyers could be handled by just about anyone who had a sense of balance and control, so she had no problem bringing the craft down aside from a couple of extra bumps. What surprised her was the lack of reaction her landing on the ship produced.

"Weird," she muttered as she hit the release of her safety harness, "Something big must going on not to notice an entrance like that."

The hatch swung up and she climbed out, a little stiff from the long flight from Patriot City. The vectored thrust engines were still spinning down, so she couldn't hear anything over their dying roar. But she figured the action was at the stern of the ship so she ran that way.

When she reached the fantail, she understood why no one had reacted to her landing on the ship.

"Oh my God..." she gasped. "What happened?"

Man-o-war had Sea Urchin folded protectively in his arms and Glitch Girl saw the improvised breathing tube protruding from her throat. There was also a circle of men clustered around something lying on the deck. She couldn't see what it was, but she noticed a wide red slick on the deck that was leaking from something.

A sickening realization dawned on her. She started to push forward through the small group that parted for her without a word.

She was right. She didn't want to be, but she was right. There he was, Direwolf lying in the center of them all, as still as death. His head lay to the side, rolling slightly with the movement of the deck. Blood trickled in thick streams from his mouth, and nose, pulsing weakly. His skin was a dark mottled purple with splashes of red where the blood was seeping out. And his joints were twisted into hideous angles.

Her hands went involuntarily to her lips as the world tilted around her. The only words she could manage were "Oh my God... Oh my God... Oh My God..."

Direwolf was dead.

Everything was all wrong. The house of cards that was the universe was collapsing. He would never save Minute Man from the Domain assassins... Silver Scarab would power her lens and enslave the world... They'd never meet... She'd never become a hero... She wouldn't be here, no, she COULDN'T be here because he just died decades before Lauren McKay was ever born.

"I should have been here", she thought. "I could have done something, I should have stopped this. This is all wrong, it's all wrong..."

She didn't know if she wanted to faint, cry, scream, hit something, do anything! Her brain spun in a maelstrom of fear, frustration, and grief, but something in the center remained steady, forcing her to try to remain calm. One thing Direwolf had taught her was that it wasn't super strength that made heroes; it wasn't the ability to fly, or even pull information at will out of a computer. Those were only tools. Heroism was how you dealt with catastrophe and what you were willing to do to make a difference.

"Is he still alive?" she asked Skip in a voice of cold, forced calmness that shook on the edges as she knelt down, ignoring how Direwolf's blood soaked through the knees of her pantleg.

"I can't tell. I'm not picking up a pulse, but with his skin, it's hard to tell."

"Tell me what happened here."

"Well, Miss Crusher, there was trouble in the wreck. It sounds like Kraken left a trap behind to take out Man-o-war and Sea Urchin. It got her and Direwolf instead. Some sort of toxin. She was dying, so Direwolf brought her up as fast as he could and, well, you see the rest."

Miss Crusher? Oh that's right, that stupid name... Ironic now... "That sounds like him..." she said quietly.

She stared at the still body for a moment as logic fought panic for control of her thoughts.

He can't be dead. I'm looking at him, so he can't be dead. If he were dead, I couldn't be looking at him, or if I am that would make a paradox and the universe should go "POP!" so he can't be dead because there's still a universe and I'm still staring at him bleeding... bleeding...

Bleeding...

"He's not dead," she said evenly.

Skip looked up. "How can you tell?"

"His face. Look at the blood on his face. It's moving... a little."

The group looked at the torn features.

"She's right," said Skip. "If he were dead, it wouldn't be pulsing even that weakly. His heart is still trying to beat, but his circulatory system is so torn up it's not doing any good. His body is trying to heal, but the damage is so extensive it will never work. It can't act fast enough to pull him back."

Glitch Girl took a ragged breath as she ran her hands though her thick brown hair, trying to think, to remember something that might help. At the moment, she knew him better than anyone here, there had to be something...

She knew what Direwolf could and couldn't do. She remembered he'd spoken to her about the way his body healed so fast. That was part of what accounted for his longevity; his body was self-repairing, but he'd told her there were limits. Something like a severed arm would regrow given time and raw materials. That didn't help, because this was massive cellular damage. The cells can't rebuild because the whole organism was so badly damaged they'd just die again until his body ran out of raw materials...

Materials... something about materials...

"We need to get him back to the Freedom Fortress," she said quietly. "They had a medical bay that can support his life functions long enough for his healing to play catch up."

"How do we get him back, and will he last long enough for us to try?" Skip was already grabbing up his kit.

"There's a Freedom Flyer over there. It's the one I came in. We still have to keep him alive though, and to do that we need to give his body more raw materials to keep trying. Just anything. He'll break it down and use the proteins... whole blood or plasma, that should work best. Type doesn't matter, he can use anything."

