HAPPY NEW YEAR’S EVE! With just hours to go and some of our friends around the world already enjoying the festivities, we hope you all had an excellent 2025 and we look forward to joining you in an even more kickass 2026. For now though, let’s send the year off with blast with the latest adventure of our hot-rodding hippie-punk, Lita! May God Bless You & This Force — Jake C.

CATCH UP ON LAST ISSUE!

It wasn’t that she couldn’t play, it’s that she hadn’t played anything that couldn’t be beat with a joystick and a few clever button combos. The fact that Roger Steele–in from the desert for his latest intel sweep–could even get Lita into a game of chess was a miracle in his eyes as far as their working relationship went. He remembered vividly the night of the Creed’s first mission. Along with the great smoking session, she and some of the bikers were beating each other silly on an old fighting game on a TV rigged up in the hangout. Every time he’d come back, downtime would often be spent cycling through games after all the hard work and nuisance paperwork was in order.

On this latest sojourn, Agent Steele had asked her almost flippantly “how about a game of chess?” only to get the shock of his life when Lita answered “sure.”

And there he was with two checkmates under his belt, and her closing in on her third. The svelte gray agent in the leather jacket was rather amused by the sight. Here was this classic street chick with her frenzied hair, dark fur, clad in denim and beat-to-hell leather sandals, looking down at the chess board and managing to play well.

Too damn well.

“Rook to B8, that’d be a checkmate.” she perked up.

“And sadly, you’re not a computer I can dump some brandy into.” Steele smirked. “Where did you learn all this?”

Lita delicately cleaned up the pieces from the sides of the table before answering with a gentle chuckle. “Learned the rules once watching ol’ Smith play and I free-handed the rest.”

“And you can remember all that and still leave room for that screen-clearer you keep using on Death Fight V?”

“As a matter of fact, I can!” she playfully huffed, folding the board away. “Now that the fun and games are over, where you scoping this time?”

“Rondella House in the 400s.” Steele replied, straightening his jacket.

“Contact or just browsing?”

“What else can you do in a library? Both.”

The hippie-punk perked up, snout scrunched in surprise. “Which lead you following?”

“Getting inside the worker pool for the Tower Network and other maintenance areas. A friend named Horace knows about getting some keycards and IDs fabbed. If this works out, I’ll be enjoying an ever-green way of working within the city’s scope. I stay for the lottery period I’m assigned, gather what I can, leave and come back with a new ID. If it doesn’t, remind me to kill the bastard. Or if he manages to get me first, would you do the honors?”

Lita sauntered up and playfully dusted the gray wolf’s shoulders. “For Mista-Prim-and-Proper, you sho’ do talk my lingo nice. Get outta here, but take this though.”

She slipped him a piece of paper with her cell number.

“I thought you were taken,” he quizzed.

“Oh I am,” she snickered. “It’s for when you need backup. Ring me and I’m there.”

Roger wasn’t even phased; he just nodded and pocketed the paper. “Will do.”

With that, the gray wolf was off in his slender black Dodge Charger and making tracks for Rondella.

It was your average Haven library. Unique in that it was open 24/7, but the night hours were completely automated. In the height of the city’s golden era, moves like this were PR gold. In its modern dereliction, it was a great way to quietly handover all manner of goods, from drugs to ransoms to the kinds of fraudulent IDs Roger needed to really start probing about the city.

“Horace” was a stout black wolf in a plain white button-up and black slacks who came up to Roger’s shoulder and greeted him at the front door.

“Hey Benny!” he glowed, “Glad you could make it, I got this great book I wanted to show you.”

Steele smiled and leapt up the polished stairs and into the library. The other appeal of Rondella was its “Marble Revival” interior. A cozy, classical kind of space brought new color by the various blue-monitor computers strewn about the place.

For his belt size, Horace moved just as fleetly as his guest, and was quick to show him where the “great book” was.

It was in the far back corner at a table pressed flush against the wall. It was one of only a few camera blind-spots in the place. Horace helped Roger into his seat and took his own opposite of him.

“Trust me,” he winked. “You’ll love this stuff.”

He pushed across the table a copy of an encyclopedia, History of Astronomy Vol. X. It was a proper brick of a book, and when Steele’s slender gray hands parted its covers, he found more than just what he was expecting.

There were the IDs just as he had requested; a black micro-secure digital card. He pocketed the card between page turns and slid it into his silver reader. The text that came up were rows upon rows of unassigned 10-digit codes to be used. It was between page reads that Horace also handed over a thick silver thumb-drive.

“That’s for your friends,” he nodded.

Steele nodded, though he wasn’t able to hide his perplexion. Again, he swept it into his pockets between pages and inserted the thumb-drive.

Upon it was one massive file. Too big to be read on the reader, but with an attached text file.

“Directory: BATPLAN - AUTODEPLOY - BATCHDIRECT”

From the moment he clocked the first abridged phrase, he realized just what his contact had offered him. He had just been handed a massive cache of battle plans mounted by A.C.E.S. And from the file size of one terabyte, he understood just why the data was so massive. It was every permutation, every variable, every possible stratagem the computer could have come up with. The only answers that weren’t on the surface: how recent were these? What status was A.C.E.S. at the time of their conception? The good standing of her golden years or the haphazard flailing goddess of today. Were they future attacks or surveys of past programs?

Though the contemplations whipped through Agent Steele’s head, it had only been a few seconds after the revelation hit him that he looked up to see the black wolf had vanished.

No sound of footsteps, and with a wave of Roger’s hand, no sign of cybernetic cloaking either. Gone into thin air.

Steele looked carefully around the library, shafts of blue light glistening along the many tall mahogany bookshelves. For now, it seemed his contact had delivered the goods and then some. But if this was all a covert sting, Steele wasn’t going to hang around to find out. He replaced the book on the nearby shelf it came from, zipped up his leather jacket with all his prizes inside, and made his way out the door of Rondella House.

He covered the compass the way his icy-blue eyes darted about, making sure no one was behind or ahead of him as he made it to his car. When he got there, he dug about his pockets for that little slip of paper Lita gave him. After a quick dial, the hippie-punk picked up and was met with five very important words.

“May I borrow the computer?”

“Bring ‘em in, let’s dive.”

They couldn’t begin to go over the whole damn thing on the lock-off–the terminal explicitly kept off the A.C.E.S. Network–and even the fraction they did survey was astonishing.

Battle history dating back to the first fights of General Godred to all load-outs sent during each encounter to scores of prospective battle plans in correlation to certain conditions.

The dark gray vigilante could only shake her head in disbelief, flicking through schematic after schematic, dossier after dossier.

“God almighty Aphrodite,” she deflated, running a half-gloved hand down her muzzle. “You need to get this shit outta here fast. I don’t think I’ll be killing your friend, but poor fella might get it in the neck for what he’s just done.”

Steele nodded. “Send Knox the deets quick. Let him know about the change in pace.”

Lita spun herself over to the electric telegram unit and tapped out the message as quickly as she could. “Candygram for Goldfinger: Extra Sweet. Boy’s Got A Mother. Standby to Receive Her.”

“Don’t forget to put it in lead!” Lita barked.

Her tone caught him off-guard, but Roger flashed his cigarette case and tucked both the SD card and thumb-drive inside and snapped it shut.

“Never leave home without it.”

As he stuffed it back inside his jacket and zipped it up, he rested a hand on the hippie-punk’s shoulder. When she looked up, she saw a surprising warmth come across his face.

“You’re doing well,” he said. “Hell, you sound like a C.O. twice your age. No one’s giving you shit about how you command, are they?”

Lita shrugged. “Not in the way that matters. Ribbin’s cool, but I ain’t ever had an order disobeyed. Besides, with most these bastards being about your height or more, all I get left to break ‘em is a punch to the gut or a kick to the nuts. And I left one of Mack’s idiots reelin’ on the floor after a run-in with the fuzz.”

The image had Roger stifling a laugh before he continued.

“Mind playing escort then?” Steele asked. “Seeing as most of the pack’s off tonight.”

“You got it!” she grinned, “It’ll be nice to warm up Red’s seat instead of keeping my ass glued to that monitor sending shit over the P2P.”

Lita and Agent Steele both stepped out of the Creed’s HQ and made their way down the street to their rides. When they saddled up and fired their monstrous V8s, all that counted was getting Steele out the door. Anything between them and that was fair game. And that was putting it lightly.

At first, the black Charger and that blood-colored Bug were cruising nice and easy, soaking in that classic cobalt night, enjoying the color of a more modern block of apartments and skyscrapers. A few stray kids on bikes were in the area, but they weren’t the kind of knuckleheads Lita had to sic Mack and his boys on.

No, those kinds came racing right up front to the duo. With chain whips and laser-pistols, two scrawny white wolves on slick-back crotch-rockets were racing up towards the cars and not veering an instant.

Roger–with data to protect–swerved out of the one the wolves’ way.

Lita–in her fortified murder machine without a fuck to give–slammed her sandaled-paw down and let the game of chicken play to the finish.

Credit where due, the idiot didn’t waver. All Lita saw as a flurry of white fur and green fiberglass tumble over top the Red Devil, to which she patted the wheel, called her baby Bug a good boy, and rejoined Roger in their race to the withered titanium border.

That still left them with one hooligan who was fast on their tail.

One hooligan who Roger and Lita had gotten the exact same idea for.

Without even looking at each other, the gray agent on the right and the darksome hippie-punk on the left opened their windows, drew their peacemakers, and domed the thug at the same time. Between the compact Mauser and the monstrous Wildey, there wasn’t much left of the biker to go tumbling off into the distance.

Miracle of miracles, the blood only reached their hands, and Roger was the one hound who preferred his digits tipped in leather.

“Have fun cleaning those,” he winked.

“Nothing a little peroxide can’t fix.” she retorted.

Unfortunately, even taking out the trash can’t be done in peace anymore, for once again, the old favorites were back in force. A silver-and-black autocop came tearing out of a side street directly in front of Lita and Roger. Both wolves braked hard and swerved away from it.

Lita waved Roger on. She didn’t dare say a word in front of the law. Not while it was alive anyway. The gray agent stepped on it and sent his slick black muscle car tearing away for the border while Lita swung back around and started dancing her dance with her favorite hunk of electric bacon.

She swung out the driver’s side window, and started firing like mad. She wanted the engines gone and gone quick. Flashes of green whizzed and rattled into all four humming blue discs, but the damn thing wouldn’t stop. Lita tried whittling down one of the engines, and that began to work, only for a quick flash of blue to signal a rebound.

“Of all the fucking times to get good you scrubs!” she growled.

She clipped the throttle down to keep pace and brought out her Dragunov. Pointing the barrel out the passenger side this time, she set the Russian beast loose on the autocop like an old-time mobster with a Tommy. An absolute sea of electric red rattled every last inch of the autocop, from its useless tinted windows to those miraculously recovering engines.

Fortunately, the latest iteration of Haven’s finest wasn’t enough to overcome her tried and true philosophy: with enough lead, anything’s possible.

The shields were broken, the body was Swiss-cheese, and at long last, the first of the four engines gave way and sent the machine tumbling down and into the street.

And then it kept on tumbling.

As Lita swung back in and took control, she saw this bastard rolling and rolling and rolling down the straight of the street. And towards the border.

Lita whipped out her phone and rang Roger, paw-flat down and driving like a bag of coke was coursing through her.

“Yeah?”

“GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM THAT FENCE!”

She heard the Charger’s tires squeal and prayed he was as fleet as her on the pedals as the flaming blue mound of twisted metal tumbled closer and closer and closer until, with a final terrible shriek, slammed into the border and tore clean through it. It didn’t stop until it finally flipped over the edge, and the only place left for the momentum to go was down in a ball of electric blue flame.

Lita slammed both paws down on the brake and skidded to a stop just beside Roger. The Charger was dusted by all that kicked up tarmac, but was otherwise fine. The gray wolf at her wheel, turned to look at Lita with a look of total bemusement.

“I take it you’ve never tried the front door.” Steele said.

“I like making my own.” Lita shrugged. “Went a little big on this one though.”

The gray agent with the ice-blue eyes nodded and winked one last time. “I’ll let you know when I’m back in the neighborhood for longer. But before I go, one last thing.”

The dark hippie-punk nodded.

“Find Horace.” Steele asked. “Stout black wolf, mid-40s, white button-up, black trousers, black loafers. You don’t have to meet with him. Just let me know if you ever see him again.”

“You got it hoss,” Lita replied with a playful salute. “Now go let the top dog know what’s in your lap.”

Steele sped off in an instant, carefully winding down the treacherous Ivory Coast canyon, back up the other side, and then into the same distance as all desert guests went.

For Lita’s ride back, she kept thinking about this Horace. About whether he was a true friend, or some fella flicking one wild domino effect into play. Like with Roger, the disappearing act didn’t sit right with her. She made a trip up to Rondella herself just to scope out the locale. She checked the alleys and found nothing. She tiptoed into the library only to find the same empty book repository the two contacts had traded work in. It was only after a quick glance at the Comm/Ent. Newsreel over breakfast the next morning that it all came into focus.

HORACE WELTON, 44, TRIED & CONVICTED DRUG SMUGGLER. SENTENCED TO REPROGRAMMING.

With a trumped-up charge like that, Lita knew that they knew. And yet her and Steele were still able to get the data out the door. When Lita checked Knox’s reply on her fax, she saw that the data and agent had been received, and that its veracity was being double checked.

Lita sighed as she looked back to the paused news screen and hammered out a quick reply: “Tell our boy H was alright. He’s paying the tab tonight.” She snapped a screenshot of the headline and sent it over as well.

When she stepped outside and took a deep breath of street air, she looked down to her tough old crimson Bug and smiled. Her first thought was to drop everything and go bombing for a bit, the old streets calling to her once more. But seeing that newsreel changed a few things for her.

“Lemme make a call, baby,” she smiled, blowing a kiss to the Red Devil. “I got something else in mind.”

She picked up her phone, dialed for Professor Smith, and greeted the old English chap with music to his ears.

“Free for a game of chess, Teach?”

The Red Devil was northbound in seconds. It was time to shake up how things were done around here.

CATCH UP ON LAST ISSUE!

She’d thrown plenty of cigarette lighters out the window, but tonight was the first time her dear Red Devil was being pelted with them from the skies.

Technically just one, but it scared the shit out of Lita when it came smacking across her windshield. She pounced on the brakes and backed up when she saw it. It was actually pretty neat; an old-school Zippo with a little stop-watch motif etched into the side. The dark gray hippie-punk thought nothing of it when she picked it up and gave it a flick.

“Hmph.” she shrugged. “Someone musta broken their thumb up on the 50th floor, this shit strikes fine.” She used it to fire up her umpteenth cigarette before snapping the lid shut and stuffing it in her denim jacket. Just like that, her paw went down and that bloody red Bug roared away down the road once more.

She was on a quick midnight patrol, hunting for anything that might be off on her side of town. In the south, the new security team fanned out across several blocks for a midnight patrol. In the western half of the city, Mack Malten and his cadre of bikers were working on some more underground connections for her.

For the hell of it, she whipped out the old flip phone and gave Professor Smith a ring. She figured if anything was gonna go tits-up first, it’d be in the city’s mad science division up north.

At first, the elder white wolf didn’t pick up. It was on her second try that she got him, only to hear the chevalier scientist bellowing at the top of his longs over a torrent of sound. “YES M’DEAR, HOW ARE YOU?”

“Shit, everything alright?”

“SOMEONE MUST’VE ORDERED A THUNDERSTORM IN THIS AREA. WITH EXTRA GAIL. GUESS IT MUST LOOK GOOD ON CAMERA.”

“Fucking designer weather,” the hippie-punk grumbled to herself. “NEED A RIDE OU–”

She was cut off by silence on the other end of the line. “Yo Doc, everything fine?”

“Yes, fine.” he replied in his dignified English tones. “Guess the old girl realized she was overdoing it. Even the rain stopped.”

“Shit, lemme roll up anyhow, now I’m curious.”

“See you then!”

With a quick cut of the wheel, Lita made tracks for Smith’s lab. The drive over would also give her a chance to see what one of the idle class had ordered. The whole idea of “designer weather” always bothered her. It wasn’t what it was called of course, but it was one of a dozen-plus more “social activity” programs added to module itineraries. The whole thing meant more photo opportunities, something to keep the hobbyists busy with all sorts of esoteric phenomena. She’d never let a real tornado go ripping through the 300s of course, she’d just create a hologram of it, but with plenty of real wind for effect. It was the real wind that did the damage which, in her prime, was fixed in an instant. But now, given her lapsed state, it was a miracle the buildings hadn’t crumbled from all the weather she heaped on them.

The strangest part was how, as she started to reach the northern districts, all her worries about the weather were non-existent. No wet streets, no heaps of autumn leaves, no upturned trees from the park districts. Whatever the Professor experienced, either it was exceptionally localized, something else, or worse, A.C.E.S. regaining her strength.

As she drew closer to the lab, she could finally see something on the road, but it wasn’t the last of a shower.

It was a bumper.

She was able to steer clear of it, but hopped out to get a good look at it.

It was black with chips of white at the top, but not metal. More like plastic or fiberglass. It was the front end of what looked like a proper Firebird, straight from the Old World 80s. It was cracked to tell with scorch marks on its tip.

“Helluva crash you musta had,” she remarked nonchalantly. If she had the room for it, she would’ve plucked it up and stuffed it in the Red Devil, but with a V8 in the front, and a heap of odds and ends in the rear where the old engine was kept, there wasn’t anywhere to tuck it away.

Carefully, she lugged the bumper to the sidewalk and made tracks for the Professor’s lab. She pulled right up to that rich green Jaguar and laid on the horn. When the white-furred, black-clad dandy emerged, he did so with something in his hand.

“Well I just found a bumper to a Trans Am on a dry street two rights and a left ago, whatchu got?”

The elder English scientist produced a few stray shards, sharp crystals that glistened in the evening’s blue.

“If my structural analyzer’s still worth its credits,” he began, “Diamonds. Genuine diamonds. At least the remains of such, these were likely from a jeweler’s cut rather than raw material.”

“The hell it do,” the hippie-punk piped up, “fall into your lap?”

“Why yes actually. When I was out on the terrace pondering that dry road you mentioned.”

The dark gray wolf gave a solitary blink.

“Teach, I just had a zippo thrown at me from an apartment window back on my block. You got a diamond pitched your way, and I found the scorched bumper of a car way back there.”

“Makings of a good mystery, wouldn’t you think?” he replied rather blithely as he climbed into the passenger seat.

Lita shrugged her shoulders and bugged her eyes. “Well when you put it like that instead of ‘OH SHIT, CRAP’S RAINING FROM THE SKIES,’ sure why not?”

“My bet’s still on the aesthete weather apparatus,” Smith continued, “Just that A.C.E.S. is now fully coming undone and isn’t generating weather at all, just…well stuff it seems.”

“Lemme run this through the rest of the posse then.” Lita plugged her phone into her center console and dialed 110. When the dial-tone ended with a triple click, she knew she was calling into all corners of the Avenger’s Creed. From her newly-minted security team to her gangland friends, all the hounds at her beck and call were on the same hot line long enough to hear her message.

“Head to Getalong Gang,” she began, “Keep eyes peeled for weird shit raining from the skies. Wicked Witch might have a few more screws loose than usual. I got a lighter and a bumper, Professor’s got some gems. Source believed to be designer weather programs. Check your local forecasts if you’re ever gonna see the rain again. Over and out.”

She hung up and booked the Red Devil back towards the Firebird bumper. When they got there, however, it wasn’t just the bumper on display. A wheel took its place on the street and two side mirrors sat smashed on the opposite sidewalk, the plastic casing cracked and vomiting shards all over.

When Lita pulled the Red Devil up to the tire, a white hubcap pocked with five holes near the center when rolling along like a tumbleweed past the battle-worn Bug.

“A spot of conjecture m’dear,” the Professor piped up, stroking his chin, “but this might not be a weather program at all.”

“Honestly, I started thinking that way when I saw the bumper, I just didn’t have a good enough explanation for it all.”

Their suspicions were confirmed as, whizzing back past them was the same tire.

Then came the bumper’s rattle on the sidewalk, the mirror glass filling back into the side mirror plastic. Something was drawing all of these wrecked parts back together smack in the middle of the road. Just not into the shape of a car.

All the stray pieces, try as they might, flew across the tarmac only to smash into one another, then to be sent flying back to their place. The bumper tumbled back to where Lita had found it, the mirrors shattered against the brick wall before landing back on the sidewalk, and there that plain tire went, rolling back down the road.

“Teach,” Lita said softly. “I been here before.”

“This exact street, or–”

“NO!” she barked. “I mean this forwards-backwards-forwards crap.”

“Steady on,” the elder white scientist soothed. “Explain precisely.”

“Was a coupla years ago,” the hippie-punk began. “Found a fella was robbing ol’ apartments and I got him dead to rights. Even after killing the bastard, he came right back up for seconds and we spent the whole night at each others’ throats. He had this device he used to piece himself back together. Like if his car exploded, he hit a button and the flames all went right back where they came from. I run the fucker over and he just fills back up and takes off.”

“So a sort of concentrated temporal manipulation,” Smith observed. “Limited in scope and duration, but still the principle of the thing.”

Lita nodded, shifting gears and pulling away from the scene.

“Where are you going?”

“Taking you to where I left ‘im,” she replied. “I ain’t finished yet. He had a much bigger rig in the boot of his car. One that used diamonds like the one in your pocket. And...shit, he drove a Firebird like the hunks of one we passed!”

The Professor steepled his fingers and buried his muzzle between them. His brow furrowed as he thought before realizing what was transpiring if Lita was proven true.

“By God, the bastard’s done it.”

Smith said in such a muted, almost defeated tone. It sent a chill down Lita’s spine as she realized just how much Smith knew.

“He was one of them civvy scientists, wasn’t he? Like obviously he knew a thing or two, but he was like...one of you fellas. Wasn’t he?”

“Worst, I read the sodding paper he wrote.” Smith’s sharp English tones grew distant before he continued. “The diamond was a refractory device, similar to prisms which break light into the base color spectrum, part of this ghastly engine he designed to phase through time. Andre Freeling was the chap’s name. I won’t pretend he was the most agreeable fellow, but he didn’t strike me so cruel. He was articulate enough to get the point across, and the theory held some merit. We simply didn’t think there was enough energy in all of Haven to transcend those bounds.”

“And he found enough to get through” Lita began.

“But evidently not enough to come back in one piece.” Smith replied.

Only the mighty revs of the Red Devil’s engine filled the space between thoughts as Lita and Smith pondered what they might find in that alleyway. All throughout the drive back, she got calls from all corners of her burgeoning network. The one-eyed gangster Mack Malten called in with his usual “Hey Urbie,” followed by a mouth-frothing tirade about three white hubcaps whizzing by the bikers.

“One bastard lost his head, the other two got real close buzz cuts with nicks on the ears.” As always, Mack was blase about deaths among his ranks.

Lita could only say find shelter and hang tight until it blows over. Tan-furred security lead Rick Laitham rang in with reports of gears raining in the 500s, a tailpipe stopping a mugging by slicing the bastard in half, and puddles of engine oil sending the street-cleaner units into a panic near Comm/Ent.

“How you getting intel this far afield?” Lita quizzed.

“I’ll give you the skinny on the network I got after we get this squashed.”

“Smart fella,” she teased. “You don’t give away the family secrets on open airwaves. Stay safe, find shelter, keep in touch with your hounds.”

All along the way, one thought haunted her the most; how would he make his return? With all sorts of crap just flying back into existence, hunks of Trans Am finding themselves scattered across the city, would he even return to the place he left at all? Maybe he would be somewhere in the 300s. Maybe he’d land smack-dab in the middle of Comm/Ent. Hell, at that rate, he could probably get dropped right into the top-secret labs where the A.C.E.S. server banks are held.

The only thing left swirling more than Lita’s mind as she wove her prized Beetle through the maze of Haven was the sight that greeted her and the Professor at that lonely old alleyway. Almost exactly where the thief Andre Freeling parked his Firebird for their great voyage through time, the hippie-punk and the chevalier scientist were met with the sight of brickwork, tarmac, and the night sky itself melting across the alleyway, swirling into a globulous mess of black, white, red and blue.

Lita swung the Red Devil into place to get a full view of what was about to transpire. Smith leaned in, eyes narrowed intently.

“If this is where he left, this must be that anchor point,” the older white wolf surmised. “He made mention of it in his hypothesis.”

Slowly the galaxy of visual mush began to spin faster and freer. The swirling gave way to flecks and streams of light rocketing off the formation. From out the now increasingly chaotic strips of reality whipping about came first a piercing red body. A red that begets yellow, then green, then blue, all colors merging into one body.

Then that body went black as midnight with eyes whiter than any star Lita had ever seen.

The body straightened up and looked at the two wolves in the Bug.

“My God, Freeling,” Smith gasped beneath his breath. “What have you done?”

There came no answers, no words, just those piercing white orbs in that void of a body, the portal dissipating into tentacle-like strips of refracted, melting reality writhing behind him.

Slowly, the shadowy hound raised an arm, fingers outstretched and palm facing the car. Those white eyes locked onto Lita and she began to feel a pull she had never known before. Stronger than the best drugs, the best sex, stronger than any of her nobler intentions cultivated over the years.

What he wanted she couldn’t say. She could feel there was something he wanted from her, but without words, there was no knowing the truth of the matter. She felt the shadowed hound pulling her closer and closer until she noticed something peculiar about the dissipating portal.

It was growing more and more fractured, more and more vaporous, its wispy strains multiplying without growing, the texture almost sickening in its density. On a gut level, though, she knew what it meant: this portal was closing. And there wasn’t a chance in hell she was going to let this bastard hang round here. Her thoughts were confirmed when she saw from out his blackened murk lines crossing lines, the impressions beginning to glow green. They were coming in and out of view, as the strips of melting reality flecked away behind him.

She couldn’t get the words out, but her mind flew right back to that hellish night when Nic came out of the desert and into Haven. The night a simple cop-raid turned into a discovery into the bizarre underbelly of the city’s electric infrastructure. Infrastructure, it seemed, that Freeling had become a part of.

“Teach?” Lita asked.

“Yes,” the white wolf replied.

“Call me crazy, but he might not be going through time.”

When Professor Smith caught one of those fleeting glimpses, he knew what she meant. “By God, it’s impossible though. He had no mainframe access, no terminal, he couldn’t have just phased through!”

“There’s only one way to find out,” Lita growled. “Send ‘im back where he came.”

She revved the Red Devil up, pounding the throttle with her sandaled paw. The Professor straightened up and focused hard on the bizarre monstrosity before them.

“I figured you’d try it this way.” Smith remarked coolly. “Just one thing.”

“What?” she snapped as she turned towards him.

“Aim dead center.”

The hippie-punk flashed a devilish grin. “Smart man.”

She dug in the clutch, yanked the gear lever, and pinned the throttle down hard.

“This is payback for that busted rib you left me that night.” she growled as the Red Devil leapt on on his rear wheels and hurtled towards the shadowed hound. It was a short run, which meant a short stop. Lita kept her eyes on the prize, and once she felt close enough, down came both paws on the brakes.

The Red Devil dropped down on the beast with a grotesque crunch before she felt the swift vortex’s pull of the vortex on the car. She hadn’t even gotten him in gear when–for the briefest moment–the Bug fell in.

The black-and-red puree she made of the time monstrosity lay scattered before her and the Professor’s eyes as they saw what looked like an eternal hall of mirrors. Reflections upon reflections upon reflections. Drops of blood and clouds of black danced about the endless prismatic void before them. When Lita turned to the Professor, he looked like a negative photo of himself. White was black, black was white. He tried to call out to her, but his voice was refracted beyond discernment, like a million audio recordings laid out on top of each other creating the ultimate chorusing effect.

It all came to her slow motion, something which drove stakes through her mind. Her mind could think quickly enough to get that gear lever in reverse, but her inverted body took an eternity. She felt her paw making that glacial slide from the brake to the throttle and everything within her was screaming to hurry up.

They were almost past the first mirrors when she at last felt the gear lever click into place and the press of her paw against the sandal bed, and the sole against the rubber pedal. The Bug made a roar that echoed into eternity as it lurched backwards, Lita and the Professor lurching forwards as the wheels spun slowly in reverse.

Their last glimpse saw the red flecks glow green as they scattered down that endless hall of eternity, a grid faint in the distance, but always coming in and out of view.

Then they were back in Haven.

Like nothing had changed, like nothing had been wrong. The tarmac hadn’t melted, the bricks remained level as T-squares, the city hadn’t fallen into whatever space-time singularity or digital hellhole they had just glimpsed.

They were also back at Smith’s lab.

Her faculties restored, Lita pounced on the brakes once more, The Red Devil skidding to a stop outside the apartment. She sat there for a moment, gazing off into the middle distance. The Professor finally came back around and looked at the shell-shocked 20-something.

“Easy m’dear,” he soothed, rubbing her back. “We’re safe, we’re here, we’re now. Just not where we were.”

Lita’s body swayed briefly, Smith worried the dark gray driver was about to pass out on him. Instead, she kept swaying for a second before holding up both of her half-gloved hands. She wiggled her fingers about for a bit before she turned to look at the Professor.

“So that was real.” She said it in as plain a manner as she could. No jokes, no quips, just pure amazement.

The white wolf scientist looked puzzled, before recognizing what she was doing. “I do believe you have indulged in lysergic acid diethylamide in the past. Was the experience comparable?”

Lita shook her head. “No. This felt like my body was turned inside out, all my fur bristling my blood and muscle. Made me realize how matted I done let it get. All acid done me for was making me feel like I was floating for a bit.”

Quickly she dove for the phone and dialed 110. When the three clicks sounded off, she made her call. “Now I want my two team leads to come back to me one at a time. First Mack, then Rick. Tell me what’s happened in the past five minutes.”

She hung up and swung the Bug around. She hung a left onto the street where she had found all the car parts trying to reform.

Nothing was there.

When her first call came in, Mack was about as stone cold as she ever heard him.

“Urbie.” he said with that gruff voice of his. “Lonnie got his head back. The hubcaps are gone.”

All Lita could say was “received.”

When Rick came in, a similar tale of confusion was all in his voice. “Everything vanished. All parts. One of my guys stopped the mugging manually.”

Again, Lita gave her plain reply of “received.” She turned to Professor Smith who already realized what she was after. As deep as he dug into his pockets, he couldn’t find the diamond from the time machine.

When Lita returned to the Professor’s lab, something caught his eye in the alleyway.

“Stop right here!” he barked, diving out of the car before she even hit the brakes.

Quickly his cape batted in the air as the Professor raced towards a body lying in the dead-end street. He was white-furred and stark naked, with a thick snout, and a pool of blood creeping from out the back of his head. When Smith knelt down and pulled open one of his eyelids, he saw the ice-blue eyes of Andre Freeling.

When Lita came over, she recognized the hound instantly. “Shit, he still got one of them little bracelets on and everything.”

She pointed out the little leather strap around his right wrist with the small button dead center.

“But if he’s here,” she asked. “Who’d I hit back in the Eastern District?”

Professor Smith stood up and looked back to the main street.

“To tell you the truth, m’dear: I haven’t the faintest idea. On one hand, maybe Andre didn’t crack the code of time, but found a way into the digital world. Maybe that was his shadow self he left on the door, the conscience that remains when diving through that great electric sea. There’s been talk of those who use virtual reality rigs having out-of-body experiences, but I’ve yet to see a formal experiment. And yet…”

He let the thought hang in the air, almost afraid of saying the thought out loud himself.

