I flip my mic back on ten minutes later as I skitch up Sunflower Lane away from Arnie's Auto. "Alright, Spook, where am I heading?"

"Keep going east. He hasn't stopped yet, but he's over in Parkville. What was all that about elves, earlier?"

"Paula was with me, and that's what she calls you guys."

"Was?"

The van I'm hanging onto turns on its blinker and slows, so I grab a passing pickup instead. "Yeah. She's heading home now to grab some clothes that fit right." I fill him in on what I overheard from the Cueballs, my fight with Rob, and the fact that Paula can make fire.

"She didn't burn herself?"

"Didn't seem like it." My danger sense gurgles just before the truck slams on its brakes. I dodge around it and then squat down low to slip under the semi truck that just stopped in the middle of the intersection. "That was weird," I say as I straighten up and spin around to skate away backwards, wincing as drivers blare their horns at the truck. "Hey Spook, any idea why an eighteen wheeler would be stopped in the intersection of Sunflower and Holly? Just happened now."

"Haven't seen anything about that. You don't see anything else happening there?"

"Nope. Maybe it's just a normal breakdown. I'm going to check it out." I could probably still overtake Terence if I don't let myself get distracted, but I don't really want to fight him along a random street. Too much risk of collateral damage, and he'll have his guard up. That's why took the time to swing through Arnie's Auto to pick up some motor oil instead of chasing after him immediately. Better to let him get to whatever hidey-hole he's using and start to relax. He'll have the home-field advantage, but hopefully there won't be many or any civilians around. And if I can help it, I won't have to fight him at all.

I loop back around and skate up to the cab, where a beefy guy in a stocking cap is climbing down. His jacket has a Glimmer Industries logo on it. "You alright, sir?"

He nods. "I'm fine. It's my rig here I'm worried 'bout. She just stopped. Engine died, brakes locked up, lights cut out. Don't make no sense for all those things to happen at once." He brushes past me and starts opening his engine compartment to investigate, so I skate back around to the road he's blocking. Most of the cars and trucks are getting themselves turned around to detour, and it doesn't look like anybody's hurt. Not yet, anyway.

Some of the cars are slowly moving around an orange sports car that got rear-ended by a black pickup truck. They're moving especially slowly because there's a man in flannel and a woman in a suit standing in the road next to their vehicles shouting at each other. I sigh and interpose myself just in time to deflect a slap from the woman with my forearm, then the man loses it. I lunge into him and pin his right arm against his truck while I struggle to hold onto his other. "Stand down, bozo! If you don't stand down, I'm going to put you down. Then you'll have a doctor bill and a repair bill. And maybe lawyer fees, because you can bet your bacon that Zoot McSuit over there will press charges if she can make a claim to feeling threatened."

The man calms down, so I slide back and watch warily while he rubs his arm, then I turn to the still screaming woman. "And you! Shut up!"

"He-"

"I said shut up! You are going to stand over there next to that lamppost while you wait for the police to arrive, and he is going to stand by that other lamppost, and neither of you will say anything more until the cops are here. Do you two understand me?"

They both scowl and protest, but they comply soon enough once I start examining one of my Pepper Fists. Once they're out of the street, I climb up onto the pickup's cab to have a better view while I keep an eye on the area. It only takes a few minutes before I see the flashing lights of a police cruiser approaching, at which point I hop down and head out.

"Sunflower and Holly is under control, Spook. What's the latest on Terence?"

"He's stopped moving. Looks like he's in the north-west part of Parkville."

"General area of Quartz Garden?"

"Near there, but maybe further east."

I snag another pickup and let it haul me through east Cherry all the way across Stoneleaf Boulevard, then I latch onto an SUV going up Agate Avenue. I split off when we reach Quartz Garden and slip into a nearby alley to get out my tracker. Normally I like to switch to stoner or hobo mode when tracking somebody so they're less likely to see me coming, but Paula still has my coat. That means my ballistic vest and the gear I have strapped to my upper body is visible. I'd have to remove it all if I wanted to pass as normal, and I don't want to take the risk of Terence ambushing me near his hideout without my gear on. I guess I could have just stopped into a store along the way and bought another coat, but I don't want to wait too long to get him in view now that he's stopped moving. Otherwise he might notice or incidentally lose my homing beacon and then move again. Besides, if I'm careful enough, it won't matter whether I've got my coat or not.

