Part Three

"I'm starting to hate that doorbell," said Vic, as she walked quickly to their new apartment's door in response to said bell.

This time the caller was a clean but scrawny man perhaps in his mid-thirties.

"Hey. You changed your WiFi password," he said, with no preamble.

"No, it's the same one we've always used with this router."

"Then why can't I get on?"

"Well, you shouldn't be able to. Our WiFi has always been private, even before we moved in here last week."

Vic was deliberately giving hints she hoped the man would pick up. Vainly, as it turned out.

"Well, change it back!" he snapped, in a very snarky tone.

"As I just said, we haven't changed the password," said Vic, with exaggerated patience. "We only recently moved in. If you used to get Internet access through an unprotected WiFi in this apartment, it wasn't ours."

"Yes, it is! Joey said it was all right!"

"Joey doesn't live here anymore," said Vic, tiredly.

"I don't give a flying fuck about Joey!" the man yelled. "I want Internet!"

"Our WiFi router is ours. It's not for public use."

"Just change the fucking password back!"

"Considering that the guy who used to live here was a drug dealer and involved with multiple other criminal activities, he was probably monitoring your access. Looking for blackmail material."

The man paled. Then turned red.

"Are you threatening me?!"

"No. I'm just explaining that you should be very careful about using 'free' Wi-Fi. Which ours isn't. Good night."

She closed the door. Firmly.

"Dear God in heaven," said Michelle, who had witnessed the entire exchange from their couch, "why are they so stupid? Also, don't they ever listen, especially after asking someone a question?!"

"I don't know. After this, though, I'm going to be checking into updating the security on our Wi-Fi."

* * *

"Well, that's interesting," said Vic, later that evening, smiling as she looked through the TV listings.

"What is, dear?" said Michelle, from where she sat beside her spouse on their couch, watching the local news.

"One of my friends from Ramsey is the special guest on tonight's Friends of the Wild TV show."

"I've never watched that show, and I don't think you have," said Michelle. She reached for the remote, which as usual was on the coffee table between the couch and the TV. "I'm assuming you want to see what your friend is up to, though."

"Sure. Not much else on. Besides, you're right; I'm interested in how she's doing."

Soon, the program's host was seen and heard promising a special treat for viewers; their guest for the episode was raptor rehabilitator Angela Florello!

The camera zoomed out. Well out. Because blond Angela was standing beside the host with her golden wings fully spread, smiling. Vic realized she was showing off for he camera. She had told the martial artist more than once that holding her wings like that was a bit of a strain and rapidly became very tiring. Sure enough, she quickly folded them, and stepped closer to the host.

"Wow, she's gorgeous," said Michelle, obviously smitten. "I'd love to groom her wings."

"It's 'preen' for birds," said Vic, grinning. She was very familiar with the effect Angela had on people. "Also, she's straight. Very straight."

The program indeed covered raptor rehabilitation; this particular group of bird helpers was actually headed by Angela's father. Who had no problem with his daughter being the public face of their work. However, the announcer also managed to ask Angela a considerable amount about her personal life. This included how her powers had been triggered. She described - briefly - her time at Ramsey Technical College and some of the other supers she had known. She didn't mention any names, but Vic recognized nearly all those Angela referenced. Including the "boyish girl who was a karate expert."

"That's to be expected, I guess," said Vic, stretching a bit as the credits rolled. "They still did a good job of explaining what the group does and what help they need from the public."

"I'd definitely like to donate," said Michelle, smirking. "However, we're both tapped out right now. With the apartment and all."

"I think Angela would understand," said Vic, smiling as she remembered the young woman from their time together at Ramsey, obviously fondly.

"Well, what else is on?" said Michelle.

"Inept is on cable in a bit," said Vic, sounding hopeful.

"It that the R-rated TV show you like about the female super whose costume keeps getting torn?" said Michelle, suspiciously.

"Well, that's one way to describe it," said Vic, innocently. "The character is played by a real super, too. A low-level physical, whose abilities they augment with special effects."

"I guess we can watch that."

Unfortunately, just as the couple was settling in for the next show, there came a pounding on the door.

"Open up! Police!"

While Melody quickly turned the TV off, Vic vaulted over the back of the couch and hurried to the door. She made sure to grab her badge holder on the way, and put it in her shirt pocket so the badge showed. Thanks to her sense of perception, as she neared the door she realized there actually were several police on the other side. She thought she even recognized the one knocking.