“There is that wild chance the mad bastard made himself a time machine after all. And something he found in the bounds between time and space found him. And almost us. Whatever the truth, something in A.C.E.S. seems to have reset the clock.”

For the rest of the night–perhaps forever–those words haunted Lita, though they left her with only one last bit of business. When she returned to the Creed’s headquarters, she drafted a memo that she sent to the Force back east, addressed directly to Knox.

“IMPORTANT. Suspend further development to all progress made with regards to files sent under the name Operation: Backmask. Dangerous beyond reason. Possible link to Station 607 Incident, unsure at present.”

The next morning, she got her reply.

“No files found under such title.”

It felt like cheating on the poor guy, but all this test driving was strictly business for Lita. In her growing web of connections throughout Haven’s underworld, one thing she found scarce were dependable security staff. While the gray biker Mack Malten and his gang were good fighters, they were off having to wrangle and wrestle the hoods who weren’t down with the whole idea. The dashing Professor Smith and his lot had brains aplenty, but precious little muscle. And as much as she loved them, her street-fighting friends were getting it in the neck with crackdowns, Ash and Chuck Damier warning her to keep clear until the heat died down.

That left the spunky hippie-punk to plunder her favorite street-racing crews for her security team. She hadn’t found too many to fold into her resistance group, The Avenger’s Creed, but she was well-known to these souped-up gangs. Lita’s prized red Beetle mopped the floor with several top-performance rides, meaning only the best could become part of the dark gray vigilante’s pack.

And if you want a job done right, you have to do it yourself.

From a casting call of hundreds, conducted over several nights of carefully coordinated time trials in the city’s darkest parts, Lita found her five mains from a group called “The Dead Rockets.”

Four vintage mid-century muscle-cars, and a hopped-up hatchback from what they used to call Japan. Leading the gang was Rick Laitham, her choice for security chief as well. He was a tan hound about Lita’s height, his snout sharp as a switchblade, rocking loose-fitting leather suit and a bright white T-shirt underneath. His was the dark blue ‘67 Camaro, a real she-beast Lita was savoring like a fine steak. She could see Rick’s half-gloved mitts on the grab handle as she took each corner like it owed her money.

“Ain’t scared are ya?” Lita teased, “You got worse than me to fight if you’re down.”

“Nah, this shit’s just habit.” came the reply. “Good to see you’re hot on left-foot braking too.”

Lita chuckled. “She just feels good to the touch, that’s all. Just like my Little Man.” She rammed the throttle down as the slender blue beauty tore up the street one last time. After a clean handbrake turn over the starting line, she shook hands with her newfound head of security.

“You guys oughta be able to get ahead of anything we put you through.” she grinned. “Especially the way you work her.”

“Whaddya mean by that?” the street-racer chuckled.

“My left paw stays on the clutch. I saw how you were taking her on your own lap and wanted to try your style. Keep it up, she hangs good with it.”

She tapped her Birks on the brake and clutch before stepping out.

“Let’s get ya back to headquarters and briefed.”

Rick gave a sharp whistle through his fingers, and his posse got into their rides once more. Two white Mustangs, a dark red AMC Javelin, and for the hot-hatch, a silver and black Honda City Turbo. Lita gave each muscle car a quick good luck kiss on the hood, but the Turbo she gave a nuzzle. Her driver, the black-furred Shane Romero, got a kick out of it.

“Whatcha dig so bad ‘bout her?” he quizzed with his gruff Bronx swagger.

“I’m a sucker for them big ol’ eyes.”

When she cocked her head to the Red Devil, his dinner-plate headlights staring back, Shane cackled like mad.

“Aight, I get it. Your prized pony ain’t a half-bad looker either.”

“Don’t forget though,” the dark punk cautioned. “It’s what’s under the hood that counts.”

“And how ya use it.” He popped off some more furious revs to Lita’s delight.

“God you’re gonna be fun to play with.”

She dove back behind the wheel of her Bug and led the quintet back to their top-secret offices the long way round.

“It’ll fuck with their projections for the places they’re scanning.” she explained over the radio. “We zig and zag while they zag and zig.”

Rick came in next. “It’ll also give y’all a chance to really stretch your legs when we break the formation. Didn’t just give ya nitro for Christmas in July. If we got anything on our little chopped-up doppler radars, I want to hear ‘em scream good and loud.”

The tan racer pulled his Camaro up alongside the Bug. The two shared an okay sign between each other as they brought the pace up.

Dear old A.C.E.S. had finally changed her evening color protocol, painting this most special night alliance-forging an eye-popping green.

“Shit,” Rick scoffed, “even the dark’s glowing in the dark.”

“I miss when she painted it magenta.” Lita sighed. “Always looked so purty, especially how Little Man looked in it.”

Her newly minted security chief got a kick out of the whole display. “You can bite my head off later, but you look too damn cute with that Bug you keep babying.”

“Ain’t no more than you do polishing that big hunka muscle.” the hippie-punk shot back. “Besides, ain’t nothing too good for my Little Man. Why you think he’s got a big ol’ V8 right up front?”

“Cuz the old ones chug like a freight train.” came Laitham’s reply. “He’s probably the most reliable Bug on the continent.”

Lita’s heavy sigh was all she could say on the subject; she didn’t like to think of the Dark Ages her Red Devil endured.

She also couldn’t afford to ignore the ones he was about to face.

Barreling towards the entourage was Mack Malten, the one-eyed mountain of a biker, rocking a chopped hog at full tilt. Behind him was his usual gaggle of miscreants, their own bikes all the colors of the rainbow. And following behind them was the last thing anyone wanted to see.

“Autocops?” Lita growled. “A-fucking-gain!? Same skunk stripes and everything? Can’t they just, I dunno, MAKE A NEW MODEL ALREADY!? You bitches have been on the fucking 5K for a goddamn decade now.”

“If she can’t fix the fro-yo machine,” Rick replied candidly, “she ain’t about to re-engineer her jackboots.”

To both hounds’ surprise, Lita would get her wish.

Rounding the corner were hovercars the width of the street, all black, with chain guns locked, loaded, and targeting everyone in sight. Lita met the sight with a deferential nod before taking to her radio.

“Y’know what? I’ll take it. Security Team: get to skedaddling! We got new toys on the block.”

The sounds of two dozen screaming tires cleared the way for the bikers as Lita ducked down the left-hand street with the Javelin and the Honda while Rick took his two Mustangs down the right. In the heat of the moment, she also noticed her sandaled left paw flat on the brake.

“Huh. Guess it is rubbing off on me.”

She was quick to pound the gas and gain distance from what was sure to be another melee of the standard divide-and-conquer strategy the autocops were built for. Only problem: neither team was being tailed by their customary clay pigeons.

“What the hell’s taking ‘em?” Lita grumbled.

Her answer came in the form of two quick bursts of red laser fire. The only things that made their way down the alleyway were huge beams that clipped the rides’ roofs and sent bikers flying through the air. Malten came barreling up behind Lita.

“AYOOO URBIE!” the gray biker hollered. “WHATCHA MAKE OF THIS SHIT?”

“NEXT TIME I’LL WISH FOR SOMETHING A LITTLE MORE RULY.” she bellowed back. “GIMME THE BRIEF AND MAKE IT SNAPPY!”

“NEW DEPLOYS FROM THE SOUTH DISTRICT. THEY BEEN STREETSWEEPIN ALL THE WAY UP. KILLING ANYTHING THAT MOVES.”

Lita paused. “Anything? Like ANYTHING anything?”

Malten racked his brain to be sure. “YUP. IF IT BLEEDS, IT LEADS.”

“She’s running a fucking pogrom, that BITCH!”

In a flash, she grabbed the radio and rang up Rick for an update. On his side of the street, him and his ‘Stangs were making the most of the streets ahead. When the precision laser fire ripped over their heads again, Rick swung a hard right down the next side street. The black autocop’s round made a perfect 90-degree angle over head.

“Lita!” the tan racer hollered. “They’re heat-seekers running on the grid. Ain’t no round gonna naturally hit at a right angle.”

“Good to know, but I don’t know what to do about it yet!” Lita answered back. “Keep bobbing and weaving, B Team.”

“Why are we B–”

“CUZ I’M THE A#1 BITCH OF THIS OPERATION.”

Rick shrugged and hung up the radio between shifts. “Fair enough.”

“Shit it’s good to be a boss sometimes.” she chuckled. It was the levity that was going to keep her sane given how advanced these gargantuan machines were. They didn’t even seem like city-ready craft.

They seemed like war machines.

The red-eyed hippie held onto that thought as she led her troop as far from the midnight parade rolling through the town. She took every corner like the hell on wheels she knew her Little Man could be, the red Bug drifting through with the rest in tow. But just as she thought they were safe, a bolt of laser fire ripped along those bloodlines buried deep in the A.C.E.S. network. They were perfect in every single way, except for something.

“How the hell is an energy weapon heat-seeking?” Lita thought aloud. “There’s nothing on-board to guide it. And if it’s following the streets, then what’s it latching onto to try and tan our hides?”

She kept running the questions through her mind until the black wolf Shane came up with something that made too much damn sense.

“Ayo, Avery, did you remember to kill your chip?”

Avery was the white wolf in the AMC. And when he answered in the negative, the first thing out of Lita’s lips was “HOLLUP, EVERYONE PULL OVER.”

A few weeks back, Professor Smith and Lita were able to create a mini-EMP device to knock out the microchip in the back of everyone’s neck. No tethering to the A.C.E.S. network, no jacking into modules. No remote kill-switches that could drop a hound on a dime. She was going to do the background checks when they got back to base, but time was of the essence.

All three cars and all dozen or so of her bikers screeched into an alleyway. Lita leapt out with a flip-phone and bolted for the Javelin.

“You trust me, right?”

The wild-eyed, spiky haired bitch didn’t exactly inspire courage, but Avery dabbed her up the second he saw the phone.

“You guys got a way to EMP these without, y’know?” The stout white driver made a slashing motion across his throat.

“We done our tests,” she panted furiously, “but I got to get the combo right. Gimme your ID number, to the letter.”

Avery rattled off each number and letter, 20 all-told, just as the whine of the black autocop’s cannons revved up. Feverishly, Lita pulled the cord from the device and without a second thought plunged it into the back of Avery’s neck. The driver winced, but nodded.

When she finally hit dial, Avery’s grip on the wheel tightened, then released.

“You still wit me bud?” Lita asked.

He stood statuesque for a time too long to be good, but with a twitch of his head and a heavy sigh of relief, the procedure worked.

“Thank fuck you did that, all that adware in the background finally cleared up.”

She kissed the driver dead on the cheek and dove head-first back into her Bug. The laser fire shot straight down the street, past the group, and into nothingness.

“YEEEHAAAAA!” she whooped. “FUCK YOU PIGS!”

Her victory was short-lived when the second realization dawned on her.

“How the fuck am I gonna get back to Rick and the crew?”

She looked to the pack behind her and then to the road ahead.

“Who’s got the biggest guns and the biggest balls?” she hollered.

Mack gave her a smoldering look with his lone-eye.

“NOT LIKE THAT. Though you can come too.”

She wound up with five volunteers, Shane and his spry Honda included.

“I want a good clean distraction so I can bolt over and make it to Rick.”

Mack and his quartet gave a nod and sped off, guns snapped into their handlebar holsters and ready to fire on the autocops. Shane revved up his engine and peeled away towards the automated entourage. Together, with squealing rubber and a hailstorm of Technicolor lead, Lita revved up her Bug and bolted down after them.

It took five lefts and five rights before she was back at the intersection, the city a blur of green, red and blue. The blue came not from the night, but from the electric bonfire built up as autocop after autocop crashed into one another. Malten and his boys bobbed and weaved while the black wolf in the hot-hatch two sizes too small for him drew the laser fire he knew would never hit him, shot after shot flying into the ether overhead.

Unfortunately, the black autocop doing the firing barreled through its dead pawns and lumbered towards Shane and boxy Honda.

Right into Lita’s path.

“Oh you sonofabitch, making me do this after I done fixed the chassis!”

She slammed the clutch and flipped a switch beneath the radio. In seconds, the Red Devil dropped to the asphalt, wheels buried in his fenders. In a shrieking, sparking fury, Lita furiously screaming “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry” over and over to her Little Man, the Bug cleared the bottom of the black autocop by an inch.

One flipped switch and a clutch pop later, he was back to his normal height.

“Oh honey you getting the GOOD THC in that engine oil tonight.”

Without a second to lose, she hopped on the radio.

“Rick, it’s Lita, where you at?”

“I can hear that peach of a V8.” came his sharp, snappy tenor. “You two rights and two lefts away.”

“Do any of ya not have your mainframe chips already fried?”

“Manny didn’t,” he sighed. “but he’s dead. One of the shots finally hit us. Took Mustang #1 out in a single blow.”

“FUCK!” Lita bellowed. “Anyone else?”

“Yeah. Me.”

A chill ran down the punk’s spine. “Then you better keep working them boots like a bastard, cuz I’m coming to fix that real quick.”

True to his word, when she took her second left, there was that beautiful blue Camaro, and with another rebel yell, she hustled everyone into the alleyway and leapt out for Rick.

“You trust me?” she asked, flip-phone in hand.

“You the A#1 Bitch.” he smirked. “What you need?”

“ID number and stat. They’re winding up for another round.”

He rattled off the numbers as quickly as he could, Lita dialing them one by one. She could hear the whining pitch reach its crest as she finished the last digit. Out came the chord, and with one last nod, she shoved it into his neck one more time.

The chain-gun fired. And Lita made her call.

“Don’t you fucking–”

BOOOOOOOM!

You could’ve heard a pin drop in that alleyway. Followed by the heaviest sigh of relief Lita ever let out in her life. Rick was still together, all in one piece. The laser blew the back of the alleyway wall out.

“You lucky sumbitch.” she beamed, hugging the driver tight.

“Bit much for the first date.” he teased. “ANYONE ELSE NEED THIS?”

The bikers shook their head and the driver of Mustang #2, a rather reserved red wolf with piercing jade eyes, shook his the same.

“I’m sorry ‘bout Manny though.”

Rick nodded solemnly. “Let’s do him a solid and blow those fuckers apart.”

They shook on it and rejoined the team. At least they would have, had the autocop pileup not reached biblical proportions. Carnage that matched the Goliaths incinerating them beneath their hover-engines. On the other side of the intersection stood Avery and the rest of Malten’s gang, waiting for their prime opportunity to nail these guys on Lita’s orders.

“BOYS.” she bellowed over the radio. “THEY MIGHT BE NICE AND PLUMP, BUT THEY SHO’ COOK GOOD LIKE ANY OTHER BACON. GET ‘IM IN THE ENGINES!”

A volcanic eruption of red lead and electricity pummeled the massive array of six engines on the leviathan hovercraft. It was damn-near deafening, but once Lita’s silver Wildey came out to play, she couldn’t care less. With the whole team laying into it, it was only a matter of time. A fate sealed by two massive shots to the chain-guns from dead-ahead.

It was Shane, standing twice as tall as the hatchback he drove, wielding an ungodly rocket-launcher. The black autocop came crashing down into the streets in a mighty cloud of concrete dust, and the black smoke of the silver autocops beneath it.

When Lita peered out from behind her corner, she couldn’t believe it.

“Where the FUCK do you keep that in there? It’s the length of the damn car!?”

“One,” the darksome driver began. “It’s collapsible. Two: Avery keeps it in his trunk for me so I don’t gotta put it back together.”

With two big thumbs up from the head honcho, Lita gave everyone their routes to the Creed’s HQ and rendezvoused back there. First order of business was whipping up a report to send General Knox, telling all about this advancement in automated weaponry. She put one of the more literate bikers and the assignment before holding council with her new security team. After giving the brief to the four remaining members, she spared a few words for one who didn’t make it.

“I ain’t gonna soapbox on him.” the hippie-punk sighed. “I just want y’all to know that every win we make is gonna be a win for that fella out there. Everything we take back is a win for every last fucking soul they done sucked out this city. Y’all got it?”

“Got it,” came the team’s reply in unison.

“Good, ‘cuz fuck me, I need a smoke. Anyone else want a toke?”

For one night only, the meeting room with its tremendous round table became the largest smoking lounge on the east side of Haven. A pleasant cocktail of tobacco and hash that smoothed everyone over, and got them ready for their next round in the ring against their digital bitch.

Six scientists in six days meant one of three things: a crackdown on civilian studies, clandestine developments for villainous outfits, or one mighty run of bad luck. The semi-official Haven Society for Public Professors deliberated these findings over and over again, but to no further understanding about the accidents. Each instance involved a study kept from the organization, begging further questions when Professor Smith seemed the only hound who understood where each unfortunate soul went wrong through his various deductions. This familiarity sent plenty of fingers pointed his way by the meeting’s end, but all were thwarted by his airtight alibis. It was rather hard to pin a crime on a hound who filmed himself conducting his own experiments.

He relayed the whole affair to a Lita he never thought he’d ever see; trapped at a desk behind a mountain of paperwork.

“Good God woman, have you gone mad!?”

Lita’s bleary eyes, red all over, looked up with a strange, twisted mix of sadness and rage. “Yes. And no. Yes in that I signed up to run this got-damn shindig. No, ‘cuz if I don’t get a real assignment real soon, I’m gonna torch this building for fun.”

“Consider the case opened,” Smith smiled, the white-furred gentleman passing a single sheet of paper to the dark gray hippie-punk. She kicked her sandaled paws up on the desk, knocking over one of her towers of Infantry-based security filings, and read the details of the case. Her eyes went wide with shock at first, and then like a miraculous eye-drop formula, the red veins vanished. The hippie-punk split her muzzle with a shit-eating grin. “You’re on, Doc!”

She leapt over the desk, through the papers, and wrapped her arms about the cloaked scientist. It was a miracle Smith wasn’t tackled to the ground, though he could only hold the 20-something for so long before she dropped.

“You really were chained to the desk, weren’t you?” the English wolf sighed.

“I’ve seen…paper trails...you people wouldn’t BELIEVE.” came the dramatic, ebony-soaked reply.

“Attack paperclips on fire off the shoulder of the filing cabinet?” he teased. “Yes, quite. Let’s get you back in your natural habitat, m’dear, before you die of starvation.”

He helped her off the floor and gave her a choice of machine, his green Jaguar or her crimson Bug.

Naturally, the Professor was thrown into the sparkling clean passenger seat of the Red Devil, hunching briefly before realizing how clean the seat was.

“Good God, you really were stuck in there, weren’t you?” he gasped.

Lita cocked an eyebrow and dug her paw into the clutch. “It takes forever to fax shit behind enemy lines” was all she said before the V8-powered Beetle whipped out of his berth, and tore down the misty blue streets of Haven, towards the most recent of the murders.

One wild ride later, the apartment came into view, and a light still shone through the scientist’s window.

“I thought it was a power surge he induced,” Smith remarked, stroking his chin.

It was only when a loud bang was heard that they realized someone else had come across the crime. The duo leapt out from the car and scrambled furiously up the fire escape, all ten flights, to find a red-furred technician missing his head. The second Lita stepped into the room, she wheeled back out as a blast of white rocketed through the air.

“On the count of three,” she grimaced, her mighty silver pistol readied. “One.”

“Two,” Smith growled, revolver in hand.

“THREE!”

Two blasts of laser fire erupted into a tremendous explosion as the wolves dove out of the flame’s way. Window glass shattered and a fire alarm screamed, the sprinklers practically flooding the room. As soon as they arrived, the duo bolted back down the rattling stairs and fled just as the few tenants who lived there filed out.

“What the fuck are you guys cooking in there?” the punk barked, pedal to the floor.

“Evidently Miss Lita,” Smith began as he straightened his cravat, “That was the last device of the late Professor H. Farnham Worthy, our sixth unfortunate soul. A specialist who let his project get the best of him. And handlers who weren’t up to the task. Some sort of automated weapon, but one not on the A.C.E.S. grid. Or if it was, no longer.”

“What’s the link besides them all being scientists and dead?”

Smith slapped a petite pair of spectacles upon his snout before thumbing through the notes. “The running theme of this litany is cutting edge research. Prof. B. Pennington from District 252 got an acid bath for his trouble of sorting out a new self-regenerative approach to battery power. Prof. S.W. Dodd from 314 was furthering some of my own findings on lab-concentrated singularities—”

“Black holes.” Lita cutoff between gear shifts. “You bastards know how to make black holes!?”

“Well only tiny ones in very secure circumstances. No rifts in time and space like that chap of yours with the Camaro.”

With a deep sigh and a defeated “carry on” from his driver, Professor Smith did so.

“Anyway, he was thrown from his balcony. Prof. T. White from the good General’s own 222 was exploring accelerated organic growth of plant life for terrace gardens. He was found having committed suicide with two gunshots to the back of the head.”

“Yeah, and we’re just crossing from 308 to 307.” Lita chimed in. “So generally one block of districts is what we’s looking through?”

“One and a bit more like.” Smith nodded. “But yes. Those inventions and innovations are the only through-line. No particular color, creed or field. Although…”

“What’s swimming in that limey mind of yours, Teach?”

“One other salient point of connection: the hounds’ research was absconded with. We retained the results and details through our collective journal we kept, but the original materials were all whisked away.”

“Meaning that bastard trying to collect on the laser wasn’t a fluke.” The dark-furred punk stroked her chin between turns of the wheel. With a snap of her fingers and a flick of a switch, she knew what to do. “Let’s trilaterate!”

Lita kicked the brakes and swerved her Beetle into an alleyway. From out the center console swung a keyboard, a corresponding set of twin computer monitors sliding out from the glovebox.

“Well I say,” Smith remarked. “The chap’s gotten quite high-tech now, hasn’t he?”

“There’s a radio show out in the desert with a car who’s got a setup like this. Fire-something-or-other it’s called. Anywho, I got a kit from the Force as a house-warming gift and I installed it in my little man. Lemme load a map up for you and I want every single one of the hits marked. We can draw direct lines between the two and see the most likely place they’d be holed up in.”

“My good woman, you are growing by the day!” The white-furred dandy flicked his fingers across the keyboard and loaded all six points of interest. They tried different combinations of the three lines, but all pointed to one locale: The Vance Building in District 291.

“The perfect median too.” Smith puzzled, thumbing his chin. “Right then, put that tungsten paw of yours to good use.”

He had hardly finished when she hit the gas and bolted back into the night. They made short work of the journey and even shorter work of going in. There was no one at the front desk, but the elevators were still in operation.

“Most of the fellows they’ve been coming for work on the upper floors.” Smith pondered before looking down the shaft. “I’d wager they’d prefer a subterranean home for their many scientific trinkets.”

They got in the rickety old wrought-iron cage, and made their slow descent. There was an air of unease, thick as London fog, as bars of light and shade flickered past the hounds. A feeling made manifest as the elevator jolted to a halt between floors. Both wolves cocked their ears up and heard the furious grind of the gears and pulley system, fighting whatever was stuck in the mechanism with great mechanical fury.

The tall white dandy looked to the short gray punk and she to he; someone knew they were in the building. Both wolves looked up through the grading, searching for some sign of life, a chance to gauge their enemy and their faculties.

All the way at the top, there was a visible arc of smoke rippling from the mechanism. The echoing electric clang of the cables rippled and grunted throughout the shaft. Ripples and grunts that gave way to a furious, deafening clanging and the sudden drop of the elevator. Smith flung his cloak about Lita and the two clung to one another, the plunge launching their stomachs into somersaults and their hearts at a million miles an hour. Down and down they fell, fell for what felt like eternity.

Such an eternity, in fact, that when Smith looked down at his watch, and saw that they had been falling for a solid five minutes, he began to question just what happened to the elevator.

“My good woman, take this flashlight and look down.”

Lita did so through parted fingers, and leapt up when she saw what was below them.

“We’re on the GROU—”

She hushed herself before her voice could carry any further. “We’re on the ground.” came her terse whisper. “But it still feels like I’m flying in Zero G.”

The white wolven scientist rose to the door. “Well in that case, let us get out.”

It took some wrenching, but at long last, the wrought-iron door slid open, and after a few tentative steps for safety’s sake, they continued their quest.

“That seems like something an old fellow in the Society would pull.” Smith pondered.

“Who that be?” Lita probed.

Smith began to speak, but shook his head. “No, it couldn’t. Devil’s dead as a door-nail, had to identify the body myself.”

Lita scoffed. “All’s fair in love and spycraft, that’s what dear ol’ Agent Steele likes to say. Faking your death is one of the oldest card tricks in the book.”

Professor Smith returned the punk’s flippant glance, but it wasn’t long before his gaze softened and he was open to the possibility.

“One of our old fellows was a Manfred Price.” the white-furred chevalier began. “Sharp speckled fellow, about my height, dressed like a Kansas City hitman. Black suit, black tie, all that pap. He was something of a joker. Practical jokes like a 4D falling elevator. The sensation of getting shot down to the Earth’s core while being not even an inch off the floor is right up his alley. Espionage wasn’t, but let’s run with your hypothesis; Price fakes his death and is now absconding with others’ inventions and research. To what or whom would he benefit from such an arrangement?”

“Well...we've been mailing postcards for a while now, haven’t we?”

“Postcards” being the operative code for stowing away secrets to newly-minted General Knox and the Ambiorixian Ascensores back east.

“Meaning some mad scientist is out in the desert rather than here.” Smith surmised. “Not sure if I buy that, but let’s see what’s down here regardless.”

Down the long dark corridor they went, treading light as feathers upon the tile floor, a door peering from the pitch-black. A rather old-fashioned door, with a pronounced wood grain and opaque glass planes. While the Professor hadn’t the privilege of a universal key like Agent Roger Steele, he was a dab hand at the bobby pin, and worked his magic to perfection.

The door quietly parted and inside was the mother lode. All the stolen gear, all the advancements, all scattered and shattered in this room.

“By God...he didn’t even use them.” Smith balled his fist and stormed over to the various bits and bobs of mutilated equipment. “It’s a damned bloody graveyard!”

His voice never rose above a terse hiss, but the fury building within Smith was palpable.

“Not all Doc,” Lita beckoned. “We got some gear here on a table.”

The Edwardian scientist spun round on his heels and saw the array. A set of beakers, vials, and test-tubes. Red liquid in the beaker, yellow in the test tubes, and translucent in the center vial.

“Don’t touch that!” he damn-near barked. Lita threw her half-gloved hands up and waited for the frenzied white wolf’s direction.

“Look very closely,” he continued in a low tone. He flicked his nose once above each liquid before taking the translucent vial and pouring it into the beaker of red. “Wait for the results. If the reaction is correct, one of these creations is a breakthrough worth killing for.”

“This isn’t your work, is it?” Lita asked.

Professor Smith shook his head. “No m’dear. This confirms Price as our culprit. He shared this hypothesis of room-temperature android toxin. Instantaneous coagulation of the cardiovascular hydraulic system. He only shared this formulation with myself, Worthy, and White.”

“Y’mean this gums up the white blood?”

All Smith had to do was point to the solidified compound within the beaker for Lita to realize just what this could mean. Even more so when the shadow of a gun-toting third wolf flashed across the wall behind themselves.

“I think he's come to collect on this little innovation.” she whispered, pulling all six-feet-plus of the middle-aged hound under the table.

The two crouched in silence as the footsteps of the silhouette echoed through the room. Footsteps marked by another sound; the sizzling hiss of hydraulics.

Marching into view was a wolf in figure, but a machine in function. Neither android nor robot; a proper cyborg if ever there was one. A crude grafting of flesh, fur and metal, marching along with an automatic pistol glued to its balled fist.

His face was that of the speckled wolf the Professor had once known.

For the first time in a long time, Lita saw real horror wash over the white wolf’s face as he clenched the grip of his revolver.

“We’ll time just as he looks.” Lita whispered, her own Wildey drawn.

Slowly, the lumbering cadaver made its way past the old lab tables, past the destroyed remains of others’ innovations, and towards the solidified glass.

“Operation: Inquisition, complete.” it remarked in its cold voice. “Last remaining toxin rendered inactive. All threats to Prime Program 01 destroyed. All advancements within A.C.E.S. parameters.”

It drew its pistol and shot the beaker. The glass shattered into a puff of powder and the two wolves leapt up and lit into the cyborg with tremendous fury. Laser-fire drilled into the eyes, the body, the limbs, eating away at it until it crumpled to the floor a red mass of metal.

A red mass with a timer.

“Self-destruct sequence, engaged.”

Lita and Smith bolted from the room, stumbling over the chairs and storming back through the hall. Without a second to lose, they leapt for the stairwell beside the elevator and leaping three steps at a time until they were back on the main floor, out the door, and screaming away in Lita’s Red Devil when the massive explosion rocked half-the-block.

Between gear shifts, Lita put her hand on the Professor’s knee.

“I’m...sorry, Doc.” she sighed. “Don’t know how else to put it.”

The white wolf nodded solemnly, and took her hand in his. “It’s alright m’dear. Just a shame that’s what it all boiled down to: ‘Prime Program 01.’ My left boot!”

“What’s that?” the hippie-punk asked innocently.

“Weren’t a regular attendee of school?” he quizzed playfully.

Lita threw her half-gloved hands up in joking defeat. “Guilty as charged.”

“First thing they teach us when studying the sciences.” the white-furred dandy continued. “Prime Program 01, all advancements flow through the A.C.E.S. We’re free to toy with our little inventions and playthings, but any real advancement must be bottlenecked and strained through the impenetrable mind of our dear electric mum.” The Professor massaged his forehead, dulling a growing headache, before another thought struck him. “There is some good to come out of this however. Take me to my apartment, first.”

Lita cocked an eyebrow, but obliged. It was a decent drive up to the northern districts, the 500s, and she chose to stay outside while he went into his loft apartment. She looked up through the window to see the tall white wolf clinging tight to his white wolven woman, dressed in nothing but her nightgown. Madly he kissed her and held her, and feverishly he leapt back into the apartment. He came back down, out the front door, and hopped back in the passenger seat.

“Just wanted to make sure she was all alright,” he said. “Now we can make some headway on one other thing.”

“What’s that?”

“A.C.E.S. and her meat puppet ended that ‘Operation: Inquisition’ cobblers a touch prematurely. I’ve got some postcards I’d like to write.”

Lita’s eyes went wide at the thought. “You remember that formula?”

“Not all but the lion’s share. Enough to give another scientist a fighting chance. That and all the ideas A.C.E.S. saw fit to snuff out. Anything that threatens her hegemony over production. We might have something to send back to the old bean back east after all. Onward, lass!”

Lita gave a wink and opened the Red Devil up wide. “Good to know there’s something good to come out of all this.”

“Better yet.” Smith remarked coldly, thumbing the trigger guard of his revolver. “I think once our Society knows the truth, you’ll have the whole civilian scientific community on-side for the Creed. This is an existential threat to the freedom of information. And you’re my meanest bulwark.”

The hippie-punk snorted. “I think you’re cute too, Doc. I think you’re cute too.”

CATCH UP WITH THE 2024 ANNUAL!

A sparsely lit round-table stood at the room’s center, cigarette smoke swirling around it. It had taken Lita everything in her power to clean up for the meeting. No joints, no hangovers; just a clear scruffy head and her ready-n-raring attitude. The darksome hippie-punk arrived wrapped in her world-weary denim and suede sandals, and took her seat in the white-hot pool of light.