To that end, the best way to keep him from knowing I'm coming is to find out where he is from a distance instead of following the signal all the way to him. That way I'll be able to sneak better on the approach. It's too bad we haven't gotten around to building those GPS-enabled tracking beacons yet. That's next on the list now that we've got the SpookNet mostly online. In the meantime, I do have some tricks up my sleeve. My original plan was to take a few readings from places I know he isn't and then triangulate his position from that, but it's a tedious process. I just thought of a better solution. This alley doesn't have any tall enough buildings, though; Parkville in general is kind of flat and residential. Fortunately, where there are people there are churches, and where there are churches there are often steeples. The Boulder Door Chapel just down the road is no exception. It's also full of fancy little ridges and handholds that make it easy to climb.

I shiver a little as I sit on the belfry and adjust the aim of my tracker. It's pretty windy up here. Definitely need to get my coat back from Paula as soon as I'm done with Terence. Armor and exercise can only keep me so warm. I check the output of my tracker one more time, then sight along it to see Terence's hiding place. Well, the plot of land it's on, anyway. I don't have that much precision. Still, being up here means that instead of taking multiple readings and triangulating, I can aim my tracker and follow the imaginary line until it intersects the ground. Easy. And from here I can also get an idea about how to approach without being seen. The street to the north has good cover from that direction, and the house before the one Terence is at has a tree-shaded fence I can use for cover when I get near. The house itself is one story with an attached garage, an empty driveway, a covered pool in the back yard, and a small shed in the corner. The place doesn't look abandoned, so I'm guessing he's camping in the shed unless the house's owners are friendly enough with the Cueballs to shelter a fugitive.

I wonder how much a thermal camera would weigh. If I had one, I'd be able to check whether anybody's inside the shed based on its temperature relative to the surroundings. I can only carry so many gadgets, but it's not like I'd need a stand-alone set of thermal goggles or anything. All I'd really need would be the camera itself, and I could use my WheelPhone as the display. Yeah, I have a WheelPhone now. It's just a random cellphone I took of a crook. It doesn't have service anymore, but that's not what I use it for anyway. It's an interface to the SpookNet so I can look stuff up online without using my real phone, and I can even relay SMS and calls over the SpookNet to my real phone, which is currently at the Wheelhouse but could have been left at home or behind a dumpster or basically anywhere there's both coverage from SpookNet and the cell network. And of course, I can use it to connect to the Window-Bug system, the ParaMic, or even my Skullbuzzers.

This is also useful for coordinating with people -- now that I know where Terence is, it doesn't take long to find the address on Google Maps and send it to Joe so he can study the area online while I make my approach.

"It's owned by a guy named Murphy Goldstein," says Joe as I creep through the neighbor's back yard. "Bought thirty-five years ago. I can't find out much about the guy himself, but it looks like he's in his sixties or so. Big white guy, male pattern baldness, dresses well. Has a thirty-ish daughter named Annette. She's easy to find information about, but she lives way out in Florida. Not very useful. Looks like her mom died two years ago, though, and her profile doesn't mention a step-mom, so Murphy might be the only one living there right now."

"Thanks," I whisper, then take out my tracker again as I crouch behind the wooden fence with the tree trunk blocking anybody who might look my way from the street. Odd. The signal isn't coming from the shed or the house. I peek through a gap between planks of the fence. The pool? That means either Terence found the beacon and threw it in, or the water's been drained and he's camping out under the pool cover. I trade my tracker for my ParaMic, then reach up and hold it just over the fence aimed at the pool. It picks up what sounds like a video game of some sort, so he's probably under there. That's good; it means he won't have any visibility if I need to sneak around near the pool. Doesn't mean Murphy won't see me, though. I shift my aim to the house and hear the faint sound of a television. The windows on the back of the house all have blinds, but I don't trust those. People have seen me through the cracks in their blinds before.

That's alright, though. I've got a few options for how to deal with Terence, and Plan A doesn't require sneaking around near him in the daylight. I tuck my ParaMic into my pack for a moment while I climb up into the tree, then I take it back out train it on the pool again. Plan A is to monitor Terence until I think he's gone to sleep, then notify the police and prepare some traps while I wait on them. In particular, I'm thinking of pouring the motor oil and my ball bearings along the steps to the pool to make it hard for him to get out, disconnecting the extension cord he's using for power to deny him light, and rigging up my last tear gas canister and maybe a flash-bang with a remote detonator and slipping them inside the pool. I don't actually have a remote detonator, but since Pharmedica and their sally port, I've taken to carrying a few basic parts I salvaged from some RC vehicles. I can improvise one out of that pretty easily. Then, if all goes according to plan, the police will arrive all sneaky-like and take Terence back into custody while I hang back in reserve in case he wakes up before they can gas him.

