“Who let a lawyer in?” Drake roared. He slammed his fists on the countertop, spiderwebbing the Formica.

“The Federal Attorney declined to file...,” the clerk behind the counter explained, voice cracking. Even with three-quarters of an inch of Plexiglas between his position and that of the angry booster, the man was uncomfortable. Normal people might be stopped by such a barrier, but anyone could see that if the enraged Drake wanted through, it would barely slow his progress. Behind Drake, the citizens who had lined the room, whether they had been seated in the uncomfortable government chairs or standing in line behind the scaled behemoth, were now proceeding in a most disorderly fashion for the exits.

“They let those assholes go before they got in the damned door!”

“Sir, please—” the clerk began.

“Please what?” Drake shouted back.” Please spend six hours getting my ass chewed out by my boss while some numb-nuts in Central Booking points my prisoners toward the door? Please let some suspects go without questioning them? Please bust my knuckles—and my ribs—with nothing to show for it?”

“How about, ‘please shut your mouth before I throw you in a holding cell’?” interjected an outside voice.

“Nobody asked you, slick,” Drake said automatically, whirling to confront the speaker. “And if you think you’re big enough to throw—“

His words cut off as he finished the turn, flashing eyes glaring at what would be normal head height for most of the people with whom he dealt. He was looking at empty air. His gaze tracked down, then down a little more, until he could see a mop of unruly black hair. It rode atop a head that barely reached Drake’s waist. The face was wrinkled and gnarled, and a beard hung below the chin. The beard was as unkempt as the hair, and hung almost to the small man’s belt. A black leather vest draped with heavy chains and festooned with various patches was wrapped around the barrel torso, and blue jeans that had seen better days were tucked haphazardly into the tops of motorcycle boots. He wore no shirt, although the thick mat of ebony hair that showed through the gap in his vest might as well have been one.

“Let’s not go throwing around size comments, shall we?” suggested the man. “Might cost you.”

“What the hell are you supposed to be?” Drake asked, laughing quietly.

“Could be I’m the man here to drag your sorry ass in front of a hanging judge,” replied the man, sneering up at the towering booster.

“Yeah? Could be you’re supposed to be standing in my garden propping up a sundial.”

“I’m a dwarf, you dick, not a gnome.”

“Like there’s a difference,” Drake said, starting to turn back to yell at the clerk some more.

“You’ll see the difference!” the self-proclaimed dwarf declared, smashing a fist into Drake’s groin. The impact echoed in the office. The sound of stampeding feet was next, as any citizen who had remained tried to flee. For a moment there was a comical traffic jam in the doorway and then the room was empty save for Drake and the dwarf.

Drake looked down, shaking his head slowly from side to side. “I’m covered in armor. Why does everyone think that’s gonna work?” he asked.

Wide-eyed, the dwarf looked at his hand, then at Drake, then back at his hand. “You ain’t got no—“ he began.

“I got plenty of ‘em,” Drake interrupted, slamming a powerful hand of his own straight down onto the dwarf’s head. He entangled his claws in the hair and lifted, grunting with the exertion of pulling the smaller figure off the ground. “Whatta you got, slick? Pockets full of lead?”

A sausage-thick finger jabbed out, impaling Drake’s left nostril as the dwarf poked at him. Drake snuffed to clear the obstruction, jerking his head backward. The dwarf pushed, following the retreating head.

“Yeah! There ya go, scale-face. Suck on some of that,” the dwarf taunted. He did not seem discomfited by being lifted by the hair. Drake pushed forward with his own arm, stretching it to full length away from him. The finger came free with an audible pop.

“Hold on a minute,” Drake ordered, shaking his head from side to side and snorting. “Did you just tell me to ‘suck on some of that’?”

“Umm, yeah, I think I did,” the dwarf said, still hanging at full extension away from Drake’s body. He looked ashamed for a moment before a small chuckle escaped him. “Sorry. Guess I got caught up in the moment.”

“And you stuck your finger in my nose!”

“Yeah...pretty weak, huh?”

“Weak doesn’t begin to cover it,” Drake said, releasing his grip. The room shook as the dwarf landed on the floor once more, well-traveled boots absorbing the impact. He stood and made a show of dusting himself off.