Sitting to her left was Professor Smith, the white wolf’s Victorian tastes handcrafted for such a meeting. To her right was the one-eyed gray biker Mack Malten, whose buttoned-up leather vest and un-scuffed work boots were the best he could manage. The remainder of the table was filled out were wolves from all over. All colors, creeds, districts, occupations, vices, and more. More than just her brood of bikers, more than just the street-fighters her pals Ash and Charlie scrounged up. Firstly, Smith invited a few of his Northern acquaintances, fellow freedom-fighters of similar sartorial tastes, down to the posh accents. On top of that, Lita and Mack rallied some more street-racers with plenty of axes to grind against the state. Most important of all, however, was the telegram in her half-gloved hand and the empty chair about to be filled.

Word was fully out about General Godred’s retirement. His October surprise, a heart attack, happened around the time Lita and lawman lover Nic discovered the mysterious underbelly of Haven Police Station 607. Old King Leo was handing out promotions like Halloween candy on his way out the door, shuffling many familiar players around the chessboard of Top Brass. He even arranged a meeting between Lita and his successor, Adam Knox, on a flying trip thru the barrier and back. Breaking bread with an ex-cop wasn’t exactly on her bucket list, but Lita and Knox came to an understanding, and secured the other’s blessing. More importantly, she left with a letter of intent signed by both leaders about an official reconnaissance agent tasked with rendezvousing with her newly-established organization.

“While the doors are revolving here,” the black elder smiled during their sit-down, “I want a stable contact point from here on out. If the border is crumbling the way you says, Lita, and the patrols are being pulled in for beat-cop duty, Haven’s about to be an all-you-can-eat-buffet of intel. Knox and I agreed on one hound who fits the bill.”

His name: Roger Steele. A name that sat etched on her mind, from the moment she read the letter and his resume, all along the drive back to Haven, right up until the momentous day she finally arranged: Day One of the Avenger’s Creed.

And at long last, the hound made his leap from a name on a crumpled sheet of A4 to a slender, piercing figure, strutting from the shadows and into his designated seat. His ice-blue eyes matched the button-up beneath his slick leather jacket and the sharp cut of his muzzle. He didn’t smile, he didn’t wink, he didn’t allow for a molecule of emotion on his face. That said, he wasn’t particularly guarded or reserved either. His posture, while upright, remained relaxed. With a deferential nod from her desert-sent guest, the meeting had finally begun.

“Well then,” she sighed perkily, “here goes nothing. I’ve commandeered y’all here today for a little something I like to call a revolution. But it ain’t no Bastille-storming, get-er-done-n-overwit’ revolution. Trust me, if I could, I would. Nope, we’re banding together under the title of the Avenger’s Creed. I know y’all may have heard my pet name when they speak of me around the block, but I ain’t the headliner. I save my ego-juice up for making my kills and pulling my plans off. The Avenger is us, WE. The whole lotta ya, sat ‘round this table. And we didn’t just pick y’all for grievance collection or to pitch a fit at the Man whose got us all under the thumb. I need cats with skills who can pay the bills and make the thrills count. Hot-blooded bikers, four-wheeled killers, hounds with a steady shooting hand. Folks who can think with their minds, and put their passions behind a good plan.”

A few polite, though quiet, claps circled around the table. They were all on board so far, they just didn’t want to alert anyone to the meeting’s location.

“The cute little credo I’m trusting y’all to abide by boils down to this: 1. Keep cool at all costs. 2. Remember what you’re fighting for, the freedom of ALL of us. This ain’t a pick-n-sale on who gets the rights we’re fighting for. Don’t matter whose gang sign you flash, whose jaw you clocked in a tournament fight. All our asses are on the line. 3. Loose lips sink ships. Shit’s a miracle I got y’all here as-is. We’re starting with the cats we can trust before we try roping in any more. If we can operate thick-as-thieves at this stage, when we start expanding and getting more self-contained chapters across the city, we’ll be making some five-alarm magic. We clear?”

Every head at the table nodded. Lita nodded in kind, a slick grin creeping across her face. “Good. Now, a Mr. Roger Steele came a mighty long way for something special we can put in the Force’s hand, and that right there is gonna be Target One.”

She flicked her fingers, beckoning the well-groomed gentleman to her side.

“This here’s our tag-team partner for the Force out eastern way.” Lita continued. “Our way of getting shit to the folks who can make a splash on the outside while we work on this thing’s guts. I was working with ol’ man L.F. before, and am cool with the new white-hat in charge.” She was careful not to let the name slip before continuing. “But Roger’s gonna be our ol’ buddy-ol’-pal for as long as we stay functioning.”

She wrapped her arm around his leather-bedecked shoulder, Roger politely grinning while holding in the scoff of the century.

“Take lead, chief.” she bowed, mercifully relinquishing her musty embrace.

“Yes, quite.” Roger nodded. “We’re gonna be hitting Warehouse 454. Some of our preliminary surveys suggest that key military diagrams are being kept there on off-network hard drives. Only issue is it’s one of the five joints left in this heap that still keep real wolven guards employed.”

The rough map drawn by Roger highlighted all areas of concern, from the night watchmen routes to the drives’ estimated location based on nearby computer terminals within the complex.

“Ideally we get in and get out quietly,” Agent Steele continued, “but we in the Ambiorixians are not necessarily ones to cry over the state’s spilled blood.” The rumbling mirth exchanged by gangsters in the Creed’s ranks humored the out-of-town gray. “Alright Lita, who’s coming with?”

The mohawked punk looked around to the many faces cultivated for this momentous eve.

“Smith and Malten,” she began, throwing her thumb over her shoulder with each pick. “Hey Chuckie, which one of your fighters can snap a mean neck?”

“Devin’s got a light touch, doncha?” the black-furred prizefighter chuckled. “Devin” referring to a spare-framed, agile Indian wolf, dressed in a plain T shirt and jeans. A formidable fighter whose greatest weapon was his

“This one’s gonna take a good chunk of the night, so if y’all want to hang tight, that’s cool. Beer’s in the fridge. If y’all gotta bug out, that’s cool too.”

Beer in the fridge seemed to rope most into playing the waiting game.

“Quite a house-warmer, aren’t ya?” Steele quipped, shoving his hands into his leather jacket.

“Only the finest in hospitality.” the hippie-punk teased, her faux-English accent met with an approving smirk from the Professor. The odd quintet all sauntered out and made the short trek to their rides. Devin was the only one driven to the first meeting, so Lita took it upon herself to ride with her. The tan street-fighter hopped into the Red Devil, while the rest got into (and onto in the biker Malten’s case) their rides.

“I say,” Smith remarked, cloak billowing in the wind. “Fine specimen of automotive engineering, Mr. Steele.”

The slick black Dodge Charger, headlights veiled by a grill, was like a shaft of shadow against the cobalt blue of Haven’s night.

“Nothing like a 4-speed Hemi to play with.” the agent nodded, a proper smile splitting his sharp gray muzzle. “Your V-12 ain’t anything to sneeze at either.”

“How do you know it’s not an inline-6?”

The gray agent turned on his heels and strolled right up to the tall white Victorian vigilante. His ice-blue eyes cut right into the white wolf, but only for a moment. Then came that prior smile and a slap on the shoulder.

“You’re too damn proud of it being a V-12.” Steele answered. “Your ass wouldn’t settle for a stock V8 when she was built.

Smith broke his kayfabe and shook hands.

“Never the eye and wool shall meet then, sir.” the Professor chuckled. “Keen sense sent you into the trade you’re in.”

The out-of-town agent doffed his invisible hat and slid behind the wheel of his jet-black muscle car. Soon followed the green Jaguar, the dark blue chopper carrying the one-eyed gray biker, and the blood-red VW to finish the lineup.

A more conspicuous entourage there never was.

Lita got on the radio she re-tuned, everyone now on the same frequency. “We’re gonna roll through some of the tenement blocks. Cameras are always busted to hell and back by the residents there. That’ll take us from the 600s right to the 4s, no prob.”

She got her three copies before turning her attention to the tan fighter beside her. “You copy, Devin?” she scoffed.

“Yup.”

“Got anything else you say besides ‘yup’ and ‘nope?’”

“Nope.”

She couldn’t even be miffed. It meant a nice quiet drive, only the serene hum of her Red Devil’s front-loaded V8.

The cavalcade cleared scores upon scores of old, worn-down apartments before the warehouse came into view.

“Alright,” Lita radioed. “Smith’s our civvy, Devin and Mack are the muscle. Steele and I are going in.”

And to the punk’s surprise, there were no arguments, qualms, or queries made. Everyone fell right into place. Shit, she thought, this might be better than sex. That’s the way it felt watching the plan’s first half unfurl.

The 400s were close enough to Haven’s north district, so one of their scientists taking a stroll as a distraction would be helpful.

“Evening, chap!” crowed the dapper scientist. “Having a spot of bother with me digitized map. Mind pointing the way to Hembrooke Lane?” He strode up, confounded tablet in hand, and a good-natured guard came down to help. As luck would have it, the door was just ajar enough.

The Professor and his “assistant” strode away just long enough for Lita and Steele to sneak up the stairs and into the warehouse. With the map made clear, the Professor waved goodbye and rolled off in the distant street’s direction, far enough from view before he lapped the block. He cruised around the general area to keep in radio range of his cohorts.

Inside the warehouse, the denim-clad punk and her gray-furred agent crouched down to get a lay of the land through the wrought iron bars of the walkway.

“Must be where they keep the Ark of the Covenant.” Lita mouthed. The sheer maze of crates that awaited them would have been insanely daunting had Steele not made his map.

“If we have time,” Steele quipped, “maybe we’ll nick the Holy Grail too. Lucky for you, you dropped us in on a B-line right for the office.”

Quickly, but quietly, they clambered down the stairs. When the door behind them creaked, Lita and Steele dove behind the nearest wall of crates they could find. The silver cages of pre-synthed food-stuffs and building materials gave them enough cover as the night watchman got his bearings. The sharp-snouted agent peered over to see where the suited hound was headed. When he turned right, away from the duo, Agent Steele made his move.

“B-line it softly.” he nodded. “We got 45 seconds until he rounds into view of the office.”

Doing just that, duck walking with the best of them, the gray agent and the dark-furred vigilante made it to the door in 15. Unfortunately, they hadn’t lucked out the way they had going in.

“Need a paper clip?” Lita asked innocently.

“I thought it was the 25th century.” Steele gave a quick wink before producing what looked like a simple metal rod. It was, in truth, a universal key, which shuffled its various fragments of steel into the correct grooves of the keyhole. He gave it a gentle twist, the lock quietly giving way, and the door opening smoothly. By Second 40, they were in. And by Second 45, the guard saw only the closed door.

Next task, sifting through the drawers upon drawers of stashed drives.

“Key letter-number combo on them should be A81.” Steele whispered.

The duo dove through each drawer, swiftly thumbing through each item, always checking over their shoulder for any sign of intrusion. It was Lita who managed to find the drives labeled A81. Steele spun over to her and whipped out a silver gadget, which he plugged into each drive individually. When the bar reached 100%, he knew to unplug and move onto the next one.

“Shit, where you get this?” Lita quizzed.

Steele didn’t say a word, still downloading the files. When the last of the A81s were downloaded, he gave his answer. “File reader & courier made by our boys in the labs. 20 terabytes of data, download speed equivalent of a bullet train. We got the goods. Now we gotta get out alive.”

Carefully the duo crept back to door, duck walking along, leather shoes and sandals shuffling softly. With a careful flick of his gloved hand against the door knob, he turned the knob slowly, and pulled the door back...to reveal the guard standing in front of it, facing away.

The two froze. For a moment, it looked as though the uniformed wolf would spin around to greet them with his laser pistol. But by the grace of God, and whoever else dared watch over them, the guard strolled down the hall, and around the corner of boxes. The duo shuffled out, quietly closed the door, and scurried into the maze once more. All the while, hummed under his breath to a windy whisper, Roger Steele was talking in tongues. The phrase, “sie sind einfach gute Deutsche,” was spoken in a sing-song, march-like cadence as they crept along, up to the door. Words spoken in lock step with each step they took. It was probably to keep him sane, Lita thought, for no matter how light they took it, each footfall sounded like a Howitzer going off in the pin-drop silence of the warehouse.

By the time they reached the door, the guard rounded his corner of innumerable crates. By the time they opened the door, he heard the hinges swing. By the time they closed the door, they were outside.

Just in time to meet the other night watchman.

The black wolf, dressed in his smart cop garb, was met with a single round from Agent Steele’s Mauser, the compact semi-automatic he kept on him at all times. He holstered the slim peashooter and the duo bolted away for their respective rides. When Lita hopped into the Red Devil, she touched base with everyone involved.

Mack had kept out of trouble, patrolling from the shadows. The Professor made laps around the block, keeping an eye on any autocops in the area. Devin hadn’t anything to do throughout, and “stood guard” over Lita’s Red Devil. He kicked one guy in the gut for trying to touch it, but that was about it. When all four parties were, the night watch within the warehouse had no one to blame, and only an ambulance to call.

Only one hiccup came on the way back, and that was when one of the rogue gangs Mack Malten had made enemies of came to collect on Lita’s head.

Again.

Fortunately, she’d become skilled in the diffusing of bullshit, and simply drove through the hoards without remorse. The one hound who tried to get in her way was driven screaming into an alleyway. He took a kiss on the shins from the Red Devil’s bumper, and was last seen whimpering against brownstone wall. Those who got up from Lita’s snowplow driving were met with the business end of the Professor’s deep-green Jaguar, and the sharp steel of his ancient rapier. The heads that weren’t sent rolling by the antediluvian crusader’s blade were clubbed in by the glancing balled fist of biker Mack Malten. No club, no butts of guns required, just good old American muscle.

All the while, Devin seemed thoroughly un-amused by the affair. He rolled down the window to get some air, and when one final straggler from the gang came racing up the Red Devil’s passenger side, it took only crack of his tan fist to drop the pursuing biker on-site.

“Shit, you are good,” Lita cackled. “Next time I’ll make sure you ain’t just watching the watchmen.”

Devin flashed a blink-and-you’ll-miss it grin before returning to his stone-faced demeanor, one that held for the rest of the night.

When everyone had finally reconvened at the Creed’s headquarters, those who weren’t plastered were gone. Those who stayed didn’t take long to sober up when it came time to survey what was on the drives via Steele’s portable device.

“And that’s why I’m giving you all a clean bill of health.” the spy calmly remarked. “Because getting shit like this is what counts. Schematics on all kinds of coked-up modifications and creations being made to Old World designs and New World tech are what’s gonna help.”

All manner of guns, tanks, and more startled the Creed’s members, all except three.

Professor Smith observed the designs with a scientist’s natural curiosity.

“She does have a penchant for the Second World War, doesn’t she?” Smith admired. “Always fancied the T92 meself. As a model kit anyhow. Bit too big to defend the lab, wouldn’t you say.”

Steele gave an approving nod. “She ain’t the only fan around here.” he grinned, flashing his Mauser. “The HSc wasn’t exactly made for traipsing about Isonzo.”

Mack Malten’s mind raced with the comic-book carnage he could see upon learning about them, rattling the screen with make-believe Tommy gun fire like a kid with his favorite radio show on.

Then came Lita. Part of her nonchalance was due to how underwhelming the spoils were, compared to all the fanciful insanities she had endured. The other part, however, was due to other things on her mind.

“Quick question, chief.” she asked. “What was that lil’ tune you were humming on your way out the door?”

“In the warehouse?” he added. “Just a little something to keep me sane and keep my trigger-finger at bay. It’s a German phrase I cooked up. Roughly translates to ‘They’re Just Good Germans’ in fact. That’s what I am, you are, and every soul working that night beat. Just following the orders and getting a job done. Our beef ain’t with ‘em and if I don’t feel like making widows one night, I won’t. And I didn’t. The round I put in that guy on the steps was a stun-shot. Laser equivalent of a blank. God-willing, he’ll be alright.”

Lita cocked her head, puzzled, before the gray agent delivered his final elucidation.

“You yourself said it best.” Steele grinned. “Rule One: keep it cool.”

Lita nodded quietly, patting her contact on the back before gazing into the array of mechanical marvels she helped him steal. It was that moment she realized just how in business the Creed truly was, especially with a spy like Steele in the fold.

For the hippie-punk Lita and ring-girl Ashley Damier, the one-room sanctum was a brilliant, beautiful cloud in which they swam. The more decidedly feminine of the two (offset by her calling everyone “man” or “dude”), Ash was different in almost every way from her mohawk-adorned friend. Their only overlaps were driving styles (“ain’t no laws with lead paws” as they’d always say) and some cannabis-based indulgences. The two wolves passed the joint back and forth between them, smoking it down to the filter.

“So like...we gotta get the whole thing together,” Ash started, the white wolven punk swimming in smoke. “Gotta, like, make it a big ol’ beautiful circle who can...ah, shit, is that what you potheads always sound like?”

Lita’s lunatic cackle said it all; the impression was bang-on. “Pretty much,” the vigilante grinned, sliding into her sandals. “And yeah, I can’t stand talking like it for more than five seconds. It becomes a draaaag, maaaaan.”

The 20-somethings fell into each other, laughing (and coughing) hysterically. Once the mania died down, it was time for real business.

“I ain’t joking about the Creed though,” Lita nodded. “Think it’s time to grow up and get some real shit done. Between the stories Doc Smith told me about up north, and all the shit going down here in East Wing, we are way overdo for some real organizing. Think you can get our pack involved?”

Ash smiled, patting her friend’s back. “You betcha! I’m sure Chuck would be game to help. If he can wait five seconds and let his damn ligaments heal.”

“Well, everyone don’t have to all be in the field.” the dark-furred punk chuckled. “Hell, it’s gonna be hard not going out every night. Keeping everyone in line, getting some actual plans cooked up.”

“How ‘bout we though?” the white wolf asked, throwing her denim jacket on.

Lita’s snout scrunched. “Ash, we gotta get serious though! If everyone just keeps going around willy-nilly, no plans, always fucking the next guy over and—”

“Not talking the Creed, hun!” she shot back. “I mean one last ride. You, me, R.D. and a night sticking it to the man? Make it big, fun, hit ‘em hard and have a blast.”

Lita stopped dead in her tangent as a devilish gleam lit up her crimson eyes. The punk snickered in delight. “Well if you insist! Let’s get him prepped.”

For Lita, “prepped” meant a whole new routine for her bloody little Bug. He was packed full of weird gadgets, a million loose wires, and she hadn’t lost her penchant for dropping THC in his engine oil. Tonight, however, was going to be a work of sheer boredom: how the Red Devil performed after dropping acid.

“You’re fucking joking, right?” Ash snickered. “I mean you gotta be.”

“What’s wrong with trying!?” the punk grinned. “Mama’s little hot-rod deserves a good trip every once in a while.”

“Bro, he’s a fucking car!” The denim-clad white wolf was in stitches.

Lita plucked the joint from out Ash’s mouth, took a final puff, and snuffed it out on her own jacket. “Then let’s see how it fixes performance.”

She popped the tab in the gas tank, kissed the flap, and opened the sanctum’s doors. The chicks dove into the Bug, Lita ripped him in reverse, and the deep-red beast whipped into the alleyway. Before they took off, she held the brake down, and threw him in first. The Bug’s back tires screamed, spewing smoke up the back alley wall.

“Yo, don’t blow your drivetrain, man.” Ash warned.

“Yes mom,” Lita answered drolly. She popped her foot off the brake, and the Red Devil bolted down the alleyway. He hit the main street like a bat out of hell, the city a Technicolor blur in those dinner-plate headlights. The dark blue night melded with the various street lamps, and his own red body reflected in the mirror glass of countless skyscrapers. If he was feeling anything at all, it was the thunder of his mechanical heart pounding, and the reassuring touch of Lita’s half-gloved hands on the wheel, and her sandaled paw flat on the throttle, claws out on all fours.

“Who you wanna fuck up first?” quizzed the dark gray wolf.

Ash nodded. “Any bikers fair game tonight?”

“Lemme ring up my boy inside,” Lita nodded, punching a number on the Bug’s mobile phone. “AYO MACKEY! Wazzup?”

“Not much, Hot-stuff,” came Mack Malten’s reply. “Watcha cooking?”

“I got a tank full of LSD, I’m hot and bothered about this pretty city of ours, and I got a friend who wants to take out some two-wheeled dipshits if you got any.”

“So it’s a Tuesday then.”

The girls, still coasting on their mean green cloud, were in stitches. When Malten got himself back together, he knew just the hounds to send them to.

“How bouta protection racket? Been trying to get these guys on-side, but old habits die hard. J.J. Bailey has an all-bobber club. No front fender, half a rear. That thing. Hit ‘em at the Fleischer complex. They’re probably roughing someone up there.”

“What’s he look like?” Ash asked.

“It’s a tans-only club, so all ‘em got that desert fur thing going.”

“Thanks handsome,” Lita smiled. “O&O, hitting the Fleischer now”

When she kicked the brake and clutch, the Bug slid into a drift before rocketing down the side street and towards their first target.

“Damn, man.” the thin white punk smiled, “his suspension’s smoooooth. Gotta help me get the Maverick that butterfly flow.”

“Shit, ain’t even touch it for a few months” Lita chuckled. “Hope you digging the trip, cutie.” She thumbed the gearshift as she flattened the gas, the ecstasy of it hitting her like an 18-wheeler.

“Where my part in all the fun, Mrs. Robinson?” Ash asked cheekily, “Seeing as you two are having so much of it already.”

One snorting laugh later, Lita pulled out an odd silver revolver, one whose cylinder sat in front of the trigger rather than above.

“You get to play with this bullpup-ass piece of shit.” Before she could get offended, the dark gray driver explained. “I call my Mateba that ‘cuz I love it, but I don’t ever use it. They used to call ‘em MTR-8s. Funky lil’ dude packs a pretty big wallop, especially with the laser cartridges I got loaded.”

Ash grinned, kissed the barrel, and waited patiently for their arrival at the Fleischer apartment complex. A few short minutes later, they were right on the building’s doorstep, and right in the thick of biker gang’s mobbing. The Fleischer complex was part of what locals now called a “dark street,” a place A.C.E.S. had seemingly forsaken in her infinite “wisdom.” No cops to take the crooks down, residences were never cleared to move anywhere else, and reduced efficiency of nanotech meant damage sustained to the buildings wouldn’t “heal” as fast.

When the bikers saw the Red Devil, they knew it wasn’t a courtesy call.

“IT’S MALTEN’S BITCH, GET ‘ER!”

Out came their guns, and down came that sandaled lead paw, Lita plowing into the tan-furred bastards without a care in the world. Ash slapped the hand-crank, the shotgun-side window dropping and her aim on par with most beginners; that being rather poor. She hit just about every crack in the asphalt, chipped a few bricks, and grazed a few handlebars. Lita could see her floundering.

“You want me to—”

“NOPE!” Ash barked indignantly, “I got this in the bag.” It took her five more shots (and a judging glower from Lita) before she could prove herself, but the last shot Ash made was worth the wait.

On an upper floor, she could see a family of grays, mother cradling her newborn, slowly backing away from the window. Backing towards it, knife drawn, was one of the tan bikers. A brief fury burned within her as she raised the gun, kept her mark, and blew the hound’s head off. The body slumped against the shattered glass and fell to the street, its fall broken by another gangster.

“Fucking A, man.” the white wolf growled with pleasure.

For Lita, the lightness with which the Red Devil drifted seeped into the hit-and-run festivities. The crimson-colored Bug fishtailed with each kick of the brakes, always slamming the nearest thug he could get his tires on. As he barreled over the bodies and knocked over the bikes, Lita and Ash didn’t feel an ounce of it.

“Whaddya say we take ‘em for a ride, Little Man?” Lita growled. The engine roared in reply as the bubble-shaped hot-rod bolted from the scene. Any bikers left standing leapt onto their slick black rides and gave chase.

“Watcha thinking next?” a winded Ash asked.

“Roight,” replied the punk, mustering her thickest British accent, “it ain’t a real royot if we don’t get the rozzers involved, now init?”

“In English, please.”

“It was!” Lita barked. “Ol’ Doc’d appreciate it anyway. We’re getting some fucking autocops, hang on.”

She punched the purple button above her knee, and clung to the wheel as the Beetle raced into the night, his speedometer swung hard into the 200s. A smile split the young wolf’s snout as she knuckled the suede of her sandals. “Nitro on-demand. That’ll get us to the nearest station in three, two…”

POP!

The Bug’s back tires screamed as he spun out of control, Lita fighting to get him back together. The bikers saw their chance and leapt on it, hitting the pint-sized machine with everything they had. Laser fire, bike locks, beer bottles, and anything else they had on hand.

“ANYTHING I CAN DO!?” Ash shouted over the commotion.

Lita shook her head and stomped the brakes one last time. The Red Devil lurched forward and raced on, smooth as ever. When Ash saw what they had run over, she was horrified. “We lost the whole back tire!”

The darksome punk answered with another shake of her mohawked head. “The main wheel’s rubber,” she replied. “But not my baby’s run-flats! Feels a bit like a lowrider now.”

All the commotion worked in her favor, for out came the black-and- silver hovercrafts, the slender forms whipping into the rearview mirror, whipping out the front battalion of biker thugs, firing off the sweet, automated nothings Lita loved to hear.

“HALT. H-H-H-HALT. HALT. YOU’RE V-VIOLATING THE LA-LAW. PULL O-O-OVER N-N-NOW.”

“And there’s Phase 2,” Lita grinned. “Give ‘em the Dragon, Ash, if I pull another braking stunt like that, we might not have any wheels left.”

“You’re seri—”

“FUCK YEAH I’M SERIOUS, GIRL. GET YO BITCH-ASS ON THE TRIGGER!”

Now it was the white wolf’s turn to don the demonic grin. She holstered the revolver, plucked up the sniper rifle, leaned out the window and lit up the night at 210 miles an hour. The white streaks of light roared from the Dragunov’s barrel into the silver autocops’ engines. She didn’t bother aiming for just one; spraying electric lead everywhere and catching the stray bikers who tried to weave around the hovercraft was too much fun to pass up.

“FUCK MAN, I SHOULDA BEEN HANGING WITH YA MORE!” Ash hollered, in the absolute heat of punk heaven. She managed to detonate her first autocop when she felt a rip at her shirt, and found herself pulled back inside.

“Yo the fuck was—”

BOOM!

“Shrapnel goes in all directions.” Lita replied plainly.

“Can I go back to—”

The “vmooph” of a streetlamp hitting the pavement told her it was best to stay inside. “Shit,” she harrumphed, slapping the safety on and kicking her sneakers up on the dash. “Just when I get in the game of it.”

“Don’t be a baby,” Lita growled. “Besides, you’re missing watchu made!”

Ashley looked up into the rearview, and saw the mangled pileup she set in motion. The electric blue fireball made of her first autocop took all the bikers near it down in its flames, and a good chunk of the autocops caught in the wall of carnage.

“Shit, man.” Ash gasped in awe. “I’m pretty fucking good at this freedom-fighting crap, ain’t I?”

“Wanna kiss in victory circle?” Lita teased.

“Didn’t know you did threesomes on the street.”

“Yeouch!” the gray punk seethed. “I’m gonna have to use that burn one day, bitch!”

Her white-furred friend giggled like a schoolgirl before straightening out. “To hell with that, what’s next? Empire Square?”

“Nah, I got something even better.” beamed the red-eyed wolf. “I got a gaggle of cops and a gang of dip-shit bikers on my 6. If I swing my Little Man’s tail the right way...whatchu think Comm/Ent. is gonna look like with these bastards coming thru?”

“Think you’ll make it?” Ash asked innocently.

Lita was puzzled. “Whaddya mean?”

“Surprised I ain’t seen your O face already. You’re past 250 and you look like you’re in heat.”

It was a different kind of killing blow, hearing that from a friend, and Lita was in pieces. Tears of laughter streaked down her face as she tried to pull herself together. She was so taken aback that she took her eyes off the road for a second. One second long enough to go careening into the side of an apartment.

“SHIT!” she barked, trying to bring the Bug back around. The sudden shift of momentum gave the autocops and bikers plenty of fair shots at the Bug’s run-flat wheels. Laser fire peppered the ground beneath the careening street machine as his driver tried her damnedest to steady him. It was only when they hung a hard right turn that it all went down around them. But not in the way they suspected.

“Alright, you get your ass ready to light ‘em up like the Fourth of July,” the darksome punk ordered. “I’ll bust out the Wildey and give ‘em the ol’

She shifted gears and swung a hard right turn, the remaining menagerie of bikers and automated hovercraft barreling towards her. That final drift proved a saving grace, for the unwieldy handling of the autocops meant a wide-enough radius to knock down and burn up any bikers in their way. Scores of riders and rides screamed to a stop, detonating beneath the slender, silver machines.

What Lita and Ash hadn’t counted on was the sudden relapse in self-awareness the mishap brought about. From out the gang’s blind-rage, they suddenly realized they were all surrounded by cops. The bikers slammed on their brakes, and fell back behind the pursuing hovercrafts.

This sudden, mass shift in movement triggered the sensors of the autocops, and it became apparent to the onboard protocols that there were at least a dozen or more felons to be dragged to jail, or slaughtered on-site. Before the two punks realized what was going on, the bikers opened fire on the hovercraft engines, and the fired on wolf and machine alike. An earth-shaking BOOM finally caught the punks’ attention. Lita slowed the Red Devil down and whipped him around to face their pursuers. What Ash and Lit were met with was a distant, jumbled mess of blood and steel in the middle of the street.

“Well shit,” she snapped. “The fuck they go and do that for!?”

Ash was the first to step out, and took the anticlimax in stride. “Maybe they did us a favor.”

“The fuck you mean favor!?” Lita bellowed, leaping out of the driver’s seat. “Coulda had all them dumbasses trashing their shit! Right for everyone to see!”

“Well,” the mellowed white wolf sighed. “Hard to run a top-secret underground resistance when your car is plastered on every new-and-improved telescreen when A.C.E.S. regenerates the whole of Comm/Ent.”

Lita slowly turned to face her friend, staring her down across the blood-caked roof of the Beetle. It had finally dawned on her. Ash flinched for a second before the gray hippie-punk sighed, scoffed at herself and flashed a knowing smile towards her friend.

“And that’s why we gotta plan our shit before we start making real moves.” she replied. “Guess we coulda done worse for a final night. Lemme get you back to Chuck. I think I’ll go over to Mack’s to blow the rest of this steam off. My tough guy done plenty tonight as-is.”

The two went in for a kiss on the Red Devil’s fenders, only to realize just how soaked they were. “In fact, your tough guy needs a hose-down.”

“You wanna drive him back to Base then?” Lita asked. “Getchu one last shot of adrenaline?”

“You betcha!” Ash hollered with glee. Quick as a flash, she leapt behind the wheel and gassed the Red Devil up. Lita crawled over to the passenger side, and clung tight to the handrail as the bloody red Bug sped off. Fortunately, Ash was a lightening-fast driver in her own right. Unfortunately, it seemed the party she threw herself caught what was left of the autocops.

When Lita saw the silvery demons in the rearview, she could only grin. “Show me how you shake these bastards off,” she winked. And for the rest of the night, Ash did just that. And for the rest of the night, and the next day, Lita heard a strange, soft rumbling in her Red Devil. The little man’s engine wasn’t damaged from her little experiment, he had burned through the whole tab by the night’s end, but he seemed to almost be chanting something to himself. At first she was freaked out by it, but the more she listened, the more it seemed like a meditation.

