The fight doesn't last much longer than that. Just as Harris reaches the other fight, all of the Suits -- Heels included -- burst into flame. They burn brightly for a second and then poof, nothing. All gone. No soot piles or anything. Some kind of teleportation, I guess. That is extremely bad.

I drink some water and then haul myself to my feet as Dillan's Fist of Derring-Do -- minus Dillan himself -- regroups in front of the press. Unlike the police, the press made it through the whole event with almost no injuries at all. I skate over and interrupt whatever nonsense the reporters are asking, my fingers hovering near the buttons for my Pepper Fists. "Rob. Not to complain about the assist, but what in the name of Stan Lee are you guys up to?"

"I do not know who this 'Rob' is," says Rob. "My name is Field Goal, and these are my teammates Ghost, Swan, Icebergusen, and Cupid. And you already met our leader, Saint Dillan." He points over to where Dillan is healing any cops who were only injured. "It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Wheels."

"Cut the bull crap. You're Robert Yancy of the Cueballs," I say loudly for the benefit of the press. "I overheard you plotting an attack on City Hall earlier today, and we both know it. What are you trying to do here?"

"I really don't know who this Rob person is, Wheels. You must be confused. I see that you've got a large dent in your helmet. Dillan hasn't had much practice healing concussions yet; maybe he missed a spot."

"I do not have a concussion! I don't know what you Cueballs think you're-"

"I used to respect you, man," says Dillan's brother, the one Rob called Cupid. "But I didn't realize you were one of those jealous pieces of crap who dumps on anybody who lends a hand."

"I- What?"

"You're not the only hero in town anymore," says Swan with Swanson's voice. Real subtle, that one. "Get over it."

"You aren't heroes!" I shout. "You're gang members! You staged this-"

"Let it go," crackles Hannah through my Skullbuzzers. "You sound like you're in no condition for yet another fight, and you're just making yourself look bad. Let it go. We'll figure it out later."

"We did not!" shouts Cupid meanwhile, sounding truly offended. "We-"

I interrupt by raising my hands in surrender. Hannah's right. "Fine. Fine. So you guys are heroes now. Fine, whatever. I've had a long day, and maybe I do have that concussion."

"Think nothing of it," says Rob smugly. "We all have hard days at times. Go get some rest. We look forward to fighting alongside you in the future."

"Yeah..." I skate away from them as they resume answering the questions the press were screaming at them throughout our conversation. I find Officer Susan standing behind a barricade with her hands on her hips and a huge frown on her face, Burris muttering over his radio nearby.

"This whole thing was a sham, wasn't it?" she says with a tight voice.

"I think so. That Field Goal guy is definitely Robert Yancy, and Swan is Gerald Swanson. I recognized their voices. Ghost is probably Harris Neyland; the powers and height match, anyway. I don't know who Icebergusen is."

"Ronald Fergusen, I imagine. We arrested him back in January for murdering his wife. When we arrested the others in October, they accused us of disappearing Fergusen. Turns out they were right; Carlson had given him to Pharmedica in August."

"So now what? I'm running on fumes and I don't think you've got the manpower left to arrest them either. Definitely not if they ditch their charade and call the Suits back to help. And we haven't even seen Jacob, Jones, and Tom yet. Aces up their sleeves."

"Unfortunately, you are correct." She takes a breath and I notice that her face is twitching. "If we're right, they were just complicit in killing over a dozen of us, and yet we are going to let them walk away." She clenches a fist. "For now. There will be a reckoning." She purses her lips for a moment, then sags a little. "But we're going to need reinforcements."

While she glares at the press, I whisper to Joe and Hannah, then clear my throat to get Susan's attention. "So, about those reinforcements. I don't think there will be any. Not from outside Forchester, anyway."

Officer Susan turns to direct her full attention at me. "What?"

"Remember what Anne was saying about preventing interference? I think they've trapped the entire city in a force field. That's why I was targeting Heels."

"And why do you think that?"

