As we approached the scene of yesterday's excitement, I slowed the school bus, viewing the changed terrain with caution. Someone's been busy, I thought to myself.

Before reaching the rather clear demarcation line between trees and no trees, I stopped, put the bus in park, and set the emergency brake. "OK, everyone, we're here!"

I turned slightly in my seat to take a look at my passengers, they all appeared ready. I could see signs of various degrees of apprehension, eagerness, and caution, all mixed with readiness.

Siberian, seated directly behind me on the first bench, looked up, absently licking her fingers like a cat licking its paw. I couldn't read her at all. She never displayed and fear and always seemed ready for entertainment. Not being able to read her wasn't critical, just irritating. She also had no apparent desire to lead, which likely explained why I wasn't dead on the side of the road somewhere, missing a pound or two of flesh. It added a little excitement to have a bit of unknown mixed into the group.

I stood and carefully stepped over the deceased ex-driver, who was missing an arm. Riley was absently poking at one of her spiderbots with small sharp surgical implements. Crawler was tucked into a nest of small corpses, restless, but not moving, so he wouldn't accidentally destroy the bus with his spike-like legs.

I picked a little sandwich triangle out of the red-stained lunchbox on the dash above the door-lever and popped it in my mouth, chewing and swallowing the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Almost as good as mom's. Then I popped a straw into the little box of juice from the same lunchbox and took a long drink, emptying about half of it.

King had introduced us to school busses years ago - they were the next best thing to sliced bread. Everything we needed to travel, all in one convenient bundle. Better yet, Riley enjoyed waiting for the bus with other kids her age, and her simple joy was intoxicating.

Cherish was acting bored, but I could tell she was actually a little on edge, her attention switching from teammate to teammate, watching everyone closely. She had an impressive poker face that wasn't quite good enough to fool me. Her father seemed to have trained his children to conceal their emotions quite well. I chuckled, thinking to myself, imagine that.

Everyone was watching me now; I needed to stop amusing myself with Cherish's antics. I doubted she was ready to act on her obvious plans yet, which was fine. She was fun to have around, and definitely filled a gap.

"Well, as everyone knows, we're short one member right now." I had their attention. "I know there was an agreement that we would head into Brockton Bay to test out a few promising potential members." There were a couple impatient nods from Shatterbird and Cherish. Crawler shifted in the back of the bus where ten benches had been ripped out to give him room for his nest of bodies.

"As we discussed, I think this young lady that we're about to visit has the potential to fill out the team. If I'm wrong, well, it should be entertaining anyway. If I'm right, we'll just stop by Brockton Bay anyhow, strictly for fun rather than recruitment." I scanned over them before continuing. "Has anyone thought of any objections on the way here?"

Everyone either indicated a negative, or in the case of Siberian, just looked up at me.

"OK, everyone, off the bus. Cherish, please get the back door for Crawler." Cherish really didn't like Crawler much, and he didn't have fine motor skills. It was a match made in heaven, giving me a reason to put her near him regularly. I grinned to myself, carefully not looking towards Cherish as she pretended nonchalance, stepping over Crawler's legs and the bodies of children on the way to the back door of the bus. Crawler knew his appearance bothered Cherish, I had made sure to tell him. He wasn't very intelligent, but he did like irritating people because it made them want to hurt him, which he encouraged.

After we were all off the bus, gathered and looking at the clear-cut where there had been a forest yesterday, Cherish spoke up. "You know this is probably a trap, right, Jack?" She paused. "It's a weekend in a state park, and there was nobody on the lake, nobody in any of the picnic shelters, no parked cars." She paused. "No homicide detectives and cadaver dogs looking for pieces of dead bodies."

That was a little funny. I chuckled and gave her my best knowing smile. "Well, Cherish, I know you're new, but after the last couple little adventures we've had, you should know by now that we take our entertainment where we can find it, or where it finds us." I shrugged. "It's all the same in the end. We do what we want, when we want, and if anyone gets in our way unexpectedly, then it's just a bit more spice."