"Yes?" said Vic, opening the door.

"It is you!" said the lead cop. He looked first startled, then embarrassed. "Damn."

He sighed and shook his head.

"Can we come in and look around? There was a 911 call that someone here was calling for help."

"We're both still decent. Come on in."

The half-dozen cops - most of them in full SWAT gear - entered. Vic quickly explained what was going on to Michelle, and they watched as the officers swiftly and efficiently searched the apartment.

"Okay, that's done," said the officer in charge. He looked at Vic and Michelle and sighed again. "Like I said, there was a 911 call. We have to check those out."

"Can you give us any more details on the call?" said Vic.

"The caller said there was a brothel being run in this apartment. That they heard a loud argument, where one customer was refusing to pay and the employees were refusing to let him go until he did. That he was yelling for help and claiming he was a prisoner."

Well, that eliminated someone overhearing the rehabilitation center asking for financial help on the TV.

"That didn't happen here," said Vic, firmly. "Neither have we heard anything like that."

"Looks like somebody swatted you, then," said the officer, uncomfortably. "I'm just glad some of us had heard you moved in here."

"I've been told a drug dealer used to live here," said Vic.

"Too true. Well, again, I'm sorry. There's nothing here requiring our attention, so we're gone."

"Good night."

"Mr. WiFi?" said Michelle, after Vic closed the door and securely locked it.

"I'd bet good money on that."

* * *

The Greenland Coast Guard sent a helicopter at first light the next day, after the retrieval ship missed several scheduled reports and then did not respond to radio calls. Those in the helicopter saw no signs of life, and there was no place for the helicopter to land. However, a Coast Guard ship was already on the way. The helicopter orbited the recovery vessel for a while, at a safe distance; then returned as the new ship approached. Contact was quickly lost with that craft, as well.

In response to the second loss of communications a large, amphibious, Danish military helicopter was sent out. Those aboard saw that the Coast Guard ship and the retrieval ship were tied together, drifting with the current, neither showing any signs of life. Neither were there replies to radio calls or loudspeaker hails.

Suspecting toxic gas from the cargo pod, the soldiers put on gas masks and the helicopter descended. The copilot and two of the soldiers felt something. They also noticed that the others aboard were acting strangely.

Pretty much everyone on Earth was wary of mental domination since the Five Great Powers had used their device. The two soldiers and the copilot reacted quickly and appropriately to the situation. While the former kept the other troops from trying to interfere, the copilot took control of the aircraft. He turned the large helicopter away from the two ships and dove to gain speed. Within minutes, they were over the horizon and those who had been affected were recovering.

Now the supers were called in.

* * *

Bowman - the current chair of the Intrepids - opened the special briefing that afternoon with an announcement of an emergency in progress. At his gesture, the Black Mask addressed the base's AI.

"Bunter, would you please show the area of interest?"

"Of course, sir."

Bunter took control of the main display in their conference room. A map of the Davis Straight between Greenland and Baffin Island appeared. In the center of the image was a blinking green light.

"We have a formal request from the Danish Center for Super Activities," said the Black Mask. "It appears that a menace one of our founding members helped end has returned."

"Founding members?" said Solange, startled. "What's going on?"

The Black Mask related - with the help of additional images on the main display, also provided by Bunter - the problem involving the ships off Greenland.

"Those on the second helicopter said it definitely felt like a living mind was attacking them. At first they suspected this was something which had ridden down from the space station on the cargo pod," said the Black Mask. "However, checks there showed no problem. Also, the pod's course - even while descending under parachute - was appropriate for the expected load. Then someone remembered being told about something dangerous in the western Greenland ice, decades ago. A quick check showed that the ice in that coastal area had recently - within the previous few days - broken up and fallen into the ocean."

"Right now, the ships are drifting," said Bowman, resuming control of the meeting. "The currents there go south and west, then south and east. At first the Danes asked openly for super help directly, especially from US teams. The US government soon intervened, though, saying that all this had to go through them. However, it's being handled by the State Department, not the Bureau of Special Resources. That particular agency taking charge was apparently due to inquiries into what had been in the ice triggering security alerts in several US government agencies. The US Army finally confirmed there was a connection to a military project of theirs in Greenland in the early Sixties, and that they would send people to brief all super teams in the eastern part of North America. Especially the US teams."