"Did you notice how the air pressure changed during Anne's speech? And that Heels hasn't made any new force fields since then? Just force-shoves. Plus, if you look into it, I think you'll find that Forchester is suffering a widespread loss of internet connectivity. And..." I pause for a moment while listening to Joe. "And I just heard a report about the river rising outside an invisible wall upstream. So the field is blocking the Tonbosa. That's not good." While Susan processes that, I look around. "Where's Drake? Did they get him?"

"He was wounded, but he was still shouting orders when they packed him into a gurney and hauled him out."

Now that I think about it, I can hear more vehicles than before. They must have gotten most of the blockages cleared. That's good, because otherwise it would be hard to get all the wounded to ambulances. I guess they could send in a chopper or two, but... oh, wait. "Helicopters! They need to be warned! Grounded until we know the boundaries!"

Susan nods sharply and reaches for her radio while my stomach rumbles angrily. I wince and glance over at Burris, who's still busy on his own radio, then at the Daring Dufuses. Food is going to have to wait. I fish out my notepad and tear off a page, then jot down a quick note with a marker. "GONE HUNTING. WILL MAIL DEBRIEF TONIGHT." I use big blocky letters of a different style from my normal handwriting, just to be safe. Putting away my marker and notepad, I hand the note to Burris. Before he can process it, I skate off into the dark and slip around a corner.

A few minutes later I've circled around to observe the Fist from atop a tall office building on the other side of the media herd. We might not be able to fight them, but I can still watch where they leave to and try to track them, if I don't starve to death first. Speaking of which, "Alright, guys, I'm on a stakeout now, and I've got a bit of a hunger scenario going on over here."

"Sounds like a job for Super Delivery Girl," crackles Hannah's voice. Like everything else since Dillan healed me, it's uncomfortably loud. "Where are you at?"

"On top of Ashcroft Tower." I turn down the volume on the Skullbuzzers and fill them in on the details of what's happened tonight while Hannah grabs her backpack and heads to the Shifty Taco. She's got Joe's MESH.io app on her phone and a pair of bluetooth earbuds with a mic so she can stay connected over SpookNet. "So now I'm just wasting away up here while I wait for them to leave." I yawn and stretch a little, then resume my vigil. I'm listening in absently with the ParaMic; they're far enough out that I can't hear them clearly, even with my restored ears, but I can hear enough to tell that they're still just spouting rhetoric. Then, a few minutes later, there's a shift in tone. I perk up and pay attention as Dillan rejoins the group and they lift into the air, Swanson flying independently while the others loosely hold onto Rob. Once they're above most of the buildings, they begin heading south-west, but they also start shrinking until I can't make them out anymore. "Uh, guys? I think they just illusion-masked their escape. Unless they can actually shrink."

"Well, on the plus side," says Hannah, "that means you can come meet me halfway. Desmond Park?"

"Sure." I tuck my mask back up under my helmet and double-check my stoner disguise to make sure none of my gear is showing. I already stowed the ruined mylar blanket and my skates before coming up here. Everything seems good, so I let myself back into the stairwell and descend to the top floor, then take the elevator the rest of the way down. Now that I'm not in a rush, I use the drinking fountain next to the gift shop to refill my water bottle, then head outside to put my skates back on. The sun is all the way down, now, but the street lights are running. Hmmm... "Spook, any idea about the range of this fishbowl yet?"

"Yeah. The flooding has to be happening at one of the edges, and if we assume it's a circle centered on City Hall, that gives us a radius of about three miles."

"There aren't any power plants within that distance, and yet we still have power. We know their force field blocks electricity, so they must have left some holes. We might be able to use that, but they'll probably be watching for it."

"Do we really know it blocks electricity? I remember what you said about cables, but..."

"The internet's still down, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but that's fiber. Even if you've got a wired connection to the ISP, both Talaria and Konkasp use fiber internally. So do the cellular networks, and I can't reach anybody outside town from here. I tried calling Gran to check. Still no mobile internet, either."

"But that makes no sense! Fiber uses light, and we know light gets through."

