Cauldron Book II Part 4

Hi, Norma. I still have this report template on my computer. Brain2Web helps me fill it out. Hope you don't mind.

Liz still has someone from USIB who talks with her. (Liz is really good at making friends. I never appreciated that until now.) Her contact says, the mermaid calls itself Cathy. It usually swam in the Cumberland River near where the militias were. They must have talked it into the impersonation mission. And it must have really been missing salt water by the time we found it.

Wow, it's really cool you know the people who run the Challenger II. They took us to Wyetheville, Virginia. That's about the only place people could take Holly northeast from Knoxville, Tennessee if they wanted to get somewhere else. No trace of them on the highway past here, though.

Challenger II brought the help you sent us. Thank Bandolier for us. His "Granny Sphere" is probably as good as all of USIB. But we're still getting used to its vocabulary. "Eeeee" means it's happy, right? (Citation)

But Granny Sphere still can't track Holly. I gave it some of Holly's old clothes. It's flying near Interstate 81 everywhere they could have driven, trying to "sniff" her DNA. But no luck yet.

Dammit, they must have realized we could still track Holly. They must want her alive, so they must be drugging the sh!t out of her. Holly, please survive...

Uh, Norma, see you tomorrow.

Norma, I don't care if "Philippe St. Jean Lateran himself" is in Massachusetts now. Do you really think that Massachusetts stuff is more important than rescuing Holly?

But thanks. The Body Up bus got to us in Virginia today. Brett loves it. He's gotten back into the old Ellipsis Z compartment with all the electronics. I still can't believe you actually had Ellipsis himself as your electronics tech once. (Citation)

I said hello to Mel the bus driver. He said, he'd done a lot of jobs since driving for Body Up, but he liked this one the best.

... Damn, it's hard to wait. Holly could be anywhere by now. Don't you have friends who can track brainwaves throughout the world? Or is it just Ellipsis, who has his compound in Western Australia now and doesn't care about the rest? Can't you find anyone else?

If it's just us... Norma, I want to be ready to help rescue Holly. We signed on with USIB because they had "power suits" that could give us powers we lost after the "Panlucida" powers faded. (Citation) We always had the powers before that, but they didn't work when we practiced them before we went to work for USIB. That's why you said we should go work for them. Yeah, the suits gave us powers. Are you sure we still have them without the suits?

I still trust you. But let me know.

We finally got Holly's signal, from an abandoned lodge on the Blue Ridge Highway in Virginia! Her captors had made it past us on back roads and holed up there. We drove there, left Brett and Mel with the bus, and moved in on foot.

We found two women in USIB suits blocking the parking lot entrance! One said, "Summer Morgan, I have been so waiting to meet you."

"Fine. Let's have that meeting later. Right now, we've got a job to do."

"We've got one too. It'll be easier if you just let us do it."

Margaret Jean was trying to flank. The other USIB woman was countering. But Liz was just standing there.

Then Liz said, "Aren't you Karen Bodil? You were the best when you swam past Detroit!" (Citation)

"Uh, no comment."

"And you!" Liz pointed at USIB's other agent. "Aren't you Mary O'Hanrahan? Like, the reason they call the combat suits the Mary Suits?"

Combat suits? I said, "Please tell me you have combat suits on."

Mary looked at Karen. Karen said, "Uh, no comment."

"USIB won't give you combat suits either, huh? Even on a combat mission?"

Karen Bodil was spared from saying "Uh, no comment" again, because a car came out from behind the lodge. It accelerated at us, and the driver brought a gun out from his door window!

My team dodged, different directions. USIB's team threw something in front of the car, then dodged too.

The driver might have gotten a couple of shots off. But the car sagged. Its tires were flat! USIB had caltrop spikes now! Like jacks, only pointy.

But the car kept going. I've driven on flat tires. Why shouldn't they? How could we stop them?

It was going past me. I was on the passenger side. I jumped on, grabbed the handle, and punched in the window. I didn't have USIB equipment, but I still had gloves, so I didn't hurt my hand.

The driver didn't start shooting at me. But the car went around a curve. I hung on.

We went around another curve. He was busy steering, and I was busy holding on. The park barricade was ahead. We'd parked the Body Up bus right across it! I couldn't stop the car before it hit the bus!

But before the barricade, five big man-like things with shields instead of faces were standing together to block the road! What the hell?

Eek! I let go of the car door and rolled off. Oof! But I wasn't going that fast when I landed. Flat tires must have slowed the car down.

Crash! When I got the chance to look up, the car had crumpled into two of the flat-face things. But it hadn't gone as far as them; they'd moved up to it! The driver was unconscious up against the steering wheel. Oh, shit, some new enemy wanted us all!

But then I heard Brett's voice on a loudspeaker from the bus! "Perpetrator, you are apprehended."

The trunk of the car bashed open from inside. Imperilus stood up with two machine guns, and said, "The HELL I Am!"