“Just keep rockin’ and rollin’ for me, baby,” Lita smiled. “We got a lotta work to get done if we want this city back the way it oughta be.”

His last rumbling fell on her last word, and all she could do was smile right back at that goofy little face of his. The Urban Avenger and her tenacious little machine were ready for the Creed that was to come, but no one could be ready for the incredible task they would all soon tackle.

MESSAGE FROM HQ: Thanks again, dear reader, for taking another of our wild stories for a spin. Wanted to give an official final word on both the Quarterly and the latest episode of ALAN FIREDALE: DESERT DELINQUENT. Expect both out Friday.

Wanted them done sooner, but I’ve been struggling with sleep and focus, and the last thing I want is for that to hamper both projects. To keep from crowding your inboxes, we will be pushing our “Saluting The Troops” Credits to Saturday, and will fold our webzine guide into that as well.

Again, thank you all so much for your time and support. We’ll be back tomorrow with another hellraising tale from THE SPEEDFREAK FILES, a little ditty by the name of “A Girl & A Gun!”

He took the blows as well as he gave them, for the pomp and Old World presentation of Professor Smith afforded him the element of surprise as he fought five thugs in the middle of a back street.

They never knew what the “faerie fop” had in him as the fists flew, the legs swung, and the boots rattled at their backsides. In fact, in the debonair white wolf’s blind fury, he had forgotten what the thugs attacking him over. All his bounties were accounted for, all clients had paid, and he had also taken care of every gangster who tried to have their revenge on his clients’ revenge.

Racing from behind was a red-furred behemoth, brandishing a chain bound for the Professor’s neck. Down came the chain, but with a jolt, it whipped across Smith’s neck and off to the side. With four thugs at his front, he hadn’t time to check on the failed maneuver, so he kept duking it out until all were felled.

As his diverse cadre of opponents lay bleeding on the half-paved asphalt, snouts broken and breaths heavy, he turned to face his would-be assassin, and found him with a four-point blade between his eyes, slumped against the alley wall.

“Ah, the shuriken!” Smith observed with academic glee. “Rather primitive one too, must date back to the Edo period. Who in the blazes threw it?”

It was upon closer inspection that he found a business card-sized note attached. The corner was stained by the thug's blood, but it didn’t spoil the important part.

“Prof. Smith
We’re Needed!”
— XOXO Lita

“Gentlemen, I do hope I haven’t hurt you.” Smith chortled, plucking his cloak up from the writhing pile of crooks. “But I must be going.”

The white wolven fighter pocketed the blood-tinged card, tossed the cloak into his deep green Jaguar E-Type, and tore off to make his rendezvous. It was time for him and the Urban Avenger to settle this “Hazel” business once and for all.

“Z-Coordinates?” wasn’t the oddest question he had been asked, but with a double-check of Lita’s work, Professor Smith was sure she had come to the right conclusions. The coordinates dispensed by that vulgar computer terminal of their last meeting had taken quite a while to unravel, but the gray-furred hippie-punk proved herself a dab hand at decryption. The latitude and longitude were deep within Haven, but this Z-coordinate nonsense was where she had gotten stuck.

“Well it’s a negative value, so I can only presume it means down.” Smith surmised. “Let’s hope there’s a manhole wherever this takes us.”

Lita nodded. “Might wanna leave the dinner jacket in your ride, smart money’s on damn sewers.”

“What’s the count up to now?” Smith teased. It wasn’t long before they were all packed up, had loaded the details into their rides’ navigational units and began their organized tear through the city to their destination. The Red Devil gave the chic sports car a run for her money, the souped-up Bug playful as it wove about the Jaguar in the streets. Midway through all the fun, down came her sandaled paws on the brakes as the Bug skidded to a stop, the E-Type screeching to a halt within an inch of the car’s rear. Both hopped out, oblivious to the near-collision, and surveyed the area.

“Well,” Lita began, “This is where we’s told to go, right to the number, but there ain’a a manhole in sight.”

It made the crack in the asphalt as good as an entrance as any, so out came the crowbars from the Red Devil’s back seat, and after a few good whacks, the pavement was pried open, revealing…nothing. Just a hole in the city, God knows how many miles down, without so much as a ladder.

“Where in the devil is me torch?” Smith muttered to himself. “I suppose he thinks we’re crazy enough to just leap down there.”

“And we are.” Lita nodded.

“Well not in those you aren’t!” barked the wolven dandy, undoing his cloak and balling it up.

Lita’s snout scrunched in frustration “Not in what? You mean the Birks?”

“Precisely!” he bellowed, wrapping the cloak in silver twine, “Get some proper footwear on!” He chucked the balled cape down the whole as the gray punk growled indignantly.

“That’s rich coming from Mister Three-Inch Hee–” was all she got out before Smith clamped her mouth shut, waiting for the cloak to land. With a FMPH and a shriek of fabric, they now knew that something fatally sharp lay at the bottom. “That’s why! So you don’t get a spike through your paw and I have to run and get you a tetanus shot.”

He got a slap upside the head for the display before Lita stormed off to the Bug.

“Fucking limey sonofa,” she fumed.

“Mind your words, we have plenty to call you,” he chuckled, searching his coat for the flashlight. “Just imagine if that was sewage, unless that’s your turn-on.”

“You really are asking for it tonight,” she growled.

“And you get what you pay for, m’dear.”

She returned in a fine pair of snakeskin cowboy boots, another gift of her lover’s, lawman rocker Nic Ridgefield. For the gray punk’s first order of business, she gave the white wolf a kick in the rump. “And you get what you get. Flashlight.”

Try that with a biker, and you’d get a street fight. Try that on Professor Smith, you are met with a white-furred dandy brought to tears of laughter. “And that’s why you’re my favorite partner-in-crime.” he guffawed.

She tapped her newly sheathed paw with great impatience, but soon the display even got her giggling. “I dunno what to do witcha, but I dunno what to do without.” she snickered.

Once the pair had pulled themselves together, Smith produced a flashlight from out his coat pocket. When the beam hit the bottom of the cavernous hole, both wolves’ jaws were the first things down it.

“They got fucking rails!” Lita exclaimed. “Must be 30 feet down, too.”

Smith nodded. “Right then. How shall we get down there?”

First came a moment of silence, then her answer. “Jump-n-pray!”

Without a second thought, Lita threw herself down the hole! A short drop later, and she stuck the landing without so much as a rolled ankle. “Well shit! That ain’t ever happening again!” she hollered.

She looked up the line to see a rail tunnel that went on forever. When she looked down the line, she was met the sight of sharp spike an inch from her snout.

The punk gulped. “That REALLY ain’t happenin’ again.”

“Shall I overshoot then?” the white wolf asked innocently.

“YEAH!”

And down he went, landing dead center on the rail ties. Once he had caught his breath, Smith noticed the station platform he had barely cleared himself. “Another jolly-good reason to have sent the cloak down first.” he remarked, glancing over his shoulder. When he saw the wrought iron spike stood before Lita, he simply nodded. “Indeed, another good reason.”

Broken from the trance, Lita crossed the tracks and plucked up the skewered cloak. “You have a closet full of these, don’t ya?”

“Not at all, m’dear.” Smith took the balled cloak, undid the string, and with a flamboyant flick, revealed a perfectly unharmed cape. “There you have it! Nanotech needn’t all be sentient.” The Professor caught an amused golf clap from the gray punk, and he bowed in kind. “My next parlor trick will be finding out where this all goes. Shall we?”

They locked arms like a merry couple in the park, and sauntered down the abandoned tracks. It was a side of the city neither had ever conceived of, and one the dear old computer network had also forgotten about. The old brick work betrayed the subways of centuries gone by, but something about the rails seemed new, as though tracks were just laid down.

“Hmph. Not enough grease,” Smith muttered, rubbing the pads of his fingers together. “Should come from the lubrication of the carriage wheels. What’s a railway without trains?”

The flashlight had afforded them a great view of the tunnel walls, but it seemed as though the tunnels themselves were meant to go on for infinity. And with only their legs to carry them, and lots of ground to cover, the boredom drove them to odd conversations. They gabbed about the Professor’s scientific experiments, the joys of slaughtering irradiated thugs in the desert, and to each others’ surprise, album recommendations.

“Listening to Klemmer is like getting laid by a feather pillow.” Lita remarked. “You can’t do better than ‘Touch,’ I ALWAYS make Max and his cats play it at the speakeasy.”

“It was what the Missus and I toss on whenever the mood strikes.” Smith replied. “But I tell, Herrmann’s approach to ‘The Planets’ is infinitely superior to Von Karajan! You can’t convince me otherwise.”

“I hope you don’t screw your lady as slow as his Mars!” the gray punk guffawed. “You’ll both be pensioners between thrusts.”

“Oh, you recalcitrant brat!” the white-furred chevalier barked with mock indignity. “At least we can make it last, Mrs. Rabbit.”

They had just found common ground on the subject of old-time rock-n-roll when the deathly calm gave way to a gentle hum. A deep, deep hum. Smith went to pinch Lita’s snout shut, only to find her half-gloved mitts around his as well. With each shut up by the other, they listened with alert ears.

“Six O’Clock, sharp,” Lita said through the side of her mouth.

“And closing fast,” Smith added through his.

When they had released one another’s muzzles, the rumble grew to a thunderous roar, and from that roar came a blinding light at their back.

“RUN!” Lita barked. The gigantic subway car hurtled down its line, faster and faster towards them, their legs doing their damndest, but losing ground every second. Without a place to duck into, they only had one option. 

“Want to find out where it goes?” panted Smith.

“Sure, so long as we don’t get skewered or smashed!” Lita hollered over the subway’s thunderous might. 

“Jump up and grab the handrail on the count of three!” he barked. “One!”

“Two!”

“THREE!”

Up the wolves went and away there were carried, slammed against the train’s front. They clung to the handrails, heeled boots pressed sideways against the thin ledge of the coach.

“Not much of a running board!” Smith shouted. “Let’s hope it knows where to stop.” The hurtling train made the next leg of the journey easier, if only on their legs, the tunnel now mere strips of light and dark whizzing by. The duo’s stomachs were fit to burst, but both clung desperately their respective handrails. When the train came to a grinding, sparking halt at a dimly-lit platform, the chill that rolled up both elder wolf and younger punk’s spines was either nirvana or the sweet release of death.

Upon their arrival, Smith helped Lita off the front of the train, and the duo took turns in a trash can, relieving themselves of their nausea.

“Is that what roller-coasters were like?” Lita coughed, mopping her muzzle.

Smith nodded. “As far as my research tells me. Never doing another field study again.”

Once they had pulled themselves together, they turned towards the underground grotto. The brick work was smooth, and the platform spacious. At the back of it lay a simple, wooden door, and without a second thought, Lita turned the knob. Behind it lay the next in their bombing run of perplexing sights; a matte-black corridor, lined with bright white strips of light, and at its end stood three paths.

“Never is that easy, is it?” chimed a bemused Smith. Lita cocked an eyebrow. “Well it can’t be all tea-and-crumpets, Mr. Debonair.”

“Right,” the tall white hound shot back in playful indignity. “One more crack and you get yourself a jolly-good smacked bottom.”

“I didn’t know you felt that way,” the dark gray punk teased, cozying up beneath his cloak. When she went to put a half-gloved hand over his frilly-shirted chest, the professor ripped the black cape away and marched off. For once, it looked like the fellow’s feelings were actually hurt. “Hey, wait up!” she barked, sprinting up to him. “The hell’d I do? You usually take this shit fine.”

The white chevalier snapped on his heels and held up a curled left hand. Upon its middle finger sat a girasol ring, the gem catching even the faintest of the white light’s. The elder wolf’s gaze was piercing. “Ribbing, insults and exchanges, yes!” he barked. “But never anything vulgar! You see this ring? This is a vow I have held for 33 years. And so long as she still walks this earth, I am betrothed to her and her alone. Even as a joke, I won’t have that sullied.”

When he spun back around, Lita was well and truly speechless. When he was about to continue his march, she finally found her words. “I didn’t mean it as a pass. I’m…sorry.”

When he turned back around, his eyes had softened. “Very well then. Apologies for snapping. Call it a case of the old fashions.”

“Nah,” she smiled. “Just a good man with a lot on him.”

He nodded appreciatively, and with the wound now healed, it was time to make a decision. “Straight ahead to start?” Smith asked innocently.

“Lead the way!” Lita saluted.

At the end of the corridor, there sat yet another door, and upon its opening, the discovered ladder going up. To where was what they had to find out. The further they climbed, the more they heard—more rumbling.

“Must be machinery of some kind.” Smith surmised, climbing closer to the top with each step. “Maybe headquarters, perhaps?”

Without a second thought, Smith pressed up against the round metal plate at the top of the ladder. “Right then, up you–”

VOOOM

The disc was gone in a flash as the train’s gargantuan roar screamed down the ladder’s chamber. The massive vehicle went on for an eternity as the wheels ground against the rails and sparks shot down towards the two wolves, just barely missing them. When the sound was off and away into the tunnels, and Lita looked up, and for the first time in a long-time, she screamed in horror. She could see the body of Professor Smith…but not his head!

“If you think that’s bad, try it from where I am.” came a shuddering disembodied voice before two white ears popped up, and the mercifully unsevered head of the dandy was revealed.

“Still got a hand?” she asked feverishly.

“All four fingers,” he said, counting them. “I’ll never trim me claws that way again, though. Let’s count it a dead-end and move on.”

Lita’s embrace of her elder knight was much more innocent upon his arrival at the bottom of the chamber, and soon the next path was chosen.

“Left’s Heads. Right’s Tails.” Smith stated, producing a pristine buffalo nickel from his pocket.

“Fuck, I hate this shit.” Lita muttered. “Tails.”

With a flick of his thumb and clap of his hand, the coin had made its choice. “Today’s your lucky day, m’dear.” Smith smiled, as the nickel landed buffalo-side up. The two vigilantes made their way down the right-hand corridor.

With his patented aerosol process of revealing invisible threats and Lita clutching her high-powered pistol, the duo were ready for anything. At the slightest hint of danger, they looked for trip wires and covered each other with their peacemakers. And at each junction point, their guardedness was rewarded with nothing. No trip-wires, no secret security guns, no thugs to blow away. Just the deafening clack of their heels on the hard black-tiled floor, lit between its cracks like a discothèque. The remaining silence was nerve-wracking.

“Best security system I guess.” Lita growled in hushed ebony tones. “Bore your infiltrators to death, or drive ‘em round the block.”

“Crazy thing is, you may be right.” Smith surmised.

And yet, it was in that silence that a true lead had finally been made. When the duo stopped to get their bearings, they heard the soft electric hum of something turning. Upon looking up, they saw a black bulb tucked in the corridor’s corner.

“Surveillance cameras!” Lita exclaimed quietly.

“Means one of two things,” the cloaked white wolf observed, “Either this ruse is exceptionally elaborate, or there’s something worth keeping an electric eye on.”

“Ight, let’s play it cool.” the punk smiled. They strolled through the halls like they owned the place, looking for the control room or something tied to the cameras. So far, no luck. They kept strolling through, the monotony of it erased by the prospect of something being down here at least. And in one of the camera’s blind-spots, they had found just that.

On the corner of a wall sat a black box, a metal pipe from which snaked up along the wall, across the ceiling and towards one of the black, bulbous cameras, facing away from the gray punk and her white gentleman. Meanwhile, the camera at the opposite end was making quite the fuss over its servos.

“I think the poor devil’s mechanism is jammed.” Smith whispered to Lita.

“Good,” she deviously grinned. “Let’s cook ‘em nice-n-well-done.”

Smith produced an arsenal of microtools for breaking into the box, but it was all to no avail. No screwdriver could open it, no crowbar could pry it, not even with both hounds jimmying the thing best they could. And pointing their guns point blank at the black box was just asking for trouble.

“Well,” sighed Lita. “Only one thing left.”

“Pray tell?” Smith ventured.

“Let’s see if you’re two-for-two on getting me into these shit-kickers.”

The short gray punk took a running leap at the box and landed a high-kick with the heel of her boots. The box blew out at the sides as a collective whine descended upon the entire hallway, a whine which died out on its lowest note.

Replacing the white noise was a scream of frustration in a very familiar tone of voice. “OH NONONONO! FUCK!”

It was back the way they came, and both hounds bolted in the scream’s direction. As they got closer, suddenly there came another voice. A deeper, gruffer voice. Whatever he said was inaudible, for he was clearly not shouting at the top of his lungs anymore. As they got closer, snatches of a conversation about “sorry sir, I’m on it” and “they won’t get out alive” could be made out and upon standing before the obsidian panel where the voice could be heard the clearest came those most telling words. “Agent Hazel, over and out…oh Liiitttta!”

The voice slipped from gruff grunt to that sly, snide, and sickly voice who had tortured the Urban Avenger and her friends for months now. Both the well-dressed white hound and the hippie-punk wrapped in denim drew their guns ready to blow the door in, only for it to slide up on its own.

Before the two vigilantes stood a wall-to-wall rack of CRT monitors, covering nearly every street of Haven, blinding in their light after the dark of the maze. And sat at the swivel chair, with Chuck Taylor sneakers kicked up on the massive switchboard, was Hazel.

When he turned to face the duo, it was a bizarre sight indeed. By all accounts, a normal gray wolf, but with one eye blue, and one eye hazel brown. Not as young as Lita, nor as old as Smith. He didn’t dress the part of a state agent; no all-black garb or any augs to speak of. In many ways, he seemed to be dressed like Lita, sans sandals.

“Ah shit, he really is a fan.” she muttered in astonishment.

Hazel chuckled bashfully, speaking in his plain, clean, sinuous voice. “Yes and no. Yes in that I dig you. I dig you a lot. But no. I am from Empire Square. And I went through a lotta trouble to get you here.”

“So what, are you gonna arrest me now?” Lita growled, one boot kicked up against the wall. “Or do you…oh Jesus, you were serious about that, weren’t you?”

Hazel smiled his “dreamy” smile which was enough to turn both Smith and Lita’s stomachs inside out the same way the subway had.

“Well,” the light gray hound remarked coldly. “Fucking your way to freedom isn’t the worst way to break jail.”

“You’d risk your entire job on this?” Smith grilled. If he didn’t have the discipline, he’d have dropped the bastard where he sat, but he knew the fight wasn’t his.

“Oh, that’s the funny part.” Hazel whimsically answered, spinning in his chair like a toddler in his dad’s office. “She wasn’t even on the menu!”

Lita’s eyes went wide.

“I mean, you ARE a ‘public enemy,’” he added, fingers steepled. “But you aren’t even on my docket of crooks to catch. That’s the beauty of it.”

“You’re fucking mad.” she growled. “Absolutely insane.”

“Aren’t we all down here? You smoke enough for a commune, your accomplice is several centuries past his sell-by date. I just happen to be hunting down some snatch on the city’s dime.”

“What’s stopping me from dropping you dead?” the mohawked punk seethed, the long barrel of her silver Wildey Hunter staring the agent down.

“Your chances of getting out of here alive.” he teased through his teeth. “My chip implant is tuned to this whole system.” Hazel pointed to a side door on the duo’s left. “The subway’s how I get out of here and to the surface. If I die, you all get to suffocate down here. Neat, huh?”

Smith’s patience evaporated. “What in God’s name does this computer get from having a lunatic like you for an agent?”

“I struck a deal some time ago, that’s all.”

The Edwardian white wolf went to say something, but Lita stayed his chivalrous hand. “Step outside. Let’s just get this over with.”

“Lita you needn’t!”

“LET ME END THIS SHIT!” she snapped back. Though it churned his stomach, Smith obliged. When the door closed behind him, Lita worked her eyes along the strange fed. “I dunno. I guess it’s worth a shot.”

She advanced slowly, making a mating ritual out of it. The closer she came, the more the light gray hound panted, eyes widening with glee as his wish was coming true before his very eyes. She sat down on his lap, legs spread the width of the chair. Part of her was hoping the excitement would give him a heart attack, but by God was he sticking around for this. When she glanced over to the console, while taking off her jean jacket, she noticed something. Something that told the whole story.

Hazel had indeed made a deal, for embedded in the console was a citizen chip, kept alive by the system’s electricity.

Gently, she reached around the feverish hound and ran her half-gloved hand along the back of his neck. The stuttering inhalation he made was repulsive, but she found out exactly what she wanted to know; there wasn’t a trace of an incision, not even a scar. Whoever the real agent was, he was long dead.

“Alright bad boy,” she whispered. “One for the road.”

Her lips locked with his. When he reached down to her zipper, out came the Wildey, and round after round cleaved through his light gray body. She sucked the last ounce of life from him with her kiss. “You did it to the letter, babe,” were Hazel’s last words before slumping down over his bloodied stomach.

When Smith swung in, and saw the dead body, he couldn’t hide his revulsion. He helped Lita to her feet, plucked up her denim jacket, and found the switch to open the side door, conveniently marked by a piece of masking tape with “train on A-line” scrawled across.

“Is there any way we can take the chip?” she asked softly. When she explained the entire, sordid affair, he hadn’t the words for it.

“If it is wired permanently, we’re as good as gone.” he sighed. “That said…check the closet. Look for a scanner module, anything.”

She found just what the Professor wanted, and out came the tools once more. “A makeshift syphon circuit ought to get the data at least. Not just the chip, but the board’s logs if they're kept on an interior server.”

It took ten minutes to jury-rig, but an agonizing 20 to download. When it had finally completed, he turned to look at the punk, only to find a girl who was anything but. Her stare was vacant, and she couldn’t lay eyes on the body she had slain just as she would any other.

For once, she seemed well and truly thrown off her game. Smith gently helped her into that raggedy denim jacket, wrapped his cape about her, and the two caught their train out of the subway network. The automated system made it as easy as the flip of a switch, and the inside seemed modeled after the silver trains of New York, down to the letter. The line ended at a staircase which took them above to the Haven they knew best.

“Blasted thing’s dropped us a block away.” Smith grumbled, though he knew it would make for a much needed walk. And a much needed talk.

“God, you think he’ll ever forgive me for it?” she asked. “Nicky I mean.”

“If your man is as much a ‘rock-and-roller’ as you’ve told,” he consoled, “and he understands the work you’re doing, I’m sure he won’t hesitate to return to your side when next he can.”

“S’pose you’re right.” she sighed. “God do these fucks make me sick.”

Lita let it all out on the walk, every slur she had for the grubby wolf she had slain, every fear she had about things thereafter. They continued on like that for the length of the block, talking not of the merriment they had deep in the tunnel, but of that strange road ahead of them, and those of this vast city they doted on from the shadows.

“I can only think we’ll have to really band together.” the white wolf continued. “A creed of sorts, for all of us to stay in touch and help one another. Malten and his gang are a good start. I’d be happy to oblige and I’m sure some of your street-fighters will too. And we now have our first lead on going from the outside in. That counts for something.”

Lita nodded quietly. It was a damn good idea. But all she could think about was the way she had taken this “Hazel” down, if it was even his real name, and how such a sick mind could murder his way into this all-knowing ecosystem. She buried herself in the tall white wolf, who soothed as best he could with the rubbing of her back. For the first time in a long time, she realized just how young she was. And for the first time in a long time, Smith said as much without getting decked.

“You’re a tough 20-something,” he smiled. “Never forget that. If I had done half of what you’ve done at your age, you probably would’ve heard of me before now, instead of meeting a silly ol’ git driving around in a hopped-up sports car dressed like Dumas’ first drafts.”

At last, the trance was broken, and the Urban Avenger was smiling once again, walking into a whole new future with a great friend at her side.

10 minutes.

She’d been back all of 10 minutes before the mayhem had begun. For Lita and the Red Devil, breaking back through the Haven border was a cinch. With the gas flat-out, the blood-colored Bug ripped clean through the chain link of the never-ending fence. It was easy.

Too easy, she thought to herself.

Lita noticed in the rearview how limply the stuff sagged onto the ground. Normally it would reform a moment or so after the initial impact, if not healed completely in all of five minutes. And yet, there it sat, split open wide as the night sky, barely snaking itself back together.

“Well, guess that’ll help ol’ Principal Leo,” she sighed, shifting gears.

And so she rode on. Minutes One thru Nine, cool as ice. That good city breeze with just a hint of musk slipped through the window as she puffed away on a cigarette. A normal one for once.

In fact, everything was normal for a change. The wolven punk had enjoyed a good time with the cowboy she loved, she had gotten out of the “hustle and bustle of big city life” as they used to call it. Her favorite overpowered VW was in as good a shape as he’d ever been. Everything had gone about as well as it could have.

Then came Minute Ten.

From out of an alley raced a quintet of bikes. They bolted from the shadows and in front of the Bug. She jammed on the brakes as quick as she could, the Red Devil grinding to a halt. His bull-bar bumper just graced the leg of a leather-clad lad. Hip to the gang-stalking tricks Mack Malten had tipped her off to, the Wildey Magnum was clenched tight in her half-gloved hand. She didn’t roll the window down when one of them pulled up to her.

“You roll with Malten’s boys?” the tan biker sneered.

“The fucksit to ya if I am?” she snarled back.

That awful gangster grin washed over the biker’s face. “Wanna give him a message or should we make one of you?”

That was all she needed to throw her Beetle into reverse and bolt from the group. It was then that she found more hounds on wheels at her back, not that it stopped her. Truth be told, even all that impromptu day-saving in the desert hadn’t quite filled the tank on her admittedly sadistic streak. A few crushed melons and a few more foes out of Mack’s way sounded like the fix she needed. Only problem was how bad the fix was in for her.

They banged on the Bug with pipe wrenches, blasts of old-school bullets, and threw everything including the kitchen sink at her. And worst of all, some of it finally got through the Little Man’s bonded shell, and the blood-red Bug finally started to take some damage. It was only when he finally took a bullet to the tire, the pop sending the mean machine spinning out of control that she went from mad to utterly enraged.

Cursing, screaming, and going as ballistic as she could, Lita tried to stiff arm the Bug back to course, only to spin out into an apartment complex. The shotgun side door nailed the corner with a bang. The shock knocked the poor Devil’s engine offline, and try as she might, cranking him like mad, he wasn’t turning over.

“C’mon tough guy, we ain’t licked!’ she encouraged, her sandalled paw clapping with each stomp of the gas, the V8 chugging and huffing, trying its damnedest to come through. With all the class of starved vultures, the bikers knew it was their move. And by God were they going to make a meal out of this bitch.

Or so they thought.

With all their backs turned and charging for the crimson apple of their eye, they couldn’t have seen what was coming up from behind. They certainly felt it when the surprise took four bikes, bikers included, onto its hood and at least one under its wheels. And when those who weren’t flying through the air turned to see it, they were met with the business end of a long, silver blade. And when it had finally come into view for Lita, she could hardly believe the spectacle of it all before her eyes.

The car was a convertible Jaguar E-Type, top down. A proper XK-E from around the same time as her spluttering Bug, painted a dark, glossy green, miraculously untouched by what would’ve been a kamikaze maneuver for anyone else’s paint job. And perhaps the cherry atop this unicorn of a sundae; it was right-hand drive.

Sat at the wheel where a passenger would normally reside was a white wolf she could scarcely believe the sight of. Adorned in a ruffled white shirt, a dark velvet smoking jacket, black slacks and boots, the tall, agile stranger flung himself from the driver’s seat and started in on anyone still standing. If he couldn’t get his claws on them, he took to his blade. And if they weren’t within reach of his blade, he drew a silver revolver and blew away anyone in his sights.

Though she feverishly kept trying to bring the Bug back to life, an expression of complete bewilderment sat square on her face as the whole ordeal played out to its blood-soaked conclusion; the beheading of the very tan wolf who had led the charge.

As the biker’s matted head spun off into the dark of the opposite alley from which it had all sprung, the stranger holstered his revolver, sheathed his blade in the back seat of the Jag, and pulled his slender beast up alongside the Red Devil, willfully careless as he barreled over the bodies of his slain adversaries.

When he spoke, he did so with a sharp British tenor, about as foreign an accent as could be managed in this part of the world. “Need a jump-start?” he asked quite casually.

Lita nodded and coaxed him over to the window. Rolling it down, the stranger leaned in. “Yes?” came the now-perplexed gentleman.

With all the innocence of a child, she stuck her index finger out and gently poked at the fellow’s right arm. Then the left. Then a few times in the stomach.

“It may come as a shock, but I am indeed real.” he sheepishly grinned. “Let’s get your soldier here back up and running first and then we’ll talk.”

Again, she nodded, and it wasn’t long before the Little Man was back on his wheels, V8 humming contently as they talked over the tableau of carnage.

The hippie-punk, with her jaw scraped off the ground and a freshly-rolled joint in her mouth, looked over the dandy-like savior curiously. “We’ll start with thank-yous first, then your name.” she sighed, the smoke rolling out of her snout. “Thanks for saving my ass back there and for helping my Little Man. I got an armory in the backseat, but wasn’t gonna let ‘em take the homeboy out if I could help it. Lita’s the name. No middle or last; just Lita.”

“Name’s Smith,” the stranger smiled. “Simply Smith, though you’ll catch a few associates calling me ‘Professor.’ Came out of the civilian tech sector. Guess I have enough brains to qualify, though I’ve never kept count meself.”

He managed to get a chuckle out of the denim-wrapped gray, and she managed to not choke on her dope smoke when doing so.

“What’s with…all this?” she gestured. “I feel like I own a coupla old dime novels with your face on ‘em.”

Smith shrugged. “Well, that’s part of the inspiration, but the accent’s authentic. They all talk like this in the Northern district. High society so-called. I just happen to like the clothes. They suit me, wouldn’t you say?”

He struck a noble pose, to which she rolled her eyes. “Seen better, seen worse.”

“Well we can’t all be so elegantly poised as yourself.” he dryly remarked.

“Where you cop the Jag?” quizzed Lita, letting the quip slide.

The white wolf looked over to this ride. “Oh, this she-beast. Built-to-specification by a chap out in the desert. Thought having her as a right-hand driver would be fun, shake things up.”

Lita couldn’t bear to turn her nose up at that machine; she was a stunner.

“So, watcha do?” she continued, patting the Wildey on her hip between hits off her blunt. “I paint houses.”

“With a car like this, what else?” he replied nonchalantly. “I borrow oil paintings for a living.”

That finally did her in, the pair lost it in a fit of hysterics. They couldn’t stop laughing no matter how hard they tried, though the distant wail of autocop sirens gave them reason to. The crusaders hoped in their respective rides and bolted down a side street.

“Where to next?” he called over their machines’ collective roar.

Lita had to give it some thought, but she knew just the place. “Follow me, we’ll game plan when we get there.”

“There” just so happened to be her cozy hole in the wall. Her literal hole in the wall, as the door to the Avenger’s sanctum opened.

“Room for two,” she coaxed, “Just mind your step getting out.”

Like a hand in a glove, the Jag slid into the berth beside the Bug. Smith hopped out to join Lita and the two picked up where they left off: chortling like school children.

Afterwards, they finally got down to some proper business.

“So there’s more of my kind running around,” Lita began. “First I commandeer a gang of bikers, now I got myself a good old-fashioned danger man.”

“I hope those fellows weren’t—”

“Aw hell nah,” she smiled. “Never met them in my life. My man’s Mack Malten. Apparently they had beef with him so you saved the pair of us a helluva lotta trouble.”

