I never did get through to him on the phone, but once I knew emergency services were on the way I hired a taxi-boat and got over to the Statue as fast as I could. By the time I got there the place was crawling with cops and fire department, a medical copter and even a boat from the SPCB with Dwayne's mom inside. Mike looked horrendous, absolutely covered in blood, and not all of it was someone else's. I tried to stay out of the medic's way while I explained that my friends were the ones who had been calling him. Two days later we had a much longer talk, and I got his version of what had happened during the horrible fifteen minutes he was away from the phone.

*

Stealth is hard when you're 6' 9" and your heart is going off like a firecracker in your chest and your hands are sweaty and shaking. Gotta do it, though. Time to go. OK. Time to go.

Goddam phone is never gonna shut up. Hour from now a PACO remote's gonna be picking flechettes out of my eyes and the goddam phone will still be

Turn off the lights? The guy said maybe turn off the lights as well as triggering the fire alarm, but then I won't be able to see either. Damn I wish I knew how to program in a countdown.

Hey. Maybe…. "Hello? Computer? Is there an AI in there?
  <sil-
  
  -ence>
Figures. Anderson's too cheap. Would have been nice if there'd been something there I could talk to & he just never told me.

OK. Lock and load, baby. On three: hut, hut, hut!
C'mon, legs. Move, god dammit!
That's better.

…And out into the corridor, gun in hand. What if Anderson's out, like going to the can or something. "Looking to taser one of them sonuvabitch rats, sir."
Nah. Just plug the bastard. Catch any of them on their own, I'll have time to recoil the taser before I get to

…Room 63.
Hey-phone's a little quieter out here. That's a relief.

  Ring!

Door to emergency stairs opens with a creak louder than Grandpa Lou's snoring, which is saying something. Come on, come on, down the stairs. Hell son, I you're gonna go, you might as well go

  Ri-
<door closes>
…fast!

Pounding down the stairs, this is a little more like it, legs going like it was a tire drill, haven't felt this loose in years. Adrenaline oiling everything up. Man, I played for the national championship. I thrive on pressure. The STRONG THRIVE ON PRESSURE! Bring it on, man! Bring it on!

Three flight. Echoes falling down the stairs behind me like something I knocked over. God I'd love to see that little weasel Anderson turn the corner right now, coming up for a coffee. Boy, it's a lot easier to dish it out than it is to take it, John. Let me demonstrate, you little prick.

Four flights down, taser in my right hand, wrap my left around the door handle and pop it open.

Nobody in the corridor.

Heart's a smooth-running gun now. Pumping out bullets of blood like a railgun in a rhythm now, it's good it's all very good. God I feel like I could tear this goddam door off its hinges like pulling a kleenex out of a box.

Room 63 around the back of the circular corridor. Can't see the door from here, where the fire alarm is. Too bad.

No sounds of screaming or moaning. That's not a good sign.

Funny to think the audio's turned on upstairs. They're gonna have a great video of whatever goes down. Well, I didn't play my best game in the championship. Might as well leave it all on the field here. One way or another, I'll be making all the highlight shows tonight….

Forgive our trespasses, and deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom…

If I don't make it, it's gonna kill Mom….

…and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

Dad will understand, though.

Dad will be proud.

"Break Glass In Case of Emergency"
This qualifies. On three: and one, two, three.

HOLY SHIT IS THAT EVER LOUD! Feel my freaking teeth rattling. God, I can only imagine how they're jumping in Room 63!

Good hot sprint around the curve of the corner. There's the door, opening a crack, and Anderson's Thug #1 comes out like a running back not knowing which way to cut. "WHAT?" he yells.

I close like a goddam heat-seeking missile. "FIRE!" I yell helpfully. Then I clothesline him.

In his line of work, I'm sure he's a real tough-guy. But Mama Royal's little boy is awfully damn big and moving awfully damn fast, and as my high school line coach used to say about guards and car crashes, it's all about throw weight. He rockets back into the wall like a rabbit shot out of a cannon. Even over the fire alarm you can hear the crackling sound of bones breaking. I grab him before he can slide to the ground.

"What the HELL?" says #2, coming out the door.

I spin, with the first guy draped over my shoulder like a shield. Me and Bad Guy #2 shoot at the same time. The flechette gun runs up #1's legs and back like a sewing machine set to "kill."

Then my taser barbs hit. Goon #2 jerks like a prawn on a hotplate and then crumples to the floor.
I had the power set up pretty high.

"What's going on out there?"

"Mr. Anderson? There's a fire," I yell.

He says something like "frock you." It's real hard to hear over the alarm.

So I get a better grip on my handy human shield, Thug #1. He's mostly limp, except he's retching blood down my back. I get a good grip and then I hit Room 63 fast, and you can pretty much guess the rest.

*

What Mike didn't mention was that Mr. Anderson had a gun. The rest wasn't easy. But by the time the cops and medics and I showed up, these were the final damage tallies:

Lost a lot of blood from flechette-gun wounds, and took one bullet-fragment in the fat part of his shoulder. Luckily the bullet had lost a lot of steam while fragmenting through Thug #1's spine and rib-cage first.

Who would have guessed he had signed his donor card? People will always surprise you.

Full recovery from taser shot. Only lingering damage, a broken nose acquired when he slipped on a bloody spot on the floor and fell face-first into Mike's fist.

Concussion, sprained ankle, broken rib. Currently buckling under the weight of legal fees.
He made the mistake of screaming to the first SPCB official to come through the door that he had caught the terrorists who had freed Venus, and he could supply their names, addresses and contacts.
I watched the security tape several times now, and for priceless expressions it would be hard to beat the one on his face as the woman from the SPCB knelt down and introduced herself to the medics as Dwayne's mother.

When she finally did glance over at Anderson, the look on her face was a hell of a lot scarier than even gigantic blood-spattered Mike Royal. You could see the fight drain out of Anderson as if someone had pulled a plug out of his heart.

Final catalog, when they got him to the hospital and totaled up the damage: both legs broken,kneecaps broken, hands beat to a pulp, every finger snapped. Jaw broken. Hairline fracture of the skull. Concussion. Cheek broken. Collarbone broken. Left elbow broken. Shoulder dislocated. Hearing damage. One eye lost. Six ribs broken. Some internal bleeding, including bleeding on the brain. Even if the ARM guys hadn't killed him outright, the medics said that if they'd come even thirty minutes later, it would have been too late.

At this point, no arrests have been made in relation to the escape of Venus from the SPCB lab. But word around the Drowned Lands is that SPCB agents visited dozens of the Red King's accomplices, stripped their computers down, and left with a not so friendly warning that any future funny business, even so much as hacking out of a parking ticket, and the Bureau would come down on them like God's own steel-toed boot.

They say Geri Khan herself slipped through the net, but nobody seems to have seen or heard from her in days. I have to think she's still out there and operating, though, because according to Mike a kind of fairy's blessing has come over him. Lights change in his favor when he's driving his car. The county computer has lost his traffic violations. His insurance premiums have somehow shifted into the same bracket as quiet-living 45-year old women. He's started getting premium channels for free, and he found out yesterday that he had been randomly selected as the lucky winner of season tickets to Dragons games.

I personally posted him as this week's Special at Never Get Laid's sister site, Action Heroes!

Monday he starts work at his new job, interning at Saatchi/Wang on Madison Canal. Apparently Dwayne's dad pulled some strings.

When I went to the store to pick up some groceries, Mike's face was floating on the forehead screen of the check-out bot, under the headline GRID-IRON GOD A HERO AGAIN.

Vaya con the big guy, Mike.