“Got your attention, though,” he said, fumbling through a pocket in his vest. He emerged with a box pack of cigarettes and extracted one. He offered the pack to Drake, then returned it to his pocket after Drake waved him off. He fished out a chromed Zippo with a death’s-head emblem etched into it.

“Kicker, Can you even read?” Drake asked, using his tail to tap at the ‘NO SMOKING’ sign hanging on the Plexiglas window.

“Can, but it’s kind of a waste of my time when they put those little pictures up. You know, the ones with a cigarette and a big red circle with a slash through it?”

Drake laughed and kept tapping at the Plexiglas with his tail until, after a moment, the frightened eyes of the clerk appeared above the counter. Drake beckoned him up with a crook of his finger.

“I’ve already notified the authorities,” the clerk said, still barely peering over the edge of the Formica. “This is a State building.”

“Oh. Really?” Drake said, cocking his head to the side. His tone was mocking. “You don’t say. Hmmm. Maybe, just maybe...that’s why I was telling him not to smoke here!” he shouted, the walls rattling with the echoes produced.

“It’s okay,” Kicker said, taking a deep drag on his cigarette and exhaling a thick cloud of grey smoke. “I didn’t listen to you anyway.”

“I noticed. You didn’t clean your finger before you grabbed that smoke, either.”

“Just goes to show, I’m dirtier and lower than you’ll ever be, Drake.”

“Well, you’re lower, I’ll give you that,” Drake laughed, waving his hand just above the tangled hair he had so recently been holding.

“Again with the size jokes. You’re getting predictable, big boy.”

“I know. Sad, isn’t it? Tell you what. When I’m done here, you and me will run back to my place and grab a couple beers. Sound good?”

“Hey, you know it.”

“Yeah,” Drake mused, eyes taking on a faraway look. “Pop a couple tabs, kick back on the couch, prop my feet up on your head...”

The dwarf broke out in laughter that was as raucous and deep as any Drake had ever heard. “I knew that was coming,” he said between guffaws. “Ain’t seen you in ages, you gigantic lizard, and you ain’t changed a bit.”

The door filled suddenly with the shapes of two men in heavy armor, both carrying heavy automatic rifles. “Police!” they shouted from behind the masks of their helmets. “Both of you —on the ground NOW!”

“Federal Agent,” Drake countered, pointing at his belt, where his credentials gleamed in the fluorescent lighting of the room. “Francis Drake, Metahuman Response. All due respect to y’all, but I ain’t laying on this floor. This is a public building, slick. Y’all know what kind of germs are on the carpets?”

“Keep your hands where we can see them,” one of the officers ordered. His partner slowly advanced on the pair, keeping his weapon trained on Drake’s face throughout the process. He snaked out a hand and snatched the badge carrier from Drake’s belt, backing away to a safe distance before glancing down to verify the credentials. His weapon lowered and he tossed the badge back. Drake caught it easily in midair, returning it to his belt.

“Sorry to have bothered you, Agent. We got a call of a disturbance,” said the officer.

“Somebody over-reacted,” Drake said, nodding his head toward the clerk’s station. “Personally, I think it was due to Frodo down here. Look at the guy. Creepy, huh?”

“I got your Frodo right here,” Kicker shot back, his middle finger extended.

“Sir, you will have to put out that cigarette,” said the other officer. The dwarf nodded and popped the still-smoking butt into his mouth, chewing noisily and with his mouth gaping open.

“Better?” he asked a second later.

“Hey, whatever gets you through,” replied the first officer, obviously unimpressed with the display. He tapped his partner on the shoulder and they left. Drake turned a steely glare onto the clerk.

“Get up, little man,” he commanded. “I want to know who let my prisoners go.”

“T-Travis Mansfield,” the clerk stuttered, sliding a sheaf of papers through the half-inch high slot in his Plexiglas window. “He’s the prosecutor that was assigned.”

“His office in this building?”

“No. Down the street two blocks, left and one more block. The Strummer Building. His office is listed on the papers,” the man said, his words coming in a rush.

“Good. Think I’ll go see what the problem is.”

“Somebody cut your folks loose, huh?” asked the dwarf. “Mind if I take a look?”

Drake took off the top sheet of paper, the one with the address of Travis Mansfield, and flipped the remainder to the dwarf. “Knock yourself out.”