“My pleasure,” he bowed graciously. “I was just in the neighborhood and–”

“Heard that one before.”

“Well yes of course,” he deflected. “I was getting to that. I was in the neighborhood taking care of something for a client. The chap whose head went for a roll down the alley killed my client’s parents.”

“Good on ya,” she smiled. “Before I left I had to take care of the bastard who rubbed out a man’s wife and kid.”

Smith nodded solemnly, the seemingly stoic white wolf clearly affected by the thought. “Wish I could get to the root of this evil weed, kill it where it’s sown.”

“Some of it’s just the nature of the beast.” Lita sighed. “I got lucky, using my twist of Cain for good. Some bastards are just evil, born-n-raised. The big root you’re after is the Mutha-Brain running this city into the ground.”

Again came a sharp nod of agreement.

“Fancy hunting some of Her down?” he asked casually.

Now that was a thought to choke on her smoke. “You gotta be fuggin’ NUTS!”

“Well we don’t have to start THAT big m’dear,” he retorted, “Just ‘cause a man dresses five centuries behind his time doesn’t mean he has the ignorances to match. No, I mean let’s start jack-hammering the people that COUNT!”

“I’d love to,” the gray punk replied casually before turning heel into outrageous sarcasm. “But where the hell do we start!? You don’t just go knocking councilmen off on a whim. You run a White Coat down in the street and they’ll find fifty more.”

“I’ll tell you,” answered Smith, casually polishing his revolver with a handkerchief. “We start from where we are and work our way inward.”

“District organizers, you mean.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake no, they’re of no consequence.” he replied. “Go more myopic.”

Lita thought about it, pacing back and forth before the light-bulb went off. “Wait a sec, you talking enemies we’ve made in the state?”

Again he answered with the same damn nod.

“Y’know,” grinned the punk. “I got just the hound in mind.”

She whipped her Wildey out on the white wolf, finger on the trigger guard, rather than the trigger. “Prove to me you ain’t sent by him. All I gotta do is slip this lil’ ol’ bean down on the trigger.”

Smith stood still as a statue.

“How shall I?” he calmly inquired, the barrel staring him down. “Do I beg for mercy? Do I provide references? Or do I provide HAI!”

He slapped the gun out of her hand, pinning two fingers to the base of her neck. She slammed against the wall, teeth gnashing, Smith holding her in a paralytic grip with those two measly digits.

“Next question,” he sternly growled. “How many agents of the state can pull off a move like this? Recognize it? You don’t have much longer before it drops you out of this world.”

Lita rabbit-kicked the white wolf’s stomach. Smith went flipping through the air, landing square on his feet in the passenger seat of the Jaguar. “There. Was my torso organic enough for you?”

Lita took a beat to catch her breath. Normally, she’d have gone for the Mateba, but all she could do was bust up all over again.

“Yes. Yes it was.” she chuckled. “Hope the Birks didn’t dust the suit too bad.”

The white-furred gentleman looked down and patted it all off in a second. “All good m’dear. Pleased to have passed the smell test.”

They shook on the realization that both were flesh, fur, and blood as Lita plucked her gun off the floor. “Ight, here’s who I thought you were.”

She went over the whole case involving her eagle-eyed state agent. The attempted brainwashing, the attempted captures, the android assassins, everything she had dealt with so far and plenty of nonsense in-between. The part involving the client Varrick and the killer lit a righteous anger in her new associate.

“Of all the decadent degenerate swine I’ve ever heard of!” he roared. “And never in person, always sat back sniveling behind a desk no doubt.”

Lita did her best to quell him. “Save it for the field. If you can help me get to him, you gotta friend for life here in the East. I hope I got one from the North too.”

“You can count on me,” he saluted. “Let’s go hunt us a royal ham.”

Just as soon as they had entered the sanctum, they were back on the streets, ready for anything. And given the twists and turns the evening would take, it was a quality they desperately needed.

“GOOD GOD WOMAN!” roared Smith over the deafening whir. “DOES IT ALWAYS GO TO POT THIS FAST!?”

“YES!” Lita bellowed. “EVERY FUCKING TIME.”

“Of all the arrant nonsense,” he muttered to himself.

“JUST! KEEP! SHOOTING!”

Her “favorite fed” had opted to let slip the autocops of war, leaving the freshly-minted duo of Lita and Smith with their hot rods flat-out in a bid to evade and waste as many of the silver devils as they could. And leading the pack was the agent’s chosen megaphone, who (now firmly around the bend) was singing the phrase “Hurry up” to the tune of the William Tell Overture’s galloping finale.

Fortunately, the loudspeakers were the first things blown apart by the laser fire, Smith left muttering about the crime against Rossini he just heard. While it was all chaotic business as usual for Lita, an idea was creeping into the white wolf’s mind, seeing the long string of silver machines yet to be disposed of.

“Want to trip them up!?” Smith called.

Lita shot a quick glance his way. “I think I know the trick. Next intersection?”

“Ladies first of course,” the white-furred gentleman nodded.

The gruff gray punk got a kick out of that one. At the next crossroad, the Red Devil raced ahead and swung a left turn from the right lane, the deep green Jaguar, quick to brake, crossed from the left lane onto the right-hand side street. And sure as clockwork, the platoon of floating police cars tried to match the maneuver, only to go crashing into each other in a great metallic knot, bursting into an electric blue fireball as the pileup dragged on. When the duo reconvened a block later, the thrill of the chase having (mostly) dissipated, Smith was quite understanding of it all now.

“I’d ask what I’d have to do to get on the list you’re on,” he sighed. “But I have a very good feeling I'm on it now just having been with you for…good grief, only a quarter of an hour.”

Lita shrugged her shoulders. “Consider that the hazing ritual. Where do we go from here in hunting him down?”

With a few strokes of his chin, he had an answer. “Setting aside Round Two of that, I say we start laying the traps rather than falling into them.”

“Hey I don’t fall for–”

“Figure of speech, my child, I–”

“Hollup!” she snapped indignantly. “How much fucking older are you anyway?”

“Just turned 51 the other day, and you?”

With eyes wide as dinner plates, she muttered a bemused “20-something. Last I checked.”

Smith chuckled. “Right then, I won’t call you child so long as you don’t call me old man, deal?”

“Deal,” replied Lita. “Damn your quick at smoothing shit out.”

“Had plenty of time to learn the secrets of diplomacy.” he smiled, doffing an invisible hat. “Now, as I was saying, we need a trap that HE would risk coming out in the open for. Something irresistible.”

“You mean me?” she teased, batting her eyes with all five ounces of feminine wile left in her.

Smith raised an eyebrow at the proposition. “Dare I ask in what way?”

“I mean he got the hots for me.” she replied casually. “Don’t know why I didn’t think of a smoke show sooner.”

“What if he just sends another drone?” the wolven chevalier quizzed. “Ogles you up, gets his rocks off, and then kidnaps you via android?”

Again with the shrugging of shoulders. “Just one of those risks.”

“A bit foolhardy if you ask me.” came the frank reply.

“What, never had to deal with a dish like me?” she grilled.

The Professor’s frankness graduated to blunt-force rebuke. “Hooligans like you, yes. Anyone fool enough to become the first vigilante assassinated by erotic asphyxiation is another. Care to break new ground?”

At last, she conceded, at least for now. Strutting about the half-littered alleyway, Smith and Lita tried to drum up a half-decent idea in its stead. Lost in the thought, the slender white wolf felt himself bump into something. An invisible something a good three feet off the alley wall.

“Where’d this come from?” he asked quietly.

“And here we go.” Lita whirled around. “Lemme take a crack at it.”

She banged, kicked, and brawled with the invisible whatsit until her fists and paws were sore, but even the streetwise crusader couldn’t break it.

Smith, somewhere between impressed and puzzled, took her aside. “You ever try this instead?” he asked innocently, diving into his glove box. Out came a can of powder, and after a quick spin of the lid, he flung the contents at the structure and finally unveiled its form; a tall, oblong box, almost spire-like in a way that evoked the many networked towers that upheld the city’s force-field bubble and climate controls. She had to reach for it, but she patted her companion on the shoulder.

“Where do you get that stuff?” she asked, hurrying towards the box’s dusted door.

“That’s uh…that’s just baby powder actually.” the white hound blushed. “Bit easier on the snout than running around with a can of spray paint. Fumes get to me for whatever reason. Besides, powder covers a greater area.”

Explanations over, the task was the door itself. Lita went in to brute force it again, before she realized what exactly was on the front of the box. “Shit, it’s an ol’ dial lock. Ain’t seen one of them in ages.”

“Ah, nothing like a spot of safe-cracking, suits the witching hour.”

Smith set straight to work. Both wolves pressed their ears up to the door, the ever-subtle clicking ringing loud and clear while the elder street fighter worked his digits across the dial, hunting for that combination. It felt like ages, but once they got there, the final click was most satisfying.

Once they parted the door, they were greeted with another layer of perplexion. “Ah.” sighed the dandy. “Computer passcode. What in the blazes for? All the secrecy that is.”

“Lemme take a crack.” Lita cut in. “See if we can rule out any of my old favorites.”

She tried 1966, the model year of the Red Devil; no luck. She tried 2376, the big day A.C.E.S. came to full-flower; no luck. She tried 0607, the number of that confounded police station that gave her and Nic so much grief; still nothing.

“Alright, one last idea.” she growled. “Let’s see if they think I’m THAT stupid.”

Sure enough, she typed 1234 in and it came online.

“Those dicks.”

“You can blow it to kingdom-come after we get our intel from it, yes?” Smith soothed. Lita nodded, taking a great, deep breath.

What they got was a nice and neat list of causal procedures, rendered in gorgeous black-and-green. If X happens, then trigger Y, and so on. One such was “if File 476-D, target code ‘Urban Avenger,’ appears in Quadrant (never-ending digits), send full deploy of HOV-CRAFT. Capture if possible, kill on-site if necessary.”

The vigilantes looked at each other, a single, knowing nod between them. They kept scrolling through the laundry list of operations this small station seemed to house. One name kept popping up: “Hazel.” It would appear in certain phrases like, “if File 297-D, 476-D, or 898-D appear in X location, Hazel deploy agency resource.” The phrase would always be in that odd, slightly broken English.

“I think that’s where we start.” Lita said, closing up the keyboard and shutting the door. “It probably ain’t his real name, but it sounds like the code-name for his mission is Hazel. Least it gives us something to ask.”

“Right then.” Smith resolved. “Whose doors shall we start knocking on?”

The deafening pause from his denim-clad friend was a bit disconcerting. He gestured for an answer, and ultimately got one. “I dunno, I kinda feel like fucking up some more of the bots, seeing if they throw anything more at us.”

“We go through all that just for you to go gallivanting off?” he interrogated. “No sense of priorities, nothing more to it for the night?”

“It’s called quitting while you’re ahead.” she retorted. “If we know what’s best for us, we mark this joint by GPS, clean it off, and let it cool. Us rushing around is how we keep them from knowing. Give it a week, grill it some more, and then start hunting.”

Smith stewed on the thought, and realized she wasn’t as crazed as she liked to appear. “Alright, you got me for one more bombing run, then I’ll have to be back up to the North. We’ll trade numbers, and you can commandeer me for a little espionage once things have cooled to your liking. Deal?”

“GOD you’re smooth.” she exclaimed, shaking hands with an iron grip. “If you’re real good, I’ll take you scum-hunting next time too, and you can use that blade some more. Nothing like a good old-fashioned beheading to cut a crook down to size.”

“I’d admonish you for relishing in such barbarism if the cause weren’t so righteous.” he teased.

And just like that, back on the streets they were, terrorizing automated lawmen for the night, and biding their time before another round of code-breaking. But it wasn’t just the code that’d wind up broken.

“Huh. That’s a bit funky now, ain’it?”

They had given it a week, each terrorizing the H.P.D. and other assorted ne’er-do-wells in their own ways, but upon reaching the invisible terminal, all passcodes still operational, they discovered a change in the user-interface and the language used.

Instead of the standard Old World-styled look, they were treated to a nice, slick modern desktop, like a proper module any decent citizen would house in their apartment. And with this update came all the amenities like organized folders, application shortcuts, and a handsome wide shot of the city as a background.

“Guess dear old Ace sent the update out some time ago,” Smith remarked.

When Lita went to play Minesweeper, she caught the back of the white hound’s hand upside her head. “The arcade’s down the street.”

“Oh fuck off, you’re no fun.” she growled, lightly popping him one in the cheek. She figured the folder marked “Operations” was as safe a bet as any. When she opened it, a plain text document sat inside, and upon opening found a simplified stack of binary code. Lita searched for a translator on the machine, and sure enough, there was one. A quick bit of copy-and-paste later, and note read as follows:

HAZEL HERE
YOUR DATA HOT
PRESS THOSE KEYS

“Is he saying what I think he’s saying?” the gray punk asked. When a few more lines sprung up in the doc, she got her answer.

YES
RIGGED TO REMOTE SENSORS
HOW ABOUT SOME MORE STIMULATION?

“What a git!” Smith barked indignantly, drawing his revolver. Lita pulled out her Wildey, ready to light into the machine as well. If only it hadn’t gotten up.

The terminal decloaked, revealing itself to be a plain black box, which in turn raised itself to reveal two, crude hydraulic rods.

In other words, legs.

Another two sprouted from the side; arms with equally crude, claw-like hands. The machine slammed Smith with its loose door and slapped the gun out of Lita’s hand. The mobile terminal threw itself against the dark gray punk, claws pinning her arms to the chipped bricks of the alley wall. Wherever Hazel was, he was about to make his “moves” through this unruly bot.

Smith leapt back up, grabbed the back of the shuddering machine and ripped it away from Lita, throwing it against the wall where it had once stood. “GET YOUR GUN!” he roared, the machine slamming its back into his head. Smith fell to the ground once more, groping for his revolver from the mire of dusty trash bags and crumbling pavement. The second he grabbed it, the machine turned on a dime, stomping towards him with heavy footfalls. He drew and fired, and the second his round struck the glass monitor, it erupted into sparks and shrapnel. The black box dropped dead on the pavement. And standing behind it, boiling mad and her Magnum in hand, was Lita.

When her line of sight dropped to Smith, the two realized what they had just done.

“You think we’ll ever see timing that good again?” he smiled, picking himself up and dusting his smoking jacket off. “As my father used to say, never the twain shall meet again with luck such as ours.”

“Man, we gotta keep Kodak memories of this shit!” she guffawed. Lita helped the fair-furred hound to his feet, patting him down with swift, soft strokes. “There, nice-n-neat as ever.”

“Well, thank ‘Acc’ for incinerators,” he remarked dryly. “Only thing the bitch is good for. In the old days, I would’ve been wearing everyone’s half-eaten sandwiches falling into a pile like that.” Smith dusted the rest of his fur off before turning his attention to the felled robot. He peered down its blown-out top. His hand wrapped in a kerchief, he stuck it down into the machine. While its electric guts were thoroughly spilled, he managed to pluck two things out. One was a physically spared semiconductor from the motherboard, and the other was a note. Scorched, but not illegible.

“This appears to be yours,” he said, handing it off to Lita.

The young punk eyed the paper up before reading allowed.

“Clever clever girl you are. Wish I could have all that cleverness to myself, deep inside. If you ever want to share all that cleverness, bring it on down to [a number souffle of coordinates]”

Sensing the lady’s rage, it was now Smith’s turn to recommend the safe route. “Perhaps we see if we can get anything good out of this block of RAM before we start chasing after your unrequited beau.”

Lita took a deep breath. “You think waiting too long brought this on?” Smith flashed that charmed grin before replying.

“Frankly m’dear,” he answered calmly. “Things move so fast in this day and age, he probably switched it over the second we left. Rest assured though, your ‘friend’ has a rather nasty habit of thinking with the wrong head. It’ll be his undoing. Best to be there and undo it right.”

“Fine by me.” she smiled. “Want to fry some more electric bacon first?”

Smith bowed gracefully, the white-furred Englishman beckoning her with a flourish of his cape. “I never thought you’d ask.”

Leaving arm-in-arm, the killers and their souped-up European machines rocketed away, set to terrorize some more of the local electric authorities, with a fresh pack of potential leads in hand, ready to take the next step in nailing the grand architect of her current crop of miseries. A face-to-face meeting that none would soon forget…

If ever there was a night to remember, this was it. The night she blew out of town with one thing on her mind: her dear Nicky.

Lita was slamming together pint-sized suitcases full of the stuff she needed for a desert vacation. Her garb, some records she wanted to share, some utilities to keep the Red Devil going. She was saddled with the backwards problem of cramming it all into the boot of the Red Devil, the one where the pint-sized engine once sat. Not that she worried about making it all fit, not when her man was at the other end of the phoneline whispering all sorts of sweet-nothings into those dark gray ears of hers.

“Don’t forget Beautiful,” Nic growled in his husky baritone, “When you get done flooring that bad boy of yours, you and I are gonna take a ride like nothing you eva’ seen.”

She gave it all she had with her own ebony-soaked rasp. “When I get my fangs in ya Baby, you ain’t ever gonna believe what hit you.”

They could’ve kept it up all night, had it not been for the sudden, surprising ring of her other cell phone; The Hot Line. The Hit Line.

“Hang on Mountain Man,” she whispered, setting the private phone down. When she picked up the business line, she dropped her usual “Yello, who dis?”

“This the Avenger?” the voice answered, hushed but relaxed.

“Yeah. You ain’t fuzz or fucking with me?”

“When I tell you about the job, you’ll know why I don’t play with cops around here.” He was dead serious the way he spoke.

“Alright,” she answered coolly, “shoot the basics.”

“Meet me at 278 Webley. I want you to see me before I ask you to do this.”

Lita cocked an eyebrow. “Smells like a hit, you got five seconds to—”

“I’m unarmed and in a wheelchair. I want you to know why and what I want you to do about it. It ain’t a mail-order suicide either.”

The gray punk went stone silent. She pressed the business phone to her chest while she picked up the private line. “Nicky babe, looks like I got one last gig before I go. Real job this time.”

“Do what you always do Bitch,” he whispered in kind. “Nail ‘em to the wall.”

“Love you too” were her last words before snapping the business line back up to her ear. “Where you want me again?”

The mysterious contact gave her the directions, and in no time, the Red Devil was gassed up, loaded with luggage, and bolting for the Webley complex. She pulled up around back, and picked her way through the locks to get in. It was still inhabited, but there were no attendants or desk jockeys in the lobby. Not anymore. It looked like ACES had forgotten about this corner of the city.

Through the darkened halls she walked up the first flight of stairs, and soon enough, found herself at 278. She rapped on the door with her half-gloved hands before she swung back into her old code for clients. “Job need doing?”

“Unlocked” came the muffled reply. Sure enough, it was. The lights were on, though dim, when she entered. Room was the cleanest it could be in a joint like this. The client stared straight out the window, his weary eyes looking right up at Lita from the chair and through the glass.

“Won’t take long to sell you this.” he coughed.

He spun the wheelchair around. Nothing but a tank-top and a blanket over his legs. He was a black wolf, probably six even if he could stand. Those brown eyes were saying plenty already.

“Whoever they is, did this?” Lita inferred.

The hound scoffed. “If it was just this, I wouldn’t have called. It’s what they did to them.” He handed off a single photo from the bed. Within the faux-wood frame was her client in one of the Eastern District parks, standing tall next to a pretty gray. Cradled in her arms was a newborn, not far off from Lita’s own coat.

“Photo was taken just two weeks ago,” he continued. “The next week we got mugged. Elliot Graham, five-foot-ten with a snub-nose. Took her, took him, didn’t take me. I identified him right to the HPD attendants. They haven’t been able to find him for shit. So as you can see, Haven’s taking care of me just fine in the meantime.”

Lita’s eyes were glowing red in the half-light of the apartment when he handed her a folder full of other photos.

“Every shot they could find of him on surveillance.” he said dryly. “Let me keep them to ‘warn others.’ So I’m warning you.”

She thumbed through the shots. Some of them gave her a real good look at the tan-furred sonofabitch. “How bad you want it to hurt?” she asked.

“Just kill the fuck.” he bitterly replied. “So long as he’s dead, that’s all that counts. Rest is up to you. How much?”

Lita went to pull a figure out of her head, but her eyes fell back to the first photo. “Let’s put it on the house. I got places to be anyhow.”

The weary hound nodded. “This the last time I see you then?”

Lita shook her head and jotted down a number; her private line.

“If you ever need anything,” she said. “Call me here. Let me know how you’re doing. I’ll check in every now and then. Gotta name?”

“Call me Varrick,” he replied softly. “And…thanks. Means a lot.”

She left him with a smile and a “Be seeing you” before walking out. Once she was back behind the wheel, the game was on.

Enough of the photographs’ metadata pointed her to a particular part of the District. It was a block nicknamed Southpaw by most of the local street fighters, the reason being that it was the only way to fend off thugs like Graham when you didn’t have a peacemaker handy.

She pulled the Bug into an alleyway and killed the lights; didn’t want the bastard to see him when she hit him. Even if her first stabs at it were long shots, Lita always left the door open for fate to give her a chance. Unfortunately, her fed managed to sneak through the cracks too. And he wasn’t subtle about it.

"Evening.” came a sharp synthetic voice. From where was anyone’s guess, but she could hear it clear as day.

Then she felt the Bug jolt. Whoever it was, they had jumped right on his hood. She slammed her paw down and felt the creep roll over the top and onto the ground behind them. When she jumped out to see who had decloaked, no one was there.

Curious, Lita drew her Wildey and squeezed off a shot of dark green right where she figured the body had landed. The shot hit the cracked asphalt with a zap; nothing.

The second she was back behind the wheel, she heard the voice again. “Evening.”

At first, she didn’t know what to do, but having realized she just made her first hideaway of the night a marked spot, she chose to play it cool. She pulled the Red Devil onto the street and took him for a drive around the block. Maybe she’d catch her target on the prowl and could run him down.

Her first few laps were both fruitless, yet fruitful. She couldn’t find Graham anywhere on the beat. No hooded tan wolves to speak of, not even a shady character to mistake him for. There were others out walking the night, but they weren’t thugs. She could sense it in every set of eyes she saw. Drifters, street-dwellers, a few ladies of the night, but no thugs.

What she did find was where the mechanical utterance had come from; it was isolated to that first alleyway she had parked in. Along with the utterance of “evening” came the distant, low rumbling of hover-engines, the silver nose of the machine poking out from behind the brick of the alley,

“Just my luck” she muttered, driving past for the umpteenth time. It was time to give up the beat for now, and reorient herself.

Out came the phone and a smooth “Yo Malten, s’Lita.”

“Hey Urbie, what’s up?” came the biker’s gruff reply. She shook her head at the nickname before carrying on.

“Working on a quick case before I dip, I need eyes peeled for an Elliot Graham. Tan, five-seven, rocks Chucks, black denim, and a hoodie, packs a Colt Cobra. Pretty little thing he used to kill a mama and her babe during a mugging. Crippled the husband. I want his ass before I leave.”

“You got it Hoss.”  he said. “Will keep you posted. Sending some of the cats out to prowl for you.”

“Right on brother man.” she grinned. “Right…oh shit!”

The fuzz bristled at the sight of the Red Devil, bearing down on him at full throttle. One from the alley, one from up the side street, and one dead ahead. And all three manically screaming in that wretched voice she knew too well.

“LITA DARLING! IT’S YOUR FAVORITEST GOD MIC IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD!” 

With cackling mania, the fed’s voice rushed at the Bug, the silver autocops ready to crush the car in a kamikaze frenzy. Lita gunned the Red Devil for the opposite side of the street. Just as the Bug leapt forward

CRASH!

The front and side hovercraft nicked the Beetle as he made his escape. The force shot the car down the street, bucking and swerving wildly as Lita fought for control. Manic behind the wheel, she tried to get him back on course. When her eyes snapped up to the rearview, she caught an all-too familiar sight; the third hovercraft had cleared the wrecks of the other two.

“Oh, what the hell?” she grimly chuckled.

With another autocop on her tail, Lita rammed the throttle down, claws out and dug deep in her worn-out sandals and the leather of the wheel. The Bug screamed down the road with the silver law machine hot on his wheels. Up the needle went, clearing 60, 70, 80. She shifted, ready for 100 to roar from that monstrous V8 of his.

They were at 95 when it happened.

From out of nowhere, a wolf darted into the road. She didn’t have time to nail the brakes down when the body slammed into the front and spun over the car like a rush of leaves. When she did finally stop, she swung the car around to see who she had hit. And to her surprise, so too did the autocop.

Every part of him was bloodied from the neck down, but the caved-in face told her plenty; she had gotten Elliot Graham. Just like that, from out of nowhere. The question of who he was running from was answered when a small team of bikers cruised away, leaving her and the silver machine to survey the body.

“GODDAMNIT!”  her fed roared from the hovercraft’s PA system. “He wasn’t supposed to get killed until later. And you weren’t supposed to do that you fucking speed demon! Why’d you have to go and do that? Jesus FUCKING H!”

“You telling me the gig was all planted?” she scowled.

There was silence at first, then a disgruntled sigh. “No. We just let him keep running around killing until he got in your sights.”

When the dark gray punk looked up from the killer she had slayed, her crimson eyes were afire with rage. Sickened by the thought of this bloodied trash heap being set loose, revolted by the tact of her “friendly neighborhood agent,” and above all else, still thinking about Varrick in that cold, clammy apartment.

“I know you ain’t in there.” she growled, half-gloved hand on her Wildey, “But I hope you fucking choke on this you goddamn PIG!”

With the fierceness of a Wild West gunman, she drew and hammered into every one of the hover engines with her .357, the arcs of green laser fire thrashing the machine into a volcano of sparks as the beast dropped to the road with a mighty crunch. It didn’t detonate immediately, not that she cared by now. Lita simply turned her back, climbed back into the Red Devil, and dropped the hammer.

On her business phone, she chose to leave a text; “Graham dead. All wrapped up.” On her private line, she had received one from Malten: “Scumbag’s worth 120 points. 10/10 form.” It lightened the mood enough for her to go in on her favorite post-job past-time: hitting a blunt. With each drag, she felt some of the bile leave her as they drew nearer and nearer to the Haven border.

There was one thing branded her mind though, even with the plumes swirling about her: she wanted this hound on her ass dead. She wanted him worse than dead. If she couldn’t make Graham suffer, he wanted this bastard to feel nothing but a heaping pile of pain in his gut for a full week before she put him out to pasture. She wanted this fed flambeed.

Her claws were out just thinking about everything she’d do to him when she made it to the border. The tall, chain-link wall was frayed in this section, the top of it peeling off like a tattered poster. Hopefully the nanotech wasn’t in the middle of refortifying it.

“Alright,” she sighed. “The way that sucka’s built, should be like tissue paper now. Sic ‘em, tough guy!”

The Bug surged forward, barreling for the border with every horse galloping under the hood. She shifted to keep the momentum up, the chain link drawing nearer and nearer until

CLINK!

“You gotta be shitting me!”

The Bug bounced right off like a basketball, and no matter how many layups she went in for, it didn’t seem to budge.

As with any problem, when running it down didn’t work, she tried gunning it down. Lita swung her head out, Dragunov in hand, and worked the sniper rifle up and down her chunk of the border in a radiant display of blue beams and white sparks. She knew she’d catch the eyes of the border patrols shortly, so with a quick toke, and all fingers crossed, she whipped the Red Devil back.

“Alright,” she growled. “If this don’t do it, we drag the mutha apart.”

She threw him into gear and set him loose once more. Tires pounding pavement, her feral snarl at the sight of the infernal barrier, the engine screaming like a raving mad lunatic.

It was just what they needed to break free of the City, and into the desert. Next stop: Doc’s Oasis.

They were working the corner when it all went down. It had taken some convincing on the Force’s part, some convincing on her part, and a couple of killer parties with lots of puffing and passing, but at last, Lita had made her decision: it was time to make real alliances. Time to get serious.

The exact time They wanted her dead.

Lita sauntered out of her cherry-bomb Bug, denim ragged as ever, and dabbed up Mack Malten, standing tall and proud in his leather riding gear alongside his wide-wheeled bike.

A third hound was also there. He was tall and silver, perched six stories up with a .50 cal surprise in his slender digits. With great precision, he lined up his shot, his electric eyes glowing as red as his target’s.

Much of the time was spent chopping it up, chatting about their latest blows dealt to technocracy. How many autocops they had wasted, the latest media spin on their crusade, all the usual things. And at the end of it all, the one-eyed biker decided to make his move.

“So you want a team-up for real then?” he asked in his cool rasp.

Lita nodded. “Never hurts to have a coupla real ones at ya back in this town, especially since I know you cats are the real thing.”

The biker smiled, straightening his vest and kicking a leg up against the brick wall of the alley. “Well shit, me and the boys're cool with it. What angle we working?”

“Simple.” she began. “When I need muscle, I want muscle. When I need backup, I want backup. And if you cats need any real help with big stuff. Police, gangs trying to fuck with operations, shit like that.”

Malten nodded. Nothing seemed beyond the pale from where he was standing.

“Just remember,” she cautioned, “I ain’t a pawn in gang wars, and I don’t need no poon hounds licking their lips outside the den. Besides my man and I both agreed that if we needed to burn off some fuel, we only pick the best. So if I need someone on a lonely ol’ night, I got just one name on my list.” She sauntered up to the towering biker and drew a U in his fur. “Your girl cool?”

“She dipped.” Mack said dryly. “It ain’t cheating if she just wanted a little something on the side herself anyhow. Besides, what the hell made your man so cool about it?”

“Hun,” snickered Lita, “Nicky’s in a rock-n-roll band. You play it hard and loud enough and you’ll get any girl you need. If you need it. Most nights we just call each other.”

Malten got the picture alright. “Now the treaty’s been rolled out, how about we sign?” He stuck his half-gloved paw out and Lita met it halfway. A good, firm shake, all neat and business-like. “What about the black-sites?”

Lita froze. “Black wuh?”

Malten shrugged. “Ain’t that what they call them joints where all the weird shit gets made? 607 and the like, stuff none of us is supposed to see?”

The dark gray punk had never thought of it that way. She shrugged in kind and said, “file it under ‘if I need backup.’ Least you get to see something cool.”

The biker nodded. And it was on that note that the firefight began.

Blood-red laser fire came shrieking down from the adjacent skyscraper. Malten ducked and Lita drew her Wildey. When she aimed for the head of the assailant, his red eyes glowing in the dark, only to find the electric bullets rocketing back her way. She grabbed hold of Mack and the two dove into the Red Devil.

“Any yo boys got a cell?” she asked, firing the blood-red Bug up.

“Yeah.”

“Tell ‘em come grab your hog.”

She tossed her phone over, ripped the gearshift into place and hit the gas. The Red Devil vanished in a cloud of rubber smoke, blasting past 60 as it flew away into the night. Mack checked the rearview to see who was coming after them, and was greeted by a leviathan visage. It was a hovercar; sleek, slender, but nothing like the ill-programmed autocops. No, this creature of the night was big, built like a caliginous Lamborghini, and had the speed of one too. The bike was spared, but the two rebels wouldn’t be so lucky.

