The four recruits assembled in the conference room set up in the Lamplighter

building. Dr. Hadron had already taken the head of the table. He had a tool kit and a

jumble of parts in front of him. The police had held Patty and Jean for a few hours

over the destruction of The Pearl jewelry store.

They had finally let the women go after reviewing the video tape from the store’s

camera. The standard warning not to leave town had been applied.

Patty had fumed over the delay, but she didn’t have a next move. At least the scanner

and lens finder had worked. They just had to be close enough to target before they

could confront Crenshaw and his sharks.

“What did we learn?” Dr. Hadron slipped a memory card in place before applying a

welder to another part of the thing he was working on.

“Crenshaw’s sharks have to go,” said Jean. “They draw fire, get in the way when we

shoot at him, provide him transport, and can bite through brick.”

“They divert the blue flame.” Patty slumped in her chair. She brushed her brown hair

back from her ear. “If we shoot at him, he spreads the flame out to the sharks.”

“So what do we do now?,” asked Dr. Hadron. He started putting the pieces of his

work together carefully as he waited for his employees to suggest things.

Three of the women looked at the dejected Patty. She looked back without a clue. She

paused before speaking. What could they do against Crenshaw?

“Let me get a drink from the fridge.” Patty stood. “You guys want something?”

The group no caused her to nod before she left the room.

“That lens worked great.” Jean smiled. “Patty said shark fins were in the air before

Crenshaw attacked.”

“Riding the ether.” Dr. Hadron nodded. “The city is full of energy. Spirits and certain

types of monsters can use it to move invisibly along the lines. Some of them use dead

end pools to feed themselves on negative emotion. The more turbulence between

positive and negative, the more things can materialize in our world.”

“How does that apply to Crenshaw?,” asked Kathy. “He’s using these lines to surf

across the city?”

“And as cover.” Lin looked down at her small hands. “As long as he is inside the

dragon lines, we can’t get at him, and he can’t affect the real world.”

“So we have to catch him in the real world, without the sharks.” Kathy made an eye

roll. “That sounds like a tough row to hoe.”

“If we catch him on the ground, he already knows he can roll over any two of us

pretty easily,” said Jean. “The Gatling chewed his guys up, but they still kept

coming.”

“So we have to upgrade our weapons, find Crenshaw, catch him in the act.” Dr.

Hadron closed his one eye as he considered. He had hoped his employees would

come up with a scheme on their own. He wouldn’t be there to hold their hands

forever. He had his own ghosts to fry in New York.

“Can you get us a helicopter?,” said Patty from the doorway. She sipped from a can

of orange Kickstart. “I have an idea we can use to get things done.”

“What’s the idea?,” asked Dr. Hadron. His fingers packed up his tool kit.

“The lens finders and scanners will show us where the sharks are.” Patty sipped her

drink. “The helicopter will let us search the city so we can track him down faster than

driving across the city in our cars.”

“How do we catch him?,” asked Lin. “He’s stood up to our weapons.”

“He’s only stood up to two of us.” Patty finished her drink. “Not all of us. We need

concentrated fire on the sharks while the rest goes into Crenshaw.”

“How many sharks are we talking about here?,” asked Kathy. “He might be able to

overwhelm the lamps if he can pull up more ghost minions than we can safely drain

off.”

“We need a way to hold as many of the sharks as we can, which means bigger lamps

than the ones that go with the weapons we carry now,” said Patty. The idea had

seemed workable when the first drop of energy had hit her brain.

“We can rig extra storage capacity in our storage lamps.” Dr. Hadron folded his hands

together. “Then all we have to do is put Crenshaw in one of them.”

“Scanners and lenses?,” asked Patty.

“They can be tweaked for range.” Dr. Hadron nodded. “We still won’t be able to

attack Crenshaw while he is in the line.”

“We don’t need to.” Patty smiled. “We just have to all be there when he does attack

which we will from the scanners. The helicopter will allow us to patrol and watch the

lines from the air. The only obstacle I see is how do we get down once we see a

robbery happening.”

“The helicopter will have to be able to land unless you ladies know how to rappel

from anchor points.” Dr. Hadron looked around. Kathy smiled at him. “Of course you

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know how to rappel.”

“Top of the class,” Kathy said.

“Let’s take another look at where he hit and what he took,” said Patty. “That will help

narrow down the targets.”

“All right,” said Dr. Hadron. “Anything else?”

“Can the weapons be tweaked like the scanners?,” asked Patty. “The carbine didn’t

do that much.”

“Miss Lopez and I will work on that.” Dr. Hadron stood. “She’s going to need to be

able to do that when I’m not around to show you how it’s done.”

“I guess the three of us will hit the Internet and see what we can do to predict where

Crenshaw will hit next.” Patty shrugged. “I need another Kickstart.”

“Where would I go if I was a dead pirate?,” said Kathy. She stood. “Maybe I would

head upstate, or across the line into Oregon.”

“Really?,” said Lin as she stood. “Why?”

“So I can enjoy the surf,” said Kathy.

“Let’s go.” Patty smiled as she headed for their workspace. Computers had been set

up for them to use for research. She doubted they would stumble over something

useful, but it was better than doing nothing while they waited for Jean and Dr. Hadron

to get done.

“We need a white board.” Kathy indicated the clear wall. “That way we can write

something down for everyone to look at while we’re working on a case.”

“I’ll get us one.” Patty nodded. “Maybe we can rig up a big television so we can put

our monitor stuff on the big screen.”

“That would be great for movie night.” Kathy turned her computer on. “That would

be better than the tiny television I have at home.”