“There a price on ‘em?” Fat fingers were rapidly shuffling through the stack; greedy eyes peering at the initial photographs of Thrash, Eclipse, and the beefy man in the X-harness of leather.

“A couple. The woman and the mountain. The little one, he’s a freebie right now.”

“Might be someone needs to go hunting.”

“Might be,” Drake said with a shrug. “You and your crew still doing that? Hunting fugitives?”

“From time to time, if the money’s right. You still saving the world from itself?”

“Me?” Drake said with a chuckle. “Nah. I’m a school teacher now.”

“There’s a class I ‘d like to see,” snorted the dwarf. He put his fists on his hips and marched back and forth with a feigned imperial presence. “I’m a big dragon. Do your homework or I’ll eat you!” he mocked before breaking down into hearty laughter once again.

“Something like that,” Drake said with a nod. He turned back to the Plexiglas and jerked a thumb toward the laughing booster. “My printing fees are on Gary Coleman, here,” he said.

“Oh, man, that was just wrong,” said Kicker, shaking his head sadly.

“What are you doing in here, anyway?” Drake asked.

“Snagging a new set of divorce papers.”

“There’s a stunner.”

“Hey, this one was true love...or at least that’s how it started.”

“This one, too? So were the first eight. So what happened to the newest Mrs. Kicker?”

“Sobered up, I guess,” the dwarf said with a wry grin. His teeth flashed from inside the depths of the ebony beard. “Oh, well. Win some, lose some. Frees me up for the market again.”

“Wow. There’s something the dating scene needed.”

“Yeah, I know. Hey, Drake?”

“What?”

“You got a sister?”

Drake shook his head and walked toward the door, waving over his shoulder as he did so. “See you around, Kicker.”

“I’ll come by your office. You can pay me for bringing in the prisoners again.”

Drake was still laughing when he left the building. The mid-morning air was chill, and he sniffed at the clammy feeling it left on his scales. He fought the urge to wrap his wings around himself as a makeshift windbreak, concentrating instead on moving toward the office of the Federal Prosecutor who had released his prisoners. He passed through the shadows of several tall buildings, his speed increasing as the lack of sunlight cooled him further.

“Stupid cold,” he grumbled, ignoring the shocked expressions on the citizens he passed. For once, he had no desire to try and educate them about his position in the world. Let them go on thinking he was some kind of monster. The delay would only leave him in the cold longer.

At length he came to the Strummer Building. He looked up at it with an appraising eye, wondering just which office this Mansfield worked in and how much it would hurt when Drake threw him out the window. He shook off the thoughts, as nice as they were, and made his way up a series of steps designed for people with much smaller feet than his own. He passed through the main doors and into an anteroom that led through another door and to a security station complete with a standing metal detector. There were two armed guards there, and a uniformed police officer beyond them. With a happy smile, Drake strolled through the door and passed through the detector. Alarms began to beep even before he was past the barrier. Both guards were in the process of reaching for their sidearms. The officer had his halfway out of the rig.

“Federal Agent,” Drake said, once again displaying his credentials. “Just checking to see if you boys were awake in here.”

“That’s not funny,” the police officer said, shoving his weapon back into its holster. “Bullshit like that’ll get you killed.”

Drake looked at the man, then at the two security guards. He turned an amused grin back to the cop. “Yeah. That’ll happen. Look, slick, no hard feelings. I was just playing with you. I’m on my way to see some monkey by the name of Mansfield. Travis Mansfield. Anyone know where I can find his office?”

“I know where it is,” announced a thin man in a blue suit as he walked up. He swallowed once as he looked up at the towering emerald booster. Jerking a thumb upward, he controlled himself before continuing. “Third floor. I’m headed up anyway. I can show you.”

“Works for me,” Drake said with a nod. He waved happily to the officers. “See y’all later.”

He followed the man to an elevator and waited patiently until a small chime announced its arrival. The doors opened and the five people inside gasped collectively at the sight that greeted them. Drake stood aside and waved them past with a disgusted expression.

“You’d think folks never saw a dragon before,” he muttered. The man said nothing, reaching out to push the button marked with a three.

“I appreciate this,” Drake said. “I’d probably have been running around all day trying to find this pinhead.”