"Visible light gets through, but high-end fiber uses infrared. Must be blocking that. We need to find out whether the field also blocks Wi-Fi frequencies, because if it doesn't, we could try finding an insecure wireless network just on the other side of the field, then bridge that to MESH Net. Cellphones might work along the edges too, if they get close enough to an outside cell tower. Maybe satellite signals, if we can find anyone with that kind of modem."

Hmm. I check my WheelPhone and see that there's no GPS signal. "GPS is in the low gigahertz range, right? That's blocked too, so I'm guessing no Wi-Fi will be getting through."

"Wi-Fi's frequency is around double that, I think. But you're right, it doesn't bode well. They might only be permitting visible light."

I weave through a tangle of abandoned vehicles, then get an idea. "Keep an eye out in case the dome moves, Spook. I know Heels can move around inside it without recentering the thing, but maybe there are limits to that. If they recenter, it could give us a clue to where they're at."

"Hmm... What if the field strength isn't uniform? If Heels is projecting it, maybe it's stronger near her and weaker further out."

I snap my fingers. "Good thinking. We'll need to map this thing out and test that."

"Do you think she can feel it?" asks Hannah.

"Dunno. When we do it, we'll have to be fast and keep our eyes open in case she does and sends her buddies to drop in on us."

I'm far enough away from City Hall now that I'm starting to pass random pedestrians on the street, many of whom are staring angrily at their phones and tablets. A few people are talking in hushed tones about the killings Anne performed. Nobody's pointing at the sky or behaving as though they realize they're trapped. So, they don't know yet. Good. It'll be pretty obvious to the people near the border, and that information will propagate pretty fast since local cell service is still running. When it does, things are going to get chaotic. I sigh, remembering the riots that halved my family. "What's their angle, Halon? You're the one who's good at this stuff."

"I'm not sure yet. Pharmedica made it pretty obvious that they want us to believe they'll treat the city as a big petri dish. And the Cueballs would obviously be opposed to that both because they live here and because they have an axe to grind with Pharmedica. Except that we think they're actually colluding for some reason, which doesn't make sense. So, why do we think this? You overheard the Cueballs planning to attack City Hall, right?"

"Yeah, that's what they were talking about."

"Are you absolutely sure that's what they meant? Were you recording?"

"No, I was using my steth. That's a dumb limitation. We need to hook that up to a mic so I can record with it. If we-"

"No, Wheels. Stay focused. What exactly did the Cueballs say?"

"Um... I don't remember the specific words, but they wanted Terence to cause a distraction to keep me away from City Hall on Monday. They definitely said City Hall, and they definitely said they were going to launch an attack there. I guess maybe they didn't say they were going to literally attack City Hall itself..."

"So, it's possible that instead of working with Pharmedica, which would make no sense, they actually are working against them. It could be that they knew when and where Pharmedica was going to strike and wanted to keep you away so you wouldn't recognize them and interfere."

"But if they knew... well, no, I guess they wouldn't let the cops know, would they? You're not going to convince me they're actually trying to be heroes, though. They were totally fine with letting Terence go after me and Marco. They just didn't want it drawing attention to them."

"No, I don't think they're trying to be real heroes. At most, they're just trying trying to masquerade as heroes long enough to get their vengeance against Pharmedica without people going after them for being fugitives."

"Wait a minute, though. Part of why I guessed they were working together is the timing. They were planning an attack at if not on City Hall for Monday. Then I got caught spying on them, and shortly later Terence got a phone call and went after Marco at the same time Mayor Larson was abducted and brought to City Hall. That looks a lot like me upsetting their timeline and pushing things forward. If Pharmedica isn't working with the Cueballs, how do you explain the timing?"

"Mmm, that is a problem," says Hannah.

"Maybe," says Joe, "but it could just be coincidence. Those do happen. Say Pharmedica started moving early for whatever reason, and the Cueballs noticed and activated Terence while they rushed to get into position in time to play hero. The timing is unlikely, but not as unlikely as the Cueballs and Pharmedica working together. Or Pharmedica noticed your fight with the Cueballs earlier and decided to strike today while they were off balance. So, I can buy that part of Hannah's theory. The part I don't get is Pharmedica's motive. Let's say nobody manages to stop them and they finish doing whatever experiments. Then what? What do they gain by doing this?"