When he got off the phone, “you got your piece on you?” was the next question out of Lita’s lips, to which Malten replied, “That’s with my girl back in the alley.” Without missing a beat, she drew her Mateba and handed it to him. He rolled the window down and swung himself out. Before she joined him, Lita jabbed at a button on the dash. She slammed the throttle the floor, and a latch snapped over top of it, holding the pedal to the floor

Lita slapped the window’s handle, the lever spinning madly as the glass dropped and she swung out. Both wolves aimed for the hover engines, but found themselves bumped and jolted by the pursuing craft. For a moment, it battered the Red Devil so hard, Lita practically leapt out of the window, caught by Mack who promptly dragged her inside the Bug. She hit the button and took back control of the footwell, drifting down onto a side street, the obsidian hovercraft following suit.

“Well, who’d ya piss off this time?” Malten asked, cracking his neck and knuckles in three rough crunches.

“I don’t know.” she said. “That ain’t the police, and that ain’t any asshole I know. Might be one of them Felixes the white coats make. The ‘bots…shit, do I got another assassin on my ass? Goddammit.” The biker fell back in his seat before he could chime in.

From out of nowhere, darkness. The Bug flew into black, like the flick of a light switch. His headlights couldn’t identify anything, except

BAM!

The wall in the dark.

Both hounds were out cold. When they came through, both were strapped to chairs and sat beneath a blistering white light.

“You sure done pissed ‘em off,” Mack groaned deliriously.

Lita shook the grog out of her head, trying to gain her bearings. She could still smell burnt rubber, so she knew the Bug was there in the room with them. Protruding out from the dark were three large barrels, pointed squarely at the bounded hounds. Then a voice. Nothing mechanical about it, not even in ornament.

“Well, that was easy to arrange. Nothing like a cloaked storage unit, eh?”

They could hear the great steel doors close.

“Didn’t even need to wait on Android Development!” the voice wryly chuckled. “All you need is accelerated cloaking tech and a lil’ luck.”

“Anything in particular you jackasses want?” Lita growled. Silence fell over the holding cell. “WELL YOU BUGFUCKED SONOFABITCH?”

“No Miz Bond, I vant you to die!” the voice cackled in a faux-German accent, the last word ricocheting off the steel walls. He returned to his clean voice once the echo subsided. “Look sweetie, here’s the scoop: you been on our list for a while. And the Missus is none too pleased about what you’ve been digging up. Plans, stations, hubs, and all. Frankly, she’s had enough of you.”

Both wolves broke into feral snarls.

“My word, what savages have we!” the voice cried in feigned fright before snapping back. “Look, if it was up to just her, she’d have had you done in a long, long time ago, but even the Boss Lady can’t do it all. So guess who got put on your case? Your friendly neighborhood God mic, me!”

The gaiety of tone, to no one’s surprise, wasn’t shaking them into silence. That’s when the laser-fire was brought out. Two big beams missed Malten and Lita by an inch. And instead of shutting up, both wolves started screaming at the top of their lungs every obscenity they had for the city, A.C.E.S, and anything they had left over for their captor.

It took another crossfire volley to get the duo to shut up.

“Jesus, wasn’t expecting you to be such goddamn troglodytes about it,” the voice groaned to himself. He fired the lasers again, just to make sure they didn’t start up again out of offence. “Alright, let’s get shit straight. Because I think you’re kinda cute, above you in this trailer is a beam. This beam is specifically for Lita. Mr. Malten, don’t sweat your pea-brain, all you know is some dumb mutt went running home to Daddy with a reel of tape in his hands they won’t even begin to understand. As for you Lita, if this doesn’t fry your chip into vegetabledom, you are free to leave. If it does, well, have your friend drive you home and enjoy the rest of your natural, lobotomized life. Fair deal?”

All he got were more guttural roars from the two.

“Alright, I’m switching this bastard on. I got a function at 4 and I don’t have time to waste. Now, Lita babe, if you’re real nice, and you say your prayers and eat your veggies, I’ll come over to the den afterwards and we can have some fun! Just you and me, lights down low, smoking a joint, screwing like rabbits without a care in the world. At least you won’t I presume. Sounds like good times, eh?”

Before she could even begin to light into that whole can of worms, a loud whirring filled the container as the white light went red. Lita twitched, howled and frothed in a deranged display. Her body tensed, her fur bristled, her eyes widened and her pupils shrunk. Her head turned slowly towards Malten, the one-eyed gray startled by the sight.

Until she winked.

The unchipped punk held up her bound hands to his, and up past her leather-clad knuckles was a bracelet. He could feel a round, plastic sort of button. On instinct, he hit it with his fist. From out the dark, two red lights came racing towards the hounds; the brake lights of the Red Devil. The Bug blasted the two chairs away from each other and both wolves took hold of a handle on the crimson beast’s side as it charged towards the steel doors. The punk and biker braced themselves as the Bug blew the door wide open and stopped short once it hit the pavement. They fell to the road, chair shattering on impact. Lita was the first up and ripped herself free of the rope. She freed Mack and both flew into the Bug and bolted away from the steel container.

“What the hell was that?” Mack barked.

“Total recall, baby!” cackled Lita. “Tuned my little man’s frequency to this ol’ bracelet and now he can help me out of all sorts of jams. Who’s a good boy? You’s a good boy!”

While she baby-talked the Bug all over, the biker checked the rear-view. “How about this one?”

Not only was the tanker decloaked, but the massive ground-style big-rig towing it. And boy could the bastard move too. The truck whipped the container around, its cargo missing buildings by centimeters and tore after the Red Devil with screeching tires.

She shifted it up and slapped her paw down on the throttle, the Red Devil soldiering ahead. For a moment though, there was a strange look on her face, until she lifted her rear up and looked down.

“Well shit.” she chuckled. “Grab the Mateba.” He let Mack help himself to the black revolver before she plucked her silver hand-cannon out from the seat. She holstered her piece just as they blew past their alley from earlier. “Least the boys saved her.” she smiled.

“We still got our friend, though.” Mack said gravely.

Lita’s head snapped to the road and she came down hard on the brake and clutch. The Red Devil spun around on a dime. The truck came careening down one path and from out of another black hovercraft down another. She held the Bug in place, waiting for them to get closer. When both came in for the kill, she hit the gas and sent the Bug racing down the side street. Behind the punk, biker, and Bug came a calamitous bang!

“Works every damn time.” she giggled. Mack could only let out the deepest breath of his life.

“You still the craziest bitch I know.” he sighed, checking the Mateba over.

“STILL THE ONE I’M AFTER!”

The captor’s voice slunk out the mechanized mouth of the silver assassin as it sprinted out of the fire and towards the Red Devil. He wasn’t dolled up to look like a true-blue wolf either; he was steel-plated and dressed to kill. His arm retracted, now a giant tube fit to fire round after round of white electric lead, rapid in its pulse as it got closer and closer to the Red Devil.

Lita drifted her little man ‘round corner after corner, but every turn she made, the silver assassin was there, and packing heat. Then the direct hits came, laser fire rocking the Bug all over the road, his master fighting feverishly for control.

“How’s about we put that alliance to the test?” Mack said. “Hand me the phone.” She did so without question. Her biker called in the crew and had Lita whip through every side street in the quadrant. It was when she had made Turn 50 she spotted two sets of black-gloved mitts holding something. It was invisible to her and Mack, but she floored the Bug through it.

When the ‘bot came a-sprinting…

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

Dropped him right to the road. Lita hit the brakes, and whipped the Red Devil around. The whole crew, bitch, bikers, and all, gathered round the fallen ‘droid. For a second, he looked dead, until the machine’s hand-cannon went red. Everyone ducked and dove for cover as the assassin started firing wildly at anything that moved.

“Well,” Lita said, ducked behind her faithful rod, “Guess we’ll have to try something else.”

Whatever she meant by “something else,” what she ultimately got was everyone lighting into the guy simultaneously, and for a moment, all they got were deflected rounds and chunks of adjacent buildings plummeting all around them. But then, something curious came out of the concentrated firepower: the android glowed.

He glowed red.

“KEEP AT ‘EM!” roared Malten as he blasted away with the strange Mateba in his mitts. Everyone did as told. Dual-wielding, shotguns, revolvers, pistols, the entire armory of the gang and their vigilante cohort kept firing and firing on the lone figure until his body grew so red…he melted.

The great silver assassin, in a crumpled, languid, spark-fueled display, caved in on himself, guts screaming with every pint-sized eruption. As the molten steel finally hardened on the ground, the voice box, though damaged and distorted, once more produced that peculiar captor’s crystal clear tones.

“Well. At least we can manage property damage. You and I both know this isn’t the end, so I won’t labor it. Think of me as the second set of eyes, Lita. Ace watches all, but I’m watching YOU. And boy are you an easy watch. The police, your peon-minded crooks, none of them are a match for what I’m about to do to you. This bad boy was just a warm-up. A taste of adventures yet to come. And even a hundred hounds might not be enough for next time. Au revoir.”

The head blew to pieces, rocketing out everywhere, even into Lita. She looked down to find a slit in her jeans, and a trickle of blood running down her leg.

“Well shit…sonofabitch actually got me, huh?”

The Avenger now found herself with a proper foe, but plenty of muscle to help her out. When the parties parted, the only thing left lying on the tarmac with the desecrated body of the silver android was a question: what was “next time” going to look like?

With a kick in the gut and a 30 feet drop, Lita’s job was finished. Her black-suited target tumbled into the alleyway, landing on the curb with a crunching thud. She’d been getting calls left and right about burglaries in the Eastern District, targeting haves and have-nots alike. With no community police and the H.P.D. turning a blind eye as always, her hot line was ringing like a fire alarm.

The dark gray punk made her way down the rickety old fire escape to the street. She ripped off the crook’s ski-mask and shook her head.

“Alright Rando, what’s your name, seeing as ya’s still breathing and all?”

The crook didn’t say a word, he just dead-eyed her. He was a white wolf, with a thick snout and icy blue eyes. Blood pooled beneath him as a thin wisp of the stuff slid out the side of his mouth.

“Shall I get it over with?” she chuckled.

The thief coughed up a scoff as he looked to the Red Devil, waiting in the back of the alley. “That piece of shit’s gonna kill me?”

Lita crouched down and patted his cheek preciously. “Hun, you ain’t worth wasting bullets on.”

As she walked away, ready for her melon-crushing routine, she heard him mutter something.

“I betcha you want it too. Ain’t no chance Sister. Only I know.”

At first, Lita paid him no mind, climbing behind the wheel and firing up the engine. She killed the Bug’s lights and gassed him up. When it came time to charge on the thief, she made it halfway before slamming the brakes, getting out, and bolting back towards the burglar.

“Mind spilling what ‘it’ is?” she asked.

All she found were closed eyes and sealed lips; bastard croaked. Now he wasn’t worth running over. Though she did just to be sure.

Her slate now cleared, the Red Devil headed back to their cozy hole-in-the-wall. Lita threw off her jean jacket and whipped out one of her joints, the sandpaper smoke soothing her. As she let the plumes flow out her snout, one thing remained to cloud her mind; “it.”

What in God’s name was so hot, someone would rifle through everyone in a nine-block radius just to get at it? She kept mulling it over, trying to make any sense of it, only to draw blanks. Whatever “it” was, she was about to meet the crazy asshole who wanted it.

The Red Devil pulled up to an intersection, and in the five seconds it took Lita to check for the slim chance of traffic, she heard a shriek from behind. It was the scream of smoking tires. Before long, sitting pretty beside her prized Bug was a Firebird. A black-and-white killer from ‘83 on all fours in a city of 90% hovercraft. And behind the wheel…her burglar?

Alive, kicking, and cackling to his passengers before catching sight of Lita and howling with mad glee.

“GETALOADOFTHIS!” he guffawed, “We got ourselves a butch bitch and a punch buggy to boot.” He swung his fist into the shoulder of the hound riding shotgun.

“How the hell you still—”

She cut herself off in a fit of sputtering confusion. Without missing a beat, she drew her Mateba and lit into the windows. Glass shattered, she put a hole in each hound’s head, and just as soon as she made a mess of the whole crew…

No. It couldn’t be, could it?

Like Father Time rolled back his tape deck, the glass pieced itself back together, the exit wounds healed, & that cruel, conniving little grin came back to the burglar’s face, cackling as he hit the gas & tore away into the night. Lita gunned the Red Devil in a flash. In a final shot across the bow, no sooner did she round a bend that she discovered…no one was there.

Not a solitary soul in the alleyway. She threw the brakes down and slammed her hands on the steering wheel.

“Guess this town ain’t getting any less weird.” she huffed.

Lita took a deep breath (and a good long drag) before backing the Red Devil out and rocketing down the street. Her rack in the sanctum was all she wanted now.

But try as she might, and no matter how hard shit hit the blunt, the image of a roving pack of red-light loonies refused to leave her. The thought of some terrific treasure refused to leave her. She had gotten it in her head that it was gems of some kind. Part of it was one too many paperback mysteries, but the other part was the nature of the burglaries.

They had hit the civvies, and it was always their homes. Whatever these crooks wanted, you couldn’t nab from a bank, a truck, or a police auction. It was locked up somewhere safe and sound in an apartment.

The only thing stopping her from getting in on the chase was a lead. Some kind of sign, symbol, or a good old-fashioned clue.

Whatever it was, it flew out the 42nd floor of a skyscraper and planted itself right in the sidewalk with a searing slice. Had it been a few feet closer, it would’ve blasted right through Red Devil himself.

“Holy mutha!” she exclaimed, bolting for the stray godsend. When she ripped it out of the sidewalk, it was the most beautiful thing she’d seen all night. It was a diamond, or at least it looked the part. The kind of perfectly carved stone you saw in a museum. She looked up to the building with a mile-wide grin.

“I don’t know if you’s the real McCoy, but you’re gonna help me nail some of these bastards, eh?” She kissed the gem before sauntering slowly towards the alleyway beneath the window. She gave the loudest whistle, the kind you do with both fingers.

She had expected some heads to rear out from the window, a cry of “GET HER” to follow suit. All she got for her troubles was the pointed nose of the Firebird and a twirling ride over the length of the car, body slammed against steel and glass as the windshield cracked. Midway through the hit-and-run, the thief grabbed for the diamond, only to get the whole hound instead, slammed down into the passenger’s seat.

Lita tore right into him, sending the car veering and careening all over the street as she savaged him with flailing fists and gnashing teeth. She even got one good jab in with the pointed tip of the crystal. But in her feral state, she didn’t see the button sat upon his leather bracelet. In a second, all wounds healed, the windshield looked pristine, and his fist socked her flush in the snout. When she dove for the bracelet, he kicked the brakes and threw her neck onto the gearshift. As the punk gagged and spluttered, the thief went for the loot, only to get another shot of green laserfire to the face.

The second between her shot and his rewind was long enough for her to dive out of the Trans Am window. She had made it to the Red Devil when the white wolf looked at her with a merciless grimace.

“I get real fucking tired of cunts like you,” he growled.

She blew him a kiss before peeling out. Bloodied, bruised, and howling with mad-eyed glee, she soldiered into the night, taking another drag while she looked down to her newly-minted blood diamond.

So I got my great whatsit and the bastards after it, she thought. What you think they willing to do for it?

She gave it some thought, only for a volley of zaps to come racing up from behind. The thief’s chorus of doppelgangers shared a good aim, the streaks of orange and yellow cutting through the streets, bouncing off the Red Devil’s body.

Down the throttle went, claws sunk deep in suede as the sandal-pawed punk flicked a switch beneath the radio.

“Let’s try the oldest trick in the book.” she snickered.

What followed was a nice, even oil slick from the Beetle’s rear bumper. With tires hissing & screeching, the crooks spun out of control and right into the side of a derelict tower. But right on cue, just as the Trans Am’s engine erupted into a hellish fireball, the flames rolled inward and the car looked good as new.

She could almost hear the thief’s boot slam against the gas as the black-and-white beast roared towards the Bug, the gap closing fast. Lita wiped a trickle of blood from her snout before making her next move.

“Alright Babe,” the dark gray smiled, patting the wheel, “Let’s try a little experiment.”

She came down on the brake and clutch, the blood-red Beetle skidding with a scream alongside the Trans Am. Lita opened the driver’s side window, the killer riding shotgun and ready to come out swinging. She reached out and grabbed his arm, putting the tip of her Wildey to his peashooter.

“Howdy stranger!” she smiled. This white wolf didn’t look quite the same as the thief now. The slender snout and hazel eyes prove she wasn’t dealing with quadruplets. She held her grip and kept the silver lawbringer trained on the snub-nosed revolver. Slowly, the Beetle drifted further and further away from the Trans Am. When the thief realized the Chicago handshake being pulled, he did his best to keep close, only for Lita to give a good tug, the gunman sent flying out the window and under her wheels.

The blood bag didn’t get up, no matter how much the thief tapped on his button.

It wasn’t all roses for Lita either. The Bug hopped the curb, careening onto the sidewalk and buffeting against the wall of synthetic concrete, a lamp post fast approaching. The thief swerved to box her in, only for Lita to kick the brakes and gun the Bug in reverse.

In a wrong jerk of the wheel, the Red Devil was caught, all fours almost touching ground but not quite, teetering awkwardly. Lita rocked and jostled within the car, fighting to get him back on the ground. The thief and his gang tore into the Bug, round after round of laser fire digging into his protective shell.

At last, the back wheel caught and she floored him, caving the gunman’s head in as she backed over and gave chase.

The role reversal lasted five seconds once the thief remembered what he wanted.

As tires squealed and the wild goose chase carried on through the winding streets of the Eastern district, Lita heard something she couldn’t begin to believe.

“Let’s talk!” cried the voice of the thief. The call fell on deaf ears as she shifted up.

“Let me finish the fucking experiment and you can have it for free!” he hollered.

She eased off and rolled her window down once more. “No tricks?” she roared.

“No tricks!” he replied.

It was less the promise of free jewelry and more the curiosity. What was this experiment? What was worth going through this much hell to get something done? She figured if he was serious, it would be worth watching. If he was insane, she’d have to find a way to get that timeslip device off of him.

Carefully, both cars pulled off into an alleyway. The Firebird first, then the Beetle. All four wolves exited their rides and holstered their guns. Lita thumbed away the blood from the gem and handed it off to the thief. “You better be curing something if you got half the neighborhood calling me up about you.”

The white wolf glowered at first, then nodded, taking the diamond from her hand and opening the Firebird’s trunk. Inside was a strange contraption. Like a makeshift flamethrower, though it couldn’t throw flames. No trigger, no barrel, but all of the tanks and tubes such a device would use.

The thief slid open a compartment and rested the diamond in the chamber, neon-red lasers refracting through the gem into a colorful display. He flicked a handful of silver switches in a single swipe of his hand before the machine began to whir and whine. He looked to his men. “When I press this button, should all go well, this will be the cure to old age, preempting terminal ailments, and all-around keeping us young and healthy.”

He had shifted his gaze to the perplexed Lita, who could only look on as the thief pressed the button on his leather strip once more. The machine revved up more and more and more, the sound growing deafening until, with a violent cry of “GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAH,” both hound and car vanished without a trace.

The goons stared blankly at the spot where their leader and his machine once stood. Lita quietly backed away and towards the Red Devil. She slid into the driver’s seat and gingerly pulled the Bug away. The last thing she heard from behind her was the rattling mechanical call of “H-H-H-ALT. HALT,” leaving the rest of the thieves to their fate at the nonexistent hands of the autocop closing in.

One thing still nagged at her about the whole affair: the room on the 42nd floor of the skyscraper they had raided. The Beetle opened up for his master once more as they hightailed it to the complex. When they got there, she backed the Red Devil into the alleyway and hopped out.

The back elevator was still electrified, so there was no need to hit the staircases. Higher and higher the glass hut climbed until it hit Floor 42. And it wasn’t long before she saw a door ajar; the ransacked apartment.

She stepped inside, the room graced only by moonlight as papers and glass lay strewn about everywhere. She picked one up, and with its header alone, everything about the night became twice as bizarre, and twice as dumb.

“Progress on Operation: Backmask: Page 14 of 128”

The information was like a crazed fever dream, dozens and dozens of hypotheses, diagrams, dates, and test results. Whether he was a White Coat or a private engineer, the realization of what the poor bastard wanted and where he had left it put her in stitches.

“Shoulda checked between the cushions next time,” she chortled, gathering up the pages. Mixed up in the mess was one of the bracelets, though when she pressed it, nothing happened. She pocketed the memento and left with a binder’s worth of scientific insanity under her arm. As the elevator doors closed, there was only one thought left on the vigilante Lita’s mind.

I wonder what the boys on the Force could do with this?

There was something about his eyes as life slipped from them. Like a never-ending sheen in the cobalt night, even as the electric skyscrapers towered over him. With a wave of her gloved hand, Lita closed his eyes forever.

“Time for your pyre, friend,” she muttered. With a flick of her thumb, she struck the match. The flames roared up the trail of oil leading to the black bike, and the young red wolf that was propped up against it. It all went up in seconds.

Lita jogged back to the Red Devil, the Bug idling softly in the fire’s light. When the twenty-something dark gray climbed in, she wrapped her arms around Ash tightly. The white wolf couldn’t have gotten a hold of herself if she put a handle on her head. Chuck, for all his size and strength, gently pulled her into the backseat, taking over the consoling. The black prizefighter looked up to Lita through the rear-view. “Fifth kid they took.”

Lita looked right back at him through the mirror. “And it’s gonna be their last. Let’s get you guys back home. Leo’s boys oughta be in town soon.”

Chuck nodded as Lita put the car in gear and opened him up gently.

The fifth. The gang had gone through at least five youths in five days. Every young biker was seemingly up for grabs, but neither the street fighters nor Lita herself could stomach the sight of anyone that young getting it in the head for the crime of rocking a hog on the wrong street.

Once she had dropped them off at their pad in the Eastern District, she kicked things up a notch to make her meeting with the next batch of soldiers from the Force. She didn’t thrill in the drive as she once had, especially with the heap of things on her plate.

When she reached the rendezvous point, she was met with the sight of bikers, a decent sized pack too. She wanted to plow right through them on site before she recognized the face. It was her man for the mission. She kicked the brakes and called out.

“Yo, MAD!”

The soldier waved and rolled up to the Bug.

“Howdy Lita!”

Martin Archer Douglas was Lita’s kind of biker. A tough sonofabitch, but one playing for the team, and it looked like he had brought quite the company.

“What’s shakin’ ‘round here?” he asked.

“I dunno,” Lita teased, “Aren’t you out here to make sure I don’t have a screw loose?”

“If that was the point, I wouldn’t be heading this shindig, would I Pal?”

The two chuckled among themselves before Lita got down to brass tacks.

“I’ll take you down the street, the cams haven’t been replaced yet. The whole route as I remember, right up to 607. From there, you got questions? Hit me. Otherwise, we’ll knock out a proper report at my pad, knock back a couple of shots, and send y’all back to the Principal’s office.”

Martin nodded.

“And MAD Dog?”

“Yeah?” he asked.

She took a deep breath before answering. “We got trouble on two wheels running ‘round the joint. Nixed five already. I know one head I want over the mantel. Keep your boys in line and make sure if we gotta throw down, we get the bastard.”

With a stone faced nod, the gray wolf whistled for his men, all ten bikers following the Red Devil to their first destination.

The scorched marks where electric eyes once sat on the facades of the buildings left Martin particularly puzzled. Lita brought her caravan to a stop before chatting with him about it.

“She never healed those. Man, I don’t know why. Whatever we did musta hurt something fierce.”

“Well, this is one point in your favor,” he said, “That nanotech woulda kicked in the second you laid into ‘em. And it’s been what, two weeks?”

Lita nodded.

“Yeah, that shit ain’t smelling right Pal, not the way Ace rolls. And you said the dome was just dead ahead.”

With a second nod, she pulled forward, bikes in tow, and stopped exactly where the metal wall stood.

“No traces here though,” Martin observed.

“Well when I’m told you have a dimension alternator, it’s not a gateway into the 4th, and I triple checked we didn’t have some monster mescaline before going out, I’m not sure traces are to be left at all.

“Except for that,” the gray soldier noted, pointing towards the distant wreck of Station 607.

“That was the nexus from what I understood. Where they kept all the computers and shit to keep the thing afloat.”

“And went through an entire subsection of the City, to reach a building down the block?”

“Scout’s honor.”

“Why does this bitch always make the most mental shit happen here?”

Lita shrugged, “Talk to me when you’ve been on the Earth 200 years.”

Martin went to talk, but could only come up chuckling. “Alright, you win Pal. Wanna check the wreckage?”

“HELL NAW!” she barked.

“Why not?”

“Those HOV-CRAFT can turn over on a dime Man, and even if she hasn’t touched this block, I don’t wanna know if they come back from the grave.”

Martin inched his blood-red bike forward. “Let me peak a little, you’ve got some hot shit on your hands after all.”

She didn’t even have the chance to answer before the Indian roared on ahead. With a heavy sigh, Lita waved the unit on and opened the Red Devil up. “Let’s keep ‘em in line, Little Man.”

Soon enough, the group were there at the scene, the station still as bombed out as before. Charred rubble, scorched metal, all the fixings of a burnt-out building.

As the team had begun rummaging through the wreck, Martin had questions.

“Where are the ‘banks?”

Lita stood puzzled. “The hell you mean?”

“We ain’t finding anything. No reel-to-reels, no chips, nothing. It’s just linoleum, wood, and your, eh, friends.”

Lita leaped out of the Bug and dove head first into the rubble. With flailing legs, and fistfuls of concrete in each hand, she bore a hole through the rubble, only to find…nothing. It really wasn’t there.

“Sonofabitch!”

“Think there might be any data logs on the HOV-CRAFT?” Martin ventured.

Lita hocked and spat at the metallic devils before replying. “It’s a slim chance, she erased all traces of base when that big ball o’ white hit us. Y’all saw Nic’s blank pics, right?”

The gray soldier nodded before looking to the silver beasts. “Slim but our only. Start prying boys!”

The unit whipped out their pocket welding torches and got straight to work. But as the quiet hums sliced through the autocops’ shells, a rumbling cut through the blue of the evening. At first there was one, but soon the rumbling grew in both volume and quantity. It could’ve been ten, maybe fifteen at the most. And however many it was, they moved fast.

When Lita’s ears perked up, she shot a look Martin’s way, who looked right back at her. With a nod between them, he called the men off, all ten bikers mounting their rides. Lita swung herself through the Red Devil’s window and into the driver’s seat. She wrapped her left hand on the wheel and the right hand on top of the gearshift. She could feel the sweat seeping from the pads of her paws. She started to rev the Red Devil up, the claws sinking into suede as she slammed the gas down over and over.

“Off our turf!” barked the gray at the head of the pack. In fact, the entire gang were grays. Only thing that made this guy special was the eyepatch over his left eye. God did she want that eyepatch under her wheels.

“No dice jagoff!” Martin growled in kind. “We got business here!”

“Peddling radium, are we? Getting a little action?”

Martin and Lita exchanged cockeyed glances before looking back to the gang, the bikers’ revs growing ever louder.

“Try again you goddamned deadweights!” he roared. “Seeing about fixing a certain something in Empire Square!”

“BULLSHIT!”

The gang stirred up a racket that could bring down half the Tower Network of the city. Lita responded with a roar of her own.

“Fine then,” she sneered, “LET’S TALK YOUR LINGO FUCKFACE! THIS ONE’S FOR THE BLOOD DRIVE!”

She could practically feel the crushed head under her claws as she pinned the throttle down and blew past Martin’s crew. He and the unit followed suit as she raced headlong into the rumble.

The gang of grays were armed to the teeth, and weren’t ready to back down for a second. The leader reared up on his bike’s back wheels and lead the charge, a chain whipping about his head as he readied to strike the Red Devil.

When Bug and bike met, sparks flew in every direction. The chain scraped the hood with a shriek as Lita kept him rolling. The leader managed to swing out of his path, the dogs behind him getting a rude awakening at 150 miles an hour. Blood and oil flew into the air as bone and metal were crushed under wheel. Lita was loving every second of it.

Martin wasn’t that far off. He and his Garand were divorcing ride from rider at a swift clip. The purple laser-fire went right for the head and never strayed a millimeter off target. Backed by crack shots from the Resistance, the gang seemed licked.

Until backup arrived.

They were grays as well, but built like the biggest brick shithouses on the block. Broad shoulders, wrapped in leather, astride chopped hogs with tires thick as the road. And they came to kill.

Two of Martin’s unit got a single shot in the throat, Lita quick to put herself between the Resistance’s team and the gang, swinging the back of the Bug into the second wave and wiping out four in one fell swoop. She leaned on the gas as she barreled over them, tires smoking and screaming madly.

The madness didn’t seem to end for Lita and Martin. For every biker they did away with, five would take their place. And for every pool of blood on the concrete, another bike would come careening in to avenge the fallen gangsters. It was when Martin had lost another two that he sent the rest of the unit away.

“I ain’t losing no more men to this, Lita,” he said over radio. “If we’re gonna lick these bastards, it’s you and me, no more.”

Lita clutched the CB in her gloved mitts and said with a smile: “You’re on.”

To cover the retreat, out came Lita’s Dragunov, lighting into every dome she could get in her sights. Driving was a bit of a hassle, her left knee steering and her right foot planted on the gas. But it was doing the trick as she wasted wave after wave. Only to take a lamppost to the bull bar.

The momentum threw her head against the butt of the gun, and onto the steering wheel. Martin couldn’t help but chuckle to himself as he kept fending off the gray hordes.

Lita swung the rifle back into its rack before whipping out her Wildey and pulling away from the light. When she brought the Red Devil into place and pounced on the throttle, something caught the corner of her eye. Something long, slender, and silver, with a streak of black up its center.

Autocops. A whole squad of them.

Lita looked to the pandemonium and shouted at the top of her lungs.

“HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYY!”

To her surprise, everyone stopped on a dime.

“THE FUZZ ARE COMING!”

Vacant stares were traded between the warring sides, like a giant pause button was pressed. Then came time to press play.

“For fuck’s sake,” Lita sighed. “WE GONNA FRY SOME FUCKING BACON OR WHAT?”

After a collective blink, her pirate rival made the call. “Well boys, looks like pork’s back on the menu tonight.”

In no time at all, all twenty wolves who were at once slaughtering and being slaughtered were sent raging forward towards the fleet of HOV-CRAFTs. Martin and Lita sat back for a minute. And only a minute.

“Wanna call the Boys back?” Lita asked.

Martin went for the radio, but stopped himself. “Four dead’s too many for this hound.”

The pang of guilt sat with Lita for a while, but Martin didn’t let her stew.

“We ain’t honoring them by sitting on our asses Bitch, get moving!”

She nodded and floored the Red Devil without hesitation, Martin roaring up alongside her as they raced to the second rumble of the evening.

The gang were wailing away on the autocops, but the autocops were just as easily sending bikers left and right out into alleyways, whipping the leather-clad rag dolls around with a single blast. Martin’s Garand was giving every hover engine the best work-over he could, but even he was having trouble getting the best angle on them. That was when the idea hit her.

“Maybe these aren’t pigs,” she chuckled, “Maybe we got some cows to tip.”

Down the accelerator went, the Bug roaring and hurtling ahead of Martin, blowing by the hordes of spiked mohawks and well-worn leather jackets. Faster and faster the Red Devil sped, Lita’s crimson eyes afire as she shifted furiously. With a final crush of the gas, the Bug hurled itself under the nose of the autocop and kicked onto his back wheels, flipping the mechanical law machine up on its tail, in turn sending every HOV-CRAFT behind it into the exact same position.

“Good boy,” she growled to the Bug, revving him up, “Thank God for the hive-mind, huh?” She swung her head out the car’s window, and with a cock of her Wildey shouted, “COME AND GET IT BOYS!”