“Aww, there are those plaques that tell you where the offices are,” the man said dismissively. “You’d have found it.”

“Yeah, but probably after the little Quisling took off for the day. Golf, maybe, or, I don’t know...early meeting of Morons Anonymous.”

The man laughed. “Typical lawyer, then?”

“And then some. I took a beating bringing in my prisoners and he cut them loose,” Drake explained. “Didn’t even give us a chance at them.”

“Wow. Did he give a reason or anything?”

“Probably. I figure it was somewhere in all the doublespeak on the papers the Court Clerk gave me. Didn’t bother to read it,” he admitted with a snort of laughter.

The elevator bell went off with a quiet ‘ding’ and the doors slid open to reveal another of the faux marble and imitation hardwood hallways. Dozens of doors opened off this one. The man beckoned Drake to follow. “It’s this way,” he said.

He led Drake to a door marked with the name Travis Mansfield and pointed. “This the one?”

“Looks like,” Drake said with a nod.

“Glad we could get you here. Go on in, Agent Drake, and I’ll be with you in a minute.”

Drake turned toward him, lip curling back. “Then you’d be...”

“Yes. Travis Mansfield, United States Attorney’s Office.” The lawyer paused, then continued in a mocking tone. “Oh. Now isn’t this awkward?”

“Not really,” Drake said, covering a yawn with one massive fist. “I didn’t say anything I wouldn’t tell you to your face. The trip upstairs? That just saved me some time on the whole getting-to-know-you bit.”

“Get in my office,” the man demanded. Drake folded his arms across his chest with a scraping sound and looked down at the man, eyes narrowing.

“You, uhhh, you want to rephrase that, slick?”

“Not in the least. You need to get in there right now. We have a lot to discuss.”

“We ain’t discussing jack shit,” Drake said with a snort. “I got two people authorized to give me orders, and you ain’t one of ‘em. You think you can bluff me into submission, you got another think coming. I’ve fought beside Patriot, gone toe-to-toe with Annihilator, and—worst of all—I work for Colleen Hart. You think your pasty ass scares me? Hell, you think you mean anything to me beyond maybe an appetizer?”

“Fine,” the attorney said, drawing in a deep breath and letting it out in a huff. “Would you...please...come with me to my office?” he asked with a grimace.

“I can do that,” Drake said with a nod. He stepped into the office, the attorney following him in. “See how easy that was? Politeness gets you cooperation.”

“Have a seat, Agent. Or is that considered an order, too?”

“Now you’re just trying to piss me off.”

“I’m the one pissed off here, Drake. You handed me, well for want of a better word, an unwinnable case.”

Drake glared at the man across the desk. Like the halls, it was made of some synthetic material masquerading as oak. It did not look any better than had the hallway. Drake estimated silently that it would look much worse by the time he left the office. Mansfield had taken his chair and was gazing back at the big booster from across steepled fingers.

“My boss does that to me sometimes, slick,” Drake said, spinning a chair to face backward and lowering himself onto it. “I’ll save you the eye strain. I can go literally days without blinking if I have to.”

“What exactly did you think you were doing?” Mansfield asked. For a change, his tone was not challenging. He sounded tired.

“I brought in three of the Inquisitor’s hitters. A good friend and I took a hell of a beating doing it, too. Then, next thing I know, I’m getting ripped by Hart and told to come up here for further. You want to explain why my prisoners walked?”

Mansfield nodded slowly after hearing the question. His lips pursed. “You ever read the Constitution, Agent Drake? Funny piece of paper, that. It spells out all kinds of things that people can and cannot do in this country. Bill of Rights? There’s a lot of good stuff in there, too. Things like, oh, I don’t know...protection from unlawful search and seizure, due process of law, peaceful assembly....you see where I’m going with all this?”

“No.”

“That’s it? Just ‘no’? No questions, no ideas, nothing?”

“You’re the lawyer, slick. I learned a long time ago that when one of you suit-wearing, slick-skinned little monkeys starts talking, the best thing I can do is shut up and wait for you to finish. Don’t matter what I say, you’re gonna twist it all up anyway.”

“Okay, let me make this simple, then,” Mansfield said, standing again and starting to pace back and forth behind his desk. “You brought in three suspects, right?”

Drake nodded.