I skate up to a light and snag a van heading south. "They just scale up what they already have: a bad name and the only recipe in the world for superpowers."

"That's it!" says Hannah. "That's why they're doing this! You pushed them into a corner, Wheels. You unmasked them, ruined their reputation, and then unleashed their prisoners, revealing to the world that superpowers can and do exist. Why were they being secretive before? Because it was illegal, obviously, but also to protect their trade secrets since they wanted to sell this eventually. You saw the marketing slogans."

"Of course!" says Joe. "They want a monopoly, and the dome is to keep their prototypes from getting into the hands of competitors. Especially now that they don't have legal ways to deal with reverse engineering."

"Yeah," says Hannah. "Since Wheels already revealed who they are and what they've been up to, why not act openly? It's not going to make their reputation any worse. In fact, that stunt with the media was advertising. 'Hello, world! Look at our neat powers! We made these! Coming soon to a black market near you!'"

"Right," says Joe, "and in the meanwhile, they use Forchester as a testbed to improve their designs and see how different powers work out under real-world conditions. Maybe develop some sort of kill switch to make it harder to reverse engineer things when they do start selling powers. They were probably planning on that anyway; Wheels, don't let anybody put you into an MRI machine until we know more. We don't want to trip a self destruct sequence."

I groan as I find myself believing Hannah's theory more than my own. "So what you're saying, Halon, is that this is my fault."

"Wheels. No. We've been through this. You did a good thing by stopping them and rescuing those people."

"Yeah, but-"

"No," Joe interrupts. "Listen, man, I've been thinking. Pharmedica was making superpowers, but none of the guards or researchers you encountered in their base had powers at that time. You're thinking you should have waited so you could have been more thorough, but what you're neglecting is that the longer you waited, the more likely they would have been to have given themselves powers, and then you wouldn't have saved anybody, they'd be continuing their original plot, and things would end up a lot worse over the long run. At least this way everybody knows what was going on and has the opportunity to fight back."

I nod to myself. "Yeah, you're right. Thanks."

The van towing me starts turning east, so I let go and shoot through the intersection. Two streets and an alley later, I hop over a hobo and skid up to where Hannah's waiting with my tacos. We head toward the Wheelhouse and begin planning out what to do next while I eat. Then my WheelPhone vibrates. It's a text message from Mom, relayed over SpookNet from my own phone back at the Wheelhouse. It says, "Georgie, I'm getting off early. Meet me at work and we'll get dinner. Love you, son!"

My blood runs cold and I drop my last taco. Hannah looks at me like I've grown a second head. "What's wrong, George?"

"This isn't my mom."

"What?"

"This message. Mom's phone. Not Mom. But who..." My spinning brain finally finds traction. Only one person still calls me Georgie. "Terence! I'll kill him!"

"No, George! Wait!"

No. No waiting. My mask is down and I'm skitching up the street before Hannah can stop me, then jumping a bench and throwing open the door to a hardware store. I'm out of paint and nearly out of pepper spray, but I'm done with those. I'm done with Terence. This ends tonight.

Five minutes later I sprint through a gaping hole in the side of Winston Biotech, jump a downed guard, dig into a sharp corner, kick off a wall, and follow the rubble and blood splatter into an office. There's Mom, slumped against the wall with bits of white poking out of her crooked arms and legs, her clothes soaked with blood. And there's Terence sitting on the desk playing some game on her phone.