Yeah, I know, they blew it last time, but that was their very first time trying to hold someone with superpowers. They weren't prepared at all. It's been a couple weeks now, though, and they've wised up. According to Uncle Jeff's contacts, the cops have been keeping some anesthesiologists on hand 24-7 to deal with people they can't figure out how to physically restrain, and Patches tells me they're working on pit-based cells for people who could normally punch through walls. That wouldn't be enough on its own to contain somebody like Terence unattended, of course, but it would slow him down enough for guards to react. Guards who could be equipped with various sorts of gas and maybe high powered armor piercing rifles. We don't know if those work on him, yet. The police eventually confirmed that he seemed to shrug off their nine millimeter and forty-five calibre handguns, but comparing those to something designed to penetrate armor plates is like comparing a chicken nugget to a cheeseburger.

I munch on a granola bar and continue listening to Terence through my ParaMic. That's definitely him in there; he's not very good at whatever game he's playing, and I can recognize his voice when he curses. After a while he gives up and changes to something else, but his phone rings just as I hear the title song. "What?" he demands. I can't hear the other side of the call over his game, but whatever it is seems to cheer him up. "Really? Awesome. Consider it done." Then he turns off his game and pulls back part of the cover near the front of the pool so he can climb out. He tugs it back into place after him, nods, then lumbers away heading south. Crap. I was hoping he'd just stay here. Now I'll have to tail him in case he spends the evening somewhere else.

Before I do, though, I let myself into his pool and take a quick look around for later. He's got a sleeping bag on top of what looks like a deflated air mattress, a laptop, a desk lamp, a microwave, a mini fridge, several duffel bags, a stack of books, a box of garbage bags, and a few large jugs of water. There's an extension cord running into the pool from an outlet on the side of the house, but he just has it connected to a normal power strip, not an uninterruptible power supply, so cutting the power tonight will be simple. I carefully look through the duffel bags, trying to leave everything how I find it, and find a variety of stolen electronics, jewelry, drugs, a few wads of cash, some clothes, and more books. Specifically, these are romance novels. I look more closely at the ones near the sleeping bag and find more of the same. Huh. Well, whatever floats your boat, I guess. I also notice airflow, so I follow it and find a small fan rigged up in the corner to blow fresh air into the pool through a hole in the cover. So he's not a complete moron. I run my eyes over everything one more time, then slip a tracking beacon into each duffel bag before pocketing one of the bundles of money and letting myself out. Always have backup plans.

Terence hasn't gotten very far, but he's moved far enough for me to guess his general direction of travel. Instead of trailing right behind him, I veer west toward the commercial strip that follows Stoneleaf Boulevard between Cherry and Parkville. It wasn't very warm in that tree, and the day is only getting colder. Going out of my way lets me move faster and warm up, but more importantly, it brings me to the Thrifty Threads. I roll in, ignore the gasps of customers and staff, quickly try on a couple coats until I find one that fits right over my gear, then toss a wad of money at the counter as I roll back out. This is no hobo coat, but it'll have to do for now. I slip out of my pack and put the coat on as I veer east toward the path I expect Terence to be following. I stop in an alley to check my tracker once I think I'm close. Nope, looks like he's veering further east. I zip up my coat and push my mask up, then head out. It'll be safer tailing him this way. He might recognize me if I get too close, but at least the random pedestrians won't constantly be doing double takes as Wheels skates past them.

Terence comes back into view just as he's walking through the gate of a gated community. The closed gate. I groan; he's supposed to be lying low, so I was hoping he was just meeting up with an acquaintance or something. "Spook, does Sculpted Springs mean anything to you? Name of the community Terence is about to trash."

"Hmm, sounds familiar. Let me look that up..." While he does that, I jump the remains of the gate and then peak out from behind a trash can as Terence strolls down the street humming to himself as he eyes the numbers on mailboxes. "Oh," says Joe. "That's where Marco lives."

"Address, now!" I hiss, pulling my mask back down with one hand as I unzip my coat with the other.

"Fifty-seven Skipstone Lane. North-east end. The road curves around, so you can get there a lot faster if you cut through yards. I'll notify the police."