It was like the greatest game of target practice they’d ever had, pumping every hover engine with electric lead until, at last, they detonated, and the autocop fleet went up in a wall of blue flames. The gang, Martin, and Lita all went roaring away from the blast.

Having retreated to their original battlefield, Martin and Lita decided it was finally time to talk with the crew.

“HEY, BAZOOKA JOE, COME DOWN TO THE CENTER!” Martin barked. He dismounted, and sat his Garand on the seat. Lita joined him, flashing her handguns before leaving them in the Red Devil and stepping out. Sure enough, from out of the remaining horde came her cat with the eyepatch. He rocked a leather vest, bare-chested. He was also tall. Really, really tall.

“Name’s Malten. Mack Malten.” His voice was built like a tank.

“Well, dig this Mack,” Lita started. “I want to hear straight from the horses’ mouth: you killed the five down on Bleaker?”

There was a blank stare from the towering gray.

“Five what?”

Lita returned the empty gaze. “Haven’t killed five teens down East?”

“Nope.”

“Not a single dead kid under the age of 20?”

Mack gave pause before shaking his head. “Nope, not a one.”

Martin looked to Lita, absolutely baffled. “So four of my men die because you think we’re honing in on your turf and you aren’t even the crew who snuffed out what she’s pissed about?”

Mack looked the maddened gray in his eyes. “You also happened to kill…shit, Benny count the bodies!”

They never saw Benny, but they sure heard him alright.

“TWENTY-THREE!” came the shriek.

“So we got 32 dead hounds between us. And I’m sure the four who did your guys in is among the dead.” Mack said calmly.

“Actually!” answered Benny. Without missing a beat, Mack whipped around, gun drawn, and blew the cat’s head open.

“And if ANY of you have a lick of honor,” Mack finished, “Put yours to the temple, or I’ll fix it for ya.”

After a breath of silence, another round went off among the gang, followed by the slump of a body.

“Well, now we’re even,” the biker continued, “Whaddya want us to do?”

“Give us a sec,” excused Lita as she pulled Martin aside. Both wolves’ eyes were fit to fly out of their sockets.

“You’ve really done it this time!” he tersely whispered. “Fucking nuttiest bunch I ever met in my damn life.”

Lita looked back to him like she was on a speed trip. “Man, if I fucking knew this shit would go down like this, I would’ve kicked you in the nuts to get you away from 607.”

“In your fucking town,” MAD Dog went off, “Only shit this fucktacularly fruity could go down! Dimension alternators, incompetent policecraft, getting into the dumbest fucking war since 1812, and I had to lose four men over it!”

Her backhand finally snapped him out of it.

“Bro, I didn’t want this shit happening either,” she pleaded. “But look at me. We got two problems to solve. Your mission and those kids out there. Your mission is finding something, anything to prove that what happened to Nic and I wasn’t a fever dream, and mine’s to get this prowling prick off the streets. I had to burn five kids’ bodies ‘cuz we can’t bury no one out here. You lost four good soldiers. And we just wasted a shit-ton of these guys. Everyone’s fucking dying man. How ‘bout we fix that right here, right now?”

At last, Martin saw sense. He turned to look at Mack. He extended his gloved hand. “How about a truce with some conditions?”

The biker shook it firmly. “What you have in mind?”

“Some of your boys help the rest of my unit and I scavenge 607. And some go with Lita here to try and nab her killer.”

Mack looked back to the men behind him. “How many of yas is backup?”

Ten wolves raised their hands, Mack acknowledging them with a nod.

“Right, piss off then and thanks for the help. The rest of you get split 50/50.”

And just like that, Martin rode off with a pack of bikers at his back, and a lot of explaining to do to his troop. The plan was to rendezvous back at their entrance point with the findings of the survey, and hopefully the head of their killer.

Lita brought the gang to what she called “the east side of the bad side of the wrong side.” In short, home sweet home for Mack and his boys.

“Did a little arithmetic,” she said, “And figured he’s liable to strike anywhere in this particular corner of the district. That alley right there was where I took care of last night’s body.”

“Mean fucker chasing kids,” Mack spat. “Hope I get my hands on him and ring his neck out of orbit.”

“Can I squish his head when you’re done?” she asked playfully.

The gray biker chuckled. “If I didn’t have a bird to go home to, I’d grab your number right here and now.”

“Well lucky for you,” she smiled, “I’ve got a man myself.”

Mack crossed his arms in playful indignance. “Lucky bastard he must be. Getting a bitch like you’s the crown jewel of the whole game, init?”

Lita smirked. “Well, he’s outta town most days, but every day we’re together, it’s paradise.” She kicked her paws up on the wheel as they waited. She took to polishing her guns in the meantime. When she got to the barrel of the Wildey, Mack couldn’t hold it in.

“Don’t know which hot rod to be jealous of!” he guffawed. The brazenness of it all sent Lita into a fit of laughter.

“Hey, you ain’t bad for a hog-rider.” she teased. “Hol’ up, looks like patrol’s back around.”

A member of the gang, a 30-something on the edge of 17, was the bait for the evening. He was in a bandanna cap like Mack’s, and had taken to casually riding the beat. Waiting for something, anything to jump out at him. And from every corner, the eyes of the gang watched and waited too.

Yet among the crowd, a pair of cold white eyes stood out. Just the eyes. It was almost formless. In a way, Lita and Mack sensed it was. The bait had rolled just in front of it when the eyes started moving. Closer and closer the static whites floated until, in a single swift move, lunged at the biker, sending him tumbling onto the road. And when the blood started flying, so did Lita, Mack, and the whole gang.

The muscle bum-rushed the floating eyes, grabbing at the shoulders, back, and legs of the invisible force. And after plenty of roughing up, finally revealed that the invisibility was indeed artifice. But the wolf behind it wasn’t. He was a tan wolf, shagged and haggard for any age, let alone the 20-something they could see him for.

When Lita looked on him, she stood disgusted with the wretch, yet pleased with the gang.

“You must be one of the Blade’s disciples?” she asked.

The crazed hound could only cackle at the thought. “He was quick with his augs, wasn’t he?”

“Not quick enough.” she grinned deviously. “Wanna take him for a spin, Mack?”

The towering gray gladly picked him up from his pack by the shoulders.

“I hear you’s been killing nippers on wheels out here.” he said coldly, “That true?”

“It’s called getting some kicks. Ain’t no one would miss them—ACK!”

True to his word, Mack threw both hands on the killer’s neck and started ringing the life out of him. It was like an old Indian rug burn, handcrafted for the trachea. And boy could this dog squeeze! Two big burly biker mitts just rolling the neck around like a pound of sausage. Once Mack had reached a point of contentment, he dropped him on the road.

“All yours,” he saluted, carefully pinning him down with the thick rear wheels of his bike.

Lita hopped back behind the wheel of the Red Devil and started revving him up. Each press of the pedal brought out every claw, the anticipation bringing every drop of blood to a red-hot boil. She was gonna enjoy this one.

She shifted her Bug into gear and pounced on the gas, the car lurching forward with screeching tires as he careened closer and closer to the monster on the road. But in an instant, she slammed both feet on the brake and clutch, the Bug skidding and sliding to a stop, just an inch from his head.

“Going soft Li?” Mack teased.

Lita smiled. “Not at all. Just savoring it.”

She looked down at the Killer one last time. His snout was bloodied from the tackling, and his eyes bloodshot from the long nights of prowling and slaughtering. Almost as if she just realized what she was about to do, she looked back to the footwell, her right paw resting on the throttle. She knuckled the suede before looking back to the head, and without a second thought, slammed her foot down.

Lita stopped when she knew the Bug’s back tires were over his caved-in head. She looked over to Mack with a cruel gleam in her eye.

“I take heads, you take tails?”

She was shot the strangest look before the biker nodded, and the duo proceeded to burnout on the body until they were satisfied with the job. All that remained was its torso. No one bothered to drop a match on it.

When she brought the rest of the biker crew to meet up with Martin and his team, the first thing he said, to no one in particular, “This has got to be the sickest bitch I’ve ever met in my life.”

“Lil’ ol’ me?” she innocently asked, eyelashes aflutter.

“Killer caught?” Martin pressed.

“Caught, cooked, dead as a doornail.” Mack replied.

Martin nodded contently. “And the good news for Little Miss Batshit over there is that she isn’t as much of a headcase as we thought.”

The gray soldier produced a single reel of non-magnetic electrotape.

“Her fail-safe failed.” he beamed. “Prelim scans show we’ve got at least encrypted docs and some maintenance schedules. And if a rod from God doesn’t strike us (knock on your wood furnishings), full readout will be done on Base.”

He slid the reel into his satchel and shook hands with Lita and Mack before mounting his Indian bike and waving his company on.

“Hang loose Pal,” he grinned, “And uh…sorry ‘bout the mess…will have a lot of talking things over with the Big Guy.”

With that, the unit mounted and hightailed it into the dark blue mist of the City once more. As the biker gang reconvened, Mack hopped off his bike and leaned up against the Red Devil.

“Want to talk serious business.” he starts.

Lita was curious. “What’s on your mind?”

“Alliances, networking.” It wasn’t normal gang talk the way he told it. “That shit by 607 was a crock if I ever saw one. And that’s on me. And I know we all got what we needed done, but I want to promise you…anytime, any place…”

He dug into his pocket, whipped out a pen and paper and scribbled out a number. “You need more muscle, we’ll be there.”

She took the paper with a smile, and dug deep into her glove box.

“You smoke?”

She slipped two joints in her mouth and struck a match on the claw of her thumb. Lighting both, she handed the other to Mack, who took the sweetest drag of his life off of it.

“You a real one.”

“Realest bitch on the block.” she giggled.

With two joints and a dead killer between them, Haven’s lone crusader against electric tyranny was about to grow an unstoppable force of freedom fighters. It’d take time, it’d take convincing, and it’d take blood, but with tough troops like Mack Malten’s gang at her back, it looked like the start of a beautiful, grungy empire for justice. Now to make it take hold.

“Slow your roll Babe! You still got me the rest of the night.”

He knew she could live in his black beauty for all time, that’s how mad they were for each other. From within her sanctum, there sat a bed, upon which laid Haven’s vigilante-in-residence and the one true love of her life: Nic Ridgefield.

Lita was a playfully amorous sort with her dear Nic, the tall cowboy about the only man she could handle, and she the only woman he could hold tight to. It was only a matter of profession that kept the two from being fused at the hip.

“You watch the sand and I watch the streets,” she giggled, nipping playfully at his ear, “That it?”

“About the long and short,” he smiled, plopping his cowboy hat on her head, “Miracle I slipped in here at all Sugar.”

“You ain’t doing half bad for running on miracles.”

She couldn’t even take the entendres seriously, bursting out laughing as she rode the wave of love to the shore. Soon enough, Nic started asking the real questions.

“Tell ya what, how ‘bout we get dressed and you show me the kind of real fun you get up to?”

She did so without hesitation. In an instant, out came the denim and leather, sandals and gloves strapped on and her sidearms holstered. Nic sauntered over with all six feet of his swagger in tow, and swapped his flat hat for a stampede of her own. He perched the brown lid upon her frazzled mohawk. She looked up with a childish gleam before wrapping all fours around him.

“Oh my God! Thank you thank you thank you!”

Nic chuckled.

“Figure getting you some good lookin’ gunslingin’ wares ain’t a bad idea. One these days we’ll make the whole Mrs. Ridgefield thing legit, but I ain’t exactly got the ring on me yet.”

“This’ll do,” came the loving reply.

Soon enough, he had his own gear back on. Bullet belt slung, revolver at the ready, and an addition that Lita couldn’t get enough of: a black leather jacket, fringes dangling freely from his arms and chest. She wrapped his arms around her to feel the tickling strands as they danced about.

“Whaddya want to do?” ventured Nic.

“Well,” she started in, “Ain’t no one in need of avenging tonight, so—”

“—Wait, you actually go around with revenge on your to-do list?”

Lita held up two cell phones in her gloved mitts.

“This one’s for friends and lovers, and the other is for hits. And ain’t nobody been ringing the hit phone for a good long while.”

Nic shrugged, amused.

“Just didn’t realize you took it that serious.”

There was a puzzled look on her face, one Nic was quick to smooth out with a kiss and a clarification.

“I just mean the Avenger thing Sugar, not the gig itself.”

Apology accepted.

“Hows about we hit a police station?” she offered.

Nic burst out laughing, “That your way of getting back at me—”

“—No I’m serious!” She broke away from him in an instant. “Had my eye on ‘em suckas for ages now. Figure now that I got the manpower, we could get some real shit done.”

“They been giving y’all real trouble here, haven’t they?”

Lita wrapped her arms around Nic, and said in the softest tones she could, “They don’t stop for nothing. I lost pals to them steel bastards. Sometimes they beat up Red something awful.”

Nic rubbed her back as he held her. When she started talking about the Bug, he knew it was serious, doubly so when she was laying on the dead friends.

“Alright Babe, let’s hit him hard.”

She pulled back and beamed. With the frenzy of a kid dragging her folks through the mall, she took Nic by the hand and booked it for the Bug, his red paint gleaming in the sanctum’s lights as Lita dove behind the wheel, Nic swinging himself into the passenger seat without too much fuss.

Just a lot of seat adjustment.

With a twist of the key and a stomp of the clutch, she whipped the Bug out into the alley and onto the street.

“Which one we hitting?” he asked, checking his laser cartridge.

“Station 607 Nicky,” she smiled, “Took me a helluva lotta mapping to get her pinpointed, but I got it all planned out.”

“Go get ‘em Kid,” he grinned, “Show ‘em what the Little Man’s made of.”

She had a devil-may-care fire in her eyes as the souped-up Beetle tore down the cool blue street.

Nic sat impressed, his lover in the zone as her razor-sharp claws dug into everything she touched.

“Whaddya want me to do,” he asked, pulling his brim down.

With a flick of her own, she started in.

“We got cameras to knock out here, lined all along the strip. Point your peashooter on up and ‘PEW!’, pop ‘em like soda cans.”

He was already rolling down his window as he cocked the hammer back. In the blur of the passing streets, he could just see the little dots as the set embedded on the building. With two big hands steadying the gun, he squeezed off one good

BANG!

The explosion rocked the camera’s eye as it sparked and spluttered into a pint-sized fireball

“Well shit, that ain’t too—”

BWOM! BWOM! BWOM!

“They rigged to alarm, ain’t they—”

“—Nicky,” she said quietly, “Don’t let that get in the way. Keep. Firing.”

She shifted up and double-timed the Red Devil. Nic shot a sideways glance before he returned to his task. The sirens grew deafening as one by one, the electric eyes were shut by the icy white laser fire of his Smith & Wesson.

“Babe, you ain’t exactly being stealthy about this, are ya?”

“But I know what I’m—”

Before Lita could finish, she stomped both feet on the brake and clutch, the Bug swerving and skittering to a stop.

“Sonofa...”

The sentence hung in the smog-ridden air as she and Nic stared, jaws cast wide open, at the towering wall before them. It was a patchwork job, strips of steel welded one to the other, creating a metallic quilt that stretched skyward

“What in Sam Hill is this shit,” Nic exclaimed.

“I...damn I don’t know.”

Lita stewed in the shadow of the blockade. In time, her confusion gave way to determination.

“We’ll just cut through it.”

The sirens echoed in the distance behind them as she loaded her Wildey and Mateba.

“Swing your head out and see what you can do.”

Nic didn’t say a word, he just swung out and took aim. All three firearms went roaring into the metal; streaks of green, red, and white cleaving the air as they pounded on the wall. To the couple’s surprise, it actually seemed to work, twin perforations etched into the wall. They worked their way across the top, all three colors merging in a terrific firework upon the wall.

Lita and Nic smirked playfully at one another.

“I thought we agreed never to touch tips—”

“—Don’t you start with me Sugar,” Nic guffawed.

“Let’s hit it before the nanotech kicks in,” Lita nodded, “Go’on get ‘em Red!”

She slammed her foot on the gas hard, the Bug’s back tires tearing into the asphalt as he hurtled towards the wall. She never let go of the wheel as she grinned.

“You ain’t keeping the fortress from me Bitch.”

Nearer and nearer the Red Devil true until

BOOOOOOONG!

“Goddammit!”

The gonging echoed as the Bug and his bull-bar left an impression, but no opening. She threw him in reverse, rearing her steed back once more. She tried again, a deeper impression made, but still no opening.

“Third times the charm, right?” she panted.

It wasn’t.

If it wasn’t for the bull-bar, the Red Devil would’ve looked like a crushed soup can with all the ramming.

Frustrated, Lita whipped out her heavy hitter; the mighty Dragunov. She slammed the magazine in, swung herself out, and unleashed everything it had. The sparks danced in the City’s eve as she rattled the perforation, electric bullet after electric bullet throttling the wall ruthlessly. She slammed the gun back in its rack and gripped the wheel, fuming in absolute rage.

“Now if this goddamn thing doesn’t give, I’ll rip it up my fucking—”

“—BABY!”

She went dead silent as she looked at Nic. He softened his demeanor and thumbed her cheek.

“Go easy. It ain’t helping nothing going off your fucking rocker like this. Think about what the little guy’s doing for you as is.”

She took the mother of all deep breaths, a hushed “sorry” and kiss on the wheel escaping her.

“Now step on him,” he smiled, patting her knee.

She threw the Red Devil into top gear and drew one last breath.

“Break through for me Tough Guy, I know you can.”

The throttle hit the footwell with an awful crash, smoking tires peeling away into the wall at full force. With a monstrous clang, the metal sheet ripped away, the Bug bounding in with a scream.

What lay inside was enormous.

It was like stumbling onto an ancient Mayan tomb, or the bowels of some distant Egyptian pyramid. Corridors of wire, motherboards lining the walls, strange textures upon all within.

Nic and Lita stared in stunned amazement.

“I don’t think this is the station we’re after” came her star-struck utterance as she gunned the Red Devil into reverse. In the end, she was met with only one sound.

The gonging of the metal wall.

They were trapped. Shell-shocked by the sheer size of it all, Lita couldn’t utter a word. Fortunately, Nic had a few in him.

“Well Sugar, she’s ain’t at the other end, maybe an exit is.”

He pointed further down the winding paths of magnetic pulses and skyscrapers electric. She looked to him, first with bewilderment, but then with her own resolve.

“If we make it out of this,” she started, “We’re so taking this bitch down for good.”

They sealed the promise with a kiss as the Red Devil embarked on a journey into the bowels of the strange computerized beast. Not all of the signals and beams brought forth light, the path having the Bug’s unscathed headlights . A wellspring of thoughts rattled her mind.

Why would this be? What was A.C.E.S’s endgame with it? What could be in it?

Soon enough, Lita would be treated to her first answer.

Standing off to the side was a leviathan of a tank. Half-finished, panels left all over the place, and in the distance... a sort of beeping sound. The Red Devil slunk around the sleeping giant as Nic sat in awestruck silence.

The beeping grew louder the further they went. It carried with it a musically synthetic quality, like a Moog in flux. In time, flashing lights fell into the rhythm of the tones. Red for the first note, blue for the second, flashing in the dark as they journeyed deeper into the steeled cavern. The lights were the familiar colors of Haven’s bots-in-blue, but no HOV-CRAFT in sight.

Suddenly, a cry of anguish rang out down the path. “STOP, dear God, you’ll kill him!”

She hit the gas as the crimson Beetle tore away. They had reached a dark stretch of path when a figure slammed into the Bug’s front.

Lita hit the brakes as the body went hurtling and twirling into the dark. Nic jumped out to check on the two wolves by the side of the path. The victim was a tan wolf, gaunt yet breathing, with blood tracing his mouth. The poor man’s gal was white, her fur greased and musty. Both were dressed right out of the Space Age. White loose-fitting slacks and a button-up, with black boots and wide black belts.

Nic helped the man into the back seat, the dear woman beside him clambering in and doing her best to nurse him back to consciousness.

“The hell we just walk in on?” Lita asked.

“We’ve been in here for ages,” wept the white wolf, “Us, that bastard, the crew on the project...oh God.”

“How ‘bout some names?” Nic gently asked.

“David...”

The tan wolf trailed off.

“David and Cynthia Webster,” the wife finished.

“I’m Nic,” Nic smiled, “This here’s—”

“—Ain’t no one getting my name sweetheart. Nothing personal, you two...I just gotta stay low.”

An awkward silence hung about the ride, Nic shooting Lita the stink eye for the ages.

“She’s my bitch,” Nic winked. It got a chuckle out of the couple, and soo enough, Lita too.

“Point is,” she continued, “We gotta get y’all outta here, our hides too.”

She shifted into gear and opened her Bug up good and wide. She dug her claws in deep as the car hurtled over the assailant’s body with a crunch.

“Who was that?”

“Someone from Munitions with a hot head,” David replied.

“Munitions, huh?” ventured Nic, “Where exactly are we?”

“It’s classified, I—”

“—To hell with classifications Davey,” Cynthia cutoff, “We’re in Station 607. Power to the whole complex got cut off and everything...went mad. I’m sure reserves to the dimension alternator got depleted, hence why everything looks...well like this.”

Nic and Lita looked at each other with a single blink of their eyes.

“Dimension what?” Lita pressed.

David sighed.

“It ain’t what it sounds like. It’s just a means of concealing the building from the public. People have been driving through the damn thing for ages.”

Yet another exchange of baffled blinks.

“Where’s the center of it all?” quizzed Nic.

“The Police Building,” David replied.

Finally, a look of glee came to Nic and Lita that could light up the entire base. Lita playfully nuzzled the steering wheel with glee before throwing the Bug into top gear.

The flashing lights blurred as the Red Devil soared along, Nic readying his revolver. They soldiered past everything from prototypes to finished products to those munitions mentioned. Lita didn’t bother to look at any of them. She didn’t want to get too attached. No photographs were taken, no trophies bummed.

Nic was a different story.

“Wait ‘til I get these to the General,” the black wolf whispered.

David and Cynthia came to a chilling realization of the exact types they were in the company of.

“You dirty fucking terror—”

CHK. CHK.

The Smith & Wesson pointed towards David’s temple as the upside-down Mateba stared Cynthia down. Lita had a hand on the wheel and the other on her sidearm as Nic looked both passengers down with all the fire of a raging bull.

“If you want to try your hand with a Hell Patrolman and a crazy bitch armed to the teeth, be our god-damnedest guests.”

When Cynthia went for the Dragunov from the rack, Lita kicked the brakes and sent Cynthia’s throat right into the butt. The white wolf gasped and choked as Lita hit the gas, sending her into the backseat, David propping himself up.

“I thought you wanted to help us out of here you rotten bastards,” he barked.

“Did we forget to mention,” Lita started with feigned composure, “that the only way we could get in was by cutting through the whole-ass football stadium in the middle of town. Which happened to seal itself back up after we got in, ergo the power still on, ergo someone’s got to disable the whole of the cotton-picking system?”

Though it was clear their companions had their own ends, the couple realized there was no other way to get the group out of the complex.

“I’m sure there’s a hatch somewhere,” Cynthia indignantly retorted.

“Bitch! If that’s the way you want out of here, fine. But I’d like to get my car out of here too.”

“What’s a car to a life—”

CHK CHK.

With both hands off the wheel, the Red Devil began to veer wildly across the neon-tiled plain. The sight of the Wildey was enough to pacify the white wolf. Once silence had fallen, Lita re-holstered her guns, gesturing to Nic to do the same.

“Glad we could come to an understanding,” he nodded.

“So am I.”

David’s pint-sized laser revolver hummed as it pointed square at Lita’s head.

“You’re gonna pull over, get your ass out, and Cynth’s gonna take the two of us to that hatch. You can leg it, get crushed, or maybe I’ll have her run you down. But we want the car.”

Lita was silent, Nic irate.

“Listen here you sonofa—”

“—Ah, temper temper,” David said, swinging the barrel into the back of Nic’s headrest.

“Alright,” Lita sighed, “You can have him.”

Mischievous grins worked their way across the Websters’ faces. Lita laid off the gas, her grip on the wheel loosening, and the Red Devil began to slow down.

“In a few years.”

A sickly ray of green filled the backseat, the horrified cries of the couple reverberating throughout the car. Fur faded from flesh, flesh from muscle, and muscle from bone. Even the metal of the revolver warped and dissipated with the workers’ vanishing bodies.

All that remained of David and Cynthia Webster was an ashen pile and a pint-sized molten mound.

With a careful flick of her sandaled foot, the button working the magic fell behind a flap, a flap she tapped into the footwell with her heel before digging her claws back into the throttle.

“Picked that up from a cool flick,” she grinned, “Got the tape lying around at the pad if you want to watch it later.”

Nic could only burst out laughing.

“Don’t you change Babe,” he broke up, kissing her square on the cheek.

“No plans yet, right Red?”

The Bug could only rev with delight as his mistress brought him back up to tempo.

The neon-tiles faded, giving way to the shadowed passages once more, but in the dark, the

glow of the Red Devil’s headlights caught a sign:

↑ Doncaster Street, Haven
← Station 607, Police Headquarters
Weapons Development →

“Well,” Nic sighed, “Least we’re on the right path.”

The Beetle soldiered onward, a faint light fading into view. It grew to be the apple of their wild eyes.

Station 607, the true Station 607, was your average police compound. Brutalist in the fourth degree, with dirty yellow light flowing from every window. It was everything the vigilante’s devious little brain had dreamt of.

Lita killed the headlights as she pulled up to a small nook outside the window’s glare. She whipped the Dragunov out, slamming a fresh magazine in. Before she stepped out, she looked at Nic, her gaze thoughtful. With a soft smile, she handed the rifle off to him.

“Take her for a spin.”

Like a kid on Christmas morning, he leapt out of the Red Devil and bolted towards the wall for cover. Lita, dual-wielding her handguns, leaned over to look and see what they were up against.

“C’mon, gimme just a sweet little bacon strip to blow away.”

Nothing. Not a sign of life to be seen.

“C’mon now ya bastards, someone’s gotta be running the joint.”

No one was.

She cocked her head towards the base, the lover at her back as they cased the area. The duo crept up to the window, quietly, neither a click of heel or a squeak of rubber to be heard. What they saw as they stared deep into the building, past the thick glass and concrete façade was sobering.

‘Banks. Databanks.

Walls of machines clicking, chirping, and chattering like an IBM dinner party. No White Coats, no boys in blue, no autocops. Not a spark of life to be had.

Lita pressed her face against the glass, her snout downturned and her eyes absurdly wide.

“They don’t even have people to take care of the bastards.”

She almost felt sorry for all of those slender silver law-bringers.

Almost.

“Alright, Babe, let’s waste ‘em!”

In an instant, madness.

A rainbowesque hurricane of laser fire slashed through the walls, the glass, the floor, and the machines. Oh God, did they light into those machines. Sparks flew in spectacular fashion as they cut through every pixel on the displays, every button to be pressed, every light to flicker, every goddamned reel-to-reel rig of tape shuffling in unison. They shot out every light in the compound in a frenzy of unhinged glee, the lovers’ eyes wide with pure delight.

With one final round of fire, a rumbling came rolling through the complex, echoing across every panel. They leapt out of the demolished window, and booked it for the Red Devil.

“What are our odds of getting to Doncaster?” Nic barked over the roaring complex.

“Let’s put the Little Man’s hammer down and find out,” Lita grinned.

The duo leapt into the Bug, Lita pounding out some mighty revs as Nic threw the Dragunov back onto the racks. The Red Devil careened out of his spot, thundering past the freshly bombed-out police station. Even as they roared through the darkness, something stirred within Nic and Lita.

“Gotta sorta tingling up your spine Nicky?”

Nic nodded, “Fur standing on end?”

Lita nodded.

Suddenly, in the rearview, a light. A bright, blinding blue light. The light slowly crawled towards the couple in motion, all engulfed by its glare. Lita opened her Bug as wide as he could go, the needle shivering at 200 on the dial. She braced for whatever it was that was coming for them. They held one another’s hand over the gearshift, the Red Devil’s headlights revealing a chilling sight before them.

“That our exit?” asked Nic dryly.

“‘Fraid so,” she said, stone cold in expression.

With cobalt at their backs and a steel wall at their front, the lovers took the ride in stride, a small grin creeping across the cowboy’s face, then the urban warrior’s. And as the valiant crimson steed soldiered on, unwavering under his mistress’s command, the swirling vortex lunging at his wheels, the Bug skittered and ground to a halt.

Onto the streets of Haven.

His bumper just graced the end of the alleyway. Behind the wheel sat Lita, Nic riding shotgun. Fighting through the grog and delirium, they looked to one another. The lovers held each other tight, making out like it was their last. Suddenly, something dawned on the nocturnal fighter.

“Bitch don’t know I ain’t chipped, does she?”

Nic looked at his lover amused.

“You mean...”

With a knowing nod, the two laughed hysterically. The secrets of Station 607 were safe in Lita and Nic’s minds, locked away from any alterations. They didn’t dare say more than that, each wolf’s paranoid gaze scanning the area.

Nic looked to see if his photographs had made it out, only for blank sheets to stare back at him. A dash of disappointment lingered on his face as his gal held him close.

“Well Baby,” Lita smiled, “You can always give ‘em the oratory.”

Through the juvenile giggling, he figured it was safest to take the memories instead.

“Lemme take you to the border. Your ride will be here in...holy shit, five minutes!”

“Relax Sugar,” he said, “He ain’t leaving without MEEEE!”

The Red Devil rocketed away out of the alley, spun around, spryly roared into the misted evening. On his tear, the couple passed by the crushed remains of Police Station 607, a trio of demolished HOV-CRAFT coated in rubble.

The journey had taken the troop into a startling development, one which tore at the fabric of the City’s design. The target on their backs ever larger, the Urban Avenger and her faithful steed thundered away into the City’s edge once more, alive to tell the tale. For now.

“C’mon Grim, bring ‘er on round now. Don’t like leaving Red behind on gigs.”

15 minutes had passed since the ETA she was given, and the evening found Lita a rather impatient agent. She was told to bring the Wildey, and only the Wildey. On top of that, she also had to stay clean for the job, so cheap synthetic cigarettes were the only things on the menu.

She was on her 13th when that beautiful dark blue Scout, her thick tires and robust bumper emerging from the soft mist of the City, had finally arrived. Behind the wheel was the man himself, Captain Herrera, dressed in his gothic best. His jet-black apparel of choice made him the spitting image of Hell’s sheriff. Fortunately, he was on the right side of the law for the evening.

The black wolf brought his SUV to a stop where Lita was hanging out. He tipped his Concho-emblazoned Stetson to the young-and-hungry inner-city agent, who cheekily shook her head in kind. The Captain slid over shotgun-side, allowing Lita to clamber into the driver’s seat.

“Shit man,” she grunted, “How tall you gotta jack her up?”

“Tall enough for the bodies to go under Chica,” came the dry reply.

Lita chuckled to herself.

“Who the goons for the evening,” she winked.

The “goons” referring to two brown wolven soldiers in the back, cloaked in black shirts, slacks, boots, and gloves. They were somewhat awkwardly stuffed behind two metallic boxes, with offense written all over their faces.

“Stand down Soldados,” Grim sternly ordered, “She’s just ribbing. But I get it, taking orders from a midget ain’t easy.”

Lita cocked an eyebrow before stifling her boisterous laugh. Grim winked at her in kind. It was quite something having to ride with everyone standing well above six feet tall.