“I could work on courses from here.” Lin almost smiled. She flipped the switch for

her station. “I could get my license.”

“I could look at dirty pictures,” said Patty. She turned her on desktop on.

“Unfortunately we have to stop our marauder before he does something permanent

to some bystander in his way.”

“He wrecked that place good,” said Kathy. “You guys did something good to run the

guy off.”

“We lucked out.” Patty shook her head. “At least Jean blew some of the sharks up

with her cannon.”

“All right,” said Lin. “The newspaper has a list of places Crenshaw hit. Some of them

deal with exotic jewelry from the descriptions.”

“How exotic?” Patty searched for The Pearl. How unique was the shop?

“They claim to deal with material from the ocean.” Lin frowned at the screen. “Gold

and silver are recovered from the Pacific and refashioned into new jewelry.”

“Sounds like a scam to me,” said Kathy.

“The Pearl’s web site says they specialize in pearls and sea stones,” said Patty.

“Crenshaw is hitting places that are dealing in things from the ocean.”

“How many stores are left?,” asked Kathy. “That might be just what we need to set

our trap.”

“Three here in the city, then other branches in other cities.” Lin rubbed an eyebrow

with her finger. “This is a pretty niche thing right now.”

“This reminds me of the animal smuggling ring busted by the Mark Girls.” Kathy

leaned back in her chair. “Remember, those goofs were bringing in giant otters as

pets.”

“Then they went on a rampage.” Patty nodded. “Is Crenshaw robbing places to find

something pulled up from the sea? It’ll be hard to prove with his record.”

“Doesn’t matter, Patty,” said Kathy. “He tried to kill you and Jean. He has to pay for

that.”

“Let’s have those three shops.” Patty walked over to Lin’s machine. “He’s going to

hit one in the next few days. We have to be ready to take him when he does.”

“Do you think we can?,” asked Lin.

“Yes, we can.” Patty smiled. “We just need an edge.”

“Let’s see if Jean and the Doc have our guns ready to go,” said Kathy. “We’ll need

them to handle our business.”

“You’re right.” Patty shut down her station. “Let’s get this done.”

Kathy and Lin exchanged a look. They followed Patty from the room. They went

down to the shop quietly. Dr. Hadron and Jean had their things in pieces on the work

tables.

“We think he’s going to hit one of these three places.” Patty held up the folded piece

of paper. “How long do you think we have?”

“At least until dawn.” Dr. Hadron twisted a screw in place. “That’s when the lines

will surge.”

“That’s when he can come back to reality?,” asked Kathy.

“The lines will lend him enough to manifest.” Dr. Hadron put the carbine back

together with short moves. “The extent of his power will be impossible to gauge until

we put a scanner on him.”

“We’ve added bigger gauges to the barrels.” Jean smiled. “Once we light Crenshaw

up, he will have holes punched through him as big as watermelons.”

“What about the sharks?,” asked Lin. She didn’t seem enamored of the bigger

cannons.

“They’ll fry,” said Jean. She tapped her baby with one hand. “They’ll blow up on

contact.”

“The problem is how much can Crenshaw divert to the sharks to keep from being

drained and imprisoned.” Dr. Hadron fitted a new electronic piece to Kathy’s long

gun. He weighed it with his hands. “He’s learned some new tricks since we put him

down.”

“How did you catch him the last time?,” asked Lin.

“We set up and caught him in a crossfire,” said Dr. Hadron. “Dyson had an

experimental grenade launcher that ripped Crenshaw apart. We burned him before he

got away from being blown up.”

“No idea how he got out on the street?,” asked Kathy. The question implied the

Lamplighters had not been as thorough as they had thought.

“No,” said Dr. Hadron. “We think he is able to use the lines to resurrect himself when

he is captured.”

“That means he can get away from us if we stop him,” said Lin. “I don’t like that at

all.”

“How long between resurrections?,” asked Patty.

“Five, six years,” said Dr. Hadron. “If we knew where he had died, we could do

something to get his bones and bless them.”

“You think that will do anything?,” asked Jean. “The guy likes siccing his pets on

people.”

“It’s the best shot at stopping him for good instead of throwing him in a jail he can

get out of when the stars are right.” Dr. Hadron put the next weapon together with

practiced ease.

“But that is out of our reach,” said Patty. “We have to concentrate on what we can do

here in the city. Maybe we can ask Dr. Craft to search for Crenshaw’s bones with his

Robot Rangers.”

“Stan would like a challenge.” Dr. Hadron almost smiled. “Finding a wreck in the

middle of the Atlantic would suit his sense of history.”

“Let’s test these babies and see how they do.” Jean put her own weapon together.

“We want to make sure they don’t blow up when we go to work.”

“They won’t,” said Dr. Hadron. “The lamps will blow up before the rifles.”

“We need to work on the storage lamps next.” Jean slung her Gatling.

“That will be easier than adjusting the rifles.” Dr. Hadron picked up a square carbine

and slung it over his shoulder.

The group grabbed lamps and headed for the range on the roof. They plugged the

weapons into the lamps and the range computer. Dr. Hadron hit the switch. Patty

jumped out ahead, but Dr. Hadron was right behind her snapping off shots with ease.

The others chased after them. The range computer dinged rapidly as they reached the

three hundred mark.

“That’s a lot better than the first time you guys tried out.” Dr. Hadron unplugged his

carbine from its lamp. “Let me work on the storage lamps, then we can set up on

those stores.”

“We won’t be able to get a helicopter, will we?,” asked Jean.

“Nope.” Dr. Hadron shrugged. “We’ll have to come up with something else.”