I'm already doing the awkward grass-run before he finishes talking. Skates and lawns don't really mesh, but the alternative would be to skate past Terence on the road, and then he'd start moving faster. I need enough time to-

There! That mailbox has a fifty-seven on it. One story house, closed front door but with skinny windows next to it. Silver sedan in the driveway. I leap a lawn ornament and skid to a stop on their doormat. With one hand I mash the doorbell, and with the other I try the knob. Unlocked! I let myself in even as a pudgy woman Mom's age comes into view with an annoyed look that's quickly transforming into a scowl. I start talking before she can work herself up about my trespassing. "Evacuate! Now! Out the back door and keep going until you're out of sight!"

"Who do you think you are?" she tries to say over me, and Marco pokes his head around the corner at the same time, saying, "W-w-what's going on?"

"A supervillain is coming this way," I say as quickly as I can. "Terence Raymonds, and he wants you dead. I'll do what I can to stop him, but you two and anyone else in this house need to run, now. Back door. Go go go!"

I don't wait to see if they listen; there's no time. Instead, I back out and close the door behind me, then skate to the house on the inner corner of the approaching road and crouch behind their garbage can. If I can help it, I'll ambush him here and keep him from even reaching their house, but at least now there's a good chance that they'll already be gone if he forces his way past me. "Queue me up some Brass XNOR, Spook." I could do that myself with my WheelPhone, of course, but I'd rather keep my hands free in case Terence shows up sooner than I-

"OMG! It's Wheels! What are you doing here?" I jump and spin to see some random middle-schooler waving at me from across the street. I shake my head and hold a finger across my lips, then try to wave her away, but she's not getting the message and starts approaching instead. "This is so cool!"

"It is not cool!" I hiss. "I'm ambushing a supervillain. Get out of here!"

"This is soooo cool!"

"Please shut up." I peek around the trash can and groan. Terence is strolling down the road in our general direction, though I don't think he's actually-

"Which supervillain are you looking for?" she asks loudly. "Is it that one who goes through stuff?" Terence's head turns, then he flexes his hands and starts angling toward us. So much for the element of surprise. I take a deep breath and then shove the girl to get her running before I rush Terence, firing a stream of pepper spray at his face once I'm in range. He smirks and turns around, letting it hit the back of his head harmlessly. I zip past and try again from the other side, but he just turns around again and rummages for something under his coat.

"You shouldn't know I'm here yet," he growls as I continue looping him trying to get a shot at his face. "Are you psychic, or did those Cueballs rat me out?"

"Neither. I'm just that good. You should surrender before you get hurt."

Terence snorts. "You can't hurt me. I'm not stupid, you know." He pulls out a respirator with a clear face shield. "I know I'm not invincible." He straps the thing onto his face and his voice becomes muffled. "But I am Super-T, and that's the next best thing!" He stops rotating away and lunges at me. "Let's go, wimp!"

Well, okay. I've already thought of four different ways to deal with this kind of situation. One option would be to just smash the thing; he might not take any damage from my baton, but the respirator would. I could also use my oil to light his face on fire and hope the thing gets ruined. Or I could try to get close enough to slice the straps off with a knife. But the simplest and safest option is to just spray pepper spray all over the face shield to blind him while I adapt, so that's what I start with. Then, while he's wiping it off so he can see, I swap the cartridge in my left Pepper Fist for paint. He turns to face me just in time to get his vision obscured again, this time with something harder to wipe. I duck under his clumsy, blind swings and gain some distance to grab a Glownade and pull the pin. Normally these things spray their payload everywhere by virtue of their off-center thrust making them spin, but it's not that much thrust. Taking care to keep my fingers out of the way, I let the end blow off and then just hold it aimed at Terence while I skate around and spew glowing yellow goop all over him. I especially target his hair, crotch, and shoes. Hair because it'll soak in and be harder to hide the glow if he gets away, and the others because, nigh invulnerable or not, dampness in those areas is uncomfortable. Demoralization can be a powerful thing. And, of course, there's the original point of the Glownade -- whether he keeps the glowing pants and shoes on or ditches them, he'll stick out, making escape difficult in the event that I don't manage to subdue him.

He lets out a roar and tries to tackle me, but I dodge out of the way and spill some ball bearings behind me, which precipitate a loud crash as he slips and falls. Now I close in with my knife and take a swipe at his respirator's straps. I almost get it, but a twinge in my gut makes me jump instead and narrowly avoid being thrown as he flings an arm at me. I catch my balance and curve around to try again, but he's already on his feet, so I spray some more paint over his face. He is able to wipe the stuff off, but it tends to smear a lot, so it takes effort. While he struggles to do that with one arm and thrash at me with the other, I skate around and aim some pepper spray at his ear. The stuff's also a skin irritant, after all. It wasn't bothering him where it got on his scalp and neck a few moments ago, but maybe his ear canals will be more sensitive. I don't wait to find out, though. I keep skating and expand my baton instead; cutting the mask off would be easier, but it's also more dangerous. He's faster than I thought he'd be. Smashing it will take longer, but it doesn't require getting so close.