Howling, I sprint directly at him. He's got another respirator hanging around his neck that he actually manages to put on before I reach him, but it does him no good. I'm beyond caring about the nausea writhing in my gut. I'm on top of him, ripping the mask off with my left hand while the right shoves a sturdy spring-loaded set of steel hooks into his mouth along with the attached nozzle of a can of expanding foam sealant. He throws me off into the wall, but I've already pulled a zip-tie I'd placed around the valve's lever earlier, locking it open. I push myself out of the plaster and through the cloud of stars, heedless of the pain in my back and the bile in my throat, and reach into my pockets. Terence is making strangled shouting noises between hacking coughs as he struggles to get the hook out of his mouth while keeping the sealant from going down his throat. Then he wises up and grabs the can itself. It ruptures in his grip, sending foam everywhere, then he rips it away from the hooks and hurls it at me. I'm unable to twist far enough out of the way to avoid it entirely, and a sharp edge nicks the side of my neck. That could be bad, but I don't have time to check; I'm too busy rushing him with a can of lighter fluid in one hand and Raid in the other, aiming at his clothes and eyes, respectively.

Terence throws me into another wall and something snaps in my side when I hit a stud, but that's okay. I have one Glownade left, and it lands in the puddle of lighter fluid at his feet before the cap detonates. The flames that roar over his body don't actually seem to bother him any, but his coughing is sounding fainter and he's digging frantically in his mouth with one hand while scrubbing at his eyes with the other. I'd hoped the fire would hurt him, but the main purpose behind it is to eat oxygen, produce lung irritants, obscure vision, and hopefully induce a panic reflex. He kicks the desk at me, which I dodge, and hurls a chair, which I do not. There just isn't enough space in this cramped office for me to maneuver; the best I'm able to do is twist so it hits my arm at an angle, then narrowly avoid cracking my head into a file cabinet as I tumble to the grown. I can barely hear his wheezing now, though, so maybe the foam will do the job. I roll to my feet dump my new bag 'o bearings at him for good measure, then I grab Mom with my good arm and scramble out of the room as he starts stumbling around blindly and smashing walls in what I imagine to be frustration. I hadn't considered dropping a building on him, but it certainly won't make the situation any worse if he collapses the place.

Outside, I lay Mom gently in the grass and try to feel for a pulse, but my hands are shaking with too much rage and fear and guilt. None of this would have happened if I hadn't tried to take Terence's focus off Marco. It doesn't seem like she's breathing, but I'm a bit cross-eyed and it's hard to tell for sure. He'd just been harassing Marco, not trying to kill anyone. CPR. That's probably the thing to do. I thought I was making things better, but... I position my hands, lock elbows, and begin compressions. Not just Terence, either. I unleashed supervillains on Forchester. My right arm buckles on the first stroke and it occurs to me that it hasn't quite been right since that chair. Fractured one of my forearm bones, if I had to guess. Shoulder's off too. I rebalance and continue as best I can one-handed, ignoring the fog of pain my adrenalin is barely holding back.

Fog... Fog is how I can test for breathing. I pause the compressions and lean the screen of my WheelPhone in front of Mom's mouth. No fog, just blinking messages from Hannah and Joe. Strange. Skullbuzzers aren't buzzing. Irrelevant. Relevant is that I ruined everything, even my- No, focus. I pull up my mask to begin mouth-to-mouth, then hesitate when I notice blood dripping onto Mom from somewhere. That's right, my neck was cut, and that side of my body is pretty damp now that I think about it. I press my good hand against the wound, pinch Mom's nose with the other, and give her a lungful of air, but I have to stop and cough to the side just a little way through it; something's wrong with my own breathing, and I taste blood. Then my vision wavers. I pick myself up from the mud with one arm since the other isn't working. I don't remember why. There's something I needed to do. Oh, there's Mom. Right. I try to reposition for more compressions, then wake up with my face in the mud again. Mud that tastes like blood. I spit it out and grit my teeth as I try to rise, but I can't, and my breath is gurgly now. Rib through the lung, probably. Between that and my neck, I've lost too much blood, and now I'm struggling for air on top of that. I'm not going to be able to give Mom CPR. My mom is dying next to me and there's nothing I can do, because I'm dying too. I try swear in frustration, but all that comes out is gurgles and more blood, and my vision wavers. And what are you doing to help? Nothing. You're just a useless little voyeur, sitting there in my head watching us die! Well, I'm done with you! Get out of my head and go perv on someone else from now on! Out!