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I could tell that Mannequin, Burnscar, and Cherish were all slightly irritated by that statement, but that was fine. They were the more cautious ones. It never hurt to have a few cautious people on the team, as long as they knew when to act and when to think. They had all survived initiation, so they knew when to act.

I waved my hand at the landscape in front of us. It looked like a logging operation had just passed through, and based on the lack of logs, that was not just an appearance, it was a reality. "It seems as if our new cape has been busy. Apparently she needs wood in pretty significant quantities. That might be worth remembering."

Burnscar smiled eagerly, clearly excited. Beautiful.

Mannequin was looking closely at something, his body language indicating he was thinking hard.

"Does anyone have anything to say before we move in?" A tiny motion of Mannequin's head indicated he had made a decision. He said nothing. I almost laughed.

I repeated the warning I had given them before. "Remember, we want to capture her and take her out of her comfort zone. I'm not living in a hole and waiting for entertainment to come to me. She ran by going underground, so she's clearly more comfortable there."

Shatterbird spoke. "There's very little glass or sand here. I can sense a tightly-packed concentration of sand underground in one place, and two concentrations of glass near that. Aboveground, those little buildings have a lot of glass. Other than that, there are a few small concentrations of silicon that feel like printed circuit boards. One of them is moving, and feels very strange."

"Any reason to change plans?" I asked.

"No. Not really," Shatterbird said, thoughtfully. "You told her we'd be coming back. She apparently knows enough about me to store glass away in what she thinks are safe places." There was a smile and a pause. "But she left cubic yards of it in those buildings, and there's plenty of sand over there." She waved her hand towards a volleyball sandpit. "Shall I begin?"

"After you, my dear." I saw the little hungry glance she directed my way. Shatterbird's attraction to me was fun to play with. She was the product of a middle-eastern culture where women simply didn't initiate sex with men. It was amusing to encourage her desire and watch her refusal to act upon it. Her obvious discomfort mixed with desire was, frankly, better than sex for me. Not that I wouldn't mind indulging her if she ever decided to ask me, but that would be second prize.

A beautiful thought struck me. Now that I think about it... I smiled a little wider at her and let my eyes drop down to her breasts then to her face again, watching her eyes watch me, I could tell they her attraction to me had just jumped a notch. Excellent, this will be entertaining. After indulging her fantasy with me a couple times, I could start ignoring her advances. Watching her mind slowly crack like glass as she realized that I really didn't give a damn about her might be better than what I was getting from her now.

Shatterbird turned her face away from me a little, blushing. With a simple gesture of her hand, a tidal wave of sand formed from the volleyball pit, rolling across the ground until it reached her and lifted her off the ground, almost like she was surfing.

Crawler rushed in after Shatterbird started moving, passing her and climbing onto one of the nearest towers, reaching inside with a claw, poking at something. I heard the confusion mixed with humor in his voice as he yelled back to me. "Jack, uh, have you ever heard of chicken-based powers?"

Shatterbird began to sing and Crawler's demeanor instantly shifted from curiosity and disbelief to excitement as he pressed himself against the glass of the tower, yelling to Shatterbird "Hurt me baby! Hurt me so good!"

Shatterbird quickly glanced at Crawler in obvious disgust at the sexual innuendo, but then turned away from him and began to scream, appearing to lose herself in ecstasy as she embraced her powers. If we ever did have sex, I was certain she'd be a screamer. I couldn't resist a little chuckle, and saw Cherish smile smugly as she gathered a little more information about me that she thought would be useful to her transparent plans. I smiled at her, and her smile faltered a little. Cute little backstabber, aren't you?

I finished the other half of the juice-box with straw-slurping sounds that I knew would irritate both Cherish and Riley, and then joined in as the rest of us linked hands in a circle with Siberian. Before Shatterbird built up her power to get things started, I looked over the barren wasteland of tree trunks and weird little towers, thinking to myself, young lady, you had best not disappoint me.