"You heard her!" Devon shouted at the sailors around him, "Get to the infirmary and bring out whatever you got! Well, what are you waiting for?"

Several of the sailors caught off guard snapped to attention, shouted a quick "Yessir!" and sprinted towards the lower decks.

"And we need silicon gel and graphite," Glitch Girl added quietly.

Devon's head snapped around. "We need what?"

"Silicon gel. It's in engine lubricant, I think, and graphite... maybe something to get it into his body... a saline mix for an IV..."

"Yes!" Skip shouted in sudden understanding, "That's brilliant! Silica as well, it's part of his cells! But why graphite?"

"It's pure carbon. Along with the silica, carbon microfibers are what reinforce his body," she recited as if reading it from a mental page. "Just... whatever you can get into him." Her hand raked through her hair again as she thought harder. "Um.. Glucose, sugar water, probably broth... just, just... just anything his body can metabolize."

"Right!" Skip started rooting thought his medical bag and began injecting anything he could find that didn't seem toxic.

Glitch Girl finally stood up shakily and stepped back as Skip worked. After a moment she turned to Man-o-war, who had been watching everything intensely.

"Man-O-War," she began evenly, "I need you to carry Direwolf to the Flyer."

The old sailor looked hesitantly at the form in his arms.

"Please," she continued, "You're the only one strong enough."

"Lass I can't leave-"

"I'll keep track of her," Skip promised. "I've got more antihistamines and can give her another dose if she needs it. Once I'm sure she's going to be alright, I'll pull the tube and suture the wound."

Man-O-War looked at the two of them for a moment, then he gently set Sea Urchin on the deck.

"Going to be a tight fit in the flyer, lass," he said. "They only seat four."

"I know. Can you wait with Devon for the next flight? Skip needs to be there to make sure they're okay."

"Wow. Like a real EMT!" Skip noted.

"Lucky you," Devon muttered. He wanted to get away from the sea more than anything, but right now he didn't think it was a good time to argue.

Man-O-War carefully lifted Direwolf up from the bloodstained deck and carried him to the Freedom Flyer. Skip went along, meeting the sailors back from their mission below decks and taking charge of a cooler full of bottled blood products as well as a sack full of industrial lubricants and canned soup. He was thankful that a freighter at sea had be to somewhat self-sufficient, otherwise he wouldn't have the blood and Direwolf... well it was best not to think about it too much.

Glitch Girl helped Skip tilt one of the two back seats back as far as they could, and then strapped Direwolf in. Once he was secure, Skip prepped the first bottle of whole blood. By then, Man-O-War was already back with Sea Urchin.

"If it means anything," Glitch Girl assured the former fisherman, "I know she's going to be fine."

"So do I, lass. Between you and that impromptu surgeon, I know she's in good hands. Just like your grim paladin there. I've got a feeling the two of you are going to pull him back from the jaws of death, this time."

"I hope so. If not..." The rest of her words wouldn't come out.

"Now, enough o' that. On yer way," he said reassuringly. "Mentor just told me that they have the medical bay waiting for you. And..." A puzzled look crossed his face. "And he says that he and Minute Man are looking forward to a little chat with ye."

Glitch Girl tried to swallow the sudden knot in her throat. Part of her knew she should have been expecting this. She managed a small nod of acknowledgement and boarded the Flyer.

"All right," she croaked as she attached her harness. "You ready?"

"Ready." Skip was already hooked in. He had a bag of saline split open and was carefully adding powdered graphite.

The hatch swung shut and she gripped the control yoke. Man-O-War, Devon and the ship's crew scrambled free as the engines fired up. She gripped the control yoke and mentally triggered the auto pilot, not trusting herself to fly back on her own. Somehow, all the worry and dread and the cold pit-like feeling in her stomach focused her thoughts on one thing, getting Direwolf someplace where he'd be okay.

She couldn't help but think that everything had gone horribly wrong.

"...Beverly?"

It took a moment for her brain to register that Skip was calling her. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"I asked if you were okay to fly. You look a little pale."

"I'm fine."

"Okay... So, you're a superhero too, huh?"

"What?"

"Like Jason. You're a superhero like him."

"Mostly. Yeah, I guess." She really didn't feel like talking.

"You're involved in this Kraken thing... that's why Jason wanted you to stay at our place?"

She gave a bit of a shurg. A heavy silence followed.

"So..." Skip said at last. "What should I call you?"

"Hm?"

"Your name obviously isn't Beverly. It's okay; you don't have to give me your real name. I know about all that superhero secret identity stuff, but, well... What do I call you?"

"Glitch Girl's fine."

"Okay. Glitch Girl. Got it."

"Hm."

"I think Jason's going to make it. It was a good thing you came along."

"Was it?" she said quietly.

The ship flew on.

To be continued...