Midnight brought the converted Osprey down to a smooth landing, filling the narrow strip between the country lane and the military base fence. Before the hydraulics had time to come to rest, Widget dashed out from beside the neat, circular hole burned through the fence's links. As the door slid open, she leapt, slipping through the partially opened door and slapping the controls to slide it shut once more.

  She bounced to the front of the plane, the grim seriousness of a child trying to contain her wildly inappropriate excitement. Landing in a crouch next to Midnight, she pointed toward the gap in the fence and shouted, "She went thataway!"

  Midnight looked over at the doctor and said, deadpan, "thataway?"

  "Yeah! She went straight through the fence. Vrowm! Bits of melty metal flew everywhere. I got burned here." She pointed at a patch of skin which showed no signs of a burn, recent or otherwise. "Really, I did."

  "You got burned by molten aluminum and now you've got not even a scar to show for it?"

  "I got better."

  The comment reminded Jack of Steve, who had filled the entire trip with lewd comments and rude commentary about their potential opponents. Jack hid a grin when he realized the young man had gone silent the moment Widget entered the Osprey's cabin.

  "Miss? I think you should buckle in back here, so Midnight can get us airborne. There's a spot right here." He pointed to the seat behind Steve, across the wide aisle from Grace.

  "I hate you, old man," whispered Steve.

  "That's not a nice thing to say!" Angie flounced into the seat, her hands working the buckles seemingly without her attention as she continued to harangue Steve about being nicer.

  "Hey, buddy. Seemed the least I could do." He turned away from the pair, ignoring Steve's death glare, and pitched his voice to carry to Midnight over the muffled sounds of the VTOL's engines. "Any idea how we're going to spot her from the air?"

  "Oh, that's easy!" Widget timed each syllable to a tap on the back of Steve's seat with one of her feet. “Her hands and feet are all blue and glowy! Her eyes are too, but," she frowned, "I think you might have a hard time spotting her eyes from way up in the sky. Are we gonna be real high up in the sky?"

  "We already are, Angie." Jack turned his attention back to Midnight. "You say you've never flown one of these Ospreys before?"

  "Jack, I swear to you on a stack of bibles I've never flown a plane before. "

  "You're doing a real fine job of it. Just wish I knew how you were doing it."

  "Yeah. So do I. It's really messed up. There are things I don't want to remember, that I can't remember, but I wish I could, but then there are these things that keep popping up that I shouldn't remember." She flipped a few switches, and the smooth upward acceleration shifted, pressing Jack back into his seat.

  "Like what?"

  "Like how to fly a plane. Or Jamil's personal cell phone number." Without looking from the plane's controls, she reached over and tapped a sequence into the smartphone attached between two of the Osprey's readouts.

  Angie took a moment from pestering a glowering Steve to chime in. "Maybe you remember all the stuff I forget!"

  "I don't think so, Ang."

  "Why not?"

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  "Because I don't think you've forgotten him," she jerked one thumb back toward Jack, "all kitted up in enough military hardware to start a war, leading a squad of soldiers as they jump out the back of the plane I'm flying."

  Jack's breath caught. He'd managed to put that night out of his mind for so long, he hadn't even thought twice about getting into the heavily modded Osprey. Images filled his mind; fire shooting up from the ground, a parachute half failing from melted lines, and a sudden shocking impact with the ground punctuated by the ground-shaking impact of a crashing VTOL.

  "Jack? You still with us back there?"

  Midnight's clarion call voice shook him out of his fugue. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm here. No way you should remember that, either. You certainly weren't the one flying that night."

  She didn't look away from the controls, but he could hear the grin in her voice. "How do you know? Could have been anybody behind that big old visor."

  Even the cadence of her voice matched. Jack shuddered as he replied. "Because he went down with the Osprey. Managed to keep it from landing on any of us as we bailed out, but... the whole thing burned. He burned to death, Drew."

  To Jack's surprise, Drew laughed. He didn't take offense. He'd heard relieved laughs once too often. "Thought I was going nuts. I keep remembering things like that. Some of them get..." She paused, searching for words as her eyes scanned across the screens hooked to the cameras on the Osprey's belly. "They get real graphic."

  Jack shuddered, remembering some of his own nightmares, both sleeping and waking. "I know about that, Drew. I'm here if you need an ear, but you don't have to say anything."

  "Real graphic? I could stand to hear some more."

  Widget smacked the back of Steve's chair hard enough to rock his head forward. "Stop being gross, Steve."

  Midnight chuckled. "Yeah, that'll happen." Her phone chirped, and she pressed a button. "Hey Jamil. You're on speaker. Tell me you got us clearance to fly here."

  "Yeah. Turns out the Air Force doesn't take kindly to someone kidnapping one of their astronauts. The Army claims they don't have Captain Walker, but that facial recognition Widget ran for us saw some guys in uniform bringing him over to some old, unused portions of the base. Both services have boots on the ground headed that way, but I've advised them to wait for your group, including Agent Donaldson, to take point."

  "Uh... are you sure on that, Agent Johnson?"

  "Yeah. Two reasons. First one, if she's supposed to be tracking down Walker, she's got a reason to be there, and we can deal with her going rogue without the inclusion of guns and uniforms."

  "Point taken." Midnight swept her hand across one screen, gestured, and a pinprick at the center expanded into four glowing blue spheres rapidly approaching a group of utilitarian cinder block buildings. "Your second reason?"

  "Whoever took him expects to keep him there."

  "Yeah, and?"

  "They saw the news footage of Centurion in New York City too, Williams. Whoever they are, they're armed and ready to take down a blue blood."

  ***

  Jane didn’t hear a way into the building ahead of her, but she saw Walker's trail, faint blue marked with sparkling white, leading up to the main door. She listened to the exterior walls but didn’t feel or smell anything either. They had the building sealed, either living on stored air or pumping air in from elsewhere.

  Her power carried her forward. Before she reached the door, a loudspeaker mounted to a pole beside the building crackled to life. "Halt and identify yourself."

  Justice screamed its hunger at her, but she didn’t smell injustice on the man speaking. Of course, she didn’t feel him the way she had felt Drew or Jamil over the phone earlier, either. Memory of Jamil sparked other memories, and they provided words. "I am Special Agent Jane Donaldson. A United States Air Force officer has been kidnapped and is being unjustly held against his will in this building." That ought to suffice. "Open this door."

  She felt the sudden guilt in the speaker's voice, despite not being able to reach him. "I don't know what... You must be mistaken, Agent Donaldson."

  "I am not. Open this door."

  The whine of approaching turbines almost hid the whine of servos coming from other posts around the building, but Jane heard them. She pinpointed all four guns swiveling toward her, angled her body so none were directly behind her.

  "I'm sorry, ma'am. I've called the MPs. I'll need to ask you to stay right where you are until they arrive."

  Justice echoed in her voice. "And give you more hostages? I think not. I tell you thrice and done. Open. This. Door."

  Silence answered her. She feinted, reaching for the door handle. The moment she did, all four guns opened fire. She spun, her shield stretching out behind her hand until it became a band of echoing blue, bullets sparking from its surface. As she spun, she reached out with her sword, screaming blue light vaporizing the guns and charring the posts holding them.

  Jane's sword plunged through the door handle. A circular hole big enough to pass a cantaloupe glowed in the night. The door slowly creaked open, the remaining lights inside flickering.

  "Justice will not be denied."