“Ready,” she asked sincerely.

“Sir yes sir,” came the controlled replies of the soldiers.

“You fellas got names?”

“Jasper,” said the first.

“Chris,” said the second.

“Pleased to meet you Gentlemen,” Lita replied sweetly, “I’ll be your lil’ ol’ chauffeur for the night.”

As the soldiers steeled themselves, and as Grim prepared his prized M82, Lita turned her attention to her friend’s ride. She caressed the steering wheel, the leather of her fingerless gloves greeting the polished wood warmly, and stepped up to the pedal assembly.

“She’s faster than before,” Grim remarked, “Made a couple of tweaks here and there to account for it. Go ahead. Get her up.”

Lita dug into the clutch and gave the throttle a good kick. The Scout’s engine erupted into a tremendous bellow. Her claws shot out like arrows, the suede of her sandals pierced, and the palms of her leather gloves pinned. She growled contently, the ecstasy of it all enrapturing. The Scout was as much a friend to Lita as Grim was, and it was clear as day the two were still on good terms. For a moment, Lita was lost in the sensation.

Just for a moment.

“My God, she’s feral,” Jasper exclaimed.

She snapped out of the trance and shot her killer crimson eyes through the rearview. Grim, wanting to keep the mission under his command, diffused his firebomb.

“Not feral,” he calmed, thumbing her cheek, “Spirited.”

Grim’s leather-clad hand playfully tasseled his compatriot’s mohawk.

“Vamos, condúcela,” he whispered softly to her, “Por Nicky.”

Her expression shifted on a dime.

“How’s my ol’ Speedfreak,” she asked sweetly.

“Kicking ass, rocking out,” he chuckled, “Y’know, the usual.”

“Sounds about right,” she replied, “Alright, let’s go. Hang on Boys.”

All it took was a split second for the Scout to be whipped into gear and for Lita to drop her hammer. She and Herrera had already gone over all the basic details, and Lita knew just the place they were going to try for tonight.

The dark blue SUV careened down the abandoned streets, ripping along at Mach speed. The good Captain kicked his silver-capped cowboy boots up on the dash, content with his speed demon’s performance. Jasper and Chris were left clinging tight to the roll bars as the Scout darted along. Lita kept her eyes peeled at all times. No autocops on the beat.

Yet.

It wasn’t long before the small unit had rolled up on the building they were after. Grim turned to the soldiers with a stern look in his eye, his face obscured in the shadow of his brim.

“Soldados,” he said, “You go in, and you come out. Understood?”

“Sir yes sir,” they hurriedly replied.

“Good luck Boys,” Lita waved.

Chris flashed a brief smile before Jasper hauled him off. The two bolted for the rundown apartment complex. Chris set about cracking the lock on the front door. For him it was child’s play; he’d broken into diaries worse than this one. In no time at all, the brown wolves vanished into the dark of the derelict, and the clock had begun its steady ticking. Minutes became half-hours, half-hours became whole. By the second hour, the Scout’s engine had been turned off, and the darksome companions took to a mutual pastime; smoking and shit-talking.

“Dear Lord, you have it worse than me,” Lita gibbed.

“Had more time to pick the habit up,” Grim shot back.

The two veterans, regardless of the age gap, were puffing like chimneys as they awaited on their stealthy companions. Grim’s brim made the lighting of his cigars all the more imposing. With a strike of the match off his eagle-shaped belt buckle, a warm glow cast beneath his snout gave him a campfire mystique.

“If I had known these cats would be taking a beat,” Lita smirked, taking a long drag, “Woulda brought a joint to roll.”

“Don’t say that Chica,” Grim scoffed, “Last thing I need is my main driver hopped up on dope. I’m glad you’re playing with just tobacco tonight, or whatever this New World bullshit is. Have you ever smoked the real stuff before?”

“You think our gracious gadget of an overlord would allow it?”

“Touché,” he chuckled, “I smoked a real cig once. It tasted like the finest wine and caviar you could get your claws on.”

“When you find some, drop me a line.”

She stamped the butt of her smoke out on the back of her well-worn denim, the remains flung onto the street with the 10-or-so others.

“Y’know Chica,” Grim mused, “Still can’t figure how the hell you ain’t been caught yet. You go tearing down 100 miles-an-hour, bright blue everything, your Bug’s red-hot to look at. What’s your secret?”

At first there was silence, but then came a surprisingly sage response.

“It’s the way I ride,” Lita elegantly intoned, “And it’s the way I’ll die.”

Grim paused, the words having impressed themselves onto the Captain. She looked over with a calm smile and those striking red eyes; that said it all. And all he could do was tip his hat. They were each reaching for another light when a breakthrough happened.

From out of the dark, Jasper and Chris darted towards the Scout, combat boots scurrying across the asphalt. When they hopped in, Chris was holding his handgun, and Jasper a leather briefcase and key. He passed the items over to Grim.

“My my,” he chuckled, “Kicking it old school now, are we?”

He turned the key and flicked the case open, rummaging through the papers therein. Building plans for more automated weaponry, schematics, and even a few stray glimpses into how A.C.E.S. was to construct these devices and others. The details about the materialization process looked like the most appetizing of all the pieces. General Godred was going to have a field day with these.

“We got ‘em,” Grim confirmed, “Gracias Soldados. Now strap in.”

He lifted the brim of his hat, his rich blue eyes graced by the cold light of the City’s eve. He flashed a grin and gave her a wink. That was all she needed.

And with that, the Scout roared to life and would be treated to the greatest run of her life. Lita rubbed the wheel as she whispered to her metallic stallion.

“Give me all you got Babe. Every last ounce.”

Lita threw the SUV into drive and opened her up with a loud thud. The claws were out, and the Scout was on the warpath. Her tires screamed, spewing more smoke than the two wolves ever had that night.

The vehicle swerved out of the alleyway and into the desolate streets. While Grim kept a running ETA on the group’s original rendezvous point, Lita was having the time of her life. The power, the speed; it was a rush better than anything her joints could ever do. Jasper and Chris, with the toughest part of their operations behind them, were much more in tune with Lita’s wicked ways behind the wheel. Not that it mattered to their lil’ ol’ getaway driver; she was in her own world with the Scout.

“You’ve got this,” she soothed, “Gimme just a little more.”

Firing off on every cylinder, the beast, guided by her expert hand, made its way out of the district. She dug into the throttle, gloved hands gripping the wheel with great strength. With each vibration of the body, each pounding of the cylinder, each upward tick of the dials, the Scout’s power grew, as much as Lita’s passion flourished. The tires pummeled the road beneath them, the engine roared with a pleasant fury. All was going well.

Perhaps...too well.

For in the rear-view mirrors, two faint lights began to emerge. Though the two in the back were unaware, when Lita and Grim got an eyeful, they both knew exactly what was coming. Lita shifted up and called out to the Captain.

“Alright, I’m in no position to shoot,” she said, “So have Chris, Jasper, and yourself try to shoot the Hovercraft down.”

“But it’s so damn far,” Jasper moaned.

There wasn’t time to argue the point, so Lita made it the best she could.

“Well boys,” she teased, “Want me to get closer?”

She yanked off the throttle and held her foot over the brake, the tire-track sole of her sandal just gracing the rubber of the pedal. The Scout’s speed fell instantly.

“No, no, no,” the two replied, saving face.

“Good.”

With that, Lita shifted up and planted her foot back down, Grim’s steel stallion rocketing back up to speed.

As the chase dragged on, the craft seemed like it would lose interest, with the long arm of A.C.E.S.’s rule letting up and fading back into the mists of the City. It wasn’t for long, however, for once the Scout rounded a corner, a switch had been flipped. The automated cop, its angular gray body floating with ease, lunged out from the cloak of night, sirens wailing as the strained digital exclamation echoed throughout the streets:

“Halt. H-h-alt-t-t. You-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-a-a-are violating the L-l-law.”

The hovercraft flew along, swerving around the bend, and gaining ground at a feverish rate. Lita finally got a good look at it in the rearview. She reached for her prized Wildey but put her hand back on the wheel. She wasn’t here to shoot, just to drive.

“Right,” she smiled, “There’s your shot, and I ain’t getting any closer.”

The soldiers took aim and fired like mad. A tremendous wave of electric firepower poured from each barrel. Grim’s .50-cal beast managed to nail two of the hover engines, with Chris and Jasper nabbing one each. The hovercraft sputtered and stuttered its way into the distance, the sound of grinding metal clashing with tarmac as the lights faded into the depths of the City’s haze.

The soldiers were rather pleased with their work, with Chris and Jasper exchanging a round of fist bumps, and Grim simply tipping his hat. However, the time for celebration hadn’t quite arrived.

Another of these automated cop cars came careening out of the muggy atmosphere, dead ahead of the Scout. In a swift, agile motion, Lita punched the brakes and drifted out of the way, the dark blue beast tearing into an alley.

A dead-end alley.

The second hovercraft came whizzing back over to the stretch, with just enough time for Lita to spin the Scout around for a getaway, backing up to the very edge of the alley. All four were afforded the clearest view of the hovercrafts they had thus far, its slender two-toned body proving rather imposing as it positioned itself dead center before them. In its rancid mechanical tones, it began its usual

program:

“Halt. You a-a-a-are violating the law. Come out-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t with your h-h-h-hands up.”

Grim looked to Lita, and she to Grim; both had the same idea. As the hovercraft continued to sputter its insipid platitudes of arrest, the Captain elucidated.

“Simple. Aim for those engines. Lean out and over to get to them. She’ll keep her head down and get us out and over the craft.”

Sinking into the driver’s seat, Lita began warming up those tires, sending plumes of smoke rocketing up the wall.

“On the count of 3,” she shouted over the apocalyptic revving of the Scout.

“1.”

“2.”

“3!”

In perfect unison, Lita threw the Scout into top gear and pounced on the accelerator, and the soldiers unloaded into the hovercraft with everything their armaments had. Laser fire lit the alleyway a bright red as the intrepid truck made her run at the hovercraft. Grim’s rained seven shades, the police car dropped, and the Scout made its valiant leap over the flaming remains. With a screech and a thud, their stallion came through on the alley’s other side, hitting the road and tearing off and away down it.

The quartet kept their eyes peeled as Lita guided the SUV through the maze of side streets. The Scout forged ahead through the concrete jungle, with nothing but the most immaculate gray bricks and steel structures as far as the eye could see. The towering skyscrapers carried with them the auras of abandoned temples and lavishly conceived crypts.

It was perhaps the most haunting of all sensations, a mutual shiver descending the length of each warrior’s spine in the presence of such mind-shattering monoliths. Upon their emergence from the most labyrinthine district in Haven’s tangled web of alleys, the unit would find that the space had become significantly less liminal.

The Scout leapt out of the side streets and headlong into the main street. Greeting her was a terrifying sight; they had blockaded the main road. Six sleek hovering behemoths stood between the Scout and her exit, three in each direction.

They were surrounded.

They rattled off their usual spiel. The volume of all sounding off created a deafening electric roar. Lita was frigid behind the wheel. All her quick thinking and gung-ho gumption had left her as she stared down the automated menaces before her. Grim, sensing she was in need of steeling, reached for the gear lever. He patted her cheek softly, getting her attention. He looked into those fear-filled red eyes.

“Guerrera Hermosa,” he smiled, “Remember, she’s got a couple of tricks up her sleeve.”

He flicked the top of the gear lever open, revealing a little red button. At the touch of it, the Scout set about metamorphosing in a startling way. A patch of the footwell slid open, revealing a button just beneath the throttle, and two long barrels emerged from beneath the Scout’s chassis.

This ride was built to kill.

“A little innovation courtesy of a couple of new soldiers. Godred loves these. Use them. Now.”

Without hesitation, Lita dropped the hammer, and a cacophony of her own design was forged. The cobalt rays of destruction rocketed from the Scout’s guns, cutting through the hover engines of the hovercrafts before her. Grim and his men fired in the opposite direction, working away at the enemies at their backs. An idea hit Lita like a semi, and she called out.

“Hang on!”

She started to swing the SUV around, and in no time, was drawing donuts on the street, firing wildly at the autocops, and the men still cutting away at them at her back.

For good measure, Lita gripped the wheel and drew her Wildey. The silver law-bringer fired ray after ray of deep-green stopping power, a stark contrast to the blue of the Scout and the blood-red of her brothers-in-arms.

In a matter of seconds, one craft fell. Then another, and another, and in time, all six were nothing but a flaming pile of steel and circuitry, growing more molten as the temperature rose. Jasper fired off some celebratory rounds as Lita continued her furious burnout, elated by their efforts. Content with the carnage, she hit the gear shift button herself this time. The guns retracted, the footwell reformed, and she flicked the knob shut.

“Keep it low Boys,” Lita ordered, holstering her hand cannon, “We’re getting outta here.”

Shifting into top gear, the Scout leapt forth, bolting through the red-hot wreckage with the grace of a tiger through a flaming hoop. Those big, beautiful tires stuck the landing, and the robust beast made its final escape. It was a close one, but it was made, nonetheless.

Lita brought the Scout to a secondary rendezvous point. It was another back alley, only this time, a familiar face was on the scene. There stood Ash, the white wolf in her best black leather and laced-up Chucks, leaning up against the Little Red Devil.

When the Scout came to a stop, and everyone got out for a breather, Lita’s first order of business was walking up to the SUV’s front. She gave the mean machine a kiss on the hood, a final expression of her affection for the cohort in crime. She walked back over to unit, putting on a bit of a boisterous tone.

“Gentlemen,” she started, “It’s been an honor hosting you in Hell. Tell the Principal I said ‘hi,’ and I’m here waiting for ‘em.”

She first shook hands with the soldiers.

“Heya, no hard feelings Ma’am,” Jasper asked.

“None at all.”

Chris gave a quiet shake of the hand and a polite “thank you.”

Then there was good old Grim Herrera.

“Keep killing it Chica,” he reassured, “Not bad for a first go with the Ambiorixians. Here’s to many more.”

The towering black wolf embraced her for a moment.

“If you see Nic on the way,” she grinned, “Tell him I said ‘Hi,’ alright?”

Grim tipped his hat in affirmation. With that, the troupe piled back into the Scout, now with Grim at the wheel. They started off slowly, which Lita had some choice thoughts about.

“Hey!”

Grim stopped the Scout, looking back at her from the seat.

“Drive her like you love her Man, she just saved your asses.”

Grim chuckled to himself, before shaking his head and opening up the Scout good and wide, her squealing tires echoing into the night.

With another job done, Lita popped back into her own little road warrior, firing up that beautiful V8 of his while Ash called shotgun.

“So, I take it went—”

Before Ash could finish, Lita dove into her glove box, feverishly digging around for a joint she had stashed. She lit up, took a long, slow drag off of it, and set it on the dash’s ashtray. Ash sat bemused by the display.

“That bad, huh?”

“Not at all,” Lita intoned with her sweet ebony voice, “Just smoked at least fifty of those cheap cigs waiting on the guys to grab the shit.”

Ash chuckled.

“Well, if you need more of a palette cleanse, let’s get back to the apartment. We’re throwing a bash for Chuck. He won the night over at the ring. Best roundhouse kick I’ve seen out of him.”

“Your boy toy still got it then,” Lita teased.

“My man’s got the Midas Touch,” she reciprocated, “Let’s get back, alright?”

Lita nodded, and with a kiss of the wheel and a kick of the throttle, the Little Red Devil dove back into the ever-present mists of Haven, his master having lived to fight another day.

Night had fallen once more, and in preparation for their usual prowl, Lita thought it time for something extra special to treat her ever-faithful Red Devil to. The Beetle had served her well, his thick tires and mean V8 making him an invaluable companion. The fact she could even fit a V8 in the Bug’s front was a miracle in and of itself.

In the dim light of her sequestered sanctum, she rifled through the drawers, ultimately producing a little bottle.

“Here’s a little something to keep ya groovy.”

The bottle was filled with a golden, viscous substance, an eyedropper sat square in the middle, preserved like an insect in amber. It had a little label wrapped around it, the letters “THC” scrawled across.

That was the one.

Lita strolled over to her beautiful little Beetle. He sat there with that warm little grin on his bull-bar, seemingly eager for whatever his mistress had. She popped open the car’s hood and unscrewed the top of the bottle, sucking some of the liquid into the eyedropper. After removing the fill cap, she diligently dispensed drop after drop into the Red Devil’s oil reservoir. She softly thumbed one of the car’s fenders as the oil dripped away. Once she had emptied the eyedropper, she replaced it back into the bottle. In a split second, she tucked the delicacy away in the drawer.

Now it was time to ride.

Lita holstered her Wildey and Mateba on her hips, her hand cannons of choice having just been cleaned. She fixed her jeans, tightening her brown embellished belt and the straps of her sandals. She slid into her black, fingerless gloves and her dark blue denim jacket like a second skin. She tasseled her hair a little; the messier her wild Mohawk was, the better. Ritual complete, she swung herself behind the wheel through the driver’s side window and fired up the Red Devil’s engine. The crimson Beetle came roaring to life.

Lita hit a button on her sun visor to raise the tall steel door behind them. She revved the car up, her claws growing out a little.

“Time to have some real fun,” she teased in her hushed ebony voice.

The Red Devil slunk out of the hideaway, and onto the streets. Lita hit the button one last time, and the brick façade came down, sealing her cavern away from all. She was about to peel out when something came over her. She had no reason to believe anyone was there; her private cave was a part of a dead-end alleyway. Still, a presence was unmistakably there.

“Only one way to find out,” she said.

She leaned on the throttle, sending the car speeding backwards towards the wall. In a split second, it all came into focus. The ding of something landing on the roof had her slamming on the brakes, and like an anvil made of air, something toppled onto the hood, leaving a brief impression before dropping to the ground. The mystery’s cloaking device suffered a failure on account of the impact, revealing a wolven figure, body coated in silver.

“Bots.”

She had barely spat the word out in disgust when she threw the Red Devil into top gear and pinned the throttle to the floor. The thick tires of the Bug made light work of the android, its head flattened into a mass of microchips and gray fluid, a grating countenance formed by the impact. She went back over it for good measure, cleaving the machine’s torso in twain as it sparked and convulsed. The third time was just to get the Bug out of the way before partaking in the final step.

Lita stepped out, a match in hand. She struck it off the iron nail of her thumb, lighting both ends of the dismembered android’s body with a care comparable to setting a candle alight. She dropped it on what remained of the head and flew back behind the wheel. The device’s blood was catching fire faster than kerosene. In no time, the Red Devil sped off into the cool blue of the evening, leaving the warm glow of the electrified bonfire behind.

“Guess we’ll be vacationing for a little bit” was all Lita had to say on the matter, shifting up a gear and flashing a grin, rather content with the job she’d done of disposing of the walking tin can.

The gravity of what transpired didn’t entirely leave her; someone had a tag on her pad, and even if she had snuffed out the potential informant, she’d raised enough hell to catch some attention.

It wouldn’t surprise you given the liminal streets of Haven at night, but on her side of town, not a soul would be caught dead on the sidewalk or riding around. She knew a couple of party animals in the Eastern districts that would let her crash with, but that would come at the eve’s end. Now...it was time to have some real fun.

The Red Devil thundered along the streets, rubber pounding the asphalt as they teared through the night. The roar of the engine rocked the beast’s body, vibrations firing right through woman and machine alike. A devious grin slunk across Lita’s face as the speedometer’s needle flew across the instrument, accelerator firmly on the floor, with her nails sunk into the steering wheel. The light of the City’s nights bathed her in blue, enhancing the cloak of denim that adorned her. She lived for this simple thrill if nothing else.

Perhaps not for much longer.

Upon rounding a bend, Lita happened across a startling sight. Dead center in the middle of the street, a tall figure stood. He was but a mere silhouette, until he turned his head. The cobalt night the City perpetually stewed in highlighted his chromium-plated body. To the untrained eye, he would have looked like any old gray, but his laser-red eyes piercing through the black of the street said otherwise. From yards away, their stares met. Though neither quite knew what the other was capable of, both knew one would not leave this street alive.

The bot made a run for the Red Devil, charging at a rapid rate. At first, Lita was somewhat surprised, but she shook the sensation off with ease.

“Just don’t make it easy on me Pal,” she ribbed to herself.

She shifted up and dug into the throttle, her claws sunk deep in the suede. The gibe proved prophetic when her sparring partner bounded clear over the Bug; hood, roof, and all. She slammed on the brakes and whipped the car around to face him. He stood there, arms crossed, mechanically shaking his head in either disappointment or disapproval; it was hard to say.

Lita didn’t take the time to parse it out. She simply gunned her hot rod and took another crack at running him down. The Red Devil rolled snake eyes again as the android took another leap over the car. Upon whipping the Bug around again, she looked long and hard at the bot that stood before her, hammering out some nasty revs of the engine.

His mouth made the uncanny shift from a stoic expression devoid of emotion to a menacing smirk.

Undeterred, Lita sized up her options. She could gun him down, but no doubt he had some firepower built into him that would cleave her in two. She could try and keep running him down, but no doubt he’d keep hopping over the Red Devil like a coked-up jackrabbit. And she’d sooner bite down on all 300-grain of her pistol’s electric stopping power than tuck tail and run.

No, she had to settle this the closest thing to fair she figured.

Lita cocked her head towards the Bug as the towering, steeled wolf made his way over. She rolled down her window, and was met with that classic cop glower in his mechanized eyes.

“Wha’ they pop in tha’ mind of yours?” she started.

“Thoughts of a feisty headache,” he replied with a cold tone, “One that needed a painkiller or fifty.”

At least her reputation was on the up-and-up it seems.

“Tell you what,” she trailed off, unsure of the cat’s name.

“Felix,” he finished, “Name I picked for myself. I know, not as catchy as Unit #234.956.78.21, right?”

Lita gave a slow golf clap. Getting more lifelike with each day it seems, a sense of humor to match.

“Tell you what Felix,” she continued, “If we gotta fight, let’s at least have a little fun beforehand.”

“You’re shit out of luck. They didn’t give me a...hell, how do you orgs say it...oh yeah. They didn’t give me a crank.”

Lita did her best to stifle a chuckle. Now this cat was a true comedian.

“So we just go at it then?” she quizzed.

“Afraid so,” came the reply, “Want to make it quick, or a real fight?”

“I lived an honorable life,” she tersely intoned, “Let’s have an honorable death; hand-to-hand. No guns, no rods. All of me against all of you.”

At first, Felix gave a slight cock of his head. His prey wasn’t normally this willing. Or diplomatic for that matter.

“How would you want to fix it?” he asked.

“How we go?” she clarified. “Simple: if we don’ get it in combat, we do things the old fashioned way. Drawn and quartered, rip ‘em up limb from limb. I’ll leave my keys in the rod, and I got chains in the glove box. We tie the loser up, and the winner puts their foot down and drops a match.

“Last I checked, org-bodies need not be burned,” Felix interjected.

“Call it a special treat for being such a good sport,” Lita jeered, patting the android’s cheek, “Lemme get dressed for the part. You can watch if you like, I ain’t smuggling anything or gettin’ risqué, just gettin’ ready.”

Felix stood back and observed quietly. Lita threw off her jacket and undid her sandals, setting both in the passenger seat, as well as removing both her holsters.

She rifled through the glove box. First thing she had hands on were the chains, but she wisely kept digging. She produced two ankle wraps, trinkets from time spent attending tournaments and palling around with some of the fighters on the East Side.

They were as black as her gloves, with straps atop them and spaces of even size, the bottom solid and firm. She slipped into them, tightening the straps, and with a playful daintiness, exited the car. She left the headlights on to give them a little more illumination and gave her faithful companion a goodbye kiss on the hood.

“Love ya Baby,” she intoned sweetly.

She turned to Felix.

“Alright,” she said, hand extended, “Good luck, and may the best man win.”

Felix shot a quizzical look her way, but extended his own. The beast’s metallic digits were cold as ice, chilling the pads of her fingers, and shooting from her nails right into her bones. A small shudder rattled down her back.

The fighters chose their positions carefully, placing themselves directly opposite of one another on either side of the street. Fortunately there was no one on the road, so they had the whole width to play with. Without warning, they both took a flying lunge towards one another. Felix landed the first blow, knocking Lita back into the wall of a building. She gave a winded whistle as she regained her senses. He really wasn’t playing around.

Good.

Lita ran circles around the android. He kept his eye on her for the most part, but with one change of direction, Felix snapped into re-calibration, trying to regain his lock on her. That was just enough time for him to take an elbow in the back of the head. The blow knocked him down as Lita wailed away on him, digging in for weak spots. She could feel the blood start to seep from her bruises with each hit. Didn’t matter to her. She had already figured she would be seeing bone through the holes in her gloves.

She had just found a feeble patch of metal on Felix’s back when the android leapt up with Herculean might, slamming her into the wall behind them. He came back round for seconds when he swung her over his front and right into his knee. Lita’s eyes bulged, her gut shriveling up on impact. Felix gave her one more in the back before launching her across the street. She didn’t make it to the other wall, but she got a taste of the faux-asphalt just before her head met the curb.

Tasted like shit.

Felix stood, scanning with his bright crimson lenses. He could finish her at any moment, but he couldn’t help but observe. Everything about this assignment left him in a state of perpetual fascination. Must’ve been something he picked up from the white coats at Headquarters.

Lita seemed down for the count, but, with every ounce of power she had left in her, she managed to get up, blood dripping from her nose, and looked her opponent dead in his two, ever-watching red eyes. She flashed a shit-eating grin, steadying herself, and raising her middle finger. She kissed the air, flirtatiously beckoning him with the erect digit.

Instead of heeding, Felix chose to poke his proverbial bear for what would be the first and last time.

A glass bottle sat toppled on his side of the street. Felix caught sight of it and picked it up by the neck. Upon its procurement, he took slow, gliding steps towards the Red Devil, the Beetle steadfast in its idle state. He and Lita never broke eye contact as he proceeded to break it on the car’s bull bar. Lita seemed to think nothing of it.

Then, it happened.

Felix dragged the jagged edge of the beer across the Red Devil’s hood. The marks formed a loose impression of a wolf’s claw. He even flashed a twee grin her way as he did it.

Lita could have sworn she saw her cherished Bug lower himself in pain.

The darkened gray’s eyes widened with rage. Her rich red pupils had only hellfire within them as she gnashed her teeth, barring her razor-sharp fangs. A growl grew within her throat, ripping through her snout into a feral snarl. Felix backed away from the Bug and towards his original fighting position. Lita broke contact to look for an implement. Her rage-filled eyes caught sight of a pole of re-bar, rusted and straight enough to be launched. She gripped it with all her might, strengthening her stance as each claw dug into the road.

She leapt off the spot and ran headlong towards the bot, and with a heaving throw, shot the rod of metal through the air. Felix tried to get a lock on its trajectory, but to both parties’ surprise, the rod went right through Felix, and slammed into the wall. Lita was there just in time to dig the rod in as much as she could.

In his shock and stupor, Felix grabbed the fiery avenger by the throat, and raised her above him. In the daze, he had neglected the wolf’s grip on the re-bar. The stake was dragged upward along with her. Gray fluid spilled outward as wires and chips were crushed, ripped, and severed.

Now it was a battle of pure will. Lita clutched the pole, inching as far upward as she could. Felix had all the malice of Jack the Ripper in his icy grip as he rung the life out of his opponent. Lita saw but one last chance in the pale moonlight, faintly highlighted by her scarred ride’s headlights. They had built him with a spinal cord.

Primal instinct was all she had left in her, and it was under its influence she slammed her left foot against the cord, vainly trying to get her claws to take hold. The mild acidity of Felix’s blood singed her fur and left her recoiling in pain. She took to pounding at it with the re-bar as best she could. She would miss on every other hit, but she was managing to make contact. Felix’s body began to twitch and spasm as she dealt blow after blow.

With the last gasp of air she may ever take, she reeled back and stabbed at the cord. The re-bar cut clean through it, severing it. Felix’s grip was completely lost.

Lita fell flat on her back as the android collapsed into a pile. The wolf spat up blood as she came back around. She looked up to see the body of Felix, limp and lifeless, with all the charm of an overgrown, disfigured doll. She managed to get up and look down at the slumped over android.

“Not bad,” she started, a cough erupting from her, “For a bot.”

She staggered her way over to the Red Devil. On her way to the driver’s seat, she took a good long look at the scrapes.

“Taking things like a champ Little Man,” she soothed.

She opened the door and lowered herself in. Setting the chains on top of her garments in the passenger seat, she went to go shift the Bug into gear when pain coursed up her left leg.

The android’s blood had done a number on the pads of her left foot. Carefully, she put the clutch down with her arch, and shifted him into gear. The Bug rolled towards the curb. It was tempting to just step on it and cut right through him, but Lita had found within herself a morsel of respect. The fact he was willing to even entertain such an offer was well worth the time to carry out the terms.

She fastened chains to each of the android’s limbs as tightly as possible. The other end of the set, which came to a head, was hooked onto the Red Devil’s hitch. Body secured, she got back in and slowly pulled the body towards the street lamp. Once there, she pulled out one last set of chains to tie him to the lamp post. She was just about ready to finish him off when a small impulse came over her. She knelt down and stared at the machine dead in its facsimile of a face.

“If you cats go to hell, maybe I’ll see you there,” she said before giving Felix a parting kiss.

Lita limped back behind the wheel and rested her left arch on the clutch once more, this time bringing the Red Devil all the way to top gear. It was now or nothing. She slammed down hard on the throttle, and with a shriek of his tires, the Bug screamed off down the street. In a split second, they had reached the end of the chains when something peculiar happened.

With a sudden jolt, the Bug came to a stop, tires still spinning frantically. Lita looked back to see that, while he hadn’t come back to the world of the living, the android had slowly begun its regenerative process. Thousands of little nanotech agents weaving their mechanical webs to heal the fallen beast.

“Shit,” she muttered under her breath.

In a split second, she realized what she had to. Throwing her hot rod into Reverse, she sped back towards the body. The Red Devil’s rear bumper slammed into the android’s head, pulverizing it. She burned out on the legs, dancing the delicate dance of keeping the chains from wrapping around his axle, and from putting the worst kind of pressure on her scorched paw.

After grinding Felix down some more, she finally let rip. Full throttle, all or nothing. Her companion flew forward with great swiftness, wide-tread tires smoking and spinning. She could feel the metal within the throttle as she held it down, her battered hands clinging to the wheel for dear life.

And in an instant, the job was finally done.

Lita brought the Red Devil back to the pole. Before getting out, Lita rummaged through her jacket, producing both a match and a joint. She stepped out and limped about, undoing all the chains and leaving all remnants in a single pile.

She fumbled with the match for a beat, still not all together after the fight, but struck it off her thumbnail once more. Its warm amber flames met the end of the joint, and she took a long drag off her sweet leaf. Afterwards, she dropped the match and basked in the glow of her sparring partner’s pyre.

As she clambered back into the Bug, she pulled out her phone, it having been tucked away in her jacket all the while. She hit a button as she smoked. After a while, a soft feminine voice picked up at the other end.

“Hello, Ash here.”

“Yo, Ash, it’s Lita.”

“How on God’s good gray Earth are you doing, Beautiful?”

“Fine, fine. Had a hell of a night though. Can I crash?”

“Sure, just come on over.”

“God love ya Honey.”

With that, she hung up and took another drag. Into the cool misty evening she tore away, behind the wheel of her most mighty pint-sized steed, the Urban Avenger vanishing for now.