The fight carries on in this manner for a while, and I do get a few good strikes in, but Terence eventually manages to grab my baton and break it in half. At least it was off the shelf, and I've got a spare back at the Wheelhouse. It puts an end to trying to batter his respirator until it falls apart, though, and he's getting better at anticipating my movements. Time to step up my game.

While Terence is wiping paint off again, I skid to a stop near a manhole cover and heave the thing out of the way. "Oh no you don't!" he yells as my stomach roils, and I don't actually manage to back up fast enough this time to avoid him grabbing my arm and throwing me across a driveway. That's not fun. Danger sense is kind of annoying when the danger -- in this case, the ground -- is unavoidable. It's not my first time falling like this, though, and I do manage to control the fall enough to not break anything. My padding is a big help, too, and I'd probably have gotten a nasty lump from the lamppost I hit rolling out of the fall if I didn't have my helmet. Even so, I lie there groaning for a moment before I try to regain my feet.

Terence scowls as he approaches, one hand picking at the ear I hit with pepper spray, and I narrowly dodge a kick. I can feel the crash through my skates as his foot destroys the lamppost. I try spraying some more paint at him, but it seems I'm out. That's okay. I duck another punch and sprint around him. "Run, run, run, fast as you can! Can't catch me; I'm a teenage mutant ninja gingerbread man!" I jump a patch of ball bearings and then dive skates-first into the manhole, gripping the rails of the ladder just enough to keep from hurting myself when I hit the bottom with a splash. I hate storm drains and water isn't good for my skates, but I'm getting tired and Terence doesn't even seem winded, so it's time to change the rules.

"Get back up here and take your beating like a man!" Terence howls.

"What's wrong, Sewer Tea? Scared of the dark?"

He steps into empty space, and I hastily scoot back into the pipe. The thud when he hits the ground is something I can feel in my teeth. But that's good. It's the weight behind that thud that I'm counting on. I twist around and scramble down the pipe as fast as I can, heedless of the cold, nasty water filling the lower quarter of the pipe soaking into my pants and sleeves. Getting caught by Terence down here would be the end of me; there's no room to dodge at all, and I'm also concerned with him potentially causing a collapse if he takes a swing and misses. He's not too far behind me, either, scuffling and cursing and splashing as he crawls, but I do think I'm gaining distance. I may hate these things, but it's clear I've got more experience moving through them than he does.

Soon I reach another manhole, and I think I set a personal record for climbing with skates on as I scamper up the ladder. Of course, the manhole cover is too heavy to just toss aside like nothing, but that's not important. All that's important is getting hunched over at the top of the ladder so that my legs aren't low enough for Terence to reach. He pops out of the pipe while I'm still halfway up, and I see him smile menacingly by the light of his glow as he rises to his feet. I make it into position, though, and shift focus to moving the manhole cover aside. Terence laughs as he sees me straining my tired muscles.

"You're mine, now," he growls, and he tries to climb the ladder after me. Emphasis on tries. Terence is heavy, and the rungs snap off beneath him. He curses and tries different rungs with the same result, even as I finally get the manhole cover moved aside. No wonder the Ninja Turtles are so buff, lifting these things all the time. "Come back here!" Terence shouts as I climb out.

"Why?" I say as I lean back over to give him a good look at my grinning mask. "You scared of the dark after all? Don't worry, you'll keep glowing for at least a few more hours."

I ignore his continued demands and curses and skate away from the manhole, then sit on the curb to catch my breath and try wringing out the damp parts of my gear. "Where are those cops, Spook?" I mutter into my mic. "I've got him contained in the storm sewer for now, but he'll find a way out before long. If they hurry, they can be waiting at wherever the outlet to this network is."

"Yeah, um, about that, Wheels. The cops aren't going to be coming anytime soon. Something's come up Downtown."

I blink, and then I groan. "It's the Cueballs, isn't it? I should have realized. They know I was listening, so they've moved up their plans. That's why Terence came after Marco now after he just got done saying he could wait." I get my wheels under me and start making my way out of Sculpted Springs.

"Um, maybe. But these don't look like the Cueballs."

I shiver in my damp gear and head toward Downtown as Joe fills me in.