“All three had been injured, two of them grievously, and one had been subjected to a chemical cocktail the likes of which our best hospital is unsure they can ever clear up.”

“Go on.”

“There’s a laundry list of injuries alone. Broken bones, lacerations, contusions, shrapnel injuries, third-degree burns, for Christ’s sake! Where do you get off thinking it’s all right to do that to a suspect?”

“She had a weapon. I could have shot her.”

“Instead you roast her hand?”

“She dropped the sword.”

“Oh my God, Drake, this is America! You’re not in the Middle Ages, meting out punishment at the behest of the king.”

“Behest?” Drake asked, leaning backward and looking at the man. “Who the hell says ‘behest’ any more?”

“Yeah. That’s good. Make jokes. That’ll help you a lot.”

“So they got busted up. So did I. So did Soun... So did my partner.”

“Let’s see, here...” the man mused, flipping open a Manila folder from a pile on his desk. “I don’t see any mention of hospitalization for either of you. I don’t see any EMS treatment reports. I don’t even see a mention of aspirin. How ‘busted up’ were you in all this?”

“I wound up with three broken ribs. Lost a couple of teeth.”

“And your partner, as you call her?”

“She’s out about ninety grand in equipment repair. Armored suit,” he added by way of explanation.

“I see. And how much is the National Security Agency out to repair the damage you did to their surveillance?”

“It’s a tire!” Drake protested. “I’ll buy ‘em a new one!”

“Not the tire, Agent. The job. They’ve been working on a surveillance plan of these particular criminal for some time now, according to their report. Seems you and your partner destroyed months of work.”

“My ass. They started the surveillance at our request. We asked them to put a tail on Thrash and they did. Thing is, they wanted to go in on their own. I just beat them to it.”

“Their records indicate differently.”

Drake nodded, rolling his eyes. “Of course they do. Think about who you’re dealing with. They can have reports made in about ten minutes saying they’ve been watching you for fifty years. Nobody disputes them because they’re the NSA!”

“So, essentially, we have a rogue Agent who went against the orders of his superior—“

“My boss, not my superior,” Drake corrected. Mansfield continued without pause.

“— and took a civilian wearing some sort of battle armor on a mission to kidnap citizens of the United States utilizing whatever force they thought was appropriate to the task. Upon arrival at the outskirts of this private residence, you and this civilian then engaged in assault and battery on Federal Agents, vandalized a government vehicle, and intimidated those same Agents with implications of physical harm. Am I doing all right so far?”

Drake shrugged, not bothering to look up. “Whatever,” he muttered, tapping his claws on the desktop.

“From there, you and the civilian proceeded through an area you knew to contain surveillance devices set by the aforementioned Agents, belittling them vocally.”

“So what? I made a few jokes.”

“I have a sexual harassment claim here, Agent Drake. A sexual harassment claim from a former military officer. Based on your comments! How sick were your jokes that I get one of those?”

“They’re all cranky ‘cause we scared ‘em; showed them up. They’ve got to find some way to get even, right? Can’t fight us our way, so they fight us their way. Makes sense, if you think about it. That, and it’s kinda funny. The whole sexual harassment part, I mean. Not the fact that you seem to be taking it seriously.”

“I have to take it seriously, Agent, and now, so do you. There is an order in this file that comes straight from the head of the Department of Justice. You’re going to sensitivity training.”

“I’m what?” Drake roared, claws raking a series of furrows in the splintery substance that made up the desk. It was wood of some kind, mostly pulped and reprocessed.

“Yeah. Sensitivity training. Welcome to the twenty-first century.”

“Let me guess. Anger management classes next? Some other kind of hippie claptrap?”

“Not really,” Mansfield said, expression turning grim. “The US Attorney’s Office is looking into the charges levied against you by your former prisoners.”

“What charges?”

“As I outlined before, it boils down to you and a civilian operative engaging in a plan to kidnap US citizens. According to their accounts, you entered their land clandestinely and situated yourselves in a position to assault the residence. They attempted to deter you with disorientation tactics, to which you responded with lethal force...flaming breath of some kind? From there, they advise that they attempted to defend themselves, but the situation rapidly escalated until you and your associate had injured or incapacitated them all.”

“Ah. I see. So they decide that somehow they’re the aggrieved party here, and you and your office just...go along for the ride.”