"Hold on," said Solange, raising a hand. "By hopper, it would take someone from the Guardians - all the way out on the west coast - just a few minutes longer to reach those ships than anyone on the east coast. So why brief only teams in this area?"

"Ask the government," said Rapscallion, smirking. "I can guarantee that not only does this make perfect sense to some middle manager, but that they thought long and hard about the situation before deciding on this course of action. That even if you pointed that same, inconvenient fact out to them, they'd defend their decision, based on something none of us consider relevant."

"For now," said Bowman, again regaining control of the meeting, "the ships are being tracked by satellite and all other vessels are being kept well away."

"What does all this have to do with one of the Intrepids' founding members?" said Jet Jaguar.

"None of us here now were on the team then," said the Black Mask. "Hell, most of us weren't even born. I was told this story by people who lived through those times. That Kid Dynamo arrived to save the day when US Army Engineers uncovered something dangerous which was buried in the deep ice.

"Kid Dynamo was a founding member of the Intrepids," the Black Mask continued. The display switched to an image of a young man in costume. It would continue showing all the supers he mentioned over the next few minutes. "He vanished after a few years of activity. In the middle Sixties the much younger Dynamic Kid appeared, and also joined the Intrepids. He looked very different and had different powers and claimed he chose his nom de guerre in honor of Kid Dynamo. However, I was on the team by then, and it was soon apparent to me that not only was he, indeed, the same person, with an altered form, but that neither of those mask identities were his original form. I confronted him over this. He confessed - bragged, even - that he had possessed multiple identities over the previous twenty years.

"That included being in boy band. Then a girl band. Then she was a top model. Now he was a costumed hero, again. Dynamic Kid left a couple of years after that conversation. A few months later Generator Girl appeared, and she asked to join the Intrepids. Just to satisfy my own curiosity, I quickly verified that she was, indeed, the same person. She was rejected - for other reasons than her multiple identities - and continued her brief but impressive solo career for about another year. Today he is apparently a middle-aged businessman.

"When I confronted Dynamic Kid back then he claimed his abilities were due to an alien artifact he found as a young man, the power of which he eventually absorbed."

The Black Mask sighed and shrugged.

"The vetting process for members of super teams was much more relaxed back then."

"Wow," said Solange, who had been through one such change, herself. "Did he say whether he did that to himself voluntarily, or...?

"I got the impression he was easily bored," said the Black Mask, dryly.

* * *

"Do you loooove me?" shouted Vic, not for the first time. "Noooowww... that Iiiii... can Daaannnce?"

"Dear, you were a good dancer when we met," said Michelle, rolling her eyes as Vic cavorted around the room. "Now finish getting ready. That retrocamp music festival you are so eager to attend starts in just over an hour and we still have to drive there."

"I could use my lights and siren," said Vic, playfully.

"We both know you won't do that. Now, get dressed!"

The concert was advertised as retrocamp, but it was actually a classic rock and doo-wop event, mostly played straight. There was music from the late Sixties back to the early Fifties. Some was played by tribute bands imitating the groups which had made the specific songs famous; most performances were by generic classic rock bands; a few were by the actual bands - or bands with at least one of the original members - which had made the songs famous. The age range among both performers and audience was quite large.

Michelle and Vic had a good time, as did nearly everyone there. Knowing that her regeneration would purge the alcohol from her system quickly, Vic drank several beers during the first two hours, just to keep a slight buzz going. Unfortunately, the quick processing of this also meant she had to make frequent visits to the restroom.

Finished with her latest trip - and silently fussing about how awkward the process was for human females - Vic opened the restroom door to see a man pointing a large revolver at her face. She spun away, knocking his forearm to her left. The gun fired, the sound deafening in the tile-lined confines of the restroom. Vic ignored the pain in her ears and grabbed the man's hand in both of hers. She bent his wrist and swung his hand up, over and around, putting a hard twist in his entire lower arm, making him drop the gun.

He was definitely not out of the fight; the man threw a left-handed punch at her face. Vic twisted away again, a bit awkwardly. Maintaining her grip with her left hand, she swung her right around and back and delivered a hard uppercut to his solar plexus. That ended the fight.