“Can you show otherwise?”

“So I’ve been found guilty already?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Then I don’t need to show you shit, book monkey. You want to prove a case against me, you bring it,” Drake said, standing from his seat and pointing a large green finger at the attorney. “And, uhhh, y’all can take your hippie class, and shove it in your butts.”

“It’s comments like that that get you sent to those classes, Agent. And you should bear in mind that, as angry as I am about losing the suspects out of your case, I’m not the one doing any of this to you. I’m telling you what’s what, and that’s all.”

“That’s fine,” Drake said with a nonchalant shrug. “I ain’t holding this against you.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“No. I’m just holding it against you that you let my prisoners go.”

“You left me no choice.”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard. Civil rights violations and all that. Guess my next class will be in Civics.”

“Bring me a good collar, Agent Drake. A clean arrest. You bring me that and I’ll prosecute from here to Hell and back.”

“A good clean arrest I could prosecute, slick. It’s the rough and nasty ones they send me after to begin with. Besides, looks like I won’t be on the street much longer, anyway, if these idiots get their so-called charges pushed through.”

“They’ve got a top-notch attorney in their corner.”

“Sure they do. They’ve got the money for it.”

“The question becomes, Agent, what are you planning to do from here?”

“From here? Hell, from here I’m headed to the closest liquor store. I’m gonna get me a big bottle of something brown and tasty, preferably labeled ‘bourbon’, and go home. After that, it’ll probably be all hazy for a while. How about you?”

“I’m serious. Do you want to protect your career or not?”

“Mister, I ain’t got a career. I’ve got a job. It puts me in shitty situations, gets me beat all to Hell, and then stands me in front of some judicial firing squad filled with assholes in black dresses that have never seen what real life is like. They don’t understand that when I get sent after somebody, it ain’t the soft and cuddly folks you see on Booster Bears or My Son, the Hero. I get the maggots that make the news. The ones that wreck buildings and endanger everyone. So yeah, maybe from time to time one or two of them gets a face full of fist. I don’t take first shots and I always give them time to surrender.”

“As well you should.”

“Don’t interrupt me. I don’t play around out there, though. I’ve got a kid brother to take care of and I aim to see to it that I’m here to enjoy life right alongside him. If that means I go overboard now and then in apprehending a suspect, so be it.”

“You can’t do that, though,” Mansfield said, ignoring Drake’s warning about interruptions. “You are a law enforcement officer.”

“No I ain’t,” Drake replied quickly. He pointed again, this time at the walls that were lined with shelves filled with books. “I couldn’t give two shits for most of your laws. Look at it, slick. You’ve got what, three hundred books up there? All of them filled with laws and decisions. A million previous court cases all saying you can prosecute this case but not that one. You want to call me something? I’ll take Peace Officer. It means a lot more. If I can settle a situation without force then I’m all for it. If I send someone home instead of to a jail cell, then that’s just great. A true law enforcement officer is as inflexible as a steel plate. You broke a law? Oops. Looks like you go to jail. A peace officer, on the other hand, looks at things differently. How do you keep a situation from going bad? What can you do to stop it. You look at the situation and how best it can be defused. You want to know why I’m so good? Look at me. I don’t hide what I am, and I terrify a lot of people. If I can use that to keep them from getting violent, I will. Every damned time.”

“Nice speech. It doesn’t answer the underlying question, though. Do you want to continue doing what you do?”

“I quit and they toss Monster back into the system. After that, it’s not gonna be pretty. So, I guess, yeah. I want to keep doing it. I mean, I’d rather win the Lotto, but I don’t see that happening any time soon.”

“Then listen very carefully to what I tell you. Take the class. Show them you are willing to play ball. Get your picture in the papers a little. Simple stuff, not the big Georgia rally things. Nab a shoplifter. Get a kitten out of a tree. Something with ‘Public Interest’ written all over it. And for God’s sake, stop giving the finger to news cameras.”

“And the charges?”

“This isn’t some kind of deal-making session, Drake. I can’t make them go away. I’m going to see to it that we fight them, with everything our defenders can do, but I can’t save you here. If they come, you’ll have to stand up and take what’s coming.”

“Pretty much what I do every day, slick,” Drake said. He sighed. “Sign me up for the class.”